What business to do now to make money. A 100-point test for making money and getting rich through business.
A few years ago, a former boss of mine started a company and invited me for dinner to talk about his aspirations, which he had not been able to realize while working in the company. He showed me his new business card and explained the meaning behind the company name and logo. He also took out a thick stack of plans, rules, and regulations from his bag, indicating his determination to become the most standardized health product distributor in China. I told him that he should only consider earning enough cash to keep the company running for the next few days, and leave the rest for later. He didn't listen, and within a year, his business failed, leaving him in debt. It can be said that the more ambitious a budding businessman is, the faster he fails. Most small businesses with grand visions of being the best in China or having lofty missions usually end in failure. Successful businessmen may write about their grand ambitions after they succeed, but much of it is not true, just propaganda. Therefore, sometimes we cannot help but feel: a boss is a boss, an employee is an employee. Even if you become the president of a multinational corporation, because you are an employee, your planning ability may not be better than that of a street vendor.
Later, the original owner of Mei Yuanchun, Mr. Chen Jugen, a famous Chinese entrepreneur, taught me a lot during the year we worked together. Observing him closely, I deeply understood how truly enterprising people can really hustle: he turned a county-level enterprise, Mei Yuanchun, into a three billion yuan operation, then sold it to Yinhai Group. Later, he founded Mei Yuanchun Cosmetics and sold it to Hengan Group. Then, on behalf of Run Du Group, he acquired Mei Yuanchun again and became its general manager, entering and exiting the same company three times. An enterprising businessman must be willing to hustle and good at hustling, even when things are going well, one should actively seek change. Making money through business requires certain abilities and qualities. How to improve these abilities? I feel that most books teaching people how to make money through business are misleading. These books all use examples of successful businessmen like Li Ka-shing, Liu Yonghao, Zhang Ruimin, and Liu Chuanzhi, teaching how to conduct business and grand concepts: how to be extraordinary, how to have foresight, how to be noble, how to be incredibly resilient, how to persevere, etc. But people who willingly choose to do small business may need abilities that are exactly opposite: short-sightedness, survival first, making money first, opportunism, etc.
Keywords: Business, Making Money, Li Ka-shing, Liu Chuanzhi, Conducting Business
7. Practical Ability (10 points)
2. Planning Ability: (20 points)
Planning ability is the most basic ability for doing business. Planning ability is not just about calculation; often, a computer or mathematics PhD might not calculate as well in the market as an uneducated but experienced businessman, which is very normal.
The business world inherently requires showing one's ugly side. To become a businessman, one must hide one's refined interests, nobility, and kindness in personal life because doing business is inherently a vulgar matter, unrelated to elegance. Historically, businessmen have been equated with cunning merchants: profit-driven, calculating, and opportunistic. Conversely, these are precisely the basic qualities needed for doing small business. For small business, one only needs to adhere to basic ethics, abide by the law, and prioritize profit over harm: including the friendships of true businessmen, where if someone cannot bring business benefits, one should not associate with them. If something cannot bring immediate benefit, one should not waste time and energy on it.
But humans have emotions and dreams. It is difficult to maintain a realistic and pragmatic stance, which is also a great ability. Many people appear virtuous and naive on the surface but are very practical at heart. I have met many such successful businessmen around me. Sometimes, the synonym for business is reality. Whether you can withstand constant changes is really a kind of ability. The successful businessman I mentioned earlier lost everything doing environmental business for the first time, went into debt doing health product agency the second time, and succeeded in pharmaceutical agency the third time. If you say you don't want to be a sharp and nitpicky person, then I advise you not to do business.
I think that as friends starting small shops or small companies, we completely don't need to look at those unreachable management philosophies and texts that use Procter & Gamble, Walmart, and Li Ka-shing as examples. Perhaps we just need to learn a trick or two from successful small businesspeople around us, like those from Chaoshan or Wenzhou, imitate a few operational techniques, and focus on practical skills to possibly succeed in entrepreneurship. Just follow these few standards below for contemplation and practice, and you can live a life of abundance.
1. Planning Ability (20 points)
4. Execution Ability (10 points)
Observing successful people around me who made money in business, I found that none of them made money on their first attempt. Generally, they became prosperous after two failures because business skills cannot be learned from books; they require a lot of personal experience. Experience is very important. An ordinary person understands what doing business entails only after two failures.
If you cannot handle borrowing money everywhere, being chased by creditors, and maintaining hope and persistence after failure, I advise you not to start a business. People who are good at hustling will eventually make money through business. Making money through business requires certain abilities and qualities. How to improve these abilities? I feel that most books teaching people how to make money through business are misleading. These books all use examples of successful businessmen like Li Ka-shing, Liu Yonghao, Zhang Ruimin, and Liu Chuanzhi, teaching how to conduct business and grand concepts: how to be extraordinary, how to have foresight, how to be noble, how to be incredibly resilient, how to persevere, etc. But people who willingly choose to do small business may need abilities that are exactly opposite: short-sightedness, survival first, making money first, opportunism, etc.
Keywords: Business, Making Money, Li Ka-shing, Liu Chuanzhi, Conducting Business
If you don't understand the "jianghu" (the world of commerce), are naive and full of fantasies, and are obsessed with fictional stories from magazines like "Reader", "Zhiyin", and "Family", I advise you not to do business, not to get involved in the "jianghu", and just maintain a simple life.
Can you deeply plan and strategize for your own business and hard-earned money? Do you possess the ability to plan?
3. Hustling Ability (20 points)
Originally, after the famous Chinese health products company Mei Yuanchun was acquired, including myself, more than 30 branch managers resigned to start our own businesses. In the end, only one person succeeded. At a gathering of our group later, we said that this person had an extremely strong planning ability, so failing in business was impossible for him. For example, when he did pharmaceutical agency, no matter what common drug came before him, he could estimate what ingredients it was made of, the cost per gram, the type of paper used for the box, the printing cost, how many such drugs exist in China, and the operating status of each manufacturer.
Simple calculations suddenly became complex. My partner and I, both university students, spent a whole day studying before we could figure out the quote. We called the boss for instructions, and he paused for a moment, giving the most reasonable yet business-like algorithm, quoting a reasonable price while considering taxes, public relations costs, and many other factors, which were roughly consistent with the car repair shop owner and our quotes. Two years later, this foreman had become a real estate billionaire in Jiangxi, and the car repairman had become a millionaire owning the largest car repair factory in Yushan County, Jiangxi. Although planning ability primarily involves sensitivity to numbers and mental arithmetic, this ability is not closely related to cultural literacy or mathematical ability. Small businesses are often conducted over the phone or at the dinner table. Sometimes, when a partner quotes a price, you need to quickly judge whether it is beneficial to you, and calculate a reasonable counteroffer that the other party can accept to close the deal. If you say you need to think about it or take out a calculator to calculate, you've already lost half the opportunity for business. For small businesses, saving money is making money, and nitpicking is necessary, and this principle must always be adhered to. If you soften your heart once, you will continuously give discounts in future business negotiations, until you ruin yourself.
I always feel that most successful business cases in books and online are embellished falsehoods, mostly without substantive value to emulate. Especially articles and experiences written by journalists and planners often ignore the most valuable essence of doing business (because they are the ones who know the least about business; generally speaking, literary temperament is often the biggest enemy of doing business). I feel that what is seen and personally experienced around you is more valuable. The cases around you are often much closer to reality than the distant, illusory wealth myths seen in books. This time, I want to tear off the mask of falsehood and show everyone the naked rules of the business world.
Planning ability may be more crucial than calculation ability in making money through business, and even if a person has extraordinary single planning ability, regardless of other abilities, they will definitely succeed.
The essence of business is buying low and selling high. A person who does not know how to plan their own costs (buying low) or raise their business prices through calculation (selling high) basically has no chance in business.
A person must maintain an extremely practical or purely profit-driven stance on anything related to business, which is very important. Many people start businesses to achieve some ideal or dream, and they generally won't succeed. The sole and ultimate purpose of doing business is to make money. A merchant who doesn't make money is unethical. Nowadays, it is popular among young Japanese people to consider making money as the greatest virtue, which makes society seem degenerate, but it reflects the truth of business from ancient times to the present.
6. Sharpness Ability (10 points)
If your score exceeds 60 points, you have potential for business. The higher the score, the stronger your business ability, and the greater the possibility of making money. If your score is below 60 points, you should be careful about losing money in business.
A person who cannot calculate, is unwilling to calculate, or cannot calculate, for example, if you play cards and don't want to remember or calculate the cards, I still advise you not to work or start a business.
The most memorable detail of New Oriental School founder Yu Minhong's entrepreneurship was: when he started his English training classes, he was caught by the industrial and commercial bureau and fined. Later, someone helped smooth the relationship through connections, but as a scholar, he couldn't say a word during the entire banquet and didn't know how to entertain, making the situation very awkward. After this unforgettable blow, he suddenly realized the truth of doing business, transformed himself, and transitioned from a scholar to a businessman who could handle everything, ultimately achieving great success. If you can generally accomplish what you set out to do in daily life, congratulations, you have potential for business.
Employees often have this feeling: why are bosses so stingy across the country? But stinginess is almost a treasure for businessmen to succeed. People who are not stingy at heart will not make money in business.
Therefore, I feel that the following standards I have summarized are more practical, especially for many white-collar workers hesitating between working for others or starting their own business, unsure if they have the makings of a businessman. The following standards provide good reference (some seemingly negative or derogatory adjectives in the following standards should be viewed with a neutral perspective), you can refer to them to score yourself and see if you are a qualified businessman or have the potential to be one:
He has a bed behind his office and spends all day plotting and researching his business matters, enjoying it immensely (a businessman absolutely needs boundless energy). I once saw him personally negotiate printing posters for 2000 yuan, finding quotes from 10 printing factories without hesitation, finally lowering the price to 1500 yuan. Moreover, every professional from each printing factory could only act as his student in front of him, as he had thoroughly researched every aspect of printing to reduce his promotional costs. In small businesses, every penny saved is profit. Other people around him could only sigh in admiration, feeling that he deserved to make money.
I have personally experienced several examples of calculating quotations that left a deep impression on me: a few years ago, I worked as a real estate planner for a small construction contractor who was starting in the county-level real estate business. During market research, we encountered a car repair shop owner who had not finished elementary school. He wanted to buy one-sixteenth of the commercial land from our planned plot and asked us to quote on the spot. Originally, cutting two connected small rectangles from a rectangular piece of land was a simple math problem that even middle school students could solve, but because the value of each side was different, the value of land facing the street versus not facing the street was different, the value of land at crossroads was different, various transfer fees had to be considered, and the pros and cons of the entire real estate project had to be considered.
5. Networking Ability (10 points)
Successful people in business, regardless of the industry, often have a certain amount of chivalrous spirit in their personalities. Because doing business is often about doing people's business, for example, when you buy goods, you need to pay a 50% deposit, but because of your chivalrous ability to get along well with people, the seller might only ask for a 30% deposit, giving you an advantage in business due to your chivalrous nature.
Another time, we planned a comprehensive cooperation with a recruitment website and China's largest on-site job fair, also involving the largest newspaper recruitment from the south. The three enterprises cooperated to jointly sell a recruitment product. Because it involved the interests of three parties, salesperson commissions, competitor prices, and many other factors, with the job fair approaching and tight schedules, our team of high-level white-collar workers worked overtime for a whole night considering various factors before calculating the quotation. The next day, when we confidently negotiated with the job fair boss (who was learning about this cooperation plan for the first time), he thought for a moment and quoted a price acceptable to all three parties, proving that our team of foreign masters and top university graduates had miscalculated and offered unreasonable prices.
Planning ability is not only reflected in doing business. One could say that most people in China who rise to official positions are planning experts; they are constantly scheming and not missing any opportunity to improve their positive performance or curry favor opportunistically.
People who make money in business are often not talented or professionally skilled individuals, but those who can handle all kinds of tasks; in China, doing any business requires handling many tasks, and the boss must personally resolve them. Those who cannot allocate resources or resolve relevant issues cannot make you money, no matter how good the entrepreneurial project is.
A judgment standard is: when you go shopping, if you feel everything is cheap, then you are not a businessman with potential for success; if you not only blurt out that everything is too expensive but also genuinely feel that everything is expensive and have the motivation to haggle and lower prices, then you should be a decent boss. A relentless pursuit of reducing costs is a characteristic of businessmen; you should feel that there is always the lowest possible cost. This is the attitude a boss should have. If even the boss feels that the price is fine, then the employees will not save money for you, and it will be difficult for you to make money.
The recent internet sensation about the MBA thinking mode of a Shanghai taxi driver, the core of his success lies in his calculation ability: calculating time cost, waiting opportunity cost, gasoline cost, and different customer groups, etc.
The total score for the above standards is 100 points. If you find words like calculation, planning, hustling, execution, networking, sharpness, and reality very distasteful at first glance, then you are already failing, and you should not do business (unless you have the great talent of a Confucian businessman).
If you are a boss, your employees may remain loyal to you despite receiving less money because of your chivalrous elder brother demeanor. The chivalrous spirit in doing small business also manifests in your willingness to drink a little alcohol. Understanding the "jianghu" means you are extremely savvy about China's national conditions and principles of human interaction, symbolizing that your vulgar temperament matches the fact that small businesses often serve vulgar people.