pjbooks Chapter 6: [What is the most important thing in doing business?]
Chapter 6: [What is the most important thing in doing business?]
"Senior, give me a scallion pancake with a chicken strip. Oh, and you get a free sausage with the school badge, right?"
"Here are six pieces, senior, please add some extra salad dressing."
"Senior..."
"Senior! Add chicken strips! The school badge comes with free sausages, right?"
"I want two! Extra salad dressing!"
"Senior, I want one too..."
Students in school uniforms surged over and quickly formed a small circle.
Business was good on the first day.
"Don't rush, take it one at a time."
Despite being surrounded, Liu Zhuohao maintained a calm smile, and his movements were fluid and effortless. "Do yours first, then do yours later."
That's how calm and decisive it is.
After all, Liu Zhuohao had been making these pancakes for a full year and a half!
However, according to the original timeline, all this skill should have happened after he went to university. In order to ease the burden on his family, he started working part-time selling pancakes at a stall a year later.
But now, this matter has been brought forward.
"Yours is ready, be careful it's hot." He handed the pancake to a boy whose hair shone golden in the sunlight. "That hair color...aren't you afraid the headmaster will catch you?"
Compared to the gradient hair color that was popular in 25, this was more popular on campus in 14.
The boy wasn't intimidated at all. After taking the scallion pancake, he casually tossed his hair.
If this were 25 years ago, he would certainly be described as Jiahao.
Oh, now it's called "chuunibyou" (a Japanese term for someone with delusions of grandeur).
While operating the equipment efficiently, Liu Zhuohao chatted familiarly with his juniors, talking about the teachers and directors at the school, creating a relaxed and harmonious atmosphere.
"I heard the school is installing air conditioning over the summer?" he asked, flipping a pancake as he joined the conversation. "You guys are lucky. Back in our day, the school was being renovated right after we graduated, so we missed out."
"Which year were you in, senior?"
"Hey, didn't you come here from my post? Just graduated."
"That's a huge loss!"
Amidst laughter and conversation, the cookies were handed out one by one. The atmosphere was more like a lively class reunion than a business transaction.
"Senior, what's that on your forehead?"
A junior student who took the scallion pancake asked, "Is this a camera?"
"Ah, this one..."
When a female student curiously pointed to the camera on his forehead, Liu Zhuohao casually pointed to the eye-catching sign on the food cart—"Internet celebrity hand-pulled pancake."
He explained, "It's a camera."
"Just a simple record of daily life, to give customers peace of mind. Everyone knows how good the scallion pancakes taste, but food safety is absolutely guaranteed!"
"I have an account on Bilibili, feel free to follow me! From preparing the ingredients to loading them into the truck, and then to me cooking them here, the whole process is recorded, and I absolutely guarantee the ingredients are fresh!"
When it comes to "Bilibili," students are clearly quite familiar with it and are much more enthusiastic about it.
"Holy crap, senior, you're a content creator too!"
Liu Zhuohao: Not yet, we've only just started, and we don't have many fans yet.
"Senior, I'll keep an eye on you as soon as I get home!"
Liu Zhuohao: "Thank you so much! If we reach 1,000 followers in a while, I'll hold another event: the first ten customers will get a free cup of Xiangpiaopiao milk tea!"
"When we get back to the classroom, I'll ask all the classmates to pay attention to you..."
Liu Zhuohao's hands and mouth never had a chance to stop.
More and more customers gathered in front of his stall, which in turn attracted the attention of more students and office workers—the popularity effect.
Although the school gate is a prime location, the crowds attracted by the stalls on the first day were not solely due to the location.
Customers tend to look for "familiar" stalls, which are what Liu Zhuohao and his parents had previously mentioned: common, familiar, and quick to serve food.
As an unfamiliar stall, gaining customer acceptance requires gradual accumulation over time.
But clearly, Liu Zhuohao can't really wait here for customers to gradually become familiar with him. In the future "fast-paced" era, few businesses will be able to work so hard to accumulate and cultivate their businesses as they are now—a slow start leads to a slow finish.
Of course, it depends on marketing.
What are Liu Zhuohao's marketing tactics?
On Baidu Tieba, he sincerely described his current situation as a "senior student one year ahead" and offered a "grand opening promotion" plan.
In other words, you can get an extra ham for free by presenting the school's official seal.
But up to now, everything I've done would have been considered standard practice 25 years ago.
Whether it's posting on forums to promote your business, dressing neatly, wearing a mask, or... these are all marketing tactics that everyone knows, even those in their forties and fifties can easily master.
But in 14, it was truly rare.
Why are you making this clean for a roadside stall? Who are you trying to impress?
Of course it's for the audience to see!
After all, right now, it's relying on the novelty and the "opening hype" brought by posts on Tieba. But later, it will depend on the taste and the cameras above your head!
At present, Douyin, Douyu, Huya and other platforms on the Internet have not yet built up traffic, and some have not even appeared yet. Liu Zhuohao chose Bilibili.
Although the 25-year-old Bilibili has already died out, it's now 14 years old.
—A record of my life.
25 years ago, this was something everyone could do, and most vendors would even set up a mobile phone to livestream while setting up their stalls.
Now, 14 years later, there are not many people trying to combine street vending with live streaming and social media.
Moreover, it's mostly on platforms like Youku, Tudou, and Neihan Duanzi.
Currently, Bilibili's audience is almost entirely limited to students.
But the target audience of students is a perfect match for his breakfast stall!
……
……
By 9 a.m., the morning rush hour had subsided, and there were fewer and fewer students in school uniforms and early-rising commuters in the vicinity, giving these breakfast stall owners a chance to catch their breath.
Some stalls were even preparing to close up shop.
At this time, there are very few students and office workers, who are the main customer groups. If they want to waste more time here, they might as well go home and rest early.
After all, people who run breakfast stalls basically have to get up at four or five o'clock to prepare the daily ingredients and the stall.
Go home and rest early so you can get up earlier in the afternoon and start the rest of your work.
In the catering industry, the opening and closing times must be adjusted entirely according to customer traffic in order to ensure sales.
"No, Brother Hao, you're really setting up a stall here?"
A surprised voice made Liu Zhuohao look up and see the familiar face of his old classmate. He smiled and said, "Yeah, how about a picture?"
"Of course I'll support your business."
Despite saying that, the classmate only ordered a standard five-yuan scallion pancake. "I've been watching for ages, and I couldn't even squeeze in. Your business is booming."
He stood in front of the stall, chatting idly: "What, you really aren't planning on going to university?"
"Yeah, it's a third-tier university, the tuition is quite expensive."
As Liu Zhuohao worked, he replied, his movements becoming more relaxed due to the reduced customer traffic. "Mainly because my grades aren't good, even if I did study, it wouldn't really matter..."
The visitor replied, "I understand."
As they were talking, several more classmates came together. It was because Liu Zhuohao had promoted the business in advance that some of them came to support it during their summer vacation.
Clearly, his "marketing tactics" weren't limited to posting on forums; he also shared them in his classmates' group chat.
"Here you go, a scallion pancake."
After packing the steaming hot scallion pancakes, Liu Zhuohao handed them to the first student who came over.
"Um?"
The classmate took it, put it to his lips, and was about to continue chatting when his gaze turned somewhat surprised. "Brother Hao, your cooking is so good?"
He glanced at the scallion pancake in his hand with surprise.
To be honest, he only came to support the business because of his classmate relationship, and he didn't expect it to be particularly delicious.
But now it's different; it's actually edible, and quite delicious.
"You didn't see how good Hao's business was just now. I couldn't even squeeze in."
"true and false?"
"I reckon Hao's made a few hundred bucks today, right?"
"Wow, what's the point of studying then? It costs hundreds of dollars a day, wouldn't it be over ten thousand a month?"
Listening to their boasting, Liu Zhuohao wiped the sweat from his brow and said helplessly, "How can I make that much money? I only sell each pancake for five yuan. No matter how many people come, how many can I sell?"
"And the stall fee alone is a thousand a month, not to mention the food cart, all the ingredients..."
"We've only just opened, and we've already spent several thousand yuan."
"So expensive?!" One student gasped, but after hearing that the scallion pancake was delicious, he added an egg, chicken strips, and a sausage when ordering.
"Otherwise what?" Liu Zhuohao replied, "Do you think you can just set up a stall by pushing a cart? This is a place we rented from the bookstore owner. We pay monthly, and we don't even need to run away when the city management comes."
He spoke in detail because he caught a glimpse of the bookstore owner leaning against the door smoking, listening intently.
"A pancake sells for five yuan, and the cost of the pancake crust, egg, lettuce, sauce... is about two yuan and fifty cents." He counted on his fingers, "Adding the stall fee, gas, and transportation costs, I can't even break even if I sell less than thirty pancakes a day."
One classmate blurted out, "Thirty tickets isn't much! I saw your business was doing pretty well!"
"Not many."
Liu Zhuohao flipped the pancakes in the pan. "But with only two hands, it takes me three minutes to make one pancake. The breakfast peak is only two hours, around six or seven o'clock. At most, I can make thirty pancakes to break even. If I sell more, I can earn some hard-earned money."
He calculated it clearly and spoke sincerely: "After deducting all expenses, I only get a little over two thousand yuan a month, close to three thousand yuan. It's about the same as working in a factory. The only advantage is the freedom of time—I can do something else in the afternoon."
Several classmates listened, looked at his soaked back, and then at the simple dining cart, and were speechless for a moment.
The morning light spread out completely, shining on the greasy iron plate and making it reflect light.
The bell for the end of the second period came from afar.
The street outside the school gradually emptied out, and business disappeared.
"Studying is still the best," Liu Zhuohao sighed at the end, as if talking to himself, or as if advising them, "You should study hard in college, and you'll be sitting in an office with air conditioning in the future, that's what real comfort is."
Several classmates opened their mouths, but in the end they just patted him on the shoulder and said, "...Keep it up."
After the group of classmates dispersed, Liu Zhuohao straightened up and slowly exhaled.
He turned on the tap and rinsed his hands. The cool water washed through his fingers, taking away the grease and fatigue.
Not far away, the bookstore owner finished his last puff of cigarette, stubbed it out, nodded to him, and turned to go into the store.
Liu Zhuohao tidied up the stove, carefully sealed the remaining pancake wrappers and vegetables, and then took the camera off his forehead.
Is it hard work?
Of course it's hard work. I've been working non-stop since I got up at 3 a.m.
But did you really only earn a hundred or so yuan?
It's actually fake!