2003: Starting with Foreign Trade

Chapter 478 The Image of Boss Tan (Seeking Monthly Tickets)
"You seem to have some peculiar habits. Why do you always have to be in the office?"

While tidying his clothes, Xiao Gu complained.

"It's not very convenient at home, so why don't we stay here tonight and just say we have to keep working overtime?"

The two of them stayed here last night, ostensibly to cover up the data from Orange Technology, but in reality, Tan Jincheng couldn't be bothered with it after midnight. After having a late-night snack, the two of them went up to the top floor to rest.

"Forget it, you're not even on a business trip and you're not home every day. Jin Yue will come knocking on your door. You should go home tonight."

The offices on the top floor of the Flashpoint Building are decorated in a minimalist style with black and white as the main colors. There are not many fancy embellishments, but anyone who has visited can feel this understated luxury.

Apart from a designated area for Zeng Jixiang and his secretaries, the entire top floor was Tan Jincheng's personal property. It was more like a large, single-level apartment than an office.

Besides normal office functions, it has no lack of living functions. Although Boss Tan does not like extravagance, he will not refuse to enjoy certain things when he has the ability to do so, whether in life or at work.

As a young person, it's enough that you don't flaunt your wealth. But you're trying to act like the older generation of entrepreneurs, living a frugal and simple life. What are you trying to do? Are you trying to reach for the sky?
For meals, you can go to the staff restaurant on the fourth floor of the building. Unlike the canteens of physical companies, the canteen in the headquarters building is designed with reference to the major Internet companies, and the variety of food is very rich.

The area around Beicang is mostly factories, and the overall business model of these enterprises is still similar to that of the last century. Factory canteens rarely pay attention to the dining experience of employees. They promise three dishes and one soup, but most factories really only serve three dishes and don't give you any choices.

In terms of taste, it's very casual; people eat it or don't. The common impression is that factory food is bad.

However, the canteen at Shanchi was different. Influenced by the thinking of Tan Jincheng in his later years, the variety of food was more abundant than all the factories in Beicang. It couldn't compare to the government canteen, but it was about the same, and the taste was even better than many small restaurants.

Setting up a stall or opening a small restaurant near other factories is very profitable, but if you open one near the Flash Factory, business will be much worse. The factory's food is famous in Beicang, not to mention the headquarters building.

The headquarters building's restaurant was designed with reference to major internet companies like NetEase and Tencent. Except for its smaller scale, its actual standards are already higher than those of government canteens.

Many nearby residents and employees of other companies want to come in and try the large company cafeteria with its wide variety of delicious food. Unfortunately, FlashCheer's cafeteria is not open to the public and is only available to employees of the headquarters building and Orange Technology.

Whether it's the Ningbo government or the Beicang government, whenever they arrange to visit the Flash Motors headquarters, they will definitely take some promotional photos in the restaurant. This is not only for Flash Motors' reputation, but also for Beicang's reputation.

The changes in the office also show how much Mr. Tan has changed over the years.

Jinpeng Trading's office was small and simple, and it was shared with Zhang Xupeng. The office in Xiapu Industrial Zone was exactly the same as that of Zhang Mingcan and other small bosses at that time, and some of the furniture inside was a gift from Zhang Mingcan.

As for the office in the production and processing area, it was just a transitional project and was hardly renovated. It was no different from any other small business owner's office.

After the completion of the Flash Industrial Park, an office was reserved for Boss Tan there. This office was much more upscale than the previous ones, and the style had changed from the previous small boss style to the minimalist style that Tan Jincheng himself preferred.

After the industrial park was established, Flash's black and white design, which resembles some Hui-style architecture, gradually took shape. To this day, the exterior walls of Flash's factories in various locations all share this unified style.

From a small workshop to a large enterprise, Flash Motors gradually developed its own style, and Tan Jincheng also gradually developed his own public image in the process of this change.

If there are many impressions people have of Tan Jincheng, the most important one is that he is "clean".

He started his business in a clean and honest way, and he has no problems in his personal conduct. He has a childhood friend with whom he grew up and started a business together. Even after he became successful, he did not forget his friend and they still maintain a good relationship.

He had a first love girlfriend, and together they founded an internet company. Although there were occasional rumors about his personal relationships, none of them were based on any real evidence, and his private life was clean.

As for family background, it was also clean. After becoming wealthy, his father continued to work in the factory, and his relatives did not cause any trouble in the village. On the contrary, they did a lot of good deeds such as donating to poor students.

Furthermore, Tan Jincheng's image in public is always clean and simple, with shirts, jeans, and sneakers being his most common attire. When the weather gets cold, he adds a plain jacket, or a suit for important occasions.

Aside from a Longines watch, he wore no other accessories, which made him look very comfortable. His girlfriend was similarly dressed, presenting a fresh and natural image to the public.

It must be said that both of them have done a very good job in managing their public image. They are low-key and unassuming, but they do not deliberately hide their personalities. They also do not avoid talking about money like most entrepreneurs do nowadays.

In many cases, an entrepreneur's image is actually very important. Outsiders can easily see into their private lives, and no matter how you manage that, they have no way of knowing. But the public image is something that you or your company's team need to manage.

This is what is called a persona. A persona cannot be too exaggerated. It must conform to a certain era and be consistent with your age and experience. In other words, the persona must be believable.

Giving Boss Tan the image of Boss Zhong, wearing cloth shoes and eating fermented bean curd, would definitely not work; that's something only his grandfather could do.

Tan Jincheng, the seemingly clean and composed business elite, is also prone to frivolous behavior typical of young people in private. For example, right now he's pestering his girlfriend, Gu Qingqing, not to come home. "Who cares? This little brat has been talking too much lately. I really want to rip out her batteries. Anyway, Mom knows we're busy these days, so it's normal for us not to go back."

"Besides, I once lived in the office for half a month, she knows that."

Gu Qingqing chuckled. The description of removing the battery was so apt. Tan Jinyue, who would be three years old in just over 10 days, had seen a lot of the world since she had taken Tan Jinyue on trips all summer, and her vocabulary had exploded.

She's always chattering away at home, her little mouth never stopping, which can be really a headache sometimes.

Children really do change every day. When Gu Qingqing first met Tan Jinyue, the little girl was not shy, but she was still a little timid. Gu Qingqing really did not expect that, apart from her body shape, her mouth had grown the fastest in such a short period of time.

"Right, you've noticed too, especially these past few days, they've been constantly asking about my birthday. To be honest, I really didn't prepare anything," Tan Jincheng said, sounding a bit annoyed.

I don't know how this little girl understands her own birthday. To be honest, she probably doesn't even know which day her birthday is, but her brother always asks her if it's her birthday and if she has cake when he comes home.

Cakes are available every day, but in her imagination, the cakes she eats regularly are different from birthday cakes, and she always says that the birthday cake doesn't count.

"Haha, it really doesn't count as a birthday cake. You're always worried about her getting bad teeth from eating it, so you only give her a small piece. How can that be considered a birthday cake?"

"That's enough. Before I met you, I had never eaten my own birthday cake. She really was born into a life of luxury."

Tan Jincheng sighed and then said, "Let's go downstairs to the restaurant for dinner. Tell Mom we won't be going home tonight. Let's discuss the itinerary tonight and see when it's appropriate to go to the capital."

OrangePin's GMV figures released yesterday attracted a lot of attention. No one expected that a small company that makes social mini-games would create such a successful vertical e-commerce website.

The actual GMV in 12 hours was over 1100 million yuan, but the publicly announced GMV was 3000 million yuan. As for the number of registered users, it was announced to be 4.5, but it's hard to exaggerate that too much, or it would be outrageous.

We don't need to care how ordinary netizens view this data, but in the eyes of professionals, this data, which is full of inflated figures, does not mean they are bragging. Bragging should be based on solid evidence.

When Orange Products went online, major websites monitored its traffic and real-time sales data. Even giants like Taobao and JD.com assigned some technical staff to monitor Orange Products' data.

Judging from the monitoring data of traffic, data conversion rate and other aspects, the core positioning of the newly launched Orange Products Club is undoubtedly very successful. Although the categories are not as complete and the number of products cannot be compared with Taobao and JD.com.

However, a series of monitored data indicate that as long as the company does not make any directional mistakes, it will be able to occupy more than 2% of the online shopping market share next year. Barring any unforeseen circumstances, Orange Products will be able to occupy at least 5% of the online shopping market share in the next few years.

For traditional retailers, 500 billion is a threshold. It took Gome, the leading home appliance retailer, 19 years to achieve this figure, while online retail only took 9 years.

To put it more vividly, Taobao's total transaction volume in 2007 was close to the total transaction volume of Lianhua Supermarket's 3913 stores nationwide in 2006, and even close to the combined sales of the three multinational retail giants, Walmart, Carrefour, and Lotus Supermarket, in China.

According to research by professional research firm iResearch, the online shopping market, which has seen geometric growth in recent years, is expected to exceed 1 trillion yuan in transaction volume by 2012 at the latest, accounting for 5% to 8% of the total retail sales of consumer goods.

Currently, the online shopping market only accounts for 0.64%, a trillion-dollar market. If Orange Products can capture more than 5% of the market share, its future potential is immeasurable, assuming no major changes in the industry.

Just as Huang Ming needed to find a public reason to intervene in Changfeng Group, the two leaders of the newly launched Orange Products Club needed a suitable reason to leave their home base and go to the capital in the face of such a huge market.

"You can talk about this at home, right? Jin Yue may keep babbling on and on, but she still needs to sleep."

"Hey, don't be so serious, Ms. Gu. This is just an excuse. Can't we look into how to achieve negative distance at the highest point of Beicang?"

Gu Qingqing, being an experienced driver herself, slapped Tan Jincheng after hearing this: "You're being indecent again."

"This is the most serious thing, okay? What's not serious about it? What will you do when you're old if you don't do it when you're young?"

The female driver, unable to control herself, blushed and whispered, "Um, the blocking device is gone."

Boss Tan was taken aback: "It's okay, it's fine outside. If the blockade doesn't work, we'll find Jin Yue a companion to go out and have some fun. At worst, we can just get our marriage certificate early."

Ever since they made things clear in the capital, Tan Jincheng and Gu Qingqing decided to get their marriage certificate after she finished her studies. They could postpone the wedding until they got the certificate, which was one of the reasons why they had no reservations.

(End of this chapter)