Can following the rules be called rebirth?

Chapter 68, Section 67: Recruiting Soldiers and Building a Platform

"Forget it."

There's a reason why wages are high.

Since joining Mingli Company, this sentence has been the one that has been on He Min's mind the most.

Faced with a sudden change to a non-stop work schedule, this was the only way she could console herself.

When she was earning a fixed salary of 5,000 yuan, she could still browse Taobao and casually browse web pages every day.

That won't work now.

Nominally, she was Zhou Mingyuan's assistant.

Actually?

She has to take on everything, big and small, all by herself!

Having worked alongside her boss for a long time, the first thing He Min learned was how to lie through her teeth.

Talk about people when you see them, talk about ghosts when you see ghosts!
The term "light asset" sounds impressive, but what exactly is it?
We only have two employees, and we don't even have a place to work!
So during this period of time, He Min has been extremely busy setting up the stage.

This company, which bears the sign "Mingli Legal Consulting," is located in a three-story standalone building in the Nanhu Creative Industry Service Park.

What's unusual is that the building isn't very large; each floor is only about four or five hundred square meters.

It's a bit bigger than a villa, but smaller than a typical office building.

The building is enveloped by a transparent floor-to-ceiling glass curtain wall, and the greenery on the facade cascades down like a waterfall.

In addition to the regular staircases and elevators, there is a circular spiral staircase in the center of the building that runs through the first to third floors, spiraling upwards and connecting the spaces on each floor.

The first-floor common area is like an urban oasis, with the reception area, coffee bar, and snack wall serving as an energy replenishment station.

The second floor is a modular office area, where desks are arranged in a flexible, block-like fashion, and green plants are quietly placed by the window.

The third floor mainly consists of meeting rooms and a lounge area, and even has some fitness equipment.

Judging from the interior design, it's easy to see that this building was originally a startup company led by a young person.

Perhaps due to a broken cash flow, most of the office supplies, except for inexpensive items such as desks, chairs, and plants, were packed up and sold off.

Fortunately, it's inexpensive and clean, so it can be used directly after a little cleaning.

After repeated negotiations with the landlord over the rental price, we hired workers to set up ladders and hang up signs, and contacted cleaning services to give the interior a fresh new look.
It wasn't until the second day of the National Day holiday that He Min finally managed to get everything sorted out and accept the boss's approval.

"It looks quite professional!"

Zhou Mingyuan was actually somewhat surprised by He Min's efficiency.

He simply marked a small area on the map for her, indicating that the company could be located in that area.

The result was surprisingly good, showing that He Min had clearly put a lot of effort into it.

The first is the location – Nanhu Creative Industry Service Park.

Located on Guanshan Avenue, this area covers a total area of ​​approximately 3 square meters and is adjacent to major universities, making it a truly core area.

Having lived two lives, Zhou Mingyuan was naturally familiar with the Nanhu Industrial Park, which had a bright future.

Good place.

Secondly, He Min is indeed worthy of being a former student council president; she really knows how to use her brain when doing things!

Compared to something as trivial as connecting with financial companies, getting sales contract templates and securing office space are both quite challenging tasks.

Don't say things like "money makes everything easy".

As the employee in charge of a task, whether you can make the right decisions, whether it is necessary to report every little detail to the boss, and how to balance the budget and time are all tests to varying degrees.

It's clear that He Min did a very good job.

"I wasn't careful enough before. Now that I have an office, I won't make similar mistakes again."

The large office area was empty, with only Zhou Mingyuan and He Min sitting there.

Today, He Min was dressed in a typical professional woman's outfit, and she looked much more mature.

The lightweight, solid-color striped long-sleeved shirt has a beautiful drape, paired with a midi skirt that just goes past the knee and shiny stockings, and low-cut loafers that make the legs look long and slender.

"Once bitten, twice shy; luckily the amount was relatively small."

Zhou Mingyuan smiled, took the hot tea the girl handed him, and took a sip.

The mistake He Min mentioned refers to the recent collaboration with Du Jianuo to sell contract templates, during which cash was distributed without going through the company's account.

When He Min returned, she was given a severe scolding by her boss, and only then did she realize just how unprofessional her actions had been.

Therefore, recruiting soldiers became one of her main tasks.

How's the recruitment process going?

The man continued to ask.

"I already posted the message on the website you mentioned; a group of people will be coming this afternoon."

"People have signed up for finance and administration positions."

After saying that, He Min pulled the chair closer and asked.

"Mr. Zhou, there's something I haven't quite figured out."

"Didn't you say we're an asset-light company? Why are you hiring so many people from other fields?"

He Min, after all, is a graduate of the law school.

For four years, he not only served as the president of the student union, but also did not slack off in his professional courses. He even passed the bar exam with a high score on his first year.

Even though she didn't choose to be a proper intern lawyer due to family reasons, but instead went out to earn a living, she had seen how law firms operated.

In traditional law firms, over 90% of the staff are licensed lawyers.

Apart from that, the staff consists of only a small number of secretaries, finance personnel, and administrative staff.

However, in Zhou Mingyuan's plan, the types of talent she recruited were clearly more diverse.

There are salespeople, marketing professionals, designers, and even new media content creators.

Did you wander onto the wrong set?

Isn't this what Jieyou Media should be doing?
Upon hearing this, Zhou Mingyuan stroked his chin and smiled, saying, "Let me ask you a question first."

"What do you think is the difference between our company and traditional law firms?"

"Uh"

After thinking for a moment, He Min bit her lip and said.

“Traditional law firms sell their own and their team members’ time, which requires calculating the cost per unit of time and then pursuing the highest premium per unit of time.”

"Our fees are relatively low because we have relationships with financial companies, and the volume of our services is much larger when packaged together."

"Yes."

Zhou Mingyuan gave a thumbs up: "But the company's development cannot rely on connections forever; we must forge our own path."

"We're in the era of data-driven communication; everything has to follow the trend." "Are you familiar with LegalZoom?"

He Min shook her head, looking completely bewildered.

"This is an online legal and compliance solutions platform born in the United States, which is already preparing for listing on the New York Stock Exchange, and mainly provides one-stop legal services for small and medium-sized enterprises and individuals."

"The market potential is limitless. In China, we can also productize legal services."

When talking about these things, Zhou Mingyuan couldn't help but sit up straight, full of pride and confidence.

Who says becoming a lawyer is the most lucrative career path for law students?
Returning to the internet age, there's no need to be a lawyer; Zhou Mingyuan can still make a fortune in the legal industry.

From a macro perspective, the demand for traffic-driven businesses is not a sudden surge, but rather something that has always been there and has always been substantial, but there has been no supply.

He plans to focus his efforts on the promising lower-tier markets.

"You might not understand what I'm saying, so let me give you an example."

Zhou Mingyuan continued.

“I have a relative whose family runs a fruit wholesale business. They often run into debts of tens of thousands of yuan. In the past, the family members would try to collect the debts themselves, but when they couldn’t, they just gave up.”

"There are probably several hundred vendors in the fruit market with this problem, but when they go to lawyers, they refuse to take these cases because the amount in dispute is too small, and they can only earn three or four thousand yuan at most."

"."

He Min rested her chin on her hands on the table, lost in thought.

Why are traditional law firms unwilling to take on these cases?

Zhou Mingyuan started counting on his fingers.

"For example, if a case costs 3000 yuan, a small legal team can only handle 100 cases a year, earning 30 yuan, which will definitely result in a loss."

"But have you ever considered that if you handle 2 similar cases a year, you might still lose money?"

"As for how to go from 100 to 2, that depends on the magic of traffic."

"Once you start practicing independently, you'll find that in certain areas, like labor disputes, it feels like there's money everywhere, but you just can't pick it up because it's all in individual bills. If you bend down and pick them up one by one, you'll be exhausted."

As Zhou Mingyuan recalled his journey to wealth, he couldn't help but sigh.

"But after it's commercialized, it's basically just picking things up with a vacuum cleaner."

"."

He Min listened even more attentively.

"As for what productization is?"

"It's very simple."

"The process of designing a product is the process of discovering needs, which is why you need to recruit talents from all walks of life."

"First, we conducted promotional tests on major platforms to show the public the possibility that their needs can be resolved through legal services."

"The next step is to standardize the product itself to prevent losses from occurring."

"The next step is to match the advertising platforms to determine whether we can find our target customers at a reasonable advertising cost."

"Finally, the legal service product was launched and iterated rapidly based on market feedback."

Zhou Mingyuan's wording sounded somewhat professional, but He Min still grasped the core of what her boss was trying to say.

As mentioned earlier, if you only do 100 cases worth 3000 yuan a year, you will definitely lose money, but if you do 2 cases, you will definitely not lose money.

This raises the question: how do we find and close these 2 deals?

Without a deep understanding or exposure to the internet, it is indeed very difficult for a lawyer to do this.

If price is not a factor, legal services can be provided by anyone, but the delivery cost may be higher than the overall quote.

Many lawyers face this problem; for example, a lawyer might charge 2 yuan in fees but have to attend more than ten court hearings, calculated on an hourly basis.

Actually, we even lost money.

"Therefore, from a product design perspective, when we develop legal service products, we need to determine from the outset how much it will cost to train a delivery team and what the delivery time cost will be, so as to maintain a low average order value and make a profit with a relatively standard delivery status and a relatively reasonable delivery cost."

"Because that's all the money the customer can afford to pay."

Zhou Mingyuan got more and more excited as he talked, so he stood up, pulled over the whiteboard not far away, and opened the whiteboard marker.

"Let me give you a brief explanation of the basic business model of the internet."

"Traffic + conversion rate + average order value + repurchase rate/referral rate, each of these links requires a considerable degree of professionalism, as well as real-time analysis and decision-making, and long-term iteration."

The man scribbled a few lines on the whiteboard and wrote out a short formula, which left He Min completely bewildered.

"Our next development direction is to rely on organization and corporate management, which can take us to the other extreme and reach the sky, namely the number of customers."

Zhou Mingyuan drew a big circle in terms of traffic.

"The small workshops of individual lawyers are destined not to serve too many clients."

"However, if we build a production line with a clear division of labor and achieve large-scale mass production, then this industrial-grade production line will be much more efficient than a traditional small workshop."

"Therefore, we can gain a huge cost advantage, which can be used to meet customer demand. You can provide customers with legal services at lower prices, but with the same guaranteed quality. This can also benefit the supply side of lawyers, meaning that the number of clients they can handle can theoretically be unlimited, as long as the production line can operate smoothly."

"For our Mingli Company, the biggest differentiation is that we have marketing, sales and products."

"Marketing is about continuously optimizing advertising plans across different channels and using constantly adjusted strategies to find more people with specific legal needs on the internet at the lowest possible cost."

"Salespeople need to continuously optimize the sales process and their sales pitch to gain the trust of customers and encourage them to make a deal with you."

"During the product design process, factors such as supply and demand, customer expectations, payment ability, payment method, and delivery cost are taken into account."

"For example, we set a fixed price of 1000 yuan for customers from internet finance companies, which is reasonable."

"So to put it bluntly, these internet-based thinking methods are what we are professionals in, but what lawyers are not."

Zhou Mingyuan talked for a long time, then lowered his head to take a sip of water and looked at his seemingly clueless assistant with a smile.

In fact, his internet-based approach to traffic generation has become the standard practice for many online marketing agencies in later generations.

But in 2014, a year of fierce competition, it was a clear case of being outmatched.

Refined organization and full-process collaboration.

By having professionals do what they do best, and by fostering collaboration between legal professionals and other personnel, we can achieve front-end customer acquisition and back-end delivery, creating a streamlined legal service production line that effectively increases customer capacity.

Positioning first, customer acquisition is key, delivery is the foundation, and organization is the guarantee.

While traditional lawyers are still struggling to drink, socialize, build relationships, and acquire clients, Zhou Mingyuan has already made full preparations and taken flight with the wings of internet traffic.

"Mr. Zhou, are all of these things you came up with?"

He Min's mind raced, the more she thought about it, the more incredible it seemed, and she felt her throat go dry.

So you can do that?
Can legal services be mass-produced on a large scale?
Revenue = Number of customers × Average order value

He Min understands that the traditional way for lawyers to increase revenue is to pursue higher average transaction value rather than a larger number of clients.

If we follow the boss's logic, once the number of customers increases, it will likely be a vast and boundless blue ocean!

That’s too awesome!
(End of this chapter)