Classification, Refinement, and Division

On Tuesday morning, Lin Qi convened Shareholders Meeting.

Mark, Skinny Tall Guy, Asier, and other local investors arrived at the company's conference room, along with representatives from investors in Kuli Lan City.

It's called Shareholders Meeting, but there are only eight people in total. However, Shareholders Meeting is Shareholders Meeting, and it has nothing to do with the number of people.

Sitting in the Chairman of the Board's seat, all eyes were on Lin Qi. He looked through the materials in his hand for a while, and only after a minute or two did he turn his attention to the meeting.

"There are two things I want to discuss with everyone at this Shareholders Meeting. The first is the development plan for the next stage..." he said, while observing the people around the conference table.

The shareholder representative from Kuli Lan City appeared to be saying, "I don't care, but I'll relay the information," and even prepared a notebook and pen to record the meeting's content.

Mark still looked tired. I heard that he'd been doing quite well lately. He had a large number of Food Stamps in his hands, and his food factory had also taken on the task of producing food. For people at this stage, Food Stamps were equivalent to money. Every bag of food that Mark produced was money, and his factory was like a money printing machine spitting out banknotes.

Lately, he's been spending a lot of time with two female presenters from the Sabine City Television Station. Judging from his listless appearance, those two women aren't easy to deal with. It's just a pity for the ordinary people who treat the two female presenters like goddesses.

Local investors, on the other hand, didn't show much emotion; their faces were more or less gloomy. The Financial Tsunami had caused them serious losses, and everyone was having a hard time.

Asier looked unremarkable, but he was a smart man. There wasn't much eye contact between him and Lin Qi, although everyone in the room basically knew that this guy and Lin Qi had a special relationship.

After shifting his gaze from the last person, Lin Qi began to address the main topic of today's meeting.

"Everyone has seen the speed of development of the Interstellar Trade Company. Even in the early stages of the major strike, our work never stopped. And this major strike has also proven that my model is successful, so we were not affected by the strike too much."

He was talking about cooperation; everyone was his partner. He didn't have any employees. If these people were to strike, they would only be striking their own jobs. Lin Qi wouldn't suffer any losses; only they would.

This allowed the company to operate normally, weathering the strike crisis in a way that is hard for ordinary people to imagine.

The people around the conference table nodded in agreement; they couldn't deny it.

Lin Qi paused for a moment before continuing, "The company will be in a period of faster growth. The double whammy of the strikes and economic problems will make it difficult for most families to survive. Their demand will increase, but their budgets will decrease, and at the same time, a large number of goods will flood the market."

"Not only ordinary families, but also some factories and capitalists are going bankrupt, and they will also be included in our target group."

"By buying more goods at lower prices and then selling them at prices that guarantee our profits, all we have to bear is a short period of capital tied up."

"However, this has also created a new problem: if we acquire goods faster than we ship them, a large amount of capital will be tied up in warehouses and unable to circulate, which is something I cannot tolerate."

"So I have an idea: I want to split the Interstellar Trade Company's main business, the secondhand goods auction, into a secondhand goods trading fair and a secondhand goods auction..."

The young woman, who was temporarily acting as a secretary, began distributing materials to everyone. These materials were specially prepared by Lin Qi, which detailed the effects and possibilities of splitting up the business.

It must be said that he produced this material very well, with not only seemingly realistic and detailed survey data, but also some intuitive trend charts.

Surveys show that bosses are less patient with nitpicking and prefer more intuitive things, such as bar charts and line graphs.

"After the business is split up, ordinary second-hand goods transactions will no longer take up more of our capital. We only need to provide the venue and then collect various fees."

"At the same time, after studying the auction records during this period, we will gradually shift our focus to valuable goods that can bring us more profits."

"The advantage of doing this is that we don't have to waste limited funds on some potentially unsaleable goods, and it can also make the auction more professional and bring in more profits."

He added an important point, "Actually, we're not just breaking down the business, but also the target audience."

After saying that, he wanted to give everyone time to understand and think, which was a plan he had been considering for a long time.

The biggest drawback of auctions now is that high-end and low-end bidders are mixed together. Sometimes, low-end bidders disrupt the auction order of valuable items, for example, by causing the price of the auctioned items to rise too quickly.

In an auction, a rapid increase in price is not a good sign. It makes it seem like many people are competing for the same item, giving the impression that the item is in high demand.

But in reality, this might discourage some people from being determined to win, because there are too many competitors, and they feel that they may not be able to succeed.

Even if there are few bidders left and the price hasn't reached their psychological limit, they still feel that even if they have bid, the other party will continue to follow suit.

On the contrary, auction items and processes with fewer bidders tend to have better price competition.

By targeting lower-end consumers to trade fairs and higher-end bidders to auctions that offer greater profits, more precise targeting can generate more revenue.

After discussing with the people around him for a while Skinny Tall Guy asked, "How do you plan to resolve the trade fair?"

Lin Qi pointed to the documents in front of him, "Even if you didn't ask, I would have told you." After a few seconds of eye contact, Lin Qi said, "Please turn to page seventeen of the documents..."

After the clatter of pages turning, Lin Qi began to share his thoughts. "I've noticed that our city, and other cities in general, don't yet have a formal secondhand goods trading center."

"Most secondhand goods transactions take place in some dirty, poor, and run-down streets, and many of the goods are stolen."

"We only need to do three things: standardize, legalize, and centralize!"

"Our profits also come from these sources: rental fees for ordinary stalls and shops, commissions on specific sales, and insurance business..."

Lin Qi described everything in great detail, as if he had done a lot of work on it and reached such a conclusion after repeated deliberation and research.

Therefore, this conclusion, combined with this intuitive data, is very persuasive, and these people have been convinced.

Even the Skinny Tall Guy, who was not easy to deal with, was satisfied with Lin Qi's plan at this point. He thought Lin Qi was right: break down the business and then the customer groups, and use more targeted methods to make more money. This was the real attitude to make money.

He looked at Lin Qi, who was speaking eloquently, and wondered what exactly was going on in this young man's head. Lin Qi was unaware that the Skinny Tall Guy had become somewhat interested in his brain matter. After he finished talking about splitting up the business, and no one raised any clear objections, the corner of his mouth slightly smirked.

"Considering that we have more tasks in the next phase, I propose that the currently spun-off businesses be operated independently as separate subsidiaries."

Mark's expression didn't change much after he said that; he didn't care about the matter at all, he was only thinking about happy things.

As long as his uncle doesn't leave Sabine City and doesn't lose his power, he doesn't need to worry about being cheated by others; such a thing won't happen.

The representatives from Kuli Lan City made no statement, and the outcome of this meeting would not be determined by the end of the meeting. Only Skinny Tall Guy men showed some thoughtful expressions.

After a moment, the tall, Skinny Tall Guy asked, "Chairman, is it necessary for us to do this?"

He was referring to the idea of spinning off the business into an independent subsidiary, which he saw as completely unnecessary. However, he wanted to hear Lin Qi's perspective. In reality, he shouldn't have done it, because persuading others was Lin Qi's forte.

Lin Qi's face beamed with a smile, "Of course, then I'll explain the differences in detail..."

Soon, through his description, everyone understood why Lin Qi did this, as well as the advantages and disadvantages of doing so—everything has two sides, but as long as the advantages outweigh the disadvantages, people can turn a blind eye to the disadvantages.

After about half an hour, the Skinny Tall Guy men finally understood Lin Qi's idea. However, they did not express their opinion immediately. They needed to go back and discuss it further, as it involved some new changes. They also needed to consult with others to confirm their thoughts.

After seeing these people off Lin Qi glanced disdainfully at the materials on the table and casually threw them into the trash can; he already knew the outcome.

These people wouldn't refuse his proposal because the reason is simple: the purpose of splitting up the company is to make more money, and as long as businessmen haven't given up on pursuing profits, they won't refuse.

Greed brought them great wealth, but it also made them blindly credulous and misguided.