Chapter 1484: Discussing (4) |
“What about you, Vator?”
When Kang Jin-Ho turned his attention to Vator, the big man confidently replied, “The growth of my disciples has been smooth sailing, master. While we were forced to waste time in Mongolia, I rebuked them a little, and that seems to have spurred on their growth.”
Everyone in the room, except for Vator, closed their eyes and offered their silent prayers to the big man’s victims.
Tears almost clouded their visions after imagining what those poor souls must’ve gone through at the hands of Vator, whose personality had become much crueler from the effects of demonic cultivation.
“However, we still need your help with managing demonic cultivation, master,” said Vator. “I’ve noticed some disciples beginning to behave slightly differently from how I was.”
That report didn’t surprise Kang Jin-Ho.
Even if everyone was mastering the same martial art technique, problems might crop up depending on the levels of the individuals mastering it. Someone with a higher level of strength could overcome the issue of controlling their qi flow, but those with lower levels would not know how to resolve the problem affecting their bodies.
“In short, you want me to take a look,” said Kang Jin-Ho.
Vator nodded. “You don’t have to worry about the matters regarding external arts, but I’m basically clueless in demonic cultivation, after all. Honestly, keeping my demonic cultivation under control is taking almost everything I have.”
This wasn’t the issue of Vator’s lack of strength, but more like the result of demonic cultivation’s quirks.
Vator grunted. “Hmm…”
“And there aren't any other issues to report?”
“That’s right, master. Honestly, it would be strange if there were problems now.”
Vator was right about that.
Ever since the current iteration of the Assembly was born, Kang Jin-Ho continuously did various things to change the organization’s structure and lay down the foundation for its growth. And it was time for the organization to start producing the fruits of all his hard work.
In other words, the Assembly should be able to operate just fine without Kang Jin-Ho’s involvement.
It took a while to get here, didn’t it?
Overhauling an organization of this size would never be easy. But he had done it through determination and consistent hard work. Of course, they still had a long way to go, but…
I guess I’ll have more free time now.
Kang Jin-Ho’s expression softened a little.
In the past, the end of a meeting would always dump a ton of problems on Kang Jin-Ho’s lap, which forced him to rack his brain to find their solutions. But not this time. Other than a few minor issues, he didn’t have to get involved at all.
To think he’d finally experience a refreshing meeting, where he…
Lee Hyeon-Ju suddenly piped up. “I’d like to make my report now, sir.”
…Yup, here we go. I knew it couldn’t be that easy.
The grave expression on Lee Hyeon-Ju’s face freshly reminded Kang Jin-Ho of the unfortunate fact that nothing in this world was that simple or smooth sailing.
“Sir, this report concerns the business ventures MK is pursuing at the moment. First of all, the revenue for MK Entertainment has jumped up by five thousand percent.”
“Huh?”
Kang Jin-Ho tilted his head. Why was the report so encouraging?
“Unfortunately, its revenue has been pretty much non-existent until recently, so a five-thousand-percent increase has not translated into a large sum of money. It’s simply the result of Director Choi’s earnings taking a big dip before recovering slightly.”
“Oh. Mm…”
“Even so, the revenue prediction shows an upward growth curve even after excluding Director Choi’s earnings, which is an encouraging sign. Thanks to the quirks of the entertainment industry, our entertainment division’s earnings will fluctuate constantly, but the line on our long-term projection graph is pointing in the right direction.”
“Is that so?”
Kang Jin-Ho tilted his head again, his confusion still remaining. Choi Yeon-Ha was merely getting paid what she was owed, so there was that. But to hear that the earnings from other sources were increasing, too? He found that somewhat mystifying.
“Director Choi is unexpectedly business savvy, sir. She’s planning to forgo her share of the earnings for now in order to grow the business long-term. And her efforts are already paying dividends. If this growth continues, I believe the entertainment division will become a reliable source of income for MK soon.”
Kang Jin-Ho grew pleasantly surprised. Rather than the improved revenue, however, it was the news of Choi Yeon-Ha doing well with the business that perked him up.
That’s a relief.
Choi Yeon-Ha was taking a massive gamble by setting up her own agency. But the gamble seemed to have paid off, so she deserved some congratulations, didn’t she?
“But the problem we have is…”
The smile was wiped away from Kang Jin-Ho’s face instantly. Oh, here we go.
“The launch of the franchise business is right around the corner, sir. The prospective franchisees have finished their training, while the interior fitting for the franchise stores is largely finished, as well.”
Kang Jin-Ho frowned slightly. “Shouldn’t that be good news instead?”
“Sir, the risk we’re taking on is just too much,” said Lee Hyeon-Ju, a hint of terror now visible on her face.
Kang Jin-Ho noticed that change in her expression and grew more puzzled.
“Sir, a franchise business is supposed to gradually increase the number of the stores over time. You only open a handful of stores initially to gauge the public reception. And when the business model proves profitable, you move on to the next phase and start opening more chain- and franchise-run stores.”
“Okay, I get that. But?”
“But… Because we have so many franchise store applicants this time, we must open one hundred stores simultaneously, sir. In other words… If the public reception is poor, we can forget about recouping the investment and even prepare to eat the cost of closing down all one hundred stores.”
“…!”
Kang Jin-Ho’s eyes began quaking just then. Ah… Hold on, I didn’t think about that.
“President Hwang wanted to increase the number of stores as gradually as possible, but all those f*cking franchisees were so adamant and vocal that… Urgh!” Lee Hyeon-Ju groaned loudly.
Kang Jin-Ho blinked his eyes in stupefaction. Hold on, those people are now franchisees, right? You can’t use the f word like that. After all, aren’t they the shot callers in this relationship…?
“Because they complained about their own stores not receiving the right to open first… Originally, we were planning to open the stores in Seoul first, but that plan had to be flushed down the toilet, sir. And now, we’ll be opening stores around the country simultaneously.”
Kang Jin-Ho dazedly nodded. He wasn’t surprised to hear that the franchisees were complaining about this. What could anyone do if the franchisees threw around the accusation of favoritism despite everyone paying the same amount of money?
“Assembly Master… No, Chairman Kang!”
Lee Hyeon-Ju subtly bit her lip.
“Y-yeah?”
“The ads! You must shoot the ads right now! With Director Choi!”
“Oh, that… Yeah, I’ll do it. I promised, after all.”
“Not just the ads, sir! Not only online video ads, but banners, too! We’ll need several days to film all that. Please clear out your schedule immediately!”
Rather than determined, Lee Hyeon-Ju was now in a full-on panic mode.
She made a fatal error in judgment by underestimating the world of business. Since her organization had money and the requisite manpower, she believed things would naturally work out, but as she delved deeper and deeper, a realization began dawning on her.
She might be a savant at accounting, but had no talent at running a business operation!
That’s right! If we hadn’t hired President Hwang Min-Su, I would have bankrupted our company a long time ago!
When she thought about it… Her grandfather, Lee Jung-Geol, wasn’t all that savvy with business, either. His talent lay in conquering and dominating others to make money, but the idea of using that money to make more didn’t seem to interest him back then.
In the past, Lee Hyeon-Ju couldn’t quite understand why her grandfather was like that. Now that she was in this situation, though… Maybe Lee Jung-Geol had figured out that he had zero talent in business early in his life.
“Not only ads, but you must help us with everything you have, sir! If we fail this venture, the Assembly will suffer a horrific financial loss!”
“…?!”
Kang Jin-Ho was getting flustered by Lee Hyeon-Su’s rather visceral response.
“What? Why? It’s not like we’ll be losing a lot of money if…”
“No, sir! We’ve started MK because there are no new avenues for us to make money, so imagine what would happen if we screw up our first business venture! Who’s gonna trust us next time?!”
Kang Jin-Ho blinked his eyes. Why are you getting mad at me for? You’re putting me on the spot here.
After fake-coughing to clear his throat, Kang Jin-Ho sheepishly replied, “Starting from President Hwang to the directors, and all the other employees too, you guys all worked hard to get this far, right? I’m sure you’ll be rewarded for your hard work.”
“No, sir! This is not martial arts or cultivation we’re talking about here!”
“…Huh?”
“Working hard doesn’t necessarily produce good results in the world of business, sir! Plenty of people understand what it takes to succeed, but no one can predict why you’d fail. That’s business. Even if you prepare everything perfectly before launching the franchise, everything can go belly-up through no fault of your own!”
Right now, Lee Hyeon-Ju was getting annoyed by Kang Jin-Ho’s somewhat nonchalant attitude. After all, she was about to develop the dreaded female pattern baldness from all the stress right now!
A martial artist going bald?! How preposterous!
Not too long ago, Lee Hyeon-Ju felt this strange circular thing on her scalp, so she went to a hospital to seek a specialist’s opinion, only to get the diagnosis of the stress-induced female pattern baldness.
The laid-back doctor stupidly told her to take a break from work and not stress about things, but that only led to Lee Hyeon-Ju blowing her top and causing a massive scene in the hospital that day.
Blooming hell! Who would want to be deliberately stressed all the time?! It’s because they can’t avoid the stress!
Mercifully, the bald spot was difficult to notice. However, what if it was in a spot that was easily noticeable? She would’ve fallen under the clutches of crippling depression by now!
“Whatever it takes! We must! Succeed! We must make the public aware of our brand from the get-go! Otherwise, we’ll be screwed!”
Kang Jin-Ho groaned. “Hmm…”
Wiggins chimed in. “I might not be an expert in business operations, but I can still tell you that Miss Lee is correct, my lord. Preparing thoroughly only improves your chances of success, not guarantee it.”
That sounded reasonable.
“To improve the odds of success, we should be prepared to do whatever it takes, as Miss Lee has said.”
Lee Hyeon-Su joined the conversation next. “They are right, sir. And our biggest problem is that we’re launching a cafe franchise. We don’t have anything to differentiate ourselves from the competition.”
Kang Jin-Ho tilted his head. “What do you mean? Even though our coffee tastes different?”
“I won’t say that the coffee’s taste has no bearing in this case. People nowadays have gotten pretty used to drinking coffee, after all. Even if they can’t tell the brands apart, they can still spot the rubbish ones immediately. But the problem with that is…”
Lee Hyeon-Su sighed deeply.
“You gotta buy the coffee first to figure out whether it’s disgusting or not, sir. Yes, you gotta drink our coffee first to know it’s not crap. But the people buying our coffee are already customers. Customers noticing the difference won’t help us. No, we gotta turn the passersby into customers.”
“Mm…?”
Kang Jin-Ho furrowed his brow. Wasn’t this weird? Didn’t Kang Jin-Ho attend the business management course at Jaegyeong University?
Also, didn’t he study countless business management-related books recently? He should be up-to-date with all the relevant theories, so why was this so difficult?
Maybe those theories covered a far-too wide area of business for it to be useful in this specific case. If not that, maybe Kang Jin-Ho wasn’t at the level where he could apply his knowledge to actual business operations.
Then again, how much of a help would studying so urgently like that be, anyway?
Kang Jin-Ho’s frown deepened. “How about taste-testing? Or handing out free coupons? That should motivate people to come and buy our coffee later, no?”
“…Sir, such a tactic would’ve been used constantly if the public were gullible enough to fall for it all the time. The human perception has this weird aspect to it where… Even if they think the product is worth the outlay, no one will want to pay for it if they can get it for free.”
“Mmm…!”
Kang Jin-Ho roughly scratched his head. Why was this so difficult, anyway?
“Because of how fierce the competition is, some new stores even resort to hiring part-time customers.”
“Part-time customers?”
“Yes, sir. The store would hire people to come and buy their drinks, sir. The point of such an exercise is to show the passersby the scene of lots of people entering the store. That would give the impression that the store is doing gangbusters despite having opened not too long ago. That would make the passersby more curious about trying out the drinks themselves.”
“…Seriously? Wow.”
Kang Jin-Ho already knew it was not easy to make a living these days, but to think people would resort to such a tactic!
“Can’t we use that tactic, too?”
“…Please think about it, sir. If you want to give off the impression that a cafe is doing well, you’d at least need to serve a hundred customers a day. However, if those hundred customers drink only one cup of coffee, the day’s gross income will only be around five hundred thousand won,” said Lee Hyeon-Su.[1]
“I guess so?”
“Let’s say we make those hundred people come in twice per day. That means a million won of sales. If we give that much coffee away for free, and then pay the part-time customers for their services… Even if we pay them a hundred thousand won per day, we’re looking at ten million won on expenses alone. Per day.”[2]
“…Yeah, the math checks out?”
“With us opening a hundred stores, that expense will balloon into a billion won. Per day. And that cost will only go up if we include the cost of all the coffee given away for free, too. We only need to pay around thirty million won for a 30-second TV spot during the Friday prime time, sir. In that case, it makes no sense to sink over one billion won into a strategy that might not even work.”
“Oh, so the issue is with the money?”
“Money is one thing, but where will we find a hundred part-time customers for all of our one hundred stores? That’s ten thousand people, you know? Mobilizing that many people in a day is next to impossible, sir. And we also can’t have the part-time customers visit different stores each day, either.”
Kang Jin-Ho slightly turned his head. “Even though we have the people?”
“I’m sorry?”
“I mean, look outside.”
Kang Jin-Ho pointed outside the window.
Lee Hyeon-Su dazedly followed Kang Jin-Ho’s pointing finger and also stared outside the window.
“Uh… I guess you’re right?”
Indeed, they already had all the people they needed, didn’t they? Ten thousand bums who didn’t do much during the day, that was!
1. That’s around $365 US at the time of TLing.
2. That’s around $7300 US at the time of TLing.
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