Chapter 10: Stealing Money "This rag doll of yours should be...
"This rag doll of yours should be hand-sewn, right?"
"Yes, our factory currently does not have special processing machines, but if we can export and earn foreign exchange, we can replace it with special machines."
Li Daohua shook her finger: "Purely handmade, away from industrial pollution, better protect the healthy growth of children."
"Ah?" Meng Heping was confused.
“This is one of the selling points of your product. The main target group is people with middle and high incomes who pursue a healthy and environmentally friendly lifestyle.
For this kind of people, if you sell cheaply, they will suspect that you are cheating, and they believe that expensive products are good. "
Most people in China now do not have much concept about health and environmental protection. Health and environmental protection are things they consider after their lives are guaranteed.
"How old is the oldest person who participated in making this doll?"
Meng Heping couldn't answer such a tricky question right away, so he could only discuss it with others. The final conclusion was that he was about 65 years old.
The children's clothing they brought this time was embroidered by a 65-year-old lady, who was specially found by the factory.
The old lady entered an embroidery workshop to learn embroidery when she was young, and now she mainly teaches apprentices.
"Master-level quality, hand-sewn by a master with fifty years of embroidery experience, stitch by stitch, unique and limited to the world."
Meng Heping looked around at the other people. He really wanted to find someone to discuss this. Are intellectuals like this? Instead of talking properly, they have to do all this nonsense?
"Of course, this is a promotional slogan, and your commentary should focus on these highlights, such as the health and environmental protection part.
When explaining, focus on the benefits of natural handmade products for the body, such as reducing the probability of allergies in babies. Some babies have more delicate skin and their body resistance is not as good as that of adults. Of course, they need to use safer and healthier pure natural handmade products.
There are also master-level and limited edition products... The price must not be lowered. As I said before, good products should be expensive, otherwise how can we prove that they are good? "
At the end, Li Daohua also gave a special reminder: "It is best for you to only introduce your own advantages and ask the staff not to drag down industrial products."
"Why?" They all wrote down what Li Daohua said in the notebooks they carried with them. Some of those who were quick-witted had already added the words they had thought of below.
The sales pitch they added included things like how industrial products are harmful to babies and children, and that natural handmade products are inferior.
Li Daohua said meaningfully: "I'm afraid you'll get beaten."
Hearing her words, Meng Heping and the others said nonchalantly: "Don't worry, we are all civilized people, we are all one family, as long as we can earn foreign exchange, it doesn't matter who earns it."
I completely forgot how envious and jealous I was when I saw other factories earning foreign exchange. I wanted to replace them. But even brothers have to settle accounts clearly.
The two reporters recorded everything that happened in the classroom and even took a photo of Meng Heping and his friends presenting the rag doll to Li Daohua.
"This is my little reform idea. I hope it can be helpful to you. That’s all for today’s sharing."
Next, Meng Heping asked Li Daohua a few questions, and Li Daohua told him a few details. Only then did the sharing session come to an end.
Finally, together with Ouyang Yuan, they saw off everyone who was reluctant to leave, and then they were going to hold a small meeting.
The two reporters returned to the newspaper and began drafting the report, but it would not be published immediately. They would apply to continue to observe the results with Meng Heping and his team until the final result came out.
Liang Ning reported her experiences to Li Qingquan to prove that the novel she chose was correct and that Li Daohua's next novel also had great potential.
At Li Daohua's home, she is telling Guo Weimin how to sell cooking pots.
"Everyone has a cooking pan at home. If you want to sell it, your pan must be different from others. For example... if someone tells you that something has been made through thousands of trials and tribulations, what is your first reaction?"
Guo Weimin replied immediately: "Sturdy and of good quality."
"Very good. That pot was made after a lot of hard work. How about this pot?"
“It’s a good pot!”
"Then how can you let others see at a glance that this pot of yours has been made after thousands of trials and tribulations?" Li Daohua coaxed.
Ouyang Yuan and Guo Weimin were both confused. How could they tell the difference after so many trials and tribulations?
Alas, it’s better to be beaten less. Li Daohua directly gave the answer: "It’s a hammer-patterned pot. The surface of the pot is full of small pits from hammering, which represents the thousands of hammers and forgings."
Guo Weimin suddenly realized, and based on what he had learned in the classroom, he said, "Oh, then we should ask a master to hammer the iron pot himself, preferably an eighth-level worker!"
"Are you stupid? It takes a long time for an eighth-level worker to hammer an iron pot. The pot must be sold at a high price to justify the status of an eighth-level worker.
A better solution is to design an electric hammer to hammer out even patterns on the one-piece iron pot, but this is not as beautiful as the one-piece hammer pattern, so it is better to use one-piece molding.”
"Then... isn't that just cheating?" Guo Weimin was a little scared. He had been taught since childhood that he should not lie.
Li Daohua's conscience pricked a little, which was why he had to hold a small meeting.
In the 21st century, it has become commonplace for businesses to cheat and falsify materials. Cutting corners is considered to be a conscience. The unscrupulous ones will simply give you a fake ingredient list, replace some products with others, and pass off counterfeit goods as genuine.
"So, when we promote our pots, we can't say that our pots are made through thousands of hammers. We can only say that they are hammer-patterned pots, which are a kind of pattern."
Guo Weimin looked at Ouyang Yuan. He thought that his brother had cheated a wife in the village in order to return to Peking. But now it seems that it is not certain who cheated whom.
"Let me think about it, I'll think about it first." He was still afraid.
At the Spring Fair, some factories come to get orders, while others know they are there just to gain experience.
The factories in Sichuan Province are all together, which makes management easier. Meng Heping and his team are special, as they even brought two reporters with them.
"What's going on with you?" The leaders of Sichuan Province were a little unhappy. Since they had a lot of foreign exchange orders, of course they wanted to let others know. If there weren't many, no one wanted to be embarrassed by being published in the newspaper.
Obviously, based on past experience, Meng Heping's factory often fails to complete its foreign exchange targets.
While comforting his leader, Meng Heping asked the employees to quickly put things in place, and Li Daohua also taught them to put up the billboards.
Li Daohua also designed these billboards for them. Some of them were photos of an old lady embroidering in the sun, and some were photos of a few young girls drawing panda patterns on real pandas, preparing to make them into rag dolls...
The slogan above is written in English.
They also named the panda dolls they made after the famous pandas in Sichuan Province, and their images were also based on those pandas.
This approach made their booth suddenly conspicuous, attracting not only foreign businessmen but also domestic compatriots. Some factories pretended to pass by, secretly came to take a look, and then went back to share it with colleagues.
"I was really surprised to see products here that are marketed as healthy and environmentally friendly, which is the same philosophy as our supermarket."
Jason Jones was a member of the Wegmans exploratory team, and he came to find products suitable for their supermarket chain.
Wegmans's signature is "Healthy Eat, Healthy Living".
The slogan of Meng Heping's products is healthy and environmentally friendly, which forced Jason Jones to stop and learn about these products.
"It's really hard to imagine that this was made by a man in his sixties. They are so exquisite that they look like works of art. But why are they made like this?"
"We will try to reduce hard objects such as buttons and zippers to avoid harm to babies, reduce the use of industrial products, and use lacing methods to make it easier for parents to put on and take off active children."
Jason Jones nodded. This explanation was very reasonable and the concept was easier to accept.
When his first child was born, he and his wife were in a panic and had no idea what to do. If only there had been such a product at that time. God knows how much pollution those machines emitting black smoke would bring to the products.
"I think this kind of product is exactly what our supermarket needs, so what about its price."
While asking about the price, Jason Jones had already decided to purchase the goods. After all, Chinese products are notoriously cheap, and the wholesale price of clothing is usually one or two dollars a piece. When converted into US dollars, it is even cheaper.
But when I saw the marked price, 4.8, this is the wholesale price, which is more expensive than a men's cotton top.
He has also seen many products here, and none of the prices made him feel outrageously expensive, except this one.
"Maybe I'm not mistaken, the price is 4.8 RMB?"
"Of course not, you must have seen it wrong."
Jason Jones breathed a sigh of relief and said that it shouldn't be so outrageous. It turned out that he had really seen it wrong.
“It costs $4.8.”
...Silence. The price was almost as much as a leather jacket. He really wanted to turn around and leave, but he also wanted to know why it was so expensive.
"This piece was made by the master herself. It is more exquisite, unique and limited in number worldwide. When the master passes away, this will be one of her few works handed down from generation to generation. The master is also a very famous embroidery expert.
We also have similar styles, made by her apprentice, for $2.4, also handmade.”
In fact, 2.4 US dollars is also very expensive. In 1980, the exchange rate of RMB to US dollar was about 1.5:1. 2.4 US dollars was 3.6 yuan, which was just a baby clothes, and the embroidery on it was only a small piece.
This price is normal in the United States, but not in China.
Just with the previous comparison, $2.4 seems particularly cheap. After all, it is healthier and more environmentally friendly, isn’t it? People are always willing to pay more for it.
Wegmans has never been known for its quality products and low prices.
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