After Christmas, there will be another two weeks of classes before the kindergarten officially starts its winter break.
Winter break meant that Zhou Xinya would be staying home all day.
A day or two is fine, but staying home every day is so boring that even adults like Sun Lifang would be bored to death, let alone Zhou Xinya.
With kids at home, there really aren't many entertainment options.
Sun Lifang had anticipated this, and was somewhat worried about it.
This melancholy lingered until Qiu Ju knocked on the door—
Qiu Ju brought her daughter to talk to Sun Lifang about work.
Indeed, after discussing it with Zhou Yunshi, Sun Lifang extended the original plan for the car wash.
For those running an auto repair and parts shop, car washing can only serve as a supplementary function.
Zhou Yunshi said, "It takes a week to train a normal person to work, let alone a person with intellectual disabilities."
The time cost must be taken into account.
It's true that we're doing charity work, but if it's just based on good intentions, how far can this charity go?
If you open for a year or two, burn through your money, and then go bankrupt, what's the point?
Zhou Yunshi's advice to Sun Lifang was: "Don't think about making money for the first three months. Focus on employee training and operations."
Be prepared to burn money, but the goal is to become profitable in the future.
As long as it's profitable, the project can continue, and the intellectually disabled can continue to have work.
Hello, hello, hello everyone.
Zhou Yunshi strongly supports his wife finding something to do at home.
It's better than keeping it all inside.
In business, Sun Lifang was actually a complete novice; her ability to make money relied entirely on "clinging to powerful figures."
The clearance sale of leftover stock was handled by Takeuchi Yoshiko's channels. Since no one was helping her open the car wash, Sun Lifang had to figure it out slowly.
Through this exploration, the "logic behind burning money" was discovered. Zhou Yunshi was right; one shouldn't be so concerned about gains and losses, but—
You have to burn money to get results.
Just like the two major food delivery apps in later generations vying for the market, the logic of burning money to order food for one yuan is that if you're going to burn money, then burn it to see results.
So today, Sun Lifang went to Qiu Ju to say, "In the early stages of the promotion, the car wash was free, and not only was it free, but they even gave him 100 yuan."
Paying out of pocket?
Qiu Ju couldn't understand what was being said on the phone, so she hurriedly brought her daughter, Tang Xiaoyan, over.
"How can we lose money? How will we make a profit?"
Sun Lifang told her not to worry, and then called Zhou Xinya out, "Take your sister inside to play."
Tang Xiaoyan is sixteen years old this year. She is wearing a black woolen floral dress, which Qiu Ju made for her. She also added two fashionable white Peter Pan collars. She looks clean and neat.
The child's eyes held an innocent, untainted naiveté, and he smiled foolishly at everyone.
Upon seeing Zhou Xinya, Tang Xiaoyan suddenly became very happy. She clasped her chubby hands together as if making a wish, ran a few steps to Zhou Xinya, and stretched out one hand.
Open your fist, and inside is a peach-flavored candy.
The candy was still warm. Zhou Xinya took the candy and observed it for a while.
Driven by curiosity about the mentally challenged child, Zhou Xinya pulled Tang Xiaoyan into the room to play with dolls.
Anyway, she was incredibly bored at home.
After the two children left, Sun Lifang explained her plan to Qiu Ju: "We don't just wash cars, we also repair cars and sell parts."
"I plan to have a worker ratio of 3:7, with 30% being skilled workers, is that okay?"
“Okay.” Qiu Ju nodded in agreement. “People with intellectual disabilities need to interact with society. We don’t have the ability or need to create an ivory tower for them.”
Since you want to support yourself, you need to interact with normal people and integrate into society.
It will be a little difficult at first, Sun Lifang explained to Qiu Ju, "The subsidy of 100 is not a direct subsidy to the customer, but a discount we are offering."
"Customers who purchase a card and top up their account will receive three months of free car washes."
Sun Lifang had made up her mind. The current market price for a car wash is about 2 yuan, and customers who could afford a private car in 1998 wouldn't be short of 2 yuan.
The key is to sell membership cards and create customer loyalty.
Consumers are sticky; it takes seven days to form a habit. Once they have a card, they have to spend money there.
After all, there are still 50 car wash vouchers here, aren't there?
Furthermore, since everyone washes their car a different number of days, these 50 washes should be enough to keep customers engaged for a year.
"It's actually just a matter of recharging 500 and getting 100 back; we've just replaced it with a service."
Moreover, the price of this car wash will increase in value.
With the Spring Festival approaching, many car washes are either closed or have raised their prices.
"Let's not take a break this year, let's go all out, okay?"
When the number of service providers decreases while demand remains the same, supply falls short of demand, and car owners have nowhere to wash their cars and refuel, they will inevitably see these services.
They even give away car wash services with top-ups, but honestly, nobody does that anymore.
Most of them are private, regular customers who want to negotiate the price with the owner.
That's absolutely impossible!
The owner of the car wash is very shrewd, greeting and seeing off customers all day long.
Therefore, according to this plan, with discounts and cashback plus Spring Festival promotions, car washes can be successfully opened.
"Wait, wait, let me think." Qiu Ju was completely confused. "So you're using car washing as a gimmick to attract customers, right?"
Before Sun Lifang could answer, she said, "I don't really know anything about car parts, but I can wash cars."
Washing a car is just cleaning; you wipe it inside and out until it's sparkling clean. It's not difficult at all.
However, things like refueling car parts require skilled professionals to do.
The remaining questions are, "Where can we recruit?" and "Who will promote the membership cards?"
The later ideas are good, but the problem lies in the early stages—
Where did these customers come from?
Just like a restaurant, it needs at least one or two people to sit inside in order to attract other customers, right?
This brings us to the main point Sun Lifang wants to make today: "I had someone deliver free car wash coupons over."
The car-washing skills of these mentally challenged individuals are probably not very good, but it's easy to talk to acquaintances.
We hired someone to wash the car, which also gave the mentally challenged child some practice.
Furthermore, "Business should have been slow in the first few days, so you can teach them one by one and test their results."
"Treat this as a learning experience; don't rush to make money."
Sun Lifang reassured Qiu Ju, "I'm not in a hurry, so don't worry."
Qiu Ju is an impatient and competitive person who wants to make money as soon as she gets started.
“Then when there’s no business, we won’t ask for wages,” Qiu Ju said cooperatively. “After all, I asked you for help, and you helped us. We can’t let you suffer losses again.”
Oh, so that's what she was worried about.
"That won't do," Sun Lifang said with a slight smile. "The children worked so hard; how can they not get any reward at all?"
To be honest, even someone with intellectual disabilities wouldn't know how to calculate whether or not they'd be given money.
But kids, they expect to reap what they sow.
The initial salary was set at 300 yuan per month plus commission and bonuses, with the total salary calculated based on the number of cars wiped.
Now that Qiu Ju insists on not wanting it, Sun Lifang isn't arguing with her.
At worst, I'll just give them a red envelope later.
Amidst the lively preparations, the operational direction of Sunflower Auto Repair Shop was thus determined.
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