Journey 1995:Non-Stop

Chapter 343 Team Building
Zhou Ping had no desire to listen to Yan Hui's empty promises; he simply wanted to extricate himself from the position of "temporary boss."

"President Yan, to be honest, you should probably not stay away from home for more than two days in the future. If it's for the Chinese New Year, please don't let me handle these company matters anymore. I'll have to deal with what President Chen mentioned today. I can't let him handle it. Ugh, this is giving me a headache," Zhou Ping said helplessly.

"Don't worry, I'll be adjusting the team in the next two weeks. As for the lab, you called yesterday and said two new master's students have joined; let's have dinner together tonight. Regarding the workshop, I'll observe those people you asked me to look after for a few more days. If there are no problems, I'll promote them. Then we'll have two deputy workshop directors, which will make things much easier in the workshop. The real problem is sales; we still have too few salespeople. I have an idea: proactively contact our agents and schedule meetings with them in the next few days," Yan Hui said.

"Huh? Aren't we not agents?" Zhou Ping asked, somewhat puzzled.

Currently, Heng Hui Chemical's polyurethane is in a relatively easy-to-sell position. However, to expand production capacity, it needs to secure more cooperative orders from companies like glass factories and medium-sized automobile manufacturers. These orders are long-term and stable, which is beneficial for factory production. For a newly established company, outreach and promotion are also essential.

“Of course, we don’t act as agents. The biggest problem with agents is that the demand is too unstable. They will wholesale a lot and then retail it. We have no control over when they need the goods. If they rush to stock up when the material price goes up, it will greatly affect our production. My idea is, since these agents are all industry insiders, know a little about polyurethane, and have sales channels, why can’t we poach them to work for us?” Yan Hui asked rhetorically.

"Would they be willing to do that?"

“Our products are fine,” Yan Hui said with a smile. “People will be willing to come.”

"Okay, I'll tidy it up in the next few days." Zhou Ping had a bit of a headache.

He's in finance! Finance! Not an office secretary!

"There's no office yet. Hire two people to help you tomorrow. Office location... hmm." Yan Hui was really starting to get a headache thinking about this.

We want to hire some talented people, but we don't have any office space.

"Let's set up a temporary office first." Yan Hui, after all, came from an architecture background. He thought for a moment and said, "It can be done in a few days."

"Fine, fine," Zhou Ping said helplessly. "Hopefully we can find someone."

“If you can’t find anyone, just do it yourself for now,” Yan Hui continued. “I’m going to the supplier’s place tomorrow. Our carbon black is imported, so I’ll go and negotiate the price again. If all else fails, I’ll contact Wang Zongbo and ask him to help us buy it directly from abroad—it’s a trade matter.”

After discussing trade with Zhou Ping, Yan Hui began to discuss accounting issues, talking for more than two hours before returning to the workshop.

Currently, the company doesn't have a dedicated warehouse; raw materials and finished products are all stored in the workshop. The workshop is quite large, approximately 5000 square meters, which is currently sufficient. If it becomes too large, the factory will be expanded.

This industrial land covers a total of 80 acres, or more than 53,000 square meters. In the future, at least two more workshops of this size can be built, along with an office building, dormitories, a canteen, and so on.

Back in the workshop, Yan Hui checked the raw materials and products again from start to finish, and spent half a day communicating with the workers. At dinner time, he called Chen Jian and his wife, Zhou Ping, and the two new master's students from the lab to a nearby restaurant. The factory's production for the day was finished.

After several rounds of recruitment, the lab now has two PhDs, four Masters, and three undergraduates, not including Song Zhiyuan.

Yan Hui had met the two master's students who had come before; these two were new. Yan Hui took them to a fancy restaurant for a good meal, "brainwashed" them, and gave them a pep talk. He found that these two young men were not bad at all.

After finishing his drinks, Yan Hui returned to the temporary building at the construction site, it was already past ten o'clock at night. He forced himself to make a few phone calls and take some notes, despite being drunk, before finally lying down and falling asleep.

In the morning, before six o'clock, Yan Hui got up, looked at what he had written the night before, got dressed, ate a quick bite, and drove his van out.

The hardships of starting a business are something outsiders can't understand; only Chen Jian, Zhou Ping, and a few others can truly grasp them. But they all desperately need Yan Hui. When Yan Hui returns, they can go back to what they were doing; when he leaves, they go crazy.

However, Yan Hui was already used to these things.

No matter how tired he is, he is still rich and has a future!
About a month passed, and Yan Hui had quickly set up his current team.

The first thing Yan Hui did was establish a plywood company, with Wang Yongjun as its legal representative. Yan Hui generously gave Wang Yongjun 15% of the company's shares, keeping 85% for himself. This means that of the company's current monthly profit of 150,000 yuan, Wang Yongjun would receive a dividend of 22,500 yuan. In addition, Wang Yongjun would continue to receive a monthly salary of 5000 yuan, but would no longer receive commissions.

Old Wang has finally made it through the tough times. In 2006, he earned a monthly income of nearly 3 yuan and had a lot of autonomy, which made things much easier for him when it came to reimbursement.

When Wang Yongjun heard Yan Hui's arrangement, he was completely stunned and almost hugged Yan Hui and cried. Most importantly, starting this month, the plywood business would no longer need to provide financial support to the chemical plant!
Yan Hui got another person from Wang Yongjun. This person was a relative of Wang Yongjun, and had worked for Wang Yongjun for more than two years. He was considered a very capable young man, and Yan Hui recruited him to the chemical plant as a workshop foreman.

The second thing is the internal restructuring of Yan Hui's company.

Several temporary buildings have already been erected in the company. Although they look unsightly and will be called "illegal buildings" in later generations, such buildings are permitted during the construction period, except that foundations cannot be laid. Yan Hui has added some dormitories, a canteen, and offices to these makeshift buildings.

There are 40 workers in the workshop, and currently there are two deputy workshop directors. The first is Hou Tianlei, a mechanical engineering graduate who graduated five years ago; the second is Sun Hao, a junior high school graduate, a very down-to-earth young man, 35 years old this year, who was one of the earliest technical workers to work with Yan Hui on building the house, and he can drive.

In the lab, Chen Jian's team has a total of 9 people, which is the same configuration as before: two PhDs, four master's students, and three undergraduates.

(End of this chapter)