Economic Wisdom to Apply in Your Twenties

Chapter 57

Chapter 7 Section 5 Who Holds the Information and Who Holds the Business Opportunities
A man in the antique business found a man who used a precious tea saucer as a cat food bowl, so he pretended to like the cat very much and wanted to buy it from the owner.The antique dealer bought the cat at a great price.Afterwards, the antique dealer pretended not to care and said, "This dish is used to it, so give it to me together." The cat owner quit: "Do you know how many cats I have sold with this dish?" ?”

The antique dealer never expected that the cat owner not only knew, but also took advantage of his mistake of "thinking the other party didn't know" and made a lot of money.

After reading this story, you can't help but smile, maybe you also admire the wisdom of the cat owner.But the first thing economists think of after reading this story is the great application of information economics.

The disadvantage caused by the lack of information is a dilemma that almost everyone faces, and it is also a problem we encounter in the process of starting a business.In today's information age, whoever masters the information will master the business opportunities.We have all heard the story of "the frog at the bottom of the well". Because the frog in the story does not understand the outside information, he thinks that the world is only "as big as the mouth of the well". .

Entrepreneurs who do not know how to grasp the information advantage are like frogs who "watch the sky from a well" and can only go to the end in the end.Entrepreneurs who can see the wider sky outside the well, with information, will not act blindly, can face the market from a more objective perspective, and better cope with fierce market competition.This is true not only in the field of investment, but also in business battles and interpersonal communication.

Ryoichi Ichimaru, general manager of Showa City Maru Transportation Co., Ltd., achieved success by focusing on collecting information and intelligence.

Ichimaru Ryoichi's company originated from the soy sauce shop of Ichimaru's family.Due to the small business, it was difficult to compete with big companies, so the soy sauce shop of the Ichimaru family had to change to the starch business and named it "Ichimaru Industry Company".At that time, Japan was in the recovery period after the war, and there was a great demand for starch. The raw material for making starch, sweet potatoes, was mainly produced in Kagoshima Prefecture in the south with a warm climate.Ichimaru Industrial Co., Ltd. has a "geographical advantage", and the company operates smoothly.Thanks to accurate market supply and demand information, "Ichimaru Industry" developed into a huge enterprise in just a few years, ranking third among Japanese starch companies.

Later, after Japan entered a period of rapid economic development, the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry of Japan decided to reduce the number of starch companies.After obtaining this accurate information in advance, Ryoichi Ichimaru, who had already become the general manager of the "Ichimaru Sangyo" company, made a decisive decision. In 1976, he bought 3 cars and switched to the taxi business.Ichimaru Ryoichi went all out to manage the business, and officially established the Ichimaru Transportation Company in just two years.By 1984, it had developed into the largest taxi company in Kyushu, with a total of 369 taxis.

While running the taxi business, Ryoichi Ichimaru discovered early on that the real estate industry was profitable, so he established "Ichimaru Shoji Company" and started the business of building and leasing apartments.He also took advantage of the 100th anniversary of the death of Takamori Saigo (a famous figure during the Meiji Restoration in Japan, born in Kajiya, Kagoshima) and his high prestige in the hearts of Kagoshima people to advertise his "Kajiya Apartment", The sales of its apartments are very smooth.

Ichimaru Ryoichi is such a business manager who is good at capturing information and analyzing the situation, and manages well.Ichimaru Shoji was at one point the largest apartment developer in Kagoshima.There is no doubt that it is inseparable from his collection of information and intelligence.

Business opportunities in modern society include politics, social atmosphere, cultural phenomena and many other aspects. The key is that we must learn how to collect and filter.For ordinary people, it is easy to find that the market has undergone major changes or provides major opportunities.Because the signs of these opportunities are obvious, the information is very suggestive.But what are the chances that such information will be captured by most people and actually belong to you?Therefore, if you want to find a unique way to find money-making opportunities, you must pay attention to the "small" information that most people ignore.

We often say that "buying is not as good as selling", which means that sellers generally have more information than buyers and become experts in their field.Therefore, every aspiring young man who wants to start a business should first pay attention to collecting social information and intelligence, predict new social needs in time, and take a step ahead in the fierce market competition.

Young people in their twenties are the emerging human beings in the information age, and the mastery of information is not a problem for them.Every young person nowadays can be called a computer expert, and it has become their habit to search on Baidu or Google for something.What needs to be reminded is that when faced with overwhelming information and links, what we need to improve is the ability to choose and reject information.It is not enough to use information alone. Only those who know how to correctly select, understand and use information can finally become successful entrepreneurs who have the last laugh.

Wisdom Pieces: How to Gather the Information You Need
1. Adopt.Subscription and purchase of newspapers, books, literature, etc.

2. Request, such as internally published newspapers, books and materials.

3. Exchanges, such as notifications, correspondence, and exchanges with colleagues at home and abroad.

4. On-site investigations, such as visits, meetings, technical exchanges, special investigations, etc.

(End of this chapter)