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Chapter 93 Standards for the Register of Meritorious Officials

In December, the winter in Guangzhou was damp and chilly, but the competition in the real estate brokerage market had entered a fierce and heated phase.

Shen Mo's annihilation campaign against Wanjia Real Estate, the local industry leader, quickly achieved a breakthrough, fueled by ample compensation and the promise of a bountiful harvest.

The rumors of Wanjia Real Estate's tight cash flow are not unfounded. The end of the year is a peak period for settlements, and coupled with the previous rapid expansion, the quarterly bonuses of several regional managers have been repeatedly delayed, causing unrest among the staff.

Shen Mo's headhunting team accurately captured this dissatisfaction and launched a decapitation-style poaching campaign against Wan Jia's general managers in the three core areas of Tianhe, Yuexiu, and Haizhu, as well as a total of 28 core store managers and top sales staff, with a trump card combination of double base salary + Anjia Tianxia's South China region excess profit sharing rights + priority qualification for future equity incentives.

The poaching process was swift and decisive. Within three days, all the target candidates had been secretly negotiated and submitted their resignation letters to Wan Jia on Saturday morning.

On Monday morning, when Wan Jia's store managers were preparing to open for business as usual, they were shocked to find that the shops across the street or next door, which used to belong to their competitors, had been replaced overnight with brand-new signs from Anjia Tianxia. And standing in the shops, wearing brand-new uniforms and smiling to greet customers, were their former colleagues and former leaders who had been smoking, drinking and cursing the company with them just yesterday!

Wanjia was instantly paralyzed. Business in its three core regions came to a near standstill, a large amount of customer and property information that was being followed up was taken away, the morale of the remaining employees collapsed, and rumors spread like wildfire.

The owner of Wanjia was furious. On the one hand, he urgently transferred people from other regions to fill the gaps, and on the other hand, he complained to the industry association and labor department that Anjia Tianxia was engaging in vicious competition and poaching competitors.

But Shen Mo was prepared. All the people he recruited strictly followed the resignation procedures, and their compensation was paid in a complicated manner, leaving no room for doubt.

When questioned by the industry association, she personally stepped forward, looking aggrieved, and said, "Market competition and talent mobility are normal. The platform and benefits offered by Anjia Tianxia are more attractive, and employees vote with their feet. We can't just turn them away, can we?"

As for unfair competition? All our stores operate in compliance with regulations, with clearly marked prices, and we welcome inspections at any time.

She even kindly suggested, "Shouldn't the association also be concerned about why so many excellent employees choose to leave Wan Jia? Is there some problem with their internal management or compensation system?"

His words were tactful yet pointed, leaving no room for argument. The association also knew that Wan Jia had significant problems, and it was difficult to characterize this matter as malicious competition. In the end, they could only try to smooth things over, asking both parties to exercise restraint and maintain the healthy development of the industry.

After this victory, Anjia Tianxia's number of stores in the core area of ​​Guangzhou exceeded 110, its market share soared, and it completely surpassed Wanjia, basically achieving its goal of 100 stores in Guangzhou.

Shen Mo's combination of blitzkrieg and annihilation tactics resulted in a textbook-perfect market cleanup.

However, the cost of victory was enormous. The compensation, relocation allowances, and signing bonuses paid to the poaching team, coupled with the expenses for quickly taking over and renovating the new stores, and the high salary packages promised to retain these former employees, resulted in a rare and alarming negative growth in the South China region's December profits. The CFO held the financial statements, his hands trembling.

"Mr. Shen, this month—our region's book loss is projected to exceed eight million." The CFO's voice was weak: "Although most of it is one-time investment, but—headquarters' quarterly performance review—"

Shen Mo stared at the glaring red numbers on the report, his expression unchanged: "Understood. This is a necessary strategic loss. We've taken the fattest piece of the pie from Wanjia, and in return, we've secured a stable market share for the next few years and a highly capable team. This deal is worthwhile!"

She paused, a decisive glint in her eyes: "Prepare the reports. Capitalize all these compensation payments, resettlement allowances, renovation costs for the new store, and deposits, and amortize them in installments."

In addition, a portion of the marketing expenses for Anjiaquan should be reasonably allocated to the first quarter of next year. In short, the December monthly report may look bad, but the consolidated financial statements for the entire fourth quarter must show a profit!

You're more knowledgeable than me about the specifics of the operation; I just want results. The profit in South China in Q4 cannot be lower than in Q3!

The CFO was sweating profusely; this required technical intervention. But looking into Shen Mo's unwavering gaze, he knew he had no choice: "I—I'll do my best."

"It's not just about trying, it's about having to," Shen Mo said coldly. "At the same time, notify all newly acquired stores and teams that starting tomorrow, everyone will enter a performance-driven hell mode! I want to see immediate sales! Convert the market share you take in into real money immediately!"

"If anyone messes up, forget about the bonus, I'll make them give back even the resettlement allowance they just received!"

Under intense pressure, the newly merged team unleashed astonishing fighting power. Perhaps to prove themselves worthy of the money they were paid, or perhaps inspired by Anjia Tianxia's more aggressive wolf-like culture, the transaction volume of second-hand homes in Guangzhou reached a new high at the end of the year, and Anjia Tianxia's market share continued to soar.

Shen Mo's annihilation campaign, through short-term, controllable bloodshed and extreme financial maneuvering, achieved tremendous strategic success.

She knew it was a huge gamble. If she won, she would have made a great contribution to the group's expansion; if she lost, or if the headquarters discovered flaws in her financial handling, she would be doomed.

She sent Lei Guoliang this technically processed Q4 profit forecast report, along with a detailed report on the soaring market share in Guangzhou.

At the end of the report, she wrote: "Sir, the battle for Guangzhou has achieved a decisive victory. Although we suffered minor losses, our gains have been extremely substantial. The newly recruited troops are in high spirits. All colleagues in the South China region will live up to expectations and make new contributions to the Group's goal of reaching 10 billion!"

She was gambling that Lei Guoliang wanted the result of expanding territory, not whether the process was completely compliant, and that he could understand and acquiesce to this necessary cost.

Unlike the fierce and bloody battles on Shen Mo's side, Su Wanqing's Deep Blue Project is progressing steadily and profoundly in Shanghai, but the fangs it reveals are equally frightening.

The number of clients signing up for the Shanghai No. 1 Butler Service has quietly increased to fifteen, and annual service fee revenue has exceeded 20 million yuan. This is not just commission, but a stable, high-profit-margin cash flow.

More importantly, through these top clients, Su Wanqing's influence began to penetrate a more secretive and powerful circle.

In mid-December, through the introduction of a low-profile tech upstart, Su Wanqing and the core members of her Xingyao team attended a private investment seminar on emerging industries in the Yangtze River Delta, held at a top-tier private club in Yushan, with no more than twenty people.

Attendees included top venture capital partners, founders of soon-to-be-listed tech companies, and several representatives from well-established industrial capital firms.

In this setting, Su Wanqing did not promote any real estate. In her capacity as Vice President and General Manager of East China Region of Anjia Tianxia Group, she delivered a 15-minute mini-report on the revaluation of high-end real estate in core cities of China and the asset allocation trends of emerging wealthy individuals.

Her presentation was detailed, logically sound, and insightful, especially her unique insights into the housing preferences of newly wealthy individuals such as tech elites and financial professionals. This resonated with many in the audience, who listened attentively and engaged in private conversations.

After the meeting, the two venture capital partners who attended the meeting approached Su Wanqing to discuss the possibility of collaborating on centralized housing solutions for the senior management teams of the companies invested by their respective funds.

A young founder of a mobile game company became very interested in the member of the Xingyao team who came from an investment banking background and was skilled in financial modeling. He jokingly asked if he would be interested in working part-time as his personal financial advisor.

Su Wanqing handled the situation calmly, neither overly enthusiastic nor impolite. She knew that she was implanting the brands of Anjia Tianxia and the Deep Blue Project into the minds of the wealthiest class in China with the greatest growth potential over the next decade.

The long-term value brought by this kind of niche positioning is far greater than the commission from a few transactions.

The six young members of the Xingyao team have grown rapidly under Su Wanqing's deliberate training and practical experience in high-end business.

That former Morgan Stanley genius, in his spare time, built a preliminary high-end residential property valuation and liquidity forecasting model for the Deep Blue Project, based on publicly available data and some internal information. Although rough, it has already shown great potential.

Former King & Wood Mallesons lawyers designed a rigorous yet flexible legal document system for concierge services to minimize potential risks.

Su Wanqing offered them not only high salaries and a promising future, but also tangible opportunities to engage with cutting-edge business practices and build top-tier networks.

These six people quickly became her most loyal and capable bodyguards. She began to consciously entrust them with some regional and strategic thinking, cultivating their overall perspective.

However, beneath the calm surface, undercurrents simmered. Within the East China region, some of Su Wanqing's long-time subordinates felt resentful and threatened by the fact that these newcomers to the Xingyao team were receiving salaries far exceeding their own, being involved in the core business, and even seemingly poised to take over.

Some gossip about President Su's fickle nature and the saying that outsiders are better at explaining things began to circulate in a small circle.

Su Wanqing keenly sensed this sentiment. Instead of suppressing it, she distributed the Xingyao team's model results and a report they had drafted on a strategy for penetrating the high-end market in second-tier cities in East China as meeting materials for discussion at an expanded meeting of the core management team in East China.

"The model still has many areas that need improvement, and the strategy is somewhat idealistic," Su Wanqing commented bluntly. "But the new perspectives and tools they bring are things that we older folks may lack."

As the group strives to achieve its 10 billion yuan self-financing target, we need people who can fight battles, and we also need people who can see the future map. Xingyao is part of the group's talent strategy and is also cultivating future leaders for our East China region.

Their value needs to be proven over a longer period and with more tangible results. Until then, I need you veteran colleagues to show your magnanimity and mentorship, and use your experience to help them put their ideas into practice.

His words affirmed Xingyao's value and the company's strategy, while also giving his former subordinates sufficient respect and establishing his role as a mentor. By combining both soft and hard approaches, he temporarily stabilized the internal situation.

But Su Wanqing knew that this integration and competition between the old and the new would be a long-term phenomenon, and would also be a continuous test of her management abilities.

In her quarterly report to Lei Guoliang, Su Wanqing elaborated on the progress of the Deep Blue Project, the integration of the Xingyao team, and the minor adjustments to internal management.

She didn't shy away from the questions, but instead emphasized the achievements and long-term value of the strategic plan. Finally, she attached a concise version of the 2006 East China high-end market trends and response strategies, produced by the Xingyao team, as a follow-up to her pledge of allegiance.

Her report was professional, rigorous, and full of strategic depth, which contrasted sharply with Shen Mo's battle report, which was full of the smell of gunpowder and the feeling of fighting to the death.

Two quarterly reports, each with a distinct style but substantial content, along with Lu Chaoyang's note about the anomalies in the financial data of the South China region and Ji Fanyin's analysis of the integration and incentive conflicts between new and old employees, were placed together on Lei Guoliang's desk.

The year-end headquarters in Shenzhen was filled with a complex atmosphere of reflection and anticipation. The halo of achievements intertwined with the shadow of problems, and the expansion of ambition clashed with the tightening of rules.

Lu Chaoyang's hint was tactful, but the implication was clear: "President Shen's actions in Guangzhou have yielded significant results, but his financial management has been rather aggressive. Some accounting arrangements that involve upfront costs and deferred revenue may affect the accuracy of current profits and create future amortization pressure. Please clarify, President Lei, whether this meets the risk control requirements for the Quality Year."

Ji Fanyin's report focuses more on people: "President Su's Xingyao Plan to introduce high-end talents is the right direction, but the high salary benchmark has already triggered the risk of imbalance in the internal compensation system."

Large-scale poaching in the South China region necessitates proactive measures to prevent issues such as new team integration and cultural clashes. Following the emergence of the "merit-based merit system," talent competition among various regions is escalating, requiring headquarters to clarify its rules and bottom lines.

Lei Guoliang spent an entire afternoon carefully reviewing these reports. Standing in front of the huge floor-to-ceiling window, overlooking the city he had helped shape, his mind was as clear as a mirror.

Su Wanqing and Shen Mo are like two weapons he has carefully crafted: one is a heavy sword without an edge, simple yet powerful; the other is a demonic blade, bloodthirsty and unpredictable.

They are all working hard to achieve their ambitious goals of making billions in their own ways, and in the process, they inevitably touch upon or even attempt to reshape the rules.

Shen Mo's financial skills and aggressive expansion are essentially gambling on short-term risks to gain long-term strategic advantages, which is a strong gamble, but it has indeed been effective. He needs to be disciplined, but not completely shut down, lest his momentum be dampened.

Su Wanqing's ecosystem building and talent hub are constructing a moat and engine for the company's future. The vision is grand, but the process is slower, and internal integration presents greater challenges. Support is needed, but it's also crucial to prevent her team from prematurely forming a closed-off "Su family army."

As for the desires and conflicts sparked by the merit-based system, that was exactly the effect he wanted—to use the immense uncertainty of the future to drive the current certainty of striving. But the heat needs to be controlled; it can't really escalate into internal strife.

He sat back down at his desk and began drafting the year-end policy document.

First, he replied to Lu Chaoyang: "The risk control principle is unwavering. Regarding the financial handling in the South China region, we can propose rectification measures and set a deadline for adjustments. However, the evaluation of its work should take into account both market results and strategic contributions."

Quality refers not only to clean financial data, but also to a solid market position.

They upheld the bottom line of risk control, acknowledged Shen Mo's achievements, and gave her a chance to make improvements instead of directly negating her.

Next, he instructed Ji Fanyin: "The compensation system needs to be dynamically adjusted. A special zone for strategic talent can be established, allowing for flexible compensation for top talent, but it must be linked to clear and quantifiable long-term performance."

The evaluation criteria for recognizing meritorious service recipients should increase the weight given to team building and talent development.

This not only gave the green light to Su Wanqing's Star Glory Plan, but also emphasized long-term performance orientation and internal self-sufficiency, implicitly containing checks and balances.

Then, he personally drafted a group announcement: "Notice on the 2005 Annual Summary and Commendation and the Strategic Direction for 2006".

In the announcement, he affirmed the outstanding performance throughout the year, specifically praising the East China and South China regions, among other excellent regions. However, he also explicitly stated for the first time that financial health, talent development, and compliance and risk control levels would be included in the annual comprehensive evaluation of each region, and would be strongly linked to annual performance evaluations and future long-term incentive eligibility.

More importantly, at the end of the announcement, a draft for comments was attached, which for the first time disclosed several core principles of the Group's long-term incentive plan for core contributors.

1. The incentive recipients are core employees who continuously create outstanding value for the group.

2. Value assessment will establish a multi-dimensional, quantifiable, and dynamically adjustable contribution evaluation model.

3. Incentives will primarily take the form of equity, deeply tied to the company's long-term value growth.

4. Any behavior that poses a significant compliance risk, results in loss of team management control, or harms the company's interests will disqualify the candidate from participating.

There were no specific numbers, no clear list, only vague yet strict principles. But this was like casting the vague shadow of a register of merits into everyone's mind, adding a few cold, hard lines for entry.

Once this announcement was made, everyone understood: the boss's promise of a multi-billion dollar pie was real, but the knife for dividing the pie was held very tightly, and the rules were extremely strict.

Going forward, we must not only compete on performance, but also on health, vision, and longevity.

Upon receiving the notice and Lu Chaoyang's rectification suggestions, Shen Mo took a deep breath, knowing that his skills had been discovered, but the boss had given him a way out.

She immediately ordered the finance department to adjust the reports according to the headquarters' requirements, and at the same time, she worked even harder to collect payments and ensure that profits were realized before the end of the year.

Su Wanqing understood the message upon seeing it, especially the hints about the strategic talent zone and the importance of team building. Her boss supported her direction but also reminded her to pay attention to internal balance and long-term output.

She began to develop detailed performance-based agreements for Star Shine members and to plan for the skill enhancement and job transfer of veteran employees.

The last month of 2005 drew to a close amidst the smoke of battle, the struggles, the adjustments, and the prospects.