Rebirth 03: Starting a Business After Giving Up a Secure Job

Chapter 135 Nationwide Recruitment of Station Managers (Part 2)

Guo Jian explained, "There are too many pain points with newspaper classification. The typesetting cycle is long, and if you change a single word, you have to wait until the next day to re-typeset. The amount of information is limited by the page space, and if you want to publish an extra piece of information, you have to spend the money of an extra page."

Most importantly, users cannot actively search; they have to search line by line through a densely packed page of small font.

The cost of solving these problems via the Internet is virtually zero.

"So later, you went to Jinghua Information Network?"

"Yes. When they first approached me, they promised to create a classifieds platform covering all areas of Beijing, bringing all of the newspaper classification logic online, and adding search and region-based filtering functions."

But after two years, they haven't expanded beyond Beijing. The main reason is that the team lacks experience in on-the-ground sales and believes online traffic can solve everything. However, in the classifieds industry, offline information collection and verification are the foundation.

Lin Feng looked at Guo Jian.

"What do you think should be the first step for a local life services website to launch in Beijing?"

"It's not about calling GG or holding a press conference; it's about scanning the bulletin boards of all the street offices within the Third Ring Road."

Guo Jian pulled a map of Beijing's urban area from his briefcase and spread it on the table. The map was marked with street names, government agencies, key enterprises, and universities within its jurisdiction.

"The capital city is completely different from Shenzhen." He drew a north-south line on the map with his index finger.

"Shenzhen is a city of immigrants, with the vast majority of its population being migrants. Their information needs are concentrated on job seeking and settling down."

The traditional courtyard culture is deeply ingrained in Beijing; many street bulletin boards are tied to community service centers, and outsiders need the neighborhood committee's approval to post even a simple notice. To ensure the authenticity and completeness of information, the neighborhood committee's trust must first be gained.

"From newspapers to the internet, the medium of communication has changed, but the source of information hasn't changed. It's still people. Not people sitting in offices making phone calls, but people walking the streets and alleys, talking to people face to face."

After the interview, Lin Feng had a very high opinion of Guo Jian and took the initiative to shake hands with him, but did not immediately respond.

When I came out of the coffee shop, the snow had stopped. There were few people and vehicles on Zhongguancun South Street, and a few bicycles were leaning against the trees under the streetlights.

Lin Feng stood by the roadside for a moment, tucking his scarf into his collar.

Zhou Zhongcheng followed from behind, and Lin Feng said to him, "Guo Jian's familiarity with the local market in Beijing, his understanding of the classifieds industry, and his experience in leading teams are all excellent. Of course, there are other candidates to meet, and we will make a final decision after we have met them all."

The next morning, at another coffee shop, Zhou Zhongcheng arranged to meet Xiang Chao.

The other person walked in carrying a black laptop bag and wearing a dark gray sweater.

[At this point, I hope readers will remember our domain name: 202ᴋᴋs.ᴄᴏᴍ]

"I'm Xiang Chao, from Sohu's Classifieds GG Channel."

His resume is impressive: he graduated from the Computer Science Department of Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, worked at Sohu for three years, and rose from a business development specialist to the head of the category GG channel.

The headhunter's information stated that he had increased the number of partner merchants for Sohu's Classifieds GG channel by several orders of magnitude. However, the first thing the headhunter said after sitting down made Lin Feng's opinion waver.

"Mr. Lin, I've looked at your Shenzhen website. To be honest, the interface is too outdated. Beijing users have high aesthetic standards for websites, so you need to redesign the UI. I suggest changing the homepage feed to a waterfall layout, adding city illustrations, and prioritizing online traffic to build brand awareness."

"What about the ground promotion team?" Lin Feng stared at him.

"We purchase information from local real estate agencies and recruitment market data service providers. Collecting information ourselves is too inefficient and too costly."

After hearing these words, Lin Feng felt a chill in his heart.

By entrusting information collection to a third party, you not only lose access to firsthand market information, but you may also become held hostage by the third party in the long run.

After Xiang Chao left, Zhou Zhongcheng muttered to himself, "This guy understands internet technology, but he doesn't understand classifieds."

.

Lin Feng shook his head, indicating he wouldn't consider it. He then instructed Zhou Zhongcheng to reply to Xiang Chao's headhunter that same afternoon.

Zhou Zhongcheng received a phone call, and after hanging up, he reported to Lin Feng that he had arranged to meet with Xu Guoliang in Shanghai the next afternoon.

Liu Zhigang from Jiangcheng had already had his initial phone interview. The headhunter and Zhou Zhongcheng's assessment was that he "understands information gathering and is eloquent, but has never properly led a sales team."

Lin Feng told him to submit a preliminary expansion plan for Jiangcheng Station for review.

The flight from Beijing to Shanghai starts at around 7 a.m.

After takeoff, Zhou Zhongcheng took out a document from his bag and handed it to Lin Feng. It was Xu Guoliang's complete resume, sent by a headhunter, with an attached introduction to his performance at Zhaopin.com's Shanghai branch last year.

When the plane landed at Hongqiao Airport, a strong wind was blowing in Shanghai. The crosswind blowing from the Huangpu River poured into the arrival hall from the runway.

After getting off the plane, Zhou Zhongcheng contacted the headhunter to confirm the meeting place. They agreed to meet at a teahouse downstairs in Xujiahui, not far from Jiaotong University.

As the taxi exited Hongqiao and drove onto the elevated road, the alleyways along the street were lined with densely packed real estate agency signs.

The red sign with yellow lettering displayed the monthly rent and selling price, followed by a string of exclamation marks, covering all the utility poles and roller shutters along the street.

Shanghai was one of the first cities in China to market its real estate market. As early as the late 1990s, public housing could be traded on the market. The density of second-hand housing agencies and rental agencies is more than an order of magnitude higher than that of Shenzhen.

In Shenzhen, three "For Rent" signs are posted at the entrance of a residential building; in Shanghai, you can see seventeen or eighteen listings at the end of an alley.

This means that if Tongcheng.com wants to do house rentals in Shanghai, it will not be dealing with scattered landlords, but with a dense network of real estate agencies.

The taxi turned onto a narrow road near Xujiahui, lined with plane trees on both sides. Behind the trees were several old villas, interspersed with newly built office buildings.

The teahouse where I met Xu Guoliang was an inconspicuous two-story building with a wooden sign hanging at the entrance. Pushing open the glass door, the aroma of tea mixed with sandalwood wafted out.

A man of medium build stood up from a booth against the wall. He had short hair, wore a dark blue suit, his white shirt was unbuttoned at the top and he wasn't wearing a tie, and his leather shoes were polished to a shine; he looked like he had just finished a sales meeting.

A cup of untouched Tieguanyin tea sits on the table.

"Excuse me, are you Mr. Lin? I am Xu Guoliang." He extended his hand, and the two shook hands warmly.

Lin Feng sat down opposite him, while Zhou Zhongcheng sat down beside him and took out his notebook.

Without exchanging pleasantries, Xu Guoliang produced a sales area division map of Zhaopin.com's Shanghai branch and several quarterly KPI assessment sheets, which were densely marked with the number of companies, signing rate, and payment cycle in each region.

Then, a road map of Shanghai's urban area was unfolded, with red lines drawn from the outer ring road to the XH district, and from Lujiazui in Pudong New Area to Zhangjiang Functional Area.

He said he had been with Zhilian for three years, managing two sales departments simultaneously: the large account department and the small and medium-sized merchant expansion team.

The Shanghai job market is dominated by three companies: 51job, Zhaopin, and ChinaHR. Last year, Zhaopin increased its market share in Shanghai from single digits to second place, second only to 51job.

He said his method was clumsy: he divided each of Shanghai's dozen or so districts into sales grids, with the large customer department focusing on foreign companies and large state-owned enterprises, and the small and medium-sized merchant expansion department focusing on street shops and office buildings. He held a summary meeting once a week for each grid.

"Shanghai is different from Shenzhen." He pointed to the map. "Shenzhen is clearly divided into the inner and outer areas of the city. Longhua Bantian, where Foxconn and Huawei are located, is a concentrated area of ​​industrial parks. Nanshan Science and Technology Park is a concentration of Internet and communication companies. Urban village rental houses are highly concentrated in Baishizhou, Dachong, Shangxiasha."

Shanghai's industries are fragmented. There are factories in Caohejing and Gaoqiao, pharmaceutical valleys and chip factories in Zhangjiang, the Lujiazui financial district is one cluster, high-rise residential buildings and old apartments around the Xujiahui business district are another, and the university area in Wujiaochang is yet another.

The logic of the job market is that companies are where people are; the logic of the rental market is more complex because Shanghai residents consider not only proximity to their workplace when renting, but also school districts, subway access, and whether the old alleyways will be demolished.

Lin Feng asked Xu Guoliang to talk about how to promote the local online platform "Shanghai Station" in the city.

Xu Guoliang said that he had just left Zhaopin.com and had an existing sales structure that would allow him to achieve full coverage of the recruitment sector in a short period of time.

Lin Feng interrupted him, saying that Tongcheng Life Network is not a recruitment website. It's not enough to open up the market with just one recruitment section. There are at least three other sections that need to be developed.

Xu Guoliang lowered his head and thought for a while, then picked up a pen and drew a few lines on the map of Shanghai.

He said that there are many small and medium-sized job placement agencies near Shanghai Railway Station in Zhabei and Putuo districts, and they are filled with job seekers every morning. He can lead his sales team to visit each one.

In Huangpu and Xuhui districts, landlords still rely on neighborhood committee bulletin boards and handwritten flyers from tobacco and paper shops at the entrance of alleys to provide rental information. It is necessary to cultivate good relationships with the local neighborhood committees and gradually build trust.

The most difficult sector is domestic service. Shanghai's old city has a high aging population, and there is a great demand for elderly care and live-in caregivers, but the supply side is tightly controlled by local domestic service companies and community service centers, making it difficult for outsiders to get involved.

"I've been with Zhaopin for three years, and I have connections with talent markets and employment agencies in various districts. These agencies also have a lot of employers' rental information. As long as we can open up the recruitment channel first, rental information will naturally follow, and second-hand goods can also be introduced naturally."

Zhou Zhongcheng asked from the side if there were any specific ideas about the housekeeping sector.

Xu Guoliang thought for a moment and suggested using the community service center as a starting point. The Tianping Road Subdistrict Community Service Center was where his relative worked, allowing him to speak directly with the center's director.

Another is the employment service station in Quyang Road Subdistrict. He had collaborated with Zhaopin.com to organize two community job fairs.

Another one is the labor service center in Huamu Town, Pudong, which is a service point he and his team have provided on-site services to. Each service center has a sign indicating the cooperation intention and the progress stage.

"It's hard to build trust online for domestic services. Older women in Shanghai trust people more than websites. But if you can get community service centers involved to endorse them, they're more willing to post information about nannies and cleaners online."

The community service center itself lacks beds and funds, so we helped them set up an online community service column—free of charge—to display their cleaning and caregiving information online, thus creating the first batch of domestic service providers.

Lin Feng lowered his head and pondered for a while before speaking.

"At Shanghai Station, Tongcheng Life Network aims to be a comprehensive local life information service platform covering all industries. We currently have four sections in Shenzhen: rentals, recruitment, secondhand goods, and housekeeping. Let me explain the core approach of these four sections to you."

He recounted the entire process of Shenzhen starting from scratch.

The housing rental section emphasized the differences in strategies between individual listings and listings from businesses and agencies; the talent recruitment section introduced the "assignment of areas to individuals and responsibility to households" approach; and the secondhand goods section focused on the inspection point system and the three-part graduation season program.

Xu Guoliang was deeply inspired after listening to this.

"Mr. Lin, are you suggesting that to make the Shanghai station a success, the ground sales team must sweep through every alley, every residential area, and every office building, instead of using the existing sales network of selling resume databases and job postings?"

Lin Feng looked at him without saying anything, and Xu Guoliang continued the conversation himself.

"I can lead the sales team to fill the gap in the recruitment section, but I currently don't have enough human resources for the rental, second-hand and housekeeping sections."

I need to recruit heads of three sectors locally, and at the same time, I need to transfer several regional managers I brought out from Zhaopin to become field sales team leaders for their respective sectors.

My core value lies in three points: First, to get into the market, my existing commercial user data and intermediary resources can enable the recruitment section to start generating revenue within three months;

Secondly, I understand the characteristics of Shanghai. If you want to do street canvassing, I know where to recruit people and how to canvass each block.

Third, I had already secured a batch of resources for the community service centers in the housekeeping sector, which is at least six months faster than starting from scratch.

Lin Feng asked Xu Guoliang to share his initial ideas for launching Tongcheng Life Network in Shanghai.

Xu Guoliang replied that he would register the company and rent an office before the end of the year.

The recruitment will be conducted in three batches. The first batch of core team members will be finalized before the Lunar New Year, mainly selected from the regional managers he has worked with at Zhilian. The second batch will be recruited on the eighth day of the Lunar New Year, mainly recruiting field promotion team leaders and online operations. The third batch will be expanded after the data from the first batch is available.

The four sectors cannot be launched simultaneously. First, focus manpower on the two high-frequency sectors of recruitment and housing rental, and only launch the second-hand goods and housekeeping services sectors after the information volume has reached a certain density.

"The Shanghai real estate market developed earlier than Shenzhen's. In Shanghai, we are dealing with real estate agencies on entire streets. Instead of having our sales representatives rush to each agency and get turned away, we should first secure the listings from the agencies."

Real estate agents don't care if you're from Shenzhen or started locally; they only care about one thing: whether you can bring them rental clients.

The existing traffic and university student users on the local life website in Shenzhen can be leveraged by importing some cross-city users from Guangzhou and Shenzhen, as well as university student union resources from Chengdu, when the website launches in Shanghai. Real estate agencies, seeing genuine customer visits, will proactively add their property listings to the Shanghai site.

Xu Guoliang's point is very practical. In a market saturated with real estate agencies, starting with university students allows the strategies employed during Shenzhen's graduation season to be replicated in Shanghai.

By attracting college students through the trading of second-hand textbooks and postgraduate entrance exam materials, and then simultaneously launching special rental events for graduates to concentrate user traffic on the platform, the platform is forced to attract middlemen to intervene.

"Okay. I have no further questions. Manager Zhou will discuss the specific salary and start date with you."