Volume 7: Doing Business with the World Chapter 208 Isaac, the Internet Celebrity
"Last quarter, our best-selling sauce was fermented bean paste."
In the large conference room of the Fire Department, Hongye who rushed back from the hilly new area for a meeting, the gray dwarf Baru, Xia, Qingyan, Rosemary, Chief Arthur who rushed back from the cat farm, Qiu, the goblin Gar, the centaur Sel, the green dragon Balk, the Grassroots Chief who rushed back from the MSG factory, Qingcao who came back from the snake department and the python elder Gustav, Lan Guo who rushed back from the sweet red fruit planting new area, Chief Ali who was inspecting the progress of work everywhere, warrior captain Yu, farm union president Dashui and other high-level officials of the Fire Department gathered together.
Seven years have passed. From a group of idiots who had to mix mud and make bricks by themselves, to a group of talented people who can at least hold up the stage and support the scene, the ups and downs of the process are really hard to describe even if I exhaust my writing skills...
Well, Xiao Yun doesn’t have the time to be sentimental about literature and art. Business is more important.
"In the past few years, we have developed more than ten kinds of sauces, including barbecue sauce, honey sauce, ketchup, garlic sauce, etc. Looking at the five major markets that have been developed and mature, namely the Forest Elves, Dark Elves, Dwarf Kingdom, St. Bridge, and Robins Knight Territory, which will be launched this year, apart from the soy sauce and vinegar that are the main products in the Forest Elves and Dwarf Kingdom markets, the most popular is bean paste."
The Snow Elf's market was not mentioned because the number and variety of products purchased by the Snow Elf has remained stable over the years... It's really better not to mention it.
"Our goal is to develop a mature product dumping ground to sell our agricultural products, non-staple foods, and low-end industrial products. So when a certain product has a very high sales volume, we must study why the sales volume of this product has been increasing steadily and why other products have not achieved such a hot sales level."
After a pause, Xiao Yun pulled out a piece of paper from the folder and clipped it to the small blackboard beside him. He pointed at the graph of last quarter's shipments and said, "For example, the ketchup we have high hopes for. It stands to reason that sweet and sour tastes are the most popular flavors, but the ketchup we sell is not even as good as the barbecue sauce, which has the smallest market share. Why is that?"
"I know that." Xia raised his hand and said, "Our barbecue sauce uses a heat-processing process and contains rich ingredients such as salt, garlic, ginger, and chili peppers. Because of its strong taste, it can still be used even if it is slightly spoiled. It is very popular among adventurers, travelers, long-distance caravans, and people who go on long trips."
"Well, go on." Xiao Yun encouraged.
Xia really likes this feeling of being the center of attention, and said excitedly: "In comparison, although ketchup is the most popular sweet and sour flavor, it is consumed too quickly and is inconvenient to carry in large quantities. In addition, it cannot replace traditional seasonings. It only has a market among forest elves and a few humans, so it is naturally not as good as barbecue sauce."
Qingyan rolled his eyes slightly, but the Grassroots Chief seemed to be reminded by Xia's words and perked up: "Wait, strong taste? If I remember correctly, the sales of bean paste are getting higher the further south you go?"
"Yes." Snow Flower, the chief financial officer of the tribe, said, "The forest elves, the dwarf kingdom, and the dark elves purchased less than 50 tons of bean paste in the last quarter. Knight Robins sold about 200 tons of bean paste, and Saint Bridge took away a full 500 tons of bean paste from the elf port."
The sauce is not like vermicelli which is consumed very quickly, so the number measured in hundreds of tons is indeed astonishing.
The people of this world were not used to using sauces with multiple ingredients for seasoning, nor were they used to cooking. Xiao Yun had been tirelessly advertising in "Food Hunter's Travels" for several years, and had used "fried bean paste to make red oil" to flood the screen countless times. If those who could afford "Mainland Travels" could resist trying it, Xiao Yun would respect them as real men.
Except for a very small number of literary youths or those with conflicts of interest, there are actually not many people who really care about and adhere to "traditional tastes"... Cultivating eating habits is not a problem at all. Haven't you seen that Xiao Yun has taught the forest elves to eat lettuce and turn it into a cold dish?
"That's right!" The Grassroots Chief slapped his thigh. "The further south you go, the shorter the shelf life of food. In summer, fresh meat on our grassland will only go bad after three days. In Valentine, if it is not sealed in the cellar, it will go bad in two days. If it reaches St. Bridges, it will go bad in one day. Doubanjiang has a strong flavor and can effectively cover up the spoilage of ingredients. Naturally, the sales volume increases the further south you go."
"Really ? When we went to St. Bridges, I seemed to have heard people there say that the food they eat in the summer is often spoiled." Chief Ali said, touching his chin.
"So it seems that last year's bean paste was sold the most in the summer and autumn." Lan Guo interjected.
"Yes, I wouldn't have noticed it until it was mentioned." Other executives echoed.
Xiao Yun smiled and waited until everyone understood thoroughly before speaking: "From the sales of sauces, we can clearly see that the most important part of the product sales process is market demand. Only when there is a market demand will people pay for the products we provide. So considering the market demand, everyone, where should we reasonably promote the new products in our Qiuling New District?"
Hongye & Baru from the Hilly New District were cheered up, as this is an important issue closely related to the wealth value they created.
The executives discussed among themselves for a while, and Qingcao raised his hand first.
Xiao Yun was a little surprised, but still encouraged: "Come to Qingcao and tell me what you think."
Qingcao said confidently: "I heard from my friends in the Snake Department about the situation in the southern country of the Human Kingdom. I think that if our Hilly New District wants to export low-end industrial products to the Southern Kingdom, the products we are currently producing are not suitable."
"Oh?!" Hongye and Baru looked at her in shock.
"There are many mountains in the southern countries, with dense water networks and scattered land, unlike our grasslands where large tracts of farmland are connected. Tractor-driven machines, seeders, and harvesters cannot be used on their land." Qingcao is really confident about this. Having never left the grassland, she is also curious about the outside world. The snake tribe that has lived in the southern kingdom for more than ten years is her window to understand the outside world. When she heard that the land in the southern countries was scattered and cut into all kinds of strange shapes, she was particularly surprised.
Chief Cao Gen and Chief A Li, who had seen Elliot Palace, Holmes Kingdom and St. Bridge with their own eyes, were stunned and said at the same time: "That's right! The fields there are not as big as ours. If we use a tractor, we can't turn around!"
Xiao Yun looked at Elder Gustav, who had been acting cautiously since he entered the room, with appreciation... After fighting wits and courage with the snake clan for a long time, Qingcao has become smarter, which is very good.
"So... dark elves don't farm, forest elves live in the forest, and the dwarf kingdom is mostly mountainous and has many valleys. We can't sell our farm tools there?" Hongye frowned.
"We can still sell it to Valentine." The Grassroots Chief consoled him. "We have seen Valentine and Bolton. The land is flat and the farmland there is not much smaller than ours."
Chief A Li also said, "We can sell water pumps to the Dwarf Kingdom and the southern countries, especially the Dwarf Kingdom. Aren't they building terraced fields according to A Yun's travel notes? How can pumping water be as convenient as using a dirt water truck?"
The water pumping technology used by the engineering team and the mine in the hilly new district for many years is quite mature, and this time when they are selling agricultural machinery, the water pumping technology was also included.
"Yeah, that's right. Our water pumps can be sold to the Dwarf Kingdom." Baru's eyes lit up and he nodded repeatedly.
As a gray dwarf, Baru has a grudge against the dwarven kingdom similar to Isaac's grudge against his family...
Hongye smiled bitterly and said, "The structure of a water pump is much simpler than that of a tractor. If the Dwarf Kingdom buys our water pumps, they will only buy a batch at most..."
Baru was choked suddenly - there is no such thing as a technical patent that prohibits imitation in this world!
"It doesn't matter. We are now selling the first generation of piston pumps. If they are copied, they are copied. Once we produce centrifugal and axial flow pumps, it will not be so easy to copy them." Xiao Yun said with a smile, "For example, the sauces we sell, aren't there people who reverse engineer the formula and copy them? But we are large-scale production and self-sufficient in all raw materials. No one can compete with us in price wars, so we are still the leader in sauces."
Everyone nodded in agreement and was very calm... Corporate culture confidence and so on, ahem, Xiao Yun had put a lot of effort into this aspect.
"Then, in addition to the goods delivered to Robbins Knight this quarter, we will include our tractor heads and the matching triangular pears, seed drills, harvesters, etc. As for the agricultural machinery market in southern countries, it does not mean that we have no chance to play. We can produce a batch of curved plows that can be operated by one person, small seed drills, harvesters, light threshers, threshers, etc. according to the needs of southern countries."
After a pause, Xiao Yun looked at the big cats and said, "Chief Arthur, Xia, how is the inventory of woven handicrafts produced by the two farms?"
Cat Farm No. 1 added three tribes this year, plus the thirteen tribes of Farm No. 2, a total of twenty cat tribes are now following the Fire Tribe. In order to make the big cats not want to get off after getting on their boat, the Fire Tribe did not forget to lend a hand to the little brothers when doing business.
The big cats are clever and have good aesthetic sense. The colorful plastic beads produced by the Fire Department's plastic processing factory are given to the big cats to string beads by hand... bracelets, beaded door curtains, bed curtains and even woven beaded lace, etc., which can not only make extra money but also squeeze the big cats' remaining time to the limit, so that they don't have to think about trivial things.
Qiuqiu's woolen mill garment workshop originally only had the pattern to look at (copied from the Forest Elf garments), but with the addition of beaded lace and other embellishments, its popularity has greatly increased...
"Don't worry, the quality is guaranteed." Patriarch Arthur said with a smile.
"Okay, then everyone should go back and prepare well, sort and pack the goods of their respective departments, and we will start sending them to the Elf Port tonight, and try to load them on the ship within three days." Xiao Yun clapped his hands.
Those in the department who had goods to be shipped out nodded in agreement.
Xiao Yun looked at the Centaur Sail again: "The sales of goods exhibited in Isaac's Knight Territory have reached a bottleneck in the past six months. If we want to increase sales again, we have to work hard on service. Isaac and I are thinking of setting up a professional delivery team in Robins Knight Territory. The first step is to ensure that we can deliver goods to customers within the Kingdom of Kronin. Sail, are you interested?"
The Centaur Cel was kneeling at the back of the crowd. As a representative of his race, he attended every formal meeting, but he was very conscious of just making up the numbers and never spoke...
After all, the Centaurs were not a race suitable for farming - even the Snow Wolf People didn't need them much for pulling plows - the Centaurs' position in the Fire Tribe's production and construction undertakings had always been awkward.
When Xiao Yun called out his name, Sai Er was stunned for a long time before he reacted. He raised his finger and pointed at his nose: "Me?"
"Yes, for the land transport team, who could be more suitable than you Centaurs?" Xiao Yun said encouragingly, "How about it, do you have the confidence to do this?"
"Okay!" Saier didn't even ask for details, and answered in seconds - he and his people had been eating free meals in the Fire Tribe for long enough! As a traditional fighting race in the Northern Continent, this was not glorious at all.
Xiao Yun smiled and nodded. He liked this kind of straightforward person...
Even though the Centaurs were beaten badly by the Tiger Tribe and almost wiped out, they are not weaklings... Even if they were a weak race, they would not be able to survive in the cursed land for so many years.
They have their own horsepower (...) and talent for cavalry warfare. As long as they are not allowed to deal with groups of tiger warriors or group-attack snow wolf warriors, they are still very capable!
Of course, Xiao Yun asked them to take charge of the transport team. There is another reason that cannot be mentioned - these guys are ugly enough, so ugly that they can be very topical. On the way to deliver goods, they don’t have to do anything and can get the publicity work done... cough cough cough!
After dealing with Sai Er, Xiao Yun turned his attention to Yu: "Maomao, have you seen the armor that Hongye and the others sent? What do you think of it?"
"Very good." Yu nodded vigorously, happily casting loving glances at Hongye and Baru...
The Fire Tribe originally couldn't afford armor - even if they had their own gray dwarves, the cost of creating a set of armor from chain mail lining to alloy armor outer layer would not be less than thirty gold coins, which is almost equivalent to wearing a house on your body.
The upper limit of military power in this world is quite high. Ordinary fine steel armor can barely block ordinary human swords. If a fake second-level knight like Isaac comes along, he can pierce the fine steel armor with a charged attack...
In order to obtain armor with protective power, from the inner chainmail to the outer layer of armor, special alloys mixed with magic mineral powder must be used, and materials from demon beasts or monsters are also needed to increase the magic resistance. The cost is out of control - for example, Carlisle's younger brother Dan Claudy, his knight armor can't be bought without a hundred gold coins! And that's not even high-end goods!
The half-body armor that Carlisle was wearing cost upwards of a thousand gold coins...
To equip all 500 soldiers of the Fire Department with medium-level armor, the Fire Department would have to save up money for two years...
Xiao Yun had to spend this money no matter how hard he tried to save it. This was money that was really spent on the most important things. While Sean was working in the Fire Department to research pneumatic engine technology, Primo, his old friend, was out there running around the world, looking for cheap and good quality armor materials...
"Now that the armor is in place, we can go to Knight Robins' Territory to meet the audience." Xiao Yun said happily, "Have you decided which two teams to choose?"
After arming your own warriors, it is naturally time to show off your muscles.
But this flexing of muscles requires technique. You have to let others know that you can fight, but you can't let others think that you just want to fight you, or that you're just hitting you to boost your reputation. You have to be mindful of the limits.
How to peacefully show the muscles of the Snow Wolf Tribe and the Grassland Tribe? Xiao Yun came up with a rather peaceful idea - to hold a Snow Wolf Tribe football (American football/rugby) exhibition match in the Robins Knight Territory.
The only competitive sports in this world with the widest audience and the largest number of participants are human polo and the hundred-man gladiatorial contests popular in the Far East. The former is not considered as the latter is too unskilled. When Xiao Yun was thinking about what sport to let the soldiers play to kill the remaining time in training, he chose American football without much hesitation - the rules are simple enough, the confrontation is strong enough, and the impact is fierce enough!
When the warriors played without armor, the scene of twenty-two muscular men colliding with each other was extremely shocking and was welcomed by all tribes of the Fire Tribe... Taking the exhibition match to Isaac's Knight Territory can not only show the protective power of the Snow Wolf Tribe's armor, but also show off the absolutely powerful muscles of the Snow Wolf Tribe's warriors.
"Since we are going to perform, Xiaohua and I will go." Yu said without much thought, "Leave A Tian, A Yan and the others to look after the house."
"Okay, then you should get ready and board the ship with Sail and the others in three days." Xiao Yun made the decision.
"Ayun, Ayun, I want to go too!" Qingcao raised her hand with all her strength. "I'll bring Ruhua back with me when I come back, okay?"
Xiao Yun first glanced at Elder Gustav: "It's not impossible... Is the work of the Snake Department a problem?"
Elder Gustav looked ashamed and lowered his head even more - as someone who had attended the Fire Tribe's meetings quite often, he knew very well what the problems of the Snake Tribe were. However, he knew the problems existed but did not have the courage to solve them. Every time they discussed serious matters, the Snake Tribe had to give him special treatment, which made him lose face.
The Grassroots tribe leader laughed and said, "If Qingcao wants to go, let her go. A Li can just watch over the Snake Department's work group for her."
This statement was very considerate of Elder Gustav's face, and Gustav looked at the grassroots chief with gratitude.
Chief Ali said indifferently: "That's fine, I don't have anything to do recently."
The Fire Department is currently in its rising phase, and there is really not much room for Chief Li to work on discipline inspection and production promotion.
"Okay." Xiao Yun nodded, "Then let's continue to discuss the sales of vermicelli in the second half of the year."
The sleepy Balk immediately perked up, this place was related to him.
Vermicelli, which is sold all over the world for its cheapness, convenience and easy storage, has no problem of not being able to find a market. As long as it can be produced, it can be sold...the key issue is in which direction to sell it.
The Dwarf Kingdom is still exchanging fire with the Dark Elves & Tiger Tribe coalition. Both sides are big customers of the Fire Ministry, but the vermicelli sold to the Dwarf Kingdom has to pass through an extra hand from the forest elves.
Why not just establish a trading channel? This involves the strategic layout of the northern continent. The dumping of vermicelli, which has increased to 30 million kilograms this year, will definitely hit the grain market of the Dwarf Kingdom. When the Dwarf King comes to his senses, it will be bad if he vents his anger on the Fire Tribe!
So, we must share the profits with the forest elves, and let the forest elves help the Fire Department bear this risk...
The Dwarf Kingdom may not realize this when it is busy fighting, but once the war situation stabilizes a little and the private economic circulation returns to normal, the bankrupt Dwarf farmers will definitely make the Dwarf King anxious - after Mexican farmers were massively bankrupted by the North American Free Trade Agreement, the Mexican government's predicament has not been resolved for many years!
Of course, this doesn't mean that Xiao Yun is bent on making things difficult for the Dwarf King. As the saying goes, make friends with those far away and attack those near. Xiao Yun still wants to make friends with the Dwarf King... It's just that the size gap between the two sides is too big, so he has to take a roundabout way.
The dwarf king realized that he was tricked by the forest elves, and now was a good time for Xiao Yun to extend the claw of friendship~!
As the saying goes, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. If the tiger tribe had not yet broken free from the control of the Beast King, Xiao Yun would also have the idea of establishing a relationship with the tiger tribe... ahem.
Half a month later, Knight Robins took over the private port.
Isaac, full of high spirits, stood on the dock with Alex, his knight brothers and other friends. Ruhua stood up with her tongue out and lay on Isaac's shoulder, happily howling at the Fire Tribe fleet that was slowly entering the port.
Isaac's fame as a playwright has slowly fermented and spread over half a year. More and more drama lovers are heading to the Robins Knight Territory. In addition to fame and the growing prosperity of the Knight Territory, the sales of the Fire Department's products are also rising.
Poor people don’t have the conditions to be interested in drama, let alone travel far away to join in the fun... Whether Isaac can become an excellent business spy remains to be seen, but he has achieved the achievement of being an influencer in selling products.
Vermicelli, vinegar, various sauces, monosodium glutamate, cold-cooked rabbit cubes, fresh pork and rabbit meat, and other agricultural products and non-staple foods were shipped to Isaac's Knight Territory by shipload. Low-end industrial products such as wool textiles, plastic accessories, ornaments, cheap ready-made clothes, wolf and cat fur crafts, etc. also caught the hot sales trend...
Especially the bracelets made of colorful plastic beads strung together with a bracelet woven with wolf hair from the Snow Wolf tribe. They are not only beautiful but also have a certain mosquito repellent effect. The monthly sales volume almost beat the highest-priced product, MSG...
In addition to these hot-selling products that have been verified by the market, this time the fleet brought agricultural machinery, and the teacher arranged the most suitable delivery team. Isaac was counting the time on his fingers, waiting for the cargo ship to enter the port.
The fleet docked at the port. On the deck, sailors hired from the Adventurer's Guild's Transportation Department waved happily towards the dock.
The anchor was dropped on the deck and the dock workers came forward to help tie the ropes and set up the ladder. Isaac was about to go forward to greet them when Ruhua, who was lying on his back, suddenly pushed him, turned around and ran away.
Isaac and his friends: “???”
"roar--!!"
But then a roar was heard, and a strong figure jumped down from the edge of the ship...
Isaac and his friends: “???”
The muscular brother who performed the leap of faith showed off the unique skill of the Snow Wolf tribe in mid-air: taking off his clothes in one second, rolling forward on the ground, and when he jumped up again, he had turned into a seven-meter-long giant white wolf, ferociously chasing after Ruhua who was running away...
Isaac: “…”
Ali swallowed and said, "Hmm... that can't be Ruhua's mother, Qingcao?"
Edward stared with dead fish eyes: "It seems to be her."
Several human males were silent for a while, and Ali said faintly: "What a deep motherly love."
