The rain was getting heavier. Liu Gen rode his bicycle back to the apartment in the rain. There was no dry place on his body. He was shivering from the cold. He sneezed several times in succession, thinking that he was going to catch a cold.
I walked into the bathroom and used the white porcelain bathtub for the first time. I lay in it until I was sweating and my skin was red. Then I got out of the bathtub, wrapped myself in a towel, went to the work room and turned on the air conditioner. I lay in bed and planned to have a good time.
I took a nap, but my cell phone rang.
It’s past twelve o’clock, who could be calling?
Liu Gen had no choice but to get up and wrap the towel tightly around him. He remembered that his phone was still in his pocket and he had taken off his clothes in the bathroom.
"Excuse me..." Liu Gen just started to speak, hearing Xiangzi's cheerful voice.
"Brother Gen, the earthen stove from my hometown has arrived."
"I'll be right over." When Liu Gen heard that the stove had arrived, he thought that the steamed bun master and driver couldn't neglect them and had to arrange food and accommodation.
He turned out his dry clothes and put them on. It was raining outside and he had no umbrella or raincoat, so he put on his down jacket and rushed over in the rain, only to get wet again.
When Liu Gen arrived, the three earth stoves had been unloaded from the car with the help of Zhou Yonghong. Xiangzi was entertaining them in a shop next door, and the calf was also there.
The earth furnace was transported by an Isuzu light truck. The driver was a middle-aged uncle in his thirties, a native of Qiong County and Slug's fourth uncle.
The steamed bun master was still a young boy, only eighteen or nineteen years old at most, and his name was Hao Qiang.
Xiangzi introduced the driver and Hao Qiang to Liu Gen.
"Thank you, you two. I thought we would arrive tomorrow." Liu Gen was a little disappointed when he saw Hao Qiang. He felt that the person his mother was looking for was too young, but he didn't show it on his face.
"I was supposed to arrive in the afternoon, but this place in Nanhai bullies us foreigners and refuses to let them enter the city. They wait until after ten o'clock before letting them go. Why do they say that trucks can only enter the city after ten o'clock?" the driver drank.
Beer complained.
"Hao Qiang, how many buns can be baked on one stove at a time?" Liu Gen sneezed constantly and his nose began to run clear.
"I bought the biggest stove, which can bake more than thirty things at a time." Hao Qiangren is thin, as if he has been malnourished all year round. He is wearing a cotton-padded jacket that men in his hometown wear in winter, with stilettos on his elbows.
patched.
"How long does it take to bake it in the oven?" Liu Gen asked again after sneezing.
"Ten minutes."
"Can you handle two stoves by yourself?"
Hao Qiang giggled and said: "Make the buns first, no need to knead the dough. I can watch four stoves at the same time at most."
Slug's fourth uncle interjected: "Hao Qiang is very agile. Even though he is young, he is baking buns with his father when he is twelve or thirteen years old. The buns he makes are famous in his hometown."
"How many steamed buns do you make a day in your hometown?" Liu Gen felt dizzy and knew he had a fever, so he kept wiping his nose.
"On market days, I'll make five to six hundred a day, but usually it's only a hundred or ten." Hao Qiang doesn't drink and doesn't eat much. He seems very sleepy.
"So, you can make money at home, so why come to the South China Sea?" After listening to Ouyang Xue's 'cultural' argument, Liu Gen felt that it was really necessary to find someone with selfish desires.
If there are no selfish desires, people will have nothing to pursue. They will eat and drink all day long, and they will not be able to stay or be reliable.
"Haha... Actually, I can't make much money. I only earn 30 cents for a steamed bun. I can make a living with a small profit! In the past, when I knew about the South China Sea, it was only in books. It seemed so far away from me, like a dream.
I always dreamed of being able to go to the South China Sea one day. How beautiful it would be! Now, I am in the South China Sea! Haha... I didn’t expect that except for the tall buildings and many people, it is no different from my hometown!
"Hao Qiang's simple words made everyone laugh.
Of course Liu Gen knew how much a steamed bun in his hometown cost, and it was indeed very cheap. However, Hao Qiang's family had a more or less stable income, which was much better than his own. However, he liked people like Hao Qiang who had dreams, so maybe this
, he is the kind of person who understands culture as Ouyang Xue said, and decided to keep him, and will give him twice as much salary as in his hometown.
Hao Qiang brought his own bed roll, and Liu Gen let him sleep in the dormitory, and arranged for Slug's fourth uncle to stay with Xiangzi for the night.
Liu Gen caught a bad cold and had a high fever all night, but he did not go to the hospital. He stayed up until dawn, thinking that there were still many things to do, so he could not lie down. He first went to school to ask for leave from Su Jianjun, and did not participate in the team's morning training.
He asked for leave with Li Chengzai and couldn't attend class, so he went to the shop and looked at the three ovens in detail. He didn't know how to light a fire and bake delicious buns out of them, but he believed that these three big guys
When placed on the front of the store, they are definitely very eye-catching and can attract people's attention to the three of them.
When the bank opened, Liu Gen went to collect the money paid to Uncle Slug for the freight and food and accommodation on the road. He had already inquired last night that the price of the shipment was three thousand yuan, and he had to pay half of it when he returned empty, which is four thousand yuan.
Five hundred yuan, plus the more than three hundred the two of them spent on the road, it was less than five thousand yuan. The stove was bought by Liu Zhi from the money Liu Gen sent back last time. The price of each stove was less than two hundred yuan.
The shipping fee cost several times the price of the stove, but Liu Gen felt that the money was a good deal.
Liu Gen also bought some South China Sea specialties and asked Uncle Slug to bring them back to his mother and Liu Zhi.
Just before noon, I received a call from Chen Hao.
Liu Gen asked him to come to the shop. He planned to see with his own eyes how Hao Qiang baked the buns out of the oven, so in the renovated shop, Xiangzi bought him a box of fever-reducing and cold medicine. After taking the medicine, Liu Gen felt faint.
Drowsy, but holding on.
Hao Qiang first lit a charcoal fire in a stove, then started kneading the dough until he made evenly sized buns. It didn't take him half an hour. He worked really quickly. Then he put the more than twenty finished buns on the earthen wall of the stove.
I turned it over every few minutes, and in less than fifteen minutes, more than twenty fragrant steamed buns came out of the oven.
Liu Gen gave the steamed buns to the decoration worker and Brother Hongshu to taste. They both said they had never tasted steamed buns that were so fragrant. Liu Gen also tasted the steamed buns and found that they were no different from those in his hometown. He admired Hao Qiang's craftsmanship very much.
When Chen Hao arrived, he was eating steamed buns, and Liu Gen also gave him a taste.
"Brother Gen, if we don't use tap water, the taste will be more pure." Hao Qiang said cheerfully.
"After that, let's store the tap water and leave it idle overnight before using it again. It may be because disinfectant bleaching powder is added to the tap water," Liu Gen suggested.
"Haha... OK." Hao Qiang seemed to be very happy to be able to stay in Nanhai. Moreover, he was sleeping in a dormitory where college students lived. He felt like he had become a college student.
"Brother Gen, thank you for sending me back to the dormitory last night." Chen Hao ate half a steamed bun before he had the chance to talk to Liu Gen. When he heard Hao Qiang calling Liu Gen 'Brother Gen', he also called him: "Look for me."
I'm here, what do you want?" After Chen Hao woke up from the wine, his eyes looked very bright.
"How does this steamed bun taste?" Liu Gen asked with a smile.
"Well, the taste is very unique." Chen Hao said honestly.
"It would be more unique if there was meat in it." Liu Gen said, "Let's have a good chat."
Liu Gen took Chen Hao to the dormitory, while Hao Qiang stayed in the shop and told the decorator how to make the kneading chopping board he needed.
"The shop just now will be doing the same steamed bun business that you have eaten in the future. Do you think it can make money?" Liu Gen asked Chen Hao after he sat down.
"Hehe... Brother Gen, you called me here just to ask about this?" Chen Hao said: "How can I know whether I am making money or not."
"I know that your major is very good at cost accounting and the like..."
Chen Hao raised his hand to stop Liu Gen: "I haven't learned professional courses yet, so it's useless for you to ask me."
"Then if I ask you to help me manage my accounts, how much do you think would be appropriate per month?" Liu Gen saw from Chen Hao's conversation that he is a cheerful and straightforward person.
Chen Hao smiled bitterly and said: "Brother Gen, I'm afraid you have found the wrong person. I am not an accounting major. Besides, you also know that I am a famous drunkard. Ask me to help you manage your accounts. Hehe... just wait.
Bad luck."
"Chen Hao, I'm serious." Liu Gen lowered his face and said, "Yes, I can find someone who majors in accounting, but what I need is more than just an accountant who can do accounting."
"Then what do you need?" Chen Hao glanced sideways at Liu Gen and asked.
"We need people with management skills! People who want to make big money and live a good life! People who can impress others and do something earth-shattering!" Liu Gen stared at Chen Hao and said sonorously.
These few words seemed to speak to Chen Hao's heart. He really wanted to do something big, not for anything else but for Qiu Ye, to make her look at him with admiration.
"Just your shop? Humph...Brother Gen, I'm not trying to hit you, it's just a small restaurant. No matter how good you are, you can only make ends meet!" Chen Hao said with disdain.
"But what if there are dozens of shops like this in the future?" Liu Gen smiled.
Chen Hao was stunned: "Chain operation!"
"That's right! Otherwise I wouldn't be looking for you!"
"Uh..." Chen Hao stood up, walked a few steps back and forth in the dormitory, and then asked: "How big do you want to be? How much investment do you have?"
"I haven't thought about how big my business will be. No one can predict what will happen in the future. At present, we only have this shop." Liu Gen answered very honestly.
"But you already have plans to prepare for the future, right?" Chen Hao sat next to Liu Gen and asked.
Liu Gen nodded: "That's the plan."
"So, I want to know how many waiters you plan to recruit? What is the training plan for the waiters?"
"Well..." Liu Gen couldn't answer at the moment. He hadn't yet decided how many waiters to recruit, let alone training.
"The biggest feature of chain operations is replicability. To put it simply, you can move the model of this store to any place exactly as it is, and it can operate exactly like other stores and get the maximum profit as quickly as possible. If you
Now you don’t even have basic service standard procedures, so if you want to open other branches, it’s just a fantasy. You must start from now and gradually standardize and improve your business service system..."
What Chen Hao said was basically similar to what Ouyang Xue said. Only then did Liu Gen realize how superficial he was in this area. There were too many things to learn, and it was not enough to be passionate.
"Excuse me, how many waiters are suitable for my small shop?" Liu Gen asked very modestly.
After Chen Hao asked some questions about the varieties of business and the target group, he replied: "As you just said, there are indispensable three waiters. Every week, they have to take one day off, including the chef, so you have to find a chef's assistant.
"
"Ah...so many people?" Liu Gen stood up in surprise.
"Brother Gen, think about it, if you were asked to do the same job every day, 365 days a year, would you feel bored? Also, what if the chef suddenly quits, or something happens at home?
It's an urgent matter, why don't you stop your business?" Chen Hao revealed the whole story with one sentence.
"I understand what you mean!" Liu Gen seemed to have stopped feeling dizzy and had completely woken up from the effects of the cold medicine.