"If you can find someone who can do something better than you, then ask him to do it for you. This is the best idea."
To put it more concisely, this sentence is “Leave specific matters to professionals to handle.”
What a great saying. Woodruff, the current head of the Coca-Cola Company, was able to say such a famous saying when he was 1 year old. Unfortunately, the background of his saying this was that he paid someone to do his homework for him, and he was criticized for it.
Expelled from school...
After dropping out of school, Woodroof was idle all day long, which made his father Woodroof very disappointed.
Old Woodruff ordered his son to find a job and use the wages he earned to repay his wasted tuition, accommodation and living expenses. He arranged for his son to work as a sand dredger in the company, but his son caused trouble within a week and had to let him go.
His son changed his career to become a machinist apprentice, but he was fired after a year. Then, he asked his son to work as an assistant in a fire extinguishing equipment company, and was fired again without any surprise.
After being fired from various jobs, the father and son broke up directly.
Woodruff gave up his purchasing position in the family company and went to work as a salesman in another company, and actually did a great job. This situation made the old Woodruff feel that his son had finally become a talent, so he called his son back and arranged to join the company.
Board of Directors.
From the above, we can see that it is not terrible to be expelled from school, it is not terrible to be expelled from the company, it is not terrible to be idle, and it is not terrible to be ambitious. Real talents will definitely succeed, provided that you have a rich father.
If you get screwed outside, you can still come back and inherit the family business.
Zhou Hexuan met the genius who inherited the family property in a country manor in New York state. When the two met, Woodruff was riding a horse, riding a fierce horse that had not been fully tamed. The Coca-Cola helmsman was almost knocked off his feet.
Flip to the ground.
"Hello, Mr. Woodruff." Zhou Hexuan greeted with a smile.
In the middle of winter, Woodruff was sweating all over, he got off his horse and said: "Chinese, I've heard of you, but I'm only interested in making money. Do you want to solicit war donations from me? Wait until the annual sales volume of Coca-Cola in China
I will be very happy to break through 50,000 bottles."
Zhou Hexuan smiled and said: "Haha, I just heard that Coca-Cola is looking for investment and I want to give you money. Since Mr. Woodruff doesn't need it, I'll leave."
"Coca-Cola's performance is so good that it doesn't need investment at all," Woodruff said.
"Is this really the case?" Zhou Hexuan asked.
Woodruff did not answer directly, but asked: "Can you ride a horse?"
Zhou Hexuan said: "I know a little bit."
Woodruff asked the stable boy to bring a gelding to Zhou Hexuan, and he climbed on the horse's back and said, "Run with me for a lap first."
Zhou Hexuan hadn't ridden a horse for a long time, so he jumped on it and ran wildly.
Woodruff gradually caught up, nodded and said with a smile: "Your riding skills are good, how about we go hunting together some other time?"
"Not interested." Zhou Hexuan reined in the reins.
Woodruff just didn't talk about business matters and rambled: "Do you know Sparta? I have received a Spartan education since I was a child. When other people's children were in middle school, I was raised by my father.
Sent to military school. Although I was very hostile to my father when I was young, now I respect him very much. He has cultivated me into a real man."
Zhou Hexuan smiled and said: "So you don't like studying, and you were fired for hiring people to do homework in college. You also like to fight with people, and you were fired from the company more than ten times because of fighting?"
"It seems you have investigated me carefully." Woodruff raised his eyebrows.
Zhou Hexuan said: "There is a Chinese saying that if you know yourself and the enemy, you will never be defeated in a hundred battles."
Woodruff said: "Doing business doesn't require professional knowledge, so I don't need to learn, I just need to know how to manage people who can do things. Fights are because others are disobedient. I don't like controversy, I only like absolute obedience. Either I obey others,
Either others will obey me, but so far no one has made me willing to obey."
Zhou Hexuan asked with a smile: "You mean, even if I invest in Coca-Cola, I can't interfere in the company's management and operations?"
"Yes," Woodruff stopped his horse and nodded, "You are very smart. You are worthy of being a scholar. You can hear my will at once. Tell me, how much money can you invest?"
Zhou Hexuan asked: "How many shares can you tolerate me getting?"
Woodroof laughed loudly: "This is a great question, and it suits my taste very well. You can talk to other shareholders, or you can acquire it from the stock market, but you can own up to 15% of the equity. This is what I
The limit of what can be tolerated.”
Zhou Hexuan shook his head and said: "The stock price of Coca-Cola is too high. It is impossible to acquire it in the stock market. Except for speculators, no one will be willing to be a fool to take over the deal. What I want to ask is, what is your lowest ability to conduct equity transactions privately?"
What’s the price?”
Woodroof smiled and said: "The shares in my hand will not be sold. You can ask those idiot shareholders."
"Is it true?" Zhou Hexuan said, "I heard that Coca-Cola is looking for investment everywhere."
Woodruff was too lazy to beat around the bush and said directly: "Coca-Cola does need financing, but you can't afford the price. Do you know how much my father valued the company when he bought Coca-Cola?"
"250,000 US dollars." Zhou Hexuan said.
"Yes, $250,000, but that was 21 years ago, and now it's at least double that," Woodruff said.
Zhou Hexuan said with a smile: "Mr. Woodruff, please don't use this kind of rhetoric to deceive investors into investing. Don't use it to deceive your negotiating opponents."
When Woodroof's father acquired Coca-Cola, he only had $10,000 to mobilize. The combined value of Coca-Cola's buildings, factories and machinery was less than $20,000, and the rest was all brand premium.
How did old Woodruff swallow the elephant?
He first persuaded the son and nephew of the founder of Coca-Cola to sign a contract without telling the founder of Coca-Cola. Then he used a joint-stock system to raise funds, and then prepared to go public. After a lot of hype, he succeeded.
Aisha, the founder of Coca-Cola, was old and had been ill for many years, so she suddenly found out that her company was gone. His son and nephew became millionaires and continued to control the company, and the elder Woodroof became the second largest shareholder.
But the real controller of Coca-Cola is still the founder.
As for Woodruff, who is now awesome and arrogant, it was only a few years later that his father appointed him to the board of directors. When he first came up, he made a lot of blind moves, clamoring to enter the European and Asian markets, and ended up losing everything.
And therefore was completely deprived of administrative power by other shareholders.
Woodruff could only choose to be patient, spent nearly ten years trying to win over other shareholders, and used his strength to kill off all other shareholders. Now he has become the absolute controller of Coca-Cola. Woodruff's success is not only due to his strong skills, but also because of Coca-Cola.
The founder's family was in internal strife, with father and son killing each other, and brothers fighting each other. The business war movie was turned into a family ethics drama.
Woodruff dictates everything in the company, like a tyrant, causing other shareholders to only receive dividends every year (without decision-making and say rights). If it weren't for Coca-Cola's good development momentum, the company would have been dissolved long ago, and every shareholder would be filled with resentment.
Very big.
Now that the U.S. economic environment is in recession, Coca-Cola's internal ills that have accumulated for more than a decade have begun to appear. The stock price is slowly falling, and when shareholders' annual dividends also fall with the increase in performance, Woodruff's authority in the company
It has been shaken very badly.
Hall and Dibber, the two shareholders of the Gantt family, have been clamoring to sell their shares to cash out, and they have indeed sold part of them. This is also the main reason for the recent decline in Coca-Cola's stock price.
Zhou Hexuan continued to add more money with a smile: "Mr. Woodruff, I heard that all Coca-Cola factories in Germany have been closed. That is really a pity. After all, Germany is Coca-Cola's largest overseas market."
Woodruff's face was a little ugly. The reason why Coca-Cola had difficulties with cash flow was due to the spread of war in Europe. Woodruff had been laying out the European market for twenty years, and the annual advertising expenses were astronomical, but because of that bastard Hitler
And it was completely wasted.
The United States is imposing economic and trade sanctions on Germany. All Coca-Cola's factories in Germany and its occupied areas have been forced to close, and even the money deposited in the bank by those factories cannot be recovered.
Woodruff had completely cut off contact with the German branch. He didn't even know that there was still a Coca-Cola factory in Germany that continued to produce. Due to insufficient raw materials for making Coke, the person in charge of that factory simply switched to orange-flavored soda and
Named Fanta.
It wasn't until the end of World War II that Woodruff suddenly discovered: Oh my god, why do I still have a branch called "Fanta" in Germany? And that branch also assisted other Coca-Cola factories in Europe to resume production. What a waste.
Dozens of factories!
To put it bluntly, because Fanta helped the German Coca-Cola factory resume production and kept praising Hitler in its advertisements, the Germans thought that Coca-Cola was its own brand. After World War II, a German prisoner saw a billboard for Coca-Cola in the United States and asked in surprise
: "You also have Coca-Cola in the United States?"
Seeing that Woodruff was silent, Zhou Hexuan continued to stimulate him: "Since Coca-Cola is unwilling to accept investment, then I can only invest in Pepsi-Cola."
Woodruff immediately became angry: "Pepsi-Cola is a shameless pirated product. Only lowly black people drink it! I am in a lawsuit with Pepsi-Cola, and I want to sue them to close down!"
"Really?" Zhou Hexuan said with a smile, "Pepsi-Cola's scale is not too big. Once I invest, I can at least become a top shareholder. I will suggest that Pepsi-Cola change its trademark, and then invite Vivien Leigh or Chaplin to endorse advertisements. I guess
With their endorsement, no one will think that Pepsi is a black drink. What do you think?"
Pepsi-Cola is really a counterfeit product. Now even its trademark is imitating Coca-Cola. In addition, there are a lot of copycats in the United States such as Coffee Coke, Coca-Cola, Coca-Cola, Flyer Coke, etc. Coca-Cola sues every year but has no solution.
, because "coke" and "coke" are common nouns and anyone can use them as product names.
Pepsi-Cola is Coca-Cola's biggest competitor. Woodruff couldn't imagine the consequences of Pepsi-Cola asking Chaplin to advertise, not to mention that he really needed investment. Finally, Woodruff relented and expressed his attitude. He said: "You can send negotiations
The team comes over and we discuss the details slowly."
