Chapter 26 Business Road 25 Only Laziness, No Poverty

The Essence of Business: What is Poverty?In Wen Shang’s view, poverty is not a lack of rice or salt, nor is it a lack of food or clothing.To be poor is to be lazy, and to be poor is to be content with the status quo.As long as you have the ambition to create wealth and work hard, you can always get rich. Poverty is not terrible, the key is to see if you have the determination and courage to become rich.Wenzhou is poor in resources and the living environment is harsh. Wenzhou businessmen deeply feel the pain of poverty, which makes them have the courage and wisdom to make money. In a sense, the "Wenzhou model" is forced out of poverty.

The wealth that Wenshang possesses today is inseparable from the spirit of going through hardships and wandering the world.Jiang Zemin once made a very pertinent evaluation of Wenzhou merchants' hard work and entrepreneurial spirit.He said: "Everyone in the world knows that Wenzhou people know how to do business. The coast and mountains endow them with an open and adventurous spirit. But the most important thing is that Wenzhou people can endure hardship." Indeed.Precisely because Wen merchants believed that hard work would lead to food, they traveled all over the world to cut hair and have hairdressing, and they sold leather bags, shoeshine, glasses, and clothes.Wen Shang is almost everywhere in any occupation that can make a living.They rely on business to make a living, but they never beg and ask for alms like some people do.They have the entrepreneurial tradition of starting from scratch and working hard, and they have the courage to rely on their own hands and wisdom, and the spirit of self-reliance.The pioneering consciousness and heavy-duty character of traveling the world and making home in the world constitute the secret of Wenzhou merchants getting rich.

In the face of poverty, Wenshang will never be discouraged and give up efforts, but actively find ways to take action to change the appearance of "poverty and backwardness".Those who have no fighting spirit and are afraid of hardships are bound to suffer from poverty.A person full of strong desire to be rich must understand this point, neither poverty nor wealth is born, let alone fixed. Poverty is not terrible, if you are poor, you must want to change, and you must do your best to change the situation of poverty.There is no other choice here, but to create wealth with indomitable perseverance and pursue unremittingly.

Ji Zhongliang was originally an employee of the bus station of Wenzhou Transportation Company. The efficiency of the unit was not good, and his family was in a difficult situation, so he lived a very desolate life. He often felt that he could not hold his head high in front of many rich friends. Finally one day, Ji Zhongliang issued a resignation report to the leader.With no capital, he began to declare war on fate, became a "trash king", and bought beer bottles from street to street, earning a few cents per bottle, which was much better than wages.Later, he sold daffodils from Zhangzhou, Fujian at the gate of the park.After all, the food and clothing of the whole family are important, even though he can meet many acquaintances, Ji Zhongliang is not at all unnatural.

"Drag your tired feet every day, go home with the moon on your back, and there are rattling steel coins in your pocket." Recalling this experience, Ji Zhongliang said: "The sky is full of stars, but I believe that there is one star It belongs to me.” Later, he borrowed money from a friend and went to the urban area to become a stall owner, shopping around for clothes.In order to save money, he lives in the cheapest hotel and often sleeps at stations and docks.Later, he started a company... As long as you always maintain a heart that is not content with the status quo, even in the face of poverty, relying on your own ability and working hard, you can still make your own world.Many of the hard-working Wenzhou merchants rely on "sophisticated skills", such as shoe mending and tailoring. An ordinary urban woman in Wenzhou got out of poverty by virtue of her "unique skill" in cooking.

Chen Lan is an ordinary Wenzhou housewife. She gave birth to a pair of twin daughters. She only relies on her honest husband to work in a factory. Chen Lan decided to do it herself to improve the current situation of the family's financial difficulties.A chance hit the door.In the evening of that day, her husband invited some friends to come to the house to have fun, so Chen Lan went to prepare dinner.In fact, when friends came to play, it was my husband's feint, and it was true to invite friends to taste the dishes made by Chen Lan. Chen Lan has good cooking skills, but in such a hurry, her husband didn't say in advance that there were friends coming for dinner, and he didn't make any preparations, so Chen Lan had to cook a few home-cooked dishes casually.But it was these few home-cooked dishes that made my husband's friends full of praise.A friend was outspoken and said to Chen Lan: "Your cooking skills can at least get a second-level professional title. If you open a restaurant, you will definitely have many customers."

Another friend also echoed, saying: "I have traveled all over the world, here and there, and there are not many delicious dishes like yours." Chen Lan was naturally happy when she heard her friend's praise.But she felt that she would open a restaurant right away. Considering her own technology, the conditions were met, but she needed to rent a shop and add equipment, and the funds would be difficult to solve for a while.She thought that the two conditions for opening a restaurant only had one technical condition, and she thought the time was not yet ripe.At this time, seeing that her friends were having a good time drinking, she wanted to make some snacks and serve them on the table to help her friends enjoy the drinking, so she went to the kitchen again.

Soon, when Chen Lan brought the dim sum to the table again, the friends first smelled the aroma and then tasted it, applauding again.So another friend said, if you open a food store and sell this kind of dim sum, you are guaranteed to make money.Chen Lan said: "I want to open a food store to sell dim sum, so I can make it at home. I just need to rent a booth at the door in the morning." In this way, Chen Lan set out to sell homemade snacks every morning.She stipulated that 10 catties of flour should be made at a time.Because the snacks she made are delicious, they are put out in the morning and sold at a small profit, and they are sold out quickly.Later, when some customers got acquainted, they would come to her house to look for dim sum when they came late, and often took away all the dim sum left for their own family members.Some customers asked her to make more.Chen Lan didn't do much, saying it was to leave some market balance and create opportunities for quick sales the next day.

Chen Lan sold dim sum for just over a month, earning more than three times her husband's salary.Chen Lan felt that although selling this kind of dim sum made money, it could only help some people solve the problem of breakfast. If it was marketed as a commodity to the society without a brand name, it would be difficult.So, she began to think about starting her own dim sum specialty store, and named it "Lan Xin Pastry House".Since then, Chen Lan has embarked on the road to wealth. Poverty is sometimes like a hat, which weighs people down and makes them unable to breathe.But Wenzhou businessmen are not afraid of poverty. They always regard poverty as an external factor that motivates them to change the status quo and strive to find opportunities to make money, so they can rise from poverty and create wealth from poverty.Because Wenshang wants to strengthen his self-esteem, he does not want to be regarded as lazy and incompetent by his fellow villagers because of poverty. They think it is a humiliation.