Gu Kun's long-term development of the luxury empire must focus on the field of men's products, but he must not say this to Rupert at the moment.

Because Richemont's positioning among the world's three major luxury groups is to focus on men's luxury, especially luxury watches and jewelry, if you say it, wouldn't it be in direct competition with Rupert.

To achieve Gu Kun's level in business, the basic literacy of seeing people and talking about people and talking about ghosts still needs to be there.

However, it is useless to deny it directly, others are not stupid, and they will not believe it directly, there must be a set of self-justifying arguments to make Gu Kun's setting very reasonable.

So, Gu Kun modified the logic of the later dog Dong and used it to persuade Rupert.

"Your Excellency Rupert, you should know that I was also a master in the financial world before, and I have made a lot of gains from the NASDAQ to the Hong Kong stock and foreign exchange market. I'm going to say that I know more about the coming internet economy than any other person in the luxury industry in the world, and you wouldn't object to it, right?"

Gu Kun forked a pinch of Arctic cod king crab fillet pasta, and said neatly while gently stirring and winding it with a fork.

This entry point is relatively easy to accept, just as there is no shame in admitting that the other party "plays chess better than a swimming champion, and swims better than a chess champion".

Rupert shrugged as Gu Kun expected: "Each has its own expertise, it's normal, I hate the Internet, that thing has lowered the mystery of how much high-end existence." ”

Luxury tycoons, after all, don't like the world becoming more and more equal.

Gu Kun smiled imperceptibly, put on a gesture of heart-to-heart sharing, and said: "Yes, I have also been in the Internet investment circle for a few years, and I have found a trend, that is, the Internet will make all intangible assets of goodwill and brand appear to be concentrated in the winner-to-kill head, that is, the Matthew effect."

With the deepening of the Internet, the future of luxury brands in the big road goods, life will become more and more difficult - however, the Internet will not let the strongest kill all the weak, and generally will leave the second strongest in each segment, and even this second strong will reap a very large inertia dividend, and even just by flaunting the posture of 'being the strongest leader in the fight against the strongest', it will gain great social attention and free fame drainage. ”

That's right, what Gu Kun said is the tactic that Goudong has been invisibly following there in later generations: Tmall has a Double Eleven, Goudong must have a six-eight, Tmall does anything, Goudong has to pose as a fighter.

But in fact, this gesture itself has benefited it a lot, because it has implanted a subconscious idea in the minds of netizens across the country for free: Goudong is the only competitor of Tmall, so it must be the second in the industry.

But in fact, when Gou Dong jumped up and down to emphasize this character at the beginning, he was not qualified to be this opponent at all, and people were still fighting with Li Yuqing's Dangdang.com for the battle of selling books online, and he was not even qualified to say "I will win the Dangdang.com".

Even so, even if the founder's own marriage and love scandal is used as the starting point for fame, and unscrupulous means are used to publicize, the company's positioning must be played out - when the founder of Goudong had a scandal, the first sentence in an interview with the TV station was "This is not true, it is Ma Feng who is in the shadows".

I believe that 80% of the netizens who heard this sentence at that time had not heard of the personal real name of the founder of Goudong, but as soon as they heard "Oh, who is this person? is actually qualified to be Ma Fengyin?", they all went to Baidu, and then knew his identity, and by the way, they knew his company name.

Therefore, what should we do if we want to quickly become famous and our goodwill skyrocketing in the Internet era? Shape yourself as the number one enemy in the industry, and create an Internet image of "as long as I hold on, whoever will feel that my heart is in trouble and my bones are in my throat", and you will be imperceptibly regarded as the second in the industry.

In the same way, if Gu Kun wants to pull the flag, he will directly pull the biggest, saying that he wants to be tough with LVMH boss Bernard Arnault, then it is possible to attract a lot of eyeballs and illusions in an instant.

Of course, the basic skills in the back should also be solid, and it is also important to work hard and be cautious in the operation, so as to digest the false name that attracted at the beginning, otherwise it will still fall.

That's not to say that effort doesn't matter, effort is always important. Just as the founder of Goudong doesn't have a few brushes and doesn't have at least a lot stronger execution than normal people, just relying on a madman to scold the street bloggers, even if netizens temporarily regard you as Ma Feng's opponent, after a long time, they will find that you are a goof, and you will be abandoned by history.

Opportunity and ability are both important, compared to opportunity is more important, and ability must at least reach the level of "opportunity can be seized".

......

"If you want to pull the flag, you will pull the biggest, anyway, you can't grab the first place in the industry in any field, why don't you just put on a posture of grabbing the second place in the largest share of the classified market?"

John Rupert touched Gu Kun's words and said them with his own summary, the more he thought about it, the more he felt that Gu Kun was a bit dry.

Especially in Gu Kun's rhetoric, in fact, the details are quite rich, he took out many details of the tricks of the later generations of dogs and celebrities, and analyzed them carefully, saying that he has a nose and eyes, and it is not surprising that Rupert was slightly fooled.

Today, the world's three major luxury groups, LVMH is the first, and it has a relatively head-to-head competition with Kering, which ranks third, because both pay the most attention to clothing and bags, and those who sell brand-name clothes, bags, shoes, and beauty are not done on May Day.

In fact, the role played by Kering in later generations is to LVMH what the role played by Goudong is to Taobao. Kering earns the 20% of the revenue from the largest mainstream market in the 28th law - in the Internet era, the boss in a field earns 80%, the second earns 20%, and the third dies, which is the most common distribution model.

The Rupert family, on the other hand, has the second largest Richemont in terms of market capitalization, but it does not compete with LVMH and Kering in full swing, because Richemont has taken a different route, and it has almost abandoned the fattest, highest-margin clothing, bags, shoes and hats to focus on jewelry and watches.

It's not that jewelry and watches aren't expensive, but the cost of jewelry and watches is also relatively high, and the profit margin is not so high - people who buy jewelry are more likely to pay for the material itself, and if a diamond jewelry is sold for much more expensive than the accepted price of the diamond itself, not to mention that the craftsmanship of designers and craftsmen is so much, buyers will weigh it and will not pay for it.

Because the purpose of buying luxury goods is to show off wealth after all, rather than buying a diamond that is not very valuable, but the designer and craftsman craftsmanship is very valuable, the audience may not understand the object of showing off wealth, it is better to buy a diamond with a larger diamond and a cheaper design fee in one step.

In contrast, the profit margin of luxury goods in clothing and bags is exaggerated, the cost of raw materials is almost zero, and the so-called crocodile skin or something is not like no money at all compared with hundreds of thousands of bags.

Richemont's business routine is not to compete with LVMH, but only focus on its own market segment track, put on the most profitable clothing and bags, and stick to watches, so that LVMH will also retreat.

Now Gu Kun's posture and business logic have greatly increased Rupert's sense of security.

He was eager to see a new competitor who did not know whether to live or die in the same position as LVMH, and rushed in recklessly.

The Rupert family happened to sit on the mountain and watch the tiger fight.

......

"It seems that we can have a great time working together. ”

After only three and a half hours, 23 dishes of top-notch French food, John Rupert's posture when he talked to Gu Kun was like an old friend.

In addition to reasoning, Gu Kun also tried his best to make the other party feel that he was a person of his own who could cooperate through the subtle influence methods used by many other insiders.

"Thank you very much for your foresight, and you will be proud of your decision today in the future. After Gu Kun expressed his position, he was neither humble nor arrogant, and stretched out an olive branch appropriately.

Rupert still had the slightest doubt and hesitation, but he also asked honestly: "I have one last question, why do you still hold those shares of Cartier for a long time?

Gu Kun smiled calmly: "However, I am already willing to replace all the shares of Tiffany on hand, but you don't have anything else I want at hand for the time being, so I will hold Cartier and have the opportunity to exchange shares next time."

You know how stubborn the founders of luxury are, barbarians who reject foreign capital and are at the door. Sometimes it's not easy to hold money, so it's better to pinch some other old stubborn shares and replace them with each other. ”

Rupert felt that this was indeed the truth, and began to talk about the details of the pricing.

The two parties carefully negotiated some share issues, and then reached an intention to exchange the shares of its brand subsidiaries worth nearly 1 billion US dollars.

Gu Kun threw 20% of Tiffany's shares with a market value of more than $700 million and Lanzi, which was worth nearly $200 million, to Rupert, which can be regarded as solving the problem that Richemont Group is now trying to wholly acquire the Lanzi brand.

Before Gu Kun doesn't sell, if he has to drag both sides to lose, it will be more troublesome for Rupert to buy Lanzi, so this cooperation seems to be a good fit for the time being.

After this transaction, Gu Kun's equity in luxury brand subsidiaries has been reduced from 11 to 8, and two of them have also reduced their position ratio, leaving only 6 companies with real heavy positions.

But among these 6 companies, Gucci and Giorgio Armani's shareholding is several times higher than before!

Before the Rupert deal, Gu Kun had a measly 2.3 percent at Gucci, worth about $100 million, but now it has skyrocketed to 14 percent, worth $650 million.

Giorgio Armani's stake has also risen from 4.2% and $24 million to 33%, with a valuation of more than $180 million.

In addition, there are some male-oriented brands such as Proni, whose shareholding ratio has also increased, and the total increase in holdings has also increased by one or two hundred million dollars.

Gu Kun has finally changed from an outsider who has invested in a bunch of small scattered circles to an existence that may focus on controlling a limited number of big French and Italian brands and is qualified to negotiate with the company's founder team or senior management team.

Of course, he is not in a hurry to negotiate or seize power. For the time being, he still needs to use this posture of "stopping the fight for the sake of force" to "raise hope".

The ability to threaten others with force, but not to threaten them, is the fastest way to maintain hope.

Just as when every country first develops nuclear weapons, the diplomatic rhetoric has to say, "Other nuclear-armed countries are welcome to join us in maintaining world peace and order."

How can there be a direct mushroom cultivation.