As the days passed, the temperature became colder and colder, and it snowed in Ozet.

The plane took off on the snow-swept runway at Mora Airport and took Link to New York.

This time he was invited by the Council of 100 to attend a meeting. The 100-person Association invited representatives of Chinese Americans from all over the United States to New York to discuss the development of Chinese in the United States. He was accompanied by Song Xianhe, who is also Chinese.

It stands to reason that he should have been a "representative figure" a long time ago. It's just that he deliberately kept too much contact with the Chinese before, so the other Chinese didn't get very close to him. However, in the past two years, he has developed so rapidly that no matter what other Chinese people think of him, they have to regard him as the most successful Chinese American, and there is no one.

He is now the richest man in the world, the third, or the second, or even the richest man in the world.

The discovery of gold in the ridiculous wasteland last year has skyrocketed his assets. Based on the results of geological exploration, the exploration team concluded that the gold reserves in the gold mine were between 450 and 650 tons. That gold mine alone is worth $20 billion to $30 billion.

Several of his companies are not publicly listed, so his assets remain difficult to assess. The main thing is that no one knows how much he earns each year. All say that he should be the second richest man in the world in terms of assets. Since last year, the world's No. 1 has long been no longer an American, but a third ah, monopolizing the steel industry in the three countries and Europe, and even came to the United States.

The infrastructure of the three countries has been booming in recent years, and the demand for steel has caused his steel group stocks to reach a peak.

But by some means, he could even be the richest man in the world – including the Middle Eastern oil barons.

The reason is that after three years of self-injection, the self-injection flow of his oil wells shows no sign of decreasing. No one knows how much crude oil will eventually be pumped out from those wells.

Although raw materials such as petroleum are considered to be introduced to the energy sector soon, crude oil can also be used as a chemical raw material. If nothing else, pesticides are needed for fertilizers and pesticides. And his oil wells are self-blowing, and there is almost no cost, so who can compete with him? Even the easiest oil wells in the Middle East to extract cost about $10 a barrel to protect their capital. He sells a barrel for nine dollars and earns at least five dollars after taxes.

Not to mention several of his companies. In particular, Benihans and Ozette Bank. If these two companies go public, his assets will be conservatively estimated to reach $300 billion.

So some people say that he is the richest man in the world.

It's just that he never admits and refuses to disclose his assets. Few people in the United States, except for people in the tax department, know exactly how much he earns each year. For example, his main cash income now, in addition to crude oil, is wine. The revenue from crude oil sales may also be known through oil companies, but the Blue Lagoon grapes are sold all over the world, and no one knows for sure that the Blue Lagoon wine sold in a year will earn him nearly $7 billion in gross revenue.

Sometimes if you make a lot of money, you may not be taken seriously. But Link isn't just about money. He now has a faint sign of becoming an American agricultural giant. In addition to agriculture, he controls businesses in retail, finance, media, entertainment, real estate and marine.

It is not arrogant to say that if he calls the White House now and says he wants to see the president. The president will also arrange a time to meet him as soon as possible.

The 100-member Association wanted to discuss the development of Chinese Americans in the United States, and there was no reason to ignore him.

Fox Food Processing now supplies pasta to more than 5,200 pasta shops in North America, including the U.S. and Canada. As the president of a food company with an annual turnover of more than $900 million, he is also one of the best among his Chinese counterparts in the United States, so the Committee of 100 also invited him this time.

On the plane, Song Xianhe prepared some work about Fox Foods and took the opportunity to talk.

"The noodle shops that are sticking around now, according to the information we have on hand, have an average annual sales of about $470,000 per store. The lowest one was only $180,000. And both the noodle shop and our food processing company seem to have reached a bottleneck. If we want to continue to develop, we must find a way to make breakthroughs. ”

He said as he handed the stats to Link: "This is based on the order data of various pasta shops. I don't think there will be too much of a mistake. ”

Link took the data and looked at it, and asked, "Do you have any plans?"

"There seem to be a lot of pasta, but it's still low-key. I'm thinking about whether or not to include the point as well as our production schedule. However, we specialize in selling steamed buns with Chinese characteristics, such as soup dumplings, mille-feuille cakes, xiao long bao, etc., and we can also make Chinese soups. With soup and buns, I think white Americans can accept that kind of eating habits. Song Xianhe said with a smile. "We've collected comments from pasta diners on some sites who say they like to drink it all with the soup. ”

"You'll do all those buns?"

"A little, but not proficient. However, we can also hire them as technical consultants. They train our staff, but they also train the people in the noodle shop on how to steam buns. ”

Link also saw from the data that in the past two quarters, the number of orders from most noodle shops has not increased as fast as before. And he's seen little to no new noodle shops added in the past quarter.

The pasta shop is not only a customer of a food processing company, but also a partner of Ozette Bank. In other words, Ozette owns a stake in those noodle shops, usually half of them. But according to the share calculation, Ozette Bank will end up with 30% of the gross profit of the pasta shop. Judging from last year's report. Ozette Bank could earn $300 million from this property. This year, it looks like it should be close to $350 million.

According to the sharing agreement between the bank and the noodle shop, 40% of this is used as a pasta labor cost expense. Regardless of whether the owner of the noodle shop does the work himself or hires employees, the money is at the disposal of the owner. If the labor cost exceeds 40%, the store owner will be responsible for the excess. The remaining 60% is divided equally between the owner and the Ozette Bank.

And this part of the assets, Link asked the bank to entrust the management of Hans Investment.

He thinks that the percentage should also be a reason to limit the expansion of the noodle shop.

But he wasn't going to change anything. Hiring workers may make the shopkeeper need to pay a portion of his salary, but there are still people who open branches. In those branches, Ozette Bank has the right to continue to participate in the shares, and the owners need to contribute capital in proportion to the shares. If the owner has sufficient funds, he can ask Ozette to take only a 30% stake in it.

The sharing between the two parties will continue to follow the previous method, but the specific proportion will be recalculated according to the proportion of capital contribution.

If they open one more branch, they may only get 25% of each store, but the two stores add up, and as a result, they can get more revenue than one store.

If he thinks the bank is taking more and is reluctant to open a branch, then he can't do anything.

Increasing the variety of pastries may increase the number of customers at those restaurants.

He thought for a moment and said, "I'll ask Morris to communicate with the shopkeepers to see if I can do some targeted advertising." Of course, what you say, you can do it. ”

Nowadays, most fast food restaurants mainly sell food by home delivery. This gives the store a larger customer base. But most of the people who do it are regular customers. If you want to increase the number of customers, of course, you need to let more people know about the store and know the phone number of the store.

Advertising, of course, is an effective way to increase the customer base of a pasta shop.

But there's a catch.

Although those noodle shops have a unified name for Song's noodles, they are all independent individuals, and it is impossible for them to be unified and advertised.

If you want to advertise in a unified way, you can only do it with Hans. And advertising comes at a cost.

Because this business structure is somewhat complex, there will be some problems in how to share the cost of advertising.

The situation is different for each noodle shop. Noodle shops in big cities certainly think that advertising will make more people aware of Song's noodles. But in those small town stores, they may do more advertising than it is useless. Because maybe everyone in the town already knows about their shop in the morning. Maybe most of them have already eaten what they have eaten there.

Song Xianhe also thought about the way to advertise, and also thought about the problems that might be encountered, so he asked: "Then how are you going to advertise? Let the store distribute flyers?"

"That's one way. He thought for a moment and said. "I think if you want to advertise, Fox Foods should also contribute some of the money. What's your opinion on this?"

"Of course not!" Song Xianhe said with a smile. "Although we at Fox Foods and those noodle shops are not affiliated with each other, we are actually closer than the alliance. If advertising is effective, not only will they benefit, but Fox Pasta will also benefit. "According to the rules, those noodle shops only sell his Song noodles.

"Since you don't have a problem, then I can get the Ozette Bank to contribute 50% and the food processing company to 50%. The owners of each store distribute leaflets with their own shares. They can send it if they want to. What do you think?"

Although it looks like the noodle shop is making a profit. But Song Xianhe knew that this was the easiest way to do it, and after the most promotion, the food processing company would benefit in the long run. He nodded and said, "I have no opinion!" Even if it is the first advertisement in the United States, it will not exceed tens of millions of dollars at most. Two ratings, and it doesn't cost much.

"Then it's decided. I'm going to ask Morris and the shopkeepers to send a notice and ask them to find a way to promote their own store while we're advertising, as for the plans you mentioned. The training funds are also funded by both of us. Do you have any questions about this?"

This time, Song Xianhe thought about it for a while before nodding and saying, "I have no opinion." ”

That's also the cost of promotion. They hadn't done advertising before, and now they could make up for the past few years.

However, he also has his own ideas for training those pasta shops: "If we are going to launch a new product, the training of the production line and the staff will take time, and the training of those pasta shops can find another time." However, I would suggest that it would be more cost-effective to bring them together for training close to home. At the same time, they are required to pay for their own travel and accommodation. He paused and said. "If it's too easy to get, they won't cherish it. ”

Link didn't think much of it. Hearing Song Xianhe's words, he nodded and said, "Either the training of the noodle shop will be operated by the food company." ”

"Of course that's fine. Song Xianhe proposed again. "But if we were to open one noodle shop for every 30,000 people, even if we excluded some of the population, we would be able to open at least 3,000 more noodle shops. Whether the existing owner opens a branch or a new store, there should still be market space. ”

Link thought for a moment and said, "I'll let Hans rent an apartment to see how it goes." ”