Chapter 538 This Is the Talent

With a check of 3 million Hong Kong dollars, Fang Zhanbo left the big house on the top of the mountain, holding back his uncertainty about the future and the excitement of success once he succeeded.

The first thought was to find the old man Hobbs who stole all the diamonds from the London Diamond Group and had to hide on Hong Kong Island according to Li Changheng's arrangement.

After coming to Hong Kong Island in 1969, Hobbs began to help Li Changheng handle the Tsim Sha Tsui project.

Then, when the woman Laura Quinn also came to Hong Kong Island to take charge of setting up a jewelry company, the two cooperated with each other and began to contact the English people and local celebrities on Hong Kong Island.

After more than three years, I don't say how deep the network is, but it is not difficult to buy a medium-sized newspaper that is not well-managed, but has a well-established staff, printing, and distribution network.

After listening to Fang Zhanbo's words, Hobbs immediately thought of an English newspaper called "Shiwen Zaobao".

Because readers are becoming more and more localized, and local newspapers have begun to publish English-language newspapers, the number of English-language newspapers that were read by foreigners and locals who know English in the past has shrunk from a dozen in the 1950s to less than half now. less than

Moreover, the financial situation of these five companies has been bleak and even operating at a loss due to the increase in operating expenses such as rents and employee salaries, as well as the continuous decline in circulation.

Therefore, after Jermain Miller, the owner of "Morning Times", received a call from Hobbs, the two reached an acquisition agreement within half an hour of talking.

150,000 pounds is almost 1.8 million Hong Kong dollars.

Jermaine Miller, who had no concept of Chinese New Year in his heart, signed a transfer agreement with the offshore company Li Changheng used to hold the projects in Tsim Sha Tsui in the afternoon.

Then Fang Zhanbo, accompanied by Hobbs and a lawyer, came to the headquarters of the Times Morning Post.

When the newspaper had its largest circulation, it could reach 20,000 copies.

But over the past ten years, the newspaper office has not only failed to get better and better, but even lost sales of 3,000 copies per day.

After announcing that the newspaper had changed bosses, Fang Zhanbo publicly promised a 30% monthly salary increase to the remaining 21 newspaper employees.

And as long as the circulation exceeds 50,000 copies on a certain day in the next month, the bonus for this month will be doubled.

As soon as the reward came out, 21 people in the newspaper office yelled in their hearts that the boss was crazy, 3,000 changed to 50,000, how is this possible?

But this does not affect these employees who were still worried about their job loss just now, thinking in their hearts that their salary will be increased by 30%, and the boss will go crazy if they are crazy, and they will get this month's salary first.

When Fang Zhanbo said that the newspapers published by the newspaper office would be free in the future, everyone was thinking that the boss was crazy again, and then the entire office was silent for 3 seconds, and a loud noise broke out in an instant.

If it is really free, let alone 50,000 copies, they are confident in 200,000 copies.

Even in the editor's mind, the first thing that comes to mind is to put the word "free" on the front page tomorrow as a gimmick.

Double the salary and bonus, and to achieve this goal, it is as simple as piercing a piece of paper. Immediately, everyone in the newspaper, who can't even care about the New Year, starts working overtime.

With ready-made and mature employees and distribution channels, on the morning of the next New Year's Eve, 20,000 copies were temporarily revised.

The word "Free" is on the front page.

The news materials on the second page were all fried rice, staring at a popular male star, then Ma Jing, restaurants and food, and finally the newspaper about the gunfight at Kwai Chung Wharf in the local news.

As soon as they were sent to the cooperative newsstand in the past, they were all taken away in just three hours.

And this is just 86 newsstands on Hong Kong Island and Kowloon.

If calculated according to the scale of 210 cooperative newsstands at the peak of "Shiwen Zaobao", the time for 20,000 newspapers is only a little more than an hour.

In the newspaper office that received the news, there was a huge yellow cheer in an instant.

Some people even directly shouted that 50,000 newspapers will be issued on the first day of the Lunar New Year tomorrow.

If 50,000 copies can be issued even on days when people like the first day of junior high school go out and rarely pay attention to the news, then 100,000 copies is really not a dream during working hours, not to mention 200,000 copies.

Fang Zhanbo calculated in his heart that he had 1.2 million Hong Kong dollars left, and quickly decided to be conservative.

Increase by 10,000 servings per day until saturated.

And what was different from what Li Changheng was worried about was that Fang Zhanbo made a sales plan after discussing with his lawyer and confirming that there were no legal problems.

It's not about giving it to everyone, nor is it putting it on the newsstand for people to pick it up.

And during the first three days of free period, all the people who go to the newsstand to buy newspapers, as long as they buy any newspaper, the vendors at the newsstand will give them a new edition of "Shiwen Morning Post".

The advantage of doing this is that it is equivalent to parasitic on all newspapers in Hong Kong.

Avoid repeated, wasteful ten or hundred copies being taken away arbitrarily by people who don't read newspapers at all.

Only when newspapers are in the hands of people who have the habit of reading newspapers, can the newspaper office know the real circulation.

Merchants who want to advertise will really rest assured to buy advertising space, and can truly reflect the true advertising efficiency of "Shiwen Zaobao".

Otherwise, no matter how slow the merchant's response is, they will know whether the money spent is worth it after a week or a month.

So winning over Baoting became an inevitable step.

After discussing with Li Changheng, Fang Zhanbo decided on a sales plan that seemed to be free, but it wasn't really free.

People who have the habit of reading newspapers are generally at least a working-class person who does not care about the monthly expenditure of about 6 Hong Kong dollars.

Such people are the main force of consumption in this era.

At this time, the newspapers of major newspapers on Hong Kong Island cost about 8 cents a piece, but the price was 1.5 to 2 cents.

Three days after the newspaper is released for free, all cooperative newsstands will charge a membership fee of HK$1 per month.

That is to say, the newspaper is free, but those who want to read "Shiwen Zaobao" only need to pay 3.3 cents per newspaper to Baoting to get the newspaper.

And this 3.3 points, on the contrary, is less than 1 cent more than the net profit of every newspaper sold by the newspaper.

Based on 20,000 copies, the total profit of the 86 newsstands is 660 Hong Kong dollars per day.

On average, each family earns just over 7.7 yuan a day, which is 230 Hong Kong dollars a month.

The profit from selling "Shiwen Zaobao" alone is comparable to that of a middle-income wage earner.

And if you buy 50,000 copies a day, it will be 575 Hong Kong dollars.

The operators of the newsstands are not stupid. Although there is no way to determine the income, there is a free newspaper as a promotion for other newspapers.

At least I will try to let "Times Morning Post" try to sell it at their newsstand for a month, or at least a week, and then see if the money I earn has decreased.

And everyone knows that when something is at least 6 times cheaper, it will attract a large number of people who did not read newspapers before.