1928: The rise of giant merchants

No. 32 Xiafei Road, office area on the second floor.

Today's meeting was attended only by people related to Black Cat Dance Hall.

Looking at the group of warblers at the desk, Ye Luo couldn't laugh or cry. Why did he look like the big boss of an entertainment company in later generations? Surrounded by beautiful people, it would have been better if it was a peaceful time.

At this time, women from different factions were sitting on both sides of the conference table.

On the right hand side is headed by Xiao Aqiao, the proprietress of Ye's Dance Company and Fengming House, followed by Simei and Lu Xiaoman.

On the left are headed by Nia Ivanova and her daughter, followed by a group of foreign managers from New York dance companies.

The Black Cat Dance Hall could not be the grand event it is today without the team that Ye Luo brought from all over the world.

In this business, Ye Luo was not as hands-on as when he was doing the Chevrolet 490 business.

He just asked Verdy to buy the Paris Hotel, and then asked Zhang Yuanbei's construction team to decorate and renovate it. As for the operation, layout, personnel arrangement and training of the ballroom, Ye Luo was only responsible for making suggestions and coordinating the overall situation. Most of them were small Mother and daughter Ah Qiao and Nia led this team to complete the project.

Therefore, although the Black Cat Dance Hall has two major management groups, Chinese and foreign, it is not as full of internal conflicts as those foreign companies.

The foreign managers from New York dance companies were very convinced and recognized Xiao Aqiao's management ability and Nia's mother and daughter's training ability. The dance hall work was carried out extremely smoothly.

Ye Luo was very pleased with this.

Efficiently making money and laying the foundation for his industrial career has always been the best company business situation Ye Luo pursues. Unexpectedly, the car dealership and the film company have not yet succeeded in achieving it. Instead, the dance industry company took the lead and fulfilled his expectations.

"Brother Luo, just three days after the Black Cat Ballroom opened, it attracted over ten thousand people to dance and spend money. The daytime, afternoon and night shows were all full. Many guests even complained that the ballroom was too small and they couldn't do anything. Come on in and dance.”

Little Ah Qiao pursed her lips and smiled softly, pushing a written document to him.

"This is three days' turnover, totaling 103,498.876 oceans."

Ye Luo raised his eyebrows. This dance hall business was more profitable than he expected.

He took the document and looked through it carefully.

Of the turnover of more than 100,000 yuan, 65% comes from dance tickets, 23% comes from tea, and 12% comes from consumption of drinks and food.

This is also consistent with the portrait of the guest he expected.

Although the second floor is a VIP ballroom, these guests are rarely willing to open expensive wines such as champagne for 10 yuan a bottle for the dancers. Most of them mainly buy clocks or invite the dancers to dance.

This also indicates another way to make a fortune.

The consumption of wine and food is not saturated at all. As long as the dancers are trained in techniques such as stimulating customers to drink wine, they can still gain a lot from the middle class and intellectuals in Shanghai.

Of course, we must also prevent the occurrence of malignant wine trays.

"This month's business is over. We should also grade and settle wages for the dancers. This is the draft employee grade I thought about before. Take a look. Do you have any suggestions for modifications?"

Ye Luo asked Xiao Aqiao to distribute the plan he drafted to everyone.

This was a new system that even New York dance companies didn't have. A group of foreigners were also very curious and couldn't wait to open the plan and read about it.

The first month of business was relatively relaxed, and Ye Luo did not restrict any dancer from asking for dance tickets from customers.

A guest invites a dancer to dance, and then the dancer asks for dance tickets. The two may hit it off right away, or they may not agree on the price. Anyway, by the end of the month, Ye Luo will give each dancer a payment based on the total amount of dance tickets they hold. They have divided them into levels, and for subsequent business operations, they must collect dance tickets strictly according to their own levels and cannot ask for them at will.

The four types of dance ticket books correspond to the four levels of dancers: the orange book corresponds to the top dancer, the purple book corresponds to the red dancer, the blue book corresponds to the senior dancer, and the white book corresponds to the ordinary dancer.

The top dancers and red dancers only serve in the VIP ballroom on the second floor.

The monthly turnover and promotion standards required for each level, as well as welfare benefits, etc. are clearly defined.

In addition, if a dancer decides to marry a customer and leaves the dance hall, she can also submit a resignation letter to Yip's Dance Company, and the company will remove her immediately. She will not be tricked like the brothels in the past, asking for ransom money, etc. Willing to let people go.

Among the benefits, the top performers in the dance club can even enjoy car transportation and living in a small building donated by the company.

"Boss Ye, you are really a business genius! If this plan could be implemented in American ballrooms early, the dance industry would not have entered a period of great depression." A foreign manager sighed, and then felt sad.

The group of them said they came to Shanghai to help Ye Luo open a dance company, but in fact they were fired by the New York dance company in disguise.

There is no way, now that dance halls are blooming all over the United States, it is difficult to make money in this industry. Even the largest New York dance company does not need so many employees.

But they didn't expect that this would usher in a second spring for their lives and careers!

If this momentum continues, the net profit of just one Black Cat Dance Hall may exceed 300,000 yuan a month!

The previous Liangyou Pictorial and Ye's Advertising Company together had a total monthly profit of only 20,000 to 30,000 yuan, which shows how profitable the entertainment industry is!

Of course, the Black Cat Dance Hall is reaping the benefits of being the only one, attracting almost all the customers that can be absorbed in the Shanghai Bund French Concession and the Public Concession. When other dance halls follow the trend, the business of the Black Cat Dance Hall will definitely be affected.

At this time, Ye Luo vigorously developed song and dance troupes, and the practice of letting dancers work part-time as singers was effective.

Even though Paramount was the number one music house in the Far East, it could only hire foreign bands to perform at high prices. The small dance hall used a gramophone, so it could only play a loop of foreign dance music that everyone was tired of hearing. Even many dance music records were not available.

You can't play Peking Opera in a ballroom.

I'm afraid it will take at least two years for other dance halls to catch up with Black Cat Dance Hall's pace!

"Thank you for all the hard work for the preparations these days." Ye Luo clapped his hands, and several beautiful and sexy cheongsam girls pushed the trolley into the office area.

A group of people saw the stacks of banknotes on the trolley and exclaimed in low voices.

After the end of the Second Northern Expedition, the Jinling National Government printed a lot of new banknotes, with large denominations of one thousand and two thousand and small denominations of five and ten yuan, exclusively for circulation and use by the middle and upper classes.

There is no way. From the Republic of China to now, the gap between the rich and the poor in various classes is too wide. Only the ocean or checks cannot meet the needs of each class.

Driver Wu Tonggen, who was brutally killed by French soldiers some time ago, even though he was an employee of a British tram company, his monthly salary was only 35 yuan. This is also the salary that most ordinary working-class people can get, and people like Ye For some middle-level managers in investment companies, Ye Luo has already offered them a salary of 100-300 yuan.

There are also many employees of foreign banks, starlets, ordinary intellectuals, etc. at this level.

A monthly salary of 300-500 yuan is considered the average income of the middle class. If ordinary people can reach this level, they are considered successful and have no regrets in life.

A small group of top-level workers can earn a monthly salary of 500-1,000 yuan, second only to top stars such as Hu Die and Ruan Lingyu, who earn 1,500 yuan a month.

But a top-income person like Ruan Lingyu is just a high-end prostitute in front of an accomplished businessman.

This type of businessman is currently the mainstay of Chinese businessmen and comprador groups. Their income can range from 81,000 to 10,000 yuan a month. If their family is well off and they don't spend carelessly, they may be able to earn two to three yuan after saving for three to five years. With deposits worth millions, they are core customers of many banks.

Such backbones are generally middle- and upper-class people from all walks of life, who have already entered the upper class circles with half or one foot, such as Dong Ruichang, chairman of the Ningbo Business Association.

But in the eyes of real upper-class people, such people are nothing.

In the real upper class circles, the class stratification is even stricter.

The group of people who treat the middle- and upper-class people as shit are the fringe members of the circle. They can generally participate in various upper-class circle activities, but they do not have names.

For example, at Ye Qingqing's wedding in March, most of the people who could enter the hall to attend the wedding banquet were such fringe members.

In Ye Luo's eyes, this kind of people are worse than shit.

Society is so cruel.

The Republic of China was so realistic.

In the eyes of military and political leaders like the principal, or leaders of top wealthy families like Song Ziwen, Ye Luo was not a jerk, but there was still a long way to go before he could be on an equal footing with them.

When he saw a group of people being shocked by the piles of banknotes, Ye Luo felt that "the road is long and long, and I will search up and down."

This year and next will probably be more peaceful. When the economic crisis breaks out in the United States in October next year and then sweeps the world, and the Central Plains War breaks out at the end of the year, the country will once again be plunged into mourning.

After that, there were no big battles but constant small battles.

On September 18, 1931, an unforgettable tragedy occurred, followed immediately by January 28, 1932, when Shanghai was invaded by the Japanese invaders.

There is not much time left for yourself.

The road is long, but he has too much to do, and he must work hard to complete the agreement with Han Qing.

The banknotes on the trolley are the bonuses he distributed to all the employees present. The smallest person can get 3,000 oceans, and the most, Xiao Aqiao, can get 66,000 oceans!

Lu Xiaoman held the 8,000 yuan he received in his chest, feeling extremely excited.

Her salary is 150 yuan, and this wave of bonuses is divided into almost four and a half years of salary. Her life has become much more comfortable in an instant!

Thinking about Xu Zhimo, who concurrently serves as a professor at two universities, and writes articles and poems for newspapers and magazines, he only earns six to seven hundred yuan a month. Of these 8,000 yuan, he has to work day and night, without eating or drinking, to save more than ten yuan. Months later, Lu Xiaoman suddenly felt empty in his heart.

Her family was well off. Her father, Lu Ding, was originally the general manager of the China Savings Bank. The China Savings Bank collapsed due to the discontinuation of the "1996 Public Bonds" issued by the Beiyang Government, and Lu Ding went bankrupt.

After the Northern Expedition, the National Government of Jinling was established and Lu Ding was hired as counselor of the Ministry of Finance to work under Song Ziwen.

Her ex-husband Wang Geng is also a rich soldier and more capable than Xu Zhimo.

All Xu Zhimo can give her is the romance and warmth of love.

However, after the two fled from the north to Shanghai, their families did not support their marriage and cut off their financial resources.

Xu Zhimo is indeed very profitable, but his small income is still far from being able to support Lu Xiaoman's life as a socialite.

After the sweetness of love, she was confused and confused.

At this time, Ye Luo was like a beam of light shining through her closed window.

Talent, romance, appearance, temperament, and ability are all outstanding, far superior to other men.

"Xiaoman, you have to work hard for me in the future." Seeing her in a daze, Ye Luo knew that she must be frightened by this high bonus. He smiled and walked over and patted her shoulder gently, "What about me? , I plan to open a few more dance halls soon, and you have to continue to be a 'model worker' for me, so you can't relax."

"Ah? So fast!" Lu Xiaoman woke up from his daze.

Her cheeks were red and she felt ashamed of what she had just thought, but her curiosity was soon aroused by the new ballroom that Ye Luo said.

Little Ah Qiao was also stunned: "Brother Luo, the Black Cat Dance Hall has only been open for three days."

"Well, I originally planned to open several dance halls together. Nia, do we have enough dancers?" Ye Luo looked at the Belarusian noblewoman who was also lost in the ocean.

Nia smiled and nodded: "There are quite a few girls in Fengming Building, and with the new girls we have recruited recently, the training is overcrowded. I am also thinking that if there are too many dancers, we should go to the Oriental Dance Club in batches first. As a sparring partner. If there is a new dance hall, that would be great, the dancers will definitely take care of it~"

"Well, I plan to open eight new dance halls on XZ Road in one go, named Gaofeng, Far East, Juelu, Xiaoyao, Daxin, Guotai, MGM, and Vienna. These eight dance halls focus on popular services, similar to Black Cat Dance Hall The public dance hall on the first floor, the venue and facilities are modeled after the Black Cat Dance Hall. I will buy the place in the next few days, and then let the engineering team from the Far North build it quickly. I must open it first and make money before other businessmen."

Ye Luo smiled and nodded,

"Then I will open a Yuegong Dance Hall and a Laodahua Dance Hall on North Sichuan Road, an Anle Palace Dance Hall on Aidoya Road, a Sheng Aina Dance Hall on Xieqiao Road, and a Foreign Sailor Dance Hall on Zhubaosan Road. These five The family dance hall should take the mid-level route, similar to the VIP dance hall on the second floor of the Black Cat Dance Hall. Of course, these five companies should not be in a hurry and can take their time."

A group of women were stunned speechless by Ye Luo's plan.

The second young master is too fierce!

This is a clear plan to completely monopolize Shanghai's dance industry.

"After this, everyone in Fengming Tower must switch to the dance industry and stop being prostitutes selling skin and flesh. Feng Rou, Hua Mei, Xue Leng, and Yue Lang, from now on, the four of you will also be responsible for the dance hall business, and we can no longer do it frequently. I'm too lazy to play cards." Ye Luo glared at the four romantic girls.

The four of them are the "daughters" trained by Xiao Aqiao. Among them, Hua Mei has been working with him, and she is also the general manager of the Black Cat Dance Hall. However, the other three are basically not involved in any business. They dance or play cards every day, so they have a leisurely time. Very.

Of course Ye Luo will not give up such a useful employee!

Fengrou and the other three responded with flat lips: "Yes, Second Young Master."

"Brother Luo, aren't you too anxious?" Little Aqiao asked as she approached.

Not to mention the five mid-to-high-end dance halls, the eight low-end dance halls will probably cost Yeluo millions of oceans to build, which is equivalent to almost a whole year's profit of the Black Cat Dance Hall.

She could understand the idea of ​​​​businessmen continuing to invest and make money with the money they earned, but this was the first time she had seen people like Ye Luo who continued to invest without even making money.

"You doubt me?" Ye Luo looked at her with a half-smile.

Little Ah Qiao was stunned immediately, hugged him directly in front of everyone, stood on tiptoes, and kissed his lips deeply!

"How is it possible, you are my man, this is my answer!"