Return to 1958 and build a century-old giant

Chapter 80 The Discovery of the American Industrial Giant 3M

Two weeks later, it was December and it was a bit chilly in Hong Kong.

"Brother Dong, Zhao Chengguang called and asked for 3000 sticky notes." Su Yiyi said after walking into the small office.

"Yeah." Yang Wendong nodded and asked, "Have all those big companies bought out almost all of them?"

"Almost. Now there are fewer and fewer." Su Yiyi said: "In the past half month, the more than 2 sticky notes we shipped were basically all for them."

"It's almost there." Yang Wendong smiled and said, "This is because the procurement process for large companies is more complicated. For small purchases like ours, they will buy a lot at one time. Otherwise, in the short term, they don't need more than 2."

If the sticky notes are not lost, a person can use them for a long time, at least one or two months, or even a year. It all depends on personal work habits.

Hong Kong is just a city. The rate of literacy among its people is far lower than that of developed countries. The density of companies is also lower. The local market for Post-it Notes is pitifully small, even smaller than that for Mouse Traps.

Su Yiyi said: "Yes, those buyers also told me that they are unlikely to buy again in the short term.

In that case, we can only rely on Zhao Chengguang in the short term."

"The market there won't be that big either." Yang Wendong shook his head and said, "Half a month ago, I started sending a lot of sticky notes by air to some companies in Japan and the United States to see if I can replicate the model in Hong Kong."

Su Yiyi thought for a moment and asked, "Brother Dong, since you have given the Hong Kong sticky notes to Zhao Chengguang, why don't you use the mousetrap channels in Japan and Europe?"

"It's different." Yang Wendong said: "The Hong Kong market is small, only the size of a palm. Zhao Chengguang has some connections and knows the channels, so whether it's mouse traps or sticky notes, they can all be sold. Besides, we still need to rely on him in Hong Kong, so we let him do it and build a good relationship.

But Japan, Europe, and the United States are all so big, and different products require different channels. Besides, I’m not really optimistic about the channels of these two companies, but there was no other choice in the early days.”

Su Yiyi said: "So Brother Dong also wants to use the sticky notes to find a more suitable distributor?"

"Yes, it will be difficult in the short term, but if you find the right one, things will go much more smoothly in the future."

Yang Wendong nodded and said, "The previous mouse traps were not up to standard after all, and they also had many disadvantages, such as being easy to hurt other animals, and being troublesome if people stepped on them. Larger and more capable channels might not be interested in them, and there were also competitors like mouse cages and rat poison.

But sticky notes are much better. Companies around the world may need to use them. Although customers change them less frequently, they are much better than sticky mouse traps overall.”

"Brother Dong is still thinking far ahead." Su Yiyi said with a smile.

Yang Wendong also smiled and said: "It's far-fetched, but it's actually very simple. Whether you can do it depends on your ability and luck.

The Hong Kong market will not be as strong as before after a while. If the foreign market does not recover in the short term, I will have to find other traders. Although I don’t want to, there is no other way.”

The customer channels of Hong Kong factories are controlled by many traders. There is nothing that can be done about it. Small factories are all run by Chinese, who are naturally no match for foreign companies or professional trading companies.

The same is true for the market for his own mouse traps in Southeast Asia. Yang Wendong is only responsible for production and has no control over anything else.

Although Japan and Europe are currently controlled by distributors, at least you can still contact foreign customers directly. It will be much better if you cut out a middleman, because most of the profits will be taken away by the middleman. Therefore, even if you can't intervene in foreign channels, being able to contact foreign customers directly is the best result.

Li Jiacheng, the current plastics king, was previously controlled by a trading company when doing business. Later, when plastic flowers became popular, foreign customers turned around and asked for goods and went directly to the Yangtze River Plastic Factory. This allowed Li Jiacheng to break through the control of Hong Kong foreign companies.

Otherwise, even if he became the king of plastic flowers and owned a factory with thousands of employees, he would only be able to earn some hard labor wages, and there would not necessarily be a Li Jiacheng family in the future of Hong Kong's business history.

Thousands of miles away in the United States, in St. Paul, the capital of Minnesota:
A building with more than 40 floors stands out in the southern suburbs of São Paulo, especially since it is surrounded by many factories, which makes it seem a bit out of place.

But the locals all know that this is the headquarters of 3M, the largest industrial giant in the United States. In the entire city of São Paulo, at least 10% of the people work directly or indirectly for this giant company, if not 5%.

Inside the headquarters building, Robert took the elevator to the company's purchasing department.

"Hi, Sean." Robert saw the person he wanted to see and said with a smile, "I brought you a cup of coffee."

Sean raised his head and smiled, "Robert, you are so nice all of a sudden, you must have some intention, tell me, what is it?"

Robert nodded and said, "Haha, yes, I need to buy a set of high-precision equipment to test the viscosity of glue. This is my requirement.

Please help me find out which ones are suitable in the market as soon as possible. After I have confirmed them, I will go to the leader to sign and approve them. "

Sean took the application, took a look at it, and said, "Okay, no problem."

"This is more urgent, we need to do it faster." Robert said again.

Sean said, "The IRS is reviewing our taxes these days, so I'm not available right now. I'll help you with this matter once the IRS is done in three days."

"Okay." Robert didn't urge him anymore. Nothing was more important than the IRS's tax review.

Sean immediately took out a small yellow paper, wrote a few words on it, and then stuck it on the corner of his desk.

"What is this?" Robert had never seen this thing before and was a little curious. He also saw that it said: [Robert's Purchase Inquiry]

Sean said: "This thing is called a post it note, and it was sent to us by a company in Hong Kong.

This thing is really good. If there is something that I can't deal with now but I'm worried that I will forget it later, I just need to write it down on this piece of paper and stick it on the corner of the desk, then I can see it every day.

And it can be pasted in some files, so that when you open the file, you can immediately remember things related to the file. "

"Post-it notes? What a good thing." Robert's eyes lit up.

……

(End of this chapter)