KC | Chapter 18

Lin Yiran had talked to countless key clients. Many clients only gave one chance to meet, and if the first impression was bad, there was no possibility of follow-up cooperation. Every time before meeting a client, Lin Yiran would simulate the conversation between both sides in his head, preparing response lines in advance, all just to fight for another chance to meet.

Chen Xi’s resignation could not avoid me, and if I did not approve it, he could forget about leaving. So, when Wang Shuang could no longer stop him, he would come to me, and that would very likely be my last chance to keep him.

If I did not prepare properly, Chen Xi very likely would not give me another chance to meet him.

Sticking to the principle of “fighting for another chance to meet”, Lin Yiran classified Chen Xi into his “key client” area. Chen Xi had originally belonged to Lin Yiran’s “other matters” area, ranked as the third priority, and now belonged to Lin Yiran’s “key client” area, ranked as the first priority.

Chen Xi was Lin Yiran’s key client.

Lin Yiran had thought of many strategies, and before he could put any of them into practice, Chen Xi directly surrendered.

This key client was way too easy to handle.

If before, when Lin Yiran reached the conclusion that “Chen Xi likes me”, he had still been a little uncertain, then now, looking at Chen Xi’s reaction, Lin Yiran was nearly 100% certain that “Chen Xi likes me”.

You like me and still ask me if I’m “sick”? You were keeping such a straight face and thought you were hiding it pretty well, huh?

You only drank two mouthfuls of water and you already couldn’t hold it in. At this rate, how are you going to negotiate with clients in the future.

Lin Yiran had originally wanted to have a proper talk with Chen Xi, but now time was tight. He thought, next time, he would pick a suitable occasion, change to a more relaxed atmosphere, and then lay everything out openly with Chen Xi.

Lin Yiran opened his MacBook, stopped chatting around, and sat up straight. “Let’s talk about it.”

“This account had just come to KA last year and signed on then. At that time, their spending wasn’t high. This year, as the scale gradually expanded and spending increased, there were more advertisers they could choose from.” Chen Xi looked fully businesslike, this was the first normal conversation between the two in over ten days. Lin Yiran was Chen Xi’s superior, so helping him deal with client problems was only natural. If Chen Xi couldn’t solve it, and Lin Yiran had a strategy that could, Chen Xi would be more than happy.

“The招商加盟 account?”

KA clients were divided into “brand accounts” and “spending accounts”. So-called brand accounts were clients who had advertising budgets all year round and ran display ads. The premium from display ads could be counted as sales gross profit performance. Spending accounts were clients who needed to rely on online ads all year round and ran performance conversion campaigns. When ad spending reached a certain scale, the corresponding media would give Lanhai rebates, and the rebate portion would count as sales gross profit performance.

Lin Yiran had some impression of this招商加盟 client. This was the first spending account Chen Xi had signed after transferring to KA.

“Mm.”

Lin Yiran slightly lifted his chin and nodded toward the chair.

Chen Xi did not want to sit in the chair directly opposite Lin Yiran. He was too close. Keeping distance was the last bottom line of his struggle. He took two steps forward, braced a hand on the chair back, and did not sit down, still keeping distance.

“After the account was suspended, did you communicate with the client? What did they say?”

“I did. The person in charge asked me for a rebate.” Chen Xi lowered his eyes.

The招商加盟 client promoted online to recruit franchisees, and the money spent on promotion had to be earned back from the franchisees. For example, if 10,000 yuan was spent on promotion and one franchisee was brought in, with a franchise fee of 30,000 yuan, after deducting labor costs the ROI could reach above 1:2, and the client would keep cooperating.

To put it bluntly, a spending account was money exchanging for money, using ad spending to exchange for the signing money of franchisees.

A client cooperating on the basis of interests could of course place ads with Lanhai, but could also place them with other companies. If another ad company gave the client kickbacks or rebates, this account would very easily be lost.

If they gave the client a rebate, they would lose their own spending gross profit, and KA’s assessment was exactly based on spending gross profit. If they did not give a rebate, the client would be lost. If they gave a rebate, there would be no performance.

In Chen Xi’s eyes, no matter how he looked at it, this was a dead end.

But to Lin Yiran, “rebate” was only one part of what promoted cooperation between the two sides. If the client only wanted利益, there would be no reason at all to give Chen Xi a chance to sign, and they would not have kept cooperating with Lanhai for a full year.

This problem was not unsolvable.

Lin Yiran asked, “How much rebate did the client want?”

“20%”

As an ad company, the highest platform rebate Lanhai could get was 18%. The client wanted 20%. If they cooperated with Lanhai, for every 10,000 yuan of ad spend the client placed, Lanhai would lose 200 yuan, which was not worth it.

“The channel company gave 20%?”

“Mm.”

Online ad platforms gave 18 points to either the channel or Lanhai, and would not give any more. The reason channel companies could give such high rebates was because they had to complete the platform’s tasks and pass the platform’s channel assessment.

For example, if they failed to meet the platform’s assessment, the channel company would be fined 10 million, while for a single client spending 500,000, losing 10,000 and still completing the performance made perfect sense, didn’t it?

The platform assessed channel companies, but it did not assess ad companies. Lanhai was an ad company that aimed for profit, and Chen Xi’s assessment direction was also gross profit. So, whether from the company side or the sales side, there was no reason to give the client a rebate.

Over the years, many high-spending clients had been poached away by channel companies using rebates, and Lin Yiran was used to it, but this was the first time Chen Xi had run into it.

“Who told you that? The client person in charge or the boss?” Lin Yiran continued to press.

“The person in charge. Their boss only takes the money and wants results, he doesn’t care about online promotion.”

“Has the client already started cooperating with the channel company?” Lin Yiran’s deep eyes looked a bit sharp, and his questioning was pressing step by step.

“Mm.”

“How many channel companies are they cooperating with? What’s each one’s average daily ad spend? Are the promoted projects the same as before, or are there new projects?”

Chen Xi had long since gotten used to Lin Yiran’s interrogative way of talking. In the year since he had come to KA, apart from work, he hardly talked about anything else with Lin Yiran. When discussing clients, he always spoke plainly.

“This… the person in charge didn’t say.” The client person in charge had only said they would not cooperate, gave a few brief words, and then hung up. Chen Xi had not thought to ask so much at the time.

Lin Yiran folded both arms across his chest and glanced at his wristwatch. There were 5 minutes left until the meeting.

This little fool had been led around by the client.

“Your client’s spending often fluctuates, so the channel company likely intervened more than once.” Lin Yiran turned the MacBook toward Chen Xi.

The client was Chen Xi’s, and the loss from suspending ad promotion was his direct interest. Chen Xi was anxious and no longer cared about keeping distance. He sat down in the chair opposite Lin Yiran and stared at the spending data on the screen. Over the course of a year of cooperation there had been a total of 3 data fluctuations, each time at the end of a quarter, and the most recent one was at the end of last month.

Lin Yiran asked, “When the client’s spending fluctuated at the end of last month, were you paying attention?”

Chen Xi shook his head. At the end of the quarter, he had been talking to other clients to push his gross profit performance.

Looks like I wasn’t paying enough attention and gave the channel company a chance.

“If… if I had noticed in time back then and communicated with the client, that would have been good.” Chen Xi’s brows were tightly furrowed, very distressed, his small face wrinkled into a ball.

Lin Yiran subconsciously wanted to pat his head. Just as his arm lifted, he put it down again.

If given a choice between reason and emotion, Lin Yiran would choose “reason” without hesitation, and Chen Xi would also choose “reason” but actually carried it out with “emotion”.

At the moment, they had indeed missed the best time to win the client back, but it was not completely without a solution.

“At the end of last month, I also didn’t look at the spending data, and forgot to remind you. This is my fault.” Lin Yiran casually took the responsibility onto himself. Chen Xi indeed had not monitored the spending account well, but since he had already realized the mistake, there was no point dwelling on what had happened before. It was better to think about a solution to win the client back.

Just like “they slept together” was already something that had happened, and there was no point in dwelling on it, Lin Yiran was thinking about the solution to “keep Chen Xi”.

If the client really did not want to cooperate with Lanhai anymore, they could simply not inform Chen Xi and go place the ads with the channel company directly. So the client was not unwilling to cooperate, but had a need for rebates or something else. “Not cooperating” was just an excuse the client used to seek profit. I need to let Chen Xi truly understand the client’s needs.

Lin Yiran gave Chen Xi a slight hint. “If the channel company fails to meet assessment, the platform will impose corresponding fines or cancel their platform agency rights. At the end of every quarter, channel companies will lose money to push through the platform’s assessment. So even if we had discovered it then, it would have been hard to hold onto the client with a high rebate.”

Chen Xi slowly caught the point. “Brother Lin means that my account really took a 20% rebate at the end of last quarter, but at the beginning of this quarter the channel company won’t give them that much anymore, so when they asked me for a 20% rebate, they were fooling me about the upper limit of the rebate I could give?”

“Right.”

“After completing the assessment, the clients the channel used to push the assessment became useless.” Chen Xi analyzed the pros and cons. “Because the more they spend, the more the channel loses.”

“Right.”

“So I need to go see the person in charge and think of every possible way to find out their real rebate, only then will we have a chance to win the client back.” Chen Xi suddenly understood, and found the key point in it.

“Heh.” This time Lin Yiran did not say “right”, and he did not give any advice either. He just watched Chen Xi talk there by himself.

“But…” Chen Xi hit another snag.

Although he knew the problem, it was not easy to solve.

The client cooperated because of利益, and our relationship was ordinary. Rebates were commercial secrets, there was definitely no way to ask them out.

“Thinking about it is a problem. Only when facing the client will there be a solution.” Lin Yiran guessed what Chen Xi was thinking and said lightly, “During negotiations many unforeseeable problems may occur, and if you have never experienced them, they do not become experience.”

“Sometimes you prepare a pile of solutions, but the key client is very tough and you have no choice but to come away defeated; and sometimes you do not need a solution, and the key client surrenders directly as soon as you open your mouth.” Lin Yiran smiled. “So go talk to them. If you keep agonizing here, the client can only keep slipping away. Meeting them is the best solution.”

At 9:00 exactly, Lin Yiran stood up and said as he walked, “In a bit, you go find the client. If the client asks you about rebates, you must make them speak first. Otherwise, if you say anything below 20 as the rebate, no matter what number it is, it will be wrong.”

Chen Xi nodded, his gaze burning.

Sunlight fell on Lin Yiran’s sharply defined face. His exquisite features were like a masterpiece carved by an artist. His eyes were like a deep lake, calm and distant, holding wisdom, steady and firm.

“Top Sale would never yield to its competitive media.”