Chapter 6
After working for 4 years, I was proud to have been the top salesperson at Lian Yang Nian Hua concept.
However, when the opportunity arose, I decided to move to the Green land Group. Their marketing manager appreciated my job. I was foolish to be overly confident. The company achieved success. It implies that just being in a good company doesn’t necessarily mean you are strong enough.
It was a mistake to leave my previous job for the Green land Group. Soon I realized that the salary change was not as I had been informed during the interview, and it gave me a valuable lesson about overconfidence.
When you are too proud of yourself, you will make mistakes soon.
After four months of striving to find a new job, I eventually received an interview invitation from a local HR company with an owner from Hong Kong. Despite my endeavors, I unfortunately failed to reach the sales targets at this investment group after merely two months. At least I got skills including HR recruitment.Interview and headhunting etc.
Nothing comes easy. Then, I reached out to various friends for assistance once more. One gentleman was my client when I had my first job at a property development company. He was very fond of me and invited me to join his company, which included financial companies and accounting firms. General Manager Ye was a very influential person.
It was right here that I embarked on my consulting career, taking up assistant work and diving deep into the realm of tax public relations. The real world turned out to be strikingly different from what I had encountered before. My first task entailed resolving the tax issue of a wealthy family; they owned a factory in Pujiang Town of Shanghai and provided automatic curtains to Jin Mao Tower. To me, they were extremely successful.
When they came to our office, they encountered some issues as they had sold their products without issuing invoices. My boss asked me to follow up and handle the PR with tax officer Mr. Liu in LuWan district. I was a bit nervous during my first visit to the tax bureau, especially when we met the tax officer, Mr. Liu who was dressed in his official uniform and seemed very serious. I helped the clients explain their situation and Mr. Liu responded amiably, asking us to go home. He politely declined my offer of tea as a gift, and we left his office as he requested.
The next day, I returned to his office and did my best to plead for my client. he chuckled kindly, treating me like a younger brother who was still learning about the real world. His smile gave me a lot of courage, and I was truly grateful. After the audit was completed, we were coming to the end of the tax inspection.
Unfortunately, we had to pay a penalty of 500k. However, my clients were relieved as they were applying to move abroad and didn’t want any more complications. They were happy that money could solve their problem.
My boss was impressed by my ability to handle public relations with the tax bureau and invited me to more dinners as his assistant. This provided me with more opportunities to improve myself, which I found wonderful.
Around 2007, I took up the responsibility of communicating with foreign clients for the company. I was fortunate enough to meet clients from Tehran and Australia.
One of them was Mr. Hamid from Tehran, who ran a trading company for machine parts. He was worried about the potential conflicts between the USA and Iran, which made him gradually move his family to Shanghai. I helped him find an office in the Renmin Road area and assisted with the registration of his company.
Working with Mr. Hamid gave me precious experience in handling international clients. At one point, he even offered me a position in his office. Though I contemplated it and enquired about the salary particulars, eventually I chose not to join him - yet I’m still thankful for the opportunity.
After meeting Mr. Hamid, I had the wonderful experience of coming across Suzar, an Australian client who is an interior designer. She needed help in getting approval from our government, and fortunately, our government granted her request at the perfect time. She also asked if I was willing to join her design company. I didn’t picture my future there. I was truly thankful.
Another day, Mr. Alexie came along with his bald assistant and left a good impression on me after our first meeting. However, his assistant left his bag in the conference room and I rushed out to return it. Despite this, he kept chatting with me and I could feel that he considers me useful to him and wants to have me under his control. He attempted to repeat my words to Mr. Alexie as part of his assistant duties, but he didn’t understand the meaning of real business at all.
Soon,Mr.Alexie lost patience and he send me a message for café together.