The Rise of the Writers of the Republic of China

"If you can find someone who can do something better than you, then ask him to do it for you. This is the best idea."

To put it more concisely, this sentence is “Leave specific matters to professionals to handle.”

It's so good to say that Woodruff, the current head of Coca-Cola Company, was able to say such a famous saying when he was 18 years old. Unfortunately, the background of his saying this was that he paid someone to do his homework for him, and he was expelled from school for this...

After dropping out of school, Woodruff was idle all day long, which made his father Woodruff very disappointed.

Old Woodruff ordered his son to find a job and use the wages he earned to repay his wasted tuition, accommodation and living expenses. He arranged for his son to join the company as a sand dredger, but his son caused trouble within a week, so he had no choice but to let his son change his profession to become a machinist apprentice. As a result, his son was fired after a year. Then, he asked his son to work as an assistant in a fire extinguishing equipment company, and was fired again without any surprise.

After being fired in various ways, the father and son broke up directly.

Woodruff gave up his purchasing position in the family company and went to work as a salesman for someone else's company, and he actually did a great job. This situation made Old Woodruff feel that his son had finally become a talent, so he called his son back and arranged to join the company's board of directors.

From the above we can see that it is not terrible to be expelled from school, it is not terrible to be expelled from the company, it is not terrible to be idle, and it is not terrible to aim too high. Real talents will definitely succeed. The premise is that you have a rich father who is successful in the outside world and can come back to inherit the family business.

Zhou Hexuan met this genius who inherited the family property in a rural manor in New York State. When the two met, Woodruff was riding a horse, riding a wild horse that was not fully tamed. The Coca-Cola helmsman was almost knocked to the ground.

"Hello, Mr. Woodruff." Zhou Hexuan greeted with a smile.

In the middle of winter, Woodruff was sweating all over, turned over and dismounted and said: "Chinese, I have heard of you, but I am only interested in making money. Are you going to solicit war donations from me? Wait until the annual sales volume of Coca-Cola in China I will be very happy to break through 5 million bottles."

Zhou Hexuan smiled and said: "Haha, I just heard that Coca-Cola is looking for investment and I want to give you money. Since Mr. Woodruff doesn't need it, I'll leave."

"Coca-Cola's performance is so good that it doesn't need investment at all," Woodruff said.

"Is this really the case?" Zhou Hexuan asked.

Woodruff did not answer directly, but asked: "Can you ride a horse?"

Zhou Hexuan said: "I know a little bit."

Woodruff asked the stable boy to bring a gelding to Zhou Hexuan, and he climbed on the horse's back and said, "Run with me for a lap first."

Zhou Hexuan hadn't ridden a horse for a long time, so he jumped on it and ran wildly.

Woodruff gradually caught up, nodded and smiled: "Your riding skills are good, how about we go hunting together some other time?"

"Not interested." Zhou Hexuan reined in the reins.

Woodruff just didn't talk about business matters and rambled: "Do you know Sparta? I have received a Spartan education since I was a child. When other people's children were in middle school, I was raised by my father. Sent to military school. Although I was very hostile to my father when I was young, now I respect him very much. He raised me into a real man."

Zhou Hexuan smiled and said: "So you don't like studying, and you were fired for hiring people to do homework when you were in college. You also like to fight with people, and you were fired from the company more than ten times because of fighting?"

"It seems you have investigated me carefully." Woodruff raised his eyebrows.

Zhou Hexuan said: "There is a Chinese saying that if you know yourself and the enemy, you will never be defeated in a hundred battles."

Woodruff said: "Doing business doesn't require professional knowledge, so I don't need to learn, I just need to know how to manage people who can do things. Fights are because others are disobedient. I don't like controversy, I only like absolute obedience. Either I obey others, Either someone else will obey me, but so far no one has made me willing to obey.”

Zhou Hexuan asked with a smile: "You mean, even if I invest in Coca-Cola, I can't interfere in the company's management and operations?"

"Yes," Woodruff halted his horse and nodded, "You are very smart. You are worthy of being a scholar. You can hear my will at once. Tell me, how much money can you invest?"

Zhou Hexuan asked: "How many shares can you tolerate me getting?"

Woodroof laughed loudly: "This is a great question, and it suits my taste very well. You can talk to other shareholders, or you can acquire it from the stock market, but you can own up to 15% of the equity. This is what I The limit of what can be tolerated.”

Zhou Hexuan shook his head and said: "The stock price of Coca-Cola is too high. It is impossible to acquire it in the stock market. Except for speculators, no one will be willing to be a fool to take over the deal. What I want to ask is, what is your lowest ability to conduct equity transactions privately?" What’s the price?”

Woodruff laughed and said: "The shares in my hand will not be sold. You can ask those idiot shareholders."

"Is it true?" Zhou Hexuan said, "I heard that Coca-Cola is looking for investment everywhere."

Woodruff didn't bother to beat around the bush and said directly: "Coca-Cola does need financing, but you can't afford the price. Do you know how much my father valued the company when he bought Coca-Cola?"

"25 million US dollars." Zhou Hexuan said.

"Yes, $25 million, but that was 21 years ago, and now it has to be at least 20 times higher," Woodruff said.

Zhou Hexuan said with a smile: "Mr. Woodruff, don't use this kind of rhetoric to deceive investors into investing. Don't use it to deceive your negotiating opponents."

When Woodruff's father acquired Coca-Cola, he only had US$1.8 million available for mobilization. The combined value of Coca-Cola's buildings, factories and machinery was less than US$2 million, and the rest was all brand premium.

How did old Woodruff swallow the elephant?

He first persuaded the son and nephew of the founder of Coca-Cola to sign the contract without telling the founder of Coca-Cola. Then it adopted a joint-stock system to raise funds, and then prepared to go public. After a lot of speculation, it was successful.

Aisha, the founder of Coca-Cola, was old and had been ill for many years, so she suddenly found out that her company was gone. His son and nephew became millionaires and continued to control the company, and Woodroof Sr. became the second largest shareholder—but the real controller of Coca-Cola was still the founder.

As for the now awesome Woodruff, it was only a few years later that his father appointed him to the board of directors. He started out by making blind moves and clamoring to enter the European and Asian markets. As a result, he lost everything and was completely deprived of administrative power by other shareholders.

Woodroof could only choose to be patient, spent nearly ten years trying to win over each other, and using his strength to kill all other shareholders, he has now become the absolute controller of Coca-Cola. Woodruff's success was not only due to his strong skills, but also due to the internal strife in the Coca-Cola founder's family. They staged dramas of father and son killing each other and brothers fighting each other. The business war blockbuster was turned into a family ethics drama.

Woodruff dictates the truth in the company, like a tyrant, causing other shareholders to only receive dividends every year (without decision-making power or voice). If it weren't for Coca-Cola's good development momentum, the company would have disbanded long ago, and every shareholder would be very angry.

Now that the economic environment in the United States is sluggish, Coca-Cola's internal problems that have accumulated for more than ten years have begun to appear. The stock price was slowly falling, and shareholders' annual dividends were also falling as performance rose. Woodruff's authority in the company had been severely shaken.

Hall and Dibber, the two shareholders of the Gantt family, have been clamoring to sell their shares to cash out, and they did sell part of it. This is also the main reason for the recent decline in Coca-Cola's stock price.

Zhou Hexuan smiled and continued to add: "Mr. Woodruff, I heard that all Coca-Cola factories in Germany have been closed. That is really a pity. After all, Germany is Coca-Cola's largest overseas market."

Woodruff's face was a little ugly. The reason why Coca-Cola had difficulties with cash flow was due to the spread of the war in Europe. Woodruff had been laying out the European market for twenty years, and his annual advertising expenses were astronomical, but they were completely wasted because of that bastard Hitler.

The United States is imposing economic and trade sanctions on Germany. All Coca-Cola's factories in Germany and its occupied areas have been forced to close, and they can't even get back the money in the banks of those factories.

Woodruff had completely cut off contact with the German branch. He didn't even know that there was still a Coca-Cola factory in Germany that continued to produce. Due to insufficient raw materials for making Coke, the person in charge of the factory simply turned to orange-flavored soda and named it Fanta.

It wasn't until the end of World War II that Woodruff suddenly discovered: Oh my god, why do I still have a branch called "Fanta" in Germany? Moreover, that branch also assisted other Coca-Cola factories in Europe to resume production. It was a waste of time to pick up dozens of factories!

To put it bluntly, because Fanta assisted the Coca-Cola factory in Germany to resume production and kept praising Hitler in its advertisements, the Germans thought that Coca-Cola was its own brand. After World War II, a German prisoner saw a billboard for Coca-Cola in the United States and asked in surprise: "You also have Coca-Cola in the United States?"

Seeing that Woodruff was silent, Zhou Hexuan continued to stimulate him: "Since Coca-Cola is unwilling to accept investment, then I can only invest in Pepsi-Cola."

Woodruff immediately became angry: "Pepsi-Cola is a shameless pirated product. Only lowly black people can drink it! I am in a lawsuit with Pepsi-Cola. I want to sue them to close down!"

"Really?" Zhou Hexuan said with a smile, "Pepsi-Cola's scale is not too big. Once I invest, I will definitely become a top shareholder. I will suggest that Pepsi-Cola change its trademark, and then invite Vivien Leigh or Chaplin to endorse advertisements. I guess With their endorsement, no one will think Pepsi is a black drink anymore. What do you think?"

Pepsi is really a counterfeit, and now even its trademark is imitating Coca-Cola. In addition, there are a lot of copycats in the United States such as Coffee Coke, Coca-Cola, Coca-Cola, and Flyer Coke. Coca-Cola sues every year but has no solution because "Coca" and "Coke" are both common nouns. Who knows? They can all be used as product names.

Pepsi-Cola was Coca-Cola's biggest competitor, and Woodruff couldn't imagine the consequences of Pepsi-Cola asking Chaplin to advertise, not to mention that he really needed investment. Finally, Woodruff relented and expressed his attitude. He said: "You can send a negotiation team over and we will discuss the details slowly."

"A wise choice." Zhou Hexuan smiled.