“Yaoyao, our company is part of a major group. It’s all very professional. You should come back and take a look.”

Dong Hong continued her persuasion.

A few days ago, during a casual chat, her daughter had mentioned she was looking for an internship.

Since then, Dong Hong had been paying attention. Not to mention other places, even just President Chen’s company was an excellent option.

If her daughter could work at Mingri Group, that would be a great opportunity.

So yesterday, she brought it up with President Chen, who clearly expressed that he could arrange a position for Yang Yaoyao.

With that confirmation, she made the call just now.

“Mom, I really do have a good job here.”

Yang Yaoyao replied helplessly.

But when it came to live streaming, she still didn’t know how to explain it to her parents. She was worried they wouldn’t understand her choice.

After thinking it over, she decided it was best to wait until her live streaming career had stabilized before telling them.

“Mom, I’ve got something to take care of right now. Let’s talk later.”

…

Jiang City,

Changbai Scenic Garden.

Dong Hong slowly hung up the phone.

“What did Yaoyao say?”

Yang Dahai asked as he saw Dong Hong end the call.

Dong Hong shook her head.

“She said she’s already found an internship over there, so she won’t be coming back to Jiang City.”

“Forget it. If she doesn’t want to come back, let her be.”

Yang Dahai sighed.

He had always respected his daughter’s decisions. If she didn’t want to return, then so be it.

…

Jiang City,

Nanhe Coffee.

Su Dan and Song Xia were sitting at an empty table in the coffee shop, discussing business.

“These are the materials sent over from Beijing. Take a look.”

Su Dan handed a folder to Song Xia and picked up another to read herself.

“Alright.”

Song Xia nodded.

These documents had been compiled by Nanhe Coffee’s Beijing office. They were the results of field research into the business models of various coffee shops in Beijing.

After all, they had already conducted in-person visits to all the coffee shops in Jiang City, observing their operations and customer-drawing techniques.

But the number of coffee shops in Jiang City was limited, especially specialty coffee shops. To gather more data, they had asked their team in Beijing to conduct similar fieldwork and send back the findings.

The two of them quietly flipped through the reports from Beijing.

After a while, Su Dan set down the file and looked up at Song Xia.

“What do you think?”

“Well, a lot of them run promotions or offer discounts during holidays. Those are ways to attract customers. As for the specialty coffee shops, they cater exclusively to a niche group of high-end clientele. But neither of these approaches really works for Nanhe Coffee.”

Song Xia frowned slightly.

Discount promotions had already been explicitly banned by President Chen, so that strategy was off the table for Nanhe Coffee.

And as for the specialty coffee model that targeted a fixed group of high-end customers, it didn’t suit Nanhe Coffee either.

If Nanhe Coffee only had one or two locations, that might have been feasible.

But counting the Beijing branches, Nanhe Coffee now had 30 stores, and they were still expanding. With that many locations, the high-end clientele simply wasn’t enough to support them all.

So that model was clearly not viable either.

Su Dan sighed at Song Xia’s words.

Of course she knew that too. Specialty coffee, by nature, was a niche market with a limited consumer base.

Yet President Chen had opened so many specialty coffee shops, completely going against the typical business model for such establishments.

All the research they had done so far was in hopes of finding a balanced approach that would allow specialty coffee shops to appeal to a broader customer base.

“If those two methods won’t work, we’ll have to consider other options.”

Su Dan flipped through the materials again, brows furrowed.

She had already gone through the documents once and hadn’t found any breakthroughs.

Was Nanhe Coffee really going to continue down this path?

Su Dan couldn’t help but rub her temples. Nanhe Coffee had already expanded to 30 stores, with five more in the pipeline.

And with every five new stores, there would be a corresponding increase in employee salaries, utilities, and other daily operating expenses.

As the number of shops grew, so did the monthly costs.

Once it reached a certain scale, the total expenses would become a terrifying figure.

Although President Chen had said there was no need to worry too much about whether the coffee shop was turning a profit, as the Deputy Manager of Nanhe Coffee, how could Su Dan not be concerned?

If they really waited until the expenses reached a point where President Chen could no longer bear the burden, Nanhe Coffee would collapse in no time.

As she was lost in thought, a customer suddenly walked into the coffee shop.

“Excuse me, do you have any pastries here?”

“Sorry, we don’t serve pastries.”

Hearing the exchange, Su Dan blinked, then flipped through the documents she had just been reviewing.

After a moment, her eyes gradually lit up.

Pastries!

How could she have overlooked something so obvious?

Currently, Nanhe Coffee only served coffee—no pastries at all. But during her research into other coffee shops, she had often seen customers ordering pastries.

And from what she had observed, those pastries weren’t cheap.

She remembered during her visit to Starbucks, two small pastries plus a cup of Americano easily cost between 70 to 80 yuan, and some pastries were even more expensive.

She also had some prior knowledge about this. Those pastries were usually mass-produced in specialized factories, either as finished products or semi-finished ones, which only required minimal preparation in-store.

In reality, the cost of those pastries wasn’t high at all.

There was definitely room to maneuver here!

“I think… I’ve got an idea,” Su Dan said, her face lighting up with excitement.

“Teacher Su, you have an idea?” Song Xia looked at her in surprise. She had been racking her brain for a long time and still hadn’t come up with anything. She hadn’t expected Teacher Su to suddenly have a solution.

“Yes.” Su Dan nodded, glancing at the customer who had just left because they didn’t have pastries.

There had been other customers in the past who asked about pastries, but she hadn’t thought much of it at the time.

However, after reviewing the materials sent over from Beijing, she noticed that many of the coffee shops listed included pastries on their menus.

“I think we can start offering some pastries in the shop. Since our specialty coffee is priced on the higher side, we can lower the price of the pastries to just above break-even.”

“This way, if someone wants a pastry, they might be more inclined to choose Nanhe Coffee.”

Su Dan explained her idea slowly.

All they had to do was price the pastries as low as possible. That way, even though their coffee was more expensive, the cheaper pastries would balance things out. The total cost of coffee plus pastry wouldn’t seem too high.

Other coffee shops might offer cheaper coffee, but their pastries were pricey.

So in comparison, the overall cost would be about the same.

In fact, in terms of total price for a coffee and a pastry, Nanhe Coffee might even come out ahead.

And when it came to taste, Nanhe Coffee’s coffee was at least on par with, if not far better than, the competition.