I Know Everything - Chapter 651
Chapter 651: Can’t stand the pressure!
Subway’s brand was bigger compared to Dicos.
Subway had more than 40k stores worldwide, far surpassing McDonald and KFC.
Of course in terms of profit, there wasn’t much difference for the three of them.
But in the Chinese market, Subway wasn’t just a bit worse compared to McDonald and KFC.
KFC had more than 5 000 stores there while McDonald had 3 000 and even Dicos had 2 000, while Subway had around 800 stores in China.
This irritated Subway who wanted to bank in the emerging Chinese market.
Subway had already reached the limit by opening stores in the other developed countries so if they wanted to further develop, they must aim for the emerging markets.
China was a country with 1.5 billion people and a vibrant economy so it was naturally the market Subway was the most favorable to develop as it always wanted to expand its market share there.
It was a pity the Subway was obviously unaccustomed to China as the people there weren’t very interested in those hotdogs.
Subway didn’t advertise any less and investment kept coming in order to capture people’s interest but it didn’t have much effect.
McDonald’s recent business increasing by leap and bounds had given them hope.
Even if they sold no more meals than McDonald’s, it would be big for Subway if their brand became known throughout the country and people learned they existed.
After all, Subway’s strategy was franchising.
If everyone felt Subway had prospects, they could join them and open a store, then they would be able to grow quickly like a snowball.
Opening 5 000 stores in a single year wouldn’t be an exaggerated hope.
So Subway’s top brass issued a command that as long as Chen Huan showed interest, they would give him anything he asked.
Chen Huan obviously didn’t agree.
He didn’t only refuse Subway but also Dicos.
The reason remained the same.
Many media also recounted it after.
“I already signed a contract and unless the other party faulted me, I won’t break the contract. This would be an insult to my principal and money isn’t the most important thing in life.”
This made some people complain.
They said that Chen Huan was already a wealthy man with an estimated fortune of more than one billion Yuan, of course he wouldn’t care about the money.
If they also had that much money, they also could say that money didn’t matter to them.
But there were still more people showing appreciation for his actions.
Especially the foreigners who respected his mentality of respecting the contract.
Chen Huan’s reputation became more positive with the positive news about him.
At the same time, pressure on McDonald’s suddenly increased.
It wasn’t that Chen Huan was giving pressure to them but it wouldn’t pass if they didn’t give a better contract now.
McDonald’s executives said that they didn’t receive any calls from Chen Huan to discuss the contract as if the poaching never happened.
But the media would always stir things up when there was nothing, let alone when there was breaking news like now.
The media saw McDonald’s failure to respond so started to create stories around it.
The central points of their comments was whether Chen Huan was worthy of another contract and why McDonald hadn’t said they would renew his contract. Was it because they wanted to take advantage of Chen Huan’s most valuable year and then abandon him right after?
There wouldn’t be any problem with it in the past.
The contract was one year and no one else could say anything about it.
It was Chen Huan himself who had no commercial value and it was himself who was unfortunate, it had nothing to do with McDonald.
But it was different now!
Chen Huan rejected an astronomical offer from another company to stick to McDonald’s contract but they were intended to be stingy like Grandet and act like nothing happened?
Did you see how Pepsi reacted?
On the next day they learned that Coca Cola was trying to poach their talent, they gave a 9 nine years contract to Chen Huan and doubled their remuneration!
This was how great people do things!
Everyone had a good impression of Pepsi and thought they were quick to respond and bold.
But what about McDonald’s?
Two big companies already tried to poach with high offers but they didn’t respond at all. It couldn’t be that they were relying on how upstanding Chen Huan was and would just use him for a year before throwing him away, right?
It would be too shameless, too cold-blooded!
Chen Huan decided to stick around even after better offers came but they decided to turn a blind eye to it, this was what a big group should act like!
Only a few news outlets were talking about it in the beginning and there was not much discussion online.
However, the people couldn’t hold back anymore when McDonald still didn’t respond on the third day.
Countless citizens started to complain about McDonald’s, including people from the US and in Europe.
The pressure of the public opinion started to weigh on them and even if their sales were still rising, the upcoming word-to-mouth would start to give problems to that rise.
What put even more pressure onto McDonald was that Subway publicly said they would offer 10 million per year for ten years.
Spending 100 million dollars for endorsement would definitely be the largest endorsement for the fast-food industry.
This was the last straw that overwhelmed the defense of McDonald.
McDonald’s stock plummeted by 2.7% that day, which meant billions of dollars lost in market value.
They couldn’t sit still anymore and contacted Chen Huan to renew the contract.
Chen Huan naturally wouldn’t refuse the money freely given by foreigners.
So the two sides quickly reached an agreement.
McDonald also promptly released the news globally.
McDonald decided to renew the contract with Chen Huan in advance due to the confidence he had in them.
The contract was renewed for ten years and it would be 8 million USD per year for global endorsement.
It was definitely less than Subway’s offer but McDonald already assured their place in the market and didn’t have to worry about not being able to pay in the future.
Moreover, McDonald’s development globally had always been stable with very few problems, which reassured Chen Huan.
Just like that, Chen Huan had two 80 million USD contracts.
Chen Huan would make more than 1 billion yuan with just McDonald and Pepsi alone!
The direction of public opinion changed again after that news came out.
Everyone was envious that Chen Huan could get so much from endorsement.
Although BMW and VISA didn’t make any move, Chen Huan’s endorsement exceeded 50 million dollars this year.
He was really the model of making it reach by just endorsing products!