Chapter 19 Zero Sales

At noon, Tian Mo and Zhuang Dong, who had undergone a complete makeover, finished their meal in the mall and returned to the store.

To celebrate, Tian Mo had even treated Zhuang Dong to an all-you-can-eat barbecue. They both ate until their mouths were greasy and their spirits were high.

After the stylist's careful makeover, Zhuang Dong finally looked like a presentable person.

Of course, there couldn't be too many earth-shattering changes. After all, a person's temperament is innate, and the subtle movements displayed in their gestures cannot be changed overnight. The stylist couldn't spend that much time correcting these subtle postures either.

But just from the perspective of clothing and appearance, Zhuang Dong was no longer the simple and foolish country bumpkin. The overall impression he gave had greatly improved.

After the two finished lunch, they returned to the store and officially started business.

Although it was Saturday and the mall had a lot of foot traffic, the store's location wasn't exactly prime real estate on this floor. In addition, the sign at the entrance was too low-key, so there weren't many customers yet.

Tian Mo was sitting upright and looking ready for action at first, but he soon slumped down.

Several customers passed by the entrance, but they just glanced into the store and left, seemingly uninterested.

Tian Mo was a little bored.

He thought for a moment and first handed the little notebook with the rules to Zhuang Dong, so he could read it slowly and memorize it.

Zhuang Dong was overjoyed. He took the little notebook very reverently and found a seat inside to sit down and read it with utmost seriousness.

Tian Mo turned on the TV, flipped through the physical game discs, and finally chose *Struggle* to play.

His consideration was that *Struggle*, as an interactive movie-like game, didn't require too much focus and could be paused at any time, making it convenient to greet customers promptly. Moreover, the game's graphics were good, which could leave a good impression on customers.

After playing for a while, a customer finally came in.

Tian Mo immediately put down the controller and stood up to greet them.

The customer who came into the store was a man in his thirties, wearing a leather jacket, who didn't seem to be short of money.

He picked up a display unit from the counter and asked, "Are you selling phones? What brand? I don't think I've seen this store here before."

Tian Mo quickly replied, "This is an Otto phone, a phone developed by Tengda Group. We're a Tengda specialty store, selling only Tengda products."

The man suddenly realized, "Oh! I thought the logo at the door looked familiar. Tengda even opened a specialty store, not bad, not bad. How much is this phone? Is it the price on the tag? Any discounts?"

Tian Mo couldn't help but rejoice. I know this one! President Pei taught me this!

He immediately answered truthfully, "Sorry, no discounts. And I strongly advise against buying it now, because it's a model from over a year ago, and its configuration is a bit outdated in all aspects. It's not cost-effective, and it's a huge loss to buy it now."

The man looked up at him, almost thinking he'd misheard.

"Advise against buying? A huge loss to buy it now?"

"You're really something. This is the first time I've seen you do business like this."

The man put down the phone. Actually, he was just asking casually and didn't intend to buy it. Besides, the store clerk himself said that the phone was a product from over a year ago. Wouldn't it be crazy to buy it?

The man looked around the store and spotted the Fully-Automatic Argument Machine.

"What is this thing?"

Tian Mo immediately introduced, "This is called the 'Fully-Automatic Argument Machine.' Its main function is to argue, and its secondary function is to be used as an echo wall. Let me demonstrate..."

Fortunately, Tian Mo had already roughly understood the usage of these products in the store in advance, otherwise it would be too awkward to check the manual on the spot.

Obviously, this man didn't know much about Tengda's products.

This was also normal, because although Tengda's products were quite popular online, they mainly had a greater impact on the younger generation. People in their thirties and forties, like this man, or even older, might have only heard of the name Tengda Group and probably didn't know much about products like phones and Fully-Automatic Argument Machines.

Tian Mo still started with the shortcomings of the Fully-Automatic Argument Machine, as President Pei had said, saying that the gimmick of this thing was greater than its substance. If considering the cost-effectiveness, it would be more worthwhile to buy echo walls from some big brands.

The man listened attentively throughout. After Tian Mo finished introducing it, he said with emotion, "This one has problems, that one has shortcomings. How come everything you say isn't cost-effective?"

"Are you saying that none of your things are recommended to buy?"

"Then what are you putting these things out here for?"

Tian Mo was speechless for a moment, "Ah, this..."

Yes, according to what President Pei said, this isn't recommended to buy, and that isn't recommended to buy. What's the point of opening this store?

Tian Mo himself didn't know why. How could he explain this to the customer?

The man saw that Tian Mo was stunned and laughed, "Forget it, I'm just joking with you. I feel like you guys are pretty conscientious in selling things. Other salesmen try their best to hide the shortcomings, but you guys honestly tell them first. It's a bit like 'willing to take the bait.'"

"Alright, thank you. I'll come back when you have new products."

The man strolled away.

Tian Mo scratched his head and continued to sit on the sofa and play games.

...

In the blink of an eye, the whole afternoon passed.

Tian Mo looked at his watch. It was already five o'clock in the afternoon, the usual time to get off work.

According to President Pei, the working hours of the sales department are relatively flexible, with a two-day weekend and an eight-hour working day. When there are more people, Tian Mo can freely arrange shifts.

Now there are only Tian Mo and Zhuang Dong in the entire sales department, so they can't be so particular. President Pei doesn't pursue lateness or early departures, and naturally no one else can control them.

Quite a few people came this afternoon. Basically, those who were shopping for digital products on this floor would come and take a look.

But Tian Mo discovered a very embarrassing thing: if it was young people who came, most of them knew about the Otto phone and the Fully-Automatic Argument Machine, and those who wanted to buy them had already bought them, and wouldn't wait until now; and the older ones, although they hadn't heard of these products, after Tian Mo's honest introduction, they wouldn't have any intention of buying them at all.

So, for the entire afternoon, the store's turnover was zero.

Not a single thing was sold!

Not to mention big items like phones and Fully-Automatic Argument Machines, not even a single game disc was sold.

There was even an angry older woman who criticized Tian Mo because she felt that Tian Mo didn't introduce the products properly and kept saying that the product was bad in this way and that way, which was disrespectful to her, leaving Tian Mo unable to defend himself.

The whole afternoon passed in a daze.

Zhuang Dong didn't get involved in these things. He had been memorizing the rules on the sofa in the test play area, while observing and learning how Tian Mo greeted customers.

After observing for a while, Zhuang Dong was obviously puzzled.

Although he didn't know much about sales, he had bought a lot of things since he was a child.

He had never seen anyone selling things who kept talking about the shortcomings of their own products!

But the rules he was memorizing did require that.

"Brother Gou, I've memorized these rules pretty well. But I have a question, are you sure this is what the boss said? I feel like it's so unreliable! We didn't sell a single thing all afternoon, we're too much of a failure! Will the boss be angry?"

Zhuang Dong was obviously a little confused.

Tian Mo was also confused, but these words were indeed said by President Pei himself, he was 100% sure.

"Why don't we call it a day, let's go have dinner and then go home to rest."

"I have to think carefully about what went wrong, whether I haven't understood President Pei's true meaning."

"This afternoon was really a waste of time, we didn't sell anything, we just got a few compliments, saying that our sales are very conscientious and know how to consider customers..."

"But what's the use of compliments, we have to sell as many things as possible!"

Although Tian Mo had foreseen that he might encounter this kind of embarrassing situation before, he never expected that he wouldn't sell a single thing in a mall with so much foot traffic.

He thought the business would be bad, but he didn't expect it to be this bad!

The key is that President Pei also said that he should practice here, and there would be bigger stores waiting for him to take over in the future.

If he practiced like this, how could he have the face to take over a bigger store?

Tian Mo was very frustrated and just wanted to go back and rest well and deeply reflect on what went wrong.

President Pei must be fine, he could only blame himself for being incapable.