Are there any books that reflect success in life?

The Porridge King sells a bowl of porridge to a millionaire. Article reprinted from:

Sichuan people are humorous. When Shuangliu County is mentioned, a joke will immediately come up: The sound of airplanes in the sky, The sound of porridge in the ground. The sound in the sky was talking about the sound of planes at Chengdu Shuangliu International Airport, and the sound on the ground was actually the sound of people drinking porridge coming from a restaurant called "Sister Li's Porridge Restaurant". It is said that when it is time to eat, thousands of diners crowded the courtyard, and men, women, old and young drank the porridge together. Suddenly, there was a loud "whoosh" sound, and the scene was spectacular. Therefore, some people joked that the sound of drinking porridge in "Sister Li's Porridge Restaurant" can be heard even by people on the plane!

How can a porridge restaurant be so magical? The author came to Shuangliu with curiosity to find out the truth. Unexpectedly, the "Porridge King" who took the porridge business to the extreme turned out to be a laid-off couple with little education. By selling rice porridge, they made millions in wealth in just five years. How was this miracle of getting rich created? Failure is nothing. Failure gives you a chance to start over.

Sister Li’s name is Li Chunhua. She and her husband Gu Qiang are both from Chengguan Town, Renshou County, Chongqing City. The couple once worked in a factory, but the company was in recession and they were both laid off in 1992. After experiencing the pain and hesitation in the early days of being laid off, the couple set up a cigarette stall near their home and started working hard in the dark. By 1997, they had accumulated more than 200,000 yuan in money from the cigarette business. But just as Sister Li and her husband were planning to buy a big house, an unexpected disaster almost killed them. One day in December 1998, a friend came to Sister Li in a hurry and said to her mysteriously: "Sister, I have a friend who works in a tobacco factory. He can pick up goods directly from the factory and the purchase price is much lower than that of the tobacco company. I I suggest you buy from him." Sister Li asked doubtfully, "Can you guarantee the quality of cigarettes?" "I dare not lie to others, but I dare not lie to you, sister! The Spring Festival is coming soon, and cigarettes are in short supply. My friend, I won’t bother helping you so much!” the friend assured.

After seeing off their friend, the couple seriously discussed: Seeing that the Spring Festival is approaching, there must be many people wholesale cigarettes. If they don't buy some goods as soon as possible, they will make a lot of money. So, the couple withdrew all their savings from the bank, borrowed more than 200,000 yuan from relatives and friends, scraped together more than 500,000 yuan, and bought 100 pieces of cigarettes, preparing to make a fortune during the Spring Festival. Looking at the room full of cigarettes and smelling the strong smell of tobacco in the air, Sister Li was filled with joy and looked forward to making a big fortune. However, the nightmare soon came. Two or three days later, some people who bought cigarettes came to her door and asked for returns, and some reported her to the local industrial and commercial administration department for selling fake cigarettes. Soon, the industrial and commercial management personnel came and seized Sister Li's cigarettes and wanted to deal with her at the same time. After detailed investigation, the industrial and commercial management personnel confirmed that Sister Li was a victim and did not deal with her. However, after all this, Sister Li, who originally had a savings of more than 200,000 yuan, not only became a pauper, but also shouldered a debt of more than 200,000 yuan. And the friend who introduced her to buy cigarettes has long since disappeared.

Faced with such a blow, the heartbroken Sister Li shed tears all day long. Creditors came to her house every three days to collect debts, making the family restless. One afternoon, after Sister Li and his wife finally sent away a creditor after much talk, the exhausted couple couldn't help but shed tears at each other. Sister Li felt guilty and said to her husband Gu Qiang: "It's all my fault. I was careless and caused such a big loss. Now, it's useless for us to sigh. Let's find a way to start over! As long as we have a pair of hands, there will always be a day when we can turn around. "But what can we do to turn around? We don't have any capital left. Even selling rice porridge still costs money..." the husband sighed. porridge? These two words were like a bright light, which suddenly illuminated Sister Li's chaotic mind - why can't we start by selling porridge! Selling rice porridge basically requires no investment. Although compared with selling cigarettes, the profit is extremely slim, but as long as there is profit, we can do it! So she said to her husband seriously: "Yes, we will sell porridge!" In order to persuade her husband to sell porridge, Sister Li spent a lot of time talking. In the end, her words moved her husband: "Even if you earn a few cents or a dime from a bowl of porridge, as long as you measure it, you can still make money. Failure is nothing. Failure gives you a chance to start over!" "The husband finally agreed to sell porridge.

But he didn't want to sell it in Renshou County, because there were many creditors here and it would definitely not be clean. So the couple decided to go to Tibet. Because it is impossible for the creditor to find a place so far away at once. In the spring of March 1999, Sister Li and her husband arrived in Chengdu, preparing to travel to Tibet from here. However, the couple were dumbfounded when they inquired about the ticket price. A ticket from Chengdu to Lhasa costs more than 1,000 yuan. If you take a car, it will take a week to reach Lhasa. But Sister Li has a bad heart and high blood pressure, so she can't take a long-distance bus at all. Hesitating, they were stranded near Chengdu Shuangliu Airport. During the few days they were stranded, the couple decided to sell porridge in Shuangliu County near the airport. Next, they spent a lot of time and money before they found a 6-square-meter storefront on Tangzhong Road in Shuangliu County and rented it for an annual rent of 3,000 yuan. After completing all the formalities, they had run out of money. Gu Qiang had no choice but to quietly return to his hometown and borrow more than 6,000 yuan from his relatives. With this money, Sister Li and his wife invested a total of 15,000 yuan, and the porridge restaurant finally opened.

Have you ever drank porridge to prolong life? Have you ever drank beauty porridge? Porridge is indeed not easy to sell! The couple worked from dawn to dusk, but the business of the porridge restaurant was not good. Three months after opening, it lost more than 3,000 yuan. Faced with all this, Sister Li was so anxious that she had trouble sleeping and eating. She understood that if she continued like this, not only would she not be able to make any money, but she would have to add new debts. One day, a comrade from the Industrial and Commercial Bureau came to collect management fees, and Sister Li told him her bitter story. The comrade only said one sentence and stopped Sister Li: "To open a porridge restaurant, you must change your business philosophy and have a sense of innovation." Sister Li didn't know much about "ideas" and "innovation" ". But she understood the meaning: change would work, staying the same would be a dead end. How? As soon as work was done in the evening, the couple lay on a "bed" made up of several benches and had a "lying talk." Sister Li said to herself: "It is a Chinese tradition to drink porridge in the morning, so is it feasible to drink porridge at noon or evening?" "Yes! Why can't we make porridge as a dinner?" Her husband was also excited. stand up. As soon as the idea opened up, the couple started discussing it enthusiastically in this direction.

Sister Li believes that it is feasible to drink porridge at noon and evening. There are two reasons: First, now that life is better, people are tired of eating big fish and meat, so drinking some porridge to refresh and refresh is a "necessity"; second, if you eat porridge as a dinner, you must change some characteristics, "vegetarian" "Porridge" will definitely not be able to meet the needs. The only way is to innovate, improve the varieties of porridge, and introduce nutritious and delicious "meat porridge"! For example, the "fish porridge" series, the "bacon porridge" series, the "turtle dove porridge" series, the "fatty sausage porridge" series, etc. In addition, various dishes can be prepared according to the characteristics of the porridge. In this way, the dietary characteristics of the big meal are combined. Selling rice porridge can no longer be a low-profit industry. The more the couple thought about it, the more excited they became. The next day, they began to work separately: Husband Gu Qiang was responsible for "topic research", which was cooking porridge; Sister Li continued to study "strategic supply issues." In order to create her own porridge brand, she gave her porridge an easy-to-remember name - Sister Li's Porridge King.

The couple perform their respective duties and work together in a tacit understanding. In order to create the "Porridge King" brand, Gu Qiang developed more than a dozen kinds of meat porridge in just a few months, and also invented one of his most proud foods - "Wild Betel Dragon Flower Porridge" . This is a green food, all natural, all wild, all green, and it also has the medicinal effect of clearing away heat and detoxifying. In order to cook porridge, Gu Qiang had to soak the rice the night before, start a fire at 3 a.m., and then add well water to simmer it. The rice he uses is all new rice from farmers in Renshou, and all the ingredients are delicacies or wild plants in Renshou County. In order to maintain quality and hygiene, he strictly selects each raw material and carefully cleans it. At the same time, Sister Li, who is in charge of external relations, made a series of advertisements on Shuangliu TV Station, boldly proposing a new catering concept of "changing the traditional way of drinking porridge, treating porridge as a main meal, and treating porridge as a nutritious meal." This trick is really effective, and many old people and women came to "Sister Li's Porridge King" one after another to try it and see what happened.

On the day when the new porridge was officially opened, early in the morning, the couple cooked 5 pots of different types of porridge and gave them to customers to taste for free. After the guests finished eating, they all praised it and found it strange, because they had never seen porridge that could be made in so many ways.

In this way, it was spread from ten to ten, and before long, the number of customers in the shop was several times more than before, and they asked for those special porridges. Since then, there has been an endless stream of customers coming to taste the porridge. The daily passenger flow has reached hundreds of people, and the daily turnover has sometimes been as high as two to three thousand yuan. Such a large number of customers has added a lot of work pressure to the couple. They are so busy that they can only eat two meals a day. At night, they have to prepare the raw materials for making porridge for the next day. They have to be busy until late at night before going to bed. Sister Li and his wife slept like this on the wooden stool "bed" in the shop for a full year. Due to long-term overwork, Sister Li suffered from frozen shoulder, which would occur every once in a while. As the store's business improves, the increasing number of customers often makes Sister Li and his wife feel overwhelmed. Sister Li began to make calculations in her mind again. She thought: It would be better to find a bigger place to sell porridge and expand the porridge industry. In the summer of 2000, after careful discussion, the couple decided to move the porridge restaurant to Section 2 of Changye Road in Shuangliu County.

They rented a farmhouse with an area of ??about two acres there. Then, based on the mentality of city people who like rural pastoral style, they invested more than 100,000 yuan to decorate the farmhouse with an earthy look. The earthy color and earthy fragrance make people feel comfortable and friendly as soon as they enter the door. They also recruited a group of pretty farm girls and young men, dressed like village girls and farm boys, who were very lively and beautiful, and pleasing to the eye. Everything went as Sister Li expected. Soon after the new store opened, the porridge restaurant's business became even more prosperous. On weekends, the open space in front of the compound is densely packed with vehicles. Gu Qiang looked at the gratifying scene of prosperous business in front of him and often praised Sister Li happily: "My wife has the foresight. It seems that we are really going to make a big business selling porridge!" Every time he heard his husband say this, Li My sister felt very happy. But she also understands: If she wants to retain customers, she must innovate the rice porridge and cannot just stay at the original level. At his wife's suggestion, Gu Qiang devoted himself to studying the "Porridge Sutra". He spent all day thinking about how to make porridge that no one else had. After a period of speculation and practice, the couple finally expanded from the original seven or eight varieties of porridge to more than 20. Gu Qiang also invited many old Chinese medicine doctors to come up with ideas and solutions, and successfully developed porridge with medicinal value such as appetizing and strengthening the spleen, porridge for clearing away heat and detoxifying, and porridge for beautifying and nourishing the skin. And the names of these porridges are also very nice, such as "Betel Dragon Flower Porridge", "Golden Jade Mantang Porridge", "Dragon Beard Tremella Porridge", "Spring Flower Green Porridge", "Lotus Leaf Lotus Rice Porridge", "Pumpkin Tai Chi Porridge" etc. , just hearing the name makes people appetite, many customers exclaimed: "This place has simply become a 'showroom' for porridge!"

In 2001, Sister Li and his wife not only paid off all their debts , and also accumulated a lot of funds. Sister Li, who has a bulging pocket, has created a new world for herself by selling rice porridge, and her name is spread throughout Shuangliu County. She thought to herself: "So many people come to the restaurant to eat every day, mainly for the unique porridge. I must keep the porridge brand!" So, she quickly went to the relevant departments to register as the "Sister Li Porridge King" 's trademark.

In order to make this brand bigger, in October 2001, Sister Li invested more than 100,000 yuan to move "Sister Li's Porridge King" to a three-acre land in Section 2 of Baihe Road, Shuangliu County. place and hired more than 50 workers. Because Sister Li has long been famous for selling porridge, even if the location has been moved, the business of "Sister Li's Porridge King" is still very prosperous, and those "porridge fans" still "follow her." Sometimes there are too many customers coming to eat porridge, and the waiters are overwhelmed. The guests serve the porridge themselves as if they were at home. The lively scene of swarming crowds surrounding dozens of large pots filled with porridge made people feel as if these people were engaged in a porridge war." Later, Sister Li added Chinese food and snacks, etc., because of the taste Yes, the prices are reasonable and customers like it. The daily turnover of "Sister Li's Porridge King" is sometimes as high as 17,000 yuan.

In doing business, Sister Li knows that "business is made." In order to improve the service level, she often took the lead in "doing it". In the summer of 2000, a customer came to Sister Li's shop to eat porridge because the waiter was too busy to greet him. The customer was very angry and shouted. He shouted to Sister Li to serve him mung bean porridge. Sister Li immediately served a bowl of mung bean porridge and brought it to the guest with a smile. The guest said, "I don't want mung bean porridge, I want black rice porridge." "Sister Li didn't say anything, and brought him black rice porridge again.

But before the bowl of porridge was put on the table, the guest said again: "I don't want black rice porridge, I want potato porridge." In this way, Sister Li went back and forth to scoop out different porridge for this guest 6 times. Finally, the customer smiled and said, "Sister Li, I really admire you! I had a bad attitude just now, please forgive me!" Later, this customer became a regular customer of Sister Li's store.

Sister Li is not only enthusiastic to her guests, but also honest. Once, a guest left a leather bag containing 6,000 yuan in cash and 430,000 yuan in passbooks in the restaurant after eating. After Sister Li found out, she immediately found the owner based on the business card of the customer in the bag. Later, every time this guest went to Shuangliu County for business, he would come to Sister Li's restaurant for dinner. Due to the large customer flow, Sister Li found more than 30 mobile phones in her store, and she returned all of them to their owners. The guests all said: "You can rest assured when you eat at 'Sister Li's Porridge King'. If you drop something in the restaurant, Sister Li will definitely find it for you." Sister Li relied on her honesty and enthusiasm to finally expand her porridge business. In Shuangliu, There is a saying in the county: "When you come to Shuangliu, if you don't eat the porridge from 'Sister Li's Porridge King', you haven't come to Shuangliu." When business improved, Sister Li had a new idea: Treat guests to free porridge. The husband was puzzled: "The business is good, why should it be free? Didn't you say that a small profit is better than no profit? If you drink porridge for free, wouldn't there be no profit at all?" Sister Li pointed to her husband's forehead and laughed. He said: "When your business grows, you can turn some low-profit items into 'free consumption', which can bring you at least ten times the popularity and profits." The husband is still dubious. After the implementation of "free consumption", the customer flow of the porridge restaurant increased sharply, and 30 pots were cooked five or six times a day. Even the workers were worried that if people were to eat in vain, the porridge restaurant would be destroyed. My husband was also a little worried. Worry. But Sister Li is cheerful all day long. No one knows what Sister Li is thinking. To everyone's surprise, a month later, the "freeloaders" consciously turned into "paid customers." With this transformation, a new fixed consumer group emerged. Moreover, this group will not be shaken easily, but will only become more and more "iron", because it was cultivated by Sister Li with emotions. At this time, the workers had to admire Sister Li's bright mind. Nowadays, many laid-off workers and young working people want to learn from Sister Li in selling porridge, and some even want to cooperate with her to open a branch. There are many people coming and calling. After many people came to the store to learn the technique, they felt that it was not mysterious and the operation process was very simple, so they asked her what the secret of her success was. Sister Li always warns them: "Don't do it because you think the porridge is only a small profit. A small profit is better than nothing. I despise those people who are extremely poor and always dream of 'making it big if they want it.' If you don't do anything for the small business, it will become a big business when it grows up." This is Sister Li's unique business experience.

Recently, Sister Li has a new idea. She wants to learn some knowledge about hotel management and is going to open a branch of "Sister Li's Porridge King" in Chengdu to let more people in the city One can taste her unique porridge. Let us wish her business will grow bigger and bigger!