Jewish businessman: Everything will become a commodity in the hands of a businessman

The law of “making something out of nothing”

Jewish merchants’ business tips

Everything will become a commodity when it reaches the hands of a merchant. ("Talmud")

"Talmud" says: "Anything will become a commodity when it reaches the hands of a merchant." Jewish merchants firmly remembered this.

In 1946, Jewish McCall and his father went to Houston in the United States to do the copper business.

Twenty years later, his father passed away, leaving him to run the copper shop alone.

McCall always remembers what his father said: "When others say 1 plus 1 equals 2, you should think of greater than 2." He has made bronze drums and spring leaves on Swiss clocks , has won Olympic medals.

However, what really made him famous was a pile of inconspicuous garbage-the U.S. federal government rebuilt the Statue of Liberty, but after demolishing the old statue, it threw away huge piles of waste. In order to remove these For discarded items, the federal government has no choice but to solicit tenders from the society. But several months passed and no one accepted the bid. Because in New York, there are strict regulations on garbage disposal, and you will be sued by environmental organizations if you are not careful.

McCall was traveling in France at the time. When he heard the news, he immediately terminated his leave and flew to New York. After seeing the mountains of copper, screws and wood piled under the Statue of Liberty, he immediately signed an agreement with the government department. After the news spread, many transportation companies in New York were secretly laughing. Many of his colleagues also believed that waste recycling was a thankless task, and the value of the resources that could be recycled was really limited. This move was a bit stupid.

While everyone was laughing at his joke, McCall got to work. He gathered a group of workers and organized them to sort the waste materials: melt the scrap copper and cast it into a small Statue of Liberty; process the old wood into the base of the goddess; and make the New York square from scrap copper and scrap aluminum scraps

Keychains for the church; even the dust that fell from the Statue of Liberty was packaged and sold to florists.

As a result, these scrap coppers, scraps, and dust, which are completely useless in the eyes of others, are sold at prices that are several times or even dozens of times higher than their original value, and the supply exceeds demand. In less than three months, he turned this pile of scraps into $3.5 million. He even sold a pound of copper for $3,500, a price that increased 10,000 times per pound. At this time, he suddenly became the chairman of McCall's company.

McCall's success lies in turning what others see as rubbish into his own cornucopia of wealth. Everything can become a commodity, including garbage. By using the principle of "making something out of nothing", you can start something from scratch.

There is a rich man in Japan named Yosuke Nakayama. At the beginning, Yosuke Nakayama had neither capital nor technology. When he told others that he was going to start a business, no one believed him. However, he not only became a very successful businessman, but also managed real estate with a large amount of capital.

Operating real estate is very profitable, but the risks are also very high. It requires a large amount of capital as a backing. For ordinary people, I am afraid they can only watch others make money, but Zhongshan has a clever plan to start from scratch.

After inspection, Yosuke Nakayama found that many people in Japan wanted to open factories, but they could not afford the funds to buy land, let alone build factories. In contrast, much land remains idle. If you can build a factory and produce without buying land, you will definitely be welcomed by entrepreneurs. With such an idea in mind, Yosuke Nakayama immediately took action. He first inquired about the idle land. These lands are often located in remote locations and are mostly unsaleable land. He negotiated with these landowners and proposed plans to reuse the land. Landowners are worried that there are no buyers for these lands. Now there is a way to develop them, which is a real help in times of need. They are willing to sell their land, and some even put up a certain amount of funds as shares.

After the land problem was solved, Nakayama Yosuke founded Yosuke Land Development Company and organized people to sell the land door-to-door. These factory owners were anxious because they had no funds to build factories. Now they saw that they could rent out the land without huge amounts of money. Of course they were very happy. There was an endless stream of factory owners who came to Zhongshan to sign contracts.

Zhongshan’s approach is to collect rent from those who rent the factory, deduct agency fees and factory repayments, and the remaining money goes to the landowner.

The difference between factory rent and land rent, excluding the cost of building the factory, is Nakayama Yosuke's profit.

After the business owner, the land owner, and Nakayama Yosuke reached an agreement, Nakayama Yosuke borrowed money from the bank to build the factory, and then repaid the bank fees in installments.

Nakayama Yosuke actually only acted as an intermediary, connecting landowners and factory owners. The idea was appealing from the start. The remote land would have a use and the factory owners could save time on accumulating capital. In the first year, Yosuke Nakayama earned 2 billion yen from handling fees alone. With this money, he no longer needed to borrow money from banks.

In this way, Yosuke Nakayama went from building small factories to large factories to building large-scale industrial zones. His company grew bigger and bigger like a snowball, and the company's operations were no longer limited to Lease land. Yosuke Nakayama, who started from scratch, finally became one of Japan's top entrepreneurs.

A successful intermediary is a successful businessman. He is able to make connections between seemingly unrelated things and profit from them.

Tudela was originally an engineer in Venezuela. He learned from a friend that Argentina needed to buy $20 million in butane and that Argentina had a beef surplus.

Tudela had an idea and flew to Spain, where the shipyards were worried about lack of orders. He told the Spaniards: "If you buy beef from me for $20 million, I will order a supertanker costing $20 million from your shipyard." The Spaniards happily accepted his suggestion. In this way, he resold Argentina's beef to Spain.

After that, Tudela found another oil company and asked the oil company to rent a supertanker he built in Spain in exchange for buying $20 million of butane. As a result, Tudela did the business without spending a penny.

In the 1950s and 1960s, the Japanese discovered that water was more valuable than oil in some water-scarce Arab countries, so they made a big fuss about water. They found a way to export rainwater that was simpler and cheaper than exporting desalinated seawater. Rainwater is collected from the rainy Sea of ??Japan and transported to Arab countries by ship. Japanese experts have also developed a method of cleaning oil residues in ships, using tankers to carry rainwater and not running empty. Exporting large amounts of rainwater has brought huge economic benefits to Japan.

Another example:

In 1953, large quantities of sandbags used for building fortifications were left idle and filled up warehouses. Most of the companies that originally operated sandbags rented warehouses temporarily. The armistice showed that the sandbags had become waste, and the rent for occupying the warehouse had to be paid on a daily basis. This makes these sandbag operators anxious.

Mr. Fujita saw this opportunity and felt that it was very possible to make a fortune from it. So, I found those sandbag operators to discuss business. He pretended to be helping them solve their problems and said he could help them get rid of the sandbags for free. Of course, these sandbag operators are very happy to have such kind people.

"A bag of 5 yen or 10 yen is negotiable."

Fujita finally bought 200,000 bags at a price of 5 yen a bag. After receiving the goods, Fujita took advantage of his ability to speak English and visited a country's ambassador to Japan. The country was a colony and was experiencing civil strife. Fujita thought they would definitely need weapons and sandbags.

As expected, the country’s ambassador to Japan personally came to inspect the samples, and 200,000 sandbags were quickly sold. The sandbags were sold at the standard price of 10 yen.

Discovering business opportunities from seemingly useless waste, the success of the Japanese Fujita is exactly the same as that of the Jewish McCall.

Before Christmas in 1984, despite the biting wind and freezing cold in many American cities, there were long queues in front of toy stores all night long. At this time, people were patiently waiting to adopt a "Cabbage Patch Doll" that was more than 40 centimeters in length

How could the "adopted" doll end up in a toy store?

It turned out that the "Cabbage Patch Doll" It is a toy with unique style and charm. It was created by Robert Roberts, general manager of Alcorn Company in the United States.

Through market research, Roberts learned that the demand in the European and American toy markets is shifting from "electronic" and "educational" to "warmth-oriented". He made a prompt decision and designed a unique "Cabbage Patch Doll" toy.

The "Cabbage Patch Dolls" designed with advanced computer technology have thousands of faces, with different hairstyles, hair colors, appearances, different shoes, socks, clothing, and accessories, which satisfy people's needs for individuality. product requirements.

In addition, the success of "Cabbage Patch Dolls" also has its profound social background. Divorce causes the parent who does not have custody of the children to lose their emotional sustenance. The Children in the Cabbage Patch just fills this emotional gap, which makes "she" not only popular among children, but also a best-seller among adult women.

Roberts captured people's psychological needs and made a big fuss about it. He ingeniously turned the selling toys into "adopted dolls" and turned "her" into a living baby in people's minds.

Every time Alcorn Company produces a doll, it must be accompanied by a birth certificate, name, handprints, footprints, and a "midwifery person" stamp on the buttocks. When customers adopt, they must solemnly sign an "Adoption Certificate" to establish the relationship between "adopted child and adoptive parents." Roberts made another creative decision: "Supporting Jackie Chan" - selling products related to "Cabbage Patch Dolls", including sheets for the dolls, diapers, strollers, backpacks and even various toys.

Since the customers who adopt the "Cabbage Patch Doll" regard her as a real baby and their emotional sustenance, of course they regard purchasing doll supplies as an indispensable thing. In this way, Alcorn's sales began to increase significantly.

Today, the sales areas of "Cabbage Patch Dolls" have expanded to the United Kingdom, Japan and other countries and regions. Roberts is considering trial-production of "Cabbage Patch Doll" with different skin colors and features, allowing her to travel around the world to maintain Alcorn's leading position in the toy market.

Alcorn used its imagination to create the lovable Cabbage Patch Dolls. When the Cabbage Patch Baby became a cash cow, it sparked a slew of related products. The principle of "making something out of nothing" has benefited Alcorn greatly.