Waking up early on Wednesday, Chen Pingjiang drove to Yongquan Farm.
By his count, this was Chen Pingjiang's third visit to Yongquan Farm in a year.
The first two times were for leisure, but this time it was for work.
That's right.
After a period of recruitment on Gao Songbin's side, they finally recruited a first batch of about a hundred people.
Chen Pingjiang gave this team a new name—the Renren Iron Army.
Chen Pingjiang himself made no secret of the fact that this name was somewhat plagiarized from Alibaba's 'Zhonggong Iron Army'.
Speaking of Alibaba, Chen Pingjiang had a love-hate relationship with the company.
In his previous life, he also joined Alibaba a year after graduation.
That was Chen Pingjiang's toughest, most exhausting, and fastest-growing period.
How exhausting was it?
Endless clients to meet, endless roads to run, endless meetings, endless overtime.
Every day, he arrived at the company at 8 AM for a morning meeting, and after the morning meeting, he would run around Dongjiang meeting clients.
He'd return to the company at 6 PM for the daily summary meeting, and wouldn't leave until after 10 PM.
Every day was a cycle.
As for rest time, there was only half a day per week.
Yes, you heard that right, half a day.
He always felt he didn't get enough sleep every day, and on average, he wore out a pair of leather shoes every month, which was no exaggeration.
Yet, that period was precisely when Chen Pingjiang grew the fastest.
Once he entered that work mode, he would be pumped up like he'd been given a shot of adrenaline.
Making calls—identifying potential clients—tracking potential clients—scheduling meetings—continuous follow-up—until a deal is closed.
Even looking back now, Chen Pingjiang considered it an unforgettable period, feeling a different kind of passion erupting throughout his body.
The reason for this was entirely due to the team's mission and vision, as well as Alibaba's training system.
Based on this, this time, Chen Pingjiang specifically poached three instructors from Alibaba to exclusively handle the training of this initial hundred-person Renren Iron Army team.
The positioning of this sales and promotion team was no longer the group of half-baked part-time university students that Li Xi and Gao Songbin had for Renren.com before.
Chen Pingjiang's goal was to build the Renren Iron Army into an army that is action-oriented, efficient, warm, and loyal.
To be honest, the formation of this Renren Iron Army team was also a huge challenge for Gao Songbin, and it was an important part of Chen Pingjiang's test of his abilities.
Initially, Chen Pingjiang was hesitant about entrusting such an important matter to Gao Songbin.
He had considered directly poaching people from the Zhonggong Iron Army, but considering he wanted to firmly control this team, he still decided to hand it over to Gao Songbin.
However, Gao Songbin also needed to participate in this training as a trainee.
The reason for holding it at Yongquan Farm was that Chen Pingjiang also hoped to cultivate through semi-military management the 'wolf spirit,' discipline, and teamwork among the Renren Iron Army members.
This training would last one month, with no breaks in between, no going out, and no leave allowed except for major emergencies or health reasons.
After the training, the three instructors would score the trainees from multiple dimensions, and the final ten percent would be eliminated.
However, even if eliminated, Renren.com would still pay their salaries as usual.
All in all, Chen Pingjiang had high hopes for this team, and in the foreseeable future, the Renren Iron Army was bound to produce pillars of the group.
This can be known by referring to Alibaba's Zhonggong Iron Army.
To some extent, it not only saved Alibaba and fostered the later Alibaba Group, but also became the 'Whampoa Military Academy' for Chinese enterprises, supplying wave after wave of outstanding sales talent to domestic companies.
Representative figures include Cheng Wei (founder and CEO of Didi Chuxing), Gan Jiawei (former COO of Meituan.com), Lu Guangyu (former COO of Dazhong Dianping), Chen Guohuan (former COO of Ganji.com), and Zhang Qiang (COO of Qunar.com).
The domestic O2O battleground once became an 'Iron Army civil war'.
As the domestic car-hailing platform that had the last laugh and achieved unification, Didi's founder Cheng Wei is an outstanding representative of Alibaba's Iron Army.
Regarding Cheng Wei's perception of the Iron Army culture, in terms of understanding people, he believes Alibaba has achieved the ultimate, with no other company comparable.
Cheng Wei believes the greatest strength of the Iron Army culture lies in unleashing people's potential and helping them achieve success.
The most core part of the Iron Army culture—Puritanical self-discipline, the desire for success, the dedication to giving back to society and creating value, those positive and most beautiful spirits of struggle, are becoming increasingly important and scarce today.
It can be said that Cheng Wei's success, to some extent, is inseparable from his experience in the Zhonggong Iron Army.
Furthermore, why was Meituan able to 'kill off' Lashou.com and 'overturn' Ele.me in the early days?
A key member among them—Gan Jiawei (nickname Laogan)—played a decisive role.
The most experienced players and investors in the group-buying market all had to admit that Meituan's ability to quickly stand out from the 'Thousand Group War' had a lot to do with Gan Jiawei.
Laogan's joining allowed Meituan to refine and standardize the management of its massive street-sweeping teams, enabling Meituan to transition early from a grassroots stage to a field army combat era, quickly leaving competitors behind.
While driving on the road, Chen Pingjiang felt a faint sense of excitement.
The significance of building the Renren Iron Army was actually no less than that of founding Renren.com.
Chen Pingjiang arrived at Yongquan Farm and first greeted the owner.
The owner of Yongquan Farm was extremely polite to this 'God of Wealth,' as booking the entire venue for a month was a huge profit.
On the farm's thousand-person lawn, about a hundred people were present.
The male-to-female ratio was approximately 9 to 1. All of them wore military training camouflage uniforms.
These people were either spacing out alone, or gathered in small groups of two or three, chatting.
"I've had several jobs since graduating, and I've been through new employee training a few times, but never anything this exaggerated. The day before yesterday, we all had physical exams, and yesterday, two buses brought us to this godforsaken place. And it's closed-door training for a month, no less."
"Haha, same here. When I told my wife, she thought I was going out of town to have fun with a mistress behind her back."
"I think it's not bad at all. A month of training can improve ourselves, plus there's food, drinks, and money. And the farm environment is quite good. If I could, I wouldn't mind training for a year."
"Dream on! During the interview, HR made it very clear: a ten percent elimination rate is not low. If Renren.com weren't so generous, offering high salaries and contributions to the five social insurances and one housing fund upon entry, many people wouldn't be willing to spend so much time on training. If we get eliminated, it'll be almost the end of the year, and it'll be hard to find a job then."
"Don't even get us started, I heard even the department heads are participating in the training with us. And the company's big BOSS is also coming later."
"Who is it?"
"Renren.com's Chen Pingjiang, of course. You don't even know that? Buddy, how did you pass the interview?"
"..."
Meanwhile, Chen Pingjiang and Gao Songbin were having a heart-to-heart talk in a room.
"I believe you can also see my determination to build the Renren Iron Army through this grand event. I hope to turn it into Renren.com's future 'Whampoa Military Academy,' becoming the most formidable sales and ground promotion team.
Whether it's the subsequent nationwide promotion of DNF, or the promotion of Renren Waimai and Renren Tuan, or advertising recruitment for Renren.com, it will all be entrusted to this team. And you, you are their leader."
"This time, I've brought in professional instructors from Alibaba to oversee the training, to ensure you learn practical, useful skills. In this training, as the head of the Renren Iron Army, if you fall behind, what you lose won't just be a seat on the board of directors."
"Initially, you and Li Xi were both personally trained by me. Li Xi successfully brokered collaborations between Renren Qiangchewei and major car manufacturers, and was promoted ahead of you, and is currently in charge of Renren.com's daily management.
Now, the baton has been passed to you. This month, you will eat, live, and train with these new employees. You not only need to learn more and better than them, but also establish your authority."
"Make them forget your age, so they won't look down on you because of it. Make them more obedient to your management. If they are wolves, you are the alpha wolf, and you must tame them."
Chen Pingjiang's usual tactics directly "PUAed" Gao Songbin, causing him to clench his fists and flush red, and loudly guaranteed in front of Chen Pingjiang:
"Boss, if I can't do what you've asked, you can fire me anytime."
Afterward, Chen Pingjiang called over the three instructors he had poached from Alibaba.
Chen Pingjiang had spent a great deal of money on these three.
Not only were they responsible for training the first batch of the Renren Iron Army, but also for building Renren.com's training system, and conveying Renren.com's values and corporate culture to new employees.
These three were Duan Jiaming, Xiao Liangdong, and Wang Kun, respectively.
Duan Jiaming appeared optimistic and smiled easily:
"Don't worry, Chairman Chen. Although the recruitment scope for this batch of new employees is limited to Dongjiang City, the quality is relatively good. Our selection criteria don't just focus on academic qualifications.
We pay more attention to whether they are open and honest in their words and actions, and whether they have a strong desire for wealth accumulation, career success, recognition from others, personal growth, and other aspects."
Xiao Liangdong nodded and said:
"To add to what Old Duan said, many of the people we selected this time have sales experience. A major criterion for selection is whether they genuinely love sales work. If they're just filling a spot because they couldn't find other jobs, such people are not suitable for the Renren Iron Army.
Only those who believe sales work is meaningful, valuable, and worth investing in, treating it as their profession and career, can stay. In addition, they are also required to have immense passion for sales work and possess a certain degree of stress resistance."
Wang Kun also said:
"In the initial screening stage, we filtered out many impatient and overly ambitious young people. Most people here are bachelors. Furthermore, new employees are required to possess the personal qualities of enduring hardship, diligence, and pragmatism.
And they must also have the most important sales traits: being able to avoid self-isolation, willing to express and share, and being happy and easy to get along with others. Finally, each person's learning ability is also an important assessment indicator."
After listening, Chen Pingjiang nodded:
"I won't say much more. You all are helping Renren.com cultivate future talents, and if you do well, money won't be an issue."
On the other side, Gao Songbin checked his watch and walked over:
"Boss, esteemed instructors, it's almost time. The new recruits' mobilization meeting is about to begin."
"Let's go, then. We'll go together."
(End of Chapter)