Manager Wang’s reaction was a bit slow after drinking, and it took him a while to realize: walnut = brain supplement. 

He still wanted to argue with Lu Nan, saying his brain worked just fine, and also thought maybe Brother Xiao was angry. 

However, at that moment, Lu Nan had already gone to find Wu Chuan and expressed that she wanted to leave first. 

Wu Chuan had no objections and even said, “Is anyone tired? If you are, we can call it a night.” 

A few city managers also said they were leaving. Of course, some didn’t want to go yet—some even felt that now the only woman present, Lu Nan, had left, they could loosen up a bit, like offering cigarettes or cracking some dirty jokes. 

Wang Xinglong, thinking about the songs he still hadn’t sung from the playlist, wasn’t willing to leave. 

Lu Nan went back to the hotel and immediately started washing up. 

She came prepared—brought a change of clothes when she arrived, took off the outfit that reeked of smoke and alcohol, and had both her jacket and base layer sent for washing and drying through room service. 

The saying “smoke and alcohol go hand in hand” was common in her line of work, and it was inevitable at business dinners. 

Even though Lu Nan didn’t like it, she had long become numb to it. 

Did she expect all the male city managers to accommodate her and not smoke in the private room? 

Thinking that she had just started this job not long ago and that her senior had said she had serious rhinitis, so in such situations, she should sit in well-ventilated areas, Lu Nan smiled helplessly. She had already gotten used to it. Rhinitis was still rhinitis, but her tolerance level seemed to have increased quite a bit. Maybe that was the charm of a little money. 

After washing up, drying her hair, and finishing her skincare routine, there was still no activity on her phone. 

Unlike Wang Xinglong’s baseless guess that “Chen Xiao is angry,” Lu Nan figured Chen Xiao was probably very busy this New Year—and most likely not even in the country. 

Otherwise, why would I advise my uncle not to buy Yuan Chuan’s stock this year? Lu Nan yawned, glanced at her phone, and saw it was already 12:30. It was time to sleep. 

… 

Because Lu Nan had notified everyone in the city office last Saturday, the entire team gathered for the Monday morning meeting. 

Lu Nan wasn’t the type to put on airs, so she got straight to the point, delivering the first three key points of the provincial office’s meeting. These were all relevant to the entire city office, so she emphasized to everyone before speaking that they must listen carefully and remember them. 

She also mentioned the fourth point, which was that the non-compete agreement for city managers had become stricter. Lu Nan said, “Don’t think this has nothing to do with you. After all, going from business supervisor to city manager is just one step up. Maybe in the near future, some of you will become city managers.” 

Everyone likes to hear good things, and the four business supervisors, while speaking humbly, were all smiling. 

Huang Dafang glanced around, unsure what the others thought, but as for him, he had no big ambitions and just wanted to coast by. But this Manager Lu was really hard to deal with, and he was always worried about being singled out at meetings! He had even reduced his daydreaming frequency. 

“And lastly, I want to talk to you about this year’s work tasks.” This was the final part of the meeting, and Lu Nan, looking at her subordinates, saw that they had become less lazy and dispirited compared to when she first came to Hua’an City. She nodded with some satisfaction and continued, “This year, the key work areas for Hua’an City are as follows.” 

Huang Dafang silently thought: here we go, she’s going to go over each channel one by one. 

“First, let’s talk about distribution.” Lu Nan glanced at the distribution channel business supervisor, Li Bin. “Last year, both county and city distributors completed their targets 100%, and they indeed had the highest return rates. They were also the first to express their intention to renew the contract. The return situation from Hongtu Liquor’s distribution channels was also decent.” 

Supervisor Li, being an experienced professional, didn’t get too proud hearing this and just waited for the “but” that Lu Nan would add. 

Sure enough, Lu Nan continued, “However, I think the potential of distribution channels is far beyond just 1.6 million or 1.8 million.” 

Supervisor Li frowned slightly, wanting to say something. 

Lu Nan raised her hand, signaling for him to wait: “The small liquor’s factory price varies, but roughly speaking, 1.6 million in returns is equivalent to about 200,000 to 250,000 bottles of liquor. Hua’an City’s permanent population last year was nearly 5.5 million. Have you seen the ‘China Consumer Group Moderate Drinking Report’ white paper? No? I won’t elaborate further, but I’ll ask Zheng Jing to print some copies for you after the meeting. This data is not only relevant to the distribution channels but also serves as a reference for other channels. You can think about it yourselves.” 

Supervisor Li, who had been holding his head high, now lowered it slightly. 

Huang Dafang, on the other hand, directly bowed his head: you can’t see me, and I can’t see you, so I’m sure you’re not talking about me. 

Lu Nan continued, “This year, I have higher expectations for the distribution channels. Hua’an City has five administrative districts, and I hope that by the end of March, we can establish two distributors with at least 500,000 in volume in previously untapped markets. Based on the client information Supervisor Li provided before the New Year, along with the street survey and wine gifting records from the city office, I’ve compiled a list of 32 potential wholesale departments. I hope the distribution channel colleagues can work harder and visit each of the departments on the list. I want an initial feedback by this Saturday.” 

Supervisor Li finally managed to speak up: “Manager Lu, is it too rushed to finish all 32 locations before this Saturday?” 

Lu Nan stared at Li Bin: “Supervisor Li, organizing customer data for the channels should be your responsibility as the channel supervisor. It’s just that the customer data sheets you sent previously were of varying quality, so I took over once. Now, I’ve completed the preliminary work up to this point. I’m not looking for you to say it’s difficult or impossible. These 32 wholesale locations are spread across the city, Wucheng, and Huaqian. Your department, plus you, makes three people—split them up. It’ll be more efficient this way.” 

Being called out by the leader for not doing his job, Supervisor Li, slightly embarrassed, said, “But Manager Lu, the other two have less experience and lower positions. If they go out on their own, those wholesale store owners might not pay attention to them.” 

“Li Ziheng and Qian Xin have been with the company longer than I have,” Lu Nan said. “I think, Supervisor Li, you need to learn to let go at the right time, don’t you agree?” As if the stern expression just now had never existed, Lu Nan smiled again. “But your concern is not unfounded. Let’s do this: Qian Xin will be in charge of the twelve locations in the city, and if he can’t handle it, he can ask our local senior—Supervisor Huang for help. Qian Xin, do you think this task is too difficult for you?” 

Qian Xin was stunned for a moment, then looked at his supervisor and Lu Nan before clenching his teeth and saying, “Manager Lu, I think… I think I can give it a try!” 

Lu Nan’s smile became even more pronounced: “Make sure to work hard and remember to get a pack of cigarettes for your brother Huang.” 

Qian Xin nodded and turned to Huang Dafu: “Brother Huang, if I don’t understand something, I’ll need your help.” 

Supervisor Li didn’t expect that Qian Xin, who usually was so submissive, would be this bold today. But then he thought, if they could secure another distributor for the city’s distribution channel, it wouldn’t be bad for him either. So he softened his expression and said, “Manager Lu has arranged it well; I was too one-sided in my earlier thinking. Qian Xin, do your best. Your brother Huang is one of our top performers.” Saying this, he gave a thumbs-up. 

Huang Dafang, who had been watching the drama unfold like a performance, didn’t expect to be dragged into it. 

Is Supervisor Li trying to be sarcastic? 

What could he do? Huang Dafang was a local and didn’t want to go to surrounding counties or change jobs, so he chose to listen to his manager. He chuckled a few times: “Xiao Qian, don’t worry. Since Manager Lu said it, I’ll definitely help where I can.” 

Supervisor Li was indeed unhappy, but since the remaining 20 potential clients were assigned to him and Li Ziheng, he suppressed his frustration. 

The opportunity had already been given to Qian Xin, and in a situation where the timing, location, and people were all favorable, if he still couldn’t achieve results, it meant Qian Xin wasn’t suitable for sales. To put it more harshly, a salesperson without results deserved to be at the bottom of the food chain in Hua’an City. 

“Next is the restaurant channel.” Lu Nan glanced at Guo Yu, a straightforward man from Northeast China. Lu Nan didn’t beat around the bush and directly gave the order: “The restaurant channel in Wenxiu County is almost saturated, and in the city, Hongtu Liquor should have no major problems this year. But our restaurant channels are still limited to these two areas, and the market coverage is far from enough. Supervisor Guo, if there’s a shortage of manpower, let me know in time. There are still many gaps in our restaurant channels in Hua’an City waiting to be filled.” 

Guo Yu nodded: “Last year, I mentioned the manpower shortage, but because our annual performance was so low, Manager Liu said the provincial office had tightly controlled expenses. There were only two of us, Feng Yi and me, and we couldn’t do much.” 

Lu Nan shook her head: “Supervisor Guo, you misunderstood my point. You and Feng Yi should focus on controlling expenses, while the fieldwork should still be delegated to the distributors’ staff. This is something we can learn from the supermarkets and premium liquor channels.” 

Luo Junjie, the supervisor of the supermarket channel, was unexpectedly called out, and he felt a bit awkward: Is Manager Lu speaking sarcastically? 

“Although the sales in the supermarket channel still have a lot of room for improvement, Supervisor Luo has done well with distributor staff management and training,” Lu Nan said objectively. “Supervisor Huang is very skilled in personnel scheduling and arrangement.” 

The root cause was that the senior employees didn’t take the company’s training content seriously—they were reluctant to study the files and PowerPoints, let alone train distributor staff. However, this wasn’t a problem with the new college recruits. They were more likely to follow the materials, paying more attention to professional knowledge and theoretical training. Lu Nan observed that Luo Junjie’s training frequency and content for the supermarket channel’s distributor staff and supermarket promoters were very good. 

As for Huang Dafang, he seemed to be one of those people who wanted to take it easy but didn’t want to lose his job, so he had developed a “Tai Chi” skill, very good at pushing work onto others and delegating tasks. 

Huang Dafang understood what Manager Lu meant and chuckled awkwardly. 

Today, he and Luo Junjie were actually praised by Manager Lu, and deep down, he felt a bit happy. 

Finally, Lu Nan said to everyone: “I will continue to follow up with Hongtu Liquor, and once the distributor contracts are finalized, we can increase our efforts to push products in the city’s entire channel. As for the expenses, I’ve already spoken to Director Wu, so don’t worry. I’ll have Zheng Jing send out a group email. Please download the form and apply for expenses according to the rules and limits. Any incorrectly formatted submissions will be sent back.” 

It was this last statement that made Li Bin and Guo Yu, who had been a little dissatisfied, fall silent: the most troublesome issue in the office was the renewal of Hongtu Liquor’s contract. Now that Manager Lu had taken it over, it meant that if things didn’t work out, she wouldn’t let her subordinates take the fall. As for the expenses, that was a concern for all the salespeople. Manager Liu used to just make empty promises, and everyone knew there was some trickery involved, but no one spoke up. Compared to that, the young Manager Lu was always transparent about the expenses every time.