Compared to last month, it is huge improvement. This is the highest for us since March this year.
Stock market is a bit crazy lately due to US election and vaccine. However, I have concerns about the stock market, especially the developed markets. So I might focus my capital injection, if any, on Asia markets in the near future.
Just my two cents for your consideration.
We plan to do a re-cap of our Total NetWorth for Dec. So stay tuned!
Huawei sold Honor, which accounted for ~40% of its smartphone sales in 2018 and about a quarter in 2019.
And this is also a complete sale: Huawei “ will not hold any shares or be involved in Honor’s future business management or decision-making activities after its sale”.
This is no doubt a disruption to Huawei’s consumer business strategy.
After briefly overtaking Samsung as the #1 smartphone company in the world in the second quarter this year, Huawei managed to maintain the #2 spot for now.
Without Honor, Huawei might need to struggle to keep its current spot.
However, this is a “strategic” move.
With US sanctions, Huawei cannot secure enough components to support both Huawei and Honor brands.
So the “strategic” move to let go of one will not only allow Huawei to focus its existing resources on building the other brand, but also gives Huawei additional resources (the sales proceeds) to push forward in other key areas, like 5G tech and chips.
So which one to let go?
Apparently, it cannot be Huawei.
Huawei brand represents the best that Huawei can offer in the consumer product domain, especially the Mate series. It is the image of Huawei in the consumer product domain.
So Honor was sold.
Hopefully, Honor will be able to bypass the sanctions after the sale and secure supplies of components to continue its business, though its future is not without challenges.
Up until here, I think everything is “normal and expected”. At least, it did not surprise me in any way.
However, what was surprising was who Honor was sold to.
Huawei had options.
It could be existing smartphone players, aka direct competitors, such as Xiaomi, Vivo, OnePlus etc. To Huawei, probably not a good idea.
It could be other hardware manufacturers who have not-doing-so-well smartphone businesses, such as Lenovo. For Huawei, this could be a better choice than the first one.
It could also be some cash-rich companies or investors who want to enter smartphone business. It may sound impossible. Who wants to enter this “red ocean” now? But bear in mind that Honor has value, which will attract investments.
I am sure there were other options.
But I think Huawei picked the best option possible, which is a win for “Dedication”.
Before we discuss further, let me explain a bit what I mean by “Dedication”.
In the book “skin in the game” by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, it is highlighted that the mismatch between decision power and responsibilities can lead to irresponsibly risky decision and disastrous consequences.
Then who should be given the decision power to ensure generally good decisions?
One theory compares “Dedicated” contributors and “General” contributors.
“Dedicated” contributors: people whose skills/assets are highly specialized and dedicated to a certain organization. They wont find much use for their skills/assets outside of the organization. Examples include specialized experts, owners of the business etc
“General” contributors: people whose skills/assets are transferrable. They can find buyers for their skills/assets in a wide range of organizations and industries. Examples include management, Admin etc. Contrary to our common belief, shareholders are also included in this category as shares can be transferred easily in the stock market.
Obviously, “Dedicated” contributors have higher motivation to improve the organization because their welfare are closed related to the organization, and therefore the decision power should reside with them.
Going back to the Honor sale, the buyer was Shenzhen Zhixin New Information Technology, a consortium of over 30 agents and dealers for Honor Brand, founded by Shenzhen Smart City Technology Development Group.
In other words, Honor is bought by the “Industrial Chain” that Honor belongs to, with the back-up of the government.
The agents and dealers, some of which I have served as a consultant, have heavy stakes in Honor that cannot be easily transferred, which make them “Dedicated” contributors to Honor.
So, the fate of Honor will be determined by the “Dedicated” contributors to Honor, which grants a higher chance of responsible decisions and better growth.
The “11.11” global shopping festive has passed. In China, Tmall clocked sales of nearly 500 Billion RMB and JD 272 Billion, both smashing 2019 numbers.
The festive has also internationalized. Both Lazada and Shopee declared record sales too.
The festive is characterized by its “incredible” promotions and subsidies. But we all know the sellers and the platforms are not losing money.
So in a way, our “buying spree” is their “killing spree”.
But we certainly do not feel robbed. Instead, we are happy.
How does it happen and why cannot we stop our “buying spree” during the “11.11” festival?
I think there are two key factors:
1.The feeling of “good deals”
It is important to offer “good deals”.
It is more important to make customers feel that they are getting “good deals”.
It is even more important to make customers feel that they are getting “good deals” because they are smart enough to beat the system.
2.Lowered barrier for transactions
When we shop, we just feel that everything goes smoothly and is helping us make the buying decision. Every detail is well thought of.
Next, I will share a few “techniques” that I observe are being used to create the two key factors above.
1.Marketing that spares no effort
Every platform and even some sellers, like Xiaomi this year, conduct heavy marketing campaigns to highlight their “Billions” subsidy programs.
It is impossible to miss them!
And JD this year even held a Talk Show, inviting probably the most popular stars in China, specially for this festival.
All this marketing conveys a cannot-be-clearer message: “Come, we are giving out money. You will lose out if you don’t”.
And it also arouses people’s expectations. We are giving it to you. It is yours. The “hate-to-lose” mindset will make it harder for people not to come.
For most people, this is almost irresistible.
2.Time limit
This festival happens once a year. Even though major promotion events come almost monthly now, this is still the biggest and it ends a few days after “11.11”.
This further reinforces the “good deal” feelings with people. It also pushes people to act.
3.Pricing strategy
Inside the same store, not all merchandize serves the same purpose.
Some merchandize will be priced low to draw customers in. And then sellers will have the opportunity to make profits on the other merchandize once enough people visit and buy in the store.
This is widely used in super markets too.
4.Bundle sales
Merchandize can be bundled with accessories. For example, when we purchase a phone, we may need a charger or an earpiece (since when this became a problem…).
Merchandize can be bundled with consumables. When we purchase a shaver, we will need blades. When we purchase an electric toothbrush, we will need exchangeable brush heads as well as toothpaste.
Merchandize can be bundled with themselves too, e.g. a twin package or a package of 5 toothbrushes.
The bundles will cost less than if we buy them separately. The price of buying separately will serve as an anchoring point. This technique again creates the feelings of “good deals”.
What’s more, we can always tell ourselves that we will need them anyway.
This technique is also used in other forms of sales. The bike rental in East Coast Park is 40 dollars for one hour and 50 dollars for two hours. How can we not pick the two-hour bundle?
5.Voucher/discount after min spend
This might be the “killer” technique that pushes people to buy things they do not really need.
You have put staff worth 480 dollars in your shopping basket and then you see the voucher “50 off every 500 spent”. Anyone will just go look for staff worth 20 or 21 dollars and secure that 50 dollars discount, because that “savings” is so certain and so close.
And the platforms make it so easy. If you are buying toothbrush, maybe they will recommend mouthwash or floss.
For most people, not those super smart and calculative ones, this is like ad-hoc. This is usually after you have bought everything you want to buy. So people most likely just make even more casual decisions to secure the “good deals”.
6.Interest-free split payments
Another genius invention.
A high price is split into monthly or weekly or daily payments to look less expensive, so that people focus on the daily small amount and neglect the high total price.
Moreover, the small daily amount can be compared to another small daily spending, such as coffee, ice cream or meals, to make people mind the price even less.
For example, “It only takes the cost of a cup of coffee a day to own this phone and experience the latest technology” (made up by me, not real).
This is also widely used in insurance sales.
7.Promotions made attractive
To make promotions more attractive, use absolute amount for expensive items and use percentages for cheap ones.
For example, for a 5 dollar item, 20% discount sounds much better than 1 dollar discount, while for a 500 dollar item, 100 dollar discount sounds more attractive than a mere 20%.
8.Shipping included
People value “complete” solution.
“Shipping included” is valued because it provides the “complete” solution.
Just like in insurance, a product covering 100% of problem A is more attractive than a product covering 50% of problem A and B, even the cost of the two products are the same.
So, most sellers will include the shipping in their offering and of course the cost in their prices. (Come to think about it, this could be another form of bundling)
9.Return guarantee (usually 7 days)
Some sellers even cover the return shipping cost.
This significantly lowers the risk for the buyers and therefore significantly lowers the barrier of transactions. This also reinforces the feelings of “good deals”.
At the same time, typical sellers wont have to worry about too much returns.
Once people have the items, the items belong to them. Unless there are serious problems with the items, buyers normally will just keep them because they do not want to lose what they already have.
Not to mention that return logistics are usually quite slow, which means wait and extra troubles.
Every “good deal” you snatch could be preciously engineered by the strong teams on the selling side.
So how can we avoid it?
I do not know the answer, but I offer 2 pieces of advice.
Buy only what you need: My wife needed a pair of sport shoes. And New Balance was offering “buy 2 get 1 free” where we only needed to pay for the 2 most expensive pairs. My wife was scouting around to make up 3 pairs. I told her to just take the pair she liked the most, because the other two pairs would just end up gathering dusts in the shoe cabinet.
Get better with math: even the promotions are getting more complicated. A lot of buyers complained about the complex algorithms after the “11.11” sales. If you have to buy, at least get better with math.
In the end, let me use the joke I heard to conclude this post.
“Do you still remember your original goal for going online shopping? Mine was to save money.”
Fuck! I had to “ask” (was going to use the word “beg”, but it may be a bit exaggerated) repeatedly for the opportunity to “Chicken out”.
Anyway, I accepted the offer and now I am again waiting, for the start date to be confirmed. Probably, it is going to be next week.
Hopefully, this puts an end to the phase of my life, where I am constantly under the influence of the accident that happened about three years ago.
It has affected how I think and how I behave in the past three years, which led me from suffering losses to suffering bigger losses and ultimately to what I had to go through this year.
I could never undo it, so in that sense, it will stick with me forever. And the tangible losses are going to be felt in the days to come for sure.
I hope what I went through this year could allow me to put this accident behind me mentally and I could start anew!
I can only describe what I went through this year as shameful failures.
3 years ago, a family event took an unfortunate turn.
The cost for me and my family to pay was very heavy. Apart from mental suffering, money, time, career progression and etc, it could also have caused me my job.
However, I managed to keep my job with the help of my direct manager. It was not a bad resolution at all no matter how I saw it. Things could have been much worse.
I could have just put the whole accident behind me and carried on with my life. I have support from my family and a well-paid job with great work-life balance. What else could I ask for?
But I just could not let it go. For the one year that followed, I was struggling and miserable.
On one hand, I kept struggling with the losses I suffered and kept trying to compensate.
On the other hand, I interpreted the good work-life balance as a waste of time. I thought to myself that I was so young and I should be fighting for a higher position and bigger salary.
When it became clear that the reality in the company would not allow my promotion and pay raises any time soon, I became frustrated, annoyingly querulous, sensitive and arrogant.
So I looked outside and got two offers. While both were great, I picked one.
The offer satisfied my wants: higher title and much bigger salary. I mentioned 300K in my previous post and now it is about 600K due to the options. At that time, it was enough to prove to my company that I deserved much better.
My life could have gone on that path and I would probably still be feeling “I am right and successful” while working like mad for higher titles and bigger salaries.
Then, as you all knew, the offer got retracted.
So I was left jobless two weeks before my notice period would end. I was very worried or even scared.
I “shamefully” tried to rejoin my previous company. I had been a “victor” showing everyone that I deserved better and I could get it elsewhere if I was not given here. A mere month later, I was the “beggar” trying to come back to the company.
I failed. One VP was trying to take me in, but his headcount got cancelled after he submitted the request. I could see that he really tried. And he was the VP who took me in now.
Then Covid-19 started to be felt and I was looking for a job.
My mentor in my consulting career reached out to me to join him in China and promised to get me an offer despite the headcount freeze.
I accepted and gave up the few interviews that followed and focused on the new position as I could see its big learning and growth potential. Most importantly, I would be working with a manger who would look for reasons to promote me, instead of looking for excuses to suppress me.
Then Covid-19 really hit. My onboarding was delayed again and again because I just could not travel to China.
And my mentor’s plan also encountered significant roadblocks. Most of the money he promised me as freelancer until I onboarded never reached me.
However, I was really into it. I rejected the VP when he asked me to go back in Jun.
I did not mention this to my mentor until afterwards. He expressed that he was open because no one expected the boarder to be closed for so long.
Then the company who retracted my offer reached out for the same position. I was happy and thought we could start afresh, because I knew I could do the job. Then the communication was canceled one or two hours before it happened.
I felt hard to understand.
But I did not really start looking for a job seriously. On one hand, I was still running projects for my mentor and hoping the boarder would open soon. On the other hand, I just got tired and lazy from all the work and worrying.
Until the VP reached out to me again. And this time, I said “Yes” very seriously.
While feeling pity that I might have given up the China opportunity just before the dawn, I was looking forward to going back.
I could finally go back to “normal” life. I could almost feel the relaxing feelings, knowing paycheck will come at the end of the month and I have a job that I can build on again.
The VP repeatedly said he needed me urgently. I was hoping to start the next week because it surely sounded like that way.
Then the offer only came after 7 weeks.
During the process, I repeatedly checked on status and the VP repeatedly assured me that it was going as planned, till the point I stopped checking.
And when it did come, the pay was 15% lower than my last drawn before I left. I thought the salary would at least be matched, even out of curtesy. Isn’t that usually the case?
I felt insulted by the long wait and salary reduction. The VP did express he had plans for my promotion and recovery of salary etc. Based on the long wait of the offer, I could not fully trust him.
But I still “shamefully” accepted the offer.
I knew there was room for negotiation on the salary. But I was tired and bored as fuck. I guess this is what being jobless does to people.
I needed to take a break and recollect myself and I thought it would be more challenging if I did not have something tangible.
And there would be new things to learn in this position, related to the buzz word now, 5G and IOT.
And both the VP and HR repeatedly hinted to me that they went through a lot to get me this offer. I guess they did want and expect me to accept it.
So I accepted and I would try my best to assist the VP while I am on the job.
Then the next step is to secure the earliest start date.
So now I “shamefully” stalk the HR to try to secure an earlier date.
Never before, had I waited for so long for an offer or actively stalked the HR for an earlier start date. Things came to me. It seemed that I always had choices. I would have walked away in cases like this.
I guess there is a first time for everything.
When we were young, maybe things go for the better. The first time for getting the 1st place, travelling the word, getting the scholarship, falling in love, securing a job beyond expectations, being a father…
And getting into middle-age with a family, the opposite may become the norm. The first time for being scared of losing a job, “shamefully” asking for a job and an earlier start date, realizing it is a scary world out there, feeling helpless and hopeless, crying in the middle of the night and being afraid of making a sound, slapping myself on the face so hard that it still hurts after a week…
It would not be exaggerated to call this experience shameful failures.
For me to end up where I am now, I made at least 7 worst decisions in a row, some of which even I cannot comprehend now because they are totally illogical and irrational.
When I thought back, what led me from one wrong decision to another are below 5 flaws of mine. I believe these are still shallow explanations. I believe more will come to me with time.
a. Cannot understand what life is really about
I always tried to be first, ahead of others. I had to get promoted first and I had to get bigger salaries than others. And it all became excuses for me to feel superior over others.
I almost never thought about what life was really about. And I never had a life goal.
It was sad and uncomfortable to realize that. So I deferred it again and again using as excuses “I will just get successful and rich. Then it will not be a problem”.
Without a goal, I always force myself to do things I do not enjoy for something I may not even need. But when I do not get what I work for, I become anxious because that means I have failed.
And then I try harder to get more of what I may not need.
This vicious circle sucks all pleasure out of life.
b. Do not know how to appreciate
My previous manager helped me keep the job in my previous company. I should have been more grateful for their help.
While I was really grateful in the beginning, it faded quickly in the face of office politics and mistreatment.
I should have kept it longer on my side no matter what happened.
If I did not look for jobs outside, I would have avoided this whole thing entirely.
Doing the right thing does pay off. I understand and believe that now.
c. Cannot stop blaming
I blame me for making stupid decisions and over-estimating the kindness of people.
I blame the company that retracted the offer for leaving me in the ditch.
I blame my previous manager for not recognizing my contributions and being determined not to promote me or give me any raise, despite his help in keeping my job.
I blame the pandemic. Without it, I would have gone to China and started building my new career with high growth potential, which seemed so close.
I blame everything. Why did I have to go through this? I have not hurt anyone or done anything unforgivable. I am just one honest guy who only wants to build a good life for his family through hard work. I even think about contributing to the society after providing enough for my family.
However, blaming only ruins my mood and forces me to make decisions that are not optimal or even logical.
d. Cannot see and not willing to accept the facts as they are
The fact is that I am not as capable and valuable as I think.
Without the platform (a job in this case), I am simply not able to generate enough income in a short while and I feel scared, while the platform can survive just fine.
I think it is a blessing that I realize that now.
Because in the end, I am the one responsible for myself.
Because in the end, no one is obligated to be nice to me.
We all need to face the reality and accept that we will all be shaped by reality, no matter how unwilling we are.
Fairy tails and dreams can only be built on something substantial.
e. Cannot accept the losses and plan for the best actions forward (added 2020–11–13)
Whenever I suffered losses, I was always thinking about getting it back. When I got it back, I was thinking about interests. So it was never enough for me. And this affected me in very bad ways, such as extremely lack of patience.
I just could not accept that that was “sunk costs” and should not affect my decisions going forward. Apparently knowing does not mean correct actions.
I need to stop this.
I made a tracking sheet to keep track of my losses for this incident back in June when I rejected the VP. I decided not to look at it again any time soon.
I do not have a plan yet. But I know I need to keep going.
Biden lost his wife and got a very dangerous decrease as a middle-aged man and lost his favorite son as an old man. He recovered and will most likely become the president at the age of 77.
Compared to him, my frustrations, however shameful, are not remotely comparable. And I am just past 30.
I’ve got no excuses not to keep going.
The question is how.
I do not know clearly yet.
I need to stop, recollect myself and set out again.
But that does not means doing nothing. I plan to follow below routine until I have a better idea what to do.
one book per week
one blog post per week
at least one LinkedIn post about work (could be very short to start with)
While I need to think about what to do exactly, two things are clear.
I need to build something of my own so that I will still have something if I become jobless again in the future for whatever reason. Otherwise, I would really have wasted this whole crisis.
This blog will be an important part of it. And going forward, I would like this blog to be more about you than me. I will still share my experiences and thoughts, only as a way for you to observe something useful for you.
Please do support me by sharing this blog to those who you think might benefit from my experience.
Now the offer came, after 7 weeks. Everything was as expected, except the pay.
We were talking about an increase of 10%, but the offer came with a 15% reduction.
I felt a bit insulted by the long wait of 7 weeks and by the 15% reduction in pay.
I spoke to the VP and below is the information he gave that I believed.
It is hard to hire anyone external now. He had to push the CEO and HR really hard to get the offer out
The salary in the offer is on the high-side of the range for the grade of the role
He is committed in my development and subsequent salary reviews
And below is my current situation.
My China offer is still intact. I have the promise that it will always be there as long as my mentor is there
I am interviewing with another local company. I am not sure whether and when I will get that role. I have reached out to them.
“Hit and Go” is not an option. I will not join the VP now and leave as soon as I have something better or China border re-opens. I will never do something like that to someone that trusts me.
So it seems that my options are as follows:
Accept the offer and commit at least 1 year or until the VP leaves the company. Here the risk is that I do not know I can actually deliver my commitment. The salary will be a constant reminder of how much I lost as well as the insulting feeling, which could affect my performance at work or even make me quit after a short period of time.
Reject the offer and wait for China border re-opens. Do not know when it will re-open.
Hold the offer for as long as possible and pursue the interview that is ongoing now. The outcome of the interview is unknown. This option might cause the VP to doubt and I wont have any income in the meanwhile.
And I need your opinion to decide what to do!
I understand you are probably very busy, but if you could briefly write your opinion in the comments, you will really be helping me!
