Chapter 153 - Give the Singer a Commission (2/2)

At the bar counter…

Ma Yang held onto his own glass of alcohol and sipped from it. As he watched Chen Lei perform on stage, he felt moved. “It feels like… he really does sing better than you.”

Zhang Yuan, humble and pleased, said, “That’s right. Brother Ma, are you finally able to tell now?”

Ma Yang shook his head honestly. “I can’t tell, but I can see the results. When you sang, not many people listened to you, and not many people ordered drinks. Now, everyone is listening intently—”.

Zhang Yuan, “…Brother Ma, on account of this glass of alcohol, can you not hurt my heart anymore?”

Ma Yang was a real son of a b*tch. Chen Lei was here as a gift from the heavens; why did he have to keep comparing Zhang Yuan to him?!

“So how are we going to pay him?”

Ma Yang asked a very serious question. Last week, after hearing Zhang Yuan sing, Chen Lei felt strangely confident. He took the initiative to step up onto stage and sing. After he finished singing, the results were obvious. Ma Yang immediately invited him to stay and sing for the week.

If he were satisfied by the end of the week, they would sign a contract. Otherwise, he would give the man a thousand yuan and ask him to leave. Now, the week was almost over. Ma Yang was very pleased with Chen Lei’s performance.

However, there was another problem. That was the problem of remuneration.

“How much are resident singers in bars normally paid?” Ma Yang wanted to see if he could consider the market price for such jobs.

Zhang Yuan was very clear about this. After all, he used to work in this line. “Brother Ma, small bars normally pay their resident singers about three thousand yuan a month. Of course, that’s the remuneration for singers who are not very famous.

“Exactly how much they are paid depends on what tier the bar belongs to, the fame of the singer, and how generous the boss is.

“Some bars have high traffic. In order to rise to fame, many singers agree to sing there for free. On the flip side—if smaller bars want to hire famous singers, they have to be prepared to fork out more money.

“According to Chen Lei’s standard, I think giving him four to five thousand yuan would not be too much. We might even be underpaying him.”

Four to five thousand yuan…

Ma Yang began to hesitate.

“This… it’s not that I don’t want to pay him, but I feel like Chen Lei is not worth that much. The main problem is that our internet cafe is still incurring losses. What do you think of this? Let’s offer him 1,500 yuan as his base salary. The rest will be left to commission.”

Zhang Yuan paused. “Commission? How would that work?”

Ma Yang pointed at the alcohol on the bar counter. “We’ll pay him commission based on our alcohol sales. In the future, we can tell the customers that while he is singing, half of the profits of the alcohol would go to Chen Lei.”

Zhang Yuan sucked in a deep breath. “Brother Ma, giving him half of the profits is a bit too much, right?”

“It’s alright. We don’t sell that much alcohol to begin with…” Ma Yang did not seem too bothered.

Zhang Yuan was momentarily speechless. “That’s true. What’s more, we only sell real alcohol. The profit margin would not be that high. On second thought, it seems acceptable…”

If they followed the model of regular bars, the alcohol would be their main source of profits.

Many bars, nightclubs, KTVs, and the like would take part in a bit of adulteration. Take XO for example; they would keep the empty bottles and add in cheap alcohol before putting it up for sale again. This was very common.

Selling alcohol in this manner would guarantee profits.

However, from the beginning, Boss Pei instructed all of them-time and time again —that the alcohol sold by Fish-Catching Internet Cafe must be real. Selling fake alcohol aside, they were not even allowed to sell a drop of ordinary wine.

They had to sell whatever alcohol they said they were selling.

Therefore, while they were all selling alcohol and Fish-Catching Internet Cafe had included a profit margin in their prices for alcohol, the profits Fish-Catching Internet Cafe was earning could not compare to ordinary bars.

What’s more, given the number of people in the internet cafe each day, they could not sell much alcohol to begin with.

Zhang Yuan pondered for a moment, and then said, “You can make the call, Brother Ma. If you want to pay him based on commission, that works. For all we know, he might help us sell more alcohol.”

Ma Yang slapped the countertop and said, “Alright, that’s decided, then. Once Chen Lei finishes for the night, I will speak to him and settle the terms of the contract.

“If we really follow this method, I have a suggestion,” Zhang Yuan suddenly said, having thought of an idea. “We can come up with a new menu. Next to the prices of all the alcohols, we can put another number in brackets. That number would represent the amount of commission Chen Lei would get.

“Take the Aurora Jungle-Juice, for example. We sell them for sixty yuan a cup. Our cost is about thirty yuan. Add in the place and the salary for the employees; that makes the total cost of each glass about forty yuan. Our profit is twenty yuan. If we give half to Chen Lei, that’s ten yuan.

“We can immediately add a ‘(10)’ next to the 60 on the menu. That way, everybody would know that ten yuan out of this drink goes to paying Chen Lei commission.”

Ma Yang frowned and hesitated. “Wouldn’t everyone be able to guess our profit margin, then?”

Zhang Yuan shook his head. “Brother Ma, even if you don’t write it down, wouldn’t people be able to guess our profit margin? You can find out the price of these alcohols on the internet. Most people who come to bars to drink have a good idea of the bars’ profit margins. If that’s the way the entire industry works, nobody would take these numbers too seriously.

“If we write the amount of commission Chen Lei gets on the menus, it would show how nice we are to our resident singer. We might look very generous.”

A realization dawned on Ma Yang. “Oh, that’s right! That suggestion sounds good; let’s do that!”

[1] These are the lyrics to the song ‘Does Any Song Remind You of Me?’ by Wakin Chau.