Chapter 21: Open a Training Class by Himself
Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
Shouren Zhao was Shouliang Zhao's older brother for sure. It was said that if you bullied one brother, you had to deal with both. As an older brother, Director Zhao surely wouldn't just let it go without getting revenge on someone who had offended his brother. Even though it was Director Zhao who had looked for trouble himself, he definitely didn't think that his own brother had done anything wrong.
Shouren Zhao had used his authority to fire Dai Li. Because there was a very big chance that he was going to be promoted to vice principal, nobody would go against him just because he had abused his power. Nobody would really care about where a contract worker would go.
The most upset out of anyone was Dai Li. It had cost him so much effort to get the job, yet he had lost it for no valid reason in the blink of an eye. Shouren Zhao made him feel sick, but there was nothing he could do. It was said that civilians should never mess with bureaucrats. Dai Li had no authority nor background, and that meant there was nothing he could do to Shouren Zhao.
It took him an entire night to escape his gloomy mood. Once he did, he returned to the job hunting "army" once again. Dai Li didn't rush back into it because there weren't any recruitment fairs these days. He went to an internet café and decided to send out a few copies of his resumé just to try his luck. He later checked his email and found dozens of emails from when he had been training his old students. These were his achievements from the sports school.
I totally wasted my time. He sighed deeply, looking at the emails. There was a student recruitment brochure, students list, and all their contacts. He blinked and suddenly a courageous idea popped up in his head.
If I have the contacts of all these parents, why don't I just start a training class myself? I still have the 36,000 yuan I earned from before. I didn't spend a penny. It should be enough for me to start a summer training class, Dai Li thought to himself, pondering the idea.
There were three major expenses in opening a training class: student recruitment, training field rent, and sports equipment. Since Dai Li already had the contacts of the parents in his email, the cost of student recruitment could be ignored. Those same students had signed up for the training class in the sports school, but Dai Li wouldn't mind stealing them. He was actually kind of looking forward to it.
The biggest expense was renting the field. He looked it up on a rental site and found that in fourth-tier cities like Yuzhou, the rent was actually not that high. And if one rented an unoccupied factory building made of steel on the outskirts of the city, it only cost one 1 yuan per square meter per month. A building in the same place, but made of reinforced concrete cost more, and if it was located in the city, a lot more.
As for the training facilities and gear, aside from buying it off the internet, he could also rent it from different schools. Besides, they were not going to use it during summer vacation since the students would be home anyway. If he paid the guardsman of the warehouse, he might be able to get a facility to himself.
It seems like I could really open a training class with the money I have! he thought to himself. He shifted his eyes to the list of the students.
The students who signed up for the 100m sprint training class are mainly high school students, who won't be done with school until next week, if I remember correctly. The training class for that won't start until the summer holiday comes. I still have time to fight for them. If I charge them the same price as the sports school, which is 15,000 yuan, then I only need two students to cover the cost. I can start making money off the third student right away.
Dai Li sent the list of students to his cell phone, then started researching some other places to rent. He made a memo of a few suitable places and their contact information.
He spent the next few days looking at some of the fields. He finally settled on a logistics warehouse that was 3,000 square meters with windows on all sides. After realizing that the training would be during the summer, when the students could suffer from heatstroke or get sunburned outside, he thought that indoor training would be better than outdoor. Also, July and August were rainy seasons, which made outdoor training impossible.
Inside the warehouse, the longest stretch of ground was under 100m. There was a straight and smooth road longer than 200m, however, that could be used as a running track for the 100m sprint.
The warehouse costed 10,000 yuan per month. Dai Li didn't sign the contract immediately since he was not sure how many students he could recruit. He gave the 1,000 yuan deposit to the owner and signed a pre-contract. He decided to risk the 1,000 yuan. If he could recruit enough students, he would rent it for two months. If he couldn't, he would lose the 1,000 yuan, which was a loss he could afford.
After he was done with the training field, he got started on his next endeavor—stealing students from the sports school.
…
He had three parents in a row tell him "No." No parent wanted to send their children to him once they heard that Dai Li was just a training teacher who wanted to open a training class by himself. This made him upset, but not surprised. A no-name coach who wanted to work alone like Dai Li could never compete with a public sports school. The parents would always choose the latter one if they were smart enough.
It seems like I need to change my strategy, Dai Li thought to himself, frowning.
Should I lower the price? Dai Li shook his head. No. If I lower the price, it will only make people think that my training class is not as good as the sports school, which will keep more students away. You get what you pay for.
After a while, Dai Li finally came up with a good plan. He called a new number.
…
"The admission score to become a national second-class athlete was manually measured to be 11.50 seconds. If he can't achieve this result on the exam in September, I will refund your money!" Dai Li said into the phone.
Dai Li's last resort was to issue a refund if the students couldn't achieve the goal he promised. Normally, training classes wouldn't dare give promises like this because the students were variables. You never knew if somebody was talented enough, hard-working enough, or both. If they weren't, they would fail. But even so, the coach needed to spend time and energy training these students whether they would fail or not. Money was money. Moreover, turning an ordinary person into a national second-class athlete was not that easy.
Nobody dared to promise a refund. It was like the hospital saying they would give someone's money back if they couldn't cure them. There were too many factors involved. It was not like buying food in a supermarket, where you could see if the food was fresh enough or big enough.
15,000 was not a small number. It took a wage-dependent family a long time to save that type of money. The parent on the other end of the phone was obviously interested in the word "refund."
Dai Li felt the parent's hesitation through the phone and knew that he was almost there. Now he just needed to convince them. He continued, "I will organize a free trial day this weekend. You can bring your child and give it a shot to see if it works or not. If you are not satisfied with the training results, you can return to the training class in the sports school. I won't charge you a penny for this free trial day!"