Of course, with tasks being posted online, they couldn’t personally supervise every participant, so they had to set some requirements.

For example, when distributing flyers, participants needed to take photos to prove they were actually promoting. Or they could record a short video as evidence.

Naturally, some people would still try to game the system.

But there was no helping that. They could only spend a bit more money and run the promotions a few extra times to make up for it.

“Yeah, once more people start taking on the tasks, the promotion will speed up. That’ll bring us one step closer to raising our Live Streaming tier,” Liu Weiwei said with a face full of joy. If they leveled up again, they’d be earning 300 yuan an hour.

Yang Yaoyao nodded with some anticipation, but soon her expression turned puzzled.

“Say, what do you think the admins at Boring Short Video are thinking? This kind of task-based promotion—they could easily do it themselves. There’s no need to tip us off and have us do it instead.”

“Could it be that they just don’t want to spend the money on promotion? But that doesn’t make sense either…”

Liu Weiwei shook her head right after voicing her thoughts.

Would the Boring Short Video platform really be stingy about such a small promotional expense? Obviously not.

“No idea,” Yang Yaoyao said, shaking her head as well, unable to figure it out.

“Whatever, no point overthinking it. It’s not like it’s hurting us. We can afford the promotion costs. Once we level up, doing four hours of Live Streaming a day will net us 1,200 yuan!”

“Earning 1,200 a day—that’s over 30,000 a month!”

The two looked at each other, unable to hide the excitement growing in their hearts.

And after the third tier, there was still a fourth. But the requirements for that were much higher. To reach it, they’d probably have to make Boring Short Video popular across the entire country.

That goal wouldn’t be easy to achieve. It would take time and effort, step by step.

…………

Nanhe Coffee Headquarters

Inside the conference room,

Su Dan stood at the head of the table, her gaze sweeping over the store managers who had gathered from various locations.

“I’ve called everyone here today to talk about the upcoming reforms for our Coffee Shops.”

“Due to the high prices of our coffee, our customer base has always been limited, and we’ve consistently operated at a loss.”

“To address this, we’ve conducted extensive surveys and come up with some reform strategies.”

The store managers in the room all looked over curiously upon hearing Su Dan’s words.

As store managers, they were well aware of Nanhe Coffee’s situation.

They had also thought about how to handle the current state of the Coffee Shops.

The only solution they could come up with was to lower prices—bring them down to the same level as commercial chains like Starbucks.

They were confident that if their prices matched Starbucks’, they would definitely attract a lot more customers.

After all, Nanhe Coffee already had 20 branches in Jiangcheng. After all this time, the brand had gained a certain level of recognition in the city.

Not to mention the last time when President Chen did a public welfare event, which got picked up by a streamer and widely promoted. That had brought in a wave of new customers eager to try their coffee.

Those customers genuinely liked the taste of Nanhe Coffee, but many couldn’t afford to drink it daily. They could only support it occasionally as a treat.

So right now, Nanhe Coffee had a good reputation and decent brand awareness in Jiangcheng.

The only thing keeping them from drawing in large crowds was, fundamentally, the high price of their coffee.

If the Coffee Shops could offer a more affordable coffee option, it would definitely bring in a lot more customers.

But when it came to pricing, President Chen had already issued a directive—no price cuts allowed.

That had created a deadlock that was difficult to break.

Now, with Manager Su saying she had a way to change the current situation, the store managers were genuinely surprised.

They all began preparing their notebooks, ready to take notes.

Seeing that everyone was ready, Su Dan continued.

“This time, the reform will involve adding some pastries to our Coffee Shops.”

“We’ve done our research. It’s very common for Coffee Shops to offer pastries. A lot of people like to enjoy a cup of coffee with a small pastry as their afternoon tea.”

“This is a great opportunity. If we can take advantage of it, we can attract those potential customers who enjoy afternoon tea or have a sweet tooth.”

“But Manager Su, how exactly do we attract those customers?” one of the store managers asked, unable to hold back as Su Dan paused.

Su Dan glanced at the manager who had spoken and replied.

“The method is simple—pricing. Since President Chen has prohibited lowering the price of coffee, we’ll reduce the price of the pastries instead.”

“We conducted offline surveys at several Coffee Shops. Most of them sell pastries at pretty high prices. A small piece can cost over ten yuan, and some go for over twenty. But the actual cost of making those pastries is quite low.”

“So we’ll drastically lower the price of our pastries. Strip away all excess costs and keep them just barely profitable.”

“This way, with the price of pastries lowered, even if the coffee remains a bit pricey, the overall cost won’t be too high because the pastries are affordable.”

“I’ve done some simple calculations. When customers buy both coffee and pastries, the total cost at our Nanhe Coffee isn’t more expensive than other coffee shops. In fact, if we offer combo deals, it might even be cheaper.”

“As long as the price is competitive, and combined with the quality of our coffee, we can definitely attract customers who enjoy pastries.”

Su Dan spoke with full confidence.

Over the past few days, she and Song Xia had been working on this issue, conducting research and running the numbers. She was about 80 percent certain that once this reform was implemented, it would bring in more customers to Nanhe Coffee.

She couldn’t guarantee it would turn the business profitable overnight, but she was confident that even if there were still losses, they would be significantly reduced.

For Nanhe Coffee, this was a major transformation.

Su Dan thought to herself that after all this time, they had finally come up with a way to change the shop’s current situation.

If President Chen knew about it, he would definitely be pleased.

All the store managers in the meeting room nodded in agreement after hearing Su Dan’s explanation.

Using pastries to bring down the overall cost of a visit to the coffee shop—what a clever move.

If customers only came in for a cup of coffee, Nanhe Coffee’s prices were still on the higher side. But if they also bought pastries, it was a different story.

Even though the coffee prices weren’t lowered, reducing the price of pastries had the indirect effect of making the overall bill more affordable.

This not only upheld President Chen’s directive not to cut coffee prices, but also succeeded in drawing in more customers.

Truly, it was a win-win solution!