April 30th, Saturday.

After lunch, Pei Qian strolled toward the managed fitness center.

He had previously told Zhang Yuan that he would help find a coach for the club, but where exactly to find such a coach… Pei Qian truly had no clue.

A professional esports coach definitely wouldn’t work.

Because GOG was still an emerging game, although Pei Qian had heard that some established clubs were planning GOG divisions, overall, the popularity wasn’t enough, and formal recognition was even further away.

In other words, at this early stage, everyone’s skill level was still quite low.

When clubs open divisions for certain games, they must first evaluate whether the game can maintain popularity in the domestic market over an extended period.

If they just opened a division, invested resources to start training, and then the game flopped, forcing them to disband the division, wouldn’t that be a waste of effort?

Currently, GOG and ioi were locked in fierce competition, and many clubs’ thinking was to pick the winner between these two games. For these two emerging MOBA games, supporting just one division would be enough.

So, currently, even the teams that had formed GOG divisions were all just amateurs competing against each other.

At this point, a professional coach, even one who wasn’t particularly outstanding, could bring transformative improvements to a team.

Zhang Yuan, though not very knowledgeable about esports, was at least not stupid. The coach he found probably wouldn’t be too bad.

If combined with Mr. Pei’s mysterious luck so far, accidentally discovering an SSR among the players or coaches…

The consequences would be unimaginable.

So, Pei Qian needed to find a coach who could satisfy himself while also leaving Zhang Yuan with nothing to complain about.

Hmm…

This was much too difficult!

Pei Qian’s head was starting to hurt thinking about it, but fortunately, he had agreed with Zhang Yuan to find someone within two weeks, so there was no need to rush.

Arriving at the entrance of the managed fitness center, Pei Qian stepped inside.

Although it was the weekend, there were noticeably fewer people than the last time he came.

Pei Qian was momentarily stunned, then understood what had happened, and couldn’t help but feel ecstatic.

Many of last week’s customers had already been discouraged!

Due to the special payment model of the managed fitness center, many people didn’t hesitate when becoming members, since all their balance could be refunded.

But these people wouldn’t necessarily strictly follow their planned training schedules and persist.

Once these people couldn’t keep up, they would “be refunded” and wouldn’t be able to rejoin for a short period.

Thus, they had successfully discouraged a batch of customers!

Although the notice board had indeed attracted some customers who even signed up for memberships, what good would it do if they couldn’t persist under the managed fitness center’s rules?

Pei Qian couldn’t help feeling a bit proud of his brilliance.

Besides this, compared to last week, the managed fitness center had undergone some subtle changes.

The number of permanent service personnel in the fitness center had reached three.

Originally, there was only one receptionist responsible for distributing wristbands and reception, and coaches would occasionally fill in for reception and guidance work when they had nothing to do.

Now, the service staff had also been expanded, working in shifts, with three permanent service personnel at the fitness center.

One receptionist, mainly responsible for reception work, such as registering customer information, distributing towels, wristbands, water, etc.

One administrative staff, responsible for daily company business, such as coach scheduling, coordinating with Slackin’ Food Delivery, etc.

One planner, responsible for scheduling, developing training plans, analyzing the fitness center’s current customer information, etc.

Of course, the division of labor among these three positions wasn’t that clear-cut, and sometimes they would help each other.

“Mr. Pei.” The receptionist was the first to spot Pei Qian.

“Hello, Mr. Pei.” By midday, the administrative staff was arranging today’s fitness meals with two coaches.

“Mr. Pei.” The planner was typing earnestly on a laptop in the rest area. Upon seeing Pei Qian, he stood up and nodded respectfully.

Pei Qian smiled slightly and nodded.

The reason he showed more expression to this planner was because… the planner’s true identity was an embedded undercover agent, one of the eighteen Loss Management Interns!

In private, the Loss Management Intern called Pei Qian “senior.”

In public, he still had to call him “Mr. Pei.”

Otherwise, wouldn’t it give away the secret, implying that such a mysterious department existed…

All positions at the fitness center operate on a rotating schedule. Although this Loss Management Intern was still a student, he didn’t have many courses, and Handing University was just a short walk from the managed fitness center, so he was quite capable of handling his part of the work.

The planner position at the managed fitness center didn’t exist at other fitness centers because the mechanism of the managed fitness center differed from others.

To reduce peak period customer flow, Guo Licheng had suggested to Pei Qian that they should develop an app for customers to book times themselves, controlling the number of people in the fitness center at any given time. At the same time, they needed to arrange each customer’s schedule initially, for example, if they discovered that Thursday was particularly busy, they wouldn’t accept any more Thursday customers unless they chose a different time.

Currently, the app was still some time away from being developed, so all this scheduling had to be done manually by the planner.

However, since the fitness center’s current number of people was relatively small, far from reaching the limit of what the center could accommodate, it didn’t cause any inconvenience.

At present, the planner’s position mainly involved making preliminary arrangements, without needing to specify exact time slots on particular days.

Pei Qian had assigned this Loss Management Intern as the planner primarily to have him access the fitness center’s most accurate data, constantly understanding how far the fitness center’s current numbers were from profitability.

The first Loss Management Intern meeting would be held next Saturday, but Pei Qian was already getting impatient.

He pretended to casually greet everyone, then sat down beside this Loss Management Intern.

There were too many Loss Management Interns, and Pei Qian had forgotten his name, but that didn’t matter as long as he remembered which department this undercover agent was from.

“How far is the fitness center from profitability now?” Pei Qian asked in a casual, nonchalant tone.

The Loss Management Intern answered seriously, “Mr. Pei, given the fitness center’s daily expenses, not considering Slackin’ Food Delivery’s profits, we would need about 200 visits per day on average to break even.”

“If we consider equipment depreciation, daily maintenance, and also to gain some profit to quickly recover the initial investment in fitness equipment, then 300 visits per day would be a good number.”

“Our current number is… twenty-something.”

“Even during peak hours, the utilization rate of the entire fitness center is still less than a quarter.”

Pei Qian was very satisfied with this answer.

See, worthy of being a Loss Management Intern trained by me, reporting work clean and concise, without any superfluous information.

Pei Qian nodded approvingly, “Good, keep up the good work.”

The current situation was still far from profitability, which was good news. Pei Qian pondered that it might be about time to consider opening branch stores.

He continued strolling inside and saw Guo Licheng furiously pumping iron in the strength training area.

He wasn’t sure if it was just his imagination, but compared to when he came last week, Guo Licheng’s physique seemed to have grown even larger.

Pei Qian was satisfied with this.

This Guo Licheng was quite obedient!

Previously, he had told him to train hard and strive to be more muscular than all the other coaches. This way, he wouldn’t have the energy for fancy marketing activities, and the fitness center wouldn’t make money.

Guo Licheng was indeed training hard, and muscles don’t lie.

Seeing Mr. Pei arrive, Guo Licheng quickly set down the barbell and stood up.

“Mr. Pei! I was just…”

Guo Licheng was about to explain, but Pei Qian had already raised his hand to stop him.

“You’re doing very well. As the manager and figurehead of the entire fitness center, your physique must be the best to attract customers! So, you definitely can’t slack off, you must continue to persist!”

“I came today to ask, do you know of any similar fitness centers that are well-decorated and spacious? Especially those near Slackin’ Internet Café or the office locations of various Tenda departments.”

“Oh, and also near Mingyan Mansion.”

Guo Licheng was stunned for a moment: “Mr. Pei, are you looking to study and learn, or…”

Pei Qian smiled slightly: “Of course it’s to open branch stores!”

Guo Licheng was bewildered.

Huh?

This fitness center didn’t even have many members yet, and the money earned didn’t even cover a fraction of the losses, yet they were planning to open branch stores?

And from Mr. Pei’s tone, it seemed like he wasn’t just opening one?

Guo Licheng hurriedly said, “Mr. Pei, please reconsider!”

Pei Qian raised his hand, signaling him to stop: “I have already reconsidered. Just give me the list of suitable fitness centers, and I’ll arrange people to negotiate and see how many are willing to transfer ownership.”

“Then I’ll have to trouble you to continue preparing fitness equipment, recruiting people, and so on for the branch stores.”

Guo Licheng opened his mouth, wanting to persuade him a bit more, but seeing Mr. Pei’s resolute attitude, he could only nod: “Alright, Mr. Pei, I understand.”

“Um… Mr. Pei, what were the location rules you just mentioned?”

Pei Qian repeated, “In this batch, we’ll open three to five branch stores. Some fitness centers definitely won’t want to transfer ownership, so try to give me ten addresses. One must be near Mingyan Mansion, and the others should all be near Slackin’ Internet Café or the office locations of other Tenda business departments.”

The reason for choosing these locations was partly to better ensure the supply of fitness meals, and partly to provide benefits for employees.

Pei Qian had never forgotten that the managed fitness center and Sloth Apartments projects were both aimed at losing money while also providing more benefits for employees.

Originally not making money, and then using employee benefits to fleece himself—it was like double the joy.

The observation period for this flagship store had come to an end, and the current situation looked quite promising. Although there were some customers, they were still far from profitability.

Since that was the case, it was about time to gradually bring in his employees.

As for why gradually and in batches?

Because the system had limitations in this regard. Whether it was Sloth Apartments or the shared fitness center, providing employee benefits had to be controlled within certain limits.

For instance, with Sloth Apartments, if there were 100 rooms, only 30 could be used as employee dormitories.

The same principle applies to restaurants and fitness centers. They could be used for employee benefits, but with the prerequisite that other consumers could also use them, they couldn’t be completely exclusive to employees, and this proportion had strict limitations.

So, to create fitness plans for all employees, Pei Qian would need to open many fitness centers.

Fortunately, as long as this thing could lose money, Mr. Pei had enough motivation!