He was a Chinese, but he was a prominent figure in the British business world.
The "RongYe Xing" he founded is the largest supermarket in the Uk and the largest Chinese supermarket in Europe.
In 2010, he was awarded the "British Empire Non-Commissioned Officer Medal" (OBE) by the Queen, and prince Charles of the United Kingdom honored him as a guest of honor, and even former British Prime Minister Blair and Cameron honored him with three points.
He is Ye Huanrong, the richest man of Chinese descent in the United Kingdom and the founder of Rongyehang.
Now Ye Huanrong is the richest Chinese in Britain, but who would have thought that when he first came to Britain 60 years ago, he only had 10 pounds on his body.
In order to make a living, he worked as a dishwasher for 2 years, working more than 10 hours a day.
But even so, he still relied on diligence and hard work to achieve the great counterattack of life. Today, we will tell his story.
1
Drifting to England with £10
Start with the dishwasher
Born in 1938, Ip spent his childhood in Dongguan and later moved his family to Hong Kong because his family fell in the middle of the road.
In Hong Kong, Ye Huanrong finished secondary school and was about to start making a living, but he couldn't find a way out in Hong Kong, so he had the idea of going to England to break in.
In 1959, 21-year-old Ye Huanrong, carrying 10 pounds, boarded a passenger ferry to London.
Like all young people who have left their hometowns, Ye Huanrong is also ambitious, but when he first arrived in London, reality hit him hard.
When he first arrived in Britain, because he was not familiar with the road of life, he ran into a wall in every way, and usually could only spend the night under the overpass, and was once driven away by the police as a tramp.
Finally, through the hometown association, he found a job as a dishwasher in a restaurant.
This job, Ye Huanrong has been doing for 2 years, washing dishes for more than 10 hours a day, and his body is like a loose rack after work, and he does not want to get up when he lies down.
After doing it for 2 years, the boss saw that Ye Huanrong was diligent and clever, so he promoted him to the front desk waiter.
At this time, Ye Huanrong began to calculate, do I want to be a waiter for the rest of my life?
But he knew very well in his heart that with my current ability, what could an improper waiter do?
Ordinary people think of it here, maybe even if it is, continue to be a waiter, and live a muddy life.
But Ye Huanrong is not an ordinary person, what he thinks is:
I can only be a waiter now, does not mean that I can only be a waiter in the future!
So, he accumulated experience while working, and at the same time secretly saved a little money.
Within 2 years, he had figured out how a restaurant was run, and at the age of 25, he and two other friends jointly established London's first Chinese restaurant.
Ye Huanrong has a business acumen, and the accumulation of the previous few years has also helped a lot, and within 3 months, he has made a restaurant flourish.
Soon, he opened 2 restaurants and 2 takeaway stores in succession, and the business was still booming.
However, Ye Huanrong still felt unsatisfied, and he began to ponder again:
This kind of small restaurant can't open a big show, do I have to face the pots and pans every day like this, and live this life?
2
Rely on a story
Make 600 million business!
By chance, Ye Huanrong saw a small story on the side of the magazine:
After World War I, American businessman Hilton wanted to buy a bank in Texas, but the seller kept raising the price, so it didn't succeed.
Frustrated, Hilton had to stay in a local hotel and prepare to return home the next day.
He came to the hotel and found that it was full and people were sleeping in the lobby.
Hilton wasn't sad that he couldn't find a room, but was excited: it turned out that the hotel was also a good business, why didn't I buy it?
So Hilton changed his mind, gave up buying the bank, bought the hotel, and made the business bigger and bigger, making it the world-famous "Hilton Hotel".
Hilton's story triggered Ye Huanrong's thinking: In addition to restaurants, what new business can I do?
Ordinary people look at the chicken soup, the spirit is lifted, and it is still the original decadent look.
But Ye Huanrong was different, after watching the chicken soup, he thought: What can I learn here? What is the use for my life?
This is how the gap between people is widened.
After investigation, Ye Huanrong decided not to do a restaurant anymore, but to specialize in a grocery store specializing in the distribution of Chinese restaurants.
So Ye Huanrong and his brother joined forces to open the first Chinese-style grocery store in Birmingham, named "Rong Ye Xing".
Ye Huanrong's Rongye Line, as soon as it opened its business, was booming, and soon became popular throughout the British business circle.
The reason for the success is entirely because of Ye Huanrong's diligent thinking, specifically there are three points:
First, the site selection is surprisingly successful
Ye Huanrong's shop is not open in London, but in Birmingham, a city 180 kilometers away from London.
At that time, no one could understand Ye Huanrong's decision, and it was not until Rong Yexing's business was getting better and better that Ye Huanrong revealed the significance of doing so:
"If you drive in London, you're just a little fish in a big pool. It's so big that if you open a shop, no one a few streets away will know it exists; if you're in Birmingham, everyone knows about it for 3 months. ”
Moreover, Birmingham also has a well-developed motorway network, which does not exceed 3 hours, and trucks can cover three-quarters of the users in the UK.
Later, the development of events also confirmed Ye Huanrong's judgment, many people outside Birmingham specially drove to Rongyexing to shop, most of them are still British.
Second, follow the direction of the wind and continue to transform
At first, Rong Ye Hong was just a grocery store that made distribution for Chinese restaurants, but in the 1970s, the British economy developed further and the spending power of the British people increased.
With money, naturally want to buy things, Ye Huanrong did not want to miss the opportunity, the original only for the Chinese business, all for the British, the grocery store into a commercial center.
Because of the complete range of products, many Britons have also become fans of Rongyexing.
Third, compound development
In addition to doing restaurants and supermarkets, Ye Huanrong has also further expanded his business territory.
Birmingham's Wing Ye Hong headquarters is a center that integrates a variety of services such as restaurants, clinics, accounting firms, and law firms.
Today, RongYe Hong has four supermarket chains in the three most important cities in the UK, London, Birmingham and Manchester, employing more than 300 people, providing goods for more than 2,000 Chinese restaurants and retail outlets in the UK, with annual sales of 70 million pounds (about 620 million yuan)!
3
Away from home for years
Always think of yourself as Chinese
His career grew bigger and bigger, and Ye Huanrong became the richest man of Chinese descent in Britain.
In 2010, the Queen of the United Kingdom personally awarded him the "British Empire Non-Commissioned Officer Medal" (OBE), the British Prince Charles made him a guest of honor, and even former British Prime Minister Blair and Cameron had to pay him three points.
Even though he has been away from home for many years, Ye Huanrong has always regarded himself as a Chinese.
Since 2000, he has set up the "Ye Huanrong Brothers Scholarship" to sponsor Peking University Tsinghua students to study in Cambridge, Cambridge students to peking university Tsinghua and other projects.
He always said that talent is China's future, so he should donate money to cultivate talents for China.
He also often organizes scholarship-winning class reunions to encourage male and female students to make friends and get married.
Ye Huanrong jokingly said that these are all Chinese elites, Chinese "excellent varieties", do not cheap foreigners.
For his own children, he also made it clear:
"I don't care if they make love to people of any nationality, but my grandchildren must look like me, with yellow skin and dark eyes."
It can be said that Ye Huanrong's every move shows his love for China.
When I opened my first shop in Birmingham, the guys went to the opposite bar after work to drink, but the bar owner was very unwelcome.
After Ye Huanrong observed it, he found that the original employees always like to litter, so they are not welcomed.
Finally, Ye Huanrong said:
"Chinese you must first love yourself, and others will respect you."
So he set up rules prohibiting employees from littering, and set up a dressing mirror in the store, requiring employees to tidy up their clothes every day when they commute to work.
He repeatedly said:
"When we go out, we represent Chinese."
It can be said that his purpose has always been to contribute to the respect of the Chinese by the world.
4
From dishwasher to billionaire
These 3 tips you must know
From £10 to the current billionaire, Ye Huanrong's experience is very legendary.
For his own success, Ye Huanrong summed up three points:
First, we must use our brains in everything
Ye Huanrong once said:
"For thousands of years, Chinese culture has made people industrious, don't be opportunistic. I said no. Many things, different strategies and methods have different effects, and there are rules to follow, there are ingenuities and desirability, we have to think more. ”
From dishwasher to waiter, from waiter to restaurant owner, and then from the founder of the supermarket group of the restaurateur, Ye Huanrong's life has achieved many leaps.
Every jump is the result of thinking.
Because he was clever, he became a waiter; because he learned to run a restaurant in a restaurant, he could open his own shop; he saw an article in a magazine and he thought about changing careers...
People who love to use their brains can be invincible in the mall, and even their brains do not want to move, and they can only live a muddy life.
Second, those who are not familiar with the business do not do it, and the business that cannot be controlled is not done
These are two principles that Ye Huanrong has always adhered to, and he has been advised to invest in real estate, but he refuses.
Later, someone encouraged him to let the company go public, but he still refused.
He firmly believes that doing business is only doing business that he is familiar with and can control, and investing in unfamiliar businesses is too risky, even if he can make a lot of money, it is likely to lose all at once.
More importantly, such a business will make people inert, accustomed to making quick money, and will no longer think about hard work.
Third, entrepreneurship needs to find the right positioning
Ye Huanrong said that young people do not need to be too demanding of themselves at the beginning, they must find their own positioning and know what they want to become.
Only in this way can we go up step by step and finally achieve our life goals.
He likened society to an onion, doing business knowing what level he was in. He cited himself as an example:
"We rongye line does not sell the best, but must not sell the worst, we sell the middle, we have our own positioning."
Establishing the positioning is to put the strategy first, so that everything done can be effective.
As Xiaomi Lei Jun said:
"Don't use tactical diligence to cover up strategic laziness."
Now, Ye Huanrong is approaching the age of 80, he has retired, leaving the property to his children and grandchildren to take care of.
Even so, he reads multiple Chinese and English newspapers every day, pays special attention to the world's political economy, and responds in a timely manner to new trends in contemporary global business operations.
Moreover, he always likes to appear in the supermarket, or diligently tidy up the trolley, or talk to people cordially.
Now, he thinks back to his life, he said that he had no backstage, no money and no professional skills, working part-time to do small business, and his only belief was to get out of poverty.
Therefore, he often asked the young people who asked him how to start a business: Why do you want to start a business?
He said:
"If the answer is 'I hate poverty,' that's a good answer; if it's 'I want to be rich,' it's the wrong answer."
Perhaps, this is the ultimate secret of his success.
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