185: Chapter 185 Negotiation Techniques

Salary Too Low?

The Research Team had fewer than ten people in total.

The two technical leads earned annual salaries in the tens of millions.

Even the subordinates earned annual salaries in the millions.

And yet they were still unsatisfied, feeling the compensation was too low.

Truly, a snake swallowing an elephant due to insatiable greed!

While Chen Ling was furiously complaining in her mind, she said to them with a forced smile:

"But didn't we already agree on everything before? We were going to sign the contract based on the current price."

Cheng He shook his head: "To be honest, many companies are contacting us now. They are offering better prices than you, and their company qualifications are no worse than yours, so..."

Good heavens!

Wasn't this clearly blackmailing her into raising the price?!

Chen Ling was so angry her teeth ached, but she closed her eyes and took a deep breath, urging herself not to lose her temper.

After calming down for a while, she opened her eyes and asked the two: "Then how much do you want to raise it by?"

As soon as the words left her mouth,

Yu Miaomiao stated double the original price without even stuttering.

Originally, Chen Ling thought that as long as the price quoted by these two was within her acceptable range, she would immediately agree to finalize the matter as soon as possible.

However, she never expected these two to be so greedy, demanding double the price right off the bat.

If she actually agreed right away, these two would probably continue to escalate the price further.

Thinking of this, she lowered her eyelids and refused: "No, this price is simply too high. Even if you partner with other companies, they won't offer you this price."

She paused, then continued: "I genuinely hope we can cooperate successfully. How about this: since you feel the salary I negotiated for you is too low, I can raise the salary standard for your entire team by another twenty million."

Only raise it by twenty million?

Cheng He gave Yu Miaomiao a look, then said to Chen Ling: "But this is not within our team's expected returns. If your company is truly sincere about cooperating with us, shouldn't you raise it by at least fifty million?"

Did these two really not consider her money to be actual money!

It took Chen Ling a great deal of effort to keep herself from smashing the teacup in her hand.

She retracted her fake smile, took a deep breath, and said to the two: "Twenty-five million. This is the highest price I can offer. If you still feel this price is too low, then you can only seek employment elsewhere."

Hearing this, Cheng He and Yu Miaomiao narrowed their eyes.

They were contemplating whether they should stop here.

Only raising it by twenty-five million, they felt it wasn't enough.

But Chen Ling had already made her stance clear.

If they haggled any further, Chen Ling would probably kick them out of the Company immediately.

After much deliberation, they decided to talk with Chen Guangke and the others again, hoping that Chen Guangke and the others could offer a higher price.

To leave themselves an escape route, they didn't directly refuse Chen Ling. Instead, they said to her: "We understand what President Chen means, but this involves our entire Research Team after all."

"How about you give us some time to discuss this with the other members of the team?"

Still need to discuss?

Chen Ling was already extremely impatient.

She wanted to force these two to give her an answer on the spot.

But she was afraid that by pressuring them so much, the two might directly refuse her.

There were no better Research Teams available on the market right now.

If she missed out on this Research Team, her artificial intelligence project would be even harder to launch.

Out of necessity, she had to hide her impatience and display her generosity.

"Fine, but you must give me a timeframe."

Cheng He and Yu Miaomiao didn't dawdle and immediately said: "It won't take long, two days will be enough."

Chen Ling nodded and readily agreed.

Right after Cheng He and Yu Miaomiao finished negotiating the price with Wu Ya, they contacted Chen Guangke.

"Hello, Mr. Chen, are you free right now?"

Chen Guangke was somewhat flattered.

He had originally planned to ask these two out tomorrow to discuss how he could poach the Research Team with a high price.

He hadn't expected that before he could even call them, the technical leads of the Research Team would proactively call him.

"Of course I am!"

After confirming he was free, Cheng He asked him: "Could we invite you and President Shen out for a meal later?"

Chen Guangke certainly wouldn't refuse. He immediately agreed, and only then confirmed the time and location with the other party.

After hanging up the phone, he rushed immediately to Shen Yan's office.

"Old Shen! The people from the Research Team contacted me proactively and invited the two of us to dinner!"

Hearing this, Shen Yan frowned and said to him with dissatisfaction: "This isn't some huge event, is it necessary to be so loud?"

Chen Guangke was unconvinced.

"The Research Team contacting us proactively shows they are also willing to cooperate with us. Isn't that a big deal?"

Shen Yan placed the documents in his hand onto the desk, then leaned back in his chair and said: "This is certainly not a big deal. I already told you that this Research Team couldn't come to an agreement with Chen Ling."

Saying that, he tapped the desk with his finger and asked Chen Guangke as he stood up: "What's the update on the matter I asked you to check with Finance?"

When it came to business, Chen Guangke's expression became much more serious.

"I checked. The current liquid capital on the books of both companies totals over eighty million."

As he spoke, his brow furrowed deeply.

"Although I know Fuchen's operational status isn't very good right now, I didn't expect it to be this bad. Its liquid capital on the books is even less than our newly established company!"

Shen Yan was not surprised by this.

After all, if Fuchen Enterprise's operational status was good, Wang Tian wouldn't have thought about transferring company assets and running away.

"Alright, stop complaining. Right now, the most important thing for us is to integrate the resources of the two companies and carry out resource allocation."

Speaking of this, Shen Yan felt a headache coming on.

For the past two days, he had been reading the semi-annual performance reports from all departments of the company.

The more he read, the worse his headache became.

Because Chen Ling and Wang Tian didn't know how to manage a company, coupled with frequently exploiting the Employees, almost all the talent in the company had left.

The people remaining in the company were either middle-aged managers nearing retirement or unskilled Employees who were just there to make up the numbers.

If he wanted to bring Fuchen Enterprise back to life, the first thing he needed to do was lay off those useless, number-padding people in the company.

However, layoffs were not an easy task.

If he started laying off people just two days after returning to the company, wouldn't that clearly cause anxiety throughout the entire company?

Furthermore, the number of people he wanted to lay off was simply too large.

If he wanted to lay off all these Employees at once, he would first need to prepare a substantial severance package.