Chapter 60: Building a Personal Brand
"You’re interested?" Now Teacher Wang was confused. "We have about sixty people at our matchmaking agency, and not a single one is interested."
"Even the oldest woman on staff thinks those ’leftover women’ are too difficult to handle."
"Xiaozhang, you don’t have... a problem up here, do you? Just like me?"
Seeing Teacher Wang point to her head, Zhang Zhe tapped his own. "I’m fine. I just see things differently than other people."
"Older ’leftover women’ might have their flaws—extensive relationship histories, materialism, eccentric personalities, ’princess syndrome,’ a facade of refinement, domineering attitudes—but they also have their good points, just waiting for the right person to discover them."
"What good points?" Teacher Wang retorted impatiently. "That they’re old?"
"I don’t know. That’s why I said you have to discover them."
"It’s on the first of next month, right?"
Zhang Zhe checked his schedule.
’My schedule is completely empty. How rare. Back when I had my old job, I’d have at least five meetings a day.’
"My schedule is clear. Teacher Wang, are you sure you want my help?"
"Yes." Teacher Wang nodded. She hesitated for a moment before continuing, "Since you’re already aware of their shortcomings, I can entrust this matter to you with peace of mind."
"I was originally planning to give you a briefing."
"But now it seems that won’t be necessary."
"How about you give me the lesson anyway?" Zhang Zhe asked humbly. "I’m not too worried about what the women at the matchmaking corner will be like."
"Plenty of people on Bilibili have already done exposés on them."
"What I’m curious about now is your ’illness,’ Teacher Wang. What happened? Did you run into some real characters?"
Teacher Wang closed her eyes, touched her forehead, and let out a pained, "Ahhh—"
"Teacher Wang, are you okay?"
"I’m fine, I’m fine. Just a bit of PTSD. Let me catch my breath."
"Okay, okay. Then you don’t have to tell me how you got ’sick’." Zhang Zhe hadn’t expected it to be this serious. That sound she made... ’It was like she was about to fall to the dark side.’
"No, I have to tell you."
"My doctor said it might be psychosomatic. Talking about it might help my condition."
"Then I’ll wait for you to recover."
Zhang Zhe saw her reaching as if to take some medicine and quickly turned to get her a bottle of water. But by the time he came back, Teacher Wang’s complexion had returned to normal.
"I’m okay now." Teacher Wang dragged her chair back a little, putting some distance between herself and Zhang Zhe. "Now, let me tell you about the situations I’ve run into."
With that, she shot to her feet.
She began to explain, gesturing wildly as she described the "characters" she had met.
’So that’s why she moved her chair. She was afraid of accidentally hitting me.’
"The number one character I ever met was a ’kun.’ She asked me for advice on how to marry a rich man. I told her that with her background, it wasn’t possible. She didn’t believe me and insisted that rich men liked her type, claiming she had the spending records to prove it."
"The second was a ’slow burn’ type. She demanded that a man could only meet her in person after knowing her for a month. They could only get engaged after six months, and they could only get married a full year after the engagement."
"The third one was no slouch either. We were doing a live event, matching men and women on the spot. I managed to get one couple to agree to a preliminary date. But that very night, the woman sent me a message saying she had a secret..."
"What secret?" Zhang Zhe asked curiously. "Did she have a kid? Or was she pregnant?"
"Neither." A chilling smile appeared on Teacher Wang’s face. "She said she wasn’t divorced yet."
"She wasn’t even in the mandatory cooling-off period for divorce."
"She simply felt her best friend had married better, so she wanted to trade up."
"And I had already arranged for her to meet the guy in person the next day..."
Seeing Teacher Wang’s frantic expression, Zhang Zhe could only offer a weak acknowledgment of her difficulties.
’Some people really are subhuman.’
’Prolonged contact with such humanoids... For a woman like Teacher Wang, who’s so emotionally sensitive and empathetic, it’s easy to see how her mental state could collapse.’
Zhang Zhe listened to about ten of these case studies in total.
He now basically understood how this veteran Matchmaker had fallen ill.
It was indeed quite terrifying.
However, his own confidence had grown considerably.
Because from what he’d heard so far, nothing was particularly hard for him to accept. This was probably because, in his eyes, all these weirdos could be converted into warm, fuzzy happiness points. Some might even trigger a critical bonus and give him extra.
The two chatted for a while longer. As the sun began to set, Teacher Wang took the initiative to leave.
But just before she left, she suddenly remembered something and offered Zhang Zhe a piece of advice:
"Xiaozhang, I wasn’t originally going to say this, but I don’t know... I just feel like our personalities click."
"So I think I should give you a heads-up."
"Even though you’re new to the industry, this is the internet age. You need to start planning your personal IP as soon as possible."
"You’re using Teacher Xu’s account to stream right now. What if one day, she decides to have someone else stream for her? Wouldn’t you just be heartlessly cast aside? Of course, my mentor isn’t that kind of person, but you can’t be so sure about her daughter-in-law."
"I heard her daughter-in-law has always wanted to take over the business, but she just isn’t capable enough."
"For example, you could totally clip the segments with the weirdos you meet on stream and post them to your own Xiaohongshu account."
After her earnest advice, Teacher Wang, afraid Zhang Zhe might overthink it, specifically added:
"That’s what I used to do."
After hearing this, Zhang Zhe nodded eagerly, shook Teacher Wang’s hand, and thanked her loudly.
He felt like he’d been enlightened.
’This veteran is really looking out for me.’
Whether or not Zhang Zhe continued to make a living from streaming, building a personal brand was never a bad idea. Otherwise, he’d be stuck working for someone else his whole life.
...
After seeing Teacher Wang off, Zhang Zhe spent the entire walk home thinking about his personal brand.
’What name should I choose?’
’Brother Zhang’s Matchmaking’ is too tacky, sounds like a street stall.’
’Lao Zhang the Matchmaker’ is too traditional, it won’t attract a younger audience.’
’Matchmaker Xiaozhang’ is good, but unfortunately, the name is already taken.’
After much thought and many attempts, Zhang Zhe chose the name "Matchmaking Live Stream Room."
There was no other choice. There were too many matchmakers with the surname Zhang.
Every name he could think of that included his surname was already registered.
Since he couldn’t highlight his personal brand, he decided to just claim a major category. It was like if you were reborn and went back in time to make money selling spicy sticks; you wouldn’t pick a brand name like "Weilong," you’d just register the trademark for "Spicy Sticks."
During his live stream that evening, Zhang Zhe put a small line of text in the upper right corner:
[For stream highlights, please go to @Matchmaking Live Stream Room]
"Good evening, sisters."
"That one guy with the A9? He sent me a message. Said he’s taking a break from looking for a partner online. He’s planning to trade in for a BYD and see if he can find someone in real life first."
"He said if he finds someone, he’ll come back to the stream and have everyone help analyze the situation."
"The big man said he definitely won’t get cheated on this time."
"Alright, next up, let’s connect with a sister who DMed me earlier. She said she’s been waiting for a few days."
"Alright, cue the BGM."
Zhang Zhe gave a silent snap of his fingers, and the voice of Zhao Lei slowly drifted out:
"She’s a thirty-year-old woman, still unmarried to this day. In her smiling face, beside her eyes, a few wrinkles have appeared~"