Her net worth soared by 12 million in 2 years. How did she do it?

If you were a girl who left the countryside and finally made it to a big city, would you still go back?

This girl, named Nie Lingli, did exactly that. She went from the big city back to the countryside and, out of necessity, started raising pigs, but inadvertently made a name for herself selling them. From migrant worker to farm owner, what exactly happened behind this enormous change?

△Nie Lingli and her brother Nie Youli

Taking on the burden of repaying her brother's debts in a time of crisis

△Nie Lingli, who had finally made it into a big city, was not willing to go home

In 2007, Nie Lingli left her hometown to study in Guangzhou, then went to Dongguan to work, and was away for five years. The convenience and colorful life of the city made her very happy, and at the same time, the belief that only in the city could one succeed was deeply rooted in her mind. This kind of life was easy and comfortable, until a phone call broke that state.

One day in March 2013, Nie Lingli received a tearful phone call from her mother, who begged her to come home. What on earth had happened at home, that even her parents, who wanted her to stay in the city, would summon her back? After pressing for details, Nie Lingli learned that it was all because her brother Nie Youli had raised pigs and the family had fallen into a lot of debt.

Misfortunes never come singly: taking over the pig farm

After returning to her hometown, the brother and sister decided to divide the work and cooperate. Nie Lingli focused on sales, and her brother was responsible for breeding.

Using her circle of friends from her time working in Dongguan, she sold some Xiang pigs, and the two gradually saw hope. As the days after her return piled up, Nie Lingli found that she and her brother did nothing but clash. Finally, one incident thoroughly enraged Nie Lingli and made her say the harshest words, and because of it, the two went in different directions.

It turned out that in early 2014, her brother wanted to build a farm for 10,000 pigs, but due to market conditions, capital was recovering slowly. Before it was even half built, the funding chain broke, and there was no money left even to buy feed for the pigs. The brother and sister had no choice but to go out together to pick locust flowers and wild vegetables as feed. To cover the losses, Nie Lingli also sold the house in the county town, but even after borrowing money everywhere, they still could not get out of the predicament. For the sake of the pig farm, she often was still driving on the highway at one or two in the morning.

△Nie Lingli and her brother caused another financial crisis for the pig farm

However, misfortunes never come singly. At first, in order to build the 10,000-pig farm, they had desperately stockpiled pigs. Now these sows were giving birth like crazy, with dozens of piglets born every day, but the pens were too small, and winter insulation measures were not in place, so the piglets kept dying in the cold and the crowding.

Birth and death alternated every day. Nie Lingli saw her parents' tears with her own eyes. Under the pressure, she had no choice but to pour her heart out to friends. Seeing that Nie Lingli, who had always been optimistic and cheerful, seemed to have become a different person, her friends resolved to help her get through the hard times. Her friends rented a nearly abandoned chicken coop in Qingquan Town at a very low price, and it took Nie Lingli only 15 days to complete the renovation of the pens and move the commercial pigs over.

The Bama Xiang pigs stopped dying, and the family breathed a sigh of relief. At this time, however, her brother made a decision. He passed the exam to become a civil servant in the county and took another path to realize his ideals, while Nie Lingli took over the farm and began wholeheartedly running the Bama Xiang pig business at home.

Feeding with crops to build a brand

△Nie Lingli was very angry after learning about the farmers' breeding conditions

After devoting herself wholeheartedly to the Bama Xiang pigs, the farm gradually began to improve. In 2014, Nie Lingli kept going out to study and got to know many friends in agriculture. She also established a cooperative, and some local villagers, seeing her profits, joined one after another.

Unexpectedly, this move almost cost her her sales channels. The farmers in the cooperative, used to raising white pigs, actually fed the Xiang pigs with concentrated feed, while Nie Lingli's own pigs had always been fed grass and other crops. This made a customer feel that Nie Lingli had deceived him. Nie Lingli went to several farmers' homes in a row and found that they were all raising Bama Xiang pigs in the traditional way. She was very disappointed.

According to the contract set at the beginning, she steeled herself and bought back all the farmers' pigs. Putting the pigs in the mountain villa to raise, Nie Lingli was not at all worried that they would be fed concentrated feed, because the villa was also using her Bama Xiang pigs as a signature draw. Based on this shared point of interest, Nie Lingli quickly reached cooperation with 11 mountain villas.

Processing, pickup and common development

After solving the problem of Xiang pig breeding, Nie Lingli began to study how to expand sales channels. In 2014, she sold more than 4 million yuan worth of Xiang pigs, and a year later, sales rose to more than 12 million. How did Nie Lingli do it in such a short time?

It turned out that after December 2013, Nie Lingli expanded her stock while actively promoting the pigs, and also opened a snack shop in Xishui County, which, besides promoting the Bama Xiang pigs, also served as a pickup point for customers. In this way, as soon as 2015 began, her Bama Xiang pig sales kept rising. By the end of the year, she had sold nearly 5,000 pigs in total, with sales of more than 12 million.

△Nie Lingli personally promoting Bama Xiang pigs

Now Nie Lingli only wants to wholeheartedly take care of her Bama Xiang pigs, and as for her brother, she understands him more too. Nie Lingli said that she is actually very grateful to her brother. She was originally just a migrant working girl, and now she has transformed into a boss, and her own value has changed as well.