Pecking Order, page 36
The sales staff at IDPromotions.com closed on nearly a third of their new potential advertisers and sponsors, and went to a two-week ad rate of $1,200 to replace their monthly rate of roughly $1,700. The sponsorship rates rose from $1,500 a month to $2,000. Jeff and Paul added four new web pages: the “San Diego Auto Dealership” page, the “Medicine, Health, and Diet” page, the “Law Services” page, and the “Pet Care” page.
The added web pages, combined with the two-week rates, increased their advertisement and sponsor capacity from eighty businesses each month to two hundred, and increased their potential revenue to $240,000 a month. With Ivan pulling in roughly half of the revenue, minus an estimated $25,000 in monthly expenses, IDPromotions.com was set to earn close to $100,000 a month and would make him a first-time millionaire by the end of the year.
The increased revenue would earn Jeff and Paul more than a quarter of a million a year each as creative executives, and as the veteran sales manager, Eddie K. was set to earn more than a third of a million. So they all had plenty to celebrate.
Nevertheless, their progress was not made without hard decisions.
Eddie called up Ivan excitedly and explained to him, “Our U.S. military officer is offering us a one-hundred-thousand-dollar sponsorship for the year to design a recruiting and military news page to incorporate all of their divisions: Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, the U.S. Coast Guard, ROTC, you name it.”
Ivan, however, was not as excited about it.
He said, “Yeah, well, we can’t take all of this money, man. I don’t necessarily agree with sending kids off to the military. What if it was your son?”
“Actually, my son thought about going into the Air Force at one time,” Eddie revealed to him. “But who are we to determine their choices, Ivan? All we’re doing is posting up their page on our site, and then we update their information for them. We’re not actively involved in recruiting kids just because we agree to host a page.” He said, “Do you know how many ads the newspapers would turn down if they made specific judgment calls? I mean, this is the American military we’re talking about. What could be more patriotic of us?”
It was another occasion where Ivan’s personal opinion conflicted with his business decisions. He didn’t agree with training kids for war. He always imagined college and trade school as better options. But someone had to serve and protect the country.
Then again, I’ve been taking this liquor sponsorship money for these parties until the cows come home, he reminded himself. I’m training these kids to drink. That’s hypocritical. Yet he was hesitant to budge on it.
“Let me think about that a little while longer, Eddie,” he told his sales manager. He was on his way to meet with the luxury car dealer in La Jolla, one of the wealthiest areas of San Diego.
“Well, what do you want me to tell them in the meantime?” Eddie asked him. He couldn’t believe that Ivan would balk at an instant six-figure deal.
Ivan said, “Tell him that we’re investigating the space availability on the site right now.”
Eddie paused. He said, “Ivan, he’s already talked to me about the new pages we’ve put up since your birthday network party. He also told me that you had some hesitancy about his idea when he spoke to you personally about it. Now, I want to remind you, Ivan, that this is a heavy military area, and we definitely don’t want the word to get out that we have some kind of bias against the U.S. military. That is definitely not the kind of press that we need right now, nor at any time in our business future, especially while you’re still based here in San Diego.”
Ivan heard all of that and thought, Shit! Eddie was right, of course. However, Ivan hated the feeling of being pushed into a corner. Fuck these military guys! he wanted to shout. But he knew better than to voice it. Businessmen had to do things they didn’t like sometimes.
“All right, well…” He was still hard-pressed to say it. Finally, he said, “Do what you need to do, Eddie. I’ll talk to you about it later. I have a two o’clocker with this car dealership.”
Eddie chuckled and said, “It’s about time you upgraded that car of yours. Give that Altima away as a bonus to one of the interns on staff or something.”
Ivan told him, “I’m not going to buy a car. I’m headed over there to talk about doing a promotional car show.”
Eddie laughed again. He said, “You are one serious business machine, Ivan. I guess your accounting job was holding you back more than I imagined.”
“Definitely,” Ivan told him. “The sky is the limit now. So I’m going right after it.” He felt he had all the time in the world without his office job. John and Barry agreed to his marketing and consultant position with a few changes. They would allow a three-hundred-thousand-dollar deal instead of four hundred and change, and Ivan had to include the creation and promotion of at least two major networking events for the company each year. They also agreed that Mike Adams could join him as his personal accountant and tax advisor after the busy month of April.
AS SOON AS Ivan pulled up to the World Wide Luxury Cars dealership in La Jolla, he spotted the Bentleys, Rolls-Royces, Lamborghinis, Aston Martins, Ferraris, Bugattis, and other expensive cars that they advertised. They were all parked behind a large, shatterproof-glass showroom.
When he parked in the customer spaces outside, driving his mundane Nissan Altima, some of the younger salesmen had no idea what to make of him. Was he there to buy a car or to sightsee? So no one rushed to the door to greet him until they noticed his classy and casual style of dress, his air of importance, and the diamond stud earring that twinkled in his left earlobe.
“What’s your preference, the Ferraris or the Lamborghinis?” one of the older salesmen asked Ivan on his way in. The full-gray-headed man beat the younger guys to the punch, figuring that he would ignore the Altima that the man drove up in. Plenty of their wealthy clients had decided to splurge after living more budgeted lifestyles. New millionaires popped up in America every day, and from all walks of life.
Ivan looked the cars over inside the showroom and remembered the yellow Ferrari that had driven past him in the Gaslamp Quarter nearly a year ago.
I was too slow back then, he remembered. I wonder what I am now.
They had two different models of yellow Ferraris inside the showroom, and also a yellow Lamborghini. But they weren’t Ivan’s taste. All of the sports cars screamed for too much attention. Only the black ones would work for a more humble customer. Then again, once Ivan spotted the Continental GTs from Bentley, he figured that maybe a sports car could work for him.
“Damn,” he expressed of a cranberry-red Continental with shiny twenty-inch rims. Ivan walked over near it and noticed the two-tone brown leather interior. The older salesman followed him.
“Oh, yeah, she’s a beauty. That’s your dinner and breakfast car there,” the salesman commented. “You take a woman to dinner in that, and you get to have her around for breakfast the next morning.”
Ivan smiled and chuckled. When he turned and faced a younger salesman in his twenties, the younger man noticed him.
“Hey, you’re Ivan David, aren’t you, from IDPromotions.com? You just had that big birthday network party a few weeks ago at the Grand Hyatt, right?”
It still felt good. He knew Ivan’s whole rundown.
Ivan kept his cool and nodded to him. “Did you make it out there that night?”
“No, but our owner did. You remember meeting a Roman Zemeckis?”
Ivan said, “As a matter of fact, I do. And I think he told me to meet him here today at two o’clock. Is he around?”
The younger salesman laughed it off. He caught on to Ivan’s sarcasm. But the older salesman was still lost.
He asked Ivan, “You have a two o’clock meeting with Roman? Well, how come you didn’t say so? I would have gone ahead and gotten him for you.”
“I wanted to check out the cars first. I’m still a little early,” Ivan told him. “Besides, you were showing me great courtesy.”
“Well, that’s my job,” the older salesman stated. “Courtesy is a lost art of good service these days. Well, let me go get Roman for you. And it’s, ah, Ivan, right?”
“Yeah, Ivan David.”
The older salesman walked back over to shake his hand. “I’m Frank McMichaels. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
“Same here, Frank. But let me sit in this thing for a few minutes while I wait.”
“Be my guest.” Frank went ahead and opened the car door for him. “By the way, this one is a limited edition.”
Ivan sat inside the driver’s seat and felt heaven come down to earth. Damn, this is plush, he told himself. The Bentley felt more like a private jet cockpit than a car. Ivan was waiting for the wings to shoot out from the sides so he could fly it.
“Enjoy. I’ll be right back with the boss,” Frank told him.
“Take your time,” Ivan responded.
The old salesman chuckled and walked off.
Ivan relaxed inside the luxurious two-door coupe and wondered aloud, “How much of a setback would this be?”
Based on the Bentley brand name alone, he estimated two hundred thousand and change. Adding in a car note payment for four years would put me somewhere in the range of…five thousand a month, he calculated. But I could pay this whole thing off in one year and have it over with. Then again, I could buy it through the company and make it a business expense. Bigger business needs bigger props for marketing purposes, he reasoned.
“Is this the one you like, Ivan?” the boss’s booming voice rang into his ears from the passenger-side door.
Roman Zemeckis climbed inside the passenger seat, dressed as impeccably as he had been when Ivan first met him at the network party. He wore great-smelling cologne as well.
Ivan even commented on it. “I want to learn how to dress like you when I hire a professional tailor one day,” he joked.
Roman laughed and said, “Your style of dress fits you, though, Ivan. You’re the middleman between the customers and the owners. So you want to be able to squeeze somewhere in between. And you do that well. But come on upstairs, Ivan. Let me show you my office.”
Ivan climbed out of the Bentley to follow the boss toward the stairs at the back.
Roman told him in a lowered tone, “I can give you the limited GT for two-forty at my own discount.”
Ivan smiled and kept his silence. He still had to figure out how he wanted to get it. But he definitely wanted the car. It just wasn’t in his budget at the moment.
Once they reached his office upstairs overlooking the showroom, Ivan noticed that all of the other offices were on the bottom-floor level.
There’s no question who the boss is in here, he told himself. Ivan felt special even being upstairs with the man. Then he looked to his left and through a full twelve-foot window. Roman Zemeckis had a complete view of the green and brown mountains, the vast ocean waters, and the light blue sky, all framed in the window like a giant portrait.
Ivan nodded and said, “Now, that right there is nice. That’s what I want before a car, a house in La Jolla that has a view of everything you have right here.” He said, “I’ve been thinking about that ever since I came to San Diego eleven years ago.”
Roman said, “Don’t let that be enough for you, Ivan. I’ve been here a little longer than that myself, from the Miami area. Most of my family’s still involved there with the boats and shipping business. But I wanted to do something different. So I came out west and got involved in selling exotic cars.”
He continued, “No sense in having toys that you can’t trade and sell, you know. And sure, you keep some of your favorites for yourself, but the real fun is in trying to see how many of them you can move.”
Ivan nodded, still hypnotized by the astounding view at the window. But he did manage to hear everything that was said. What Roman was telling him was that he had nothing to lose. His family had long money already. So his exotic cars were nothing more than a kid’s trading-card game.
Ivan asked him, “Do you invest in the different car companies that make the brands and models?”
Roman stared at him and thought about it with a pause. He said, “Ivan, you’re one of the few people who ever asked me that question.”
Ivan shrugged it off. It only made sense to him. He said, “If you like cars that much, and you got the money to be a part of the real competition, then why wouldn’t you want to invest in the companies?”
Ivan wanted to see what his investment tendencies were like before he tried to pitch him on anything. He took a seat in the deep leather office chair that sat in front of Roman’s open desk. He had several wooden file cabinets against the wall behind his chair. The setup reminded Ivan of how he had created open space for Paul and Jeff at his own office. Only Roman’s office was ten times more plush, with an Oriental rug that covered the center of his shiny hardwood floor.
Roman asked him, “Do you invest in everything that you like?” He wanted to test Ivan’s investment ideas as well.
“If it’s gonna make me a profit, yeah,” Ivan told him. “But if not, then I’ll just admire it from a distance.”
Roman chuckled. He said, “You don’t mince words much, do you?”
Ivan told him, “Honesty is the best policy. So I try to be as straightforward as possible.”
“So, what’s your honest take on the success of a car show here?” Roman asked him.
Ivan said, “That depends on what your goals are. If you’re just trying to sell more cars, then we do an invitation-only event that stays near the showroom with your staff ready to sell. But if you’re trying to do a grand-scale promotion to let more folks know who you are and what you have to offer, then we would do a much bigger public event away from your showroom. Then we can throw a big after party with exotic car images around the room. But the catch with the more public event is that, even though it’ll make your dealership more popular, it may not necessarily sell you more cars. You’ll get a lot more people who just like to look, dream, and talk. But they will know the name of your company.”
Roman told him, “And what if I decided to do both? What if we wanted to be more popular and sell more cars? I may even be interested in opening up a second dealership in the area that sells less-expensive vehicles: an economy trade.”
That caught Ivan off guard. He didn’t expect the auto dealer to be that hungry. He was expecting an either-or situation.
He must be really bored with his time and money, Ivan thought. But he could corner the market that way, too. So he rolled with it.
He said, “Well, in that case, that’s even better. Then you’ll have both of your bases covered, and we can go all-out on both sides of the coin. I’ll have plenty of ideas if you wanna do it that way.”
“Well, I’d like to see your proposals. And if your ideas look good, we can talk about getting you behind the wheel of that limited-edition GT you like.”
Ivan asked him, “Is that a part of the deal?”
Roman Zemeckis paused. He said, “I like you, Ivan, but I don’t like you that much. That’s a hell of a car we’re talking about.”
“And we want to put together a hell of a promotion for you,” Ivan countered. He said, “Just look at it this way: if I can call you my friend with the dealership and let everyone know where I bought the car, then that’s twenty-four/seven promotion for you. And I’ll make sure I drive it everywhere with your license plate frames on it.”
The car boss began to shake his head and chuckle. He said, “How old are you again, Ivan, twenty-nine going on fifty? You just get those proposals together for me, and we’ll see what we can do.”
Ivan nodded and smiled to him. “Okay. That’s fair.”
HIS NEXT BIG MEETING was with Lucina and Seth Gardner, the marine broker, who specialized in the sales of large yachts and ocean cruise liners. Seth wanted to meet with them out on a yacht to show it off and let his promoters see what they would be working with.
When they made it deep out into San Diego Bay and headed toward the Pacific Ocean, Ivan thought back to his elevated view from the window of the Manchester Grand Hyatt Hotel room with Catherine.
This is insane, he told himself of his lightning-speed progress. In less than a year, I’m out here on a big private yacht already. And I don’t own this shit yet, but I’m out here, he mused.
He had to stop from smiling the whole time, while forcing himself to think about the business. On the other hand, Lucina had been on plenty of boats around the world. She was cool, calm, and collected, with the sea breeze blowing through her radiant two-toned hair. And as they stood out on the front deck of the boat, admiring the yacht’s luxury, their unobstructed view of the ocean, and their comfortable place in the world, Ivan couldn’t help but notice how every part of wealth fit in perfectly with his partner. Lucina’s poise and beauty made her seem to deserve it all. So Ivan was sidetracked into watching her.
Man, I feel like that movie, Titanic. I just want to hold her and kiss her right here at the front of this boat, he mused. I want her to open up to me.
Ivan was locked in his daydream, which had nothing to do with business.
“What do you think, Ivan?” Lucina asked him, breaking him out of it.
“Oh, ah…it’s all good. It’s nice. This is good money.” He said, “But we would need a bigger boat for an all-out party, though. This would be more of a private invitation party.”
Then he stopped and looked back at Seth, who idled patiently behind them. He wasn’t into overselling the product. He preferred to let the boats do the talking for him. And while they were out there in the middle of the bay, they couldn’t rush away anywhere.
“Or…we could do both,” Ivan suggested to him, taking a page out of his meeting with Roman Zemeckis. If it worked once, then make it work again.
Seth nodded and thought it over, remaining calm. He said, “Whatever size you need, or whatever event you come up with, I can make it happen.”
His calm demeanor spoke of experience. He wasn’t fazed by much of anything. That made Ivan think even bigger. Seth could handle whatever he had to propose. In fact, Ivan assumed the man felt more comfortable with the bigger ideas as opposed to the hassles of the smaller ones. After all, the man made a living selling multimillion-dollar boats. So why would a mere party rattle him? All Ivan had to do was come up with ideas to increase the popularity of his business and products, and Seth would be willing to do it.
