Pecking Order, page 45
“Ivan David,” he told the young hostesses at the sign-in table by the entrance.
They checked for his name. “Table thirty-nine.”
Another hostess led them forward and into the room. “Right this way.”
Ivan asked her, “Excuse me, do you work with the promoters or organizers of tonight’s event?”
“Oh, yeah, I’m an intern with Northeastern Communications, a marketing, public relations, and events firm.”
“Is your boss gonna be here tonight?”
Vance Wellings hadn’t given him all of the details. Ivan was skeptical about how much Vance wanted him to know. And arriving early to find out more information was one of Ivan’s many priorities that evening. He was at business war and on the front lines before daybreak.
The intern began to look around the room in search of her boss.
“Ah, I just saw him a few minutes ago.”
Ivan gave her his business card. “Can you do me a favor and introduce us once you catch up to him again?”
She took his card and read it. “‘Ivan David Enterprises.’” Then she flipped it over and studied the IDPromotions.com logo.
Ivan decided not to list any services on his new business cards. A list tended to limit the conversations. Or if the list was too long, it could make a business appear unfocused. So Ivan would explain in person instead, his services changing to fit the needs and interests of each client. This also allowed him to add business ideas that were still in development.
“So, what do you do?” the intern asked him, still searching his card for answers.
Perfect! Ivan thought. He wanted them all to ask.
He answered, “I’m a brand promotions consultant for people, places, products, companies, and ideas. I’m the guy who makes it all happen.”
The intern nodded to him. She said, “Oh. So you, like—”
Ivan cut her off. “I’m like the Super Bowl. I put the biggest spotlight on your commercials, and I make sure everybody knows that you’re there.”
She nodded and said, “Oh, well, that’s like what we do.”
Ivan said, “But who promotes you to a larger audience? Northeastern Communications? Who are you? What do you do? Let us know. That’s where IDPromotions.com comes in. We identify whoever you are for a larger community, whether it’s business or personal.”
The intern showed them to their table and said, “Wow.” She didn’t know what else to say.
Ivan told her, “Well, just check out the website for yourself. And make sure you remember to introduce me to your boss.”
“Oh, I will,” she told him.
As soon as she walked away, Ivan sat at his empty table with Jacari, who was proud as hell to be with him. She had to hold herself together to stop from exploding with energy. She felt she believed in everything the man stood for. He had brought the Super Bowl to her and shone light on her career. And he had never asked her for anything.
She said, “That’s why my father wants to meet you. He wants everyone to know about the Native American casinos.”
Ivan squeezed her hand at the table and grinned at her. “We’re gonna make that all happen as soon as we get back to San Diego. We can put it on our tourist and family vacation lists.”
He asked her, “Can you buy, like, Native American clothes, and belts, and souvenirs there?”
Jacari told him, “Of course. We have plenty of things there to buy.”
Ivan said, “Okay. That sounds like a good money deal, then.”
The attendees ate a chicken and vegetable dinner with dessert before listening to the usual business speeches, introductions, and comedic efforts from the podium. The room then began to buzz for the next few hours with all of the real meeting and greeting. The soft instrumental music in the background was drowned out by the busy chatter.
Ivan told himself, Yup. This is just like business everywhere else. Time to go to work.
Jacari was a perfect companion as she followed him around the room, smiling, nodding, and cosigning his every joke and explanation. Their teamwork was so good that Vance Wellings got a real kick out of watching them, which led him to work Ivan around the room to amuse himself.
“Hey, Ivan, tell my friend Gil here how you plan to turn your company into the next Google,” Vance joked, with too many glasses of wine in his system.
Ivan explained, “Our whole goal at IDPromotions.com is to become the signature branding vehicle, online, of all hot companies, products, and services. Right now our focus is in the San Diego region, but as we expand nationwide, the sky is the limit.”
Vance said, “Then he’ll focus on the world’s hottest products.”
As long as Jacari could collect and distribute business cards, Ivan didn’t mind the spectacle. But once his initial explanations were made, he continued to move on. He realized that the business plans and proposals he would create as a result of this gathering were when the business talks would really begin. The network event was about the introductions.
“Well, what makes your company unique from any other website that could essentially do the same thing?” Ivan was asked.
“That’s the million-dollar question,” he responded. “And the million-dollar answer is loyalty. Who has the loyal following to increase and maintain their numbers? That’s the same question you can ask of any business. And a lot of that has to do with better products, better services, better ideas, easier accessibility, a faster response to your customer’s needs, name recognition, and ultimately, investor capital for marketing and expansion.”
He continued, “But at IDPromotions.com, we’re more concerned with identifying you. What makes your company unique? So our strength is in being the strongest support system. We don’t try to be more important than our clients. Where our clients go, we go. And what we do best is help to take them there.”
Vance Wellings could drink and laugh all he wanted to that night, but Ivan’s pitch was serious. And he took it that way.
He stated, “When people think about IDPromotions.com, I want them to trust that we’re going to identify the best of everything. And if we don’t identify the best, we want our customers to let us know what is. And we can then start an online survey.”
He concluded, “And the result of that information would be valuable to any company.”
NEAR THE CLOSE of the event, Jacari had a purse full of business cards along with aching feet. She told Ivan, “You are very, very good at talking about your business.”
Ivan said, “I have to be.” Then he asked her, “Are you all right?”
She was walking slowly and gingerly.
She gritted her teeth and told him, “I have to get out of these shoes.”
Ivan nodded to her. He had done enough pitching for one night anyway. But was she going back home or staying with him at the hotel? That was the big question. So Ivan asked her.
“Are you staying with me tonight, or…do you need another taxi?”
His pause left the question wide open. He had become a man who used words masterfully.
Jacari responded hesitantly, “I…I don’t know. I mean, I know you’re tired and everything by now.”
Ivan held her hand again and gave her his undivided attention in the room. He looked into her eyes and asked her more intently, “Do you want to stay here with me tonight?”
He knew that she wanted to. He just had to ask her better. He had been speaking to so many people in the room that night about business that he failed to address the needs of a woman properly. And when he did, all of Jacari’s emotions from the night before resurfaced. She had thought about him the previous night and daydreamed all day about being in his presence again. Now he was asking her if she wanted to stay.
And of course she did. So she nodded and gave him the only answer that she could live with. “Yes.” She couldn’t imagine saying no and never having that opportunity again. They were still together in New York, and it would still be special there, so far away from home.
Ivan told her, “Well, take off those shoes for the elevator ride. Then I’ll carry you down the hallway to my room.”
Jacari smiled and chuckled at him. “Okay.”
AFTER IVAN had carried her to the room, he had no more confusions about his intentions with her. He had worked it all out in his mind already. So he held her hands out in front of him while he sat on the edge of his bed and told her the truth.
“Jacari…Kaya…or whatever I need to call you,” he joked.
She grinned and said, “Either one. It doesn’t really matter for you. You can call me whichever one you feel more comfortable with. My family still calls me Kaya,” she told him.
Ivan heard that and thought, Damn. I got it good with her.
He continued, “Well…J…”
She chuckled there, waiting patiently for him to explain himself.
“…what I want to say is, you’re a very beautiful girl. Everybody can see that.”
She smiled and said, “Thank you.” Coming from him it meant much more.
Ivan said, “Well, with me being a guy and everything, we don’t always think emotionally like women do. Sometimes we do things because the opportunity is there. And right now I feel like I want to do a lot of different things with you.”
Jacari felt butterflies unleashing themselves throughout her body. She looked down at their hands and grinned in her girlishness.
Ivan said, “But I don’t want to hurt your feelings when I tell you that I can’t be that everyday guy for you.”
Jacari stopped her smiling with a nod, and she began to stare at Ivan like a grown woman. She said, “I understand. You got a lot of things that you do. But…I’m not gonna be around that much, either.”
She stopped and left it at that. Ivan would have to read between the lines.
He read her quickly and asked, “So, what if you see me with someone else?”
That was a harder question for her to bear. She looked downward and took a deep breath. Then she looked back into his eyes.
“I will always care about you anyway, for everything that you’ve done for me,” she told him. She said, “I heard you talk tonight about loyalty in business. Well…”—she pulled her hand away and placed it across her chest—“my heart will always be loyal to you.”
Damn! Ivan thought. She’s killing me with her softness. That’s that Indian-girl shit from the movies. Pocahontas.
He started smiling about his thoughts. He was even ready to make a joke about it to loosen things up. But instead, Jacari held his head in the palms of her hands and started to kiss his lips, and she kept going with it.
Ivan stopped and told her, “You don’t owe me anything because of the website. Somebody was gonna find you eventually anyway. Like I said, you’re beautiful.”
Jacari responded, “Ivan…this is not because I owe you anything. I kissed you because I want to. And I want to be here. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be. Like I told you last night, I can take care of myself.”
And she backed up to take her clothes off.
THE FOLLOWING WEEK in San Diego, Ivan called a conference-room meeting at his office, gathering all of the key members of his staff.
He spread the business cards from his trip to New York across the conference table and sat at the head chair. He told everyone, “Over the next few months, our new goal is to document every possible way to expand the company into a national brand identifier. And what that means is that, instead of us just talking about San Diego’s restaurants, we identify the best restaurants nationally. Instead of just talking about San Diego’s parties, we talk about the hottest parties in the country: East Coast, West Coast, South, all of that.”
He went on, “In football, instead of us just talking about Drew Brees and LaDainian Tomlinson, we also talk about Peyton Manning, Donovan McNabb, Shaun Alexander, and Tiki Barber. In other words, everything that we do now for San Diego, we want to create a list that does the same thing nationally.”
Eddie K. had to fight to hold back an enormous smile. He had been trying to get Ivan to think outside of just San Diego for a year now. He had hit the jackpot with the company, earning himself over a million in commissions. But if the company expanded nationally, he could earn millions more.
Joining up with Ivan was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made in my life, he told himself.
As the editorial manager, Ava Tate nodded her head and took notes. By the time they had moved into the new office and increased editorial content tenfold, Ivan had given her a ten-thousand-dollar-a-month salary.
Ava said, “We can use the search engines to expand to national lists and articles easily.”
“Then we can add sidebars to list the top ten of whatever,” Jeff added.
Ivan said, “But the key here is getting a national audience to respond to the list. So we have to start documenting every increase in traffic, and where that new traffic is coming from.”
Paul took notes on that. He and Jeff had a staff of four now, who surveyed all of the numbers: the unique visits and multiple impressions, as well as the verification of email addresses.
Paul mumbled, “Got it,” as Ivan continued to express their plans of execution:
“Now, with our existing numbers, I want Eddie to work with the proposal writers to pitch all national brands in clothing, automobiles, liquor, cell phones, you name it, on how our company can help them to push their new services and products through advertising and articles on our site, or through creating national sponsored events. And we want to be sure to ask them how we can help them on a national and/or regional level, because we can use that same information to pitch other clients.”
Eddie nodded to his part of the plans. He smiled and said, “That’s awesome. I’m right on it.”
Ivan added, “Last but not least, Mike, I want you and your team to start an audit of the company to evaluate how much it’s worth now, and how much it could be worth in three years, as compared to all of the website competitors. And I mean nationally.”
Mike Adams nodded. “Okeydokey,” he uttered. Mike had already thanked Ivan profusely for the opportunity to be a major member of his team. Combined with the new arrangement he had with Hutch & Mitchell, he was making two hundred thousand dollars a year himself.
Ivan looked at the business cards spread out across the table and concluded, “We start by doing research to solicit every one of these businesses on the table. Because if we can break New York, then we can break any city.”
There was a sudden silence in the room. No one had anything to say. The plans were all thorough.
Jeff coughed up, “Jesus, Ivan, did you eat your bowl of business Wheaties this morning or what?” Everyone in the room laughed to break up the tension. Jeff added, “That trip to New York must have really made an impression on you.”
Ivan grinned and said, “It did. So, if anyone runs into any problems or needs explanations on the details, please let me know immediately and we’ll work it all out.”
When their meeting was adjourned, Eddie K. followed Ivan back to his head office and closed the door behind them so they could speak in private.
He said, “Those are all some wonderful plans you have, Ivan. Wonderful,” he repeated. “But am I, ah, correct in assuming that you may be looking into selling the company?”
Ivan had never shown that much interest in assessing the company’s national value before. Eddie wondered if that meant something. Had someone offered him a serious bid in New York?
Ivan explained, “Not necessarily. If we were gonna take the company public, or accept private investment offers, we would need to know the same information.”
Eddie asked him, “But we are looking to do something?”
Ivan read where his real concerns were. He told him, “Either way, I understand what I owe you and the guys, Eddie. You’re safe. My goal would be to protect all of our interests under any situation, including my own ideas for the company. Who’s gonna have more interests in where the company goes than me? It still has my initials on it.”
Eddie nodded and thought it over a bit more. There was nothing he could do about it but wait the process out and make sure he continued to do his job.
He said, “Okay. We’ll see where it all goes, then.”
WITH THE IDEA to travel more, while studying the people, places, products, and events of the nation and around the globe, Ivan began to delegate more of his San Diego interests to his teammates.
He told Chip Garrett, “I may need you to step in at some of these club locations and become a name and face for me. I need someone to keep his head in the place and make sure the numbers are adding up they way they’re supposed to. You think you’ll have enough time on your hands to do that?”
Chip said, “Come on, Ivan, you gotta stop doubting me like that, man. I’m still an accountant, you know. I know how to balance the spreadsheets.”
Ivan told him, “Yeah, but this is about more than you balancing the sheets. This is about you becoming a personality. The customers have to learn to know and like you.”
Chip said, “Hey, man, I can do that. I’ve always been more of a personality.”
Ivan realized that himself. If Chip was good at anything, it was mingling with the social sets. So Ivan made sure that he would have access to the finest props of cars and girls to raise Chip’s public profile. However, to maintain a necessary system of checks and balances, Ivan told the same thing to Joe Proctor, one of his more experienced promoter friends.
He said, “Joe, I know I haven’t always been able to include you in some of the bigger events I’ve done, but now you have a real opportunity to take a lead position at several venues I’m pushing. So you and Chip Garrett can become teammates to make sure these clubs are still hot for business when I’m out of town.”
Joe got all excited about it. He said, “Thanks for looking out, man. That’s all I’ve been asking for is a bigger shot, Ivan. You know I’ll work hard for you.”
Ivan said, “I know. Well, now you got your chance.” Then he shook his hand and warned him, “Just don’t miss that bull’s-eye.”
