Pecking Order, page 18
Ivan didn’t believe it as much from her, but he figured the truth would come out sooner or later. So he nodded. It was a done deal.
He said, “Well, let’s go throw these parties, then.”
Nine
Money Lessons
IVAN WALKED Audrey and Christina over to eat at the Cheesecake Factory, where they had a lighter conversation. He asked them all of the basic questions to get to know them better. And at the end of their dinner, including cheesecake to go, he told them he looked forward to working with them. He then sent them back on their way inside the limo.
“Another interesting night,” he told himself as he climbed into his Altima. “Now what will she try to tell me about this?” he asked in reference to Lucina.
Sure enough, Lucina called him as soon he pulled out of the mall parking lot and onto Friars Road, headed for home.
Ivan answered, “Nice test this evening.”
Lucina chuckled. She said, “I told them to call me when they were done hanging out with you at the mall. I already know that you’re an early bird on weeknights, so I let them know that you probably wouldn’t keep them out too late.”
“That’s not what they told me,” Ivan insinuated.
Lucina paused and ignored his comment. “Well, they both said they had a great time with you. They said you were very interesting. What did you think about them?”
Ivan paused. Honesty was the best policy. “You’re not gonna tell them what I say, are you?” He wanted to make sure before he said anything.
“Ivan…come on. What is my number-one rule? I never tell.”
“But you force them to tell you everything, right?” he assumed.
She said, “Most times, I don’t even ask. Why do you think I’m calling you so quickly? Once they told me that they left you, I asked them what they thought of you, and they both told me what I already know. Then I hung up with them to call you and get the rest.”
“Oh, and now I’m supposed to tell?”
“You said that you would when I asked you earlier,” she reminded him.
Ivan grinned. She was right, he did agree to it. A deal was a deal.
“Okay, well, let me just get it over with, then,” he commented. “The first girl, Audrey, told me she was a military brat. And she’s over-the-top and a little impatient. She’s an all-in-your-face girl, but she’s still likable for guys who like that type. In fact, I already promised Emilio Alvarez from the Padres that she would be at the next big event, to get him out there. We bumped into him at the mall, and he already had his nose open for her.”
Lucina said, “I see. And you said this right in front of her?”
Ivan laughed and said, “Yeah, she’s the show-and-prove type. And she wouldn’t move away from us. She stood right there. She knew he liked her.”
“And what about Christina? How was she?”
“Oh, now, Christina, in my humble opinion, is more seasoned. She knows how to play a better game,” he assessed. “She didn’t press as hard. And she won’t overdo it.”
He continued, “Maybe it’s her Japanese influence, but she’s very understated. And she reads things well. So I like her a lot more. But that’s just my personal preference. Some guys like the flashy type, like Audrey, more.”
“Hmm,” Lucina responded. “It sounds like you read things pretty well yourself.”
“Well, of course. I’m learning it from the best,” he flattered her.
She told him, “Yes, well, here are more things for you to learn. Audrey is the kind of girl who you get to work the front of the party. The surface guys will be attracted to her immediately. She is very show-offish, just like they are. You are right. So you get her to work the up-front money crowds and men who like to spend lavishly. But Chris, as you have already noticed, will be better off where there is less noise. She pays more attention, and she will speak only when she has to. She is also more respectful to men with money. So you get her to work the VIP sections and men who will not spend a fast dollar.”
Ivan smiled from behind his wheel. He commented, “So, you do know them.”
“I know them enough,” Lucina answered. “But like I told you before, understanding people is my expertise. I now need for you to know how to read them. Because you will have to learn how to make them want to work for you. That is why tonight was so important.”
“Hmmph,” Ivan grunted back to her. “I see your point. And you wanted them to learn to respect my hustle.”
Lucina said, “That’s right. They all need to. Just like they respect mine. And they need to know that you will not overextend yourself. Or else they will try and play us against one another. So we must both let them know that they will have to work for all they get. That is just how life is.”
Ivan chuckled and said, “Yeah, they walked right into the Fendi and Gucci shops as soon as we made it to the mall.”
Lucina chuckled. She said, “And if I know you, you probably told them they could have some of those things at a later time, if they work with you first.”
Ivan started laughing again. He was nearly home already.
“Did they tell you that?” he asked her.
“They did not have to. I already know,” she told him. “That is typical of a good businessperson. You know that everyone has their price.”
She said, “But I don’t want to take up too much more of your time tonight. I just wanted you to know that the best business in life is impulsive. That means that we want people to spend their money with us right now. That is why I employ so many pretty girls for business,” she explained. “Pretty girls are impulsive, and they can create impulsive behavior from everyone around them. At the same time, I’ve noticed that when you try to get the bigger money, it’s harder to find the impulse. So I now have a love/hate relationship with rich people,” she told him. “Why? Because I love the lifestyle of the rich, but I hate how hard it is to get them to spend their money in my direction.”
Ivan parked outside of his apartment and laughed even harder.
He said, “You’re not alone with that love/hate relationship with the rich, trust me. I gotta go through that shit every day at my accounting offices. These rich clients will have you breaking your ass to do everything they want, just like you said, right now, while you gotta wait your ass off for them to pay you for it. But you wait it out for them anyway, because you know it’s bigger money. And that’s exactly where their power is, just having it.”
Lucina said, “I know. But in the meantime, we continue to make noise and make money so that the rich know that we are here. Okay, Ivan? So I will call you tomorrow with my new party ideas, and you call me tomorrow with yours.”
Ivan hung up with her and climbed out of his car. It was late October 2003, a solid five months since he had started his new promotions brand in June. And he had made great progress. But patience was indeed a virtue. He still lived at the same apartment, with the same car, the same clothes, and the same day job. However, his income potential had significantly increased.
“Just keep doing what you’re doing over time, big guy. It’s all about growth and stability. That’s all it is,” he mumbled to himself as he climbed to the second level of his complex.
Julio ran out to catch him before he reached his door.
“Hey, Ivan, I talked to my cousin for you, man.”
Ivan stopped and was all ears. “Oh, yeah. What he say?”
Before Julio answered, he noticed his neighbor’s new haircut.
“Oh, shit, you did it. You cut it all down.”
“Yeah, man, it was impulsive,” Ivan responded with a grin, using Lucina’s words.
Julio nodded and said, “It looks good on you.” He sized Ivan up in his light brown sports jacket and usual business clothes. Ivan was standing there waiting for his information, looking leaner and more important. Julio told him, “You look like a kick-ass businessman now. Like, my time is my money, you know, so don’t waste it.”
Ivan laughed. “So, the hair makes that much of a difference to you?”
Julio answered, “Yeah, it really does. Especially when you’re still in your business clothes. But anyway, I talked to my cousin Mike last night, and he basically said that it all depends, man. Sometimes they’ll just show up at a party for nothing. But if you invite them there and put them on a flyer, first you have to make sure they get there. So, like, you have to pay them for travel, and for the hotel rooms. And they don’t usually travel alone, man. So you can expect to pay for three or four tickets and rooms for their boys. And the hotels they stay in are usually nice, you know. Then they get the limos, groupies, good weed…”
Julio stopped and said, “Now, I can get you the good weed.” Then he looked around at their apartment complex. He said, “But you’re not living like that for all the rest of the things they want. So, unless you give them cash money up front to show them you’re serious…I mean, it’s nothing personal, man, but they get asked to show up for parties and stuff like that all across the country. So, unless they just happen to be in this area…I mean, you gotta understand that my cousin’s down with Eminem, D12, Xzibit, Snoop Dogg, Kurupt, Nate Dogg, 50 Cent, the G-Unit. And those are not, like, regular people there, man. They’re, like, superstars.”
Ivan took all of the information in with poise. He nodded and said, “I understand. So what was the price?”
Julio looked embarrassed to even tell him. “My cousin said they can get up to fifty thousand dollars. And that’s just to show up.”
Ivan didn’t blink. The football players made forty thousand. However, they used their own money for the setup.
“Well, what’s the starting price if they’re already in the area? I mean, if those guys are already recording right in L.A….”
Julio shrugged. “I guess thirty thousand or so would do. I mean, its, like, easy money for one night, right? Just to guest-DJ? That’s what I told him.” Then he asked Ivan, “How much did that Chargers party cost you?”
“About the same, or ten thousand less,” Ivan answered casually.
“Yeah, but the Chargers are local. These guys are not.”
Ivan asked him, “What about Scott Storch? I mean, I know he’s not local, but he could use a little attention to his name. What would he cost?”
Ivan was already thinking about a pitch to spotlight the Jewish hip-hop producer on his website. He fit more of the crossover demographics of San Diego.
Julio said, “I can’t see him costing more than any of the others right now. I mean, people are starting to get to know him right now, but—”
“Ten, fifteen thousand, right? And we blow up his name as a producer,” Ivan suggested.
Julio looked at Ivan and grinned. “Ivan, this guy was all over Dr. Dre’s last album. You’re not gonna get any more blown up than that.”
Ivan said, “Your cousin’s not blown up, and he’s on Dr. Dre’s albums more than any of them. He’s like the other half of the Neptunes. What’s Pharrell’s partner’s name?”
“Umm…Hugo.”
“That’s what I’m talking about. It took you a minute. But the Neptunes would do well out here, too.” Ivan said, “I don’t see San Diego as a hard-core rap town like L.A. is. I see it more as a crossover town.”
Julio agreed with him. “Yeah, you’re right.”
“So I have to focus more on the people that I can get here who are less pricey and who fit the demographics of a crossover. Because if you’re talking about fifty thousand dollars and whatnot, then we don’t need a party, we need a concert.”
Julio nodded. “That’s big.” He had never really talked to Ivan about business before. He knew that his neighbor did accounting work, but talking about the hard cash of party promotion was different. He was growing new respect for Ivan now.
He joked and said, “See, that new haircut fits you already, man. You sound like a man who’s ready to go after the world.”
Ivan responded with a smile, “Yeah…I am.” And he wasn’t joking.
WHEN HE SETTLED in for bed that night, Ivan couldn’t get Lucina’s ideas out of his head. What was the common impulse that forced the rich to spend? And how did the rich become wealthy in the first place?
“Sound investments that make them long money is the only thing they’re interested in,” he answered in the darkness of his bedroom. He was in bed with the sheets up and the lights off.
He told himself, “The rich find or create profitable assets that make them money, and then they keep more money than they spend. It’s that damn simple. These are things I already know.”
So, how do I make that knowledge work for us? he mused.
Ivan thought about it for another few minutes before he hopped out of bed to write his thoughts down on paper.
He walked back out into his living room, clicked on the lights, and leaned over his coffee table with several sheets of blank white copy paper and a black pen. He wrote the words “Balance Sheet” at the top, drew a large rectangle up and down the page, and split it down the middle with a straight line. At the top of the left side he wrote the word “Assets.” At the top right he wrote “Liabilities.” Then he began to list the liabilities that cost him money on the right, and he listed the assets that made him money on the left.
Ivan stayed up half the night working out all of the intangibles of his business until he fell asleep on his sofa.
IN THE MORNING, Ivan wrote a checklist of the things he needed to do over the next few days to work his business plans. He booked lunch hours all that week for face-to-face meetings at the Subway sandwich store that was five minutes away from the Hutch & Mitchell office building.
First he hired Edward Kennison, a forty-two-year-old white man who was a fifteen-year advertising veteran from the San Diego Union Tribune, as his advertising sales manager. “Eddie K.” was a real money getter who was excited by a change of pace. He was a recent divorcee, and his only son had received a full academic scholarship to attend college at the University of Southern California that fall. Eddie used this opportunity to quit the newspaper business and jump headfirst into the website game with a 25 percent new ad commission, plus a 10 percent management purse of all ads instead of a salary.
Ivan had to trust someone to collect and deposit all of the ad revenue, while he continued to spend the majority of his workdays as an accountant. He realized that Ida would be too gun-shy to quit her day job for the heavy responsibility of the position. And Eddie was already experienced at putting together ad pitch tools for the sales staff. So Ivan introduced his new ad sales manager to Jeff and Paul and told them all to get familiar with each other.
“AT THIS POINT, the four of us make up the four corners of this website: the ad management, the general management, the ongoing creation, and the overall promotion,” Ivan told them over another dinner meeting in the university area. He said, “Next, I’ll need to hire a content editor to make our pages more client driven. That means the majority of our content and the spotlights that we post will surround the businesses that advertise with us.”
He said, “We can’t afford to keep posting random information like we do now. Everything we decide to post has to help us to make this website more profitable.”
Paul grimaced. He said, “Ivan, you don’t want your viewers to start feeling like the site is all business. That tends to turn people off. I mean, website viewers like random information. That’s what the Information Age is all about. But if we make the site too structured around businesses, we’ll start to lose a lot of the curious new traffic that we get.”
Jeff said, “Not only that, but you’ll set up a situation where the advertising businesses will become far more aggressive about when they receive their spotlights. And if we run their spotlights before we get their ads, they may not advertise with us at all. We’ll be creating our own mess.”
Eddie chuckled at the argument. He said, “That right there is a major difference between websites and newspapers that will allow me to bring plenty of new business to this site, my friends. There’s always been a bitter struggle between the editorial staff and the sales staff to try and negotiate some kind of peace between the people who advertised with us and the people who didn’t. But with the internet, I believe that we can re-create our own rules.”
He said, “There are plenty of solutions in which we can satisfy everyone. Well, not everyone, but enough of the viewers for the site to continue to grow. So what I’ll do is work hand in hand with whoever’s the content editor to create an organized schedule of who comes first and who comes next on these spotlights. But you definitely want to mix it up. And Ivan’s right in regards to random spotlights. We need to let a business know beforehand because you never know when their spotlight could coincide with a special promotion. That tends to work better for them.”
Ivan said, “And as far as creating a balance for our viewers, it’ll also be up to the content manager to respond to our emails and know exactly what the viewers like or dislike about the site. Then we respond to them accordingly. Whatever they tell us, that’s what we’ll respond to. That’s interactive strategy, right? Because ultimately, it’s their site for San Diego information.”
Paul began to see the idea and nodded. Jeff accepted the plan as well. It wasn’t as if they had a choice. Ivan was still the boss, and they all had to find out if his plans would work.
Eddie smiled and said, “I feel really good about this. We can all work this out. And I have a big list of advertisers lined up to pitch to.”
That’s what Ivan wanted to hear. Business was business.
Paul asked them, “What about the random spotlights for the people of San Diego?”
Ivan answered, “I still want to do that. And we’ll have it represent all of San Diego: black, white, Filipino, Mexican, Italian, military, whatever. Who are you? What do you do? Let us know at IDPromotions.com, right? So just let’s do it and work out all of the details.”
Jeff smiled and said, “Okay, you’re the boss. Paul and I still want this site to be as successful as you do.”
