Boss Life (22 page)

Dan and Nick have similar lists, but with a surprising twist. Dan is the most likely to succeed as a salesperson. Apparently Nick lacks motivation and isn't interested in money. I'm not sure I believe that, but I have to admit the report has painted an accurate picture of me; maybe it's uncovered hidden truths about Dan and Nick as well.

When I finish, I feel like I've been punched in the gut. My cavalier dismissal of the report has given way to a recognition that we have big problems and a long, long way to go to fix all of them. So now what? We'll do the training and give it all we've got. But will we survive long enough to complete the training if I don't make changes immediately?

What can I do, what can I do, what can I do? I'm riding my bike into work the next morning, and the question loops in time to my pedal strokes. About halfway through the ride, an answer appears: cut commissions, commissions, commissions. I can send Dan and Nick a strong message by keeping their portion of incoming payments. It's not a huge amount of dough—just 2 percent of the money that we get from sales—and they will still have their salary to live on.

By the time I arrive at the shop, I'm convinced that this is a great plan. But just in case I'm wrong, I review the numbers. I can see on my bank's Web site how much yesterday's payroll will cost: $23,606. We've received three payments this week, totaling just $14,234. I have $78,035 left in the bank. The payment on our credit card, $20,585, goes out tomorrow. After that, I'll have just $57,450. And I have another pile of bills to send out on Friday, totaling $8,255. Once that's gone, I'll have $49,195. I look back at how much we've been spending per week since April 1: $38,086. So now I have less than two weeks of funds, unless I simply stop paying my bills.

My spreadsheet shows four incoming payments this week, totaling $18,077. Three of those four are final payments from jobs we shipped in May. The other is a deposit from a state university that placed an order in April. We'll probably get the first three, but the deposit payment might be delayed in the university's bureaucratic processes. Theoretically, no deposit should make me put the job on hold, but if I do that, the shop will run out of work sooner. After that, there's very little on the horizon. My total cash-to-come amount is just $50,751. But we won't see any of that until we finish those jobs, and that will take more than two weeks.

I check to see how much I have paid Dan and Nick in commission. Lately, it hasn't been much. In yesterday's paycheck, they each got $2,384 in base pay, pretax. Nick also received commissions totaling $464, again before taxes. Dan's commissions added just $97. These commissions aren't much compared to what they have already received this year. Nick's commissions total $9,145; Dan's sum up to $4,544. I paid myself commissions totaling $4,612 in the first quarter, but I haven't taken base pay or commissions since April. It's time for them to feel some of my pain.

I know from experience that announcing a pay cut is no fun. And this time, the pay reductions are not being shared equally by all workers. I just want to do something to put a little fear into the sales guys. Taking away their commission won't save much money; but every little bit counts when we have only two weeks of operating cash on hand. So I decide to emphasize the financial case for this action.

It's eight-thirty in the morning. Nick and Dan are working on projects. I ask them to stop for a moment and start with a question: “Anything coming in today?” Dan and Nick look at each other and shrug. Nope. I keep going. “OK, that sucks. Because we have a big problem. We're running out of cash. We're going to be down to fifty thousand dollars by the end of the week, and that's just enough to run for two weeks. I need to cut our expenses, right now.” Nick is staring at me. Dan is frozen, and he's starting to turn red. He probably thinks I'm going to can him. I see his reaction and think to myself, No, Dan, I'm not going to fire you. When you see me set up a camera, and ask your permission to film the meeting, then you have reason for fear. But not today.

I announce my plan: “I've decided to cut out the commissions. As of right now. I need every penny of the incoming cash, so I'm stopping the two percent payments.” Now Nick looks angry, and Dan sags with relief. I continue, “I haven't taken a paycheck or a commission payment since the beginning of April. And I just committed to spend thirty-seven thousand dollars to make us all better salesman. And”—now I tell a big lie—“I'm absolutely sure that the training is going to work, and we're going to come out of this. But I don't know how long it will take. Probably a couple of months. And I need to keep the doors open until then.”

Nick asks a sensible question: “You're cutting commissions forever? How long are you going to keep doing this?” I don't know. I haven't really thought about it, because it seems more likely that we'll be out of business before I have to deal with that question. “I can't say. Until things get better. Until we make some sales. Until I can afford it.” Dan asks, “What about our salaries? Are you going to cut that, too?” I tell them that I would prefer to avoid this, but if things get worse, it might happen. “So let's not let things get worse. Sell something. And when the training starts, put some effort into it. I'm committed to the program. Remember, it worked for Sam Saxton. I'm sure it's going to work for us.” If we have anybody to pitch to. I've put the fear of God into the sales guys. But I haven't figured out where the customers have gone.

—

WE ALL SIT
and start working again. There's an e-mail from Shiva in Dubai. Finally, the drawings from BigOil are here. I can see that the table is big enough to accommodate thirty-eight chairs. But there's no indication of the materials, the base, or even where the wires coming from the floor (or ceiling?) will go. I can't do anything with them. I have one other drawing that I was given at the first meeting. It purports to show the structure of the table. Like many drawings from architects, it shows something unbuildable, and the design doesn't even make sense. The base is far too small to support the top, and it's in the wrong position—nobody would be able to pull up to the table without hitting their knees. So I have two drawings from BigOil, but not what I need to make a proposal. Do they still want this table in Dubai by the end of August? If so, we have to build it by the middle of July. I e-mail Shiva, asking for the missing information. I'd love to get this job—it will be worth at least forty thousand dollars—but I'm stuck.

The next day there's a small reprieve. Hiding in the junk mail I find a check for $1,556. Whoopee! Enough money to run the shop for a couple of hours. Unfortunately, I just sent out bills totaling $8,255. I log in to AdWords again and stare at the same mess of links and data. The Web site won't even allow me to directly compare two time periods in the configuration I want to see them in. Should I stop the campaigns to save money? On the face of it, the $650 I'm chucking at Google every day is a waste. It's not producing anything for me. On the other hand, in all my other years in business, spending money on advertising has been a good investment. My sales have gone up every year except for 2009. I haven't made many changes to the campaign in the past two years, and we've seen steady growth in sales until very recently. But maybe this is the moment to stop spending money on the Internet, and let my organic search results do the heavy lifting. Am I wasting precious cash? The only way to find out would be to pause the campaigns and see what happens. But last July I got a call from a bank in Washington that led to a quarter million dollars in business before the end of 2013. One call. A quarter million. Did they pick up the phone because they saw my ad, or because they clicked the free link? And if I hadn't been running the ad? Would Google still give me good free results? They claim that there's no connection between the ads and the organic links, but that hardly seems credible. They're a business. If I were them, I'd give a boost to the Web sites that pay me money. I'm afraid that if I stop paying, my free links will drift down the page to obscurity, and then I'm out of business. I can't take the risk of losing a single customer right now. Cutting the ad spend will be the last thing I do.

—

WHILE I
'
M STARING
at my screen, I think of a way to show what might have changed in the campaign over the past two months. With our wide-format printer, I print out screen shots showing the performance of all fifty-five ad groups on one piece of paper. Finally, I've found a way to see all the numbers at once. I print the six-month period from August 1, 2011, to February 29, 2012, when the AdWords campaign worked well, and the report from March 1 to June 20, when it's been failing. I tack them up on the wall outside my office. Each report is two feet wide and more than four feet long, and shows my fifty-five ad groups, each with fourteen associated data points. I start marking up the printouts, dividing one data point into another, and then comparing that to the same calculation from the earlier time period. Nothing jumps out at me. Finally, alone in the office at six p.m., I give up and go home.

Early the next morning, when I look again at the printouts, only two facts seem important: the Boardroom Table ad group, which was producing the most e-mails, has dropped off, and the Modular Tables group has had a big bump in traffic, but produces very few e-mails. Overall, more people see our ads, but the number of people who call has gone down. That fact isn't on these pages, but I have other records that document the decline. Is there something going on that isn't in any of my records?

When Dan and Nick arrive, I give them a brief summary of the numbers and argue that it makes no sense that more views should lead to fewer calls. Have they seen anything happening in the past three months? Dan says, “It seems like a lot of the calls lately have just been crap. A lot of people from schools and local government offices who don't have any money to spend. And I end up with some secretary who doesn't even know what's going on.” Nick adds, “And we aren't getting so many calls from bosses, so it's harder to get a quick deal done.” I've noticed that, too. Fewer company owners are placing an order after a twenty-minute chat.

We used to get a good number of those calls, generally late in the day. I'd often take them myself, as I'm the only one left in the office after five-thirty. They're the easiest sales we make—boss talking to boss, no nonsense, hammer it out. Where did they go? I've been assuming that the shaky economic news has made them more cautious about spending, but maybe I'm wrong. More calls from schools and governments, fewer calls from bosses with money to spend could explain why sales are falling. And why the inquiries have dropped to such low levels. But when I look at the sales from last summer, I find that they were decent through April, May, June, and July. We sold to some schools, mostly universities, to some bosses, and to other kinds of buyers. It's hard to identify a common denominator except that they all showed up and spent money. It doesn't look anything like this year's debacle.

I check the mail on my way home. There are three checks, totaling $16,521, bringing my bank balance back up to $67,272. A small reprieve.

—

ON SATURDAY I
pick up Henry from school. He'll be home for two weeks, then return for summer school, which lasts until the end of July. When he sees me, he jumps up with a smile on his face. He's grown another inch since April. Now he's at least 6-foot-4.

He's happy, rocking to the music as I drive home. On arrival, his mood changes. He jumps out of the car, slams the door, and bursts into tears. He's standing on the sidewalk, crying loudly. It's not something you hear very often—an eighteen-year-old boy wailing in despair at the top of his lungs. He approaches the house with an angry flounce to his step and then slams the front door behind him. I can hear his heavy stomping as he runs upstairs. There's another huge thud as he jumps into his bed, which is directly above the front porch. The whole house shakes, and the glass cover on the porch light falls and shatters into a million pieces.

I pick my way through the glass and go inside. I have no idea what set him off. “Henry's home!” is all I can say, as I open the closet to find a broom. Thirty minutes later, it's as if it never happened. He comes down to look for food, all smiles. Where did the raging monster go? Where did it come from? He can't tell us. We'll never know. All we can do is settle into the rhythm of meals, car rides, and listening while he blasts his music.

By Monday morning, I am in full Henry-Care Mode, which means I'm totally exhausted. I've been getting him up in the middle of the night to pee and then tossing and turning for hours thinking about the business. At nine a.m., I stand to address the troops. I simply give them the numbers. Five more days left this month, and so far we've only sold $53,050. We have $67,272 in the bank, about three weeks' worth of funds, and we have four weeks of work on hand. I try to summon up some cheer, but it isn't happening. “We're still alive. Keep working. That's the meeting.”

I log in to our bank account and find a surprise—a payment from Eurofurn for $19,837.50. It turns out to cover seven orders—four final payments and three deposits. Thank you, Eurofurn! Later that morning, Milosz sends me an e-mail asking if I got the payment and asks about the rebuilt showroom table—is it complete? Almost, I reply. It's in the finishing room. Oh, that's bad, he writes. We wanted to change the size of the opening in the data port lid from three-quarter inches to eighteen millimeters. What the hell is he thinking? He signed off on a three-quarter-inch opening weeks ago. And the difference between what he approved and what he's asking for now is less than one millimeter. He has another question: what brand of hinges do we intend to use? I refer him to the drawings he approved. That he has a copy of. That he should be looking at, right now, to answer his own stupid question, because it's written right there. A few minutes later, he's back: he needs to consult with headquarters about the three-quarter-inch gap, to make sure it's OK. I don't answer this. He approved it, and we can't change it now.