"Here you go. Come on, open it up," he said.
Alex was still trying to locate her car, but it was nowhere in sight. She pressed the remote button and a silver Toyota 4Runner flashed all four hazard lights. Confused, she looked at Tom.
"Go on, get in. This is your car from now on, at least for a while. I hope you like it."
Alex was speechless. Wow. Moving like in a dream, she opened the door and sat inside, taking in the exquisite, unmistakable new car smell.
"The only downside," Tom said, "is that you can't use your old car for a while. That one will remain parked here, or somewhere else at your discretion. Or we could sell it for you." Tom smiled. "This is the new you. Enjoy. You'll find this car has all the accessories you might expect: navigation, CD player, satellite radio, and, of course, air conditioning. I am sure you remember Brian and his words about air conditioning," he said, continuing to smile.
…19
"Where were we?" Tom pulled out a chair and sat down. "Ah, yes, client acquisition procedures." He opened a drawer and pulled out a few business cards. The business cards were simple, black, raised ink on white stock, reflecting his name and phone number — nothing else. "Well, yesterday you reached the conclusion that our clients find us mainly through referrals, and you were right about that.
"Usually, after the completion of a project, we hand out a few of these business cards to our clients, and ask them to give the cards to other business owners in need of our services, but to use discretion before handing them out. We aren't letting ourselves be involved in turf wars within companies; therefore, the owner of the business, or the majority of the shareholders (confirmed by a secret vote in our presence), can sign us up. No one else can use our services. Any questions so far?"
"In case of a vote, how can you be sure of the results? I mean, what if the result is not in favor of using The Agency's services? How do you make sure information regarding our existence does not leave that boardroom?" Alex stated her question in a trembling, unsure voice, but, as the words started coming out of her mouth, her confidence built, and she finished the question sure of herself. After all, her question made sense.
"That's a good question. Part of our client acquisition procedure for larger corporations, for those with more than one shareholder, is to have them sign an NDA, just like this one. If there is only one shareholder, we use a different NDA, a more straightforward one."
"NDA?" Alex interrupted.
"Nondisclosure agreement." Tom reached in another drawer and pulled out a few printed pages, stapled together, on The Agency's letterhead. "Homework. Read the NDAs thoroughly and understand them in detail. Clients have to sign these agreements before they even learn our names. If you have questions, we will discuss them tomorrow. You will find this document to be quite comprehensive." Tom looked at his Breitling watch. "Moving forward, what would be our second source of business? Any ideas?"
"Repeat business?" Alex asked, again not sure of herself. She wanted so much to make a good impression; but felt uneasy every time she spoke. She was usually assertive and sure of herself, but in the presence of these people, she felt she needed to brush up to live up to their expectations. This was new to her.
"Yes, repeat business," Tom confirmed. "Currently it amounts to almost 40 percent of our revenue. Our former clients find it easier to call us at the first sign of trouble, than to hope the issue will get fixed on its own. And they find us to be the lower cost out of trouble, anyway."
"Lower cost? How come?" Alex was knowledgeable enough about the business world to be sure that The Agency's services could not come cheap.
"A company eaten alive from within can lose money at an unimaginable rate. These losses can happen overnight. Our former clients have become knowledgeable about how to recognize the early signs of trouble in their companies, and they call us right away. For us, it's obviously much easier to reacquire a client, than to acquire a new one."
"What are these early signs?"
"The main sign is unprovoked, inexplicable change." Tom paused, waiting for Alex to ask for more details. She did not wait long before asking.
"Change? What kind of change?"
"Have you ever heard the phrase: 'Numbers are a businessman's best friend'? I'm sure you have."
Alex nodded her agreement.
"So, unprovoked, inexplicable changes in numbers, in sales numbers, in staff attrition numbers, in sick days per employee numbers, and so on. Depends, case by case, on the type of business and the problems it is having. Makes a lot of sense when you think about it, right? For instance, let's say you have a customer support team whose members suddenly start being sick all the time, especially on Mondays. What would that lead you to believe?"
"Bad working conditions, maybe bad management, something like that," Alex said.
"Yes, but which? How can you know for sure?"
"Well, if they recently hired a new team manager and people started calling in sick, then—"
"That's not unprovoked change, my dear, in this case it becomes obvious why the change in numbers occurred," Tom interrupted.
"Oops," Alex said softly, looking down.
"You can do better than that, I'm sure of it," Tom said, smiling encouragingly.
She found the courage to try again. "Well, let's assume then that the existing manager is having a rough time at home and started taking it out on the staff, not caring any more, not making sure the staff members have support, leadership, and procedures. That builds up over time into a noticeable change in sick-day patterns."
"I told you," Tom said, stretching his arms and legs with a satisfied grin, "you can do it. Perfect scenario, plausible, and quite often encountered in one form or another. Now think some more, and give me one or two other possible scenarios."
"OK, how about this? An existing product supplier has slowly, but constantly, dropped the quality of the product, leading to an unprecedented increase in angry customer calls, therefore causing an unusual rate of burnout in the support team."
Tom nodded slowly, lifting his right hand in a fist with his thumb up. "That's another perfect example. Sometimes, the change in numbers is caused by some other change, like a procedure change, a system or equipment change, a staff change, something that wasn't even noticed initially, or wasn't considered as a possible cause; an initially planned change that led to some bad consequences. You have to look for this initial change. However, we're veering off track. We were discussing client acquisition, or at least we were supposed to be, weren't we?"
"Yes."
"Maybe this will help us stay focused." Tom turned on the multimedia projector and projected on the screen a bulleted list under the title "New Client Acquisition Steps." He started reading them aloud, one by one. "Step one, the call. We receive a call from the future client. Step two, if there is more than one shareholder, the extended NDA. They sign that, they vote, they sign a contract, they are onboard as clients. From this point forward, we refer to the business owner or to the group of business owners as the client—not the CEO, not the president, but the client. Step three, training on expectations for both sides. We explain what they should expect, how long it could take, what it could mean, possible outcomes, and so on. We also explain what we expect from them. What kind of support we should receive from the inception of our work. Step four, we listen to their grievances in detail. We ask questions, we try to fully understand the core of their problems. This is the first step involving anyone else but me. At this point, I would have already decided which one of my team would join our client's company. The respective would be present at that time. All clear so far?"