This past week was dominated by customer issues, and opportunities with new prospects, so nothing has happened on the business selling front. I still haven't talked to Jack since our blowup (made easier by the fact that he's always at the office and I never am), so George is getting a lot of practice working in sales situations with prospects. Frankly, I expect him to ask for a raise if we can't get this business sale taken care of soon.
I met with George, David, and the other partners this morning, but the meeting was more somber than anything. Nobody seemed on the verge of quitting, but they did talk about sharpening their resumes. They didn't make it a threat as much as they made it a backup plan, meaning they weren't sending their resumes out, but they would be ready to jump ship if need be.
I wasn't too upset about that. The way I looked at it, nobody had quit yet, and at least publicly nobody was threatening to quit. What I was upset about was their absolute unwillingness to compromise. They still wanted the 33% discount, 18-month ROI, and 50/50 payout. During the meeting I thought about giving them the first two items, and then asking for all the money up front, but frankly, with nobody threatening to quit, I'm not offering anything.
Again, my situation may be different than other business sales situations, but in my case, I'm trying to get as much money as I can by April 30th. I'm very surprised, I still don't think they see it that way. Maybe they don't think I'll really leave, I don't know. Regardless of what they think, I'm just trying to use this way of thinking to my advantage, so I'm thinking, "Okay, you don't want me to talk to anyone outside the company, but you also don't want to negotiate, and days are ticking off the calendar, and I'm making $1K+ per day while we don't do anything ... um, okay. I can do this as long as you can."
We left the meeting without any agreement, other than assurances that nobody was quitting. However, George and Cooper all said time was of the essence, and we really needed to do something soon.