David explains the fundamentals of the Quadrant sales approach to Ann.

Allow me a brief flashback to the Sunday before the Monday when I came to work for this company. I was flying to Chicago and somewhere over the Rockies I was sipping coffee and making plans. What I'll do after I get there, I thought, is keep a low profile for a while. You know, look around, get to know the company, figure out what has to be done, gather some support, and start my push to make things happen after six months or so.

Well, that plan was out the window. When I walked out of Morrison's office, I suddenly was the boss. I already felt the urgency, but also the excitement. If I handled this right, a few months from now I could start to try some things that I otherwise might not be allowed to do for another year or more. Which was probably going to be a good thing, because after listening to what had been said in that meeting, I wasn't sure we could take another year like the one we'd just had.

I looked at my watch after I got on the elevator. It was past five o'clock, but I went back down to the sales managers' meeting anyway, hoping that Jim Woller's SAMMY presentation would be over and that I could catch some of the managers and talk to them before they left.

When I got to the meeting room, the only people left were Ann Lansky and Jim Woller; apparently they had lingered to talk something over.

"Is the meeting through?" I asked.

"All finished," said Jim.

"Morrison wanted to see me before he left town," I explained, hoping he wasn't insulted that I'd left in the middle of his presentation. Then to Ann, I said, "You know, I'd hoped to talk to you and some of the other sales managers before they left town, get an idea of what's going on out there."

"Well, my office is on the twenty-second floor and I'm usually in town. You can stop by any time. But we're going to meet most of the others across the street for a drink after we're done here, if you want to join us."

Jim poked Ann's forearm with his finger and winked at her. "Yeah, we're all going to drown our sorrows after being beaten up by Mr. Morrison. Right, Ann?"

Ann didn't seem to appreciate the humor, but Jim laughed for her. She looked tired and depressed. I could understand why.

"Why don't we meet you over there?" said Jim. "From the sound of it, you could probably use a drink as much as the rest of us, after the day you've had."

"‘You're right. I could," I said. "Where are you going?"

"It's the old yuppie fern bar on the corner," said Jim. "Right across the street. You can't miss it."

I said I'd see them there.

I went up to my floor, 49, to pick up my phone messages and get my coat. Then it dawned on me that if I were to cover for Gene, I'd better find out what was on his calendar. So I passed my own office and walked to the southwest corner. Rose, his secretary, was gone for the day. All the secretaries were. Gene's office door was closed, but it was unlocked.

I had to let my eyes adjust, because the lights inside his office were off. The dim blue light of the late January afternoon came in from the two windows. Outside, it was already past sunset and it had begun to snow.

His desk was still in the middle of the floor. I had helped one of the paramedics move it so they could get the stretcher in. I had a vague sense that I shouldn't be in there, but I found the switch for the overheads and started looking for his calendar. It wasn't on top of his desk, so I opened the center drawer and there it was, behind the roll of antacids.

He'd been planning to take next week off. Probably needed the rest. Most everything else on the calendar was the normal stuff: a couple of meetings scheduled for the annual report, a big meeting with the ad agency, an appointment with his barber on the twenty-eighth, that kind of thing. So I went through his calendar, thinking about what I would cancel and what I would keep, and jotted down the important dates on a piece of paper.

I put back the calendar and was getting ready to leave when I happened to glance at the coffee table. Something shiny caught my eye. It was that reporter's little microcassette tape recorder. I picked it up from the coffee table. The tape had gone all the way to the end and stopped. She must have forgotten it in the panic and confusion after Gene hit the floor. On the back of it, taped above the battery compartment, was a label: Please return to Lynne Welsey. Below was her work address and phone number.

I switched off the lights and went back to my own office, taking the tape recorder with me. I called the number. When Lynne answered, I said who I was, and there was the briefest pause while she mentally placed me. I told her what she had forgotten and heard her riffling through her things, instinctively checking that it was gone.

"I really need to get that back as soon as possible," she said. "Could I stop by your office tonight?"

"I'm not going be here very much longer. I have to meet with some people for about an hour or so," I said.

"Maybe I could meet you someplace," she said.

I almost said she could meet me at the bar across the street, but I figured it was unwise to have a reporter show up. So I asked her to pick the place. She named a restaurant.

"The earliest I could be there is seven," I said. "Or you could stop by tomorrow."

"No, seven is good," she said.

"See you then."

One nice thing about being new on a job is that nobody knows to call you. I didn't have many phone messages, which meant I didn't stick around long. I got my coat, took the elevator down to the lobby, went across the street to the fern bar.

I found them at a long table in the back, segregated into two groups. On the near end were three of the five sales managers, one of them being Ann Lansky. On the other end was half of the marketing staff. The heads of marketing communications, human resources, administration, and research were there, along with some of their assistants, plus Brian, the PR guy. Missing from the group when I got there was Jim Woller.

As I walked toward the table, Ann Lansky called out, "Well, there's our hero now."

"Why am I a hero?"

"If putting your lips on Gene Cherson's mouth doesn't qualify you for hero status, I don't know what does," said Ann.

"Oh, you heard about that."

"Of course. We've been pumping Brian for all the gory details since we got here," said Ann.

She was holding a glass of white wine and her spirits seemed somewhat restored. I took the last available chair, the one at the head of the table, the position I've always called "Dad's chair," which put Ann on my left and the two other sales managers on my right.

"You know, in retrospect, he was a walking heart attack waiting to happen," Brian was saying. "Overweight. High-stress job. Loved his martinis. Golf once or twice a month was his only exercise. Smoked a couple packs a day."

"And he lived," Ann said. "Maybe there's hope for the rest of us."

Somebody nudged my arm.

"I don't think we know each other," the guy to my right said, his hand extended. "I'm Bud Bowman."

I knew him, of course, from listening to him in the meeting.

"Right, you manage the Southern Region," I said. "I'm David Kepler."

The man farther down was Greg Heindekker, who managed the Northwestern Region. He too introduced himself. I asked about the other managers; Greg said they had earlier planes to catch and were already on their way to the airport.

"What aboutJim Woller? Isn't he coming?" I asked.

"He'd better show up," said Bud. "He said he was buying."

"He got tied up on the phone," said Ann. "But he'll be along."

This was my chance. They'd probably speak a little more freely without Woller around.

"So what did you think of the meeting?" I asked the three of them.

Bud shook his head, leaned in toward me, and said, "I'll be honest with you. I don't know what to think. But I'll tell you one thing, Morrison doesn't know what the story is if he thinks we're not out there pushing. Because we are. Every damn day my people—and these are solid people with experience—are out there knocking on doors, making calls, giving presentations, taking care of the customer."

Now Ann got into it. "That was exactly my point in the meeting. Where does Morrison get off telling me that I'm not a good manager when I've got situations imposed on me from outside that dictate how I run my region?"

"Well, what would you do differently?" I asked her. "I mean, obviously we've got a problem. We've got to build sales. If you had a free hand, what would you do?"

Ann sat back, thinking, while the other two looked at each other, neither sure he wanted to say anything. Then Bud jumped right in.

"I'll tell you what we need," he said. "We've got to build volume. That's the whole issue. That means we've got to drop the price on a lot of what we're selling. We need stronger discounting. We're just not competitive on half of what we've got in our line."

"Now wait a minute." said Greg. "You're not going to sell a complex, brand-new 720 Network by lowering the price."

"Why not? Price is always an issue," argued Bud.

"Price may be an issue, but it's not always the determining factor in a sale," said Greg.

"Yeah, well, tell me something. How many 386 machines and PC work stations do you have sitting in the warehouse out your way?" said Bud. "How many could you sell if you could give a little more on the rather stiff price we're listing?"

"I'll tell you this," said Greg, "you start bringing down prices and that's exactly the direction your business is going to go: straight downhill. I say that in this business, you keep your quality good, your technology high, your service first-rate, and your image topnotch. And you charge prices to match."

Bud was shaking his head the whole time Greg was talking.

"That's not what I hear from the customers," said Bud.

"Yeah? What customer doesn't want quality?"

"Sure they want quality. They want reliability. They want everything you mentioned and they want a discounted price."

Now Greg was shaking his head. "Can't be done, Bud. No way. Something has to give. I say that if you sell the right product to the right people, you don't have to discount."

"Come on, Greg, let's talk about the real world here."

"I am talking real world. You want an example? The 720 Network is a perfect example. We've sold three of them this year, and we didn't close a single one because of our price. You want to know how you sell them? First of all, you don't sell to the data processing department. Because if they didn't think of it first, they won't buy it. And even if they did think of a system like a 720, they probably believe they can put one together on their own with the Pcs they already have. No, you sell a 720 to the customer's CEO and the operations managers. You show that you're offering them a competitive advantage. And you convince them that what you've got is state of the art."

"Oh, state-of-the-art, my foot!" said Bud. "Most of our customers don't want state of the art. You say ‘state of the art' to them and they're afraid of it. They don't need it. They're tired of hearing about it. And come to think of it, so am I. Hey, Brian!"

Brian looked down the table.

"We need one of you wordsmiths to come up with another phrase for ‘state of the art.' We're sick and tired of that one."

"Advanced technology," said Brian.

"No, I'm sick of that one too," said Bud. Then he turned to me (for what I thought for sure would be some concluding piece of wisdom) and asked, "What are you drinking, Dave?"

"I'll have a beer," I said.

"Yo, Emily!" Bud called.

"Now there's a salesman," said Brian. "He's from out of town, and already he's learned the waitress's name."

"Well, I'm here to tell you, my friend, I closed a lot of sales in my day by remembering people's names. Emily, give us another round here, would you please, and give my pal, Dave, a beer."

"Draft?" Emily asked.

"No, give him a ______," he named one of the expensive imports. "He deserves it. He's had a rough day."

"You see!" said Greg, "Why didn't you just tell her to bring him the cheapest swill they've got? No, you ask for the higher-priced, high-image brand."

"That's completely different," said Bud.

During all this, Ann had been listening, not saying anything. It wasn't that she was shy; speaking up to Morrison the way she had in the meeting proved she wasn't. She was, I suspect, still pondering the original question. I caught her eye.

"What do you think the problem is?" I asked her.

I was set to hear what she had to say when, from the far end of the table, a new voice chimed in, "I'll tell you what the problem is! The ad budgets aren't big enough!"

That was Nick Dominica, who managed advertising and sales promotion.

"This company has never committed the resources it should have to advertising and sales promotion," said Nick. "We need more space advertising, more presence at the conventions—"

"No, no, no, that's not the problem," Greg interrupted, voice at full volume now. "Advertising can expose the product. Advertising might generate a few leads. But advertising does not sell the product. People sell the product."

These and other platitudes began to fly back and forth wildly.

Jane O'Shea, who headed marketing research, complained that nobody took her customer surveys seriously enough, that of course they were expensive, but that we needed more of them.

Then Brian tried to make a point about trade publicity. But he was cut off by Clinton Jones, who managed human resources; he thought the real answer was in better selling-skills training for the salespeople.

Roger Newburg, who handled administration, waved all this away as nonsense. Roger thought they were paying the sales force too damn much, that they could weather a slight dip in sales if they could retain profitability.

"And I'll tell you another thing. They all ought to be on commission, every one of them," said Roger. He was chopping the table with the side of his hand.

Ann, who had long ago given up trying to make her point about what the problem was, said, "Roger, half my people couldn't live on commission."

On and on it went, everybody throwing in an opinion, all of them favoring their vested interests, none of them looking for (let alone seeing) a larger vision. I decided to stay out of it for now. Ann's eyes met mine, and I could tell she thought the discussion was as petty as I did.

"You never got a chance to say anything," I said to her.

"I probably said enough in the meeting. Too much, in fact."

"I'm sure everybody will forgive and forget if you turn in better numbers next time."

The frustrations of her day seemed about to boil over and spill out.

"How am I supposed to do that?" she asked. "I'm running my region exactly according to the new plan and look what's happening. And who has to stand up and take the blame?"

She caught herself before she went further. I felt bad for her. She seemed at wit's end. We sat silently at the table while the others jabbered away. The two of us had lost interest in what they had to say. Ann raised her glass, then looked at me again. She wanted to talk, but she also wanted to change the subject.

"So Morrison said you come from IJK. What did you do there?" she asked.

"I was marketing manager."

"Did you come up through sales?"

"No, I started as a product engineer and got into marketing almost by accident."

"Really? What happened?"

"The company was wasting a lot of money trying to sell customers what they didn't need. We were having trouble identifying market opportunities. Anyway, I got assigned to a task force to find a solution. I didn't know very much about marketing, so I did a lot of reading on the subject. One day I came across a concept that seemed to put everything about marketing into perspective. I made some calls, got back to the source, and we used that concept to refocus the company."

"Did it work?" she asked.

"I'd say so. A 50 percent increase in sales after one year. Plus healthy increases in profitability. And it wasn't just short-term. Sales were still increasing when I left."

"No wonder you have Morrison's stamp of approval."

"I didn't do it alone, of course. I was just the point man."

"Fifty percent is an incredible increase," she said.

"Well, it's been done. It's not impossible if you have the opportunity and you know what you're doing."

"IJK is a much smaller company than Elemenco. Do you think the same thing would work here?"

"That's what I'd like to find out," I said. "But I'm sure the same concept applies here, because it's valid for every business."

"What is it, a lot of strategic planning or something?"

"No, it's more than that. For instance, it could help you, as a sales manager, sort out what kinds of people you need on your sales force, the best way to generate leads, what you want new business presentations to be like, how to develop customer relations—all the important sales issues you've got to deal with. It also helps with corporate issues, like what kind of image you need to project."

"But what worked for IJK isn't necessarily going to work for Elemenco," she argued.

"The concept we used assumes that every business is different. That's one reason why it's valid."

"Even in my region?"

"Sure."

"Fifty percent, huh?"

"Well, I wouldn't get hung up on that figure," I said. "But it's a safe bet that using what we learned at IJK would give you better results than what you're getting now."

I definitely had piqued her interest. The others around the table were busy talking among themselves, but Ann had turned in her chair so that she was facing only me.

"So how did all this work at IJK?" she asked. "What did you do to get that kind of a gain?"

Well, it had been a hell of day. I'd been yelled at by my new boss, watched him have a heart attack, chased his ambulance, sat through an abysmal business meeting, and received a promotion. I was feeling a little tired. Ann was talking because she was at the end of her rope and curious about this possibility I'd raised. I'd gone this far, but I wasn't sure I really wanted to get into a heavy discussion of marketing. I tried to give her the simplest explanation I could think of.

"Basically we refocused our resources so that they addressed the customers' needs."

"I'm not sure what you mean by that," Ann said.

"Well, all customers have needs, right?"

"Right."

"But do they all have the same needs?"

"No, of course not."

Ann thought about it.

"Maybe not the same, but all customers have similar needs," she said.

"No, not really. All customers do not have similar needs. Look, a lot of this is just common sense. If I want to eat, I have to go to a supermarket and buy food. But if I want to get rich, then maybe I have to buy an oil drilling rig or whatever tool will give me the means to make money. As a customer, what I need from the supermarket clerk and what I need from the drilling rig salesman are very different."

"Well, of course, if you put it that way," said Ann.

"Different products and services meet different needs for different customers. That creates different markets. And with that we need different styles of selling."

"Okay, but now how did that help you at IJK?"

Again, I tried to think of the briefest possible explanation. "Well, in a nutshell, we used a two-dimensional grid to sort out the differences and match our marketing with customer needs using common variables."

Ann stared at me for a second, then did a double take. "What was that? Come on, Dave. Speak English."

"It's complicated. I'll explain it to you some other time."

She grinned, reached out, and briefly gripped my forearm. "Oh, no, fella. You hooked me. You can't get out of it now. You're staying until I know what you're talking about. Unless it's just a bunch of corporate buzzwords."

"No, it's got substance."

Emily arrived with a new round of drinks. She put down cocktail napkins, another glass of wine for Ann, and a beer for me. I poured the beer and took a swallow.

"Really, I'm curious," said Ann.

"I have to give you some of the theory."

"I'm listening."

I took out a pen and pointed to one of the plain, white, square cocktail napkins on the table.

"Okay, let's say this is the marketing world. In this world, we've got every company, every salesperson, every product and service, every industry and every customer. Now how do we make sense of it all? How do we take the millions of different pieces, sort them, and match them so that we can see the whole picture?"

"I don't know," she said. "Maybe you can't."

"Well, we have to try, because we can't work in chaos. We have to find an order or create one. To find out where we are in this world, it helps to have a map. To make a map, we need a north and a south, an east and a west. Okay?

"Okay."

"Let's start with north to south. And let's call the variable that runs north and south complexity. Because complexity is something common to all purchases, but varies widely in degree. If I'm buying a supercomputer, it's likely to be a purchase of high complexity. If I'm just buying an adding machine, it's likely to be a purchase of low complexity. So in the middle of our marketing world, I'm going to draw an equator, which divides north from south, high complexity from low.

"Now let's say you're a customer buying a supercomputer. And I have one for sale that is technically acceptable. But you don't know me very well, I offer you only one design, give you no help ordering options, insist you make your own arrangements for delivery and installation, and never call on you unless I want you to buy another supercomputer. Would you do business with me?"

"No, not if I had a choice," said Ann.

"I knew you were smart. For us to do business together, what would you need from me so that we could deal with the complexity?"

"First of all, I'd need you to stay in touch with me."

"You said the magic word: touch. To be successful in the market, the degree of touch has to match the degree of complexity."

On the napkin, I added "high touch" and "low touch."

"When the customer is making a very complex purchase, with a lot of customized features and a lot of things that could go wrong, the seller has to do a lot of hand holding during the purchase and delivery. That's high touch. If it's a simple purchase—the customer takes the product out of the box, turns it on, and it works—then you don't need to hold hands. It's a low-touch sale. Are you with me?"

"Sure," she said.

But, for emphasis, I added, "High touch means the customer needs a lot of hand holding, and a longer, more secure relationship with a seller. Low touch means the customer is generally confident of handling matters on his own, and doesn't need or want a lot of hand holding. The relationship with the seller is relatively brief or temporary."

I flipped over the napkin and turned it ninety degrees so that I wasn't drawing over the same line on the other side.

"Now it's time to divide west from east on the map," I said. "Let's take something from science fiction and say I invent an anti-gravity device. And I'm marketing it to you. Would you know how to use it?"

"No, of course not."

"So you would be an inexperienced buyer."

"Right."

"Would you consider my anti-gravity device to be high tech?"

"Sure," she said.

"Suppose twenty years have passed and there now are dozens of manufacturers of anti-gravity devices, everybody owns one and uses it daily, and you're now buying your fifth one. Would you be an inexperienced buyer or an experienced buyer?"

"Experienced."

"And would you still think of the anti-gravity device as high tech?"

"No, I guess you'd call it low tech," she said.

"I can see that you're picking this up."

I drew a vertical line on the napkin. On the left, I put "inexperienced customer" and "high tech." On the right, I wrote "experienced customer" and "low tech."

"Kind of like our weather patterns flowing west to east," I said, "most of the market naturally enough moves from inexperience to experience over time. But it's an individual matter. If I'm a first-time buyer, I'm going to be inexperienced, even if the product has been around a long time. A purchase will be high tech for the inexperienced even if it's low tech for most of the market. As I'm using it here, tech has little to do with the behind-the-scenes technology that goes into providing it; it refers to the buyer's ability to understand and use the product without assistance from the seller."

I gave her the example of buying a sophisticated new stereo. If I were in the market to buy a stereo, I would know what to look for. Not only do I work in the electronics industry, but I've also bought three or four stereo systems since I was a teenager. I'm comfortable with the terminology, I can make sense out of watts per channel and percentage of harmonic distortion and so on. I could contact the component manufacturers, read the technical specs, then go to a discount store, specify what I needed, bring everything home, set it up myself, make the right wiring connections, work out any problems I had.

"And I'm confident I'd end up with a system that would meet my needs. For me, buying a stereo system would be a low-tech purchase because I have experience on my side," I said.

Ann nodded. "Well, I could too for that matter."

"Right. But on the other hand," I said, "let's say that my brother, who manages a restaurant and bar in Baltimore, wants a new stereo system for his business. First of all, my brother is less experienced in that kind of thing than I am. He knows food service, not electronics. And second, he's running a business. He doesn't have time to learn all the technical stuff. My brother is likely to call in an audio professional—someone who will come to the restaurant, check out the acoustics, design the system, tell my brother what he needs, and so on. Even though stereos are relatively old technology and low tech for most of us, buying one for the restaurant would be a relatively high-tech purchase for my brother."

"It's all relative to the individual customer," she said.

"Exactly the point," I said. "I may know stereos, but if I had to throw a party for a hundred people, I would be totally at a loss. I'd have to hire a caterer who could plan the menu, order enough food and drink, and prepare it all. My brother doesn't do catering, but if he had to hire a caterer, he has the experience to specify exactly what he needs. For me it would be high tech; for my brother, low tech."

"Okay."

"It's high tech, then, if the customer needs a high degree of technical and applications support," I continued. "It's low tech if the customer has the experience to handle those aspects on his own."

I took a new cocktail napkin, opened it up so that the creases gave me four quadrants on the square. I began scribbling in all the labels.

"Now we put the dimensions together—complexity and experience, touch and tech—and what we find is that the chaotic marketing world, pardon the phrase, can be rationally arranged into four quarters or quadrants," I said.

"And if you plot where your products and customers are on this map," I continued, "you have a fairly accurate way to know what you need to do. Because each of these quadrants defines a type of marketing and selling you need to do in order to be successful."

Ann's brow was lumpy. She was thinking it through.

"Let's go back to stereos," I said. "If you and I have a company that makes a state-of-the-art audio component years ahead of everybody else, we're in a high-tech market. If all we do is sell that component, we're in the high-tech, low-touch quadrant. If we also integrate that component into a complete system, tailored to each customer's situation, and we deliver the system, set it up for the customer, teach the customer how to use it, service it, and so on—that puts us in high tech, high touch. Because now we're dealing with both a complex purchase and an inexperienced customer."

"So that audio professional your brother called in would be in a high-tech, high-touch market if he not only sold advanced components, but also set up the system in the restaurant and taught your brother how to use it," said Ann.

"You really are quick." I'd been paying her compliments that were a bit tongue-in-cheek before, but I meant this one sincerely. "And I'm sure you can see that the audio professional would be using a very different kind of sell than the discount audio store down the street where I might go to buy my stereo."

Ann's eyes brightened as she finished putting the pieces together in her own mind.

"Let me see if I've got this," she said. "Take the catering example. Say we're in the catering business together. We'd be in a high-tech, low-touch market if we're offering some kind of nouvelle cuisine—"

"That only we know how to make," I said to qualify it. "It's a unique recipe, we're the only supplier, and we make the food, but we don't serve it at the party."

"But if we offer the same nouvelle cuisine or some gourmet menu and we do the whole party with French waiters and exclusive touches that only we can provide, we're in high tech, high touch. Right?"

"Right."

"If we're doing the party with a traditional menu, providing the waiters and bartenders—"

"And probably promoting our great service and reliability," I added.

"—we're in low tech, high touch," Ann said.

"That's it."

"And if we're selling cheese platters that anybody can buy in our store and take home for parties they do themselves, we're in low tech, low touch."

"Fantastic!" I said. "You've got it!"

She smiled. "But would you mind telling me what all that had to do with IJK?"

"Sure. When IJK was a start-up company back in the 1970s, at first—and only briefly—it was in a high-tech, low-touch market. Most of our products soon shifted to high tech, high touch. Which was our market for quite a while. As we got into the 1980s, the market for most of IJK's original products moved to low tech, high touch. That was when we started having trouble, and eventually we formed that task force I was on. I recognized that while our products mostly were low tech, high touch—like those of most industrial companies, by the way—our biggest opportunities were in high tech, high touch. That was where we had been successful for so long. So we refocused the company, went after those opportunities, and that's how we got the 50 percent first-year gain."

"I see. That's interesting," Ann said. "Now how does this apply to Elemenco? Where do you think we are?"

"That's what I plan to find out," I said. "As you mentioned, Elemenco is a much bigger company and much more diversified than IJK. I want to look the company over firsthand before I make any judgments. But if we can figure out where we stand on the map, we'll be able to do things like match the selling approach of most of our sales force with expectations of the majority of our customers."

I was about to believe that I'd won an ally when Ann shook her head and said, "We just made a lot of changes, as you know, and I think we'll be locked into this new system for quite some time. The one you'll have to convince is Gene Cherson or his replacement."

I was about to comment on that when Bud Bowman butted in. "What was that about a replacement? Did you hear who's going to take over for Gene while he's in the hospital?"

Before Ann could answer, Jane O'Shea said, "Bud, don't be so crass."

"What's crass about that? It's a question somebody's going to have to answer."

"It'll beJim Woller, of course," said Greg. "At least that's my guess."

"Then why didn't Morrison just announce it at the meeting today?" asked Ann.

"But Woller is the logical choice," said Greg.

"No, he might name one of the other staff people," said Nick, "which would be . . . interesting."

"My guess is that he'll call in a headhunter," said Roger.

"I would think that human resources would be the first to know," said Clinton, "but Morrison hasn't talked to me about it yet."

I wondered whether I should say something or let them wait for Morrison's announcement memo. I had just about decided to spill it out when Jim Woller, as if on cue, walked in, pulled up a chair from an empty table, and sat down at the opposite end. He looked directly at me.

"Congratulations," he said loudly, but without much warmth.

"Thanks," I said, "but it's really nothing to be congratulated about."

"What's this?" asked Greg.

"Mr. Kepler will be taking over for Gene," Woller announced. "I just talked to Reed Morrison. And he said there would be an announcement tomorrow."

All faces turned immediately to me.

"You? You're going to be Gene's replacement?" asked Bud.

"Temporarily at least," I said.

The whole table went quiet as it began to sink in. I could feel the stares.

"Gee, I'm glad you're here then," said Ann, leaning toward me. "This is probably the right time to talk to you about my raise."

Everyone at the table burst out laughing. But nobody wanted to say much after that. Jim Woller ordered a drink. Bud and Greg downed theirs and agreed to share a cab to O'Hare.

Woller started telling jokes, but his heart wasn't in it. Though he was trying to cover it up, he was angry. Every so often I could see the hardness in his eyes when he looked my way. Which was not often.

One by one, the staff people tactfully finished their drinks, got up, and left. Before long, only Jim Woller and Ann and I were left.

"Well, I have to get going," said Ann.

"I'd like to talk to you again. There are a lot of things I'd like to know about the sales situation," I said. "What about lunch sometime?"

"Sure," she said. "I think I'm even free tomorrow."

"I'll call you," I said.

And then there were two. Jim and I sat at opposite ends of the table. Emily came over and asked if we wanted another round. I said no, I had to leave, and Jim didn't argue the point. But as we were waiting for the check, he came down to my end of the table.

"You know, Dave, if we're going to be working together, we should get to know each other better."

"You're right, we should."

"How long have you worked in sales?"

"I've never worked in sales."

"Oh. I see. You've never worked in sales. Well, I've been in sales all my life. Thirty years of professional sales experience. Been with Elemenco for fifteen years. Wonder why Morrison picked you to take over for Gene Cherson instead of me?"

"You'd have to ask him," I said.

Jim became stone-faced. "I understand you two worked together years ago."

"That's how we met, right."

"You must be real good friends."

"Not that good."

"Uh-huh. Well, then, Dave, tell me something. Just what is it that you're bringing to the party here?" asked Jim.

"Well, I have, I guess, a special understanding of marketing."

"What's that? A special understanding?" he said. "So that's it. Well, that's wonderful. Excuse me."

Then he walked away. I saw him head for the door.

About five seconds later, Emily brought the check. Of course, nobody had left any money on the table; I suppose they expected it to be on the company. What the hell. The bill was under $25,000 and I was the boss. Wasn't that what bosses were for? I took out a credit card.

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