Chapter 54

Tuesday morning was comfortable considering that two delicious girls were snuggled to me. I hope that Jules was being sincere about this because it will be tough to shut it off once begun. Both of these women wanted to be with me when they could, and my wives had given them permission.

The clock gave a local time of six AM, so I figured we should get up and go to the hotel gym to get revved up.

Both girls easily woke up and went to put workout clothes on. I was ready to go to the hotel gym when Vicki came in. She made the comment, “It sounded like fun last night. You do know that Jules and Katie had a talk with me about how you might do what you did last night. Jules had wanted to tell me that she was encouraging this, and that I should either look the other way or join in if I wanted or could. I think Dai might object to me participating. I don’t think I’ll ask for permission.”

I smiled and said, “I’ve resisted for a long while. Kelly was my secretary for a good period of time and shared a lot of the turmoil we went through. She was also one of the women my girls invited out to the house that became a sex bender a couple of times. Jules and Katie enjoyed the women maybe even more than I did.”

Vicki was blushing when she said, “Your house sometimes does become sexually charged. The two men who are your bosses and their wives were being very wild in the saloon, and they then took the downstairs maids to bed. Um, I mean they all six went to bed together. I don’t know if they did anything, but I can tell you that the two maids seemed very happy about the night they spent together.”

Kelly and Georgia came in and the four of us went to the hotel gym and began stretching before using the treadmill. We stopped at seven to clean up for the day. We were ready to go for a hotel breakfast in twenty minutes.

I called Don to see if he was still on the road while we were eating. He brightly answered, and said, “Not this time. I brought the wife to spend a couple of days with me. Jim has done the same. We’re in the hotel you were in previously. Are you there too? We’re all about to come down for a hotel breakfast.” “That’s where we are now, so come down and we’ll have some coffee with you.”

The two couples arrived and filled some plates. While they ate I gave them the crazy story of what we went through yesterday. I told them that we should find out more information today after the people had been in interrogation for a day.

The two men extolled the efforts of the new women salespeople who Jack brought on board. Don said, “Jennifer was compiling information from the Construction Supervisor, Bud Jones, and showing Judy Talon how to set up her personnel files so that she can keep track of the models and inventory homes.”

Jim said, “Albert worked the three files yesterday and sent the files and his information to my finance man in Dallas to review. He said he was thorough and all three sales looked good to him, and all they needed was to be funded. He’s still amazed how your man in LA could get a file approved and have it immediately funded. Let’s go see the new temporary office. We’ll then run out to the new building site and out to the development site where we have a construction trailer.”

The building where the Title Company was had a lobby entrance that was very nice. The Title office was to the right, and the new office area was to the left. A receptionist was at a regular desk and greeted everyone. Don’s office had a second desk he said would be for a secretary when he found the right person, was down a hallway. There was an office for Accounting, one for Finance, and a large room for Sales. Jack was at his desk in the front of the room. There were seven people sitting at what would be the sales personnel desks.

Jack was looking at a file and jumped up to greet us. He was smiling as he said, “We had two more sales yesterday, so we’re up to a total of six so far. I’m getting these two together to be sure that they’re ready for Al. We’re going to have a short training meeting about listings again and we’ll do it at least once a week. I think it’s smart to make this a working real estate sales office first, and then we’ll begin selling custom homes. The office will be ready before we have enough inventory homes to sell very many. I understand that Bud has put four crews together so far that are ready to start as soon as the concrete cures in a few more days. He has a total of a dozen homes that he’s forming foundations and basements up for right now. The models for this development are all poured, and a crew is surveying and staking out the other two developments.”

Don said, “I’m really excited about how the office is progressing so fast. This is going to be a lot faster paced than Austin. We’re going to make opening this office a good investment although we’ll only be in it for a month and half to two months.”

This was what I had envisioned. Jim and Don had taken all my ideas, added to them, and made them happen. Maybe Jim is going to be ready to take over the Region sooner than I expected. I wanted to wait until the office and developments were open before giving it all away so that I knew for sure that the staff was appropriately growing and sales were rolling in. It looked like sales weren’t going to be a problem.

Jack had the two folders and said to meet him in Don’s office. Don and Jim had duplicated the Manager’s office with two desks and a conference table. Kelly sat at the secretary’s desk, and Georgia was in one of the side chairs next to that desk. The two wives were in the side chairs next to the Manager’s desk. Georgia said to Kelly, “I’m going to go work with the receptionist for a few minutes. You can tell me if I miss something.”

Kelly smiled since she knew that Georgia was going to instruct the receptionist to report to the Dallas receptionist so that Jim would know the inside details instead just numbers and names.

Jack came in and opened his advertising folder. He said, “Matt taught me a lot about how to use my advertising budget when I get one. He also showed me how to calculate how much of the office’s money to put toward advertising. Jim said that I could spend some money now, so I’ll use most of what we have to put our listings on Zillow and the MLS board. I think we might use the radio if we can have a few open houses each weekend. We can’t get too wild because we don’t have a model to walk people through yet. I just wanted to show you that I’m ready to go when the models are built and there are some inventory homes.”

Jim was smiling and referring to his pad as that had been one of the areas he wanted to cover with me.

Jack said to us as a group, “I have six salespeople who I want to convince to come with us. I’m sure they all will want the commission contract, so the only cost will be for their desk supplies and business cards. These are all good salespeople and they are used to selling about eight homes a month. There is a woman I’d like to convince to come with us who is similar to the little dynamo you have in LA. She goes into a funk if she doesn’t at least have a sale or listing for the day. I know that these people will feed off each other if I can get them together.”

“You’ve done well, Jack. Keep some sales moving through the system and watch the excitement when you make a big deal out of showing everyone the commission check and handing it to the salesman. I want checks cut for sales commission right now. You can use direct deposit later, but I want the other salespeople to get excited about the commissions.”

Jim commented, “That might be a way to get an existing office excited too. Opening this office is going to give me a lot of ideas on how to make my office really take off. I’m not going to let this office overtake Dallas in volume. I have some work to do.”

I told Don, “I’m putting the cart before the horse a little, but I want you to be thinking of finding an Assistant. You won’t be able to do it the usual way because you don’t have a permanent office yet. The idea is to keep an open mind and possibly consider one of the many military people who are getting out. One of them may be management material and can make your life easy. You don’t have to go out and grab someone, but keep an eye out and get the right person, just like a secretary. Jack needs a sales secretary now too, so help him find and train someone. Jim can take a sales secretary to his office to help get her started.”

Jack left the office and I stood up, “Let’s go see how our building is coming. Make sure that you stop by daily when Bud is going to be on site to see if he has a question. There’s no sense in letting anything wait.

The building looked like it was ready, but the interior still had to be completed. It could possibly be done in a month but it was probably more like six weeks, and then the decorators had to do their thing. I asked Don and Jim, “You guys said you had a decorator. Find her an office and bring her on board. I want her to begin working with your pre-owned customers and for her to sell her services to other realtors. Have her work on the new building when it’s time. Make sure you use her to buy furniture. The home office has a budget for that, and they also have agreements with some of the big office furniture companies for our company’s standard furniture.”

We were looking at the electrical blueprint, and I was staring at it when Bud came up. I asked him, “I don’t see any communications wiring. Is there a sheet I don’t see?”

Bud said, “I wondered about that, but your architect from Indianapolis said everything was on the blueprint.”

I told Bud, “Don’t put up any, or any more, sheetrock until we get communications wiring in. Wireless may be where the world is going, but not in the business world yet. Can you get me another copy of the electrical blueprint and we’ll put this together quickly. I’ll call the home office while you do that.”

I called Indy and was able to get to Dot. I asked her who the architect was on the San Antonio building as I needed to talk to him. Dot transferred me to David Harper. “David, this is Brad Johnson, the Regional Manager for San Antonio. We’re at the new building and they are beginning to do the interior. I’m looking at the electrical blueprint and can’t find any communications wiring. Are we missing a sheet?”

David said, “Let me pull that up. Let’s see, the electrical plan is standard. It looks like I let the computer do the placement for locations. I have a note here that says I didn’t have any information on the computer or phone density so it wasn’t included. You can always go wireless, but that may be a little wishful thinking in a large office like that. I can get you computer generated locations so that the wiring can be done.”

That’s okay, I’m having copies of the electrical plan made, and we’ll do the locations here. You didn’t get your hands on the San Jose design did you?”

“I sure did. That’s been complete for a long time.”

“Do me a favor and call the construction company and tell them to stop building right this second, David. I don’t want anything more done until I review the blueprints.”

David rather briskly said, “You can’t do that. A decision like that has to be made by management or rather a partner. I’ll just have to see how much weight you carry.”

“Goodbye, David.”

I called back to the home office and asked for Dan. The receptionist said Dan was in a meeting. I told her, “Send me to Dorothy.” The receptionist said she was in the meeting as well. Let me speak to Dorothy’s secretary.

Julie said brightly, “Hi, Brad. I never get to talk to you anymore since you’re such a big shot. What can I do for you?”

“Is the meeting Dan and Dot are in something big with the other partners?”

“Yeah, and I don’t know what it’s about. It’s probably about the condominiums in California. That’s about all they can talk about.”

“I need you to go in there and tell Dan to immediately pick up the phone as what I have to say is going to have a big effect on the company. Put my call on that ‘Park’ thing you have and go tell him.”

It was almost five minutes later that Dan picked up the phone. “You could have waited until we were through with making a couple of decisions. What’s so earth shattering?”

“I’m in San Antonio and looking at the electrical blueprint for the building. The super is beginning to build out the interior. I discovered there is no communications layout. David Harper said no one gave him any information about voice or data, so he didn’t include it in the electrical layout. I think San Jose is like that too, so you should call up there and tell the construction people to stop. You can check with Harper, but he’ll probably give you some smart ass remark. He has just pushed the opening of this office back at least two weeks right now. I’m not sure if the electrical is even correct. I’ll work on it here and then fly up to San Jose to make it happen there. You know this could delay San Jose by a month. I promised not to bother you and make decisions on the fly. Go back to your meeting.”

“I’m sorry, Brad. I did tell you to get hold of me when you needed me. I’ll talk to David about San Jose and see if it’s the same. I just tell architects to use the information we have for our best offices and plan from that. I can see that we’ll have to review every blueprint and every aspect of a building design. You should come up and do that for me.”

“Fat chance of that. Let me resolve this one and get up to San Jose. I’m sure glad I didn’t let that guy design my new office and the new north LA office.”

Dan said, “I won’t send you the design for the high rise that we put together in that case. I’ll send it, but you will probably shoot holes in it.”

Instead of waiting to fly to San Jose, I called my office to talk to Ken. “I have a big request and I wouldn’t ask anyone except you, Ken. I’ve discovered a major problem in San Antonio, and it is probably the same in San Jose. The home office architect let the computer software put in the electrical instead of checking with users to see how it should be. He also failed to include any communications. You know how I feel about that. I need you or someone you feel is equal to you to go to San Jose and go over every outlet location and how to install the communications. You know how we did the new building and how we planned the north office. I want double voice and data everywhere. I want it all to go back to a data center with patch panels. We can buy whatever equipment and use it, but it’s a bitch to get anything installed after the building is built. Just think of all the wire that had to be run in our old building to make it work. Can you do this or should you send someone else?”

Ken asked, “Can I take Alec to drive for me? I might have some trouble around a construction site, but I can get to where the prints are.”

“Good, hopefully Dan called to stop them from doing anything until you get there. Go right now. If you need clothes, buy them. This is too important to worry about anything but getting that office correctly built. Remember to do both electrical and communications placement.”

“Got it. I’ll let you know this evening.”

I called Dan’s cell phone this time and it didn’t go to voicemail. “Okay, now what, Brad?”

“Did you call San Jose? I have Ken on his way there so there won’t be that much of a delay. We’ll lose up to two weeks, but it will be worth it. If we took possession of that building without any communications in it, it would be over a month, maybe even two, to run communications wiring and it would be a mess. Let’s do it right.”

“I called and told them to stop everything. The super was pretty upset, so I told him why and he flipped through his blueprint and said he was sorry he didn’t bring it up. He said he even had a note on the blueprint.”

I told Dan, “We’ll lose a week, maybe two here, but we’re making sales from our temporary office and it’ll give us time to get some inventory homes up. I have two models in each of the three developments started, so they will be up within a month. I’m not going to give this region away until this office is functioning. You had best have Ken review your plans If you have more new offices in progress. He doesn’t forget things and has the practical experience to design something to use. He adapts to people instead of making people adapt to his plan. Send him your plans and let him review them. Have your architect send the file. Ken can work with that just as easily.”

I took a breath and said, “Go back to your meeting. I have work to do.”

Dan said, “Thanks for calling me about the problem. I know you could have handled this, but it’s best if we know where a problem is. Call me if you need me. Text me, and I’ll call you back if I’m not available. I’ll put my text on buzzer.”

“The reason that this is important is that the delay is going to cost the company and offices a couple of million in sales, Dan. That’s a hell of a lot of money. It’s your money, but it’s my job for you to still be collecting it. You know I’ll always try to do what’s best for the company.”

We both hung up. Bud came back with the copies of the electrical blueprint. I started going over the electrical to discover only one outlet in each office. None of the spacing met the National Electrical Code. The sales office had a couple of outlets on one wall, but the floor wasn’t raised or were there floor outlets. I told Bud, this is going to take a while. I could take it with me and mark it up the way I want and have it back to him in the morning. I told him to call the electrical company who did the original work and see if they can have a good-sized crew there in the morning.

Bud said, “Remember that every change is going to cost.”

I replied, “I can pay for them now or pay twice what it cost later to do the job when we’re moving people around. Would you get me the print for the second floor? There’s probably several additions to be made up there. Your basic rule of thumb should be at least one outlet for every five linear feet of wall, and a four tap outlet plus communications wiring – phone plus Cat 5+ or higher – wherever a work station is going to go. If it’s a tank office with multiple desks and no partitions, then the wiring needs to be at least the workstation setup for each desk. While you’re at it, I know the current fashion is to do without partitions to encourage collaboration between workers, but a lot of our people need to spend a lot of time on the phone, and that gets crazy without partitions, so think twice before setting up a tank room for an operation like sales.”

Bud came back with two copies of the upstairs electrical. He said, “I can see where I have to really bear down to make sure the homes I’m going to be involved in building have everything we think is necessary for something special. We can’t be forgetting utilities and conveniences. We need a good architect to review our plans before we begin.”

I thought to myself, ‘We’ve already begun, so I hope the plans are good.’

We went to the development where a new construction office trailer was parked. Someone was smart enough to call and get a couple of loads of gravel to pour and grade for a parking area with a drive from the street. We went into the trailer and found Judy behind a desk talking on a phone. She had blow ups of the three developments with the designed streets, and prints of the infrastructure were under each one.

Judy hung up and stood waving her hands at the setup she had created. “I have an office set up for Bud, but he won’t be in it much if he’s good at what he does. On the counter below each of the developments is a sketch and floor plan of the models that we’ve poured foundations for, as well as the inventory homes we’re planning. I’ve compared material prices with four suppliers, and I think one of them wants our business. I’ll order the first models from them, and then give them all a chance to bid again. I’ve told them that we will be building about twelve hundred homes, and that’s a lot of materials. I’ll bet the prices keep going down. The contractor for the infrastructure was able to get our permits instantly approved and sent some of his people over here to get the trailer hooked up. I think we’re ahead of the game now.”

I was grinning and knew that made Miss Talon happy. I told her, “I need to use that drafting table for a while. If you don’t have a coffee maker, Vicki and Jim will take you to where you can get one and a microwave for lunches and snacks. Show me your supply of colored pencils or other drafting supplies and I’ll get to work. You guys go out and get coffee and a way to make coffee. Get some Styrofoam cups so that we can drink it too. Oh yeah, make sure you get the sugar and cream stuff for those who use it. Pull up a chair and work with me, Don.”

I rolled the downstairs floor plan out and began with sales in the back. I told Don, “We’re drawing in electrical as well as voice and data outlets. We need to plan this area to have four desks across and ten desks deep. The room size should be right although you won’t have that many salespeople for a while. The front desks will be for sales secretaries and could easily be four. The Manager’s office could easily handle an Assistant Sales Manager, so we have to include enough electrical and communication locations for that too.”

We went through each office on the first floor marking the locations where we might need electrical and communications. We should create a symbol for all three to make it easier.

I made a note on the bottom that each communication location includes two voice jacks and two data jacks. I had to search the prints to find a place for it all to terminate. The perfect location was a bathroom attached to the Manager’s office. I circled that and indicated the door be moved to the outer wall with all the plumbing removed. That area would be for all the voice and data cables to terminate, along with whatever telephone and data equipment that need to be installed. I indicated multiple twenty amp receptacles with isolated grounds, plus input and return registers for the HVAC and a separate thermostat for the room to control temperatures within limits with all those hot servers running. That should take care of the communication equipment room.

Kelly and Georgia were showing Judy various ways to do things through the company’s website. They had called in and were able to get her access and to enter her desired password for access and her voicemail.

Don and I went back over each office area to make sure that everything was covered. We sat back with a cup of coffee, and I told him, “Now we copy what we want onto this other print. Do that or get one of the girls with neat handwriting to do it. I need to call into the home office again.”

I called Dot to see what she thought first. “Does the company have a national account with a telecom company, Dot? Do they use like NEC or Samsung or who?”

Dot said, “We’ve pretty much shotgunned so far. Whoever gives us a decent bid and talks the best game has gotten our business. Do you want to make a deal for the entire company? We have a bunch of offices that need upgrading and new equipment. You could probably do it and be applauded. You burned Dan the man pretty bad this morning. He’s all morose and upset that he didn’t pay more attention to the two offices he’s created for you. I would suggest calling to get his opinion. Tell him what you’re going to do if he stutters. You got into him when he was out to see you for the weekend, and then again this morning. I can tell you that the guys were all patting each other on their backs for making such a great deal out in LA, and they didn’t do jack shit. They pissed me off when they left you in park mode while they said a few things that were all self-promoting. I was rude and told them to not leave you in ‘park’ if they wanted to know what the problem was. I told them that you would just go do what you needed to do whether or not they liked it. I’m not very popular right now.”

“Well, thanks, Dot, I’ll talk to Dan to see what he thinks. Transfer me if you can.”

“Yes, Brad, what’s up?”

“I need to contact a telephone equipment company who might possibly be able to handle some of the data as well. What do you think about making a deal for a national account with a company? We could use that company to refit some of the older offices that may need an equipment and technology upgrade.”

Dan asked, “Do you want us to make that deal here, or do you want to see what’s available out in LA and see if you can cover the whole company?”

I told Dan, “We have a few days to find equipment, so let me see what might be available and I can invite them to the home office so they can make a presentation. We might be able to quickly make a deal if we were to get a commitment for service response time along with discounts of equipment pricing. I can fly in and be a part of the negotiations.”

“Sounds good. Can we do some of the leg work for you?”

“Sure, use that tech guru you have to give you who he thinks will be the best. I’m sure he has an opinion. Then invite reps of each company to come in and make their sales spiel. We can do two or three a day if we give up an evening for a third presentation. I’m thinking there may not be but two major companies that will be willing to work with us. I’ve been studying that market, and have an idea about what we should install in the new locations. The equipment that you’re using is becoming old technology from a company that went bankrupt, and its assets are with Siemens, Erickson, and a bunch of smaller tech companies. We need to use one of them or Avaya, which is who AT&T sold to Lucent, and then bought some of Nortel’s assets in bankruptcy, if we can find a strong enough multi-location dealer network. We should also look at Samsung, but I don’t think they really have the size we may need. Those who want to submit a proposal should include Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP) with voicemail and e-mail integration. They all have that but there will be differences with each. We’re looking for something simple as training can be a hassle, and we do have a high receptionist turnover. That isn’t a bad thing since we are constantly promoting them into better positions.”

“Jesus, Brad. I recorded that and I’m glad I did because you said a lot in the little bit. I’ll get our people working on this and we’ll talk tomorrow to see where we’re at on it. Its past five here now, so I can’t get much done today. I’ll have Dot or one of her girls transcribe our conversation so that we can work on it tomorrow. Thanks for talking to me about this project.”

“Okay, Dan, talk to you in the morning. You know how fast I can be there, so make this quickly happen. It’s very important to a lot of people.”

Bud was standing in front of me with a guy in khakis and a knit shirt. The guy had glasses up on his forehead and was holding a folder in his hand. Bud introduced him, “Brad, meet Gregory Fisher. He is a data guru who subs out to all the major data vendors around here. He does a lot of consulting work with the major equipment vendors too. Hire him to set up and direct your plan and get it done right the first time.”

Greg and I shook hands, and I said, “Look at this print and see the highlighted locations, quantities, and where the terminations will be. This won’t be a slam dunk, but it can be done fairly quickly. We’ll find someone who can if the electrical contractor can’t do it fast enough. One of the things I demand is that all work be done to code and everything be more than neat. No bundles of spaghetti wire above the ceiling.”

“So do you want to hire me?”

“I asked you to begin a minute ago if you’re as advertised. Are you booked up? Tell me who your competition is so that I can use them if you are.”

Greg grinned as he said, “You’re a real hard case, aren’t you. Is this job that critical?”

I took a deep breath, and said, “I found out that we built a very nice building and there wasn’t any communications planned. No wire, no conduit, no planning. Don, the Manager here, and I have just spent the better part of three hours putting this plan together. I know enough to know that all this cabling doesn’t put itself into conduit and walls by itself. A building that was going to be finished in a month to six weeks will now be finished in eight plus weeks if I’m lucky. You may ask what’s a couple of weeks, and I’ll tell you that it’s about a half million in sales a week, probably more, but there’s no sense in exaggerating. Compound this with another location designed by the same idiot that will do four to five times the volume this one will do, and you can understand why I’m in the mood to push.”

“Okay, I understand. I have no other jobs right now, so I can devote all my attention to this. What brand equipment are you going to use?”

“I don’t know yet. I’m having a meeting at my home office in Indianapolis to listen to and review some proposals. I’ll know the brand type by Thursday. Come to Indy with me for the presentations, hopefully tomorrow morning, if you want to have input as to the brand. We may have two days of them. I’ll pick up the tab for hotel and meals.”

I was getting tired and we had missed lunch, or at least Don and I did. “You and Greg look over the modified blueprints and make copies of the modifications, Bud. Get the electricians on the job in the morning to get the electrical and conduit started. They’re going to have to tear the floor up for the in-floor raceways which will cause some other delays. We’re not going to be able to push much harder to do this. Have the second floor done first so that the drywall people can begin up there. The first floor is going to take a while. Wire can be pulled while drywall is going up. We’re just going to have to live with being delayed two or three weeks.”