Texas Gal

by C. Sprite

   

Chapter Thirty-Nine     Maybe South-Core Can Help Us?

Finally, Bob said, "The boss is right. We've been ignoring an entire segment of the population, kids. We've been assuming that the kind of items that we use would also appeal to them. There's a whole new generation out there, eager to show their individuality. We need products that appeal to their tastes, even if they're incompatible with our tastes."

"I agree," Matt said. "I look at our competitor's catalogs all the time, but they don't have products like this, so I haven't considered anything like them before. We've been so busy competing on price and product quality, we've forgotten to be innovative. I'm ashamed that I didn't think of this."

"One of the Mo Paper plants produces wire coil notebooks," Bill said. "It would be a simple matter to print up bright covers for them. The paper inside is certainly the same."

"Any of the closed plants can be converted to produce the novelty napkins," John said. "For that matter they can be set up to produce this low grade construction paper also."

"We wouldn't want to use quality wood and cloth," Tom Harris said, "but there's a glut of scrub wood and recycled fabrics out there that we can pick up cheap."

"Should we put all the new products in our Piermont catalog, or make an entirely separate catalog?" Gerard asked.

"Definitely separate," Ron said. "We can send out both catalogs to distributors, and separate catalogs to other buyers."

"Since the bookstore at DD's college carried Mo Paper's typing and copy paper," Tom said, "some of our products should be packaged under both Mo Paper and Piermont brand names."

"Good idea," Bob said, "it won't cost any more to put a different wrapper around the paper, like Bill's idea for printing different covers for the notebooks. Every notebook needs a coated cover anyway."

The talk continued around the table until lunch arrived from the B&B and then through lunch and beyond. At 3:00 I had to leave for the plane, but my management team wanted to stay and talk further, so I said goodbye and told them I'd see them in six weeks. I knew the conversations would continue without me in the following days and weeks.

As the plane leveled off in the skies over New York, I started to work on my written report for Grandma. I felt good about the energy and excitement I had witnessed at the conference table. They weren't just going with an idea because I had suggested it; they were genuinely enthusiastic about the project.

I spent most of the last full day of my Spring Break riding Emily around the ranch with Judy, Mary, and Susan. Mother and Auntie rode out to join us at our favorite watering hole/picnic area a little after noon. They brought a full picnic lunch with them. It was a beautiful day, and with the horses hobbled nearby, we lay in the grass looking up at a baby blue sky while we talked about school and our upcoming annual trip to the Riviera. Life seemed so perfect.

On Sunday we returned to school for the final month and a half of study and exams. I had finished my read ahead work so I was already reviewing the term before classes ended for Spring Break.

In May I celebrated my sixteenth birthday. I had begun to think that it would never arrive. I was now old enough to get a pilot's license. I couldn't wait to begin lessons. I had read though all the books that Auntie had given me and I was anxious to take the pilot's written exam as soon as possible.

I actually had two birthday parties this year. My first party was a sweet sixteen party on Friday, with friends from school. A couple, who were freshmen students, didn't believe that I was only sixteen until they got to the house and Mother confirmed it. They thought that I was eighteen like them. Susan and Judy had backed me up, but they thought that they were joking also.

Anyway, the party was loads of fun as we let down our hair and raised the roof. The party started in the back yard and moved indoors around nine o'clock. I suppose we were lucky that the neighbors didn't call the police because somebody kept turning up the stereo until the windows rattled. But the neighbors knew that it was a special occasion and remained tolerant. At ten o'clock, Mother made us turn down the stereo so low we could barely hear it.

On Sunday Auntie flew in with Mary and Grandma on board for the second party. It was naturally more subdued than the Friday party, but I loved it anyway. I got lots of nice presents and Grandma didn't ask even one business question all day. One of my presents from Auntie was wrapped in a small box like those containing earrings, but when I opened it up, I found a set of keys. The fob was the one given by dealers to purchasers of the 1957 Ford Thunderbird. Auntie had had a mechanic come pick up the car that she had promised to me when I first came to the ranch when I was eleven, and take it to his garage where the engine was overhauled. Then Mother had found someone to repair and clean the upholstery and wax the exterior until you could see to put your makeup on by using the reflection. Although I couldn't drive it until I got my learner's permit, it was waiting at the ranch for me. Tears were streaming down my face as I hugged Auntie and Mother.

Before we knew it exams were over and it was time to head home. Another school year had ended. It seemed hard to believe that Judy and I would be college seniors next year. And then school would be over forever, unless we continued on for Masters Degrees and Doctorates. Judy was a good student but I didn't think she planned to continue after getting her baccalaureate degree. I had mixed emotions. I was still pretty young, and there was no real rush to join the business world full time. I was already a dues paying member.

It was wonderful to get back to the ranch again, and as soon as I changed my clothes I hurried out to the corral with two apples. Emily saw me coming and trotted over to meet me and get her apples. As she ate I stroked her face and looked back into her eyes. It was too late for a ride, but I knew we would definitely go tomorrow.

Before walking back to the house, I went to the garage to look at my T-Bird. I sat inside and imagined myself driving down the highway with the wind in my hair. I had managed to find enough time to take my learner's permit test while in Austin, and I was now ready to hit the road when Mother or Auntie were ready to take me. Susan was just as anxious to learn now, and had gotten her learner's permit the same day I did.

On Sunday the jet picked me up and took me east. We had a couple of weeks before we left for France and I intended to get up to speed with the division before we left. Because of exams, I'd had Nancy hold all my mail for the past several weeks, and I even told Bob not to call me unless there was a calamity.

Earl was waiting for me when the plane touched down and whisked me to the Holiday Inn where a suite had been reserved weeks earlier. I'd brought several trade magazines with me and I spent the night seeing what was new in the ranching, textile, and lumber industries.

On Monday I arrived at the office early and took the elevator to the second floor. As I stepped out of the elevator, I was brought up short. The 30 by 40 inch aerial picture of the Brandon plant, which had previously been on the wall outside my office, was now mounted on the wall facing the elevator. It was flanked on either side by the aerial pictures of the Greenfield and Concord plants. From that point there was a trail of pictures that led into and through the executive suite where a smiling Nancy watched me.

"Aren't they wonderful, Miss Drake?" Nancy said. "We have an image of every plant and sawmill in the division."

"Every plant and sawmill?" I said. "That's 44 pictures. It doesn't seem like there's enough wall space."

"They continue down the corridor on the other side of building. They end by Mr. Piermont's office. There's enough room for eight more pictures. Mr. Warren says you'll probably fill up the walls by the end of this year, and then we'll have to start mounting new pictures downstairs."

"Well, I don't know about that, Nancy. Mr. Warren was only kidding."

"If you say so, Miss Drake."

I smiled and walked to my office, looking at the pictures all the way. Nancy had made me a pot of tea and I prepared a cup before moving to my desk. I had just started on my mail when Bob Warren called.

"Got a few minutes, DD?" he asked.

"Of course, Bob. Come on over."

Bob knocked and entered the office less than five seconds later. He looked agitated. He didn't even have the usual coffee mug in his hands.

"Boss, we've got big problems."

"What's wrong, Bob. Did one of our people get hurt?"

"No, no injuries. Do you remember my telling you in April that Matt let his graphic designers loose on the notebook cover work?"

"Yes."

"And you probably remember that they came up with about forty designs that were then narrowed down to ten. The final designs were Flower Power, Psychedelic, Outer Limits, Tie Dye, Kaleidoscope, Mirage, Mind Bender, Hypno Trance, Concentricity, and Sphere Magic?"

"Yes."

"Well, I authorized a job run of 10,000 wire coil notebooks; 1,000 of each cover design, with a ten percent overrun allowance."

"Okay."

"We cellophane wrapped them ten notebooks to a package, with one of each design per package. We named them MoPacs."

"Okay."

"Matt also had 10,000 catalogs printed up. In April we sent them to every school board administrator, principal, and purchasing agent we could find addresses for. We also sent a free MoPac to the school store at each of the largest five-hundred accredited colleges in the country. The rest of the initial run went to our fifty largest sheet paper distributors; a free case to each."

"Okay."

"And then we sat back to wait and see what would happen."

"What happened?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing?"

"Nothing. I couldn't believe it. We thought the notebooks looked great. We were all really excited."

"I guess I was wrong," I said. "I thought they'd be a big hit."

"We all did. Anyway, the colleges have all completed the last semester of the school year, graduation ceremonies are over, and the kids have all gone home."

"I guess that's that then. But what's the serious problem?"

"On Wednesday the sales office in Jefferson City took an order for ten MoPacs from a small, private school."

"Oh, well, that's not that serious. It'll be expensive to do a short run, but it's better than disappointing a customer. I'll approve the job."

"On Thursday, the sales office took orders for fifteen thousand MoPacs."

"Fifteen thousand?"

Bob nodded. "Yep, fifteen thousand packages of ten notebooks each. That's a hundred fifty thousand notebooks."

"Great, it'll definitely pay to do the run then. Lets make an extra five thousand MoPacs in case we get more orders."

"On Friday we took orders for more than half a million MoPacs."

"More than half a million packages of ten? On Friday alone?"

"The sales people in Jefferson City never got to have lunch Friday. They were too busy taking orders. When the toll-free phone lines all filled up, the calls rolled over to the toll-free lines to the Owosso sales department, the Ashville sales department, and our sales department here. The lines were swamped all day."

"Wow. That's great. I guess they liked the notebooks after all."

"I heard a couple of stories. When one of the bookstores got their free pack, they opened it, stuck price stickers on the notebooks, and then put them out to see how they'd move. The word is that the kids were grabbing them out of the clerk's hand as he tried to put them out for sale. Another story came from one of our distributors. He set aside three notebooks for himself, and sent the rest out to customers. One of the notebooks he had set aside was inadvertently given to a customer who was visiting the warehouse. When the distributor took the two remaining notebooks home, his three kids fought over them all night. He called the next morning and begged the salesperson to send him another one right away."

I smiled. "That's great."

"That's not all. Along with the notebooks, the school stores have ordered tons of the other new items we've added in the new catalog. That's why the salespeople were tied up all day."

"Wonderful. The news keeps getting better and better."

"But as I said before, we have a major problem."

"What's the problem?"

"They all want delivery no later then mid-August."

"So? That gives us two and half months to fill the orders. We have thirty-two paper plants now."

"But we only have one plant that binds notebooks, and that one plant only has one old wire coil binding machine. We can't produce enough product in the two months before August, to fill the orders we've taken. The machine is the bottleneck. If we run it all day, every day, we'll only be able to fill about ten percent of the orders. And that's assuming that we can run it twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week without experiencing any downtime."

"Which isn't realistic," I said glumly. "But then again, neither are orders for five million notebooks in just a couple of days."

"I've learned that there were more than sixty-million kids in school in the U.S. this past school year. Estimates are that six-hundred-million notebooks were sold during the past one year period. That averages out to ten for every student, but of course not only students buy notebooks. Our orders only account for eight-tenths of one percent of that volume. That's not so unrealistic. But I'm really afraid that when the order desk opens in Jefferson City at eight o'clock Central Time, we'll get more orders. We have to tell people that we've sold out, and still find a way to fill our existing orders."

"This is the first time I can remember anyone in our company being afraid that we'll get more orders than we can handle. How fast is the binding machine, by the way?"

"It's slow. It can only produce one notebook every six seconds. That's ten notebooks a minute, six hundred notebooks an hour, fourteen-thousand-four hundred a day, four-hundred-thirty-two thousand a month. By mid-August, if the equipment doesn't break down, we can produce one-million eighty-thousand notebooks. We've already taken orders for more than five million. It will take us five months to fill the existing orders. We have two."

"Hmmm," I said.

"Exactly," Bob said. "What do we do?"

"Get four more binding machines right away."

"I've already called every equipment company in the world that manufactures the stuff. They all tell me it's usually made to order. Most give ten to twelve months delivery times. I found one company, Kolemann, that thinks they can get us a single machine in two months, for a huge premium."

"Not really?"

"Yes. Really."

I picked up the phone and said to Nancy, "Would you call the Alabama plant that we turned over to Roy Blu and see if he's available?"

"Right away, Miss Drake."

After a minute of staring at Bob while I thought, the phone rang.

"I have Mr. Blu on the line."

"Put him through, please." When I heard the line click I said, "Roy?"

"DD, how ya'll doing today?"

"Fine, Roy. Yourself?"

"Just peachy. I just got a new customer that'll make me put on a second shift."

"That's wonderful, Roy."

"I understand you've closed down twelve of the plants I sold you?"

"We consolidated the production into Jefferson City and the five other plants with the best equipment. The others were closed while we overhaul the paper forming machines."

"Don't have enough orders to keep them all open, eh?"

"We're working on it, and preparing the equipment for when we need it."

"If you'd like to sell any of them, I might be able to take one or two off your hands. If you'll extend me terms."

"Thanks for the offer, Roy. I'll consider it. I wonder if you might help me in another way today?"

"Any way I can, Sugah."

"The notebook binding machine in the Little Rock plant seems to be inadequate for the orders we do have. We need the product quicker than it can deliver. Would you happen to know of anyone that has a machine for sale, either new or used, as long as it's in good working condition?"

"I can't think of anyone offhand. You don't see too many of those in paper plants. They're usually found in binderies and in print houses. Let me make a few calls and I'll get back you. You up in Vermont?"

"Yes, I am."

"Okay, I'll call you if I can find anything."

"Thanks, Roy."

"You take care, Sugah."

"You too, Roy."

I hung up the phone, drew in a deep breath, and then exhaled. "He's going to check around," I said to Bob. "In the meantime, we'd better get busy filling the parts of the order we can."

"I already spoke to Gerard and Ron. We're bringing four plants on line today. Some senior machine operators were called in over the weekend to start cooking the wood chips, and two shifts of employees were told to report at their regular time today. About a hundred senior employees from those four plants are working up in Jefferson City. They'll be released to return to their regular plants as soon as they can be replaced."

"Good," I said. "It's wonderful that we can call back so many. I hope we can continue to keep them busy after this spurt."

"If we have to turn business away, we may lose those new customers permanently."

"Don't turn them away. Take all the orders you can."

"But what if we can't fill them?"

"We'll fill them; somehow."

I picked up the phone again. "Nancy, get me Ralph Sorontos at the Danbury plant. When I've completed that call, get me Kiel Petersmith in Bloomington. If he's not in yet, call him at home." When I looked up at Bob, he was smiling for the first time today.

"What?"

"Bloomington is an hour earlier than here. I was just imagining Kiel getting a call at home from the CEO while he's drinking his morning coffee and reading his paper."

"We have a serious problem and we need a solution. I'm sure he'll understand."

The phone rang and Nancy said she had Ralph Sorontos on the phone. When I heard it click I said, "Good Morning, Ralph."

"DD, it that really you?"

"It's me, Ralph. How are you doing?"

"Just great, DD. Is there a problem?"

"Yes, Ralph, but not with you. We find that we can't produce our new line of Mo Paper notebooks fast enough because our only wire coil binding machine is too slow. The equipment suppliers can't deliver anything in less than two months and we stand to lose a lot of business in that time. I'm calling to find out if you have any suggestions as to where we might be able to get the needed equipment right away. The machine has to be able to bind sixty notebooks a minute, or we'll need enough machines to do sixty a minute. At present all we can do is ten a minute."

"Sixty a minute? That's a lot of notebooks. That's more than— 28,000 each shift. Are we selling that many each week?"

"We hope to, if we can produce them. Can you think of anyone who has a machine available?"

"No, I can't think of anyone. We don't have wire coil binding equipment at Danbury. Would you like me to call a few friends?"

"If you think they might know of an available machine, yes. Thank you, Ralph."

"My pleasure, DD. I'll get back to you if I find anything."

I hung up the phone and waited until it rang. Nancy had Kiel on the line. She said that he was still at home. I waited until I heard the click.

"Hello, Kiel?" I said.

"DD?"

"Yes. I'm sorry to bother you at home."

"No problem. Your secretary got me just as I was going out the door."

"I'll be quick, Kiel." I explained what we need and he said that he'd make a few calls as soon as he got to the office. He'd call me back if he located anything.

"That's all I can do right now," I said to Bob. "I'll continue to think on the problem. I might be able to think of someone else to call."

"And you're sure we should continue to accept orders?"

"There's no problem with making the paper or the covers right?"

"None what-so-ever. When I realized what was happening, I notified Little Rock that we had to ramp up production fast. They started producing the double-sided ruled paper this weekend, and Bloomington printed front and rear covers all weekend. The first batch was delivered to Little Rock last night, and they began assembling the notebooks right away. By now they should have completed five thousand notebooks."

"Good. We'll find a way to meet the demand if I have to hire ten thousand day laborers to bind the books using those tiny machines they sell for home use."

Bob chuckled. "Okay, DD. I wish I had your optimism. I would have slept a lot better this weekend."

"Leave it to the wheeler-dealer. She'll solve the problem. Anything else?"

"That's it right now, unless you need me to look into any Possibles?"

"I haven't gotten to them yet. It's still pretty early."

"Yeah. Sorry. I had to inform you of the problem before the JC order desk opened up."

"Now you can stop worrying about that and handle your normal business."

"Okay, DD. I'll talk to you later."

After Bob left, I leaned back in my chair and thought about the problem. We needed binding equipment now and there was none to be had for love or money. Or was there? I leaned forward and punched in the number of John Fahey's office. A couple of seconds later, I heard John's voice.

"Hi, John. It's DD. Are you busy?"

"Never too busy for you, boss. What do you need?"

"Can you come up to my office for a few minutes?"

"Sure thing. I'll be right up."

When I heard a knock at the door a few minutes later, I said "Come in," and John entered, breathing a little heavy.

"Have a seat, John, you look winded."

"I ran up the stairs instead of waiting for the elevator."

"I should do that more often," I said.

"Are you kidding? You're in great shape."

"Thanks. I asked you to come up to see if you remembered a place we visited a couple of years ago. It was called South Shore School Supplies."

"The company that South-Core bought thinking they were beating you out of a deal?"

"That's the place."

"Yeah, I remember it. The equipment was all pretty old."

"Yes. Do you remember if they had equipment to do spiral binding on notebooks?"

"Yeah. As a matter of fact they did. They had two or three machines. I guess they used to make their own notebooks at one time."

"Were they in working condition?"

"Yeah, they were working then. But I can't guarantee that they still are, or how long they're going to last. The company that made them is long gone."

"We are in desperate need of binding equipment."

"That old stuff was very labor intensive, boss."

"I know, but our back is to the wall. We have a lot of people that we can recall in a minute to keep the machines going around the clock."

"I heard that our salespeople were swamped with orders for the new notebooks. The binding machines at South Shore can probably only bind four books a minute. Two-hundred-forty books an hour isn't going to make much of a dent in the number we need."

"Right now I'll settle for a dent. Perhaps we can ship partial orders with promises that the rest will be shipped within a month. We have to start somewhere."

"Okay."

"We need to find out if that equipment is still available and working. South-Core operated the place for a while, and then closed it down. I remember reading that they took a seven-million-dollar loss on their books."

"How do you find out what happened to the equipment?"

"The direct approach is probably best. I'd like you to call them and ask."

"Why me?"

"If I called, they'd hang up before I said ten words. Besides, I don't want anyone to know who's looking to purchase the equipment. I remember you saying that everything in the plant was only worth about ten thousand dollars because of its age and condition."

"Yeah. That's what I said."

"When you call them, tell them you came into a little money from an inheritance and you've always wanted to have a small manufacturing plant. Tell them you saw an article in a trade paper a year back where they closed up their plant. Tell them that you can't buy new equipment, but you need to start somewhere. Tell them that if they sell you their old stuff, you'll buy your paper from them when you get going. Lay it on thick."

"Do you want me to call from here?"

"Yes. I can open a direct line out so we don't have to go through Nancy or the switchboard."

"What if they ask for my number to call me back?"

"Do you mind using your home phone number?"

"No, I suppose not."

"Okay, let's give them a call. I think that I saw their number in a trade mag advertisement."

I opened the magazine, wrote the number on a piece of paper, and passed it to John.

"Just punch a nine to get the outside line," I said.

I leaned back in my chair as John called and explained why he was calling. He was passed to several people before he got through to somebody who understood what he wanted. I could only hear his side of the conversation. He nodded as he listened to the responses to his questions. He talked to the person for over ten minutes, and said he'd call back. The person gave him a direct number.

"As far as he knows," John said, "the stuff is still in the same location. He's never seen it. His boss did, but he retired last year. He knows that South-Core advertised it for sale, but no one responded. They have someone very interested in buying the property and must do something with the equipment soon. The prospective buyer wants it gone before he'll even put a deposit down. A scrap dealer offered to remove it and haul it away for a thousand dollars, but his boss nixed that. You heard me tell him that I worked for the previous owner one summer between school years and was familiar with the stuff. I told him I knew it was very old, parts were no longer available for most of it, and it was very labor intensive to operate, but that's the only thing I can afford until I get my business rolling. I said I plan to hire high school kids, part time, to help me get my business started."

"Did he tell you how much they're asking?"

"No, he said I should make an offer."

"Okay, make an offer."

"How much?"

"A thousand dollars."

"That's all?"

"It's better than paying a thousand dollars to a scrap dealer to haul it away."

John smiled and picked up the phone. "How high can I go?"

"How high do you think you should go?"

"No more than ten thousand."

"Okay, John. Make your deal."

I leaned back and listened as John dickered the price with the unseen seller. John kept telling him that the stuff was ancient and almost worthless. He said that if it broke down he would have to sell it for scrap because the companies that made it were all long gone. John made a final offer of two thousand five hundred and refused to budge further. He nodded a few times and then hung up.

"He said that the offer was so low that it was an insult, but he's going to take it to his boss. He told me to call back in fifteen minutes."

"Good job, John. How about a cup of tea?"

"Sounds great, DD. Are you ready?"

"No, I'm fine. Thanks."

John walked into my kitchen and poured himself a cup of tea, then added milk and sugar before coming back to my desk.

"Negotiating like this is exhilarating," John said as he sat down. "A little prevaricating, a little posturing while trying to read your opponent, and a little waiting. I was nervous at first, but it makes you feel alive."

I smiled. "Before you know it, we could have you negotiating million dollar deals."

"No, not me. I'd have a heart attack. A couple of thousand is the most I can handle."

"A couple of thousand, a couple of million, it's all the same. Just a few more zeros in the number."

John chuckled. "I've watched you negotiate several deals. You always seem to know what the other person is thinking and you're prepared with an answer. I had no clue what that guy from South-Core was thinking."

"But you held at $2,500 when you were authorized to go to $10,000?"

"I just decided that that's the most it's worth if we have to dismantle it at the present location, cart it somewhere else, and reinstall it."

"That's all there is really to negotiating a deal. Decide how much you're willing to spend and don't go a penny higher."

"Where is this equipment going to be installed anyway?"

"I don't know. Is there enough room in the Little Rock plant? That's where the other binding equipment is located. It might simplify things if the process was all done in the same location."

"Yeah, sure. These machines don't take up that much space."

"Okay. If we get them, that's where they'll go."

We had been watching the clock, and in fifteen minutes John reached for the phone.

"Don't be so anxious," I said.

"He told me to call back in fifteen minutes."

"Let's wait a little longer. Did you see the binding equipment in Little Rock?"

"Yes, I did."

"How much newer is it then the stuff you saw at South Shore?"

"I'd say that the stuff in Little Rock is about ten to fifteen years old. The stuff at South Shore is probably forty years old."

"That's quite a difference."

"Yes, and it makes a big difference with respect to the manual effort required for operation. The newest stuff these days is almost totally automatic."

When another seven minutes had passed, I let John call his South-Core contact. I watched as they talked, getting the gist of the conversation from John's words. He grimaced as he hung up the phone.

"He said that his boss told him they had just gotten an offer from someone else. The other person is offering six thousand. He says that if I go higher, I might still be able to get it."

"Yeah, I'm sure that someone else called to offer six thousand while you were on the phone making our offer."

"Should I meet their price?"

"No. We'll call them again tomorrow and ask them if the other party took the equipment."

"You want me to come back tomorrow morning?"

"Unless you feel that you'd be more comfortable negotiating from somewhere else."

"No, this is fine."

"Okay. Thanks, John. We'll do it again tomorrow."

"Okay, DD."

I learned Tuesday morning that our sales people had taken orders for another four-hundred thousand MoPacs on Monday, calling for delivery in mid-August. If we had to suddenly find ourselves with a product that was setting industry sales records, why couldn't it have been something we were prepared to produce in great quantities?

John returned at 8:30 to give it another try with South-Core.

"What do I do if they stand firm," John asked.

"Tell them thank you for considering your offer and that you're sorry things didn't work out. This is equivalent to turning around and moving towards the door in a retail store. If the shopkeeper still has room to negotiate, or if he's desperate to sell, he runs after you to drag you back. You can always turn around and make another offer if he doesn't. In this situation, you wait a while and call back with another offer."

"Okay."

John made the call to his contact and was told that the while the other party hadn't returned to wrap up the sale, the boss still wouldn't lower the price. John thanked him and hung up.

"How long do we wait?"

"I'd like to wait for a week, but we're the party under the gun. Let's wait until after lunch, and try a new approach."

"What approach?"

"You'll call, and ask if the other interested party wants all the equipment in the plant. You'll tell your contact that if the other party doesn't need everything, you'd be willing to take a few items off his hands for cash."

"What will that do?"

"It offers the seller a way to reopen negotiations. Right now they've painted themselves into a corner by being adamant about the price. They want to sell, but they don't want to back down. That would be like admitting they were lying about the other offer. I'm equally sure they don't want to let the equipment go for scrap prices, but that's facing them now if they really have to clear the property out. Perhaps we can get just the binding equipment, without having to take all the other junk out."

"Okay, DD. I'll see you after lunch."

"Thanks, John."

After he left I rethought our options. It was maddening that we couldn't get new equipment in less than two months time. I was about to get up and go for a walk outside to clear my head when the phone rang. Nancy told me that Kiel Petersmith was calling.

I waited until I heard the click and said, "Good morning, Kiel."

"Good morning, DD. Hope I'm not interrupting something."

"Nope. I'm just working on the problem I spoke to you about yesterday. Our sales people took orders for another four million notebooks yesterday."

"Four million? That's great."

"Not if we can't deliver by mid-August, it's not. We risk angering hundreds of new found customers."

"I worked on the problem all day yesterday. I called everyone I knew in the forms industry that might be able to help. No one knows of any available wire coil binding equipment, new or used."

"That's too bad. I appreciate your trying though."

"Last night I was reading a book when I suddenly had a thought. Who else uses such equipment?"

Simultaneously we said, "Book printing houses."

"Exactly," Kiel said. "Perhaps some printer has equipment he's not using, and would be willing to sell us. I don't know of anyone offhand."

"That's a wonderful idea, Kiel. Thanks."

"Glad to help, DD."

"I'll let you know how it works out."

After I finished my call with Kiel, I called Nancy.

"Nancy, we've received a number of offers from print houses. I've always rejected them. Would you please pull all those rejection letters and bring them in to my office."

"Yes, Miss Drake. I'll get started on it right way."

A half hour later, Nancy brought in a large box of rejection letters with the attached offer letters.

"I didn't realize there were so many," I said.

"I guess you usually don't spend much time looking at the offers that don't appeal to you."

"I suppose that's it. Thank you, Nancy."

Most of the offers seemed to be from very small print shops, but I read over each one very carefully to make sure I didn't miss one that might have the equipment we needed. When I was done, I had eighteen that specifically listed binding equipment, although none specified wire coil binding. I put the others back in the box and started calling the person who had sent the offer letter.

Of the eighteen companies, thirteen still had working telephone numbers. I gave the five letters from people with non-working numbers to Nancy and asked her to find a way to contact them. She looked at me quizzically and I told her to call information to see if there were new numbers for businesses with the same name. I told her that if she was unsuccessful, she should call the Better Business Bureau, the Rotary, the Chamber of Commerce, or anyone else who might provide a lead. I even told her to call businesses who were located nearby the original businesses to see if any knew how to contact the owner of the printing business.

All of the thirteen with working numbers had wire coil binding equipment, but most of it was slow, low volume equipment, or even manual stuff for very short runs. Only two printers had equipment that approached our current needs, and both said that they would only sell the business intact. One company was in eastern Virginia, and the other was in South Carolina. I immediately made arrangements to visit them on Wednesday.

I called John and told him to forget about South-Core for now, but that I wanted him to accompany me on Wednesday. We made arrangements to meet at my hotel in the morning. I also invited Bill Marshall.

My stomach was tied up in knots, so I went for a long walk around the property, ending up by the picnic benches we had put out under the trees by the river. There was a faint odor coming off the water, but it was mild compared to the chemical odors in the plant. I sat out there until the lunch whistle sounded and then walked back to my office. I smiled about having told Bob that the wheeler-dealer would handle the problem. So far she was striking out.

(continued)

  

  

  

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