Page 44 of The Billionaire's Wake-up-call Girl

To whom it may concern:

I’m interested in contracting with you to hire the operator I’m currently working with as a dedicated provider for me and my business. Money is no object. Please call me at your earliest convenience.

Sincerely,

Theo Drummond, CEO, Vossameer.

1-212-555-1561

He wants me all to himself.

My pulse races as I reread it. I don’t know how to feel about it.

It’s kind of pushy and entitled. At the same time, it’s flattering. Is he a little bit jealous? Wondering how I talk to my other clients?

So he’s just going to buy up all my time. Make me talk to him.

And I have no idea what to reply. Obviously the answer is no. Operator Seven is booked—we established that yesterday.

But if money is no object, you’d think Hello Morning would find a way to accommodate him.

I wring my hands. I tell myself I don’t have to write back right away. Maybe my company is busy calling people around the world. Maybe the CEO is in Bermuda.

An hour later, Mr. Drummond sends another email.I’m following up on my previous query, copied below. I’m looking to expedite this process. Please respond at your earliest convenience.

My pulse races. I feel like a fugitive. If I keep ignoring him, he’ll just send more emails. Or maybe he’ll try to investigate harder. No, I have to answer. I look around for Sasha, and then I pull out my phone and hit reply.

Dear Mr. Drummond:

We appreciate your interest in contracting with Operator Seven, but she is committed to a full roster of clients at this time, and there are no circumstances under which we would break that commitment. We appreciate your understanding and wish you luck with your search for a suitable alternative.

Just to annoy him, I sign it,The cheerful folks at Hello Morning.

I send it off.

No email comes back.

An hour later I’m really stressing. Was it too much? Too unbelievable? Who wouldn’t at least give him a price for buying out all these contracts?

I cringe every time I hear voices up front in reception, thinking he’ll have seen the time stamp on the ad and figured the thing out.

I eat my smell-free lunch, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, trying to get into the competitive analysis part of the Instagram strategy, but I feel like this whole thing is spinning out of control.

No, I think, it’s not spinning out of control! I’m lasting like a champ. Just the rest of today, then two days to go! I put more work into the Instagram rationale for Sasha. I talk about how people love a little drama, love to pull for the underdog, and this lab journal angle lets them in on that. I suggest a few junior chemists who could log his daily progress. We could do an image of the day—papers and beakers. Explanations in layperson’s terms.

Stanley from accounting calls me that afternoon. He wants me to come down and discuss a problem with the vendor I submitted, namely that thereneeds to be an address and phone number for payment to process.

Hmm. I wonder what vendor that could be?LOL.

I head down.

Unsurprisingly, the vendor turns out to be none other than Hello Morning. Stanley shows me his computer screen. It’s some sort of invoicing program. He points out the fields that need information. Did somebody get a call from his boss?

“This service doesn’thavean address and phone number,” I say. “I think they send emails from a PayPal address.”

“We can’t pay them from our system without that contact info.”

“I see,” I say, trying to sound unhappy. “Let me email them and try to get that info.”

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