We Are Bleeding Money | Part 7
Bleeding is never a good thing. On the street or on a balance sheet.
Gordon took the call in Sunbeam. The conference room was named Sunbeam after the one time someone had opened the blinds in the afternoon. Probably around 2001. The glass table held a neat pile of project scopes that Gordon had been instrumental in “getting across the finish line.” Gordon had printed them out and arranged them in front of him. He fanned them out with his thumbs. He wanted to see them all at once. Prove to himself that he knew what he was doing.
The North & Main Owners were already on the call when he joined. Three rectangles. One with a tasteful painting. One with a view of a vast bay. One with a blank white wall that basically screamed: I do not have any personality, but I do have money. They all looked abnormally unbothered. Corporate resting face.
“Gordon,” said the Vast Bay. “Thanks for joining. I know it was short notice.”
Gordon smiled the way he had learned to smile in rooms with room temperature, aerated water in glass bottles. He saw his image, small in the corner, and tried to fix his hair with a lick of spit and his fingers. It didn’t help.
“We have to talk runway,” said Tasteful Painting. Straight to business. She had used the same term in a Q1 slideshow that also used a lot of arrows.
“We’re bleeding money,” said Blank Wall. As Gordon knew all too well, bleeding is never a good thing. On the street or on a balance sheet. The silence on the call had a weight he recognized. The same weight as a different silence, years ago, in a place he’d trained himself not to think about. His body remembered even when his mind refused to.
Gordon nodded. “We have some big pitches in play,” he said. “Ford, for one.”
“They called this morning,” said Tasteful Painting. “They went with Leo Burnett. Those smug British fucks took our all-American account.”
Gordon smiled without teeth. The kinda smile you see from every white guy you pass while hiking in the woods. “Understood.”
Vast Bay sighed. “Projects are taking 97 days to complete. On average. That means the final delivery payment is taking 97 days or more.”
Gordon rubbed his eyes. He knew he needed to respond. He knew that the gun was now to his head, and there was a round in the chamber. “We can right-size,” he responded, but it sounded hollow. “There’s an appetite for short-form content. That could speed up deliveries. Speed up timelines. Create more recurring revenue.”
Blank Wall didn’t blink. “Headcount is the plan.” But “headcount” is just a word until you picture the heads.
“How many?” Gordon asked.
“Fifty percent by Friday,” said Tasteful Painting. She could have been shopping for lamps. Jarringly calm.
At that exact moment, North & Main employed 61 people, if you count the intern with the perfect bangs who always made coffee.
“That will impact delivery,” Gordon said. “We are mid-scope on State Farm. We’re mid-scope on Swiffer.”
“You’re mid-scope on a lot of work that is not profitable,” Blank Wall rebutted.
Vast Bay adjusted the tchotchkes on her desk. “And Gordon, we need to bring revenue above 6.7 million.” The line was quiet.
“Understood,” Gordon responded after too long, not sure at this moment if that was actually feasible.
Tasteful Painting nodded softly and cracked a smile. She intended to calm Gordon with her soothing facial position, a technique she had learned at a weekend business seminar at Harvard. She would never say it out loud, but it was mostly for the LinkedIn clout. “We value you,” she said, which has as much meaning as asking, “How’s it going?” Everyone knows you just say “good.”
Blank Wall pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “You have until Friday for the… reduction, then we need a full plan for next quarter. We will expect to see new accounts, named leaders, and a clear point of view on who is absolutely necessary.”
Gordon nodded, and the rectangles signed off, one by one. He walked to the window and pulled the blinds, blasting the room with light. The city looked like a set, a backdrop you have printed to shoot New York on a soundstage in Los Angeles. He watched the woman in the building across the street water her plants. He wondered if she ever thought about what went on in the room he was standing in. If she ever imagined that inside, men argued about words that sold trucks. Or car insurance. Or convenient broom alternatives that make their money from the endless refills. Or who should or should not be getting a pink slip.
He opened a blank document, named it ‘Plan.’ He started typing out names from memory, then backspaced over them. He made a new column for ‘Rates.’ He made another for ‘Client Relationships.’ He was slicing the North & Main body into tiny little pieces, and he did, in fact, feel like Jeffrey Dahmer.
He tried to think practically. Instead, he thought about people, the worst way possible to remove all practicality from a decision. He thought about contribution. Who was actually doing the work, and who was simply adding their name to the cover page of the group project? That was the true practical approach, so he kept going.
He called HR. Pam answered on the second ring in her jarring baby voice. “Hi Gordon.”
“Can you meet me in my office?” he asked.
If you’re new here, I write a monthly serialized novel called Everything is Advertising, about a burned-out Creative Director and his cynical team that accidentally create QAnon through a viral marketing campaign. If you like that kind of thing, you can start at Part One and catch up from there.
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Photo Credit: Aurelien Thomas