"Samantha Taylor is here." Gayle had stuck her head in the door to announce the visitor.
"Bring her in Gayle." I said, as I moved around the desk to meet her at the door.
"Samantha Taylor, this is Bob Eyestone." Said Gayle, then turned and left the room.
"Please have a seat Mrs. Taylor," I said.
"Its miss Taylor," she said as she took the proffered seat.
"Miss Taylor? Are you the owner of the Trucking Company?"
"Yes I am, my father left it to me." She replied. "I've been running the business for the past two years, but I also worked there all through my schooling until I went to work for a CPA firm."
"Yes, I'd heard you were a CPA." I mumbled, my mind turning on the realization that I was dealing with the owner. I had to shift gears from thinking about dealing with an intelligent and surprisingly attractive woman who had no authority to make a decision to the actual owner of the company.
"I'm surprised you were willing to see me Mr. Eyestone, considering how much money you owe me."
"Call me Bob Miss Taylor. I'm actually quite pleased to see you."
"Why are you pleased to see me Bob, do you have the money you owe me?"
"No Miss Taylor, I don't have your money, but I do have something I'm sure you will like much better." I said, noting that she had not asked me to call her Samantha.
"It's late and we have a lot to talk about. Would you let me buy you dinner at the restaurant downstairs?"
She agreed, and we made small talk on the way down in the elevator. It was a high end restaurant, being in Century City, but it was early and we had no trouble getting seated right away. I ordered a bottle of wine and after we ordered dinner I got back to business.
"You're a CPA, so you and I speak the same language. Please sit next to me, I'd like to show you my financials," I said, as I opened a folder and spread out some reports.
Samantha raised an eyebrow as she moved next to me.
"You're going to show me your financials, just like that?" she asked skeptically.
"This is my balance sheet as of the end of the month. Look it over. As you can see I have all my money tied up in inventory and Accounts Receivables. As you can also see, my assets are double my liabilities, so there is equity here."
I gave her a minute to look over the balance sheet, then handed her the rest.
"Now here are my P&L statements for the last 3 months. As you can see, we've been losing money, until last month where we broke even."
I raised my hand to get the waiters attention. When he arrived I order a New York Seltzer and one our own, Kiwi fruit.
"Why do you need a Selzer? Samantha asked.
"Because I want you to taste the best selling Selzer vs our Aussie Selzer. You will quickly see that ours is so much better that even the best selling Selzer water in the country is no competition for us. You've seen the financials and you've seen the rate of increase in sales. We've only just begun, this product is catching on so fast that our order backlog and been doubling each month."
"Ok, I'll do your taste test, but even if you are right why are you telling me all this?"
"Because I need you. My cash inflow is barely enough to cover Cost of Goods Sold; I don't have, and won't have, the money to pay you for another month, and then only partial payments at first. So I'm willing to make you a deal. I have an offer that will involve some risk, but after you've done my little taste test, I think you will decide it's a risk worth taking. I need you to keep shipping my goods for another month before expecting a payment from me. I also need you to establish a warehouse in the Foreign Trade zone."
"Wow, you don't ask for much, do you?" asked Samantha.
"You know it makes sense for us to ship to a Foreign Trade zone warehouse. If it's on foreign soil I don't actually take possession in this country, so I don't pay inventory tax. It ships straight from the warehouse to the customer, I save money.
I'll pay you the cost of the warehouse plus 5% for the first year. After that the shear volume of business is going to make this deal more than worth it for you. My sales are going to increase by 10 to 15% per month, and it would be even better if we could increase our production capacity faster.
Your business is going to double in a year!" I said with emphasis
Samantha's eyes grew wider momentarily as she cocked her head and looked at me.
At that point the waiter arrived with the two Selzers. He handed them to me; I opened them, and handed them to Samantha.
She tasted the New York Seltzer first, then the Kiwi Seltzer, and got a very pleasant look on her face. She tasted it again, and then tried the New York Seltzer again.
"Wow," was all she said.
We sat is silence for a moment while Samantha continued to sip the seltzer and stared at the wall.
"New York Seltzer has several flavors," she said.
"So do we and our superior taste is obvious no matter how you mix and match them." I returned.
"You're only the CFO, how do I know you have the authority to make this decision?"
"The CEO is in Australia working on procuring raw materials. Our requirements are increasing rapidly and we need to make sure we can continue to increase production. He is the one who made this business possible, he takes care of getting the product over here, and when he's here he takes care of finding buyers. I do pretty much everything else."
The food and the wine arrived and we had a pleasant dinner together. We talked about other things than business and got to know each other a little. The wine was having an affect on both of us and we were very relaxed. After Samantha finished looking at the financial statements she had remained sitting next to me. Our knees were in constant contact, and frequently our arms as well. I was immensely attracted to her the moment we met, and the attraction had only increased as the evening wore on. I was anxious to know if Miss Taylor' had a Significant Other. One thing I had noted was that she was not making any attempt to appear attached.
After dinner we had more business to discuss, so we took the elevator back up to the 18th floor.
Back in my office, I opened a bottle of our Cabernet, which we also imported from Australia.
It wasn't as good as the wine we had at dinner, but it was good enough. We both sat on the edge of my desk looking at the view. Night had fallen since we left and the view had changed from a view of the Pacific Coast to the lights of the city, equally as spectacular.
"I have not yet addressed how I'm going to pay you back the money I owe you," I said.
"I'll give you 5% of my profits for the first year. By the end of the year that will equal more than I owe you, assuming of course that you believe my projections."
"I believe your projections. I've tasted your competition, and I've tasted your product," she said, with a seductive look on her face.
"Does this mean we have a deal, Miss Taylor?" I asked, looking her in the eye and moving my face a little closer to hers. She leaned a little closer to me and said,
"Call me Sam," and then she got off the desk and walked around behind me.
"I assume you have a contract for me to sign?" She asked.
"Hmmm, she's a tease," I thought.
With a grin I stood and took a file from my desk. I retrieved the blank contract and handed it to her. She sat in my chair at the desk and read over the contract while I stood taking in the view and sipping my wine.
"I think this is acceptable," she said and she handed me the contract, her signature displayed on the bottom.
"Well then, let's toast to a new partnership," I said, and we clinked glasses and took a sip, each looking the other in the eyes.
"I propose that we have dinner together in one month and I'll give you your first payment," I said.
"Sounds like a plan to me," she replied with a smile.
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