“Why the hell isn’t he here?” I barked at John’s assistant.
She blinked at me and I paced back and forth in his empty office. The bastard told me he would be in this morning before the gown appointment he had with Jennifer.
“I don’t know what to tell you, Mr. Campbell. He hasn’t been in all morning, and he is not taking calls.”
I stopped pacing and looked at her.
I raked my hand through my hair and tried to squeeze my brow together. I had the marketing pitch to attend, and I wanted to run some budgetary numbers by John before signing off.
“Sorry,” I apologized. She didn’t deserve my stress. Jillian was smart and capable, that’s how she managed to put up with John for the past five years. So far, she’d lasted longer than any of his other assistants.
“When do you expect him to be back?”
“Honestly?” She quirked her eyebrows up. “I don’t.”
“That’s what I was afraid of.”
If he didn’t want to be present or reachable, he would have to live with my decisions.
“If he does bother to check-in, please let me know.”
“Of course, Mr. Campbell,” she said as I strode out of John’s office.
Back in my office, I slid into my chair, pulled the bottle of Tums out of the drawer, and angrily chewed two tablets. I grabbed my bottle of water and cursed that it wasn’t coffee as I gulped half of it down.
I checked my email and shot off a few responses that did not require answers from other sources. I reviewed some of the past marketing campaigns. I wanted to know what I was headed into. Some of the campaigns from the old man’s time were entertaining. And then I found the last campaign that the marketing department of CP Manhattan produced.
John was right. It was little more than a postcard. In fact, in the past year marketing had done little more than a few internet ads and postcards. Postcards did not elicit client confidence, they wouldn’t for me, and I wouldn’t expect that from our clients either.
By the time I made it to the executive conference room, I was dead set against postcards and ready to protest anything marketing had to present.
Two women sat on either side of the head of the table and a third was leaning over and discussing something with them. I had to pause for a moment. It wasn’t professional to ogle. It didn’t matter that I was suddenly in the presence of an angel with the body of a wet dream. That reaction had to be smothered and kept to myself.
“I’m Chase Campbell.” I extended my hand to the other women, before reaching out to the angel. I was rewarded with a perfect grin set in a perfect face with a delicate chin, broad high cheekbones, a little nose with a delightful smattering of freckles, pale green eyes so large they made their owner look like she was animated, and a mass of golden strawberry blond ringlets.
“Nice to meet you,” she practically whispered, and my balls squeezed in tight trying to hear her better.
“Mr. Campbell, I’m Maggie Jakes, the new head of marketing. This is Bria Marsters and Gem Lafayette. We are your marketing team.”
Gem, it was the perfect name for her.
I shook my head, clearing the inappropriate and sudden onslaught of lustful thoughts. I focused on Maggie.
“We understand—”
“No postcards,” I blurted out.
“Excuse me?” Maggie asked.
“No postcards. I’ve reviewed some of the past campaigns, and—”
“And the team that up and quit did so because they were limited to nothing but postcards,” the one named Bria said. I liked her, no-nonsense, cut to the point.
Maggie sighed. I glanced quickly at Gem to see if she sighed as well. A sigh with her figure could be dangerous— to me. I quickly put my focus back on Maggie.
“Well, this isn’t exactly how I had intended on getting here, but we’re here. So, let’s talk postcards.”
And we did. And I learned a great deal about what this marketing department wanted to be allowed to do, and why the previous department walked.
“And that brings us to CP Manhattan’s social media presence,” Gem said. I didn’t want to stare at her, fearful that I might stop paying attention to the words while I was focused on how her mouth moved. What would those pearly white teeth look like biting into the plump pink flesh of her lip? I felt my groin tighten and reminded myself I needed to listen to the words coming out of her mouth. I flipped open the leather-covered notebook I always brought to meetings and began taking notes. This gave me a reason not to look at her. And writing her words down was good, in case I got lost in the dulcet sound of her voice.
“We have a Twitter, I think,” I said.
“The fact that you aren’t sure demonstrates exactly how out of sync CP Manhattan is with the rest of contemporary businesses. Welcome to the twentieth century.”
I looked directly at her, disappointed my angel could be that dumb. “It’s the twenty-first century Ms. Lafayette.”
“Exactly, but it doesn’t look like CP Manhattan is quite aware of that fact. The company doesn’t have any other social media presence beyond a website and Twitter. No one manages the Twitter account.”
“I believe John Peters is in charge of that,” I said, recalling something John said about tweeting.
“He may be, but he actually isn’t,” Gem continued. “The last tweet that CP Manhattan did was over five years ago, and the last reply posted was nonsensical. The company got in rather early with Twitter, but tweets and comments have been few and far between.”
“I don’t think our clients…”
“But your clients do.” She pushed a printout to me with names in one column and numbers in several other columns.
“CP Manhattan’s current clients are on social media. CP Manhattan’s future clients are as well. And the competition knows this.”
“So we need to make sure to use Twitter more,” I shrugged.
“It’s more than that. More than Twitter. The website also hasn’t been updated in over five years. I’m not sure what happened at that point. If these issues all dated further back, I’d understand, but they don’t. Your photo on the ‘About Us’ page makes you look like a teenager.”
I ran a hand over my beard. I knew the photo well. John and I had taken it the year after we took over the business. We were fresh-faced and eager to prove we could handle the jobs fate had given us twenty years too early. That photo was almost ten years old.
“Tell me what you propose.” I sat up and looked each woman in the eyes. I may have lingered over Gem’s a little longer, but I ended up looking at Maggie. That was her cue to tell me more.
“This outreach initiative needs to be done in several phases. The first phase requires us to create more positions at CP Manhattan. We need a full-time Social Media Manager, and we need a full-time website team.”
“You want us to pay someone to play on Twitter all day?”
“That’s going to be your first mistake, thinking that running social media is playing,” Gem said. She wasn’t afraid to tell me I was wrong. I liked that. John would hate her; it was a good thing he didn’t come.
“Social media takes careful planning and positioning. That position is the very front line of the company’s brand. How they respond to incoming messages and tweets sets the tone and mood of people’s expectations of the company. Have you ever looked at the fast-food industry tweets? They are all sarcastic, snarky, and funny. They play with each other. And that fits their branding of being fun food, and happy enjoyable memories being made with their food.” Gem was certainly enthusiastic about the use of social media for client reach.
“Rebranding?” I asked.
“Not at all but taking the existing brand to the people. CP Manhattan is a niche market. But we don’t know what demographics really plug into that niche.”
They made perfect sense. We needed to expand ways for people to find us. That would never happen with postcards.
“How many positions are we talking about?” I asked.
Maggie cast an excited glance to Bria and Gem.
“Ideally five, in addition to the positions we are still filling within the department. Two on social media, and three on the website.”
“Why three for the website? Once you’ve updated the images…” I held my hands up, I didn’t know what else would need to happen.
“Websites need to be constantly maintained. Three is the minimum. We need both technical and creative people on the website. Hiring out for a corporate website is a thing of the past. Maybe for a design overhaul, but weekly maintenance, we really need that in-house.”
I leaned back and crossed my arms behind my head. Had John ever paid attention to the marketing department, or had he told them since postcards were good enough for our fathers, they’d be good enough for us? If I were checking out a potential business and their website was five years old, I’d probably not go with them.
“And no postcards?” I asked.
“Mr. Campbell I’d like to never see another postcard come out of my department again,” Maggie said with conviction. Both Bria and the lovely Gem nodded in agreement.
John wasn’t here.
“Send me the job parameters and descriptions and I’ll sign off for HR to create your positions,” I said. “Let’s do this.”
