Page 9 of Sleigh Rides With St. Nick

Nick's lips quirked up into a smile and he reached out to take it, smoothing his thumb across the back of it."I'm Nick, co-CEO of Cringle."

I raised an eyebrow."I suppose you did say you were in manufacturing."

"And you said you were in marketing," he responded.

The man with him faked a cough, making me more than a little aware of the fact we hadn't broken our handshake yet.

Nick looked down and seemed to remember what he was supposed to be doing, letting go of my hand."This is my co-CEO, Pieter."

"Good to meet you," he responded, shaking my hand in a much more perfunctory manner.There was something familiar about him, and it took me a moment to realise that he'd also been at the Jinx mixer, and was the friend that Nick said he'd come with."Shall we get started?"He looked between us as if he expected one of us to say no.

"Of course."I retook my seat."So I'm here today to talk about your needs as a company.There's only a short window until Christmas, so there's not much time to get everything in order.But we might be able to run some smaller social media campaigns.It will be difficult to get some of the big influencers under contract at this point, but some of the smaller ones should be available, and working with micro-influencers has a lot of potential."

Nick gave me a blank look."I don't know what any of those are."

Right, I hadn't considered that."Oh.Erm, in general, we pay for placement with influencers and send them one of your products.They'll demonstrate the product and hopefully their followers buy it."

"I see."He looked thoughtful."And this sells toys?"

"It can do," I said."It can also do nothing.It's a bit of a gamble."

"What other options do we have?"Pieter asked.

"We could do a flash sale on your website, but for that, we need to build some hype and make sure you've got the stock available," I said."And that the website won't crash.I can talk to your IT team if you think that's going to be an issue."

"How would we get the word out about that?"Nick asked.

"That would be a bit of a challenge given the lack of time, but you have a good following on social media, and we can leverage your mailing list."

"I don't think we can get flyers printed in that quantity in time," Nick said.

"Your email marketing list," I clarified, watching him closely and wondering how old he was.Given everything I already knew about him, I had to assume that he was some kind of fae, and considering he wasn't thinking in modern marketing terms, that put him at the older end of things.It was the same when it came to my dad, he was clueless about modern technology and sometimes thought it was still the eighteenth century in terms of how things worked.It had been a bit of a pain when I'd first started wanting to date and he'd tried to impose strict rules, but he'd gotten on board quickly enough.

"Ah, I forgot we had that," he admitted sheepishly.

I took a deep breath."Have you been sending out emails?"I asked."Or has the list gone stale?"

"I'm not sure."

The other man grimaced."Sometimes."

"Okay, then the first thing I'm going to need is to have access to the business assets.Your newsletter list, social media, and anything else that you use for marketing.I'll do a full audit and make a plan based on that.But if things are in bad shape, then it might not be possible to have much ready to go before Christmas."

"That's fine," Nick said.

"No, it's not," Pieter countered."Christmas should be the busiest time of the year for us."

"If it's going to take longer, then it'll take longer," Nick responded.

"It might not even be an issue," I said quickly."I just need to know what I'm working with.After that, I can give you timelines and a more accurate view of what we can manage in the time available."As much as Nick seemed like a great guy, it just wouldn't be possible for me to pull off miracles this close to Christmas, no matter what the name of the agency I worked for was.

"I think that sounds acceptable," Nick said.

Pieter let out a frustrated sigh, but from the way he looked at his friend, I had to assume that it wasn't actually aimed at me, but at him."I'll get you everything you need."

"Thank you."I gave him what I hoped was a friendly smile."Would you prefer it if I worked from your offices, or remotely?"

"There's a spare office here if you'd like," Nick said quickly."Perhaps we could have a welcome-to-the-building coffee so we can talk and I can make sure it has everything you need."

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