Page 18 of Executives' Omega
The elevator dinged, and I looked up to see Mr. McKinney walking toward me. He stopped at the desk and gave me a smile. “Morning, Ryan.”
“M-morning, Mr. McKinney.”
“How many times am I going to have to tell you to call me Linden?”
“Ummm…”
He chuckled. “You don’t have to be so professional when there aren’t clients around. All of this…” he motioned to the pristine executive lobby and glass-walled conference rooms, “is for clients, not for us. We’d likely have corner offices on the account management floor if we didn’t have to keep up appearances.”
I swallowed. “I-I’ll try to remember that, Mr… Linden.”
He grinned and leaned on the edge of the counter that surrounded the desk. “There you go. Isn’t that easier?”
“Umm…”
He burst into laughter. “You’ll get used to it.”
I licked my lips, trying not to stare at his strong jaw and hazel eyes. “I guess…”
He straightened, his laughter diminishing to chuckles. “I’ll see you in my office in an hour.” Then he started walking away.
I blinked. “Wait… what?”
He stopped and turned back to face me. “The phone consultation at ten this morning? You’ll be there to take minutes, right?”
“Oh… I… Yeah, of course.”
He grinned. “Great. See you in an hour.”
Panic set in as soon as he was out of sight. I pulled up my morning to-do list, furiously searching for anything that had to be done before noon.
How had I not realized that I would need to sit in on phone consultations? Part of my job was taking minutes. Surely that meant all meetings, not just the ones in the conference rooms.
I quickly shot off multiple emails: following up on reports I was waiting on. I confirmed several appointments for the following week and returned a couple of calls. By the time I was done, it was time to grab some water and head to Linden’s office.
He waved me in but was focused on a phone call as I entered. It gave me a chance to look around in a way I hadn’t before. Signed and framed football jerseys lined one wall. The other held an oversized abstract triptych above a couch. The room was as bright as everywhere else on the top floor seemed to be, with floor-to-ceiling windows behind his desk.
He hung up the phone and smiled. “That was the assistant to my ten o’clock. He had another meeting run late and will be about five more minutes.”
“I guess I’ll come back then.”
He laughed. “Nonsense. No need to go back and forth. Have a seat.”
I made an unsure noise but sat on one of his guest chairs.
“Wh-what’s the consultation about?” I asked after several seconds of silence.
“Oh!” He looked a bit surprised. “I thought it was in the schedule notes. It’s a software vendor that we’ve been referring clients to quite frequently lately. We’re trying to get better terms due to the volume.”
I blinked. “You get referral payments?”
He tilted his head to one side. “Of course. Why wouldn’t we?”
“I guess…” I started. “I never thought of it.”
He chuckled. “There are plenty of referral programs out there. Affiliate marketers might run review blogs, and get a percentage every time a sale is made with their code. It’s no different for us. We’ve reviewed the product and compared it with its competitors. We know the pros and cons and give advice on which we think is the best option. It’s different because we’re dealing directly with clients, rather than having random web traffic read an article, but it’s still similar.”
“Doesn’t that incentivize you to refer one product over another, if the referral pays more?”
