Tom did a quick calculation. ‘Eight percent? That adds up to a lot of moolah. How much of that would be mine then?’
‘I’ll do all the advertising, I reckon on going down the exhibition route, works well in the UK. Bring in the punters in their hundreds to a big venue, loads of good display material, the usual, like you see at the big shows in London. You flog the stuff off; we can break the development into phases to stop flooding the market, maybe get to raise the prices a bit on later phases. I reckon we can easily sell twenty or thirty places any weekend, maybe more than that if you get a good run at it, and I’ll give you at least a grand a pop for every sale closed. One percent of the sale price to be exact. If you give it one good year, you should earn at least a million.’
Tom absentmindedly stirred his coffee. ‘This is all a bit sudden, but I like the numbers anyway. Can I think about it for a few days?’
‘Don’t think too long, I need to get moving on this. I have an exhibition booked for three weekends from now, and I’d need you back in Dublin in less than two weeks.’
‘You should go for it, Tom; you’re wasting your talents selling timeshares.’ Henry looked at the young salesman. ‘Chance of a lifetime, lad; Harry is all right and you’d be better off away from Alan Merchant, he’ll be trouble in the long term.’
‘You are leaving, I know you are.’ Carmen was crying.
‘How do you figure that out?’
‘Last evening you bring to the bins much garbage, many trips over and back, and now there is nothing left in the apartment, no food, no personal stuff. I know you are leaving.’ She hugged the pillow to herself and wept bitterly.
‘I was going to tell you, but I didn’t want to hurt you, didn’t know where to begin.’
‘You could begin by telling me always the truth maybe? You are one fucked-up person, Tom, you know that? You have no emotion, nothing, nada.’
She got out of bed and dressed quickly, throwing pillows and cushions around angrily as she looked for her clothes. ‘You Irish, all the same, you want to sleep with Spanish girl but you no want to stay with her.’ She slammed the door as she ran from the apartment.
Tom sighed; it was a pity about Carmen. She was a decent sort, had helped him move from the rented apartment up to his new place, and had made sure he got back his full deposit from the place downstairs. She was right though, he was never going to be serious about her; there was something about an Irish girl that was so much more appealing. There would be plenty more fish in the sea, and there would be time enough for fishing when he got back there.
The plane was less than half full and he slept for much of the way. The announcement from the captain woke him; they were beginning their descent, only half an hour before he would be back on Irish soil. It felt good in a way, especially now that Walter had managed to find him a great apartment that would be ready to live in before the end of the month. In the meantime, Walter and Pamela had invited him to stay with them.
It would be good to live in a proper home for a while; this bachelor living could be a bit boring sometimes. A part of him wanted to settle down, to find a nice girl and make a proper home with her, but maybe that would happen now that he was making the move back to his native city. The apartment in Puerto Banus would keep; it would make a useful base for any time he had to come to Marbella on business, and his capital would be appreciating a lot faster that it would in the bank in Gibraltar.
It had all happened quickly after that dinner with Harry Corbett in Benehavis. They had driven out the following morning to the site at Playa Verde and met with the developer and the marketing manager on site. The project was huge, and the excavators were busy moving truckloads of earth around to create the landscape that would merge the golf course with the buildings that would surround it. The sales manager pointed out the location of the various blocks, as well as the hotel and clubhouse, and Tom quickly grasped the overall picture. He was able to get a mental picture of where each block was to be built, as well as being able to visualise where each apartment type would be located and the aspect that would be enjoyed by each property. He was mentally drawing up his sales pitch, working out a strategy for selling every apartment no matter which way it faced or on which floor it was located. His selling experience in the timeshare development would stand him in good stead; he had developed an ability to carry a mental three dimensional picture of each apartment building in his head, so that he could make a sales pitch for almost any apartment and sound like he knew it intimately.
Alan had been good enough about his leaving under the circumstances, and paid him most of what was coming to him. ‘We’re nearly out of this one anyway, Tom, and I think I’ll give it a rest for a while. It’s getting harder and harder to stay ahead of the newspapers and the television stations and their investigative journalists; everybody wants to throw mud on our profession nowadays.’
The taxi man was foreign, hadn’t much to say except to ask for directions several times. Tom wondered at the rapid changes taking place in his native city; it was a first to meet a taxi driver who seemed to have no idea of where he was going.
Harry was at work before him the following morning; this guy wasn’t afraid to get stuck in. His desk was piled high with brochures, enlarged photos and all kinds of publicity material. He pulled out two photocopies of advertisements from the pile and handed them to Tom.
‘Welcome to Sunspots, Tom, sorry I haven’t time to roll out the red carpet. These two ads are going into two of the Sunday papers this week; I need you to write the editorial to go in with them.
Tom was surprised. ‘Do the newspapers allow you to write the editorial? I thought that that was their job.’
‘If you saw what I’m paying for the bloody ads to those gangsters… There’s no bloody way that I’m giving them that amount of money and not be allowed to write my own editorial.’ Harry was under pressure.
‘Ok. Give me a general idea of what you want; do I just praise the development up to the skies, no hint of objectivity or anything?’
‘That’s the idea. The last thing I want is objectivity, just make it half and half, deal with the development itself and then the prospects for investing in Spain. Make it look like Connor Morris wrote it, his name will go on it. There’s a copy of the paper there from last week, give you an idea of his style, stick to that more or less.’
‘And the same with the other one, the one for the Globe?’
‘Yes, but don’t make it the same article obviously, just the same message. Do it in the style of Murtagh, make it look like he wrote it. Shouldn’t be too hard, the fucker is nearly illiterate by the look of a lot of what he writes. I think he just copies out brochures and puts his name to them, nice handy way to make a living.’
Tom cleared a space on the desk in the corner and got stuck in. It was good to be back in a normal work environment, even if the sky outside was grey and the rain wasn’t far away. If truth be told, he had been getting tired of selling to the losers who trudged in to Pueblo Alto Blanco; the only good thing about that place was the money. Still, it should be even better here if Harry had his sums done.
By ten o’clock the two articles were ready for the Sunday papers. Harry looked them over and nodded his approval. ‘There’s a great property journalist lost in you, Tom, these are better than the junk that those two peddle every week. They’ll have an easy ride this week, all their work done for them. Pull out the best pictures you can get from the developer’s stuff and let them off. That’s that job done at least.’
They retired to the meeting room with two cups of coffee to discuss strategy. Harry seemed to have most of the problems figured out; he had obviously been thinking about this operation for several months. He outlined the way that they would approach the selling process; they would need to sell substantial numbers of apartments if this was to work.
‘I’ll have to spend a lot of money on advertising, but that’s not your problem. I’ll also do a lot of public relations work, but the idea of
hundreds of Irish people owning homes abroad is one that will tickle the fancies of the media people and it should be easy enough.’
‘So do you want me to have an input into that side of things?’ Tom didn’t want to take on anything that he wasn’t paid to do, but he also wanted this business to work and was prepared to give it his best efforts.
‘You know the Costa del Sol like nobody else in this business around here, so it would be useful if you did some bumph on that side of the business. I’ll need you to write the website material as well, background stuff on Marbella and the Costa generally. I can do bits on the golf; I didn’t waste all my time down there.’ Harry smiled.
‘I don’t know much about websites, I never really did anything in that area.’
‘Don’t worry about the mechanics of it, just write the stuff and I have a technical guy that will shove it into the right place on the website. Keep it like the stuff you wrote this morning, half on the location and the development, and half on the potential for investment down there.’
‘So what about the exhibitions? Where will we do them?’
‘I have the ballroom of the Old Masters Hotel booked every second weekend for the rest of the year, and hopefully we can fill it every time. We start on Fridays at lunchtime, about twelve o’clock so we can catch the office crowd, and we work late Friday nights. Then we do two full days on Saturday and Sunday, start about ten and finish whenever the last person has left more or less.’
Tom liked the sound of it all, it seemed like there was a chance to make an awful lot of sales if Harry’s PR could talk up the idea of investing in Spain. Sunspots seemed to be a very focussed company, and it enjoyed the backroom backup of Harry’s existing estate agency business, so it carried very little in the way of overheads. There was one thing worrying him though.
‘Will you and I be enough to deal with a stampede of sales if the crowds are big? Do we need some extra salesmen?’
Harry pondered the question. ‘I don’t want to hire anyone else, I think you and I can do most of it, what do you think yourself?’
Tom paused, if they took on another salesman it would dilute both their returns, but on the other hand what if they lost sales because people got tired waiting to see someone? ‘I have an idea that might be worth considering. I have a friend in the business here, and he doesn’t work weekends, maybe he could do the Sundays if they prove to be busy.’
‘Is that Walter, the guy you’re staying with?’
‘Yes, top class salesman, old enough to give an air of respectability as well when he teams up with yourself.’
‘Might be a good idea, do you think he would like to work a few weekends? Maybe his boss wouldn’t be too happy to see him working for the opposition.’
‘I don’t really see a problem; I mean they aren’t in the foreign property business, and Sunspots is completely separate from your own home-based operation. Anyway, if you’re happy to go with it, I’ll ask him tonight.’
They went through a list of items that Harry had made on his notepad, and Tom was surprised at how much of the detail the older man had thought of. He had obviously been working on this project for months, and his grasp of the small issues was impressive. In particular, his idea about the lawyer was very good.
‘There’s this guy Miguel, he’s a young lawyer from De Silva’s law office in Marbella. He’ll fly in every Friday of an exhibition weekend and set up his stall in the hotel. Ostensibly he’ll be there to give Spanish legal advice, but in reality he will be there to make sure that as many sales as possible are tied up on the day. He can take deposits as well as tying down the buyers, and that will mean that we have already moved on that buyer to the legal process in Spain, so we can more or less forget about them. We can then spend the early part of the week chasing up the ones that have paid deposits but haven’t talked to the lawyer.’
‘I think that an essential part of the selling process will be to persuade buyers that they should deal with the lawyer, save themselves a trip to Spain and all that.’
‘Yes, but not at the expense of dropping a sale, some people will think that we are out to do them anyway, and they’ll be paranoid about dealing with a Spanish lawyer. In fact, De Silva’s are one of the best firms in that area; they won’t do any better if they go out to Spain and look for their own lawyers.’
Harry pushed back his chair; they seemed to have covered most of the issues and everything looked to be well on track for the first exhibition. ‘How about yourself, Tom; any questions, or do you see any problems?’
‘No, I’m happy enough with the way it’s going, just raring to go really.’
‘Just one thing.’ Harry looked straight at Tom. ‘I know you’re a great salesman, and I also know that you are ruthless, that’s why you’re here to some extent. We may differ on how far each of us would be prepared to go to get a sale; I’d ask you to keep this operation clean, don’t sell to anyone who doesn’t know what they are getting into, don’t promise them too much regarding rental income from these properties for instance, keep it the upper side of realistic but no more than that.’
‘You don’t believe in ‘buyer beware’?’ Tom was smiling. ‘I don’t see it as our role to give advice on property, or investment either. Surely we are just there to sell the stuff and it’s up to them to check out the background to what’s on offer.’
‘Look, I know we have a different view on this, and in many ways I have no problem with that, but all I’m saying is that I’d rather lose a few sales than to walk someone into something that they can’t afford.’
‘But surely if they are coming in to us to buy an apartment, then it presupposes that they can afford it?’
Harry pondered Tom’s response for a moment. ‘There can always be the odd exception to the rule, the person who gets carried away with it all. Somebody like that really throws themselves at our mercy; all it takes to ruin their lives is for an unscrupulous salesman to tell them for instance that they can get fifty two weeks rent a year at so much a week, and that maybe they can borrow the money for the property and it will pay for itself. I just don’t want Sunspots to go down that road.’
‘But don’t you accept that it might be a valid sales pitch to suggest that you might get a hundred percent rental? I mean, it does happen sometimes, so why not mention it?’
‘Tom, we could argue the toss about this all day, but I’m just saying, let’s not screw anyone, ok?’
‘You’re the boss, but maybe we should concentrate on the rule rather than the exceptions; I want to sell as many of these apartments as possible, and maybe the other issue won’t arise. Anyway, I take your point.’
The ballroom looked great. The video presentation that the developer had produced was running constantly in a loop, projected on to the big screen on the wall opposite the entrance. The large display posters were stretched on their aluminium frames, showing off the development at its best. Three desks were set along the entrance wall, one each for Tom and Harry; Walter would be joining them on Saturday and Sunday. Miguel, the young Spanish lawyer, had a desk on the side wall, along with a huge display stand manned by the Spanish tourist board. This had been Tom’s idea, although late in the week, but the Spaniards were delighted at the opportunity to show their wares and had even been persuaded to pay for the stand.
The Flamenco guitarist had been Tom’s idea as well, and his lively strumming in the lobby area helped give a festive atmosphere to the place. A long table by the other side wall had rows of coffee and tea cups lined up on it, and the hotel staff had been instructed to keep the tea and coffee pots replenished every half hour.
Harry looked around at the layout; he was pleased, it had been a hard morning’s work setting up all the displays. ‘Now that it’s done, I’m suddenly nervous. If nobody turns up, we’re both fucked.’
‘They’ll turn up all right.’ Tom was more optimistic. ‘If we only go by the media interest all week, we seem to have struck a chord with the public. I think that we are
on the cusp of something very big.’
‘That will bring its own problems.’ Harry was in a pessimistic mood. ‘If we start a big ball rolling, every other company will jump on the bandwagon and we might get lost in the rush. We spend the money to create the market, and everybody else benefits.’
Tom was less worried. ‘We have a six month start on them, and we have a great product. It’ll take anyone else several months to get off the start line; we’re ahead and we just need to stay ahead.’
‘True enough, but that reminds me, we need to be aware that some of the customers here over the weekend will be spies from other companies, picking our brains. If we spot that line of questioning, make sure we give nothing away.’
‘Good thinking. Once we’re aware of the possibility, we may be able to spot them. Feed them a line of bullshit maybe; send them off on a wild goose chase.’
Harry laughed. ‘Just be careful that you’re not feeding the bullshit to a genuine customer, someone who just asks a lot of questions. I know what you mean though; we should be able to spot some of them at least.’
Tom looked at his watch. ‘Ten minutes to lift-off, time for a quick cup of coffee before my public arrives.’
Harry nodded towards the door. ‘Too late, here they come.’
A couple of people wandered in through the doorway, looking around hesitantly as though they might run out again at the slightest excuse.
‘Don’t make any loud noises, you might frighten them away.’ Harry spoke quietly as he watched the tentative progress of the first customers towards the display stands.
‘I’ll cut them off at the pass.’ Tom strolled towards the door and came up behind the first customer, a middle aged man in a business suit who was studying the displays intently. ‘Good afternoon, sir, welcome to the show. Can I be of assistance?’
‘No thanks, just having a look.’
Tom wasn’t to be deterred. ‘Let me tell you what’s on offer. We are here today to give investors a chance to buy one of the best developments in Spain at pre-launch prices, a chance to buy a home in a dream location at a better price than you will be able it get it for when it comes on the market in Spain.’
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