Total pages in book: 124
Estimated words: 126840 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 634(@200wpm)___ 507(@250wpm)___ 423(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126840 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 634(@200wpm)___ 507(@250wpm)___ 423(@300wpm)
And why would I need to get in touch with Core?
I hadn’t thanked him for looking after me because of whatever Eleanor was up to, but I hadn’t asked him to do that, so that was a lame excuse.
Anyway, he made Bryan’s level of cocky, which I thought was off the charts, look amateur.
“What am I thinking?” I muttered to myself, forcing my laptop screen to come into focus, meaning I forced Core out of my mind, and the first thing I saw was the Google tab I hadn’t closed down that was for Christos’s firm.
As much as it irked me, the operation was done. As sick as it was, we had to wait until Christos screwed Bree some more to try to talk some sense into her, but other than that, unless we wanted to court trouble, we had to let it go.
We weren’t supersleuths, PIs, cops or FBI agents, and five extortionately hot guys living together and running cons was bad business I didn’t need in my life more than it already was through Christos running one such con on my friend Bree.
He was going to take Bree for a ride, and I hated that.
But there was nothing I could do.
And I hated that more.
I lifted my gaze and saw the full layout of my office.
I wished I’d had the idea, and the money, to do something like this.
It was inspired.
It was a new-concept, shared-space business rental. An entire floor, gutted then built with window offices around the circumference, the corner ones bigger (and more expensive to rent). It wasn’t enormous (there were fourteen offices), but it looked bigger with the open plan in the middle, and the offices all having walls of glass facing the inner space.
The middle held handsome furniture, which included low cabinets that provided storage that you could also lease, as well as a waiting area with modern, streamlined furniture and current magazines arranged on the tables.
Further, there were four cubbies in a square, again, that you could rent to seat your PA or staff member (two were taken, and if I hired someone, I’d put her there). There was a copier and fax station, and a cache of office supplies that if we partook were billed to us, but at least we didn’t have to dash out to Target if we needed something, like paper.
And there was a receptionist who dealt with scheduling the conference room we all had access to (the only non-office space on the circumference, and it was kitted out with AV and internet, and white, high-backed swivel chairs, so it looked bomb). She also did the monthly billing, and you could pay extra to have her answer your phones, take messages and handle your schedule.
I did not utilize that service.
All the offices were taken, save a corner one, and I had my eye on it.
But for now, I needed to focus on growing my bottom line so I felt less vulnerable to any client movement, and then I could shift focus to growth.
I was a social media manager.
I started doing this for a friend in college my sophomore year. She filmed videos to show how to do hair because she was really good at it.
Her how-tos were great, but her editing was dire.
I told her I’d show her how to do it better, and somehow, she engineered it so I was doing the editing, not teaching her, and this taught me my first major lesson in business: time and knowledge had value, and I shouldn’t give either away for free.
Her followers escalated, she was raking in freebies and getting offered appearances for money, and when I asked her to pay me, she told me she couldn’t possibly because she was a starving student.
A starving student selling to her fellow students expensive shampoo, conditioner, combs, brushes, pins, hair dryers and all the rest that were given to her in exchange for promotion. In other words, with zero overhead.
I decided screw that and screw her and stopped doing her editing, by which time two other people had approached me, and you better believe I charged them.
She lost followers because suddenly the professional look of her content took a nosedive, and in the end she had to hire someone to do it (she’d asked me to come back first, and I didn’t care what it said about me, it felt good to say no). I looked into the person she hired, and they charged more than I did at that time, by, like, a lot.
Karma.
I found I wasn’t only good at editing, I was fascinated by social media, and I knew I could monetize it on the back end.
So I did.
By day, I went to school to earn my business degree.
By night, I studied and then read everything I could about the social media revolution. The good, the bad, and the terrifying.