Frosting Her Christmas Cookies - Alina Jacobs Page 0,24
seemed slightly off-kilter at having my ice queen sister taking their measure. “Since there is no land deal, and we’re all here to talk about Jonathan’s alcohol vanity project, I look forward to the meeting,” she said, striding into the elevator.
The elevator ride up was awkward. Carl looked between Hunter and Greg. “How the turn tables.”
“Shut up!” they both barked at him.
“You know how I like my coffee,” Belle stated to Greg when we stepped off the elevator.
“Get her coffee,” Greg barked at Carl.
“What the—I don’t know how she likes her coffee,” he whispered frantically to me. “How does she like her coffee?”
“Black,” I told him. “Double espresso.”
“Dayum, your sister is a lot to handle.”
“Yeah, she’ll flay you alive.”
“No kidding!” he said as he made the drink for Belle.
My sister and Greg were arguing when we returned to the conference room. Greg was losing.
Two more of Carl’s half brothers, Weston and Blade, who owned the ThinkX consulting firm, were watching the volley.
“You can’t honestly tell me that these are successful numbers,” Belle was saying. “I don’t know why you let him use that marketing firm. Those Instagram posts are terrible.”
“It is Jonathan’s company,” Greg said through gritted teeth.
“That you are investing in and sit on the board of,” Belle said sharply. “You share some of the blame. And now you expect me to devalue my brand so you can try and recoup some of your losses?”
“What’s wrong with my company?” I growled.
“Your marketing is terrible,” my sister said. “We’re not posting these pictures your marketing consultants sent over on our social media.”
“It is part of your contract,” Greg insisted.
“You all are acting in bad faith!” Belle snapped.
Greg sighed. “It feels like you’re here just to be petty.”
“Really? Because it seems like you’re still sore I stole a big development contract out from under you.”
“Just because you won one contract doesn’t make your investment firm hot shit. You barely have an office. In fact, if I’m not mistaken, your accountant works out of her apartment,” Greg sneered. “You will never build up your company to be any real competition to mine.”
Even though the Svenssons were investing heavily in my business and, hopefully, in the Hamilton Yards development, I wasn’t going to let any of them speak to my family members that way, let alone my sister.
“Watch your tone,” I snarled at Greg.
He and Belle both swiveled their gazes back to me. Next to me, Carl was silently freaking out.
“I don’t need my little brother to defend me,” Belle told me smoothly. “Greg is acting like any mediocre middle-management male when faced by a start-up that has the runway to grind him into the dirt. He’s scared. And instead of innovating and cutting off some of the bloat in his company, he’s stooping to personal attacks.”
“Are you talking about me?” Carl piped up.
“Of course she’s talking about you,” Greg hissed at him.
“Gentlemen, I’m here to talk business, not run your therapy session,” Belle said sharply.
“Agreed,” Hunter said.
Greg opened his mouth.
“You aren’t being rational,” Hunter drawled to his brother, who shot him a death glare but kept his mouth shut.
“It’s the holiday season,” Hunter said to Belle. “Makes him emotional. Look, Jonathan’s sales numbers are not good. We all understand that.”
“It’s only the first few days; give the product placement time to work!” I protested.
“It’s December first,” Hunter told me. “You’re not hitting the benchmark now, and there’s no reason to think you’re going to hit it later.”
“The problem,” Weston explained, “is that Romance Creative is targeted toward women in a certain demographic. And these ads”—he pulled them up on the screen—“are not targeted to women. Really, I’m not sure who they’re targeted to.”
“They’re for men who want to buy alcohol,” I insisted.
“Uh-huh. So I ran numbers,” Weston said, tapping his tablet to pull up an image on the large screen at the front of the room. “And actually, the numbers show that while yes, men do buy alcohol, it’s not during Christmas. Instead, their wives, girlfriends, and mothers actually buy it as a gift for their men, or tell their men to purchase it for their fathers, brothers, or friends as gifts.”
“All the men who are really into craft liquor had likely already made their purchases when you first launched earlier in the year,” Blade added. “They aren’t going to be who you’re targeting during the Christmas blitz. You should be targeting women who love to shop. And you are targeting the opposite of that.”