Posted by Howard Hughes on RB...pretty interesting! From "PR Bob"
ragingbull.altavista.com
By: 1Brother $$$$
Reply To: 15598 by mat999 $$$
Monday, 16 Aug 1999 at 5:45 PM EDT
Post # of 80518
****MEETING WITH GORDON--8-16-99****
I met with Robert Gordon this morning for about one and a half hours. The meeting
went very well.
A prior point of interest rests on the "shark". He made a call and as best as can be
determined the shark has about 1m shares left to divest. He doesn't think the "shark" is
shorting any more. Hopefully the stock will become normal trading after this week.
The new PP should be announced next week. Gordon wants all the money in the bank
before doing the PR. The terms had to be redone due to the action of the stock over the
last couple of weeks. I think it will be acceptable. Three traunches of $1m. Each will be
based on a higher share value with the first being over today's value. It will be enough to
drive the company to November and pay off a few of the bills including the IRS.
Nettaxi is in the game. Don't worry about the appearances right now. They only have
about 8 employees and are understaffed. The one that we deal with was off last week
due to a birth. Contact is attempting to be made by TSIG to get this finalized and active.
The law suit being mentioned involves events dating back to before VSI at the end of
1995. Nothing to do with TSIG. He will submit some documents and the case should
be dropped.
The mailings start going out to the principals, PTAs, and music depts the end of this
week. 275,000 individuals will be alerted to the program again. The principals will also
be informed the PTAs and music depts have already received the manuals late May.
There will also be an announcement to the schools that a grant will be made to each
school that attains $5,000 in total sales of $250--$500 for $10,000, etc. This will be for
the principal to use. Gordon is also speaking to NMF about taking some back from
them for this program. This should be an incentive for the principals to increase the
schools sales attempts.
The anticipation of TSIG is for, and it looks like, Lifetime to reach at least a 10%
participation. Lifetime has never had a drive not do at least 27%. This is the first year
and should do better next year. At this level the company should minimally make $20m
earnings according to projections.
Don't forget the Music Depts are also there and operate within their own fund raising
necessities. This would add to the totals.
A mailing to 120,000 4-H clubs will be sent the first week of Sept. It will contain a 2
page letter and a glossy brochure to the club leader. It will also contain a $250 gift
certificate to spend in the 4-H catalog for each $5,000 in sales generated by that club.
Each 4-H club does fund raising each year and it is their only source of revenue.
The 4-H leaders expect to have easily 1/3 of the clubs participate. At this level 4-H
could rival Lifetime in revenues. These are small clubs and the competition among the
members should raise the sales efforts resulting in a higher sale per individual.
TSIG has decided to not be aggressive with the distributors at this time. He feels the
corporate sales emphasis is the way to go for now. He wants a high caliber distributor
and what was requesting was far below that. They mostly wanted the smaller distributor
package and would require a lot more attention. He is going to concentrate on building
the business before pushing for distributors. This way higher caliber individuals will apply
and the initial fee can be raised. Congratulations to the ones that got in at this level.
The Babe Ruth 6300 league presidents will be sent a two page letter and a glossy
brochure now that the contact list is available. They will then be given the responsibility
to pass this information down to the teams. This is a grass roots organization and the
individual contact with the teams by TSIG is impossible. When the middle of the year is
reached, then the participating teams in the All Stars can be contacted. He said there
were zero cards sold in the Babe Ruth deal the way it was handled before. This should
have much better results.
The Signature teleservices deal is put off until the first of the year due to the California
bank pulling out. It may be revived then with different support.
GE Capitol is still friendly and one project is moving forward. They are also discussing a
couple of other ideas.
TEMPO starts in Sept and revenues should flow in Oct. Last year they did approx 70m
CDs. The signed another large contract for 40m CDs so will do more than 100m CDs
next year. TSIG will be on all of them at a dime each to TSIG. If TSIG is involved in
any specific deal there will be additional revenues. There are some in the works. TSIG
then makes about $1/CD.
Right now the discussions with the large charities is in self imposed holding pattern. It
makes more sense to wait for there to be a story to tell. Once the end of the year
approaches and the model has proven itself with the track record the Lifetime and 4-H
deals should give, the charities will then be ready to approach and close in earnest.
November should be the start of the contacts.
The fulfillment of CDs by TSIG will take on more as they go. The hopes are that in 3-4
months TSIG will try and buy a one stop. Once this is done TSIG would be able to
make money on every CD sale.
Gordon is working on 5-6 new accounts and looks to announce several as we move to
the end of the month and into the middle of September. There are a couple that could
be bigger than either Lifetime or 4-H.
I was very pleased with this meeting. I felt the information was given as honestly and
straight forward as anyone could do. I think that we will have a successful end of the
year barring any unforseen circumstances cropping up. There was no undue hype given
and I was pleased with the reasonable projections given along with the volunteered
explanations why some of the contracts would not be given weight. I was also very
pleased with the determined focus being placed on the success of the business model.
TSIG is now on the course to be a major supplier of MyCard products on the major
corporate level. The smaller time consuming and sometimes not profitable deals will not
be actively sought. The deals that will be done will also have the basic requirement of
providing the proper returns.
Related as best as I could as disclosed by Gordon,
Bob |
