Kay sank down in her chair and stared out the window, unable to move. The CEO wanted to negotiate contracts with her-that was good. But he wanted something sexual as well. Those warning bells had been dead on. She looked at Dan and spoke slowly. "You want me to work with you and act sexy in meetings?" This is wrong. Kay dropped her head and covered it with a hand, trying to hide her unease. Then she looked up at Dan. "I'm not going to seduce your clients."
"No seduction, just teasing."
"Teasing is seduction. How do you propose to separate the two?"
"Yes, it's a fine line. Let me give you an example of what I have in mind so you'll understand-it has to do with the contract I just gave you." He leaned forward in his chair. "I am very close to closing a deal with Jason Mack over at Atlantic Distributors. We've been going back and forth for a while, and we're nearly done. Now normally, we have negotiation specialists at these meetings who advise us about changes. But in this case, we've been through all that for weeks now, so we're ready to sign. All I need is to get him to accept this one change-the closing fee. That's where you come in.
"I want you to pretend to be a secretary who knows nothing. You sit in on the meeting and follow the negotiation, distracting him at just the right moment so that he agrees to that fee."
This was some kind of pornographic fantasy, the sort of thing she'd heard guys kid about during sex. What was this kind of ploy doing here, at the top level of management? And playing a stupid secretary was just plain insulting. "Oh great, the dumb, sexy secretary routine. How trite."
"Yes, but always effective. Don't worry, I have plenty of scenarios in mind where you are much more of an expert player. Most of the time, I want you to be my negotiations specialist, advising me while distracting the other guy. But let me stress once again-none of these plans involve you having sex with anyone. No seduction, no sex. Just a little teasing. Let's face it-this is a 'con game,' where you must win the other guy's confidence in order to manipulate the situation."
"A con game? Is this legal? Is it moral?" Am I going to get arrested on my first day of work? "I'm glad you asked that, because if you didn't, I'd be concerned about you. There is nothing illegal about what we're doing here. Nobody is going to force Jason Mack to sign this contract. If he does sign, it's because his judgment is clouded. By you. As for morality, I'm going to admit that this is a gray area. However, all of the games I want you to play are against people who have their own gray areas. Take Mack, for instance. That bastard suckered me last year when I first negotiated with him. He actually threatened to stage an Internet-wide smear campaign against our company if we didn't lower our price. This deal recoups our losses and evens the score-if he agrees to the extra closing fee.