Be.A.Con Index

October 3, 2003 Home Again

Week 1 January 20, 2003 Beacon, Aka, Be. A. Con

Week 2 January 27, 2003 Back In The Saddle

Week 3 February 3, 2003 Doomsday

Week 4 February 10, 2003 All About Donnelly Part 1

Week 5 February 17, 2003 Lose Yourself

Week 6 February 24, 2003 Hatchet man

Week 7 March 3, 2003 Donnelly Introduces BeaconTo Homer

Week 8 March 10, 2003 Beauty And The Beast

Week 9 March 17, 2003 Detective Bundy And Candy

Week 10 March 24, 2003 The Gougers

Week 11 March 31, 2003 Big Gulp

Week 12 April 7, 2003 The Wizard Of Beacon

Week 13 April 14, 2003 Tea For Two

Week 14 April 21, 2003 Connecting The Dots

Week 15 April 28, 2003 Lunatic Office

Week 16 May 5, 2003 Step 1 — Steal Underpants

Week 17 May 12, 2003 Project Muscle…Or Bust

Week 18 May 19, 2003 Porno King

Week 19 May 26, 2003 A Company Called Competency Partners

Week 20 June 2, 2003 All The President’s Men

Week 21 June 9, 2003 Dear Valued Member

Week 22 June 16, 2003 The Bankruptcy Bash

Week 23 June 23, 2003 More Muscle

Week 24 June 30, 2003 Searching For Money Madison Style

Week 25 July 7, 2003 You’ve Got E-Mail

Week 26 July 14, 2003 Entrepreneur Of The Year

Week 27 July 21, 2003 All About Donnelly Part 2

Week 28 July 28, 2003 Attack Of The Luncheon Committee

Week 29 August 4, 2003 The Abc’s Of AA

Week 30 August 11, 2003 Banfling

Week 31 August 18, 2003 Strike 1

Week 32 August 25, 2003 Staff Meeting Notes

Week 33 September 1, 2003 Strike 2

Week 34 September 8, 2003 Urgent

Week 35 September 15, 2003 President Of The Titanic

Week 36 September 22, 2003 Must Pays

Week 37 September 29, 2003 Strike 3

October 3, 2003 Home Again

Epilogue October 3, 2003 Home Again

“Good people feel guilty. Evil people rarely feel guilty.”

Rabbi Harold Kushner

“It’s money, all money,” he said, as I listened to bits and pieces of the conversation next to me. While he could have been describing Beacon, or any business for that matter, the passenger next to me was describing his business — buying buildings, cleaning them out and then “flipping” them for a profit. By the sound of it, he was pretty good at it.

As I felt our plane come to a familiar stop at Detroit Metropolitan Airport his words, “cleaning them out” rang again and again in my ears. Not that I knew anything about cleaning out buildings, but after nine months with Beacon I knew plenty about the investors in Beacon who had been cleaned out of their savings, the vendors who had been cleaned out of their ability to collect payment from us and the 50 or so employees who had been cleaned out of their jobs. In a small way, they and everyone else involved in Beacon, had been cleaned out of a certain amount of faith and trust. And all because they had committed one mistake. They, like me, had trusted, believed and had been conned by a charming, good looking young man, with blond hair and blue eyes, who went by the name of Douglas M. Donnelly.

The company’s name was Beacon, but I didn’t realize until it was too late what the “Con” really was.

Week One Jan. 20th, 2003 Beacon A.K.A. Be. A. Con

“We fall down, but we get up”

Donnie McClurkin, Gospel singer

Minutes. Literally minutes before he called, I was about to plunge myself into a new and exciting career…. selling life insurance. Then the phone rang. It was my old friend Lester. “Meisner, I think you’ve got the job if you still want it”, he said. The words sweetly resonated around and around in my mind and finally landed in my mouth. “Got the job.” Every cell in my body was tingling and dancing with joy. “The job.” I had gone six long months without having a job — an identity. Six months without having an answer to the question, “So what do you do?” Six months of despair and grieving — over the loss of my mother, my job, my sanity.

Now I would be doing something. Something great, something important. Acting Chief Financial Officer for Beacon IT LLC — a Madison, Wisconsin based IT consulting services organization. I liked the sound of it — a lot. As I thought of the salary, visions of sugarplums danced in my head. More important than the money however, was the feeling of satisfaction — the feeling of success, of once again having a purpose in life. I was back, and I was practically dancing with joy and screaming with laughter.

Being at Detroit Metropolitan Airport for business travel again brought back fond memories. For six months I had hibernated in the basement of my home, trying — unsuccessfully — to convince myself that taking a job selling life insurance to friends and family was my purpose in life. Now those thoughts all washed away — like a bad dream. As I made my way to the airport tram and boarded the plane, I felt I’d been given a reprieve and I was ready to make the most of it.

Storage USA, Madison, Wisconsin. I had been in a lot of interesting offices in my day — plush offices, Wall Street offices, Fortune 500 marble, glass and wood paneled offices. But upon arriving at Beacon’s offices, this was the first time I had ever been in a storage warehouse retrofitted to be an office. It was the end of January 2003 and Madison was experiencing another record snowfall month record. As we maneuvered through the Storage USA parking lot, it dawned on me that storage facility parking lots aren’t the first priority for snowplows.

Inside however, I was surprised — pleasantly — at the condition of the offices. While the exterior looked like any warehouse, the inside was actually pretty nice — oak furniture, glass topped conference table, copiers and PC’s, even a refrigerator stocked to the nines. Lester took me inside and gave me a quick update.

“Look, I’ve got some customer meetings to prep for, so I’m gonna drop you off so you and Doug can get acquainted, okay? Assuming you two hit it off, then the job is yours. ”

“No problem, Lester. I’m looking forward to meeting Doug.”

My interview with Doug? I don’t think I would call it an interview — more like a soliloquy. When I first saw Doug, I knew that Lester was right about one thing — this guy was both good looking and cocky. He was seemingly the complete package — blond hair, blue eyes, white teeth, lean with a matching set of self-confidence and arrogance. His office was neat and clean and on his whiteboard he had written “Donnelly + $ = ☺”

“Doug? Jon Meisner, nice to meet you.”

“Doug Donnelly,” he said while sticking his hand out for me to shake. “I’ve been clean and sober for nine months now.”

I laughed — loudly. Whoops. Doug wasn’t joking. While my laughter would’ve thrown most people for a loop, Doug kept right on talking — never missing a beat. It took me about a nanosecond to realize that not only was he serious about this “clean and sober” thing, but he had also been blessed with a God given gift to bullshit like no one I had ever seen.

“You know the only time an addict will ever seek help is when they hit rock bottom,” he continued “At AA, they say either ‘help ‘em up or push ‘em down’. For me it was when I awoke from a drunken stupor in a homeless shelter in Madison. Imagine, here I was — a multi-millionaire — with homes, cash and cars all over the country, in a homeless shelter. Yup, for me that was rock bottom, the point where I knew I had to sober up or die; — I haven’t taken a drink since. You know there are only three possible outcomes for addicts and alcoholics — you sober up, get locked up or get buried up.”

I was in absolute and complete awe — almost. Except for seeming to suffer from the worst case of paranoia since Nixon, Doug seemed like the ideal businessman; rich, young, and charming …… with devastatingly good looks. But his paranoia. Oy vey. I would find out later Doug’s management style was simple: trust no one.

While my confidence was still reeling from recent events, I saw in Doug the business partner I was so eager to find — someone from whom I could learn, someone who could help me polish my act and someone I could make a lot of money with.

“I may not be the right leader for this company when we’re a billion in sales, but I’m right for this organization now,” Doug said with a completely straight face.

It was complete and utter bullshit — we both knew it. But I wanted to, no, I needed to, believe in something desperately. Then and there, I consciously decided to ignore all the warning signs, as I journeyed for salvation through the maze of Doug’s deceptions.

Week Two January 27th, 2003 Back in the Saddle

“Money….it’s important. You know it’s important because they call it …money.”

Danny DeVito, “The Heist”

When I got home that weekend, I was gushing. I couldn’t talk fast enough. “Thirty-two years old, became a multimillionaire at the age of 27. Owns homes and Ferraris from Madison, Wisconsin to Los Angeles, California. Worth over $10 million dollars.” Predictably, my wife, in-laws, and father, all gave me predictable Yiddish advice, “Oy, he’s a good one — you could learn from someone like that. A millionaire at 27.” They went on and on and for the moment all was right with the world.

In most families, money matters, and the more there is the more it matters. To listen to my family, it was like there was some kind of osmosis, whereby my being affiliated with someone that rich would automatically make it rub off on me.

Friday night dinners in most Jewish households are a time to ask the questions that you’ve been holding onto all week. My mother-in-law exemplified that spirit and launched the first volley.

“So tell us a little more about the folks you’re working with,” she asked. “Do you like them?”

“They’re definitely an interesting group,” I stated. “First of all, there’s our Chief Operating Officer, Doug Donnelly — who I already told you a little about. All I can say is that, in addition to being the best salesman that ever existed, he is a pretty amazing guy. Doug reports directly to the Whites — Joe and his daughter. The Whites are pretty low key — they don’t spend a lot of time in the office, they don’t know a lot about business and they rely on Doug a whole lot when it comes to Beacon.”

“And you got there through this Lester Beerbaum?” my mother-in-law half asked, half stated.

“That’s right. Lester’s a good guy — the epitome of a salesman — smart, quick on his feet and always, always selling. Let’s see, skinny as a rail, bald head, and big mustache — did I mention equal parts funny and annoying as hell? Between him and Donnelly, I’m in stitches all day.”

“Oh, and then there’s Marty McFly, our general counsel.”

“Who?” my father-in-law queried as he squirreled up his face.

“His real name is Martin Schwartz — our half Jewish General Counsel. He’s a kid, maybe 27 years old, doesn’t look much older than David (my oldest son). He absolutely hates being called Marty, so of course that’s exactly what I call him. Or if I really want to piss him off, I call him McFly — from “Back to the Future.”

My mother-in-law chuckled while my daughter Megan shook her head disapprovingly while smiling at the humor nonetheless.

“Well, knowing you, there must be at least one or two folks you’re not totally enamored with,” my brother- in-law piped in. “And vice versa,” my sister- in-law quickly added with a smirk.

“Yes, that’s true,” I admitted. “We acquired a couple of businesses at the end of last year, but along the way, we forgot to get rid of the former owners. The first person is this woman by the name of Gladys Diamond, who’s not glad of much. We bought her business — Gladys Diamond and Associates — in 2003. Let’s see. Gladys is about five feet tall and nearly five feet wide and she calls herself the ‘mama’. Her claim to fame, in addition to her tremendous girth, is spending hours on end composing massive e-mails about how she doesn’t have enough time to get her work done. And last, but certainly not least, is George Vacincy. George has got to be one of the strangest guys I’ve ever met. He’s a nerd’s nerd, who fears confrontation and is about as passive / aggressive as they come.”

“But you like it there?” my father- in-law asked.

“Love it,” I replied. And truth be known, so far I did.

As I headed to Metro Airport for my Sunday night flight back to Madison, I thought of my assignment. As Doug had indicated, I was hired for one reason and one reason only — to turn Beacon around and make it profitable. And I knew exactly where to start — with the only thing that matters for any business — cash.

When I got to the office on Monday morning, my first official act was to call a meeting with my staff. My staff. I guess you could call them that. First, there was Sonya — a young female accountant with a big heart and an addiction to radio soap operas. I quickly learned that when something needed to be done, you could always count on Sonya. Then there was my “senior” accountant, Phil Conners. Phil was senior all right. While I never found out how old he really was, he looked, walked and talked like he was 80 going on 180. And finally, there was Michael Slinkerwich, Beacon’s former CFO, whom I had replaced. In his new role, he became our controller, and on those days when he graced us with his presence in the office, he performed his work in two speeds — slow and reverse. We convened our first meeting in Michael’s office, as I was currently sharing an office with Doug. After they got situated, I told them the drill. “As you all know, we’re bleeding cash and we’re bleeding bad. We’ve got to quickly figure out; 1) how much cash we’re burning every day, every week and every month, 2) why we’re burning this much cash, 3) how much cash do we take in every day, every week and every month, and 4) how big is the gap between the cash in and the cash out. And one last minor detail, what are we going to do to close the gap?”

I continued. “To pull this off, we’re gonna need to split up the tasks of reviewing our cash receipts and cash disbursements for the past three months. I want all our “one-time” cash ins and outs factored out so we can establish our true daily cash burn rate and true daily cash inflow,” I stated. “By the way, where’s the latest cash forecast?”

Silence. Six eyes with blank stares slowly made their way from me to the floor. “Okay, how about a budget?” I inquired. With my first board meeting less than two weeks away, I felt fear as I again looked at three deer caught in the headlights.

“Look, we’re not gonna run this business without a forecast and a budget. Let’s pretend we’re a real business and we’ll start by putting together a cash forecast.” I stated, waiting for the reaction.

I was caught off guard by the reaction — which was surprisingly positive. “You’re right Jon. You and Michael should analyze and forecast the cash receipts,” Phil finally said. “Our A/P is pretty complicated, so you better let me have responsibility for forecasting cash disbursements. It’s kind of an art form. Sunya (Phil’s pet name for Sonya) can keep us focused by keeping up with current accounts receivable and payable transactions.”

“Fine,” I said. Finally, we were making some progress I thought.

For the rest of the week, we crunched, compiled, analyzed and re-analyzed every number that had any meaning at all. After poring over the analysis, it finally came time to present the findings to Doug, who had become wildly paranoid about what we were doing. In fact, after a week of him shadowing my every move, I’m not sure which one of us was more relived that the cash review was over. When it was finally time to sit down with Doug, I went straight to the bottom line.

“Three quarters of a million dollars,” I stated.

“What?” Doug nonchalantly replied not even moving his eyes from his computer.

“Three quarters of a million dollars — that’s what it’s going to take to get us through from now to the end of May.” Including cash receipts of $300,000 a month, we were burning approximately $250,000 more per month than we were taking in.

Doug leaned forward in his black leather executive chair and stared his steely blue contact lens covered eyes straight at me.

“That’s impossible. How can that possibly be right?” he stated in disbelief. Prepared, I pulled out spreadsheet after spreadsheet showing the analysis for virtually every cash receipt and cash disbursement that the company had experienced over the last three months.

“How did we get in this situation?” he asked.

I looked at him incredulously wondering if this was how O.J. had acted when he was first confronted about what happened to Nicole.

“You spent it all Doug, remember? $1.2 million on acquisitions and licenses to resell Competency Partners software, that no one wants to buy — we can’t even give them away.”

“Oh yeah, I forgot!” he snickered like a ten year old boy hearing his first dirty joke. Doug had an unflappability I had rarely, if ever seen. Then his deep blue contact lens eyes bugged out and froze and I could see the rage inside of him starting to burn. I thought he was going to explode. And then, just as quickly as it came, I saw the wheels in his head begin to rapidly turn, the rage dissipated and a huge light bulb clicked on for him as his mouth opened as if to announce the invention of electricity.

“You mean if we hadn’t incurred these ‘one-time items’ we’d be flush with cash?” Although he only had a high school education, Doug was pretty quick on his feet.

“Yeah, but the business still isn’t cash flowing and if you hadn’t bought those companies, you wouldn’t have half the revenue you do now, and to make matters worse, you’ve got enough overhead here to choke a horse.”

“We can deal with that later,” he interrupted “You’ve just proved that the business model I’ve put together works! Thanks Meis — I could kiss you!” A huge smile crept over his face, as he quickly packed up his briefcase. “This is great news! See ya Sunday for the board meeting.” And just like that, he was gone, whistling and strutting out the door like a proud Peacock.

While all this was going on, I had asked Mary Ellen– our executive assistant, to set up meetings for me with key company people — Pat Oneida, Vice President of Operations, Gladys Diamond, head of our Gladys Diamond Division, and George Vacincy, head of IT consulting. George had recently hit the “business lottery” as he was able to sell his failing IT business to Doug for an eye-popping $2.5 million. This was pretty damn good for a business with only $2.5 million in sales, few assets and little to no cash flow. I felt I needed to sit down with George, understand his views on the business and as politely as possible, explain to him that his job going forward was to close sales and stay out of our way.

“I guess I never liked confrontation,” George said as we began our meeting that cold January afternoon. That was a massive understatement. After 45 minutes with George it was clear he didn’t have the balls to do much; not to fire bad performers, collect past due money from customers, or any of the other “unpleasantries” that good business practices demand. And now, with $800,000 of the $2.5 million purchase price in his pocket thanks to Doug, George had anointed himself the resident expert on everything he didn’t like about the business. Together with Doug and Gladys Diamond, it appeared that they were developing the perfect recipe — for business disaster.

As I drove back to the Madison airport on that sunny but cold Friday afternoon, I remember humming a joyful tune. In spite of all Beacon’s many problems, I was happy. I was working again, making good money, and I had a sense that a real turnaround was underway — for both Beacon and myself.

Boarding the plane, I realized I was still having difficulty dealing with the two questions everyone was asking me; (1) what happened to selling life insurance and (2) how are you handling the commute? Answering the second question was easy. I was addicted to working, and traveling for the opportunity to make good money and lead the financial turnaround of Beacon was a no-brainer.

Honestly answering the first question was much tougher. The real answer was that after losing my job at Collins Productions and going through the ordeal of my mother’s death, I had been suffering from a hideous case of self-doubt and lack of self-confidence. So taking the first real job thrown at me — even a job like this, away from home and filled with every business risk imaginable, spoke volumes about my mental state at the time. Perhaps more than anything else I saw it as a beacon, pardon the pun that could guide me back to my old self again.

As our plane began its journey back to Detroit, I closed my eyes and began drifting off to sleep, hopeful that working at Beacon would be the salvation I was seeking.