"Congratulations!"
"I appreciate that, but let's save them for when we've actually landed the account. We'll still have to bid if we get past the request for proposal stage, and they want to meet with me tomorrow evening."
"Wow. Is that timeline usual?"
"No. Usually, they'd wait until we had the RFP finished before meeting with us, but Cross Industries recently acquired Kingsman and C.I. has dozens of subsidiaries. That's good business if we can get it. They know it and they're making us jump through hoops, the first of which is meeting with me."
"Usually there would be a team, right?"
"Yes, we'd present as a group. But they're familiar with the drill – they know they'll get the pitch from a senior executive, then end up working with a junior like me – so they picked me out and now they want to vet me.
