It had been a long meeting.  Jerry had been negotiating all day with Justin Perez, the owner of a small machine tool plant in East Los Angeles.  Things were not going well.  Perez seemed to think that his building was made of gold – not bricks and mortar.  And, that his customer list was filled with the CEOs of the Fortune 500.

True enough, it was a well-run little plant – clean and profitable – but nobody could resist for long when his company, Jerrico, put on the pressure.  Perez had tried to be friendly but that didn’t matter to Jerry.  Jerry had bought and sold dozens of little companies like this in the past and he didn’t want any new friends – he just wanted to make money. Read more…