Roman asked him, “Do you invest in everything that you like?” He wanted to test Ivan’s investment ideas as well.

“If it’s gonna make me a profit, yeah,” Ivan told him. “But if not, then I’ll just admire it from a distance.”

Roman chuckled. He said, “You don’t mince words much, do you?”

Ivan told him, “Honesty is the best policy. So I try to be as straightforward as possible.”

“So, what’s your honest take on the success of a car show here?” Roman asked him.

Ivan said, “That depends on what your goals are. If you’re just trying to sell more cars, then we do an invitation-only event that stays near the showroom with your staff ready to sell. But if you’re trying to do a grand-scale promotion to let more folks know who you are and what you have to offer, then we would do a much bigger public event away from your showroom. Then we can throw a big after party with exotic car images around the room. But the catch with the more public event is that, even though it’ll make your dealership more popular, it may not necessarily sell you more cars. You’ll get a lot more people who just like to look, dream, and talk. But they will know the name of your company.”

Roman told him, “And what if I decided to do both? What if we wanted to be more popular and sell more cars? I may even be interested in opening up a second dealership in the area that sells less-expensive vehicles: an economy trade.”

That caught Ivan off guard. He didn’t expect the auto dealer to be that hungry. He was expecting an either-or situation.

He must be really bored with his time and money, Ivan thought. But he could corner the market that way, too. So he rolled with it.

He said, “Well, in that case, that’s even better. Then you’ll have both of your bases covered, and we can go all-out on both sides of the coin. I’ll have plenty of ideas if you wanna do it that way.”

“Well, I’d like to see your proposals. And if your ideas look good, we can talk about getting you behind the wheel of that limited-edition GT you like.”

Ivan asked him, “Is that a part of the deal?”

Roman Zemeckis paused. He said, “I like you, Ivan, but I don’t like you that much. That’s a hell of a car we’re talking about.”

“And we want to put together a hell of a promotion for you,” Ivan countered. He said, “Just look at it this way: if I can call you my friend with the dealership and let everyone know where I bought the car, then that’s twenty-four/seven promotion for you. And I’ll make sure I drive it everywhere with your license plate frames on it.”