He went on, “In football, instead of us just talking about Drew Brees and LaDainian Tomlinson, we also talk about Peyton Manning, Donovan McNabb, Shaun Alexander, and Tiki Barber. In other words, everything that we do now for San Diego, we want to create a list that does the same thing nationally.”

Eddie K. had to fight to hold back an enormous smile. He had been trying to get Ivan to think outside of just San Diego for a year now. He had hit the jackpot with the company, earning himself over a million in commissions. But if the company expanded nationally, he could earn millions more.

Joining up with Ivan was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made in my life, he told himself.

As the editorial manager, Ava Tate nodded her head and took notes. By the time they had moved into the new office and increased editorial content tenfold, Ivan had given her a ten-thousand-dollar-a-month salary.

Ava said, “We can use the search engines to expand to national lists and articles easily.”

“Then we can add sidebars to list the top ten of whatever,” Jeff added.

Ivan said, “But the key here is getting a national audience to respond to the list. So we have to start documenting every increase in traffic, and where that new traffic is coming from.”

Paul took notes on that. He and Jeff had a staff of four now, who surveyed all of the numbers: the unique visits and multiple impressions, as well as the verification of email addresses.

Paul mumbled, “Got it,” as Ivan continued to express their plans of execution:

“Now, with our existing numbers, I want Eddie to work with the proposal writers to pitch all national brands in clothing, automobiles, liquor, cell phones, you name it, on how our company can help them to push their new services and products through advertising and articles on our site, or through creating national sponsored events. And we want to be sure to ask them how we can help them on a national and/or regional level, because we can use that same information to pitch other clients.”

Eddie nodded to his part of the plans. He smiled and said, “That’s awesome. I’m right on it.”

Ivan added, “Last but not least, Mike, I want you and your team to start an audit of the company to evaluate how much it’s worth now, and how much it could be worth in three years, as compared to all of the website competitors. And I mean nationally.”

Mike Adams nodded. “Okeydokey,” he uttered. Mike had already thanked Ivan profusely for the opportunity to be a major member of his team. Combined with the new arrangement he had with Hutch & Mitchell, he was making two hundred thousand dollars a year himself.