On their way back Bhargav enquired with Arjun, "You did on purpose didn't you Arjun?".
Arjun : "What do you mean anna?"
Bhargav : "The options you presented to my brother, there was no options to begin with were they?"
Arjun : "Hahaha, it seems you noticed anna. had i offered the second option directly they would be afraid to take on the challenge.
But doing it this way they would feel first option was not worth the effort and second option was more of a suitable choice for them invoking their greed. But since you noticed this, i am pretty sure they would too. Now all we need to see is whether they have the courage to follow their greed or not".
Bhargav : "Now that you mention it in such a way, i too am curios how my brother will go on about this".
Arjun had his own motivations for explaining this to Bhargav. He was very impressed by this guy's work ethic and wanted him to work for him instead of being a temporary weekend assistant as he was right now. But Arjun felt he was not yet fit to be a leader of a company, he would do all he could to speed up the process.
Tharun meanwhile had called for a union meeting the next day, All the people who were of high position in the union and were available attended the meeting.
After everyone gathered Tharun proceeded to explain the purpose of their meeting which surprised everyone including Vikram Sahoo who was the current president of SJU.
Vikram had never heard of a student union acting as salesmen for a company. He felt it was beneath their honor to do such task, But once he heard about the offer he did not know how to judge the situation. Even if they only managed to sell a little more than ten thousand copies it would amount to thirty thousand rupees which was almost two months of their earnings from their usual collections.
They started discussing more whether this could be done or not. While most of them were supportive of doing this task one guy in particular Raja Ram was against this. But considering he was the nephew of the owner of Hanish distribution and publishing nobody paid much attention to him.
What surprised Tharun though was none of the people in the meeting had not even tried mentioned anything about the first option. All of them were busy in estimating how many they could sell and whether if it was possible to sell fifty thousand copies. He felt Arjun had already imagined this situation to occur. Being played in the hands of a ten year old left a very bitter taste in his mouth.
The first option was more of an illusion of safety while the second option was the real bait. Even though Tharun perceived this he was helpless as he was hooked to the second option too. The notion of possibly making two and half lakhs within one and half months was something neither he nor the others who heard about the offer could get it out of their system.
After a mini voting round all of them came to a conclusion that taking the second option would be for the better. Vikram who was already on the fence after hearing the second option was also satisfied with the outcome.
Even if the plan failed it would have nothing to do with him as Tharun was the one who proposed this. If it was a success it would help him garner quite a bit of reputation in the eyes of outsiders as it was done during his presedency. Whatever happened it would be to his benefit so he too accepted the outcome.
They proceeded to discuss further about how to extract more from this deal, Even if they were already satisfied with the deal it would not hurt to fight for more, especially since it was not them doing the negotiation they proposed all kinds of ridiculous benefits like getting a free book for every hundred books they sell, The publisher had to handle all the distribution fee etc., One guy even went ahead and asked for a free liquor bottle for every ten books they sell.
Once the meeting was finished Vikram approached Tharun and consoled him, Don't worry brother we both know they are trying to extract more benefits. Just do your best tomorrow in the negotiation, even if nothing changes we would still be making considerable amount of money. He mentioned Tharun if you could somehow obtain more benefits for individuals doing the sales, they too would be more inclined in selling more products.
Tharun too accepted this suggestion and promised he would do his best in accomplishing this task. The next day Tharun along with the union's in house law counsellor Prabhakar Reddy headed to the village Manginapudi to meet up for their negotiation.
They met up with Arjun at the printing press in the noon as they had agreed beforehand. Arjun took the day off, Although Pratap was initially against it after he learned that they had made two and half lakhs in their previous deal and already spent most of it on raw materials he could only zip it. He knew, If they failed this negotiation they might not even break even.
Even if they had the deal with Mannath distributors on had, their main hopes were all pinned on All in One so he had to reluctantly accept Arjun not attending school that day, But only after Arjun promised him this would be his final leave in this academic year as the exams were only two months away.
In the state education system, tenth class exams which were also renowned as board exams came first and usually started in mid march and exams for the rest of classes would begin in early April after the board exams were finished.
They only had around one month and three weeks left to the board exams so they had to do all they can to get the All in One's into circulation.
Arjun showed them around their press, even though it was in a small warehouse Tharun was very impressed with their organization and hygiene. Arjun also indicated they had already started production of All in Ones and the first batch of ten thousand copies would be done by the weekend.
He explained they would then shift their focus to Questions booklet and solution books as they already had a contract in hand. He wanted to wait for the sales figures the union students could garner before going for more production.
Tharun was okay with this, even though he also wanted to get the contract for other types of books Arjun produced he felt it would be too much of a burden on his union members to suddenly implore them to sell more books without any proper figures backing up.
They proceeded towards Madan's office for further negotiation as the P.K Printing press did not yet have a office and Arjun's home was too small to do the negotiation. Arjun had borrowed Madan's lawyer Karunakar for the negotiation as he was unconvinced about the unions conduct without a proper agreement in place.
Once everyone was seated and done with the pleasantries Tharun brought up the topic of their share. He felt it was too low and also proposed a new incentive program for the students who participated in selling the All in Ones.
Arjun was adamant about sticking to the previously discussed prices but he included an extra clause of possibly making six rupees per piece if the sales crossed seventy five thousand copies. Tharun felt this was too much and made Arjun compromise to sixty five thousand copies for the six rupee commission.
Arjun also proposed a incentive for kids on the ground but his stance was to make this a shared program. He had suspicion that these people might rip him off if he proposed lax conditions for the incentive program, making this a shared incentive would make the chances of him getting cheated much lesser.
He offered an incentive of extra hundred rupees for every hundred books sold for the top twenty five sellers. This too had to be shared in between both the parties. He promised to cover their share of incentives if the sales were below fifteen thousand copies but any more and the union would have to offer half the money while Arjun would fill in the rest.
They had also discussed the payments would be done in a bi-weekly term without any advance from the union. Arjun had to accept to this condition as this could be considered as his own distribution service in a way and the union handing out advance would not be possible as Bhargav had already informed him about their financial capabilities.
Once Arjun and Tharun were satisfied with the preliminary terms it was time for their lawyers to shine. Karunakar and Prabhakar Reddy engaged in a intense discussion filling in all the holes which Arjun and Tharun had not even considered. Noticing their discussion taking over an hour Arjun and Tharun urged them to end things quickly and give some leeway to the other party.
Only after the order was given that they started getting things done in a much more efficient manner and left some room for each other. Still it took over another hour to get the discussions done after which Tharun signed on the agreement representing SJU while Arjun had to approach Madan who represented P.K printing press as even though Arjun was owner in name Madan was the figurehead for the outside world even though he was only the minor shareholder.