Chapter 403 Rest and Business 7
"Mom, I made a decision after thinking about it a lot and what would be better for me in the future, I will leave university after the end of this semester and I will enter the NBA draft, this year I want to become a professional."
Jake said directly what the subject was without making many laps on the subject and it surprised Eva, she knew that Jake was doing very well at the university and was close to breaking a record with his team.
From what Eva had seen on television, Jake had a real chance of breaking almost all individual performance records if he stays 4 years at the university, besides, Eva knew that Jake didn"t need money because he had sponsors so she thought he would be more two years at the university.
But hearing that Jake had already thought about it a lot and had already made a decision Eva understood that there must be a reason why Jake decided to do this, she knew that Jake had gone to university mainly because she had asked for it.
"If you ever thought about it and made that decision, I"m just going to support what you decided, but can you tell me why you decided to do that?"
"I decided to join the NBA this year because I think it will be the best for me, I have been at the university for two years and I played well on the Tar Heels team, we won the ACC tournament and the NCAA tournament and I managed to break several individual records."
"I was also able to improve a lot in those two years and I intend to help the Tar Heels team to win the ACC tournament and the NCAA tournament that year as well."
"So I think I already achieved everything I had to win playing for the Tar Heels team in these two years, what I have to win in the coming years will not make up for what I would lose if I didn"t enter the NBA this year."
"I am negotiating to join the team I want and this year something will happen in the NBA that will be favorable for me to play my first year as a freshman, not to mention that I will continue in university to get my diploma, I just won"t do it like I"m doing now."
"In those years I have already obtained all the credits I needed and I also obtained good grades, so I got everything I wanted at university."
Listening to Jake explaining Eva realized that it was true that he had already thought very carefully about what he wanted to do, she was happy to hear that he intended to finish university even entering the NBA and get his diploma.
She understood that Jake wanted to enter the NBA this year because he wanted to take advantage of an opportunity and because he had no need to stay another 2 years at the university, so Eva was relieved and proud of Jake who spoke to her about this important decision.
After that, they talked normally and Jake was relieved that his mother was not angry that he decided to leave university, it showed that she trusted him and that was something that made Jake very happy.
Jake was also happy because it seemed that Eva did not think of living in the same city as him when he entered the NBA, Jake would be very happy to have his mother living with him again, but he was concerned because she had Anna in Miami and also the restaurant that Jake knew she loved.
He knew it must be very difficult for someone to live without doing what he likes and that is why he bought the restaurant to make his mother"s dream come true, and Jake would visit his mother whenever he could just like he was doing now at university.
The two talked for many hours until Eva had to go to sleep to work at the restaurant the other day, Jake also went to rest because he would have to talk to Clara the other day about business.
So the next day Jake went to lunch to meet Clara at a restaurant she had recommended, Jake could have talked over the phone about it with her and Matthew, and he could also deal with his business with Emily.
But unless it was impossible to do that Jake preferred to talk about important business like that personally, these business matters were very important and involved millions of dollars, personally Jake could receive reports to see in more detail about how companies were doing during the year.
Maybe when Jake was in the NBA and a very important subject came up and he couldn"t travel to settle in person he would use his cell phone right now, but it was something he preferred to avoid.
It had been months since Jake had seen Clara and he was happy to talk to her again, even though he felt that maybe she wanted to make their relations.h.i.+p as friends into a business-only relations.h.i.+p Jake would always remember the help he received.
"Hi, Clara, you look very good, but you look very tired too."
"Hi, Jake, I"m really tired, Tiffany and I had a lot of things in the company to solve in the last few months, our company had lost a lot of opportunities to invest and get better, but because of the situation I was in, it was impossible."
"Fortunately, I always wrote down all the ideas that I had and all the opportunities that the company missed so that I could invest when possible, so in this last year I managed to do a good part of what I had prepared."
Jake knew what Clara was talking about, at other times when they talked Clara always talked about how she had to increase the production capacity of the company"s factories and also get more stores and partners.h.i.+ps to sell more.
It should have been what Clara had done that year as the matter that concerned her had been resolved, but another thing Jake heard was that Clara intended to buy a company so that her company could take advantage of factories and stores and sell more quickly.
That opportunity had been lost and unless she invested her personal a.s.sets it would be difficult to be able to buy this company as she wanted, and even if she wanted to do that the competing company that also owned shares in her company would not allow the company to Clara grew so much and that she had more shares in the company.
Jake had talked to Emily and knew that sales for Tiffany"s company had improved a lot after she invested in the company again and increased manufacturing capacity and opened more stores, but Clara"s company hadn"t gone so well.
"In the last year we made some investments and even though our sales had increased it was very little because the cost of the products increased and the profit decreased because of the readjustment in prices."
"So we had fewer profits than we had in 1996, but this year it is possible that we will still be able to sell more and almost have twice the profit, the company"s profits were 50 million dollars."
"I plan to invest half of the profits in the company again, so you will receive $ 2.5 million in profit sharing, I hope that next year that amount will be almost double."
Jake could feel that Clara was ashamed of the sales that her company had achieved that year because all the other 3 companies that sponsored Jake had achieved a huge increase in sales with Jake"s performance in the first season of college basketball.
Like the advertis.e.m.e.nt that Jake had recorded for her and Tiffany"s companies, Tiffany"s sales grew the most in all companies, so Clara was ashamed of having to deliver a result that she considered bad.
Jake was not at all angry or nervous, and Tiffany"s company always made a profit similar to Clara"s company even though her company was smaller, now that she had the opportunity to invest again after a few years she just adjusted the production capacity of her company and so she sold everything she could.
The products from Tiffany"s natural drinks company were of very high quality and also had a sales appeal for being healthier, with Jake endorsing the company sportsmen and sports fans bought her products whenever they could and liked the product.
The companies that John and Alan represented had well-developed companies and were better known in the market, so they managed to sell more, especially the company that John represented, which was also a beverage company and so consumers always bought.
Clara"s company made sporting goods which were not so easy to sell and even with Jake promoting her products, her company had many compet.i.tors that consumers thought had a better product than her company.
But with Clara"s investments, the company could sell as much as it could and also increase the total value of the company and so the shares that Jake had in the company would appreciate, Clara in the future would want to buy the shares that Jake had in her company. back and so Jake would gain something from it.
Clara was happy to see that Jake was not disappointed with the results of the last year of her company, Clara was still traumatized by Robert"s complaints whenever the company"s results were not good or when she did not make a profit.
This time n.o.body complained, not even the rival company complained, in fact, Clara thought that the representative of the competing company had been happy to see that Clara"s company had not had a good result in the market.
Even so, Clara was proud and would not accept to continue making such a low profit, this year she could lower prices again and hoped that she would be able to sell more to get a better profit.
They talked for a while longer and then Jake left, they talked about business, but they didn"t talk about anything like they talked in the past as friends, it made Jake even more sure than he thought before.