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It’s hotting up in my sales war with Mammon. After a week (well, six days), he’s 4-3 up on new business meetings – but I’ve got at least two more that I think will definitely convert before the week is out. So it’s pretty tight, and he’s suddenly looking a lot less cocky than he was when we started – particularly now that some of the others are starting to wind him up about it. It’s actually turning out to be an interesting test of his temperament under pressure, as if I needed any more reasons to justify this little contest to myself.

Of course you may recall that my principal reason for doing this (well, apart from proving my own supremacy) was to gain an upper hand in our ongoing row over the size of his pay cheque. Interestingly, we haven’t even discussed this since the contest started – I think he’s planning to use his victory to justify a bigger raise, in exactly the same way that I’m planning to use my victory to prove that he’s not as priceless as he thinks he is. Nothing like high stakes to get the competitive juices flowing…

On the other hand, I’m not being totally pig-headed and macho about all this (I’m not a boy, after all). I plan to win, and I expect to win, but that doesn’t mean I refuse to contemplate the possibility of losing; that would be silly. I reckon a lot of people think entrepreneurs are just chancers, but in fact the good ones aren’t, really. They’re just very good at assessing the odds, backing their judgement, and importantly, turning any outcome to their advantage.

The contest is no big deal – even before I suggested it, I knew exactly how I was going to position it if I lost (testing his mettle, inspiring the others, etc). But this week, I decided it was time to address the bigger issue: what will happen if he does decide to leave. Again, I don’t expect this to happen, but by planning for every outcome I feel like I have much more control of the situation. So I got a recruitment consultant friend of mine to come into the office (to make sure everyone saw him), and picked his brains on who I might be able to get instead, and what they’d cost.

As a result, it feels like I now have a back-up plan in place – so I feel a lot better. It also means that I’m not too desperately attached to any one outcome, which is always useful in a negotiation – it changes both how you go about it, and how you feel about the eventual outcome. Now that I know there are good, affordable salespeople out there within our sector, I won’t feel too devastated if he jumps ship (in fact, I almost got as far as persuading myself that it could be an opportunity in disguise – to swap him for an upgraded version). As an entrepreneur, putting all your eggs in one basket is a dangerous business, I think.

Of course, I hope he doesn’t go. Replacing someone senior is always a real hassle. But I’m a lot more comfortable about the prospect now I have a Plan B...