I think this is a great design graphically, and an interesting concept. I was asking myself the following questions though:
1. What happens when you click 'Hire an Exec', or 'Sign Up'?
2. Why are there two different calls to action - 'Hire an Exec' and 'Find an Exec near you'?
3. Design isn't just about pretty pixels. Where's the content, and why is there dummy content in its place?
4. Where did the 'In the News' section go from their original design? It must have been important enough to put it at the very top. What assumptions did you make that led you to remove it, or move it down to the footer?
5. In general, what assumptions did you make and how did they influence your design?
Who cares, as long as the story is interesting, and well written? I actually learned something that I wanted to know for a long time, but never bothered to look up.
I am taking a negotiation class right now and we are using the three books listed below. The professor is really great, and the books are not boring college textbooks - they're really engaging and I'd read them on my own if I wasn't taking the course, too.
"Yes!: 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive" by Goldstein, Margin, & Cialdini is a great book on influence and persuasion.
Cialdini is a great resource for influence/negotiation in general, so look for other articles/books written by him.
"Predictably Irrational, Revised and Expanded Edition: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions" by Ariely is a great book on behavioral economics