I once interviewed someone for a sales position who, rather sending in a resume as requested, called me and asked if he could come in and chat about the job for a few minutes. While this was unorthodox, something told me I should meet with him. As it turned out, Glen was the retired CEO of a refrigeration equipment manufacturer. He knew if he had simply submitted a resume, I probably would have set it aside because it would have been outside the vision of what I had in mind for a salesperson.
Glen was about 60. I was about 30 and this whole encounter caught me totally off guard. I’d never had this kind of contact with a CEO before, especially one who was sitting on the applicant’s side of the table. What do you ask someone who’s “been there and done that” for most of the time you’ve been alive? It was all rather intimidating. I suspect Glen knew the impact he was having. So he waited for me to collect my thoughts. Once I had taken a breath, I asked the obvious question. “Why apply for this job?”
Glen told me he just liked the selling “game” and was looking for a way to stay in it for a few hours a week. We chatted a little bit about his background. But he dominated the conversation by asking me all about what I was doing, my vision for the business, how I was positioning myself in the market and so on. (This, by the way, I have found is typical for senior executives. They are insatiably curious regardless of the circumstances.) Truth is, I didn’t have clear answers for a number of his questions. But he saw my enthusiasm and liked what I was offering. After an hour, he asked if he could work for me a couple of hours a day calling people he thought might have an interest in what I did.
I said yes, not quite sure what was going to happen. Glen started making phone calls for a couple of hours a day from his home and generated a bunch of business from people I had not even thought of calling. Why? Because he could get through to senior people using the rapport he had developed as a CEO. He just had a bigger vision than I did about the impact I could have. Not only that, he taught me an enormous about how senior executives think and make decisions. While I felt uncomfortable at times, he stretched me in ways I didn’t know I needed to be stretched. The insights he imparted were solid gold. My wife has spent years asking her students, “Have you ever grown without discomfort?” This was that.
Glen was also a great encourager. He recognized that I might have perceived him as the smartest person in the room. But he was forever letting me know he thought I was pretty smart as well and that’s why he was working for me. He also taught me how to quickly and decisively evaluate the diversity of people and situations I would encounter over time.
After a year or so, he moved on to another opportunity. But the wisdom he imparted in our short time together has been something I’ve leaned on for the past three decades. As the adage goes, when the student is ready, the teacher will appear, even if the student doesn’t know he’s ready.