It Takes a Community ... Part 5 Customers
During my selling career in fluid power, I have been blessed with many great customers who have very much helped me in my career. There are hundreds, but I would like to mention a few in this post as the people who had the biggest impact on me.
Early in my career, I had the honor of meeting and working with the late Lynne Parry of Apple Rubber Products in Lancaster, NY. Lynne detected some shyness on my part in our first meeting and she promptly told me "Come on, let's go to lunch and talk." She took a personal interest in my career and wanted to share some of her enthusiasm and give me some ideas on how to be more open and engaging.
Lynne was known throughout the sealing industry as a passionate, engaging, professional, and all around wonderful person. She was very customer oriented and actually taught people how to run trade show booths. We became great friends and in fact, Lynne invited me to her home for dinner with her and her husband several times. I loved Lynne and I miss her very much! She taught me a lot.
One of my favorite companies to visit was always Peninsular Cylinder in Roseville, MI. That's because Brent Patterson was such a great guy to call on. We became friends right away and we always had an enormous amount of trust between us. Having meetings and lunches with Brent Patterson and Steve Vasilovski of Peninsular were some highlights of my career. Their commitment to success was a great lesson for me and I thoroughly enjoyed their friendship.
I am privileged and better off for ever knowing and working with George Kokalis of Servo Kinetics in Ann Arbor, MI. Not only was George a great customer but he also took a personal interest in my success. If too much time went by between our visits, George would call and leave a message something like, "Hey Mike Ference, where are you, did you forget about me?" I always had a huge respect for George and I cherished his friendship as well.
I will mention one more in this post. I met Renzo Mestieri of DMIC way back in the 1980s in Canada at his company, National Hydraulics. Again, for some reason, he took an interest in helping me with my career and often made suggestions to help me. He later formed DMIC which became a great customer and remains one today! Renzo also had a dedication to success that I detected and learned from. He and all of the people mentioned in this post were mentors to me!
I can name many more great customers/friends that I have worked with but I wanted to call out Lynne, Brent, George, and Renzo as exceptional people and examples of how customers can serve as mentors. Thank you so much Lynne, Brent, George, and Renzo for your contribution to my career but more importantly for your wonderful friendship!!
