A Wise Man’s Question
During my short stay as a car salesman I went through the week long process of internet training modules and interaction with managers and other salesmen. I had entered into a brand new vocational experience. I discovered new people, a new environment and a totally new culture in every sense of the word. My mind felt the expansion joints discovering their limits.
One of the salesmen, Harvey Rosen, was sharing with me how glad he was to be working for this dealership. He mentioned he had worked for others but found this one particularly good to work with. I certainly felt more hopeful at that moment about the new method of gaining an income stream!
Harvey was helpful in other ways too. He was an older man who seemed very dedicated to his work. He was scurrying around each day with energy and sincerity about his job. Some people saw him as kind of a quirky guy, which he is, and kind of marveled at his part of the sales team being what it was.
After I had been there for about a week Harvey was sitting down outside on the bench and I sat down next to him. He looked at me with intense eyes and focused purpose. He said, “John, what have you learned this week”. I was shocked at the simplicity of his question and also shocked at the seriousness through which he asked it.
I said Harvey, I have learned a lot about the cars through the internet modules in Toyota University. He said, “That’s good John, what else have you learned?” He wasn’t going to take just one answer and through his questions, I searched my own experience.
I learned from Harvey more about not judging a book by its cover and not to take other peoples’ assessment of people for what they seemed to sense about someone.
It was at that point where my respect for Harvey went up tremendously. I found that maybe on the outside, Harvey was an older man with a slanted posture and a seemingly mumbling presence, but on the inside was as wise older man that maybe I could learn a lot from.
If nothing else, Harvey became one of the most sincere fellow salesmen I am working with. I believe it is his sincerity, commitment, and age old wisdom that helps him to sell cars. I would trust him!
