Anyone who’s followed my blog knows that I have a real affinity for fine cigars. I am constantly looking for opportunities to indulge my passion. Fortunately, I was able to satisfy that interest several times this week with friends and business associates. It was my meeting with Eric on Monday that was most enjoyable and therefore memorable.
For the past few months, we have been trying to schedule time for a cigar and a beer at his favorite neighborhood cigar bar, Highland Cigar Company. I enjoyed our first meeting there and have been looking forward to a return visit. I was pleased that we were able to schedule time Monday afternoon.
The first thing I noticed when I entered Highland Cigar was that it was much larger than my last visit. They’re obviously doing well as they expanded into an adjacent space, increasing their footprint by half. Clearly, Highland Cigar is a popular place that’s doing well.
Eric arrived first and secured a couple of comfortable chairs. After a friendly greeting, I headed for the humidor to make my cigar selection. However, Eric stopped me and said that he brought a couple of his favorites for me to try. That was nice. One was a Rocky Patel, and the other, a Perdomo. Both featured Maduro wraps.
We did not have an agenda to discuss business issues. It was meant to be a way to ease into the week with a relaxing conversation and to get to know one another better. Even so, there was one issue that I wanted to discuss with Eric; a follow-up to a brief conversation from Friday’s monthly ITB Partners Members meeting. Before the meeting, I told Eric and two other colleagues about the prior days “lunch with four interesting people.” I began our meeting by embellishing on Friday’s set-up. I told him I was most impressed by our host and the concept of the lunch. I went on to say that I planned to refer him and our other colleagues to John, (not his real name) so that they would have an opportunity to meet him as well.
Eric, on the other hand, wanted to talk about options for a permanent office space, where we could gather more easily, even spontaneously to conduct business. He was thinking of a virtual office, co-working space. Our options include WeWork, Intelligent office, Regus, Industrious, Liquidspace, and Servecorp. Having recently spent time in an Intelligent office location, I was excited about our conversation as well. I was totally engaged with Eric. He went on to say that his son and daughter-in-law conduct their business from a WeWork office in Philadelphia. When Eric mentioned his son and daughter-in-law, I saw an opportunity to steer the conversation away from our business interests.
At that point, I redirected the conversation toward a personal discussion beginning with Eric’s background. You could say that I went into an executive recruiting mode. My executive search experience has helped me refine my listening skills. I have learned that getting to know someone requires patience to listen to them and ask follow up questions for clarification. Asking questions serves to keep the conversation moving and demonstrates a genuine interest in the other. It is how bonds of trust are created.
I remembered that Eric was originally from the Philadelphia area, however, I did not recall much about his education and early career experience. I learned that Eric was a music major in college, a classical guitarist. He went on to say that by the age of 27 he was the Music Director for Hart college. He told me how he met his wife, and his decision to change careers from music to project management, and later, earning a master’s degree from George Washington University. I asked if he still plays the guitar. He said he does and showed me a promotional photo of his trio. He performs with another guitarist and a vocalist. They had a gig scheduled for Friday night. One question led to another and before long he was showing the work of an artist friend, Max Zorn. Max creates incredible images using brown packing tape. We talked about his travel through Spain with his wife: The walk of northern Spain also known as the Way of Saint James, then a more recent visit to Scotland.
The cigars and beers with Eric were enjoyable and relaxing. Getting to know and understand Eric on a more personal level was, as the commercial goes, “priceless.”
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I enjoyed “the most interesting man in the world” advertising campaign for Dos Equis beer. It was a big hit that inspired many Internet memes and skits on Saturday Night Live. Everyone could identify with that theme. From what I understand, it was successful as the brand saw year-over-year sales increases in the face of overall declining US beer consumption. Of course, that was when actor Jonathan Goldsmith played the debonair gentleman with a lifetime of memorable experiences and beautiful women at his side. His replacement, French actor Augustin Legrand, not so much. Ultimately that campaign was scrubbed in 2018.
Do you ever wonder why a series of related events seem to converge at about the same time? It is funny how life can unfold. I experienced one of those convergences this week.
Stan Stout: an Experienced leader with a unique blend of strategic focus / forward thinking, strategic focus and the ability to lead and manage execution. 