Sooo, over this past yr I've had a dozen conversations with this old octogenarian codger. His daughter is probably a few yrs older than me and is the
'are we there yet?' person. With him - 11/12 good conversations with an old man about his biz, who he sells to, why he needs our $$, how to be a great sales person
, etc. Just good old conversations with an old man talking about his life. Each one about 15-30 minutes, I can't cut him off because even though he can be crotchety, he's a nice guy, and of course he refers us customers that we make $$ from. The calls would usually end with 'and if anything changes[on whatever deal initiated his call to me], you've got my cell. Just give me a quick call.' My last convo with him was probably a month ago.
fast forward: The most recent 'are we there yet deal'
finally ended this past monday and I haven't heard from them until today. The daughter calls, thanks me for my patience, reviews the deal
yet again & then says she's got news. . . .
Her dad died last week. Apparently 3wks ago at a drs appt he had multiple, inoperable brain tumors & gave him 3 mos. He was gone in 3 weeks. Worked until his last week, and was fully functional at home until the last 36hrs.
The daughter said it's more relaxed around the office now because he's not yelling for this employee or that employee to do something or bring him something over and over. She said she was still getting ready to send out semi-personalized emails to their regulars and was just finishing calling the 3 people that needed a call instead of an email. "old customers?" I asked. "Yeah and competition. He was on the ground floor of this industry and two other guys and him stuck with each other through all the industry changes and economic ups and downs. And now I just had some time to call you."
ME???
Yeah. He talked with those two occasionally, and you. We literally made sure he didn't talk to anyone outside of here because we never new what he'd say. I've had to call people back and apologize to them when he's randomly picked up the phone and lose his mind. He'd just lose it but he only kind of lost it with you that one time.
I'm still in a little shock he gone, but I'm in a lot of shock that I was that significant to them.