For the summer after my sophomore year in college, I took a sales job. Don’t laugh: Oxford-cloth-buttoned-down Nick was selling rustic women’s leather handbags, leather belts, and a jewelry line to head shops catering to the Grateful Dead crowd. My territory ranged from Janesville, Wisconsin, to Peoria, Illinois. The idea was that I would drive from town to town, identify stores that would cater to the dead and other folks, strike up conversations with the store managers or owners, and pitch my bags.

I would open each conversation with a few questions … and then discussions were relatively short— “What are you selling? Let me see? I don’t think so. Good luck to you.” And each day, I was required to call my manager, Rick, and report how the day had gone.

In the early part of the summer, he was generally encouraging, but as the summer wore on and my sales numbers were thin, the conversations became more direct, and I dreaded the end of each day. It was a hot summer. My car was not air-conditioned. I was probably dehydrated at the end of each day. I dreaded those conversations. Even on a day when I’d written a good order, I dreaded the end-of-day conversations. And, by the middle weeks of the summer, I dreaded getting up in the morning to drag my bag of bags into yet another store to be politely received and gently declined.

And then, one day, near Peoria, I walked into a store in which, recently, somebody had smoked a really big joint. I said hello and asked a couple of questions to start conversation with the guy behind the counter. He paused for a moment, then motioned toward my feet and said, “Pull up some floor.” So, we did: We sat down.

“What are you doing out here in this part of the country?” he asked. “How did you sign up with this crowd for the summer?”

I was there for almost 2 hours, sitting on the floor, telling stories about my summer, and hearing his stories about the store and his surprisingly lively life in downstate Illinois. I walked out with a small sale and a really good story for Rick, something more than me grousing about the heat and the declines.

While Rick wasn’t impressed with the story, it totally shifted me. Instead of thinking about dragging my bag into yet another un-air-conditioned, patchouli oil and incense-infused head shop to pitch crudely cut leather handbags or boho-chic jewelry, I was rising each day, looking forward to finding the next great story at some point before dinner. Where’s the next person like THAT??

From that day through the end of August, I heard a lot of great stories, and I made enough sales to cover my summer expenses and incidentals for the upcoming school year.

In September, back on campus, I learned that the company for which I’ve been selling had declared bankruptcy. I connected with an attorney; he called me back a few days later and said, “I’m really sorry, you’re not going to get a penny… but it’s an interesting story if you have a moment.”

Nick Miller is President of Clarity Advantage based in Concord, MA. He assists banks and credit unions to generate more and more profitable relationships, faster, with business clients, their owners, and their employees through better sales strategies and execution. Additional articles on Clarity’s web site.