Charlie Harp by Sam Mullinax

Charlie Harp by Sam Mullinax

An Edited interview with Charlie Harp by Sam Mullinax

I went to a predominately black high school in Detroit. There were the normal people, the “white buck” athletes, and the bad-asses. I wore black patent leather pointed toe shoes, Levis, a T-shirt and a hat. In the wintertime, we wore big white flannel double-breasted overcoats and we’d skip school and go to the pool hall and shot pool and snooker. We had to carry ID cards that listed our classes.

There was a Buick Roadmaster police cruiser that had three plain-clothes detectives, a uniformed driver, and a shotgun on the dashboard. They would cruise the school every time class was out. The rule was, if you were around the school grounds more than 30 minutes before your first class or 30 minutes after your last class, they put you in the car took you to the Davidson Police Station, where they called your parents to pick you up.

It was the roughest school in the city and it was kind of fun because we’d see them cruising and we’d all run and jump up against the wall. And they’d stop and say, “O.K., smart alecks. Knock it off!” We’d all back off the wall and laugh. And then they'd say, “Now hit the wall.” And then they took your ID card. If you were skipping school, they marched you into the school and turned you over to the assistant principal. He always told me, “It’s OK. I’m on the draft board. The day you turn 18, guess where you’re going?”

In 10th grade I set the record for skipping school 58 days. And in 11th grade, I got expelled for having beer in my hall locker. I ran with a pretty rowdy crowd. In fact, of the seven guys that I ran with, two of us joined the service and the other five guys ended up in prison. When I came home my dad said, “Give me the house key, pack your stuff and I never want to see you again … or join the service. And I don’t think you’ve got the guts to join the service.” Well, the next day I was signing my life away.

I did a lot of things and as I look back on it I feel that I have been very, very fortunate to have had the opportunity to do what I’ve done. Because I didn’t have a right to expect it at all and I didn’t even have the right to feel that all the chutzpah in the world was going to get me there.

Along the way I had five different mentors who took me under their wing. They sat me down and said, “Charlie, there are some thing you do extremely well and there are other things you don’t care about that you have to care about.”

An Armenian guy by the name of John Onesian competed with me for 10 years. He was a manufacturer’s rep selling to the same people I was selling to for a company I worked with. And every year around Christmas time he’d call me up and we’d talk over coffee. He finally admitted later on, “I wanted to hire you. But when we'd talk and you told me how much money you were making, it was more than I was making owning my own company.”

Then my first wife passed away and the owner of the company I worked for was very patient but only for about 30 days. I had three children, five, eight and 12. So I was coming in late and having to leave early and so forth. And he finally got antsy and I got upset. So I called John and I said, "John, are you still thinking you’d like to hire me?” And he said, “Yeah.” And I said, “I’m having a $10,000 a year off Charlie Harp sale!” And he said, “When can we get together?” He ended up making me a partner.

He always told me, “You know, you can be at one end of the territory when you get a phone call from the totally opposite end. The guy is saying, ‘Charlie, I’ve got a problem.’ And as soon as you leave that customer, you jump in your car and you drive all the way across to the other end of your territory and say, ‘How can I help you?’ When you could do it two days later and it wouldn’t matter.

There’s two things I want you to do for me. One is, I want you to give me an itinerary that goes out three weeks. Next, I want you to buy a package of 3x5 cards and I want you to write offers on them. Carry these cards in your sports coat pocket and whenever you’re sitting in a lobby waiting for your next appointment, go through them.”

Every time we’d see each other he’d say, “Show me your 3x5 cards.” It’s those type of people that made any success I had possible.

This project is a published work written by Sam Mullinax titled, “A Man On the Move: From the Streets of Detroit to the Halls of Community Leadership”

Charlie Harp by Sam Mullinax
An Edited interview with Charlie Harp by Sam Mullinax
I went to a predominately black high school in Detroit. There were the normal people, the “white buck” athletes, and the bad-asses. I wore black patent leather pointed toe shoes, Levis, a T-shirt and a hat. In the wintertime, we wore big white flannel double-breasted overcoats and we’d skip school and go to the pool hall and shot pool and snooker. We had to carry ID cards that listed our classes. There was a Buick Roadmaster police cruiser that had three plain-clothes detectives, a uniformed driver, and a shotgun on the dashboard. They would cruise the school every time class was out. The rule was, if you were around the school grounds more than 30 minutes before your first class or 30 minutes after your last class, they put you in the car took you to the Davidson Police Station, where they called your parents to pick you up. It was the roughest school in the city and it was kind of fun because we’d see them cruising and we’d all run and jump up against the wall. And they’d stop and say, “O.K., smart alecks. Knock it off!” We’d all back off the wall and laugh. And then they'd say, “Now hit the wall.” And then they took your ID card. If you were skipping school, they marched you into the school and turned you over to the assistant principal. He always told me, “It’s OK. I’m on the draft board. The day you turn 18, guess where you’re going?” In 10th grade I set the record for skipping school 58 days. And in 11th grade, I got expelled for having beer in my hall locker. I ran with a pretty rowdy crowd. In fact, of the seven guys that I ran with, two of us joined the service and the other five guys ended up in prison. When I came home my dad said, “Give me the house key, pack your stuff and I never want to see you again … or join the service. And I don’t think you’ve got the guts to join the service.” Well, the next day I was signing my life away. I did a lot of things and as I look back on it I feel that I have been very, very fortunate to have had the opportunity to do what I’ve done. Because I didn’t have a right to expect it at all and I didn’t even have the right to feel that all the chutzpah in the world was going to get me there. Along the way I had five different mentors who took me under their wing. They sat me down and said, “Charlie, there are some thing you do extremely well and there are other things you don’t care about that you have to care about.” An Armenian guy by the name of John Onesian competed with me for 10 years. He was a manufacturer’s rep selling to the same people I was selling to for a company I worked with. And every year around Christmas time he’d call me up and we’d talk over coffee. He finally admitted later on, “I wanted to hire you. But when we'd talk and you told me how much money you were making, it was more than I was making owning my own company.” Then my first wife passed away and the owner of the company I worked for was very patient but only for about 30 days. I had three children, five, eight and 12. So I was coming in late and having to leave early and so forth. And he finally got antsy and I got upset. So I called John and I said, "John, are you still thinking you’d like to hire me?” And he said, “Yeah.” And I said, “I’m having a $10,000 a year off Charlie Harp sale!” And he said, “When can we get together?” He ended up making me a partner. He always told me, “You know, you can be at one end of the territory when you get a phone call from the totally opposite end. The guy is saying, ‘Charlie, I’ve got a problem.’ And as soon as you leave that customer, you jump in your car and you drive all the way across to the other end of your territory and say, ‘How can I help you?’ When you could do it two days later and it wouldn’t matter. There’s two things I want you to do for me. One is, I want you to give me an itinerary that goes out three weeks. Next, I want you to buy a package of 3x5 cards and I want you to write offers on them. Carry these cards in your sports coat pocket and whenever you’re sitting in a lobby waiting for your next appointment, go through them.” Every time we’d see each other he’d say, “Show me your 3x5 cards.” It’s those type of people that made any success I had possible.
This project is a published work written by Sam Mullinax titled, “A Man On the Move: From the Streets of Detroit to the Halls of Community Leadership”