TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 2026

Please meet CEO participant: Quentin Pike

Quentin is a senior at Edwards County High School. Outside of CEO, he is the vice president of the local FFA chapter, secretary of his senior class, secretary of FBLA, and an FCA leader.

Quentin was our CEO Connector Tuesday morning and planned a fun team building activity that required participants to turn their ears on and their minds to creativity mode. He asked his teammates to group up in twos and sit back to back, with one person as the designated artist (with no knowledge of what they were supposed to be drawing) and the other as the person describing the artwork of Quentin’s choice. It was fun to see what the ‘artists’ drew based on what they were told by their teammate describing the artwork.

Quentin did a phenomenal job leading our CEO Meeting & introducing special guest Tim Phillips. Tim is a Financial Advisor with Raymond James. His experience in sales dates back to when he was just 16 years old, when he “accidentally” sold a copy machine.

Tim gave us a Sales 101 crash course and left us with these key notes:

• Statistically, a ‘no’ is one closer to a YES. ‘No’ doesn’t always mean NO. It can mean not right now. Sales is a contact sport. Keep making contact.

• The quicker you can identify a personality and read a person’s body language, the quicker you can mirror them and match their energy. This can help close a sale quicker. Make your customer feel comfortable and safe. Don’t be a sales bully.

• Use the Grilled Cheese Method when making a sale:
-Top piece of bread: Compliment their question. Give your potential customer reassurance.
-The Cheese: Give them the answer. No fluff.
-Bottom piece of bread: Ask them open ended questions.

We applaud Quentin for running his first CEO Meeting as our CEO Connector!

We thank Tim Phillips for being a long time friend of the Mount Carmel CEO Program and continuing the tradition of sharing his vast knowledge of business, sales, and communication with our program once again. Thank you for being YOU, Tim!