Asif Sheikh has built his career on consistency, discipline, and long term thinking. He grew up in Chicago and turned an early interest in hard work into a steady climb inside one company. Today he is Vice President of Sales and lives in Saint Charles, Illinois.
Asif has spent more than 30 years in the Sales industry. That kind of tenure is rare in modern business. It shows a choice to go deep instead of chasing quick wins. He learned the business from the inside, then moved into leadership, where he now focuses on revenue growth, client retention, and new business development.
His success is rooted in simple habits. He pays attention to details. He follows through on commitments. He builds relationships that last through good years and hard years. In sales, that matters. Clients trust people who do what they say and who understand both the numbers and the people behind them.
Education has been another part of his path. Asif has completed coursework through Harvard Online and eCornell. He treats learning as a way to sharpen skills, not as a one time event. This mindset helps him adapt as markets and customer needs change.
Asif also measures success by how well others around him do. He values mentoring and takes pride in seeing colleagues grow. Outside of work, he supports Feed My Starving Children and enjoys golf as a break from a busy schedule.
His story shows that a strong career can come from patience, resilience, and a consistent focus on serving others.
When you think about success, what does it actually mean to you now?
Success for me is pretty simple. It is how well the people around me are doing, not just my own numbers or title.
At work, I look first at my team. Are the newer reps growing in skill and confidence? Are the long term clients still trusting us with important projects? Are we catching problems early because people feel safe speaking up?
On a personal level, success also means I can look back over my thirty year career and see steady progress. Not a perfect line, but a clear pattern of showing up, doing the work, and becoming more useful to the organization over time.
Outside of work, I link success to service. If I still have the energy to volunteer with groups like Feed My Starving Children and be present for my family, then the balance is about right.
You have spent more than three decades at one company. How has that shaped your view of success in a career?
Staying at one company forces you to think in longer time frames. Early on, I was focused on learning how to solve immediate problems. A client had a tight deadline. A production issue risked a mailing. The measure of success was getting that one job over the line.
After years in the same place, you start to see patterns. You remember how a client evolved over ten or fifteen years. You know how a recession affected orders, or how a postal change hit certain formats. That history changes how you judge your own decisions.
A long career in one firm also means you cannot hide from your past work. If you cut corners, those choices will come back to you. If you treat people well, that also comes back. For me, success in that setting is staying consistent enough that people still want to work with you after decades.
What are some concrete habits that have helped you succeed in sales and leadership?
Attention to detail is the first one. In our business, small errors are expensive. A wrong version on an envelope, a missed postal requirement, or a mistaken quantity can destroy margin and trust. I keep checklists for complex jobs and I still read through specs myself, even with a strong team.
Another habit is a simple follow up rhythm. When I was a younger rep, I had a paper notebook with each client and project. Today it is software, but the idea is the same. Every open item has a next action and a date. If I tell a client I will check pricing or timing, I log it and close the loop.
Finally, I block time to think instead of only reacting. A few times a week, I step back and look at the pipeline, problem jobs, and quiet accounts. That time is where you prevent small issues from becoming big ones. It is not exciting, but it is where most of my better decisions start.
Can you share a moment when perseverance and resilience made the difference?
One example is a regional client we almost lost during a tough year. They were cutting budgets and testing other vendors. On paper, it looked like a pricing issue.
Instead of walking away or just lowering rates, we spent months rebuilding the relationship. We reviewed every project from the past few years and owned the places where our service had slipped. We also helped them redesign a key mailing to reduce waste on their end.
There were several points where it would have been easier to accept the loss and move on. Staying with it, listening more than talking, and fixing small but important problems kept the door open. Over time, their volume came back. That experience reinforced my belief that resilience is not dramatic. It is often quiet and steady.
How have your studies with Harvard Online and eCornell influenced your view of success?
Those programs gave me language and structure for things I had already felt in practice. For example, a course on negotiation helped me think more clearly about interests versus positions. That changed how I prepare for pricing talks and contract renewals.
Another course focused on leadership and decision making. It emphasized creating systems, not just solving one problem at a time. That matched what I saw in long term client relationships. Sustainable success comes from processes that can survive busy seasons and staff changes.
The main impact is that I now see learning as part of my job, not something separate. In a changing market, staying curious is a requirement if you want to keep adding value.
You often mention mentoring. How does that connect to your idea of success?
When I look at a year, I do not just look at revenue. I ask myself which people are stronger now than they were twelve months ago.
Sometimes that means a new hire who can now manage a complex project with less supervision. Sometimes it is a quiet team member who finally speaks up with a process improvement. In both cases, part of my role is to create space for that growth.
Mentoring also keeps me honest. If I tell others that attention to detail and work ethic matter, I have to live that in my own habits. People notice what you do more than what you say. Seeing someone I helped become a leader themselves is one of the clearest signs of success I know.