Written by Rebeca Piccardo Zerpa
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Glenn Starcher had about a year left in nursing school when he completely changed the course of his career. And it all started with a part-time retail sales job at Cox Communications in Hampton Roads, VA.

“I always like to stay busy, so while I was pursuing nursing, I went for a part-time job at the Peninsula Town Center in Hampton, and honestly just fell in love with it right from the get-go,” he said.  

Within six months, Glenn accepted a full-time sales role at Cox and never looked back. To this day, he knows he made the right decision.

“No regrets, honestly,” he said. “I just love people in general, so sales made sense.”

Fast forward to today and Glenn is a sales manager in charge of pioneering a new team within Cox Business.

Here, Glenn reflects on nine years working at Cox, establishing a rewarding sales career and finding his purpose as a people leader.

Becoming a strong sales leader

Once Glenn committed to putting all his energy into his sales career, there was no stopping his momentum.

“Every nine months to a year, I was promoted,” said Glenn, who moved into senior sales and operations roles before becoming a store manager at Janaf Shopping Center in Norfolk, VA — the busiest location in all of Hampton Roads.

Glenn was the helm of the Janaf store when the COVID-19 pandemic hit.

“It was a big trial for me from a leadership standpoint,” he said. “Even though cable and internet are technically not a utility, they are in today’s world; we are people’s lifeline.”

Despite the challenges during the pandemic, the Janaf store produced some of the best net promoter scores (a customer service metric) that location had ever received. One of the secrets to Glenn’s success at Janaf and beyond is his growth as a servant leader, where his priority is the growth, well-being and empowerment of his employees — not just the bottom line.

“You’re growing individuals from the ground up, especially when you start at the service level,” Glenn said. “About 14 of the leaders in Hampton Roads came from my store at some point in time.”

Building from scratch

In his newest role, Glenn is building a new kind of sales team from the ground up to focus on outbound sales at a grander scale. Along with bringing people on board, he’s also developing the training and tools for this new team to hit the ground running in 2024.  

“We are building the plane as we’re flying,” he said. “I just want to be hitting full goal in January and then some.”

A balance that can’t be beat

As a career changer and hiring manager, Glenn is well aware of the selling points of working at Cox. Even in a fast-paced sales role, Glenn is amazed by the work-life balance he’s able to enjoy, especially with his wife, Kristin, and their three children.

“The work-life balance is amazing,” he said. “You know, I’ve worked in restaurants and in the medical field, and I love all that, but there’s no work-life balance.”

Glenn feels so strongly about what Cox has to offer that he even helped a friend from his nursing school days change his career for the better with Cox.

“I have a buddy who was in school with me and was in the medical field when he was like, ‘The growth is not there,’ and I told him, ‘Well, come on over,’” Glenn said. “Now he worked with me at Cox Business, and he makes twice as much as he would have, and the work-life balance is great.”

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