Senko told his audience of mostly students that he started as a personal trainer at Fitworks located in Rocky River, Ohio. Before starting his career, he attended Adrian College where he played football. When his football career wasn’t taking off, he left and decided to come to Cleveland State. 

From there, he started his own company doing in-home training. 

“In-home training is sort of where I got my sales ground. It's one on one, you’re selling yourself,” Senko said. “I was out of the trunk of my car handing flyers out in developments in Avon Lake just trying to pick up customers, and did.”

Senko said that before being with his current company, OSI, he got most of his sales leads from trade shows, exhibitions at which businesses in a particular industry promote their products and services.

He would also search online for businesses and their products as a way of generating sales leads. 

“I’d constantly Google,” Senko said. “I’d make a list on Fridays when everybody is heading out early, so it’s already done, and I’m ready by Monday at 9 a.m. with 100 cold calls ready to go for the week.”

He added that online and social media have made his job easier, as now a lot of sales leads are referral-based.

“A president in my current company is always sending me leads from Instagram, emails, whatever he may get via industry news,” said Senko.

He then went on to talk about what his current role as Senior Vice President at OSI. He explained that he and the company are working with the Chilean government to distribute uniforms.OSI is owned by ProSidan Capital, an investment firm. OSI itself is a parent company.

“The owners of my company (OSI) were hired to manage their own textile portfolios,” said Senko. “So we have OSI and underneath OSI, we have six different companies.”

Senko gave as an example of one of these companies an old textile mill in Tennessee, where about 4 million yards of backorder sit.

The industry defines a "textile" as any material made of interlacing fibers, including carpet and geotextiles. A “geotextile” is defined as a strong material used in a layer to protect or hold in place soil, water, small pieces of stone, etc., used in building or when creating something such as a garden.

“We have cutting edge textiles, which make bias bindings that you see on a lot of swim apparel, pocketing, and other apparel,” said Senko. “And for performance textiles, we’re probably the largest parachute fabric manufacturer in the country.”

OSI sells products domestically and internationally, although most of its business is domestic.

“We’re a rather large company, and we sell our product to anyone from large sewing facilities to small ‘Ma and Pa’ shops,” said Senko.

During question time,  a student asked Senko how he continues to keep himself motivated as a salesman. 

“There’s days you’ll want to throw your computer into a wall, you’ll get 'no’s' and just want to stop," Senko said. "You just keep going, don’t take it personally."

He said that the motto that keeps him going is “go for the 'no'.” 

“It’s okay to be told 'no' as long as you chase after the opportunity, that’s what leads to success."