How a husband-wife sales team has found success and work-life balance amid their professional careers and a challenging health diagnosis.
By Pete Mercer
What would it look like for you and your spouse to wake up every morning and go to work together? Many couples might shudder at the thought of working at the same company, especially if you both were to work in the same department.
With that in mind, Team Godfrey might seem like something of an anomaly – a happily married couple that work together as account managers at CME Corp., the largest healthcare equipment centric distributor in the country. With over 2,000 manufacturers, CME provides their customers with an array of items, based on what they need.
Team Godfrey consists of Chris and Julie Godfrey, a husband-and-wife duo who are co-account managers at CME. The Godfreys manage large accounts for Connecticut and Maine, as well as a large retail clinic on a national level, which has locations throughout the entire country.
Settling in at CME
Chris has worked with CME since 2014, with a total of almost 40 years in the industry. He started his career in 1983 at Mohawk Healthcare of Utica, before moving to CME in 2014. Julie has been with CME since 2018, a career change after working in the field of radiology.
Once she and Chris moved from New York to Rhode Island, she could no longer work as a tech assistant because of the different educational requirements. After she realized that in the state of Rhode Island she could no longer be hands on in the field of radiology, she needed a career change.
Shortly after their move, Chris went to his VP of Sales, KC Meleski, and said, “We’ve got a real talent here in Julie. I’d love for her to come work for CME.” Based on his recommendation, Normand Chevrette, the president and CEO of CME, reached out to Chris to make sure it was a good fit for the couple and organization. Julie spent the first two years at CME as a customer service specialist, but eventually moved to account management to work with Chris.
At the time, their largest client was opening over 200 clinics across the country, which would be a big enough job for just one person. Further complicating things, Chris started to experience some health issues that made mobility difficult for him. He was eventually diagnosed with ALS in 2022.
“When I became an account manager, Chris had gone through two neck surgeries and a shoulder surgery,” Julie explained. “He was finding mobility hard. At the time, we didn’t know it was ALS. They kept ruling it out. He needed help maneuvering his keyboard and stuff like that.”
When Julie first started at CME, Chris was the director of business development from 2017 to 2018, a corporate leadership role that required a good bit of travel. While they were still unsure of what Chris’ condition was, he eventually made the transition back to account management, which was a much better fit.
Better together
They became Team Godfrey, working together to serve CME’s customers. While many people might not want to work with their spouse, Chris and Julie have made it work. They both work from home, in separate offices, which allows them to divide and conquer. Julie said, “It was an adjustment, but Chris and I have always been able to communicate. We have always had that kind of relationship where we respect each other’s opinions.”
If there are days that don’t go well, Julie said she takes a break from work to check on the dogs or figure out something for dinner. They connect in the afternoon about how the workday has been going and finalize everything together before calling it a day. It’s a good system that gives each person the space and independence they need to get their work done.
The most challenging part for Chris is breaking out of his old habits. While Julie uses his many years of experience to her advantage, Chris admits, “I was set in my way. For 38 years, I did it my way. All of a sudden, I have this smart chick over here going, ‘Hey Chris, what about this way?’ And I have to bite my tongue a little bit and say, ‘You know what? You’re right.’ It’s a good give and take.”
There are more good days than bad though, giving them opportunities to collaborate and celebrate their wins. Chris said, “The most rewarding part of it is when all of a sudden you get that big purchase order in the inbox. I can say to Julie, ‘Honey, guess what? That quote you did for $125,000 just came through!’ To be honest, it makes you feel good.”
Julie agreed, saying, “The give and take is good because our thought processes are not the same. He’ll get to an end result one way, and I might take a totally different path. Ultimately, we end up at the same end point. It’s interesting to see how people think differently from each other. When all is said and done, we both teach each other.”
The Godfreys have been married for 13 years now, creating a blended family with four children between the two of them from previous marriages. No marriage is perfect, but Chris says that the best marriage advice he can give is to marry your best friend. Julie emphasized the need for mutual respect for each other’s opinions, professionally and personally.
Planning for the future
ALS is a very serious neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord, making planning for the future difficult. Without a clear picture of what their future is going to look like, the Godfreys are taking everything one day at a time. Julie said, “We had plans of retiring and playing golf all the time. We used to take 20-mile bike rides on the weekends. With his diagnosis, we’ve had to kind of revamp our activities and just be happy that he’s still here and still walking.”
Living in Rhode Island gives them access to beaches and beautiful waterfront vistas where they can watch sailboats drifting into a golden sunset each night. During the warmer months, Chris and Julie take advantage of their beautiful state, walking the dogs and enjoying the ocean breeze. Aside from their outdoor activities, they love to watch hockey and baseball together. While Chris is still healthy and mobile, they have plans to travel to Europe later this year.
On their work at CME, Chris said, “Professionally, we’ve got a couple of larger projects in the works and we’re hopefully going to see those through to fruition. After that, I’d like to retire. I’ll be 61 in April, and with no cure for ALS, I could be around another year or even 10 to 15 years. I would love to see those projects through and sail off into the sunset.”
As they prepare for an uncertain future, they understand that the industry has completely changed from what it was like before. Automated platforms like Salesforce help to streamline all of their processes and communications with clients, simplifying a lot of the administrative work of the medical sales rep. But the emergence of digital tools, applications and platforms can pose a threat to what many old school sales reps consider to be the foundation of the business: the human touch.
“Our advice to the younger sales reps would be, don’t forget the human side of it,” Julie said. “Get in front of your accounts and let them know who you are as a person. I think that’s important in sales. You can’t always just be behind a computer; you need to be connected with your accounts in other ways. Don’t ever forget that person-to-person relationship.”
Chris made a point to advise the younger sales reps to lean on their more experienced counterparts. “I find that the younger crowd is either afraid or doesn’t know how to approach a guy like me that’s been in the industry for so many years. You would think a younger rep starting out would be like, ‘Hey, how do you do this?’ Or, ‘What do you suggest for this?’ I would always say that collaboration and communication go hand-in-hand.”
One of the other pieces of advice Julie wanted to offer young sales reps is to find a good work-life balance. Unsurprisingly, her husband’s diagnosis has her more focused on the priorities in her life. With an uncertain future, she wants to encourage younger reps (especially those with children) to prioritize what’s truly important. She said, “We try to keep living in today because it makes you more aware of everything you do during that day, the importance of little things, and just how fragile time is.”