Her Story
About Alissa
I grew up in a family-owned business in commercial and residential building, and my family also owned a masonry supply store. Being in that environment and watching my family deal with people really shaped me. I was putting together multi-million dollar proposals when I was young, working for the family business. I'm 37 years old, but I have 25 years of work experience because I've been around business since I was 12. I wanted to branch off into interior design and started going to school for that, working for Ethan Allen as a design assistant. But working for Ethan Allen, I realized I love sales. I started going in people's homes, building out options for them, and really guiding and helping them. From there, I worked for a company called 3-Day Blinds, where you get your 4 calls for the day and work out of your car going call to call, which mirrors what plumbers and HVAC techs do. The customer calls in, they have an issue, and that plumber or tech is going call to call, investigating, diagnosing, and giving options to guide the customer. I was able to use that experience to guide those professionals. Having a hunger to help in a big way, I stepped out of the commission-only consultant role and stepped into management because I wanted to make tangible change for people. I was responsible for 400% plumbing growth year over year at the previous company I worked for. Now I've founded Stratella Consulting to share insight, bringing both big picture thinking and the ability to marry that with smaller company, family-owned culture, giving companies customized solutions.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Alissa
01What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
I would say be humble and resourceful enough to ask the questions and to lean on others, but have the courage to take the risk. When you're dealing with B2B, it doesn't happen overnight. It can take time, because I'm so used to one-call close. Business development and building relationships has become just so important. The other piece of advice I would add would be to identify how you can help. If you're in a place where you can identify how you can help a business or help society, the money will come.
02What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
Right now, I'm trying to scale my business. Industry-wide, a struggle that I've identified that I'd like to help is just communication in the home. A lot of plumbers and HVAC techs go to school because they like to fix things. They don't go to school because they want to be in sales, so I am actively fighting the sales stigma. I don't necessarily think that sales has a good rep in any industry, but particularly going into somebody's home, nobody wants to be sold anything. So right now, my challenge that I'm seeing is fighting the stigma around sales versus understanding what sales is. It's just education and information. And how you do that is what dictates the type of salesperson you are.
03What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
My daughter is very important to me. That's part of what inspired me to have my own business, because I know I'm grinding now and helping people, but being present for her matters. I try to be there for every class event for her. I think being featured in anything that's all women is a privilege, because I think that we're still just making so many waves as women. I think women are so under-leveraged still. I think in the next 20 to 30 years, we're going to really see how women becoming key players in some of these industries is a help, not a hindrance.
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