Hannah Renee Hooks

I grew up playing a lot of sports including soccer, volleyball, track, cross country, and softball, and I had all different kinds of coaches. Some were not so good, and then I had the ones that were wonderful that I still reach out to to this day. I think they taught me a lot of valuable lessons about how to be a part of a team, how to listen, how to put practice into the things that you would like to become better in the future, because nothing is going to happen if you don't practice it. They also taught me to take criticism, not always constructive, sometimes just straight criticism, and to listen to the things that matter and to really hone in when it matters and when it is needed. But they also taught me to have fun and to look at the bigger picture and really ask myself, am I really enjoying this? Because if I'm not, I shouldn't be here, and this is not what I should be doing, because it not only affects me, it affects everybody else around me. They also taught me to be able to listen to harsh truths about myself, even when it's something that I don't really want to hear. Sometimes it doesn't really have anything to do with the sport or the job itself, it's just me and who I am as a person, because that also affects your daily routines. I think they taught me more than I'm ever gonna be able to teach them in return.

The best career advice I've ever received is that it's not going to be immediate. It will never be immediate, and you are going to have to do a lot of things that you don't want to do in order to get to where you want to be. And ultimately, it will be worth it. It's gonna be a long, a long haul. You are going to not enjoy a lot of it, but that does not mean that you're not going to enjoy where you're getting yourself to. You just might not enjoy every little piece of the journey, and that's going to be okay. That's what makes it worth it.

For women entering my industry, I'd say there's a lot of men, so don't be intimidated by that. There are women as well, just a lot more men. Also, don't be discouraged. I got a little discouraged when I first came in because you are walking into people's businesses all day long, 15 to 20 businesses, sometimes more a day, and sometimes you get the people that they know who you are and they don't want you there. They can be pretty abrupt, they can be pretty hardcore, and it sucks to hear no all day, every day, because that's the majority of time, that's what you're hearing. Even before they even know who you are, or maybe they do, a lot of times they don't even care. They just want you to leave. So my biggest take is to not be discouraged and to have confidence and to get comfortable super quickly with being uncomfortable, because in my industry, you're gonna have to be there for about a year, a year and a half, to really fully hone in on what it is that we do and getting yourself comfortable enough to where you have that nice flow, where everything is coming together and you have your customers and you have your talk tracks down and all of that. I'm fairly new, so I'm still enjoying all that right now.

My challenges definitely include building my confidence and keeping it even when I get the feeling that my services aren't wanted, even if I haven't gotten a chance to go through my whole spiel. I've been working on being okay with not being that white knight where it's like, but I'm different, I can help you. They don't care. They just want you to leave. I also used to struggle a lot with time management, but this job has helped me so much with that. They have given me so many resources and so much help on how to manage my time, because we do a lot in a day. We have meetings, appointments we have to make, a certain amount of calls within a day, a certain amount of people to visit, and you obviously want to overachieve beyond the minimum. If I did not have the resources that they have provided me and if my bosses weren't my bosses, I don't think I'd last very long here, literally solely based off of not being able to fit everything I need to do within a day. But it is doable if you have your time blocked off by the second. As for opportunities, this job is easily the best job I've ever had. I work with a lot of really respectable people, and I think just the connections alone are going to do a lot for me. My father has worked in this industry for a very long time at Sharp, which is one of our competitors, and he's very well-known and well-liked, so thank God for me. It's really nice to already have him having established connections with people, and people being almost delighted to see me as well. I also think it's going to push me to a limit that I was lacking at the wholesale. Even if I don't stay in this industry, it is going to give me so much knowledge and so much experience that I feel like I could take to any industry, honestly.

Honesty is the most important value to me in both my work and personal life. I give it, not only because that is how I like to live my life, it's also because I would like to receive it. I've always been very direct. I don't care to be sneaky or weird. I'm me, and I'm this is what I'm here for, and you are you, and if you like it, amazing, I love it. And if you don't, well, that's good for you, and I'm not gonna bother with you anymore. My boss actually commended me this morning on my honesty, and she said it was really quite refreshing. I'm very direct and straightforward in everything I do.