Holly Hester

I attribute my success to my grandmother, my mother, and my sister. Even though I had a rough background that I brought on myself, my family has stood beside me, 10 toes down, every day. They are transparent with me - if they feel I'm doing something wrong or could improve on something, they tell me. As I got older, I learned to listen to what they were saying, and they have really shaped me into what I am today. When I got married, my husband was also a big part of that. He came from a different background, so I learned so much from him and learned how to present myself and speak eloquently when I need to. It changed my environment, which has been a huge stepping stone in everything that I do. Beyond family, I've also found that having a good work ethic and doing my job without being asked has made me stand out. I come to work, know what my responsibilities are, and get them done. Making myself known by doing good work has been key to my success.

“Handle your responsibilities without being asked and do them well.”
Holly lives by this philosophy, believing that initiative and reliability are what move you forward in any organization.

Have a good work ethic. You come to work, and they do not micromanage - you're literally at a store by yourself, you know what your responsibilities are, and it's your responsibility to get it done during the day. You've got to have a good work ethic, come to work, know what you gotta do, and make a list. Just go down your list, get your to-do list done, and if you get everything done, make sure you do everything on time, get your reports done on time, and you will shine. I tell everybody when they come in: get your work done, make yourself known, because we're a manager in a sea of 100, let's say. You need to make yourself known, and you do that by doing good work. Even though certain things might not be your job, I feel like you've got to learn everything, whether it's below you or over you. Just keep learning, get everything done, and just get it done.

The biggest challenge right now is getting customers in the door. We're in our slow season, so it's really about going out there, marketing, and getting customers to come in, because we're trying to be competitive with all the other companies around us as far as pricing goes. It's a constant game to try to figure out our pricing and what our customers want. Another obstacle we're facing is that we're a brand new store, so getting people here is tough. But once they come in here, we kill them with our customer service. On the opportunity side, this is when storage companies go over their budgets and see what we are doing in the store compared to what other stores are doing, which gives us a sense of what we need to improve on. At the same time, it's like the best feeling that you're trying to be at the top - it's a constant competitive, healthy competitive field to be on. There's also always room for advancement. If you want to advance and you're proving yourself, you can always advance, because storage is blowing up right now. If you're doing your job, there's always room for advancement if you want it.

I think in both my work and personal life, transparency is the most important value. People keep stuff to themselves, and I get that, but when it's something that's important, that's gonna shape your future or somebody else's future, it needs to come out. If I feel like something's not being done right, whether it be the house being clean or a process we're doing at work and it's not working, I'm the first one that's going to speak up. Not only will I speak up, but I present what I feel would be a good change to make, or what we could do to make it better. Everything I say is not correct, because we all have problems like that, but being on a team, everybody throws it out, so you get to talk about it. I think transparency is the best one, because I think transparency includes your honor, your truth-telling, and your personality.