Her Story
About Ilisha
My career path has been really interesting and unique. I started in pest control, which was also a sales position where I was not only servicing accounts but adding on programs, and it was very lucrative. I was making good money at a young age. Within a year of working for Ecolab, they asked me to go into sales, and I accelerated and excelled in the sales division. They realized I could learn so many different programs and tasks, so they started to move me around various divisions. Throughout my career, I've kind of had a made-to-order job profile. My roles have always been something I've created and designed by having the thought leadership of doing something better and different than what we've done before. Working in manufacturing has so many layers of opportunity of what you can do and where divisions you could be in. I realized I had a gift in general for business, so I went out and finished my bachelor's, then got my master's from Texas A&M. I was part of the Women's Food Service Forum and spoke many times there. I support the Mentium program, talking to young women and helping them achieve their goals, because a lot of times at work, you just need to talk to somebody. As women, we don't always have enough confidence in what we can do, and it's good to have those people around us to tell us that we only limit ourselves by the way we think.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Ilisha
01What do you attribute your success to?
I think my success is because I have a tremendous amount of gratitude for my life and this planet. I believe that as we take the air, we have to give something in exchange. That means taking care of things around our home, taking care of our environment, taking care of people that need support. I think gratitude is probably one of the biggest things that people forget. It helps you stay grounded, because then you don't always feel like, oh, they're out to get me. Maybe the problem is not so much that, but the fact that you're focusing on the wrong things. Having the grounded and gratitude to be able to even recognize that, because it's called self-awareness, allows you to be able to let go of some of those negative thoughts and focus on more positive. And the more positive thoughts you have, the better outcomes. Even the worst situations still will have the best outcome. That's just a momentary setback for a larger game, because there's a lesson from it that you're supposed to be looking at.
02What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
Know the products, so that you can really talk and support a customer on making good decisions. A lot of people going into sales don't realize that it's not about how much of it you can sell. It's really about how long can you keep the customer wanting to buy that product, because there's always somebody else offering something that says it's better than yours. So you have to really understand your products, be able to explain it and show the value of it. That's how you retain your customers, and being honest with your customers, even if you have to deliver bad news. Everybody has a product to sell, everybody has something to offer. Everybody's gonna be in that door, knocking on that door, saying that their bleach is better than your bleach. If you don't show the customer that your product works and offer a customer other options if your product does not work, then someone else will. You can't be average at the end of the day. If you are, then that's what you're gonna get paid, is average. If you want people to see you as being exceptional, then you do those exceptional things, meaning if you know something's not working, you just say, hey, this isn't working, I was at your location, and it's not performing the way that I think it should. I think we should try something different. That's how you have to communicate, and that's how you win.
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