Hannah Willson

Below the Line with James Beshara · #7 — Hannah Willson — Leading Within the Org

• How Does Hannah Willson Sort Decisions at Rainforest QA?

  Hannah Willson, then VP of sales at Rainforest QA, says Fred, the company's CEO, taught her to judge a decision by its magnitude. If it could really change the company, slow down and get it right. If it is not make or break, do not treat it like it is. James Beshara restates that as a one-way door versus a two-way door you can walk back through. Willson says a big company often spends so much social capital that you finish three things in a year. In a startup, the same person should try three things this week.

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• What Are Some of the Contrasts of Working for a Startup vs. a Larger Established Company

  Within a smaller company, leaders MUST take ownership and make things happen. They also get to be on the frontline of change, which is not always the case with larger companies.

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• What Characteristics of a Great Salesperson Can Work Against Someone as a Parent

  To be the best, one simply cannot do everything. One cannot have it all. It is possible for moms to be good moms and still work.

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• What Is the Role of Feedback in Leadership

  Feedback is very much a part of the working environment and offers great benefits. There is the chance that too much feedback can lead to a lack of confidence for employees. It is a balance of leaders building up their teams in order to build the trust needed to offer feedback.

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• What Is a Key Piece of Executive Leadership Advice

  Executive leadership is very tactical. Recruiting is critical and is as important as spending time with current team members. Being caught with the wrong people or not enough people must be avoided.

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• How Does Hannah Willson Pull a Salesperson Out of a Slump?

  Hannah Willson, VP of sales at Rainforest QA, says a slump feels like losing control, so people blame the calls, the product, and everyone around them. She coaches the opposite. Take full ownership, look inward, and name five things to do better on the next call. Listen to your own recordings and ask a colleague to listen too. She looks for people willing to own 100 percent of their performance, and she has watched strong sellers come back and finish the year well. James Beshara adds that complaining is not a strategy, because it tells the team you have no control.

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• Why Does Hannah Willson Say a Sales Layoff Hits So Hard?

  Hannah Willson, later VP of sales at Rainforest QA, says losing a sales job is crushing even when the reason is fit or family rather than a bad quarter. The work is public. At the companies where she sold, rankings sat on a big screen and in Salesforce dashboards, so everyone knew the order. She liked that as a competitive person, and as a woman it felt like a level field: make the top of the list and you have made it. The cost shows up at the bottom. Every salesperson lands there sometimes, she says, and getting your confidence back is genuinely hard.

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• What Is the Cost of Attrition

  Attrition can be looked at as how many days it takes to train someone, to hire someone, etc. and what that looks like for a company to get a new employee completely up and running. Additionally, a company's reputation is on the line if employees leave for a different organization.

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• What Are Some Qualities of High Caliber Executives

  It is people who take an investment in the people that work for them. By relating to someone, understanding them, and believing in them, they can be pushed towards great achievements.

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• Why Does Hannah Willson Say Trust Matters More Than Looking Perfect?

  Hannah Willson says the executive job is building trust. She had heard that brains are not wired to believe perfection, so a leader who calls everything perfect makes people doubt them. Admitting what is not perfect is what creates trust, with a team or with a customer. She saw that in Fred, CEO of Rainforest QA: the more open he is with the board about the last quarter, the better the meeting goes, and the worst meetings are the ones that pretend the company is flawless. With her own team she tries to know people's lives and still give clear expectations and hard feedback. Relate more, she says, and you can push harder.

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• Who Is Rainforest QA Sales Leader Hannah Willson?

  Hannah Willson is the executive James Beshara interviews on Below the Line. He introduces her as a mother who moved from a large public company into fast-moving startups, and as a neighbor whose family is friends with his in San Francisco. At the time of the recording she was VP of sales at Rainforest QA. They talk about holding motherhood and an executive job at once, what makes a good salesperson and a poor sales leader, and a meditation habit she had just started. She says she nearly talked herself out of coming on, because being in front of an audience feels vulnerable.

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