Meet Will Sillmon, Jr., Alabama State University Alum, as he talks about Constant Learning at Hach | Danaher
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Posted By: Reginald Culpepper on February 25, 2022 FEATURED Content In less than a decade with Danaher, Will Sillmon’s career has spanned two states, four roles, and countless opportunities to learn. Below, he reflects on the path that led him to his position as a Divisional Sales Manager; explains what his customers, his mentors, and some time in his garage all taught him about water; and shares how—as both a manager and a member of Hach’s D&I council—he’s helping his colleagues grow and learn along with him. First, tell us about your role at Danaher.  I’m a Divisional Sales Manager for Hach, which is a Danaher operating company that provides water quality testing solutions. I have a team of eight salespeople serving industrial customers across 10 states in the southeast, and I see my job as being their biggest supporter and a conduit for their success. Sometimes that’s building a strategy for pursuing a certain account or exploring a new territory; sometimes it’s just helping someone answer a question that comes across their desk. I try to do whatever’s needed to help people perform at the highest level they can. Before the COVID-19 outbreak, that meant a lot of time on a plane. I might spend a week with team members, conducting site visits with customers and helping progress opportunities for that seller. Coaching is an important part of my job, and geography plays a huge role in that because the industries we serve vary so much from place to place. Here in Georgia, it’s a lot of pulp and paper. In Florida, we have more beverage customers—no territory is the same. What brought you to Hach, and how has your career grown since? I first joined Hach in 2012 in Houston, where I lived at the time. I’d been in advertising sales, including for the Houston Chronicle, and then around 2009 after the recession hit, I got an account manager role at an oil and gas company and just fell in love with complex sales. I was doing technical sales, using my hands, which was perfect for me—I was born and raised in Talladega, Alabama, and I’m a country boy and a car guy. I like fixing stuff. But oil and gas can be a tough field. You’re living through a constant cycle of boom and bust. A couple of years in, I got a call from Hach. I hadn’t heard of them before, but I was intrigued by all the different applications for their products—and I knew water would be around forever. I started out in the Houston area as a Regional Sales Manager on the municipal side, and I learned so much. Then an opportunity came up to take an industrial role here in Atlanta. It was a great opportunity from a personal perspective, because both my family and my wife’s family were in Alabama, only a couple of hours away, and we’d just had our second son. But the move to a different sector was also exciting. Many people don’t realize how much water is used in the industrial market—it’s so far beyond consumables like drinks and pharmaceuticals. Along every river in the country, there are thousands of factories pulling in millions of gallons of water to make steam for energy. Hach’s products help make sure that water is clean going in, so it doesn’t damage their equipment, and even cleaner when they send it back out. Our products are used in manufacturing so many different things, from tires to energy to beer; my work is a constant learning opportunity. Every time I walk into a new customer’s site, I see something that I can use to help another customer, or to coach one of our sellers.  Tell us more about learning to help customers. I’ve had some great mentors here, and they’ve helped me understand what it really means to sell a solution as opposed to just a box. Before we jump in and recommend a product, we always want to take a step back and look at the problem the customer is actually trying to solve, and what’s most important to them. Maybe they want to be best in class. Maybe it’s more about meeting regulatory standards so they don't get a permit violation. Some are very far along the journey on water analytics; others need more help. It really is different with every customer, and we always want them to know that we’re here to help them, not just sell them something and run. Plus, sometimes we’re developing entirely new applications for our products, using them in ways we never have before and creating a market. That really requires listening, finding that one issue that might lead them to a solution they hadn’t considered because they didn’t realize it was possible. To be a resource in a situation like that, you must be curious—and you have to be more than a talking head. Some of what I know about Hach’s products, I learned from getting my hands dirty in my garage, running a hose out of my spigot and through three or four analyzers to help me understand what they can do. My water bill was through the roof sometimes, but I was learning! What’s challenging about your job? I think one of the hardest things is making sure people feel comfortable asking for help. As ambitious as we are about learning as much as we can, you can never know it all. And that’s true for everyone, whether it’s an early-career rep who just joined the team, or a veteran who knows twice as much as I do but is adapting to a new piece of technology. Admitting you have something to learn can feel almost risky, but there’s an old saying in my hometown: “A closed mouth never gets fed.” My reps and I have to be transparent with each other about where their gaps are so I can help get them the tools and resources they need. Setting an example can help knock down that wall—when I tell someone, “Hey, it took me years to learn that” or “I don’t know either, but let’s find a person who does,” it helps them understand that it’s okay not to know something. They don’t have to be perfect. Hach does a great job with this as a company, helping us get comfortable having conversations without beating ourselves up, and making sure we know our teammates are here to support us. I like to say we’re a “unified front.” No individual knows everything, but together as a team, we surely know a lot.  Tell us about the diversity and inclusion work you’ve been involved in, both with Hach and beyond. I’ve been part of Hach’s global D&I council since 2020, and this year I was nominated to help lead our inclusion workstream. There aren’t a lot of people from underrepresented groups in the water industry, so the diversity side of our work is important—I hope 5 or 10 years from now, I can say that I helped attract more great associates who happen to be from those communities. But one of the messages I’ve been trying to push is that diversity is just the beginning. It’s one thing to check a box and say 10 of 100 applicants for a role were people of color; it’s another to make people from underrepresented groups who do join the team feel like they really belong. In part, that’s about exposure. The analogy I like to use is athletics: When you look at a teenager who plays for a small-town team and another who’s at a big-city school, it’s not just about how talented they are. It’s about how many games they get to play, or whether the scouts are there to see them. We have to make sure every associate at Hach gets that exposure and those opportunities. That’s one of things I like so much about sales—numbers don’t lie, and performance is an equalizer. I’ve always felt like “Will from Houston” or “Will from Atlanta” rather than “Will the Black guy” here at Hach. But regardless of how you see me, you can’t ignore when I put up numbers. As far as outside of Hach, one of my goals is to get back to working with the National Sales Network, which was founded to support the needs of Black sales professionals. A good friend introduced me to the NSN when I lived in Houston, and their meetings were the first time I’d ever seen that many people of color from my field in one place. I haven’t joined the Atlanta chapter yet, but Danaher has been getting more involved, and I’d like to be a part of that—especially once we’re on the other side of the pandemic. What are you looking forward to right now? On the D&I side, I’m really happy about the work the council is planning for this year. We’re partnering more with our associate resource groups—I was on some panels for Black History Month, and we’re doing some events for Pride Month, but we also want to recognize some of the cultural experiences that we in the U.S. might not know as well. Hach is a worldwide company, and we want all of our associates to know that we see them and want to learn more about them. In my sales manager role, I want to be a strategic leader as we navigate new technology and the changes that come with that. But I also want to be an awesome people leader—I never want to grow alone. When I think about everyone who either directly or indirectly influenced my life, whether it’s relatives and neighbors in my hometown, or former coaches and teammates, or my colleagues at Danaher, I think it’s my responsibility to help the next person and be a champion for others. So I’m excited to move forward in my career, but just as excited about bringing people with me. Interested in joining Will and the rest of the Hach team? Check out open roles across Danaher or join our talent community today. If you enjoyed this article, Join HBCU CONNECT today for similar content and opportunities via email! |
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Reginald Culpepper
President, Fulfillment and Web Services, HBCUCONNECT Clark Atlanta University class of 1998 Member Since September 2000 |
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