Why All Leaders Need A Coach With Jill Ellsworth

Dec 7, 2022

Jill Ellsworth, Founder and CEO Willow Industries, shares her experience in getting a coach. She reflects on how it impacted her work performance and personal relationships in the most positive ways.

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Being a leader is like having a spotlight on you all the time. It can feel uncomfortable, especially when you aren’t performing perfectly. It’s counterintuitive, but my experience has been that the best antidote to this spotlight is transparency, being honest about it, being a little bit vulnerable, and being able to share what’s truly going on with you and your heart, especially with your team. Our guest has had the same experience. She has also found ways to take off her mask and be her authentic self at work, including having no shame about the flexibility she needs and the things that aren’t going right, and also great at celebrating what is going well.

Jill Ellsworth is both strong and capable, as well as imperfect. She is the CEO and Founder of Willow Industries, which is part of the cannabis industry. In addition to having the normal challenges of being a CEO, she’s got the double whammy because she’s also part of an emerging industry that I have found attracts interesting candidates. I found that a lot of organizations with a strong mission can struggle more with the hiring process. You’ll find that people are passionate about what you are doing but not necessarily capable or passionate about working on the job. This is extremely hard additionally to manage. I’m excited to have this conversation and learn how Jill has managed all of these challenges. Jill Ellsworth, welcome to the show.

Thank you so much. It’s awesome to be here.

We both started our businesses as solopreneurs. We were on our own and then quickly grew. Now we both have a team. Tell us what your journey has been like over the last few years. You started it in 2015. Tell us what the journey’s been like with Willow Industries.

It has been a wild rollercoaster. I started this company by myself and my business partner, our COO and the Cofounder, my husband. He was working a full-time job when I came up with this idea. He was our first investor. He provided seed money, but I was still out there doing it alone. I did it alone for a long time. I brought one employee on that had worked with me previously in my juice business. It’s the two of us for a couple of years. Over time, we’ve grown. Now we’re a team of 22.

It’s wonderful to have support, but there are still times, even now, when I feel like I’m not doing it alone, but I feel alone. That feeling of having everything on your shoulders, the whole company on your shoulders, is still there occasionally. That’s been a challenge. It’s amazing to see how we brought on strategic roles within the company and all of the support that we have now.

What has been the most surprising thing in a joyful and positive way in the last few years, especially adding to the team? What’s been surprising about it?

It’s those wonderful people, but also competent and strategic people, that we brought in. It’s cool to have someone new start and see their skill set flourish and see how they work with the other team. We’re selective of who we bring into the organization simply because of the culture we’ve built here and the sense of community that we have. We want to make sure the person’s personality is going to fit. They could have amazing skills, but we also want to make sure they’re going to fit within the team. We’ve been particular about that, which has been great because it has helped us build a team that is moving in one direction. It’s been fun to see some of these different roles that I don’t think I would’ve ever thought we would have now are part of the company.

Professional Coach: Be selective of who you bring into your organization. Make sure their personality fits into the culture and sense of community you are trying to build.

 

How do you vet them out? What’s your process?

We use a bunch of different hiring platforms. We also use recruiters. We first do a phone screener. If they seem like a good fit on the phone, we’ll have them come into the office. They’ll typically meet with our VP at biz dev, one of our other managers if it’s in the engineering department, and our chief commercial officer. If they pass that test, they’ll meet with myself and Jason, our COO. We sit down and ask them about their past history and their job. Honestly, I get into the weeds of who they are. I want to know what they do on the weekends, how they best work within an organization, and where they feel those skillsets. They can tell me all day about what they’ve done in the past, but it’s where they excel and where they feel like they could use some work.

That seems to have been working pretty well for you.

I feel like we’ve done a good job.

I find that when we work with leaders and teams when they’re in their recruiting process, both sides are super nervous. The interviewee is nervous about being interviewed, and then the interviewer feels like they don’t know what they are doing. They get a rote with their language and make people feel a little bit intimidated. If you turn it into a conversation and make it more relaxing, you get a better perspective of people. It sounds like that’s what the approach that you take.

That is the approach we take. We hired a territory sales manager. During the interview, I literally didn’t ask him anything about sales. We touched on a few things. I was more interested in this family farm that he has. We went down the rabbit hole there, but I got an interesting glimpse of who he was. We hired him.

You want to create an environment where people feel relaxed and calm, and then you get to see their true selves. What would be something you would go back to and tell the CEO from a few years ago that you wish you had known in those days, especially about your people and your culture?

I would go back and say that everyone here has the same goal and mission to make Willow the gold standard in cannabis decontamination and kill step. I’ll tell myself like, “Don’t take things personally.” I do think I took a lot of employees’ personal issues personally. Humans are messy. There’s a lot. Everyone’s complicated. I started taking some of these issues that our employees were having. Their personal life, I was starting to take it personally because of the way they were reacting at work. I would probably say, “It’s nothing personal.”

Humans are messy. Everyone is very complicated and has their own personal issues. Click To Tweet

For me, I had this perspective in the early days that people were going to stay with me forever. Now that I say that out loud, I’m like, “That’s a ridiculous thing to think. It’s a job. It’s not a cult.”

You made a good point. I also was triggered when people would leave. I took it personally. I worked on that with my coach for a long time. Now it’s time to move on.

Now I see it as this amazing thing. I want them to move on to something better. I want them to gain these amazing skills in my business and be able to get promoted and do things they couldn’t have done before. It doesn’t feel like a loss at all. It feels like such a celebration. For some reason, in the early days, I did also take it quite personally.

It’s hard because you’re like, “Why are you leaving? Why would you leave? How could you leave?” Now it’s like, “I hope that I provided an opportunity and skills that you cultivated here that you can take into another company and use.” I try to see it in a positive light now.

I also love how self-aware you are. I love that you’ve already said two things that I don’t hear many founders and entrepreneurs say, which is you are using recruiters. If you’re not the best at hiring or don’t want to spend all your time on LinkedIn hunting for people, you might as well outsource that. The second thing is you have a coach. Tell me about that.

She’s amazing. I started working with her a few years ago. I was in desperate need of advice and guidance. The company had started taking off, but this was in the depths of COVID. I was personally struggling with the stresses of COVID but also managing a team during that time. I was manifesting this person, and here she came into my life. I have taken coaching seriously. I can 100% say I’m a different leader than I was a few years ago. I’ve worked hard. Coaching’s great, but if you don’t do the work in between, it’s worthless.

She could tell me all day, like, “I need to do these things.” If I didn’t put that stuff into practice, then I wouldn’t have grown like I did. It’s been incredible. It has also helped me emotionally and physically to disengage after work. I have stuff come up when I’m not at the office, but I don’t get wrapped around the axle like I used to about some of these silly things that happen during your day. That’s one of the biggest things.

That was the first check I wrote with my business. I made my first five-figure check. I wrote it over to a coach because I was like, “I need help.”

It’s so important.

It’s another thing I don’t hear many entrepreneurs and founders do. You don’t know all the things you’re supposed to do and in what order. There are people out there who have done this and can tell you that. Also, help clear out all the head trash that we get.

You don’t hear founders and CEOs say that they use a coach?

No, not until much later in their businesses.

At the time, I needed it. Business owners that went through COVID and made it out alive understand having someone there to support them because it’s lonely. We don’t have people to talk to. I can’t talk to my team the way I could talk to a coach. That’s invaluable.

How has that gone working with your husband?

It’s great now. Full transparency, it was hard in the beginning because we went from a marriage, and we communicated like we did within our marriage. We brought those communication skills, lack of skills, or whatever we want to call it at the time into our business. I was like, “This doesn’t work.” We had those same idiosyncrasies that we had within our marriage, and we brought it into the office. That does not translate. We quickly realized we needed a coach. We got a coach together. We worked on some of these bigger red flags in the beginning. When we started working through that stuff, we both then got our own coaches. Now we have an incredible relationship both in and outside of the office.

One thing we do well is we put boundaries up around work and home. Typically, we try not to talk about work at home because we have a child. Also, the business is complicated now. It’s not just a couple of us working here. There’s a lot of us. There are many moving parts. To delve into that at night is not worth it. We’re good at compartmentalizing that. We have different skillsets. That is impactful on the organization because we aren’t doing the same thing, and we very much complement each other.

Professional Coach: Put up boundaries when working at home. Be good at compartmentalizing all of your moving parts.

 

That works. I have a business partner now. I took on a business partner in 2021. He and I now joke that it’s like a marriage. It’s extremely hard. Even if you are married, anytime you’re in a relationship with someone who’s got a financial obligation to the organization, it’s going to be tough. Regardless of it being your spouse or not, those partnerships can be challenging with communication.

It’s hard. It’s finding ways to work around the hard and making that a little more palatable and easy.

What are some challenges that you’ve experienced and are anticipating for the upcoming year?

Cannabis is challenging right now. I don’t know how much you know about the industry. Do you follow the industry?

We have a fair number of clients in the cannabis industry.

The industry is not doing well. The price per pound has fallen across the US except on the East Coast, but in these Western states and the Midwest area, it’s struggling. We are all surprised at the industry essentially fell off a cliff in Q2. That impacted the growth of our organization because we are impacted by if the cultivators are doing well. We close our series A in February 2022. We were off to the races, growth. That’s not how the industry turned out. We doubled down on what we do best, which is provide incredible customer service and technology to this industry, focused on our customers, and tried to increase the value prop for new customers.

I will happily say that in Q4, we’ve turned things around. It was a challenge trying to keep everyone motivated and excited about this industry at a time when the industry was not doing well. That’s been hard. I feel encouraged about new increasing legalization across the country, especially with elections, and what we have coming in the pipeline, new innovation, and new technology. I’m keeping everyone engaged, excited, and motivated with our mission.

I feel like we foster this good culture here. Everyone is close. We have a strong working relationship. We are transparent. I’m honest with everybody. We let people know what we’re doing in terms of, “Here’s our revenue. Here’s where we are supposed to be. This is what we need to do to get back to where we should be,” and incentivizing our team with bonuses and more commission if we close more deals. Also, keeping everyone excited after work. I try to do as much team-building stuff as possible, even if it’s like, “Meet us at this restaurant after work. We’ll grab a drink or coffee or whatever.” We keep everyone in the loop. If employees know what’s happening within an organization, they feel safe, heard, and respected.

Another thing I don’t hear from a lot of leaders and entrepreneurs is feeling comfortable being that transparent. That’s how I’ve run my business as well. I don’t want to carry all the stress of the revenue on my own shoulders. I want everybody to be worried about it. Otherwise, when it does come time for having to make tough decisions, it’s surprising to people, and it’s hard on culture. I had to do layoffs a couple of years ago. I had to do them in 2019. I got off that battlefield and ended up on another battlefield. Everybody knew it was coming because our numbers were terrible. Many leaders are hesitant to share that. Why do you think that would be? Why do you think you and I are different that way?

I love that you share that because you’re right. I don’t think a lot of leaders or CEOs share that. I don’t know. I don’t have an answer because maybe they think the employees don’t need to know, as simple as that. That’s a stay-in-your-lane kind of thing. When our team knows exactly where we are financially, they feel bought in. They’re like, “I don’t want to see this go to zero. Not that it would, but this is also my livelihood.” This is their paycheck. This is their life. They want to do whatever it costs to ensure that this company keeps moving forward. You get more buy-in if you tell the truth.

Tweet: Many business leaders hide terrible numbers from their employees. But if you are transparent with where you are financially, it will push them to perform better.

In its own way, it creates more safety for people, even though that feels a little counterintuitive. Have you ever had a corporate job?

I worked in Hollywood for a while. That was corporate-ish. Hollywood’s crazy as well.

On a dime, things can change.

My husband, Jason, always says, because he comes from corporate, he’s like, “You’ve never had a corporate job.” I was like, “Fair enough. Probably not.” I’ve been an entrepreneur for a long time.

You could hum along, and everything is going great. You go into your boss’s office and get the “pink slip,” and you’re like, “Where did that come from? I thought we were doing fine.” All relationship with your job is fearful. That’s where a lot of it comes from. There have been people who have gone through bad layoffs and are afraid to share because they don’t want people to get also fearful, but it has a counterbalance or the counter result. The cannabis industry has been struggling. You have turned the “corner,” and you’re doing well this quarter. What does 2023 look like for you?

It’s more growth within our core business, which is leasing our WillowPure Technology to cultivators in the US and the international market. We’re continuing to capture market share and educating cultivators on why they should ensure that their cannabis is clean for consumers. We have some interesting product rollouts. We are going to roll out a new product probably in mid-2023, which I’m excited about because that’s where I shine, the creative, innovative side. I get to go back to that. The good news is that I built the organization to where I can get out of the day-to-day minutia. Now I have the opportunity to be creative and let my brain wander and come up with ideas where a few months ago, I wasn’t even able to get there.

That’s good for you. That’s also a huge thing to applaud because that’s hard.

It has been. Back to our point, I’ve put good people in good roles. I’ve worked hard at that. I’m giving them autonomy and allowing them to make decisions without me. I’m like, “You know best. I hired you to do the job. You know that answer. I don’t need to give it to you.” There are lots of fun things.

Professional Coach: Put good people in good roles so you can give them autonomy to make decisions even without you.

 

On that fantastic note, that’s a great way to end this because the message we want people to take away is a message of being transparent, a message of also getting out of the day-to-day and the minutia, hiring people well, letting them do their job, and then lets us do our job and do the best we can to continue to drive our businesses. That’s excellent. Thank you so much for your time. Let’s keep the conversation going. We’ll check back in with you in a few months and see how you’re doing.

Thank you so much for having me.

 

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About Jill Ellsworth

Jill Ellsworth is the founder and CEO of Willow Industries, the leader in cannabis kill-step and post-harvest microbial decontamination technology.  Fueled by her passion for innovation and dedication to health, Jill has made a career of creating solutions for better living. As a Registered Dietitian with a Master of Science in Nutrition, Dietetics and Food Science, her passion for pasteurization techniques began in the food and beverage industry. Prior to launching Willow, Jill built and sold Vibrant Earth Juices, a Santa Barbara-based cold-pressed organic juice company, and beverage distribution company, Vibrant Earth Distribution, which launched the first alcoholic kombucha brand in Colorado.

Since founding Willow, Jill has established herself as a leading voice for consumer safety and integrity in the cannabis industry. She continues to be an innovative trailblazer by standardizing quality and empowering cultivators with the cannabis kill step and quality assurance programs. In 2019, Jill was selected by Greendorphin as one of the 20 Most Influential Women in Cannabis and was named on MJBizDaily’s list of Women to Watch in Cannabis. In 2022, she was named on the Forbes Cannabis 42.0 list as one of the top entrepreneurs and change-makers in the industry. Willow Industries ranked #205 on the 2021 Inc. 5000 list of the fastest growing private companies in America, and in 2022 the company made the list again, ranking #1320. Willow Industries was also named a Gold Winner for Achievement in Product Innovation in the 2022 Titan Business Awards and ranked #50 on the Financial Times list of the Americas’ Fastest-Growing Companies.