What’s your brand?
Employers and recruiters do research medical sales, healthcare sales, medical device sales, laboratory sales, clinical diagnostics sales, imaging sales, pathology sales, cellular and molecular products sales, biotech sales, and pharmaceutical sales candidates online to get more information about them before an offer is presented. This can work against you if your MySpace page is filled with “party” pics (or worse), but it can work for you if you have an effective online persona.
Web Worker Daily rounds up several tips for developing an effective online presence:
- Check your Google profile. What comes up when your name gets typed in? Know what’s out there so you don’t get suprised.
- Own your domain name. Even if you don’t want to do something with it now, you might later.
- Develop your personal brand. Set up a LinkedIn profile. Write a blog. Be a guest writer on blogs specific to your industry (maybe you could write a post for me – describing your job, etc). If you’re not sure what personal branding is or how to do it, there’s a lot available out there. Here’s 3 articles to get you started:
The 6 P’s of Personal Branding (Persona, Positioning, Packaging, Presentation, Promotion, and Passion)
Three Keys to Building a Strong Personal Brand. “A good brand has 3 main features: clarity, consistency, and constancy.”
Dan Schwabel’s podcast, Top Social Media Tools for Turning Your E-Brand into a Powerhouse. Let Dan show you how to choose what to use.
Part I – Pimp Your Brand
Welcome to my 4-part “Pimp Your Career” series.
This post will be about your personal brand. When people think of you, what do they think? Sales guru, marketing manager, computer geek, public-relations person, etc… This is your personal brand. If the answer you get is different from the one you want, you have some work to do. There’s a lot out there right now about personal branding. You need to know what that means for you, and you need to know how to take maximum advantage of it. Your personal brand is what makes you special. It’s how you distinguish yourself from everyone else in medical sales, healthcare sales, lab sales, pharma sales, pathology sales, imaging sales, clinical diagnostics sales, and sales of cellular, molecular, and biotech products. It’s how you market yourself.
Think about how corporate brands market themselves. They are everywhere, and you should be, too. By that, I mean:
1. Have a Facebook page
2. Create a profile on LinkedIn
3. Interview On Demand offers a CareerView profile for jobseekers that not only includes your resume, but also a video where you can answer a few interview questions and include a “why should you hire me” summary. It’s a great tool to add a little kick to your resume, and it’s more professional than YouTube.
4. Do some blog writing– on your own blog, or as a guest contributor on one that’s related to your field.
5. Have a personalized signature on all your e-mails, so that when people see it, they think of you. Have a logo. Even on personal e-mail accounts.
6. Keep up with your network through phone calls and e-mail. Don’t lose track of people who will be great references for you.
If you’re having trouble defining yourself, ask others what they think is special about you. What makes you different from others in your field? Go to Dan Schwabel’s blog. It’s THE source for info about personal branding.
Think about personal branding in terms of your elevator pitch. It’s the answer to the “what do you do?” and the “tell me about yourself” questions. Your personal branding statement is going to highlight your best attributes, and be quick, focused, and memorable.
Seth Godin points out that people make decisions based on little scraps of information all the time:
It’s not fair but it’s true. Your blog, your outfit, the typeface you choose, the tone of your voice, the expression on your face, the location of your office, the way you rank on a Google search, the look of your Facebook page…
Does your boss know why you’re invaluable?
We keep hearing bad news everywhere: recession, job cuts, recession, outsourcing, recesssion. One of the great things about working in healthcare sales is that it tends to be recession-proof, some fields more than others…clinical diagnostics, research lab, medical device, pathology, and imaging sales are always going to be more stable and less dependent on the economy as a whole than pharmaceutical sales.
Or what if you just need your boss to agree with you that you deserve a raise?
Learning to toot your own horn at work without being obnoxious about it is a skill you can learn. There’s a great article about how to do that called You’re Bright and Talented–Toot Your Own Horn that gives some great insight on how to do that…like, associate with other great workers and stay away from the gossiper/slacker crowd. Or, be ambitious, but don’t over-promise. Always be able to deliver what you say you will, and try to make sure you can deliver a “wow” result. Letting your boss know what you did is just keeping him or her informed.
Other advice on marketing yourself at work goes along with that. Be a great worker. Go above and beyond what’s expected. Take responsibility for yourself, help others, network relentlessly, and keep a list of your accomplishments so that you don’t forget all the great things you’ve done.
If you really are concerned about your job, Career Advice in a Recession reminds you to go for projects with some visibility that you can be successful at, and to KEEP NETWORKING. Having an extensive professional network is a virtual safety net, in case you need it.
How free is your FaceBook page?
Do you use MySpace or FaceBook? It’s getting hard to find someone who doesn’t, these days. If you do, this is just a little FYI and a warning for you: please be mindful of what you put on it, especially if you are looking for a sales position in the biotech, pharmaceutical, clinical pathology, or medical device industries. It’s becoming standard practice for employers to look at the social network pages of potential employees. You don’t want them to find something that will make them think you’ll be an unstable or undesirable employee. (see What’s on YOUR MySpace?) “Adapting to Social Network Surveillance” points out that “job boards are where companies go to find qualified job candidates, but social networks are where they go to disqualify job candidates”….so don’t put anything on there you wouldn’t want to see as a “national headline” in the newspaper. “Big Brother” has become not just the government…it’s all of us, including (potential) employers.
What’s your elevator pitch?
So you’re a biotech specialty rep or a lab sales rep and you’ve entered the doctor’s office and they are not happy to see you–they’re busy, they’ve been visited by a couple of other medical sales reps already today–and they are not interested in talking to you. How do you get their attention in the 30 seconds they will give you?
Or, quick–you are a pharmaceutical rep back at the office and find yourself standing next to upper management (maybe in an elevator). What can you let them know about you, in a casual but confident and enthusiastic way, that will make them remember you come big project or promotion time?
That is an elevator pitch…something succinct but interesting that makes them want to know more. For tips, see Jonathon Farrington’s Elevator Pitches–Love Them Or Hate Them, We Still Need Them and In 30 seconds or less what is your elevator pitch?
Personal branding (what makes you so special?)
“In the grocery store of life, you have to figure out why someone would pick you up off the shelf,” says Andrea Nierenberg, president of the Nierenberg Group, a business communication-consulting firm in New York. “Are you new and improved? Are you repackaged? What are you doing to get that competitive edge? What you want to do is position yourself as you would a product.”
I love this. If each of us spent as much time thinking about our medical sales career as the major food manufacturers think about product placement on a shelf, what would be the consequences?
Personal branding is a huge idea right now, and the article this quote is from, Use Creative Marketing In Your Job Search, is fabulous information for your job search in pharmaceutical sales.
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