Ep 208 The Importance of Personal Branding in Device Sales

Today I am talking about the importance of personal branding as you start your career. This topic is important is because your personal brand is a combination of your unique skills and your unique experience. Personal brand is what differentiates you from your competition, allows you to build trust with your customers, and it’s how you show up in the world. I will give you a warning – I may be on a bit of a rant as we start. Listen today to learn more.

In This Episode:

• Medical device male dominated industry
• Authenticity of your brand in your career
• Self identity in your life
• Not keeping up with the competition
• The story you tell yourself …. about yourself
• Deciding your core values
• Knowing your why
• Building confidence
• Celebrating success
• Free planner – www.michellebourquecoaching.com/mytime

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Episode Transcript: (Transcribed by OtterAi with minimal edits)

Unknown Speaker 0:00 You are listening to the richer time podcast and I’m your host certified life coach Michelle Arnold Bourque, and today’s episode, I’m discussing the importance of personal brand. Unknown Speaker 0:12 Welcome to the richer time Podcast, the podcast, we’re busy professionals, like you get the practical solutions and support you need to gain control of your schedule. So you can strive to be the best in your career, but without the stress and overwhelm. If you’re looking to increase your energy and decrease your stress, you are in the right place.

0:36 Hello, hello, hello, welcome back to the podcast. Friends, I’m so happy to have you back again this week. And today, we are talking about the importance of personal brand. And the reason this is important is because your personal brand is a combination of your unique skills and your unique experience. And it is what differentiates you from your competition. It’s what allows you to build trust with your customers. And it’s how you show up in the world. And I will give you a warning. I may be on a bit of a rant as we start. Here’s what’s going on. I’m prepping for a class, I’m teaching on personal branding. And I was given some examples of last presenters or previous presenters in this class men. And I literally had to stop the video and go meditate, I thought I really needed a shower as well. In fact, I almost wanted to go into the shower and meditate because I felt my skin crawling that much. Here’s the thing, I get this industry, medical device sales is very male dominated still. And that bro energy works for some folks, but not necessarily the people that I want to work with from a coaching perspective. Because I want more women entering the industry in a way that works for you in a way that allows you to make a ton of money, if that’s what you want, and allows you to enjoy your life along the way. And knowing all along the way that you don’t have to do it, like the dudes on social media are telling you that you have to. I was recently at a company meeting and just looking around and let me tell you, my company has many initiatives around employee resource groups and really promoting women in the industry and in leadership. And still, it’s mostly men in the room from a sales perspective specifically, right? We need more women to represent an all companies I know my company really makes an initiative and I know there are some companies that may not be so much. So let’s dive in. Let me start by sharing a personal story of when I first started in this industry and why I think choosing your branding, your personal brand, which includes knowing your core values is so important because when I first started, I didn’t have this information, I would go to meetings, and I would be taking notes and not really saying too much. In fact, I was the only female sales rep on the pain team selling what it is that we sell. And I specifically remember, there were four guys that started around the same time, maybe even after me that were the we’re going to crush the competition. Let’s go you know, you know what I’m talking about. Right? They played collegiate sports, and they had that kind of energy. Listen, I hate the gym class. If reading was a sport that would probably what I would be signing up for it right or working. I really love to work too. I didn’t have the sports background, and didn’t come with that energy. And my manager at the time, called me after the meeting and gave me feedback that he didn’t think I was passionate. What exactly does that mean? But he didn’t think I was passionate because I didn’t participate in the same manner as the guys did. So basically, he was saying, in order to show your passion, right, you need to have that like let’s crush the competition kind of outward energy. At that time. I did kind of give him a little piece of my mind, I will say in a very calm way about all of my takeaways from the meeting. To which he was more like, Oh, okay. The thing is, I like to take notes. I like to absorb things and I like to process them before I just start spouting off. Now. Let’s fast forward to promotional time.

5:00 And this is why I’m telling you, it’s important to get this in your mind early. We were all around the same percent to plan and all of us were not at 100% to plan, and four of the five of us received the promotion. Can you guess how that played out? Yeah, exactly. The four guys got it. I did not. And I was told they were doing more referral marketing, which was not true. But they talked way more about what they were doing every single day. And I expected my manager to just know what I was doing. And I want to take a pause. Because I think there are a lot of females out there who think this, I will assure you, your manager does not just know what you are doing. You have to be able to speak to your successes. When we talk about women not making as much money as men, this is an example of how it starts. Because now their trajectory became very different than mine. And I think what got me so fired up about these examples was as I was watching the classes, the presenters took at least 20 plus minutes to talk about themselves, versus teaching the aspiring device and pharma reps, what the topic was. So the question becomes, where is the balance and promoting yourself, but doing it in a way that works for you, knowing your core values, knowing your brand, that is what will help you understand what you are bringing to the table. And what you bring to the table and knowing that is what helps you feel more solid and speaking up about what is going well,

7:02 I want you to start by taking a moment to think about why you are either in your current role, or why you might be going for the next role. Be clear on this, your y will lend insight to your values and branding. This will also help you feel more comfortable and your selling style. Not everyone has to be a challenger rep in order to be competitive. Not everyone has to be a hard ass closer in order to be competitive. There are many ways to close a sale. And I used to tell myself this story that I wasn’t competitive, because I wasn’t like the guys. I didn’t come from that athletic background. I think that I am a heart servant salesperson. I always want to help people. In fact, I had another male manager that used to say myself and one other gal on an adjoining team, that we were the labs, always asking, How can I help you? How can I help you like the chocolate labs, you know, on the team? Interesting, isn’t it? We were all classified by dogs. Very interesting as I speak that. But the truth is I tied wanting to help with not being competitive, in part, because as women, we are often socialized to, quote unquote, being nice. And being competitive isn’t always nice. And it was Mark who really helped to point something out to me. He was like, What are you talking about? You are super competitive. These people who think you’re are nice. They don’t have to live with you. Right? He actually, here we go again, with the whole dog analogy. He says that I’m a pitbull and a poodles body, and I was just dying. And by him saying that, right? This is what every good coach does for you. They point out your blind spots, and they show you things that you just cannot see on your own. This is what I love doing with my clients, right? Because once I could start seeing that, I could start seeing all of the different ways that I am competitive. And I could stop telling the story of Oh, I’m just not competitive. No, maybe I’m not like everyone else. Maybe you’re not like everyone else. And that’s okay. I mean, if I’m being honest, I do even try to beat the GPS eta much to Marc’s chagrin. Right now. This episode is more around the importance of developing your brand and I will do another one in the future on ways to do that. But I do want to give you some things to start considering. And again, I want you to start by thinking of

10:00 about what your why is for your current purpose in life? Or what is your why and your current role? Or what is your WHY for going after the next job? Why do you want to do it? And what are some of your core values and life and one of the keys to doing this is really to be authentic. You want to ensure authenticity, when developing your personal brand. So start paying attention to things that bring you joy. Where do you get excited in your job, for example, or what turns you off? Now, I know a lot of you drive and listen, or maybe walk and listen. So I want you to be sure to come back to the notes and think about these questions. Do your future self a favor and do this so that you are in alignment with what is important to you. And do it from that space, that you are much more likely to be able to show up in a way that makes you feel confident and what you are doing. And the more you take action. And the more you learn these skills and continue to take action, you will build your confidence. And as you build the confidence that will push your momentum into your favor. The more you tell yourself the story that is true to your core values, and more authentic and in alignment with what you want to do and how you want to show up. That is going to make you more likely to celebrate yourself and share it. Remember, our brains have a negativity bias. It’s meant for survival. But we need to be the ones to use our prefrontal cortex to show ourselves our successes. For example, we need to be able to show ourselves where we are doing things well. Because the more evidence of seeing that and the more we’re able to see that we are much more likely to let others know. Now one more tool that can help you as you make your way through this is I want you to start thinking about your priorities in life. This can be one simple step to start paying attention to what things are important to you on a daily basis. And when you are doing them pay attention to how you are feeling about them. Do you want to be doing them? Or are you thinking you should be doing them. And one way that can help you is by utilizing the free planner that I’ve developed for you, which allows you to decide on purpose, what your priorities are, how you want to plan your day, and is that in alignment with how you want to show up and it also includes some extra prompts for you. One of which is to ask yourself what you are most proud of every single day. And that will help to build your belief in yourself as well.

So go to Michellebourquecoaching.com/my time and download that get started. reply to any email that you receive from me with any questions. Listen, ladies, raise your hand, get the promotion, make the money, rinse and repeat. We need more of that. Okay friends. That’s what I have for you today. Let’s circle back next week but for now make it a great day. Take care