Why Getting your Message Right is so Important

AI-Generated Transcript below. There may be errors.

Claire Davis 0:12

Hey everybody, and welcome back. This is today's medical sales leader. And I'm your host, Claire Davis. And today I have Bob Goodwin here with me. And this is our second start, because I just got choked up on the last recording. So he is an incredible leader in his in his space. And today, I'm so excited to present him to you. Because whether you are in medical sales or not, we are all coming around to the realization that there's a fair amount of personal branding and professional branding that goes into how we present ourselves our line and also connect with our clients. And it's about time that we start using those sales skills that we have refined in our career to promote our own professional brand, and get that job we want. So today, Bob is here to share some of his methods. I hope he can talk all about his career club and how he has really ignited brands, from p&g, to coke and Samsung to give us a little bit of insight on that. So Bob, thank you so much for joining me today. I am so grateful. And if you wouldn't mind, tell us a little bit about yourself.

Bob Goodwin 1:27

First of all, it's a super pleasure to be here. So thank you so much for having me. And, yeah, so yeah, my background is sales. So I'll empathize a lot with folks who might be listening to this or watching this. You know, 25 plus years as a salesperson sales leader, most of my experience has been with consumer packaged goods, companies or retail. So as you mentioned, your clients have been Procter and Gamble on coke and Samsung Walmart big names like that. And so, in the meantime, I've been helping people network for a long time, because I like to connect that sort of in my DNA is just to help and to connect tip, I like doing that. And along the way, a lot of the people that I was meeting networking where people are in job search. And what I noticed was, like, I would ask people like, what are you looking for? Like, what do you think, you know, your superpower is where you really, really good at, and people would stumble on that. And I'm like, Oh, my goodness, like, you don't know what your brand is. You need to know what your value proposition is, and what kind of problems you solve. If you're going to be effective in communicating with people, and then that's it. We'll talk more about this, but they're not the sales part of it is people didn't have enough opportunities if they were pursuing and like a salesperson would not think that they could hit their quota with one prospect. You know, just hoping and praying that that one prospect closed on time. Yeah, and but that's what people do in the job search. So long story short, you know, it was just very clear to me that so many of the sales and marketing principles that I had learned in my day job, highly applied to a job search. And I didn't really hear people connecting those dots the way that seemed pretty plain. So yeah, start a career club, we can talk a little bit more about that. But basically, the idea is using proven sales and marketing methods and tools to help people find a career that matters to them.

Claire Davis 3:25

Oh, that's in you know, I really liked that you made that connection. Because I think you're right, when it comes to first identifying that we even have a personal brand, that can come to a shock, you know, too many. And what I say often to my clients is even if you don't, you know, necessarily put yourself out there and brand yourself, how people experience you, wherever it is, is that personal brand, how they know you what they know of you and what comes to mind when they think about working with you. Yeah, there it is. That is the personal brand. So to dive into that just a little bit more, where do you feel like people can start or should start when they're trying to develop or kind of identify what their personal brand is already?

Bob Goodwin 4:07

Yeah. So so when we're working with clients, the very first place that we start, is in I'm speaking right now, particularly about people that have either lost their job and they're in transition. Were there any bad current situation? First base is always their attitude. So like, what's your mindset? How are they feeling? Because if I lost my job, say, say that the company had a reduction in force or whatever happened, and I feel like I was treated unfairly. A lot of times people will carry that into their conversations is they're networking or doing whatever. And they're, they're shaping their brand in the minds of people. And it's like, Wow, he's really angry. Wow, he's really bitter. That's part of your brand now, and so people need to get to In a good place, emotionally or psychologically, sometimes what he says at least gets a neutral. But so first base for me is your attitude. The second bit is around messaging, and the value proposition that you bring forward to accompany. And again, a lot of times people don't think of it in those terms, they know their job description, and people, your clarity, know that you're really good at helping people, you know, identify their accomplishments, and how they contribute, and how what they've done that's measurable, demonstrable, not just adjectives, I've got got a little saying by saying, you know, adjectives are not accomplishments. Say they're self starter, and you're curious, and high integrity, those are all interesting things, prove it. And so that's what a brand needs to be able to do. So a brand needs to know what the problems are that the client is having. So what are the pain points? In this case, the employer, or the hiring manager for more specifically, what are their pain points? And then how do I uniquely solve those kinds of problems? And then what are the reasons to believe that those are true, and those are my accomplishments, here's my track record of solving problems just like that for somebody else. Those are a lot of the key elements of a brand. Then the other major point of this is, who's the audience for that value proposition. So if I was like running advertising, and you know who my target audience is, I'm not going to run a Geritol commercial, you know, on Big Brother, that would be like a big misalignment. So knowing who the target audience is, and how to reach them with the right message at the right time, those are all the kinds of things that marketers think about all day, but his job seekers, often we miss that, and we suffer the consequences of a job search taking way too long, or taking a job, that may not be the ideal fit for me.

Claire Davis 7:01

Yeah. And, you know, like you said, I think that getting to neutral is so important. And you know, it's it's interesting how, you know, the more and more I speak with other coaches, it all starts with mindset, is it harder to develop that understanding and focus on the pain points of the employer? Because most don't realize or recognize that as their true customer during a job search? Or do you find that the emotions and the instability and the frustration of being unemployed, unemployed, is what's holding us back from Britain?

Bob Goodwin 7:36

My visceral response to that would be yes. And it's both. Yeah. And that, that, it seems like a kind of legacy resume writing legacy, you know, personal brand narrative has been about me, I, me, me, me. And it's all about me. And so I'm very focused on me. And, you know, everything, and not thinking about the other side of the table. I think about this a lot with people who want to make a pivot. And I play you know, I've been doing medical sales for a really long time. I'm tired of it. And I want to go do something new. I'm like, well, that's cool, if that's what you want to do. But think about it from the other side, that who wants to take that risk, unless somebody knows you really well. And they're willing to do that. I know, Claire's never done this before. But I know she's smart. She works her tail off, and she's very positive. I know she'll figure it out. Most people will not take that bet. Right? You need to be very cognizant of where your the other person is coming from in the equation. On the emotional part. Honestly, I think that most people don't know that a lot of times, they're stuck in the muck. With that, and we've even gone so far as is we're partnering with some life coaches, and even clinical psychologists. Before you even talk to the resume, person, LinkedIn profile, stop, we need to take there's some foundational work that needs to get done around values, convictions, aspirations. And most people don't pause long enough to think about those things because there's too big, I need to network, they need to get another job. And they don't take the time. And I believe they do that if their own peril. Because if they could have slowed down a little bit, to hurry up, they're gonna be a lot happier. They're gonna be a lot more effective in an interview. They're gonna be more effective at their job, ultimately, I believe.

Claire Davis 9:37

Yes, I agree. I think that it must also be that you know, anything we do, whether you know, you're sitting here listening and watching us now and saying, Well, I'm in medical sales, or I'm in marketing, or I'm an accountant. We wrap so much of our pride up in our job so much of who we are becomes what we do, like it or not. And so I think That's such a brilliant approach to get your head right to make the next move, we almost can't do it until we start recognizing that there are other opportunities for us. You know, can you tell us a little bit more about the other resources that we would find in the career club, for example? Like, what what else should people be doing kind of at the baseline before they even begin the job search?

Bob Goodwin 10:25

Yeah, so again, a lot of people I'm particularly sales people I know, because I r1 is, we have a bias for action. And activity feels good to us. But without proper planning, we can burn up a lot of networking, by trying to be busy, when it may not be as well aimed as it could have been. So there's an asset that we built a career club that I felt was missing for a lot of people. First, it's kind of It comes in two pillars, the first pillar is getting organized. A lot of people run their jobs, search off a sticky notes and a spreadsheet, cobbling stuff down on the back of their capital, one bill, whatever. And then all sudden, it's like, oh, my gosh, who introduced us? Which resume? Did I send that lady? Like, oh, my god, I forgot to follow up with her. And it's all this stress of not being organized. And getting back to our core theme here. This is a big sales and marketing campaign that we're on. CRM tools are really good at Yeah. Right managing prospects, contacts, communication, a pipeline of opportunities. So the first thing we did is we took an existing CRM platform, and repurposed it to align with the things that we do in a job search. The second piece that I felt was really missing was, people don't know all the cool companies that are out there, they know the ones that know. Right? So you know, I'm going to start since I can't finish, but like, if I was in GI medical sales, I don't know who the major players are, let's say there's five major players or something. And, well, those are the ones that I kind of know. So I guess if I know that one, I'll go find one of the other four. And, or for people that maybe aren't quite that niche in their thing, they might go find the book of lists for Spokane, Washington. And, you know, that's my list. And so I'm gonna go find your the biggest companies in Spokane, the best companies to work for in Spokane, the largest private companies, everybody's got the same list, if that's what you're doing now, you're just falling in line with everybody else. There's a database that we use called CrunchBase. 2 million companies, its global. Every private company, every public company is in it. But its secret sauce is companies are getting funding. So we believe that like having a much broader aperture visibility into companies that could be in my strike zone. But they have funny names. I've never heard of them. Right. But they got money. They're scaling out. Yeah. They're also scaling up in a lot of cases that are top grading is a friend of mine said the other day, they're they're they're taking their talent level up. But if it's a company I've never heard of, I can't call on them. So basically, we integrated CrunchBase into the CRM tool. So now I can do company discovery, and outreach and manage all of my opportunities within one tool. And that seems to be a very differentiated thing. But what we also found was for non salespeople, they need more help. And so we've ended up wrapping professional services around that with resume writers, LinkedIn optimization, helping do outbound campaigns on behalf of the client. And so really doing more of a what we call concierge Club, which kind of do it for me do it with me. Yeah, I have an approach. And then the last bit will stop is creating community, which I know it's important to you as well.

Claire Davis 14:13

Yes. Oh, what a brilliant approach. And I think something everybody here listening can really tap into, because, I mean, that's just how you would run a traditional sales, you know, business plan, right? So you know, exactly. So when you were creating this, were your days at like Samsung and Coke, like, were they coming back to you? And you're thinking like, oh, well, this is how I would have done business development here. This is how I see it happening in careers.

Bob Goodwin 14:45

So the connection was, you know, it just to be clear with with your audience, my clients were Procter and coke and SAMSA. So but I'm dealing with like the Global Head of Marketing, the brand manager for coke. And were the guy or gal that leads the relationship at Walmart. So it's that kind of executive, and how they think about advancing their brands. And so you just learn all these principles just by osmosis. Or if you're gonna be an all effective in helping them solve their problem, you need to understand the world the way they think about it. So that's where we're all the marketing stuff came from. But then the sales bit is what I've been doing my whole career. And for for people who are listening, particularly those who are salespeople, and if you're trying to identify your opportunity by applying for stuff online. And Claire, I'm sure you've got a strong opinion on this is I liken them to RFPs. A request for proposal, right? I hate RFPs. It's a black box, I've got no control over the process. procurement is actually running the show, get I'm just falling in line with everybody else. That sounds a lot like online job postings to me. And I'm just I have no idea what the process is, I have no idea where this thing is going. I don't know who the decision maker is. And I just, but I've done it 400 times, and hopefully one of them. If you went to your sales manager and said, I'm going to make my quota by just doing RFPs. But but but here's your here's your territory. Yeah, but but they haven't issued an RFP. Well, aren't you calling on somebody there? No, because they haven't issued an RFP yet. Like, you're you're laughing? Because in any salesperson will laugh because that's ridiculous, right? So what we're doing is being much more proactive, and helping the client curate a territory, if you will, of 60 companies, and then figuring out who's the decision maker decision makers and being proactive in building relationships with them doing the outreach? Because, again, I think everybody knows this from experience, but sometimes we don't think about it in this context is many, many people have gotten a job that was never posted, right? Just like Claire's awesome. Like, I've met her and started learning more about her background, like, we need somebody like Claire right now. Or we've got somebody like Bob, and I'll Sinclair shows up and say, Well, we have an opportunity to do a serious upgrade here. There never was a job posting. The HR person never knew. That's what I was thinking about. Like, maybe I need to replace Bob, because he was here. And all st. Claire's plus player shows up. But that's how it works in the real world. But if we're not acting like salespeople, and in their days on call or online job search course, making your own weather is that's what salespeople do. They make their own weather, they they make stuff happen. That's what I love about salespeople is we make stuff happen. And yet in the job search, we become much more passive, much more reactive. And if we just acted like the sales process as it is, then we would get a better job faster.

Claire Davis 18:12

And dialers best way now, yeah, and wouldn't that be nice? And you know, for the record, let's be honest, that company's gonna keep Bob Okay. We know I, I really think you're right. And, you know, one thing I know, that you talk about frequently is, you know, if we're going about the job search the old way, right, the applying online, the thing in your head up against the wall, the, you know, go it alone, it's painful, and it can also be a little bit lonely. So can you talk a little bit about you know, what you see with your job seekers, maybe when they're transitioning into this new modern way of approaching their career because it can be a lonely place, especially to be unemployed, be it a layoff, a company closure, otherwise known spot on and you know, my identity is very much tied up into my job.

Bob Goodwin 18:58

A lot of my social stuff is tied up into my colleagues like this, my friends. And then you layer COVID. On top of that, I mean, that guy to be extremely isolating for people. And so, you know, that's why we call it a career club, is we wanted to create an environment where people felt like they were part of something again, and that they could attach to a larger social group that you wasn't just, you know, a coffee klatch or a pity party. But we're we're all kind of trying to help each other on the same page, that we do a weekly roundtable and we talked about successes, but we also talked about struggles. And you know, we haven't said this yet, but that's, that's very near my why. And all of this is hearing People come into that call bummed out, and walk out of that call, energize optimistic again, you know, I, somebody's saying, well here Chris, call me after the call and like, you know, let's get connected to take that three people I can help you with, you know, so So we're building this community, where even after you've landed, you're still part of the community. Because and I know you've seen this, Claire is where once people have been through the process, they almost always adopt the Pay It Forward. mentality. Yeah, you know, if you are so helpful to me, when I was going through that process, I wanted to be there for somebody else, just like you were there for me. And so, you know, not making it the job search club, but the career club, so that you again, we continue to nurture relationships. For a lot of people and this is cold water for people, is if I've been at j&j for 18 years, and all sudden, something bad happens. And I lose my job at j&j. Well, I just lost my entire network. Right. And then people like, don't know what to do. And I liken it to going to an ATM, and you're trying to make a withdrawal and have a Bank meeting a deposit. And those are, that's a, that's a overdrawn relationship, and you can't make withdrawals to you've made deposits and relationships tend to be very much the same way. And so once people, and again, sometimes it takes a job loss, and people having to figure it out working out, and building relationships, that they want to continue to do that, because now they can't it's it didn't feel very good getting the lesson. But now when they got it, they got it. And so yeah, community is just really, really important. And again, I would just want to emphasize this so much for people listening, it is not just for the job search, it's for the rest of your career.

Claire Davis 22:01

Amen. You know, it's, like you said, it's not just for the job search, it's for the rest of your career. But truthfully, a lot of us don't recognize the importance of networking. And sometimes they don't recognize that we have been networking, but unintentionally, like not with the intention that might serve us later on, until something happens like a layoff. You know, I remember in my own case, the first time I was laid off, I did, I completely neglected to wreck to network with my colleagues, my current clients at the time, and I was an associate at the time, but still, you know, those, those relationships you make are so, so important. And it's sometimes not until we kind of hit the rock, you know, we hit we hit the wall, that we realized that we've we've got to keep going. So So when it comes to networking, do you have like a system that you encourage people to use? Or maybe a routine? You know, how does somebody you know, say they've been laid off, and they need to supercharge their network? Again, how do they go about it systematically. So they don't, you know, burnout, forget, not do it, etc.

Bob Goodwin 23:21

So in full transparency, you know, as much as you know, I'm an advocate for networking, and try to do a lot of networking because I enjoy it. This has been a little bit more of a recent introduction, even in our own process, which is this some anybody can do right now is go to your LinkedIn profile and download your LinkedIn contacts. And whether you've got 500 or 5000 links, you own your data, you own your contacts. And so LinkedIn will give that to you. They'll come to you in a in an Excel or CSV file. And then to I encourage people to pick your top 100 to 200. But what constitutes top? Well, someone's people I'm super close to and I could text right now they're gonna text me back, son could be top like, well, these are some of those senior people that I've met over the course of my career so far. I would encourage people to think about salespeople. We are natural networkers and we have naturally larger networks. And maybe somebody worked in finance.

Claire Davis 24:31

As an example. I'm not picking on myshelves. They're not listening to this podcast, don't worry.

Bob Goodwin 24:36

That's a different, right. But But salespeople tend to be natural networkers and helpers. And then another pod that you might have been picking your top would be people that are at companies that you'd like to be at. So and there's various criteria that you could use for thinking about those kinds of things. Picking your top two 100 We're basically you can do this on your own, you don't need us to do this, but we find that people benefit, like weightwatchers like, you can go eat better on your own people just don't. But if you can do this all yourself, but taking, like, if you said 200, thinking like 50, this week having a templated email that says, basically, hey, Claire, you know, hopefully well, you know, recently, you know, I left my role at x, Lacy, and you have been operating my engagement play now, to to let folks know that I'm back in the market. It's been a while since we spoke, but we'd love to reconnect with you. I love Calendly. Here's a link to my calendar to find a time that's convenient, really looking forward to connecting to have a great day, Claire, yeah. It's it's super short. I didn't tell them my career story. I didn't attach my resume. I was transparent, that I've lost my job. It's very cool. If you look on LinkedIn, I think the most popular post right now where people are saying, Hey, I lost my job, I got laid off. There's like no shame in that. So that'd be one thing. I really encourage you, there's zero share, and that happening to you. But anyway, doing that, and then like doing pods of 50, over the course of four weeks, jumpstart your now, but I'll say this, this is really key. We talked about attitude that we talked about messaging. Now we're ready for Outfitters, I talked about some things airing bad commercials. If we bought a Superbowl spot that we had a really crappy commercial, that's a bad idea. We might have gotten in front of a bunch of people. But we did it in the wrong way. It's like, oh, I remember that Bob commercial. looks terrible. Right? First. So that's why getting your message right is so important. So working with somebody like you to really kind of craft the narrative, get the message, right? Have it properly represented in your brochure, your LinkedIn, profile your resume, to make sure you're on message, make sure that you can do tell me about yourself. luid, right, easily, right. And not Oh, I'm gonna get I am a like, you don't want that, right. And so that's very key in networking. The first LinkedIn article I ever wrote clear, was called the most powerful question you can ask. And it was based on a networking meeting that I had at a Starbucks with somebody who had lost their job. I didn't know them from anybody. And the guy was so full of shame, that the body language was just profoundly sad. And he was literally backing away from me. As even as we're meeting and he just kept apologizing for taking up my time. I know you're really busy. I'm so sorry. Like, stop, I want to be here. I want to help you that he felt like the power dynamic, if I can say it this way, was so out of balance, that I had all the power. He had nothing to offer in a space like alms for the poor. Yeah. Am I no, no, no, no, no, please stop. You've got relationships, experience, your all kinds of accomplishments, things you know about that I don't know anything about. So people that the most powerful question you can ask to cut to the chase is, how I can help you. Is there anything clearer that I can do that would be of help to you? Yep. And to be genuine in that? Not that it's a rote question that I Oh, yeah, I'm supposed to ask this real quick. I think I ended up you. But like, you know, as we talked, we talked about our kids and we talked about what you're interested in, I might find that you've got you know, a daughter with a learning disability or whatever it might be, Oh, do you know this tutor that we've actually have the same thing our neighbor knows this amazing person. You can contribute you can you have something to offer? One it I think it truly helps emotional well being of the job secrets know that they've got things to offer in this conversation. But to is it is a highly differentiated networking behavior, that it's not all gimme, gimme again. And then I'm just going in here to be manipulative, and I feel like I'm using this person you're going to be seeking to help them to, and hopefully we both walk out in a mutually beneficial relationship. That makes networking fun. Hey, I'm going to be able to go help this lady today. That's cool. Maybe she can help me. Let's find out. Yeah. And so I think you're that one. jumpstarting your networking by downloading your LinkedIn stuff, too, is having an having a message, you know, who you are and what you're looking for that you can clearly and concisely relate that to somebody And then three is that attitude is seeking to help. And to give not just seeking to get if you can do those things well and do them consistently, do your follow ups and be committed to networking. It's fun. Yeah, you've seen this, people come back and say, You know what I would not have wished listen my job, if sucked, like I couldn't. That's not something I would have chosen. I've met so many amazing people in this process. I'm just blown away by all the great people that I met. And now I'm committed to helping the next person. Yeah, that's sort of my advice in a nutshell, or not a nutshell, one?

Claire Davis 30:39

No, that's great advice. And, you know, what I find is that when people do become empowered, to start reaching out to network, even if they haven't, for a long time, and I hear it a lot from my senior leaders, who will say something to the effect of, I wish I would have started this 20 years ago. And listen, everybody starts, when this becomes top of mind, it's okay, right. But what I find is that when they do start reaching out, much like you say, especially if you approach the conversation with a giving attitude, you know, not just a taking attitude, that people are very, very willing to help, they want to they, people are so willing to give an extra ear or to share their experience because it, it builds their authority to you know, it makes them feel good, because they work hard in their career. And to be able to pay it forward. More often than not, people are very willing to do it. So I hope that, you know, if you're listening to this, and you haven't yet engaged your network, or you're not going after your job, search, as a plan, as a call plan and a funnel, and leveraging those things that you as a salesperson, and in this podcast for this scenario, medical salesperson, you know, start considering that you have so many more tools in your arsenal from your sales experience, and that you can leverage them to your own ends to make yourself a really great career path. But I love what you share today, Bob, thank you so much for enlightening us on all these things. I think that it's the future of how people should be job searching, especially when so much has changed over the last two years. I think that I've yet to work with a client who has said that they've gotten no jobs at all, from somebody they know, I've literally never had that conversation. They've said at least one of their jobs. It's been through someone they knew. So but I think the way that you're approaching this through career club is really, really smart. So can you share a little bit about where people can find you? Should they want to tap into these resources and connect with you?

Bob Goodwin 32:58

Yeah, so thank you for asking. So amazingly, career dot club, that is the domain. So you can you can go there. And that'll say all this good stuff, too, is a very active on LinkedIn. So you know, we'd love it if people wanted to follow me follow career club. We do lots of podcasts, too. So that's fun and a lot of good content. But lastly, just as an offer to anybody who's listening to this podcast clear if they referenced it. I said earlier, making your own weather is the name of the online course. I wouldn't make that available as a gift to anybody who's listening to this if they would. Normally it's only available to for paying clients. But it's your very sweet to have me on and I think the message would really resonate with salespeople. So yeah, so career dot club yet follow me Bob Goodwin on or connect with me on LinkedIn follow career club, and we'd love to help in any way.

Claire Davis 34:00

Thank you so much. And so that's so generous of you, Bob. So if they send you a note and reference this podcast that they will be able to access that that wonderful training. Thank you so much. That's really truly generous. Absolutely. Well, thanks, everybody for joining us today. I know that we could talk to Bob Goodwin for hours and I know that there's so much more do take the time to follow him. Connect with him over on LinkedIn and learn more about career club, especially if you're at a point in your career where you are ready to take it to the next level. And until next time, thank you so much for joining us. See you later.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai