Speaker 1: Welcome to Season five of On the Job, a podcast
Speaker 1: about finding your life's work. On the job is brought
Speaker 1: to you by Express Employment Professionals, a leading staffing provider
Speaker 1: that employees nearly six hundred thousand people annually across more
Speaker 1: than eight hundred thirty franchise locations in the US, Canada,
Speaker 1: South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. Our vision is to
Speaker 1: help as many people as possible find good jobs by
Speaker 1: helping as many clients as possible find good people. Whether
Speaker 1: you're looking for your first job or you're seeking a
Speaker 1: new challenge in your career, Express Employment Professionals will be
Speaker 1: with you every step of the way. We understand what
Speaker 1: it takes to land a new position at a top
Speaker 1: employer in today's job market. Plus, we never charge a
Speaker 1: fee to find you a job. And just like finding
Speaker 1: a job, finding the best people to fill open positions
Speaker 1: in your company requires more than sorting through applications. It
Speaker 1: takes real people, real interviews, discovering the skills you need.
Speaker 1: At Express, we find people for jobs and companies of
Speaker 1: all sizes and industries, from the production floor to the
Speaker 1: front office to the c suite. Express Nose Jobs get
Speaker 1: to know Express. This is on the Job, a podcast
Speaker 1: about finding your life's work. On the job, is brought
Speaker 1: to you by Express Employment Professionals. This season, we're bringing
Speaker 1: you stories of folks following their passion to carve their
Speaker 1: own career path. To start off this season, I wanted
Speaker 1: to focus on a kind of overlooked occupation, a job
Speaker 1: that if you're good at it, people might not know
Speaker 1: that you're doing it. All right, I'm according working in sales.
Speaker 1: So for this episode, I talked to a guy named
Speaker 1: Chris in Baltimore. Chris Lundy forty two years old. Wow.
Speaker 1: She He is a clinical oncology specialist, which basically is
Speaker 1: a fancy term for I sell key in your drugs.
Speaker 1: Chris has worn a lot of hats besides being a
Speaker 1: pharmaceutical rep in his career, but he says that no
Speaker 1: matter what it was, he was born to sell, and
Speaker 1: so were you. We've all been We've all been selling.
Speaker 1: We just didn't know it. If you've ever dated, you've sold,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe not successfully, but maybe not successfully. But
Speaker 1: think about that, right, You gotta you gotta a lot
Speaker 1: of times you gotta go to someone who's a perfect
Speaker 1: stranger and you have to bring that person along a
Speaker 1: continuum that makes this perfect stranger. Kiss you. It's all
Speaker 1: about relationships. It's all about relationships, man, Thank you that
Speaker 1: that's the that's the point the dating game aside. He's right,
Speaker 1: we do all sell each other on ideas constantly. We
Speaker 1: convinced people to think about us differently, by how we dress,
Speaker 1: by what our social media looks like. And Chris's approach
Speaker 1: to sales is that people really can tell when someone's
Speaker 1: not being real. I think that everybody has a like
Speaker 1: authenticity radar. I really do. And I think that if
Speaker 1: if people sensed it, like, wait a second, this guy
Speaker 1: is not some some's fishy about them, I think they
Speaker 1: start to close up. You know. He says that's what
Speaker 1: sets him apart. There are a lot of salespeople who
Speaker 1: will treat their clients like a walking dollar sign and
Speaker 1: say anything to sell their product at let I see me.
Speaker 1: I just I can't do any of that stuff. You
Speaker 1: gotta be authentic, because again, you're trying to convince someone
Speaker 1: to think differently. You're trying to convince someone to behave differently.
Speaker 1: It's not hey, here's a pen that I want you
Speaker 1: to buy. Give me money, I'll give you this pen.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to change your behavior. I'm trying to get
Speaker 1: it to the point where every time a patient comes
Speaker 1: in with disease X, you think about me and you
Speaker 1: think about my product. That's a behavior. Man. The Chris
Speaker 1: you're hearing now, that's the Chris whose job it is
Speaker 1: to be likable, to constantly be talking to people, and
Speaker 1: generally be pretty extroverted. But growing up just outside of
Speaker 1: d C as a kid, he was a lot different.
Speaker 1: I kind of was like a little loner, geek kind
Speaker 1: of kid. I love comic books, you know. I remember
Speaker 1: my mother used to talk about that. How I could
Speaker 1: be in my room and if it weren't for having
Speaker 1: to eat food, I could be in my room for
Speaker 1: like eight nine hours. Just I didn't pay I didn't
Speaker 1: pay a lot of attention to the real world. My
Speaker 1: my mind was always always daydreaming, always all the time.
Speaker 1: That was his life for a while, in his own world.
Speaker 1: His favorite comic book here was Adam Warlock. He kept
Speaker 1: to himself right up until about the tenth grade. I
Speaker 1: remember writing an essay. I don't even remember what was
Speaker 1: what it was about. The teacher was Mr Howard. It
Speaker 1: looked like he wasn't even sure that I actually wrote it,
Speaker 1: Like he may have suspected plagiarism or something like that.
Speaker 1: And so and like he took you like he made
Speaker 1: you stay after classes thing too, because he thought you
Speaker 1: didn't write it. Well, it's not that he was being accusatory.
Speaker 1: It was more like disbelief, you know, like where I'm from, man,
Speaker 1: Like I'm I'm kind of from like the hood man,
Speaker 1: you know, so you don't get a whole bunch of
Speaker 1: uh like writing talent. So I think that it just
Speaker 1: really stood out for him. And he pauses and looks
Speaker 1: at me. He goes, you're a really good writer. Do
Speaker 1: you know that the proof was there? He had one
Speaker 1: essay and speech contest before, but he didn't figure it
Speaker 1: was because he was good. I thought other people sucked,
Speaker 1: you know. So it took a while to realize, like,
Speaker 1: wait a second, Wait a second, Maybe maybe it's not
Speaker 1: that everybody else runs slow. Maybe I am actually fast.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I just kind of took off. I
Speaker 1: just started talking more, sharing the thoughts I had instead
Speaker 1: of suppressing him, and people people you know, liked it.
Speaker 1: It worked. This late blooming moment really set him on
Speaker 1: the trajectory to where he is now. I don't know.
Speaker 1: It just changed overnight, it seemed, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: I was like Mr. Social extrovert, you know, a type personality,
Speaker 1: Homecoming King, captain of the football team. It was. It was.
Speaker 1: It was not gradual. After high school, he went off
Speaker 1: to college and got an English degree, where he was
Speaker 1: also acting in plays and had his own radio show
Speaker 1: on campus. I started to really hone my skills in
Speaker 1: terms of communicating and sharing ideas. The first big job
Speaker 1: he got out of school before Pharma, was working with
Speaker 1: the Philadelphia Eagles in the PR department media relations, So
Speaker 1: everything from setting up interviews Let's say ESPN wanted to
Speaker 1: talk to our quarterback or something. You know, um, I
Speaker 1: would facilitate that. He was basically the liaison between players
Speaker 1: and the public. So his skill set would kick in
Speaker 1: during moments where say, he and some players might stop
Speaker 1: at a Wendy's while on the road and inevitably get
Speaker 1: crowded by fans asking for autographs. My job one of
Speaker 1: the things I had to do. I had to be
Speaker 1: the no guy, because you can't have a superstar player,
Speaker 1: you know, shutting people down, telling them no. They look bad,
Speaker 1: so I had to be the bad guy. Having lived
Speaker 1: in Philly myself for a couple of years, I can
Speaker 1: say that they're not fans that like being told no exactly.
Speaker 1: And I guess, like, what is the biggest thing you
Speaker 1: learned from that job? When like when like nobody wants
Speaker 1: to hear this, that or that, Like you gotta win
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, what's your record. I've
Speaker 1: got an NFC Championship ring. When I pull it out,
Speaker 1: people think it's a super Bowl ring because it's big
Speaker 1: and it's full of diamonds and stuff. It's not a
Speaker 1: super Bowl ring, Like we weren't that proud of that ring.
Speaker 1: It's an NFC Championship ring, which means there was a
Speaker 1: ring that was bigger than that, and that's the ring
Speaker 1: we wanted. We'll get back to the story in a second. First,
Speaker 1: a word from Express Employment Professionals. A strong work ethic
Speaker 1: takes pri in a job well done. This is you.
Speaker 1: But to get an honest day's work, you need a
Speaker 1: call back. You need a job. Express Employment Professionals can help.
Speaker 1: We'll connect you to the right company. We're committed to
Speaker 1: your success and never charge a fee to find you
Speaker 1: a job Express Nose Jobs, get to know Express, find
Speaker 1: your location at express pros dot com or on the
Speaker 1: Express jobs app. Now back to on the job. After
Speaker 1: the NFL, he wanted to make the leap to pharmaceutical sales,
Speaker 1: so he went for a job at Merk, a huge company,
Speaker 1: and they basically said, you were in media relations. You
Speaker 1: don't have any experience in sales. And I tried. I
Speaker 1: had to explain to them, Listen, every day I have
Speaker 1: to convince young millionaires, egotistical millionaires, to do things that
Speaker 1: they don't want to do, you know. And if you
Speaker 1: don't think that sales, that I and I don't know
Speaker 1: what to tell you, you know. And so that that
Speaker 1: line actually got me in the door. So he could
Speaker 1: obviously talk to talk. But the job isn't selling a
Speaker 1: product to the general public. It's selling life saving drugs
Speaker 1: to medical professionals. And they don't know you, so the
Speaker 1: trust isn't there. You know, You're you're trying to convince
Speaker 1: a doctor to practice a certain way, and this guy
Speaker 1: knows that he's got more education than you, he's got
Speaker 1: more expertise than you, but he's supposed to listen to
Speaker 1: what you're telling him to do like, that's insane. The
Speaker 1: marketing department would train reps to go in with fancy
Speaker 1: graphs and selling points, but Chris did the exact opposite,
Speaker 1: meeting with doctors for multiple appointments without mentioning his product
Speaker 1: at all. And so I started by asking questions like,
Speaker 1: what's important to you? What do you not care about?
Speaker 1: Tell me about your patients, what are your needs? What
Speaker 1: keeps you up in night? Those kinds of things I'm saying,
Speaker 1: tell me about you. And then once the relationship be set,
Speaker 1: and once that rapport is there, now we can talk
Speaker 1: about what I have to offer and what I what
Speaker 1: I can do and you know, provide for you and
Speaker 1: your patients. In an old fashioned industry full of reps
Speaker 1: just trying to sell cell cell, Chris's authenticity started to
Speaker 1: really shine through. And once I saw like my numbers
Speaker 1: start to reflect what I was actually doing, I was like,
Speaker 1: how about that? I wanted to get Mr Howard on
Speaker 1: the line and tell him. Look, man, he got to
Speaker 1: see selling around New York City, where the competition was fierce,
Speaker 1: and there was one experience early on in his career
Speaker 1: that really stuck with him. So there was this doctor
Speaker 1: he was huge He had an office in like a
Speaker 1: nice area in New York. I don't remember where this was,
Speaker 1: but it was nice, fancy, nice, pretty office. You couldn't
Speaker 1: see this doc. You go in, there's there's other reps
Speaker 1: from other companies all over the place. You'd wait for
Speaker 1: two hours and still barely even get, you know, ten
Speaker 1: seconds with this guy. Chris and other reps noticed that
Speaker 1: this doctor was never there on Tuesdays. They all assumed
Speaker 1: it was his day all but after some digging, Chris
Speaker 1: found out those weren't his off days. Tuesdays where his
Speaker 1: Picking Avenue days. Picking Avenue is the avenue in Brooklyn
Speaker 1: that you do not want to go to, right Like,
Speaker 1: you gotta have Picking Avenue. You're getting robbed, you getting mugs,
Speaker 1: something's going wrong. It's a dangerous part of town. It
Speaker 1: turns out that doctor was from a pretty rough neighborhood
Speaker 1: and those were his days to give back to the
Speaker 1: community at a small clinic. So Chris decided that's where
Speaker 1: he'd go. I understand that I probably probably get my
Speaker 1: my wheels and rim stolen from my car, but I'm
Speaker 1: going to Picking Avenue and I went in and I
Speaker 1: told the receptionist that you know I was a pharmaceutical rep.
Speaker 1: And she looked at me like I was an alien,
Speaker 1: like what like, we're actually getting a pharmaceutical rep here?
Speaker 1: Like are you sure you want to be here? After
Speaker 1: about an hour, he got to see the doctor. He
Speaker 1: was so happy. He first first he was shocked because
Speaker 1: no one went there, and he was happy that he
Speaker 1: was actually getting attention at this location at Picking Avenue
Speaker 1: for his patients on Picking freaking Avenue. And then the
Speaker 1: doctor started to criticize farmer reps he'd interacted with, because
Speaker 1: they'll always go to the fancy office but never there
Speaker 1: because it's not a lot of money in it, right,
Speaker 1: you got a lot of patients on like state care
Speaker 1: or governmental care. It's not a nice, fun, easy place
Speaker 1: to go. And that's how Chris started building a relationship
Speaker 1: with this doctor to the point where at the plush office,
Speaker 1: I was able to walk in and reps are like mad,
Speaker 1: like what are you doing going back? How's he getting
Speaker 1: back there? But that's what he was. I went to
Speaker 1: Picking Avenue. I served him where he needed to be served.
Speaker 1: I carry that everywhere and go what do you need?
Speaker 1: I mean, think about it. Right in sales, you gotta
Speaker 1: use car lot. That car salesman isn't thinking about what
Speaker 1: you need. He's thinking about how can I get what
Speaker 1: I want out of you? Right, And so if you're
Speaker 1: a salesperson but your lead foot is what do you need? Man,
Speaker 1: you're just differentiating yourself right there, right off the break.
Speaker 1: You're not like the others. So that really gets on
Speaker 1: the point of like, when I think a lot of
Speaker 1: people think of sales as a occupation, they probably think
Speaker 1: of like they used car guy. But um, to go
Speaker 1: back to your comic book days, do think you use
Speaker 1: your powers for good? I do? I do, I see
Speaker 1: and also work with people who don't. And when we're
Speaker 1: talking about the pharmaceutical industry, we're talking about a lot
Speaker 1: of money. So yeah, there there's a lot of negative
Speaker 1: stigma you know that comes with it, um, and it's
Speaker 1: unfortunate because the people who do do it the right way,
Speaker 1: they really are like changing people's lives. Chris started off
Speaker 1: in primary care generic drugs, and that he works with
Speaker 1: cancer drugs. It's different. He'll go into an appointment talking
Speaker 1: about a drug that could help a particular patient, and
Speaker 1: the next appointment that patients no longer with us, you know,
Speaker 1: like we can't even pick up on the conversation because
Speaker 1: the patient is gone. It's a much more urgent world
Speaker 1: over here. There are real stakes involved. This isn't just
Speaker 1: paullen allergy meds. Yeah, yeah, this is this is life
Speaker 1: for death over here. Was ever a moment in your
Speaker 1: career where you thought, this is why I do what
Speaker 1: I do? Um? A couple of years back, we were
Speaker 1: at a sales conference and they brought in an elderly
Speaker 1: woman who had stage four lung cancer. That's usually uh,
Speaker 1: you know, like all right, see you see you later,
Speaker 1: get your affairs in order kind of thing. The woman
Speaker 1: told a story about how her grandson was trying to
Speaker 1: lift her spirits and made her promise to go skydiving
Speaker 1: with him later that year. And now her she was
Speaker 1: convinced that she wasn't, you know, gonna be around long.
Speaker 1: So sure, Scott, I haven't no problem. And it didn't
Speaker 1: matter what he said. He could say we're gonna go
Speaker 1: to Mars, she'd be like, yep. And she was telling
Speaker 1: us this story, and then behind her they pull up
Speaker 1: the picture of her jumping out of the plane. She
Speaker 1: lived because of our drug, and she kept her promise
Speaker 1: that she never thought she would have to with her grandson.
Speaker 1: They both jumped out of a plane together. To hear
Speaker 1: that story and to see that image, it's like damn, Like, yo,
Speaker 1: we really are helping save people's actual lives. Just throwing
Speaker 1: a scenario your way. You sold the drug to her
Speaker 1: doctor that saved her life and allowed her to have
Speaker 1: this moment, and she never knows your name. How do
Speaker 1: you feel about that? M that's all right, that's all right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's okay. Because um, we won and we went to
Speaker 1: the playoffs. We we got the big ring, you know. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: hasn't it hasn't. It doesn't matter. The job got done.
Speaker 1: For on the Job, I'm Motus Gray. Thanks for listening
Speaker 1: to On the Job, brought to you by Express Employment Professionals.
Speaker 1: The season of On the Job is produced by Audiation.
Speaker 1: The episodes were written and produced by me Otis Gray.
Speaker 1: Our executive producer is Sandy Smallens. The show was mixed
Speaker 1: by Matt Noble for audiences studios at the Loft in Bronxville,
Speaker 1: New York. Music by Blue Dot Sessions. Find us on
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio and Apple Podcasts. If you liked what
Speaker 1: you heard, please consider rating and reviewing the show on
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts or rerever. You listen, we'll see you next time.
Speaker 1: For more inspiring stories about discovering your life's work, audiation