Welcome back to the podcast, everyone. Thanks for joining me. This is a special solo podcast episode by request, and I love this topic. It's MSL people skills, 10 tips for better engagement. And I hope you guys love it. I hope you share it with your coworkers and colleagues and friends and family, anybody that can benefit from it.
And, thank you for following me on LinkedIn and Instagram, and don't forget to check us out on YouTube and MSL Talk Live, which is the 1st Tuesday of every month, and that is on Clubhouse. Welcome to MSL Talk with Tom Caravella, a podcast specifically designed for MSLs and all things field medical. Okay. Welcome once again, everyone, and happy International Podcast Day. Yes. Apparently, that is a thing, and it is today.
So I just wanna thank all my international listeners, including we actually are in 2 new markets. We are ranked in the careers category in New Zealand and in Romania. I think it's in the top 20 in the careers category. So thank you to all our new listeners. Thank you to all our international listeners. And, obviously, for everybody here in the US, happy International Podcast Day. So I'm really excited about this topic. Like I said, this topic is MSL people skills, ten tips for better engagement.
So let's just jump right into it. As all of you know, listening, the cornerstone of the MSL position is relationship building. Basically, better engagement equates to better relationships. So the purpose of this conversation is to focus on what sometimes people call soft skills, people skills. I don't know if anyone follows Simon Sinek. He is a popular author and, I think he has a talk show or he's a lot of videos on social media.
He just came out recently and said, we need to change the term soft skills to human skills or people skills because they're hard skills for a lot of people, but they're really, really important, and we need to learn them. And they fall within the category of emotional intelligence or business etiquette. But as it relates to the MSL position, it's really, really vital. So I'm going to go back and start with some of the principles that I learned from Dale Carnegie.
When I first got started in my career, I was a field trainer for many years, and I took a Dale Carnegie course. He he's the guy that wrote the very famous book, How to Win Friends and Influence People. As a matter of fact, he had a quote. If you want to collect honey, don't kick over the beehive. So the reason I'm bringing this up is I think a lot of the principles and practices that we're gonna talk about today are really simple and basic.
Some of them, I think you're gonna say, well, yeah, Tom, that really makes sense. I mean, I heard you knew that. But are we implementing and are we executing on some of the basic principles that are necessary to help our professional relationships and to help strengthen our professional brand? That's what we're gonna focus on today. So let's start with number 1. As I said, we're going to talk about 10 tips for better engagement. Number 1 is make your conversation about the other person.
And again, this is right out of the pages of, Dale Carnegie. This is a big concept and it's really the most important number one rule to keep in mind is to focus on the other person's needs. It's really important when you're entering into KOL meetings or really any interactions. It could be internal. It could be external. But for KOL meetings, if you're an MSL, some of the types of questions you might wanna consider asking would be, what can I do to help you? Or what do you need from me?
Or maybe to be respectful of your time, what is your preferred means of communication? And when is it a good time to reach out? And lastly, maybe you also ask, how often would you like to hear from me? So these are all questions that I think can really help solidify and figure out what you can do to help your KOLs, how you can position yourself in the relationship, and how you can be respectful of of them and their practice and their time. So let's go to number 2.
Number 2 might seem really obvious, but, obviously, we have to talk about digital. So number 2, I have embrace digital mediums. And I wasn't sure what I was gonna call this. I was thinking, do I say master digital mediums, perfect digital mediums? The reason I went with embrace is because I feel like a lot of us are doing, you know, video meetings and Skype, and we're doing Teams and and, and Webex and all this other stuff because we have to. But are we embracing it?
And what I mean by that is I think it's important for us to really be good with all things digital, the digital platforms. We need to embrace social media. I think we need to follow our KOLs on social media, like, especially LinkedIn and Twitter. Because by following, we can see what's important to them and pick up cues and gain icebreakers or talking points for future interactions. And keep in mind, I do know that there's sensitivity around this.
I wanna caution everybody to follow your guidelines and your the compliance recommendations that are coming from your organization. But I also feel like if your KOLs have adopted certain social medium social certain social mediums, I think that it's important to kinda go along with it and kinda follow where they're at.
You know, the other thing too is, again, we talked about this, but you really wanna make sure you know what your KOL's preference for communication is because they might say video, or they might say email, or they might say text. So that's a really important piece of this equation because you wanna be able to communicate effectively in the manner in which they prefer to be communicated with.
So I would definitely, definitely focus as much attention as you can at embracing and getting really good at these digital mediums. Number 3, and this is an oldie, but a goodie. I love this one. Remember names and use them. In a study published in Brain Research Magazine, it was found that certain parts of the brain light up when we hear our own name, not when we hear others' names, only our own. And just think about it.
If you if you think about it, when you hear people use your name, it does make you feel more important, and it makes you feel more recognized. Be careful not to use KOL's names too often. If overused, it can definitely come across as insincere or condescending. You don't wanna, like, use that trickery or game playing. You wanna be sincere. You wanna be genuine. Just use use people's names when appropriate and inject that into conversation or even email.
And I I think speaking of email, I think it's really important that you don't just start an email, hi or hello. You always start an email with the proper salutation. Hi, Tom. And then go into a nice greeting, like an icebreaker greeting, one sentence. Hope you had a great weekend, or I hope your week is off to a good start. Or if it's later in the week, I hope you're having a great week. I hope all is well.
And then go into what it is that you wanna talk about, and then finish off with a really nice, like, sign off salutation saying goodbye. So it might be thanks, thank you, or thanks in advance. And we're gonna talk about that later, but there's a reason why you want to end with gratitude. So number 4, and this is another one that is important, and I love it. And it's master the first impression. So I love this one so much that I actually wrote a whole article on this.
You can actually find it on my LinkedIn page. You can also find it on our website. And it's it's really about it's not just making a first impression, but it's creating a reputation, and it's solidifying your reputation. You know, I'll give you another quote in the words of the legendary investor and billionaire Warren Buffett. It takes 20 years to build a reputation and 5 minutes to ruin it.
So you really wanna be mindful of the impression that you're making each and every day and with every interaction, whether it's live or whether it's digital. It could also be video. So let's talk about some of that. So let's talk about phone interactions and phone impression.
It's it's really, really important in the business world to answer the phone with energy and enthusiasm, set a positive tone, give the other person on the other end of the phone, especially if you have a a meeting set or a meeting plan. You wanna you wanna have a positive, warm, and professional greeting. You know? Hi. This is Tom. Tom Caravella. Like and if you know the person and you know them well enough, you could just say their name and say how happy you are to hear from them.
You wanna maintain a genuine tone on the call and end the call with gratitude and just be gracious for for for being able to spend that time with the person. I think it's really, really important. There are times when I'll call somebody. And I'm gonna even have a preplanned, preschedule a call, and they pick up the phone, and it's like they don't they weren't expecting to hear from me. You're like, hello?
And and I'm not saying that that happens all the time, but it it's important to get this right. You know, face to face, I think it's really simple. The impression comes from a smile. It comes from a firm handshake, comes from good eye contact. These are really I mean, these are timeless recommendations, but I think sometimes people either get nervous, or they don't think it's important, or they don't utilize it. And to be honest with you, it translates into video too.
So when it comes to your video interactions and impressions, arrive early, be prepared, be professionally dressed. That's part of the impression. If you got if you're on a video call or a video interaction and you look like you just got done mowing the lawn, that's not gonna leave a very good impression. And and I think that there's this this I don't know. There's there's kind of this sentiment that it's okay because you're on video and you're working from home, you can wear whatever you want.
And I'm not saying you have to wear your best suit every single day, but I do think that it's important to look good and look your best. I really think it's important on video to maintain eye contact and be careful not to bit not to fidget too much and look around because it is distracting. Another thing is LinkedIn, and you definitely can, will, and do make an impression on LinkedIn. People are gonna be checking you out on LinkedIn before meetings, during meetings, after meetings.
Use a recent and professional photo and make sure your experience is up to date. You don't wanna have a photo up there that's outdated. That is not a flattering picture. Maybe it's you and your dog, or maybe it's you in a cap and gown if you're a student. Don't use a picture within a cap and gown. It just then you look like a student. You don't look like somebody who's professional that's ready to be hired. So these are just, I think, really important tips.
You wanna give the person the proper image of yourself. And lastly, email. Yes. You absolutely can make and will make an impression in your email interaction. So it's it's really important to be careful because email is traceable, and there's no tone. There's no tone in emails. So you need to be extra careful with your word choices and your phrasing.
Because if if you screw this up, and if it something doesn't come off the way it should, it you could wind up in trouble because there there's a record of it. And it could be misconstrued, and it could be bad. So you really wanna be careful, not to mention, it could be non compliant. And the last thing is, enter emails with the right signature. Thank you, and thanks in advance. Alright. Pre call planning. Really important.
This is number 5. So a lot of people seem to either forget or don't take time to do proper pre call planning. And what I'm gonna recommend is to use the 3 r's of pre call planning. And I'm I'm gonna discuss what that means. So Ryan Norman, who's a medical outcomes liaison with Teva Pharmaceuticals, he shared his pre call planning strategy with me in a recent podcast. And he told me about the 3 r's. Actually, told you guys too. Told everybody about 3 r's.
So the 3 r's are research, review, and rehearse. So what you wanna do is you want to commit ample time to research, to review, and to rehearse before each meeting. And that that'll obviously change the whole tone because you'll have plenty of information to to share. You'll be rehearsed. You'll be practiced, and it should really greatly improve your interactions. So I think just think of those 3 r's, research, review, mirrors. Number 6, and I love this one. And this is really important.
Communicate with confidence. Obviously, we all know as MSLs that we need to establish ourselves as the subject matter expert for peer to peer interactions. How do we do that? Well, I I got this tip from a guy by the name of Ed Mylett. Some of you may know who he is. He's he's a peak performance coach, podcaster. The guy's the best. I follow him. He's he's just got tremendous, tremendous knowledge, and and he's he's been somebody that I've learned a lot from.
And he says, others need to believe that you believe in everything you are saying. So let me repeat that. Others need to believe that you believe in everything you are saying. So let that sink in and think about that. You need to know your material and deliver it with true belief in what you're communicating so that others feel confident that you believe what you're communicating, and then they will, in fact, believe what you're communicating. So just a tremendous, tremendous principle.
I think it's, again, paramount to establish yourself as a subject matter expert as an MSL, and I think this is one of the ways to do it. 7, offer genuine compliments. This is a real easy one, and this really applies to not just your your external customers and KOLs. It it it applies to really anyone. Your, you know, your coworkers, your colleagues, your internal stakeholders, leadership, just offer congratulations on a recent career related milestone or accomplishment.
Hey. Congratulations on your promotion. Well deserved. Somebody celebrates a work anniversary. You know, LinkedIn makes this stuff so easy because you can you can just send a quick note when you see something, some type of announcement. You know, as it relates to your KOLs or or colleagues, if if you see that somebody, has a recent publication or some type of announcement that includes the person, you don't mention it. Make sure that, hey. I I just read your recent article. Really well done.
I really enjoyed it. A really insightful, great job. Or just you know what? Recognize other people for a job well done. Or if there was a some type of notable standout action, Hey, I noticed this and I really appreciate the way you handled that. Whatever. I think people really appreciate the recognition. And it's just such a genuine sentiment that I think people miss and don't take advantage of. Attitude of gratitude, number 8. You guys know I'm a big, big guy when it comes to gratitude.
That's my thing. I feel like we should show gratitude every day for everything that we have, but we also need to show people how much we appreciate them. And it's an often missed personal, and professional gesture that I think just saying thank you to somebody that has offered their time to you goes a long way. So just routinely send short thank you notes.
And, again, this goes to internal and external colleagues just to show your gratitude and appreciation for your relationship or for the time that they gave you. It could be it could be an email. It could be a text. It could be a LinkedIn message. It's so easy now to do this. Recently, I had a phone conversation with a job seeker. And like a week later, I get a handwritten card in the mail that was so unexpected. It was so nice. And it sits on my desk, and I really appreciate it.
Taking that extra step is paramount in in relationship building. It's mandatory on interviews. It should be mandatory after big meetings, but it it it also can be nice just at the end of a conversation with somebody. Hey. You know what? I really appreciate you. Right, you know, I I wanna thank you. I I I I really enjoy working with you. And last but not least, research shows that signing off your emails with thank you or thanks in advance will drastically result in greater response rates.
So there's actually research and science behind this. So I would definitely, definitely recommend that you always end your emails with either thanks or thank you or thanks in advance. Number 9. Now this is a little bit of a controversial one. So just follow me on this. Develop a text a text relationship whenever possible and appropriate. So we're gonna do a whole podcast on this in a couple of weeks. So Mitch DiRosario is gonna be joining me for this. And Mitch is one of my favorite guests.
So he's coming back, and we're gonna talk about how to develop a text relationship with your KOLs. I think that when you can establish a text communication, and text relationship, it brings your relationship to an entirely new level. We are all sitting on our phones all the time. We always have them. It's great access, and it's and it's immediate. But I think you gotta be careful.
There's there's a proceed with caution because many people have personal boundaries and may not be open to communicating through text, and not everybody feels comfortable with it. So, again, I think you go back to maybe asking KOLs what their preferred means of communication is. Perhaps they suggest text as a preference. If so, pull your phone out and, you know, you you start from there. Or maybe you can you should consider getting a digital business card.
Now this is kind of a new thing where it basically just transfers your information into their phone and vice versa. So you actually are trading your contact information with the other person. I believe that's how it works. I think Mitch is gonna talk more about that. But I think that if you can get into a text relationship, with with your stakeholders, both external and internal, I think it's important because I think that that is as near and dear to us as possible because everybody loves text.
Okay. Last but not least, number 10. Smile and say hello to everyone. As I love this one. And this is something that I I when I was so earlier in my career, as some of you may know, I spent 10 years in the field working in a number of field based capacities. I worked in managed care. I was also a field trainer for many years. And one of the things I always used to tell reps when I was training them is, you know, you need to say hello to everybody. You need to have a relationship with everybody.
Meaning, if you're going into a practice, you need to know the security guards. You need to know the receptionists and the nurses and all of the stuff. You don't need to know. It's just really beneficial to have a relationship with everybody because you don't really know who might be in a position to help you. But a genuine smile can change the entire dynamic of an encounter. And it's it's face to face. It's video.
I think it just changes the whole dynamic when you're on video and you have the smiley face on the other side of you. Somebody who who just looks genuinely like they wanna be there. And even on the phone, if you're smiling on the phone when you're presenting or when you're talking to somebody, it makes a huge difference. You can almost hear it. It's one of the simplest gestures that can make a huge impact and impression on other people, and it changes their perception.
And again, it you you just don't know who's gonna be in a position to help you down the road. But if if someone says, hey. You know what? That person's always got a smile on their face. They're always so nice. They always say hello. They know everybody. It makes a big difference. And just think about it. When you get that text and someone puts a little smiley face on the end of it, doesn't it make you feel better?
So it's just it's a really simple tip, but I think it's one that can go a long way. So, guys, I I appreciate you, listening to this, and I wanna encourage you guys to use this stuff. I could tell you again from my time as a trainer and from all of everything that I've done in between all of the times that I've been working with MSLs and talking to MSLs, this stuff really, really works. Relationships will always be the key to success in any customer facing role.
Now more than ever, MSLs and field medical professionals must work at finding effective techniques for genuine and memorable engagement, and this stuff works. So just to close kind of the way we ended with a quote from Dale Carnegie, you can make more friends in 2 months by becoming interested in other people than you can in 2 years by trying to get other people interested in you. So, guys, I'll leave it at that. As you know, I'm grateful for you. I appreciate you. Thanks for listening.
If you found value in this, please share it with colleagues, coworkers, share it with your family. I think there's a lot to be kinda taken and learned from this, even young kids that are starting their career. I think that this is a really good foundation for relationship building, and I hope it works for you. But thanks again for listening, and definitely join us next time. We look forward to it. Thanks so much. Thank you so much for listening to the show.
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