Hey, guys. Welcome to the podcast. Today, I have a very, very special repeat guest back by popular demand, my friend, the famous Linda Traylor. Linda, welcome back to the podcast. You're the best. I can't wait to talk to you. I can't wait. This is gonna be so much fun, and it's one of my favorite places to be, Tom. Oh, I love it. Well, guys, I had a conversation with Linda recently, and I'm like, we gotta do something.
And she had this idea to talk about the three no's, k n o w s, of effective scientific communication. So we're gonna get into that. But before we do, this episode is sponsored and brought to you by Fierce Life Sciences' Pharma Engage annual conference. So, guys, this is really interesting because you've heard me advertise Mass West. Well, this used to be Mass West. Now it's called Fierce Pharma Engage, and it's a much bigger conference.
But there is a whole section for medical affairs folks, so it's gonna be a premier event for medical affairs professionals on the West Coast. Takes place in San Diego, April Twenty Ninth to May 1. So mark your calendars. I'll be there, and I would love to see you. For more details, go to fierce pharma engage, and you'll get all the details, and you can register and all that good stuff. So, let's get into it.
So, Linda, let's start with, when we when we talk about effective scientific communication, what what do you think the biggest challenges are that medical affairs teams are currently facing? Yeah. I think that is a topic that is somewhat intertwined in a lot of conversations you especially have been having on your podcast of late, but things are evolving. AI tools, digital tools that are accessible to us, but also accessible to our HCPs.
And just the way in which we engage and access to HCPs is is evolving. It's harder to get in with face to face. Every but a lot of even with COVID, I think we're still moving to and haven't really moved away from the virtual aspect of engagement. And when we do have time, that time is more limited.
And so and then if you layer on the fact of expectations from the organizations, there is, like, a greater focus with our clients, but I'm and I'm seeing it in a lot of conversations I'm having with other medical affairs professionals, the demand from the organizations that insights be more actionable.
And that, the other aspect of it is the value story that for the HCP, what we bring to them, the value we have for them is evolving because they have access to all of these fun AI tools that, that we do. And so they don't necessarily need, MSL coming in the door to ask, answer some basic questions about, the product. They can look it up themselves in a matter of seconds, and it's real time.
And and so we have to think about what is the value that we're bringing, to the to the HCP and think differently about it because it's evolving. Yeah. No. It certainly is. And not only is it evolving, but it's setting the it's raising the bar. Yeah. Yes. It right?
I I think that the the game has changed, and it's just be the expectation well, you've said this, that the expectations are higher, the bar is being raised, and it really is going to and is requiring, I think, MSLs and medical affairs professionals to to step up. So that leads me to and I wanna talk to you about the the challenges facing MSLs and medical affairs professionals, in their core competencies and skills, how they utilize like, let's talk about like, you mentioned the three no's.
Like, let's get into that a little bit, and and let's dissect that a little bit so that we could figure out how MSLs specifically, can start to think about bridging that gap from where they are to where they need to be as we raise the bar. Yeah. And I think as we get into this conversation, it's really going to be, as you say, a a core competency viewpoint at the individual MSL level. When it comes to maximizing your time for scientific what do you do?
What can you do, to maximize your engagements with HCPs and that scientific exchange? And the reason why I've broken it out into the three no's is over the last few years, I've been kind of putting a framework around this because one, I've always said I'm in my name is Linda Traylor, and I'm addicted to frameworks. But it helps me eliminate some of the noise and be purposeful about the actions I take, when it comes to improving on the job.
So the the three no's are know yourself, know your audience, and know your subject. These seem obvious. This seems like captain obvious stating this. We all know these things. But there are if you if we we tend to meld them all together. We tend to work on our communication style as we're trying to or our communication, presentation skills, just upscaling as we kind of focus on maybe what, data we have to present and what the you know, just getting access to the HCP.
We're so focused on those little tactical level things that we're we're not going in it fully armored. Right? And so if I really think it's very important to put structure and purpose, around self awareness, enhancing your own understanding what your nuances are in your personality quirks because we all have them, and it helps minimize the blind spots. You'll never get rid of blind spot. Personal development is a lifelong journey, man.
But, the, it also helps with understanding how you communicate so that when when you need to adapt it, you know what you're changing from. And then, everybody has strengths. Everybody has a superpower. And so once you kinda identify what some of your strengths are, you can leverage those in effective communication. That's why I I think, knowing yourself and being purposeful about those three elements, your own personality, that's a you thing.
You don't have to use those tools to share with other people that she's you understanding you. And then communication sounds a different tool set, to kind of it's different from looking in-depth at your personality, and then your strengths are really just what is it you bring to the table to make this better? Yeah. Yeah. So when we talk about self awareness and when you talk about knowing yourself, do you recommend that maybe folks would take a personality assessment?
I mean, you can just do it online nowadays. You can learn a lot more about yourself. Like, do you think that's that's recommended? So I highly recommend it because I I always feel like the more you know about yourself, the more you know what you have to evolve, what you what you can, lean into. And also just understanding your, personality helps you understand how others perceive you, and that also sets you up for success and, and and engaging in a way that people are, open to.
But the reason why I think it's important to do a personality assessment, and there are lots of them, but most of them are behavior communication style assessment. The big five is the one that psychologists and psychiatrists use. It's validated. There are companies out there that offer it. My favorite, it's, understandmyself.com. You can get it for $9.95 and do the big five test, and it gets a really beautiful report. And that that, company does it, because it's it's for personal growth.
And so it's gear a lot of these other companies offer in terms of team development. This one, I understand myself, really, offers it with the intent for you to understand yourself. And I an an example of how this differs from behavior styles is, just talking about myself. If you every behavior style assessment I've ever taken, DISC is my favorite because I can deploy it. I can use it. So I usually stick with DISC, but there are a lot of them out there. It doesn't have to be disk.
Disk is so easy because high d, they're direct. High I, they like to talk about anything. High s, don't talk about a lot, but only meaningful stuff. You have to earn their trust. High c, if it's it's not data involved, they're not interested. So it's easy deployment stuff. Right? And that way, you know how and I always come out on that scale as an introvert, and nobody ever believes I'm an introvert.
And I and I always would just say, well, I've developed extrovert skills because I'm in extrovert job. I have to do it. And, it wasn't until I took the big five that I had a better understanding of what that means because on the the big five, there's five character five traits, and in each five trait, there are two aspects. And in the extroversion scale, everything is spectrum. That's why it's comp personalities are complex, and, everything's a spectrum.
But when I take the assessment of Big Five, I'm at 69% on extroversion. And so you would think that I'm an extrovert, but there are two aspects to extroversion. One is enthusiasm, and the other is, aggressiveness. Unfortunately, I'm off the charts on aggressiveness, unfortunately, unfortunately. And on the enthusiasm scale, I'm quite low, moderately low. But when it comes together, it puts me at around a 69 to 69% extroversion.
And when I break all of that down, I understand what it is about my personality where I I don't it's not it doesn't require a whole lot of energy for me to engage in a social environment if it's something I'm interested in. But here's the difference. I've been I I have a feeling you're really high in the extroversion. And let me tell me this. If you do a social event, you're walking around a room.
By the time you do the full circuit and you've engaged with people about any topic, you probably feel energized. You probably walk away thinking, like, recharged. Whereas I need to take a nap. That's the difference. I can do it. And I enjoy it. True. It's so true. And and no one would know unless you told them that you were an introvert and that you needed to take a nap after. And with me, you're right. I I can't sleep after. Like, I'm I'm, like, fired up. I'm like, what are we doing next?
Let's go out to dinner. Let's do some fun stuff. So And that's important knowing. Yeah. Yeah. So it's important to know these things. And and maybe some people do know, and maybe some people need to do a little bit of a deeper dive and gain a better understanding of of themselves, have more self awareness as you said. But then once you gain that knowledge, can you talk about how to apply it? Like, what you do with it? And how do you use that for better engagement and relationships?
Yep. So, the big the big five is not really a great tool to use, and and, externally. It's really to enhancing self awareness. The communication assessments like a DISC or something like along those lines, there are several Myers Briggs and and the there's a one that's a four color one, but they're all have, like, four quadrants and they're very much, aligned to the disc model. I just been using it the longest I was certified in it, and so that's why I like to use it.
But the that is a a more surface level, assessment of how you behave in a work environment, how you you you can be like to communicate in a work environment. And that is a great tool for not only understanding your communication style, which is a little bit different from your personality, and the goal there is just to enhance self awareness. The goal with communication style is to know what your baseline is because you're gonna have to adjust.
It is your you're in a role where it is your job to adapt to your stakeholder, not them adapting to you. And so, it's important to know your behavior style. Like, I'm a high d, very direct, and I have to put effort into, having a small talk if I'm with a high I or really figuring out how to earn trust if without a high s or coming with data if I'm engaging a high c. And it's easy.
There are lots of little tells you can use and tools that a lot of these books give you, to use those tools tools in the field. So you need to know where your baseline is, and you can assess where your audience is, and it's your job to adjust to your audience. So with the know your audience and, obviously, the know your audience piece is number two. That's the second no. Yep. Let's talk about what's the goal or what advice do you have for MSL specifically in them understanding the audience?
Is it let me find out what the interest of the KOL are? Let me find out what the problems what what exactly if we had to get granular with this, would you tell folks that are that are that are listening to this and wanna be more effective in their communication strategy? Absolutely. So to with regards to communication and knowing your audience, the primary goal of aligning your communication style with there is to eliminate distractions so that the conversation is, meaningful.
More you have more you have a greater opportunity to understand them better and them to understand what you're there for, the goals for each can is you have an environment in which you can, engage on a deeper level. If you're not aligned in your communications, then this there's distraction. If I'm going all high d with a high s, they're never gonna be comfortable and we're never going to have a good conversation.
So the goal of adapting your communication style is simply to remove distraction so that the engagement is more authentic, so that the engagement is and that's the same thing with some of the things that we talked about on our last podcast with the, never split the difference. The difference. The mirroring, it's the same goal. It's if you're what you're trying to do is, have a shared space of confidence and and trust so that you can engage deeper.
So aligning to their communication and, helping eliminate those, nonverbal oftentimes nonverbal things that get in your way through through mirroring, you're you're removing the distractions, and so you're giving yourself an opportunity. So that's the goal for that deeper conversation. So that's the goal for adapting your communication style. The when and know yourself, building your own strengths, knowing what you bring.
Like, I know that one of my superpowers are using humor to make things more simple. It's just something I've always been able to do. So I hone that. I practice because it can go overboard too. I can tell jokes when jokes are not needed. I've done it doesn't work. So you have to practice those. I have to make sure that, when I am when I am using humor, that I'm using it effectively. I'm naturally good at it.
That's the authenticity authenticity that I bring to the table, but it's also needs to be purposeful. It it can get overwhelming. So that's where you got the genuineness and the authenticity that you're bringing to the conversation. It helps if you leverage what you do well to build that trust. So in the know your audience part, start with communication style and, you know, you're gonna quickly assess them. Have the tools in place, practice with your colleagues, quickly assess others.
And then, the two things that you are need to know about them, the other two things you need to know about your audience, is their learning preferences. Like, in this day and age, they're they could be all over the place. And these are just questions you can ask. There's I mean, you don't have to have a framework for understanding what how people like to learn. You just ask the question. Do you go to all conferences?
Do you use us how do you engage you know, how do you use the Internet for learning? Do you or to read papers? Do you are you more visual? Are you more auditory? Are you more kinesthetic? What like, you could go you could just ask the questions. People love talking about that kind of stuff, so it's not a hard conversation to have.
And then the last thing is, once you've kinda created this environment in which you're having a deeper conversation, then you can really start to uncover what their interests are, their value. That's where you bring value when you're focusing on their interest. And the one story that I always remember, because I'm still in contact with him today, is, and I I think it's probably one of my best practice stories. When I was in a cell and was engaged, and I I wasn't good at this then.
This is like I this is just a little bit of luck, but it helped me. When I retrospectively look back, I see all the things that I did that fell in line with with these tools, that led to a deeper conversation and and me understanding what it is they value. And so I was, engaging with a physician, in the oncology space, and he was what we call a rising star new, a fellowship.
And he was at an institution where there was a really big name, And he wanted to get his name out there because he's a rising star. And one of the things that he wanted to do is be able to engage with other right other big name people than the person that he was under. And so one of the things I helped him do is get on the podium through even though it was a pharmaceutical, symposia, he was on the podium with two of his big heroes. He got to be on the podium with his two of his big heroes.
And after that, he called me one of his team members, and we became we became partners. And so those are the types of things that that was his personal interest. It didn't cost me anything, and it didn't and it didn't interfere with what my goals with him were, and that is developing him as an advocate for our our, product. And so it was a win win all around.
So those are the types of things you can uncover, and look for those opportunities where it's not there's no cost to anybody other than doing this the work. I just went out and found out how I started looking for ways I could get him in front of some people he admired. So I needed to know who those were. Right? Yeah. And that's And you crushed it. Lining up all your buddies. To say. I called him. I have a cousin who has myeloma. He's only 40 years old, and he was in the myeloma space.
And I called him up and said, dude, got a cousin. Where do we go? And he helped me out. He set me up. That's awesome. Yeah. This I love this conversation, and that's because it's it really is important to really understand and get to know your audience. What what are the common mistakes that you see MSLs make in them just not being good at knowing their audience? So the the it's they two two big mistakes. They don't practice.
And because they think they just are you're a tenured MSL, a tenured medical affairs professional. You think you've got where you are because you're good at what you do. And there that's part of that is true, but that doesn't change the fact that you actually have to practice out loud conversations that you intend to have with people. Think about the things that are going to interfere with your conversation. So practice is one. And two, they get so nervous that they focus on the data.
They focus on the things that they're comfortable with, and they end up just going out and talking only about data. And you're missing all of the other nuance of the conversation and the relationship that is gonna get you back in with them. Because I like, if if I walked as an MSL, if I walked away with not being able to have a reason or to come back or, the opportunity to have a regular engagement with this individual, I feel like I didn't meet my goal.
I mean, my goal was obviously to have some insights questions, talk about some data. That's what the organizational expects organizational expectations are of its employees. It should and it is. But it's my job to be able to have that continuous opportunity to build that relationship and to keep going back and have opportunities to evolve that relationship and understand how beliefs and mindsets and clinical behaviors change over time.
That's my job to do while I'm gathering these insights and understanding clinical behaviors. Cool. Yeah. We are at the third no. What's the third no? Alright. So the third no is kind of where we're moving into the data aspect. And the most people think it's just the subject. Know your subject is just about knowing your data. And data without context really is just data. And it's not gonna it's gonna be hard to have a conversation around it.
It's gonna be hard to just, you know, to go further than presenting of the data and them saying, great. This looks fine and see you later. It's you've got to contextualize it, and there are three ways you contextualize data. There are three journeys that are relevant to your data. The HCP journey, and that's the clinical decision making that HP has to make, in terms of your product as well as engaging the patient and all the nuance that goes with that. Then the patient journey.
The patient has to, you know, be diagnosed. So where are they gonna be diagnosed? Do they need to be referred? And how does that happen? So the patient has a journey. And the patient's journey could have a significant impact on how your data is interpreted and used in the real world. And then the product journey. The product changes over the life cycle. When we first launch a product, it is all about the clinical research data, that came from the clinical studies.
But once you get in the real world, things start to change. And the real world patient is completely different than the, clinical research patient by design because in the clinical research, we are having we're doing clinical research to get a product approved, not to find the optimal patient.
Real world is to find the optimal patient to continually evolve who that patient is, and that's why there's always the focus on real world data and observational post market studies, and medical affairs plays a significant role, in both of those because we're out there profiling the patient, the HCP, and our product in context of both. So data requires contact context. Subjects, you need to know that your subject is those three stakeholders, the organization's product, the patient, and HCP.
Now the patient has a whole bunch of stakeholders such as patient advocacy groups, and HCP has a whole bunch of stakeholders because of who influences them and where they go and how they learn. And and then the organization has a whole bunch of stakeholders because you got cross functional colleagues who are trying to do the same thing. Well, this makes so much sense because one of the things that we get asked for on the recruiting side as a recruiter, we get asked for subject matter experts.
So that there's this just understanding that a good MSL is a subject matter expert on be working on the and being a conduit on behalf of the organization. There are a lot of newer MSLs and aspiring MSLs that listen to this. What advice do you have for someone that's newer, that's hearing all of these things and, like, well, jeez, I have to establish myself as a subject matter expert. Yeah. I know the science and, you know, but I've only been doing this for a year or two years.
So what advice do you have for someone like that? Yeah. Absolutely. I I I think other than going through the exercise of the three no's, work on self awareness, you know, knowing yourself, knowing your audience, knowing your subject, you don't have to be an MSL to do MSL stuff. And because you're already trained clinician, trained scientist, or you wouldn't be exploring the MSL role.
So you already are engaging stakeholders, you already are engaging, clinicians who are engaging patients, You probably know patients, related to the products or companies that you are exploring. Write those stories down. You're already MSL ing, so tell your story about how you are you may not have the job, but you can still do MSL stuff leading up to getting an MSL job. So that's where I say I challenge leaders who are very quick to say, I need somebody with experience.
What they're really saying is, I need somebody with a network, who already has a network, and that's okay. That's an that's an okay ask. If you're already in the space and they already know physicians and you're in a in a company where you need to hit the ground running with people, it's okay to be specific and look for that individual that has the network.
But if you have, the ability to have, others bring the network to the table or you already have the network established, really look for those characteristics and people, that are going to add value to the team. And somebody who has a high level of self awareness, who's quick to understand their audience and can communicate well, and can build stories with telling their data because they're already doing MSL ing, man, I'd hire those people all day long.
Yeah. And you you're as I'm kinda sitting back listening to you, there's a couple of things you're doing. First of all, you're talking about storytelling, and you're also telling stories. So throughout this conversation, you've told some stories and you're talking about the importance of storytelling. Where does that fit into this? Yeah. So to me, life is storytelling.
So I it's I have read several books about how, the reason why I so focus on communication skills and storytelling is because I've never been innately great at communicating. It's it's it's a skill set I've had to develop because I just wasn't naturally I didn't have a great, you know, coming out from a smaller isolated, world growing up. I didn't have a great vocabulary. I didn't have exposure to a lot of people that challenged my way of thinking.
And so I and I dropped myself into a field that required all of that. And so I had to, like, really, it was either swing sink or swim time for me to develop those communication skills if I wanted to be in a in a job, which most jobs require communications skills. So applicable or what my career path was gonna be. But, so it was just a personal development thing. I I wanted to be a better communicator because I I wanted jobs that, had, more communication skills were highlighted.
But to me, it's the conversations that you have when you're, telling a story, you you see the people lean in more. Mhmm. If you talk about yourself or talk about all the things you could teach somebody, you people, like, zone out. Like, like, how many times have you been and where where you're more lecturing than you are engaging with the stories that they can relate to? I don't know how many I literally like, sometimes I don't even hide it.
I'll just start, like, doing something else if I'm bored with the conversation. So it's it's really like I it is meaningful for me that whoever I'm engaging with, that they are one interested in the topic we're we're having a conversation about. If they're not, I look for those tells, and I'll move on. Mhmm. Because I am not one to do I mean, like, when it when the conversation's over, I'm out. Like, that that's my that's where I'm an introvert. Like, we're gonna have a conversation.
I I'm not one that's going to find out all about your kids or what wines you like or where you like to go and if you're a foodie and take you to a play. And, and the people I love being around those people because it's always fun. But, I'm not the person that's gonna do that, and so I have to know what my strengths are, what my authenticity is, bring that to the table, but I want people to get something out of it.
So I think that's really what it comes down to is you you have to know yourself, your audience, your subject. But if you don't contextualize it with stories and the stories of your life, your experience, don't make up a story. Use it. Start collecting, if you journal, if you diary, if you any of those things. Just anytime you've ever had an an engagement with your even your own own physician or or a family member who's going through a patient journey, Might math that out.
I use my aunt Sarah story all the time when it comes to talking about how over diagnosis and overtreatment is a problem. And so those those are the stories of your life that you have to put down and be ready to share because they're meaningful. People lean in. Yeah. You want people lean into your conversation. It's like being a comedian.
If you ever if you've ever heard a good comedian talk about how they create content, they're constantly observing and writing down experience and turning that into something funny or poking fun at it or finding the humor in it or making it into something that's more crazy. So comedians are just storytellers, but their job never ends because they're constantly developing content. So I think the only way to really get good at being a storyteller is to collect stories that you can share.
Otherwise, if you had to just share something on the spot, someone said, oh, tell me about a time. Right? You're in an interview. If you're not prepared for that type of story or that type of question, you're gonna be like, jeez. I don't know how to do this. Yeah. And people notice that.
And so that's when people a lot of times when people walk away thinking they did a pretty good job at an interview, but it's it's it's those those little moments where they can tell the level of preparedness, and that is the nuance of telling the story, being ready to tell a story. Yeah. What about the opposite? What about because when I think of stories, I think that, you know, there's a relationship or there's a situation where you have time to tell the story.
What if you're with a KOL, you're in a meeting, and you you just rushed for time? You were told, hey. Look. I can see you, but I I only have a few minutes, or I'm limited in my time. How do you how do you handle that? So for for me, when I have, when I am in a situation that is rushed, I so, again, this is where people have to bring their strengths to the table.
I this is where I will deploy humor to ask provocative statements that normally like, if I were having a deep conversation, it probably wouldn't be humorous, but I might say something like, well, I'd have to this is where I don't have a story. Wait. Two copies. That's a story, man. So, but what what I'm thinking of is I would probably, do one of two things. Ask something that would make him laugh to make him look at me, hear him or her, to to look and engage.
Either either that or I would say, listen. I would pull a Chris Voss. It seems like we don't have time, and I really wanna talk to you about this. When is it time? Let's just focus our what little time we have on getting a a moment for us to really have a conversation.
Because I think I can, and then I would make sure and those are the things I do have prepared when I go in meetings, is that if something I'm always prepared for that a meet that I've been in situations too many times where the meeting ended abruptly because they were called away on emergency or they had a patient or somebody popped in to ask them a question. It kills the momentum of the conversation.
So you always wanna have that sort of statement that you're ready, like, if you're gonna have to reschedule. It seems like you need to go and that you're distracted and you need to focus on this other thing. Call that out. Don't try to override it or bring back the conversation, especially when it's not warranted. Just say it seems like we gotta go. Seems so let's get the next one on the books because I think that we need to make sure we are aligned on whatever the topic is.
Yeah. And I love the way you threw the Chris Voss stuff in there because it's so good and it's so effective. And, guys, if you haven't listened to it, so we did an episode with Josh Yoder on it was a book review on a book called Never Split the Difference, which is such a great book for MSLs. And if you haven't read it, you absolutely should because you will use it. And I just put Linda on the spot.
That was not a question that she and I, like, that she was not ready for that question, and and she crushed it because she always does because she's amazing. So Linda, thank you for joining me again. Thank you for being here. That was, like, one of the fastest half hours. I don't know how much how long we talked for, but that was so fast. You're so amazing at everything that you do, so thank you for coming on. Well, like likewise, Tom. I love it every time I do this.
I walk away from this with energy, just so you're clear on that subject. You're the best. Thank you, my friend. And thank you guys for all your support. Thank you for tuning in. Thank you for sharing this show. Check us out on YouTube if you haven't done that. That's always it's actually growing. YouTube is probably probably the fastest channel that I think is growing right now. A lot of people are watching us on YouTube. So check it out, and, yeah, we'll see you next time.