When Sales Is a Calling

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to you by Express Employment Professionals. This season, we're bringing you stories of folks following their passion to carve their own career path. To start off this season, I wanted to focus on a kind of overlooked occupation, a job that if you're good at it, people might not know that you're doing it. All right, I'm according working in sales. So for this episode, I talked to a guy named Chris in Baltimore. Chris Lundy forty two years old. Wow.

She He is a clinical oncology specialist, which basically is a fancy term for I sell key in your drugs. Chris has worn a lot of hats besides being a pharmaceutical rep in his career, but he says that no matter what it was, he was born to sell, and so were you. We've all been We've all been selling. We just didn't know it. If you've ever dated, you've sold,

you know, maybe not successfully, but maybe not successfully. But think about that, right, You gotta you gotta a lot of times you gotta go to someone who's a perfect stranger and you have to bring that person along a continuum that makes this perfect stranger. Kiss you. It's all about relationships. It's all about relationships, man, Thank you that that's the that's the point the dating game aside. He's right,

we do all sell each other on ideas constantly. We convinced people to think about us differently, by how we dress, by what our social media looks like. And Chris's approach to sales is that people really can tell when someone's not being real. I think that everybody has a like authenticity radar. I really do. And I think that if if people sensed it, like, wait a second, this guy is not some some's fishy about them, I think they start to close up. You know. He says that's what

sets him apart. There are a lot of salespeople who will treat their clients like a walking dollar sign and say anything to sell their product at let I see me. I just I can't do any of that stuff. You gotta be authentic, because again, you're trying to convince someone to think differently. You're trying to convince someone to behave differently. It's not hey, here's a pen that I want you to buy. Give me money, I'll give you this pen.

I'm trying to change your behavior. I'm trying to get it to the point where every time a patient comes in with disease X, you think about me and you think about my product. That's a behavior. Man. The Chris you're hearing now, that's the Chris whose job it is to be likable, to constantly be talking to people, and generally be pretty extroverted. But growing up just outside of d C as a kid, he was a lot different. I kind of was like a little loner, geek kind

of kid. I love comic books, you know. I remember my mother used to talk about that. How I could be in my room and if it weren't for having to eat food, I could be in my room for like eight nine hours. Just I didn't pay I didn't pay a lot of attention to the real world. My my mind was always always daydreaming, always all the time. That was his life for a while, in his own world. His favorite comic book here was Adam Warlock. He kept to himself right up until about the tenth grade. I

remember writing an essay. I don't even remember what was what it was about. The teacher was Mr Howard. It looked like he wasn't even sure that I actually wrote it, Like he may have suspected plagiarism or something like that. And so and like he took you like he made you stay after classes thing too, because he thought you didn't write it. Well, it's not that he was being accusatory.

It was more like disbelief, you know, like where I'm from, man, Like I'm I'm kind of from like the hood man, you know, so you don't get a whole bunch of uh like writing talent. So I think that it just really stood out for him. And he pauses and looks at me. He goes, you're a really good writer. Do you know that the proof was there? He had one essay and speech contest before, but he didn't figure it was because he was good. I thought other people sucked,

you know. So it took a while to realize, like, wait a second, Wait a second, Maybe maybe it's not that everybody else runs slow. Maybe I am actually fast. I don't know. I just kind of took off. I just started talking more, sharing the thoughts I had instead of suppressing him, and people people you know, liked it. It worked. This late blooming moment really set him on the trajectory to where he is now. I don't know.

It just changed overnight, it seemed, and all of a sudden, I was like Mr. Social extrovert, you know, a type personality, Homecoming King, captain of the football team. It was. It was. It was not gradual. After high school, he went off to college and got an English degree, where he was also acting in plays and had his own radio show on campus. I started to really hone my skills in

terms of communicating and sharing ideas. The first big job he got out of school before Pharma, was working with the Philadelphia Eagles in the PR department media relations, So everything from setting up interviews Let's say ESPN wanted to talk to our quarterback or something. You know, um, I would facilitate that. He was basically the liaison between players

and the public. So his skill set would kick in during moments where say, he and some players might stop at a Wendy's while on the road and inevitably get crowded by fans asking for autographs. My job one of the things I had to do. I had to be the no guy, because you can't have a superstar player, you know, shutting people down, telling them no. They look bad,

so I had to be the bad guy. Having lived in Philly myself for a couple of years, I can say that they're not fans that like being told no exactly. And I guess, like, what is the biggest thing you learned from that job? When like when like nobody wants to hear this, that or that, Like you gotta win at the end of the day, what's your record. I've got an NFC Championship ring. When I pull it out, people think it's a super Bowl ring because it's big

and it's full of diamonds and stuff. It's not a super Bowl ring, Like we weren't that proud of that ring. It's an NFC Championship ring, which means there was a ring that was bigger than that, and that's the ring we wanted. We'll get back to the story in a second. First, a word from Express Employment Professionals. A strong work ethic takes pri in a job well done. This is you. But to get an honest day's work, you need a call back. You need a job. Express Employment Professionals can help.

We'll connect you to the right company. We're committed to your success and never charge a fee to find you a job Express Nose Jobs, get to know Express, find your location at express pros dot com or on the Express jobs app. Now back to on the job. After the NFL, he wanted to make the leap to pharmaceutical sales, so he went for a job at Merk, a huge company, and they basically said, you were in media relations. You

don't have any experience in sales. And I tried. I had to explain to them, Listen, every day I have to convince young millionaires, egotistical millionaires, to do things that they don't want to do, you know. And if you don't think that sales, that I and I don't know what to tell you, you know. And so that that line actually got me in the door. So he could obviously talk to talk. But the job isn't selling a product to the general public. It's selling life saving drugs

to medical professionals. And they don't know you, so the trust isn't there. You know, You're you're trying to convince a doctor to practice a certain way, and this guy knows that he's got more education than you, he's got more expertise than you, but he's supposed to listen to

what you're telling him to do like, that's insane. The marketing department would train reps to go in with fancy graphs and selling points, but Chris did the exact opposite, meeting with doctors for multiple appointments without mentioning his product at all. And so I started by asking questions like, what's important to you? What do you not care about? Tell me about your patients, what are your needs? What keeps you up in night? Those kinds of things I'm saying,

tell me about you. And then once the relationship be set, and once that rapport is there, now we can talk about what I have to offer and what I what I can do and you know, provide for you and your patients. In an old fashioned industry full of reps just trying to sell cell cell, Chris's authenticity started to really shine through. And once I saw like my numbers start to reflect what I was actually doing, I was like, how about that? I wanted to get Mr Howard on

the line and tell him. Look, man, he got to see selling around New York City, where the competition was fierce, and there was one experience early on in his career that really stuck with him. So there was this doctor he was huge He had an office in like a nice area in New York. I don't remember where this was, but it was nice, fancy, nice, pretty office. You couldn't see this doc. You go in, there's there's other reps

from other companies all over the place. You'd wait for two hours and still barely even get, you know, ten seconds with this guy. Chris and other reps noticed that this doctor was never there on Tuesdays. They all assumed it was his day all but after some digging, Chris found out those weren't his off days. Tuesdays where his Picking Avenue days. Picking Avenue is the avenue in Brooklyn that you do not want to go to, right Like,

you gotta have Picking Avenue. You're getting robbed, you getting mugs, something's going wrong. It's a dangerous part of town. It turns out that doctor was from a pretty rough neighborhood and those were his days to give back to the community at a small clinic. So Chris decided that's where he'd go. I understand that I probably probably get my my wheels and rim stolen from my car, but I'm going to Picking Avenue and I went in and I told the receptionist that you know I was a pharmaceutical rep.

And she looked at me like I was an alien, like what like, we're actually getting a pharmaceutical rep here? Like are you sure you want to be here? After about an hour, he got to see the doctor. He was so happy. He first first he was shocked because no one went there, and he was happy that he was actually getting attention at this location at Picking Avenue

for his patients on Picking freaking Avenue. And then the doctor started to criticize farmer reps he'd interacted with, because they'll always go to the fancy office but never there because it's not a lot of money in it, right, you got a lot of patients on like state care or governmental care. It's not a nice, fun, easy place to go. And that's how Chris started building a relationship with this doctor to the point where at the plush office, I was able to walk in and reps are like mad,

like what are you doing going back? How's he getting back there? But that's what he was. I went to Picking Avenue. I served him where he needed to be served. I carry that everywhere and go what do you need? I mean, think about it. Right in sales, you gotta use car lot. That car salesman isn't thinking about what you need. He's thinking about how can I get what I want out of you? Right, And so if you're

a salesperson but your lead foot is what do you need? Man, you're just differentiating yourself right there, right off the break. You're not like the others. So that really gets on the point of like, when I think a lot of people think of sales as a occupation, they probably think of like they used car guy. But um, to go back to your comic book days, do think you use your powers for good? I do? I do, I see

and also work with people who don't. And when we're talking about the pharmaceutical industry, we're talking about a lot of money. So yeah, there there's a lot of negative stigma you know that comes with it, um, and it's unfortunate because the people who do do it the right way, they really are like changing people's lives. Chris started off in primary care generic drugs, and that he works with

cancer drugs. It's different. He'll go into an appointment talking about a drug that could help a particular patient, and the next appointment that patients no longer with us, you know, like we can't even pick up on the conversation because the patient is gone. It's a much more urgent world over here. There are real stakes involved. This isn't just paullen allergy meds. Yeah, yeah, this is this is life for death over here. Was ever a moment in your career where you thought, this is why I do what

I do? Um? A couple of years back, we were at a sales conference and they brought in an elderly woman who had stage four lung cancer. That's usually uh, you know, like all right, see you see you later, get your affairs in order kind of thing. The woman told a story about how her grandson was trying to lift her spirits and made her promise to go skydiving with him later that year. And now her she was convinced that she wasn't, you know, gonna be around long.

So sure, Scott, I haven't no problem. And it didn't matter what he said. He could say we're gonna go to Mars, she'd be like, yep. And she was telling us this story, and then behind her they pull up the picture of her jumping out of the plane. She lived because of our drug, and she kept her promise that she never thought she would have to with her grandson. They both jumped out of a plane together. To hear that story and to see that image, it's like damn, Like, yo,

we really are helping save people's actual lives. Just throwing a scenario your way. You sold the drug to her doctor that saved her life and allowed her to have this moment, and she never knows your name. How do you feel about that? M that's all right, that's all right. Yeah, that's okay. Because um, we won and we went to the playoffs. We we got the big ring, you know. So, yeah, hasn't it hasn't. It doesn't matter. The job got done.

For on the Job, I'm Motus Gray. Thanks for listening to On the Job, brought to you by Express Employment Professionals. The season of On the Job is produced by Audiation. The episodes were written and produced by me Otis Gray. Our executive producer is Sandy Smallens. The show was mixed by Matt Noble for audiences studios at the Loft in Bronxville, New York. Music by Blue Dot Sessions. Find us on

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