Episode 209

Building your Brand as a Medical Device Professional

Have you ever had to “sell” your brand to someone? To do this effectively, you must master the art of networking and selling whatever it is that you bring to the table.

In this episode of the Global Medical Device Podcast, Jon Speer talks to Chip Helm, a Dental School dropout turned National Sales Manager of a multi-billion-dollar medical device company. Also, Chip is a guest lecturer and bestselling author who is creating a sales revolution.

Together, Chip and Jon chat about the importance of a person's brand, which consist of three main types, and how medical device professionals can create new opportunities for growth with intentional self awareness tactics.

Some highlights of this episode include:

Chip’s Books: It doesn’t matter what career you take and where you go, his books teach basic principles of business and lessons that fit into anybody’s career, any company.
Importance of Branding: Whether it’s your personal or professional brand, you have got to have self awareness to build, develop, and write your personal brand.
Google your name. What can you do if you don’t like the brand you have? Find five things about yourself and how others you trust perceive you and your brand.
Compartmentalize: Perception is reality, it doesn’t matter if you didn’t do something. Your personal brand can take years to build, but it can take only seconds to lose it.
Rules of Engagement: There’s three brands—personal, colleague/industry, and customer—observe and listen more, speak less to communicate.
Your company must have a great product, but it’s still about networking and building relationships. Help people by offering solutions to solve their problems.
Sales Component: If you’re just trying to sell someone something, they can tell if you care about them or not. Commission gets people too close to not doing the right thing for the right person.

Memorable quotes by Chip Helm:

“It doesn’t matter what career you take and where you go, it teaches five basic principles of business. It fits into anybody’s career, any company, it doesn’t matter.”

“Everyone’s in sales.”

“Most people say when they think of branding, they think of corporate branding. They really don’t think that there’s a thing called personal branding out there.”

“It could take years to build up a personal brand, but it will take seconds to lose it.”

“If you want to get promoted, if you want to get a better paycheck, if you want to make advancements...you need to be up on your personal brand. You’ve got to understand it.”