Catapulting your career development means taking ownership of your career path and pursuing the opportunities available to you. Maximizing your training mentality shows that you recognize the vital role training plays in preparing reps for success in the field and that you want to be a part of it. Your active involvement in the ongoing development of your district through training will challenge you to grow professionally while adding to your foundation of experience and achievement. By understanding the value of training and aligning your efforts with the development priorities of your company, you can catapult your career regardless of your current level of experience.

Creating training for your peers

We all know great training can make the difference between success and failure for any sales organization. However, the importance of the role training plays in commercial excellence is often underemphasized in pharma organizations. For example, intra-company training surveys given to sales reps indicate that outside of obvious training initiatives like product launches and new indications, many reps believe the training process is essentially finished once formal company training is complete. This misperception can foster stagnation and hinder a company's ability to achieve its true potential.

Get highly engaged

In Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman's book "First, Break All the Rules," the authors cite a report from the Gallup Organization that proves that highly engaged employees are the vital difference between leading and mediocre organizations. Training is an essential core competency where you can contribute to your team's engagement and raise your district's level of execution.

A training mentality comes through the discipline of ongoing learning and application. Learning is exciting and energizing; however, it is up to the trainer to optimize every teaching opportunity for maximum impact. As there are different ways to learn (visual, auditory, kinesthetic), there are also different ways to train. Training is most successful when learning objectives and training outcomes are completely aligned. The primary ingredient of great training programs is relevance. Make certain your initiatives address identified training needs of your company and marketplace. This will establish the rationale for your training program and its value for participants.

A training mind-set

Different factors may influence the ways you can contribute to training within your work group. Experience, expertise and pre-existing assignment of development roles may limit your training opportunities. For example, let's say formal development roles like district trainer or regional trainer are presently assigned to your peers; be assured that you still have plenty of opportunities to participate and maximize your training mentality.

Here are three vital steps you can take to catapult your career development:

1. Influence without authority.

2. Identify training opportunities.

3. Become a training partner.

Influence without authority. Becoming a training resource means you expect your peers to believe in your abilities and respect your knowledge. To become a great trainer, you have to be a great learner. Make a personal commitment to become the leading expert among your peers when it comes to your clinical data, selling model, marketing materials, reimbursement policy and customer base. This is extremely important, especially if you are less experienced than your peers or new to the team. Becoming a respected resource for your counterparts does not happen by accident. During district meetings and group interactions, be certain your presence is established and your voice is heard. As your teammates are exposed to your opinions, they will become more accepting of your contributions. Modeling leadership in your development will speak volumes to your team. There is no better preparation for training roles than to become the go-to person in your district. Influencing without authority will lay the groundwork for you to effectively lead training initiatives. Your district manager will value your support in raising your team's level of competence.