I am attending the American Academy of Ophthalmology annual convention on behalf of my new employer Lexitas Pharma Services.  After about 15 years of attending conferences and actively networking at conferences on clinical data and clinical supply management, it felt a little strange to not see anyone that I know.

What did happen was that I realized saying that everyone has a doppelganger (double) somewhere in the world has merit.  I saw so many people that either strongly resembled or just reminded me of people that I know.

As I sat in the lobby of the convention center waiting for a meeting, i watched people and started writing down who these people reminded me of.  To those listed below, I think you should know you have a double out there.

Kevin Clover, Greg Cohee, Michael Smyth, Inci Porter, Mark Allen, Steve Raymond, Scott Freedman, Ali Hussein, Neil Hebenton, Sue Craft, Kim Boericke, Paul Mason and Daneil Dixon.

It’s been remarkable to have this experience.

Saw this on TheMuse.com written by Lisa B. Marshall and it reminded me of how important first impressions are.  She sets up the situation that we’ve all been in – introducing yourself at a meeting:

Like you, I attend my fair share of meetings. As a consultant, I’m often meeting with people I’ve only laid eyes on for the first time just moments before and, almost always, I’m asked to introduce myself to them.

“Lisa, tell us a little bit about yourself.”

Ugh. Why is this little question so hard to answer? Perhaps because we are complicated and we’re being asked—usually on the spot—to make ourselves sound simple. Or maybe because there’s an element about it that always makes me feel like I’m supposed to be selling myself.

She gives 3 tips for making a good impression:

1. Communicate your contribution (tell why you are there)
2. Set yourself apart, be memorable
3. Communicate culturally (be aware of where you and with whom you’re meeting)

You can read the entire article at the link below:

How to introduce yourself

Saw this on LinkedIn and thought it interesting.

Written by Steve W. Martin in Harvard Business Review

If you ask an extremely successful salesperson, “What makes you different from the average sales rep?” you will most likely get a less-than-accurate answer, if any answer at all. Frankly, the person may not even know the real answer because most successful salespeople are simply doing what comes naturally.

Over the past decade, I have had the privilege of interviewing thousands of top business-to-business salespeople who sell for some of the world’s leading companies. I’ve also administered personality tests to 1,000 of them. My goal was to measure their five main personality traits (openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and negative emotionality) to better understand the characteristics that separate them their peers.

The main key personality attributes of top salespeople are:

1. Modesty
2. Conscientious
3. Achievement
4. Curiosity
5. Lack of gregariousness (a surprise finding)
6. Lack of Discouragement
7. Not embarrassable

Read the full article here:

Seven traits of successful sales people

Well, this sure has rung true for me in my career.  I have seen others get promoted when I was doing as well or better than they were.  What I noticed was those who got promoted engaged in self-promotion.  Not a bad thing at all, just that to get what you want you need to tell those above you what you want to do.  If you want to get promoted, you need to talk to your boss about it and ask what things you need to do in order for your boss to recommend you for promotion.  Being humble is admirable, but it can hold you back.

An excerpt from the article on this is below the link to the article.

Positive trait that can hold you back

In a perfect world, your completed assignments would speak for themselves. You’d work on friendly, collaborative teams with fair-minded co-workers, and each person would be free with praise and full of self-effacing humility. You’d never have to worry about self-promotion or navigating office politics to get your due.

But the reality is that you need to speak up. Generosity and a humble nature are great attributes to have, of course. They help you keep a team-first attitude, improve your leadership abilities, and generally endear people to you as a professional.

On July 14, while in the Raleigh-Durham area, I booked a boat through the timeshare boat club I belong to (Freedom Boat Club, (Freedom Boat Club) for Jordan Lake and took a few FOCM members out for after work boating.  Present were: Vince Hoefling, Michelle Jacobson, Gayle Grandinetti, Mike Burrows, Nick Macaulay, Carrie Gallagher, Wendy Revenaugh and Kelly O’Brien.  And a few of us went out to Tyler’s Taproom in Apex for additional refreshments.

As many of you know, one of the founding principles of FOCM Networking is “patience”.   Patience is required in several forms – patience to earn/receive your FOCM membership card and patience to wait for events to be posted to the international world wide web public record.  This posting is one such example.  On July 15, 2015 in one of the most emotional ceremonies ever – Brian Horan received his FOCM Membership card.  As I recall (and since it’s been so long, none of those in attendance can really remember how it actually happened), there was nary a dry eye to be seen.  Join me in welcoming Brian Horan.

Present at that evening’s event which occurred at Serena’s on Miami Blvd in Durham, NC were (front row then back row and left to right):  Michelle Pasiecznik, Brad Johnson, Pippa Wilson, Lauren Jones, Christina Alexander Smith, Brian Horan, Nick Macaulay, Rosina Pavia, Renee Brown, Jennifer Ausland, Sharon Braddy, Bernie Linner, a photo bomber and Lisa Monette.