Workplace Diversity Story
When I did a special version of my workplace diversity presentation at Canadian Armed Forces Base Borden (full story at first military base ever), I mentioned some of my experience and observations from my past pharmaceutical industry years. I talked about one of my favourite stories which was around one of my former team members who happens to be an East Indian pharmaceutical sales rep.
This rep came from India about 15 years before he started to work for my team when I was national sales manager. He still had a fairly thick East Indian accent and we would lose about 15% of his spoken words. Without being too politically incorrect especially when it comes to workplace diversity, this difficulty in speech is never a good thing in business, especially when customers can’t understand what a pharmaceutical sales rep is saying.
Pharmaceutical Sales Rep Turned Disadvantage Into Advantage
What this pharmaceutical sales rep did was go around to some of his top potential customers and asked them whether they ever tried East Indian cuisine. Most said no but would love to try it. So he asked them if they would like to have an East Indian man show them the best of East Indian food. Many of these customers said yes and they ended up having a great time.
His sales levels just skyrocketed over the next few months because of the strong business relationships he was able to build. He basically turned a negative, which was his thick East Indian accent, into a business and workplace diversity positive.
Motivation And Workplace Diversity Programs Available
For more information on my workplace diversity training as well as motivational keynotes, see my business speaking programs.
For those interested in getting into the pharma industry, see my free webinar about pharmaceutical sales rep jobs.
photo credit: woodenmask
