Career Development

CAREER DEVELOPMENT - Kim M. Catania

Make 'Always Be Growing' part of your development plan.

Sales training sits at the constantly evolving crossroads of science, regulation, behavior change, omnichannel engagement and field realities. That means career development for trainers and training managers cannot be episodic; in any role you have, especially that of a sales trainer, the ABG mantra — Always Be Growing — is a key to your ongoing success, regardless of title.

Following ABG as a guideline for your future, growth and success provides you with opportunities to leverage a mindset that expands your vision to uncover additional aspects of your current strengths:

• What you like doing.

• What you think you want to do.

• What it takes to get there.

It’s your career and you own your development — so, be continuous, intentional and visible. While increasing your value to the business, expand your knowledge, level of expertise and, most importantly, become a better version of yourself.

Build Your Brand

Your brand is what people believe you’re great at when you’re not in the room. In training, a strong professional brand provides leverage to get pulled into bigger initiatives, trusted during launches and considered for roles before they’re posted. When you build your brand with purpose, you focus on becoming known for a specific kind of value — like the point person for launch excellence, field coaching transformation, virtual facilitation or selling skills diagnostic.

When you have ideas or solutions, it’s ideal for you to showcase your thinking process and the reasons and rationale behind your vision and strategy to peers, leaders and department heads. When you simply share deliverables, the highlights of your strategic perspective are not visible or a focal point to showcase your depth to career influencers.

Are there team meetings or sessions where you can initiate opportunities to present your post-launch insights, or create “what we’re seeing/what works” summaries? This spotlights your forward-thinking focus on organizational goal achievement.

Expand your vision and line of sight by staying connected to the external learning world. Too often people get wrapped up in their company, enabling a narrow, fixed perspective. Instead, review fresh approaches from sales enablement, adult learning or digital coaching communities through research online and from credible resources. Then, translate learnings and updates into how these new avenues can benefit your company and team.

And, of course, working with others and assisting them as they emerge into their new role on the training team provides value both ways. When you mentor or “buddy” new trainers, it enables you to practice how you coach or teach others, grows your reputation as a leader and helps the new trainers become acclimated into their roles. This is critical as you expand your colleague and peer network.

Networking

This expands your knowledge and opportunity. Networking isn’t career politicking — it’s keeping your finger on the pulse of what’s going on all the time. Networking expands your knowledge about relevant points like:

• Emerging commercial models.

• Therapeutic shifts.

• Technology and reinforcement approaches.

• Industry changes.

• What other organizations are doing well (or poorly).

To expand your network, recognize this requires dedicated time as you build real relationships with those internally and externally. You can create a networking system internally with brand teams, medical, market access, analytics, HR/L&D, compliance and field leaders. These relationships expand your perspective to see strategically and enhances your opportunity to be invited to participate in strategic projects.

You can expand your external network by reaching out to training peers at other companies, sales training organizations, sales enablement associations, conference groups, LinkedIn communities and supplier partners. Try to set a goal for yourself — maybe to have at least two meaningful connection touches per month, perhaps a coffee chat, a short peer call or a community discussion. Consistency matters more than volume in growing and maintaining your network.

Identify Your Strengths and Growth Opportunities

Ongoing development begins with knowing what to double down on and what to upgrade. Most trainers over-focus on fixing weaknesses and underinvest in strengths that could become differentiators.

Identify your development focus by conducting a “peak impact” review. Take a look back at your top three to five projects, then ask yourself:

• What did I do that made a difference?

• What patterns show up in my best work?

• What parts felt effortless vs. draining?

  
  

Ask others for their feedback on specific projects, events and situations. While many companies offer annual 360 feedback, this is not an annual HR formality. It’s your career development growth path, so gain regular, practical input from varied perspectives such as representatives, managers, brand and medical partners and your leader. Ask questions like “What do you see as my top strengths during this project or event?” or “Where do you think I need to grow most to move forward to the next level?”

Another avenue to focus on is to map your path to the role you want next. Compare your current skills with what that role requires, being sure to include areas like strategy, analytics, leadership and cross-functional influence.

Any gaps identified become your growth plan. Be sure to separate skill gaps from confidence gaps. Create a short list of two signature strengths to amplify and focus on one or two growth opportunities. Remember, sometimes you can do the thing already — you just haven’t had the opportunity yet!

Leverage a Coach, Mentor and Sponsor

High-performing training leaders rarely grow alone. You want a “development board” that supports you in different ways. Think about who would be a good coach for you, someone who can help you build specific skills and behaviors through practice and reflection.

Think about who can be your mentor (not your current leader), someone who shares experience, context and guidance based on having been where you want to go. Who would be a great sponsor for you? This is someone who actively advocates for you and assists you in getting stretch opportunities.

Ensure you are practical with whom you choose, since you really will benefit most from those who will give candid feedback, not just reassurance. Be specific about what you want help with. For example, “I want to grow into enterprise launch leadership. Can you help me sharpen my strategic storytelling and visibility?”

Share real situations, not vague questions; then follow up with what you tried and what happened — that’s how trust builds. If you can only find one, prioritize a sponsor. A sponsor changes your trajectory by opening doors you cannot open yourself.

Maintain Credibility & Integrity as Key Skills

Credibility & integrity are your licenses to lead. Every learner and stakeholder is quietly checking whether you understand the current situation — the science, the field, potential obstacles and solutions.

These can be maintained when you stay current on clinical and competitive change, you regularly review newsletters, read articles surrounding relevant topics and attend update events.

Keep your training anchored to rep reality through ride-alongs, virtual call shadowing and a variety of peer exchange calls with a range of cross-functional teams, from top to challenged teams. This will help you stay abreast of what those who are successful are doing so it can be leveraged and shared to assist those who are not. Also, build compliance fluency by sustaining an open communication path with legal or regulatory to keep a working “what we can or can’t say” reference for your brand.

This level of credibility enables you to coach behaviors confidently — not just deliver content.

Expand from Trainer to Performance Consultant

As your career grows, your role shifts from teaching to solving problems through capability change.

You build that muscle by starting projects with “what behavior must change?” and “is training the right lever?” Ensure you use data to diagnose gaps in sales performance, call quality, customer insights and manager observations. Practice your written communication skills by writing a clear performance story:

Current state → Desired state → Identified gap → Possible solutions → Growth measurement

Performance consulting is a key bridge to director roles and commercial excellence paths.

Stay Current on Current Learning Designs

The era of “big workshop and hope for the best” is over. Career growth requires fluency in ongoing learning. Build expertise in various topics like how to create a blended learning journey; microlearning and reinforcement; advanced virtual facilitation; technology and AI literacy; and metrics and measurement beyond attendance.

Then share new, updated alternative options that will enhance learning and development programs to current solutions and provide insight as to how these can (and will) benefit the sales team and, ultimately, the organization. One key development tip is to pick one design skill every six months to develop and sharpen, then apply it in a real project.

Strengthen Communication and Coaching Skills

Learning transfer depends on coaching for skill development and how it is shared with others. Impactful training leaders are engaging, actively listening and are empathetic. Key areas for you to grow are when you build your own coaching capability through certification and practice; enhance your emotional intelligence; and create “field-ready” tools: observation checklists, feedback guides and huddle scripts.

Document Your Impact like a Leader

Remember, your work must be visible, measurable and portable. Create and maintain an impact portfolio that captures a host of growth focal points like a business problem you and your team tackled and ultimately your strategic contributions:

• The audience and scale.

• What solution you created and delivered.

• How the metrics moved.

• What was the qualitative field and leader feedback.

  
  

This is promotion fuel and a clarity tool for your own growth.

Plan Your Next Role Before You Feel Ready

Readiness comes from exposure. Don’t wait to be “fully prepared.” First, identify two or three roles you want next, then review the requirements and work with your coach, mentor and leader to identify any gaps you may have and how to bridge them with projects to ensure you are ready.

Your career momentum is built in advance, not when change occurs.

Remember to ensure that you become one of the people the organization needs when things get complicated:

• Build your brand to be clear and professional.

• Network consistently.

• Demonstrate compassion and empathy.

• Recognize your strengths and growth edges.

• Leverage coaches, mentors and sponsors.

• Keep credibility sharp.

• Operate as a performance consultant.

• Don’t just progress.

Focus on your growth and development and stick with the mantra to always be growing. Your ongoing career development in sales training is about being valuable and future-proof in a complex constantly changing environment.