Changing career path can feel daunting. For professional athletes retiring from their sport, that change can feel even more significant as they walk away from a world that they have worked their entire lives to get into. But, change can be positive, especially when there is support available.
At Smith+Nephew, we’re proud to be the official technology partner to Hall of Fame Health for former NFL players seeking joint replacement and to collaborate with the NFL’s Player Care Foundation, providing mentors who can be matched with former professional athletes to support them on their journey into new careers.
We talked to three of our Sales colleagues and volunteer mentors about their transition from playing football in the NFL to their careers in medical device sales.
Meet the players
For many professional athletes, the desire, drive and work to make it to the top of their sport starts young.
For Nick, declaring his ambition to play Big Ten football is one of his earliest childhood memories. “My cousin asked me when I was five, what I wanted to do when I grew up and I said football. He laughed but I was solely focused on it and everything I did from middle school onwards was about achieving my goal.”
So how does it feel when one day, the dream you have worked so hard to realise comes to an end?
“Imagine having the one thing in your life that gave you all the confidence in yourself and all of a sudden, it's ripped away from you. And that thing that you have spent your whole life doing, is now meaningless.” Says AT.
Jerry agrees, “The transition out of football wasn’t easy. It wasn’t slow. One day, I was playing in front of 80,000 people on national TV. The next day, I was retired.”
Use your network and work with your interests…
Working out your next steps and starting afresh can feel challenging in any situation, but trying to do that when you’re in crisis-mode can make it feel that bit harder. Where do you start? For all three of our players, the networks they had developed during their football careers proved invaluable.
Nick’s career in medical device sales began with Smith+Nephew in 2008, but his journey to that point started at his old football training facilities in Maddison. “I would hang out at the facilities and I’d see former teammates and players who had moved into medical device sales. I got to asking them what a day in the life of a rep was like and I found it really intriguing. Football is a really violent sport and I’d spent a lot of time around doctors and in hospitals, recovering from injuries, so the medical environment felt natural and comfortable to me.”
AT’s story echoes Nick’s. “I knew some former players who worked in this industry and they helped to reassure me that there was life after football. They walked me through the job and I got excited. I was always very interested in the reasons behind my football injuries; why did I get hurt? How exactly do I fix it? It felt like a great fit for me.”
“The opportunity to move into sales came up through a friend!” says Jerry. “I have a degree in physiology and the movement of the body has always been interesting to me. Playing football meant that I had become very knowledgeable about injuries and the mechanisms of injury, which I feel gave me an advantage moving into this field.”
Remembering what you know
As a new starter in sales, there is a lot to learn. From the product portfolio and the procedures, to building relationships with healthcare professionals and hospitals. It might feel like there’s a mountain to climb, so it’s essential to remember what you already know.
“There are a lot of similarities between football and sales.” Says Jerry. “In football, you learn the importance of hard work, how to work with other people and how to handle adversity. Every game is different, and something might happen that changes your plan. Surgeries are the same.”
Nick agrees. “There is a lot of overlap in the mentalities. You can’t do your job without the people around you; you’re co-dependent. I believe that you get out, what you put in and I’ve never been afraid of hard work.”
“All the things that football teaches you directly correlate to the next stage of life.” Adds AT. “Being organized, being disciplined, having a competitive work ethic, communicating well with people, and being a good teammate. You don’t make it in football by accident. You work hard every single day, going out of your way to do the extra work and build relationships. If you apply those principles to your role in sales, you’ll crush it.”
Finding your cultural fit
Once you find your industry, you need to find your company. At Smith+Nephew we’re guided by our purpose of taking the limits off living (Life Unlimited).
“For me it’s about having the fortitude to stand up and do what’s right, representing the company and its products in the right way. Not taking the short cuts. Doing the little things, the hard things, the things you don’t want to do to make yourself better and to make our customers’ and patients’ experiences better.” Says Nick.
“I take a lot of pride in making sure that surgeries go as smoothly as possible. I’ve been the patient under the drapes so many times, I know how it feels. I hope that the Sales Rep in the room at the time was working as hard as I do to make sure that my surgeries went smoothly.” Says AT.
“I don’t take it lightly that I’m supporting others to meet their recovery goals.” Says Jerry. “I have empathy for patients with chronic pain. I understand it. I’ve had it myself. Sometimes in life we chase money so much, but at Smith+Nephew, there’s more to the job. There’s the satisfaction of knowing that a patient has just had an awesome result.”
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