If you started out in healthcare marketing, and you are still in it today, the odds are that you will stay in it for the remainder of your career. Why is this? Maybe it's that we find fulfillment knowing that our efforts improve the quality of life for our customers, although the same could probably be said of many professions. What makes working in healthcare different is that, despite the pressures and despite the challenges to be profitable in the face of declining reimbursement, the end product really is restoring human beings back to good health. For many, this is more rewarding than marketing toothpaste that may improve one's smile. Of course, if you are in the marketing department, you may never come in direct contact with one of your customers. But if, through your efforts, you help your organization to be in a position to purchase advanced technology that improves diagnosis and leads to better outcomes in patients, you will have delivered good patient care, just as if you were the patient's direct caregiver.On the other hand, longevity at your present job can be hazardous to your career. Management may combine what you do so well with another functional area-one with which you are not as familiar. Staying too long in one place could also flag management that you are getting up in salary and that it can get the same production at a lower cost from someone with less seniority.Over the years, I have witnessed many of my colleagues express frustration with the slow pace, lack of funds, or lack of upward movement in their organization. If that's the case for you, it might be time to move on. Change is always a scary thing and there are many reasons that hold us back from making a positive move. But if after five years (and definitely after ten), you aren't asking yourself whether you can make the grass greener somewhere else, you need to get off your duff and start checking the weather reports. If you don't take charge of your career, others most assuredly will take charge of it for you.
When to goYou didn't get to where you are today without knowing yourself pretty well. My father once told me he would do what he did for a living even if he didn't get paid. How many of us can say the same thing about what we do? Ask yourself the following questions:
- Is what I do on a daily basis becoming so routine that I am not having a material impact on the organization's success?
- Is who I know in the organization becoming more important than what I know or can do?
- Am I unhappy with the direction the organization is taking with respect to marketing?
- Is it a constant struggle to get needed additional resources, such as budget and/or staff?
- Do I generally feel out of sorts getting up in the morning to go into the office?
- Is the organization becoming strange to me, or am I burning out?
- Is someone being recruited over me (to whom my position will now report to instead of to the CEO)?
- Am I just plain tired of what I'm doing and feel I need a new challenge?
If you answered yes to any one of these questions, it's time for a change.
Where to turnThere is no shortage of books on changing jobs and career development, and there are plenty of articles in professional journals, trade publications, career sites/job finders on the Internet. They're full of good advice. But the most important source to turn to for help is actually you. For example, if you've been thinking of consulting, consult yourself with the following questions:
- Am I willing to take risks?
- Can I live without a paycheck for long stretches of time?
- Does prospecting for clients-including cold calling and even warm calling-turn me off?
- Do I mind schlepping through airports, eating unhealthy food, and sleeping in strange hotels several days a week?
- Am I willing to give up weekends to my clients?
Of course, there are many, many, many rewards in consulting: helping clients diagnose their problems and designing solutions, beating out your competition to win an account and knowing that the solutions you devise will make a huge difference in your client's success. But don't kid yourself--consulting is not for the timid or for anyone looking for a steady paycheck. Take the advice of a fairly well-known English playwright and "to thine own self be true."Another thing to consider before making a move is your transferable skills. Many of the same skill sets involved in marketing for hospitals are also used in marketing for educational and non-profit organizations. The skill sets are transferable to a lesser degree to profit and retail businesses. In a number of non-healthcare businesses, the marketing VP is being groomed to become the CEO. There have been some instances of marketing directors in hospitals and health systems becoming the CEO, but it is not very common.One last word of advice: Between 30 and 40 percent of the professional workforce at any given time are looking or are thinking of looking to change jobs. Recruiters are mostly interested in candidates who have done the same thing extremely well at two or more healthcare organizations, and who are looking to work in a bigger pond. Recruiters are definitely people you want to get to know, but just keep in mind that, even though they may be a good source of career advice, their primary business is in bringing viable candidates to their clients, and not in looking out for your best interests.Managing your healthcare marketing career can be a tricky thing. We don't always know what life is going to throw at us at any given moment. And sometimes our career moves come about through sheer luck: we happen to hear about an opening coming up before anyone else does, or we sit next to someone one an airplane who just happens to be recruiting for a position that fits us perfectly. But more often it's deciding when it's better for our mental health (and that of those around us) to start checking the tea leaves and to move on. And then act on it.
Patrick T. Buckley is president and CEO of PB Healthcare Business Solutions LLC and the author of
The Complete Guide to Hospital Marketing, published by HealthLeaders Media. He can be reached at 262-408-5549 and via e-mail at
pbuckley4@wi.rr.com.
Marketing
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