From Pharma Sales Rep to Group Sales Manager reporting into the CEO. Shannon Walding's career steps to success.

This episode takes us through the journey from sales to sales leadership with expert advice from Group Sales Manager Shannon Walding. 

Shannon  shared some great tips, here's a sneak preview of just some of his insights: 
When preparing to move from sales into sales leadership:

• exhaust your sales experience and opportunities in your current position
• take on additional responsibilities without a title
• take on international training opportunities or invest in your own training and share those insights with your teammates
• coach and help your peers without a leadership title
• gain sales leadership training
• be open to relocation to access leadership opportunities
• build up your influencing skills
• access mentors

If you are in sales and looking to progress into leadership, tune in to learn more about how to do this successfully.

Transcript

Tara: [00:00:00] Hi everyone, thanks for joining us today. This is the innovate in medtech podcast, a show for medtech and life sciences professionals that aims to help you get ahead in your career. I'm your host Tara Sharma, ex medtech professional turned executive search headhunter. An owner of recruitment agency, innovate search for the med tech pharma and biotech industries with over 20 years of experience in the healthcare field for more tips and tricks on how to get ahead in your career, follow me on LinkedIn.

Tara: Let's dive into this week.

Tara: Welcome Shannon to our Innovate in MedTech podcast. It's lovely to have you here today. 

Shannon: Yeah, thanks Tara. I'm glad to be here and have to share some insights. 

Tara: Awesome. All right. So let's dig in then [00:01:00] Shannon. So obviously you've been working in the industry for a long time. Can you introduce yourself to our community and give a little bit of a background on your journey to becoming a leader in this industry?

Shannon: Yeah, sure. Thanks Tara. So I started my journey towards where I am today. Background is a little different. I studied environmental science and I soon found out that, you know, there probably weren't many careers back when I started in that space. So I ended up working for a pharmaceutical company and they were able to, I guess, take my science background and teach me a lot in business and sales.

Shannon: So that was probably the first direction that changed. For me, started in sales in pharmaceuticals with AstraZeneca and I had an opportunity to sell into the surgical field and to surgeons. So I was exposed to a lot of medical device representatives and I pretty quickly realized that was certainly more engaging environment to be in.

Shannon: So I made a move into medical devices and I've worked with. Some of the blue chip companies with Stryker and Johnson&Johnson and Olympus moving into a sales [00:02:00] leadership role, that probably happened about 10 years ago. And it was really an extension of my sales capabilities and really exhausting all of my career options as a salesperson and then taking that leap into sales leadership.

Tara: Excellent. Thank you, Shannon. I think that's just such a common story that we hear, isn't it? That somebody's actually been working in a different but adjacent industry like science or allied health or whatever it might be, similar to me as well. And then moving into, the industry, sometimes pharmaceuticals is a really good landing ground.

Tara: Some people create their careers in that space, but medical devices is quite intriguing to people and very engaging, isn't it? 

Shannon: Yeah, for sure. And I think the pharmaceutical industry, you know, I've got a lot of friends that work there and it's certainly gives you that grounding that really hard work ethic to, to sell.

Shannon: You, you're not obviously. You're not there when they use the device or the product or the drug, I suppose. But I think, yeah, once you get exposed to the operating theater environment, it's a very privileged environment to be in, but also really engaging and, you know, you can certainly [00:03:00] add value and be part of the process in deploying the product.

Shannon: So, yes, it's a great journey. And I think we probably had a similar background in the spine orthopaedic environment as well. 

Tara: Yeah, that'd be great. We really look forward to hearing your story because we work with a lot of sales professionals. who want to know what the future looks like and how they get there and make the right and kind of career moves and build the right skills.

Tara: So let's dig into some of that. So in terms of, you know, key milestones that took you from being sort of a rookie in the pharmaceutical industry through to a senior sales leader, you know, what are some of those experiences in your career journey that prepared you for a leadership position? Yeah, sure.

Shannon: Well, I think probably once I was settled into a medical device selling role, I guess it really started from there. So as I said, I really wanted to exhaust all that I could in that sales role. And that was in a spine neurosurgery orthopedic selling environment. So what that looked like was really taking on additional [00:04:00] responsibilities, going to the US to get trained in some really leading edge technologies, and then bringing that experience back. And, sharing that with the rest of the team, in Australia. And so I had, I progressed and as I was doing that work, my role developed into what would be considered a business development manager type role.

Shannon: So I had a national role. At one point in time, and the key to that, which set me up for leadership was being able to coach and discuss essentially peers, other cell specialists around the country and other surgical teams on these devices and these surgical techniques. And the intent was I was able to go in and set people up.

Shannon: And then after, you know, maybe up to 10 cases, step away and let those people to be self sufficient. So it really taught me that coaching experience and just being able to lead through others. When I think about, I guess that was happening in the real world, in the clinical setting, but also having, being able to work with a larger organization, which had a sales leadership.

Shannon: Program and some specific, I guess, foundational training [00:05:00] as well. So that was probably the other part that I was able to utilize in working for a large multinational at the time that was Johnson&Johnson, and I guess those probably the foundational things and people are in that environment, I guess, exhaust all of your opportunities in your current role, but then also get those formal training experiences that you can get from some organizations.

Tara: Yeah, definitely. So the two things I really picked up there is obviously getting actual leadership training. You know, it's one thing to be really good at sales, but then leading others to sell is a really different beast, isn't it? 

Shannon: Yeah. Oh, yeah, for sure. And I think that's the key part is when you're leading a peer, you probably do need to have some level of authority around yourself skillset or your experience. And that really helps in that setting, but yeah, to step up. The other really critical part for me was the opportunity to become a sales manager wasn't in the state that I was living in. So I had to take a leap of faith and also the organization did, but I had to move from Melbourne to Brisbane with relocating my family to take the role.

Shannon: And I think that's also something people need to [00:06:00] consider that you might have to stretch yourself. You might have to move because the opportunities may not be where you currently live. I think once you take that step, then I guess that's your new benchmark. Then you'll probably be at that level and then you can move around in that role and develop within that role.

Tara: Yeah, definitely. And then I think that's such good advice. And then I think that other part that I heard in there was, you know, you taking that step from being, you know, an infield sales person to maybe a senior salesperson, but then that BDM where you would go and get the expertise from overseas, bring those insights back, but really you were having to get a lot of buy in and being able to influence without actually having the leadership title.

Tara: That's such a key part of what, you know, executives have to do. When I'm hiring for executives and interviewing them on their functional behavioral skills, a lot of it is about like their ability to influence. 

Shannon: Yeah, correct. And I've seen that, you know, in my last couple of years, it's been really important to work with, you know, supply chain, finance department, demand [00:07:00] planners, even outside of Australia, you're dealing with people in the region or globally relating to product launches. And I think it's the same skillset required, but you may not be an expert in that field. And the great, I guess, the learning from that is you do get exposure.

Shannon: You do get those people that typically senior as well. They're really quite skilled and experienced in their own right, and you can rely on them to do their job. And it's great. environment to collaborate and look for new ideas, new ways of working. So yeah, same skill set leading through others or indirectly and just bringing people together.

Shannon: So, you're right, it does into senior leadership roles. 

Tara: Yeah Great. And so during that time, you know, when you were going through these careers, Steps. And like you said, you moved, you were getting different experiences. Were there any specific mentors or influences that, you know, played a significant role you feel in your career development?

Shannon: Yeah. Yeah. It's a great question. So for me, I've had a couple of mentors along the way and I'm really excited I have a new mentor. Cause I [00:08:00] feel I'm at a point in my career where I need some additional support and advice. I've actually generated probably more through the influences and these people that are.

Shannon: Similar to me or that may have been even surgeons, et cetera. So I guess the scenarios I paint for you that people that have influenced my career, this would look like going on the road, going to the United States to train with the best of the other salespeople from the U. S. So being immersed in that, and it's tough, but you reflect and say, I thought I was at a certain level, but I now know that the level I'm not at top level.

Shannon: I need to work harder to get to be equivalent to these people. And that self reflection is really important. I think as a first line sales manager going on the road with some of your best sales people and seeing how they operate, what their needs are, what drives them and really coming away with some excitement about what could work in that space and how you can better support those people.

Shannon: And being in a surgical environment with even partnering with surgeons about trying to [00:09:00] support their business or their clinical needs. I think you, you get exposed to world class surgeons here in Australia and New Zealand that can also be a driver and influencer on where you take your career because they'll tend to want to support you as well.

Shannon: So I guess it's, so I will say, I guess in that question, it's probably the interactions and these people might not know the influence they've had on my career, but if they If I've gone back to those people for further interactions, that's probably a good indicator that they haven't had a really positive influence in me forming decisions about my career.

Tara: Absolutely. Again, coming back to, I get the bird's eye view of having, we recruit a lot of people at that kind of clinical support territory manager level, but then I do the executive part of what we do in Innov8 Search. And so a lot of the time I'm looking at What are some of the kind of similarities that different successful executives share?

Tara: And every single person has. Several [00:10:00] mentors and they need that group around them and they take those relationships really seriously. So I think that's great that you have mentors. Did you seek them internally at the company externally? How's that work for you Shannon? 

Shannon: Yeah. So internally, worked for me when I was at a large organization such as Johnson&Johnson, because there's so many people and the experiences and the language and the training was, I guess it was standardized.

Shannon: So you could. Relate quite quickly and understand. And there was some reference points there, albeit they may have been in a totally different business unit and not really been close to, I guess, your own experiences. More recently I've gone external because I think that there's people with amazing experiences.

Shannon: And these are people already know, but some experiences that they have. That I really need to gain further insights. They're more advanced than I am and I need that more rounded perspective and that more worldly perspective. But yeah, I think absolutely when you're starting out, there's no better place to go than within your own organization and [00:11:00] potentially personally someone who can, help build your profile within the organization, open you up at development piece you're looking for.

Shannon: So. Really depends on the stage of your career. 

Tara: Yeah, and like you say, structure and size of the company as well. And so Shannon, you've been in leadership positions for a long time now. How would you describe your leadership style and your leadership philosophy? 

Shannon: Yeah, so I definitely see myself as a democratic leader and if you look at the the text There's probably anywhere between four and ten or twelve leadership styles democratic leader is is pretty common in all of those methodologies My philosophy is that everyone should have a say or everyone's voice should be heard and and I feel that's the The best way for me to achieve what I, it certainly sits with my own personal values to, to have that broad range of use.

Shannon: Definitely. There's times when you need to make a call and as the leader, you need to do that, but bringing people on that journey, it may slow you down a little in terms of [00:12:00] your efficiency, you may need to be more agile, but I think it allows people to buy in. To the vision or the decision making or the change and in terms of the philosophy.

Shannon: Yes, it's really around everyone has an equal chance to have a say. And I think that also breeds collaboration and ideas and whether you're the rookie manager, the rookie line manager that's come into the team or you're the more experienced line manager that's been on my team for a number of years. I would still want for both people to have a say because the diverse experiences are really helpful at making a decision and moving forward.

Tara: Yeah, no, that's great. And we have a lot of conversations, the people in the market and our clients around engagement and retention of the team that they have. And there's that saying, everybody says that people leave a leader, not a company. And a lot of conversations we have is where people don't feel like they're having their voice heard.

Tara: So that's just great to hear. That is your leadership style and digging a bit deeper into you. What are your core values that really [00:13:00] guide your leadership decisions? 

Shannon: Yeah, I think since day one in being in pharmaceuticals and medical devices, the patient centricity and that patient focus is absolutely the thing that drives me and you'll see some organizations I think do it really well.

Shannon: Others. Probably feel they're doing well, but I'm not sure that they're actually as advanced in that space. But for me, that should define or decide on your approach, how you might tackle something urgently or longer term. What are the needs of the patients? How are you going to deliver this through your means, through your organization?

Shannon: I think there's some, the examples that I have in my mind are that, and everyone in the organization should have to buy into this, not just the sales guys, not just the customer facing team, it should be right across the organization. And but the Examples I had was probably when you're exposed to more of the trauma or orthopedic parts of the business, and there'll be other parts of other businesses that do this, but if you were to call someone and say, I have a patient on the table, that would be an indicator to the person [00:14:00] at the other end of the line or the email to say, okay, this is really important. What I'm about to do. It might take me a little longer or it might have to drop what I'm doing, but there is a patient impact at the end of this, and that could be customer operations, it could be logistics, it could be a warehouse person, it could be finance, it could be accounts payable. So I feel that if everyone in the organization buys into that patient centricity they'll understand the urgency of some of the things that need to happen, and it should guide the organisation and help make decisions easier. 

Tara: Yeah, absolutely. Shannon, you mentioned, obviously, we are in this sector of healthcare, and you said that some organisations do it well. Some think they are, but maybe they're not.

Tara: What do you observe from a patient perspective that you maybe think is missing? 

Shannon: From a patient's perspective? I think when companies talk about customer, That's probably the call that for me. They're not getting, they might not be talking about the person who pays for the product or the, or the, they might be talking about the clinician.

Shannon: And these people are obviously very important [00:15:00] in your sales process, but I think unless they actually talk about the patient and patient outcomes, then, They're probably one step away from where they need to be, I think. And it's, we might get onto this later, but it's so emotive as well. So everyone in your organization can get emotional about patient stories and patient outcomes.

Shannon: And you can really feed into that culture of an organization when you talk about patients. But when you talk about products, it's a little less, or if you're talking about customer groups, it just doesn't have the same emotional pull. So yeah, I think that's probably the crux of it for me. It's a 

Tara: Okay 

Shannon: last thing I'll add, it's probably a missed opportunity for those organizations that see customers or boxes or products or if you're not talking about patients, you're probably not really, it is a missed opportunity in the way you drive it.

Tara: Well, you're not speaking the healthcare professional's language who they're there all day every day to help patients. So yeah, I think that is really massive missed opportunity. Okay, look in terms [00:16:00] of your career development and growth a lot of that actually comes from things maybe going wrong or being more challenging.

Tara: Yeah, is there something that you could share that you'd be happy to share that was a real really significant challenge you've faced in your role as an executive leader and what valuable lessons you learned from that? 

Shannon: Yeah. So probably something which, I mean, we had the disruption of the COVID pandemic and I'm not here to tell everyone because everyone has their own experiences, but something that really, I've stood out for me during that period of time was that people will still work really hard, even if they can't go to the hospital, they can't see their customers, there'll be people that will still want to work seven 38 in the morning until five o'clock at night, even if there's not work to be done.

Shannon: And it can be quite frustrating to the leader, to see this energy and it's almost being wasted because they feel like. So. I guess the learning and seeing that play out in real time, that people were really pushing themselves really hard. [00:17:00] Yeah, happy to say that Olympus took a really proactive approach in that space and was really people, I guess, employee centric, was to introduce something which they called taking care of you leave.

Shannon: Now, other organizations may have had something similar. Similar to this, but essentially what it was, you could take leave, no questions asked, whether it was because you needed to do some homeschooling with your kids, or you just needed a break, or there just wasn't work to be done. You could take this leave, no questions asked, it wouldn't affect your annual leave, or your sick leave, or anything like that.

Shannon: And it was just, it was really encouraging to see an organization, I guess, get it and buy into it. But also to see the team, no one ever took advantage of it. It was, you would see these requests come through and you'd say, great, people are taking this time off. And I think as a leader and myself and others, we actually, I guess, flag when we'll be, we would be taking this leave a couple of days in advance just to give people some visibility that, Hey, we're all have these needs.

Shannon: So, yeah. So I think that was probably the. just really highlighted [00:18:00] the importance of the people side of your organisation and that whether it's through a pandemic or whether it's just through individual situations that people have, you really just need to make sure that people are taking the time out, get back to where they need to be or address some things that are outside of work.

Tara: Yeah, that's so good and that wasn't something that I heard of from every single company. So I think that's a brilliant initiative and I think something you've pointed out there, it's It comes back to your leadership style, but it's trust. And like you say, people are more often than not in our industry, very self driven, aren't they?

Tara: So like you say, you almost saw that ball of energy. It's giving people permission to then be able to just step back a bit because there's only so much that they could physically do, but there's some incredible innovation came through that time because of all that energy. 

Shannon: Yeah, and there was probably, certainly at Olympus, there wasn't really any layoffs.

Shannon: There was a couple of periods where we said, Hey, we're all going to take a, we're all taking a week at this period of time. It's essentially a shutdown, which helped [00:19:00] everyone, but you spoke about trust. And I think that's the thing. When we trust these people with our products as a person who's in front of customers and we're paying them it would be very uncommon that someone's actually trying to game the system and slacking off.

Shannon: I mean, they'd be found out pretty quickly. So. If you can trust your employees, that's when they give back in that discretionary effort as well. 

Tara: Yeah, absolutely. Now, again, reflecting on your career journey today, can you remember, and we all can, I'm sure, but like a particular setback or failure that you think has had a really profound impact on your leadership approach? 

Shannon: Not looking at a setback, but a profound meeting that I went to, which definitely shaped my outlook. I'll do my best to describe this and so please bear with me, but working at Johnson and Johnson, I had an amazing opportunity to be part of.

Shannon: The diversity and inclusion strategies and involved in an employee resource group. So I went to a meeting, probably about 20 people, we sat in a room and there was various employee resource groups coming together across women in [00:20:00] leadership, across LGBTI concepts and communities. They had to go around the room and explain why you're here.

Shannon: What's been your experiences? What do you want to add to these groups? And so I was, you know, On reflection, I was probably the only middle aged white male in a blue suit that was sitting there and as we went around the group, people told some pretty, some pretty horrific stories about what had happened to them, either the workforce or at school, relating to their gender, their ethnicity, anything, right?

Shannon: So, but the time got to me, I didn't have that information, those experiences. I didn't have those stories. And so whether that was just me as an individual or just the position that I'm that I've had. So it's quite confronting to sit here and hear these stories. And when it got to me, I didn't have I didn't have anything like that.

Shannon: So the two things that it did was that it just made me reflect on other people's circumstances and really knowing that. Whilst they might look like me or sound like me or be in the same role as me, more senior or more junior, that they may have experienced some things which are pretty horrible and that [00:21:00] we want to try and avoid that as wherever we can and some of these initiatives around diversity and inclusion try to do that.

Shannon: Pretty, pretty confronting. I guess what that led to was also a career change. And that's what we're talking about today was I was a national sales manager in a high performing business unit, and it was just going gangbusters. But there was an opportunity to go across, to lead the diversity and inclusion function at Johnson&Johnson, which was across the enterprise and as a subcontinent.

Shannon: So I took that opportunity to step away from the sales side because I was, I guess, moved by the stories to think, you know what, like I need to be part of the And that was an amazing opportunity to step away from sales and just be involved in these great initiatives. And yeah, definitely something. So whilst I can't say it was a, it was a setback.

Shannon: It was a shock to me and think, wow, we've got a long way to go. And, and I take that with me in my interactions and my recruiting, everything. It definitely changed my outlook in a lot of ways. 

Tara: Ah! I love that [00:22:00] Shannon, just like you said that insight that you just may not have had that awareness and it's so fantastic that your company brought you all together to have that conversation but I think just that you've that's really actually shaped your career and everything you do.

Tara: And that will have an influence on the future of how this industry looks based on your experiences in that period of your career. So I think that's phenomenal. It doesn't have to be a challenge. It can be something that eye opening, that's changed things for you. That's great. Okay. So another thing when we're going back to advising people on future careers and positions, a lot of what I'm asked at the senior leadership level and executive level in terms of what they're looking for in people is people being able to make tough decisions, strategic decisions. So what's your approach when you're needing to make tough decisions in your position? 

Shannon: Yeah. So it's quite interesting you say the word tough decision. So it, For me, I'm trying to define what's a tough decision and [00:23:00] I think about these things a bit and you go, Okay, why is it a difficult decision? And for me, the number one word is It's an emotional decision.

Shannon: You might be looking at a restructure, which might have a flow on effect that might affect some team members. You might be looking, or you might be increasing the size of your business. And that might affect the territories that people have been working on or the commissions that they feel they're going to be paid.

Shannon: So for me, When I hear tough decision, I always think, okay, this is an emotional decision. The first thing that I look at is go, let's park the emotional side because we don't know what's going to happen. We don't know that no decisions have been made yet. So if you can remove the emotion and stick to the facts.

Shannon: And again, I'm thinking if you're making a significant transformational decision here, you're probably going to be using some kind of template with a problem statement and what you're trying to solve. And I think if you can map that out. And it won't look emotive, it'll just stick to the facts. You'll probably be partnering with, you know, people from finance or supply chain or transformation team, other parts of the business, which will be able to also remove the emotion.

Shannon: And I [00:24:00] think work through a process based on facts. So, if you know the business is growing, where do you need the additional headcount? If you know the competitor is coming to market with something new and different and you need to find a way forward. Work through that and then at a later date, you will get to a point where you have to make an emotive decision.

Shannon: Those things can be really productive and I've been on, I've been through a lot of change and some of those have created new and exciting opportunities, but typically those things happen much later down the track. So really for me, tough decisions can be made easier. Remove the emotion. Stick to the facts, write everything down just on a one page of what you're trying to achieve.

Shannon: And that should be your talk track when you need to explain it to a senior executive or a junior team member. This is what we're trying to achieve. And I think typically people get it. Even the people that are impacted, they say things, Yeah, if I was you, I'd make the same decisions. Yeah, let's make tough decisions a little easier by removing the emotion.

Tara: Emotion. Yeah, absolutely. And the communication. It sounds like you communicate really clearly and take away some of the kind of [00:25:00] ambiguity, which obviously helps in that process too. 

Shannon: Yeah, yeah. So communication is going to be critical whenever we see change. That's probably the part that organizations don't do well. So big focus on that. I think the communication side and even look, I guess the tip that I've always found was if you can't get your initiative across the line, but you'd still need to progress and there's maybe some pressures to do that is really just set it up as a pilot, almost a test case to test what you're trying to achieve or what you're trying to understand and most organizations will be happy to see a pilot rollout because it might not affect them directly and before you know it, you've got some momentum, you've got some good positive messages and data and then you can go back to your original decisions.

Tara: Yes, that's a good idea. Definitely. And then in your leadership journey and approach, how do you really balance those short term objectives with long term strategic goals? 

Shannon: Look, it probably comes down to the organization, but something that I've done over the last couple of years, really going back to the sales 101.

Shannon: So if you can get your sales funnel, your [00:26:00] sales pipeline, and all the data that's coming in from your sales teams. If you can get that to look into the future. So beyond one month, one year, and perhaps. As long as you possibly can, which is fine with capital sales, it's usually fine. That's probably the easiest way to be confident in your ability to work through a downturn, a poor month or a poor quarter.

Shannon: And if you can really, this is sales fundamentals and pipeline fundamentals, if you can get this piece right, I think you can be really confident. About your business in the short and long term. You start to need to look at data around how quickly your opportunities move through the panel as well.

Shannon: Because that you can have alarm bells, right? If you're only winning, you know, 1 in 10 opportunities or they're moving too slowly. I think you can see you can start to use those metrics. Now it's not easy because you might have 10, you might have a hundred salespeople out there and they're all using different methodologies about how they record their opportunities.

Shannon: So for me, it comes back to some of that basic Salesforce effectiveness, using the [00:27:00] CRM, putting your opportunities in and managing the dates. The great thing is that once you can get that data is, and then you can plug that into your supply chain, your marketing team, demand planners, and you can start to manage, the product availability as well.

Shannon: So. Really in answer to your question, I think I probably look at the data. It can help build your confidence. And if you do have gaps, you can start to address them either through promotions or other initiatives as well. 

Tara: Yeah. And I think, like you say, it can guide all other parts of the business, which is why it's really important that the sales people are doing that and they need to understand why, but it can also really help the sales people. If something's going wrong, it's easy just to feel like everything's going wrong, but when you bring it back down to, Oh, actually. Here's some of the metrics that are working for this salesperson and this salesperson. Are there little tweaks we can make here that are going to make you more effective? It's quite empowering, isn't it? 

Shannon: It is. Yeah. So I think it's tough because you need to get, there's [00:28:00] so much data. You need to see what's accurate and what's not accurate, but if people can understand, okay, An opportunity moves at this speed for this type of product or this type of customer, public or private is slower to react or really a simple one was I was seeing at times you might just discount the price.

Shannon: You just keep discounting because you think that's the driver for the customer, but that's not the driver. 

Tara: Yeah.

Shannon: They've got the money. They just, their process is slow. So you need to see. Yeah, you need to sit back and go, stop discounting because all you're doing is eroding your margin, but you just have to wait or we need to find that key stakeholder at their end that we can help move along a little.

Shannon: So, yes, it's, you need to have that level of insights your sales team do, but also as a sales leader, you need to have a bit of an idea around that. And that's where the sales pipeline and funnel and using tools like Power BI can actually help you view the entire market however you need to. 

Tara: That's what I was going to say. So in terms of tech and tools, the Power BI was a useful one. Is there anything else that you've had exposure to that's really useful? 

Shannon: Yeah, [00:29:00] so Power BI is awesome because I think you can pull data from multiple sources and there's people much smarter than I that pull it together. If you've got a great business analyst that can slice and dice the data for you, it's incredibly powerful.

Shannon: The other one Obviously most companies use a CRM and I've used Salesforce a lot. The part was really interesting to me. And I think this could be an area where sales organizations can develop and harness artificial intelligence that can actually scrape through that data that all the salespeople are putting in and actually learn.

Shannon: And help shape your funnel and I think that I don't know whether we'll ever get there, but I feel like that could be a game changer because as a salesperson, it could help you do all the stuff you don't really want to do or don't want to spend time doing or maybe the admin side, but it also could flag where deals lapsing or even times to go back to customers to, to review if they've had a long, if it's a long sales process.

Tara: It's interesting. I mean, obviously having come from med devices myself and use maybe, and this is a while, so I don't even think the CRMs were anywhere near what [00:30:00] they can do now, not with the explosion of tech that we've had in the last couple of years, but on the recruiting side, it's really advanced. So everything you're talking about here, we're doing already.

Tara: Like it's, I've learned so much about tech from the actual recruitment side, because you need all of the data very quickly about whole market, about your candidate pool. It's actually fascinating. I love it. 

Shannon: Yeah, that's definitely incredible. And I think we see AI probably more at the patient end, detection and diagnosis, but I feel, wow, as a sales organisation

Shannon: wouldn't it be great to just stop all the people using textbooks to write down their sales process or their opportunities, different Excel and PowerPoints and anyone can be able to dive in and look at the data remotely or within your local team. So fingers crossed that the technology is developing and someone smarter than us, we can pull it all together. 

Tara: The technology is there. It's getting by in from the people that are using the technology often, isn't it? Okay. So then in terms of you've been in that leadership position for a long time, you've [00:31:00] supported teams, you've built and grown very successful teams, Shannon.

Tara: What strategies do you employ when you're recruiting and developing those top people within your organization? 

Shannon: Yeah, so, well, we spoke a little bit about long term and short term objectives. The longer term objective in this space is that you need to create, your company needs to become an employer of choice, because that will attract top talent and maintain your talent as well.

Shannon: I'm not here, you can probably do a whole separate podcast on it, on how to become an employer of choice, but I think one of the 

Tara: I did. 

Shannon: Yes. Yeah, so it's, you want to get to that point where people are knocking on the door to come and work for you, and some organisations have it, And others obviously won't, but that's probably the long term goal.

Shannon: But the short term goal certainly worked for me was, partnering closely with your external recruiter or your internal HR team. And really you've got to nail the brief because if you don't nail the brief, they'd be pulling in candidates that are just not quite right. And you end up, I guess you lose momentum and then the roles get a little stale.[00:32:00] 

Shannon: So that piece is critical. I think probably understanding how hard it is as a recruiter, HR team member, they're recruiting a loan kit technician and a finance person, a salesperson every other day. So they can't really know as much as you would as a sales or marketing leader. So really helping them identify top talent, what you're looking for, examples, and really giving really clear direction and feedback on resumes that come through.

Shannon: So that's a key part. Once you start to attract some top talent, that's almost self fulfilling because those people will, they'll talk at barbecues, they'll talk at the shops, they'll talk online about their experiences in the recruitment phase, but also the role that they're currently in. But yeah, so I think there's that long term approach.

Shannon: Become an employer of choice, but also get your brief right, work with top recruitment teams and yeah, just go and meet a whole great bunch of new people and learn about them. 

Tara: Yeah, definitely. It's so important for us. Sometimes I [00:33:00] think we almost, it's not easy, but because we've been doing the roles that we're hiring for, we already speak the language, but we still take really thorough briefs.

Tara: You know, I can't imagine not having worked in this industry and trying to recruit for it because So nuanced, but it's important because to become an employer of choice, the experience that someone has of applying to a company or coming for interviews has to be, they're like a little, yeah, it's like, they're like gold dust, good people in the market. And so that whole process is so important. And this is why often partnering with agency on those more nuanced positions are really important. But I look back to being a manager in the industry and hiring myself and On reflection, I wish I'd taken a lot more time with the HR team to explain that rather than assuming knowledge there.

Shannon: Having them sitting obviously on the interview process as well so that they, so that if you pick up on any insights or comments that you can actually provide feedback immediately as that, that's what we want. That's a red [00:34:00] flag, or these are experiences that are relevant for this role or perhaps a future role that you might have.

Shannon: So it's definitely, you need to be, you have to have a wingman or a wingwoman as your, your recruitment partner. And, but understanding that their role is pretty complex. There's a lot of roles they're recruiting for, not just, not just yours. 

Tara: Yeah, that's it. And in some organizations, like some will have the talent acquisitions teams, but some it's HR. And so not only are they helping with talent acquisition, they're doing everything else. It's just, Such a huge and varied role. And it is tough being on the other side. Now it's not easy. So yeah, that's right. It's forming those partnerships, isn't it? Internally. And then in terms of developing, then once you've managed to attract really good people, then keeping people, developing people, succession planning, what's your approach for that?

Shannon: So I guess going back to that leadership style, that democratic leadership. Making people feel heard, making people feel that they belong, that they've got a voice. They may not get what they want, but they've definitely had an opportunity to be heard. I had a, [00:35:00] I've got lots of sales results that I would ever point to and say, yeah, this was a success.

Shannon: But for me, more recently, one of the better ones I've had was an engagement score. I had, I took over a team which was in the fifties. 52 percent was pretty low, pretty a bit of a concern. And the most recent survey we did, which is for like four years later, that's 85 percent for that team. And I reflected on that.

Shannon: Most of the team members were the same. That was based around our engagement and the opportunities and the empowerment that I had with those people. So for me, that would look like managing a group of people. Let's say 10 people, you're already going to have a couple of those high performers that are potentially your succession planning.

Shannon: So those people can, they can take on some additional responsibilities and you also have some people in the middle and some rookie sales leaders coming through, you can empower them to do. Things above their current role that will keep them engaged, but also keep them progressing in their development. I think you asked about development.

Shannon: I guess my philosophy with development with those people. So away from all the [00:36:00] sales startup, it's a bit of a throwaway line, but it seems to work, but I would say to people, be careful what you wish for, because if you start this conversation and you'd have a desire to move into a new role, and it might be a step up or a step in a different direction, my goal as a People manager is , to really make that happen and nothing more exciting as a leader than seeing someone progress or flourish or even take over your own role.

Shannon: So yeah, so the message for me is be careful what you wish for and work hard and work together to make, uh, make your career develop. 

Tara: Yeah, that's great. It really sounds like you really foster that culture of innovation and collaboration. Let's now take a little step back and just have a talk about the industry as a whole.

Tara: That's been It's such an incredible industry, myself having come from, healthcare, allied health, moving into med devices. It was just absolutely exciting every day. It's incredible what the industry and life sciences too are doing for patients. So what are some of the trends and innovations you've seen, , recently, really shaping the [00:37:00] future of you in the med tech industry? What are some of those trends that you've seen? 

Shannon: Yeah, definitely. So we touched on a little while ago about Artificial intelligence and by extension you've got virtual reality and augmented reality. So those things absolutely seem to be just every other day there's a new announcement or something that pops up and how this technology is going to support our patients and our clinicians.

Shannon: So that's super exciting. I think we're really only in the early days of that with maybe artificial intelligence detection of a disease state, but maybe not yet, but in the future that'll be a diagnosis. On the table in, in real time. So, so that's pretty exciting, but I tend to also think going back to basics and things, and perhaps some of our listeners could investigate this in their own organization.

Shannon: So I'm going to say over 20 plus years in the industry, we've always tried to tell customers and hospitals and clinicians add the value of our training ability to train their staff and partner with staff about the safe and effective use of our products. Now, historically [00:38:00] customers have come back and said, well, If there's a define what the cost of that is and just take it off the price of the product and we're not really that fussed about education.

Shannon: But now because it's hard to retain staff and train staff, we're really starting to see customers wanting to partner around training and education. And that's a great tool for them to be able to attract and retain their own staff by upskilling areas. So I think that we haven't really seen that. And they really understanding the value of training and education.

Shannon: I think any organization that have the skillset already within the teams to partner with hospitals and key stakeholders to train and educate and work more closely. So it's not sexy and new and shiny and bright. But I think it's definitely, a need that the healthcare providers, have, 

Tara: Yeah. 

Shannon: So that that's probably one area. And then the second area, which I think is a trend that could grow is looking at the scalability. And I think with the pharmaceutical companies have probably done it well with contract field forces, but if you're more recently [00:39:00] I've been looking at, and, you know, Olympus has done some things in this space and some colleagues of mine are talking about, you know, in order to ramp up your sales force, he's looking at independent sales contractors and there seems to be growing group of people out there that are going out on their own, but with a mixed profile in a bag. And I think that probably allows some of the smaller organizations to scale up. Yeah. Without the size of some of the multinationals. So I think that's one to watch out for. So whether you're a salesperson that wants to go out do it alone.

Shannon: You might find it as an independent sales agent or contractor, or if you're an organization wanting to scale up, that could be something worth investigating as well. So again, a couple of things that any organization can do today. 

Tara: Yeah, it is interesting because like you said, they have done that very well in pharma. And I'm not sure maybe if you're aware, but we have a group of individuals like that will Work on that more sort of contract basis for different companies through us and actually help them to either [00:40:00] manage big caseloads or even in some places it is actually sales. I think sales has been an interesting one.

Tara: Some companies are trialing it where they do have a sales contract field force versus just clinical support. So I do, I think it's very interesting space. And certainly at the other end of the scale, we work with a number of, I guess, either interim executives or fractional consultants where they've got masses of executive expertise or really very highly skilled in say for example digital transformation or a transformation piece that a company might be going through at that time they need help with a big project and then it's onto a different project. So yeah, and you look at different areas of the world. I'm part of a global exec search forum and it's happening at a great rate in other countries. So it's definitely a space to be watching. 

Shannon: Yeah, definitely. I think that's great opportunity for individuals to, they have a specialized skillset to take on those roles. Again, That could lead to your next full time [00:41:00] role in a leadership capacity, or people can go out and set up their own businesses. So I think Australia is a great place to do that. And yeah, there's certainly a lot of opportunity out there. And there's a limit to how much talent we have. So yeah, the roles.

Tara: Yeah, that's it. There is, there absolutely is a limit. So obviously you've been at some really impressive, big organizations that a lot of the time are at the forefront of what they're doing and may have already have market share or be very ahead in the market. How have you experienced your organization staying ahead in such a rapidly evolving sector?

Shannon: Yeah, so I think the key is you've gotta speak to your customers about what their needs are. And we don't need to go back over the disruptions to the pandemic, but I think the environment's changed. We're starting to shift away from hospitals to these day stay procedure centers and more specialized clinics.

Shannon: That's gonna change the business model for organizations. And if you're not prepared to do that, so absolutely need to work closely with customers and health groups. I think. We spoke a little bit about trends [00:42:00] as well before in the capitals side of the industry. It's probably harder and harder for companies to raise large capital, you know, for procurement as they have in the past.

Shannon: So some kind of chips around cost sharing or rental or whatever that might be. So. Those are the sorts of things that customers seem to be talking about frequently. And one of the big challenges is that attracting and retaining talent. I think nurses, we know the impact there. So you don't find this stuff out sitting in the office.

Shannon: You've got to go out and speak to customers, both on site, but also at the corporate level. 

Tara: Yeah, 

Shannon: that's I know it sounds really simple, but it's easy to be in a senior role and you just I don't have time or you go and see one or two customers that are just down the road, but I think you really need to allocate the time to go out and see these people and just get gather their insights and stay connected to the industry as well to see what else is happening.

Tara: Yeah, absolutely. That's yeah, great advice because like you said, when you're in that [00:43:00] infield, it's easy. This is what you're doing all day, every day, but in a leadership role, it's even more important, isn't it? To be getting those insights, not just from your team, but speaking to customers. So Shannon, from everything that you've talked about that needs to be done in a leadership position like yours, it can be very demanding.

Tara: How do you really manage that? It's such a kind of talked about topic burnout, but it's real, like how, and particularly in our industry, I think it does attract very high performing people. How have you been able to manage balance and prevent burnout and be sustainable for your company and teams?

Shannon: Absolutely. I guess I spoke to this a little earlier about the talent within my teams. So. Developing the talent and you'll already have people that are quite advanced. And I think if you've been, if some of these people have been in the industry for a little while or a long while, they'll have abilities possibly beyond your own.

Shannon: So for me to, I guess it would burn out is to really harness and unleash the [00:44:00] power of your direct report. So again, if I had a team of roughly 10 people, I could guarantee that in that team, there's a couple of people that would be wanting to progress to my level role, that would be. Absolutely. Wanting to take on more responsibility.

Shannon: So that would look like, okay, I'm allocating them to be working on a project and they might need to go and do some investigation on something and bring it back to me rather than me doing a lot of the legwork. So I guess it's that shared space and that empowering individuals to take on greater responsibilities with your guidance and your support and your direction to help.

Shannon: Because they'll make mistakes. They'll get things wrong. But for me, that's probably been the most useful is to unleash the power of your team and empower them to take on responsibilities for me. Yeah. So for me, the opportunity as a leader is to share the workload and it's an amazing development opportunity for your people, ability to collaborate and immerse your talent, and your messaging right across the organization.

Tara: I think that's great because, like you say, that helps [00:45:00] you develop other people, that helps you retain people because they're getting exposure to projects that they want to be involved with, and it helps you manage your workload and ultimately will innovate and, as you say, at the end of all of this will improve outcomes for patients in a kind of an indirect way.

Tara: So I think that's such a good idea. Is there anything personally that you do In your daily routine or weekly or yearly, anything you do that kind of recharges your batteries. 

Shannon: Yeah, so I don't know if you can hear, there's a little dog barking outside this room. I've never been a dog person, but my wife absolutely loves dogs.

Shannon: So what we do now is we get up early, we take the dog for a walk, we go and grab a coffee, and just it's a great chance to connect and just talk about whether it's work or life or whatever. It's a great time of day because there's not too much going on and work hasn't really started. You get to the end of the day and we've got a couple of young kids, you've got all sorts of things going on and there really isn't that much time.

Shannon: So for me, That's probably become the most important part [00:46:00] of the day just to start. I mean, lots of other obviously talks throughout the day, but that's just a great way to start and reflect and catch up and it does help. Yeah. Just reconnect with your life partner. So yeah. 

Tara: And the walk is a really good way of getting you out there and doing that first thing in the morning.

Shannon: Yeah, right, how you're, you're out and about, you get to know your neighbors, you get to know the other people with the other dogs. It's just a, it's just a different, I didn't really appreciate that's what it would do, but it's certainly, yeah, it's just been great to, just to continue to stay connected to have a time where you can go, you know what, like we're going for a walk. When we come home, it'll still be, we still have to get the kids ready for school and whatnot, but it's just a great start to the day. 

Tara: Oh, I love that. And that's my start today too, Shannon. So I love that one. Okay. So then if we move on to who will be listening to our Innov8 in MedTech podcast, it's people that are aspiring to have positions like you're Shannon and following your [00:47:00] footsteps.

Tara: So what advice could you give to aspiring. Firing leaders aiming to reach your level. 

Shannon: Yeah, sure. So a couple of things, I think firstly, I've met some amazing sales people who have been in sales calls with them. I've had meetings with them, pre call plans. Everything. And what I would advise is that sells people who want to progress that are very good at that stakeholder management, etc.

Shannon: So use that to your advantage internally. So when you're thinking about your career, think about it as a big opportunity, a big deal or a sale that you're trying to work towards. Map things out, be strategic, make appointments with people, get your name out there, ask other people to support you. And I think if people who are great at selling can use those techniques on their own colleagues at work, I think that will help them because we do see often high performing sales people will apply for a role, but haven't really done a lot of the background work.

Shannon: And just, they may not have got the basics right or haven't built their brand. Don't get me wrong, a lot of people are great at it, but I think [00:48:00] that would be, it'd be awesome to see people use their skills for good to leverage people internally. So I think that's a, that's, no matter where you are in your career, I think that's a great starting point.

Shannon: The piece that's really critical is if you do put your hand up, And you do get support. You do get someone helping to build a platform for you to become a new leader. Or you absolutely need to take that opportunity, to its fullest. If you, if you choose to opt out, like that's okay too, but you may find that opportunity won't come around again because they want, people do want to help, but if you don't, they open the door for you and you don't walk through and do the basics that you need to do that only you can do, then those opportunities will disappear pretty quickly.

Shannon: I'm blessed. Yeah, people are always willing to help. There's always, you can use LinkedIn, you can reach out to people, like myself, other people that have been on your podcast, ask questions, connect with people. You've noticed the job ads come up online and there's hundreds, if not thousands of applicants.

Shannon: And you go, how's the recruiter going to [00:49:00] filter through this? How are you going to get your name to the top of the pile? You probably need to go back to basics. Get a contact at that company. Pick up the phone to someone like YouTube. Yourself, Tara, to help. Absolute. And it's almost become so easy to apply for a job that the people who genuinely want the job will need the job are, I guess, lost in all the other people.

Tara: Totally. 

Shannon: Yeah. 

Tara: A hundred percent. 

Shannon: Yeah. 

Tara: Yeah. 

Shannon: So I think that's the key is. I feel like with all this technology, you almost have to go back to basics, go and get coffee, pick up the phone, write a cover letter. Some of those things you may not have done for a while. Those are the parts that can separate you from the other candidates, which you're really trying to do to get into that top sort of that short list, that top sort of four, five, six applicants.

Shannon: So 

Tara: it's very true. Yeah. Yeah. It's very true. I think it's networking. I like how you describe it. It's almost. If somebody's in a company, they're wanting that next step within that company. It's almost territory planning internally. It's those internal stakeholders [00:50:00] equally as important as your external stakeholders.

Tara: But then when people are looking externally, you can do a lot of that. yourself, but it is a minefield and we can help people even try to do that themselves as well, for sure. 

Shannon: Yeah, sure. And there's probably any other pieces of advice that give people, particularly moving into your first leadership role, you got to remember that once you do that, it's no longer about you.

Shannon: It's about your team. It's about the people that are reporting to you. And the part that I probably wasn't ready for, but it's happened to me. It's happened to probably every other people lead around this. You'll be the first person that someone calls when something goes wrong. So look. And I'm talking outside of work, you know, their kids are sick, they've been in a car crash, their house has been burgled.

Shannon: Anything that happens, if they haven't called, they'll call the police first, and then they'll typically call their line manager. And so you'll deal with some things that you probably aren't ready for. And so it's just being there to be that contact person. You don't have, you may not have to make decisions, but you may just have to help people work through some things that are going on in [00:51:00] their personal life.

Shannon: And as I said, it's not about you. It's just it's being there for those people and showing that you care. And I think it can be, people find themselves in some different situations that may not have been of their making, but yeah, you're going to have to take those phone calls and you're going to have some conversations that you may not have had before and some experiences you may not have had before as well.

Shannon: So, but that's the beauty of it, right? You're in that privileged role and people do. We want to connect with you and seek advice. 

Tara: Yeah, seek support and seek advice. We might just dig into that little bit, Shannon, because we do talk to a lot of people. I know you've been managing leaders of leaders for a long time, but talking about those people moving into their first leadership position, that's a great thing tip that's something they may not realize it's that's something they're going to have to do in a new position, but how would you advise them switching from it's all about them, and then being an individual contributor to how they can get the best out of people, [00:52:00] not tell them what they do and that's the best way to do things.

Tara: What would be two or three pieces of tips that you would give someone new to leadership? 

Shannon: Yeah, so as we said, it's not about you anymore. And I think you're a high, if you're a high performing salesperson, or even someone who's middle of the road salesperson, you'll need to know that your new team that you're leading, it's likely none of those people are like you or have the abilities of you. So really understanding that you need to treat each person on their merits. There may be some people that may, they may actually be better than you in some regards. So I think you need to treat people as individuals. Obviously, as you come together as a team, there'll be an approach or a philosophy that you have as a team.

Shannon: But I feel that you need to treat Really get insights into the individuals and what makes a tick and how they perform at their best and how they like to be led or managed. They'd be the first things. Definitely take time to get to know them and it might seem counterintuitive that you want to come in and you might have to crack heads and make decisions.

Shannon: But I [00:53:00] think you need to understand their needs, but you also need to be developing your own leadership skills. And I know one of my first interactions with my team, I didn't realize the person had been going through a lot of personal difficulties and I had to give them some feedback. And I thought, okay, well, I can just give them the feedback here now and it didn't go well.

Shannon: And I remember thinking to myself, Oh, wow, I didn't really go through the process. I didn't ask. If they were comfortable getting some feedback or I didn't pick up on some of the red flags and I remember thinking to myself, I'll never do that again. 

Tara: Yeah. 

Shannon: So, so stick to the, if you're fortunate enough to get the training that some of the larger organizations offer or you can outsource it. Really follow the basics about giving and receiving feedback, about coaching. Find your own style, because you're new to it and there'll be some mistakes that you'll make along the way. Better to learn from a textbook than to learn just from making mistakes. As I said, it's a really privileged position to be in, to be leading people.

Shannon: You need to be there for people, and you really need to [00:54:00] care, and I don't think you can fake it. You can't fake caring about people or patients. So if you're not able to care and you're not able to be there for people, you might actually struggle. You can learn those things, you might struggle. And again, it's not easy when you first take on the role.

Shannon: So speak to colleagues, peers, and others to help you progress and develop as a people leader. 

Tara: Brilliant advice. I think all too often, like we say, people leave poor leaders, not companies. And yet I do see it way too often. We recruit really broadly across the industry. We talk to a lot of people and people just move into leadership positions and they're not all lucky to be in a Big organization with good internal training or even external resources.

Tara: So I think personally, it's your own job to develop yourself. If you're taking that responsibility, we can point you in the direction. You can get plenty of advice from other people for free. There's plenty of books, podcasts, everything. You've got to develop [00:55:00] those skills in like the 101 of leadership and then develop beyond that.

Shannon: Yeah. So look, and looking back, some of the, to your point, it's 101. Some of these things are not. That difficult concepts is usually some really simple, tricks and tips, some things to look at and yeah, write it down, work through the simple process that people have defined for us. And, yeah, then you'll be on your way and you'll start to, I guess you'll find your own, setting, the type of leadership style that you have, the way you like to work with your team.

Shannon: And, yeah, I guess before you know it, you'll, you'll be leading through others, but also leading your team directly. 

Tara: Yeah, exactly. Shannon, you've seen a lot of people in the industry. You would have a big network and work with a lot of people. Are there any kind of similar attributes you've seen?

Tara: Or not necessarily similar, but attributes you've seen where you just say, yeah, that, is making you successful in this industry. 

Shannon: Yeah. So probably touched on a little, a couple of times, but really showing that you care. So, and you can care [00:56:00] about the shareholders, you can care about the company, the brand, but for me, it's caring about the patients and it's a people thing.

Shannon: So comparing caring about your patients, caring about your team members, and you can't fight that you could try to fake, but you'd get found out pretty quickly. So I feel that's a consistent theme. When I, Connected with my current mentor. That was the underlying principle that took me towards that person's was to go, he actually cares about this stuff and that resonates personally that, so that would be the basic principle and philosophy and approach that I feel that, that resonates with me. And that's the performance of either leaders or individuals. 

Tara: Yeah, fantastic. Okay, Shannon, you've been very generous with your time today. Just to round out, is there anything from a personal goal perspective that you're working on or personal or professional goal that you're working on for the next few months?

Shannon: Yeah, so it's an interesting question. We're renovating our house. So [00:57:00] I've never really done this before and it's, I probably wouldn't ever do it again. But the, it's a whole new raft of challenges outside of something that I've, that I have skill sets. I'm not physically doing the work, but it's been great to work with some amazing trades people and see some really professional people.

Shannon: Some people are very good at what they do and the craftsmanship, but it's hard to not be in control. And I think that's the learning experience is to say, okay. We've got to leave it to the experts. I just need to make some decisions along the way. My wife and my family and I need to make some decisions.

Shannon: So, but we'll be pretty excited for it to be finished. And yeah, we're a couple of months away from that, but that's probably the key thing, working on just staying safe in that environment and I guess enjoying the journey and all the different. The people that we meet that we wouldn't normally be working with because we're in a totally different industry, but seeing how they work together and as I said, got some amazing trades people that have come through and their ability to coordinate and work together and collaborate some pretty challenging tasks.

Shannon: I think that's, that's [00:58:00] great. And it's great to see another industry that can pull together and work at such a professional standard. 

Tara: Yeah. Awesome. Great insights and good self awareness too. Well, Shannon, thank you ever so much for joining us today. And you've given lots of tips and advice through our community.

Tara: Are you happy if anybody would like to reach out for any guidance or mentorship, would you be happy to be connected with on LinkedIn? 

Shannon: Yeah, absolutely. So on LinkedIn, as I said earlier, I think it's. Most people are open to offering help and it's great to be able to work with people, just whether it's connecting , or having a discussion.

Shannon: So I'm absolutely happy to do that, through LinkedIn or catching up face to face. So yeah, definitely send it through on the chat or just connect on LinkedIn. That's great. 

Tara: Awesome. All right. Well, thank you ever so much, Shannon, and I'll talk to you soon. 

Shannon: Perfect. Thanks so much, Tara. Take care.