Recently, I found myself unexpectedly unemployed—through no fault of my own, but an unfortunate circumstance—that literally turned my life a little upside down. It was a time of reflection and reprioritizing my wants/needs, and taking a long, hard look at where I was and where I was going professionally. After 26 years of clinical practice, first as an RN and then as an NP, I was feeling as if it was time for a change.
This may not be as easy as it may seem. One thinks, “I’ve got lots of experience, no problem,” but what’s on paper does not always translate, despite how good it looks. I learned that marketing myself was much harder than anticipated. I wasn’t getting the image across, or in honesty, I was trying to fit myself into a market that frankly my heart/soul wasn’t in, and I couldn’t sell “me.”
So, what did I learn? Marketing is extremely important to our profession and it shouldn’t start when you’re looking for that next career move: it starts today/now—yes, while you’re reading this—because marketing is a part of our everyday lives/careers. We market ourselves daily; we just don’t recognize it as such, and depending upon the situation the goals are different.
Every day we educate our patients about the benefits of exercise/smoking cessation/nutrition, etc. We are selling them a lifestyle. We educate our patients on the benefits of behavior change, the benefits of working with us, and the benefits of hiring us. Other examples of self-marketing are career changes or working towards a promotion. Maybe you’re applying to graduate school or for a specific grant. We also are engaged in marketing our profession when meeting with clinic/hospital leadership/administrators to improve APP engagement or state and federal agencies regarding health-care policies.
For me, this was all a new concept, so I had to learn the steps to successful marketing. Here are a few steps that helped get me started:
1. Self-assessment: what value do you provide and/or what value do you bring?
2. Who: getting to know who you’ll be marketing to
3. Create the message: a message that speaks to the “who” in the audience
4. Create a campaign: similar to a care plan, which includes problem/objective/action
5. Where to market: dependent upon the goal (ex: graduate school or new career path)
So where did this all take me, you may ask? To a place I would never have imagined—a new adventure of traveling, letting go of the “norm” and expanding into areas of the unknown. No longer the expert, but maybe a bit of the novice. After 26 years of practice I’m still the clinician, but now I know how to market me as an APP and APPs as a profession! The world is a whole new place!
By @Mary Peterson, MS, APRN, AOCNP®
07/2018