Nicola Maboko – Perseverance in the pursuit of progress

About Nicola

Nicola Maboko is a 30 years old Medical Sales Rep, born and bred in Kempton Park, Johannesburg. She describes herself as motivated and ambitious, and is someone who is very passionate about people. She is a firm believer that when one door closes another door opens, and understands the importance of being self-aware about her strengths and what her passions are to better apply herself.

During her educational journey, she completed her Honours in Zoology and began her Masters in Medical Virology, but later had to drop out due to financial difficulty. Undeterred by this, she soon found the opportunity of the Health Product Sales Rep Learnership offered by Novartis and was a successful applicant, recruited by Kevin Naidoo to embarked on her journey in 2017.

Her journey

• In 2018, she successfully became a rookie rep for Novartis and was given the opportunity to go to Cape Town to explore her further potential.
• In 2019, having settled in Cape Town, she was given a position as a permanent rep and focused on Neurology products.
• In 2020, she got promoted to be part of the Cardiovascular and Metabolism team. That was unfortunately when Covid hit and she had to work from home as a hybrid rep (i.e., calling customers, sending SMS’s, emails correspondence, etc) until she could get back to field again.
• In 2021, she was unfortunately retrenched from Novartis, but was shortly employed by Imperial Health Sciences (a health care division of Imperial Logistics that is now being formulated).
• She is now a rep for Allergan Aesthetics and is now doing aesthetics and cosmetic medicine portfolio since 2022.

Overcoming challenges

Nicola believes that all the challenges she has faced has made her stronger and wiser. It gave her time to ask herself “who am I”, “what are my dreams”, “what are my goals”, “where am I going”. Looking back, it was challenging, it was painful, and she was disappointed. However, now she feels that it had to happen for her to elevate to a different phase in her life and career.

She can now handle disappointment much better, overcoming rejection and understanding that difficulties are important for growth. She has truly persevered in the pursuit of progress.

Learnership reflection

Nicola reflects back on her time in the learnership and took note of how she could go to Reinet and ask her for anything. Being a people person, she recalls the good culture and positive environment that was created during the learnership. She felt as though it was more of a community or a family. “We were all teammates that helped each other, and if any of us was struggling to finish a certain module, we would all come in and help so you could submit,” she recalls.

The 4 biggest things that stood out from the learnership that she still remembers today:

1. Nicola mentions how Reinet always spoke about the importance of etiquette – covered in the Social Protocols “We were taught how to carry ourselves, to understand that you are the brand when you speak to people, and the importance of how you present yourself,” she says.
2. Reinet had effectively taught them about Presentation Skills and they were even given an opportunity to prepare a speech to put the skill into practice. Today, she uses these skills whether she is doing an interview, is talking to my customers or just talking to people in general.
3. Additionally, she mentions that she has learnt the importance of understanding the customers’ needs, a skill taught in the Social Styles course, and believes in always being mindful people’s feelings.
4. The last thing that stood out for her was the importance of mentorship. Her mentor, Tryphina added that final touch on top of the theory and the field experience, because they just needed that person to guide them into the corporate world. Amongst other things, Tryphina was excellent in assisting with helping them improve regularly and eased the process so that the learners were not overwhelmed.

Being fresh out of university, Nicola and the other learners lacked the knowledge and skill it took to navigate the corporate world. The advantages of a learnership are often missed when entering a corporate environment that does not offer one. So having this experience really assisted in bridging the gap between university life and the corporate world for her.

To corporate – Take advantage of implementing learnerships

She shares her insights on what she believes is important for executives to understand when it comes to implementing learnerships.

1. It’s really a good investment: “The way I see it is that you (executives) are starting someone from scratch and are grooming them to fit the role and potential of your company.”
2. Learners bring innovation, freshness and creativity: “If you need that fresh, creative and out-the-box thinking, the younger generations are more in the know-how of what’s trending, what’s going on online, as well as current conversations.”
3. They are tech savvy: “the younger generations are getting more and more tech savvy as technology progresses.”
4. It grows the company and grows everyone in the long run.

She feels that employees should be given that opportunity to be learners, to be rookies, and to potentially be employed full time by the company. “My advice to corporates, and executives is to really shine the light on learnerships because, for me, it was an absolutely a great thing that Novartis did, and I think it is something that should be continued every year.”

To learners – Push for the results

“I really wanted to excel and I really wanted to get into the Novartis culture, build myself and grow from there,” she says, “and I advise everyone to do the same.”

• “Don’t give it your average, don’t get into it and think ‘Oh I’m just doing it for the sake of’. Really submerge yourself in the learnership, experience it, and breathe it with your teammates.”
• She emphasises that learners should really be a sponge, and absorb all the information because it will help develop their career, and will help in their personal lives as well.
• Nicola urges learner to collaborate with as many people possible, “go to the finance people and ask them what they do, go to your Science Liaison and ask them what you can help them with, just so you can be visible.” By doing so, you may actually find that if you don’t want to be a medical sales rep you can branch into research and development or finance, for example.
• Try and stand out, try and push yourself so you can be absorbed and you grow yourself in the area.
• “Lastly, I would say have fun. The learnership was lots of fun, we did lots of activities, we were even put in uncomfortable situations where we had to sell to the doctor. But, get in and have fun,” Nicola says.

This behaviour will help you get to know the perspective of others and get to know the culture of the business as well. “I think that is very imperative, so that people see you, they know you and they want to help you,” she says, “always know that at the end of the day, there will be people who are selected to be absorbed into the company and others who will be let go.” It’s all about putting yourself out there.

In gratitude

“I just want to say thank you to the team at RED Healthcare Learning/Diverse Conversations, with Novartis, and with my team. Some of us still keep in contact and everyone is doing great,” Nicola says. She remembers how they all started fresh from university and to see how they have grown since then, “we have built,” she says, “people have families now, they’re all are driving their cars, they have homes and it’s amazing to see.”

“Thank you to everyone who was there for my journey and was able to support me in growing into the person that I am today.”