Sales as a Service

Secondly, let us say that it is “blue ocean strategy”. It is like selling hot cakes. Then you could probably face another challenge. Your highly sophisticated product or service requires highly skilled and specialized employees which take time to onboard and train or you may need to make massive capital investments in new equipment.  So what you maybe really need for a period of time is some kind of part time assistance with sales and marketing until you ultimately get your own sales and marketing force up and running.

In a perfect world you would like to use somebody with PhD in your science, a business degree and great sales skills being extrovert, being bold in asking the right questions and asking for the order. There may be such a person out there and it would be fantastic if you could find her/him but I can assure you that there will not be many that fit that profile. So you may start looking for a good alternative.

In my experience in Life science then some of the best sales people I have met within Life Science did not even have a science degree but they simply understood what they understood from the marketing material. This was enough. Enough to raise the interest of the scientist or GP that they were selling to and for all the technical details some kind of product specialist would always be involved in the discussion anyway. The first part of the sale is about awareness and targeting the right people.

On the other hand then I have also met many sales reps who had a scientific background who developed into great sales people. Scientists who are very technically skilled and work in sales can really generate great value to customers as they will also serve as consultants. If they can overcome the challenges of being extrovert, suddenly be discussing a science subject they are not experts (yet) and most of all not be “product describers”.  There is a tendency that scientists in sales do not ask questions but talk about their product because this is comfort zone but the potential customer is on a completely different page of interest.

You may have your reservations about having an external consultant selling your highly specialized product or service for you. This is understandable. Where it does pay to have a scientific background is more in relation to understanding the challenges and processes that customers face in their daily activities which will help to gain their trust and take you seriously.

I have worked both in sales, R&D, QC in collaboration with RA/QA, under GMP writing SOP’s, reports etc. This gives me a unique ability to quickly relate and pinpoint to challenges to have an open dialog with customers or map out who are potential clients in a complex organization with multiple stakeholders. I have listed a number of principles, product groups or departments with Life Science where I would easily be able to open a dialog and understand a lot of the processes and challenges. It is all about asking questions.

As a simple example maybe there is an industry segment or client which you think that your product or service is perfect for but you do not know who to approach in the organization. I will identify the right people and set up a meeting.  This is 95% of the sales work.

Let us have a quick free and open talk to see if we could facilitate any sales for you. No obligations.