Pipeline | Tactics to Build a Stronger Cell & Gene Sales Pipeline

In this SCORRCAST episode, Alec McChesney talks with Heather Sugrue of Chrysalys Bio about strengthening the cell and gene therapy sales pipeline. From engaging the right CDMO partners to aligning commercial strategy, Heather shares practical tactics to drive growth and long-term success in life sciences.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
HelloHello everyone, and welcome back

(00:12):
to another episode of the SCORRcast. I am very excited for
today's episode, and I'm notjust saying that because Heather
SCORR and I have rescheduledthis recording maybe five or six
times now over the last coupleof months, dating back to early
June, when we were gettingprepared for the bio

(00:34):
international conference, and wejust suddenly kept bumping into,
you know, wrong calendar mix up.
So I'm not just saying itbecause of that. I'm saying it
because I know that Heather andI are about to get into a very
heated discussion about salesand marketing, where we are
maybe gassing each other up alittle bit about the trends

(00:54):
within business development andsales and how that intertwines
with marketing within theindustry, and certainly excited
to focus today within the cdmospace, within cell and gene
therapy space, which is whereHeather has an area of
expertise. And as always, at theSCORR cast, we are just trying
to cover all things lifescience, life science, marketing

(01:15):
strategies, businessdevelopment, commercial and
everything in between. SoHeather, thank you so much for
making it work and sharing yourinsights and expertise on the
SCORR cast. I know this is along time coming, but before I
start running and askingquestions, I'd love just to have
you give a little introductionto yourself for those who maybe

(01:37):
aren't familiar with you.
Thank you, Alec, I completelyagree. Long Last here we are.
It's a pleasure to be here. I'vebeen excited about this over and
over again, and now here we are.
So thank you. Thank you forthat. Thank you for the
invitation, because I was veryexcited to get that as well. So
a little bit about myself. Youknow, I have been in the drug
development space the whole ofmy career. I've been in the cdmo

(01:59):
space since about 2008 that'swhen I moved into the service
side of the industry. So I'veseen a lot during that time. I
would say that my, you know,longest in the company that I
really learned quite a bitaround was at paytheon. I was at
paytheon for nearly six years. Iwas there during a time when
they were really going through abig changes and growing into,
you know, really embracingpaythe on one source, this whole

(02:22):
end to end approach, where weall know that everybody says it
now, and that's, you know, oneof the things that's out there.
But paytheon, I think, was theearly trailblazer in doing that
and re engaging, not necessarilythe first time, but in a way
that they really were able tomove it in a positive way that
was receptive from a developer'sperspective. And that's all
about, you know, buildingbreaking down the bridges of

(02:44):
communication, or building upthe bridges, breaking down the
walls, if you will, to make surethat there's communication
understanding about how thewhole process works. So I took,
you know, all of that knowledge,and I sort of went from there.
And you know, when I actuallybecame partnered with SCORR,
which I think very highly of youguys as a marketing group, but
partnered with you when I wentto regrow, and took all of that

(03:04):
knowledge and was able to reallyengage there and help build
their cdmo foundation thatallowed them to become what's
today. Have been biosciences,but, you know, as I progressed
through covid, hit kind ofimpacted everybody. But you
know, I've just continued tostay in this space, because I'm
very passionate about thepatient side of what we do. From

(03:25):
a drug development perspective,I pivoted into cell and gene for
that reason, also because Ireally see it as the future of
where our industry is going,This personalized medicine. But
when I did pivot into it,realized what a young industry
it is. It's still a youngscience. It's emerging. There's
a lot yet to be discoveredthere. And so there's a lot of
issues that have sort ofdeveloped as you look at the

(03:47):
service industry, and then beingable to drive that passion for
that reason, right, trying tobring in best practices, good
approaches. How do we reallybounce build foundational
processes that allow scalabilityin a positive way when these,
you know, communication withinthe system is so important, and
that's really what's driven meover these past, you know,

(04:08):
three, four years. And what I'mdoing now with Chrysalys is
trying to, you know, get that,get that messaging out there on
a positive way. So, so that'skind of a bit about where I've
gotten here today, and mypassion and what I'm focusing on
now. I love it, and I think oneof the reasons I was so excited
about this recording was themutual passion for all things,
not only on the marketing andstrategy and business

(04:31):
development and operation side,but also the impact that can be
had within the industry and thatend user, for the patient. And I
think, you know, for whateverreason, every episode of this,
this podcast, somehow, some way,we come back to what has kept
you in this industry. Andcertainly, you could take your
talents after the covid 19pandemic, and then the

(04:53):
interesting market that we arein right now, in 2025 you know,
you could take your talentsoutside of the industry.
Industry and go do the the workthat you can do in a lot of
other industries. But I thinkfor a lot of us, it's it's now
about the impact that can bemade, and especially when we
talk about the the end user, forthe patient, before I get into
that and other questions, talk alittle bit about Chrysalys here.

(05:16):
I know, you know, I've shared acouple of posts that I ended up
having to send your website to,just because I think the way
that you're speaking out aboutthings, but give us a little
background about what you'retrying to achieve and what
you're doing there. Yeah. So theinception was really about a
year ago, right? It always takestime to grow, but Chrysalys name
was born this early this year,in January, and then I

(05:39):
officially really launchedChristmas in March, but the
whole concept behind it isreally taking all of my
knowledge that I've grown andexperienced and have built upon
over these past, I'd say, dozenyears, in the cdmo space, and
building that and bringing itinto kind of a best practice
approach across all aspects.
Because one of the things I'velearned in the cdmo space and

(06:00):
being a sales leader, which isreally my history in this space,
is leading sales teams. But whenyou come in to sell a service,
not a product, a service, it'svery different, right? And you
have to have belief,understanding, appreciation for
what's happening from ascientific operational
perspective to be able to sellthat to somebody who needs to

(06:21):
have a good connection with thatcompany to be successful. So
it's a different type ofcommunication and collaboration,
and that's something that'sagainst always driven me, and
has always driven me to thentake on what I'll say, air
quotes, extracurricularactivities where I know how to
sell. I can build prospectingprocesses. I can bring in the
right tools. I can build out aCRM. I can help establish

(06:44):
systems on what's the best wayto manage an RFP to proposal.
But when you really get down toit, it's about the collaboration
process of how you work as awhole, as its entirety, to be
able to deliver and so whatChrysalys is, is the all of
those different pieces, whetherit be BD or cost structures or
cultural cross collaborations orbest business practice from a

(07:07):
business operationalperspective, it's bringing all
those pieces in to helptransform into a scalable,
capable cdmo for success, right?
So that's really where it allcame from, and Chrysalys being
transformational into abutterfly. You know, I would say
that crystals is still trying tofind its wings. It's getting
there. You know, I've created.

(07:28):
What would Heather do? Which aremy Tuesdays and Thursday? You
know, Tuesday truth and Thursdaytactics. And that's all about
just trying to get anunderstanding about what some of
the troubles are out there, toresonate with people who say,
Yeah, I understand that. Andthen Thursday being okay, what
can you do? You know, simplethings that I might be able to
do to address those. So that's,that's really how Chrysalys was
formed, and how I'm trying tosort of drive and put it out

(07:50):
into into the market. I love it.
Well, I think it's also a reallygood segue into our first line
of questioning, which, you know,I always joke that I'm allowed
to ask one bad podcast questioneach episode, and I'm not going
to use it for the firstquestion, but I want to put a
caveat out there that Iunderstand that this concept and

(08:13):
even everything that you justwalked through can be difficult
to sell internally, because WhatI hear when I talk about
synergies and silos betweenoperations and sales and
marketing is, yeah, we agree,but what are we going to do
about it? And I think it's areally interesting topic in the
market right now, because whenyou do work together with

(08:35):
marketing and sales, it feelslike you are light years beyond
what other companies are doing,but on the trade show floor at
bio, I still heard one of themain talking points and pain
points for marketing teamsespecially, is we don't have a
relationship between marketingand sales. We don't have a
continuity at all. We don't havea one true north of what we're

(09:00):
trying to achieve, we don't worktogether on a consistent basis.
And so I'm curious, just withyour experience in terms of
revamping sales programs andcertainly working some of the
work with regrow and seeingthrough marketing elements,
branding and storytelling andhow that plays into sales, what
are some of those foundationalelements that you would be
looking for within this space tomake sure that we have an

(09:23):
effective strategy to unitesales and marketing and make
sure that we are playing on thesame team. We're playing for the
same goal of revenue being ateam game here at the
organizational level.
So excellent, excellent questionand tee up, and actually, this
week's Heather's what wouldHeather do? Thursday, Tuesday.
Thursday is about addressing thelipstick on the pig, which is

(09:46):
about, you know, how do you putyour marketing out there to tell
the real story, versus puttingsomebody out there that really
doesn't represent yourself? Andso, you know, when I look at
organizations, it's, it'samazing how these things often
are missing. And. And one ofthem is just really, what do we
do, right? Like, what is ourideal client profile? ICP is so
important. It's the number onething that you have to do to get

(10:09):
out there, right? And where doesthat form? Well, it forms with
your internal understandingabout, what are my equipment?
What do I do? Who are myscientific subject matter
experts? Where are their levelsof expertise? And how can I
promote that and understandingthat to define, okay, how do I
then bring that from a VDperspective, and how do I go out
and get those clients right? Soyour your ICP isn't only

(10:29):
defining your capabilities, butit's also defining the client
profile that you want to gotowards, right? So yeah, they
need to fit that capability, butwe want them to be funded. They
should have probably a robustpipeline, because we want to be
able to partner with them longterm. You know, they have to be
appropriately positioned,sometimes geographically for
them, if that's part of their,you know, their selection
process, but what types ofclients do I need to go after?

(10:52):
And then how do you actually getthat messaging out there, which
it's the third leg of theprocess, which is marketing,
right? And if you don't havethat piece, and they're not part
of that, and they don't havethat visibility, they're going
to market to the complete wrongfocus and then the wrong part of
the market. And so you're allgoing to be disconnected. And so
it's, it's front of mind, andit's a proactive move. You can't

(11:15):
just let it be, you know,develop organically,
unfortunately, because, as youknow, marketing often is the
first part that gets slashedwhen you have to budget cut,
even though I think it should bethe last, because marketing, you
know, is the megaphone for thecapabilities to get out there in
front of the right clients. Andso it does have to be, you know,
a thoughtful approach, and notjust, you know, assume it's

(11:39):
going to come together, butwith, without the collaboration
between those three pieces, youknow, operational, business,
development and marketing, to beable to build those pieces, then
you're not going to besuccessful. It just won't move
in the right direction.
You're actively working againsteach other. And I think that
there are times when I can seemharsh in this topic, because

(12:04):
when you start to use thatlanguage of you're actively
working against each other. Itseems defeatist for some
organizations. But I can't tellyou how many conversations we
have where I ask a prospect, youknow, what's marketing
responsible for? Or how doesmarketing support sales, or how
do you engage at that level? Andthe answer is just, we don't

(12:26):
know. We don't have that. Wedon't have that setup. And it
becomes virtually impossible forSCORR to come in and be
successful, because you'reyou're not going to be able to
gage us at that level. And then,you know, you take it a step, a
step deeper, and say, anybody onthe marketing team should be
able to answer the questionsabout the ICP the same way that
someone on the sales teamshould, because that's that's

(12:47):
how we're going to create theright content. That's how we're
going to understand the top ofthe funnel, the middle of the
middle of the funnel, the bottomof the funnel. I think I am
going to use my card to ask thetough podcast question, which
is, in your experience, why inthe industry, maybe in your
experience and also just youropinion? Why in the industry do

(13:07):
we complicate this as much as wedo between those three functions
of operations, businessdevelopment, sales and then
marketing? How come we do that?
How come we make that so sodifficult?
There's a couple reasons. Tellme one, my first experience of
this is that people don't knowwhat they don't know, and so you

(13:30):
have to be curious to ask thequestions. When I first engaged
with SCORR, my first questionwas, what are you folks doing
for us? And I'll never forget,Leah said to me, I don't know we
need to talk like we gottafigure it out. We don't know
what we need to do for you,because we don't know what you
do. Yeah, right. And so it wasjust that they, there was so

(13:52):
much of not understanding, thethe need, the impact, the you
know, what can they do for usand why? And how is that going
to help me? On the other side,there's a lot of I don't know
what I don't know. So I thinkthe curiosity piece is really
important for me. I'm a verycurious person. I love that I
don't get it, you ask thequestion, right? And that's how
I started engaging with SCORR.

(14:13):
And we, you know, I wanted tounderstand SEO. I wanted to
understand, you know, what kindof publications are going to
make sense, and how do we wantto engage in that? I wanted to
understand what is thoughtleadership really do to us? Oh,
it's really getting out yourdifferentiators, your
capabilities, the the painpoints you're addressing, pain
points that clients are reallyhaving, those types of things.
So I think, I think that firstpart is just not knowing what

(14:35):
you don't know. And I think theother part marketing in
particular, it's so hard toestablish ROI right, as you
know. And so when you put abunch of money into a conference
that you're going to beattending, and you spend a lot
of money on the booth and on onall this different things, you
know, it might be able to track,if you track it well, with your

(14:55):
CRM, your appropriate marketingprocess, that you know, you can
track that roi i through a Q.
Campaign and your CRM and youtrack opportunities that are
attached to that. A lot ofpeople don't do that. And so
there's a lot of unknown in whatis my ROI when I'm doing
something, when it comes tomarketing, and they see it as
the least impactful, becausethey can't point to if it's not
being consciously tracked andappropriately tracked, they

(15:18):
can't point to those things. Andtherefore we don't need any
marketing. We can do itourselves, you know. And I will
one thing that just popped intomy head, which I've been
investigating a little bitlately, is too, is just the
ability to get information outthere, like on LinkedIn. I think
AI shifting this a little bit aswell, because people have the
ability to maybe create types ofmarketing material that they
think might be impact asimpactful, but, but truly isn't

(15:41):
right. So there's all thesedifferent things out there, and
AI is its own topic, right? Thatthere's, we'll see how that
impacts all of our worlds. Butyou know, in particular here, I
think it gives people higherlevel of capability that maybe
they didn't have previously. Andso, you know, I think that's
throwing in a little bit of acurveball for you folks in
particular, right, on marketing.
But anyway, I think those arethe main pieces, though, right?

(16:02):
Are just like not knowing whatthey don't know, and then just
that ROI piece is just sodifficult.
Yeah, I Well, I love the angleof curiosity and being able to
ask the right questions. Andyour example of working with
SCORR, I think is a perfect oneof how an agency can come in and
support at that level. And Ithink it's taking that same
model and just building itinternally. You know, we have a

(16:23):
lot of commercial leaders whoare listening to this podcast
that will ask that question of,how do I how do I really get my
marketing leader and my salesleader to to work on the same
page? And I think that a lot ofit is just start by having
conversations, meet on a weeklyor a bi weekly basis, and engage
at that level and be curious. Ithink that, you know, I think I

(16:46):
got asked on an episode a coupleof weeks ago, you know, what's a
big trend that I see beingsuccessful within marketing and
business development, and Ithink everyone expects the
answer to be, you know, AI andwhatever it is. And I think it
really, what comes down to me isthe best salespeople are
becoming better marketers, andthe best marketers are becoming
better salespeople, and the morethat that skill set is

(17:09):
intertwined, the the moresuccessful the teams are going
to be overall. And I think that,you know, we had the episode
that actually aired today of theSCORR cast was with the Chief
Commercial Officer of aorganization called a Lumix,
Derek Gooderham, and he has beenwith that organization for the
last three years. Talked abouttheir sales setup and how sales

(17:30):
and marketing report to the sameteam. They report on the same
number. They all have similarcommission structure. And mark
like it was very interestinghearing how drastically he
positions that team internallyin comparison to what we see
when there are silos and massivedisc disconnect. And so, you
know, it's it is possible, it isjust something that you have to

(17:52):
work at and be curious at andunderstand, you know, what role
each individual is playinginside the organization, too,
and it just has to beintentional too, right? I mean,
I think that's fabulous, whathe's put together. And, you
know, I go back to my paytheondays, where every time we would
go through an acquisition, youknow, first I would engage with
the company we were acquiring.
To say, Okay, you're not goingto get swooped in by everybody.

(18:13):
To, you know, be overwhelmed bybig patheon when you've been the
small company, but would engagewith them. To, you know,
introduce my team. Understandwhy my team was the most
important team to collaboratewith. We'd always try to put us
in there, but we would just toshow that there is okay. We an
understanding. And then what isit that you do? Train us, help
us understand who to get infront of. But then would take
marketing out like we I tookmarketing out in the field all

(18:34):
the time. I always say doorsalways open if you want to come
in and get in front of a clientand ask questions specifically,
because that's who they'remarketing to, and if they don't
have access to those people tounderstand, what are their real
pain points, or what is it thatthey're really looking for, or
Intel into, what are somescientific, you know, areas that
you don't quite have the supportfor yet. So, you know, bringing

(18:55):
that back information, back intothe company as a whole, from an
operational standpoint, to yourCEO, what are, what are
different, you know, areas ofthe market that we might want to
get into? Yeah, it'scollaboration on its, you know,
at its best, right? And so youcan't do it unless you create
that environment.
Yeah, I love it. I think that, Ithink that we've kind of set the
table now for the relationshipbetween the teams. And I think

(19:19):
one of the things that you'vetalked about in in recent posts
on on LinkedIn, is on actionableand functional leads. And we
talked about stagnant pipelines.
We talked about being able tofill top of funnel, bottom of
funnel, just knowing where yourpotential buyers are in the
buyer's journey as well, is, isso important. And so I'm

(19:40):
curious, you know, and this is,this is not, this is a vague
question, to a degree, just interms of best practices or
practical steps. But what cancdmos, what can organizations
take to ensure that they areable to generate those, those
viable opportunities? And Ithink there's that big
difference between, you know, amarketing point. Qualified lead

(20:00):
or a prospect, and this issomebody that has the right
amount of budget, they have aproject, they have timeline.
We're talking to the rightdecision makers. And this is a
really genuine sales qualifiedopportunity. What can we be
doing from a from a practicalstandpoint, an action item
standpoint, to ensure that thisis happening?
Oh, so that's good you weregoing. I thought you going in

(20:22):
one direction, or going in thatdirection, so if you have an
actionable lead, right? And sogoing back to that first
question, it's amazing how manycompanies I've engaged with
where 80% of their pipeline isBS, if you will, yeah, right,
where you know they don't havethe right because they haven't
built out their ICP, theirunderstanding, their marketing,
all of that, right? If youfollow those rules, you will

(20:43):
have a robust, healthy pipeline.
If you don't, you won't, right?
So okay, so let's pretend now wehave this healthy pipeline. You
know, I think there's a couplethings that help that a get
there, right? One is all thethings we talked about. I think
two, two things important tohighlight in being able to make
sure that that stays that way.
One is instilling a go, no goprocess in RFP generation,

(21:05):
right? So if an RFP comes in,you don't just right away hop
into generating a proposal. Youhave internal collaborations to
understand, does this fit ourICP, the guardrails that we put
in place, the you know, theright fit and operational you
know, guidelines, if there aregaps, are they small enough that
we could actually fill it andstill make this be deliverable

(21:26):
to the client and meet theirexpectations? If you don't have
that dialog, you're just goingto be bringing in RFPs, you're
going to be generating proposalsthat go into a defunct pipeline,
right? So that's one thing, andone piece that I don't know a
lot of people do, and it'sreally important to make sure
you're vetting the rightopportunities, and then the
second one is just to createthis feedback loop, right? You
need to have that feedback loopon prop on opportunities that

(21:48):
maybe are no go. Well, why?
Right? What were the gaps? Andif we see that gap enough, well,
maybe that's something that wereally need to build from a
capabilities perspective,because it's missing in the
market space, right? If we win aproject, why did we win? What
were the things that were reallyimportant to the client about
that? Was it our subject matterexpert capability? Was it
because we brought projectmanagement into the dialog early

(22:10):
on so they truly understood ourproject when we transferred in?
Was it because they really likedthe way we managed their site
visit, whatever that case maybe, right? What is it that you
know, why did you come with us?
And then why did you lose thatother part is really important
too, right? Why is it that youlost? And it's funny to me, I
find BD very hesitant to go backand talk to a client as to why

(22:32):
we lost something. And I'm like,Look, you have this short term
partnership or relationship witha client that you hope to be
long term if you win theprogram, if you lose it. There's
this level of just courtesyright to go back and have a
conversation, and I want tounderstand. I want to get
better. You know, what did wemiss? Where did we miss? Was our
proposal not robust enough? Dowe not address your RFP the way

(22:55):
we should have? Did we not havethe right support internally?
Like, what was it so thosepieces, I think are important,
which drives to an actionable,functionable lead, then you have
to really treat it like what itis, is as it's a viable lead.
It's going to fit yourcapabilities. You've done all
the right things to get itthere. Now it's just about
winning. To win a program, ittakes again, everybody, not just

(23:16):
the BD. The BD is the in youhave all these analogies, right?
The quarterback, they're makingthe decision, they're they're
bringing the right people to thetable. But you might need your
subject matter experts to getinvolved on different levels.
It's always finding out what,what are we missing? Is there
anything else that we haven'taddressed yet? Or, you know,
when these types of things comeup through your collaboration

(23:36):
and communication, what do Ineed to either put into or
address, or another personcoming to the table to have the
right dialog with you. Client,Mr. And Mrs. Client, to, you
know, get you comfortable, toto, you know, to come with us.
So it's that, it's a closingprocess, if you will, that I
think is really important.
Matter of fact, I think I'mtalking about that either next

(23:56):
week or the week after on mywhat would Heather do? Because
it's amazing how many companiesdon't have that. You assume, if
an opportunity all of a suddenis at 80% that, okay, it's just
the BD will bring it in. But,well, there's still a lot of
room that has to be, you know,you have to cross to be able to
get that in as a one program.
And so it's, it's managing it.
It's an in its entirety, withyour whole team, and not just

(24:18):
the responsibility of the BD andgetting that over the over the
linemust have been a good question,
because that was a fantasticanswer and worth the price of of
admission, which is always freehere at the SCORR cast but, but
I feel like there are seven oreight different action items
that people could take out ofthat. Specifically, I think

(24:40):
there's the one big one that werecommend. SCORR actually does
it for a lot of our clients aswell. But that lost opportunity
survey is so, so important. Youknow, getting vulnerable on the
podcast right now, we recentlylost an opportunity that I was
pretty darn convinced. You know,it was a. Ours to win. We had

(25:00):
joined the meetings, we had donethe board stuff, we had done all
of the things. And, you know,learning what made that
decision, from the lostopportunity survey, and hearing
how close it was. And it wasjust a matter of one tiny thing
in one direction. You might dosome of those and get absolutely
nothing valuable. And then youdo one of them, and you see an

(25:23):
angle or a perspective that youotherwise would not have seen,
and at the same time, to hypeyourself up, do it with the
clients that you win. Ask them,What was the difference maker?
What was the deal breaker thatmade you choose our
organization? I think that'ssomething that every single
company should be utilizing insome way, shape and form. And

(25:45):
then I think that I'm takingyour words a little bit here, so
correct me if I'm wrong. But assome of the notes that I was
jotting down is we have tounderstand where our best leads
are coming from, what's makingthem our best leads, and then
where they're actually at inthat buyer's journey. If they're
up at that 80% that's one, youknow, that's that's one metric.

(26:09):
But if they're at 80% but we'renot talking to the end and
decision maker or the end user,or somebody in that buyer's
journey, we might never movepast that 80% within the
pipeline. And so reallyunderstanding where all of the
leads are at in their ownbuyer's journey, and then
understanding, you know, where,where they come from, I think,

(26:31):
is such a subtle piece of of thelead funnel problem. And if I
ask the question, you know,where do your leads come from?
What makes your best leads? Whatmakes your best clients? If we
can't answer those questions,it's going to be really hard to
be actionable from a pipelineperspective as well. 100%
agree, and I'm going to throwone more piece into it, because,

(26:52):
please, there's one other piecethat matters in this whole
process, is the timeline of aclient. So clients engage early.
The right ones do? Whounderstand that things take time
to put in place, but the processis dependent on so many other
critical variables, right thedrug development, execution of
something only happens when anAPI has been synthesized and

(27:16):
purified and ready to beformulated, or the cell therapy
has been addressed, understands,and you're looking for your
client. Don't your your healthydonors. And until those healthy,
healthy donors are identified,and you've got the right cells
and you have everything, can youthen start on your their on your
formulation right or your drugdevelopment process and drug
product process. And so thereare so many other variables. So

(27:39):
you may be engaging withsomebody who absolutely 80%
there's all the right buyingsignals. You are speaking to the
right buyer. You are speaking toall the right with your coach.
You're also speaking to theperson who is the financial
person and the decision maker.
But their program isn't going tostart. Where are we? End of
July, early August, right?
There's not going to start untilJanuary 15, yeah, so you can

(28:03):
have an opportunity at 80% withall the right things, but you
have to have your close date atthe end of January, right? And
then you have to communicatethat. So I talk about, you know,
this visibility and CRMs are soimportant to this that if you
manage and operate a CRMappropriately. You can have all
this detail from a pipelinestandpoint, but you can have

(28:25):
your operational so take a lookat as well, because when your
program comes in, you also wantthem to be prepared for it, and
that might need mean that theyneed to hire another person, or
they need to get ready forbuying the reagents, or whatever
that case may be. If you havethat information incorrect and
there's an assumption that thisprogram is coming in next month.
They may do all of this stuffprior to, you know, maybe

(28:46):
communicating with you, which isprobably what they should do to
begin with, if there's aquestion, right? But if they
don't, they're managing off ofwhat's in this, in the CRM, so
there's, there's a lot of piecesthat have to go into it, but
that, that management of yourpipeline, it's not just about
knowing are these actionable,functionable opportunities for
us based on all the things thatwe've just done, but what's the

(29:07):
reality of how then we'll beexecuted? And that's the other
important part of it. And so,and I'm highlighting this
because it often gets caught upin CEO expectations, C suite
expectations, which then goes upto board, which then goes up to
your equity group right, whichare putting all these high
expectations on you, you have tohave an understanding of the
realistic process to be able tothen appreciate when it happens.

(29:31):
Yeah, I that it's such animportant piece of the puzzle
that is so logistical that itoften gets missed when you're
having this conversation. And Ithink again, pipeline management
is it's a skill, and you have tohave a dedicated resource, or
internally or externally to helpsupport that because, because,
if you don't, you will feel, youwill, you will feel the pain at

(29:54):
some point. I've, we've seen itall happen, you know, firsthand
in one way or the other. So I.
Love, I love that, that angle,and I'm gonna just take us on a
complete left turn here and andwe've already been talking for
28 minutes, and I knew thisepisode was going to go by too
fast, because you and I couldpick one topic and just run but

(30:17):
I have two other angles that Iwant to talk about with you. And
the first is, you know, youmentioned, you know, your your
transition into the servicesside of the industry, you know,
we talk about, you know, a dozenyears within the cdmo space,
specifically, obviously workingthrough the covid 19 pandemic,
and seeing the change there andthen, what I loosely describe as

(30:41):
a interesting and intriguingmarket to be alive in. In 2025
you have obviously a bit of beena part of this. What have you
seen as the biggest shiftswithin sales and sales teams?
Commercial teams, marketingteams? What have you seen the
biggest shift from the lastdecade, and then, how do teams

(31:03):
stay agile? I think that is aquestion that we get asked all
the time in terms of, we can'tmake plans anymore, because
covid showed that plans are BS.
And I think the argument is, wecan make plans. We just have to
be able to adjust and adapt andchange targets, and, you know,
really be able to evolve on thefly. So an open ended, poor

(31:27):
question, wording wise, on myside, but I'm curious, what are
your thoughts when I talk aboutthe change within sales and
marketing, sales teams as awhole, over the last decade? And
then how can we still be agileand have a plan and be able to
evolve in a really chaotic timeto be within the industry.
So I think one of the biggershifts that happened, kind of

(31:50):
when I came into working in thisindustry, was that we went from
what was a CMO to what was acdmo, the D came into that whole
equation, right? And I thinkearly on, that really specified
tactical coming into strategic,right? So I think that was kind
of evolving when I sort of cameinto it, because I've always
been in the cdmo space, yeah,but I think what that's done,

(32:11):
and has continued to evolve inthis past decade, is the need to
bring in a lot of the piecesthat we talk about from
strategic, kind of from fromstrategic, from strategy, right?
You need to have these piecesthat we're talking about to be
more of a strategic partner withyour with your client. I think
clients are becoming far moresophisticated in what their

(32:34):
needs are. So when they'rereaching out, they, and you
might know this better from amarketing perspective, they have
like 50% of an understandingabout who you are before they've
even gotten there, and I thinkthat number is probably now
increased over time, right? Soif you're not putting out the
right things out there, goingback to our early conversation
about understanding your ISP,getting marketing in to push the

(32:54):
right information out, thenyou're missing the ability to be
able to communicate with some ofthese people, because they're
not even going to look at youright, right? So I think part of
the the strategic shift is thefact that you are speaking now
more from a partneringperspective. So you when you
talk about partnering, you'realso talking about culture,
right? So they're looking forcompanies that have, you know,

(33:15):
shared values, havetransparency, have the ability
to collaborate, because we allsay it. And when I'm gonna, I'll
go lump myself into it. We allsay it, they all say it, you
know, we're end to end. We cantake care of you commercial, you
know, development to commercial.
You know, you we are theextension of your hands. We're
going to collaborate. We'regoing to make sure you

(33:36):
understand and know. But whoactually, really does that,
right? Who from thatcollaboration visibility, I
think the follow through is, is,is low, right? As far as being
able to really, you know, pointto companies that actually fully
do that. So I think some of thatshift is the need for these

(33:57):
things right, to be more open.
And from a BD standpoint, whenyou're talking about it, need to
understand how to communicateand engage in that way, right?
So that you're letting companiesknow that you can do this. But
then I think the other piece tothat too is the the full scope
of everybody being on board withthat approach, so that when you
sold something to somebody,you've got to be comfortable

(34:19):
that you can execute againstthat based on what you've
communicated, if you've gotthese disconnects, if you've got
this lack of collaborationcommunication, just within your
own organization, that will fallfall on it, that will fall on
its face, right, as far as howyou do that. So I feel like I'm
a little bit of a broken recordand kind of coming full circle
on it too, right? But I thinkthat the agility and peace, all

(34:41):
of the stuff that you askedabout earlier. I think what has
involved over these past, likedecade where it wasn't, maybe as
important early on, it'sbecoming more and more because
of the sophistication of theseat of the developer, because
of the number of cdmos that areout there. Yeah, right. I think
when you talk about selling genein particular, and that's the
story that I ride on, is. Factthat, you know, we went from

(35:01):
what was 40 ish supporting cdmosto now, I'm sorry, supporting
cell and Gene developers, toover 200 right? When you have
that huge increase in cdmos whoare specializing or getting into
or don't understand, you know,with private equity coming into
play now, who maybe doesn'tunderstand that market their
book, the bill process, the longsales cycle. You know, you have

(35:25):
this need from a developer thatis looking through, looking for
these specific characteristics,even that much more, you know,
the agility, the partnership,the the collaboration, the
transparency, all of thosethings that they need in the
support for their development oftheir program. Yeah, so it's

(35:47):
trying to figure out how to sumthat, or summarize that up. I
think I went all over the mapwith
that you did well. And I yousaid before the call that you
were prepared to be a brokenrecord and and then you call it
out. But I think what I saidbefore is, you know, in this
space, I feel like we are sayingthe same thing time and time and

(36:07):
time again, because we do overcomplicate it and being a broken
record, you know, I think I sayat least once an episode being
I'm a broken record, but I'm abroken record for a reason,
because you Don't need somesolution that doesn't exist yet,
that AI can come in and create.
It really is the best practicesthat were created. If we can

(36:29):
apply those in a simple manner,it can be just as effective as a
lot of these other things. And Ithink to your point, you started
going down this sea of sameness,the crowded market, and
everybody saying very similarthings end to end. I think I did
think the SCORR team that was inBoston for bio, we ended up

(36:51):
counting close to 35 companiesthat had either the exact same
words on the trade show booth ordamn near the exact same words
on the trade show booth. Andit's interesting, because when I
asked about, you know, what haschanged, you kind of hinted at
like we have to have thatmessage that gets us out there

(37:12):
and and is supporting the brand,is supporting the sales team,
supporting operations, and nowit feels like there's almost a
retreat where we want to besafer with some of our
messaging. We want to fit inwith some of our messaging. And
my argument against that isyou're not going to convince
somebody to go outside of thetop three in the industry by by

(37:35):
trying to sound just like them,because they could choose one of
those top three partners, andthey won't get fired. They will
do the same thing over and overagain. So if you're really going
to cut through the clutter, ifyou're really going to make a an
impact, your message has to beunique to your your target
audience. It has to actuallystand out and tell them what you

(37:57):
do, and it has to be a part ofyour sales strategy. I really
believe that your message has tobe a part of that sales strategy
and positioning as well.
I completely agree. And oneother piece I'll actually throw
in, and I can't remember if wetouched on this yet or not, but
is this, this all you know,knowing, or the thing that we're
all after as a differentiator,right? Like, how can we
differentiate ourselves? Yeah,and in this market that is

(38:19):
really hard, especially when youtalk about cell and gene
therapy. It's a young science.
You know, there's still room forimprovement there from an
operational and a processstandpoint, but until those
things have been discovered andunderstood, you have to find
your differentiator you have.
And that's not an easy process.
So it is about getting togetherwith all the right people, which
is really everybody at thetable, Business Development,

(38:41):
Operations, from everything fromanalytical to PD to QC to GMP to
all of that, to your C suite tothe marketing group. To really
dive into, what is it that wecan really differentiate
ourselves with? And that doesn'tnecessarily have to be a
science, right? It can be. Wehave this really awesome site

(39:03):
visit process that we have whiteglove approach to how we bring
clients on to our facility. Wepick them up at the airport. We
make sure that their dietaryneeds are in taken into
consideration. We do pre run theday before so everybody knows
where they need to be and whenthey need to be and what they
need to say. That we're allaligned on our messaging. We all

(39:25):
know what the client need is. Weall know what their pain points
are, so that we all can addressit in unity and not have
different messaging throughoutthe day. That process is not
easy to synchronize and tocreate. So if you create
something like that, that can beyour differentiator. We treat
our clients like they're ourbest friends, whatever, right?
But, yeah, you have to find adifferentiator to be able to

(39:47):
have your messaging bedifferent. And unless you do
that, I'm a one stop shop. I'mend to end. You can do it all
here, all in one,yeah, yeah. Well, I I love even
you. Even your your process interms of getting to that
differentiator. I There'snothing worse than when that is
just marketing's responsibilitythat that is that needs to have.

(40:10):
I want to see when we create ourbig idea process. I want the the
chief scientific officer. I wantoperations. I want the end user
project manager, because that iswhat you consistently do. And I
think to bring this all the wayback to one of your initial
points, is that has to have thevoice of the customer in mind as
well, because the experience,you know, the experience that

(40:32):
you're walking through, youknow, with the white glove
service, I can't tell you howmany times we've done that voice
of customer, and compared itwith the internal assessment.
And the internal assessment iswe provide the best customer
service. Gosh, we are the bestcustomer service. We're the best
customer service. And then thevoice of customer doesn't
mention customer service onetime. It's not that they're

(40:53):
saying negative things aboutcustomer service, it's that it
was at the bottom of the listthey chose you because of the
speed to market or the time youknow that you invested at the
very beginning, or the skill setthat you have, or the technology
you have, that's the messagethat we want to create around
that differentiator. And I thinkcreating that message in a silo,

(41:14):
you know, I hate to say it, butit is the easiest way to to
waste a ton of money inmarketing, because that
messaging is going to fall flat.
The sales leads aren't going tocome in. The BD team is going to
be pissed off because the leadsare all bad, and so on down the
line. And so reallyincorporating that at the top
level is is such an importantpiece of the puzzle?

(41:35):
Yeah, totally agree. And how ismarketing supposed to know what
a differentiator is for acertain organization if they
don't have access to any of theinformation to begin with? Yeah,
right. I mean, it just, it justdoesn't make sense. But I fully
agree, and it has to be voice ofclient. It has to resonate,
because you want to put the youwant to have that discussion
internally to understand, howcan we help our client? What are

(41:57):
their pain points, and what canwe create? You know, from from a
differentiation perspective,sometimes it needs to be
created. It's not justuncovering it. You've
got to create it. Yeah, I loveit. Okay, we are, we are at the
end of our time. But I want toask, I'm listening to this. I'm
a, I'm a commercial leader at anemerging cell and Gene

(42:19):
organization. I or I'm a, I'm ata cdmo supporting cell and gene.
I'm a, I'm a commercial leader.
We're building out our teams.
Where does Heather say to start?
What's the, what's kind of, thatkey takeaway, for lack of better
terms, a fantastic social mediasound bite here that give the
opportunity here for what's kindof that, that initial step, or

(42:40):
key takeaway action items thatthey need to take. So
honestly, I think in this marketand where we are today, it's
just to slow down and assesswhat you have, where your gaps
are. Be curious. Ask thequestions. Don't assume that you

(43:00):
know everything. Assume thatthere are things that I don't
know, that I don't know, and whodo I need to bring the table to
help build that out. And thenstart from the bottom up, you
know, I think you it'sassessing, you know what, what
your players are, what you haveon the table in the moment, and
understanding where the gaps arethat you need to fill. And then
starting from the ground up withICP and understanding of your

(43:24):
capabilities and creating aenvironment for your BDB to be
successful, creating attainabletargets, you know, creating
territories that align in theright way with potential
opportunity, give them tools toallow them to prospect. There's
and it builds up from there,right? I can go on and on, but I
think that the initial thingthat I would say is just to slow

(43:47):
down. I think our market is sofast right now, and there are so
many things flying at us, withAI in particular being one of
the largest, and you need toslow down and take in and
understand everything that'sthere, and don't assume that you
know everything and be curious.
I had the idea that that wasgoing to be a sound bite, and it

(44:07):
worked out perfectly. I was notexpecting you to go with slow
down, but I have posted a fairamount on LinkedIn lately that
our lack of patience is killingus and and it's killing the
pipeline. It's killingmarketers. It's killing the BD
team like that, just the vibesand the energy that they have,

(44:27):
the expectations of hiring amarketing leader, or hiring
somebody on the BD team andsaying, Hey, within six months,
you need to turn things around,when our sales cycle average
over the last three years is 10months, or whatever it might be,
and knowing that marketing andsales, as much as there are some
tactics that you can do in quickturn fashion and generate some

(44:50):
leads, and we go to this showwhere we run this campaign, it's
a long term game. Brandawareness is a long term game
sales and marketing isconsistently providing
Do at each of those touchpoints. And so I absolutely love
that, that your answer, yourfinal takeaway, was to slow
things down a little bit andthen to build the right way,
because that's going to make youmore successful in the long run.

(45:13):
I, and I fully, I fully supportthat, because again, I think we
move too fast based on thepressures that we are getting
with everything you just said,right? We've got these PE firms
that don't understand our space,and they want their ROI too
quick. They don't get the bookto bill process. We're not going
to get revenue a month laterafter we sign a program. So it's
slowing down to understand yourreal market potential, so that

(45:34):
you can communicate that withthe right resources to the
people that are pushing down onyou, so that you have the room
to be able to grow in a in acadence that makes sense, that
allows you to be successful.
Because I have this image in myhead of people, you know,
starting out on a race right,and they're starting really in
their their feet are kind ofstumbling out from underneath
them. That's been our marketspace for, like, the last seven

(45:55):
years, of people just trying tocatch up to whatever they're
trying to get after withoutreally understanding what do I
need to slow down to make the myfeet, you know, kind of get
underneath me so that I canactually run faster? Yeah, I
love that. You know, we'rechasing a little too much, and
it's the shiny, shiny objectsyndrome, okay? Unbelievable
episode 4550 minutes ofbrilliance from Heather, which I

(46:17):
knew was going to be the case ifyou are not following Heather on
LinkedIn. Her LinkedIn will belinked inside the Spotify that
you are listening us to ourapple, or wherever you get your
podcast, make sure you followher, because every Tuesday,
every Thursday, is that correct?
Every Tuesday, every Thursday,Tuesday? Yeah. Fan, fantastic
content coming out if you arewithin sales, marketing, or if

(46:40):
you have any role within thecommercial impact of an
organization within the lifesciences, definitely a must
listen to this episode, asalways, but definitely also a
must follow for Heather onLinkedIn. With that being said,
if you did listen to this andyou want to get in touch with
Heather and you can't find youknow how to contact her, you can
always reach out to me, and Iwill foster that introduction.

(47:02):
But I'm certain Heather wouldlove a LinkedIn message or two
saying that you listen to thisepisode of the SCORR cast, and
you know, you thought that shewas brilliant. Because, again, I
think that you we certainly feelthat way after 50 minutes of
listening to this episode,Heather, thank you. I can't
believe we finally did it. Youknow, I know, two months later,
and now I'm like, Okay, I'malready I did put into my notes

(47:25):
before about 10 minutes ago,maybe a forward looking 2026,
episode that we record beforethe end of the year, and maybe
we only reschedule that onethree or four times to make it
easier on us. I love it. Okay.
Well, thank you so much,Heather. Greatly appreciate it
to everybody listening. Asalways, thank you for checking

(47:46):
out another episode of the SCORRcast. Be sure to leave us a five
star review comments whereveryou get your podcast and as
always, have a great day.
Thanks, Alec.
YouAs always. Thank you for tuning

(48:08):
in to this episode of the SCORRcast, brought to you by SCORR
marketing. We appreciate yourtime and hope you found this
discussion insightful. Don'tforget to subscribe and join us
for our next episode. Untilthen, remember, marketing is

(49:10):
supposed to be fun.