Value-driven | Increase Profitability and Differentiate Your Brand by Delivering Value

Discover how delivering exceptional value can increase profitability and differentiation. Phil Burridge shares insights on creating meaningful customer impact to drive business success and strengthen your competitive edge. Learn practical strategies to align your offerings with customer expectations and stand out in the market.

Transcript

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Music. Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of The SCORR cast. This is actually our last episode of 2024 and if you're listening to this. You've seen the number on here. This is number 30, which, you know, I'm just going to say, is pretty impressive that the SCORR team has let me talk for 30 episodes, and it's, it's even more impressive that we've had different guests that want to entertain this conversation over the last year. And today's guest I'm really excited about, you know, I think Phil, you and I met a couple of years ago now just through the process. I think maybe it was Joel White who introduced us and had some really nice conversations. I think there were some synergies. And then we were able to bring the conversation back up as part of this podcast, and we were supposed to be recording this a couple of months ago, and things have gotten a little hectic. And I think, hey, having you as the final guest of 2024 is really important for me, because when I look at the conversation that we're going to have today, and we're going to talk about profitability, we're going to talk about adding value to clients and quality as a differentiator, it's kind of setting the tone for what a lot of the conversations that I've had in q4 are and how we're focused on 2025 How can we differentiate ourselves? How can we provide value at every touch point? And for me, that's in the marketing and sales process, but that's also in the customer service. It's in product development, it's every aspect of the life sciences. And I know I promised I wouldn't get excited right out of the gate, but here I am, and I am ready to roll. So Phil, before I get started, would love for you to just kind of give us your background, talk a little bit about yourself. If you want to talk a little bit about MorulaHealth, that would be great. Let the people know what you're excited about, and then we'll we'll jump in from there. Yeah, sounds good. Yeah. It's great to be on it at last, and obviously come around to actually being on here in the first place, from Joel white as well. So I saw that he joined a few weeks ago or months ago, and so I thought, yeah, like, this would be a good opportunity for us to catch up and have a chat as well. So yeah, I mean, I'm the Director of Operations and strategy at Marula Health. Marula Health is a company, so we provide clinical and regulatory writing services, mainly to the biotech companies, but also some pharma as well. Our aim with that is with biotechs, and to put that into sort of terms of what a lot of the listeners are probably used to and aware of. We work with companies really in that ind phase. So when they're preparing to, say, run clinical studies in the US, put together what are called the CTD modules, so the clinical and non clinical CTD modules, but then also the types of documents that everyone's used to with every all reliant on for running a clinical trial, like your investigators, brochure, your clinical trial protocol, which obviously everything hinges on for the study design. So that's really where we get into the weeds with our biotech clients and really think of strategically about what is going to be involved in a clinical study. And as you can imagine, everything that you discuss with all the other listeners, or anything anyone else has come on this podcast, anything to do with clinical studies relies on that protocol, right? Like that? Is it that is the differentiator? And so it's really exciting as a business and our team to be there at the coalface, building this with our biotech clients, asking those types of questions about how you're going to operationalize this study. So yeah, that's the type of things we get heavily involved with, with our biotech clients. And as you can probably guess on the way I'm talking about it, is the bit I'm pretty passionate about as well, right? Like it's getting in the detail with biotech companies and understanding how they're actually going to bring this clinical study to life. We also tend to get involved with other documents, like clinical study reports. So at the end two years, three years later, they need writing up of that data from that study, and hopefully then continue to progress further. And then also other documents, like briefing books to the regulators, and hopefully one day involved with helping them get their marketing approval. So like blas or NDAs at the end of that very long process? Yeah, that's kind of Marula Health in a nutshell. In terms of myself, I came from a CRO background. I originally started a clinical pharmacology unit which was focused on phase one, first in human studies. It was there that obviously got quite a lot of exposure for working with biotech companies. And they have an amazing culture at that stage where that translational phase of moving from pre clinical into clinical, which is, how do we get some clinically meaningful data, safety and efficacy data, as fast as possible? And. And effectively, how do we fail early? How do we find out the data and then move on? And I think that that was really interesting environment to start working in. And then I then moved into the much more full service, larger CRO environment. And that was really different environment to be in, because I think that if a lot more commoditized as a product, it was a lot more focused on the fact that these biotechs felt like they were effectively buying like a clinical trial running machine, and maybe a little bit less about the science, which was much more involved in that translational phase. But both were amazing experiences to take me where I am now with, obviously being part of the operations team at Marula Health on the CRO part. I think it's really interesting, because I think on LinkedIn is in particular, they get bad press, right? They're like easy target, enemy number one. And I think it's easy to beat the we hate CRO drum. But actually they're an essential player in this life science ecosystem, right? And that they're so important, and they're also amazing what they do. So it's the great environments we've been involved with. Yeah, that's kind of my story so far. I love it, and I told you I was gonna get excited, but one of the reasons that you know I've just loved this podcast is hearing all of the different stories and passions within this space specifically. And, you know, you kind of start off with your introduction, it's like, yeah, yeah, okay. And then as you're going through it, you could kind of tell that you get a little bit fired up as you're talking about it. And, you know, I guess one of the things, and this is, you know, I said I was going to ask a couple bad, bad podcast questions, we're not even here yet, into the outline, and I'm already going to ask one. You know, you're pretty active on LinkedIn, you know, I see you connected in terms of the comments within the community. How much does your passion play with, like the personal brand of all of this, and just your engagement and wanting to be involved in this space, in this industry, not only for morila, but also for yourself. Phil, yeah, that's actually a great question, and one that's this evolves in terms of how I've been involved with it over the years. Because I'm not a social media person like LinkedIn is actually the only social media that I have. I love that, and so for so long, and probably you can relate to this with yourself SCORR Marketing, is that that, that you really want the founders and those leaders involved to be on LinkedIn and and for so long the marketing team were telling me, you need to get more involved, you need to do this. And the barrier to do it just to Oh, it was difficult. But once I got there, and now I've got it rolling, it's actually quite easy. I think the important thing is, is that I think if your passions and what you find interesting do align with what you want to talk about, it is naturally easy, because the thoughts and things that you want to say come to your mind, I think it's very difficult if what you want as a personal brand doesn't necessarily align with your passions and interests, and that then becomes very forced. So I've always found that very interesting, and I think probably going to go on to a lot of this, but many of the things that I find very interesting that I see on LinkedIn, like a lot of the big influencers, or the people who post a lot on there, post about things that I think that medical writing, what I find passionate about, about the processes and people involved in this ecosystem align with, whether it's to do with finance, whether it's say, site clinical studies running at the site level, feasibility, all of these aspects that all vital cogs within this single system. Yeah, I love that. And I think you're you hit the nail on the head. And we're going to talk a little bit about the value aspect of things, just in general. But that, to me, is, like, the centerpiece of LinkedIn is, if you are doing something that is providing value and you're passionate about it, it's going to work out in the end. And I can't tell you how many times, you know, I post a lot on LinkedIn, you know, I'll add that asterisk and caveat. And there are times where I think I post the best video of all time, and nothing happens, no response, no likes, no engagements, and I'll be at a trade show conference in a discovery call a month, two months, three months later, and someone be like, Oh, that video that you had on pipeline I loved and I'm like, didn't even like it. I didn't even know you watched it. And then you think about it's like, that's not why you're doing it. You're not doing it for, for leads. You're not doing it for for instant gratification, the way that you might be on another platform. You're doing it to build that trust and establishing a two way relationship with somebody. And what I've seen in this industry, and I find it so interesting, because every company that I talk to either as a current client of SCORRs or a potential client, they are. Yearning and wanting somebody on their team to have this presence, but they view it as like a lead generating, like, where's the ROI? They're not viewing it as a let's establish a trust. Let's establish that two way relationship where value is going back and forth and it letting it be someone's passion. Like, the first year that I did this, I didn't know any I'm not from the industry. You know, I've been at SCORR for over three years now. The first year I was ranting to a bunch of journalists, right? Like my LinkedIn had to turn over six years ago. I was in journalism, and now I've been shifting into this space. It took a year before the now the 4500 people out of my 8000 are actually in the life sciences, and we saw an impact. But if SCORR would have told me no at any point during that, I would have stopped and who know, like, certainly you and I are not talking on on December 5 and airing as the 30th episode. And so I think there's you know, I just loved the way that you framed, how you think about it, and how it's not something that you have to force anymore. And I think if more people focused on it that way, you'd also enjoy it more, too, and you'd have better conversations, better introductions, things like that. I couldn't agree with you more. And I think on that, I think another really interesting topic related to is is that LinkedIn is very much viewed as a sales network marketing recruitment platform. And I think that those companies that are fortunate enough to find people within their company, within their business, that are deeply passionate about what they do, and that in an operational project management delivery role that actually want to go and talk about their business that is like the best branding, best marketing you can ever have, because it really shows that basically the culture of what's going on is aligned with that person, and that person actually then wants to talk about it as themselves, As a personal person and actually shout about that without about their business. And I think that that says a lot, and customers get that. They get that. That means value, because company like company pages on LinkedIn, right? If you think about it, it's really easy to just keep churning out these posts, but no one really they're there for presence. But no one really sort of genuinely believes and has trust in that, versus, say, the director or project management or a CRO talking openly about how they've enrolled for a study and how they've met their or the regulatory startup timelines are hit. It that type of stuff really makes a big difference, and that's what that's what customers are looking for, yeah, I you're going to have me barking up a tree. That's going to get me in trouble. I could not agree more, Phil with with everything you just said. And I love the tie between the personal and the company. And I think, you know, maybe this is a little bit of youth in me, and this is something that I push up against, but a personal brand and a company brand need to be associated together, and the best company brands have great personal brands. And when people see me, I mean, I'm not just saying this because there's the logo behind me, but when people see me, they should see SCORR as well. And when people see Amy sit Nick, they should see green fire and so on down the line. You know, Phil for morule health. And you can associate that we can do it in a good way. And one of the things that I always talk about, and I know we have, you know, a couple of actual questions to get to in our outline, and I think we'll get there. But in this industry, more than ever. There is a more than any other industry. There is a tendency to have risk averse decision making when you are selecting a vendor or a provider right whatever, whether whether you're whether you're hiring a marketing agency, or you're looking at CRO site sponsors, technology platforms, whatever it might be you don't get fired for choosing the one that everybody knows, right? And so in order to break through that, you're going to have to have an immense level of trust. And what we talk about all the time in marketing is, before someone's going to buy from you, they have to know you first, they have to like you second, and then they have to trust you third, and they don't just jump to trust, and so LinkedIn and that content, and even, you know, foot in the door projects or opportunities, even just in the sales process, if a sales cycle is really long, hey, let's just establish what we can do, and let's get them to start to like us a little bit, and then we can build that trust and be able to have that differentiating factor, which, which, I think is the value that we'll talk about in a little bit. But if that's the case, we need more of our humans in the limelight, you know, on LinkedIn, at trade shows and conferences, webinars, podcasts, whatever it might be. Because I want people to know that the five people on our ops team, I want people to know. Of the individuals that they're actually going to be working with. So it doesn't feel like this is like, you know, a curtain hiding behind we're hiding behind some curtain. We're just going to be out in the open. Hey, when you work with Marla, Phil's going to be on the team. So and so is going to be on the team. And this is actually, you know, who you're going to be involved with on a day to day basis. I completely agree with you. I mean, I was just thinking, then imagine you signing up with a service provider, and you going on a kickoff meeting and, oh, it's the person you've seen on LinkedIn talking about those things like, what an easy way to just completely break down the barriers and create trust. And that's further down the line than what we said of obviously, the marketing, but yeah, but it goes the whole way through, and that's something we always think about, is that, like kickoff meetings, is an essential part of a service provider process. And everyone goes into those with a new provider, a little bit nervous, understanding is gonna happen, and the ability to have the whites in the eyes of so see the whites in the eyes of someone and immediately feel at ease, and then go through that whole project and come out the end of that, in terms of that kickoff meeting, thinking, yeah, we've picked the right team that's essential, and I think bringing that person involved earlier on the process only makes that easier. Yeah, and you mentioned the marketing side of that, and you know, we talk about the buyer's journey not ending at a signed contract, right? There's we have to get them to to go through and be happy clients, happy customers. But also then let's have them be referral let's, let's have them through the the life cycle of a client as well. Okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna pause Record scratch and move us into a completely different direction. I am curious, because I'm going to work backwards from our original outline, because you mentioned something there about, you know, the lifetime of a client. You have the kickoff call, and we had this quality as a differentiator topic, right? And I think as somebody who has started to really fight against the sea of sameness in our industry, where everybody says very similar things. And when you ask internal teams, it's, you know, we provide great customer service and we've got great technology. It's like, okay, well, we're not saying anything different here. We're saying the same thing that any team would say. However, when we go out and we do voice of customers and we actually interview them, they have really specific stories that they're bringing to the table. And more often than not, it's about a team going above and beyond or rescuing something. And we had this, you know, how does producing high quality work contribute to building trust and long term success? But I'm curious. I mean, that's the question, right? And I'm gonna, I'm gonna phrase that. The question is, how does producing high quality work contribute to building trust and long term success with clients? But then I'm also gonna put another unfair question out to you, and it's, if that's what we do, how do, how does that work? But then also, how do we tell that story to other potential clients? How do we tell that story to new clients? And so a good question at first, and then two follow up, bad questions for you, Phil, that I'll toss your way. Okay, see what your thoughts are. Have you got them written down in the case we lose our kind of thought again and go off in a tangent? Absolutely not, but I I will try my best. This is why I said bad podcast host. I'm just here because I like having conversations with you, Phil and hyping you up. It's kind of like the compliment factory back and forth here. Perfect, right? Well, let's jump in then. So, yeah, I think you said a really interesting point before, actually, which is about the risk averse aspect. Yeah, it's amazing that you've got these biotech and you've got pharma and we work, we're so fortunate, and we're I'm so lucky that I work with some of the most innovative companies in the world, right in terms of what they're developing in order to help patients. But yet, at the same time, ich guidelines came out in the 90s, and we're all still working in accordance with that. CSRS clinical study reports are still written in accordance with a guideline that was written in the 90s. So it's amazing how you've got this risk averse aspect built in there and so and that really comes down to the fact that also our fundamentals are that we're focused on the trust and quality for patients, right? We're bringing medicines to the market, and I think that everything kind of works back from that. This ecosystem is built on trust and quality. And I think that that there is no escaping that is in terms of that that's really what you need to focus on. So I think that that really is a key part of what we, everyone needs to understand. And something that is essential is to this, in my opinion, is, is that when you strip back like a service provider, like when you think about what they are, they are fundamentally people and process, but together that there's, there's more ways that. People who like to tell that story, but that is really the bare bones what you are. And I think that when you have people that you've got to have the right people in the right processes to be able to make that possible. And I think that that really is makes a big difference. I love the people and process and right people we talk about right but right seat all the time, and then, how does process enable us to be more successful, or enable those individuals to be more successful? And I told you, we had three questions there, and I'm already ready to move you into a different direction because of something you said. But I am curious, how do you inside more yellow health if you're willing to share a little bit here, how do you analyze everything that we just talked about? How do you track it? How do you guys talk about it internally? So when we talk about the people and the processes and providing value. What does that look like from a monitoring standpoint? Do you guys have checks and balances in place? I know a lot of people that are listening to this are on the marketing side, but the other half are in operations and trying to work their way up inside the the industry. So I'm just curious you know, is that something you guys meet on on a frequent basis. How do you guys talk about that stuff internally? Yeah, it's a great point. I think that there's always another spreadsheet that can be made, right? There's always another thing that can be measured, and I think that you can paralyze yourself for that a bit sometimes. So I think that it does matter. But also I think it's the culture in the business that actually makes a bigger difference, which is that a lot of things are down hunches and feelings. Like, you know when you've come off kickoff meeting, or, you know when you've come off a meeting with a client and they aren't 100% happy, you can't measure that, but you know, it's there. So therefore it's having an honest culture where actually someone, for example, a project manager or a director project management can can blow the whistle and say, I think this client is not quite happy right now. I don't quite know why, but something isn't ticking. And to have those honest conversations, and I think that that matters probably more than how much you measure, is actually recognizing and having people that own it and actually recognize that it's not a bad thing to say that, because not every project goes perfectly every time, and actually how you change it and adapt is actually what you get remembered for, and how it will actually define the quality of that project. I'm just, I'm going to give that a little space there, because I know I'm going to, I'm going to pull that as a snippet in today's age where we are trying to track everything, and there is that analysis paralysis and AI and all these different tools. And then it comes back down to individual autonomy and ownership from teams in the process. And, you know, being able to raise the hand or raise the flag on step four is not a problem if we can raise it, and we can solve that and adjust and change, it's a whole heck of a lot better than it being Step 13, and now we're all scrambling and, you know, in a massive, painful situation. And so I just really appreciate that more human element and the autonomy on the team level and on the individual level. Because, again, it kind of goes back to that know, like and trust. But this is all human to human, whether it's big company to small company, small company to big company, it's humans working together and being able to have that instinct and then the trust across the board to be able to do that is is essential. I completely agree. And to give you an example of that, I think is really interesting, which kind of goes back to how you can actually have that long term success with clients. Yeah, that. So you got that people in process aspect, and there are some times where there needs to be a trade off between those two things. So particularly biotech, we work with companies that are involved with protocol amendments. So they've had to change their study halfway through, which, by the way, I was at a conference a few weeks ago, which was the American Medical Rights Association Conference, and someone there said that for a big pharma, they reckon, on average, a protocol amendment cost them a million dollars, which is huge. So for us, when we get told at the last minute, we've got this protocol amendment that needs doing, we need to turn it round within 72 hours, something like that, that then needs sign off by management, your processes can invariably go out the window, because if your process says right, you should set the kickoff meeting, and you need to do this, and you always need to a week for the first draft of this type of document that has to go out the window if you want to meet that requirement. And so that's where you realize the process aspect needs to drop, and the people, person needs to step in. And that's where experience matters. That's where you put your best. People in front and say, This is how we do this. And at the same time, though, I think that what is really important with that is trust with what you said. And trust comes from transparency. So saying, Look, we would love to help you with this, but it's not happening 72 hours. This just not possible. And I think that often clients, whether it's biotech pharma, they actually care more about that more, because at least they know how to deal with it and can go back and manage that, rather than being like, Okay, we'll do what we can. And either you're late and then they have to then deal with that, or they then have a poor quality product they have to deal with anyway. And so I think that that that really goes hand in hand is being honest about that and having that saying we can do this, but this is how we're going to make this possible. And that goes a long way, and clients will always respect you for that. Yeah, you know, I talk all the time about expectation, setting, especially managing internally, managing up and down. Transparency, one of my favorite lines, and something that I try to preach and live by, is just calmly demanding clarity. And that can be calmly giving clarity. It can be calmly demanding it, whatever it might be. But if we're able to do that, it allows the process to flex a little bit. And I think the word process has gotten a bad rap and and I even sometimes will use the the word guard rails more so just so that way we're playing in that space. But if you have the guard rails, the the people, the expertise, the experience, is allowed to use those bumpers, those guard rails, how they see fit, to to get to that next level. And one thing that I and again, this is like me in my head, thinking specifically now on, like, the marketing and the messaging side, everything that you just described fires me up. And like, that's a company that I would want to work with. And you know, for lack of better terms, whether you're whether, in your mind, you were talking about morular health, or you're talking about any company in the industry, I would bet that half of them that could say what you just said, or 25% of them that could say what you just said, maybe would have a really tech look and feel, and it would be like aI data driven Insights. Yeah, have all this stuff, but what you just sold me on was the human element of your team, and that you're going to problem solve, and you're going to be proactive, and you're going to do all of this. And I can buy that, right? Like that's something that I can put my my faith and trust in. And so it just has, it has me a little bit fired up, a little bit intrigued on you know how we've shifted messaging and marketing and branding in this space as more and more competitors come and we want to look the nicest and we want to look the the most. You know 2025 ask, but at the end of the day, that's who I want to work with. You know that that's the that's the firm, that's the team that I want on my side is the one that's going to be trustful and transparent and have those open conversations with me. I agree completely, and I think that that maybe this is isolated to the somewhat biotech space that we work in. But like I think tech and the shiny analysis and metrics are like features of your product and less about the benefits. And I know that sounds cringey. I know you're going to love me saying all that as a in the mail space. But like, if we use AI, right? And I really don't want to get on that topic today, because I think everyone's getting a bit better. But like, we use it, and we do use, we do see benefit in it. But if I explained what, how we use AI to a client, well, I just get a blank face. They don't care. They're they. All they care is is, are you going to deliver me a good product on time? That's all they care about. If, if, if we can do that by using AI in the background. Like, kudos to you, right? But like to just deliver the timelines and a good old fashioned Gantt chart, and the quality product at the end is really all they want to see, not, not some of the features around how we're using AI, yeah, you're right. You're right. You just you stepped into a trap there that I'm so excited about, because we'll talk about AI. Maybe we, maybe we have another episode in 2025, and sure we can, we can dive into that a little bit more. But you're right. That is, you know, we're all going in that direction. And I've always said that teams that don't use AI are the real issue here is that AI is not going to come in and steal everyone's jobs and steal everything but teams that know how to use it in the background and make their day to day easier and help us get to a solution faster. Is you're going to be more successful, but selling your whole brand on that feature at the end of the day, you're going to have to call a human when something messes up, and when there is a pinch and when there is a speed up of the. Timeline. So I am curious as we kind of shift, and one of the first questions that we were going to talk about was profitability, yeah. And the reason I think it's a good shift here is we just talked about the trust and the experience and all of these different things. And the question that we had kind of lined up is, why is it essential for organizations, you know, in the life sciences, here in the clinical research base, let's say, to prioritize profitability by focusing on value rather than on external funding. And we've kind of talked a little bit about this, this first time we've brought in that external funding, part of this, but we've talked about the client trust and the relationships, and you know that often leads to the referral network and the repeat client network and all of those pieces. So before I even elaborate, I'm just curious what are your overall thoughts on this topic of okay, value can generate more clients, more dollar amount per individual company versus, you know, spending that time to maybe go external from a funding perspective, yeah, it's a fascinating whole realm, yeah, and there's so many opinions and things that I have here, and I think it's worth remembering that there's no black and white in this, right? It's such a gray area. And just like kind of using what we were mentioning before and bringing that in, I think certainly for me, I assign sort of funding, external funding, let's call it VC funding, venture capital funding, much more to like the tech side of like the life science industry, and less on the service provider side. And I think related to the AIS that we're just talking about, is that I think companies should always remember what they are. I don't think like, I don't think there's many good service provider companies that are good at tech at the same time and vice versa, right? If you think about some of the biggest tech companies in the world, like Microsoft, they don't really even do their own professional services. That's telling, right? Maybe, yeah. And so I think that that's kind of fascinating. So I think it's really important you remember what you are and what you're trying to do. And I think that also, when it comes back to the profitability and value when you're a service provider, the unit economics are far more simple. You have a project that you need to do, and you want to be profitable when doing that, and that is and be valuable to your clients at the same time. I think those things can be a little bit more difficult in the VC environment and also the tech environment, because there's an element of, kind of like a bit of a winner takes all network effect grow as fast as you can. Huge operating costs in terms of development costs, of setting up those that applications or software that you're trying to do. And I think that we saw a lot of that happen, particularly with the decentralized clinical trials that blew up in 2022 2021 and there was huge amount of money that flowed into that. Interestingly, biotech had a huge amount of cash at the same time. And obviously for biotech, you don't have a product to sell, so therefore VC funding is nailed on. And I think there was this assumption that VC funding was going to biotech. Biotech, we're going to run decentralized clinical trials. Let's go there and flow there and be a winner takes all. And I think that what's also very interesting about that is is decentralized clinical trials is based this was sort of VC companies. Was kind of sold a little bit as a new industry that's come out of COVID. And actually, we all knew, those who have been in it that actually you can send ECOA EDCs, they've all been around for a long time, and this was all just been packaged up. I think that we saw that, and there was a big influx of funding. And I think that that's really interesting, because when you're trying to focus on value, if you're able to be valuable to clients, then you should naturally be profitable at the same time. And the beauty of that is, when you are a service provider, is, is, is that you know what's providing value, and you know what you can be profitable in doing it, and then you can actually then double down and reinvest that money that you're making as a business back into where you're really good and where you're actually adding value. And a lot of the time that then goes in terms of, like, strategic costs around marketing and actually telling the story of what you're doing really well and backing it up. Not just saying, trust us, this is what we're really good at. You're actually saying, Look, we we do loads of this. We're really good at it, and we reinvesting in this area. And I think that it almost has like a compounding effect as a service provider, that you're continuing to double down, and it means that you stay quite lean, you recognize what you're good at and where you're not where you financially makes sense, and you can double down in that area. And I think that that's really important, especially for service providers. And there are more service providers that have actually had VC funding recently, which is really interesting, because there seems to be this focus on that money shifting into a service provider environment. But. But I think that it also then starts to introduce some interesting behaviors. Because if you think about what external funding is, it comes down to two things. You can shine it up however you like. It's either debt or equity. That's it. There's no other way, like they are the two, and so both create behaviors in businesses that can have a short termist approach to the business if you take on a large amount of debt, yes, you have that debt. That means you can potentially reinvest and grow very fast, but you have a monthly payment that has to be made no matter what, and so that could cause discounting, that could cause you to start thinking about where to cut corners on costs, and rather than the long term focus, which fundamentally should be about value for your clients. And if you can, if you can make long term decisions over short term decisions, I think you'll always head towards the value and the clients. And I think that that's what most management want to make, whereas if you bring in external funding, sometimes you you're required to think about those other aspects at play. This episode is free to listen to, but that three minute tangent right there and answers that question is worth at least 999, a month. Phil, I there's so much good there on the service versus the tech side. You know, if you, if you are providing that valuable, you know, result to your clients, you should be profitable so much that we could dive in on but I think that one of the things that you said is that it's compounding, right? It's if you start with the value that then leads to being able to reinvest the the profitability back into the areas that we're good at, we can then tell that story. People start to know us. Then that referral network and the repeat client network really grows. I like I think that's a whole another 50 minute episode, because I know that we could talk especially about the changes in the private equity and the VC dollars is a really interesting perspective. And I know you mentioned it at the very beginning, but when we brought Joel white on and we talked really specifically about how marketing and branding can increase pricing and increase your your your lens and your potential from a VC or an equity standpoint, it's a really interesting conversation, especially following some years that were hectic, 2021, 2022, and kind of the bubble and all those things. And I love how you talked about decentralized clinical trials. And I, as somebody who came into the industry right at that time, I have a couple of posts like, for lack of better terms asking, haven't decentralized trials always existed? Yeah, and now it's just a bundle, and it's a way that we're saying it. And then, you know, it was the 2020, 3d farm, where every single company that was there was saying, we're patient centric. We're patient centric. We're patient centric. And some of the disrupt idle judges were like, how, how are you patient centric? He's like, Oh, well, you know, we make things easier on the sites. It's like, well, that's not patient centric. So it was, again, another bubble of like, this is just going to be how we package a thing. And then this, this year's deep farm, I joked, but I couldn't tell you how many booths said data driven insights. And so it's like we do this thing where we package what we think is is needed, what might look better to a potential, you know, acquisition or potential VC, whatever it might be, but we lose sight of everything that you just talked about in terms of the value that we could provide and that that's going to help us with the long term growth, even if that short term, you know, 369, months, you know, even the 12 to 18 months, maybe it's a little bit blurrier when you you look at it through that lens. Yeah, I completely agree. I think one of the things that relates to that also, I think is really interesting is, is that, when we we've seen it in RFIs recently, like request for information that people want to know, who owns that business? Yeah, they want to know, Are you private equity? Are you VC funded? And so, for example, everyone kind of knows that on average. And this may change, given the landscape changing, but typically private equity was five years, right? So if you, if you're looking at a CRO and they're four years into a five year term of that PE firm that they're looking to sell, and again, it goes back to that risk averse aspect that clients want stability. And so being able to say that, and actually they're really happy for you to be profitable, because it means you're likely to be around for a while. And you think about all of the things that we rely on in our lives. I mean, for me, like Spotify is like my favorite app. I couldn't live I couldn't live without it. Now imagine if that went yeah. So therefore, if I see the just. Spotify share price is going down, or if I see that they're not doing financially like I'm bothered about that, I'd rather see them being really successful. And I think that the same happens in B to B with the life sciences. Exactly the same. Yeah. Fantastic. Comp. I am intrigued. Do you have your Spotify wrapped out right now. Did you get that and how many minutes? How many listen? I'm not going to put you on the spot. If you want to share a top artist, I'm interested. But what I really want to know is, how many minutes did you listen to of music in 2020? It's a scary amount. I know that I've not actually watched it yet. Oh, no, I'm putting you on the spot like, right? So I was, it was really funny, because I was actually listening to mine just this morning. And I used to be a huge Kings of Leon fan, okay? And somehow, Kings of Leon is still there, even after maybe 10 years of Spotify. I think I don't even remember listening to them subconsciously being played at all times in the background. Yeah, indeed, I played 5205 songs this year. Wow. Okay, counts, yeah, man, this is live right now. I mean, people are going to be listening to this recording, but I'm watching you watch your spot up by rap. That's so much fresh. I think that the only fair thing is for me to answer with how many, how many songs that I listen to? Yeah, let's say that's the only that's the only fair thing. Spot by the way, Spotify wrapped an unbelievable Have you ever heard the story of how this was created? No, okay, you'll have to look it up. An intern just had a bad idea on a Thursday and was like, oh, we should do this. And then somebody was like, hey, that's actually a really good idea. What does it look like? And she just went home, drew it up, and a couple of hours later, they had this idea. And then it's been four years of like, the number one thing that people talk about on Spotify on a year to year basis. And I, I just love that, because it goes, We talk all the time about innovation in this industry especially, wow. You listen to over 5000 I listen to 4234 songs this year, 168,000 minutes, though, that's a lot of minutes. Wow. Okay, that's going to be, I think, well ahead of mine. But you Listen, are you a podcast listener? I I am an I am a marketing podcast listener and a sales podcast listener, but not for entertainment, like, okay, or like sports or anything like that. Just never really gotten into it. So I have less podcasts like, I really don't, and I can't listen to podcasts at work, like if I'm doing busy work and I'm listening to somebody else talk, I will get distracted. And so I do mostly music at work, and that's why I have so many rights on a day to day basis. Someone's 60,000 60,000 but spread out between blew me out the water, but you listened to 1000 more songs. I need some more variety. Well, I don't know if that's going to be a new segment of the show, but we're just going to start having everybody bring out their Spotify. Their Spotify wrapped. Okay, I'm going to, I'm going to actually continue on that thought about innovation, because I think it ties into some of the service and tech and the valuable profitability stuff. I've had a lot of conversations on this podcast about what innovation means in this industry, and how everybody says we're innovative, and then you ask them the questions, and it's like, well, doesn't sound like you're doing anything innovative, and you're kind of just doing what somebody else is doing. And I've actually gotten into some really good, creative discussion on people who disagree with me on that. But for me, innovation is what Spotify did in that example. It's a it's a culture and a community around let's have good ideas that that we we try and we know, okay, are we failing early, like you mentioned earlier, or are we, is this something that we're going to go with? And I think what we're seeing, what I see a lot of times, is we say we're innovative, but we're pressing pause way too early on good ideas. And there's a lot of No, but no, but no, but rather than yes, and in this space. And I think that the more innovative you can be at the human level, not the technology level, but at the human level to start, the more successful you're going to be in providing that that value and reaching that profitability. Because you're going to come with ideas that are out of the box. You're going to try new ways to do things that we've done for the last 30 years. And I know that there are regulations and all of the things that we have to adhere to, but there's also within those guardrails and those processes, the people that are the most experienced, the people that are willing to take a little bit of risk and try new things, I think those are the ones that are really going to win here, 2025 you know, over the next five years too. I don't know if you have. Any thoughts on that, but I get fired up about that topic, yeah. I completely agree. I think, I think that there's a temptation that when people say innovative, they immediately just think, tech, yeah, we've gone back to this tender thing again. And I think like, let's just chuck some tech at it. Yeah. And actually, it's like, the pretty boring, simple ideas, like the wrapped which kind of boring and simple is what it started out. And look at it now. Everyone loves it. December. That's probably one of the most talked talks about things on social media, right? And so it's amazing how that grows. And I think probably it's like when it goes back to all the stuff we're talking about, rather than me saying, Yeah, we're innovative, innovative, and we do this, and we use AI. I mean, think, I think probably let me give you an example of that. So it often starts with a small idea. And for example, we work in clinical study reports, and these paid these can be hundreds, sometimes 1000s of pages long, and we always have a common resolution meeting, which is exactly what you think it is we resolve the comments in the document. Now the fastest, most efficient way to do that is what something that we do, which is we just have the medical writer before the call identify the quest comments that they need to go through, but as a comment in that CRM, and just use Control F and just go CRM and go down each one. And so we can efficiently go through and do that call in an hour and a half and just solve the things that matters. Because once you have the CMO, the CDO, like Chief Development Officer, all on one call, and bear in mind, these are super busy people, and they might not even get a chance to speak to each other that much. Yeah, they'll see comments or sections of a document, and they'll start going off on tangents, and so we have to keep really objective and concise with what we want to focus on. And that's an example of how we do that. And that sounds like such a simple idea, but it saves so much time. And now we're taking that to the next level and looking about how we can use AI to actually extract the comments from Word and then use copilot, the Microsoft copilot system, to put them into categories and then put them into sections. So therefore we can then just focus on, oh, here's some pharmacokinetic data related questions all together. And so that starts with a small idea of something just to save a bit of time, and has now evolved into this plan that we're going to roll out in 2025 where we can think, Hey, everyone, these are all the comments. This is everything we want to go through on this call. Please look at it, and if you need to have a chat before and turning with each other get it done, don't use our call to do it. And I think that's probably an example of that, and I think it makes it a big difference. And it's so easy to just say, Yeah, we use AI. But there's a real example that came from a pretty simple, basic control F well, and it's not sexy. That's what you know, right? Like that is that that is something that will get overlooked, but when it comes down to it, the efficiencies the scale that you can have there at the end of the day, the AI is making your life and the team's life and your client's life easier, but you still have to have that expertise in order to answer those questions and to resolve those problems, right? Resolve those comments. And so the hard part is, is that it's not sleek, right? And that doesn't sell, but that's, that's the type of innovation where, okay, we used to do a thing and it took us six to eight hours. Now we're doing a thing and it's taking us 30 to 90 minutes, and we're getting the same result, or whatever it might be. And so I love that I told you that we were going to go anywhere between 30 and 55 minutes, and we are at 55 minutes, which means I had too much fun. I already know that whatever topic we would want to talk about on a future episode, we could kind of just want to ask, you know, do you have any final thoughts, final takeaways for the listeners here, you know, might pull this out, put it on social. It could be about anything we talked about today. Could be about more of the health could be about what you're looking forward to in in 2025 you know, I'll link your your LinkedIn, and so people will be able to find you, but anything on your mind? Yeah, I think it's probably worth pulling it back to and I know we went on so many different tangents here, which is good sign. I think it's a sign that we should do this again. But back to that value point what we were talking about. And I think that for any business, I think the fastest way to find that out and understand how you can actually focus on that is have a project manager join a capabilities call with a client and identify if you are practicing what you preach. So is a project manager on that call hearing what a salesperson is telling this client and thinking, yeah, we can do that. Timelines, he or she has said, we can do I have the team that I can be able to deliver that, and I'm not going to kill myself or my team while doing that. And if you don't, then I think you have a culture problem of the value that you're selling versus what you're delivering. And I think that that's really important. And there's a whole episode right there. I'm going to pull that out. I might post that one today. Check it out on my on my LinkedIn. This will be a couple of weeks from now that this will air, but that's so good. I'm not you know, you think about that as a way to set expectations and have consistency in each of those touch points. Phil, this has been fantastic. 30th episode of The SCORR cast. I'm honored and so appreciative for you spending an hour with me today. I think everybody is going to get a lot out of this, and I can already picture in my mind that a couple of months from now, here in 2025 we'll be recording another episode, maybe for the 40th or 50th episode of The SCORR cast. So thank you so much for taking time out of your day and sharing your knowledge, wisdom and experience with us. Yeah, it was a pleasure. I wondered whether we were going to even meet the 20 minute mark, but clearly we've hit the 5055 which is fantastic. Yeah, that sounds about right. I think from here on out, maybe I'll schedule 90 minutes Next time, so that way we have a little buffer for you, and, you know, for everyone listening. You know, 30 episodes I'm going to have Phil listen to this, but 30 episodes was never in our in our plans when we launched this in June. So thank you to everybody that has listened as you continue to listen. If you have topics ideas, if you're listening and you're hearing Phil and he had a great idea, and you want more from that, you know, leave a comment on this episode. Send one of the two of us a note on our linkedins, and we'll make sure that we produce content for it. But it's just been a fantastic year, and I'm looking forward to all of the guests. We already have 10 episodes lined up in 2025 and I'm really looking forward to what we can continue to talk about in the next year. So thank you so much and have a great day. As always. Thank you for tuning in to this episode of The SCORR cast, brought to you by SCORR Marketing. We appreciate your time and hope you found this discussion insightful. Don't forget to subscribe and join us for our next episode. Until then, remember, marketing is supposed to be fun.