The AI Experiment | Alec & Google NotebookLM on Marketing and Business Development

In this experimental episode of the SCORRCAST, we handed the mic to AI. Using Google NotebookLM, we put Alec's original insights to the test — converting his content into a dynamic conversation between two AI voices. The topic? The challenge of aligning marketing and business development in the life sciences. With complex sales cycles, extended timelines, and siloed teams, discover why collaboration isn’t just a best practice — it’s a business imperative.

Transcript

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Hello folks, and welcome to another episode of the SCORR cast. This is the most interesting episode of the SCORR cast yet to date, because of the nature of the episode, we've had some incredible guests, and we've got a summer lined up of fantastic guests that I am so excited for, but I wanted to try out something completely different for this episode. And I wanted to try out the AI algorithms that I have been working with. You know, it's something that a lot of our clients within the life sciences space, especially as we start talking about lead generation content development, AI efficiency, AI at scale. Ai capabilities are all of the rage right now, and it is a talking point at every trade show you go to. It's questions in every salesman, how do you use AI, and what about this version and that version? Do you use Google, this, and Gemini that, and all of these different pieces of the puzzle. And I have been pretty adamant that AI is something that we should be utilizing to create efficiencies, but not to create content at scale, not to do outreach at scale, but instead to make our lives easier. And as I started to go through I've been combining all of my individual resources on marketing and business development teams working together. And that's a lot of LinkedIn posts. It is a couple of podcast episodes. It's a podcast appearance on the sales DNA podcast with the succession team and Harrison Wade, it is a lot of my ranting, and so over the last week, I have been uploading all of these into Google Gemini, just to start to kind of gage with how they would respond and how the platform would respond. They meaning the system right would respond to that content being fed in, and what other sources it would give me, what trends it might give me. And so then I took all of this and I went over to the platform for Google, LM, the Google's notebook LM, and started to play around with the idea of having a casual conversation about the sources that I have brought to the table, and what you are going to listen to, if you are going to listen to it, is that conversation between a AI generated man and an AI generated woman having a conversation about my content that I have uploaded, and in theory, it's a podcast that you are now listening to. But the way that Google's notebook, Google notebook, LM is, is talking about it is, this is just a different way for people to learn. You can take really complex, deep research capabilities. I'm I'm a big fan of Google Gemini and their deep research capabilities. You can take really, really complex reports and infrastructures and systems, and be able to put them within Google notebook, LM, and instead of having a 75 page report or 400 bullet points, you can actually just have it churn out this audio breaking down your exact sources. And I think it's super relevant, because, again, I'm never going to recommend to a client of ours, kind of my conversation that I'm having, I'm never going to recommend that you create content and distribute it only from Ai. However, you've got subject matter experts. If subject matter experts have written at length, scientific content, and they've done white white papers and posters and presentations and publications. Excuse me, what an unbelievable way to be able to boil that content down for your marketing team, into audio, into sound bites, into snippets that you could then pull from and utilize it's also going to make your life a lot easier. So I'm still on the fence this AI stuff. It is, it's really intense, guys, and I think that there's some fear from a lot of people, there's excitement from a lot of people. I think the right position, at least, I say that, but I'm going to say my position on this is, you have to do the testing. You cannot wait back and say, Oh, maybe that will work. Maybe it won't. I'll wait. We're going to be at the leading edge. We're going to be trying things. You know, this is a good example of messing around with the platform, seeing what works, seeing what doesn't, seeing what the capability is, and if it's worthwhile. I have not found it from a content writing perspective. I have not found it worthwhile. But this was an unbelievable way to compile dozens and dozens and dozens of LinkedIn posts, YouTube videos. CEOs and podcasts over the last year and a half to two years into a 16 minute conversation. And frankly, I was just excited to try it. It's interesting. I think that marketers and business development leaders who use AI for the betterment of how they can work, are going to be more successful. I think anybody that says, oh, AI will handle that, oh AI will handle that, oh, AI will handle that, I think they're wrong. I don't think AI can handle that in that way, but there are efficiencies that we can create and make us better at at at what we do. So I don't know if you listen to this and you're intrigued, reach out. Would love to have a conversation. This is a really interesting thought process on my end, and I wanted to try something. So thank you, as always, for listening to the SCORR cast. This episode is two, two AI generated characters having a conversation, and then we'll return next week, and we have a fun, fun, fun roster of guests slated for the month of June and July, and it's going to be a fantastic summer and fall of the. SCORRCAST. Have a great day. You. Welcome to the deep dive. If you're navigating the life science industry, you know it's not exactly simple. No, definitely not. We're talking incredibly long development timelines, complex sales cycles that can feel like they drag on forever, and decisions made not by one person, but, you know, by a whole committee of stakeholders right in that kind of environment, just guessing your way forward, that's simply not an option. It really isn't. And what the material you shared highlights is that a major obstacle preventing companies from achieving revenue success in this complex space is often a persistent disconnect, a real silo, sometimes even, well, a toxic relationship between marketing and business development teams. They should be this unified force, but often they're kind of working against each other, or at least not with each other, and that's precisely what we're unpacking in this deep dive. We've gone through the stack of sources, you provided articles, transcripts from experts in the field to extract the most critical the most critical insights, insights on why this alignment between marketing and business development isn't just, you know, nice to have. It's absolutely crucial in life sciences, and most importantly, how you can actually achieve it, right? Our mission today is to help you move from that place of guessing to growing by understanding what the experts say needs to happen. So we'll start by maybe clearly defining the problem based on your sources, yeah, the symptoms, you know, misalignment. Okay. Then we'll look at the foundational shifts required, how to build that crucial shared understanding, the engine of communication, marketing, strategic role, which is often underestimated, definitely how to measure success effectively together, and the absolute, non negotiable role leadership plays in making it all happen. Okay, let's jump right into the problem. Then the sources you shared are pretty candid. They are. They paint a picture of teams saying things like marketing claiming, oh, that's a sales thing, or sales deflecting with marketing handles that so I'm not sure. Yeah, the classic pass off. It gets even more concerning when you hear leadership admit I'm not sure who's in charge of that. Yeah, and that kind of siloed thinking, that lack of clarity, it doesn't just cause frustration. It directly impacts the bottom line. Absolutely, it leads to those really painful conversations, what the hell do you mean? We missed our goals? Where are all the leads? Or the leads were junk, exactly, and the material makes a really important point, specific to Life Sciences. Success here isn't usually achieved by just doing more, right? More isn't always better. It's not about blindly adding more sales reps, blasting out more generic emails, or attending every single trade show under the sun. No what the sources stress is that it's about doing the right things. It's about precision, targeting the right prospects with the right message at the right time, and if your marketing and business development teams are operating in separate worlds, if they don't truly understand each other's objectives and challenges, they simply aren't equipped to execute with that level of precision, the division prevents the kind of coordinated effort needed to produce those right results consistently. So how do we bridge this gap? How do we fix it? A core, perhaps even radical concept highlighted in the sources is that revenue generation is fundamentally a team sport, team game. It's not marketing and business development functioning independently, it's sales and marketing all caps. Right? Exactly that phrasing in the sources really underscores the absolute necessity of this joint effort. Like there. Join at the hip, and the very first step towards achieving this level of integration, according to the material, is gaining absolute clarity on what the combined team is trying to accomplish. Okay, where do you start? Oh, it starts at the top with clear business goals and a single overall revenue target. And here's where one of the most powerful insights from your sources comes into play, and it might be a well, a game changer for many organizations listening true alignment, they argue, requires setting a shared revenue number one number that both marketing and business development are mutually responsible for, not separate goals. Exactly when marketing is chasing a lead number and sales is chasing revenue, it almost guarantees friction. It leads straight to the classic shitty leads argument we mentioned right separate goals inherently create conflict. It's almost designed for conflict, but when both teams own the same revenue outcome, it forces them to collaborate to figure out together what needs to happen across the entire commercial pipeline, from first touch to close deal to hit that number makes sense. The sources note that making this fundamental shift often requires leadership to step in and explicitly mandate this shared responsibility. So pop down often, yes, even if it means restructuring compensation or how goals are measured, it can be a big change. Okay, so once you have that crucial shared goal. How do you actually build this sort of operational bridge between the teams? It starts with building a shared understanding of who you're trying to reach and how they buy the customer exactly. A critical step is collaboratively defining your target audience. Both marketing and business development. Must have the exact same viewpoint on who your ideal client profile your ICP is. And the sources are quite blunt here, aren't they? Yeah, they say having a narrowly defined ICP isn't optional. They even suggest a lack of one is basically a leadership failure. Wow. It forces you to ask the question about your own organization. Do your sales and marketing teams even agree on your top 10 or even your top 50 target companies? And the stat they mentioned is pretty shocking. It is the material you share points out that sometimes the overlap on these lists can be as low as what 4% 4% just think about the wasted effort that represents. It's unbelievable. It really is. So once you agree on who that ideal client is, the next necessary step is collaboratively mapping out the buyer's journey. Okay, you need to detail every single step and potential touch point, from what a potential client first becomes aware of you through their evaluation process to becoming a signed customer, and hopefully you know a repeat client, the whole life cycle, the whole thing and throughout that journey, both teams absolutely must speak the same language, common definitions, yes, crystal clear, mutually agreed upon definitions for stages in the pipeline, things like what constitutes a marketing qualified lead MQL versus a sales qualified lead SQL. Explain those quickly, sure. So an MQL might be someone marnoine believes, based on their engagement, is ready for sales contact. But in SQL is someone sales has actually spoken to, further vetted and deemed a viable, real opportunity. Got it when these definitions are fuzzy or teams disagree on them, handoffs fail, leads fall through the cracks. It's a mess. Okay? So to move from that frustrating guessing game to consistent growth, the sources also strongly suggest analyzing historical data, digging into the past, specifically focusing on the sales cycle for your top 10 or top 20 best clients. Forget the overall average for a moment. Dig into the clients who represent the most valuable revenue or strategic partnerships, yeah, because the insights you get from this exercise can be incredibly telling, really revealing how so well the sales cycle for your most valuable clients might be surprisingly different, maybe significantly faster, or actually slower than your overall average. Ah, okay, understanding this nuance helps both teams set more realistic projections and expectations. It ensures they're aligned on the actual path to converting those most valuable opportunities, not just some vague average right, aligning expectations based on reality. So okay, you've got shared goals, a unified view of the audience, a mapped journey, common language. What keeps all this running day to day? Communication and transparency. This is where the material emphasizes. Alignment often breaks down, right? The ongoing part Exactly. It's not enough to have a big planning meeting once a year and then just hope for the best doesn't work. No disciplined, ongoing conversation is absolutely essential. This means establishing regular, purpose built meeting cadences between the teams, like weekly, monthly could be weekly, could be monthly. Really depends on your specific needs. But the key is these meetings should be distinct from standard performance reviews. They should focus on strategic alignment, sharing insights, solving problems together and providing feedback. Can you give an example? Yeah, one practical example highlighted in the sources is implementing a regular wins meeting, a wins meeting, yeah. This is where sales reps Share. Share what's working for them right now on the front lines, what specific product lines are resonating, which customer types even down to which email messages or slides are landing effectively. Ah, real time feedback, exactly. Marketing hears these first hand insights directly from the source, and can immediately use that information to create highly relevant content or refine their strategy. It closed the loop. That makes a lot of sense, and that feedback loop isn't just like helpful the sources describe sales providing feedback to marketing on lead quality, the outcomes of meetings set by marketing or the success of trade show interactions as table stakes. Table stakes meaning, meaning it's the basic requirement. It's a non negotiable part of the process for modern commercial teams, you just have to do it. Got it absolutely and transparency goes hand in hand with that communication, right? Totally being open about what each team is working on, sharing insights, clearly communicating the overall business strategy. It all helps build trust and makes things smoother, yeah, it makes both teams more agile and effective, because they understand the bigger picture and how their specific efforts contribute to it. No more working in the dark. Okay, let's shift gears slightly and talk specifically about marketing, strategic contribution, because the sources really challenge an older, maybe outdated perspective. They do, yeah, they firmly Position Marketing not as just an expense line item or some kind of afterthought, right? Not just brochures and trade show booths. Exactly. It's positioned as a critical investment, an investment in the business, in the science you're developing and in the people you're trying to reach and help. And the implication is the material suggests that in today's landscape, especially looking ahead to 2025 not investing strategically in marketing is essentially setting your sales team up for failure. That's a strong statement. It is. But think about it, if marketing isn't effective, you end up with poor value proposition. Education in the market, people don't know what you do or why it matters, and you get insufficient brand awareness if potential clients don't understand the problems you solve or even know who you are. Yeah, your sales team is fighting an uphill battle from the very start, every conversation is harder. Makes sense. The sources also delve into different types of marketing strategies, don't they, and point out a common imbalance. Yes, they do. There's audience first, content and storytelling like what think deep white papers on research webinars exploring new scientific techniques, educational blog posts. This stuff is crucial for generating demand, okay, and educating that large percentage of your target audience, potentially 97% one source of jets who aren't ready to buy today, but might be in six months a year, two years, building the future pipeline precisely. And then there's performance marketing. What's that? Things like paid search ads targeting specific keywords for someone closer to making a purchase decision, maybe LinkedIn ads targeting specific job titles. It's about capturing existing demand from people actively looking then the imbalance, the imbalance they highlight, is that many companies allocate way too much budget to performance marketing, capturing demand, and not nearly enough to the audience first demand, generation efforts over time, so they starve the top of the funnel Exactly. They focus only on people ready to buy now, and neglect building awareness and trust with a much larger group who will be buyers later. It's also crucial, the sources say, to ensure both marketing content and sales outreach, use specific details anecdotes and focus on delivering real value. Absolutely. As one source plainly puts it, people don't actually hate prospecting. They hate shitty, unpersonalized, irrelevant outreach, right? Nobody likes getting generic spam, no. But if you send a truly valuable message, maybe based on insights marketing uncovered about a specific challenge that addresses a particular problem someone is likely facing, they are far more likely to engage positively. It shows you've done your homework and you actually understand their world. Connecting this back to measurement, then the sources reiterate that for costly activities, especially things like trade shows, both marketing and business development need to define success before the execution begins. Yes, you can't hold teams accountable for ROI if you haven't clearly articulated together what success looks like upfront. What are we trying to achieve here and with those long life science sales cycles, we keep mentioning measurement needs to be smarter than just counting closed deals in the immediate aftermath, right? Definitely. You need to focus on shorter term, meaningful indicators that are aligned with that buyer's journey. We talked about mapping, such as, did you engage the right companies and target personas from your shared ICP list. Did meaningful conversations actually happen? Did those interactions lead to qualified opportunities, sequels, or even just movement further down the mapped buyer's journey? So tracking progress, not just the final sale immediately, exactly, these are the metrics that truly indicate progress. And momentum in the short term, which is vital when a deal might take 18 months to close, and attribution. How does that fit in? Attribution is important, but the sources suggest it should be used strategically to understand where your best clients are coming from across the entire customer journey, not as a weapon, exactly, not as a tool for teams to point fingers or fight over who gets credit for a specific deal. It should inform strategy, not fuel internal conflict. Okay, so ultimately, all of this circles back to the core idea. From your sources, success comes from focusing on doing the right things, the right message, targeting the right individuals at the right companies, using the right channels at the right time, all enabled by that deep alignment we've been discussing right rather than just trying to do more random activities in silos. That's the path to efficiency and ultimately, effectiveness. And while every individual contributor on both the marketing and business development teams plays a vital role in making this work, yeah, everyone has a part to play, the material you shared makes it unequivocally clear that the ultimate responsibility for establishing and maintaining this crucial alignment, for breaking down those detrimental silos and for fostering a genuinely collaborative, positive relationship, it starts and ends with leadership. No question, leaders must calmly and consistently demand clarity on goals. They need to ensure that shared responsibility for revenue outcomes we talked about, set the standard, set the standard for disciplined communication and feedback, and actively educate their teams on the shared vision and strategy. Alignment doesn't happen by accident. It must be intentionally led from the top. So there you have it, the central, undeniable message emerging from the sources you provided is that revenue success in the complex world of Life Sciences is absolutely and fundamentally a team game. It really is achieving. It requires marketing and business development to be deeply integrated and aligned, working towards shared goals with crystal clear roles, common language and that open discipline communication as a single sales and marketing unit. Well put so given the long sales cycles and the inherent complexity we discussed right at the top, here is a final provocative thought for you, the listener, to consider building on the material you shared. Okay, if your marketing and business development teams aren't already deeply integrated and aligned today. What is the realistic timeline before you start to see a significant, potentially irreversible negative impact on your revenue pipeline and maybe more importantly, how much longer can your organization realistically afford to wait before making this change? Definitely something to mull over. Thanks for joining us for this deep dive into your sources. 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.