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.

Transcript

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Hello Hello everyone, and welcome back to another episode of the SCORR cast. I am very excited for today's episode, and I'm not just saying that because Heather SCORR and I have rescheduled this recording maybe five or six times now over the last couple of months, dating back to early June, when we were getting prepared for the bio international conference, and we just suddenly kept bumping into, you know, wrong calendar mix up. So I'm not just saying it because of that. I'm saying it because I know that Heather and I are about to get into a very heated discussion about sales and marketing, where we are maybe gassing each other up a little bit about the trends within business development and sales and how that intertwines with marketing within the industry, and certainly excited to focus today within the cdmo space, within cell and gene therapy space, which is where Heather has an area of expertise. And as always, at the SCORR cast, we are just trying to cover all things life science, life science, marketing strategies, business development, commercial and everything in between. So Heather, thank you so much for making it work and sharing your insights and expertise on the SCORR cast. I know this is a long time coming, but before I start running and asking questions, I'd love just to have you give a little introduction to yourself for those who maybe aren't familiar with you. Thank you, Alec, I completely agree. Long Last here we are. It's a pleasure to be here. I've been excited about this over and over again, and now here we are. So thank you. Thank you for that. Thank you for the invitation, because I was very excited to get that as well. So a little bit about myself. You know, I have been in the drug development space the whole of my career. I've been in the cdmo space since about 2008 that's when I moved into the service side of the industry. So I've seen a lot during that time. I would say that my, you know, longest in the company that I really learned quite a bit around was at paytheon. I was at paytheon for nearly six years. I was there during a time when they were really going through a big changes and growing into, you know, really embracing paythe on one source, this whole end to end approach, where we all know that everybody says it now, and that's, you know, one of the things that's out there. But paytheon, I think, was the early trailblazer in doing that and re engaging, not necessarily the first time, but in a way that they really were able to move it in a positive way that was receptive from a developer's perspective. And that's all about, you know, building breaking down the bridges of communication, or building up the bridges, breaking down the walls, if you will, to make sure that there's communication understanding about how the whole process works. So I took, you know, all of that knowledge, and I sort of went from there. And you know, when I actually became partnered with SCORR, which I think very highly of you guys as a marketing group, but partnered with you when I went to regrow, and took all of that knowledge and was able to really engage there and help build their cdmo foundation that allowed them to become what's today. Have been biosciences, but, you know, as I progressed through covid, hit kind of impacted everybody. But you know, I've just continued to stay in this space, because I'm very passionate about the patient side of what we do. From a drug development perspective, I pivoted into cell and gene for that reason, also because I really 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 young science. It's emerging. There's a lot yet to be discovered there. And so there's a lot of issues that have sort of developed as you look at the service industry, and then being able to drive that passion for that reason, right, trying to bring in best practices, good approaches. How do we really bounce build foundational processes that allow scalability in a positive way when these, you know, communication within the system is so important, and that's really what's driven me over these past, you know, three, four years. And what I'm doing now with Chrysalys is trying to, you know, get that, get that messaging out there on a positive way. So, so that's kind of a bit about where I've gotten here today, and my passion and what I'm focusing on now. I love it, and I think one of the reasons I was so excited about this recording was the mutual passion for all things, not only on the marketing and strategy and business development and operation side, but also the impact that can be had within the industry and that end user, for the patient. And I think, you know, for whatever reason, every episode of this, this podcast, somehow, some way, we come back to what has kept you in this industry. And certainly, you could take your talents after the covid 19 pandemic, and then the interesting market that we are in right now, in 2025 you know, you could take your talents outside of the industry. Industry and go do the the work that you can do in a lot of other industries. But I think for a lot of us, it's it's now about the impact that can be made, and especially when we talk about the the end user, for the patient, before I get into that and other questions, talk a little bit about Chrysalys here. I know, you know, I've shared a couple of posts that I ended up having to send your website to, just because I think the way that you're speaking out about things, but give us a little background about what you're trying to achieve and what you're doing there. Yeah. So the inception was really about a year ago, right? It always takes time to grow, but Chrysalys name was born this early this year, in January, and then I officially really launched Christmas in March, but the whole concept behind it is really taking all of my knowledge that I've grown and experienced and have built upon over these past, I'd say, dozen years, in the cdmo space, and building that and bringing it into kind of a best practice approach across all aspects. Because one of the things I've learned in the cdmo space and being a sales leader, which is really my history in this space, is leading sales teams. But when you come in to sell a service, not a product, a service, it's very different, right? And you have to have belief, understanding, appreciation for what's happening from a scientific operational perspective to be able to sell that to somebody who needs to have a good connection with that company to be successful. So it's a different type of communication and collaboration, and that's something that's against always driven me, and has always driven me to then take on what I'll say, air quotes, extracurricular activities where I know how to sell. I can build prospecting processes. I can bring in the right tools. I can build out a CRM. I can help establish systems on what's the best way to manage an RFP to proposal. But when you really get down to it, it's about the collaboration process of how you work as a whole, as its entirety, to be able to deliver and so what Chrysalys is, is the all of those different pieces, whether it be BD or cost structures or cultural cross collaborations or best business practice from a business operational perspective, it's bringing all those pieces in to help transform into a scalable, capable cdmo for success, right? So that's really where it all came from, and Chrysalys being transformational into a butterfly. You know, I would say that crystals is still trying to find its wings. It's getting there. You know, I've created. What would Heather do? Which are my Tuesdays and Thursday? You know, Tuesday truth and Thursday tactics. And that's all about just trying to get an understanding about what some of the troubles are out there, to resonate with people who say, Yeah, I understand that. And then Thursday being okay, what can you do? You know, simple things 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 to sort of drive and put it out into into the market. I love it. Well, I think it's also a really good segue into our first line of questioning, which, you know, I always joke that I'm allowed to ask one bad podcast question each episode, and I'm not going to use it for the first question, but I want to put a caveat out there that I understand that this concept and even everything that you just walked through can be difficult to sell internally, because What I hear when I talk about synergies and silos between operations and sales and marketing is, yeah, we agree, but what are we going to do about it? And I think it's a really interesting topic in the market right now, because when you do work together with marketing and sales, it feels like you are light years beyond what other companies are doing, but on the trade show floor at bio, I still heard one of the main talking points and pain points for marketing teams especially, is we don't have a relationship between marketing and sales. We don't have a continuity at all. We don't have a one true north of what we're trying to achieve, we don't work together on a consistent basis. And so I'm curious, just with your experience in terms of revamping sales programs and certainly working some of the work with regrow and seeing through marketing elements, branding and storytelling and how that plays into sales, what are some of those foundational elements that you would be looking for within this space to make sure that we have an effective strategy to unite sales and marketing and make sure that we are playing on the same team. We're playing for the same goal of revenue being a team game here at the organizational level. So excellent, excellent question and tee up, and actually, this week's Heather's what would Heather do? Thursday, Tuesday. Thursday is about addressing the lipstick on the pig, which is about, you know, how do you put your marketing out there to tell the real story, versus putting somebody out there that really doesn't represent yourself? And so, you know, when I look at organizations, it's, it's amazing how these things often are missing. And. And one of them is just really, what do we do, right? Like, what is our ideal client profile? ICP is so important. It's the number one thing that you have to do to get out there, right? And where does that form? Well, it forms with your internal understanding about, what are my equipment? What do I do? Who are my scientific subject matter experts? Where are their levels of expertise? And how can I promote that and understanding that to define, okay, how do I then bring that from a VD perspective, and how do I go out and get those clients right? So your your ICP isn't only defining your capabilities, but it's also defining the client profile that you want to go towards, right? So yeah, they need to fit that capability, but we want them to be funded. They should have probably a robust pipeline, because we want to be able to partner with them long term. 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 of clients do I need to go after? And then how do you actually get that messaging out there, which it's the third leg of the process, which is marketing, right? And if you don't have that piece, and they're not part of that, and they don't have that visibility, they're going to market to the complete wrong focus and then the wrong part of the market. And so you're all going to be disconnected. And so it's, it's front of mind, and it's a proactive move. You can't just let it be, you know, develop organically, unfortunately, because, as you know, marketing often is the first part that gets slashed when you have to budget cut, even though I think it should be the last, because marketing, you know, is the megaphone for the capabilities to get out there in front of the right clients. And so it does have to be, you know, a thoughtful approach, and not just, you know, assume it's going to come together, but with, without the collaboration between those three pieces, you know, operational, business, development and marketing, to be able to build those pieces, then you're not going to be successful. It just won't move in the right direction. You're actively working against each other. And I think that there are times when I can seem harsh in this topic, because when you start to use that language of you're actively working against each other. It seems defeatist for some organizations. But I can't tell you how many conversations we have where I ask a prospect, you know, what's marketing responsible for? Or how does marketing support sales, or how do you engage at that level? And the answer is just, we don't know. We don't have that. We don't have that setup. And it becomes virtually impossible for SCORR to come in and be successful, because you're you'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 on the marketing team should be able to answer the questions about the ICP the same way that someone on the sales team should, because that's that's how we're going to create the right content. That's how we're going to understand the top of the funnel, the middle of the middle of the funnel, the bottom of the funnel. I think I am going to use my card to ask the tough podcast question, which is, in your experience, why in the industry, maybe in your experience and also just your opinion? Why in the industry do we complicate this as much as we do between those three functions of operations, business development, sales and then marketing? How come we do that? How come we make that so so difficult? There's a couple reasons. Tell me one, my first experience of this is that people don't know what they don't know, and so you have to be curious to ask the questions. When I first engaged with SCORR, my first question was, 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 gotta figure 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 was just that they, there was so much of not understanding, the the need, the impact, the you know, what can they do for us and 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 think the curiosity piece is really important for me. I'm a very curious person. I love that I don't get it, you ask the question, right? And that's how I started engaging with SCORR. And we, you know, I wanted to understand SEO. I wanted to understand, you know, what kind of publications are going to make sense, and how do we want to engage in that? I wanted to understand what is thought leadership really do to us? Oh, it's really getting out your differentiators, your capabilities, the the pain points you're addressing, pain points that clients are really having, those types of things. So I think, I think that first part is just not knowing what you don't know. And I think the other part marketing in particular, it's so hard to establish ROI right, as you know. And so when you put a bunch of money into a conference that you're going to be attending, and you spend a lot of money on the booth and on on all this different things, you know, it might be able to track, if you track it well, with your CRM, your appropriate marketing process, that you know, you can track that roi i through a Q. Campaign and your CRM and you track opportunities that are attached to that. A lot of people don't do that. And so there's a lot of unknown in what is my ROI when I'm doing something, when it comes to marketing, and they see it as the least impactful, because they can't point to if it's not being consciously tracked and appropriately tracked, they can't point to those things. And therefore we don't need any marketing. We can do it ourselves, you know. And I will one thing that just popped into my head, which I've been investigating a little bit lately, is too, is just the ability to get information out there, like on LinkedIn. I think AI shifting this a little bit as well, because people have the ability to maybe create types of marketing material that they think might be impact as impactful, but, but truly isn't right. So there's all these different things out there, and AI is its own topic, right? That there's, we'll see how that impacts all of our worlds. But you know, in particular here, I think it gives people higher level of capability that maybe they didn't have previously. And so, you know, I think that's throwing in a little bit of a curveball for you folks in particular, right, on marketing. But anyway, I think those are the main pieces, though, right? Are just like not knowing what they don't know, and then just that ROI piece is just so difficult. Yeah, I Well, I love the angle of curiosity and being able to ask the right questions. And your example of working with SCORR, I think is a perfect one of how an agency can come in and support at that level. And I think it's taking that same model and just building it internally. You know, we have a lot of commercial leaders who are listening to this podcast that will ask that question of, how do I how do I really get my marketing leader and my sales leader to to work on the same page? And I think that a lot of it is just start by having conversations, meet on a weekly or a bi weekly basis, and engage at that level and be curious. I think that, you know, I think I got asked on an episode a couple of weeks ago, you know, what's a big trend that I see being successful within marketing and business development, and I think everyone expects the answer to be, you know, AI and whatever it is. And I think it really, what comes down to me is the best salespeople are becoming better marketers, and the best marketers are becoming better salespeople, and the more that that skill set is intertwined, the the more successful the teams are going to be overall. And I think that, you know, we had the episode that actually aired today of the SCORR cast was with the Chief Commercial Officer of a organization called a Lumix, Derek Gooderham, and he has been with that organization for the last three years. Talked about their sales setup and how sales and marketing report to the same team. They report on the same number. They all have similar commission structure. And mark like it was very interesting hearing how drastically he positions that team internally in comparison to what we see when there are silos and massive disc disconnect. And so, you know, it's it is possible, it is just something that you have to work at and be curious at and understand, you know, what role each individual is playing inside the organization, too, and it just has to be intentional too, right? I mean, I think that's fabulous, what he's put together. And, you know, I go back to my paytheon days, where every time we would go through an acquisition, you know, first I would engage with the company we were acquiring. To say, Okay, you're not going to get swooped in by everybody. To, you know, be overwhelmed by big patheon when you've been the small company, but would engage with them. To, you know, introduce my team. Understand why my team was the most important team to collaborate with. We'd always try to put us in there, but we would just to show that there is okay. We an understanding. And then what is it that you do? Train us, help us understand who to get in front of. But then would take marketing out like we I took marketing out in the field all the time. I always say doors always open if you want to come in and get in front of a client and ask questions specifically, because that's who they're marketing to, and if they don't have access to those people to understand, what are their real pain points, or what is it that they're really looking for, or Intel into, what are some scientific, you know, areas that you don't quite have the support for yet. So, you know, bringing that back information, back into the company as a whole, from an operational standpoint, to your CEO, what are, what are different, you know, areas of the market that we might want to get into? Yeah, it's collaboration on its, you know, at its best, right? And so you can't do it unless you create that environment. Yeah, I love it. I think that, I think that we've kind of set the table now for the relationship between the teams. And I think one of the things that you've talked about in in recent posts on on LinkedIn, is on actionable and functional leads. And we talked about stagnant pipelines. We talked about being able to fill top of funnel, bottom of funnel, just knowing where your potential buyers are in the buyer's journey as well, is, is so important. And so I'm curious, you know, and this is, this is not, this is a vague question, to a degree, just in terms of best practices or practical steps. But what can cdmos, what can organizations take to ensure that they are able to generate those, those viable opportunities? And I think there's that big difference between, you know, a marketing point. Qualified lead or a prospect, and this is somebody that has the right amount of budget, they have a project, they have timeline. We're talking to the right decision makers. And this is a really genuine sales qualified opportunity. What can we be doing from a from a practical standpoint, an action item standpoint, to ensure that this is happening? Oh, so that's good you were going. I thought you going in one direction, or going in that direction, so if you have an actionable lead, right? And so going back to that first question, it's amazing how many companies I've engaged with where 80% of their pipeline is BS, if you will, yeah, right, where you know they don't have the right because they haven't built out their ICP, their understanding, their marketing, all of that, right? If you follow those rules, you will have a robust, healthy pipeline. If you don't, you won't, right? So okay, so let's pretend now we have this healthy pipeline. You know, I think there's a couple things that help that a get there, right? One is all the things we talked about. I think two, two things important to highlight in being able to make sure that that stays that way. One is instilling a go, no go process in RFP generation, right? So if an RFP comes in, you don't just right away hop into generating a proposal. You have internal collaborations to understand, does this fit our ICP, the guardrails that we put in place, the you know, the right fit and operational you know, guidelines, if there are gaps, are they small enough that we could actually fill it and still make this be deliverable to the client and meet their expectations? If you don't have that dialog, you're just going to be bringing in RFPs, you're going to be generating proposals that go into a defunct pipeline, right? So that's one thing, and one piece that I don't know a lot of people do, and it's really important to make sure you're vetting the right opportunities, and then the second one is just to create this feedback loop, right? You need to have that feedback loop on prop on opportunities that maybe are no go. Well, why? Right? What were the gaps? And if we see that gap enough, well, maybe that's something that we really need to build from a capabilities perspective, because it's missing in the market space, right? If we win a project, why did we win? What were the things that were really important to the client about that? Was it our subject matter expert capability? Was it because we brought project management into the dialog early on so they truly understood our project when we transferred in? Was it because they really liked the way we managed their site visit, whatever that case may be, right? What is it that you know, why did you come with us? And then why did you lose that other part is really important too, right? Why is it that you lost? And it's funny to me, I find BD very hesitant to go back and talk to a client as to why we lost something. And I'm like, Look, you have this short term partnership or relationship with a client that you hope to be long term if you win the program, if you lose it. There's this level of just courtesy right to go back and have a conversation, and I want to understand. I want to get better. You know, what did we miss? Where did we miss? Was our proposal not robust enough? Do we not address your RFP the way we should have? Did we not have the right support internally? Like, what was it so those pieces, I think are important, which drives to an actionable, functionable lead, then you have to really treat it like what it is, is as it's a viable lead. It's going to fit your capabilities. You've done all the right things to get it there. Now it's just about winning. To win a program, it takes again, everybody, not just the BD. The BD is the in you have all these analogies, right? The quarterback, they're making the decision, they're they're bringing the right people to the table. But you might need your subject matter experts to get involved on different levels. It's always finding out what, what are we missing? Is there anything else that we haven't addressed yet? Or, you know, when these types of things come up through your collaboration and communication, what do I need to either put into or address, or another person coming to the table to have the right dialog with you. Client, Mr. And Mrs. Client, to, you know, get you comfortable, to to, you know, to come with us. So it's that, it's a closing process, if you will, that I think is really important. Matter of fact, I think I'm talking about that either next week or the week after on my what would Heather do? Because it's amazing how many companies don't have that. You assume, if an opportunity all of a sudden is 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, with your whole team, and not just the responsibility of the BD and getting that over the over the line must have been a good question, because that was a fantastic answer and worth the price of of admission, which is always free here at the SCORR cast but, but I feel like there are seven or eight different action items that people could take out of that. Specifically, I think there's the one big one that we recommend. SCORR actually does it for a lot of our clients as well. But that lost opportunity survey is so, so important. You know, getting vulnerable on the podcast right now, we recently lost an opportunity that I was pretty darn convinced. You know, it was a. Ours to win. We had joined the meetings, we had done the board stuff, we had done all of the things. And, you know, learning what made that decision, from the lost opportunity survey, and hearing how close it was. And it was just a matter of one tiny thing in one direction. You might do some of those and get absolutely nothing valuable. And then you do one of them, and you see an angle or a perspective that you otherwise would not have seen, and at the same time, to hype yourself up, do it with the clients that you win. Ask them, What was the difference maker? What was the deal breaker that made you choose our organization? I think that's something that every single company should be utilizing in some way, shape and form. And then I think that I'm taking your words a little bit here, so correct me if I'm wrong. But as some of the notes that I was jotting down is we have to understand where our best leads are coming from, what's making them our best leads, and then where they're actually at in that buyer's journey. If they're up at that 80% that's one, you know, that's that's one metric. But if they're at 80% but we're not talking to the end and decision maker or the end user, or somebody in that buyer's journey, we might never move past that 80% within the pipeline. And so really understanding where all of the leads are at in their own buyer's journey, and then understanding, you know, where, where they come from, I think, is such a subtle piece of of the lead funnel problem. And if I ask the question, you know, where do your leads come from? What makes your best leads? What makes your best clients? If we can't answer those questions, it's going to be really hard to be actionable from a pipeline perspective as well. 100% agree, and I'm going to throw one more piece into it, because, please, there's one other piece that matters in this whole process, is the timeline of a client. So clients engage early. The right ones do? Who understand that things take time to put in place, but the process is dependent on so many other critical variables, right the drug development, execution of something only happens when an API has been synthesized and purified and ready to be formulated, or the cell therapy has been addressed, understands, and you're looking for your client. Don't your your healthy donors. And until those healthy, healthy donors are identified, and you've got the right cells and you have everything, can you then start on your their on your formulation right or your drug development process and drug product process. And so there are so many other variables. So you may be engaging with somebody who absolutely 80% there's all the right buying signals. You are speaking to the right buyer. You are speaking to all the right with your coach. You're also speaking to the person who is the financial person and the decision maker. But their program isn't going to start. Where are we? End of July, early August, right? There's not going to start until January 15, yeah, so you can have an opportunity at 80% with all the right things, but you have to have your close date at the end of January, right? And then you have to communicate that. So I talk about, you know, this visibility and CRMs are so important to this that if you manage and operate a CRM appropriately. You can have all this detail from a pipeline standpoint, but you can have your operational so take a look at as well, because when your program comes in, you also want them to be prepared for it, and that might need mean that they need to hire another person, or they need to get ready for buying the reagents, or whatever that case may be. If you have that information incorrect and there's an assumption that this program is coming in next month. They may do all of this stuff prior to, you know, maybe communicating with you, which is probably what they should do to begin with, if there's a question, right? But if they don't, they're managing off of what's in this, in the CRM, so there's, there's a lot of pieces that have to go into it, but that, that management of your pipeline, it's not just about knowing are these actionable, functionable opportunities for us based on all the things that we've just done, but what's the reality of how then we'll be executed? And that's the other important part of it. And so, and I'm highlighting this because it often gets caught up in CEO expectations, C suite expectations, which then goes up to board, which then goes up to your equity group right, which are putting all these high expectations on you, you have to have an understanding of the realistic process to be able to then appreciate when it happens. Yeah, I that it's such an important piece of the puzzle that is so logistical that it often gets missed when you're having this conversation. And I think again, pipeline management is it's a skill, and you have to have a dedicated resource, or internally or externally to help support that because, because, if you don't, you will feel, you will, you will feel the pain at some point. I've, we've seen it all 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 and we've already been talking for 28 minutes, and I knew this episode was going to go by too fast, because you and I could pick one topic and just run but I have two other angles that I want to talk about with you. And the first is, you know, you mentioned, you know, your your transition into the services side of the industry, you know, we talk about, you know, a dozen years within the cdmo space, specifically, obviously working through the covid 19 pandemic, and seeing the change there and then, what I loosely describe as a interesting and intriguing market to be alive in. In 2025 you have obviously a bit of been a part of this. What have you seen as the biggest shifts within sales and sales teams? Commercial teams, marketing teams? What have you seen the biggest shift from the last decade, and then, how do teams stay agile? I think that is a question that we get asked all the time in terms of, we can't make plans anymore, because covid showed that plans are BS. And I think the argument is, we can make plans. We just have to be able to adjust and adapt and change targets, and, you know, really be able to evolve on the fly. So an open ended, poor question, wording wise, on my side, but I'm curious, what are your thoughts when I talk about the change within sales and marketing, sales teams as a whole, over the last decade? And then how can we still be agile and have a plan and be able to evolve in a really chaotic time to be within the industry. So I think one of the bigger shifts that happened, kind of when I came into working in this industry, was that we went from what was a CMO to what was a cdmo, the D came into that whole equation, right? And I think early on, that really specified tactical coming into strategic, right? So I think that was kind of evolving when I sort of came into it, because I've always been in the cdmo space, yeah, but I think what that's done, and has continued to evolve in this past decade, is the need to bring in a lot of the pieces that we talk about from strategic, kind of from from strategic, from strategy, right? You need to have these pieces that we're talking about to be more of a strategic partner with your with your client. I think clients are becoming far more sophisticated in what their needs are. So when they're reaching out, they, and you might know this better from a marketing perspective, they have like 50% of an understanding about who you are before they've even gotten there, and I think that number is probably now increased over time, right? So if you're not putting out the right things out there, going back to our early conversation about understanding your ISP, getting marketing in to push the right information out, then you're missing the ability to be able to communicate with some of these people, because they're not even going to look at you right, right? So I think part of the the strategic shift is the fact that you are speaking now more from a partnering perspective. So you when you talk about partnering, you're also talking about culture, right? So they're looking for companies that have, you know, shared values, have transparency, have the ability to collaborate, because we all say it. And when I'm gonna, I'll go lump myself into it. We all say it, they all say it, you know, we're end to end. We can take care of you commercial, you know, development to commercial. You know, you we are the extension of your hands. We're going to collaborate. We're going to make sure you understand and know. But who actually, really does that, right? Who from that collaboration visibility, I think the follow through is, is, is low, right? As far as being able to really, you know, point to companies that actually fully do that. So I think some of that shift is the need for these things right, to be more open. And from a BD standpoint, when you're talking about it, need to understand how to communicate and engage in that way, right? So that you're letting companies know that you can do this. But then I think the other piece to that too is the the full scope of everybody being on board with that approach, so that when you sold something to somebody, you've got to be comfortable that you can execute against that based on what you've communicated, if you've got these disconnects, if you've got this lack of collaboration communication, just within your own organization, that will fall fall on it, that will fall on its face, right, as far as how you do that. So I feel like I'm a little bit of a broken record and kind of coming full circle on it too, right? But I think that the agility and peace, all of the stuff that you asked about earlier. I think what has involved over these past, like decade where it wasn't, maybe as important early on, it's becoming more and more because of the sophistication of the seat of the developer, because of the number of cdmos that are out there. Yeah, right. I think when you talk about selling gene in particular, and that's the story that I ride on, is. Fact that, you know, we went from what was 40 ish supporting cdmos to now, I'm sorry, supporting cell and Gene developers, to over 200 right? When you have that huge increase in cdmos who are specializing or getting into or don't understand, you know, with private equity coming into play now, who maybe doesn't understand that market their book, the bill process, the long sales cycle. You know, you have this need from a developer that is looking through, looking for these specific characteristics, even that much more, you know, the agility, the partnership, the the collaboration, the transparency, all of those things that they need in the support for their development of their program. Yeah, so it's trying to figure out how to sum that, or summarize that up. I think I went all over the map with that you did well. And I you said before the call that you were prepared to be a broken record and and then you call it out. But I think what I said before is, you know, in this space, I feel like we are saying the same thing time and time and time again, because we do over complicate it and being a broken record, you know, I think I say at least once an episode being I'm a broken record, but I'm a broken record for a reason, because you Don't need some solution that doesn't exist yet, that AI can come in and create. It really is the best practices that were created. If we can apply those in a simple manner, it can be just as effective as a lot of these other things. And I think to your point, you started going down this sea of sameness, the crowded market, and everybody saying very similar things end to end. I think I did think the SCORR team that was in Boston for bio, we ended up counting close to 35 companies that had either the exact same words on the trade show booth or damn near the exact same words on the trade show booth. And it's interesting, because when I asked about, you know, what has changed, you kind of hinted at like we have to have that message that gets us out there and and is supporting the brand, is supporting the sales team, supporting operations, and now it feels like there's almost a retreat where we want to be safer with some of our messaging. We want to fit in with some of our messaging. And my argument against that is you're not going to convince somebody to go outside of the top three in the industry by by trying to sound just like them, because they could choose one of those top three partners, and they won't get fired. They will do the same thing over and over again. So if you're really going to cut through the clutter, if you're really going to make a an impact, your message has to be unique to your your target audience. It has to actually stand out and tell them what you do, and it has to be a part of your sales strategy. I really believe that your message has to be a part of that sales strategy and positioning as well. I completely agree. And one other piece I'll actually throw in, and I can't remember if we touched 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 really hard, especially when you talk about cell and gene therapy. It's a young science. You know, there's still room for improvement there from an operational and a process standpoint, but until those things have been discovered and understood, you have to find your differentiator you have. And that's not an easy process. So it is about getting together with all the right people, which is really everybody at the table, Business Development, Operations, from everything from analytical to PD to QC to GMP to all of that, to your C suite to the marketing group. To really dive into, what is it that we can really differentiate ourselves with? And that doesn't necessarily have to be a science, right? It can be. We have this really awesome site visit process that we have white glove approach to how we bring clients on to our facility. We pick them up at the airport. We make sure that their dietary needs are in taken into consideration. We do pre run the day before so everybody knows where they need to be and when they need to be and what they need to say. That we're all aligned on our messaging. We all know what the client need is. We all know what their pain points are, so that we all can address it in unity and not have different messaging throughout the day. That process is not easy to synchronize and to create. So if you create something like that, that can be your differentiator. We treat our clients like they're our best friends, whatever, right? But, yeah, you have to find a differentiator to be able to have your messaging be different. And unless you do that, I'm a one stop shop. I'm end to end. You can do it all here, all in one, yeah, yeah. Well, I I love even you. Even your your process in terms of getting to that differentiator. I There's nothing worse than when that is just marketing's responsibility that that is that needs to have. I want to see when we create our big idea process. I want the the chief scientific officer. I want operations. I want the end user project manager, because that is what you consistently do. And I think to bring this all the way back to one of your initial points, is that has to have the voice of the customer in mind as well, because the experience, you know, the experience that you're walking through, you know, with the white glove service, I can't tell you how many times we've done that voice of customer, and compared it with the internal assessment. And the internal assessment is we provide the best customer service. Gosh, we are the best customer service. We're the best customer service. And then the voice of customer doesn't mention customer service one time. It's not that they're saying negative things about customer service, it's that it was at the bottom of the list they chose you because of the speed to market or the time you know that you invested at the very beginning, or the skill set that you have, or the technology you have, that's the message that we want to create around that differentiator. And I think creating that message in a silo, you know, I hate to say it, but it is the easiest way to to waste a ton of money in marketing, because that messaging is going to fall flat. The sales leads aren't going to come in. The BD team is going to be pissed off because the leads are all bad, and so on down the line. And so really incorporating that at the top level is is such an important piece of the puzzle? Yeah, totally agree. And how is marketing supposed to know what a differentiator is for a certain organization if they don't have access to any of the information to begin with? Yeah, right. I mean, it just, it just doesn't make sense. But I fully agree, and it has to be voice of client. It has to resonate, because you want to put the you want to have that discussion internally to understand, how can we help our client? What are their pain points, and what can we create? You know, from from a differentiation perspective, sometimes it needs to be created. It's not just uncovering it. You've got to create it. Yeah, I love it. Okay, we are, we are at the end of our time. But I want to ask, I'm listening to this. I'm a, I'm a commercial leader at an emerging cell and Gene organization. I or I'm a, I'm at a 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, that key takeaway, for lack of better terms, a fantastic social media sound bite here that give the opportunity here for what's kind of that, that initial step, or key takeaway action items that they need to take. So honestly, I think in this market and where we are today, it's just to slow down and assess what you have, where your gaps are. Be curious. Ask the questions. Don't assume that you know everything. Assume that there are things that I don't know, that I don't know, and who do I need to bring the table to help build that out. And then start from the bottom up, you know, I think you it's assessing, you know what, what your players are, what you have on the table in the moment, and understanding where the gaps are that you need to fill. And then starting from the ground up with ICP and understanding of your capabilities and creating a environment for your BDB to be successful, creating attainable targets, you know, creating territories that align in the right way with potential opportunity, give them tools to allow them to prospect. There's and it builds up from there, right? I can go on and on, but I think that the initial thing that I would say is just to slow down. I think our market is so fast right now, and there are so many things flying at us, with AI in particular being one of the largest, and you need to slow down and take in and understand everything that's there, and don't assume that you know everything and be curious. I had the idea that that was going to be a sound bite, and it worked out perfectly. I was not expecting you to go with slow down, but I have posted a fair amount on LinkedIn lately that our lack of patience is killing us and and it's killing the pipeline. It's killing marketers. It's killing the BD team like that, just the vibes and the energy that they have, the expectations of hiring a marketing leader, or hiring somebody on the BD team and saying, Hey, within six months, you need to turn things around, when our sales cycle average over the last three years is 10 months, or whatever it might be, and knowing that marketing and sales, as much as there are some tactics that you can do in quick turn fashion and generate some leads, and we go to this show where we run this campaign, it's a long term game. Brand awareness is a long term game sales and marketing is consistently providing Do at each of those touch points. And so I absolutely love that, that your answer, your final takeaway, was to slow things down a little bit and then to build the right way, because that's going to make you more successful in the long run. I, and I fully, I fully support that, because again, I think we move too fast based on the pressures 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 book to bill process. We're not going to get revenue a month later after we sign a program. So it's slowing down to understand your real market potential, so that you can communicate that with the right resources to the people that are pushing down on you, so that you have the room to be able to grow in a in a cadence that makes sense, that allows you to be successful. Because I have this image in my head of people, you know, starting out on a race right, and they're starting really in their their feet are kind of stumbling out from underneath them. That's been our market space for, like, the last seven years, of people just trying to catch up to whatever they're trying to get after without really understanding what do I need to slow down to make the my feet, you know, kind of get underneath me so that I can actually run faster? Yeah, I love that. You know, we're chasing a little too much, and it's the shiny, shiny object syndrome, okay? Unbelievable episode 4550 minutes of brilliance from Heather, which I knew was going to be the case if you are not following Heather on LinkedIn. Her LinkedIn will be linked inside the Spotify that you are listening us to our apple, or wherever you get your podcast, make sure you follow her, because every Tuesday, every Thursday, is that correct? Every Tuesday, every Thursday, Tuesday? Yeah. Fan, fantastic content coming out if you are within sales, marketing, or if you have any role within the commercial impact of an organization within the life sciences, definitely a must listen to this episode, as always, but definitely also a must follow for Heather on LinkedIn. With that being said, if you did listen to this and you want to get in touch with Heather and you can't find you know how to contact her, you can always reach out to me, and I will foster that introduction. But I'm certain Heather would love a LinkedIn message or two saying that you listen to this episode of the SCORR cast, and you know, you thought that she was brilliant. Because, again, I think that you we certainly feel that way after 50 minutes of listening to this episode, Heather, thank you. I can't believe we finally did it. You know, I know, two months later, and now I'm like, Okay, I'm already I did put into my notes before about 10 minutes ago, maybe a forward looking 2026, episode that we record before the end of the year, and maybe we only reschedule that one three 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. As always, thank you for checking out another episode of the SCORR cast. Be sure to leave us a five star review comments wherever you get your podcast and as always, have a great day. Thanks, Alec. You 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.