Nick says he mandated “10 people a day” to reach out to, because 200 outreaches a month can move pipeline.
1. Life Science Marketing Radio frames this episode around cold emails and business development in life science marketing.
2. Chris Conner hosts and Nick Clare, co-founder of Succession and co-host of SalesDNA, brings the sales perspective.
3. The core question is how scientists, BD teams, and salespeople can stop worrying about cold outreach and get meetings.
4. Clare says he “fell into sales” through “fear and desperation” after redundancy while his wife was 14 weeks pregnant with their third child.
5. At an interview with a CEO and a CBO, Clare was offered two jobs: field application scientist or run the lab.
6. Clare says asking about salary in that interview pushed the CBO to say, “He’s mine. He’s with me.”
7. He says the first six months in sales were spent looking for another job because “my ego was bruised.”
8. Clare now says he “love[s] what I’m doing” and teaches sales for a living.
9. He contrasts lab work with sales by comparing research to “investigating the Mariana Trench” and sales to seeing the horizon from a boat.
10. Clare says business development in the UK often gets called “BD director” even when the role is really sales.
11. His definition separates sales as selling an existing “widget” or service from BD as finding partners to develop something new.
12. He says CRO roles sit in a gray area because they sell productized services while building partnerships and trust.
13. Clare argues salespeople track pipeline and “shots on goal” better than many BD teams.
14. He says BD often relies on network without building enough process around funnel generation.
15. Clare uses Succession as an example of helping companies generate pipeline when they want to license therapeutics outward.
16. He says many therapeutic companies have one or two BD people but lack the sales-ops and revenue-generation support functions common in widget-selling companies.
17. On cold emails, Clare says people only remember messages that resonate and forget the rest.
18. He gives a working rule of thumb: the right person, the right channel, the right message, and the right time.
19. Clare recommends 10 targeted outreaches a day, about five minutes of research per person, and AI tools like Notebook LM for mind maps, summaries, and podcast-style learning.
20. This episode suits scientists moving into commercial roles and people doing BD or outbound prospecting.
21. This episode may be less useful for listeners who want technical science content rather than sales process.
