How to engage and connect with scientists at trade shows

Selling to a Scientist with an iPad’s Help – Rusty’s Story

Update: We have spent the last 6 months working in the field and observing Sales Reps using the iPad as a Sale Tool.

Our clients come from a variety of industries including Life Science, Medical, Food and Beverage, and Insurance. What have we learned? A lot!

To read about our observations check out these articles:

Selling to a Scientist with an iPad’s Help
Rusty Finally Sells to a Scientist

by Rusty Bishop

Last week I attended a BioTech Calendar vendor show in Los Angeles to visit two awesome life science sales representatives. For the last two months, they participated in the beta test program for our sales productivity app, FatStax for the iPad. They invited me to watch them in action.

My plan was to observe them in their job and to help them use the iPads and our app.

Guess again!

They ended up teaching me how to use FatStax, the app we created and developed. In the process, I got to sell a product to a scientist in person.

Two Reps – Two Styles.

(Names have been changed to protect the innocent)

When I arrived at the vendor show, I found Company X and Company Y’s booths were side-by-side. This gave me the perfect chance to observe both representatives selling their products to scientists. The two of them had been using our FatStax iPad app loaded with their respective product catalogs for the last few weeks.

It was instantly clear that both had developed a unique method for using the iPad to sell their products with FatStax.

The Attractor.

Sara set up her iPad display on the table, facing the customers. Her company’s logo filled the screen, instantly catching the scientists’ eyes. She asked them if they had one. Typically, they would ask her if the company was giving it away at the show, at which point she would say, “No, but I can use it to find products for research. What do you work on?”

This initiated a conversation and led to her looking up a specific product and showing it to the customer on the iPad. Frequently, the interested scientist asked for more information, which she emailed them from FatStax before they left the table.

My favorite moment of the day was when she looked back at me and said, “Did you see that one? He checked his email on his iPhone, and showed me the product email that I just sent. Too cool.”

Too cool indeed.

The Self-Seller.

Mary took a completely different approach. Her product catalog is much larger with around 5,000 SKUs, so there’s no way she could know everything she has for sale. Further, her company releases 5 – 10 new products per week.

Her tactic was to keep the iPad in her hand with the FatStax catalog open. Scientists approached the table and started leafing through brochures. Typically, she asked them what they worked on or if they were looking for specific reagents. Once they gave her that information, she handed them the iPad and showed them how to browse and search for products.

This browsing often led to the scientists discovering products that were useful for their research. One scientist enthusiastically jumped from product to product engaging the representative in a deep conversation about their application in his research project.

Many of them were emailing themselves product information – typing their contact information into the app’s email screen and tapping the send button.

I was floored. I never would have thought to simply hand the iPad to the buyer so they could search directly.

My turn.

Near the end of the day, I got chance to help with a customer. One of the reps was slammed with 5 customers at once and asked if I could jump in and help. I had her company’s product catalog on my iPad also, so I stepped up and asked a waiting scientist what she worked on.

She replied, “Immunology.” in heavily European accent.

I asked, “Are you looking for any particular reagent?”

She said, “No.” head down in a dry mono tone. Uh-oh, I was blowing it.

I asked, “What in particular do you do with Immunology?”

She said, “Cytokines.” in the same monotone.

So I typed “cytokine” into the FatStax search bar and handed her the iPad showing a list of the cytokine-related products. She didn’t even hesitate. She was tapping around, punching out to the website product page, asking questions about the app, about the products. I knew little about the products, but I am scientist, so together we found 2 products that she needed…

…and she emailed herself the information from my app. Just like I had seen all day.

After 10 months of writing incessantly about selling to scientists online, I finally got the chance to sell to a scientist face-to-face and scientist-to-scientist! I was stoked.

What I Learned.

The iPad can be a super-interactive business tool in the hands of an experienced field sales representative. It allows you to initiate a meaningful conversation and engage the customer in a discussion about their issues and quickly find the products that can help them.

It really is that simple.

(FatStax for iPad is currently available on the App Store. We developed this tool to help sales professionals in all industries access their product information at their fingertips to speed up the sales cycle and provide better customer service.)

Launching FatStax for iPad

Today is the culmination of about 4 months worth of work for us at Red Funnel. We launched a new iPad app for sales productivity called FatStax. It got approved last night and is sitting on the App Store. We are excited and think it can make a real difference for many sales teams.

Briefly, we created a service that puts company product information easily and quickly onto the iPad so that sales forces can find their products at a tap and then send product details to the buyer, without having to use the website or carry a laptop. There are full details at our new website, www.FatStax.com.

Why?

Frankly, we saw a need and an opportunity for us to create a product that would be useful to a lot of sales forces. When you have selling responsibility for lots of products, it’s not easy to keep track of what’s new, changed, or frankly, everything that is in your catalog. We see examples of potential buyers asking reps in this industry if they have a specific product and then the mad scramble to find it before they leave begins. Sales reps should have that information at their fingertips. At least that’s what we think.

As we talk to our friends and family about what we are doing, they constantly come up with new industries where FatStax can be useful. Even though we started in life sciences, we are learning about other markets where sales people need to have a better way of finding their own products and sending the information immediately to buyers.

Breakout

We’ve been pretty quiet about the project online primarily because we wanted to be sure it worked well (it does). But we have been sharing the app with individual reps for weeks. We have several beta testers that have been using it with some terrific feedback and ideas that made the final product even better.

The whole process of developing a business app for a relatively new mobile device has been rewarding and frustrating at the same time. We plan to write about our experiences in the coming weeks. We are keeping a running list of what we would do again and what we would try not to repeat.

What’s Next?

We enjoy working with clients on their business issues and particularly on their websites. We don’t intend to stop doing that. There is a huge sense of satisfaction when you contribute in helping another business succeed. We intend on continuing to write about issues in the life sciences market place, largely due to all the great feedback we have received.

We also think that mobile devices will radically change the way business and sales works. Having the most relevant information at your fingertips, in front of customers, has the potential for vastly increasing productivity and the value of a sales force. We have a passion for that and want to be a part of that change. Look for us to write about our experiences and thoughts about this industry, too.

If you have an iPad, download FatStax for free and use it with the sample database we included. Let us know what you think here or on the comments section on iTunes.

Update PDFs to your iPad using Dropbox without iTunes

by Rusty Bishop, PhD

I’ve been using the iPad for a little over a week now and, I must say this device is incredible. It is going to revolutionize the way you sell and market products. I plan on seeing a lot of you all using it in the near future.

One of the strengths of the iPad is the ability to interact directly with a potential client via the tablet interface.  For example, you might load brochures with key product information in PDF format onto the device prior to a large conference or sales run. Using the pad you can walk a potential client through your offering, or better yet; let them walk through themselves while “playing” with the pad.

This article details how we use Dropbox to quickly load files onto the iPad remotely in sales situation.

Details of the operation

Loading PDFs or images onto the device is fairly simple using the iTunes interface and has been demonstrated clearly by Apple and others.  However, you might be wondering what happens when I don’t have a computer handy and I need to show data to a potential customer that is not already on the device?

You could load Safari and search for the information on your company’s website for example, but Dropbox has presented us with a simple solution. Simply call or text a colleague and have them drop onto your iPad!

Quick Primer on DropBox

Dropbox is very intuitive web file sharing application that lives partially on your computers/devices and partially in cyberspace.  Using dropbox you can rapidly share files with your devices and colleagues that you invite to be shared on folders you create.  Best of all its free-up to 2.5 Gb of storage and secure.

To learn more and install Dropbox visit their website from your computer and the App store on your iPad or iPhone.

Dropbox for the iPad

What I love about Dropbox is the ability to rapidly share large files with others and over my machines (desktop, laptop, and iPad).

The iPad Dropbox interface is super simple to understand. The files you create in your Dropbox folder on their website or your computer appear on the left hand side and documents and images in the right window. Once you find the PDF or image you are looking for simple touch it to load into the right side view screen.  Bam, instant documents anywhere, anytime!

Dropbox Ipad Interface is Super Easy to Use

Two tricks you should know

1. By tapping the star icon on the top right toolbar you will download the document/file to your iPad for permanent viewing.  Thus even when you don’t have wi-fi access (most conferences) your files are still there.
2. By tapping the arrow on the top right tool bar you dropbox will assist you in loading the file into other applications on the device such as PDF viewers and image viewers that will allow you to utilize interactive PDFs, etc.  I like iAnnotate for PDFs, because I like to mark them up and keep notes.

In Summary

Setting up dropbox with your sales and marketing team can be a quick way to save the day with your awesome new ipad selling machine. Simply call or text the home office and ask them to drop the file you need, find wifi access, access dropbox, and you are rolling.

The blue box above gives you a quick summary of the steps needed to make this work for you.

We’d love to have your comments and suggestions on improving this article.

Mark and I hope to see you at American Society for Microbiology Meeting next week in San Diego!  We’ll have our iPads there for you to play with and test for yourself. Drop us a line if you want to meet with us at a specific time during the meeting.

The iPad as a Sales Tool – Sightings at the AACR Meeting

Update: We have spent the last 6 months working in the field and observing Sales Reps using the iPad as a Sale Tool.

Our clients come from a variety of industries including Life Science, Medical, Food and Beverage, and Insurance. What have we learned? A lot!

To read about our observations check out these articles:

The iPad as a Sales Tool – Sightings at the AACR Meeting

by Mark Walker

Walking around AACR this past week, I saw a couple of companies using iPads to share product information and results with visitors. In one respect, the iPad is just another tool available, and right now, it’s a novelty. But the potential is there to be a game-changer. I am betting that at next year’s meeting, it will be significantly more  common than not.

An instrument company was showing the fruits of their cool imaging machine on the high-resolution iPad screen. The reps held the iPad in a cover that fit in their hand nicely for display to their audience. They quickly located an image example and easily zoomed in to point out their high resolution Western blot bands.

A reagent company was using it to share the educational tools they currently have on their website. With interactive PDF’s created for other channels loaded onto the iPad, they were able to drill down and jump to linked pages when appropriate for the discussion. Taking existing sales tools and adapting them to a different platform is a pretty common way to test new technology.

Ok, so nothing revolutionary yet, but the potential is there. Here are some reasons why I think it will be a key selling tool in this industry:

Multi-Media

Complex subjects become more understandable when you can demonstrate the products or services. The life science tools marketplace launches more technically complex products every month. Helping prospects understand what your product does and how that will solve their problems is critical. With high-resolution color screens, images can be sized without loss of clarity, which is great for images. Video can be very helpful in explaining different aspects of new technology, even if when the rep is not an expert.

Portability

All those nice customer resources and product decision tools you spent time and money on in your website can be in your sales force’s hands. If customers don’t know what kit to buy, then walk them through buyer funnel on the iPad screen. It’s on your website, but it’s really powerful when a rep can incorporate that resource in a product discussion. Hunting for an open computer in a customer lab to use the site is a hurdle that most reps won’t jump. When you have the power of multimedia in your hands in the size of a notebook , it’s going to get used with customers more often.

Ease of Use

Computer tablets have been around for a while, and they haven’t caught on. I think it’s because they ARE computers. With the iPad, moving around the screen is much easier. Zooming in and out are simple finger swips, not pressing a special key combination.

Another writer observed that it’s a single hand device, unlike other tablets. That frees up your other hand for directing a prospect’s attention to the content they are emphasizing. A small detail but critical for effective sales presentations.

Simplicity

Pundits have complained that it is somehow an inferior device because its you can’t run excel or similar programs on it. How about trading off that capability for a simpler product with a lot more reliability. Ever try to get someone to help fix a problem with your laptop when you are working after hours or early in the morning? Maybe less complexity is a good thing.

Interactive

Effective sales presentations involve more than one sense. If you only talk about a product, it’s less effective than showing prospects the product and having them try it. Having interactive materials at your fingertips that can get prospects engaged will multiply the impact of the presentation.

Can companies in this marketplace be successful without using the iPad? Of course!

The visual element is underrated and underutilized in this marketplace with text-heavy websites and product information. The organizations that can figure out how to best illustrate their technically complex products and that captures researcher’s attention and interest are going to be winners. The iPad can be the companion tool helping your sales and technical support groups communicate more effectively.

Sales tips for selling to scientists can be hard to find. Find more by following us on Twitter here. Also, become a fan of Red Funnel Consulting on Facebook today!