Can Someone Sell Me a Fluorometer Please?

sell me a fluorometer?

I’m a little frustrated this morning. My PI is very upset with me because I have not been able to get a new Fluorometer into our lab. We’ve been borrowing a plate reader since our’s crapped out and everyone is tired of walking upstairs etc. I assured him that quotes were coming from several major manufacturers any day now, but he decided to take matters into his own hands costing someone out there a large commission and me some respect. Bummer.

Here’s the sad story….

Two weeks ago, I went to the Experimental Biology/FASEB Meeting in Anaheim with a mission to find the best fluorometer possible for my lab. I was pretty confident since I’ve spent the last 2 yrs learning about life science product manufacturers and had made a list of nine companies with booths at the meeting that all sold fluorometers. My budget was $30,000.

After introducing myself at the booths, I told the reps I was in the market for a fluorometer with immediate need for my lab, my budget, where my lab was, etc. For the most part, the reps were reasonably good at explaining in heavy detail what their fluorometer/plate readers could accomplish. Several had floor models I could test drive and some had product brochures and or catalogs to point me in the right direction. So far so good.

I asked all nine companies to send me a quote or more information and to have my local rep contact me. Each one got my business card. After that I spent the rest of the day visiting with companies to tell them about How to Sell to Scientists and left with confidence.

The Follow-Up?

After getting back to the office, I spent some time looking over the web pages for the fluorometers and decided on two models to bring into the lab. But I wanted to wait until the reps contacted me to be certain, perhaps I could see a machine on campus to test drive etc.

2 days went by – No calls……. No emails…….

Then 1 week. No calls……. No emails……. my boss starts giving me the “I thought you were an expert at sourcing products Rusty?” kind of talk. Other post-docs were razzing me every time they had to go upstairs.

Finally 4 days ago an Invitrogen rep got back to me by email with links to their product website and promise to call me asap. Nice! Now Im getting somewhere.

But I haven’t gotten a call……

The fall out…

Today its over. Out of my hands. How can that happen? At 20% commission a $20,000 fluorometer would have made one of those reps $4000! Is there really so much business that not one person wanted ours?

Looking back I guess I should have been more aggressive and proactive with calling the reps myself and following up. But there has got to be a better way! Why were those companies even having a booth at EB if they didn’t want a hot lead? I’m confused about the purpose of the booths if its not sell products to hot leads what is it?

Mark Walker’s (the Sales Guy) Response…

Right now,  managers are pulling their hair out in bunches. How much did it cost the company to buy booth space, ship it and staff it?

Many times, leads from a national tradeshow get collected and then sent off to the responsible field reps.  There they sit–in excel spreadsheets, emails, and scraps of paper. They sit, not necessarily because the reps aren’t effective, but largely because they don’t know the value of the lead.

In a previous post on Lead Management, I mentioned the importance of having a process of rating the leads that both marketing and sales can agree on and implement.  With no priority or a unreliable assignment (no guidelines), reps believe they will need to further qualify these leads. If provided leads in the past have been losers, the assumption is that these will be too and will fall down to the bottom of the “to do” list.

Here are some suggestions to reduce the chance of lost leads from Trade Shows.

1.  Have a dedicated team follow up on information requests.  This could be an inside sales team that absorbs this task or an administrative team given direction on what is needed. Ensure that the basic request for information is fulfilled and then pass it to the rep responsible for closing. The lead scanner that outputs paper  or an electronic file (compiled after the show) is not that conducive to fast follow-up. Consider hiring someone to input the paper leads into your CRM right there at the show so the follow-up process is not held hostage to clunky systems.

2. Follow up immediately. By immediately, I mean send a follow-up email from the show or at the end of that day. The excuse that most researchers are out for a few days anyway and won’t access email is gone. With the use of mobile devices, researchers get the information immediately. Working in collaboration with others, lab mates may be waiting for the recommendation from your booth visitor. They forward the emailed information and you are closer to a sale

3.  Plug the leads into your CRM system.  You have to be able to track these leads and the follow up activities associated with them.  Someone has responsibility. How do you track leads in your organization? And more important, do you track the outcome?

4. Train your booth staff. What is a high priority lead and what needs to happen?  If a scientist comes up to you and says, “I need to buy one of your products”, that is a no-brainer. But do they know what to do?  Is there an established process or do you let Reps in the booth handle them they way they think makes sense?  Try an incentive system that will provide some compensation for a booth leads that ends up in a sale, even if in the field a month down the road. Word will get around quickly and you will have reps tuned to be more effective in helping interested customers and closing the loop.

Answers to Your Questions about Red Funnel

By Rusty Bishop and Mark Walker

Last week, we visited the exhibit floor at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) in Washington, DC. Our focus was to meet you all in person and introduce the blog to life science representatives that might benefit from what we do.

We really had a great time meeting up with old friends and getting to know some new ones (Rusty had a little too much fun at your parties). This was the first time we had a chance to introduce the blog in person and we were blown away by the response.

Thank you sincerely. We hope you enjoy it and actively participate by commenting and suggesting new topics for discussion. Your knowledge and experience are invaluable to your peers.

Some great questions came up about us and what we do. We tried to address them at the time but inevitably, we may not have had a chance to speak to all of them. Here are a few of the more common questions:

Are scientists upset that you are giving tips and hints to companies on how to sell to them?

Don’t think so. The fact is that scientists need your products to get their work/project done fast and right. If we can help sales and marketers better understand what scientists need in the way of information to help make decisions about products and services, everyone wins. Companies and their representatives need to think solutions, not products.

Is HowToSelltoScientists.com a formal training program?

No, its not a training program. It’s a free blog that touches on topics like how to sell to scientists. We had to chuckle a bit at that because in one sense, we can see how that someone could interpret the site name that way. However, since it came up more than once, the implication is that some see a real need for better training at the Sales and Applications Specialist Level, voiced even by former scientists now selling. Even though we don’t do formal training, we do offer webinars or seminars about our experiences and opinions about selling to the researcher customer.

If the blog is free, how do you guys make money?

No one actually ever said those exact words but we can read body language. We consult with companies that want their website to attract more scientists and convert more visitors into leads and sales. We talk to sales and marketing groups about our thoughts on how to successfully (you know the rest)… sell to scientists. We also create tools that enable companies to better understand and service their scientist customers (see the free search tools on the site here). We write the blogs and give away free ideas to give you an hint of how we think and what we bring to the table so that when you are thinking about getting some outside help, you think of us.

When did you start Red Funnel?

Early in 2010. Over the last 3 years, we worked on a few website projects together for other life science companies and got to know each other. Since we have different experiences and backgrounds (Rusty=scientist, Mark=business guy), we look at things from different perspectives. We don’t always agree on everything but the benefit to our clients is that we challenge each other to bring the best possible recommendations. We’ve got a passion for helping companies succeed in reaching scientists. It’s fun and it we are having a blast.

Why Red Funnel?

We wanted something memorable which reflected our focus. Everyone is familiar with the sales funnel and our effort is geared toward all the activities that increase the number of scientists that are in your funnel. Oh, and we like the color red.

Thanks again to everyone who was so encouraging at AACR. We want to hear from you and we will do our best to make this a valuable resource to you.

Invitrogen Head of Sales on How to Sell to Scientists

How To Sell To Scientists is happy to welcome Mark Walker former Director of Sales at Invitrogen and VP of G&S Discovery to our team.  


Mark will be bringing you a lifetime of experience in selling to scientists in every facet of the business from academia to biotech to forensics specialists. 


He has supervised large sales teams in the life science sales and helped Invitrogen along their meteoric rise. With G&S Discovery, Mark has incredible knowledge of marketing and selling to researchers and large research organizations. Most recently, he created and developed an online data service (NaviGRANT) that aggregated and presented life science grant information to help companies understand what their research customers are working on and employ more appropriate messaging. 


For a first glimpse at what Mark brings to the table please read his recent article about training your sales force on your website.

Welcome to the team Mark!

Welcome to How to Sell to Scientists

Welcome! If you’re reading this you want to know to more about how to sell and market products to scientists. I created this blog to write about the things I’ve learned by watching you all try to sell me kits, reagents, equipment, animals, and services for the last 17 years and about the techniques I’ve learned running my websites Scientist Solutions.com and the soon to be launched Gatcat.com