Tell Them Clearly What You’re Not Interested In!
Date of publication: November 3, 2009
by Dr. Norbert Rau, RauCon business development
One of the challenges prior to each partnering conference is the issue of other delegates asking you for a meeting to discuss an opportunity which you are not interested in. And when such a meeting is scheduled it can be a waste of time, and annoying, too, especially if you could have made better use of this time slot.
The two main reasons for such an annoyance happening are found in a poor design of the partnering conference and in an insufficient communication of partnering objectives prior to the event. We’ll look at the two problems and how to solve them in detail.
Let’s imagine an ideal, albeit unrealistic case: If the partnering objectives of all participants would fall into one single category which everybody could be interested in, the probability of a mis-matched meeting would approach zero. On the other hand, a focus which is too narrow would give rise to a competition issue which could jeopardize the entire partnering conference.
“The Butcher, the Baker, and the Candlestick-Maker”
The contrary of the ideal case is what is offered by almost all mainstream partnering conferences: a broad array of higgledy-piggledy business opportunities offered or looked for by the “butcher, the baker, and the candlestick-maker”, or, more to the point, the pharmaceutical company, the biotech boutique, the investment house, the headhunter, the government agency…
Does that make sense? If the government agency requests a meeting in order to pitch a re-location offer to the business development manager who is looking for a marketing partner and who has neither responsibility nor decision power in re-location issues? Or if a laboratory equipment company tries to promote its latest technology to a delegate who is interested in co-development opportunities?
A spam mailing which I received at the end of September read: “Join BIOTECHNICA PARTNERING and meet with Asterand, Boehringer Ingelheim, Fermentas, Lonza, Merck, Millipore, Sigma-Aldrich any many more!”
Who, with an interest in discussing a co-development project with Boehringer Ingelheim, would ever wish to meet with Millipore or Sigma-Aldrich? Anybody with even the faintest knowledge of the pharmaceutical or the biotech business should know that companies like Boehringer Ingelheim and Millipore have close to zero fit when it comes to partnering for business development purposes.
Admitting incompatible companies to a partnering event adds to noise, chaos, and revenue for the organiser, but not to effective partnering, or benefit for the participant.
Regrettably most partnering event organisers lack some key capabilities:
- They dispose of thousands of pharma and biotech company addresses in their data bases, but they have insufficient knowledge of these companies’ businesses and the industry structure as a whole.
- They understand only remotely the process of business development as it manifests itself in the hard and often hectic day-to-day work of the business development executive.
- They have no personal relationship with their customers and their needs; most of their on-site personnel is rented and has never seen the delegates before.
- They look more on their own revenues than on their customers’ benefits.
“Whipped Cream on a Road Apple”
So what do organisers do in order to compensate for not meeting the requirements of business development and for their conference’s lack of focus? Easy, they leave it to the registrants to do the work and sort it out. Better even, they sell a less than artful conference design as “premier partnering method” by having its shortcomings translated into software algorithms which they call state-of-the-art partnering software. Whipped cream to mask the flaw’s odor.
Essentially, a registrant is required to request a meeting and communicate the reason for the request after searching the company profiles. It is all done with the help of the software, but it is still a lot of work that organisers expect from their registrants. The requested company can reject the request or accept it, in which case a one-on-one appointment is scheduled subject to available time slots.
If a partnering conference has no focus, the rejecting practice seems to make sense, because somebody with an interest of discussing a project with Boehringer Ingelheim will have a lot of reason to reject a meeting request from Millipore.
However, the rejecting practice has two major drawbacks. First, when the organiser opens the race for meeting requests, it is a first-come-first-serve question whether or not you can land an appointment with an attractive company. Imagine the hassle when you are on a business trip, while they open their bazaar. Second, rejecting a request is frequently born out of indolence, reluctance (“I got too many requests anyway…”), badly communicated match of interests, or just lack of gut feeling, owing to a lack of professional experience. More often than not, this results in a missed business opportunity.
Focus yes, But Determined by the Registrants!
A better solution is to reduce the range of business opportunities to a common denominator, use a more intelligent partnering method which does not miss unexpected business opportunities, and to exclude as many malinformed meeting requests from others as possible.
A basic necessity is to confine an event to the main target group and keep the noise factors out. OK, you as a registrant cannot prevent organisers from admitting consultants or brokers to a partnering event, but you can pressure them to restrict attendance to the core group, write a blog, use their discussion panels to utter your opinion, threaten to stay away, or do so.
After years of partnering conference experience, the organisers of euroPLX decided to introduce a focus system which is more compatible with business development requirements than any other approach. It evaluates the participating companies’ business interests, displayed as “Dynamic Partnering Focus” on the event web-site. This has a cumulating effect which contributes to common-denominator postulation. If, for instance, the Dynamic Partnering Focus indicates a high level of interest in hospital pharmaceuticals, more companies with an interest in hospital products will register, which, in turn, will reinforce the hospital focus, and so on.
By inviting and admitting only core group companies on one side, and by letting the registered companies form their own focus (or several distinct sub-foci) of business development objectives on the other side, a common interest ground evolves which obviates the need of allowing delegates to reject a request.
First-come-first-serve Race vs. Calm Partnering Process
For euroPLX, the most important rule is: If you expect others to accept your request for an appointment with them, you also have to accept the requests of others to meet with you.
This, combined with a priority based appointment request system, has completely eliminated the hectic first-comefirst- serve race so characteristic of mainstream partnering events, and replaced it by a hassle-free and calm partnering process prior to the event.
Although this will greatly reduce the number of mismatched appointment requests, it cannot prevent them entirely, for two reasons:
- How precise is your own description of partnering objectives for this event?
- Did the requesting delegate read, understand, and fully accept the statements in your partnering profile?
While you cannot control the other delegates’ willingness or ability to read and understand, it is up to you to give a precise description of what you are interested in and what you are not. Spend as much time in expressly stating the latter as you spend in describing the former, tell them clearly what you’re not interested in!
Most Important: Exclusion Areas
A few partnering events such as euroPLX provide exclusion areas (“We are NOT interested in…”) in their online partnering profile form. For instance, if you are interested in OTC products but not in prescription or hospital drugs, say so! If you are not interested in discussing development projects, say so! If your responsibility is restricted to developing business for the Asian markets only, tell them that you do not wish to discuss other than Asian market opportunities! You will find that exclusion areas are often easier to define than interests areas.
That will prevent already most delegates from requesting meetings which do not make sense. Still, there may be some delegates who are not as prepared as you are, who do not (have the time to) read your partnering profile and who request a meeting although there is no basis for business discussions. If there is enough time before the event, clarify the situation via the contact email addresses provided in the partnering profiles. If not, tell the organisers in the morning of the first event day to cancel this appointment and you’ll have a free slot to fill with a more useful meeting, or have a break.
And even if this should not be possible, it is a matter of courtesy and good business style to meet the requesting delegate and clarify the situation face-to-face. Maybe some business opportunity will turn up after all. It wouldn’t be the first time.