Randy Byrne is the CEO of Transformational Scientific Marketing, a highly focused, B2B marketing consultancy specialising in scientific products and services. Below is the adapted transcript from the Marketing Science Podcast recording. Welcome to another edition of the marketing science podcast. The podcast for sales and marketing professionals working within science, engineering and health care don't forget to subscribe on Spotify iTunes or wherever you normally listen to a podcast. My name is Frank Barker the head of marketing at AZoNetwork, where you can also subscribe. I'm joined by my guest this week who is a sales and marketing leader and an expert in a subject matter today having worked in analytical instrumentation and selling scientific equipment for over twenty-five years. He's currently the CEO of transformational scientific marketing, it’s Mr Randy Byrne. FRANKY: Randy how are you doing today? RANDY: I’m well Franky how are you? FRANKY: I'm excellent thanks Randy - I'm currently held up in a makeshift recording studio in my basement, so I can't complain. How is the mood currently in the US? Is it business as usual, or are we still getting over the shock of social isolation? RANDY: I think many people are still frankly, in the state of shock given the current circumstances. But I've always said we know when we're getting past some of the difficult times we start seeing more encouraging and uplifting stories and we're starting to see that now. I think people are you know they batten down the hatches and making the most of the circumstances that we're currently under show well and everybody believes are certainly much better days ahead hopefully sooner rather than later FRANKY: Great to stay optimistic and keep a positive mindset. Now, you've been around sales and marketing for a long time and have years’ of experience, so how would you compare this current pandemic to any previous crises that you have worked through. RANDY: Well unlike anything that I've seen, and I've been around a long time right when I joined the workforce although I didn't really realize it at the time was a it was last century and was in the middle of a rip recession, a rather bad one, I didn't really understand it - for me it was normal when I joined the work force. But we got through that and then there was a boom time and then we have been through a couple of other ones change then of course the unanimous even there the difficult times of two thousand eight. I think 2008-2009 telling was very difficult for the scientific industry; this is much more different because it just came on much more sudden. I think people were much more prepared a number the company I was in the timing two thousand eight was budgeting under the assumption that there would be hard times and nine and two thousand eight two thousand nine that was correct so this should be much more shocking dramatic and impactful and we're still frankly in the in the middle of it So it remains to be seen how we will get through it, but it's been quite disruptive in many ways, everybody having to work from home to business and closing down which didn't happen in the last major recession so this one has been much more dramatic with workers being affected pressure boil dropping stock markets plummeting and then of course the desire to stay healthy so that this one has been circling the worst I've experienced FRANKY: So I certainly think there's been a shock of people not knowing necessarily what to do but you are brought in to help companies so what advice would you give right now it's a company faced with the challenges that lie ahead RANDY: It may take a while before industries and companies recover but there will be great days ahead and some companies take the tractor cutting the marketing as a first approach. For me it's a matter of planning for the future having a little bit more about a long term horizon and the same is true on them the marketing side to continue planning for when we come out of this so that they're in more top of mind in in potential customers mind and they found a way to well no benefit the most early on coming out of the year the tough times FRANKY: Yes, indeed the knee jerk reaction we see many companies make is an awful mistake - but we've also seen the flip side of that where companies are taking advantage of the downtime looking for opportunities within virtual events, webinars, podcasts and other online digital content. We've even seen our neighbours just down the road today in Manchester at the Graphene Engineering Innovation Centre, the GEIC. They have academics working from home but now they're actually able to say right well let's create some content and let us run a series of webinars and run a program that people from all over the world can take advantage of and learn about this wonderful material. So, this is something that would have been a nice to do just two or three months ago, but now people are being forced to put more eggs in this online digital basket. Now Randy, you mentioned before that you consume a lot of content online with us webinars virtual events, podcasts etc. but where do you see the future or the importance of online content especially during such testing times? RANDY: Back when the last recession happened the company was with at the time had a number of well we have we had a marketing budget cuts as well and some of the activities were kept they do weren't going to be done with the one thing we were left with. We were fortunate enough to really have a weapon our program in place we can a doubled and tripled down on webinars and it we just did something like I think was about ninety one of ninety webinars in the English language let alone non English language ones that where eight and it had a very important unintended benefit. We were into them at the time with the scientific staff and the scientific staff had more time on their hands to jump into them became a little bit of a friendly competition. So they started volunteering more. I'm subjective to it but the so that was great on the one hand but on the other hand our company the appearance of being much more active in the market place because we were promoting these primarily by email marketing as you mentioned they were directed towards a country they were in the English language, they were essentially global and we came out of that year after doing it was almost a crushing workload from a weapon are standpoint what will all of this information was good valuable scientific information it was all recorded for use for years to come party time ledge and but again the unintended consequence was we came through it with many companies you know potential customers looking at us as an instrument wishing well, these guys are even more active during an incredibly tough time, the truth was we have our own pain but we did get through it. So, it’s the next area where it's just becoming so convenient to take in new information that I see it exploding in in popularity in many different industries. FRANKY: Yes, for me it’s the same on the train every day just like yourself in the car on the daily commute it's so easy to access content on your chosen topic without sports or finance so news entertainment or marketing even. With services like Spotify and aCast on iTunes, it's never been easier to download and listen to your favorite shows on the go. As a podcast producer right now we are seeing the flip side of that and how easy it is for people to create audio content for podcasts. I think it’s something like a million podcasts out there now so it's never been easier to get your content out in audio format. So the next question is about resistance to change; now bearing in mind that people don't usually change unless they're forced to - a case in point working from home and collaborating online following covid nineteen but how resistant to change our sales and marketing leaders within Science companies. RANDY: Long-tenured leaders in Science companies especially smaller companies tend to have come from either the scientific or engineering or product development upbringing - just in these types of companies which often based on product innovation but these days it's much harder of a you know there's a lot more competition the same products are more often in the minds of customers they're separated by inches not miles anymore. I've run into a number of people that have MBAs but the troubling thing with an MBA from twenty thirty years ago is it hardly prepares one for the market in marketing realities of today. Sure it's certainly not a question of intelligence in our industry it's more a matter of relevance. I've heard people say frankly that marketing is change more in the last five years under previous fifty and I would say I think it's perhaps even more than that and it's even accelerating. You know for many hard-working people in this industry, they often focus on their core strengths are always mentioning the product is in line in the next great product feature. Scientific Instruments and applications and to a large degree the modern marketing world has just progressed too fast for them to keep up with. So resistance to change for those reasons is certainly it holds back some companies in terms of the what's available to them in in terms of marketing. FRANKY: Excellent so I've got a quote from your good self when we were both at the INBOUND 2016 Hubspot conference over in Boston Massachusetts a quote in which you said: The customer is in charge of the buying process. A quote that has aged very well over the last four years you also mention that companies are now separated by inches which moves me on to my next question – In 2020 just how do companies differentiate themselves and how have scientific manufacturers evolved over time given such a competitive landscape It’s moved through the customer satisfaction, customer support phase and then focus on appl
