Building Effective Regional Sales Teams with Dr. Chad Briscoe

Wesleyne Greer: 00:00:06

Hello and welcome to another episode of

Wesleyne Greer: 00:00:09

the transform sales podcast today. I am so excited to have

Wesleyne Greer: 00:00:14

Chad Briscoe with me here. How are you?

Chad Briscoe: 00:00:17

I am doing great. Thanks Wesleyne.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:00:20

Let me tell you guys a little bit about Chad,

Wesleyne Greer: 00:00:22

Dr. Briscoe. So I'm sorry, I should have introduced us Dr.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:00:26

Chad Resco. No worries. He's an innovative solutions focused bio

Wesleyne Greer: 00:00:32

analytical thought leader with over 25 years of experience

Wesleyne Greer: 00:00:35

working with pharma partners every single day to bring new

Wesleyne Greer: 00:00:39

drugs to the market faster. And bio Analytics is a bio

Wesleyne Greer: 00:00:43

analytical contract research testing organization. I'm so

Wesleyne Greer: 00:00:48

excited to hear how you got from starting your career deciding

Wesleyne Greer: 00:00:54

that you want to get a PhD to moving into this world today.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:00:58

Give us the rundown. You bet. I'm

Chad Briscoe: 00:01:00

glad to do that. And it's it's been an

Chad Briscoe: 00:01:02

interesting and crazy story as some of the elements of my of my

Chad Briscoe: 00:01:06

life. So I'm a career scientist. And I started in the industry in

Chad Briscoe: 00:01:10

the contract research industry back in 97, after I finished my

Chad Briscoe: 00:01:15

master's degree, I was at a contract research organization

Chad Briscoe: 00:01:18

in Lincoln, Nebraska. And about three years into that

Chad Briscoe: 00:01:21

experience. I was I was working at the bench scientist as saying

Chad Briscoe: 00:01:25

samples running instruments mass spectrometry is my area of

Chad Briscoe: 00:01:28

expertise. And I was looking at how to develop in my career, I

Chad Briscoe: 00:01:33

was in the pharmaceutical space. And so I was it was a career

Chad Briscoe: 00:01:36

development conversation with with my my boss at the time to

Chad Briscoe: 00:01:41

try and pursue my PhD. And the deal was they supported me. But

Chad Briscoe: 00:01:46

monetarily Thank you very much to the company, but not as much

Chad Briscoe: 00:01:50

in time a bit of flexibility. So I pursued my PhD simultaneously

Chad Briscoe: 00:01:54

while working in the laboratory. So the next 10 years of my life

Chad Briscoe: 00:01:58

were quite interesting. I went from working at the bench in the

Chad Briscoe: 00:02:02

lab to running the laboratory being laboratory director. And

Chad Briscoe: 00:02:06

at the same time I went from one kid and zero dogs to four kids

Chad Briscoe: 00:02:11

and four dogs. So it was quite a busy time in my life, thanks a

Chad Briscoe: 00:02:16

million times over to my wife who supported me through that

Chad Briscoe: 00:02:20

and was organizing the chaos for us. But so I had a fantastic

Chad Briscoe: 00:02:25

career that was a company called MDS loved it, the company is

Chad Briscoe: 00:02:29

kind of broken up and sold off the pieces and doesn't exist

Chad Briscoe: 00:02:34

anymore since about 2010. But when I left in 2010, I left for

Chad Briscoe: 00:02:37

a challenge with a new company, contract research organization,

Chad Briscoe: 00:02:41

again, in the bio analytical space. And the challenge, this

Chad Briscoe: 00:02:44

time around was to build new labs. So they wanted to

Chad Briscoe: 00:02:48

Greenfield a lab in the US they had a laboratory in Europe, and

Chad Briscoe: 00:02:51

they wanted to Greenfield a lab in the US. And so took my skill

Chad Briscoe: 00:02:54

set running an organization of about 140 people at the time and

Chad Briscoe: 00:02:58

started out back at one person but in kind of a comfortable

Chad Briscoe: 00:03:02

spot where I could be entrepreneurial, but have a

Chad Briscoe: 00:03:05

little bit of the safety net of a big company behind me, you

Chad Briscoe: 00:03:08

know, again, with a with a family of four, you're kind of

Chad Briscoe: 00:03:11

you know, it's a tough call to say I'm gonna go out on my own

Chad Briscoe: 00:03:14

and in startup something but give me a really nice

Chad Briscoe: 00:03:16

opportunity to be entrepreneurial. We built that

Chad Briscoe: 00:03:19

laboratory quite nicely over the next 10 years. This is in Kansas

Chad Briscoe: 00:03:24

City, and it grew well. And then you know, I kind of started

Chad Briscoe: 00:03:27

looking at what I want to do next. And partway through that

Chad Briscoe: 00:03:29

experience. I had moved from an operational leadership role to a

Chad Briscoe: 00:03:34

scientific leadership role where I was leading our you could call

Chad Briscoe: 00:03:38

it a Scientific Affairs or a scientific office for the

Chad Briscoe: 00:03:41

organization globally, where we would interface with customers

Chad Briscoe: 00:03:45

to help bring the solutions to reality right. So the solutions

Chad Briscoe: 00:03:49

that our business development team would sell, it was our job

Chad Briscoe: 00:03:52

to help make that interface between the customers and the in

Chad Briscoe: 00:03:55

the challenging science and make sure it was able to be

Chad Briscoe: 00:03:58

operationalized back into the operations make sure projects

Chad Briscoe: 00:04:02

would happen smoothly within the operations when they kicked off.

Chad Briscoe: 00:04:06

And that kind of just keep everything going that way. And

Chad Briscoe: 00:04:09

so when I decided to make a change to the current

Chad Briscoe: 00:04:12

organization, and with bioanalytics I joined the

Chad Briscoe: 00:04:15

company as chief scientific officer and was in that role for

Chad Briscoe: 00:04:18

a while I was originally given a specific challenge to help

Chad Briscoe: 00:04:24

support our Hamburg laboratory. I had been working in Europe off

Chad Briscoe: 00:04:27

and on over the years. And so I was in Hamburg for about three

Chad Briscoe: 00:04:31

four months and back and forth and then I don't know if you've

Chad Briscoe: 00:04:35

heard of this thing there's this COVID pandemic popped up and I

Chad Briscoe: 00:04:39

was sitting in Sweden and you know all of a sudden we started

Chad Briscoe: 00:04:42

hearing this panic announcements from our president that they

Chad Briscoe: 00:04:46

might be closed and air travel so I got on the next flight out

Chad Briscoe: 00:04:50

of Copenhagen to come back to the US and and then started

Chad Briscoe: 00:04:54

focusing still looking at Homburg How can I help support

Chad Briscoe: 00:04:57

them but also you know more of a taken more Have a global view

Chad Briscoe: 00:05:00

then. And yeah, so about eight months went by and our Chief

Chad Briscoe: 00:05:05

Commercial Officer at the time had been looking for ways to

Chad Briscoe: 00:05:09

expand our leadership team in Europe for the business

Chad Briscoe: 00:05:12

development role. He was really looking for a leader for the

Chad Briscoe: 00:05:14

business development role in Europe. And I got a call one day

Chad Briscoe: 00:05:17

in early January of 2020. And he said, Hey, Chad, you know, I

Chad Briscoe: 00:05:21

know you've always been a scientist, he's always said you

Chad Briscoe: 00:05:23

wouldn't join the sales and business development side of the

Chad Briscoe: 00:05:26

organization. But what do you say, give it a shot, you know,

Chad Briscoe: 00:05:31

take on Europe, I've had this need, that could be a good

Chad Briscoe: 00:05:33

challenge for you, it'd be a nice new direction for your

Chad Briscoe: 00:05:36

career, and just something to see if you're interested in it.

Chad Briscoe: 00:05:39

And I surprise myself, sometimes we surprise ourselves when just

Chad Briscoe: 00:05:42

Yes, comes out. Right? And it's like, yes. But the only

Chad Briscoe: 00:05:46

qualification is we got to figure out the details, right?

Chad Briscoe: 00:05:48

It's like, I know, we will. But let's do it. It just something

Chad Briscoe: 00:05:52

caught me I like to tell everybody to I was I was

Chad Briscoe: 00:05:54

literally sitting on a chairlift at Copper Mountain skiing. And I

Chad Briscoe: 00:05:58

was like, I'll just take the call, see what he wants, you

Chad Briscoe: 00:06:00

know, and then. So that's how I actually formally got into

Chad Briscoe: 00:06:05

business development sales role. So I know a lot of the people in

Chad Briscoe: 00:06:09

at least in the CRO world don't like calling it sales, right?

Chad Briscoe: 00:06:11

They call it business development. So but yeah, that's

Chad Briscoe: 00:06:14

it. So that's how I got from, you know, master's degree at

Chad Briscoe: 00:06:17

University of Michigan all the way kind of the short version of

Chad Briscoe: 00:06:20

all the way through to where I sit now is VP of sales, VP of

Chad Briscoe: 00:06:23

Business Development for our European division.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:06:26

So wow, this is? Yeah, you went from being a

Wesleyne Greer: 00:06:33

bench chemist to overseeing a lab, working with a team in

Wesleyne Greer: 00:06:38

Europe, going to become a sales leader and managing a team in

Wesleyne Greer: 00:06:44

Europe. So first, I really want to dig into when you were asked

Wesleyne Greer: 00:06:51

to move from the technical side of the business to the

Wesleyne Greer: 00:06:55

commercial side of the business, what were some of the thoughts

Wesleyne Greer: 00:06:59

going through your head? And how did you make that decision?

Chad Briscoe: 00:07:02

Yeah, so I made that decision. I make a lot of

Chad Briscoe: 00:07:05

my best decisions. And it's just my gut. And that's always how

Chad Briscoe: 00:07:09

I've been, is, when I know something's right. I do it,

Chad Briscoe: 00:07:13

right. So there's certainly some times where it makes sense to

Chad Briscoe: 00:07:16

sit down and be analytical and look at the numbers and, and

Chad Briscoe: 00:07:19

make a plan. But there's other times when you know what the

Chad Briscoe: 00:07:22

right answer is, and somehow you don't even need to think about

Chad Briscoe: 00:07:25

it very long. And that was one of those decisions. Like I say,

Chad Briscoe: 00:07:28

I was sitting on a chairlift, right? So maybe maximum three

Chad Briscoe: 00:07:30

minutes, you know, to actually have this whole conversation

Chad Briscoe: 00:07:33

about changing the whole direction of my career. And,

Chad Briscoe: 00:07:36

yeah, that's about what it took. And I said, Yep, and then it was

Chad Briscoe: 00:07:39

kind of like, but I gotta go, because, you know, tips up, I

Chad Briscoe: 00:07:42

gotta get off this chairlift.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:07:44

So it seems like you it didn't take a lot for you

Wesleyne Greer: 00:07:48

to make that decision to say, Hey, I've done this for many

Wesleyne Greer: 00:07:51

decades in my career. But now it's time for change. Now, I am

Wesleyne Greer: 00:07:55

ready to make a move. So tell us how the transition was for you

Wesleyne Greer: 00:08:01

going from being very technical to stepping into that sales

Wesleyne Greer: 00:08:06

leadership role?

Chad Briscoe: 00:08:08

Yeah. So initially, we had a lot of work

Chad Briscoe: 00:08:10

to do, right. So as happens when you get a lot of new projects,

Chad Briscoe: 00:08:13

you're able to bury yourself in it so much, you're not even sure

Chad Briscoe: 00:08:17

what the challenges are, you don't have time to sort of take

Chad Briscoe: 00:08:19

in the emotions of what kind of a transition did I make? What's

Chad Briscoe: 00:08:23

this mean? For me longer term, you just say there's a problem

Chad Briscoe: 00:08:26

to solve here. There's some challenges the organization

Chad Briscoe: 00:08:28

needs you to address. And so you dive into it. So I'd say

Chad Briscoe: 00:08:31

initially, it was much more about lining up the what's the

Chad Briscoe: 00:08:35

strategy, right. So working with working with my boss, at that

Chad Briscoe: 00:08:39

time, it's still my boss, working with Marasca to outline

Chad Briscoe: 00:08:42

the strategy. And then let's just build out the tactics,

Chad Briscoe: 00:08:45

right. So you make this laundry list of things you need to do,

Chad Briscoe: 00:08:48

the first thing we needed to do is build the team, right? So

Chad Briscoe: 00:08:51

build a strong team get stability within the team, so

Chad Briscoe: 00:08:54

that we're not having the turnover, we are having the

Chad Briscoe: 00:08:56

turnover every three to six months with business developers.

Chad Briscoe: 00:08:59

And when you don't have any time to gain momentum, we know that

Chad Briscoe: 00:09:02

that's really challenging in the business development world. It

Chad Briscoe: 00:09:05

takes months and years, right and in my business to really

Chad Briscoe: 00:09:08

start seeing the success. So stability within the team. And

Chad Briscoe: 00:09:11

then what do we need for particular processes in Europe?

Chad Briscoe: 00:09:14

How are we going to interact with the operations team and so

Chad Briscoe: 00:09:17

started getting all those pieces in place and just moving a

Chad Briscoe: 00:09:20

million miles an hour. And then it's probably not until six

Chad Briscoe: 00:09:25

months to a year later that I started sitting down and talking

Chad Briscoe: 00:09:28

to Nick and thinking to myself about, you know, what does this

Chad Briscoe: 00:09:31

really mean for me? How is it being in a business development

Chad Briscoe: 00:09:35

role, right? I always was in a spot in operations where I could

Chad Briscoe: 00:09:38

solve the problems hands on and it is a business developer, you

Chad Briscoe: 00:09:41

can solve your own problems. You can help improve sales, you can

Chad Briscoe: 00:09:45

make the strategies and things like that, but you're not in

Chad Briscoe: 00:09:47

operations, fixing the challenges, you're able to

Chad Briscoe: 00:09:51

influence things but you can't hands on fix those things. And

Chad Briscoe: 00:09:54

that's been sort of the hallmark of my career outside of business

Chad Briscoe: 00:09:57

development is I had a lot of customers come Under BSA, Chad,

Chad Briscoe: 00:10:00

we like working with your company, because you always make

Chad Briscoe: 00:10:03

it happen. We don't you're not in every conversation, but when

Chad Briscoe: 00:10:05

we really need it to happen, we give you a call. And so that's

Chad Briscoe: 00:10:08

been a bit of a transition. How do you do that, as a business

Chad Briscoe: 00:10:12

development? VP, or you know, anywhere from within the

Chad Briscoe: 00:10:16

business development organization, it's a different

Chad Briscoe: 00:10:18

challenge. And I've had to get comfortable with that and

Chad Briscoe: 00:10:21

comfortable with this different role. And then you start looking

Chad Briscoe: 00:10:24

at, geez, you know, what's next? I'm not ready to jump out of

Chad Briscoe: 00:10:27

this job, right. But you are kind of thinking down the road,

Chad Briscoe: 00:10:30

like, I'm just turning 50 and just shy of 50? And what am I

Chad Briscoe: 00:10:33

going to be doing when I'm 60? You know, am I going to be in

Chad Briscoe: 00:10:36

this space? You know, what do I think it might gonna be? I don't

Chad Briscoe: 00:10:39

know, you know, so there's all these thoughts and emotions that

Chad Briscoe: 00:10:42

have been going through my head for the last four to six months

Chad Briscoe: 00:10:44

now that I've settled into the role. And we're still very

Chad Briscoe: 00:10:47

successful, we're still doing well, I love my team that I

Chad Briscoe: 00:10:49

built. So if they're listening, I don't want them to think I'm

Chad Briscoe: 00:10:52

going anywhere, right. But you did. It's just a different

Chad Briscoe: 00:10:55

position to be in. So it's a bit exciting still,

Wesleyne Greer: 00:10:58

ah, I can really understand and I can empathize

Wesleyne Greer: 00:11:02

with that high turnover in this technical sales field, one of

Wesleyne Greer: 00:11:06

the things that tends to happen is we hire either really smart

Wesleyne Greer: 00:11:10

people, or we hire people who we think will fit the role, but

Wesleyne Greer: 00:11:15

they're not quite equipped for a job in sales. Right. So how were

Wesleyne Greer: 00:11:19

you able to really stabilize your team? How were you able to

Wesleyne Greer: 00:11:23

get that team? You said it was like, every three months, you

Wesleyne Greer: 00:11:26

guys went over business developers, which is pretty

Wesleyne Greer: 00:11:29

quick. How did you stabilize it? Yeah. And

Chad Briscoe: 00:11:32

so some of the turnover was regrettable. And

Chad Briscoe: 00:11:34

some of it was not as regrettable, right? As we also

Chad Briscoe: 00:11:37

see, right? Somebody comes in, it's not a fit, I think you're

Chad Briscoe: 00:11:39

doing a favor for yourself in the organization when you make

Chad Briscoe: 00:11:41

changes that need to happen so people can find the right fit

Chad Briscoe: 00:11:44

for them. But yeah, it depends on the different individuals of

Chad Briscoe: 00:11:48

what the approach is, I'm very fortunate that I had one

Chad Briscoe: 00:11:51

individual that was a very seasoned, very seasoned business

Chad Briscoe: 00:11:56

developer, very committed to the organization. So partnering

Chad Briscoe: 00:11:59

closely with him. And then as we look to build the other pieces

Chad Briscoe: 00:12:04

of the team and fill the other roles, you know, we focused on

Chad Briscoe: 00:12:08

having good experienced, seasoned people who were more

Chad Briscoe: 00:12:11

likely, I think, to join an organization that looked like it

Chad Briscoe: 00:12:15

was moving in a direction of stability. I was the first

Chad Briscoe: 00:12:18

business development leader in Europe for our organization. So

Chad Briscoe: 00:12:21

part of this was our organization growing and saying,

Chad Briscoe: 00:12:23

Hey, we're gonna have a dedicated European sales team.

Chad Briscoe: 00:12:27

So people like when they're joining a team and being part of

Chad Briscoe: 00:12:30

something, and I think, especially in Europe, they were

Chad Briscoe: 00:12:33

joining the European team, but still sort of part of the US

Chad Briscoe: 00:12:37

team. And I think it was, maybe that was a little bit

Chad Briscoe: 00:12:39

challenging. It lost a little bit of focus. There's all sorts

Chad Briscoe: 00:12:43

of elements. I hired a woman that had worked with me in the

Chad Briscoe: 00:12:47

past. So I reached out to my network of people that would

Chad Briscoe: 00:12:51

connect with me and work well with me and I think be loyal. I

Chad Briscoe: 00:12:55

would say beyond just the company, I would hope be loyal

Chad Briscoe: 00:12:57

to me. I mean, I think it goes both ways, right? You need

Chad Briscoe: 00:13:00

people loyalty, you and the company. And I try to talk to

Chad Briscoe: 00:13:03

them all the time, right? Take care of the team, keep them

Chad Briscoe: 00:13:06

motivated, buy in on what's going on I'll last week, and

Chad Briscoe: 00:13:10

they want to unpack other aspects of this. But last week

Chad Briscoe: 00:13:13

was our global sales meeting in San Diego, and only one of the

Chad Briscoe: 00:13:18

team meetings got champagne, when we had our breakout

Chad Briscoe: 00:13:21

sessions. So yes, a little you know, little things like that,

Chad Briscoe: 00:13:24

like, hey, you know, it's four o'clock in the afternoon, we're

Chad Briscoe: 00:13:26

gonna have champagne and our meeting and celebrate successes,

Chad Briscoe: 00:13:28

right? Do some of these little things. And yeah, so that's, you

Chad Briscoe: 00:13:31

know, hope if my team would hear this, they'd agree with

Chad Briscoe: 00:13:34

everything I'm saying. But I, it'd be interesting in this

Chad Briscoe: 00:13:37

situation to get their feedback as well.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:13:39

What were some of the challenges that you had

Wesleyne Greer: 00:13:42

and rebuilding your team?

Chad Briscoe: 00:13:44

Yeah. So I'd say the first challenge is, anytime

Chad Briscoe: 00:13:47

you bring in new business developers, they have to build

Chad Briscoe: 00:13:50

the relationships, they have to build the territory, the way

Chad Briscoe: 00:13:53

we're broken down in Europe is pretty straightforward. We have

Chad Briscoe: 00:13:55

a guy in the UK, we have a guy in southern Europe, one in sort

Chad Briscoe: 00:13:59

of northern Europe, Germany, Netherlands, and the woman I

Chad Briscoe: 00:14:02

mentioned for us and Scandinavia. So it's broken down

Chad Briscoe: 00:14:04

pretty cleanly in Europe. But in most of those regions, we were

Chad Briscoe: 00:14:09

really trying to build out the region. So you're hiring

Chad Briscoe: 00:14:12

somebody, you're saying, hey, you know, you need to take on

Chad Briscoe: 00:14:14

this region, it's a great opportunity, right? Because you

Chad Briscoe: 00:14:16

can build it up. But at the same time, you're not walking in, you

Chad Briscoe: 00:14:19

know, you're not walking into $10 million in sales off the

Chad Briscoe: 00:14:22

bat. So that's probably the first challenge is getting

Chad Briscoe: 00:14:25

everyone to have patience, then also getting the organization to

Chad Briscoe: 00:14:28

have patience with the delivery of the business developers. And

Chad Briscoe: 00:14:32

we ran a lot of statistics looking at the different

Chad Briscoe: 00:14:35

individuals who had been with the organization for different

Chad Briscoe: 00:14:37

amounts of time. And there was a clear correlation in the data.

Chad Briscoe: 00:14:41

Before I said, I'm gut feel I love data. Also, it's a matter

Chad Briscoe: 00:14:44

of when you use data versus when when you make that quick split

Chad Briscoe: 00:14:47

second decision, but we looked at a lot of data and it was

Chad Briscoe: 00:14:50

clear that you got to give people time, right, and we're

Chad Briscoe: 00:14:53

seeing that now if I look at the order in which I brought on

Chad Briscoe: 00:14:58

these four business developers As the performance is directly

Chad Briscoe: 00:15:01

proportional to how long they've been there, so the guy has been

Chad Briscoe: 00:15:05

there the longest has the has the best sales this year. And

Chad Briscoe: 00:15:07

number two is the guy who is the second longest, and then and

Chad Briscoe: 00:15:10

then three and four follow right behind. So there's no mystery

Chad Briscoe: 00:15:13

and in the challenge there, so yeah,

Wesleyne Greer: 00:15:16

yeah, I think that a lot of times within

Wesleyne Greer: 00:15:19

organizations, what, what people tend to do is they expect to

Wesleyne Greer: 00:15:24

hire someone, and they expect them to just ramp up by

Wesleyne Greer: 00:15:28

themselves, like someone's like, oh, yeah, you're a great person,

Wesleyne Greer: 00:15:31

you're just gonna get out there and sell our products, you may

Wesleyne Greer: 00:15:34

have been selling the competitors products, or maybe

Wesleyne Greer: 00:15:36

you just understand the science, but really allowing people to

Wesleyne Greer: 00:15:40

come into their own and give them the time to get up to speed

Wesleyne Greer: 00:15:44

and develop and then as a leader, having those

Wesleyne Greer: 00:15:46

expectations that are set, right. So really listening to

Wesleyne Greer: 00:15:51

you. It's like, okay, the person who has been here the longest, I

Wesleyne Greer: 00:15:54

expect them to have the most growth, I expect them to be the

Wesleyne Greer: 00:15:58

ones who's at the top of the leaderboard, and based on the

Wesleyne Greer: 00:16:00

metrics that I've seen this person give me the thing that

Wesleyne Greer: 00:16:04

this person has done. I expect other people to kind of come

Wesleyne Greer: 00:16:06

along.

Chad Briscoe: 00:16:07

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I think you said it better

Chad Briscoe: 00:16:09

than I did without a doubt. But one of the things that I've also

Chad Briscoe: 00:16:12

done is connected my people right, I think that's a common

Chad Briscoe: 00:16:15

certainly it's common, the other BD like to reach out to the

Chad Briscoe: 00:16:18

teammates, and I really encouraged him to do that to

Chad Briscoe: 00:16:21

make those connections so that they feel that true team

Chad Briscoe: 00:16:23

camaraderie, you know, have one on ones with each other. Just

Chad Briscoe: 00:16:26

don't don't just have the one on ones with me or, Hey, if you've

Chad Briscoe: 00:16:29

got a challenge, you know, maybe this guy is better to solve that

Chad Briscoe: 00:16:33

challenge than I am because hey, this team has all been in sales

Chad Briscoe: 00:16:37

for 10 to 25 years. I'm only a year and a half in I don't have

Chad Briscoe: 00:16:41

all the sales numbers. I don't you can tell I don't speak all

Chad Briscoe: 00:16:44

the jargon. I'm learning it I haven't read all the books. I'm

Chad Briscoe: 00:16:47

starting to listen to your podcast and learn a lot there.

Chad Briscoe: 00:16:51

But but as far as really sales go, man, I I'm new to this gig.

Chad Briscoe: 00:16:55

I mean, I've been selling through influence and just

Chad Briscoe: 00:16:58

selling because a nice guy as a scientist for years, but I'm not

Chad Briscoe: 00:17:03

the guy that knows how, you know, I don't I'm not the expert

Chad Briscoe: 00:17:06

in the in the, you know, Miller Heiman techniques and all you

Chad Briscoe: 00:17:10

know, all these different, you know, all these different things

Chad Briscoe: 00:17:12

I'm learning all right, I'm excited to learn, but I need to

Chad Briscoe: 00:17:15

rely on other folks. Again, my current boss has been extremely

Chad Briscoe: 00:17:20

supportive. He's, uh, you know, I mean, he's a career exemplary

Chad Briscoe: 00:17:24

career sales professional, my counterpart in the US has been

Chad Briscoe: 00:17:28

tremendously helpful just to give, you know, make a call and

Chad Briscoe: 00:17:31

say, Hey, what, you know, what would you do in this situation?

Chad Briscoe: 00:17:34

How have you led in this way, and when you had these kinds of

Chad Briscoe: 00:17:36

challenges, and so I'm a big promoter in relying on your

Chad Briscoe: 00:17:40

colleagues talking to colleagues go into your external network,

Chad Briscoe: 00:17:43

I've called folks outside of my company to ask for advice

Chad Briscoe: 00:17:47

multiple times. Because I'm learned, which is, it's probably

Chad Briscoe: 00:17:51

the part I didn't really think I embrace as much, right? It's

Chad Briscoe: 00:17:55

like, Hey, I'm really trying to learn the craft. I'm a pretty

Chad Briscoe: 00:17:58

good scientist, and I'm really trying to learn the craft of

Chad Briscoe: 00:18:00

sales is is I've been really successful in the last year and

Chad Briscoe: 00:18:03

a half. So I'm looking forward to seeing how well can I do want

Chad Briscoe: 00:18:06

to actually feel like I know what I'm doing, if I ever get

Chad Briscoe: 00:18:08

there.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:18:11

So really, what I love that you said is, hey, I

Wesleyne Greer: 00:18:18

have people who understand sales better than I do, and I'm not

Wesleyne Greer: 00:18:22

threatened by them, which so many leaders tend to be

Wesleyne Greer: 00:18:25

threatened by, you know, sales people that may want to climb up

Wesleyne Greer: 00:18:30

above them, or, you know, say, Well, I want your job one day,

Wesleyne Greer: 00:18:33

or I may want to be your boss one day. And I think a sign of

Wesleyne Greer: 00:18:37

true leadership is really having that confidence in yourself

Wesleyne Greer: 00:18:42

that, hey, my people should be better than I am. And that is

Wesleyne Greer: 00:18:46

actually a check mark, that you are a good leader when you can

Wesleyne Greer: 00:18:49

develop people that exceed you that do more than you ever have

Wesleyne Greer: 00:18:53

come to do. And so you're saying, Well, I'm not the

Wesleyne Greer: 00:18:56

greatest in sales, but I'm a good leader. And I know this and

Wesleyne Greer: 00:18:58

I know that and they helped me with the sales and I helped lead

Wesleyne Greer: 00:19:01

them.

Chad Briscoe: 00:19:02

Yeah, I think I know what customers want. Right?

Chad Briscoe: 00:19:04

And that's that I think I know what customers want i i

Chad Briscoe: 00:19:07

understand people pretty well, you know, I love working with

Chad Briscoe: 00:19:11

people. I love to facilitate solutions. Just hang on. I've

Chad Briscoe: 00:19:17

been accused in a I don't want to say negative way, but maybe

Chad Briscoe: 00:19:20

in a coaching way of being too much of a pleaser sometimes. But

Chad Briscoe: 00:19:23

I think I think we take our you know, we got to take some of

Chad Briscoe: 00:19:27

these things and make them strikes, right? So if I'm too

Chad Briscoe: 00:19:29

much of a pleaser, then let's figure out how we can turn that

Chad Briscoe: 00:19:33

into a strength right? Let's use it to focus on customer

Chad Briscoe: 00:19:37

satisfaction. Let's use it to focus on employee satisfaction,

Chad Briscoe: 00:19:41

bringing the team together, motivating people that don't let

Chad Briscoe: 00:19:44

it get in the way of making hard decisions that need to be made

Chad Briscoe: 00:19:47

occasionally, that's that's when some of those challenges become

Chad Briscoe: 00:19:51

negatives, or I should say those those those Yeah, those

Chad Briscoe: 00:19:54

challenges become negatives. Yeah. So

Wesleyne Greer: 00:19:55

So you are going to be the first person on the

Wesleyne Greer: 00:19:59

podcast that He's gonna debunk Wesleyne Swag. How Wesleyne isms

Wesleyne Greer: 00:20:04

are Wesleyne wisdom? Oh, boy that in order to be a good sales

Wesleyne Greer: 00:20:08

leader, you must be good in sales. Tell me what do you think

Wesleyne Greer: 00:20:12

about that statement?

Chad Briscoe: 00:20:13

You know, I would say that I don't have a clue if

Chad Briscoe: 00:20:18

I'm any good at sales. Because I've never really sold, which I

Chad Briscoe: 00:20:23

think a lot of the I would guess a lot of the business developers

Chad Briscoe: 00:20:27

that I've worked with over the years would say, Chad, you're

Chad Briscoe: 00:20:29

fantastic. And sales, right? I think they would say, you know,

Chad Briscoe: 00:20:32

this position has been waiting for you. It's just been a matter

Chad Briscoe: 00:20:35

of when you would actually move into it. You've always been

Chad Briscoe: 00:20:37

selling, you're really good at sales. But the reality is, until

Chad Briscoe: 00:20:40

a year and a half ago, I never worked against an individual

Chad Briscoe: 00:20:42

sales target or had a territory or any of that. So am I good at

Chad Briscoe: 00:20:46

sales? I don't really know. I think I'm a pretty good sales

Chad Briscoe: 00:20:49

leader. The numbers say I'm a pretty good sales leader. So

Chad Briscoe: 00:20:53

sometimes nothing else matters. Right? So yeah, so did I debunk

Chad Briscoe: 00:20:59

it? Or did I agree with you? I'm not sure.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:21:02

You know, you're kind of showing the sense. I

Wesleyne Greer: 00:21:04

thought you were gonna say yes, firstly, I am good sales leader.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:21:07

And I've never sold anything ever. Yeah. And I beg to say

Wesleyne Greer: 00:21:12

that, really, in listening to your story and the way that

Wesleyne Greer: 00:21:15

you've gone through your career and your path. You never were,

Wesleyne Greer: 00:21:18

as you said, I've never been classically sales trainings,

Wesleyne Greer: 00:21:21

which most people haven't. They're just doing whatever they

Wesleyne Greer: 00:21:23

want to, but not having sold, but you're still able to lead a

Wesleyne Greer: 00:21:29

sales team. And I think what you've taught me and I am humble

Wesleyne Greer: 00:21:33

enough to say when I'm learning something new, is that it is

Wesleyne Greer: 00:21:37

more important to be a good leader. And the sales part of

Wesleyne Greer: 00:21:41

that is coming along the way, right? Like when you came into

Wesleyne Greer: 00:21:44

the position, you said, Okay, turnover is high, you don't need

Wesleyne Greer: 00:21:48

to have known anything about sales to understand how to fix

Wesleyne Greer: 00:21:51

turnover, how to fix company culture, how to stabilize how to

Wesleyne Greer: 00:21:55

rearrange territories, how to onboard. And so really, I think

Wesleyne Greer: 00:21:58

that one of the things that I am actually leaning into these days

Wesleyne Greer: 00:22:03

when I'm talking to people is they tend to promote the top

Wesleyne Greer: 00:22:06

salesperson. And that top salesperson is for sure. Not

Wesleyne Greer: 00:22:10

always a good leader. And so really switching the paradigm

Wesleyne Greer: 00:22:14

and thinking about, Okay, let's get a strong leader from outside

Wesleyne Greer: 00:22:17

of our industry, or strong leader who it may not

Wesleyne Greer: 00:22:20

necessarily have done classic sales, but his sales minded,

Wesleyne Greer: 00:22:24

like you said, I was customer facing, I was always having to

Wesleyne Greer: 00:22:27

focus on the customer. Right. So I think that yes, you did debunk

Wesleyne Greer: 00:22:32

the myth. All right. I

Chad Briscoe: 00:22:33

love fighting the battles, right. When as you're

Chad Briscoe: 00:22:35

talking, I'm thinking, you know, if it's fighting the battles for

Chad Briscoe: 00:22:37

my team, or if it's fighting battles for the customers, or

Chad Briscoe: 00:22:40

sometimes you're fighting the battles for the operations team

Chad Briscoe: 00:22:43

that needs to deliver, right, I mean, we don't want to leave

Chad Briscoe: 00:22:45

them, we don't want to hang them up to dry. And, you know, when

Chad Briscoe: 00:22:48

things don't go perfectly with the customer, it's not always on

Chad Briscoe: 00:22:51

them, right. And so they need us to fight the battles along with

Chad Briscoe: 00:22:54

them for the customer. So I just like getting in there and making

Chad Briscoe: 00:22:57

things happen. Again, whether it's sales or lead and

Chad Briscoe: 00:23:00

operations are in the scientific leadership roles. And I do think

Chad Briscoe: 00:23:03

that piece resonates with my team, as they know, I'm always

Chad Briscoe: 00:23:06

going to fight the battles for him. I hope they feel that way

Chad Briscoe: 00:23:09

anyways,

Wesleyne Greer: 00:23:09

yes, yes, I would definitely say that if you

Wesleyne Greer: 00:23:13

during this difficult two year period where we've been in this

Wesleyne Greer: 00:23:16

pandemic, you've been able to retain the year people joined

Wesleyne Greer: 00:23:20

you during this time. I would say that that is definitely

Wesleyne Greer: 00:23:24

definitely the sign of a strong leader. Yeah. So I'm curious,

Wesleyne Greer: 00:23:29

you've had a very diverse career, you've done a lot of

Wesleyne Greer: 00:23:33

amazing things. What is one thing that you would say you are

Wesleyne Greer: 00:23:37

most excited about having accomplished?

Chad Briscoe: 00:23:40

Yeah, I think the most exciting career opportunity

Chad Briscoe: 00:23:44

or not career opportunity, the probably the most exciting thing

Chad Briscoe: 00:23:46

that I accomplished was the first drug because I'm in the

Chad Briscoe: 00:23:50

pharmaceutical space, the first drug that I saw, from pretty

Chad Briscoe: 00:23:55

early in the process all the way through to approval, and I've

Chad Briscoe: 00:23:58

seen others since then. But the very first one, it was a, I

Chad Briscoe: 00:24:01

can't disclose the name of the company. But I was in this case,

Chad Briscoe: 00:24:04

I was literally working on the bench and developing the assays

Chad Briscoe: 00:24:07

and doing all the science for it. And then I progressed the

Chad Briscoe: 00:24:10

project management role. And then ultimately, when this drug

Chad Briscoe: 00:24:13

was approved, because it takes years and you know, it takes

Chad Briscoe: 00:24:15

years for the career develop and takes years for the drug to get

Chad Briscoe: 00:24:18

approved. But I watched this drug go all the way through my

Chad Briscoe: 00:24:20

lab, and through my organization to be on the market. And if you

Chad Briscoe: 00:24:24

work in the pharmaceutical development space, that is what

Chad Briscoe: 00:24:28

it's all about. Right? It's about seeing drugs go to market.

Chad Briscoe: 00:24:30

And since then, every time I see a drug that I touch that's on

Chad Briscoe: 00:24:34

the market, or in one case, just recently, there was a drug that

Chad Briscoe: 00:24:39

I knew that I had worked on, that was a fairly unusual drug

Chad Briscoe: 00:24:42

that my wife was prescribed. And she's like, what, you know, it's

Chad Briscoe: 00:24:45

for, you know, it's not something you see all the time.

Chad Briscoe: 00:24:48

She's like, What is this? You know, what is this drug and I

Chad Briscoe: 00:24:50

looked at the label and went, Hey, I worked on that back in

Chad Briscoe: 00:24:52

2006 when it was like, you know, really early in development, and

Chad Briscoe: 00:24:56

then you know, and so you see that direct impact on people

Chad Briscoe: 00:24:59

that are close. was to use and that is by far and away the

Chad Briscoe: 00:25:02

biggest hit in my career, right? It's kind of not, I love what

Chad Briscoe: 00:25:06

I've done, I love all the different things I've done. But

Chad Briscoe: 00:25:09

when you can actually have an impact on so many other people

Chad Briscoe: 00:25:12

that's by far and away at the top of the list. Hmm,

Wesleyne Greer: 00:25:16

I love that. And that chat is why you are a good

Wesleyne Greer: 00:25:19

leader. It's not about you know, well, I made all this money or I

Wesleyne Greer: 00:25:24

did this or I did that it's I made this drug and knowing how

Wesleyne Greer: 00:25:29

this drug is impacting not just one person or 10 people, but

Wesleyne Greer: 00:25:33

1000s, and maybe even millions of people, right, and saying

Wesleyne Greer: 00:25:37

like, that is what I hang my hat on that very first drug and even

Wesleyne Greer: 00:25:41

to see today, something that you worked on a whole decade ago, to

Wesleyne Greer: 00:25:47

almost two decades. Oh, is impacting lives today.

Chad Briscoe: 00:25:51

Yeah, cuz I think that I think that program

Chad Briscoe: 00:25:53

started in maybe 99. And then it was probably approved in

Chad Briscoe: 00:25:56

2006 2007, something like that. So yes, I really that first

Chad Briscoe: 00:26:00

company I was with, I really saw the progression through my

Chad Briscoe: 00:26:04

career. And yeah, and you know, drugs sell on the market today.

Chad Briscoe: 00:26:07

And it's still helping people. So very exciting. Yeah,

Wesleyne Greer: 00:26:11

that is awesome. Dr. Chad Briscoe, you have given

Wesleyne Greer: 00:26:16

us a lot of amazing gems. And really, as I said, and it's very

Wesleyne Greer: 00:26:20

hard to change my very strong opinions. You're tilting me on

Wesleyne Greer: 00:26:25

that side, you are tilting me on that side? If people are

Wesleyne Greer: 00:26:30

interested in getting in contact with you? What is the one best

Wesleyne Greer: 00:26:33

way?

Chad Briscoe: 00:26:33

Yeah, probably the best way is to look me up on

Chad Briscoe: 00:26:35

LinkedIn and send me a LinkedIn message. I can put my email out

Chad Briscoe: 00:26:38

there, which would be fine or whatever. But you can find me on

Chad Briscoe: 00:26:40

LinkedIn really easily. I'm always chatting with people on

Chad Briscoe: 00:26:43

LinkedIn messenger. And so look me up on LinkedIn, I'd love to

Chad Briscoe: 00:26:47

talk about anything, right? I mean, anywhere from sales

Chad Briscoe: 00:26:51

strategy, how I did it, too. If you want to be a customer, we'd

Chad Briscoe: 00:26:54

love to talk to you about that as well, of course, so and

Chad Briscoe: 00:26:57

anywhere in between connecting with old friends, right? I mean,

Chad Briscoe: 00:27:00

I all sorts of things we do through LinkedIn nowadays. So it

Chad Briscoe: 00:27:03

is

Wesleyne Greer: 00:27:03

an amazing plan. Be sure to connect with Chad on

Wesleyne Greer: 00:27:08

LinkedIn. And thank you so much for sharing your time, your

Wesleyne Greer: 00:27:12

talent and your expertise with us today.

Chad Briscoe: 00:27:14

Thank you for the opportunity. I really I really

Chad Briscoe: 00:27:16

enjoyed it a great conversation, and I'm enjoying your podcast.

Chad Briscoe: 00:27:19

So hope to hear many more from you. It's on my list probably

Chad Briscoe: 00:27:23

top five rotation right now. So yeah, so

Wesleyne Greer: 00:27:27

happy to hear that because you know, everyone

Wesleyne Greer: 00:27:30

knows that isn't podcast host that it is a labor of love. And

Wesleyne Greer: 00:27:33

so the more lives that I can impact the better that makes me

Wesleyne Greer: 00:27:38

feel You bet. Thanks so much. And that was another episode of

Wesleyne Greer: 00:27:42

the transform sales podcast. Remember in everything that you

Wesleyne Greer: 00:27:46

do, and all that you are each and every day transform your