Real Passion, Real business

Real Passions make Real Businesses
 
Over the past few years I've often pondered about what makes businesses work, what makes them sucessful and the clear conclusion is that they need to have passion in them.
 
But that needs to be a balanced passion between love of the technology, the science or the product and and passion for exploiting it and achieving a good, on-going relationship with a growing and engaged customer base.
 
Too much fascination with the nuts and bolts doesn't allow for good and smooth commercialisation as there are too many opportunities to "perfect" this product, rather than allow it out the door to market and begin work on the next generation. Too many ideas can clutter the mind and create confusion in the market place about what the company stands for and what it is seeking to achieve. 
 
Too much emphasis on being the best, the biggest, the most popular might drive sales and increase revenues, but at the deteriment of respect for the customer and the technical uniqueness of the product.
 
But no company will survive if the CEO isn't passionate about their role, able to convey confidence in the product, in their team and genuine interest in achieving recognition for their company.
 

Chasm of Mistrust

Science and Sales shall never be friends in the minds of many scientists - but fundamental to a successful company is the ability to sell your service or product. There has to be revenue generation or else you are company soley financed through investment and grants and effectively a research group with a commercial label rather than an academic one.
 
The gap is a "chasm of mistrust" and it takes a brave researcher to leap the gap and begin to understand the process of sales and marketing from the other side and even more to be able to advocate for the inclusion of these processes early in the development of a company or commercialisation process.
 
This chasm exists in many ways.
It exists in Universities where students and young researchers are channelled into a tight research focus and not often exposed to the benefits of business understanding - despite the best efforts of many Knowledge Exchange colleagues seeking participation in Business Academy/Dragons Den/Young Enterpreneur Scheme programs.
 
It exists in companies where there is little appreciation of the need for an appropriately worded website. One which allows your company to hold its head high in comparison with your competition. I have heard several senior managers in various companies say that they don't use the website to sell with, they rely on getting face-2-face meetings and developing the relationship from there. This is doing it the hard way -  and requires you to sell the credibilty of your company and technology in spite of the main marketing communication tool being a negative influence.
 
However the reaction of participants when they are put "in touch with their non-technical skills" and experience the freedom to express their science in a creative manner is often life changing.
 
I know - I've been there.
 
 
 
 

Commericalisation Pure or Applied?

How to inspire commercialisation in research scientists?

This is not a rhetorical question – it is a real problem that I don't have the answer to.

How to get people from the pure science elements of education to engage meaningfully with commercialisation either as academics or for a non-academic career choice.

Education across Europe defines people very early as scientists and encourages focus on the discipline, sometimes preventing access to other subjects which encourage entrepreneurship. Combinations such as Economics and Chemistry are rarely offered as Joint Honours – particularly in the UK.

So how do we enable our scientists to truly explore their ability and affinity for business? Not just in understanding the financial aspects of funding or running a business, but to explore their natural ability to communicate, their aptitude for sales, for marketing, for creative thinking and new product design?

Too many scientists think that sales are unimportant, and lack ethics; that marketing is all baloney and unnecessary but the reality is without sales there is no company or money making opportunity - even to fund their further research.

Business games such as Young Entrepreneur Scheme are great vehicles to allow academic engagement with commercialisation, but overall only a low percentage of students take this opportunity, often because they don't understand or appreciate the benefits of the interaction with others from different institutions or even just how a change of scene and time out of the lab can open your mind to new ideas.

Sometimes academic supervisors or teachers in high schools themselves don't appreciate the benefits of these types of event for widening self-knowledge and “putting people in touch with their non-technical skills” and can't support and encourage, or demand, participation from their pupils.

So how do we do it? How across Europe in particular, do we manage to bridge the gap between science and sales and get more people to realise that sales and marketing careers exist, are enjoyable and allow them to use their science to the benefit of themselves and their companies.

It is a fact that the companies need them – 80% of small companies fail because of lack of sales not because their technology didn't work.