Episode 50: Mastering Biotech Partnership Systems with Key Opinion Leader Jordan Stillman

So many conferences use the partnering one system. On today's episode, you're going to learn how to optimize your strategies and get the best bang for your buck.

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Welcome back to Bio from the Bayou. I'm your host, James Zanewicz, the Chief Strategy Officer at Tulane Medicine. And today's guest is Jordan Stillman, who is the Project Manager of Partnering Services for the EBD Group, the leading global partnering firm for the life science industry. In her role, Jordan provides a full suite of customer services for the Partnering One platform, and she leads clients through partnering implementation and management. I'm really excited to dig more into best practices for partnering in biotech with her in general, because every time we talk, I learn something new and something new that her system can do. Welcome to the show, Jordan.

Thank you. Thank you so much for having me.

All right. So I want to start with basics basics first, if we can, for those building blocks, because there are probably some people listening who aren't as well-versed in partnering, having done the millions of meetings or arranged the millions of meetings like you have.

Sure.

What should people look for when they're looking at a conference and why should they want partnering included? I guess simply, you know, what's the value? What's the goal of partnering meetings as opposed to just networking in general?

Great question. And that's the question we get a lot, actually. So the main difference between partnering and networking is intentionality. Partnering's planning to meet because you know that you have something worth discussing. You're specifically requesting a meeting with this particular partner because you've researched them, you know, your goals are aligned. Meanwhile, networking is finding something to discuss because you happen to meet. It's meeting by chance on the exhibit floor, things like that. Partnering is all about Searching for potential partners with purpose, doing your homework, thoughtfully sending requests to set up meetings ahead of the event. To get the best return on your investment, you have to participate in the pre-event planning. Partnering meetings aren't something that should be thrown together last minute. Your research helps you determine the viability of a meeting, and luckily the Partnering One database of attending companies makes that research really easy to do.

It's a lot like online dating in many ways, and you know, it's almost like swipe left, swipe right, and I get just as sad as, you know, I do in dating apps. When somebody says no to me, but you can increase your chance of success. And sometimes the platform and how it works is really helpful with that, 'cause not all partnering platforms are created equal. I've used PartneringOne for many conferences myself. It's what we use for our conference bio in the bio. We chose that intentionally because we liked it so much. But for those who don't know about differences in partnering platforms and why PartneringOne is so easy to use and why we feel it stands out from the crowd, can you talk a little bit about that and why they should look for that PartneringOne logo on key industry events?

PartneringOne, in basic terms, is a digital partnering platform that maximizes how efficiently you can manage your pipeline and ensure you engage with the right people at the right time so that you can find the right partners. It's a powerful tool. It lets you set your availability, build a custom company profile that you can highlight your company's unique value. It'll let you pinpoint potential partners through search and advanced filters, and then you can send and respond to requests to ensure that you have a slate of quality meetings set up before you ever even get on site. And PartneringOne lets you research companies and assets and then contact attending participants to schedule your meetings with them. You can use a single login across all PartneringOne events. So all your history is accessible to you. And it's just really a great solution for dealmaking, especially for licensing professionals who are really looking to optimize their workflow. And the best part is there's no going back and forth trying to find the best time and place to meet. You're not going, oh, are you free at 4? We are, but there's nowhere to go. PartneringOne does all of that for you. You and your colleagues just let PartneringOne know when you can take meetings, when you're available by setting that availability. And then when you and a potential partner agree to meet, the system finds a time where both parties are available as well as an open meeting location and then schedules the meeting at that time and in that place. So. All you have to do is show up prepared to have a great conversation. And also, I just wanna quickly mention that if anyone listening is organizing an event and needs a professional partnering system, please contact us.

Oh, shameless plug. I love it.

Yeah, shameless plug. Um, yeah, we can facilitate partnering at any in-person or virtual conference, trade mission, trade show, or corporate networking event.

And you talked about how you're able to research other companies, which means when companies are researching you, you need to have a strong profile so that they can find what you have and what you need. How can someone who's at an event using Partnering One craft a really strong profile that will entice other companies, investors, universities, whatever they're looking for, to want to ask for or agree to a meeting?

Yes, this is one of the most crucial steps when it comes to partnering, and it's really the key to successful partnering, is building that strong profile as soon as possible. And I recommend completing and publishing your profile before partnering even opens, you'll have access to the platform weeks before the event and weeks before you can start searching and requesting even. So having your profile set up before then will put you in a really good position to find potential partners because your profile is how other companies and possible partners will assess whether or not you have anything that is worth discussing. So it's really important to make sure that you make a good impression. Your profile should be clear. It should be succinct, precise, and enticing, as you mentioned, to readers. And also, I want to note that longer doesn't always mean better. So I really want to stress succinct. And those first 2 or 3 lines of your company description does appear in search where people are looking at dozens and dozens of profiles at a time. You know, you want to make sure your description stands out, but it also gets to the point of your company's value. I also want to highlight that we have a new profile feature that I think will make targeting your search much easier. So we've introduced a profile field for partnering and investment goals. So in your company profile, you can indicate all the areas that are relevant for your specific goals to make it clear what opportunities you're seeking or which ones you're offering. If you work in research and development services or consulting, you can also easily find companies who are seeking services, which will help you make the best use of your 150 requests. These goals are just another tool that we've implemented to ensure your search is focused, relevant, and focused on providing the best ROI.

I love little inside information like that, 'cause I learned that and didn't know that yet. I learn new things all the time. All right, so once you have your profile though, it's all about that all-important ask. And so I have 2 asks of you. How far in advance of a conference or event should someone start requesting meetings? And then what's the best way to draft that request for meetings with potential partners so they, you know, as we joked about before, but so they swipe right and say yes?

I want to stress that there's no such thing as starting too soon. You can't start too soon when it comes to partnering. In fact, I advise getting started as early as possible, as soon as you have access to the system. As soon as partnering opens, get started. Begin doing your research and requesting and accepting meetings right away. It behooves you to do so. You don't want to miss out on an important meeting because the other party has a full schedule. It happens. I see it happen all the time.

Mm-hmm.

People are like, we both want to meet, but There's just no more time slots available. So try to avoid that situation by just being first. That'll get you there. And, you know, despite this advice, we do also tend to see the most activity in the 2 weeks before the event.

Because we're all procrastinators, right? We all want to do things early. We put things off. Exactly.

Exactly. So if you do get started early and you don't see responses right away, don't panic. It's still good to get ahead of the game. And then as far as What you can do in your requests is before you start sending any, as I mentioned, do your research, use the keywords and our search filters to narrow down who would be a good fit for you to actually reach out to. And then once you have that list, select read more, really dive into their company profile, read the profile. Who are they? What are they looking for? What are you offering and would be of interest? What are they offering that would be of interest to you? Then take all that information and tailor a personalized message that is specific to the other party. You want to prove with your message that you've taken the time to do your homework. You know that you have something of interest to discuss. And also, if you have any history at all with this company, if you've met before, be sure to mention that in your message. Specificity, that is the thing that will help you stand out. So for example, if you're sending a request to a pharma company that you've met with before, make it clear when the last time you met was, what you have to update them on. And if this is your first time meeting with this company, make sure you're really clear about where you fit into their pipeline and their strategy. And I also wanna stress that this crucially applies to your subject line as well, which is the first thing the other company will see. You wanna have a clear and specific subject line to encourage the reader to open your request. You know, let's meet, that's not a good subject line because it doesn't let the other party know what you wanna talk about, you know? So just be precise and thoughtful when you're crafting your outgoing requests. So that's the kind of attention to detail that will really improve your response rate.

And speaking of response rates, I'll say like at our last big partnering event, Tulane, our BD team had 130 meetings. It's productive, but a lot of work. What kind of tips do you have for keeping up with requests as they roll in and meetings as you schedule them in Partnering 1? What's the best way to make sure that you're not missing things? Because it's a lot sometimes. Especially in that last couple of weeks flurry.

It can definitely be a lot. And you can use Partnering One however you find best, but I can definitely give some recommendations. And my top recs are tags, filters, and templates. So tags are customizable private bookmarks that will help you stay organized, basically. So you can add a tagging system that's customized to your company and your individual needs. So you can add a tag to any incoming or outgoing request, and you can be as specific or custom as you want. So you could, you know, make tags that are colleagues' names or therapeutic areas or any other categorization that makes sense for your company so that you can better triage your inbox. Then once you're in the inbox, you can filter by those tags to find exactly the requests that you're looking for. And in your inbox, your tags are only one way to filter. You can also filter by outgoing or incoming requests. You can filter by status. So if it's pending requests, agreed meetings, declined or canceled as well, and to get a list of all the incoming requests that I personally need to respond to. For example, I could filter my inbox by incoming and requested messages, and then I could also filter by anything that was tagged with my name. Oh, wow. To bring up a list of all the requests. Yeah. All the requests that need my specific attention. So you can essentially use it to assign requests to different team members and sort of separate it among you. I also wanna highlight that it's always more polite to respond to a request, even if that's to decline the meeting, than to just ignore it. It basically helps the other party know if they should move on, if you're not interested.

Gives them a slot back.

Exactly. And then you get a slot back. And it also lets you filter those requests out of your inbox so you have a clearer view of what needs your attention. And then in that frame of mind, to save time while you're doing your declines, you might want to create some templates. Templates can be found under Manage Templates on any new reply or request by just selecting— there's a plus new button and you give it a title. This is all for just internal organization. No one else sees these titles, just your colleagues. And then you can put in some text to save and reuse on future replies, which is a really handy shortcut to speed up that declining process.

I never thought about that. I have templates for my asks and not for my declines, and that's so smart. Oh my God, that's so much easier.

I would say having a template to start your asks where you have what you know you wanna say, and then you add in all of that information that's like really focused on the other company to make sure it's personalized and customized, but declining, you can put those in there and sort of really speed that up as much as possible because that can be a lot of work if you have a lot of meetings that you're like, I can't, and then you have to click through. So I totally recommend using templates. And then one more tip I have is that if you do need administrative help managing your inbox, you can always get colleagues to help you by inviting them as a guest. So guests can access Partnering One through a dedicated link that's connected to their email address. So you don't have to share your credentials with anybody. And allowing someone guest access lets them do Anything that you can do within your account. Your guest isn't registered though, so they don't show up as someone attending, but they can help you with everything you need to do in P1.

That's fantastic. A great way to use interns or support staff in that way and give them some experience as well. They can grow to learn how the system works, which is great. Say we've done all this right, we've listened to your advice, we've gotten great meetings. You talk to companies, investors, all these people who use Partnering Go All In. You know what's in their heads. So say get to that meeting, we get to the room, we get to sit down and talk with them. What do they want to hear? And how do we structure our pitch in the room now that we've used partnering 1 to get to that point?

Partnering meetings are typically 25 minutes long, with 5 minutes for you to get to your next meeting. So you have to get to the next meeting, the people you're meeting with might have to, and if neither of you have meetings, someone else probably needs that location. So you have to get out of there. So generally, you're looking to give no more than 10 minutes of presentation. And if the other party doesn't go over 10 minutes, that gives you about 5 minutes or so for discussion. My advice is to go into that meeting confident with your pitch, with a clear take-home message that's tailored to the people who are going to be in the meeting with you. Research the people in the meeting. This should be a continuation of the initial research that you did when you were sending the request. And also, if the other people haven't shared any of their contact details with you digitally, in the request, you can also ask in that meeting for their email address. Those are my recommendations.

That's fantastic. And I think for people who want to dig a little deeper, they can go back and listen to our podcast with Tari Sipraptto and Kenesha Akinpalumi on partnering, where Tari, who's been at several companies, gives her thoughts on what she expects, which is a much deeper dive into that. So for people who want more, go find that episode and look it up. And then the final thing I want to talk to you about is you guys have a whole new offering in Partnering One Plus. It's like Apple TV Plus, but for partnering. Can you tell us a little more about that and why people should consider a subscription to Partnering One+ and using that resource as well?

We developed Partnering One+ because we know partnering doesn't begin and end at an event. It's a year-round activity. There are partnering innovators who are looking for new ways to partner, new ways to make their workflows more effective and more efficient. And so Partnering One+ allows our subscribers to find relevant partners from across over 26 and growing annual events. even if they're not able to attend in person. So then you can connect with them in Partnering One+ year-round and identify the best events that make sense for you to meet at so you can provide a better return on your event investment. And finally, you can manage your prospects and follow up more efficiently, saving time. So rather than having to search for partners from scratch at the start of each event and cross-referencing against, you know, CRMs and spreadsheets, so many spreadsheets, you just do your search once on Partnering One+. You can set up custom alerts so that when there's new matches available, you get a notification and all that data is available to you within the events you're attending. So it's a really seamless experience from search to the event to follow up. Partnering One Plus is— it's really about trying to save our customers time and helping them find relevant partners throughout the year so that we can help their business grow.

And also, I guess that would save you potentially travel dollars and time out of the office because you're able to look at events that you're not attending as well. Which is a great way to—

Exactly.

It's not the same as being there and getting the face-to-face, but if you're hitting, say, you know, BioEurope Spring and BioEurope Fall, it may allow you to hit a couple of your other events in between that you don't have time or budget to travel for.

Exactly.

That's great. Jordan, is there anything else you feel like we need to know before we start to close out today, or do you think we covered most of the things? Did I do a good job with my questions so I get a gold star?

I think you did a great job with your questions. Yeah, I feel like we really got into it.

I love it. Fantastic. Well, I wanna thank you again for making time and joining us. As always, when I talk to you, I've learned a few new tips and tools, and some of them were new, Probably some are just I didn't know how to use, right? We use it so often as our preferred partnering platform for BIO on the Bayou. And speaking of that, I want to highlight that we do have some really important industry events coming up this fall. October 29th and 30th is BIO on the Bayou in New Orleans. And very soon after that, the very next week, the EBD Group is hosting BIO Europe in Stockholm, Sweden, November 4th through 6th. Now our listeners have no excuses and should be all caught up in how to utilize Partnering One for Amazing events like BIO in the Bayou that we just talked about, BIO Europe in Stockholm, Sweden, we just talked about. But do you have any other events coming up people should know about where partnering is going to be a key feature?

Yes.

So China BIO Partnering Forum is coming up September 10th and 11th in Shanghai. And then after BIO Europe in January, January 13th to 15th is our annual biotech showcase in San Francisco. So yeah, those are just a few of the many. CPM Week, right? Yes, yes, exactly.

It's always the crazy fun time, and now everyone knows how to increase their work-related swipe rights and get great meetings and great partnering, which is fantastic. As always, we'll have your contact info for LinkedIn, all the good stuff, and informational links to EBD Group and Partnering One in our show notes, as well as links to BioEurope, ChinaBio, Bio on the Bayou, and the Biotech Showcase. I want to make sure everyone knows to connect with you and check out the links to learn more, and thank you. Thank you one more time for joining us, Jordan. This was so much fun.

Thank you. Thank you so much for having me.

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