Arveth Awen
(or Arveth's inspirations)

Understanding the need…

Today I hung out the washing because it was dry and breezy, so today would have been a rubbish day to call and try to sell me a tumble-dryer.

We all understand about seasonal ranges in the supermarkets, we’ve just had Easter eggs and now it’s all barbeques and garden games. But do we think about it in regards to scientific kit?

It can be quite difficult, but we need to stay abreast of the hot topics in our field. We can read the trade press, look at what the funding bodies are talking about, go to conferences but as always, the best source of information is our customers. They know what they are going to need and those ‘maintenance’ calls and visits are valuable because they keep you in touch as well as in the customers mind.

But knowing the trends is one thing, you also need to target your message or offering accordingly, so don’t just blame your marketing department for being out of touch, actually tell them what you are seeing and hearing. A good marketer will appreciate the insights.

05 Jun 2024

Photo by Aron Visuals on Unsplash

Product pricing and positioning…

I’ve just made a fruit cake.

But this fruit cake is not my normal half fat to flour, throw in some fruit and make to a batter with milk and egg, no, today I actually measured all the ingredients properly, following a recipe.

Why? Because this is a birthday cake and it needs to taste good.

Sometimes, if you have a specific need or requirement you are prepared to pay a bit more or want something that is of a higher quality compared to your normal purchasing. The trick of the supplier is to understand which are one-off purchases and which are routine purchases. This affects many things, quality, supply levels and pricing.

Also if you have something very specific, it might only be needed occasionally – like my birthday cake, so your repeat sales cycle is longer.

It’s a business decision you need to take when supplying products.

Bespoke, high-quality, occasional or routine, throughput and fit for purpose.

Positioning your product or service needs to be a deliberate and thought-through decision, there are pros and cons to both approaches.

If you’d like to talk more about product design, positioning and lifeycle, contact me at sarah.lupton@arveth.com

P.S. I hope the cake is good, given the extra care and attention it got!

P.P.S. Not my cake as that’s still in the oven.

11 Apr 2024

Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

The missing link…or how do you make connections?

Young companies often start with the R&D, then someone starts trying to sell. At the beginning this is fine because the team is small and you are all chatting around in the office anyway. But as the company grows the link between customer-facing roles and R&D generally gets weaker. Also R&D can get focused on the next thing rather than looking at ways of providing information and applications to grow the existing idea. Feedback from the customers and collaborators gets lost and it’s the most efficient way to inform and develop your product or service offering.

Also having been a sales person, having new information, methods or application notes / white papers can really help build that relationship with potential customers or increase their usage. Product managers sit in-between, that technical understanding helping refine customer needs and requirements yet with a commercial outlook to support sales and marketing.

I’ve done quite a lot of different roles in science and I think product management is my favourite. I get to learn about interesting new approaches and technologies, yet work with front-line sales and customers to help those ideas get out there.

So if you need a part-time/contract/consultant product manager, why not drop me a line sarah.lupton@arveth.com and let’s have a chat about filling in the gap.

08 Feb 2024

Photo by Modestas Urbonas on Unsplash

From an end to a beginning...

I have just finished a project for a client and therefore I have some capacity but I thought it might be interesting to give a quick overview of how I approach a project.

The first question is why? Why do you need someone to support your organisation?

Are you just starting out? Are you in a congested market and need to find a differentiator? Are you wanting to develop or refine a product or service?

My clients often don’t express their requirements in those terms but those are the questions they are really asking often it’s a much vaguer, well we’d like to get in front of more customers but we don’t know how to do it. Or we are not sure what we can offer that’s different to the competition.

It usually takes a couple of conversations to work out what the project should consist of and what the outputs should be. As I often work with entrepreneurs and very young companies, for me it’s often an action plan which they can complete (with or without me help). My aim is to get my clients to the next stage and equip them with the skills to take it further.

08 SEP '23

Photo by Eden Constantino on Unsplash

What's your path?

I know this week is going to be different as the oldest is on work experience and won’t be home until Friday.

We’ve been able to arrange this through a very good friend who works in right industry sector and I know it’s going to be an eye-opener for her.

When we start out we have such a narrow idea of what our careers might look like, with my BSc in Biochemistry and a PhD in Biological Sciences I had planned to be a researcher in big pharma and I was…for a while. Then came the big reshuffle where all big pharma in UK moved to an outsourcing model and each closed or rearranged sites and I was caught up in the middle.

So I moved to the other side of the bench and started out as technical sales, I had no idea if I’d be any good but it was an interesting opportunity to I grabbed it. The same happened when doing regional marketing, setting up an Application Lab, working in product management – all roles I’d never heard of when I was looking from my first job as a fresh-faced post-doc!

I’m sure she’ll have a great week, will come home completely shattered but with a broader horizon and more confidence as she takes her first steps in her career.

And if you are just starting out with an innovative idea for the lab, I might just be able to help 😊

11 Jan '23

Photo by Simon Berger on Unsplash

Perceptions....

Last week there was a beautiful, bright full moon and I commented to my daughter who said she had to check the app on her phone as she wasn’t sure it was full! It just made me laugh, she could look at the moon but despite what she could see, she wanted to check. To me it didn’t really matter if it was one day out either side, the moon was still absolutely stunning in the clear sky.

It made me think about perceptions, when I get approached by recruiters or prospective clients, they’ve only just looked for a key company or at my last role, they rarely look any further, so for some people is that I’m a Technical Sales person, for others I’m a Product Manager or a Regional Marketing lead who can write application notes. All of these are accurate but I like to think that I’m first and foremost a scientist and secondly a good commercial all-rounder.

So if you need a scientist who has a business head, let's talk!

15 Nov '22

Photo by Sanni Sahil on Unsplash

Why didn't we do that before?

On Wednesdays I start with an early morning swim, I don’t like the very early alarm but it’s the only way I can fit it in routinely.

I swim with a group and we have a coached set, always with some technique drills and then a main set. Today was a very technique-rich session and the hour absolutely flew by. One of my lane friends had an a-ha moment when something completely clicked for her and it was great to see the joy on her face!

As part of my work, I have had to train scientists to use new equipment, new kits and new methods and it was always the best feeling when they turned to you at the end and said “that was so simple, why didn’t we do it before?”.

Getting time in the lab for method development or trialing new workflows is really difficult so a big part of selling into labs is earning the trust of your customers. Find out what is really important to them, make sure you have the correct product or service to offer and admit it if you don’t!

It doesn’t have to be the ultimate solution but if there are limitations be upfront, then even if it doesn’t work out this time and least the door is open for the next time.

If you need help with understanding what’s important to your customers, writing an application note or technical training or designing a marketing plan, contact me to see how I can help.

10th Nov '22

Choose a word...

Mine is flexibility.

I like to plan and have some thing to aim for, but one thing I’m learning is when to be flexible. Life happens, things change and learning when to be flexible is key, however it must not drift into making excuses which is a real temptation.

So I’m going to build in “thinking” time to my week. Thinking out loud and bouncing ideas off people can really help and I’m hoping to offer that “thinking time” to help new businesses get their ideas out there.

If this sounds like what you need to help your business grow, let's have a chat to see what could develop.

Photo credit christopher-sardegna-CMOa3H1SXG0-unsplash

12 Oct '22

Buzz words...do you love them or loathe them?

I’ve been talking to Universities about support and funding for new companies and ideas and these terms keep coming up…

Commercialisation

Technology transfer

Knowledge Transfer Partnerships

I’m finding it interesting to work out how tasks done in larger companies by marketing and product management are being viewed in start-ups.

For example, in a larger company, reviewing the competitor landscape is done by product management and then feeds into R&D to develop the next round of products.

So my learning point is when I write “experienced in product management” it doesn’t translate, I have to break it down more to: research competitor landscape and collate voice of the customer.

Photo by Amador Loureiro on Unsplash

1st November 2022

Arveth Awen(or Arveth's inspirations)