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Ep. 6 Colin Sanford Building a Rewarding Relationship With Your Comms Team
46 Plays10 months ago
Colin Sanford is a biotech PR expert, join us as he discusses the importance of on-boarding a comms team early and growing that relationship to ensure your well-executed communication strategy can drive scientific innovation to transformative change.
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Transcript
Introduction to Mighty Spark Communications
00:00:00
Speaker
Hi, everyone, and welcome to Spark Time. I'm Dani Stoltzfus. And I'm Will Riddle. Of Mighty Spark Communications. Our mission is to use scientific innovation to drive transformative change. We believe that compelling storytelling is the most effective tool we have in our arsenal to motivate and inspire audiences to invest themselves in audacious goals. We are scientists by training, storytellers by experience, and entrepreneurs by nature. Let's get started.
Communication Strategy with Colin Sanford
00:00:29
Speaker
In today's episode, we are discussing communication strategy amongst other things with our guest, Colin Sanford. Will, tell us what's hot in this episode. This was definitely enlightening conversation about so many different topics in biotech communications. And I think what I found most useful were Colin's thoughts about when and why you actually need that New York Times or the Wall Street Journal article and what kind of earned media is important aside from those really big names.
00:00:59
Speaker
Yeah, I agree. We often hear people want those big name articles and Colin's thoughts are really enlightening. I loved hearing Colin speak about those descriptors first, best, and only, and the fact that they don't actually help your story. They can tank your credibility, especially when it comes to reporters that are covering your company.
00:01:17
Speaker
Totally. And one more thing before we dive in, but he also talked about how there's a comms agency fit for every stage biotech, no matter the size or the budget. And that's obviously something we're real believers in. All right, enough to chat. Let's head to the interview.
Colin Sanford's Biotech Journey
00:01:33
Speaker
Today, we're interviewing Colin Sanford. And Colin's career spans more than 25 years of communications experience in the life science, biotech and enterprise IT industries.
00:01:43
Speaker
As a senior member of the Bioscribe team currently, he leads the firm's new business development and strategic partnership activities. In addition to more than 10 years as a senior partner at Bioscribe, Colin's experience includes leadership roles with large PR agencies, including Real Chemistry and the Corkery Group. Much of his work is focused on the development and management of marketing and communication programs for innovative early-stage companies, delivering novel breakthroughs at the intersection of biology and technology.
00:02:11
Speaker
Colin received a BA in history from UC Santa Barbara and lives in the Bay Area. Colin, we're so delighted to have you here. How are you doing today? I'm doing great. Thanks for having me. This is going to be an exciting conversation. Yes, we're so glad we were able to get you on the podcast. Do you mind telling us about yourself and how you arrived at BioTek PR? Yeah, absolutely. I'm a native Californian and grew up in the Bay Area.
00:02:38
Speaker
went to college in Santa Barbara. And after I graduated, I came back home. And this was sort of 90s Silicon Valley. So the dot-com boom was in full swing. And as a history major, I was kind of trying to figure out where I fit in the mix of corporate jobs. And storytelling and research was really something that I enjoyed and was excited about.
00:03:05
Speaker
And so I landed in public relations. It has a lot of that quality to it. And so I found myself working in agency PR for big tech companies that were really building out the internet. So companies like Sun Microsystems, who was developing the servers that powered the internet and they were inventing Java at the time that really turned the internet from a static
00:03:30
Speaker
thing into a dynamic place for content, e-commerce was being born. So that was the world I sort of launched my career in and really just fell in love with the people and the creativity and the amazing sort of vision that all these people had about what's possible when you sort of
00:03:51
Speaker
apply technology to lots of different things we were doing.
Strategic Communication in Biotech
00:03:54
Speaker
So I just sort of got into that innovation landscape and really just was driven by that and loved telling the stories of these companies. But my introduction to the life sciences happened
00:04:08
Speaker
You know, after I'd been doing this for a number of years, when I went in house to a bioinformatics company that was building one of the first web based tools for managing and analyzing data that was coming off the human genome project. So this was 1999 and.
00:04:25
Speaker
you know, the race was about to end and Craig Venter and Francis Collins were, you know, racing to be the first to finish the draft. And that was when the big event at the White House was happening. So it was a very exciting time in that space. And so, again, it was just being in the middle of this really exciting place where technology was opening up doors to new ways to looking at, you know, biology and human health and
00:04:55
Speaker
the ideas that were sort of percolating back then, some we're still working on today, really hooked me in terms of the life sciences. So I've never looked back, and that was 25 years ago, so have been involved ever since. Wow. You've really been on the forefront of biotech and life science PR then over the last 20, so years. That's really amazing.
00:05:19
Speaker
Yeah, so much has happened in that time. And it's fun to kind of think back about what we were talking about then and what we're hearing today. And in some areas, it's like we're still trying to figure out the same challenges. But in other areas, it's really amazing how those early days when we didn't even know really how many genes were in the genome, and now we're CRISPR editing and all kinds of amazing things. So yeah, it's been a fun period of time to be involved in this industry.
00:05:49
Speaker
Wow. Yeah, that is so cool, Colin. I can really appreciate
Effective PR in Scientific Innovations
00:05:54
Speaker
that journey. It must have been so fun to be on and kind of jealous that I wasn't around in the industry back when you started. But anyway, I wanted to talk about a topic that we talk about a lot at MightySpark, especially when we're dealing with clients at their
00:06:10
Speaker
Early, they've just started there in the first year or two of operations. They often feel like they can't afford to work with biotech PR companies or agencies like us or you. Can you speak to the effect that that has on those early stage companies when they don't invest in communication strategies early on in their journey?
00:06:34
Speaker
Yeah, I think that a lot of early stage companies are being led by people who invented the approach or the platform or the technology. And they're often technical and vary in the weeds. And in the life sciences, we see a lot of people coming out of academia
00:06:56
Speaker
Um, and so, you know, their approach to communications, um, can, can be that, you know, really sort of complicated language that, that we see in peer reviewed papers. And that's important. But when you start to think about communications as a corporate function,
00:07:15
Speaker
you're onboarding a lot of new audiences who don't necessarily need all the technical information, and they're trying to absorb who you are and what you're doing in different ways. And so thinking about a practitioner or a professional who understands how to translate the amazing science and engineering that you're doing
00:07:39
Speaker
into a lot of different narratives that are going to speak to the audiences you want to attract and help you accomplish your goals becomes more and more important. And I think initially that's really the role is how are we helping translate what you're doing into a compelling story that maps with the vision and the potential impact of your therapeutic or your device or your product.
Maintaining Communication Momentum
00:08:08
Speaker
That's really interesting. It almost sounds like if you're not investing in communicating what you're doing to those audiences early on, but potentially you miss the opportunity to engage them or you get delayed in your time lines if you haven't engaged your audiences early enough. Does that sound right?
00:08:27
Speaker
Yeah that sounds right or they're just not really understanding the value or the impact of your presence in the market you know they're missing. The other the other piece of this i mean creating the story and the messages is one part of this but you know the communications people can really start to help you think about.
00:08:46
Speaker
where to engage these conversations you know we'll spend some time talking about you know earned media but you know communications in today's world you know there's so many tools and you really can be your own. Broadcast agency or your own news channel and you know they can help you start to think about you know where having these conversations are gonna make an impact for the people you're trying to reach.
00:09:14
Speaker
and the things you're trying to accomplish. That's the second part of it in addition to just what is the story, how are we going to tell it and where are we going to tell it when is a big part of this. Yeah. I definitely want to get into talking about
00:09:30
Speaker
know, acting as your own newsroom and as well as earned media and how and when to approach it. But I want to just go back, Colin, to one of the things you were talking about is the PR team can help translate the scientific foundings and the
00:09:47
Speaker
the company's operations to a wider audience.
Beyond Big Media Outlets
00:09:51
Speaker
But along those same lines of translation, one of the challenges of engaging with a PR team is they often speak a much different language than life science executives, especially scientific founders. So if you were to give any early stage companies advice, how would you advise them to engage with their comms team to get the most out of that relationship?
00:10:17
Speaker
I think that word engage is really the secret sauce here. It's engage them, have this conversation with them because as communications professionals, especially those of us that have been in the industry a long time and have been exposed to a lot of different kinds of
00:10:36
Speaker
R&D technologies, therapeutic modalities. We understand enough to be dangerous, but we can also really help translate what you're saying into these narratives we've been talking about. So I think that I'm not a scientist, but I certainly
00:10:56
Speaker
understand how to make the leap from a very technical conversation to one that's going to be manageable by lots of different audiences. And that takes engagement. So I think one thing that impacts these kinds of relationships negatively is when a company throws an investor deck over the wall or a manuscript
00:11:22
Speaker
and expects their comms person to be able to translate it into all the things they need to support their comms program. We really need to have these kinds of conversations. And so the relationships often kick off with this kind of interview.
00:11:41
Speaker
for lack of a better term and where we're really sort of probing them about what they're doing and why it's important and what are the sort of key things and what's happening in the industry around them. Why did they come up with this idea? Why do we need this? And those kinds of things really help educate us about
00:11:59
Speaker
you know, the vision and the story they're telling and then translate that into a good comms program. But again, it's engagement and really spending the time and investing in that relationship with your comms person that's going to make it successful. And I think sometimes that piece is underestimated and it is a bit of a commitment. And so, you know, we're often working, especially with early stage companies with people who have day jobs as the CEO or the CMO or the CSO.
00:12:28
Speaker
And this is above and beyond their job description, but they don't have an internal resource. And we really are trying to help them. And so they need to invest in helping us get smart about who they are and their story and how we want to communicate it. So I think that engagement, inviting us to be in the room, just listening is really valuable to us. So including us in meetings where we can just listen and hear you talk about your company.
00:12:56
Speaker
And there are lots of examples of those kinds of meetings that work well, but I think that's another thing is just keeping us engaged and updated and allowing us to participate really helps a lot.
Adapting Communication Across Channels
00:13:12
Speaker
Well that sounds exactly like, you know, well and I's lived experience and we definitely appreciate the need to be engaged with the communications team and with the founders to have a really fruitful communication strategy that's well executed. And one thing that we hear a lot from founders is they think of communications events, things that occur, you know, once or twice a year.
00:13:38
Speaker
For example, when they have to tell the world, hey, we have this new data and we see it as a catalyst for investment and we want to announce that. What's your opinion about that approach and do you think that's a viable strategy to think of communications in that way?
00:13:54
Speaker
Yeah, I mean the life sciences, biotech, it's a very milestone driven industry, right? There's publications, there's regulatory milestones, there's financings, there's partnerships. So it's really sort of easy to over index on these kinds of events as
00:14:11
Speaker
the sort of driver of communications and conversations because they're important and some certainly warrant a big parade and an excitement but really you know the magic in communications is you know how do you maintain
00:14:28
Speaker
Momentum between these milestones, you know, they can open doors for you and certainly get you a lot of short term buzz, but it'll fade quickly if you're not going to do anything until the next big announcement. I mean, one way to think about it is, you know, imagine if you only heard from your friend when they got a raise or found a new life partner.
00:14:51
Speaker
you sort of miss the journey and all the things that are happening in between that that really tell the story or just kind of hearing the highlights and i think you know communications is very similar so. No we're often approached at an inflection point and that and that's fine it's time to get more serious about your communications but.
00:15:11
Speaker
You know, we're always encouraging companies to think about some kind of ongoing effort so you can continue to drive the conversation and be engaged with the audiences that you're interested in. And this doesn't have to be a massive, expensive undertaking. And I think a good comms partner can help you think about
00:15:32
Speaker
you know, what's purpose built for your budgets and your stage. But it's really important to think about it as a more regular activity and not so event or milestone driven. Yeah. Yeah. Can I ask, are you, are you thinking along the lines of like think pieces and social media and, you know, updating the content of your website? Are those the sort of tools that get used in that scenario?
00:16:01
Speaker
Yeah. And to the point we were talking a bit about earlier in terms of your own sort of news operation or broadcast operation, you know, the tools that we have available to us now allow that to happen in amazing ways. Social media, your website, you know, all these channels allow you to keep connecting with and communicating with your audiences because, you know, it's really become much more of a two way
00:16:30
Speaker
conversation than perhaps PR and communications was initially. And you need to feed that through the tools that are available to us today. And they're all useful in different scenarios. And that is a big part of what we're recommending to folks is to think about those channels
00:16:53
Speaker
They can be fairly efficient and easy to get up and running, but effective at
Managing Media Expectations and Credibility
00:16:59
Speaker
the same time. So yeah, exactly thinking about those other kinds of channels as part of this sort of news driven, earned media related activity.
00:17:09
Speaker
So I want to come to this idea of big news outlets. So we often hear from scientific teams or executive teams even that they only want to work with PR companies that have relationships with the big news outlets, you know, Wall Street Journal, New York Times.
00:17:31
Speaker
And in 2024, personally, I'm curious, where does this idea come from? And do you agree with this approach, Colin? Yeah, I think that is a great question and certainly would be a fun
00:17:49
Speaker
thought piece about where does this come from? I mean, my best guess is that, you know, this is from the old days of PR where, you know, the, really the way to reach your audiences was through the limited number of publications that were around and having relationships.
00:18:08
Speaker
really did make the difference. I mean, times have changed significantly. And, you know, as we just talked about, there's lots of ways to communicate with your audiences. But in terms of earned media, you know, relationships definitely matter.
00:18:27
Speaker
But, you know, it's more importantly, the story you're telling, timing, you know, those things play a much bigger role in the success you're going to have with a given narrative or pitch or piece of news. You know, I know lots of reporters, but it doesn't mean they're going to write a story about something that they're not interested in or that's not that big a deal. And so I think what's what's most important is really
00:18:57
Speaker
you know, working with partners who understand reporters and how they work, you know, understanding what publications are interested in and the kinds of news they cover. And then the strategies about how to share that news with them and get in front of them. So, you know, we get asked this from time to time as every agency does, you know, who do you know? And, you know, can we talk to them?
00:19:25
Speaker
But, you know, honestly, I can go to reporters I've never met before and have a lot of success if I have a great story. And, you know, conversely, I can go to reporters I know really well and have spent a lot of time with and they won't take my pitch. So I think that, you know,
00:19:43
Speaker
These kind of relationships, I think what they tell people more is that you've spent a lot of time in this area of public relations. You know what it takes to build relationships with reporters. They respect you and, you know, your approach to engaging them. Those are really the things I think it says more than like, you know, I can call up someone I know and they're going to write anything I put in front of them. That's just not the case. So.
00:20:12
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's a it's a it's a bit of a myth in the industry. And, you know, I think that unfortunately that's what a lot of people think is like the most important factor. But really, it's the story and thinking about other strategies that are going to make you successful with reporters more than anything.
00:20:32
Speaker
That's really great advice, Colin, and we ourselves encounter that same type of question where people will come to us and say, you know, I have this really great idea and no one knows about it because no one's willing to write my story. And it's like, well, maybe you need to consider that the story is not the right one to be told right now and think of it from that perspective and see if there's a different way you can approach the problem.
00:20:55
Speaker
I'm glad it's not just us and it's a common problem and a common myth that you need to have those connections in order to be successful. Yeah, and I think the other thing we're often doing is reminding clients and companies that
00:21:11
Speaker
you know, there's hundreds of other really innovative organizations and upstarts doing amazing things out there, telling their stories too. And so it's competitive and you know, there's always going to be
00:21:30
Speaker
you know, an issue around, you know, timing. And is this the right story for this reporter at the right time? So I think that's some of what we can do to as counselors is to, you know, as incredible as what they're doing is, it's a bigger, it's a part of a much bigger ecosystem of innovation.
Role of a Good Communications Partner
00:21:49
Speaker
And in the life sciences, there are so many amazing things happening at the same time that are all competing for this attention.
00:21:58
Speaker
Yeah, that's another really good point. You just made me think of something else I wanted to ask you about. We often encounter with founders and management teams that they want to say, we're the first to do this or we're doing this better than anyone else. Our approach has never been tried before.
00:22:16
Speaker
I'm not saying that that's not sometimes true, of course it is, but do you think that's the most effective message to be telling people? Because I'm sure as time goes on, some of these ideas must get cycled through and repeated. Have you experienced that sort of challenge with management teams as well?
00:22:37
Speaker
Yeah, we're always very wary of first best only. You know, that kind of language gets ignored by reporters, especially. And unless you have a lot of data or compelling evidence that that's true in some way, it's best to avoid this sort of hyperbole.
00:22:59
Speaker
around that kind of language. Bioinformatics is always a fun example of where I see companies launch all the time today who are talking about being the first web base, the first no-code bioinformatics tool
00:23:18
Speaker
available for, you know, bench scientists and making these technologies available to them for the first time. You know, this was the same story I was telling a double twist 25 years ago. So I think there are, you know,
00:23:33
Speaker
a lot of examples in our industry where people might be overstating, but it's worth being excited and thinking about how you can differentiate, but you want it to be defensible and credible so you don't lose the sort of interest and respect of those people that you're trying to reach. I love that.
00:23:54
Speaker
I think that's fantastic advice, Colin. And speaking of advice, we always sort of end our interviews with this question of if you could give one piece of advice to an early stage biotech management team, from your perspective, what would that piece of advice be?
00:24:13
Speaker
Don't underestimate the value of communications. You're very close to your science and the technology that you've built. You can tell the story probably better than anyone.
00:24:27
Speaker
But don't underestimate the value that a good communications partner can bring to help you tell that story more broadly and translate it into, you know, different kinds of stories that are going to speak to the people that you need to make your company and your product successful.
00:24:49
Speaker
It's a long journey, and you're going to have to tap into lots of different kinds of resources, investors, partners, other kinds of organizations.
Conclusion and Continued Narrative Engagement
00:25:00
Speaker
And all of those people respond to and consume content and communications in different ways, and a good communications partner can really help you navigate that stuff.
00:25:12
Speaker
and i think the other thing i would recommend is you know communications um resources come in lots of different flavors from the solo practitioner who's had a lot of experience working in industry and agencies and is now on
00:25:27
Speaker
their own and can really provide efficient cost effective solutions all the way up to big agencies who can provide. Lots of different kinds of services so there is a fit for you out there you know there's something that works for you no matter what your budget is or where you are.
00:25:44
Speaker
i think starting to have conversations with people who've engaged communications people in the past is a helpful thing to do reach out to an agency or two and just start having a conversation most good agencies will be really honest with you about you know what's potentially a good fit for you given where you are
00:26:03
Speaker
Um, so I think just, you know, engaging and starting to have conversations and, and understanding what your options are. But I think, again, just to really think about it as an important strategic tool for you. That's really sound advice, Colin, and really appreciate you sharing your thoughts on that. It's, it's really helpful advice and I hope our listeners enjoy it. Yeah. Happy to share and always happy to talk to folks. Um, so please feel free to reach out if, if you want some advice or just
00:26:34
Speaker
throw around ideas. I think that's a great first step for anyone considering communications or PR for the first time. Fantastic. Well, Colin, this has been so much fun. Thank you so much for joining the podcast, and this has been such a delightful conversation. We really appreciate hearing your experiences. Yeah, we're all dead. Thank you, Colin. Yeah, thanks so much for having me. I really appreciate it.
00:26:55
Speaker
While Colin brings such an enlightened perspective to this conversation, I always feel so energized after talking to him. And it's in conversations like this one that I'm reminded why I got into comms in the first place. One of the best takeaways I had from the conversation was how he framed the importance of proactive engagement with the different audiences. I really like thinking about maintaining those relationships between the buzz of major milestones. Really cool. For sure.
00:27:24
Speaker
One thing that comes up in so many of these conversations we have on the podcast is how many different audiences accrue over the course of your company's lifetime and getting buy-in from these audiences is so essential. Of course, you have to be able to speak their languages and that's where your comms partner comes in to tell that story more broadly. Yep, that's it. Just to reinforce the message peeps, find yourself a trusted comms partner and let them partner with you on helping you get buy-in. It's never too early to start.
00:27:53
Speaker
Yes, agree. Well, I hope our listeners enjoyed hearing Colin's thoughts on communications and biotech. Obviously we love talking about this and we'd welcome anyone who wants to continue the conversation with us. So join us next time as we continue to power scientific innovation with storytelling to drive transformative change and solve our most demanding challenges.