VGTM Erik Clausen Interview
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[00:00:00] Corey Quinn: Welcome to the Vertical Go To Market Podcast, where you'll discover new opportunities to grow your business from seven figures to eight from the world's most successful agency and B2B SaaS executives. I'm your host, Corey Quinn. Let's jump into the show. Today, I'm joined by Eric Clausen. He's the Managing Director of CG Life.
[00:00:22] Corey Quinn: Welcome, Eric.
[00:00:23] Erik Clausen: Thank you. It'll be with you, Corey.
[00:00:24] Corey Quinn: I'm super excited for our conversation. Could you share with us just a little bit about yourself, your [00:00:30] background and, uh, the work you
[00:00:31] Erik Clausen: do? Sure. So here at CG Life, I'm a basically co leader of the agency. I've been here for about 13 years. We're a life sciences and healthcare communications and marketing agency.
[00:00:43] Erik Clausen: We've maintained a vertical focus throughout the 20 year history of the agency. Which I think has been part of the secret of our success. Although I'm sure we're going to dive into that in a little bit more detail. I have spent, I've been fortunate. I've spent my entire career agency side, aside from a brief stint in [00:01:00] politics, right out of college, long enough to realize I didn't want to be in politics, I made the pivot into the agency world and haven't looked back.
[00:01:08] Erik Clausen: So I've spent 25 years. In agencies with a vertical focus in life science and healthcare, predominantly focused on corporate communications, product communications, a lot of public relations, media relations work. However, the last 13 focused in those areas, as well as brand launch, brand development, creative, digital marketing, social media, paid media.[00:01:30]
[00:01:30] Erik Clausen: Uh, you name it.
[00:01:31] Corey Quinn: Gosh, like I know we're talking about verticals here, but there's like so much, like I'd love to get, I'd love to just pick your brains on about launching brands. But so tell me about your first agency experience. You were getting into politics, realized that wasn't really where you wanted to end up.
[00:01:45] Corey Quinn: And so how did you enter into the agency world? So interesting that you landed in, it sounds like life sciences to start.
[00:01:52] Erik Clausen: I did, I was very fortunate. I stumbled right into this line of work right out of college. I had a job, I was living in Boston at the [00:02:00] time. I have a degree in environmental science and I had worked in college.
[00:02:04] Erik Clausen: I worked in a law firm and my grand plan, my grand career plan at that early age was. To get a law degree and go into lobbying and legislative advocacy around environmental issues. Yeah, and I was fortunate to get a job working for a state senator in Massachusetts. Yeah. So I worked in the capital of Massachusetts as a staffer on environmental issues.
[00:02:25] Erik Clausen: It was fantastic right out of college to be able to work in, focused in the area that [00:02:30] you just got a degree in. Great. Yeah. The Senator's Press Secretary quit, took a new job, and while we were looking for somebody to replace him. I said, well, he's writing press releases and doing press conferences. It seems easy.
[00:02:43] Erik Clausen: I'll do it. Had no clue what I was doing, held my first press conference and on a, on some bill we were trying to get passed. And the next day there's an article in the Globe. I'm quoted with a comment about the bill that we were trying to get passed and it absolutely floored me. I went, [00:03:00] I came up with some talking points.
[00:03:02] Erik Clausen: We held a press conference. I talked to a reporter and then a story showed up the next day. about everything that I literally just created. That's amazing. So I was blown away by this and went, okay, this, I had no idea public relations was a field. And I went, I, if I really, I want to shift my career and focus in this, I need to go and learn from people that actually know what the heck they're doing.
[00:03:25] Erik Clausen: And so I went and joined my first agency thinking I would be there for a year or two. [00:03:30] And learn the tricks of the trade. I ended up being there for 10 years. Oh, wow. I spent seven years at Schwartz Communications in Boston, and then another three at Schwartz Communications in San Francisco. Focused on life science and healthcare, public relations.
[00:03:42] Erik Clausen: And I learned from the best. Wow. Fantastic experience. I definitely wouldn't be here today without that experience.
[00:03:49] Corey Quinn: Could you define what life sciences are? A lot of people are like, uh, I remember back in school when I was like studying life science, but I want to make sure that we're like, I'm understanding, like, what does that encompass?
[00:03:59] Corey Quinn: Yeah.
[00:03:59] Erik Clausen: At its [00:04:00] core, life sciences is really the biological sciences. Okay. Is trying to find ways, the way that, that that is applied is to develop therapeutics. So, treatments to disease, it's trying to find ways to cure disease, predict disease, diagnose disease, and in some way, whether it's a therapeutic or a device, treat the disease.
[00:04:22] Erik Clausen: So, that was one of the things that really attracted me into the vertical from the beginning. And, at the start, I didn't know what I was doing. The agency I was with did [00:04:30] also did some technology communications, and I very quickly realized I really enjoyed the life sciences and healthcare side because you're talking about patients, you're talking about real people benefiting from something versus the abstract being software or, you know, nothing against anybody that does communications or marketing and technology.
[00:04:46] Erik Clausen: But for me, I really enjoyed being able to tell human stories. And so that's, you know, Sorry, long winded answer to that's what life science is, basically what helps us all every day.
[00:04:57] Corey Quinn: And when you were at Schwartz, what type of businesses [00:05:00] were your typical clients? Oh,
[00:05:01] Erik Clausen: it ran the gamut. It was a lot of medical device companies and biopharma.
[00:05:06] Erik Clausen: I think, you know, one of the most enjoyable clients I worked on was a vaccine company. They were ultimately acquired by Pfizer, but this was back in the mid 2000s. They were developing a DNA vaccine for influenza, specifically avian bird fluid, that was the scare at the time. Yeah. I remember there's a decade and a half before COVID, but the whole idea about how vaccines could be developed faster, [00:05:30] um, and manufactured on a massive scale.
[00:05:33] Erik Clausen: It was just a fantastic story. And we, that campaign, we were able to get coverage all over the place. And I think we had. I never take credit for what companies do and for their science, but we played a role in their acquisition by Pfizer. That was probably a pretty good example.
[00:05:47] Corey Quinn: That's fantastic. And it was mostly the work, the scope of work you did, it was obviously communications, PR, helping these companies.
[00:05:53] Corey Quinn: Were they mostly sort of startup, sort of early stage companies? Were they late stage companies? Everything in between? It
[00:05:59] Erik Clausen: was [00:06:00] everything in between. It was, you know, at times, you know, working with startups, with early stage That's fun because everything you do has an immediate impact. They have, maybe they have a website, but they haven't thought about, you know, positioning for the company against competitors or what their corporate narrative is, or, you know, what's the angle that they should take to differentiate themselves in the market.
[00:06:22] Erik Clausen: Yeah, that's great. When you're working with big companies, they have more resources. You can do a lot more, but they've already done that foundational [00:06:30] work. Yeah. So. There, you're just coming in and you have a lot of firepower to be able to take what they've already done forward.
[00:06:36] Corey Quinn: Interesting. So 10 years into this new career at Schwartz, is that when you joined CGU Life?
[00:06:42] Corey Quinn: Yeah.
[00:06:43] Erik Clausen: There was, there was a, about a two year gap in between and it was a pivotal couple of years. So this was at that recession. So this is 2008, 2009. I spent 10 years at the agency. I needed a new challenge. It was fantastic. And I love the people that I worked with. [00:07:00] I just needed a new adventure. And so I opened an office for an agency out of the UK, Life Science Communications Agency in San Francisco.
[00:07:08] Erik Clausen: And grew that to about a half a dozen people over the course of about a year and a half, two years. And then one day that agency introduced me to my future business partner because we were looking at acquiring this agency. Oh, interesting. Oh, wow. Yeah. And so it was an interesting connection and, and I immediately hit it off with the team.
[00:07:28] Erik Clausen: The idea would be that. [00:07:30] My agency, which was a much larger agency, would acquire it and meld it together with what I had built in San Francisco. And there was just a very big cultural difference between the two and I realized it right away. So I actually met my business partners of the last 13 years in London of all places.
[00:07:47] Erik Clausen: And we hit it off and we kept talking for another six months or so. And I realized the opportunity and the chance to work with people that you genuinely love and that you work and that you share. the [00:08:00] same agency philosophies with is pretty rare. And so I walked away from what I'd built. I joined it and I haven't looked back.
[00:08:07] Erik Clausen: It's been 13 years and it was a great decision.
[00:08:09] Corey Quinn: And what was the capacity that you came over to CG life? Was you, were you, did you come in as a managing partner or did that happen over time?
[00:08:16] Erik Clausen: I came in as a managing partner and my role and responsibilities was varied. Most people that might watch this that are in agencies that at earlier stages, you have to wear so many hats.
[00:08:27] Erik Clausen: Any given day you're like, what is my job? Oh yeah, I'm [00:08:30] business development. I'm accounting. I'm. Operations, I'm, you know, washing bottles in the kitchen, I'm, you know, whatever. Scrubbing the gates and all that. Yeah, my main responsibilities out of the gate were to build up the public relations function, department, team, and offering at CG Life.
[00:08:46] Erik Clausen: Certainly business development, which is, you know, building relationships with potential new clients, uh, a lot of operations experience. So building up the office itself and hiring, recruiting, interviewing, finding people [00:09:00] to join in the dream. And then just all of the agency responsibilities in between the little thing, you know, how does.
[00:09:07] Erik Clausen: How does this work with that? What's this person's career trajectory? This person wants to work in public relations, but they're in the marketing team, how, what does that look like? You know, all of the little unsung things that go along with agency life.
[00:09:21] Corey Quinn: And at that time when you came over, how big was CG Life?
[00:09:24] Corey Quinn: Like how big of a company was it? I think we were
[00:09:26] Erik Clausen: about 20 people. Okay.
[00:09:29] Corey Quinn: Yeah. And they had [00:09:30] been around for about seven years by that time?
[00:09:32] Erik Clausen: Like, yeah, about seven years, about 20 people. Well established at that point in B2B life science. So like hard. For chemistry, tools, reagents, things for the lab. So,
[00:09:44] Corey Quinn: and I know you were in London when you met these guys.
[00:09:46] Corey Quinn: Did you stay in London or did you come back over to the States?
[00:09:49] Erik Clausen: No, I came back over. So at the time I was based in San Francisco. They, I happened to meet them in London because we were meeting to see how the agencies would come together. Sure. And I was traveling to London quite a bit [00:10:00] for work with that agency.
[00:10:01] Erik Clausen: Okay. And they were all based out of Chicago. They had started an office in San Diego. They needed somebody. Build up San Diego and well, if I'm going to leave San Francisco for someplace, San Diego is not too bad.
[00:10:11] Corey Quinn: Heck yes, amen to that. And so part of your role, it sounds like, was to help to build out the business development of that.
[00:10:19] Corey Quinn: So what did you do? Like, how did you help this growing agency that had a name for itself in an aspect of the, of the vertical? What did you do to grow?
[00:10:27] Erik Clausen: Yeah, I think it was mainly, it was [00:10:30] threefold. One is bringing in some relationships with. Clients and industry organizations that I already had. So being able to build upon those relationships that I built over the years.
[00:10:41] Erik Clausen: The second part is being able to complement what they had already done within the life sciences. So their life science tools and research companies and therapeutics companies that I knew that I could bring along. And companies that they hadn't already worked with or weren't working with. And the last piece, because [00:11:00] of the experience I had in medical devices and diagnostics, able to expand.
[00:11:04] Erik Clausen: So even though those are areas of life science, being able to move into adjacent market. So it's the same services and capabilities that those companies need, but being able to understand clinical audiences, being able to understand. How patients deal with healthcare providers and payers and all of that ecosystem.
[00:11:24] Erik Clausen: Being able to come in and do that, I think, expanded our footprint and be able to move beyond just the traditional [00:11:30] company. So of
[00:11:31] Corey Quinn: these three, the first one you mentioned, just bringing over client relationships and relationships with associations and whatnot. The second one is you mentioned is the research companies, life science sort of research companies.
[00:11:42] Corey Quinn: And so those seem to me like more BD business development, like you're leveraging your existing relationships that you'd built, but this other, this third one you mentioned, which is expanding the reach into the medical device world. Was that more just building lists and going outbound or like, how did you build relationships with these new [00:12:00] businesses in the medical device world?
[00:12:01] Corey Quinn: It was partially,
[00:12:03] Erik Clausen: I think, partially bringing over relationships that I had with some companies and people within that space, understanding some of the influencers in that space and introducing them to CG life. The other part is making it clear to our teams that the services that they offer, the expertise that they deliver to companies within this category also apply over here.
[00:12:26] Erik Clausen: You just have a little bit of education about how that [00:12:30] this industry works because it's very similar. So it's basically like you have a scientific sector and a clinical sector. The clinical sector has some different rules, but more or less they care about the same thing. Ultimately, it's about. Building a device, a therapeutic, something that's going to get delivered to the market.
[00:12:48] Erik Clausen: Yeah.
[00:12:48] Corey Quinn: And so through all these sort of, a lot of it sounds like it's a relationship driven, how did that, how quickly did that turn into revenue like over time? Pretty
[00:12:57] Erik Clausen: quickly. And, you know, also keep in mind the [00:13:00] timing. So I'm not taking all of the credit here. It's coming out of a recession. So the, you know, you're talking 2010, 2011, 2012, these were years when the market.
[00:13:09] Erik Clausen: Came back around. So we certainly benefited from that, but you know, it activated pretty quickly. Also being able to, I think anytime you're able to take an agency and move into a new market, new sector, it gives you a few things. I think it gives you an opportunity to introduce the agency to new potential customers.
[00:13:28] Erik Clausen: It also allows you [00:13:30] to look at your brand and flex a little bit and say, okay, what do we mean for this audience? So you start asking questions about your brand and about who you want to be in forecasting that. So we actually, in those years, we went through a little bit of a repositioning, a rebrand of the agency, and we've done that.
[00:13:46] Erik Clausen: Once since, and we're actually in the throes of doing that again
[00:13:49] Corey Quinn: now. Yes. And we'll get to it, but I know that you guys recently hired your first CEO and we'll talk a little bit about that, that, that transition, which is super exciting. Along the way, did [00:14:00] you guys remain faithful to sort of the life sciences category, or did you ever veer off into other categories along the way?
[00:14:08] Corey Quinn: That is
[00:14:08] Erik Clausen: a fantastic question. We have been very faithful to. Life science or science specifically being our north star. And we realized that and we tested that theory over the years. Every time we've gone through this rebrand or brand refresh or repositioning mm-hmm, , even on recently, you ask yourself those questions and [00:14:30] sciences are a differentiator.
[00:14:31] Erik Clausen: We have former scientists, people with science degrees and PhDs on staff. Science is the reason that they're here. Science is the reason that our clients bring products to market to help people. And that is fairly unique in the agency world. There's, there are other agencies that, that understand science and most of them are friends of ours.
[00:14:52] Erik Clausen: But we realized that that was a really different thing. And to be able to get really technical when necessary, but also be [00:15:00] really human at the same time. That's pretty unique. So we've tried to stay true to that.
[00:15:04] Corey Quinn: That's, that is not easy to do at times, especially when you're re, re, you're sort of questioning the universe as it were, right?
[00:15:13] Erik Clausen: To, to that point, there have been times where a potential client approaches you and they have substantial budget. Sure. And as an agency, you go, well, we could do this and. They want to spend the money to do this, but it's outside of our [00:15:30] specialty. And we, in those moments, we've said, no, it's a really difficult thing to keep, to stay the course, but it's the right thing in the longterm.
[00:15:38] Corey Quinn: So speaking of which, how do you attract new clients these days? Well,
[00:15:41] Erik Clausen: I would say a few things. I think that differentiator around science is really powerful for some, not for all. Many clients, when they, especially I think when you have companies that mirror that focus on science, perhaps a scientific founder or CEO, and they come in and I've [00:16:00] literally been in conversations where they come in and we're talking about science at a level that I don't think most agencies are able to get to, that's a really powerful connection.
[00:16:10] Erik Clausen: And so I, there is some self selection. Some companies will come to work with us because of that. I think it's, it really comes, most of it comes down to one. Uh, the idea that, uh, yeah, we're very fortunate. We don't cold call potential clients. We don't go out and pound the pavement like that. We meet people and we try to work with them [00:16:30] and understand their problems.
[00:16:32] Erik Clausen: And if we can be helpful, then we will, if, if we're not the right solution for whatever their challenge is. We hope that we know somebody in our network and we make introductions to other people. But I think it's about connecting and listening to people and understanding what their problems are. And then if helpful offer solution, even if it's not you, the interesting thing about that is it builds over time.
[00:16:53] Erik Clausen: So I've had people come back to me three, four, five years later and say, we had that conversation that one time and you said, no, you pointed [00:17:00] me at whoever. And now I'm ready to work with you because of the fact that we did that. Yeah,
[00:17:06] Corey Quinn: that's beautiful. Hey, it's Cory. Almost every day I talk with agency owners who are frustrated with getting their outbound program off the ground.
[00:17:15] Corey Quinn: The truth is, too many agencies are too dependent on inbounds and referrals to grow their business. We all know that it's getting harder and harder to generate inbounds and that it's just not a sustainable way to grow your business. [00:17:30] I'd like to give you the 6 secrets for driving consistent ROI from your outbound that I learned as Scorpion's Chief Marketing Officer, where we doubled the business from 20M to 40M just by adding outbound to an existing inbound only program.
[00:17:47] Corey Quinn: It's a free 6 day email course that will transform your outbound from broken to consistently driving new sales opportunities. You could sign up and get the first secret right now by going to get [00:18:00] outbound roi.com. That's get outbound r oi.com. Now, back to the show. When you say you have conversations with folks, how do people first hear about you?
[00:18:12] Corey Quinn: Let's say that it is a life science company, a medical device company, maybe it's a, it's a newcomer, maybe well funded, but maybe hasn't heard of the brand yet. Like, how do they come about to hear about, you know, the, the brand, the differentiation and so on? They, they
[00:18:27] Erik Clausen: listen to podcasts first. Ah, okay. [00:18:30] No, they, it's a few different ways.
[00:18:32] Erik Clausen: I think. A lot of it, we benefit from being around for 20 years. So while we're not a massive, huge, global agency, we have a reputation within the vertical that we're in. So there is some reputation and word of mouth. The other ways that we reach out to people is we do a lot of content marketing ourselves.
[00:18:51] Erik Clausen: So we share our perspectives, our views on the marketplace, not just on marketing. Sometimes it's on science. Sometimes it's just about [00:19:00] everyday topics that are interesting. And so people consume our content and then, you know, again, they may not say, Oh, I need to hire this agency that day. But it plants a seed and then the conversation happens six months later.
[00:19:14] Erik Clausen: There are some cases where we reach out to companies specifically where But it's usually where we go, that's a really cool company. We would like to work with them and know something about them. Or maybe we worked with a competitor in the past and we'll reach out, introduce ourselves. [00:19:30]
[00:19:30] Corey Quinn: What type of content marketing do you do?
[00:19:32] Corey Quinn: You mentioned that you are somewhat vocal with your point of view and your perspective on things, which I love. I'd love to learn more about what your point of view is in general, but you can share, but then. In addition, what type of content marketing channels are you investing in to help build awareness?
[00:19:47] Erik Clausen: Sure. Well, because we're predominantly a B2B agency, LinkedIn is home base. We produce a lot of our own content via blogs. We then amplify that content through our [00:20:00] social media channels, LinkedIn being the primary one. We do a lot of paid media amplification there. We also invest in search, however, I, and, and that actually does generate, I would say investing in search tends to help early stage agencies.
[00:20:16] Erik Clausen: Our buyer tends to be a little bit more sophisticated isn't the right word. Cause I think that does disservice to it. It's a little more complex. And so they're not necessarily finding us type in life science marketing agency, and [00:20:30] then they reach out to us. These days, it tends to be somebody that is going to follow us for a little while and then reach out and consider us for an RFP for the coming year.
[00:20:40] Erik Clausen: So, that cycle that, you know, relationship building is a longer, longer time.
[00:20:45] Corey Quinn: Have you guys launched a newsletter, is that something you guys have explored?
[00:20:49] Erik Clausen: We do newsletters. We're in the process right now because we're going through this effort to rebrand and reinvigorate some of our marketing channels.
[00:20:56] Erik Clausen: Yeah. We've done newsletters, quarterly newsletters for a long time. [00:21:00] We're about to relaunch that beyond the folks that know us. And so in the, in 2024, we'll be. Kicking that off with a lot more content around digital marketing, where AI is going within the marketing world and our views on life science and communications.
[00:21:18] Corey Quinn: That's awesome. And did you mention that you have a podcast? We don't,
[00:21:22] Erik Clausen: however, that is also on the docket for 2024. I can't be more excited. Ah, that's great. It's something we've [00:21:30] talked about for years and quite frankly, our vantage point, maybe this sounds like a cop out, but we said, if we can't do it really well, then we're not.
[00:21:38] Erik Clausen: to do it. Don't do it just because you feel like you have to. Right. We certainly don't want to do one that where we just talk about us. So it's, we're in the process of launching that. That's
[00:21:48] Corey Quinn: awesome. What I've found just personally and professionally is that there are more podcast production resources available of all shapes and sizes and flavors and everything else [00:22:00] that you'd ever want these days.
[00:22:01] Corey Quinn: It makes it so simple. To be able to get your voice out there on the podcast. So I love that. That's great to hear
[00:22:07] Erik Clausen: that you're doing that. I think there's an appetite for it. I think, you know, maybe it's an effect from the pandemic. I don't know, but people, I see myself, but others, I think we all consume content all the time through podcasts.
[00:22:19] Erik Clausen: I think it.
[00:22:20] Corey Quinn: And like any other good content marketing, if it's helpful content, maybe it's educational, maybe it's entertaining for a specific audience, it's just a, it's a [00:22:30] very powerful tool. A lot of the folks that I've interviewed here on the show have shared that their podcast eventually becomes their number one source of new qualified leads.
[00:22:39] Corey Quinn: I believe it. Right? I do believe it. Yeah. That's awesome. And so do you guys like employ a sales team or is it mostly yourself or the other partners there who help to close deals?
[00:22:50] Erik Clausen: So once upon a time, it was basically partner relationships to build it. About three years ago, we made a shift and we, um, had an internal [00:23:00] hire and we installed a VP of business development.
[00:23:02] Erik Clausen: Somebody who's been with the agency for 16 years, Todd Kuna. He's fantastic. He has basically been in every role in the agency. Accounts and has worked with clients. He comes from a science background. And so he's very good at that kind of consultative relationship building, and he knows the industry really well.
[00:23:25] Erik Clausen: So we're very fortunate to have that person. I work really closely with Todd [00:23:30] on business development, and then we brought in just this last year, a business development manager to be able to. And now we're sort of expanding that function as we scale and grow to bring in other people. But I, again, I think our philosophy is building relationships and listening, and that is a very specific skillset to be able to do that and understand the industry, not just for the sake of selling.
[00:23:52] Corey Quinn: 100%. That's a big differentiator, right? In fact, a lot of agencies aren't able to do that. Speaking of relationships, I think you mentioned [00:24:00] before, but Are there specific associations that make a lot of sense for you guys to be involved in your industry?
[00:24:05] Erik Clausen: That's a great question. We've belonged to or participated in a lot of different associations.
[00:24:12] Erik Clausen: So, for us, it's sort of two different flavors. You have the industry associations tied to our customers markets. Yeah. So, life sciences and healthcare associations. And we have belonged to and participated in those that are more regional, kind of state by state. Yeah. There are [00:24:30] more marketing and communications focused associations.
[00:24:33] Erik Clausen: So currently we're involved in SAMPS, which is the sales and marketing professionals in science. Oh, interesting.
[00:24:41] Corey Quinn: I've never heard of
[00:24:41] Erik Clausen: that one. Yeah. Yeah. Very vertical. It's basically marketing and sales leaders within the life sciences. If you look at the membership and those that are the leaders of that organization.
[00:24:52] Erik Clausen: Some are our clients, some are past clients, some are, might be our future clients. Sure. And many of our peers are involved in that as well.
[00:24:59] Corey Quinn: And as [00:25:00] it relates to the, the industries that your clients are, are members of, like, how has that played a role in your ability to build awareness? Have you guys, you know, spoke, you sponsored, you do things like, you know, trade shows, conferences, those types of things.
[00:25:13] Erik Clausen: Great questions. Yeah. We do attend and we speak at and present at. Conferences, many of our association driven, and that is a fantastic platform. A, we're there to support our clients when they're speaking or exhibiting or whatever they're doing. We're often brought in, [00:25:30] especially those of us with communications background to speak or moderate panels or, you know, lead that kind of effort.
[00:25:37] Erik Clausen: And then certainly managing and attending receptions and the parties and gatherings that are associated with those conferences, which is a great networking opportunity. Um, we, I think the big one, well, there's a big one coming up, J. P. Morgan Week in January, which is like the Super Bowl of the cross section between venture capital and life science and [00:26:00] healthcare taking place in San Francisco.
[00:26:02] Erik Clausen: for a week of conferences, sessions, meetings, and receptions. A couple months ago, we attended the Cell and Gene meeting in San Diego, also called Meeting on the Mesa. It was put on by the Alliance for Regenerative Medicine. I led a panel there talking about cell and gene therapy manufacturing, and we had a bunch of clients attending that and meeting new clients there and just generally networking.
[00:26:26] Erik Clausen: So, Conferences are definitely a big, important piece [00:26:30] of not just, uh, business development, but also client service. Do you
[00:26:32] Corey Quinn: guys, uh, productize your service at all? You guys sell like a fixed, fixed scope, fixed fee, or is it mostly, you know, custom every time?
[00:26:41] Erik Clausen: I really wish we did. It would make life a lot easier.
[00:26:44] Erik Clausen: Unfortunately, most of what we do is bespoke. You know, customized proposal based on you talk to a potential client two, three, four times and try to, hopefully once, but sometimes there's follow ups, to try to come up with what the scope is [00:27:00] based on what they need. I wish we could do off the shelf. It costs X, Y, and Z and call it a day.
[00:27:07] Erik Clausen: There's usually a lot of flexibility and customization.
[00:27:11] Corey Quinn: That makes sense. I understand. I understand that, especially in your neck of the woods as it relates to the clients that you guys serve. Speaking of sort of verticalization as a whole, any mistakes that you had along the way during your time there as it relates to staying in the lane?
[00:27:26] Corey Quinn: You mentioned you did that really well. But other mistakes that may be [00:27:30] along the way that you guys made. I'm
[00:27:31] Erik Clausen: sure there are many. As it relates to verticalization, I'm trying, I'm trying to offer some concrete from things that we've done wrong. I think there are times where we've maybe become, you know, we, we offer strategy as well as execution.
[00:27:46] Erik Clausen: I think there are times where maybe we lean too much into the execution and just jump to that. The hard questions are up front, asking clients, why do you think this? Why do you want that outcome to be? And those sorts of [00:28:00] things. And there are, especially in the more challenging economic times, it's like, well, let's just do this and see where it goes.
[00:28:07] Erik Clausen: Then you hit some challenges along the way because you jumped, you skipped over the strategy piece. Right. And you just hit the task. Yeah. And so I think those sorts of challenges rear their head, frankly, there's probably a lot of businesses dealing with that right now where you start to go, okay, well, we need to close that and chase the revenue just to get through to make our numbers in this quarter, this year or whatever it is.[00:28:30]
[00:28:30] Erik Clausen: I think when you start to do that, you start to devalue, you know, your strategic positioning is. Sure. Devalue your business. That's a slippery slope. Yeah.
[00:28:39] Corey Quinn: Short term versus longer term
[00:28:41] Erik Clausen: thinking. Yeah. And I certainly think, you know, we're, we have done that over, I think back over the last 13 years. There've been some periods where we go, no, let's do this.
[00:28:49] Erik Clausen: And then it doesn't end well. And you go, well, shame on us. We
[00:28:52] Corey Quinn: should have known. Have you, do you ever struggle or have internal grumblings around Especially the creative folks who are tired of doing the same [00:29:00] thing over and over. They want some more variety in their life.
[00:29:02] Erik Clausen: Yes, but I will also say, I think we've been pretty good over the years about listening to that.
[00:29:08] Erik Clausen: I would say our culture has been, again, I guess we have two North stars, science and our culture. We've had a culture that listens to people wanting to try new things. We're a very entrepreneurial group. If somebody has a great idea, no matter who it is, you, they will find an audience to hear it. It doesn't mean that we're necessarily going to fund or follow that idea, [00:29:30] but we might, and we have, uh, and some of the big leaps that the agency has taken over the year have been because somebody raised their hand and said, why don't we do this?
[00:29:38] Erik Clausen: Why don't we invest in this? Why don't we have a department that's focused here? And when you listen to those and not just say, well, that we don't do that, listen for a second and think about it. Sometimes those are big ideas. And so I think when we've had people, when they voice it, When we have people that say, I would really like to work over [00:30:00] here, or why don't we work in this different way?
[00:30:02] Erik Clausen: We're pretty open to that. That's great.
[00:30:05] Corey Quinn: That sounds like a great culture. I've heard of, uh, agencies that have to deal, have to, you know, who are very verticalized. Sometimes we'll struggle with that and, and then don't have a lot of clarity about how to, how to see through that. So.
[00:30:17] Erik Clausen: Yeah, it's tough, right? If you're A five or six person agency.
[00:30:21] Erik Clausen: That's a different proposition than when you're an 80 person agency. You don't have necessarily a flexibility to move somebody from one role to another, or to [00:30:30] start a department or team or bring in some new technology. But as you scale and grow, you, I think agency owners, leaders have to listen to their team and give them opportunities to grow or.
[00:30:44] Erik Clausen: Support them when they move on to some new opportunity because they have an itch that they're looking to scratch. Yeah. So,
[00:30:51] Corey Quinn: you know, as you've been sharing, I I'm putting together this mental picture. You've, you guys have done this, you've built a great brand. You're differentiated. You're deep, you know, you're deeply focused on [00:31:00] the science aspect of what you guys are doing.
[00:31:02] Corey Quinn: You have a great culture. You're doing great with associations and conferences and content marketing, you're leaning more into that. And so you've built this great, this great company. And I also read, and we discussed before we hit record, that you guys have just hired a new CEO. And I'm just curious, so what is the, what was the thought process behind bringing in someone to the organization to run it as the chief executive?
[00:31:28] Erik Clausen: So it's been a, it's been a [00:31:30] process, a multi year process. You know, we brought on a private equity partner that. You know, after 19 years or so, we've brought on a private equity partner in short capital late 2022. The idea was really for us to be able to capitalize the agency in a way to accelerate the growth.
[00:31:48] Erik Clausen: And so we're in the middle of a multi year plan to, to grow the agency through acquisition. So through inorganic growth, as well as invest in tools and [00:32:00] automation and people to grow the agency. As part of that, we looked at, uh, the leadership. We operated for, you know, the first, I don't know, seven, eight years of the agency.
[00:32:10] Erik Clausen: My partners, the founders of the agency, Jeff and Murad led the agency. And then, uh, the last decade or more, Steve Johnson, my co managing partner out of Chicago and I have led the agency. That's fantastic. We have a great working relationship and we focus in different areas of the business. But at the scale that we're [00:32:30] at, and as we integrate, um, additional acquisitions, we realize we need.
[00:32:34] Erik Clausen: A business needs a single CEO. And so we were very fortunate. We've known David Armisher, who joined us for several years. He was the founder and CEO of an agency called Closer Look. He grew that, and then a few years ago, had an exit, sold that agency to FISHOAC out of the UK, a much larger agency, really a biofarm advertising and branding agency.
[00:32:57] Erik Clausen: He stepped away from the business about [00:33:00] a year and a half, two years ago, and we're fortunate this past year to have him on our board. So he's had a front row seat for the agency throughout 2023. And after a lot of cajoling, we convinced him to take on the CEO. And so we announced that a couple of weeks ago and it's been great.
[00:33:17] Erik Clausen: He's, he jumped right in with both feet and having him on the board for the past year really helped us a great deal.
[00:33:23] Corey Quinn: So this was not a knee jerk sort of thing. This has happened over time.
[00:33:27] Erik Clausen: Sounds like, yeah. Definitely [00:33:30] happened over time. And it, you know, it's fantastic to have somebody not only with his experience, But.
[00:33:34] Erik Clausen: Somebody that we've known for a number of years, uh, you know, I first knew him as a competitor, as the head of a competing agency. To have somebody with his experience leading us is fantastic and we have a great working relationship.
[00:33:47] Corey Quinn: Does that impact your role on a day to day basis? You
[00:33:50] Erik Clausen: know, the first, the first thing I said to David as we were doing this, I said, you know, here are the, here's the 20 things I worry about day and night.
[00:33:58] Erik Clausen: What do I not need to worry about? [00:34:00] And it said something to the effect that keep worrying about those things because I worry about those things. So, you know, I think we're continuing on my focus remains in the growth of the agency. Growth means not just business development. It also means building relationships with other businesses that are potential partners.
[00:34:18] Erik Clausen: It also means. Finding potential companies that want to bolt on and join us on the platform on this ride and also finding people that want to join the agency and grow with us. Yeah.
[00:34:29] Corey Quinn: And, and [00:34:30] so have you made any acquisitions since the private equity
[00:34:32] Erik Clausen: funding? We're very close on the, since we brought on our private equity partner, we're very close and we're late stages with two actually.
[00:34:40] Erik Clausen: That's exciting. We actually did two acquisitions prior to private equity that we self funded. Great timing. We did one at the end of 2019 and another one, March of 2020. And on the eve of COVID, we acquired an agency out of Colorado. They're called the Market Element. They're essentially a, uh, focused on startups.
[00:34:59] Erik Clausen: So being able to [00:35:00] provide a full range of services for startup life science companies. And they can have continued to operate that way. The other, it was a firm out of Philadelphia that we acquired a public relations firm called McDead. Very fortunate to bring a part. We already had a PR team, but able to double the size of the PR team overnight.
[00:35:17] Erik Clausen: And the leader of that agency, Susan Stippa, is our EVP of public relations. So we were able to find, you know, a senior leader.
[00:35:27] Corey Quinn: Any quick lessons learned or [00:35:30] insights having been through to now, let's say an agency owner who's looking to acquire another agency, what are maybe some things that you learned along the way?
[00:35:38] Corey Quinn: I would
[00:35:38] Erik Clausen: say foremost, it's people first. It's, you're going to. You're going to be working with these people all of the time, be like minded with them because you're going to spend a lot of time thinking with them. And so find people that you can work with and live with. I think the other thing is it should always be additive if you're looking at an acquisition.
[00:35:59] Erik Clausen: [00:36:00] So a 1 plus 1 should be 3. You look at the combination and there should be some intangible or in thing that goes, well. You have this business and this business, this is how it improves. I think some acquisitions are. are just like EBITDA or LandGraph, they're just to build, but it's the strategic acquisitions that are the most interesting.
[00:36:23] Erik Clausen: It's where you add in, it's like, Oh, now you've added this capability. Now you've added access to this market [00:36:30] that you weren't in before. That's where you can get a little slingshot effect out
[00:36:34] Corey Quinn: of that. That makes sense. So I'm going to start wrapping up here. I've got two more questions for you. First one is, what would you say to someone, maybe the younger version of Eric, who was in life sciences, but maybe thinking about diversifying their agency to a bunch of different things, or maybe they're already doing a bunch of different things and they're thinking about focusing in on a single vertical.
[00:36:56] Corey Quinn: What would your advice be to that agency owner who is interested in [00:37:00] verticalizing? I
[00:37:00] Erik Clausen: would say that specialization of going vertical. Dramatically increases the value of your business that may be tempting to generalize the verdict, the specialization within a niche or a category increases the value because your competition is reduced.
[00:37:18] Erik Clausen: You develop understanding and expertise that your clients are looking for. So you might be able to be as deep in their industry as they are. which makes you an invaluable partner. [00:37:30] So I would absolutely recommend that. I would also counter that in, you know, career advice I had early on was when times are challenging, you generalize.
[00:37:41] Erik Clausen: When times are, you specialize. And I think that is still true. It's a, there's a degree of flexibility there. So generalize a little bit. Right. More flexible, you know, during those lean times. Maybe you take, you'd be, okay, I'll step a little bit outside of the box, but [00:38:00] maybe a toe, not a foot, but that verticalization creates a lot of value.
[00:38:04] Erik Clausen: I had
[00:38:04] Corey Quinn: not heard of that, but I like it. I like that concept of the, the generalization versus specialization. I would say maybe if you're in life sciences, maybe generalized, maybe healthcare, but still in the same kind of general category, right? You're in the same scene. Beautiful. Last question for you today, Eric.
[00:38:19] Corey Quinn: What's your motivation?
[00:38:21] Erik Clausen: That's a great question. I honestly, I think it's, it's learning and I don't mean necessarily educational learning, although it could be that. I [00:38:30] think one of the things that drew me to CG life was the idea that you should grow personally and professionally at the same time that learn new things, try new things, you know, pick up guitar, be awful at it.
[00:38:43] Erik Clausen: It's okay. Challenge yourself, and that applies to business too, because through that you learn what you're good at, what you're bad at, and what you're mediocre at. And so I think that motivation, that like desire to learn new things, drew me here. It drew me outside of just focused [00:39:00] on communications and public relations to understand how digital marketing works, how the creative process works.
[00:39:05] Erik Clausen: How these other things can compliment what I already had learned and knew. So I think constant learning and that, that self discovery that motivates me. That's awesome.
[00:39:16] Corey Quinn: That, that never ends, does it? It shouldn't. Awesome. Well, where can people reach out to you if they want to connect with you, they want to chat with you, maybe have some follow up questions for you, what would be a good place for them to do that?
[00:39:27] Erik Clausen: They can certainly visit [00:39:30] cglife. com. Find me on LinkedIn. It's probably the best place to find me. Eric Klassen, really easy to find me. Eric with a K. Awesome.
[00:39:37] Corey Quinn: Well, thank you so much for joining, Eric. Really appreciate that. It's been a great conversation. Yeah.
[00:39:41] Erik Clausen: Likewise. Thanks for having me, Corey.
[00:39:43] Corey Quinn: All right, folks.
[00:39:44] Corey Quinn: That's it for today. I'm Corey Quinn, and I hope you join me again next time for the Vertical Go To Market Podcast. If you receive value from this show, I would love a five star rating and review on Apple Podcasts. Thanks, and we'll see you soon.[00:40:00]
