Sales Enablement for Life Sciences

Sales Enablement That Speaks the Science

Your sales team understands the product. They know the features, the specifications, the clinical data. But put them in front of a procurement committee and ask them to articulate why your diagnostic assay is worth 30% more than the incumbent — and you'll hear a different answer from every rep. Some lead with sensitivity. Some lead with workflow. Some panic and open the brochure. One rep mentions a study that hasn't been published yet. The procurement committee asks about health economics and everyone looks at the floor.

This isn't a training problem. It's a tools problem. Your sales team doesn't have the right materials, in the right format, with the right level of clinical accuracy, to navigate the conversations they're actually having in the field.

When Sales Enablement Goes Wrong

I've audited sales enablement programmes at diagnostics companies, research tools providers, and digital health platforms. The pattern is almost always the same:

Marketing creates materials that sales doesn't use. Beautiful slide decks, glossy brochures, brand-perfect leave-behinds — all filed in a shared drive that nobody opens. The materials were designed for what marketing thinks the sales conversation looks like, not what it actually looks like
Sales creates their own materials. Individual reps build their own "cheat sheets" from fragments of presentations, competitor websites, and half-remembered webinars. Some of these are brilliant. Some contain claims that would horrify your medical affairs team. None are consistent
Clinical evidence gets misrepresented. Not deliberately — but when a rep is in a high-pressure conversation and can't find the right data point quickly, they approximate. They say "nearly 100% sensitivity" when it's 97.3%. They reference a study that was a poster, not a peer-reviewed publication. They position a sub-group analysis as a headline result. Nobody trained them on the difference
Objections go unhandled. "We already have a solution that works." "Your product is too expensive." "I don't have time to evaluate a new platform." "The evidence isn't strong enough." Every sales team hears these objections weekly. Very few have structured, evidence-based responses
Conference opportunities are wasted. Your team has 90 seconds at a conference booth to convert passing interest into a meaningful conversation. Most waste it on product specifications. The ones who succeed do it because they have a clear hook, a structured conversation flow, and a compelling reason for the clinician to leave their email address

If any of this sounds familiar, the fix isn't another training day. It's giving your team the tools they need to have better conversations.

What I Build

Sales playbooks: Structured guides for navigating different buyer types. A conversation with a clinician requires different evidence than a conversation with a lab manager, which requires different framing than a conversation with procurement. Each playbook covers the buyer's priorities, their typical objections, the evidence that matters to them, and the call-to-action that moves them to the next stage. These aren't theoretical — they're built from real sales conversations and tested against real buying scenarios
Clinical evidence toolkits: Your sales team needs to present clinical data persuasively without overclaiming. I create structured evidence packages — organised by audience and use case — that give your team exactly the right data point for every conversation. Each claim is linked to its source publication, with clear guidance on what can and cannot be stated commercially vs. scientifically
Objection handling frameworks: I map the 10-15 most common objections your sales team faces, categorise them by buyer type, and build evidence-based responses for each. Not scripted rebuttals — frameworks that help your team understand the underlying concern and address it with data. "It's too expensive" is rarely about price. "The evidence isn't strong enough" is often about clinical confidence. The response depends on understanding what's really being asked
Competitive battle cards: Side-by-side comparisons that highlight your differentiation — not by attacking competitors, but by reframing the evaluation criteria in your favour. I analyse competitors' positioning, their evidence base, and their known weaknesses. The battle cards give your team a structured way to handle "why should we switch from [competitor]?" without resorting to feature-by-feature comparison
KOL engagement guides: Key opinion leaders are not normal customers. They have different motivations, different concerns, and different influence patterns. I build engagement guides that help your sales and medical affairs teams interact with KOLs effectively — from initial outreach through advisory board participation to conference collaboration
ROI and value calculators: Interactive tools that quantify the economic case for your product in the buyer's own terms. Cost-per-test analysis. Budget impact modelling. Workflow efficiency calculations. These tools give your sales team a way to shift the conversation from "how much does it cost?" to "how much does it save?" I've built calculators that procurement committees have used directly in their budget approval process

The Gap I Fill

Marketing creates strategy. Sales needs tools. The gap between the two is where deals die — and in life sciences, that gap is wider than in most industries because the selling environment is uniquely complex. Your buyer isn't one person; it's a committee. The decision cycle isn't weeks; it's months. The objections aren't about preference; they're about clinical evidence, regulatory compliance, and health economics.

I bridge that gap because I've sat on both sides of it. I've built the strategic positioning and then sat in the room while the sales team tried to use it. I've designed conference strategies and then stood at the booth watching how clinicians actually respond. I've created ROI calculators and then refined them based on what procurement committees actually asked for. Every tool I build is tested against reality, not designed in isolation.

How It Works

Phase 1 — Sales Audit (Weeks 1-2): I review your current sales materials, attend sales calls (or review recordings), interview top-performing and underperforming reps, and analyse win/loss data. I identify what's working, what's missing, and where the biggest conversion gaps are. This phase often reveals that the problem isn't what companies think it is — the issue isn't "our team needs training" but "our team doesn't have the right tools."

Phase 2 — Tool Development (Weeks 3-6): I build the enablement toolkit — playbooks, evidence packages, battle cards, objection frameworks, calculators. Every tool is designed for practical use, not presentation. If a battle card doesn't fit on one page, it's too long. If an objection response requires a medical degree to deliver, it needs simplifying. I test each tool with your sales team and iterate based on their feedback.

Phase 3 — Activation and Training (Weeks 7-8): I deliver the toolkit with hands-on training — not a lecture, but practical sessions where your team uses the tools in simulated conversations. Role-play against real objections. Practice navigating the evidence toolkit under time pressure. Rehearse the conference pitch until it's natural. I also build a maintenance framework so the tools stay current as your evidence base, competitive landscape, and product portfolio evolve.

What You'll Have at the End

Complete sales playbooks for each buyer type (clinician, lab manager, procurement, C-suite)
Clinical evidence toolkit with source-linked claim sheets
Objection handling framework with evidence-based responses
Competitive battle cards for top 3-5 competitors
KOL engagement guidelines
ROI/value calculator (interactive, buyer-facing)
Conference engagement toolkit (if applicable)
Training materials and maintenance guide

Every deliverable is designed to be used in the field, not filed in a shared drive. The test of good sales enablement is simple: did the team's win rate improve?

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