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Thursday, October 24, 2002

Steve N. Czetli

The mystery of sales boils down to four conditions customers must experience before they are likely to make a "buy" decision, entrepreneur and consultant Ted Teele told the University of Pittsburgh's executive education class last week.

To ensure a sale, particularly the sale of a big-ticket item, work to bring the prospect to the point where he, she or they are: comfortable with the salesperson and the company that person represents; able and willing to say "yes" to the sales proposition; perceive a genuine need for the product; and recognize a credible urgency about addressing that need now.

In most sales processes, one critical event frequently leads to the sale -- a test drive, a tour, a demonstration, a meeting, etc. Accordingly, says Teele, design your sales process to shorten the time it takes to reach that critical event.

Life Sciences Greenhouse targets medical niches, support services areas:

After 3 1/2 years, $20-plus million and hundreds of newly created jobs, Pittsburgh's pioneering Digital Greenhouse has blazed a trail for its baby sister, the Pittsburgh Life Sciences Greenhouse (www.pittsburghlifesciences.com. Using virtually the same strategic model, the year-old Life Science Greenhouse, which has attracted an influential board of directors and blue-chip partners, has targeted four separate niches of biomedicine. Dennis Yablonsky, CEO of both projects until resigning his Digital Greenhouse post last week, told an Oct. 15 meeting of the Association for Corporate Growth how he expected the new Greenhouse strategy to play out.

With its initial war chest of $66 million getting closer to becoming a reality, spending plans for the Life Science Greenhouse target five key areas identified in its benchmarking study. They include bringing in more world-class research faculty from other places; creating a corps of experienced executives to advise and manage biotech businesses, developing affordable wet lab space; securing more early stage venture capital; and increasing the industry's voice in the region. Altogether, 16 Greenhouse programs will strategically focus on those five support areas. There are encouraging signs.

For now, at least, the number of early stage start-up opportunities is overwhelming. "We have more of a pipeline in that area than we can deal with," Yablonsky said. "We're being very picky about who we work with and who we don't. For whatever reason, the start-up activity has accelerated from last year and the year before. But the attraction activity -- attracting companies in from outside the area -- is very, very slow. We were successful earlier this year in securing a company called Renal Solutions from West Lafayette, Indiana. But the pipeline for attraction is weak, particularly for later-stage companies."

Former Pittsburgh Press business editor Steve N. Czetli edits and publishes TechyVent/Pittsburgh, a free, regional e-mail newsletter that recommends and provides detailed information on the region's most useful business events. For more information, go to newsletter.techyvent.com.