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In this first episode of Season 3 of The Science of Selling STEM, I’ll be having a chat with Jennifer Wiens, the Senior Director of Business Development for Briotech, a late-stage startup that seeks to transform health and disinfection worldwide through the biohacking technology of H-O-C-L. Jennifer will talk to us about the value of having soft skills as a sales leader and share some of the best strategies to use when hiring salespeople (And other employees in general)

Her background after her first degree in Neuroscience started as a Bench Scientist turned Department Lead working in both the Biologics R&D and GMP space. This provided a strong Data Science foundation she applies to the wide range of Business Management functions and decisions she makes to this day.  After getting her Executive MBA and growing two startups in Boston, she came back to her home state in the PNW looking for the right fit. 

When the pandemic hit, and an opportunity to join Briotech as a Director of Product Management came along, it was an easy decision for Jen to make. With a genuine appreciation for Briotech’s mission and comradery with her new Brio-teammates, she now supports all teams cross-functionally, including Product Development, Marketing, Sales Strategy, Manufacturing, Supply Chain, Regulatory, Scientific R&D, Safety, BrioEarth, and Organizational Development initiatives so all Briotech business functions are effectively matrixed, harmonized, and supporting one another. 

On Today’s Episode of the Science of Selling STEM:

• The 10 years as a scientist that equipped her to later on pivot into business (02:15)
• How she transitioned from being a bench scientist to leading teams of scientists (03:35)
• Attracting the best talent by reassuring new and potential employees of your reliability (05:30)
• Forming the chain of support that works well in ensuring each employee at every level keeps growing for the benefit of the business (08:02)
• Improving on both your soft skills and technical skills in order to lead your team better (10:06)
• Moving into the business side of things after leading technical teams (11:02)
• Learning to gain the skills she needed to take on a sales leadership position (13:34)
• Sustaining a lean, mean operation by building an external workforce (15:43)
• Successful strategies behind their immense success in distribution (19:41)
• Offering the world their transformative health-oriented technology (21:06)

Connect with Jennifer Wiens:

• Jennifer on LinkedIn
• Briotech
• 25% Off Coupon Code for Briotech Products - PRIDE25
• Get Your Free E-Book on 10 Simple Strategies to Kick Start Your Sales

Connect with Wesleyne Greer:

• Wesleyne’s Website
• Wesleyne on LinkedIn
• Wesleyne on Facebook
• Wesleyne on Twitter

Rate, Review, Learn, and Share

Thanks for tuning into The Science of Selling STEM! If you enjoyed this episode and want to learn even more about what it takes to transform your sales, don’t forget to tune into our other episodes and share your favorite episodes on social media!

Join The Science of Selling STEM community on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and visit my website for even more content, information, and resources.

As a sales manager, you are judged by the

performance of your team, and you're praised when they do

well. But one thing that you've not been able to figure out is

how to get everyone on your team consistently hitting quota every

single month. On the Snack size sales podcast, we discuss the

science of selling stem sales leadership in the science,

technology, engineering and manufacturing fields is

difficult. You will learn from sales managers just like you

that will give you actionable insights and tips on how to

develop as a leader and achieve your revenue targets every

single month. So pop your headphones in and get ready to

listen to my guest today. They will give you information and

inspiration to ensure that you have actionable insights that

you can put into place today. Hello, and welcome to another

episode of the Snack size sales podcast. today. My guest is

Jennifer Wiens. How are you, Jennifer? Doing great, thanks.

Awesome. So let me tell you a bit about Jennifer. She is the

Senior Director of Business Development for Brio tech, a

late stage startup located in the Pacific Northwest. Brio tech

seeks to transform health and disinfection worldwide through

the bio hacking technology of H O CL purse strengths in

leadership data science and narration have helped

organizations and C suite executives eliminate blind spots

capture financial opportunity and build stronger teams.

Jennifer has advised Ivy League researchers fortune 500

executives and tech starter founder. She has degrees in

neuroscience and an executive MBA from Suffolk University. She

is also a guest lecturer at the Sawyer business school in

Boston. Wow. So you're pretty amazing neuroscientist MBA

helping late stage startups and your electric. So tell me,

Jennifer, how did you start your career I have a degree in

neuroscience to becoming a director of business

development.

Well, I like to stay busy, obviously. But more

than that, I mean, I was always fascinated with science and

solving problems. I thought going into education, I ought to

pursue the STEM field, I was really fascinated by that. And

so I started my career as a scientist for a good 10 years, I

kind of went from bench scientists to then managing

teams of scientists. So I had a nice soft skill set that I

leveraged as well as the technical skill set. And kind of

that blend allowed me to pivot over to the business side. And

then I went and got my business degree. And then before you know

it, I'm in these different startups for medical device and,

and healthcare space. And I landed at this current position,

he actually kind of going into their engineering department and

like fixing, you know, fixing problems. And then from there,

the marketing needed fixing problems, and then the sales

needed fixing problems. So I kind of just been going around,

and just tackling anything that kind of comes my way and letting

like seizing opportunities when they come. So is it like is it

it's part random part by design? Just following my nature? I

guess you could say, and that's kind of what led me through my

path.

So tell me about that transition from being just

a bench scientist to leading teams. How was that transition

for you?

What happened was, I was going around? Well,

first I just kind of was stagnant. It was after the Oh,

eight crash. So after the white crash, you kind of just hunker

down, you had your job, and you just try to survive. And so that

was six years. And at that time, I learned all these great

skills. And I knew I could do more, but there was no

opportunity. I eventually did get laid off. But then I grabbed

out an opportunity for promotion as a higher level bid scientist.

And then two months later, they decided to shut down that

facility. This was Amgen and Seattle. Yeah. But what happened

then is at the headquarters, they were moving a lot of

projects to their headquarters. So I decided I had to follow

where the work was. And there was this project that no one

wanted to touch because it was completely behind schedule. It

was they love mass confusion, lots of ambiguity. A lot of

people in science are uncomfortable with ambiguity.

And I was very highly comfortable with that. So they

put me they kind of thrusted me in this management position

where they're like, Okay, go start up a lab. You have five

months, it's this, we're carving out this whole regulatory space

that we've never done before. And I just kind of I'm kind of,

I guess, a bold person. So I was like, Yes, I'll do it. And so

signing up for things that no one else wants to do. I kind of

was the way that kind of got me To that, you know, go from being

an individual contributor to a manager. And then I was able to

hire people, I had a knack for it. And then once you're kind of

in that category, and you can prove yourself and you do a good

job, then you're just in that category. You're in management

all of a sudden, so then yeah, so that's basically the story of

how that happened. And ever since just been kind of going up

from there.

And so you said you had a knack for hiring

people? What what are some of the the next are the things that

you could tell the audience about hiring people and not

necessarily sales people, just people in general,

I would say the biggest thing was the

reassurance you could give candidates on being reliable,

they apply, you're tenacious, looking at resumes, you get back

to them really fast, you have an initial interview, you tell

them, I'm going to get back to you, whether it's a yes or no,

or maybe doesn't matter within this amount of time, and you do

it. And what had happened was there's great candidates, and

they probably had better offers, maybe, but those companies were

dragging their feet, and I was fast. So that reward I was

giving them like, oh my gosh, they're responding really fast

responding, I wasn't able to hire at the top of the pay scale

whatsoever, it was very middle. But I was trying to promote,

like, Hey, we're at least reliable and trustworthy. And

we're gonna do what we say say what we mean kind of

organization. And that right there was I was able to attract

the best talent. And then at that, once you have the best

talent, it's the freedom and responsibility, you let them

have freedom, but you give them responsibility, that they're

accountable, but you don't micromanage. So you, you get the

top talent that way, by being a reliable interviewer, and just

in that hiring process, and then from there, you respect them as

adults, and you let them thrive.

I love that. Because you know, when you are

able to show, especially that candidate experience that I am a

person of my word. So if this is how I treat you, before, you're

even a part of my team, or a part of my company, imagine how

amazing it's gonna be to work for me. And a lot of people

don't realize that right? Like you said, I'm gonna get back to

you. And that's something I always tell when I'm working

with hiring managers, like, if you talk to somebody on the

phone, or if you if they carve out 30 minutes or an hour to do

an interview, the least you can do is just get back to them,

whether it's an email or a phone call and say, Hey, thank you so

much however we moved on, so they can no let me focus my

attention other places, and then it the conversation, that

environment, the relationship didn't stop, then once you

brought them on, it's like, okay, I'm not going to be

micromanaging you. I'm not going to be emailing you in over your

shoulders all the time. You're an adult, I trust you. And I

think that's one thing that we miss when we're building strong

teams, right, like hiring, I hired you because you are the

best person. And now I'm gonna let you do what I hired you to

do. Yeah,

exactly. And I would try to come at them with

like a coaching mindset while they're in I mean, all the

there's a definite, like generational differences on how

what people expect out of the job. And I would say that the

Gen Z millennial for sure, they definitely want more career

building, like within their job, they want to be able to add

skill sets. So I was always like, Okay, well, let's take

your resume. And while you're here with us, while we get to

have you, let's start building your resume. And just through

that, like, the retention was amazing. I mean, people would

say, Oh, that's weird. It's almost like you're coaching them

to leave one day, I'm like, they aren't gonna leave one day. So I

might as well just get all the great skill sets. But it was so

funny because they were so incentivized to stay and keep

building themselves that they stayed. So that was how I was

able to retain scientists for you know, for the time that I

had, I was able to kind of like succession plan as well. So I

could keep moving up. It's basically this philosophy were

trained somebody to do your job, so that you're free to do your

boss's job, and your boss is free to do their boss's job. And

then y'all kind of rise up together. So that that kind of

philosophy worked really well. And in big organizations, I

think can be kind of hard to traverse. And there might be a

lot of politics and uncertainty, but if you can form that, like

chain of support, it works out really well.

Yeah. And you know, I don't understand why

managers and leaders they feel so threatened when they have

somebody on the team who is performing higher than them or

doing shiny more than them and I'm like, But you created that

person, right? You poured into them, so you should be happy

about that. And something else that you said about your

retention. And I say this all the time. People don't leave

companies, they leave managers, right. And so no matter what's

going on in the company, corporate at large, they if you

are a strong leader, you're strong manager, your people are

not going to leave you and so really what I start my sessions

with managers that have high turnover, I'm like you're the

problem. company problem, not everything else, not because

they couldn't get this done or that then the buck stops with

you.

Yeah, that's very true. And I was kind of

lucky to I'm gonna say luck because I don't know why it why

I learned some of this stuff, it just kind of came natural. But

you know, in science, it can be the soft skills can kind of

sometimes take a backseat to technical skills. So I would say

as far as like, actual, like skill building, part of it is

building the soft skill side for people empathy, the self

awareness, what kind of communication style are you what

kind of communication styles the other person? How do you meet in

the middle, and all these little things, I mean, as well as like

the technical training and trying to get cross training and

stuff. So there's a lot you can do as a manager to improve,

like, the motivation for your staff to stay there and keep

performing as you know, as good as they can. And everything. So,

yeah. And so tell me about so you are a team

leader of a technical group, and then you transition to the

business side. So right, talk to me about how did that transition

come about? And how was that for you?

Yeah, it's interesting. So there's a couple

ways like, you can think about having direct reports. And like,

I had direct reports to the scientific side. And then I had

gone to business school. And I had moved to product management

for a scientific like a contracting firm that basically

contracted out scientists. So from there, I was actually

technically a, an individual contributor. However, I had

groups that were like, I was the internal client, for internal

groups that basically had to do my, like, had my deliverables.

And in some ways, I wasn't necessarily managing them from

an HR perspective. But I could still a lot of the same tools

you use for motivation for people and just interpersonal

relationship, you apply whether you're, you know, talking to a

direct report that needs to do something for you, or an

internal team that needs to do something for you. And then I

moved to med device, and I was one of two people in the

startup, and I had external contractors, so they're not my

employees. Technically, however, I still applied those same skill

sets. So I went from, you know, having direct reports in

science, then I was in science, but product management, so is

shifted more towards the marketing, I had internal

clients, then I was in a startup, I had external clients,

then I get hired here. And now I have employees again, and I also

have external clients. So that's kind of how I made the shift. It

wasn't like a direct overseeing this type of staff to this type

of staff from like, performance review and HR. But I had this

intermediary that I kind of saw as a similar dynamic of how I,

you know, interact.

And so one thing that I like about the way you

describe that it's you did this consciously or unconsciously,

not sure which one but you know, you kind of started your career

as a scientist, individual contributor, then you manage a

team. And at some point, you realize that you wanted to

transition to the other side of the business. So being really

more customer facing, and you said, I don't want to call it a

step back. But essentially, you said, Okay, I'm gonna go back to

being an individual contributor, because this is a new world for

us. So let me learn what they do before I climb, start to climb

back up again, and start managing people like that. And I

think so many times people are like, Well, I've led a team of

50 scientists, I can lead a team of 50 salespeople, and no, you

can't, because it's very rare, right? These are very different

skill set.

Yeah, yeah, there was definitely some

learning I had to do. It's a totally different, like, and I

just wanted to be respected from like a from, like, when I say

sales or technical skill set, I mean, even sales has a technical

skill set, right? And there's tools or specialized tools that

you might need, oh, no, I wanted to be completely competent in

those skills before I dare you know, manage people and try to

coach them through that. So I mean, I had to Yeah, I mean,

when you're wanting to grow like it's kind of like weight loss,

you know, you have your graph it's like not gonna be like

this, it's gonna be like that, you know, and I'm like signing

over a podcast I'm doing his exact line but it's going

upwards okay. Anyway, like so you know, you just kind of have

to like have a North Star and you just have to trust you're

gonna get there it might take a decade two decades, whatever,

but just kind of enjoy the your path along the way and kind of

stepping back so you can like, learn something totally

different is very exciting, too. It does take the pressure off

and I will say that it was kind of nice. I gotta say having all

these employees and a big org chart under me to like nobody.

I'm like, Wait, there's no performance reviews. Look all

this time I have this is amazing. So it wasn't all bad.

You know, you could take some time for yourself, develop

yourself and then jump back into it.

You know, one thing that I find so much

within, you know, these technical companies, this arena

that we work in a lot of times, whether it's in the sales

department, engineering department operations, they have

people that are promoted into leadership roles, and the team

under you doesn't respect you, because you've never walked a

day in their shoes, right? But by you taking that step back and

saying, Hey, I'm gonna do this job. So I know this job. And

when I push you harder, I know that you can do it, because I've

done it right. And so again, going back to that people don't

leave companies, they leave managers. And by instilling that

within the employees, you're helping them be like, Oh, okay,

she's done this. So I know when she's coaching me, that is

coming from a good place. So tell me about your current team,

the composition of what you do today. Sure.

So I have our company is only 37 people. And

excuse me, some of those people are actually in the

manufacturing, making the thing, right, and so I'm on this other

business side, and I have a small team, I just have, I have

one associate that works directly with me in the business

development. And then I have two marketing liaisons. And then

what I have for I have an external partner like an

external resource, and there's like a whole org chart there of,

I think, eight people right now. So I have to kind of oversee

what they're doing and kind of set their strategy a little bit

and give them support. So I first had to train all this

whole external force. Interesting thing about this

company, Brio tech is that their core competency really isn't

supposed to be a huge sales and marketing firm. And that's why

we had external kind of operate like a virtual company, and have

this external safety. First labs be our sales engine. And I was

the one that kind of got introduced to them, and formed

the relationship, vetted them, and now I'm training them. So

I'm kind of using them as my organization. But I'm not like,

you know, I'm not their HR manager, as it were. So I have

very small staff here. And then we have this external staff. And

we'll just keep growing that external staff, and then we'll

grow here as needed. We have some also some international

kind of little bubbles of staff that we can start leveraging as

we grow our global footprint as well. So I'm kind of in this

virtual company space where I'm like this focal point, but we're

not growing our overhead at headquarters here, we're keeping

ourselves LEED our investors like that. So there we are.

So I like that is it so it sounds like a

distributor, but more, you have a lot more control, and you're

providing them training and things like that. So I know, as

small companies, this is always a challenge. It's like we need

more revenue. But for more revenue, we have to increase

overhead by adding more salespeople until people don't

pay for themselves immediately, right. And so talk to me more

about how that external channel is working for you guys. Really

great.

They already have pre existing relationships.

And so they've brought on this president that has, you know, 30

years experience dozens of relationships that and they were

already selling something that was not our product, but it was,

you know, it was kind of similar doesn't compete directly, but

they have customer base, also safety first lab sold into Home

Depot, and we just launched in Home Depot. So we were able to

leverage a huge retailer relationships. So sometimes when

you find the right group, the ROI on them is pretty fast, much

faster than just organically training brand new people to

form all these connections. So that's kind of what we wanted to

find the right partnerships with pre existing relationships that

we could leverage. I love

that. And again, I know in this field where we're

in manufacturing, and these very highly technical fields,

sometimes you'll say, Okay, we're going to expand our

Salesforce by using distributors. And then you get

like five or 10 generalists, right? And the due diligence

that you did, like they're in Home Depot, that's what we're

selling our products into. Now, there we have synergy, okay,

they're already doing this, and we have synergies. They're

talking to the people we want to talk to, yes, you guys are the

right one. And then you're going over and above, and you're

actually working with them. Because so many people do

distribution wrong. They just say, Okay, here's some product

brochures, send us any leads that you have, and we'll kind of

work through it. And so it's like, as they give you this

portfolio of 50 products, 50 companies that they're

representing yours is like the last one on the list, but it

sounds like you actually have strategy around it, which is why

it is successful for you. Yeah,

I think that like we have a great product

that is I believe one of a kind and so I don't think this firm

really wants to push other stuff right now. They see it as a win

and it has so much latitude like it can be sold in all these

different channels is going to keep them so busy. So I got I

were lucky because we have such a great thing to sell, and that

they don't need to have a catalog of 20 items. In fact,

that would kind of dilute out the main message of what we

offer. So, so yeah, it worked out really well. We're also

really lucky because it just seems like the interesting cool

things are coming to us like the universe is putting things

together. I'm not really sure. Like, if this is it just appears

like this. I don't. So it's that's really been really

exciting. Just kind of I didn't have to sweat too hard to find

these guys. That just kind of happened. So got lucky, I guess.

And yeah, we're really excited to see what other kind of

international things come our way too.

You've given me so many like success stories

already. I mean, Home Depot having your products as a late

stage startup and thing, we're a company of 37 having your

products in Place Like Home Depot, like basketball giant

company, to me, that's a huge success. But talk to me share

something that you're particularly proud of whether

it's a project and employ a team, something that you're

really excited about, okay,

I'm really excited because this technology

is I fail, it's like really transformative, we had applied

to the World Health Organization, essential

medicines list or application is online. In that application,

you're going to be able to see, like just a, it's a 55 page,

super robust, breaking down all of our science, all of our

publications that we've been doing for the past four years,

and all the peer reviewed journals. Not only that you get

to see the before and after transformative pictures, healing

pictures, people with amazingly terrible injuries, diabetic

wounds, whatever it is going from just dire situation to

healthy skin. And I am really excited for the celebrity of our

ingredient to get out there. One cool thing we did get a little

bit of press@health.com. That magazine just wrote an article

and mentioned us it's like this is a buzzy ingredient. And it is

everything the hype says it is and had all these great things

to say we didn't know it was coming. So when unexpected,

great press is like always a surprise. And we're really

excited for that who essential medicines decision are we going

to be added to the list of 60 countries to be sold as a

medicine fingers crossed, but we think we have a good shot. So

we're ready to list

a little bit more about the actual product,

because you're telling us all the amazing thing that you're

getting these accolades, but tell us what does it do because

I know that you have a gift for our audience. So I want to make

sure that they are able to go out and they know exactly what

you guys do.

Yeah, so we hfcl that's the acronym for the

molecule hydrogen, oxygen and chlorine. It's called

hypochlorous acid. And this molecule exists in all of our

white blood cells. Right now. It's evolved with all mammals.

And it's what we use to fight infection. It's what we use to

promote healing. If you get a cut, it's growing the skin

backup and it's going to reduce inflammation, all the redness it

simmers that down. It's like the fix it molecule on the fix that

lady, this is the fix it molecule makes everything

better. Okay. Now, when this, this company has been able to

isolate it, make it pure and scale it up. So they scale it

using saltwater, amazingly, but they have a very complicated

sophisticated machine with very sophisticated software to

precision control the manufacturing, make it super

scalable. So you can go on the shelf of any retail store any

amount of retail stores, keep it stable with a long shelf life

and keep it very pure. There's no contamination in there. And

it's reacting like as if we just took the best part of inside

ourselves took it to the external world. And just you

know, you can use it in disinfection, we're on the EPA

list and to kill Coronavirus. We can use it in cosmetic all the

before and after pictures. You see these amazing, I mean

people's skin conditions are getting cleared up. And it's

just incredible. Our Amazon reviews are littered with before

and after pictures saying what just happened my my piercing

healing got completely healed. And there's medical indication.

So we're working through the FDA right now with some additional

claims. So we kind of have all these great things we're hoping

to totally disrupt and ruin the toxic chemical industry, which

might not make us some friends but that's okay. And we're

looking to Yeah, I mean, just simplify everything. You don't

need to buy a bunch of, you know, expensive prescriptions or

products, you can reduce it down to something a little bottle

that costs you know, $6 can save you a ton of money and we can

get this technology out to places that really need it out

in the middle of third world countries. They can't afford

vaccines and they need disinfection and it's safe. I

mean you can you can have it, you know in the air and you

recognize it because it's just that pure molecule that exists

in us anyway. So that's kind of that Spiel with the products and

we're you know, we're excited to see what at all the different

product lines, we can put it in pet care, home care, you know,

baby care, whatever, there's like no limit.

Wow. And so this, what you just did is what

I consider the best of technical sales, right? Because

essentially, this is a really, really technical product, right?

We started this hydrogen, oxygen, chlorine, but what does

it do? And that's what matters the most, you can order this on

Amazon to help care of skin conditions, you can disinfect a

whole hospital, I'm just gonna say, right, you can send it to

third world countries to help them cut down the risk of

infection. And it all started, it was adding a few, a few

elements together right in the lab. And now look at what it's

doing. And then all those acronyms, the FDA, EPA, who

right and so you guys are doing amazing work. And I know that

with you leaving the commercial effort, that there's no stone,

there's no thing that will be unturned. So tell us about the

gift that you have for the audience.

Oh, I have a gift, it is a coupon code. It's

a you know, hopefully, that's considered a gift. I mean, it

requires you kind of buying something but but you know,

you're 25% off pride 25 Go to our website, you fill up your

cart and use that and we're doing that for Pride month

coming up. So pride 25 25% off your entire order. And yeah,

also any viewers out there, if you want to connect with me on

LinkedIn, and keep that connection going all, you know,

I can send you something maybe like a ball, you know, no big

deal. Just try it out. I love to just get the stuff out there.

And once people use it, though they get be do become addicted.

So you know, I'll do like the first one free kind of situation

here.

I love it. I love it. So you can get 25% off

your entire order. If you go to the website, which will be in

the show notes or reach out to Jennifer on LinkedIn. And you

can find her LinkedIn URL in the show notes. Also, thank you so

much, Jennifer. It's a pleasure chatting with you today and

learning more about your background, as well as your

company and the amazing work that you guys are doing. Thank

you so much. And that has been another episode of the Snack

size sales podcast. Remember, head to our website snack sized

sales.com To get your free ebook and learn 10 simple strategies

to kickstart your sales. Until next time in everything you do

transform your sales.

Thank you for joining us today on the snack sized

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