Passion-Driven Progress: Redefining How Work is Accomplished in Life Sciences with Jason Falchuk

0:29Who's ready to rock today, Fire Nation? over 20 years experience representing clinical development professionals and their impactful programs at BioBridges. And today, Fire Nation, we'll talk about CPM, the Career Portfolio Management Model. We'll talk about consulting and the workforce in general and how that's all being impacted in a major way now and so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Jason and our sponsors. Online Marketing Made Easy podcast hosted by Amy Porterfield is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals with a focus on online business, including digital courses, list building content, and more.

1:08Online Marketing Made Easy breaks down big ideas and strategies into actionable step-by-step processes. A recent episode that will help you get more results with a whole lot less stress is on four ways to avoid burnout. Listen to Online Marketing Made Easy wherever you get your podcasts. Is now your time? Visit thrivetimeshow.com to see testimonials of how Clay Clark's business coaching has helped over 2 ,000 entrepreneurs to dramatically increase profitability. It's month to month and less money than an average minimum wage employee. Schedule your free consultation today at thrivetimeshow.com.

1:40Jason, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with. Well, first of all, thank you for having me. It's great to be with you. And hello to everyone at Fire Nation. That's quite a curveball to throw early on, but I'll go for it. Because I often think about success, and I kind of view success as, or the achievement of success as more of a mirage in the eye of the beholder. And what I found really interesting was that once you achieved levels of success, especially you find this with entrepreneurs, it's not always the highlight of their existence.

2:21So if they have an exit, you find that a lot of entrepreneurs don't consider that as the hurrah moment for them. In fact, for many, it's kind of the opposite. And I found myself kind of going through that as well when it happened to me. Fire Nation, as you can tell, we have a podcast episode coming to you today full of energy and excitement, passion-driven progress, redefining how work is accomplished specifically in life sciences. And Jason, I want to start with your origin story. I mean, in the introduction, I told Fire Nation a little bit about bio bridges, but talk to us about how you got to where you are today.

3:01I appreciate that. For as long as I can remember, I've kind of had a fascination on how people get to where they get to within their career and their journey they're on. I mean, I was, when Uber first came out, my kids hated me because I would get into the Uber and ask like, Like, you know, why do you do this? And what else do you do? And I was fascinated with it. And I kind of, I think at three N's. So I've got nature, nurture, and then the third would be neither, right? So my father is a lifetime physician and my mother was a practicing attorney. And yet my pathway was anything but traditional or predictable for me or my parents.

3:39Unfortunately, I put the gray hair on my father's head. But there was really no roadmap for what I wanted to do, which I'm going to throw at you because I grew up in the suburbs. But I wanted to be a rock star and to be clear, not a musician, but a rock star. And so after making a go or run in the music industry with certainly far more downs than ups, I recognized that was falling out of love with the art and becoming more and more interested in the business aspects. and really from the business standpoint, specifically artist representation and management. And so I eventually made my way into something that I could really express those areas.

4:20And that was recruiting, believe it or not. You know, you don't kind of grow up and go to school thinking someday I'll be a recruiter. But I found this great way to express those things and be able to impact people's careers and livelihoods. And it was just such a rewarding experience for me. and so over that period of time I found myself becoming more and more interested and fascinated with kind of redefining what I like to refer as as the four letter dirty word the word work right I work was just a negative thing for me you have to go to work it was like the Sunday night blues school the next day thought and I work could be wonderful and so I wanted to find a way to turn obligation into inspiration well what I love is that you found how to do that and that's kind of what brought you eventually to BioBridges.

5:06So take us over that bridge, fill that gap. Jeff Souza, who's the company president, often says the experience is in our DNA. I was really fortunate enough to have met my co-founding partner, Cindy, and convinced her to take this leap of faith with me and start in this company. She spent 20 plus years prior to BioBridges kind of really actively in clinical development. And that laid the groundwork for us to build out our organization with highly experienced and impactful industry professionals. It really set the tone for the business. And for your listeners who aren't familiar with kind of the biotech space, I know you spent some time in New England, but our company was founded just outside of the Cambridge Mass area, which at the time was, we're looking at almost 20 years ago, the heart of emerging biotechs.

5:56And these companies remain lean. You know, they relied heavily on outsourcing to vendors. And we recognized there was kind of a missing link, you know, a break in the model of how work was accomplished. And that was impacting both the professionals and the clients. Whether it was due to timing, enough work to satisfy bringing on someone in a full-time capacity, access to resources, finance, or, you know, or just being able, again, to make a long-term commitment. many of these companies lacked the functional know-how on how to ensure those desired outcomes that they had. So they'd outsource, but they wouldn't have the oversight.

6:36On the flip side, you had professionals who were serving in these functions who may have started out with a real specific area that they were excited about and passionate about. And then over time, because of necessity, their kind of area of impact became more diluted because they had to become more generalist to oversee the work. And so we really felt like that was the missing piece. And today we engage over 250 professionals with coverage across almost all functional areas that impacts hundreds of clients and programs along the way. Fire Nation, I hope you can see the evolution that Jason took.

7:15It wasn't a straight line. It wasn't like, I know what I want to be when I'm in second grade and this is what I became when I'm an adult. I mean, he had, like myself, a very interesting, at times rocky, at times up and down journey to get to where he's at now. And so if you're going through something like that, realize it is part of the process. And I do love the three N's, the nature, the nurture, the neither. I mean, that was really fantastic. But what I want to dive into next, Jason, is CPM, specifically career portfolio management and that model specifically. Talk to us about what that is and how it applies to my listeners.

7:52A lot of people think I got into life sciences because I was really interested in finding cures for patients and so forth. But truth be told, that wasn't my North Star. Mine was about representing people. But I looked to my father, who is still practicing today, believe it or not, as a lifetime physician. And I kind of used him as kind of the motivation behind figuring this out. And where I'm going is that we surround ourselves with so many experts and advocates in a variety of areas of our lives, right? So we have doctors for our health, financial planners for our finances, accountants, lawyers, you get the picture of where I'm going.

8:29But somehow when it comes to our livelihood and our careers, we often leave that to situational chance. And so I wanted to change that. And again, kind of referencing back to my father, you know, 30, now probably 50 years of practicing medicine. If I, if I, I used to have this grease board in my office and I used to draw a pie chart on it, explaining this concept to people. And when my father first got into medicine, and I don't want to speak for him, but, but I'm sure he would verify this, that for him, you know, it was about treating patients, patient care. And let's say like 85 %-ish of time that he did was spent kind of around that, right?

9:10But then over time, as everyone knows, healthcare has dramatically changed. And so you have physicians doing so many other things that aren't at that kind of center of impact for them. And for many, they become disengaged in the work. And so what I wanted to do was return people to the work they're passionate about. And my theory was, if we could really understand and keep aligned to that intersection of work-related passion and impact, we could sustain an incredibly valuable professional community that would be able to really, really impact the clients and the programs we serve. Some of the benefits that one gets from kind of working in that model where you would have a diverse income stream.

9:50So just like your finances, all your eggs aren't in one basket because we would provide you with, depending on your skill set and functional area, a multitude of projects. You would have greater insight for planning, work continuity, retention, increased exposure to new indications and experience and outcomes. And I kind of refer to that segment as experience and dog years because it's such a rapid development. And so in our 18 years issue business, we've had so many incredible gratifying situations with our professionals and our clients from people saying, you know, come here for a year or two and then retire to finding out, you know, 10 years later, they've fallen in love with it again.

10:30Fire Nation, this is a fascinating model. and we're going to be diving into some things specifically within it as well as a couple of really cool examples as well as challenges that are ahead of all of us when we get back from thanking our sponsors. Expectations are at an all-time high these days for sales leaders and sales teams. Beyond your daily cold calls, the relationship building, and actually closing deals, you're also expected to leverage a slew of different tech to-dos. If you're not digging into the numbers, monitoring the best strategies, and switching it up when things aren't working and collaborating across other teams within your company, then you're not on your A game.

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11:45Expectations are at an all-time high these days for sales leaders and sales teams. Beyond your daily cold calls, the relationship building, and actually closing deals, you're also expected to leverage a slew of different tech to-dos. If you're not digging into the numbers, monitoring the best strategies, and switching it up when things aren't working and collaborating across other teams within your company, then you're not on your A game. Sounds pretty exhausting, right? Here's the good news. There's a better way to win. It all starts with the new HubSpot Sales Hub. HubSpot Sales Hub unifies your data tools and team inside a smart and powerful platform that includes a new prospecting workspace, deal management tools, and AI-powered tools to help reps optimize based off real-time results.

12:26And add a bonus, reps can automate their busy work so they can focus on doing what they do best, closing deals. It's smart software for smart sales teams that feels good to use. With Sales Hub, closing deals is no big deal. Try it for yourself at hubspot.com slash sales. Jason, I want to break it down because consulting is really becoming prominent and a prominent force in today's economy. Let's talk about how will the consulting workforce evolve in the upcoming years from your perspective? I think it begins with a mindset. And when I started 18-ish years ago doing this, I was looked at as the odd person in the room for that concept.

13:07But I read a stat that one in three Americans today have multiple income streams. If you asked me, I wouldn't have said that. But it certainly makes sense in where things are going. So the days of that monogamous one-to-one employee-company ratio is far less common, especially as technology advances and the speed of change continues. news. And, you know, so you really need to consider the balance of how you approach really a career and how you would define a career. And with emerging biotechs, it was very common to be lean, but we're seeing more and more of the large institutions kind of move towards that model where they're outsourcing so much, and that's recreating those gaps that we've experienced in the emerging model.

13:58I think we've spent a lot of time, as I'm sure you've had on your show, talking about kind of remote work. You're in Puerto Rico. And a lot of people think that that's a result of the pandemic. But for BioBridges, that's kind of the essence of considerations of what we talk about. We talk about how is the work going to be accomplished? And that needs to remain at the forefront of discussions and thoughts, not around the circumstances of the work. So the agility, the adaptability, engaging the best people for the program, not best local or best available, is so critical to the success. That is fascinating to me.

14:38One out of three people have multiple revenue streams. I mean, I guess that kind of speaks a little bit to the gig economy that's developed, but I mean, I would have still put it at like one to 10, one out of 20 or something. I mean, that's a really surprising status, something to think about, Fire Nation. And I want to shift now, Jason, to the workforce challenges that you're foreseeing and specifically how you're planning to deal with them. So there's a lot of talk about technology specifically. You hear a lot of people talking about AI, ML, ChatGBT, and other technologies and how they're going to integrate or are they going to replace.

15:12And look, it's keeping a lot of people up at night. And I would say that, you know, efficiency has been and will always be part of the equation. And I think people should embrace efficiency. And so the essence of collaboration and kind of the how and what we communicate has never been more important. And with the insights that we have today, the data into our professionals' career history, what they're doing presently, and then how that aligns with future pathways, we've never had a more opportunistic time to really think about the mapping of career choices and pathways and provide the logic and support for more successful outcomes.

16:00I remember years ago, I was sitting with somebody who heads up Harvard Business School, and it was a great topic. We probably were the only two left in the room at the end of the night. We could have gone on all night, actually. And this was 10, 15 years ago, but we were talking about how doctors would be lawyers and lawyers would be doctors. And those changes wouldn't be as crazy as they may sound today. And we're seeing more and more options for those kind of changes, even outside of kind of the domains that people work in. And lastly, I would say establishing and maintaining trust is going to be what defines us.

16:38Fire Nation, I love these points and I hope you're really foreseeing how you can get ahead of some of these challenges, how you can get ahead of some of these opportunities as well. And I want to shift into specific advice from you, Jason. For those people that are listening that are in the life sciences sector, or of course, just entrepreneurs as a whole, what would you say to us today? So for people who are getting at the earlier stages of their careers in life sciences, this is probably not something you haven't heard before and hopefully something that you, you know, embrace every day, but it's great to be reminded of it.

17:16You should remain curious, be open to learning and really getting outside of your comfort zone, like almost intentionally outside of your comfort zone, which is not comfortable, right? Be ready to experience lots of failures. We used to not want to talk about failures. Now, I'll tell you, we talk about failures all the time. And I think that failures really set you up for how you approach your future, whether they're successful outcomes or not. and I think it's really, really important to remember that it's a long game, right? This isn't a short game. Situations, they change and you have to consider the long game.

17:57Entrepreneurs are kind of another mindset. In fact, I remember the first time I found out an entrepreneur, you'll get a laugh out of this, is probably right about when you started this back in like 2012, I was being interviewed for a podcast. And I never even, that name, entrepreneur, you know, this was before Shark Tank. That name, Shark Tank may have been out, but I wasn't watching it. My kids were watching it then. That name, entrepreneur, that concept never kind of set in with me, right? And she said, she said, so Jason, you're the classic entrepreneur. And I said, I was almost defensive about it.

18:29I didn't understand what she meant. And she said, why did you create your business? And I said, because what I wanted to do didn't exist. And she said, I rest my case. So when I started BioBridges, there were a lot of people who you consult with a lot of people who you trust. And many thought it was crazy to leave a thriving job. I was doing really well. I had one child, one on the way, and I have four now. So it was risky to a lot of people. For me, it was more of a risk not to do it. So I would encourage anyone who really believes in something to define what risk is to them and not let others really influence what they consider to be a risk.

19:08A lot of great things there, Fire Nation. One thing I want to circle back to is the comfort zone comment. And just remember the truth that not just some of the magic, but all of the magic happens outside of your comfort zone. So get uncomfortable, push the envelope. Jason, give us one key takeaway that you want to make sure our listeners really get from our conversation today. I spent a lot of my time kind of getting out the bullhorn to advocate for other people. And I think it's really hard to be a self-advocate. I know I don't do it well, and I don't know many people who do. I think it's important to surround yourself with people who understand you and believe in you.

19:51And learn to build rapport with those kind of people as you evolve in your career. Whether it's mentors, people to help manage your career. but really put great thought into who those people are because they will have a tremendous impact on your ability to kind of succeed along the way. Fire Nation, you're the average. Of the five people you spend the most time with, you've been hanging out with JF and JLD today. So keep up that heat. For links to everything we talked about, visit eofire.com. Type Jason in the search bar. The show notes page will pop right up. Jason, thank you for sharing your truth, knowledge, and value with Fire Nation today.

20:29For that, we salute you and we'll catch you on the flip side. Thank you so much. And thank you to everyone at Fire Nation. Hey, Fire Nation, a huge thank you to our sponsors and Jason for sponsoring today's episode. And Fire Nation, what can 3 ,000 of the world's most successful entrepreneurs teach you? How about how to achieve financial freedom and fulfillment? My first traditionally published book, The Common Path to Uncommon Success is a revolutionary 17-step roadmap that will lead you to the lifestyle you've been dreaming about. This book took me 10 years of accumulating the genius of the world's top entrepreneurs, and you can get it all in one place when you visit UncommonSuccessBook.com.

21:12I'll catch you there or on the flip side. Online Marketing Made Easy podcast, hosted by Amy Porterfield, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals with a focus on online business, including digital courses, list building content, and more. Online Marketing Made Easy breaks down big ideas and strategies into actionable step-by-step processes. A recent episode that will help you get more results with a whole lot less stress is on four ways to avoid burnout. Listen to Online Marketing Made Easy wherever you get your podcasts. Is now your time?

21:44Visit thrivetimeshow.com to see testimonials of how Clay Clark's business coaching has helped over 2 ,000 entrepreneurs to dramatically increase profitability. It's month to month and less money than an average minimum wage employee. Schedule your free consultation today at Thrivetimeshow.com.