If your company has ever been invited to speak at a conference on a very specific topic, you most likely struggled to find what to present.
You probably have a bunch of unconnected papers that use your technology or services but nothing life-changing.
How can you use this data not just for a presentation, but to convince potential clients?
Something similar happened to me in May 2024, when the company I was working for was invited to EMBO Microglia.
As the Scientific Communicator, I was responsible for preparing the presentation and defending it in front of 400+ KOLs.
The company I represented had three papers related to microglia. But microglia couldn’t be measured with our devices. Our tech measured electrical activity in cells, with primary targets being neurons, cardiomyocytes, and retinal cells.
In fact, microglia is not even electrically active.
The clients’ papers used our technology to measure how changes in microglia affected these other cells.
If I may say, attending this conference was a very smart decision from the business development team. It was not exactly our field, but it was closely related. Because of that, we were the only company there offering this type of devices and we had no competition.
From what I know, the company closed at least two deals from that conference (6 figures deal), and the organizers even complimented us on the presentation.
Going back to the talk itself:
How do you position your company as a strong solution for microglia when microglia is not even your target cell type?
The key here was to select very different papers to demonstrate the versatility of the devices and highlight its impact on the research.
For example, in one paper researchers measure how a component affected microglia and therefore neuronal networks in vivo (this was measured in mice brain slices). While another paper displayed the differences in retinal cells firing when an organoid contained microglia cells or not.
This was not easy. In some cases, our technology appeared in only one figure.
You can also imagine that the authors did not explicitly state “thanks to data generated using this device, we concluded ABC.”
We had to analyze the publications and extract the conclusions ourselves.
The takeaway here is that you do not need the perfect case study. You need the right framing.
Regarding how I presented?
Public speaking can be intimidating, especially when you speak in front of 400+ experts about a topic you do not fully specialize in.
The only advice I can give is to present with confidence. Even when you do not feel it.
Ah! And having a wonderful team to support you and help you.
Conclusions
- Select papers that showcase the versatility of your technology
- Briefly explain the research context, then focus on how your technology was used
- Highlight the impact your technology had on the overall project, for example, “by acquiring this data with our devices, the authors were able to conclude X.”
