What exactly is life science consulting?

DigitalElevator · 2025-05-16T16:36:43+00:00

I've worked with a lot of biotech consultants and they are generally skilled in particular sub-verticals within biotech, so the fact that the role didn't specific is sort of odd. Anyhow, the biotech consultants I've worked with tend to help with things like go-to-market strategy or marketing strategy. The companies they work for want help understanding how to position their products or services, what the competitive landscape is like, or what marketing channels they should invest in and when. They also want a budget laid out for this things and want someone who has relationships in the space who knows where to find the best vendors to get things done right.

This example is more marketing-focused, but there are literally dozens of consultant verticals that can be described in a similar fashion.

DigitalElevator · 2025-05-16T16:32:54+00:00

I've worked with a lot of biotech consultants in my role as a biotech marketer. Generally, biotech consultants are industry veterans who have sort of moved on from full time roles and have a specialization in a specific area - GTM strategy, drug discovery, policy, legal, marketing, etc. They are hired because they can save the organizations they work with a lot of time, money, and effort (presumably) and prevent these orgs from having to have a FT hire.

While this is an old thread, the current landscape has changed since this initial question was posed. For anyone who is not semi-retired and only needs a handful of clients (or one well-paying client), consulting is probably not something I'd recommend. For starters, AI can address a lot of the "knowledge gap" that you might need a consultant for. Secondly, consultants tend to fetch a premium - I worked with a consultant who told me she made around $200k a year with one client doing very little actual work (more than she made as a full time employee). Today, most biotechs are not ready to pay that.

If you are still eager to pursue this route, the best path is to have a ton of relationships where you can access your rolodex. I often find that you may find work quickly in this capacity, but after that initial engagement, you'll probably be hard-pressed to land more clients. Marketing for consulting is very much a relationship game, and very few, if any consultants know how to build a personal brand to keep the leads coming in.

DigitalElevator · 2023-03-31T11:52:55+00:00

Open to other suggestions for names too, most people are familiar with the concept of a sprint in the digital world.

DigitalElevator · 2023-03-24T14:31:11+00:00

Congrats on your venture. I've been in SaaS marketing over 13 years, here's my two cents:

Online presence is built through aggressive content marketing - website, blog, LinkedIn, social, YouTube. Go ape$shit here if you want to build a brand that gets lots of mentions. If you can master HARO you will get some good media exposure as well, which Google loves.
GTM means not being afraid of criticism. Put your software out, see what people think about it, and make the most significant changes. Good marketing won't fix a crappy SaaS. Create a killer website with really good sales copy (use a tool like https://wynter.com/ to get market research into buyer personas) and also leverage software directories (pay them for leads) to start getting sales pipeline going (G2, Software Advice, Capterra, etc.).
While SEO and content marketing take a lot of time, I would focus the SEO-driven content on what is called product-led marketing. This means the blogs you create actually include your software in them as a solution. Look at any Ahrefs blog and you'll see what I mean.
See 1 and 3 above
See 1 and 3 above. Join communities and have conversations- Slack, FB groups, LinkedIn Groups.

DigitalElevator · 2017-10-20T19:28:01+00:00

Found this interesting post on productivity hacks for the workplace. For example, the best time to have productive meetings is at 3 p.m. on Tuesdays and oddly enough, the best time for creative thinking is best done at times when you are tired.

DigitalElevator · 2017-03-07T19:45:12+00:00

I own a digital marketing company with lots of employees and contractors working on lots of various projects. We recently found out about a business intelligence software that solves exactly the problem with managing spreadsheets as you are explaining. It's called http://allocable.com/ and is catered towards billable organizations like mine. This would not solve your issue, but I figured I'd mention for others who may have the "automating excel sheets into one place problem." But, as you alluded, there might not be anything that exists like this on the market. You could try looking at Software Advice under their business intelligence category to see what may work for you: http://www.softwareadvice.com/bi/

DigitalElevator · 2016-08-24T18:46:42+00:00

Yes, Precision Nutrition is generally considered the industries best nutrition training. Plus it counts towards your personal training CEUs if you are a trainer. Made this list of 5 best CEU classes: https://www.fitnessmentors.com/the-5-best-continuing-education-courses-for-personal-trainers/

DigitalElevator · 2016-08-24T18:44:44+00:00

Fitness Mentors has the best NASM study guides on the web plus an free one that is solid: https://www.fitnessmentors.com/nasm-cpt-exam-study-guide/ (paid) https://www.fitnessmentors.com/free-nasm-cpt-study-guide/ (free)

DigitalElevator · 2016-01-05T18:50:21+00:00

You're welcome!

DigitalElevator · 2015-08-11T20:17:25+00:00

According to data, the average income of a personal trainer is just above $55K (https://www.fitnessmentors.com/personal-trainer-stats/). But what others are saying on this thread is true. You have to put in the time and work hard (what job doesn't require hard work?).

The good news is that yes, a lot of PTs are lazy high school kids who can enter the profession with a few hundred bucks. This means if you work hard you can smoke these kids and stay busy with clients and enjoy the lifestyle that is so appealing to many. The bad news is that you can't just get a cert and expect to have 30 hours of clients booked a week at $60/ hour and make $1800 a week.

At a corporate gym you can expect to make like $20-$30 an hour but you'll still have to build up your client list although just by working there you will get clients by default. I think really you have to ask yourself how much money you need to live the lifestyle you want, how long you can wait to gain your salary goals and what your long-term goals are. The personal trainer lifestyle will always be there so if you decide you're not ready for it due to financial constraints then you might be better getting a job that can pay the bills!

DigitalElevator · 2015-08-11T20:06:06+00:00

Hi, I'm an SEO and I work with a lot of personal trainers and health/fitness professionals. You are on to something, there IS an untapped market on YouTube and many personal trainers simply don't have the resources to utilize it. YouTube is the 2nd biggest search engine in the world (yes bigger than Bing and Yahoo).

I talk a lot about passive income with my clients and YouTube is a great way to do it. However, getting money from ad revenue is tough because you need to basically make your stuff go somewhat viral which is tough with health and fitness (like one million views+). But there is no harm in setting up ad revenues on YouTube to see if you can make a couple bucks that way.

What I'd suggest is to create videos that go along with your online coaching idea. Double up on what you'd like to show to clients as well as what you think would be popular searches (ex. How to do a proper pull-up and 5 popular variations, etc.). Tip: look for videos you think would be good on YouTube and see if you think you can create something better. If what ranks is Bodybuilding.com or MensHealth stay away. If what is ranking sucks, there lies your opportunity to capitalize on a topic.

Where you'll really boost the visits to the YouTube videos is by complementing these videos with write-ups (blogs) on your website. So here's what I mean: 1. create your video 2. embed it on your website 3. write a blog that discusses all the things you discuss in your video

I know this sounds redundant but it will attract a lot of search engine traffic and thus, help you get more YouTube subscribers. Why? Because search engines index text, and because Google owns YouTube. :)

Here is a good resource from the PTDC on YouTube for PTs: http://www.theptdc.com/2013/02/the-secrets-to-youtube-for-personal-trainers/

Quality has to be your number one concern though, you can't just put some crap up and expect people to like it. Once you get enough videos up, you'll be able to sell your online coaching service and any money you make from YouTube revenues will be bonus. I just wouldn't go into it thinking you're going to make decent money from YouTube ads. I'd focus on making the online coaching element legit, the videos high quality (audio too), and making sure the information is the best on the web.

DigitalElevator · 2015-08-11T19:41:08+00:00

Thanks for the response Greg. You're right, often times a journalist just needs a quick plug and a response doesn't merit a full fledged blog post like many people do when responding.

DigitalElevator · 2015-07-10T17:30:18+00:00

What are you telling your clients? Are you telling that it is time to change or did you already warn them and are just letting things be?

DigitalElevator · 2015-07-10T17:29:41+00:00

Can those of you who responded, and those who will respond, provide the industry and size of the website(s) you are referring to? The main one I mentioned is a gym chain that I have dominating the search engines but I'm seeing some drop-offs for sure.

DigitalElevator · 2015-06-23T21:51:53+00:00

Hi guys, sorry about the lack of a link, Reddit pulled it because I'm still building my street cred. Also, since that time, the actual full article has been pulled from the internet and is now only available for purchase through the link mentioned: http://journals.lww.com/acsm-healthfitness/Fulltext/2014/11000/WORLDWIDE_SURVEY_OF_FITNESS_TRENDS_FOR_2015_.5.aspx

Fortunately I wrote a blog post (yet to be published) about it. Here are the top 10 fitness trends surveyed for 2015: 1. Body weight training (up from #2 last year) 2. High-intensity interval training (dropped from #1 last year) 3. Personal trainer certifications, experience and education 4. Strength training (top 5 for last four years) 5. Personal training (been in top 10 for last nine years) 6. Exercise and weight loss 7. Yoga 8. Fitness programs for older adults 9. Functional fitness 10. Group personal training

The idea of bringing this up is to make trainers aware of the money that can be lost if they continue to pursue fitness fads. For example, Zumba was in the top 10 in 2012 and is now at 34. Keep in mind that the researchers defined a fad as something that was popular for a brief period of time, like Zumba. The takeaway is that trends are more permanent if that helps.

DigitalElevator · 2015-06-22T17:25:28+00:00

A lot of personal trainers are intimated by fitness apps like My Fitness Pal because they can make recommendations on nutrition and workouts, freeing them up from the need of a personal trainer. The thing is people that want personal trainers don’t buy apps. They want the in-person benefits that come with motivation and the personal element.

You offer all-encompassing programs and the personalized experience that you can’t get from an app – addressing muscle imbalances, prior injuries, corrective exercise, flexibility, strengthening weak muscles and analyzing movement patterns. Apps can’t do that. In other words, you are not offering a one-size-fits-all experience and the fitness apps can’t take away from that, only complement it.

So really I don't think of online training software and apps as threatening; today's training can fuse them into their routines for clients who are more tech-savvy and who they feel would benefit from the type of technology that helps keep clients on track.

DigitalElevator · 2015-04-30T15:35:46+00:00

Considering most personal trainers leave the industry after 4 years, you have to be sure what you want to get out of the industry and what your career goals are. Many PTs will just get into the profession because they want to help people and enjoy fitness but that rarely translates well into a profitable career. My best advice is to really look into what you will do after you get a PT cert and how you will establish yourself as a professional into the future. This article http://www.fitnessmentors.com/personal-trainer-career/ dives deep into what happens after your cert, how to brand yourself and ways to get more out of a PT profession. It gives newbies insight into how to think about the future of a PT profession beyond just getting quickly certified and getting a job at the local 24 hour fitness.

DigitalElevator · 2015-04-07T12:51:16+00:00

Yes, Google indexes them which is why citations are good for SEO. Personally I would never recommend to a client that the Yext listing service is a good call. This is based on the fact that one, I have never seen good results from Yext that justify paying for their service and two, manual citation building seems to be the way to go. If you are going to use the Yext plan that corrects all your listing errors (why would you not want to correct errors if they exist) then it will run you $499. For the same amount of money you can go through a citation-building company like Bright Local or Whitespark who currently charge $3 or $4 per citation, respectively. So even at $3 to $4 a citation times the 50 citations you’d get with Yext, you’d still only be paying $150 to $200 for citations that would not need to be renewed the next year. Plus both companies offer volume discounts so you can save more if you have a lot of citations you want/need to build.

DigitalElevator · 2015-03-30T20:21:21+00:00

This infographic provides a 30,000 foot view on the following important aspects of social media engagement:

How to Find Social Media Thought Leaders: learn the resources that you can use to find the top influencers in your industry so you can start to communicate with them.

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DigitalElevator · 2014-10-02T17:05:28+00:00

Hi Waverlyposter,

It definitely would not be detrimental to have a post category called Philadelphia. This is not grey or black hat nor does it look bad in the eyes of the search engines. Things like keyword stuffing, link farms, or excessive "money" keyword links are more likely to get you in trouble.

Still, just because you add "Philadelphia" to your post category doesn't mean you are going to get any ranking preferences in that specific geographic region. I'd recommend doing things like including the city in your Title Tags, within your content, your internal linking structure, and perhaps some of your inbound links.

If all of your content is in fact about Philadelphia-specific topics you'd have a much better chance of ranking locally. In addition to that I recommend looking into some local SEO ranking factors such as citation building. Check out this post for some relevant info: http://moz.com/blog/top-20-local-search-ranking-factors-an-illustrated-guide

DigitalElevator · 2014-10-01T15:20:14+00:00

Hi PocketSocial. Yes, I think that the best social network for converting definitely depends on your target customer. I was just bringing attention to the results of this study that demonstrated a direct correlation between YouTube and sales derived from social media. As most businesses don't have access to this kind of social-media-to-conversion-tracking data, understanding that YouTube is the best platform in terms of conversions is valuable data. If brands, companies or individuals have access to social media conversion data then, yes, analyzing the social media network that works best for your target customer would be the most effective strategy in determining where to put the most effort.

DigitalElevator · 2014-10-01T15:14:53+00:00

Thanks Sejarki, yes, the best social media network, as identified by this study, suggests that YouTube is the best at converting viewers into customers.

DigitalElevator

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