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# Interview: Anthony Williams - Life Sciences Software CRO ## Metadata **Date:** November 15, 2024 **Duration:** 30 minutes **Interviewer:** Sarah Chen, Enterprise Sales Manager, Salesloft + Clari **Interviewee:** Anthony Williams, Chief Revenue Officer, Meridian Life Sciences **Company Background:** Meridian Life Sciences - $250M ARR, clinical trial software and regulatory platform for life sciences organizations **Interviewer Location:** San Francisco, CA **Interviewee Location:** Cambridge, MA --- ## Conversation Transcript **[SALESLOFT REP]** Thanks so much for making time, Anthony. I know you're busy running revenue operations across a pretty complex market. Before we dive in, I'm curious—how long have you been in the life sciences software space? **[ANTHONY]** About fourteen years now. Started as a product manager at Parexel, moved through operations at another CRO, and landed here at Meridian about five years ago. The regulatory side of this business is... it's a different animal. You can't just move fast and break things, you know? **[SALESLOFT REP]** That's what I'm hearing from every leader we talk to in this space. So let me ask—what's keeping you up at night right now from a revenue perspective? **[ANTHONY]** *laughs* Where do I even start? We've got three pretty significant pressure points. First, our customers—the large biopharmas and contract research organizations—they're all under the gun right now. The VC funding environment is still tight, and clinical trial budgets are getting scrutinized like never before. We're seeing budget cuts propagate through the entire sector. **[SALESLOFT REP]** Walk me through that a bit. Is it across all therapeutic areas, or are certain ones hit harder? **[ANTHONY]** It's across the board, but oncology and cardiovascular are getting hit the hardest because they're the most expensive to run. But here's what's tricky—and this is where my team struggles—the budgets aren't shrinking uniformly. We're seeing a shift in where the money comes from. R&D budgets are getting slashed, but regulatory compliance and infrastructure budgets are actually staying steady or growing. It's like they're cutting the science but protecting the compliance. **[SALESLOFT REP]** So the messaging changes depending on which stakeholder you're talking to? **[ANTHONY]** Exactly. If I'm talking to the VP of R&D, I'm talking about efficiency. How do we run more trials with less? How do we compress timelines? But if I'm talking to the Head of Quality or Compliance, the conversation is about de-risking the regulatory path. And those two conversations are not always aligned within the customer organization. **[SALESLOFT REP]** That's a sales challenge, isn't it? You've got divided stakeholders with competing priorities. **[ANTHONY]** It absolutely is. And it's compounded by the fact that we're also losing deals to competitors who are going cheaper. There's pressure on pricing, which sounds like a classic margin problem, but it's not. The real issue is that customers are asking for more customization, more integration, more hand-holding through the regulatory process—and all of that is being compressed into smaller budgets. **[SALESLOFT REP]** Let's zoom in on the regulatory piece, because I think that's where you guys have some defensibility. Talk to me about 21 CFR Part 11. **[ANTHONY]** *pauses* Okay, so this is where things get really specific. 21 CFR Part 11 is the FDA rule that governs electronic records and electronic signatures. It's not optional for clinical trial software. Every piece of our platform has to be validated against this standard. And validation isn't a one-time thing—it's an ongoing compliance requirement. **[SALESLOFT REP]** And I assume that's where a lot of your customers struggle? **[ANTHONY]** They don't just struggle—they're terrified of it. They don't have internal expertise, so they rely on us to guide them through it. We have to provide validation protocols, help them document the entire validation process, and then support their internal audit. It can take anywhere from three to six months to fully validate a new system in their environment. **[SALESLOFT REP]** Three to six months? **[ANTHONY]** Yeah, and if there's any regulatory scrutiny—like an FDA warning letter or an inspection happening—that timeline stretches. I've seen it push to a year. So when a customer is evaluating whether to switch from one platform to another, that validation timeline is a huge switching cost. They don't want to redo validation. They don't want to go through that again. **[SALESLOFT REP]** So the question is: how do you convince them that the pain of switching is worth it? **[ANTHONY]** That's the million-dollar question. And honestly, we haven't cracked it yet. Our sales team talks about features, about performance improvements, about better integrations. But a lot of times, the customer doesn't hear that because they're thinking, "Okay, but I still have to revalidate." We need to shift the narrative earlier in the sales process—before they're already entrenched. **[SALESLOFT REP]** What would that narrative look like? **[ANTHONY]** It would be about reducing their total validation burden. Not "our system doesn't need validation" because that's a red flag—it means we're not taking compliance seriously. But rather, "our system is designed for validation in mind. Here's our validation roadmap. Here's documentation. Here's a clear timeline for getting you compliant." Take the mystery out of it. **[SALESLOFT REP]** That's interesting. So you're saying the customer wants clarity and predictability around the validation timeline, not just a feature list? **[ANTHONY]** A hundred percent. And they want evidence that others have done it successfully. Peer references are huge in this market. If I can say, "Here's a company like yours that completed validation in four months," that changes the conversation entirely. **[SALESLOFT REP]** Okay, so validation expertise and timeline predictability are huge factors. Let me ask about another complexity I'm hearing about—global expansion. Are you dealing with that? **[ANTHONY]** *groans* Oh, we're dealing with it. We have customers running trials across the US, Europe, and Asia-Pacific. Each region has different regulatory requirements. Europe has EMA guidelines, which are different from FDA. Then Japan has their own requirements. China has completely different requirements. So a clinical trial protocol that's approved in the US might need modifications for the European market. And that affects our software—the data collection, the reporting, everything. **[SALESLOFT REP]** So it's not just about the regulatory framework being different, but your product actually has to flex to meet different regional requirements? **[ANTHONY]** Yes, and the approval process is fragmented. You've got the US country manager, the European regulatory manager, and the Asia-Pacific director—and they all have different stakeholders they answer to. A deal that sounds like it's done in the US might stall because someone in Frankfurt raises a compliance concern. And by then, we've already spent months selling it. **[SALESLOFT REP]** How does that affect your typical sales cycle? **[ANTHONY]** Our typical deal takes nine to twelve months. With global, it can stretch to eighteen months or longer. We've had deals that are in negotiation for two years because we're waiting for regulatory sign-off from a secondary market. It's incredibly frustrating from a revenue perspective. You've got the ACV locked, but it's not closing. **[SALESLOFT REP]** Do you carve up your deals geographically? Like, sell US first, then add Europe later? **[ANTHONY]** We try, but our biggest customers don't want to operate that way. They want one global contract with pricing tiers for different regions. And they want the product to be globally compliant from day one. They don't want to manage multiple implementations. So we end up having to solve for the most restrictive market—usually Europe—and then everything flows from there. **[SALESLOFT REP]** That's a longer sales cycle but also a higher initial ACV if you get it right. **[ANTHONY]** It is, but the cycle is killer. I've got salespeople burning out because they're managing these deals for a year and a half before they close. And the win rate is lower because there are more stakeholders, more points of failure. **[SALESLOFT REP]** Let me shift gears a bit. What's your sales team's experience with scientific buyers? Are they primarily clinical, technical, or a mix? **[ANTHONY]** *laughs* That's where things get interesting. We're not selling to IT, and we're not selling to procurement. We're selling to people with PhDs running clinical operations. These are people who have designed and run clinical trials. They understand the science at a level that our sales team doesn't. **[SALESLOFT REP]** So the buyer is more expert than the salesperson in certain domains? **[ANTHONY]** Absolutely. And if a salesperson comes in trying to oversell them or talk down to them, the deal dies immediately. These people can smell insincerity a mile away. They've been burned by vendors before. They've been promised things that didn't deliver. So we need salespeople who can engage at their level. **[SALESLOFT REP]** What does that look like in practice? **[ANTHONY]** It means doing deep pre-call research. Understanding the customer's trial design, their therapeutic area, their regulatory status. It means having conversations about the science of what they're doing, not just features of our product. When we sit down with a Chief Medical Officer, we should know the major trials they've conducted, understand their approach to trial design, and be able to ask intelligent questions about their current challenges. **[SALESLOFT REP]** And that changes the dynamic of the conversation? **[ANTHONY]** Completely. Instead of the customer feeling like they're being sold to, they feel like they're being understood. You're peers discussing a complex problem, not a vendor pitching a solution. And in this market, that credibility is everything. **[SALESLOFT REP]** So peer references become really important, right? Not just customer testimonials? **[ANTHONY]** Critical. I want to talk to another CMO or Chief Medical Officer who has implemented a system like ours. Not a customer success story, but a peer who can tell me about the real experience—the pain points, the timeline, the actual outcomes. And not in a structured way. I want to pick up the phone and have a real conversation. **[SALESLOFT REP]** How often do your salespeople actually facilitate those conversations? **[ANTHONY]** *pauses* Honestly? Not as often as they should. We have the references, but we're not using them strategically. We should be mapping the customer's buying committee and getting that peer in front of the right person early in the process. If the Chief Medical Officer has concerns about validation, I should be connecting them with another CMO who has gone through validation, not sending them a case study. **[SALESLOFT REP]** That's a sales execution challenge. Let me ask about market consolidation. Are you seeing that in your space? **[ANTHONY]** Oh, absolutely. Three years ago, there were maybe fifteen serious competitors in our space. Now there are probably four or five that matter. Everyone else has been acquired or has scaled down. And that creates a weird dynamic because the few remaining competitors are getting more aggressive. They're bundling products. They're going after the same customers. And the customer perspective has shifted. **[SALESLOFT REP]** How so? **[ANTHONY]** Customers used to prefer best-of-breed solutions. You'd have a CTMS—Clinical Trial Management System—from one vendor, an eConsent solution from another, EDC—Electronic Data Capture—from yet another. They'd integrate and it worked. But now customers are asking for all-in-one platforms. They don't want to manage five different vendor relationships. They want one throat to choke. **[SALESLOFT REP]** But that's a consolidation play, right? That means someone has to be the platform. **[ANTHONY]** Exactly. And that's where the competitive pressure is intense. If you're a point solution—great at one thing—you're vulnerable. The bigger platforms can undercut you on price because they're spreading the cost across multiple modules. Or they can integrate with other solutions and create lock-in. We're somewhere in the middle. We do CTMS and EDC really well, but we're not a full platform. We need to figure out if we're building toward a platform or if we're doubling down on being the best CTMS and EDC in the market. **[SALESLOFT REP]** How does that affect your sales strategy? **[ANTHONY]** It creates an interesting situation because our integration story matters way more than it used to. A customer will choose us if we can integrate seamlessly with the other tools they're already using. But we're also competing with vendors who want to replace those tools. So we're trying to position ourselves as the hub. We integrate with the best-of-breed solutions, but we're also the glue that holds it all together. **[SALESLOFT REP]** Is that a credible position for your customers? **[ANTHONY]** Sometimes. It works well with smaller biopharmas and CMOs that have a more point-solution mentality. But the big pharma customers—the ones with $50 million annual trial budgets—they're pushing for consolidation. And we lose deals to the platform plays because we can't offer that. **[SALESLOFT REP]** That's a sobering competitive dynamic. Let me ask about switching costs. How do you think about that as a defensive mechanism? **[ANTHONY]** *leans back* Switching costs are real, but they're not what most vendors think they are. A lot of vendors think, "Once they've trained their team on our platform, it's expensive to switch." But that's not the real switching cost in this market. The real switching cost is regulatory. It's the validation timeline. It's the risk that switching introduces into their clinical operations. **[SALESLOFT REP]** So regulatory burden is the real switching cost? **[ANTHONY]** It is. If I can reduce the switching cost by offering a streamlined validation process, or by providing documentation that speeds up their internal audit, that's huge. Or if I can say, "We've helped other customers migrate from competitor X, and here's how we de-risk that migration," that's defensible. **[SALESLOFT REP]** But you'd need to have actually done successful migrations? **[ANTHONY]** Yes, and we've done a few, but not enough. This is something we're working on. We need a migration playbook. We need documented success stories. We need to proactively talk about de-risking the switch, because right now, customers are assuming that switching to us is higher risk than staying with a competitor. **[SALESLOFT REP]** Let me circle back to something you said earlier about budget cuts and efficiency messaging. How does that land with your customers right now? **[ANTHONY]** It's a mixed signal, honestly. Everyone's talking about efficiency, so it's become a commoditized message. "Run more trials with less" is what everyone says. But customers are skeptical. They want to know specifically how we make their team more efficient. Is it through automation? Is it through better data? Is it through faster reporting? And then they want to know what the ROI is. **[SALESLOFT REP]** Do you have ROI models? **[ANTHONY]** We have some, but they're generic. They're built on assumptions about trial size, trial duration, team utilization. Every customer's situation is different. A five-person team running a Phase II trial has very different efficiency needs than a fifty-person team running a Phase III. We should be customizing ROI models for each customer, showing them specifically where they'll see gains. **[SALESLOFT REP]** That's where data becomes really important, right? You need to understand their current state operations? **[ANTHONY]** Absolutely. And most of our sales team doesn't have access to that data. They're having surface-level conversations about efficiency without understanding the customer's actual operations. If I could instrument the discovery process to gather operational data—trial sizes, team composition, current platform usage, time-to-close metrics—I could build a much more compelling efficiency case. **[SALESLOFT REP]** That sounds like a data problem and a sales process problem. Are those things you're actively working on? **[ANTHONY]** We're starting to. My VP of Sales just brought in a sales ops person to think about this. But honestly, we're still in the early innings. Most deals are being closed on relationships and trust, not on rigorous ROI analysis. Which works when the market is growing, but as competition gets tighter, that becomes riskier. **[SALESLOFT REP]** Let me ask about your team structure. How are you organizing sales to handle this complexity? **[ANTHONY]** We have a few different models. For US customers, we have territory-based reps. For EMEA, we have regional reps but they also work through some partners. For Asia-Pacific, we're mostly working through distributors because direct sales are too expensive. But that creates challenges because the distributor doesn't always understand our product as deeply. **[SALESLOFT REP]** Do you have account executives focused on specific accounts versus territory? **[ANTHONY]** We're trying to move to a hybrid model. Key accounts—over $500K ACV—get dedicated AEs. Mid-market gets territory-based. And then we have SDRs doing prospecting, but they struggle with this market because the buying cycles are so long. It's hard to keep momentum over twelve to eighteen months. **[SALESLOFT REP]** That's a challenge I hear a lot. How are you thinking about sales operations to support that? **[ANTHONY]** We're thinking about it, but we need better technology. Our CRM is solid, but we need better forecasting, better deal tracking across global regions, and better insight into where deals are stuck. And we need to be able to identify the emotional and political dynamics that are happening inside the customer organization. Is the CMO blocking a deal? Is there regulatory pushback? Is it a budget constraint or a competitive loss? **[SALESLOFT REP]** That's where we think we can add value for companies like yours. Can I ask a few more specific questions? **[ANTHONY]** Sure, go ahead. **[SALESLOFT REP]** When you're evaluating a deal, how do you determine if it's actually winnable or if it's just hanging out in your pipeline? **[ANTHONY]** *laughs* That's the question I ask my VP of Sales every week. Honestly, we don't have a great framework for it. We look at pipeline stage, we look at engagement, we look at when the last conversation was. But we don't have a systematic way of saying, "This deal has a 30% chance of closing because we know the budget is there, we have an executive champion, but there's regulatory concern we haven't addressed." **[SALESLOFT REP]** So you're making bets on intuition rather than data? **[ANTHONY]** Mostly, yeah. And when you're running a $250M ARR company, that's risky. We should know more. We should be able to say, "This deal is stalled because we haven't gotten technical validation from their compliance team." And then we should have a playbook for how to unblock that. **[SALESLOFT REP]** One more question: how are you thinking about competitive positioning right now? **[ANTHONY]** We're positioning ourselves as the trusted expert in regulated clinical trials. Not the cheapest, not the most feature-rich, but the most trustworthy. The vendor that understands the science, understands the regulatory burden, and has the expertise to guide customers through it. But executing on that positioning is hard. It requires a different kind of salesperson. It requires better research upfront. It requires being honest about what we can and can't do. **[SALESLOFT REP]** And if you're not doing that today? **[ANTHONY]** Then we're competing on features and price, which is a race to the bottom in our market. And I don't think we win that race. **[SALESLOFT REP]** Well, I appreciate you being so candid about it. This is really helpful. One last thing—if you could wave a magic wand and fix one thing about your sales process, what would it be? **[ANTHONY]** *pauses* I'd fix our ability to have meaningful conversations early in the buying cycle without it feeling like we're selling. Right now, we're either not reaching the right people, or when we do reach them, we don't have the credibility to have a peer-level conversation. If I could fix that—if I could get our AEs in front of the right stakeholders with the right preparation and the right peer references—I think we'd compress our sales cycle by months and significantly improve our win rate. **[SALESLOFT REP]** That's a really concrete challenge to solve for. **[ANTHONY]** It is. And I think it's solvable. It's not a product problem. It's a sales execution problem. And we're committed to fixing it. **[SALESLOFT REP]** Well, Anthony, thank you for this. This has been really insightful. I'm going to synthesize all of this and come back with some ideas. **[ANTHONY]** Appreciate it. I'm always interested in how other companies are thinking about this space. Let's stay in touch. --- ## Key Takeaways ### Budget & Efficiency Challenges - R&D budgets are being cut while compliance budgets remain stable, creating divided stakeholder priorities within customer organizations - "Efficiency" messaging is commoditized; customers want specific, quantifiable ROI tied to their operations rather than generic benchmarks - Messaging must shift based on stakeholder type—R&D vs. Quality vs. Compliance—requiring customized value propositions ### Regulatory & Validation Complexity - 21 CFR Part 11 validation is a significant switching cost (3-6 months minimum, up to 12+ months with FDA scrutiny) - Customers prioritize timeline predictability and clarity around validation roadmaps over feature lists - Peer references from other Chief Medical Officers or CMOs who have successfully completed validation are critical—case studies are insufficient - De-risking the migration and switch is a key competitive differentiator ### Global Sales Execution - Multi-region approvals create 18+ month sales cycles for global deals as each region (US, EU, APAC) has different stakeholders and regulatory requirements - Customers want single global contracts with regional pricing, not fragmented regional implementations - European market requirements are often the most restrictive and become the baseline for product design and capability - Partner distribution in APAC creates credibility challenges and deeper product training requirements ### Scientific Buyer Dynamics - Sales teams must engage at peer level with PhDs and Chief Medical Officers—talking down or overselling immediately loses credibility - Deep pre-call research (understanding customer's trial designs, therapeutic areas, regulatory status) is essential - Peer-to-peer conversations about clinical science outperform product-feature pitches - Technical credibility and non-salesy engagement are prerequisites for earning trust ### Market Consolidation & Competitive Positioning - Point solutions are vulnerable to platform consolidation strategies; differentiation requires a clear stance on best-of-breed vs. platform - Switching costs are primarily regulatory (validation burden) rather than training or data migration - Integration capabilities matter more as customers seek to avoid vendor proliferation - "Trusted expert in regulated clinical trials" positioning is more defensible than competing on features or price ### Sales Operations Gaps - Current CRM and deal tracking don't adequately capture political/emotional dynamics within customer buying committees - No systematic framework for determining deal winnability—relying on intuition rather than data - Lack of ROI models customized to customer operations; generic benchmarks don't drive conviction - SDRs struggle with long sales cycles; need structural support for momentum maintenance over 12-18+ month periods - Limited playbooks for addressing specific deal blockers (regulatory concerns, technical validation gaps, budget reallocation) ### Competitive Advantages to Develop - Documented migration playbooks and case studies from successful competitor replacements - Streamlined validation processes with transparent timelines and compliance documentation - Peer-to-peer reference networks with other CMOs/clinical operations leaders - Data-driven discovery and ROI modeling tailored to customer-specific operational metrics - Early-stage engagement with executive sponsors (CMO/VP Clinical Ops) based on industry research and credibility