Why marketing is education. (And how to use that in your grants to make them far more compelling) Morgan Giddings, PhD Sept 26, 2012 Or how I greedily sucked $23.4 M from NIH

The benefits of learning this stuff more deeply (pay attention today) Colleague recognition Expand your science Tenure/promotion Your choice of where to work, who to work with Building and supporting a strong team… etc.

Part 1. California Experience Lesson: play to your strengths with your grants – People forget about their strengths – Make a list of assets to bring to proposal – One thing at a time, focus Lesson: whether in business or academia, youre selling – Job of running lab, you are in a business – Univ scrambling to come up with funding for those who cant get funding – If not successful in selling your science, you will eventually go down

Part 1. California Experience Lesson: Emotions are key to everything -- the story of a delayed talk – In LA, went to talk with plenty of time, tied up in traffic, got emotional state down to a reasonable level – Trying to convince someone to give money, not just the science, it is no longer hard rational scientific judgment, it is emotional at the core. Reviewers decisions made by emotions Lesson: understand what gets your audience jazzed – Change underlying science to get more compelling words. Not just about the words, must change the underlying science.

Part II. Why I dont offer recording of Webinars (and what this has to do with your grants) Offering an anytime replay of the event is an invitation to multi task, less focus Lesson: knowing your audience really well – pressures, pain points and preferences – Example, reviewers are working on a review committee because they feel they need to almost always an objectional activity – Must be simple and clear-- if dense and technical, making their pain worse, adding to the pressure Lesson: Offereing them something that is in their best interest, and doing it compellingly – write it from their point of view, instead of will this excite them (push vs. pull)

Adding scarcity for reviewer so they think they have to get it now – Example - Total Grant Makeover, take action now and get a discount in the price, – Example – the ENCODE project (most about DNA, coding elements on genome). She was coming in late with a Proteomics approach – but timing was right, proteins of interest in getting info about genes and genome. Technology needed to get to a point and opportunity to get at a particular cell lines needed to do now So put scarcity into grant that is real, needs to be now, has to be real

Commitment and consistency – Take a step in one direction, likely to go on – If you simply show up to a webinar on grant writing, taking first step – Dont take first step, you will be stuck – Same with reviewers, make first snap judgement whether it is interesting or not. Then they will be looking for evidence that supports the first judgment. Further they go down the path, the more likely they will stick with those impressions. First part of grant proposal must be very interesting, compelling, consistent. Specific aims must do all this

Take step down path.. answer objections.. then another step… answer objections… repeat The mind set is first into the rejection category. Very easy to go into this category from mindset that I want to fund

Part III. Educating your reviewer about the value of what you do in your proposal This is the key. Covers everything about So which title do you remember (the title or how I greedily sucked grants …etc.) Why is 2 nd title more compelling, remember? Always remember things we have an emotional response to much more than no emotion (emotion could be good or bad) Scientific information does not generate emotion – Packing info at the right time is key; dont just pile as much info in as possible thinking that would be the compelling story. It isnt

Part III. Educating your reviewer about the value of what you do in your proposal Drilling facts doesnt work, Educating readers about value of what your are proposing they are far more likely to get excited about it One reason is because of information explosion (info vs avail storage). Info was much more scarce years ago. Not so any more.

Push learning – Authority fig – Facts and fig – Im right your wrong – Doesnt work anymore – People overloaded already – Only want facts and data of immediate interest – They dont like authority pushed to get through all information

Pull Mode of Educating Inviting Collegial Collaborative Fun Engaging Interesting

Educating the Reviewer Propsal is about educating reader about value of what you do. Pull in then can give facts Think about how education mode applies Push, Pull

Value to the Proposal Something people desire (e.g., gold) Why do they desire it (genomic audience new insights into genome, something they wanted) Emotion and belief, not rational

Bottom line, develop skills at both pull education and at understanding what your audience values Must make the push-to-pull transformation and really understanding what your audience values is the key

Mentoring Value Most senior people struggling, cant give feedback on what is needed Through out scientific and grant writing are in the Push mode, it is hard to find mentors in the Pull mode.