How One Consultant Built a Flowing Pipeline Without Marketing
- Susan Tatum
- Jun 11
- 21 min read
In this episode, Susan talks with Darren Leva, a biotech industry veteran who built a thriving consulting business without a website, marketing, or outreach campaigns. Darren shares the simple practices that keep his pipeline full - like five coffee chats a week, doing serious prep before meetings, and knowing exactly when companies need help. He also touches on what’s happening in life sciences now, the rise of fractional roles, and how he balances consulting with running a mobile sauna business.
Notes from the Show
No marketing required: Darren relies entirely on LinkedIn, business cards, and his deep network - showing how personal outreach and relevance beat promotion.
Prep like a pro: Doing serious homework before every call helps Darren start conversations as a peer or advisor - not just another service provider.
Timing is everything: Darren watches for public and insider signals to predict when companies are likely to need support - often before they realize it themselves.
Five calls a week: His consistent cadence of virtual coffees keeps his network warm and his pipeline moving, even when he’s busy.
Life sciences outlook: The industry is turbulent but still presents real opportunities - especially for fractional executives who can offer value without full-time costs.
Quotes: “If the internet can answer the question, then you probably shouldn’t ask it.” - Darren Leva
“I never try to come off as a service provider... I try to come off as a peer or an advisor or an equal.” - Darren Leva
What’s Inside:
How to keep opportunities flowing in.
Predicting Client Pain using Public Info and Insider Knowledge.
The simple prep step that separates them from other consultants.
What's happening in the life science industry?
Mentioned in this Episode:
Transcribed by AI Susan Tatum 0:00
Hi everyone. Susan Tatum here and welcome back to Stop the Noise. My guest today is Darren Leva, a fractional Chief Commercial Officer in the life sciences space, who's also an entrepreneur running a mobile sauna business on the California Central Coast. Now that might sound like an odd combo, but it's actually a perfect example of the freedom and creativity that independent consulting can offer when you have built a steady pipeline of great clients. Darren doesn't have a website. He doesn't do traditional marketing, but he's built a successful consulting business by consistently showing up for conversations, spotting exactly when a company is likely to need help, and coming prepared with real insight. In this episode, we talked about what he does to keep opportunities flowing in, how he predicts client pain using public info and insider knowledge, the simple prep step that sets him apart from other consultants and what's happening in the life sciences industry that independent consultants should know about whether or not you work in life sciences. Darren's approach to client development is smart, simple and completely replicable. Let's get into it.
Susan Tatum 1:22
Darren Leva, welcome to stop the noise.
Darren Leva 1:25
Hi, Susan, thanks for having me.
Susan Tatum 1:29
It's great to have you here for the people that are listening that may not have heard of you yet. Can you give us just a quick minute of background on who you are and what you do?
Darren Leva 1:38
Good thing. So I work in the life sciences, primarily biotech, and more specifically, I work in drug development, although I venture into other parts of biotech, like diagnostics or products or manufacturing. Then there are different elements in the life sciences. And I'm also an entrepreneur as well. So I've started five companies, not all of them in the life sciences, but I've been in the life sciences for 22 years, and my background is microbiology, and I have a master's in business, in science, and then I have worked in startups. I've worked at big companies like Thermo Fisher, and I've done most of the commercial roles. And now I have my own consulting business for last three years, and I I focus on two things. I wear two hats. One is I do corporate development and in the life sciences, that typically means mergers and acquisitions, licensing of technology, strategic partnerships, those kinds of things. And then I also do anything Sales and Marketing for typically for service businesses or product businesses that are accessing pharmaceutical businesses. And my M and A ad is is mostly for pharmaceuticals and diagnostic companies.
Susan Tatum 2:55
So that's wonderfully impressive. And I want the listeners to know about your other thing that you're doing now that you just recently launched California sauna. Is that a recent launch?
Darren Leva 3:06
Yeah. California sauna club, yeah. This is a fun side project. My wife and I launched this business about two months ago on the central coast of California, and it's a sauna on a trailer, and it gets parked next to the ocean, and we also have an inland location, so you can rent a feat in the community sauna for an hour, and you can sauna and cold plunge and go back and forth how many times you feel like. And then our inland location has temperature control cold plunges. But it's something that the sauna culture has been around for 1000s of years, and it's not really, it has not really been around in the US, and it's not really on the California coast. And so it's something that we are really passionate about, and we want to bring to the California coast. So it's really exciting, and it's been really fun to do
Susan Tatum 3:53
feel like that the cold plunge stuff is gets talked about a lot, although I can say I've never done it, but I do know that the water here on the California Central Coast is cold enough to accomplish something like that, but that is an interesting sort of thread that goes through your your background in life sciences, and you've, you've got this help thread running through,
Darren Leva 4:14
yeah, absolutely. There are very different things, obviously, biotech and saunas. But when you look at the data around sauna and cold plunge, each of them separately, are great together, combined, the data is kind of off the charts in terms of inflammation and pain, stress, cardiovascular benefits. I mean, there's a huge list, and even in Finland, they call it the poor man's doctor, that's what the thought is called. So yeah, ultimately, I like to make people feel good, and whether that's patient outcomes from the biotech perspective, or whether it's more of a wellness play, I like that as well. And you know, biotech is all about the patients and how you impact patient lives and and it's when you're working in that space you're usually not. Interacting with patients, unless you're, you know, a physician, and so you're barely removed. And so what I love about the sauna business is I'm making all these people extremely happy. I mean, everybody who who's sauna is with us are in cold punches, and they're just elated after they're they're finished, and it's so fun to make people so happy and have that instant gratification compared to many, many years of work in biotech.
Susan Tatum 5:25
That is a good point. One more question about the cold, the cold part of your business. How long do you have to stay in the cold water?
Darren Leva 5:35
Good question. So the data suggests that the the you're getting the max benefit once you're in two minutes. So once you're submerged two minutes, it doesn't mean submerged, like your head is fully under, but just you know, most of your body submerged. And then on the sauna side, it's usually you're in there 10 to 20 minutes, depending on your comfort level and how, how often you sauna
Susan Tatum 5:57
that I can do that. I The sauna I've been in for a while, but it's the cold plunge, although my curiosity is up now.
Darren Leva 6:04
When you're when you're in a sauna, that proper sauna, which is operating at, you know, 190 to 200 degrees, depending on the humidity in the environment. And you're in there and you're sweating, you want to get in the cold like you really do. And the first time is a little bit hard, but then the second and third time during an hour session is much easier, so it's worth it, if you, if you can make it happen.
Susan Tatum 6:25
So you're going back and forth when one session you you're in the, you're in the in the cold water more than once. Is that? Do I understand that right?
Darren Leva 6:33
Yeah, you're usually doing rotations at least three times in an hour, typically.
Susan Tatum 6:38
All right. Good information. Well, that's the reason why, actually, I invited you here. That was to talk about your business development activities and how you go about doing that, and also just information or tips that you have about getting to leaders in in the biotech industry or life sciences or any of those that might be helpful to other consultants that are listening. So I'll throw a question out there for you, Darren. So the first time we talked, you said you don't do any marketing, no websites, just a company page on LinkedIn and your network. So can you walk us through how you how you built your business?
Darren Leva 7:20
Yeah, I mean being in the space for a long time and having roles that are in business development along the way, I get to stick my head in a lot of different companies for short periods of time. And so I've just built up a pretty strong network, and I've worked with a lot of different people and and so when I started the business, it wasn't meant to be this big, bailed out consulting business. I just wanted to be an independent consultant, and so, you know, I just started working through my network, like a lot of I think consultants do and and that's just how it's progressed. And I set up a you did the basics, I set up a company profile on LinkedIn, and I've got business cards, and I I found a logo and and ultimately, it's not about marketing myself externally as much it's it's more about connecting with people who need help at the right time.
Susan Tatum 8:18
So how do you know when the right time is?
Darren Leva 8:19
Yeah, it's a, it's a funny question. I mean, if you've, if you've been in an industry for a long time, and this is kind of a as someone who's done sales before, I talk about this with teams I've had where, you know the cycles of a certain industry, and in my case, it's the cycles of drug development, which is, you know, when a drug is going to go through clinical trials, and when a company is going to raise money, and when they're going to when the timing of getting an acquisition or a partnership or fundraising is done, those are cyclical and fairly predictable. And so they're not going to say it necessarily on their website. If they're a public company, they might have it in a, you know, some information in a 10k but you can, you can kind of predict these things. And so when I think about going out and and helping and or acquiring a new customer, I'm, you know, looking at their technologies as something that I like, or something that I think is going to be successful, or something that I want to work on and that, and can I provide value? And then, if I can what's the right timing for that and that. You know, I can typically guess where they are in in the cycle and and what they need. I'm not always right when I actually talk to them, but I think the point is to talk to them and and come in with an idea of where they probably are, and be able to speak to their their problems that they likely have, and so a little bit of little bit of crystal ball in there, but, you know, it's a little bit of a prediction. But I feel like most of the time I'm kind of in the ballpark.
Susan Tatum 9:53
So when you you see a company that that the signals are showing that they're at a point in time when there's something that. They likely could use you. Could use your help with how do you how do you go about reaching out to them?
Darren Leva 10:07
So sometimes it just happens serendipitously, where I'll meet, I'll connect with somebody, whether it's at a conference or Yes, somebody connecting me just for a kind of a networking call. And I'll do a little bit of homework ahead of time, and and then when I have that conversation, you know, it, these things kind of come about, or I done some homework ahead of time. And so, yeah, I mean, sorry, go back to your question again. What was the question again
Susan Tatum 10:36
you were talking about that you you were able to use your experience to see from the outside where a company, where they are in their drug development process, and whether or not they might need your help. So you've seen some trigger that says I should talk to these people I might be able to help them.
Darren Leva 10:53
Yes. So I'm, you know, sometimes I'm looking for new customers or new clients, and then I'm, I'm looking at my network, I find somebody that that I know or that I'm connected to, that that could introduce me and I like something about their business, or I have some experience about that I can tell that you're kind of in the right zone of where I could help. Though, sometimes it happens like that, sometimes it's more serendipitous, like I was talking about, where I'm introduced to somebody, and then i i It just, you know, it just happens that they need some, some help, and it aligns, my capability is pretty broad from a commercial perspective. And so I can help with a lot of different things, you know, other people that are more narrow, you know, I think you've got to be, you know, probably even pickier with with hunting and finding the right fit.
Susan Tatum 11:44
So when you go on the hunt, let's say and you see, you see something that looks good. Let's say that you have not been introduced to them. What? What are the steps that you take to ultimately get a call with someone in that company?
Darren Leva 11:59
Yeah, the first is what I would call a classic sales technique. And, you know, you you look on your LinkedIn network, and you see who's connected into that company. And if you're not directly connected, then you find somebody, you know that that might have a direct connection there, and then you ask them for an introduction in, you know, that's that's one way you can ask people that I don't know have deep networks that you may not be connected with on LinkedIn. And you can, you could see if you could find somebody, given how long I've been around and how deep my network is, I usually have a second degree connection to most companies, so not always, but if I don't you know, I'll send them a cold email and I'll there's ways to write emails that are, I don't know, professional, they're that are for networking and and they're they're benign, but they're also hopefully triggering someone to take interest in what you're what you're selling. And so I'll just send a pretty informal email and see if somebody wants to have a conversation. And it's not like I'm giving somebody a hard sell. It's more like I just want to connect with them, network with them and learn a little bit more about what they're up to. And when I do that like I'm Gen I'm genuinely a care, a curious person, so I'm always interested in what people are doing and and how they're doing it and, and how they're innovating, and all those kinds of things. So whether or not I can sell myself for my consulting services, it doesn't really matter. I like to have the connection. But if there is an opportunity, then, you know, then I can bring up that I'm interested in helping them, and here's why. And so going into that, I'm very prepared, right? I've done my homework. I know exactly what they're doing, why they're doing it, who they're doing it with, like, every public information I can find about them or or I've talked to people that have worked there, or something like that, or, you know, as much as I can do, so that it isn't just like a cold conversations like, Hey, I'm already part way up to speed on, on you guys, and now I can, here's what I can do for you that moves the conversation a lot faster, because you've you're essentially hitting the ground running already, even without a out of contract in place.
Susan Tatum 14:10
So I think you and I were talking about that in the pre call that we had, that that you do a really good job of ever going into a conversation not having information that was available to you and not wasting their time asking questions that you could have answered yourself. Is that fair enough to say?
Darren Leva 14:29
yeah. I mean, if the internet can answer the question, then you probably shouldn't ask them that in general. I mean, you ask them things that are interesting and things that are hard to hard to get you know publicly and and dive in deeper. And so you should have all those basics taken care of ahead of time. When you're, you're preparing for a meeting or a call, and yeah, I think it shows a potential customer that you care and that you're very interested and that you're you're invested, and it shows. Kind of your acumen of and how you operate when you are consulting,
Susan Tatum 15:04
yeah, and it also, I think that just the ability to ask those deeper questions shows that you really do have the experience that your profile claims you have,
Darren Leva 15:15
right.
Susan Tatum 15:16
It lets you begin the conversation as a as a peer or an advisor or something like that, rather than somebody that's just looking for business.
Darren Leva 15:23
Yeah, I never, I try not to come off as a service provider. I've been in those shoes, in roles in the past, and, you know, there they it will kind of look down on service providers sometimes, or there's kind of this, I don't know, funny mentality around it. And so I, I try to come off as a peer or an advisor or an equal when I am engaging, because I'm typically engaging with, you know, executives or senior management type, type folks and and I've been there myself too. And so I keep it informal. I keep it kind of on their level. And it seems to work so far.
Susan Tatum 15:59
Well, yeah, it seems like to do all of this without any traditional marketing is, I think you've cracked the code there. So you again, we talked before that you aim for having about you aim for having five virtual coffee conversations every week.
Darren Leva 16:16
Yeah, yeah. This is also another kind of standard sales tactic, if you want to call it that, where you got projects going on, you have things going on, and you need to fill the funnel for months later. And so you can't just focus on the clients you have, because you need, you want to have clients when those those contracts end. And so you've got to keep that funnel moving. And the way I do that is I just, you know, go through my my network, and I connect with people that I haven't connected in a long time with, that are in related spaces and doing things that I am interested in, in helping with. And again, it's not, I'm not selling them on anything necessarily. I'm, I'm I'm catching up because we used to work together, or I'm genuinely curious about something they're working on, or I'm just doing some networking, and want to connect with a new human that I haven't connected with before. And most of the time, people are pretty open to that. And in that process, I'm, you know, learning about their business, learning about their challenges and and then, you know, and then presenting myself as a as an option for them if they fit, you know, and sometimes there's not a fit, and I say, if you ever need, need my help, I'm here and wonderful to connect with you. And, and, yeah, and it's, it's just networking. It's just yeah, these kind of virtual coffees, or in person, you know, in person works as well. If you're in a place you could do that. And, yeah, it's fun. I mean, I genuinely like to connect with people, so even if nothing comes out of it, I don't really mind.
Susan Tatum 17:51
Yeah, I think part of that is you're not desperate for the business, and you have a made yourself a sales process that you keep up with even when you don't need a client, and that, I think that allows you to be calm and and just genuinely interested in a conversation, and not feeling like, Oh my God, I've got to get some work here,
Darren Leva 18:10
right, right? And I, you know, philosophically, like freedom. So, I mean, I've worked, I've worked in the corporate environment for a long time. I've worked for startups. I've done, you know, along different things. And I I like to work, but I don't need to be filling up my consulting practice. And, you know, working 50, 60, 70, hours a week, I guess it's not my aim. My aim is to consult and serve a number of of clients at a time, and then also be able to add the freedom to do entrepreneurial things like the sauna business on the side, and and, yeah, just kind of mix it up a little bit. So if I was trying to build something much bigger, I would probably be taking a little bit of a different approach. But I'm not. I'm just not interested in that level of stress and that level, you know, that many clients at the time.
Susan Tatum 19:01
It's not, yeah, it's not your goal. So somebody, I can't remember who it was, but someone that I talked to at some point in time just made the sort of a comment in passing that I believe she was talking about life sciences, and it may, and all of these things. I guess, from the outside to me, if we're talking about healthcare or pharmaceuticals or whatever, or biotech, they're I don't put them in a single category, but they seem to have similarities to me and that they're probably highly regulated stuff like that. But anyway, this woman told me that you really have to be a part of the industry to get business in it, like it's hard to come in from the outside and not be known for what you know and for how long you've been around. You have to work your way up, I guess, and and earn it to you. Would you agree with that?
Darren Leva 19:50
Yeah, for sure, the life sciences is a is a place where most people you work with have a master's degree or a PhD. Yeah, it's a slow moving industry that has a lot of regulation around it, and you do, you really have to earn it. And if it's not a place where an outsider can just come in and pop in and say, Oh, I'm just going to evaluate your business, or I'm going to do this, this one thing that I did in another industry, it's you usually have to have a science background to be working in the space, in addition to maybe other backgrounds like software or engineering or something else. And so it's highly technical, and there's a lot of even to from a business perspective, if you're purely just doing business things, you the most effective leaders also have science degrees. So it's pretty hard to come in as an outsider. I think it's a lot easier to go the other way. If you are in the life sciences and you want to go out, I think you've got an easier time depending on what you're doing.
Susan Tatum 20:54
I would agree with that, yeah. How is life sciences as an industry doing now in terms of from what you see in terms of ongoing projects or the amount of business that's available, and hiring advisors and Chief Commercial officers fractionally like you, is it a would you say it's a good, strong market now, or is it sort of slowing down Like others are, or come to a halt like some have
Darren Leva 21:23
plenty of turmoil in the life sciences, I would say the whole industry is really based at its core on venture capital money, because there's so much innovation in so many startups. And in the last two, three years, that's been pretty difficult to obtain. It's there still, but it's it's been rough, and so certain parts of the industry have had a tougher time than than others. I mean anything early stage, like cell and gene therapy companies, which is a new modality, new therapeutic modality, that that's been hit particularly hard. And then, you know, the big the big companies, the big companies, the big pharmaceutical companies, they're good. You know, any, any pharmaceutical company with revenue is stable, but it's really the innovation and the startup side of things that has been pretty rough. And every I mean, the number of layoffs across the industry is, is big. Lots of them regularly these days that that really unheard us in our industry, because there's so many startups and the risk is so high with drug development. When you know 90% of drugs are going to fail before they hit the market, you're naturally have a lot of churn in companies trying to innovate. And so that's that's pretty normal, but there's just been a lot more of it than than typical. And so from an opportunity perspective, I think it's pretty good, because those that do have money are, you know, they're saving their money, and they're they're being careful about it, and they are hiring fractional executives. I think we talked about it. I mean that the term fractional has just kind of come out of nowhere, and everyone's attaching that onto job roles and, and I think it's great, you know, I'm a fractional executive for a company right now, a Chief Commercial Officer, and it's, it's a really good fit, you know, they're launching a product, and they need some leadership. You know, I'm hiring and putting all their commercial plans together and go to market strategy and, and that kind of soup to nuts. And I really enjoy that kind of work, and they need to help, and it just works really well. So that's an example of a trend, I guess.
Susan Tatum 23:28
Yeah, great. So one more question that I have, because I'm, I see that we're, we're running out of time here. It's all really interesting. When you're at one point in time, how many people in your net? Like, how big is the active network that you're juggling? How many people?
Darren Leva 23:44
do you mean, like, how big my LinkedIn network is, or how many I'm contacting at a given time?
Susan Tatum 23:52
How many? Yeah, how many you're actively nurturing? Or you know that you would just say they're, they're, they're people that are important to you for what you know, one reason or another, and you want to keep up with them. When is it like hundreds, 1000s?
Darren Leva 24:08
Well, I got my, like, you know, my network of people that I you know, again, if that's like one thing, I can't remember what the number is off top my head. But then I've got, I've kind of got a list going of of people I've spoken with that there could be an opportunity at some point in the near future. And, you know, maybe that's like a list of 20 companies or something like that. And then I've got a basically every week, I probably have between five and 10 conversations with, with people that I would call networking calls. And it could be like we talked about, you know, these virtual coffee kind of things. But it could also just be somebody that reaches out for help with something, or, you know, they're reaching out to me to connect. Or, like, it could be a lot of different things. Like, you know, Susan, you reached out to me and, and, yeah, that's an example of a networking call that, you know what I would be on that list. So I probably have, you know, five to 10 of those a week. And I also belong to a networking group in my space that is really good about connecting people and helping other other people and and so I, when I go to those meetings, I usually come away with a bunch of different connections and and new, new people to connect with. So, yeah, so I think, I think we're talking about, I don't know, in the 20 to 30 kind of range at any given time.
Susan Tatum 25:33
Yeah, it would seem to me, if you've got like, 20, 20, people that are potentials for the future, that that's pretty solid. And you're and you're staying you're keeping up with them. You're not just laying back and letting them call you when they need you.
Darren Leva 25:46
Yeah, the thing like, you know, you get off a call or something, and they're all right, well, let's, you know, hack in the future. But you should have a plan for that, right? You should say, I'm going to reach out to this person in three months or six months, or whatever the the cadence needs to be. And there are software tools that can help you automate some of that so you can easily remember that that's the follow up is really important, right? Oh, one time keeping is not usually enough. You've got to, you've got to have a nice cadence, and you don't want to be pushy with something like this. It's more about when the time's right, and do you like working with each other and all those kinds of things.
Susan Tatum 26:19
you know? And there are so many, I would say that that's one area that is the consultants that I talk to struggle with just the keeping up with it takes a really well organized person to do that, I think. But it is, like you said, it's critically important.
Darren Leva 26:36
It's critically important. And again, it goes back to a sales process. And if you've, you've done that before in your career. It's incredibly helpful, because it's the exact same thing you would do in a traditional sales process. It's just you don't have somebody, you know, beating down your door of you have you hit metrics today or not that kind of a thing, yeah. I mean, you could, if you really wanted to be formal about it, you could manage it through a CRM, and they're pretty cheap to do that and easy. And if you have a bias CRM tool and put all your contacts in there and take notes and throw reminders and tasks all that stuff. I mean, that's usually not necessary for independent consultants, but you could take it to that level, and especially for somebody that need that kind of structure. It'd be really helpful.
Susan Tatum 27:22
Yeah, well, Darren, thank you so much for being here. This has been this has been really good, and thank you for sharing all those ideas. I think it's really impressive that you're doing, doing what you're doing without having to market yourself. I can see why, though, with all the experience that you have in a market like this and the fact that you want to grow.
Darren Leva 27:41
I really appreciate you saying that. And yeah, I just, I genuinely like to connect with humans. So that's helpful.
Susan Tatum 27:47
That is a helpful characteristic to have. But I find that people, when you like I thought I wasn't gonna like it, but I do, so you just have to try it. If someone is in the industry and wants to follow up with you. What's a good way for them to do that?
Darren Leva 28:02
The easiest way is to reach out via LinkedIn, or you could email me at darren@levaadvisors.com
Susan Tatum 28:10
D, A, R, R, E N,
Darren Leva 28:14
correct.
Susan Tatum 28:15
And what if there happened to be on the central coast of California and want to try ice plunging and sauna? How do they find you? I guess they could do it the same way.
Darren Leva 28:22
Well, they they can just show up, or, even better, they can book at Californiasauna.club, and you can book a seat for an hour.
Susan Tatum 28:29
All right. Well, thank you so much for giving us your time and sharing your experience.
Darren Leva 28:34
Thank you so much, Susan.
Susan Tatum 28:37
Really appreciate it. Take care. Have a good evening. Bye Darren.
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