Experts in tissue sectioning, Precisionary Instruments, awarded our General Manager, Olivier Welaratne, its inaugural Distributor of the Year 2024 Award at this year's Society for Neuroscience (SfN) in Chicago.
We wanted to take this opportunity to reflect on our collaboration with Precisionary, and the journey we have been on with this cutting edge company since SfN in 2022. “It has proven to be everything we strive for in our relationships with the companies we have the honour of representing in the European market,” says Olivier. “Of course there have been challenges in introducing a new highly-competitive product to Europe which means this award is fantastic recognition for all the work that has been done to date.”
“This achievement is a testament not only to the strength of our Green Leaf Distribution Model but also to the collaborative efforts of our entire team. Our product managers, office team, and marketing team all played a vital role in ensuring seamless communication, efficient logistics, and successful marketing campaigns,” he added.
Red Box Direct CEO Rory, Precisionary Instruments CEO George and Red Box Direct/Green Leaf Scientific General Manager Olivier proudly showing off the award.
Who is Precisionary, and why Green Leaf Scientific?
Precisionary Instruments, founded in 2004 by Dr. Jian-Qiang Kong, Ph.D., revolutionized tissue slicing with the invention of the Compresstome® tissue slicer. Dissatisfied with the limitations of traditional vibratomes, Dr. Kong embarked on a journey to change tissue slicers from their old, heavy and inconsistent legacy designs into something better in every way. Fast forward 18 years and Precisionary, led by their President George Kong and CSO Abby Chu, released their flagship VF-510-0Z model which has led to their incredible global success.
Up until 2022 Precisionary Instruments successfully focused on the local US and North American market, while also selling direct from HQ into Europe. But steady growth in demand globally meant they had to rethink their international strategy. The new challenges of managing increasing numbers of inquiries, a pipeline brimming with deals and the endless logistical challenges associated with shipping internationally is why Precisionary and Green Leaf Scientific crossing paths came at the perfect time.
Green Leaf Scientific was founded within the Red Box Direct family in 2017 as the demand for more traditional, yet more transparent distribution services grew. Since 2017, the company has represented more than 15 non-European life sciences equipment manufacturers in the European market. Each of these companies was at a different point in their life cycles, and each collaboration presented its own challenges; from trying to establish a relatively unknown company far from HQ, launching a new expensive product that did not have any publications to simply trying to sell into the direct competitor’s market in Europe.
Learning and growing together
Our venture with Precisionary began in January 2023 with the goal of growing sales from the previous year. Precisionary’s incredible training resources and knowledge base meant we were able to hit the ground running on everything product, research and sales related. Despite this, we knew the task at hand would present a unique challenge; selling a product which can be used in thousands of labs, while also competing with Precisionary’s two largest competitors directly in their own market.
Green Leaf’s extensive knowledge, both of scientific sales and the European market, together with Precisionary’s vast educational resources, meant we were well prepared to meet and overcome this challenge. Best laid plans and all that … things unfortunately did not pan out the way we planned and 2023 turned out to be a year of learning with unexpected outcomes. This would have tested any sales collaboration where generating revenue is the number one objective, however because of the co-operative nature of the relationship, this is where the relationship truly blossomed.
As Olivier says “We carried out market research and realised that some of our key assumptions were incorrect, leading us to not have the level of success we anticipated. We did not hide from any of our shortcomings and the open line of communication with Precisionary meant that all knowledge was shared and solutions created as a team”.
“This is what we pride ourselves on at Green Leaf Scientific - full transparency at all times and it is clear how much this is valued by the team at Precisionary.”
Share the pain, share the gain
Fast forward to 2024 and here we are writing a blog post about winning Distributor of the Year 2024! Precisionary shared the pain with us, and we are now sharing what has been a fantastic year across all fronts. Brand awareness is growing exponentially, and customer satisfaction has never been higher, evidenced by the number of new enquiries being received via our customers sharing their first-class experience with their Compresstomes.
“This award can certainly be attributed to the work of a great team behind the scenes here at Green Leaf Scientific,” adds Ollie.
“Firstly, our Product Managers who have been the first point of contact in mirroring Precisionary’s elite standards for any European researchers interested in learning more. They have worked tirelessly in ensuring existing customers feel like they have the local support they need, while also having a direct line of communication with the manufacturers.”
Green Leaf Scientific Product Manager - Felipe Lino, working at the Precisionary booth at this year’s SfN conference in Chicago.
“Secondly our marketing team who worked closely with Precisionary to learn everything Compresstome-related, ensuring our promotional material reflected the quality of the products we were selling. They tried and tested numerous different marketing and advertising channels in order to understand the best avenue for increasing the brand’s visibility to where it is now.”
“And here at Green Leaf we never forget the importance seamless logistics support plays in successfully bringing products to our customers. Customers can rest easy knowing they only have to think about the cost of the system and not unexpected customs charges while existing users know we are able to get them upgrades or replacement parts almost as rapidly as if they were buying directly from HQ. It also allows us to successfully have our demonstration units traveling all over the continent for researchers to test before they buy.”
Voices of Success: Testimonials and Comments
“While the first year working with GLS had not been very smooth, we found that increasing the frequency of our communication, and being honest with our issues and expectations really helped drive this partnership forward. In year two, we are hitting our strides where we are finding the right prospects, moving them through our sales funnels, and getting results. I credit Ollie and the GLS team in their willingness to spend the time and energy to increase both the depth and breadth of our communication channels, and allowing us to grow together.”
George Kong
CEO, Precisionary Instruments
“This relationship is everything we want in our collaborations with our suppliers. It has been challenging but rewarding in every way as we learned together and overcame some unforeseen issues to bring us to where we are now. I want to thank George for his patience in trusting our process, Abby for providing us with an incredible knowledge resource, Chloé for being so diligent and reliable in her communication and each of them for generally being a wonderful company to work with!”
Olivier
Red Box Direct/Green Leaf Scientific General Manager
Learn More About Green Leaf Distribution Model
If you don't need a managed office but are seeking expert life sciences product distribution in Europe, Green Leaf Scientific is the ideal solution.
With a diverse catalog featuring products from 12 leading life science manufacturers, we've achieved significant success over the past eight years and are continuously expanding our offerings. We drive your sales growth through customized marketing campaigns while offering a dedicated point of contact for any technical queries from your existing and potential customers. As your sales grow, you also have the option to upgrade to a managed office with a dedicated product manager to further enhance your distribution strategy.
If you’re navigating the challenges of managing life sciences distributors or considering leveraging distributors for your international expansion, we invite you to reach out to Red Box Direct to chat about our solutions and how we can support your journey towards more effective distributor management and enhanced global sales.
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