Staying Connected with Peers in 2021

August 5, 2021

LLR’s Collaborate network and online LLR Community platform enable our portfolio company leaders to expand their peer networks, stay connected and share growth insights in real-time.

Traditionally a series of in-person, annual forums for CEOs, CFOs, and leaders of Sales, Marketing, HR and Technology at LLR portfolio companies, LLR Collaborate was fully virtual in 2020 and 2021. With this approach, we engaged in shorter, more frequent discussions on growth and were able to share a number of helpful case studies and strategies with one another.

LLR appreciates all our portfolio company leaders and external contributors for their engagement and openness throughout the year of virtual conversation. Here is a look at some of the topics addressed and experts engaged.

 

Shared Insights on Challenges of Growth and Scale

New Administration, New Rules: Morgan Lewis helped us identify what Finance and HR leaders should know as we operate businesses and manage teams under a new political administration.

Roadmap for Activating DE&I Strategies: Following our fall discussion on the relationship between DE&I and business performance, we welcomed back Quinetta Roberson, Ph.D. and John A. Hannah Distinguished Professor of Management and Psychology at Michigan State University, to continue to conversation. It focused on developing a roadmap to achieve personal, operational and strategic DE&I goals, and building accountability and measurement systems to drive change.

Capital Markets: LLR’s Senior Director of Capital Markets, Danielle Attaie, shared her perspective on the lending environment and three current LLR portfolio CFOs shared their recent experiences optimizing debt to support their growth strategies.

Exit Planning: As a CEO/CFO team, Brian Madocks and Mike Coluzzi have led two LLR portfolio companies, Revitas and eOriginal, through their growth and ultimate exits, along with many others independently. They shared insights with LLR’s current CEOs and CFOs on exit strategy, preparation and execution.

Learn more about Exits: 7 Things CEOs Need to Know about Exit Planning Strategies from Brian Madocks

Return to Office: HR leaders from LLR portfolio companies detailed their plans for reopening offices, managing vaccine status and many other RTO considerations.

Compensation: Experts from Korn Ferry shared their latest survey data on compensation practices, and they facilitated a discussion on the impact of the pandemic; comp, benefits, and allowances for remote workers; and   anticipated changes to budgets and bonuses in 2022.

Security Best Practices: Amazon Web Services delivered best practices for strengthening a company’s security posture to the technology leaders in LLR’s portfolio.

The Six Components of Successful ABM: Sales and marketing leaders joined Domenic Colasante from 2X Marketing in a discussion on how to launch and scale an effective account-based marketing program.

Learn more about ABM: Best Practices to Scale ABM and Improve Demand Generation by Domenic Colasante

Building the Right Commercial Message to Spark Customer Action: Challenger and LLR portfolio company Geoforce talked with sales leaders about ways to more effectively motivate a prospect to take action in today’s sales environment by revisiting the building blocks of commercial messaging, digital marketing and the first sales interaction.

Lead Scoring: Wes Germain, LLR’s Director of Demand Generation, led a discussion on the value of lead scoring for marketing and sales, with examples of approaches and benefits, and he introduced a new best practice guide to help companies get started or optimize their current programs.

Maximizing Value from SEO/SEM: Two LLR portfolio companies, Appspace and DaySmart, shared their strategic approaches to SEO and SEM, lessons learned as they scale their programs and work with external agencies, and how they monitor effectiveness.

Sample metrics shared that growth stage companies can report to demonstrate the outcomes of SEO and SEM programs.

 

What’s Next

LLR will continue our Virtual Collaborate series for portfolio companies into the next year, hoping to also meet in person again in 2022. We are developing sessions on strategic planning, acquisition integration, account planning and more.