LLR Sales & Marketing Collaborate 2019

April 18, 2019

LLR Collaborate brings together our portfolio company leaders to explore and exchange best practices on accelerating growth while providing both in-person and digital forums to network and build relationships. In March, Sales & Marketing Collaborate 2019 focused on improving overall sales and marketing productivity throughout many initiatives that help drive growth, such as market segmentation, content experiences, sales development, channel sales and SEO/SEM.

LLR Collaborate 2019 Group
Attendees of LLR’s annual Sales & Marketing Collaborate have the opportunity to build a network of peers and share knowledge on the key initiatives that help drive company growth.

Growth Acceleration: Sales & Marketing Foundation

LLR was thrilled to host Steve Tafaro, founder of Tafaro & Associates and creator of the Growth Accelerator Sales Development System, to discuss the foundational principles of buyer behavior and effective sales and marketing programs.

Steve offered actionable insights, templates and case studies to our portfolio leaders on how to assemble the building blocks and execute on a unified sales and marketing process, as well as how to accelerate and measure productivity. Through this unified process, he stressed, sales and marketing are able to function as “two sides of the same coin” where strategies, tactics and technologies are aligned, resulting in a full organizational commitment to success.

Randy Frisch, co-founder, president & CMO of Uberlip
Randy Frisch, co-founder, president & CMO of Uberflip, challenged the way we think about content marketing and shared a framework for delivering remarkable experiences across a customer’s full journey.

Content Experiences: Engaging Across the Full Customer Journey

The final day of Sales & Marketing Collaborate featured a keynote from Uberflip co-founder, president & CMO, Randy Frisch. Randy is a highly sought-after speaker and thought leader on how BtoB marketers can draw their customer into an immersive experience with their business similar to that of Netflix, Spotify and other brands. His recently published book, “F#ck Content Marketing: Focus on Content Experience to Drive Demand, Revenue & Relationships,” calls for marketers to rethink how we package, deliver and recommend content in more meaningful ways, from creating personalized experiences for each audience segment to humanizing different go-to-market strategies.

Optimizing Sales Development Teams
In a session on Optimizing Sales Development Teams, attendees examined the various responsibilities they assign to SDRs and how to train them to achieve high performance.

Topical Sessions

In addition to these two keynote sessions, the sales and marketing leaders from LLR’s portfolio participated in peer-led conversations on common growth initiatives, including:

  • Market Segmentation and Team Realignment, led by Cindy Yates and Tracy Wehringer at Edlio: How to restructure a sales and marketing organization to align with more targeted segments, leverage cleaner data and prepare to scale.
  • Lead Generation and Engagement, led by Marty Brandwin and Maureen French, WorldAware: How to align your lead qualification framework and inbound marketing programs and SDR activities with revenue goals.
  • Scaling Marketing Teams, led by Michele Weber, eOriginal: Approaches to contributing value with limited resources, gaining internal support and building a team from bootstrapped to scale.
  • Optimizing Sales Development Teams, led by Michael Sala, LLR Partners: SDR resource planning, onboarding and training and compensation strategies.
  • SEO Lessons Learned, led by Melinda Joseph, Sterling Trading Tech: What’s working to raise visibility and website traffic for B2B companies. [Read Melinda’s 3 Essential SEO Tips in this GrowthBits post]
  • Forming and Optimizing a Channel Sales Strategy, led by John Spiliotis, Senior Operating Advisor to LLR Partners: The state of channel programs across the LLR portfolio and key considerations for determining what type of channel partner is right for your business. [Read John’s GrowthBits post on the Channel Partner Program Model for his best advice]
  • Tech Stack Tell Me More, led by Kristy DelMuto, LLR Partners: The full Sales & Marketing Technology Stack leveraged across the LLR portfolio and allowed for open discussion on tools in use or under consideration.
  • Sales Compensation Models, led by Michael Sala, LLR Partners: Options for sales rep comp models and how they are applied across different LLR companies.

The Marshmallow Challenge

Lastly, to make sure our attendees had some fun, got to know each other better, and learned something about their own collaborative styles, they participated in the Marshmallow Challenge. It’s simple exercise that involves dry spaghetti, one yard of tape and a marshmallow. Who can build the tallest tower with these ingredients? And what does it tell us about collaboration, power and teamwork? See the challenge in action below and congratulations to the team in the first photo for winning!

LLR Marshmallow 1

LLR Marshmallow 3

LLR Marshmallow 4

LLR Marshmallow 2