Best Marketing’s Liz Sara, Chair of the Board of the Dingman Center of Entrepreneurship and Entrepreneur-in-Residence, just completed teaching her flagship MBA Class, “Business-to-Business Marketing” during this 2017 Winter Session. Now in its fourth year, Liz has fashioned this class as a 100 percent experiential learning environment based completely on outside CEO speakers who present real world marketing challenges. And much like the childhood rhyme we sang in grade school, there really were NO textbooks in this class, nor outdated case studies.
Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship
Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship
Tag Archives: B2B Marketing
Stewart Fellow Interns at a Medical Supply Startup
This summer, several undergraduate students have been interning at startups through the Kathryn Stewart Fellowship program. Undergraduate Stewart fellows are awarded a $3,000 scholarship if they are able to secure a summer internship with venture capital or angel-funded startups and early stage companies. The Dingman Center interviewed each fellow about their experience.
Emily Turner – Hybrent Inc.
Tell us about Hybrent Inc. What is the company’s mission and core competencies?
Hybrent is a medical supply chain company. The core competency of the company is to evolve the supply chain process to be more efficient and cost cutting.
Our mission is to develop technology that improves the clinical and operational efficiency of healthcare facilities. Hybrent products and services are dedicated to solving real problems in the healthcare supply chain by providing groundbreaking technology, business intelligence and visibility beyond the limits of current enterprise systems. We help procurement managers make better decisions when running their healthcare organizations.
Dispatches from Inside the Classroom: Day 8
Best Marketing’s Liz Sara, Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the Dingman Center of Entrepreneurship and former Dingman Board member, concluded the Business to Business Marketing course with a tall order for the part-time MBA students: create and present a marketing plan for a real startup. Four company CEOs participated in this project: Sean Virgil, founder of last year’s Cupid’s Cup finalist company Diagnostic anSERS; Brian Johnson, founder of Divvy Cloud; Jack Reis, founder of ManageUrID; and Payam Fard, founder of Subject-7. All four CEO’s attended class, listened, probed and commented on the marketing plan presentations.
This type of pitch was a first for many students including Antwan Jefferson. “This was the first time in my education I have had the opportunity to interact with an actual company. Being afforded the opportunity to provide solutions to a CEO is one of the more exciting experiences that I have had,” said Jefferson.
After the final class Sara felt the students took a sip from the fire hose of B2B Marketing. “From hearing more than a dozen CEOs who took the time to present a marketing challenge to class discussion to actually developing a plan for a real company – well it just doesn’t get more experiential than that,” Sara concluded.
Liz Sara has 20 years of experience in the local high tech community as an entrepreneur, business leader, angel investor and philanthropist. In 2001, she founded Best Marketing, LLC to provide early stage software companies with strategic marketing, PR and business development services. Her company offers clients all the benefits of a full-scale, seasoned marketing department on a ‘virtual’ basis — eliminating overhead and headcount associated with full-time staff. Previously, she played a principal role as co-founder of SpaceWorks, an eCommerce software company, where she facilitated its startup and growth to nearly $25 million in revenue; at America Online, where she designed the PR program and investor road show for the IPO; at United Press International, where she facilitated a turn-around strategy; and for LEXIS/NEXIS, where she was instrumental in the creation and successful launch of a new division. Ms. Sara holds an M.A. in Journalism from the University of Maryland. She is a member of the Business & Professional Women’s Committee of the Corcoran; the Women’s Committee of National Museum of Women In the Arts; and the Board of the Capital City Ball. In addition, Ms. Sara is an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the University of Maryland’s Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship.
Dispatches from Inside the Classroom: Day 6 & 7
Best Marketing’s Liz Sara continued her Business to Business Marketing class on Monday with a discussion about how to best use events and trade shows in the marketing mix. From high tech to low tech, from small to large, the class got a dose of the best ways to use third-party events. Students also learned that whether on the Internet or on the ground, sometimes it’s best to create your own event. Ryan Healey, founder of Brazen Careerist (a Dingman Center Angels portfolio company) talked about how his company uses industry trade shows and virtual events to generate leads for their offering – a virtual event platform itself. Ran Farmer, a senior managing partner at boutique econometric consulting firm ARPC, talked about how his company leveraged events in the legal industry to drive business last year.
Tuesday’s class began with a clip from an old “Saturday Night Live” episode that pokes fun at the rock band Bon Jovi for naming the band after its founder. Joking aside, the class was all about branding and what B2B companies should consider when they go through a re-branding. Alex Gordiyenko, co-founder of LightMix Design Studio, showed some examples of what happens when a global B2B company attempts to rebrand in a changing and dynamic marketplace.
“As consumers, we see the end result of a company re-brand, but we don’t know the hoops the marketing and management team jumped through to get there. Last night’s installment of the class focused on the hoops,” Sara explained. Stay tuned for our final dispatch tomorrow.
Liz Sara has 20 years of experience in the local high tech community as an entrepreneur, business leader, angel investor and philanthropist. In 2001, she founded Best Marketing, LLC to provide early stage software companies with strategic marketing, PR and business development services. Her company offers clients all the benefits of a full-scale, seasoned marketing department on a ‘virtual’ basis — eliminating overhead and headcount associated with full-time staff. Previously, she played a principal role as co-founder of SpaceWorks, an eCommerce software company, where she facilitated its startup and growth to nearly $25 million in revenue; at America Online, where she designed the PR program and investor road show for the IPO; at United Press International, where she facilitated a turn-around strategy; and for LEXIS/NEXIS, where she was instrumental in the creation and successful launch of a new division. Ms. Sara holds an M.A. in Journalism from the University of Maryland. She is a member of the Business & Professional Women’s Committee of the Corcoran; the Women’s Committee of National Museum of Women In the Arts; and the Board of the Capital City Ball. In addition, Ms. Sara is an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the University of Maryland’s Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship.
Dispatches from Inside the Classroom: Day 3 & 4
Day 3
Best Marketing’s Liz Sara, Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the Dingman Center of Entrepreneurship, kept the MBA students on their toes with best practice approaches to targeting the market in last night’s Business to Business Marketing class. Sara stressed the importance of identifying pain points. “The key to figuring out the business buyer starts with understanding who has the pain or problem that you are solving with your product or service,” she explained.
Guest speaker Nikhil Palekar, founder of nVeloped, shared that his company is focused within the healthcare supply chain industry. The company makes it easy to send and receive secure email using his simple, secure email plugin. Palekar and his team found a pain point and clearly addressed it.
Day 4
Day 4 moved beyond pain points and competition to go-to-market strategy. Sara brought two local CEOs to the classroom who discussed their company’s channel strategies. Chris Parker, founder of New Horizon Wines talked about his distribution strategies and challenges he is facing in exporting Virginia wines to luxury merchants and hotels in London, England. Chris Duffus, founder of LEAF College Savings, talked about his approach in bringing his 529 college savings plan product based on gift cards to market using partners like AAA and AARP.
Sara closed the discussion with the following, “whether it’s savings plans, wine or widgets, choosing the right channel partners involves careful targeting, clear communication of your value to them, and clear understanding of the specific market they serve.”
Liz Sara has 20 years of experience in the local high tech community as an entrepreneur, business leader, angel investor and philanthropist. In 2001, she founded Best Marketing, LLC to provide early stage software companies with strategic marketing, PR and business development services. Her company offers clients all the benefits of a full-scale, seasoned marketing department on a ‘virtual’ basis — eliminating overhead and headcount associated with full-time staff. Previously, she played a principal role as co-founder of SpaceWorks, an eCommerce software company, where she facilitated its startup and growth to nearly $25 million in revenue; at America Online, where she designed the PR program and investor road show for the IPO; at United Press International, where she facilitated a turn-around strategy; and for LEXIS/NEXIS, where she was instrumental in the creation and successful launch of a new division. Ms. Sara holds an M.A. in Journalism from the University of Maryland. She is a member of the Business & Professional Women’s Committee of the Corcoran; the Women’s Committee of National Museum of Women In the Arts; and the Board of the Capital City Ball. In addition, Ms. Sara is an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the University of Maryland’s Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship.
Dispatches from Inside the Classroom: Day 2
Best Marketing’s Liz Sara, Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship, started off last night’s “Business to Business Marketing,” course with a how-to on developing a company’s value proposition. Two guest speakers from local tech companies Mindseye and PublicRelay, who both previously pitched the Dingman Center Angels investor network, provided case studies on how THEY crafted the value statements for their companies. Following are Sara’s key takeaways from the case studies:
- Maintaining a pulse on the marketplace and changing market conditions are key to having a value proposition that resonates.
- Competitor reactions, new trends, economic changes – all play a role in what matters to the business buyer.
Are you interested in strengthening your value proposition and differentiating your company from the rest? Sara recommends reading Business Market Management, by Anderson and Narus and Differentiate or Die, by Jack Trout.
Tonight’s class will cover identifying target business markets and monitoring the competition featuring case studies from guest speakers Nikhil Palekar, CEO, nVeloped and Logan Soya, CEO, Aquicore. Check out the first post in this series and stay tuned for our next dispatch.
Liz Sara has 20 years of experience in the local high tech community as an entrepreneur, business leader, angel investor and philanthropist. In 2001, she founded Best Marketing, LLC to provide early stage software companies with strategic marketing, PR and business development services. Her company offers clients all the benefits of a full-scale, seasoned marketing department on a ‘virtual’ basis — eliminating overhead and headcount associated with full-time staff. Previously, she played a principal role as co-founder of SpaceWorks, an eCommerce software company, where she facilitated its startup and growth to nearly $25 million in revenue; at America Online, where she designed the PR program and investor road show for the IPO; at United Press International, where she facilitated a turn-around strategy; and for LEXIS/NEXIS, where she was instrumental in the creation and successful launch of a new division. Ms. Sara holds an M.A. in Journalism from the University of Maryland. She is a member of the Business & Professional Women’s Committee of the Corcoran; the Women’s Committee of National Museum of Women In the Arts; and the Board of the Capital City Ball. In addition, Ms. Sara is an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the University of Maryland’s Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship.