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 And much like the childhood rhyme we sang in grade school, there really were NO textbooks in this class, nor outdated case studies.
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Tag Archives: Liz Sara
Beyond the Classroom: Dingman EIRs, Staff and Faculty in the News
Those who spend a lot of time in Van Munching Hall know that the Dingman Center is an excellent resource for student entrepreneurs at the University of Maryland.
But, Dingman’s EIRs (Entrepreneurs in Residence), staff and faculty are not only dedicated to entrepreneurship and innovation on campus — many of them are also entrepreneurs themselves or thought leaders in the field.
Here’s a look at what our talented faculty and staff have been up to off-campus: Continue reading
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 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.