This Texchange meeting will be like no other Texchange event you've attended. As an attendee, you will set the questions and agenda in our first "crowdsourced" panel event.
For our panel, we've assembled an incredible group of CEO's that you will rarely find on the same stage. Together they represent Austin-based transactions exceeding half a billion dollars. Our panel:
Joel Trammell, CEO of NetQOS who sold his company to Computer Associates for $200M in cash.
Rod Favaron, CEO of Lombardi Software recently sold the company to IBM for an undisclosed amount. The company has 200 employees with 120 of them being in Austin.
Craig Malloy, CEO of LifeSize Communications which sold to Logitech for $405M.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010 - Austin Texchange
Speaker:
Sharon Drew Morgan, New York Times Best Selling Author
Sharon Drew Morgen is the visionary and thought leader behind Buying Facilitation®, the new sales paradigm that focuses on helping buyers manage their buying decisions. She is the author of the New Yotk Times Business bestseller Selling with Integrity as well as five other books and hundreds of articles that explain different aspects of the decision facilitation model that teaches buyers how to buy.
Morgen dramatically shifts the buying decision tools from solution-focused to decision-support. Sales very competently manages the solution-placement end of the decision, yet buyers are left on their own while sellers are left waiting for a response, and hoping they can close. But no longer: Morgen actually gives sellers the tools to lead buyers through all of their internal, idiosyncratic decisions.
Morgen teaches Buying Facilitation® to global corporations, and she licenses the material with training companies seeking to add new skills to what they are already offering their clients. Her new book, Dirty Little Secrets: Why Buyers Can’t Buy and Sellers Can’t Sell and What You Can Do About It, defines what is happening within buyer’s cultures (systems) and explains how they make the decisions they make.
Morgen has focused on the servant-leader/decision facilitation aspect of sales ever since her first book, Sales On The Line, was published in 1992.
In all of her books, she unmasks the behind-the-scenes decisions that need to go on before buyers choose a solution and gives sellers the tools to aid them.
In addition, Morgen changes the success rate of sales from the accepted 10% to 40%: the time it takes buyers to come up with their own answers is the length of the sales cycle, and her books—especially Dirty Little Secrets—teaches sellers how to guide buyers through all of their decisions, thereby shifting the sales cycle from a failed model that only manages half of the buying cycle, to a very competent professional skill set.
Morgen lives in Austin TX, where she dances and works with children’s fund raising projects in her spare time.
Description:
You have great sales skills. Your product is great. What is stopping you from closing all of the sales you should be closing? (Hint: It's not you, and it's not your product.)
The sales model is broken.
Conventional sales models do not help buyers manage the behind-the-scenes issues they need to address before they can make a buying decision. And by not helping buyers buy, these models get in the way of sellers selling.
Sharon Drew Morgen is changing the landscape of sales with her new sales paradigm, Buying Facilitation®. Come listen to Morgen talk about Buying Facilitation® and learn:
How buyers really buy;
How sales prevents you from efficiently helping buyers;
New skills you can use to help buyers make buying decisions.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009 - Austin Texchange
Title:Achieving Social Media Success: Case Studies of Business Results
Speakers:
Sam Decker, CMO,Bazaarvoice
Joshua Baer, CEO, OtherInbox, Co- Founder, Capital Factory
Description:
Recent studies suggest 300 million people are on Facebook. And then there’s YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, Blogs, Reviews, and other Social Media. Whether B2B or B2C, social media does influence your business because it influences everyone’s lives. And it’s not going away. So, how do you use these tools to promote your company or yourself, and integrate it with your existing marketing activities.
This event will share real life examples of how social media is used in three business. Learn how Bazaarvoice (B2B) has leveraged blogging, viral YouTube videos, Twitter, and Facebook to help grow to over 500 clients. Learn how OtherInbox (B2C) uses Twitter to turn its biggest complainers into its biggest champions. Learn how these tools also helped Capital Factory recruit 300 entrepreneurial applications and 250 attendees to Demo Day.
Also, leading up to this event (if you didn’t notice already), social media will be used extensively to promote the event and Texchange. We will take you through the strategy, tactics and measures used to promote our very own Texchange. This is the one social media "bootcamp" that you and your executives should attend. (Follow @Texchange on Twitter now!)
Wednesday, September 16, 2009 - Austin Texchange
Title: New Models for Venture Acceleration
Panelist:
Rob Adams Director of Moot Corp at The University of Texas at Austin
Kevin Koym, General Partner, Tech Ranch Austin
Bryan Menell, Managing Director, Capital Factory
Moderator:
Jonas Lamis, General Partner, Tech Ranch Austin
Description:
Traditional funding strategies for startups have changed dramatically over the past several years. Today, companies likely must have product and customers before they are able to raise venture funds. And many more startups are embracing alternative models for venture launch and acceleration.This shift creates opportunities for new incubators like Tech Ranch Austin and Capital Factory to provide low cost and high value mentorship models to the startup community.
Come learn from the executives behind these programs and join us in a discussion about models for accelerating entrepreneur success in Central Texas.
Wednesday, June 03, 2009 - Austin Texchange
Title: The Lean Startup: A Disciplined Approach to Building New Companies
Panelist: Eric Ries
Description:
The current macroeconomic climate presents unparalleled opportunities for those that can thrive with constrained resources. The Lean Startup is a practical approach for creating and managing a new breed of company that excels in low-cost experimentation, rapid iteration, and true customer insight. It uses principles of agile software development, open source and web 2.0, and lean manufacturing to guide the creation of technology businesses that create disruptive innovation.
This presentation will empower entrepreneurs and managers to:
Identify a profitable business model faster and cheaper than your competitors.
Continuously discover what customers want to buy before building or making follow-on investments in new features.
Ship new software at a dizzying pace: multiple times a day while improving quality and lowering costs.
Build a company-wide culture of decision-making based on real facts, not opinions.
In this presentation, serial entrepreneur Eric Ries will share practical solutions based in his work building IMVU to more than 25 million members worldwide and his experiences consulting to more than a dozen technology startups.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009 - Austin TeXchange
Topic: The Changing Financial Landscape
Moderator: Bill Morrow, CEO, CSIdentity
Panelists:
Josh Baer, CEO, OtherInbox
Mike Dodd, Venture Partner, Austin Ventures
Neil Randall, Principal, Teachers Retirement System of Texas
Description:
The credit markets are frozen and the venture capital world is no different. Venture capital investments in Q4 2008 fell 26% from the previous quarter, and it appears that Q1 2009 will be worse. Venture Capitalists, Angels, and the limited partners who invest in VC funds are holding their cash tightly and are bracing for an environment that will be challenging for the foreseeable future. The following questions were answered during the event -
When will the money flow freely again?
What will the new financing landscape look like?
Who will be successful in this new landscape?
What can my company do to prepare itself for this new landscape?
Wednesday, February 18, 2009 - Austin TeXchange
Topic: The Goals of Sales and Marketing In Good Times and Bad
Moderator:
Mark McClain , CEO, Sailpoint
Panelists: Chris Warwick , VP Marketing, Hoovers
Jim Currie , VP Sales, Innography
Doug Miller , CMO, Innography
Description: In good times and bad, the goals of sales and marketing should be identical: To get new customers, and to retain and grow current ones. Unfortunately, the reality of the relationship between the two functions in many organizations often ranges from strained (at best) to working at cross purposes.
However--in a down economy especially!--it is critical that sales and marketing work together to be focused on the REAL goal: winning customers and driving revenue as efficiently as possible. This panel shared best practices for aligning marketing and sales and best practices on how the two groups can work together to create a "1 + 1 = 3" formula for delivering revenue.
The panelist discussed the following questions:
What is the relationship between marketing and sales?
How does the company decide on investments between marketing and sales?
How do marketing and sales work together to set the proper foundation for systematic demand creation?
How efficiently are leads and opportunities converted through the stages of the sales funnel?
What creative strategies and tactics have been initiated to compete for sales in this tough economy?
How can a "single lens" be used to set goals and define success and failure for marketing and sales?
Description:
Central to the success of Southwest Airlines is the Southwest Way, a unique culture that puts employees first. The culture is rooted in the theory that empowered, motivated employees will satisfy customers who will support a profitable business. The results are proven; Southwest leads the airline industry in employee retention, customer satisfaction and profitability.
This lively town hall style event was interactive and informative from beginning to end.