Conference Sessions

Creating a Fans First Experience for your Organization

Jared Orton, President, Savannah Bananas

Jared will share how The Savannah Bananas - the most fun team in sports - has built a culture that focuses on loving people and building fans no matter who you serve, what you do, or what role you’re in. Get ready to laugh, cry, and Go Bananas

Panelists: Kara Heater, Savannah Bananas Marketing Director, and Carson Bowen, Savanah Bananas Ticket Experience Director

STREAMLINE INTO ACTION: Accelerate YOU To Drive Greater Results NOW!

Deborah Gardner, CMP, CVP, Author, Speaker, Competitive Performance Expert

Massive changes and recent crises have affected the transportation industry and YOU! New studies demonstrate nearly three quarters of sales and marketing professionals are stressed out, burned out and bummed out. And no matter what role or level you are at – this has implications that impact what you do every day.

BUCKLE YOUR SEAT BELT! Watch how competitive performance expert, Deborah Gardner, explains the authentic parallel between the tough sport of competitive swimming and the fast-paced transportation world with her exclusive proven methodology that will help you create the greatest results with least residence.

Sales and marketing are not for the faint of heart. Sales and marketing are about solving pain and creating gain for you and the customer. Achieve enormous momentum in this captivating, entertaining and highly energetic message. Take the plunge! Get off the block and GO! Up for the challenge?

Attendees of this session will learn:

• Enhance your mindset with 3 simple ways to maximize productivity while making hitting the ground running for more success.
• Learn how to prioritize what matters through the fundamental happenings in the transportation industry and in YOU!
• Participate with your peers to learn how to dominate any stumbling blocks that slow innovation and adaptation - and embrace opportunities to overcome them.

Shippers Panel

Tony Darnell, Shipping Manager, Lippert Components | Gary Cornelius, VP of Business Development, TCW | Tony Botos, Director of Logistics, The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company | Cody Chason, Senior Logistics Manager, Elo Touch Solutions

One of the biggest asks TMSA gets is to put together a panel of shippers for our members to hear direct insight from the source. Ask, and you shall receive.  

We’ve assembled a dynamite panel of logistics executives at shippers who will give you direct voice-of-customer input for sales and marketing success.  We’ll discuss what matters to shippers today, what they are most concerned with and what they value in their partners.  

Attendees of this session will walk away knowing: 

1. What matters most to shippers. 
2. How priorities have evolved and shifted in recent years.  
3. A typical process for selecting a vendor. 
4. How a potential provider can best demonstrate their value/set themselves apart from competitors.  

Winning the Talent Battle through Recruitment & Retention 

Charlie Saffro, President & Founder, CS Recruiting

Winning the war for talent is not just about recruiting and finding the right people—it’s about employee retention, and keeping the people you have.

In this session, Charlie Saffro, President of CS Recruiting will focus on how recruiting and retention are part of a never-ending cycle that all revolve around one thing: Company Culture.

Charlie brings years of experience recruiting in the Logistics & Transportation industry and will share her expertise on what it takes to create and maintain a strong company culture, why employees stay, why employees leave, and the importance of putting your people first.

Attendees of this session will learn:

• How to find and evaluate talent
• How to recruit talent and provide an enjoyable onboarding experience
• How to retain talent through human leadership

Your People Are Your Brand

Samantha Jones, VP of Revenue, Rocket Shipping

In this innovative and informative session, Samantha Jones will walk attendees through the following questions: 

• What do we see most commonly in our industry on social media spaces like LinkedIn? Why is this lacking, or not resulting in a high success rate?
• What is a personal brand? How does a company leverage strong personal brands properly?
• What are the benefits of a personal brand to a seller?
• What are the potential risks to the employer of these powerful branders?
• How can marketing walk alongside their personal branders to support their efforts and be a force multiplier?

Attendees of this event will leave with:

• Understanding of what a personal brand is and how it can become a powerful tool at the individual and company level.
• Understanding from a leadership standpoint of how you can support and RETAIN your sellers who are creating their personal brands.
• How marketing fits into the personal brand of sellers, and what can marketing do to capitalize on strong personal brands to propel the company brand along with the personal brands.

How to 10x Your Sales Pipeline

Nadine Nocero-Tye, Partner, SyncShow

After showcasing such success for our clients we honed in on WHY what we do works so much better at providing results than other companies or programs. We drilled into 8 areas that when working together and strategically drive the biggest difference for ROI Marketing: Marketing Team, Value proposition, Marketing Strategy, Website, Goals + KPIs, Analytics, Technology Stack, Templates and Guidelines

The goal is to understand how to position marketers as owners of strategic plans that drive company revenue through this system.

For sales leaders - it's how to work together with Marketing to achieve their goal (hot leads) which elevate the company to closed revenue.

Protecting Your Brands: Tips, Tricks & Strategies For Creating Strong Brands

David Adler, President, Adler Law Group

Digital marketing might seem easier than ever. Social media, review sites, and other tools can help find customers and grow a business in a matter of a few weeks. Creating a solid marketing strategy depends on strong brands. As more companies move online increasing the noise in already crowded channels, protecting your brand is more important than ever. Taking specific examples from real-world client experiences, this discussion will examine how companies can create strong brands, how to act strategically in various contexts, and the lessons that can be learned from prior successes.

The presentation covers four key objectives:

• Provide the basic source of trademark and brand rights
• Provide strategic considerations when creating brands
• Identifying common pitfalls that undermine brand protection
• Understanding different types of protection available and the steps for protection

Unlock Rapid Growth: Get Your Accounts Out of Maintenance Mode

Holly LaBoda, Partner & Co-Founder, Luminaries Consulting

We all want to grow, and we know growth comes from getting, keeping, and growing the right customers. But when results aren't what we want, most focus on new customer acquisition first. But did you know that the win rate on existing business is 60-70%, while new customers average 5-20% (Marketing Metrics)? Before you throw another cross-selling campaign together, let's take a step back. In this session, you'll learn how to identify your highest potential paths to growth and enable your team to get there.

Attendees of this session will learn:

• How to identify your current accounts with the most potential
• Key processes and capabilities that unlock your account manager's potential
• The critical skills that enable account managers to grow their business

Marketing and Sales: How to Grow Revenue through Alignment

L'areal Lipkins, CEO, Lipkins Consulting Group LLC

It’s the classic battle – Marketing complains that they’re generating a bunch of leads, but sales isn’t converting them. At the same time, the sales team complains that there aren’t enough leads and the ones that do come through aren’t any good.

If your organization wants to grow revenue in 2023, creating marketing and sales alignment is imperative. Marketing and sales alignment helps both functions lean into their expertise while supporting shared goals.  The result is increased innovation, real-time market insights, process improvement, and higher sales conversions.

In this presentation, you will learn the following:

• Common mistakes and misconceptions that divide marketing and sales.
• Three things your organization can do immediately to align marketing and sales better.
• How to create a feedback loop that increases the effectiveness of both functions.

The 360° Relationship: How to Get Anyone to WANT to Work With You

Tony Leone, Co-Founder, The Constance Group

Influence and persuasion are human behavior endeavors. It comes down to 4 questions. "How" does some make a decision. "Why" should someone make a change or decision. "Will" someone do what we want them to do. "Can" someone do what we want them to do? This 4 part formula is the basis for all talks and can be applied across sales and leadership.

Attendees of this session will learn:

• The Perfect Close
• The only way to handle an objection. This one technique can be applied to any objection you ever get
• The one mistake every sales professional makes that can be eliminated in one question.

Boosting Employee Retention through Messaging

Whitney Cowell, AVP, Marketing, KCH Transportation

We're breaking down the internal impacts of strong messaging. While many focus on customer-facing value, most forget that revenue-driven marketing starts from within an organization.

Attendees of this session will learn:

• How to leverage the voices of employees for marketing materials
• How to cultivate strong company culture through messaging
• How to leverage internal messaging to gain leads on social media

Customer Experience and Employee Experience in the Age of Digital

Bob Hitt, North American Lead, Transportation & Logistics Industry, Salesforce

Today's customers and employees demand digital engagement via mobile. Learn how today's most forward thinking carriers are leveraging digital tools to deliver customer and employee engagement using digital technology.

Attendees of this session will learn:

• Trends in Customer / Employee Experience
• Technology to Accomplish Next Generation Customer / Employee Engagement
• Roadmap for Approaching Digital Engagement

The Experience Ecosystem: The Market Intelligence Exceptional Companies Use to Grow

Sarah Ahern, Owner and Partner, PATH Growth

The rate of change gets faster by the second – our ability to manage change is a key competitive differentiator as a brand. For some brands, change can be a negative, overwhelming experience. For exceptional companies, change is an opportunity to create powerful value in new, creative ways. What is the difference between painful change and opportunity? A clear focus on who your customers are, what they want, and how you can uniquely position that in the market. 

Sarah will discuss how customer focus sets up brands to build market agility and win using the experience ecosystem – the growth model PATH created from 40 years of working in supply chain. We’ll discuss the why, how and so what of using customer, market and employee feedback together.

All Together Now: Building Growth Through Mission-Driven Cooperation

Michelle LeBlanc, Founder, Drop & Hook | Amber Caron, Director of Communications, Wreaths Across America

Non-Profit Organization Wreaths Across America has grown from a simple, individual donation to an international effort spanning more than 3,700 locations in all 50 states and even overseas. Every year, thousands of volunteers come together to place millions of veterans' wreaths—in no small part thanks to the efforts of 296 trucking company partners!

In the process of growing, the organization has needed to scale quickly and embrace technology so that its small team (just over 30 full-time staff) can continue to service the needs of the many corporate partners, civic and community groups that now participate. In this session, you'll hear actionable insights from collaboration between communications, sales, and operations team members and see how a shared vision keeps the organization as a whole aligned.