WEBVTT
00:00:23.650 --> 00:00:28.870
Welcome to another episode of Ops Cast brought to you by marketing ops.com.
00:00:30.190 --> 00:00:32.079
New home for the, for the MO Pros.
00:00:32.500 --> 00:00:35.890
I'm your host Michael Hartmann joined today by Mike Rizzo.
00:00:35.890 --> 00:00:38.620
Our host Naomi Liu is unavailable today.
00:00:38.625 --> 00:00:40.420
So it's just the two of us.
00:00:40.420 --> 00:00:41.769
So you're gonna have to suffer through that.
00:00:42.549 --> 00:00:43.299
uh, Mike.
00:00:44.215 --> 00:00:45.234
What year is this?
00:00:45.335 --> 00:00:48.534
It is the year of the MO Pro and it's officially a thing.
00:00:48.534 --> 00:00:50.545
Now, marketing ops.com launches.
00:00:50.784 --> 00:00:52.495
We got the Mo pros community.
00:00:52.855 --> 00:00:53.394
This is great.
00:00:53.424 --> 00:00:53.965
I'm excited.
00:00:55.045 --> 00:00:55.284
Yeah.
00:00:55.284 --> 00:01:03.655
And so we're recording this on, um, it's almost the end of June, which means that summer camp is less than two weeks away.
00:01:03.804 --> 00:01:04.605
Yeah, that right?
00:01:04.609 --> 00:01:05.004
Yeah.
00:01:05.395 --> 00:01:05.784
Wow.
00:01:06.474 --> 00:01:06.835
All right.
00:01:06.835 --> 00:01:09.175
So summer camp in Seattle can't wait.
00:01:10.134 --> 00:01:10.734
Awesome stuff.
00:01:10.734 --> 00:01:11.454
That's be fun.
00:01:12.640 --> 00:01:13.780
Let's get into this.
00:01:13.780 --> 00:01:18.969
So today we are gonna be talking about, um, kinda some of the impacts that have happened.
00:01:20.064 --> 00:01:37.284
Through the pandemic and after the pandemic, in terms of not just business in general, but for marketing ops pros, and probably we might touch on re op as well, a little bit, and to help us talk through that today, as we have our guest RJ and, uh, who is currently director of marketing operations@observe.ai.
00:01:37.674 --> 00:01:43.254
Prior to that, RJ worked in multiple roles in marketing ops, marketing strategy, demand, gen general marketing.
00:01:43.495 --> 00:01:45.894
He's kind of done a little bit of everything in those areas.
00:01:45.984 --> 00:01:47.394
RJ, thanks for joining us today.
00:01:48.849 --> 00:01:49.570
Hey, Michael Mike.
00:01:50.710 --> 00:01:51.040
Great.
00:01:52.239 --> 00:01:52.420
Happy.
00:01:54.609 --> 00:01:55.269
I'm excited.
00:01:55.269 --> 00:02:00.531
So, um, I, I just joined GoPro maybe a couple of months ago.
00:02:00.594 --> 00:02:04.825
A lot of great knowledge from that already getting from it.
00:02:04.945 --> 00:02:07.795
So, um, super excited to be a guest here.
00:02:08.545 --> 00:02:09.355
That's awesome, man.
00:02:10.194 --> 00:02:10.465
Yeah.
00:02:10.465 --> 00:02:10.915
Fantastic.
00:02:10.915 --> 00:02:15.235
Glad your guest and thanks for the feedback and you know, as always keep it coming, we appreciate it.
00:02:18.210 --> 00:02:18.360
Yeah.
00:02:18.360 --> 00:02:21.120
And as we learn, as I learned, I still need to do it as like last week.
00:02:21.189 --> 00:02:25.920
We, we, I need to go set up a profile and you do too on marketing ops.com with the new capabilities there.
00:02:25.920 --> 00:02:29.040
So huge, huge opportunities down the road there.
00:02:29.670 --> 00:02:37.680
So why we, when we do this, I know we want to talk about, um, kind of your observations and art, like all of us on kinda the impacts.
00:02:38.469 --> 00:02:47.710
The pandemic, but, um, why don't we start a little bit first, you know, we talked about your background a little bit and that you've covered a lot of ground in your, in your, your journey.
00:02:47.715 --> 00:02:56.080
So, but curious how you, can you share with the community, our listeners, what, uh, how you led to your, how your, your career end up in marketing ops?
00:02:56.289 --> 00:02:56.530
Yeah, of
00:02:56.530 --> 00:02:56.890
course.
00:02:56.919 --> 00:03:04.240
Uh, I think like, like everyone's like how everyone got their, you know, got to the stage of, uh, their career where they're at today.
00:03:05.919 --> 00:03:12.640
So like myself, um, I really wasn't looking to get into, I don't even know what marketing op was before I was an accounting major.
00:03:12.909 --> 00:03:17.409
Um, I found that to be boring, not well for me.
00:03:17.860 --> 00:03:20.009
Um, so I switched it's okay.
00:03:20.379 --> 00:03:21.610
It's boring for a lot of people.
00:03:22.750 --> 00:03:25.750
but Hey, to your point, some people really enjoy it.
00:03:26.530 --> 00:03:27.969
uh, but I do like numbers though.
00:03:27.969 --> 00:03:29.650
So, um, and.
00:03:30.875 --> 00:03:32.455
I, I was pretty technical as a kid.
00:03:32.455 --> 00:03:33.564
Like I built computers.
00:03:33.564 --> 00:03:34.194
I was a gamer.
00:03:34.194 --> 00:03:37.254
Like I was a, I was pretty nerdy and geeky.
00:03:37.254 --> 00:03:42.835
So I switched to MIS, um, was a good blend of like business and it in it.
00:03:43.495 --> 00:03:46.194
Um, and I took marketing for GE.
00:03:46.495 --> 00:03:49.914
Um, I actually found that to be very boring, too.
00:03:51.235 --> 00:03:55.705
so I was not expecting myself to be in the marketing field at all after college.
00:03:56.289 --> 00:04:01.360
um, but you know what, when I graduated, I, um, I needed experience, right.
00:04:01.360 --> 00:04:02.500
Everybody needed that.
00:04:02.500 --> 00:04:05.110
So I took the first internship I could get.
00:04:05.710 --> 00:04:09.819
Um, and the first one that I got an offer for was a marketing internship.
00:04:10.659 --> 00:04:13.840
Uh, so I took it, you know, uh, I was pretty open minded.
00:04:13.840 --> 00:04:20.379
I'm like, I it's, I, I, I thought to myself, it's probably a lot different than what it was in a classroom.
00:04:21.069 --> 00:04:24.189
So I'm like, you know, let's go, um, and I'm getting paid for it.
00:04:24.189 --> 00:04:25.300
So that's a, that's a huge.
00:04:26.379 --> 00:04:32.139
um, so I landed that role and really that was more of like a Swiss army knife type of role.
00:04:32.289 --> 00:04:52.120
Um, it, uh, it was a lot of things from like graphic design, uh, you know, digital marketing, um, managing a little bit of budget for digital, um, managing the text, a reporting it's it's pretty much like everything under the marketing umbrella, um, as a general generalist type of role.
00:04:52.870 --> 00:04:54.340
Um, and it's a small company.
00:04:54.610 --> 00:04:55.840
We have like 50 people.
00:04:55.840 --> 00:05:00.909
We have just one product marketing leader, a field marketer, a web designer, and there's and there's.
00:05:01.690 --> 00:05:04.539
So I, I got to do a lot as an intern.
00:05:04.929 --> 00:05:09.669
Um, uh, anything under the marketing, uh, marketing sun really?
00:05:09.669 --> 00:05:21.100
Um, and, you know, I found out that all the stuff that I was really good at, um, and it made me really shine in that, um, in that internship, I got employed the month in my second month as an intern.
00:05:21.730 --> 00:05:24.700
Um, uh, and the things that really made.
00:05:24.700 --> 00:05:25.240
That's awesome.
00:05:25.240 --> 00:05:25.299
Yeah.
00:05:26.289 --> 00:05:32.980
It's like, I'm like, I know I got this that's my second that, uh, that, uh, that really made me sign was.
00:05:34.509 --> 00:05:36.970
Are things under the marketing operations umbrella.
00:05:37.210 --> 00:05:37.539
Right?
00:05:37.539 --> 00:05:47.769
Cause some of the first things I did, there were a lot of analysis and setting up their, um, their CRM and integrating it with, um, their marketing automation.
00:05:47.769 --> 00:05:48.639
At that time it was Aon.
00:05:49.870 --> 00:05:55.509
Um, again, I was the only marketer just kind like do for them cuz somebody was doing that.
00:05:55.690 --> 00:05:58.750
Um, so I found out the skills I was good at.
00:05:59.139 --> 00:06:02.784
Um, Really or in that marketing ops umbrella.
00:06:03.174 --> 00:06:10.794
And I didn't even know it was a real function until I decided it was time to move on to, uh, a company with more growth potential.
00:06:11.424 --> 00:06:17.274
Um, and when I was looking for jobs and, you know, I was typing my skills on LinkedIn on indeed everywhere.
00:06:17.725 --> 00:06:20.754
Um, all the roles that were showing up are marketing labs.
00:06:20.759 --> 00:06:23.754
And I was like, oh, this is so marketing is a thing.
00:06:24.144 --> 00:06:25.554
Um, so.
00:06:26.620 --> 00:06:27.940
I applied for that next job.
00:06:27.940 --> 00:06:29.889
It was a marketing op specialist role.
00:06:29.889 --> 00:06:33.190
And, uh, you know, that was kind of like my path to led me here.
00:06:37.179 --> 00:06:37.960
That's incredible.
00:06:37.960 --> 00:06:38.350
Yeah.
00:06:38.355 --> 00:06:39.580
I mean, it's, it's interesting.
00:06:39.730 --> 00:06:45.820
I was, when you were describing that internship, I was thinking about my, uh, the co-op job I had while I was still in college.
00:06:45.820 --> 00:06:54.220
It at times IBM and yeah, I think there's something about that stage where you're like, you don't know any better, like you, so you just like, you like to.
00:06:54.789 --> 00:06:56.289
If you like to tinker, right.
00:06:56.289 --> 00:06:57.009
And that kind of stuff.
00:06:57.009 --> 00:06:57.190
Right.
00:06:57.190 --> 00:07:00.100
It's real easy to, to find opportunities to do that.
00:07:00.100 --> 00:07:03.399
So, um, yeah, so fun stuff.
00:07:03.669 --> 00:07:03.940
All right.
00:07:03.940 --> 00:07:06.940
So let's, you know, we were gonna talk about impacts of the pandemic.
00:07:06.940 --> 00:07:12.850
I thought maybe what we could start with is not necessarily like we, I think we could dive into some details.
00:07:13.669 --> 00:07:14.450
Along the way here.
00:07:14.450 --> 00:07:29.059
We've got a while, but yeah, maybe like top level, like what are you seeing as, as like major impact from the pandemic and I, and I suspect there's gonna be some that were generally positive and some that are generally negative and I know kinda what your thoughts are.
00:07:29.659 --> 00:07:32.179
I'm sure I'll have opinions though, cuz I'm not sure on that.
00:07:33.500 --> 00:07:45.399
Yeah, I think, um, so I mean, if I have to summarize it, um, to like four different things, um, There was definitely a need for, uh, a quick turnaround on digital transformation.
00:07:45.519 --> 00:07:45.820
Right.
00:07:46.450 --> 00:07:47.019
That was the number.
00:07:47.440 --> 00:07:56.500
I'm pretty sure that's the number one thing that everyone in marketing pandemic, um, you know, gone with the days that needs walk up to someone for a request, right.
00:07:57.070 --> 00:08:00.549
Um, for explaining what the data means, like all of that has to be done digitally.
00:08:00.549 --> 00:08:01.419
Now, how do you do that?
00:08:01.419 --> 00:08:07.389
How do you transfer information cross functionally, um, in a, in a streamlined way, right?
00:08:07.389 --> 00:08:08.049
How do you.
00:08:08.710 --> 00:08:13.570
uh, how do you, uh, generate insights and make sure those get to the right people?
00:08:13.840 --> 00:08:21.009
Um, uh, quick enough, um, you know, there's a lot of that really happened.
00:08:21.190 --> 00:08:27.009
Um, at first it was kind of like, uh, you know, a lot of that's needed before pandemic.
00:08:27.429 --> 00:08:31.690
Um, but it happened at a lot slower pace.
00:08:31.990 --> 00:08:34.899
Um, and when the pandemic happened, it's like, we need this yesterday.
00:08:35.950 --> 00:08:39.639
Um, So that was probably like the, one of the biggest things that I've seen.
00:08:40.330 --> 00:08:44.529
Um, the other one's probably, um, uh, there's a lot.
00:08:44.620 --> 00:08:46.690
I mean, of course the biggest impact also is.
00:08:47.725 --> 00:08:53.934
Kinda like how we market, um, you know, without events, without seeing people in person what do you do?
00:08:53.934 --> 00:08:54.355
Right.
00:08:55.014 --> 00:08:59.245
Um, so there's a big shift on going digital.
00:08:59.454 --> 00:09:06.084
Um, and I saw a huge increase in, uh, like our, you know, our tech budget for advertising.
00:09:06.084 --> 00:09:08.245
And also I couldn could do that better.
00:09:08.694 --> 00:09:13.674
Um, you know, can we add ABM to our portfolio?
00:09:13.824 --> 00:09:14.245
Right.
00:09:14.980 --> 00:09:28.329
um, and you know, uh, an increase of, uh, budget and tech additions as well to help people be more productive, um, and also enable better reporting and automation.
00:09:28.600 --> 00:09:35.019
Um, the last thing is, you know, account accountability was used before, but I feel like it became even bigger.
00:09:35.230 --> 00:09:43.149
Um, during, during, during the pandemic and even up to now, um, like from a high level, there was a lot more focus on budget management and.
00:09:43.990 --> 00:09:50.169
Um, especially there was a, you know, there was a recession, uh, a short recession that happened, um, during COVID.
00:09:50.889 --> 00:09:53.860
Um, so there's a lot more eyes on that.
00:09:53.860 --> 00:09:59.019
And on a macro level, there's a bigger need for, uh, cross-functional alignment.
00:09:59.679 --> 00:10:09.079
Um, and again, a streamline way to really just transfer information in, in a distributed environment, um, and being able to make quick shifts in strategy.
00:10:09.924 --> 00:10:15.235
Um, in, in, you know, in, in a new, in a new kind of, uh, in new kind of business world, right?
00:10:21.985 --> 00:10:22.284
Yeah.
00:10:22.289 --> 00:10:27.355
So, um, I'm glad you kind of broke that last bit down.
00:10:27.355 --> 00:10:36.115
I was trying to, I, I was gonna ask some questions about that, what you meant by that, but, um, so one, so let's go a little level, another level deeper here.
00:10:36.324 --> 00:10:39.054
So one of the things you talked about just then.
00:10:39.939 --> 00:10:49.029
I, I think you kind of alluded to it is that, um, you know, prioritization mm-hmm is becoming more important, right.
00:10:49.120 --> 00:10:50.980
Um, through, through this.
00:10:50.985 --> 00:10:52.000
So for, for mob.
00:10:52.004 --> 00:10:56.049
So when you say that, like, are you talking about what projects do we do?
00:10:56.054 --> 00:10:59.649
Is it prioritization of, you know, campaign activities and support?
00:10:59.649 --> 00:11:01.089
Is it is a little bit of both.
00:11:01.089 --> 00:11:03.259
Like, how are you, like when you say that, what are you thinking.
00:11:04.554 --> 00:11:16.495
Yeah, I think what really changed with us here at observe, uh, here at my current role is, uh, you know, focus on, um, uh, focus and prioritization on, um, one key segments that we target, right?
00:11:16.735 --> 00:11:22.824
Where do we wanna spend our time on, um, both on sales and on the marketing side, um, our time and money.
00:11:23.514 --> 00:11:27.834
So there's, there's constant iteration of our ICP and more regular reporting.
00:11:28.899 --> 00:11:33.039
um, and our core focus of our personas that we wanna, that we, that we sell to.
00:11:33.220 --> 00:11:33.490
Right.
00:11:33.490 --> 00:11:34.449
And spend time on.
00:11:35.230 --> 00:11:37.689
Um, so that was, uh, that was huge.
00:11:37.689 --> 00:11:39.730
I started doing that every quarter.
00:11:39.939 --> 00:11:47.829
Um, and you know, maybe, maybe, maybe like the first quarter, you don't see a lot of shifts, right.
00:11:47.829 --> 00:11:54.279
But three quarters down the line or four quarters down the line, as he release more features, more enterprise level.
00:11:54.759 --> 00:12:03.879
Um, capabilities, uh, as far as seeing more of those, you start seeing a gradual, um, shift in, in your audience and who you're targeting.
00:12:04.389 --> 00:12:09.939
So there's a lot of like, um, constant iteration of that to make sure we stay focused.
00:12:09.944 --> 00:12:15.490
And we, we, we keep evolving our sales and marketing emotions to, to where our market's going.
00:12:18.850 --> 00:12:25.509
Let's um, so observes, you guys have been around for the, the organization itself has been around for a little while.
00:12:25.509 --> 00:12:27.220
I was just trying to do some quick Googling.
00:12:27.220 --> 00:12:28.629
It looks like funding wise.
00:12:28.629 --> 00:12:30.699
It's been established for, for quite a bit.
00:12:30.699 --> 00:12:33.819
There's been, uh, I think it looks like an acquisition.
00:12:33.819 --> 00:12:45.039
How big is your, how big is your team, uh, that you have that you're sort of working amongst, across marketing, you know, and then I guess specifically, are there more than just one of you on the marketing op team?
00:12:46.554 --> 00:12:51.204
Uh, so, so the marketing team, the marketing team is, uh, about like 15 people right now.
00:12:51.204 --> 00:12:51.235
Okay.
00:12:51.924 --> 00:12:53.334
Uh, we have a couple of roles open.
00:12:53.334 --> 00:12:59.889
So if anyone's, uh, you know, if anyone's looking for a new role or a new job, You know, you've been, uh, affected by the layoffs.
00:12:59.889 --> 00:13:01.120
Um, come to our website.
00:13:01.179 --> 00:13:02.679
We have a lot of roles open everywhere.
00:13:02.829 --> 00:13:04.679
Um, I love that plug,
00:13:05.709 --> 00:13:06.759
plug it, plug it, plug it.
00:13:06.850 --> 00:13:09.970
Are, are they listed on marketing ops.com though?
00:13:09.970 --> 00:13:11.720
That's what I wanna, they should be
00:13:13.569 --> 00:13:16.600
don't roll open.
00:13:16.600 --> 00:13:19.329
I might open number roll zoom, hopefully to kind of help me out.
00:13:19.329 --> 00:13:20.620
Cause I'm only a one man team, right?
00:13:21.564 --> 00:13:23.634
um, but we have 15 people in marketing.
00:13:23.634 --> 00:13:28.554
We have three, um, designers that we work with, um, you know, on a day to day basis in India.
00:13:29.424 --> 00:13:30.894
Um, and across the board.
00:13:30.924 --> 00:13:30.985
Okay.
00:13:30.985 --> 00:13:35.154
We have, uh, two 50 plus employees, um, across the, okay.
00:13:35.514 --> 00:13:35.725
Yeah.
00:13:35.725 --> 00:13:38.725
Um, so sizable organization, you have to support.
00:13:39.144 --> 00:13:39.324
Yeah.
00:13:39.384 --> 00:13:43.764
And we're distributed, um, workforce, um, we're primarily remote at.
00:13:45.970 --> 00:13:46.389
Okay.
00:13:46.480 --> 00:13:46.870
Cool.
00:13:46.929 --> 00:14:03.534
And then, um, when you're talking about sort of these, you know, the way you're prioritizing projects and you're, you're shifting ICP, ideal customer profile for, for anybody that didn't know that acronym, um, You know, is that coming top down?
00:14:03.625 --> 00:14:19.225
Uh, so far as you can tell, like, is it, is it almost like OKRs that are set at the top level of the organization and then trickle down to, to your team and, and then you're making decisions on how the go to market motion might change and then, sorry for adding sort of a layered question here.
00:14:19.375 --> 00:14:28.975
Uh, but as it's being, you know, uh, consumed and you're deciding on what that prioritization is, uh, for how long are you focused on that?
00:14:30.699 --> 00:14:32.259
Is it a month or is it a quarter?
00:14:32.439 --> 00:14:33.549
How long do you guys usually go?
00:14:34.269 --> 00:14:35.289
Yeah, it's a great question.
00:14:35.319 --> 00:14:38.860
Um, so I was the first marketing op IHA hire in here.
00:14:38.949 --> 00:14:42.850
And, uh, I started as IP exercise last year.
00:14:42.939 --> 00:14:49.000
Um, there wasn't really an ask for it, but I did notice that we need some focus on where we're, we're putting our efforts.
00:14:49.539 --> 00:14:54.879
Um, so I ran the first exercise around last summer and I started doing worldly after that.
00:14:55.554 --> 00:14:57.504
Um, now it became a real thing that we do.
00:14:57.745 --> 00:15:01.074
Um, and I'm currently trying to do this on the renewal side.
00:15:01.735 --> 00:15:03.804
Um, you know, the acquisition is one thing, right?
00:15:03.804 --> 00:15:14.154
It's like, what's your ideal customer profile from an acquisition standpoint, but we need to look at, who's actually renewing with us and who is, um, what companies are we expanding our footprint in?
00:15:14.995 --> 00:15:22.404
Um, so just that's the current exercise that I'm trying to evolve this ICP exercise into, um, and.
00:15:23.754 --> 00:15:24.654
What was the next question?
00:15:25.674 --> 00:15:26.125
sorry.
00:15:26.125 --> 00:15:27.054
Yeah, it was layered.
00:15:27.054 --> 00:15:27.865
And I apologize.
00:15:27.914 --> 00:15:33.204
So, so to reiterate, uh, so it sounds like you, you initiated the ICP discovery, which is great.
00:15:33.264 --> 00:15:46.105
Uh, and so sort of focus, uh, which for all of our listeners out there, like just goes to show you, you know, someone in a marketing ops role can really establish a norm that has, um, incredible value to the organization.
00:15:46.105 --> 00:15:46.495
And if.
00:15:46.949 --> 00:15:50.100
If you're not organized in that way, hopefully you find a different way to do it.
00:15:50.100 --> 00:15:51.149
So ICP is one of them.
00:15:51.870 --> 00:16:04.549
Uh, and then the, the second part, uh, RJ that I was asking is how long are you focused on the ICP, uh, before you sort of do any type of reallocation of funding and, and maybe target messaging and all that stuff.
00:16:05.860 --> 00:16:06.220
Yeah.
00:16:06.220 --> 00:16:13.120
Um, so it, so it depends, it depends on when we see a shift in, um, you know, in, in that core ICP.
00:16:13.120 --> 00:16:13.329
Right.
00:16:13.334 --> 00:16:14.649
So that's why we do it every quarter.
00:16:15.220 --> 00:16:20.350
Um, we didn't really see a big shift until, um, until recently to be honest, I've been running this for a year.
00:16:20.949 --> 00:16:27.220
Um, but you know, for the, for the past year, we haven't really released that many features.
00:16:27.339 --> 00:16:31.000
Um, but this year we have, we released a couple of enterprise features.
00:16:31.449 --> 00:16:34.299
Um, and you know, everyone's, you know, if you're.
00:16:34.870 --> 00:16:40.089
If you're a fast growing company, your, you know, your goal is to try to move up market.
00:16:40.089 --> 00:16:40.389
Right.
00:16:40.389 --> 00:16:44.829
So we're trying to see if we can find trends that, um, prove that we are moving there.
00:16:45.429 --> 00:16:48.339
Um, and there's some evidence that we are.
00:16:50.004 --> 00:16:57.084
We might not be quite at the enterprise level yet, but we are moving at the, at the higher end of the midmarket as we define it here.
00:16:57.894 --> 00:17:06.295
Um, so that's when we started shifting our strategy from like the smaller end of the midmarket to the higher end of the midmarket as it is today.
00:17:06.880 --> 00:17:08.410
And that we're focusing on, right?
00:17:08.410 --> 00:17:12.610
We're not, we might not be focusing more on the, on the billion dollar companies just yet.
00:17:13.299 --> 00:17:22.420
Um, but you know, we, we've seen an evolution that we are moving up market from the smaller SMBs, um, to the higher end of that bid market.
00:17:22.930 --> 00:17:26.829
Um, so now we're, now we're spending more money on that more time.
00:17:27.339 --> 00:17:30.940
Um, we've also defined the key industries, what will win the most.
00:17:31.884 --> 00:17:38.514
um, with deals that move the, with deals that move fastest for us with the highest velocity.
00:17:39.325 --> 00:17:42.984
Um, and we're focusing on those, uh, five key industries.
00:17:43.539 --> 00:17:49.329
As part of that I ICP today, you don't have to, to mid market.
00:17:49.329 --> 00:17:49.599
Right.
00:17:49.809 --> 00:17:51.339
And then just the higher end, the mid market.
00:17:51.339 --> 00:17:52.690
So that's kind of like how it's evolved.
00:17:53.529 --> 00:17:55.059
That's that's awesome.
00:17:55.119 --> 00:18:12.279
Uh, you don't have to reveal any secrets of who your, uh, target target audience is by any stretch, but I am curious, and I, and I know a consistent theme in the community is, is the how's the cookie made Uh, and so if you could unpack a little bit about maybe.
00:18:12.930 --> 00:18:25.139
You know, the tooling that you have in place to be able to understand the deal velocity and how you came about figuring out which, which industries are good or potentially better.
00:18:25.680 --> 00:18:33.899
Um, maybe just share a little bit about like the, the tech stack and the process and programs you do to analyze that information and, and the people you work.
00:18:34.809 --> 00:18:44.740
If it's not just tech, but also people, uh, that's really helpful for folks to try to figure out like how they shape their career and then maybe how to go answer some of those really challenging questions inside their org too.
00:18:46.000 --> 00:18:46.809
Yeah, absolutely.
00:18:46.839 --> 00:18:53.619
Um, uh, I work super, super closely with, uh, our sales ops, uh, sales op leader.
00:18:54.399 --> 00:18:59.319
Um, and we, we, we pretty much built this tech stack together, um, in close alignment.
00:18:59.769 --> 00:19:02.619
Um, we have Salesforce, we have HubSpot, right?
00:19:03.639 --> 00:19:12.519
um, as our marketing automation tool, um, and to, to run this ICP, we also, uh, acquired, um, zoom info, right.
00:19:12.579 --> 00:19:20.259
That will kind of help us measure our Tam, um, to help us look at, look at how many companies are in our space, um, that are in our target markets.
00:19:20.920 --> 00:19:24.519
Um, and then analyze kind of like our deal size or deal velocity and all.
00:19:25.464 --> 00:19:31.704
um, so with analyzing this, this ICP, there's a lot of data work that had to be involved, right?
00:19:31.825 --> 00:19:33.144
Because this involves personas.
00:19:33.144 --> 00:19:40.164
This involves, um, um, revenue sizes, this involves, um, industries.
00:19:40.164 --> 00:19:45.555
So this involves like data from all different objects in Salesforce, and there's a lot of work to do.
00:19:46.345 --> 00:19:50.964
Um, and in order to report on this, you have to standardize your data and clean it, right?
00:19:50.964 --> 00:19:56.694
You can't have like a hundred different, uh, a hundred different iterations of retail.
00:19:57.805 --> 00:20:01.914
um, it's impossible to be able to report on it that way.
00:20:01.920 --> 00:20:14.105
So we had to create a higher level that, you know, categorize the, these, um, these industries into a higher level of industry that we can report on, um, to maybe like, you know, like 25 to 30 different values.
00:20:15.234 --> 00:20:31.375
Um, and a lot of those live in, uh, those, those rules live in zoom info, actually, you know, as you, as you, uh, enrich your leads, your accounts, um, you can have, um, automated settings on zoom info.
00:20:31.884 --> 00:20:34.615
Like if they belong in this industry, make just a value.
00:20:34.615 --> 00:20:34.884
Right.
00:20:34.884 --> 00:20:37.914
So, uh, it's pretty easy to, to do there.
00:20:38.154 --> 00:20:46.524
Um, whereas thinking at the data goes, um, and then from there it's really just like reporting in Salesforce, on the opportunity data, right?
00:20:46.524 --> 00:20:49.944
Like how fast we move to conversion.
00:20:50.335 --> 00:20:59.514
Um, and from conversion, how fast does that lead move or that, that opportunity go to, uh, to stage two stage three.
00:21:00.069 --> 00:21:03.759
Um, all the way to, um, pose loss or close one, right?
00:21:03.789 --> 00:21:05.379
How fast did those deals move?
00:21:06.099 --> 00:21:13.240
Um, and we created a dashboard for this to kind of show this through the whole org too.
00:21:13.420 --> 00:21:22.539
Um, it shows like lead to, um, lead to MQL conversion, um, lead to SA Sal is pretty much a meeting for us.
00:21:22.960 --> 00:21:25.920
Uh, SQL conversion, all way, got into opportunity conversion.
00:21:26.710 --> 00:21:31.869
Um, so now we can kind of see like that high level conversion for everything.
00:21:32.109 --> 00:21:38.950
And then we just break it down by like different industries and different types of personas that are converting, um, in a standardized way.
00:21:39.579 --> 00:21:45.670
Uh, for personas, we have to standardize, um, uh, the different departments and functions that we target.
00:21:45.670 --> 00:21:51.069
Um, and also the different title levels, like manager level, director level C level.
00:21:51.714 --> 00:22:04.194
Um, and who's really converting and what the roles are and opportunity like who's the economic, who's the economic buyer, um, who is the decision maker, um, in the opportunity as defined by sales.
00:22:04.944 --> 00:22:10.855
Um, we also created a, um, a custom object of Salesforce called, um, gaps.
00:22:10.944 --> 00:22:17.875
So, um, these are pretty much, pretty much, um, product gaps that, um, our customers and prospects.
00:22:19.075 --> 00:22:23.664
um, to be blockers for, um, uh, blockers for the product.
00:22:23.724 --> 00:22:24.024
Right?
00:22:24.535 --> 00:22:25.345
Ooh, I like that idea.
00:22:25.734 --> 00:22:27.384
That is, that is awesome.
00:22:27.384 --> 00:22:28.375
That's really interesting.
00:22:28.674 --> 00:22:28.884
Yeah.
00:22:29.004 --> 00:22:35.785
And, and cause of this, um, I was able to actually like use this data to influence some road decisions.
00:22:36.355 --> 00:22:47.394
Um, because if you over list, if you overlays this data to the current opportunity data that we have, um, and see the gaps in it and break it down by mid-market SMB is an enter.
00:22:48.295 --> 00:22:51.835
Um, each segment has different gaps, right?
00:22:52.585 --> 00:22:55.795
Um, so you can see like all the gaps reported in enterprise.
00:22:55.884 --> 00:23:02.244
So if you wanna move to enterprise segment, if you wanna move up market, um, you said the gaps most reported.
00:23:02.335 --> 00:23:06.595
So these are probably like the gaps of need to cover in our product to be able to move up there.
00:23:07.404 --> 00:23:12.654
Um, so we built, we built a pretty, a pretty good tech stack here that identifies a lot of that.
00:23:12.654 --> 00:23:14.154
So I'm pretty proud of what we've done in the.
00:23:15.819 --> 00:23:15.970
Yeah.
00:23:16.029 --> 00:23:25.809
So this is, I mean, that, that last bit about like taking that gap data and feeding it back to product is I think that's phenomenal.
00:23:25.809 --> 00:23:25.990
So I.
00:23:26.845 --> 00:23:27.325
Right there.
00:23:27.325 --> 00:23:31.404
There's like the gym for all of our listeners to take back if they're in that kind of company.
00:23:31.914 --> 00:23:34.494
Um, so one of the things that is coming through there, right?
00:23:34.524 --> 00:23:49.764
The tech stack, when you talked about this tech stack, every, just about everything you talked about had to do with, you know, data, whether it's enrichment quality, completeness, or reporting and analytics, you didn't really talk about like, how are we using this to go to market, right.
00:23:49.795 --> 00:23:51.954
Whether go to market motions and how so.
00:23:52.315 --> 00:23:54.924
Yeah, I know you and I talked about this a little bit, uh, when we were.
00:23:55.904 --> 00:24:09.254
Prepping for this that you talked about, like, there's this, you seeing a shift of more need to focus on data in gen I'll generalize at that versus like, I think we, we said sort of campaign support or campaign operations.
00:24:09.254 --> 00:24:14.024
If we wanted to use the four pillars kinda model, but you know, is, is this exactly what you're talking about?
00:24:14.055 --> 00:24:18.315
Like, are you, are you spending more time doing analysis and deep understanding?
00:24:18.894 --> 00:24:22.285
Although quickly, because like you talked about speed is an important thing.
00:24:22.285 --> 00:24:31.404
That's come out of the pandemic, but then are you then able to then do maybe fewer things or maybe more targeted things?
00:24:31.404 --> 00:24:46.375
Like how, how has that affected the, that side of the business and is that, um, second part of that is how much of that is you supporting that and doing the heavy lifting of whether it's building out emails or campaigns or whatever, or you do you partner with other parts of the marketing team to.
00:24:48.355 --> 00:24:50.815
Definitely partnering with other parts of marketing team.
00:24:50.815 --> 00:24:59.424
A lot of this is enablement, uh, for me able, for me to be able to spend time on, on these strategic initiatives, like, you know, you can't be doing everything right?
00:24:59.424 --> 00:25:00.474
Like it's impossible.
00:25:01.224 --> 00:25:02.694
especially if there's only one of you.
00:25:02.904 --> 00:25:31.375
Um, so a lot of comes to this to make sure that the team is trained, um, to use the tools that you have, um, that they understand, um, What's going into the data that we're presenting, um, and what they mean, and also making sure, making sure that there's some sort of like approval processes in place, um, to make sure no, one's like going off the rails and, you know, sending emails without approvals.
00:25:32.095 --> 00:25:32.634
Um,
00:25:32.639 --> 00:25:35.785
sometimes can I, can I ask you, can I, can I ask a question about that?
00:25:35.785 --> 00:25:38.664
Cuz this is something that I've struggled with.
00:25:40.045 --> 00:25:44.004
um, how rigid to make those kinds of approval processes.
00:25:45.355 --> 00:25:47.724
Um, in D in different kinds of organizations.
00:25:47.724 --> 00:25:57.355
So are you, you know, do you have a ver like a really rigid one that says you can't deploy something until it's approved by a certain person or two?
00:25:57.714 --> 00:26:06.805
Or do you say you can't deploy until you either get approval or an SLA has expired and you can, you basically, like whoever was supposed to approve it, didn't do it in time.
00:26:06.805 --> 00:26:08.214
So you're gonna go, go forward.
00:26:08.605 --> 00:26:09.595
How are you handling that?
00:26:09.954 --> 00:26:14.315
Or are you doing like, is it very specific about what they look for or are they looking like, is it.
00:26:14.980 --> 00:26:16.389
I'll call it principal based.
00:26:16.389 --> 00:26:16.779
Right.
00:26:17.170 --> 00:26:21.549
Um, I go into a whole nother analogy about soccer versus football, but I won't.
00:26:21.940 --> 00:26:33.069
Um, but, um, just curious about that, cuz I think that's, I know from my standpoint, that's a struggle I've had is like to what degree do you sort of force a approval process?
00:26:33.700 --> 00:26:34.569
Cause I've always.
00:26:35.184 --> 00:26:39.234
What I keep finding on that is that slow again, going to the speed thing, right?
00:26:39.384 --> 00:26:45.504
The more of that you have the slower you are able to move and that's, I think that would be my fear.
00:26:47.095 --> 00:26:47.244
Yeah.
00:26:47.305 --> 00:26:48.654
Trying to find a good balance of it.
00:26:48.744 --> 00:26:52.825
So it's, uh, it's not a SU it's not a rigid process at all.
00:26:52.829 --> 00:26:53.095
Really.
00:26:53.095 --> 00:27:02.274
It's just about permissions that people have in, um, in, in our marketing automation platform, like people have, um, you know, edit rights to emails to be able to create those.
00:27:03.220 --> 00:27:05.259
um, but people don't have send rights.
00:27:05.259 --> 00:27:22.180
So in, you know, before sending those emails, they have to, you know, log it to me on monday.com, which is what we use right now for a pro project management tool, uh, for me to check the email, um, to make sure that the list is right, the links work, um, tests have been sent.
00:27:22.750 --> 00:27:24.910
Um, and then from there, you know, I can say, yep.
00:27:25.210 --> 00:27:29.230
Um, you know, I'll go ahead and press that tomorrow morning or I'll schedule it at eight o'clock.
00:27:29.769 --> 00:27:32.259
Um, so, so people don't have.
00:27:32.950 --> 00:27:39.160
those rights to, you know, really mess anything up um, that you can't fix.
00:27:39.849 --> 00:27:42.460
Um, so we try to create a process that's process.
00:27:42.464 --> 00:27:55.869
That's making it, you know, that, that makes it easy for everyone to do their jobs go faster, but at the same time, um, uh, mitigating, mitigating some of the risks that might come from giving somebody too much permission, right.
00:27:56.019 --> 00:27:57.430
Or too much control into something.
00:27:57.430 --> 00:27:57.849
Sure.
00:27:59.470 --> 00:27:59.710
Right.
00:27:59.710 --> 00:28:00.970
So I have, I have a follow up question.
00:28:00.970 --> 00:28:03.069
This is maybe HubSpot specific.
00:28:03.069 --> 00:28:07.029
So I'm gonna have to lean on you, both of you two, cuz I don't have the HubSpot experience.
00:28:07.059 --> 00:28:07.899
Mike knows this.
00:28:08.680 --> 00:28:12.599
Um, so, uh, my, one of the things.
00:28:13.509 --> 00:28:15.910
Again, going to like review and approval, right.
00:28:16.359 --> 00:28:27.519
Uh, what I've been trying to push people to in my last few stops is that, you know, we need to sort of prioritize the level of scrutiny we put things through before we go live with them, if you will.
00:28:28.059 --> 00:28:33.920
Um, and part of that thought process is, you know, what can be changed after we quote, go live?
00:28:33.920 --> 00:28:34.160
Right?
00:28:34.164 --> 00:28:36.730
And you know, the only one that really.
00:28:37.315 --> 00:28:39.234
You can't get back as email.
00:28:39.474 --> 00:28:39.684
Right.
00:28:39.774 --> 00:28:47.214
But everything else, like if it's a webpage update or a display ad or search ads, things like that, I think you've got more opportunities to do that.
00:28:47.845 --> 00:28:53.305
Um, so do, are you, are you managing that?
00:28:53.365 --> 00:29:02.724
Do you have that same kind of process that you enable through HubSpot and roles and you know, his stuff for different kinds of tactics?
00:29:03.700 --> 00:29:04.690
Not even know if it's possible.
00:29:04.690 --> 00:29:06.970
So if I'm way off here on HubSpot, let me know.
00:29:07.420 --> 00:29:07.569
Yeah.
00:29:07.569 --> 00:29:08.349
Yeah, absolutely.
00:29:08.349 --> 00:29:10.329
So, uh, you, you touched up on it, right?
00:29:10.329 --> 00:29:17.500
So, um, the, the things that you can't get back, like emails, definitely, definitely, uh, be a little bit more strict on that.
00:29:18.129 --> 00:29:20.649
Um, but for webpages, we do keep those open.
00:29:20.740 --> 00:29:29.649
Uh, we have a pretty, um, uh, a pretty big, not a pretty big, not really that big of a team, but we have a pretty solid team of, uh, of web designers.
00:29:30.684 --> 00:29:39.204
Um, that know their way around HubSpot, you know, obviously like super knowledgeable about, um, formatting webpages and landing pages.
00:29:39.714 --> 00:29:48.504
So they, they get permissions to, they have permissions to edit those webpages as long as they, you know, um, for as much as they can.
00:29:49.224 --> 00:29:54.144
Um, and they also have, uh, published rights for those pages as.
00:29:55.059 --> 00:30:00.549
Um, but we do have some steps in place to make sure, like, you know, there's QA in place, right?
00:30:00.549 --> 00:30:04.180
Like, um, let's say we're doing a launch for example.
00:30:04.720 --> 00:30:07.210
Um, and we're creating a bunch of landing pages for it.
00:30:07.809 --> 00:30:20.440
Um, you know, this has to go through, um, QA from, you know, from the content owner who gets the final say on whether the fi the content's final enough to be published, um, or not.
00:30:20.619 --> 00:30:20.889
Right.
00:30:21.549 --> 00:30:32.589
Um, so at the end of the day, um, We have people calling shots on, um, whether it's finalized, um, or not for them to be able to publish it.
00:30:32.920 --> 00:30:44.230
But we, we, you know, as far as like gating, who can, who can, you know, click, publish and not click on publish, um, we didn't go that far.
00:30:45.670 --> 00:30:45.970
Got it.
00:30:46.420 --> 00:30:49.119
My curious, so what, what has your experience been with that?
00:30:49.599 --> 00:30:53.079
Like, I guess mainly with HubSpot, but in general as well.
00:30:54.369 --> 00:30:55.569
Yeah, the,
00:30:56.079 --> 00:31:16.240
um, so HubSpot, depending on what part of HubSpot you're talking about, the permissioning is pretty robust, like from a user provisioning permissioning perspective, you can get pretty granular on read, write, and, uh, different objects that they have access to, um, being able to create, but not publish pages is certainly a thing.
00:31:17.240 --> 00:31:25.464
Um, you know, as it relates to some of my brief time in the Marketo instance, The whole, you know, approve a draft type of functionality.
00:31:25.464 --> 00:31:28.434
I know is limited probably to certain roles or functions.
00:31:29.559 --> 00:31:31.750
And permissions for Marketo users.
00:31:32.200 --> 00:31:35.259
Um, that concept doesn't really exist.
00:31:35.259 --> 00:31:45.460
Like there isn't a sense of approve and publish, um, kind of step in the process, uh, unless you're sort of looking at.
00:31:46.085 --> 00:31:53.884
Like the HubSpot CFS, where they actually have a staging environment where you can go from staging to production and kind of go through that flow.
00:31:54.305 --> 00:31:58.595
But on the landing page side, it doesn't really follow the same, the same mechanics.
00:31:58.654 --> 00:32:07.565
Um, and certainly not on things like a workflow, which in Marketo, you know, your entire program is pretty much a workflow.
00:32:07.565 --> 00:32:11.524
So, um, there's also sort of that missing element of.
00:32:12.524 --> 00:32:17.595
Rigor around, you know, who should have the right to approve this thing and, and set it out the door.
00:32:17.894 --> 00:32:24.464
You can, however, at least limit who can hit publish, and then sort of build in those manual processes.
00:32:24.464 --> 00:32:27.315
It sounds like RJ did on the HubSpot side.
00:32:27.319 --> 00:32:33.375
So there's, there's definitely some limitations, but also, um, enough there that you can have control.
00:32:33.404 --> 00:32:33.795
I think.
00:32:36.204 --> 00:32:36.595
Right.
00:32:36.954 --> 00:32:38.305
Sorry for grilling everybody.
00:32:38.305 --> 00:32:44.335
I was just like that, that that's like, that's an area where I think we all, um, every, every place I've ever been has struggled with.
00:32:45.085 --> 00:32:45.355
Yeah.
00:32:45.355 --> 00:32:46.644
How much review,
00:32:47.454 --> 00:32:55.884
there's always a balance of like, How much do you wanna, how strict do you wanna be with these rules versus how fast do you wanna, you want the team to move, right.
00:32:56.004 --> 00:33:08.244
And you know, when you're in startup where you have, everything's kind of like a fire drill um, you, you, you have to keep it open with some sort of controls.
00:33:10.345 --> 00:33:10.944
Yeah.
00:33:10.944 --> 00:33:25.315
And I, you know, oftentimes in the startup environment, um, just speaking from my own experience, uh, there were so many occasions in which an email would hit my desk ready for, you know, quote unquote, ready for deployment.
00:33:25.315 --> 00:33:27.535
And I read through the copy and the content.
00:33:27.535 --> 00:33:31.164
And I was like, I, I don't think this is what you wanna put out into the world.
00:33:31.164 --> 00:33:33.144
Like, I don't think anybody actually read this thing.
00:33:33.865 --> 00:33:36.984
Uh, not at least for the audience you told me I'm supposed to send it to.
00:33:36.984 --> 00:33:37.644
And so.
00:33:38.154 --> 00:33:43.914
Those provisionary steps that need to be there, uh, are really difficult to manage.
00:33:43.914 --> 00:33:44.154
Right.
00:33:44.154 --> 00:33:48.954
So it's, it's even before it gets built and deployed, like, is this the right message?
00:33:49.045 --> 00:33:58.615
And that fundamentally is one of the things that like I struggled with in marketing operations was like removing myself from being this like.
00:33:59.889 --> 00:34:03.519
I don't know, copyright reviewer or what, what have you, right.
00:34:03.519 --> 00:34:11.710
Like, I shouldn't be implementing, you know, the, the content and reading it and going, oh God, like, what's wrong with this.
00:34:12.010 --> 00:34:12.400
Right.
00:34:12.430 --> 00:34:14.260
Uh, it, it's just not your role.
00:34:14.260 --> 00:34:14.619
Right.
00:34:14.619 --> 00:34:15.940
It shouldn't be your role.
00:34:16.240 --> 00:34:16.510
It.
00:34:17.095 --> 00:34:17.875
To that end.
00:34:17.965 --> 00:34:23.215
If you see something, say something folks, like if you, if you think that maybe there's a problem, at least voice it.
00:34:23.244 --> 00:34:23.575
Yeah.
00:34:23.875 --> 00:34:25.825
But I, I was, I was just gonna say, right.
00:34:25.885 --> 00:34:26.305
Yeah.
00:34:26.305 --> 00:34:29.394
It shouldn't be your role, but also you shouldn't totally abdicate.
00:34:29.454 --> 00:34:29.994
Yes.
00:34:29.994 --> 00:34:31.915
Don't some amount of responsibility.
00:34:31.975 --> 00:34:32.275
Yeah.
00:34:32.335 --> 00:34:40.045
Do you take responsibility for it, but it is such a, it's such a struggle, which is, you know, reinforcing the importance of some of the work we're doing in the community.
00:34:40.045 --> 00:34:44.394
And the reason why we do these interviews with folks like you, RJ, is to try to understand.
00:34:44.830 --> 00:34:47.740
What is the function of your role and what should you be working on?
00:34:47.740 --> 00:34:50.260
And, you know, reviewing content and copy.
00:34:50.260 --> 00:34:54.700
And the messaging strategy for an audience is certainly not one of them, but if you see something say something
00:34:56.440 --> 00:34:58.510
yeah, I think, but you just brought up two different things, right?
00:34:58.510 --> 00:34:59.769
Like reviewing copy.
00:34:59.800 --> 00:35:02.769
If you're in the middle of building something is like, it, it.
00:35:04.180 --> 00:35:12.130
unless you're so like, if, unless you've got so much volume and stuff going through that you just literally can't spend the time to scan through an email content.
00:35:12.820 --> 00:35:16.660
Um, or then yeah, I mean, I like it shouldn't be a top priority.
00:35:17.485 --> 00:35:18.445
Messaging strategy.
00:35:18.445 --> 00:35:19.825
That's a whole nother thing to me.
00:35:19.825 --> 00:35:20.005
Right.
00:35:20.005 --> 00:35:30.385
I think that, to me, that's like clearly shouldn't fall into marketing ops in sort of what I think of its core function of it's marketing ops say demand gen, right?
00:35:30.385 --> 00:35:31.495
I think totally
00:35:31.705 --> 00:35:31.915
game.
00:35:31.915 --> 00:35:32.305
Totally.
00:35:32.305 --> 00:35:40.045
But I will also make the argument that if it's at the stage of build, right, like it is ready for build, that means it's ready for.
00:35:40.975 --> 00:35:44.245
It is not there shouldn't be copy, review happening anymore.
00:35:44.305 --> 00:35:46.465
Like we've hopefully gone through enough cycles.
00:35:46.915 --> 00:35:47.095
yeah.
00:35:47.095 --> 00:35:50.125
I mean, that's, that's one thing I also struggle with all the time.
00:35:50.125 --> 00:35:50.394
Right.
00:35:50.394 --> 00:35:56.005
Whenever we launch a campaign, it's like, we shouldn't be changing content the day before we go live with something.
00:35:56.215 --> 00:35:57.085
Um, so,
00:35:58.675 --> 00:36:00.265
but it sounds like we all face
00:36:00.265 --> 00:36:01.195
the same problem.
00:36:01.855 --> 00:36:03.445
so we're all at the same boat folks.
00:36:03.925 --> 00:36:07.855
well, yeah, like, so this is like, this is again, another sort of.
00:36:08.650 --> 00:36:18.340
This hits me hard because I think every several places I've been is you think, you know, who's got the final approval until, you know, it's about to deploy.
00:36:18.340 --> 00:36:26.860
And then someone with a certain title thinks that they have to review it and that their input is absolutely required.
00:36:27.460 --> 00:36:31.165
Um, It can even be good input, right?
00:36:31.585 --> 00:36:31.735
Sure.
00:36:31.735 --> 00:36:33.955
But it's, it's at the wrong point.
00:36:34.735 --> 00:36:39.505
Um, the other, like I was simply like, we needed clear clarity on whose approval.
00:36:39.505 --> 00:36:45.685
Ideally it's a single person mm-hmm and everybody else gets input, but it's input, not veto power.
00:36:46.015 --> 00:36:57.415
And I see too many places where input is considered absolute regardless of where it comes from and, and that somebody, anybody virtually, anybody can say.
00:36:58.285 --> 00:37:01.644
We're just not getting, and those things do two things.
00:37:01.644 --> 00:37:06.745
One, they get you into sort of the cycle of slowing things down, especially, and it's usually towards the end, right.
00:37:06.745 --> 00:37:07.555
When that comes up.
00:37:08.185 --> 00:37:16.945
And then they also, what, what I found is it's, it's like, um, I used this term earlier this week with somebody is like, it, it becomes.
00:37:17.515 --> 00:37:20.545
You know, the Frankenstein bit of content, right?
00:37:20.545 --> 00:37:25.015
So someone's like, like they're not thinking, looking at necessarily all the way through.
00:37:25.015 --> 00:37:33.144
They're like, oh, I need to, I need to fix this little, like portion of one sentence in the copy, but then it makes the whole flow of it change.
00:37:33.175 --> 00:37:33.505
Right.
00:37:33.535 --> 00:37:36.115
They don't actually like, they don't sit, stop and go.
00:37:36.144 --> 00:37:37.915
I'm gonna read through this out loud.
00:37:37.915 --> 00:37:39.085
Like, I'm gonna say it out loud.
00:37:39.085 --> 00:37:46.855
Like how, how will this sound to somebody who's reading it if they were actually like, if I was to read, say this out loud to them, would it actually make sense?
00:37:47.545 --> 00:37:51.385
And I think there's a lot of places where I've seen that things fall apart in that
00:37:51.385 --> 00:37:51.595
scenario.
00:37:51.625 --> 00:37:52.915
Mm-hmm yep.
00:37:53.005 --> 00:37:53.275
Yep.
00:37:53.365 --> 00:37:53.875
Me too.
00:37:54.565 --> 00:37:55.225
It's unfortunate.
00:37:55.225 --> 00:37:57.055
Did I say I have a little PTSD from this kinda stuff?
00:37:57.775 --> 00:37:58.975
We all, we all do.
00:38:00.325 --> 00:38:01.435
I'll tell you an example.
00:38:01.435 --> 00:38:05.485
Like we, you know, there was one time when we were doing a launch.
00:38:05.785 --> 00:38:09.505
Um, this is an example for my, for my career.
00:38:09.505 --> 00:38:12.445
Not, you know, not this job specifically or my last one.
00:38:12.955 --> 00:38:29.470
Um, we would do a launch and, um, Like you said a certain person with a certain title comes in, um, on the, on the day before the launch and decides to change up every, the entire copy of the database email announcement that we were about to send in.
00:38:29.470 --> 00:38:31.030
I'm like, this is not supposed to happen.
00:38:31.840 --> 00:38:35.080
Um, this is where a marketing officer really comes in, right.
00:38:35.085 --> 00:38:41.440
To really try to enforce the process and, um, make sure that everybody, uh, you know, abides by it.
00:38:41.830 --> 00:38:43.900
Um, cause we're, we're trying to move fast.
00:38:43.900 --> 00:38:44.920
We're trying to be streamlined.
00:38:44.925 --> 00:38:46.330
We're trying to avoid mistakes.
00:38:47.125 --> 00:38:49.555
um, this is exactly how you make mistakes.
00:38:51.025 --> 00:38:53.575
um, if you keep making last minute changes like this.
00:38:53.875 --> 00:38:54.205
Um,
00:38:54.835 --> 00:38:57.745
so yeah, audios can't see me like vigorously
00:38:59.875 --> 00:39:00.144
by my head.
00:39:01.075 --> 00:39:01.225
Yeah.
00:39:01.225 --> 00:39:02.036
It's like, oh yes, yes, yes.
00:39:02.036 --> 00:39:02.037
Yes.
00:39:04.255 --> 00:39:10.975
Oh, I'm so like, I could probably go on about this and rant about it for a while, but, um, I think it's probably best we'd move on.
00:39:11.322 --> 00:39:13.542
Well, RJ, this has been a great conversation.
00:39:13.622 --> 00:39:15.932
I think our audience will have gotten a lot out of it as well.
00:39:15.961 --> 00:39:22.982
Um, just some of the key things that you talked about and what you've done, and I think, uh, a good inspiration for.
00:39:23.552 --> 00:39:28.352
Especially, what you've done is sort of starting from marketing ops, doing things like ICP definition and all that.
00:39:28.352 --> 00:39:29.042
So I think that's great.
00:39:29.042 --> 00:39:30.692
So thank you for that.
00:39:30.902 --> 00:39:38.162
Great to have you, if, if, if folks wanna kinda keep up with what you're doing or, uh, wanna be in touch with you, what's the best way for them to do that?
00:39:39.422 --> 00:39:44.042
Uh, LinkedIn is gonna be the best way for me to send me, send me a, send me a request.
00:39:44.312 --> 00:39:48.662
Uh, I'll make sure we connect, um, or slack me in the, uh, marketing op slide channel.
00:39:50.492 --> 00:39:50.972
Awesome.
00:39:50.972 --> 00:39:51.632
Fantastic.
00:39:52.352 --> 00:39:53.372
thank you for joining us.
00:39:53.372 --> 00:39:54.332
Really appreciate it.
00:39:54.332 --> 00:40:02.612
And, um, I think, you know, giving people a lens of how to think about marketing apps as you enter an organization, uh, has been really helpful.
00:40:02.612 --> 00:40:03.902
So appreciate your insights.
00:40:05.522 --> 00:40:05.792
Awesome.
00:40:05.822 --> 00:40:06.902
Thank you guys for having me.
00:40:06.961 --> 00:40:07.472
It was fun.
00:40:07.682 --> 00:40:08.042
Absolutely.
00:40:08.972 --> 00:40:15.602
Well, as always, thank you to those of you who are listening and have been supporting our, uh, little project here.
00:40:15.607 --> 00:40:16.682
It's been a lot of fun.
00:40:16.687 --> 00:40:23.642
It always continues to be, we are excited about the additional lineup of guests we have planned, uh, over the next several weeks.
00:40:23.642 --> 00:40:25.052
So watch for that.
00:40:25.652 --> 00:40:27.182
I mentioned summer camp at the beginning.
00:40:27.182 --> 00:40:33.182
So if you haven't, you still think you can fit in summer camp in Seattle, July 11th, Mike, right.
00:40:33.272 --> 00:40:37.742
July 11th through 13th, July 11th through 13th, 2022.
00:40:37.742 --> 00:40:37.802
Yeah.
00:40:37.802 --> 00:40:42.182
So, um, I I'm, I'm gonna say this and I don't know if that's true, but if I.
00:40:43.297 --> 00:40:47.017
Guessing there might still be a few slots open, but I have like maybe
00:40:47.377 --> 00:40:47.917
one
00:40:47.917 --> 00:40:49.237
or two slots open.
00:40:49.237 --> 00:40:49.597
All right.
00:40:49.867 --> 00:40:59.947
So if you're you're hankerin' for an in person experience with the marketing ops professionals, uh, you're probably gonna want to reach out to me ASAP, cuz I got about one room left.
00:40:59.947 --> 00:41:00.336
I think.
00:41:00.997 --> 00:41:01.507
There you go.
00:41:01.567 --> 00:41:01.817
All right.
00:41:02.617 --> 00:41:05.797
So hopefully by the time this gets published, that will still be true.
00:41:05.827 --> 00:41:06.907
If not, sorry.
00:41:06.907 --> 00:41:07.807
You're outta luck.
00:41:08.287 --> 00:41:09.737
Um, Anyway.
00:41:09.737 --> 00:41:14.836
So with that, thank you, everyone continue to send us your feedback, suggestions, uh, and support.
00:41:14.836 --> 00:41:19.487
If you wanna be a guest or, you know, somebody who would be a good guest, let reach out to Mike or Naomi or me.
00:41:19.997 --> 00:41:22.067
And with that, we're a wrap.
00:41:22.637 --> 00:41:23.387
See you next time.
00:41:24.287 --> 00:41:24.617
Bye.
00:00:23.650 --> 00:00:28.870
Welcome to another episode of Ops Cast brought to you by marketing ops.com.
00:00:30.190 --> 00:00:32.079
New home for the, for the MO Pros.
00:00:32.500 --> 00:00:35.890
I'm your host Michael Hartmann joined today by Mike Rizzo.
00:00:35.890 --> 00:00:38.620
Our host Naomi Liu is unavailable today.
00:00:38.625 --> 00:00:40.420
So it's just the two of us.
00:00:40.420 --> 00:00:41.769
So you're gonna have to suffer through that.
00:00:42.549 --> 00:00:43.299
uh, Mike.
00:00:44.215 --> 00:00:45.234
What year is this?
00:00:45.335 --> 00:00:48.534
It is the year of the MO Pro and it's officially a thing.
00:00:48.534 --> 00:00:50.545
Now, marketing ops.com launches.
00:00:50.784 --> 00:00:52.495
We got the Mo pros community.
00:00:52.855 --> 00:00:53.394
This is great.
00:00:53.424 --> 00:00:53.965
I'm excited.
00:00:55.045 --> 00:00:55.284
Yeah.
00:00:55.284 --> 00:01:03.655
And so we're recording this on, um, it's almost the end of June, which means that summer camp is less than two weeks away.
00:01:03.804 --> 00:01:04.605
Yeah, that right?
00:01:04.609 --> 00:01:05.004
Yeah.
00:01:05.395 --> 00:01:05.784
Wow.
00:01:06.474 --> 00:01:06.835
All right.
00:01:06.835 --> 00:01:09.175
So summer camp in Seattle can't wait.
00:01:10.134 --> 00:01:10.734
Awesome stuff.
00:01:10.734 --> 00:01:11.454
That's be fun.
00:01:12.640 --> 00:01:13.780
Let's get into this.
00:01:13.780 --> 00:01:18.969
So today we are gonna be talking about, um, kinda some of the impacts that have happened.
00:01:20.064 --> 00:01:37.284
Through the pandemic and after the pandemic, in terms of not just business in general, but for marketing ops pros, and probably we might touch on re op as well, a little bit, and to help us talk through that today, as we have our guest RJ and, uh, who is currently director of marketing operations@observe.ai.
00:01:37.674 --> 00:01:43.254
Prior to that, RJ worked in multiple roles in marketing ops, marketing strategy, demand, gen general marketing.
00:01:43.495 --> 00:01:45.894
He's kind of done a little bit of everything in those areas.
00:01:45.984 --> 00:01:47.394
RJ, thanks for joining us today.
00:01:48.849 --> 00:01:49.570
Hey, Michael Mike.
00:01:50.710 --> 00:01:51.040
Great.
00:01:52.239 --> 00:01:52.420
Happy.
00:01:54.609 --> 00:01:55.269
I'm excited.
00:01:55.269 --> 00:02:00.531
So, um, I, I just joined GoPro maybe a couple of months ago.
00:02:00.594 --> 00:02:04.825
A lot of great knowledge from that already getting from it.
00:02:04.945 --> 00:02:07.795
So, um, super excited to be a guest here.
00:02:08.545 --> 00:02:09.355
That's awesome, man.
00:02:10.194 --> 00:02:10.465
Yeah.
00:02:10.465 --> 00:02:10.915
Fantastic.
00:02:10.915 --> 00:02:15.235
Glad your guest and thanks for the feedback and you know, as always keep it coming, we appreciate it.
00:02:18.210 --> 00:02:18.360
Yeah.
00:02:18.360 --> 00:02:21.120
And as we learn, as I learned, I still need to do it as like last week.
00:02:21.189 --> 00:02:25.920
We, we, I need to go set up a profile and you do too on marketing ops.com with the new capabilities there.
00:02:25.920 --> 00:02:29.040
So huge, huge opportunities down the road there.
00:02:29.670 --> 00:02:37.680
So why we, when we do this, I know we want to talk about, um, kind of your observations and art, like all of us on kinda the impacts.
00:02:38.469 --> 00:02:47.710
The pandemic, but, um, why don't we start a little bit first, you know, we talked about your background a little bit and that you've covered a lot of ground in your, in your, your journey.
00:02:47.715 --> 00:02:56.080
So, but curious how you, can you share with the community, our listeners, what, uh, how you led to your, how your, your career end up in marketing ops?
00:02:56.289 --> 00:02:56.530
Yeah, of
00:02:56.530 --> 00:02:56.890
course.
00:02:56.919 --> 00:03:04.240
Uh, I think like, like everyone's like how everyone got their, you know, got to the stage of, uh, their career where they're at today.
00:03:05.919 --> 00:03:12.640
So like myself, um, I really wasn't looking to get into, I don't even know what marketing op was before I was an accounting major.
00:03:12.909 --> 00:03:17.409
Um, I found that to be boring, not well for me.
00:03:17.860 --> 00:03:20.009
Um, so I switched it's okay.
00:03:20.379 --> 00:03:21.610
It's boring for a lot of people.
00:03:22.750 --> 00:03:25.750
but Hey, to your point, some people really enjoy it.
00:03:26.530 --> 00:03:27.969
uh, but I do like numbers though.
00:03:27.969 --> 00:03:29.650
So, um, and.
00:03:30.875 --> 00:03:32.455
I, I was pretty technical as a kid.
00:03:32.455 --> 00:03:33.564
Like I built computers.
00:03:33.564 --> 00:03:34.194
I was a gamer.
00:03:34.194 --> 00:03:37.254
Like I was a, I was pretty nerdy and geeky.
00:03:37.254 --> 00:03:42.835
So I switched to MIS, um, was a good blend of like business and it in it.
00:03:43.495 --> 00:03:46.194
Um, and I took marketing for GE.
00:03:46.495 --> 00:03:49.914
Um, I actually found that to be very boring, too.
00:03:51.235 --> 00:03:55.705
so I was not expecting myself to be in the marketing field at all after college.
00:03:56.289 --> 00:04:01.360
um, but you know what, when I graduated, I, um, I needed experience, right.
00:04:01.360 --> 00:04:02.500
Everybody needed that.
00:04:02.500 --> 00:04:05.110
So I took the first internship I could get.
00:04:05.710 --> 00:04:09.819
Um, and the first one that I got an offer for was a marketing internship.
00:04:10.659 --> 00:04:13.840
Uh, so I took it, you know, uh, I was pretty open minded.
00:04:13.840 --> 00:04:20.379
I'm like, I it's, I, I, I thought to myself, it's probably a lot different than what it was in a classroom.
00:04:21.069 --> 00:04:24.189
So I'm like, you know, let's go, um, and I'm getting paid for it.
00:04:24.189 --> 00:04:25.300
So that's a, that's a huge.
00:04:26.379 --> 00:04:32.139
um, so I landed that role and really that was more of like a Swiss army knife type of role.
00:04:32.289 --> 00:04:52.120
Um, it, uh, it was a lot of things from like graphic design, uh, you know, digital marketing, um, managing a little bit of budget for digital, um, managing the text, a reporting it's it's pretty much like everything under the marketing umbrella, um, as a general generalist type of role.
00:04:52.870 --> 00:04:54.340
Um, and it's a small company.
00:04:54.610 --> 00:04:55.840
We have like 50 people.
00:04:55.840 --> 00:05:00.909
We have just one product marketing leader, a field marketer, a web designer, and there's and there's.
00:05:01.690 --> 00:05:04.539
So I, I got to do a lot as an intern.
00:05:04.929 --> 00:05:09.669
Um, uh, anything under the marketing, uh, marketing sun really?
00:05:09.669 --> 00:05:21.100
Um, and, you know, I found out that all the stuff that I was really good at, um, and it made me really shine in that, um, in that internship, I got employed the month in my second month as an intern.
00:05:21.730 --> 00:05:24.700
Um, uh, and the things that really made.
00:05:24.700 --> 00:05:25.240
That's awesome.
00:05:25.240 --> 00:05:25.299
Yeah.
00:05:26.289 --> 00:05:32.980
It's like, I'm like, I know I got this that's my second that, uh, that, uh, that really made me sign was.
00:05:34.509 --> 00:05:36.970
Are things under the marketing operations umbrella.
00:05:37.210 --> 00:05:37.539
Right?
00:05:37.539 --> 00:05:47.769
Cause some of the first things I did, there were a lot of analysis and setting up their, um, their CRM and integrating it with, um, their marketing automation.
00:05:47.769 --> 00:05:48.639
At that time it was Aon.
00:05:49.870 --> 00:05:55.509
Um, again, I was the only marketer just kind like do for them cuz somebody was doing that.
00:05:55.690 --> 00:05:58.750
Um, so I found out the skills I was good at.
00:05:59.139 --> 00:06:02.784
Um, Really or in that marketing ops umbrella.
00:06:03.174 --> 00:06:10.794
And I didn't even know it was a real function until I decided it was time to move on to, uh, a company with more growth potential.
00:06:11.424 --> 00:06:17.274
Um, and when I was looking for jobs and, you know, I was typing my skills on LinkedIn on indeed everywhere.
00:06:17.725 --> 00:06:20.754
Um, all the roles that were showing up are marketing labs.
00:06:20.759 --> 00:06:23.754
And I was like, oh, this is so marketing is a thing.
00:06:24.144 --> 00:06:25.554
Um, so.
00:06:26.620 --> 00:06:27.940
I applied for that next job.
00:06:27.940 --> 00:06:29.889
It was a marketing op specialist role.
00:06:29.889 --> 00:06:33.190
And, uh, you know, that was kind of like my path to led me here.
00:06:37.179 --> 00:06:37.960
That's incredible.
00:06:37.960 --> 00:06:38.350
Yeah.
00:06:38.355 --> 00:06:39.580
I mean, it's, it's interesting.
00:06:39.730 --> 00:06:45.820
I was, when you were describing that internship, I was thinking about my, uh, the co-op job I had while I was still in college.
00:06:45.820 --> 00:06:54.220
It at times IBM and yeah, I think there's something about that stage where you're like, you don't know any better, like you, so you just like, you like to.
00:06:54.789 --> 00:06:56.289
If you like to tinker, right.
00:06:56.289 --> 00:06:57.009
And that kind of stuff.
00:06:57.009 --> 00:06:57.190
Right.
00:06:57.190 --> 00:07:00.100
It's real easy to, to find opportunities to do that.
00:07:00.100 --> 00:07:03.399
So, um, yeah, so fun stuff.
00:07:03.669 --> 00:07:03.940
All right.
00:07:03.940 --> 00:07:06.940
So let's, you know, we were gonna talk about impacts of the pandemic.
00:07:06.940 --> 00:07:12.850
I thought maybe what we could start with is not necessarily like we, I think we could dive into some details.
00:07:13.669 --> 00:07:14.450
Along the way here.
00:07:14.450 --> 00:07:29.059
We've got a while, but yeah, maybe like top level, like what are you seeing as, as like major impact from the pandemic and I, and I suspect there's gonna be some that were generally positive and some that are generally negative and I know kinda what your thoughts are.
00:07:29.659 --> 00:07:32.179
I'm sure I'll have opinions though, cuz I'm not sure on that.
00:07:33.500 --> 00:07:45.399
Yeah, I think, um, so I mean, if I have to summarize it, um, to like four different things, um, There was definitely a need for, uh, a quick turnaround on digital transformation.
00:07:45.519 --> 00:07:45.820
Right.
00:07:46.450 --> 00:07:47.019
That was the number.
00:07:47.440 --> 00:07:56.500
I'm pretty sure that's the number one thing that everyone in marketing pandemic, um, you know, gone with the days that needs walk up to someone for a request, right.
00:07:57.070 --> 00:08:00.549
Um, for explaining what the data means, like all of that has to be done digitally.
00:08:00.549 --> 00:08:01.419
Now, how do you do that?
00:08:01.419 --> 00:08:07.389
How do you transfer information cross functionally, um, in a, in a streamlined way, right?
00:08:07.389 --> 00:08:08.049
How do you.
00:08:08.710 --> 00:08:13.570
uh, how do you, uh, generate insights and make sure those get to the right people?
00:08:13.840 --> 00:08:21.009
Um, uh, quick enough, um, you know, there's a lot of that really happened.
00:08:21.190 --> 00:08:27.009
Um, at first it was kind of like, uh, you know, a lot of that's needed before pandemic.
00:08:27.429 --> 00:08:31.690
Um, but it happened at a lot slower pace.
00:08:31.990 --> 00:08:34.899
Um, and when the pandemic happened, it's like, we need this yesterday.
00:08:35.950 --> 00:08:39.639
Um, So that was probably like the, one of the biggest things that I've seen.
00:08:40.330 --> 00:08:44.529
Um, the other one's probably, um, uh, there's a lot.
00:08:44.620 --> 00:08:46.690
I mean, of course the biggest impact also is.
00:08:47.725 --> 00:08:53.934
Kinda like how we market, um, you know, without events, without seeing people in person what do you do?
00:08:53.934 --> 00:08:54.355
Right.
00:08:55.014 --> 00:08:59.245
Um, so there's a big shift on going digital.
00:08:59.454 --> 00:09:06.084
Um, and I saw a huge increase in, uh, like our, you know, our tech budget for advertising.
00:09:06.084 --> 00:09:08.245
And also I couldn could do that better.
00:09:08.694 --> 00:09:13.674
Um, you know, can we add ABM to our portfolio?
00:09:13.824 --> 00:09:14.245
Right.
00:09:14.980 --> 00:09:28.329
um, and you know, uh, an increase of, uh, budget and tech additions as well to help people be more productive, um, and also enable better reporting and automation.
00:09:28.600 --> 00:09:35.019
Um, the last thing is, you know, account accountability was used before, but I feel like it became even bigger.
00:09:35.230 --> 00:09:43.149
Um, during, during, during the pandemic and even up to now, um, like from a high level, there was a lot more focus on budget management and.
00:09:43.990 --> 00:09:50.169
Um, especially there was a, you know, there was a recession, uh, a short recession that happened, um, during COVID.
00:09:50.889 --> 00:09:53.860
Um, so there's a lot more eyes on that.
00:09:53.860 --> 00:09:59.019
And on a macro level, there's a bigger need for, uh, cross-functional alignment.
00:09:59.679 --> 00:10:09.079
Um, and again, a streamline way to really just transfer information in, in a distributed environment, um, and being able to make quick shifts in strategy.
00:10:09.924 --> 00:10:15.235
Um, in, in, you know, in, in a new, in a new kind of, uh, in new kind of business world, right?
00:10:21.985 --> 00:10:22.284
Yeah.
00:10:22.289 --> 00:10:27.355
So, um, I'm glad you kind of broke that last bit down.
00:10:27.355 --> 00:10:36.115
I was trying to, I, I was gonna ask some questions about that, what you meant by that, but, um, so one, so let's go a little level, another level deeper here.
00:10:36.324 --> 00:10:39.054
So one of the things you talked about just then.
00:10:39.939 --> 00:10:49.029
I, I think you kind of alluded to it is that, um, you know, prioritization mm-hmm is becoming more important, right.
00:10:49.120 --> 00:10:50.980
Um, through, through this.
00:10:50.985 --> 00:10:52.000
So for, for mob.
00:10:52.004 --> 00:10:56.049
So when you say that, like, are you talking about what projects do we do?
00:10:56.054 --> 00:10:59.649
Is it prioritization of, you know, campaign activities and support?
00:10:59.649 --> 00:11:01.089
Is it is a little bit of both.
00:11:01.089 --> 00:11:03.259
Like, how are you, like when you say that, what are you thinking.
00:11:04.554 --> 00:11:16.495
Yeah, I think what really changed with us here at observe, uh, here at my current role is, uh, you know, focus on, um, uh, focus and prioritization on, um, one key segments that we target, right?
00:11:16.735 --> 00:11:22.824
Where do we wanna spend our time on, um, both on sales and on the marketing side, um, our time and money.
00:11:23.514 --> 00:11:27.834
So there's, there's constant iteration of our ICP and more regular reporting.
00:11:28.899 --> 00:11:33.039
um, and our core focus of our personas that we wanna, that we, that we sell to.
00:11:33.220 --> 00:11:33.490
Right.
00:11:33.490 --> 00:11:34.449
And spend time on.
00:11:35.230 --> 00:11:37.689
Um, so that was, uh, that was huge.
00:11:37.689 --> 00:11:39.730
I started doing that every quarter.
00:11:39.939 --> 00:11:47.829
Um, and you know, maybe, maybe, maybe like the first quarter, you don't see a lot of shifts, right.
00:11:47.829 --> 00:11:54.279
But three quarters down the line or four quarters down the line, as he release more features, more enterprise level.
00:11:54.759 --> 00:12:03.879
Um, capabilities, uh, as far as seeing more of those, you start seeing a gradual, um, shift in, in your audience and who you're targeting.
00:12:04.389 --> 00:12:09.939
So there's a lot of like, um, constant iteration of that to make sure we stay focused.
00:12:09.944 --> 00:12:15.490
And we, we, we keep evolving our sales and marketing emotions to, to where our market's going.
00:12:18.850 --> 00:12:25.509
Let's um, so observes, you guys have been around for the, the organization itself has been around for a little while.
00:12:25.509 --> 00:12:27.220
I was just trying to do some quick Googling.
00:12:27.220 --> 00:12:28.629
It looks like funding wise.
00:12:28.629 --> 00:12:30.699
It's been established for, for quite a bit.
00:12:30.699 --> 00:12:33.819
There's been, uh, I think it looks like an acquisition.
00:12:33.819 --> 00:12:45.039
How big is your, how big is your team, uh, that you have that you're sort of working amongst, across marketing, you know, and then I guess specifically, are there more than just one of you on the marketing op team?
00:12:46.554 --> 00:12:51.204
Uh, so, so the marketing team, the marketing team is, uh, about like 15 people right now.
00:12:51.204 --> 00:12:51.235
Okay.
00:12:51.924 --> 00:12:53.334
Uh, we have a couple of roles open.
00:12:53.334 --> 00:12:59.889
So if anyone's, uh, you know, if anyone's looking for a new role or a new job, You know, you've been, uh, affected by the layoffs.
00:12:59.889 --> 00:13:01.120
Um, come to our website.
00:13:01.179 --> 00:13:02.679
We have a lot of roles open everywhere.
00:13:02.829 --> 00:13:04.679
Um, I love that plug,
00:13:05.709 --> 00:13:06.759
plug it, plug it, plug it.
00:13:06.850 --> 00:13:09.970
Are, are they listed on marketing ops.com though?
00:13:09.970 --> 00:13:11.720
That's what I wanna, they should be
00:13:13.569 --> 00:13:16.600
don't roll open.
00:13:16.600 --> 00:13:19.329
I might open number roll zoom, hopefully to kind of help me out.
00:13:19.329 --> 00:13:20.620
Cause I'm only a one man team, right?
00:13:21.564 --> 00:13:23.634
um, but we have 15 people in marketing.
00:13:23.634 --> 00:13:28.554
We have three, um, designers that we work with, um, you know, on a day to day basis in India.
00:13:29.424 --> 00:13:30.894
Um, and across the board.
00:13:30.924 --> 00:13:30.985
Okay.
00:13:30.985 --> 00:13:35.154
We have, uh, two 50 plus employees, um, across the, okay.
00:13:35.514 --> 00:13:35.725
Yeah.
00:13:35.725 --> 00:13:38.725
Um, so sizable organization, you have to support.
00:13:39.144 --> 00:13:39.324
Yeah.
00:13:39.384 --> 00:13:43.764
And we're distributed, um, workforce, um, we're primarily remote at.
00:13:45.970 --> 00:13:46.389
Okay.
00:13:46.480 --> 00:13:46.870
Cool.
00:13:46.929 --> 00:14:03.534
And then, um, when you're talking about sort of these, you know, the way you're prioritizing projects and you're, you're shifting ICP, ideal customer profile for, for anybody that didn't know that acronym, um, You know, is that coming top down?
00:14:03.625 --> 00:14:19.225
Uh, so far as you can tell, like, is it, is it almost like OKRs that are set at the top level of the organization and then trickle down to, to your team and, and then you're making decisions on how the go to market motion might change and then, sorry for adding sort of a layered question here.
00:14:19.375 --> 00:14:28.975
Uh, but as it's being, you know, uh, consumed and you're deciding on what that prioritization is, uh, for how long are you focused on that?
00:14:30.699 --> 00:14:32.259
Is it a month or is it a quarter?
00:14:32.439 --> 00:14:33.549
How long do you guys usually go?
00:14:34.269 --> 00:14:35.289
Yeah, it's a great question.
00:14:35.319 --> 00:14:38.860
Um, so I was the first marketing op IHA hire in here.
00:14:38.949 --> 00:14:42.850
And, uh, I started as IP exercise last year.
00:14:42.939 --> 00:14:49.000
Um, there wasn't really an ask for it, but I did notice that we need some focus on where we're, we're putting our efforts.
00:14:49.539 --> 00:14:54.879
Um, so I ran the first exercise around last summer and I started doing worldly after that.
00:14:55.554 --> 00:14:57.504
Um, now it became a real thing that we do.
00:14:57.745 --> 00:15:01.074
Um, and I'm currently trying to do this on the renewal side.
00:15:01.735 --> 00:15:03.804
Um, you know, the acquisition is one thing, right?
00:15:03.804 --> 00:15:14.154
It's like, what's your ideal customer profile from an acquisition standpoint, but we need to look at, who's actually renewing with us and who is, um, what companies are we expanding our footprint in?
00:15:14.995 --> 00:15:22.404
Um, so just that's the current exercise that I'm trying to evolve this ICP exercise into, um, and.
00:15:23.754 --> 00:15:24.654
What was the next question?
00:15:25.674 --> 00:15:26.125
sorry.
00:15:26.125 --> 00:15:27.054
Yeah, it was layered.
00:15:27.054 --> 00:15:27.865
And I apologize.
00:15:27.914 --> 00:15:33.204
So, so to reiterate, uh, so it sounds like you, you initiated the ICP discovery, which is great.
00:15:33.264 --> 00:15:46.105
Uh, and so sort of focus, uh, which for all of our listeners out there, like just goes to show you, you know, someone in a marketing ops role can really establish a norm that has, um, incredible value to the organization.
00:15:46.105 --> 00:15:46.495
And if.
00:15:46.949 --> 00:15:50.100
If you're not organized in that way, hopefully you find a different way to do it.
00:15:50.100 --> 00:15:51.149
So ICP is one of them.
00:15:51.870 --> 00:16:04.549
Uh, and then the, the second part, uh, RJ that I was asking is how long are you focused on the ICP, uh, before you sort of do any type of reallocation of funding and, and maybe target messaging and all that stuff.
00:16:05.860 --> 00:16:06.220
Yeah.
00:16:06.220 --> 00:16:13.120
Um, so it, so it depends, it depends on when we see a shift in, um, you know, in, in that core ICP.
00:16:13.120 --> 00:16:13.329
Right.
00:16:13.334 --> 00:16:14.649
So that's why we do it every quarter.
00:16:15.220 --> 00:16:20.350
Um, we didn't really see a big shift until, um, until recently to be honest, I've been running this for a year.
00:16:20.949 --> 00:16:27.220
Um, but you know, for the, for the past year, we haven't really released that many features.
00:16:27.339 --> 00:16:31.000
Um, but this year we have, we released a couple of enterprise features.
00:16:31.449 --> 00:16:34.299
Um, and you know, everyone's, you know, if you're.
00:16:34.870 --> 00:16:40.089
If you're a fast growing company, your, you know, your goal is to try to move up market.
00:16:40.089 --> 00:16:40.389
Right.
00:16:40.389 --> 00:16:44.829
So we're trying to see if we can find trends that, um, prove that we are moving there.
00:16:45.429 --> 00:16:48.339
Um, and there's some evidence that we are.
00:16:50.004 --> 00:16:57.084
We might not be quite at the enterprise level yet, but we are moving at the, at the higher end of the midmarket as we define it here.
00:16:57.894 --> 00:17:06.295
Um, so that's when we started shifting our strategy from like the smaller end of the midmarket to the higher end of the midmarket as it is today.
00:17:06.880 --> 00:17:08.410
And that we're focusing on, right?
00:17:08.410 --> 00:17:12.610
We're not, we might not be focusing more on the, on the billion dollar companies just yet.
00:17:13.299 --> 00:17:22.420
Um, but you know, we, we've seen an evolution that we are moving up market from the smaller SMBs, um, to the higher end of that bid market.
00:17:22.930 --> 00:17:26.829
Um, so now we're, now we're spending more money on that more time.
00:17:27.339 --> 00:17:30.940
Um, we've also defined the key industries, what will win the most.
00:17:31.884 --> 00:17:38.514
um, with deals that move the, with deals that move fastest for us with the highest velocity.
00:17:39.325 --> 00:17:42.984
Um, and we're focusing on those, uh, five key industries.
00:17:43.539 --> 00:17:49.329
As part of that I ICP today, you don't have to, to mid market.
00:17:49.329 --> 00:17:49.599
Right.
00:17:49.809 --> 00:17:51.339
And then just the higher end, the mid market.
00:17:51.339 --> 00:17:52.690
So that's kind of like how it's evolved.
00:17:53.529 --> 00:17:55.059
That's that's awesome.
00:17:55.119 --> 00:18:12.279
Uh, you don't have to reveal any secrets of who your, uh, target target audience is by any stretch, but I am curious, and I, and I know a consistent theme in the community is, is the how's the cookie made Uh, and so if you could unpack a little bit about maybe.
00:18:12.930 --> 00:18:25.139
You know, the tooling that you have in place to be able to understand the deal velocity and how you came about figuring out which, which industries are good or potentially better.
00:18:25.680 --> 00:18:33.899
Um, maybe just share a little bit about like the, the tech stack and the process and programs you do to analyze that information and, and the people you work.
00:18:34.809 --> 00:18:44.740
If it's not just tech, but also people, uh, that's really helpful for folks to try to figure out like how they shape their career and then maybe how to go answer some of those really challenging questions inside their org too.
00:18:46.000 --> 00:18:46.809
Yeah, absolutely.
00:18:46.839 --> 00:18:53.619
Um, uh, I work super, super closely with, uh, our sales ops, uh, sales op leader.
00:18:54.399 --> 00:18:59.319
Um, and we, we, we pretty much built this tech stack together, um, in close alignment.
00:18:59.769 --> 00:19:02.619
Um, we have Salesforce, we have HubSpot, right?
00:19:03.639 --> 00:19:12.519
um, as our marketing automation tool, um, and to, to run this ICP, we also, uh, acquired, um, zoom info, right.
00:19:12.579 --> 00:19:20.259
That will kind of help us measure our Tam, um, to help us look at, look at how many companies are in our space, um, that are in our target markets.
00:19:20.920 --> 00:19:24.519
Um, and then analyze kind of like our deal size or deal velocity and all.
00:19:25.464 --> 00:19:31.704
um, so with analyzing this, this ICP, there's a lot of data work that had to be involved, right?
00:19:31.825 --> 00:19:33.144
Because this involves personas.
00:19:33.144 --> 00:19:40.164
This involves, um, um, revenue sizes, this involves, um, industries.
00:19:40.164 --> 00:19:45.555
So this involves like data from all different objects in Salesforce, and there's a lot of work to do.
00:19:46.345 --> 00:19:50.964
Um, and in order to report on this, you have to standardize your data and clean it, right?
00:19:50.964 --> 00:19:56.694
You can't have like a hundred different, uh, a hundred different iterations of retail.
00:19:57.805 --> 00:20:01.914
um, it's impossible to be able to report on it that way.
00:20:01.920 --> 00:20:14.105
So we had to create a higher level that, you know, categorize the, these, um, these industries into a higher level of industry that we can report on, um, to maybe like, you know, like 25 to 30 different values.
00:20:15.234 --> 00:20:31.375
Um, and a lot of those live in, uh, those, those rules live in zoom info, actually, you know, as you, as you, uh, enrich your leads, your accounts, um, you can have, um, automated settings on zoom info.
00:20:31.884 --> 00:20:34.615
Like if they belong in this industry, make just a value.
00:20:34.615 --> 00:20:34.884
Right.
00:20:34.884 --> 00:20:37.914
So, uh, it's pretty easy to, to do there.
00:20:38.154 --> 00:20:46.524
Um, whereas thinking at the data goes, um, and then from there it's really just like reporting in Salesforce, on the opportunity data, right?
00:20:46.524 --> 00:20:49.944
Like how fast we move to conversion.
00:20:50.335 --> 00:20:59.514
Um, and from conversion, how fast does that lead move or that, that opportunity go to, uh, to stage two stage three.
00:21:00.069 --> 00:21:03.759
Um, all the way to, um, pose loss or close one, right?
00:21:03.789 --> 00:21:05.379
How fast did those deals move?
00:21:06.099 --> 00:21:13.240
Um, and we created a dashboard for this to kind of show this through the whole org too.
00:21:13.420 --> 00:21:22.539
Um, it shows like lead to, um, lead to MQL conversion, um, lead to SA Sal is pretty much a meeting for us.
00:21:22.960 --> 00:21:25.920
Uh, SQL conversion, all way, got into opportunity conversion.
00:21:26.710 --> 00:21:31.869
Um, so now we can kind of see like that high level conversion for everything.
00:21:32.109 --> 00:21:38.950
And then we just break it down by like different industries and different types of personas that are converting, um, in a standardized way.
00:21:39.579 --> 00:21:45.670
Uh, for personas, we have to standardize, um, uh, the different departments and functions that we target.
00:21:45.670 --> 00:21:51.069
Um, and also the different title levels, like manager level, director level C level.
00:21:51.714 --> 00:22:04.194
Um, and who's really converting and what the roles are and opportunity like who's the economic, who's the economic buyer, um, who is the decision maker, um, in the opportunity as defined by sales.
00:22:04.944 --> 00:22:10.855
Um, we also created a, um, a custom object of Salesforce called, um, gaps.
00:22:10.944 --> 00:22:17.875
So, um, these are pretty much, pretty much, um, product gaps that, um, our customers and prospects.
00:22:19.075 --> 00:22:23.664
um, to be blockers for, um, uh, blockers for the product.
00:22:23.724 --> 00:22:24.024
Right?
00:22:24.535 --> 00:22:25.345
Ooh, I like that idea.
00:22:25.734 --> 00:22:27.384
That is, that is awesome.
00:22:27.384 --> 00:22:28.375
That's really interesting.
00:22:28.674 --> 00:22:28.884
Yeah.
00:22:29.004 --> 00:22:35.785
And, and cause of this, um, I was able to actually like use this data to influence some road decisions.
00:22:36.355 --> 00:22:47.394
Um, because if you over list, if you overlays this data to the current opportunity data that we have, um, and see the gaps in it and break it down by mid-market SMB is an enter.
00:22:48.295 --> 00:22:51.835
Um, each segment has different gaps, right?
00:22:52.585 --> 00:22:55.795
Um, so you can see like all the gaps reported in enterprise.
00:22:55.884 --> 00:23:02.244
So if you wanna move to enterprise segment, if you wanna move up market, um, you said the gaps most reported.
00:23:02.335 --> 00:23:06.595
So these are probably like the gaps of need to cover in our product to be able to move up there.
00:23:07.404 --> 00:23:12.654
Um, so we built, we built a pretty, a pretty good tech stack here that identifies a lot of that.
00:23:12.654 --> 00:23:14.154
So I'm pretty proud of what we've done in the.
00:23:15.819 --> 00:23:15.970
Yeah.
00:23:16.029 --> 00:23:25.809
So this is, I mean, that, that last bit about like taking that gap data and feeding it back to product is I think that's phenomenal.
00:23:25.809 --> 00:23:25.990
So I.
00:23:26.845 --> 00:23:27.325
Right there.
00:23:27.325 --> 00:23:31.404
There's like the gym for all of our listeners to take back if they're in that kind of company.
00:23:31.914 --> 00:23:34.494
Um, so one of the things that is coming through there, right?
00:23:34.524 --> 00:23:49.764
The tech stack, when you talked about this tech stack, every, just about everything you talked about had to do with, you know, data, whether it's enrichment quality, completeness, or reporting and analytics, you didn't really talk about like, how are we using this to go to market, right.
00:23:49.795 --> 00:23:51.954
Whether go to market motions and how so.
00:23:52.315 --> 00:23:54.924
Yeah, I know you and I talked about this a little bit, uh, when we were.
00:23:55.904 --> 00:24:09.254
Prepping for this that you talked about, like, there's this, you seeing a shift of more need to focus on data in gen I'll generalize at that versus like, I think we, we said sort of campaign support or campaign operations.
00:24:09.254 --> 00:24:14.024
If we wanted to use the four pillars kinda model, but you know, is, is this exactly what you're talking about?
00:24:14.055 --> 00:24:18.315
Like, are you, are you spending more time doing analysis and deep understanding?
00:24:18.894 --> 00:24:22.285
Although quickly, because like you talked about speed is an important thing.
00:24:22.285 --> 00:24:31.404
That's come out of the pandemic, but then are you then able to then do maybe fewer things or maybe more targeted things?
00:24:31.404 --> 00:24:46.375
Like how, how has that affected the, that side of the business and is that, um, second part of that is how much of that is you supporting that and doing the heavy lifting of whether it's building out emails or campaigns or whatever, or you do you partner with other parts of the marketing team to.
00:24:48.355 --> 00:24:50.815
Definitely partnering with other parts of marketing team.
00:24:50.815 --> 00:24:59.424
A lot of this is enablement, uh, for me able, for me to be able to spend time on, on these strategic initiatives, like, you know, you can't be doing everything right?
00:24:59.424 --> 00:25:00.474
Like it's impossible.
00:25:01.224 --> 00:25:02.694
especially if there's only one of you.
00:25:02.904 --> 00:25:31.375
Um, so a lot of comes to this to make sure that the team is trained, um, to use the tools that you have, um, that they understand, um, What's going into the data that we're presenting, um, and what they mean, and also making sure, making sure that there's some sort of like approval processes in place, um, to make sure no, one's like going off the rails and, you know, sending emails without approvals.
00:25:32.095 --> 00:25:32.634
Um,
00:25:32.639 --> 00:25:35.785
sometimes can I, can I ask you, can I, can I ask a question about that?
00:25:35.785 --> 00:25:38.664
Cuz this is something that I've struggled with.
00:25:40.045 --> 00:25:44.004
um, how rigid to make those kinds of approval processes.
00:25:45.355 --> 00:25:47.724
Um, in D in different kinds of organizations.
00:25:47.724 --> 00:25:57.355
So are you, you know, do you have a ver like a really rigid one that says you can't deploy something until it's approved by a certain person or two?
00:25:57.714 --> 00:26:06.805
Or do you say you can't deploy until you either get approval or an SLA has expired and you can, you basically, like whoever was supposed to approve it, didn't do it in time.
00:26:06.805 --> 00:26:08.214
So you're gonna go, go forward.
00:26:08.605 --> 00:26:09.595
How are you handling that?
00:26:09.954 --> 00:26:14.315
Or are you doing like, is it very specific about what they look for or are they looking like, is it.
00:26:14.980 --> 00:26:16.389
I'll call it principal based.
00:26:16.389 --> 00:26:16.779
Right.
00:26:17.170 --> 00:26:21.549
Um, I go into a whole nother analogy about soccer versus football, but I won't.
00:26:21.940 --> 00:26:33.069
Um, but, um, just curious about that, cuz I think that's, I know from my standpoint, that's a struggle I've had is like to what degree do you sort of force a approval process?
00:26:33.700 --> 00:26:34.569
Cause I've always.
00:26:35.184 --> 00:26:39.234
What I keep finding on that is that slow again, going to the speed thing, right?
00:26:39.384 --> 00:26:45.504
The more of that you have the slower you are able to move and that's, I think that would be my fear.
00:26:47.095 --> 00:26:47.244
Yeah.
00:26:47.305 --> 00:26:48.654
Trying to find a good balance of it.
00:26:48.744 --> 00:26:52.825
So it's, uh, it's not a SU it's not a rigid process at all.
00:26:52.829 --> 00:26:53.095
Really.
00:26:53.095 --> 00:27:02.274
It's just about permissions that people have in, um, in, in our marketing automation platform, like people have, um, you know, edit rights to emails to be able to create those.
00:27:03.220 --> 00:27:05.259
um, but people don't have send rights.
00:27:05.259 --> 00:27:22.180
So in, you know, before sending those emails, they have to, you know, log it to me on monday.com, which is what we use right now for a pro project management tool, uh, for me to check the email, um, to make sure that the list is right, the links work, um, tests have been sent.
00:27:22.750 --> 00:27:24.910
Um, and then from there, you know, I can say, yep.
00:27:25.210 --> 00:27:29.230
Um, you know, I'll go ahead and press that tomorrow morning or I'll schedule it at eight o'clock.
00:27:29.769 --> 00:27:32.259
Um, so, so people don't have.
00:27:32.950 --> 00:27:39.160
those rights to, you know, really mess anything up um, that you can't fix.
00:27:39.849 --> 00:27:42.460
Um, so we try to create a process that's process.
00:27:42.464 --> 00:27:55.869
That's making it, you know, that, that makes it easy for everyone to do their jobs go faster, but at the same time, um, uh, mitigating, mitigating some of the risks that might come from giving somebody too much permission, right.
00:27:56.019 --> 00:27:57.430
Or too much control into something.
00:27:57.430 --> 00:27:57.849
Sure.
00:27:59.470 --> 00:27:59.710
Right.
00:27:59.710 --> 00:28:00.970
So I have, I have a follow up question.
00:28:00.970 --> 00:28:03.069
This is maybe HubSpot specific.
00:28:03.069 --> 00:28:07.029
So I'm gonna have to lean on you, both of you two, cuz I don't have the HubSpot experience.
00:28:07.059 --> 00:28:07.899
Mike knows this.
00:28:08.680 --> 00:28:12.599
Um, so, uh, my, one of the things.
00:28:13.509 --> 00:28:15.910
Again, going to like review and approval, right.
00:28:16.359 --> 00:28:27.519
Uh, what I've been trying to push people to in my last few stops is that, you know, we need to sort of prioritize the level of scrutiny we put things through before we go live with them, if you will.
00:28:28.059 --> 00:28:33.920
Um, and part of that thought process is, you know, what can be changed after we quote, go live?
00:28:33.920 --> 00:28:34.160
Right?
00:28:34.164 --> 00:28:36.730
And you know, the only one that really.
00:28:37.315 --> 00:28:39.234
You can't get back as email.
00:28:39.474 --> 00:28:39.684
Right.
00:28:39.774 --> 00:28:47.214
But everything else, like if it's a webpage update or a display ad or search ads, things like that, I think you've got more opportunities to do that.
00:28:47.845 --> 00:28:53.305
Um, so do, are you, are you managing that?
00:28:53.365 --> 00:29:02.724
Do you have that same kind of process that you enable through HubSpot and roles and you know, his stuff for different kinds of tactics?
00:29:03.700 --> 00:29:04.690
Not even know if it's possible.
00:29:04.690 --> 00:29:06.970
So if I'm way off here on HubSpot, let me know.
00:29:07.420 --> 00:29:07.569
Yeah.
00:29:07.569 --> 00:29:08.349
Yeah, absolutely.
00:29:08.349 --> 00:29:10.329
So, uh, you, you touched up on it, right?
00:29:10.329 --> 00:29:17.500
So, um, the, the things that you can't get back, like emails, definitely, definitely, uh, be a little bit more strict on that.
00:29:18.129 --> 00:29:20.649
Um, but for webpages, we do keep those open.
00:29:20.740 --> 00:29:29.649
Uh, we have a pretty, um, uh, a pretty big, not a pretty big, not really that big of a team, but we have a pretty solid team of, uh, of web designers.
00:29:30.684 --> 00:29:39.204
Um, that know their way around HubSpot, you know, obviously like super knowledgeable about, um, formatting webpages and landing pages.
00:29:39.714 --> 00:29:48.504
So they, they get permissions to, they have permissions to edit those webpages as long as they, you know, um, for as much as they can.
00:29:49.224 --> 00:29:54.144
Um, and they also have, uh, published rights for those pages as.
00:29:55.059 --> 00:30:00.549
Um, but we do have some steps in place to make sure, like, you know, there's QA in place, right?
00:30:00.549 --> 00:30:04.180
Like, um, let's say we're doing a launch for example.
00:30:04.720 --> 00:30:07.210
Um, and we're creating a bunch of landing pages for it.
00:30:07.809 --> 00:30:20.440
Um, you know, this has to go through, um, QA from, you know, from the content owner who gets the final say on whether the fi the content's final enough to be published, um, or not.
00:30:20.619 --> 00:30:20.889
Right.
00:30:21.549 --> 00:30:32.589
Um, so at the end of the day, um, We have people calling shots on, um, whether it's finalized, um, or not for them to be able to publish it.
00:30:32.920 --> 00:30:44.230
But we, we, you know, as far as like gating, who can, who can, you know, click, publish and not click on publish, um, we didn't go that far.
00:30:45.670 --> 00:30:45.970
Got it.
00:30:46.420 --> 00:30:49.119
My curious, so what, what has your experience been with that?
00:30:49.599 --> 00:30:53.079
Like, I guess mainly with HubSpot, but in general as well.
00:30:54.369 --> 00:30:55.569
Yeah, the,
00:30:56.079 --> 00:31:16.240
um, so HubSpot, depending on what part of HubSpot you're talking about, the permissioning is pretty robust, like from a user provisioning permissioning perspective, you can get pretty granular on read, write, and, uh, different objects that they have access to, um, being able to create, but not publish pages is certainly a thing.
00:31:17.240 --> 00:31:25.464
Um, you know, as it relates to some of my brief time in the Marketo instance, The whole, you know, approve a draft type of functionality.
00:31:25.464 --> 00:31:28.434
I know is limited probably to certain roles or functions.
00:31:29.559 --> 00:31:31.750
And permissions for Marketo users.
00:31:32.200 --> 00:31:35.259
Um, that concept doesn't really exist.
00:31:35.259 --> 00:31:45.460
Like there isn't a sense of approve and publish, um, kind of step in the process, uh, unless you're sort of looking at.
00:31:46.085 --> 00:31:53.884
Like the HubSpot CFS, where they actually have a staging environment where you can go from staging to production and kind of go through that flow.
00:31:54.305 --> 00:31:58.595
But on the landing page side, it doesn't really follow the same, the same mechanics.
00:31:58.654 --> 00:32:07.565
Um, and certainly not on things like a workflow, which in Marketo, you know, your entire program is pretty much a workflow.
00:32:07.565 --> 00:32:11.524
So, um, there's also sort of that missing element of.
00:32:12.524 --> 00:32:17.595
Rigor around, you know, who should have the right to approve this thing and, and set it out the door.
00:32:17.894 --> 00:32:24.464
You can, however, at least limit who can hit publish, and then sort of build in those manual processes.
00:32:24.464 --> 00:32:27.315
It sounds like RJ did on the HubSpot side.
00:32:27.319 --> 00:32:33.375
So there's, there's definitely some limitations, but also, um, enough there that you can have control.
00:32:33.404 --> 00:32:33.795
I think.
00:32:36.204 --> 00:32:36.595
Right.
00:32:36.954 --> 00:32:38.305
Sorry for grilling everybody.
00:32:38.305 --> 00:32:44.335
I was just like that, that that's like, that's an area where I think we all, um, every, every place I've ever been has struggled with.
00:32:45.085 --> 00:32:45.355
Yeah.
00:32:45.355 --> 00:32:46.644
How much review,
00:32:47.454 --> 00:32:55.884
there's always a balance of like, How much do you wanna, how strict do you wanna be with these rules versus how fast do you wanna, you want the team to move, right.
00:32:56.004 --> 00:33:08.244
And you know, when you're in startup where you have, everything's kind of like a fire drill um, you, you, you have to keep it open with some sort of controls.
00:33:10.345 --> 00:33:10.944
Yeah.
00:33:10.944 --> 00:33:25.315
And I, you know, oftentimes in the startup environment, um, just speaking from my own experience, uh, there were so many occasions in which an email would hit my desk ready for, you know, quote unquote, ready for deployment.
00:33:25.315 --> 00:33:27.535
And I read through the copy and the content.
00:33:27.535 --> 00:33:31.164
And I was like, I, I don't think this is what you wanna put out into the world.
00:33:31.164 --> 00:33:33.144
Like, I don't think anybody actually read this thing.
00:33:33.865 --> 00:33:36.984
Uh, not at least for the audience you told me I'm supposed to send it to.
00:33:36.984 --> 00:33:37.644
And so.
00:33:38.154 --> 00:33:43.914
Those provisionary steps that need to be there, uh, are really difficult to manage.
00:33:43.914 --> 00:33:44.154
Right.
00:33:44.154 --> 00:33:48.954
So it's, it's even before it gets built and deployed, like, is this the right message?
00:33:49.045 --> 00:33:58.615
And that fundamentally is one of the things that like I struggled with in marketing operations was like removing myself from being this like.
00:33:59.889 --> 00:34:03.519
I don't know, copyright reviewer or what, what have you, right.
00:34:03.519 --> 00:34:11.710
Like, I shouldn't be implementing, you know, the, the content and reading it and going, oh God, like, what's wrong with this.
00:34:12.010 --> 00:34:12.400
Right.
00:34:12.430 --> 00:34:14.260
Uh, it, it's just not your role.
00:34:14.260 --> 00:34:14.619
Right.
00:34:14.619 --> 00:34:15.940
It shouldn't be your role.
00:34:16.240 --> 00:34:16.510
It.
00:34:17.095 --> 00:34:17.875
To that end.
00:34:17.965 --> 00:34:23.215
If you see something, say something folks, like if you, if you think that maybe there's a problem, at least voice it.
00:34:23.244 --> 00:34:23.575
Yeah.
00:34:23.875 --> 00:34:25.825
But I, I was, I was just gonna say, right.
00:34:25.885 --> 00:34:26.305
Yeah.
00:34:26.305 --> 00:34:29.394
It shouldn't be your role, but also you shouldn't totally abdicate.
00:34:29.454 --> 00:34:29.994
Yes.
00:34:29.994 --> 00:34:31.915
Don't some amount of responsibility.
00:34:31.975 --> 00:34:32.275
Yeah.
00:34:32.335 --> 00:34:40.045
Do you take responsibility for it, but it is such a, it's such a struggle, which is, you know, reinforcing the importance of some of the work we're doing in the community.
00:34:40.045 --> 00:34:44.394
And the reason why we do these interviews with folks like you, RJ, is to try to understand.
00:34:44.830 --> 00:34:47.740
What is the function of your role and what should you be working on?
00:34:47.740 --> 00:34:50.260
And, you know, reviewing content and copy.
00:34:50.260 --> 00:34:54.700
And the messaging strategy for an audience is certainly not one of them, but if you see something say something
00:34:56.440 --> 00:34:58.510
yeah, I think, but you just brought up two different things, right?
00:34:58.510 --> 00:34:59.769
Like reviewing copy.
00:34:59.800 --> 00:35:02.769
If you're in the middle of building something is like, it, it.
00:35:04.180 --> 00:35:12.130
unless you're so like, if, unless you've got so much volume and stuff going through that you just literally can't spend the time to scan through an email content.
00:35:12.820 --> 00:35:16.660
Um, or then yeah, I mean, I like it shouldn't be a top priority.
00:35:17.485 --> 00:35:18.445
Messaging strategy.
00:35:18.445 --> 00:35:19.825
That's a whole nother thing to me.
00:35:19.825 --> 00:35:20.005
Right.
00:35:20.005 --> 00:35:30.385
I think that, to me, that's like clearly shouldn't fall into marketing ops in sort of what I think of its core function of it's marketing ops say demand gen, right?
00:35:30.385 --> 00:35:31.495
I think totally
00:35:31.705 --> 00:35:31.915
game.
00:35:31.915 --> 00:35:32.305
Totally.
00:35:32.305 --> 00:35:40.045
But I will also make the argument that if it's at the stage of build, right, like it is ready for build, that means it's ready for.
00:35:40.975 --> 00:35:44.245
It is not there shouldn't be copy, review happening anymore.
00:35:44.305 --> 00:35:46.465
Like we've hopefully gone through enough cycles.
00:35:46.915 --> 00:35:47.095
yeah.
00:35:47.095 --> 00:35:50.125
I mean, that's, that's one thing I also struggle with all the time.
00:35:50.125 --> 00:35:50.394
Right.
00:35:50.394 --> 00:35:56.005
Whenever we launch a campaign, it's like, we shouldn't be changing content the day before we go live with something.
00:35:56.215 --> 00:35:57.085
Um, so,
00:35:58.675 --> 00:36:00.265
but it sounds like we all face
00:36:00.265 --> 00:36:01.195
the same problem.
00:36:01.855 --> 00:36:03.445
so we're all at the same boat folks.
00:36:03.925 --> 00:36:07.855
well, yeah, like, so this is like, this is again, another sort of.
00:36:08.650 --> 00:36:18.340
This hits me hard because I think every several places I've been is you think, you know, who's got the final approval until, you know, it's about to deploy.
00:36:18.340 --> 00:36:26.860
And then someone with a certain title thinks that they have to review it and that their input is absolutely required.
00:36:27.460 --> 00:36:31.165
Um, It can even be good input, right?
00:36:31.585 --> 00:36:31.735
Sure.
00:36:31.735 --> 00:36:33.955
But it's, it's at the wrong point.
00:36:34.735 --> 00:36:39.505
Um, the other, like I was simply like, we needed clear clarity on whose approval.
00:36:39.505 --> 00:36:45.685
Ideally it's a single person mm-hmm and everybody else gets input, but it's input, not veto power.
00:36:46.015 --> 00:36:57.415
And I see too many places where input is considered absolute regardless of where it comes from and, and that somebody, anybody virtually, anybody can say.
00:36:58.285 --> 00:37:01.644
We're just not getting, and those things do two things.
00:37:01.644 --> 00:37:06.745
One, they get you into sort of the cycle of slowing things down, especially, and it's usually towards the end, right.
00:37:06.745 --> 00:37:07.555
When that comes up.
00:37:08.185 --> 00:37:16.945
And then they also, what, what I found is it's, it's like, um, I used this term earlier this week with somebody is like, it, it becomes.
00:37:17.515 --> 00:37:20.545
You know, the Frankenstein bit of content, right?
00:37:20.545 --> 00:37:25.015
So someone's like, like they're not thinking, looking at necessarily all the way through.
00:37:25.015 --> 00:37:33.144
They're like, oh, I need to, I need to fix this little, like portion of one sentence in the copy, but then it makes the whole flow of it change.
00:37:33.175 --> 00:37:33.505
Right.
00:37:33.535 --> 00:37:36.115
They don't actually like, they don't sit, stop and go.
00:37:36.144 --> 00:37:37.915
I'm gonna read through this out loud.
00:37:37.915 --> 00:37:39.085
Like, I'm gonna say it out loud.
00:37:39.085 --> 00:37:46.855
Like how, how will this sound to somebody who's reading it if they were actually like, if I was to read, say this out loud to them, would it actually make sense?
00:37:47.545 --> 00:37:51.385
And I think there's a lot of places where I've seen that things fall apart in that
00:37:51.385 --> 00:37:51.595
scenario.
00:37:51.625 --> 00:37:52.915
Mm-hmm yep.
00:37:53.005 --> 00:37:53.275
Yep.
00:37:53.365 --> 00:37:53.875
Me too.
00:37:54.565 --> 00:37:55.225
It's unfortunate.
00:37:55.225 --> 00:37:57.055
Did I say I have a little PTSD from this kinda stuff?
00:37:57.775 --> 00:37:58.975
We all, we all do.
00:38:00.325 --> 00:38:01.435
I'll tell you an example.
00:38:01.435 --> 00:38:05.485
Like we, you know, there was one time when we were doing a launch.
00:38:05.785 --> 00:38:09.505
Um, this is an example for my, for my career.
00:38:09.505 --> 00:38:12.445
Not, you know, not this job specifically or my last one.
00:38:12.955 --> 00:38:29.470
Um, we would do a launch and, um, Like you said a certain person with a certain title comes in, um, on the, on the day before the launch and decides to change up every, the entire copy of the database email announcement that we were about to send in.
00:38:29.470 --> 00:38:31.030
I'm like, this is not supposed to happen.
00:38:31.840 --> 00:38:35.080
Um, this is where a marketing officer really comes in, right.
00:38:35.085 --> 00:38:41.440
To really try to enforce the process and, um, make sure that everybody, uh, you know, abides by it.
00:38:41.830 --> 00:38:43.900
Um, cause we're, we're trying to move fast.
00:38:43.900 --> 00:38:44.920
We're trying to be streamlined.
00:38:44.925 --> 00:38:46.330
We're trying to avoid mistakes.
00:38:47.125 --> 00:38:49.555
um, this is exactly how you make mistakes.
00:38:51.025 --> 00:38:53.575
um, if you keep making last minute changes like this.
00:38:53.875 --> 00:38:54.205
Um,
00:38:54.835 --> 00:38:57.745
so yeah, audios can't see me like vigorously
00:38:59.875 --> 00:39:00.144
by my head.
00:39:01.075 --> 00:39:01.225
Yeah.
00:39:01.225 --> 00:39:02.036
It's like, oh yes, yes, yes.
00:39:02.036 --> 00:39:02.037
Yes.
00:39:04.255 --> 00:39:10.975
Oh, I'm so like, I could probably go on about this and rant about it for a while, but, um, I think it's probably best we'd move on.
00:39:11.322 --> 00:39:13.542
Well, RJ, this has been a great conversation.
00:39:13.622 --> 00:39:15.932
I think our audience will have gotten a lot out of it as well.
00:39:15.961 --> 00:39:22.982
Um, just some of the key things that you talked about and what you've done, and I think, uh, a good inspiration for.
00:39:23.552 --> 00:39:28.352
Especially, what you've done is sort of starting from marketing ops, doing things like ICP definition and all that.
00:39:28.352 --> 00:39:29.042
So I think that's great.
00:39:29.042 --> 00:39:30.692
So thank you for that.
00:39:30.902 --> 00:39:38.162
Great to have you, if, if, if folks wanna kinda keep up with what you're doing or, uh, wanna be in touch with you, what's the best way for them to do that?
00:39:39.422 --> 00:39:44.042
Uh, LinkedIn is gonna be the best way for me to send me, send me a, send me a request.
00:39:44.312 --> 00:39:48.662
Uh, I'll make sure we connect, um, or slack me in the, uh, marketing op slide channel.
00:39:50.492 --> 00:39:50.972
Awesome.
00:39:50.972 --> 00:39:51.632
Fantastic.
00:39:52.352 --> 00:39:53.372
thank you for joining us.
00:39:53.372 --> 00:39:54.332
Really appreciate it.
00:39:54.332 --> 00:40:02.612
And, um, I think, you know, giving people a lens of how to think about marketing apps as you enter an organization, uh, has been really helpful.
00:40:02.612 --> 00:40:03.902
So appreciate your insights.
00:40:05.522 --> 00:40:05.792
Awesome.
00:40:05.822 --> 00:40:06.902
Thank you guys for having me.
00:40:06.961 --> 00:40:07.472
It was fun.
00:40:07.682 --> 00:40:08.042
Absolutely.
00:40:08.972 --> 00:40:15.602
Well, as always, thank you to those of you who are listening and have been supporting our, uh, little project here.
00:40:15.607 --> 00:40:16.682
It's been a lot of fun.
00:40:16.687 --> 00:40:23.642
It always continues to be, we are excited about the additional lineup of guests we have planned, uh, over the next several weeks.
00:40:23.642 --> 00:40:25.052
So watch for that.
00:40:25.652 --> 00:40:27.182
I mentioned summer camp at the beginning.
00:40:27.182 --> 00:40:33.182
So if you haven't, you still think you can fit in summer camp in Seattle, July 11th, Mike, right.
00:40:33.272 --> 00:40:37.742
July 11th through 13th, July 11th through 13th, 2022.
00:40:37.742 --> 00:40:37.802
Yeah.
00:40:37.802 --> 00:40:42.182
So, um, I I'm, I'm gonna say this and I don't know if that's true, but if I.
00:40:43.297 --> 00:40:47.017
Guessing there might still be a few slots open, but I have like maybe
00:40:47.377 --> 00:40:47.917
one
00:40:47.917 --> 00:40:49.237
or two slots open.
00:40:49.237 --> 00:40:49.597
All right.
00:40:49.867 --> 00:40:59.947
So if you're you're hankerin' for an in person experience with the marketing ops professionals, uh, you're probably gonna want to reach out to me ASAP, cuz I got about one room left.
00:40:59.947 --> 00:41:00.336
I think.
00:41:00.997 --> 00:41:01.507
There you go.
00:41:01.567 --> 00:41:01.817
All right.
00:41:02.617 --> 00:41:05.797
So hopefully by the time this gets published, that will still be true.
00:41:05.827 --> 00:41:06.907
If not, sorry.
00:41:06.907 --> 00:41:07.807
You're outta luck.
00:41:08.287 --> 00:41:09.737
Um, Anyway.
00:41:09.737 --> 00:41:14.836
So with that, thank you, everyone continue to send us your feedback, suggestions, uh, and support.
00:41:14.836 --> 00:41:19.487
If you wanna be a guest or, you know, somebody who would be a good guest, let reach out to Mike or Naomi or me.
00:41:19.997 --> 00:41:22.067
And with that, we're a wrap.
00:41:22.637 --> 00:41:23.387
See you next time.
00:41:24.287 --> 00:41:24.617
Bye.