The Human Side of Marketing Ops with Sari Hegewald

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Hello everyone.
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Welcome to another episode of OpsCast brought to you by MarketingOps.com, powered by all the MoPros out there.
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I am your host, Michael Hartman, flying solo today.
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Hopefully, one of these next few episodes, we'll have Mike or Naomi.
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So we're looking forward to that.
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And we're getting ready for, I think we're about a month away from Matsopalooza 2025, the last year of it, as we're recording this.
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So anyway, uh in this episode, I'm excited.
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We're going to be exploring a perspective that doesn't get nearly enough attention, the psychology of marketing operations.
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Our guest today is Sari Hegewald.
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She is vice president of marketing operations at Serify, where she leads a 10-person team spanning marketing automation, creative content, events, and more.
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Sari brings a deep understanding of both systems and stakeholders, and she believes the best marketing operations leaders don't just build campaigns, they build relationships, anticipate behavior, and apply empathy in everything from reporting to segmentation.
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We will unpack why being data informed, my term, matters more than being data-driven.
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What it looks like to combine strategy with heart and how marketers can reach people internally and externally without becoming robotic.
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So, Sari, welcome to the show.
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Well, thanks for having me here.
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I really am so excited to be here and talking about this.
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Yeah.
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Well, and thanks for making sure I knew how to pronounce your name correctly.
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Because I think many, like many of our listeners, when they see it, they might have mispronounced it.
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So I appreciate that.
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All right.
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Go ahead.
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Oh no.
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I'll just say, yeah.
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It's better than the name I was actually going to be given, which was Babbling Brook.
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So I'm I'm glad we have the the Sari that could be also termed sorry.
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That's right.
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That's right.
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Well, let's let's start with the like the big idea behind the episode.
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We you know what when when we you've said when we talked before, you said the human side of marketing operations.
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So what did you mean by that?
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Yeah, so um really it's just uh something that I've been working on for years now, but it's bringing together two sides.
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One is you have your internal teams, right?
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You've got your marketing team, your sales team, your ops team, product team, all the various teams, and really understanding besides just the robotic part of it, so the processes, the automation, the integrations, um, really understanding how those various teams work, the empathy for how their teams will integrate with those systems, um, and really having a feeling for it on top of the customer and prospect.
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And I think this is where um marketing ops doesn't talk about it enough, really, is the psychology behind the brain of your customers and prospects that you're trying to hit.
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Of course, the data's there, the numbers are there, they're indicators that tell you which way to kind of you're turning the head, but you gotta think a little bit deeper.
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Like, why are you turning that head?
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Which way are you turning it?
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Which way do you want it to really turn so that it meets the goal that you're really having there?
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Yeah.
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Well, I think it's interesting because you talk about the human side, both in terms of internal teams as well as customers.
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And I I think one of the things that I tell people who are maybe less familiar about marketing ops is it's easy to go, we're the enablers for marketing, right?
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IT for marketing, which is Naomi's old way of describing it.
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And I've always thought of it as more, but I think the one of the other things that we should be doing is also be a representative of the customer and prospect, right?
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So kind of thinking about how will how will what we do affect them, how will they be how we be perceived.
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And it could be as simple as things like I've I've talked about this before, right?
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I had a early in my career when I was doing mostly web, I call it web operations stuff, had a product marketing team like, let's put a a form on this website and ask for feedback on our products or something like that.
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And I was like, that's easy.
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We could do that, but what are you gonna do with it?
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Because I think you're setting up an expectation of something, right?
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And so um I think oftentimes it's easy to get caught up and we're just gonna do what we're asked to do, as opposed to thinking about it in the terms of not only was it gonna do to help achieve a business goal, but also how's it gonna affect customers and prospects?
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So is that kind of what you're talking about?
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Yeah, um, you know, I bring up Southwest.
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I'm a huge Southwest lover, and I do love their marketing, even though they've made some changes I haven't 100% agreed with.
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But um you I think about Southwest.
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When you go and you search for a you know a flight, you're just looking into it, you're researching it, but automatically right away, I feel love because I get an email that says, Hey, you're, you know, you're taking off to Las Vegas or whatever, you know, you your trip is still there.
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I feel I feel that love because they understood where I'm at.
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I'm researching it, but maybe I need that that research back in my email so that I can go back to it.
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I don't have to re-put in everything again.
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So they're understanding my process as the customer and prospect.
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And we need to take that into marketing operations.
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I mean, another big example that I always go with is um I really started off my career in email design.
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Um, and I had read a long time ago that orange helps you to uh get more clicks on a CTA for your button, right?
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And at that time, the company I was working for had orange and purple as their main colors.
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And I was like, great, orange.
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We'll just we'll knock all the buttons out with orange to get more engagement.
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You know, that that speaks to people, that speaks to their brains.
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But what was um coming in and trumping was how someone felt about it from their own personal beliefs instead of having empathy and thinking of the psychology of the prospect and the customer, what they would mostly like and appeal to them, and they only wanted purple, which purple is a beautiful color.
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I love purple.
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You're talking about internal internal people only wanted purple buttons.
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Yeah, internal people only wanted purple.
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And so orange didn't went out, even though there was data, right?
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We had the numbers, we had the the people actually um raised their hand in engagement uh that said, Hey, I like orange better, and here's the psychology behind it on why.
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So there's there's just so many things in the psychology world that we can enter into marketing operations that does doesn't make it so re robotic, and we become un understanding, empathetic to internal and customer prospects.
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Yeah, it's interesting because I I mean I've fought and successfully seen better results pretty much every other time I've done this, where I've changed, you talk about email, where I've done and push for light almost basically text-based emails, right?
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Very almost no no design.
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And um it's amazing how much pushback there is on things like that.
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Really, like I'm a big believer, like the the outcome should trump the output, right?
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And so I think if the outcome is always better across multiple dimensions of measurement.
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Um, I'm not saying you do it every time, right?
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Because I think there I do believe there's a place for brand consistency and you know, appropriate.
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And also what you're I mean, I've worked in industries that were selling to people who are more visual and cared about visual aspects and things like that.
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And so like I I get it, right?
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You have to you have to do what makes sense for both the business and customers, right?
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Yeah, and um, but if you're doing what's right for the business, you would think that the outcome would be the thing that wins, but you're right, it doesn't always, right?
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There's egos tied to some of this stuff.
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Yeah, and you have to take that all into consideration, which goes back to the human side of like, hey, I've got my internal teams and I want to make sure that I keep them happy, but I've also got my external teams, and that's where you really have to take all the data and the things, your experience, your knowledge, and the things that you've studied and put that all together to make the best outcome possible for the company and for the achievement you're trying to do.
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Yeah.
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So you've used the word psychology a couple of different times in in our conversation already.
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And you you even said that it plays a big role for how good or great marketing ops teams work.
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So kind of break that down.
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Like, what does that look like in practical sense and show up in your day-to-day role, your team's roles?
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Um actually, it's funny.
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I'm reading a book right now on uh on relationships, um, personally, but I think a lot when I'm when I'm listening, it's an audio book, I'm thinking a lot about how does that apply to the internal teams and our campaigns and making it better and working better together, collaboration and all of that.
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And um one of the things uh that it talks about is uh your tone, your tone is heavier than the content that you have.
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Your tone is what really sets the stage and it almost tells everybody the part of the brain that you're using for that content, of how you're feeling about that content.
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So it's it's things like that that I share with other team members of what the direction that we're taking the various campaigns or processes, um, collaboration, but it's it's things like that in psychology that I share and that I believe in and I believe to get that out into our campaigns.
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That's interesting.
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No, it's interesting um because I think I hadn't heard that.
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I've heard I've heard body language, right?
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But I hadn't heard so much about tone, although it makes sense.
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And it's interesting because I think I I've been I've been uh reading in quotes, right?
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Uh listen to the audiobook of the anxious generation, and it's interesting that it's it's ill it it's illustrated, it's really talking about how we've in one way we've never been more connected, but not in the way that humans uh have evolved to be connected, right?
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Which is with deep personal connections.
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And I think that there's a big part of that has been lost, and I think it was exacerbated with the shut, you know, the COVID's and the lockdowns.
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And I think there's a lot of there there potentially has been some good things, right?
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The ability that people can work remotely, at least in knowledge work.
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At the same time, you know, I think it's made it easier for people who were kind of resistant to connecting with people, you know, able to do even less of that.
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And I don't think that's a good thing long term.
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So uh I'll get off my soapbox now.
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Uh but so so I do I think it's um the I there was something I that you said that I wanted to to follow up on, which is but you know, what it's it's interesting you're reading that book about relationships because I often in my both in terms of my regular coaching and mentoring of teams I've managed, but also the coaching I do with others as individuals, particularly people who are moving into leadership roles, is a is a book that I uh in a in a class I was able to take uh years ago from based on the book Crucial Confrontations.
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Uh there's a second, there's another book by the same people called Crucial Conversations, which I know less about, but I think it's sort of the same general thing, which is you know, the way to have these difficult conversations about, you know, trying to get a change in behavior or to convince somebody to do something or whatever, is really dependent on how you frame the conversation, how to approach it.
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And I think it creates but it's it's one of those ones, it's interesting.
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The reason I bring it up is because you talked about you reading this book that it applies, sounds like it applies both to personal and professional life, and which is what I think of the uh that book too.
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And I it's it's one of the books I universally recommend to people.
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I have kids who are now in college, and I've been recommending that to them too, like they're getting out into the workforce.
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So um, I mean, are you finding that that's true of the book you're reading?
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What is it called again?
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Uh it's it's us.
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Um actually Well, I put you on the spot.
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Okay, here we go.
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I'm I'm not that great with like remembering the book titles.
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I'm more about the content that's within it and the lessons, but it is us getting past you and me to build a more loving relationship.
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And even though it's um, you know, it's personal, like I said, I try to apply it to everything that I do because I really do believe that in your personal also meshes into your professional life.
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Um, you actually talked about uh I read the other book, Crucial Conversations.
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Yeah.
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It it was we have a book club here at Serify, and that was one of the books that they had the company, if you joined the book club, had the company read.
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And it really was a great book because it it is something that as we're collaborating, you have to have those crucial conversations.
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And as you're trying to get, um maybe you're just starting out, you keep wanting to manager or director or vice president or C level at some point.
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Yeah, you you have to be willing to actually sit back, listen, maybe add some of what you heard from the other person um into that conversation that you're gonna have with them about the hard things that you may need to talk about.
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Maybe it's, you know, sorry, we've got to have that orange button.
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I hear what you're saying, you love the color purple.
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It's royal, it resembles royal.
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Um, but the real goal here is that we're trying to get more engagement, we're trying to get more conversions.
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And the way to do that is this way.
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You're still taking into consideration how they feel about something, um, so that you can bring yourselves together on the same page.
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And that's really what the book is about is being able to bring people onto the same page, which you can bring into leadership.
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Yeah.
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I I think I think one of the biggest things I learned from the Crucial Conversations book was not to not to assume intent.
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Right.
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So I think a lot of times, and I think especially true in in optionals and marking options for sure, where um we get requests or are asked to do things that we think are unreasonable or don't make sense.
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And are it's the the easiest, the easy reaction is just kind of roll our eyes or huff or kind of the the if we're in our maybe not our best selves, right?
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Push back in a way that uh undermines relationship and reputation.
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And I think that's that's the thing to avoid.
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I mean, I go back to uh I was just trading messages uh on a LinkedIn post or adding comments on a LinkedIn post yesterday um that made me think again of a another book that is The Seven Habits of Highly Affective People, also still a great book.
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But Stephen Covey talks has a story in there where he's trying to illustrate his don't make assumptions about people's intent or what's going on with them.
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And it's around his his point of seek first to understand, then be understood.
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And yeah, um, I won't go into the story, but so for those who are interested, I highly recommend the book in general, but also find that bit, find the story about uh the story he tells in that area.
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It's it's phenomenal, and it'll probably forever change how you how you look at and respond to things where you think someone's coming in with some intent that is malicious or or not.
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And it I'm not saying that's not not never going to be the case, because clearly there are malicious people or people with malicious intent, but I I like to believe it's the it's the exception, not the rule.
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And I second that book.
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I have um come across that book as well, and so I second that.
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Uh and you know, you bring up maliciousness, and I feel like in marketing operations, at least the position that I'm in, you know, you we deal with um emails and form submissions that are coming in because of the content that's going out.
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And sometimes you get customers or prospects, obviously, that are that are upset.
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I know where you're going.
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Um they're upset.
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They're uh maybe they they had opted into your um email campaign and um they in no uncertain terms tell you they no longer want to be.
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Yeah, yeah, thank you.
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Um but you know, you can take that to heart, right, as a negative comment, or you can say, you know, where are they coming from?
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Maybe, maybe they had a bad day, maybe they forgot, maybe they just don't want to be a part of it anymore, whatever it is.
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Um, maybe learn learn from it even.
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Maybe they give you a little bit of context of like, I don't think this information pertained to me, but maybe they thought something else did.
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A lot of times I'll actually go back and I'll look through the the data of what that person's opened or clicked on or filled out other forms because we are a company of 10 brands.
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And so I'll go, oh, you know what?
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Maybe they really don't like events, but they really like to know when we have discounts.
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And they haven't told us that yet.
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You know, they haven't said, hey, I want events over discounts or what have you.
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But it might be on us to read that data and understand where that person is coming by the key indicators of that data and say, you know what?
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Let's move this person.
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Maybe they didn't say, Hey, I want to unsubscribe.
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Of course, if they said that, we would take them completely out.
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But maybe they were just like, Why are you sending this to me?
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This content isn't pertains to me.
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We write them back, we say, Hey, you know what, we're taking a look through your data, and um, it looks like you really like it when we send you discounts.
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Would you agree that that's really more of what you're looking for?
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It's a little bit more of a personal challenge.
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We can't always do that, and I understand, but making that customer prospect feel special goes a long way because now it's even word of mouth, right?
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Yeah, you're able to understand where that person's at through the key indicators of the data, but also understanding where they could be at by just knowing how the brain works.
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And now word of mouth is going even more further, like, hey, they've reached out to me.
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Like, I can't believe this.
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They pay attention.
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Yeah, totally.
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Yeah, I think I think that really helps.
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Okay, so uh during our introduction, we kind of talked, so like you've got a pretty large team.
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I mean, 10 people um for marketing apps is pretty substantial these days, I'd say.
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So, how do you um how do you help the team stay connected to you know in the in their day-to-day job and how that's connected to the strategy?
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And and then kind of to your point, right?
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How do you stay connected to what's going on?
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What's the data telling you about your customers and prospects?
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Yeah, actually, I don't think we talked about this before, but um we're a fully remote company.
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So it's you know, you've got to work even harder to come together and stay connected.
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Um and because of that, we do things like you know, constant check-ins.
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We have comp uh not company, uh team meetings, and then we have individual meetings, and then we have events, just you know, each department's type meetings along with marketing operations.
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Plus, we do do um a couple of fun things to try to bring together that um personality because I do feel like if you bring in a little bit more personable, you tend to connect a little bit more.
00:20:37.289 --> 00:20:39.529
Same type of thing you would get in an office.
00:20:39.529 --> 00:20:44.009
So we do things like Luna Park, which is a remote team building.
00:20:44.009 --> 00:20:56.730
Um, and then we um I also inform the teams the 15th and the end of every month, how each brand is doing within the different departments.
00:20:56.730 --> 00:21:13.129
So maybe it's form submissions, maybe it's email, maybe it's events, maybe it's the creative, but the team as marketing operations gets informed fully of all of the departments and where we may need to have some focuses and where we're doing great in other places.
00:21:13.129 --> 00:21:19.769
Um, we really lean into Slack and all of the channels that we're able to do through there.
00:21:19.769 --> 00:21:21.769
And that's really how we we work together.
00:21:22.089 --> 00:21:29.289
So I'm just curious because uh I'm married to someone who absolutely hates Slack because it's just another interruption, um I can appreciate.
00:21:29.289 --> 00:21:43.450
But where I've seen it work well is where there's sort of I don't want to say rules, but um guidelines, yes, you know, about how and when to use that versus other channels, you know.
00:21:43.450 --> 00:21:47.289
How do you do you have some some guidelines for like that for that?
00:21:48.490 --> 00:21:54.009
Yeah, so the one thing that we do try to do with channels is it's intentional, right?
00:21:54.009 --> 00:22:02.009
Um we have this one channel that everybody doesn't know what to do with, and I think it's because it's uh not intentional, so it's called random.
00:22:02.009 --> 00:22:09.049
So people just can put random things in there, but it it kind of gets all a little wacky and a little all over the place.
00:22:09.049 --> 00:22:13.369
Whereas we make a channel just for maybe one campaign.
00:22:13.369 --> 00:22:19.690
Hey, we're only gonna talk about this campaign in here so that we can stay focused, we can stay together.
00:22:19.690 --> 00:22:23.609
It's just like having a a meeting you would in the office, right?
00:22:23.609 --> 00:22:26.089
Because that channel is dedicated to that.
00:22:26.089 --> 00:22:39.930
So as long as you have the intention, you have the goals of that channel, and you let the other members know, you also have to have someone that's willing to be able to be like, you know what, that's not for this channel.
00:22:39.930 --> 00:22:47.049
Here's the other channel that this that would be great for, you know, kind of a police officer in a way, I guess.
00:22:47.369 --> 00:22:51.930
Well, I so I I think I realized I I did a poor job of answering my question.
00:22:51.930 --> 00:22:54.970
I really meant forgotten about Slack having channels.
00:22:54.970 --> 00:23:04.889
I meant Slack versus email versus text message versus what's whatever you you know, other the other places where you could communicate.
00:23:05.529 --> 00:23:06.170
Yeah.
00:23:06.170 --> 00:23:10.490
Well, so that okay, uh I see where you're going now.
00:23:10.490 --> 00:23:16.490
The way that I do it is I actually ask the person what's their preferred method.
00:23:16.490 --> 00:23:22.730
There are a lot of people in our company that prefer email over Slack, they're less likely to look at Slack.
00:23:22.730 --> 00:23:28.970
So I do ask the teams to ask for the preferred type of method and then work in that way.
00:23:28.970 --> 00:23:33.769
Most of our team, because the company does direct us that way, is to use Slack.
00:23:33.769 --> 00:23:37.769
But that doesn't work for everybody, and that's okay.
00:23:37.769 --> 00:23:46.809
If I'm actually trying to get a hold of my manager, though, I use I use like a priority type of messaging system.
00:23:46.809 --> 00:23:50.329
I try Slack, and then if that doesn't work, I text message.
00:23:50.329 --> 00:23:56.250
And if that doesn't work, then I, you know, I start sending pigeons out the window of like, hey, I need to go.
00:23:56.410 --> 00:23:57.450
Fire signals, yeah.
00:23:57.609 --> 00:23:58.490
Yeah, yeah.
00:23:58.730 --> 00:23:59.849
Yeah, smoke signals.
00:23:59.849 --> 00:24:03.369
Uh yeah, so I've been in places too where um it's it's interesting.
00:24:03.369 --> 00:24:05.849
Uh I also think there's good practice.
00:24:05.849 --> 00:24:15.369
Um, I was on a leadership, marketing leadership team a few years ago, and at one of our meetings, some people raised their hands and said, like, we're getting frustrated, Mr.
00:24:15.369 --> 00:24:20.730
CMO, because we're getting stuff over the weekends and late at night and we're like feel like it's not fair to us.
00:24:20.730 --> 00:24:24.170
And this is a good point about make not making assumptions.
00:24:24.170 --> 00:24:29.289
He he was like, I I didn't intend for you to respond then, right?
00:24:29.289 --> 00:24:32.329
It was just convenient for me to communicate.
00:24:32.329 --> 00:24:39.369
And it it sparked a healthy conversation about how do we know, like, and he's like, here's how I'll tell you if I need something urgently.
00:24:39.369 --> 00:24:42.889
You know, I'll tell I'll send you, maybe send you a Slack, but I'll also text you.
00:24:42.889 --> 00:24:44.009
Like, I need this soon.
00:24:44.009 --> 00:24:49.930
If I don't do that, treat it as if it's you know, within a reasonable amount of time, right?
00:24:49.930 --> 00:24:54.009
You don't, but you don't need to respond right then, over the weekend, overnight, whatever.
00:24:54.009 --> 00:25:08.809
And I think um that's that's a really good thing to do, is to be really clear about what the expectations on are on communication, because I think it's easy to get overwhelmed and feel like every you have to respond to everything right when it comes in.
00:25:08.809 --> 00:25:11.210
And definitely um, I think so.
00:25:11.210 --> 00:25:18.569
I'm glad to hear that you've like that hierarchy of communication threads, right, based on urgency is a good good model, I think, to use.
00:25:18.569 --> 00:25:29.049
Um one of the things that we talked about before is you you mentioned this term, and I I love this idea.
00:25:29.049 --> 00:25:39.049
Like you you said that, and we've kind of touched on it a little bit, that you think of the the I guess I'll call them stakeholders, but um, that marketing ops serves as personas.
00:25:39.049 --> 00:25:45.129
So can you walk me through, like walk our audience through what do you mean, like first of all what do you mean by that?
00:25:45.210 --> 00:25:57.849
And then what are the I think I had three is what I had be from our conversation, but whatever the that number is well um I think it also depends on the company that you're at, right?
00:25:57.849 --> 00:26:00.410
Your unique situation, every company is different.
00:26:00.410 --> 00:26:09.849
But um, for us when we're thinking about it, we have our customers' prospects, which technically you could even split into two because they think completely different.
00:26:10.250 --> 00:26:10.490
Yeah.
00:26:10.490 --> 00:26:13.769
Um well, I think you should, I think you should treat them differently for sure.
00:26:14.089 --> 00:26:14.490
Yeah.
00:26:14.490 --> 00:26:15.450
Yeah.
00:26:15.450 --> 00:26:26.250
I mean, uh, you know, if you're if you're sending a new product, you already have kind of buy-in from customers on your brand, whereas prospects, you don't have that brand buy-in yet.
00:26:26.250 --> 00:26:28.250
So you have to work a little bit harder and differently.
00:26:28.250 --> 00:26:30.809
So you definitely have the different personas there.
00:26:30.809 --> 00:26:42.250
And then you have your internal marketing team and you have your cross-functional teams, your sales, your products, your C-level um leadership, all the various different types of teams.
00:26:42.250 --> 00:26:52.889
Um, and then not only the greater marketing team, but your own team, uh, you have to, you have to be thinking about all these different parts and pieces.
00:26:52.889 --> 00:26:55.529
And I think that's what makes marketing operations so great, right?
00:26:55.529 --> 00:26:58.250
You get to, you get to think about all of that.
00:26:58.250 --> 00:26:59.769
That's the exciting thing.
00:26:59.769 --> 00:27:03.369
You get to put all those gears into place.
00:27:03.369 --> 00:27:06.730
And I imagine it like where you're like have a turnstile, right?
00:27:06.730 --> 00:27:13.289
And the gears are all working together because you finally fit them well enough that the water is now flowing or something like that.
00:27:13.529 --> 00:27:14.250
Right, right, right.
00:27:14.250 --> 00:27:14.649
Yeah.
00:27:14.649 --> 00:27:15.849
I mean, I I agree with you.
00:27:15.849 --> 00:27:32.170
Like it's one of the things I I love about ops roles and marketing ops in particular, because I think of there's obviously like other parts of marketing, uh, sales, sales operations, um, finance, right, or FPA, um, legal, and then C-suite, right?
00:27:32.170 --> 00:27:44.089
I mean, you kind of if you're if if you're you know at a even up to a sort of a moderately sized company, I think you have you would normally have interactions with all of those different kinds of stakeholders.
00:27:44.089 --> 00:27:51.289
And probably if they're doing customer marketing or customer success, like you should be in talks with those teams too, right?
00:27:51.289 --> 00:27:54.649
And management existing accounts and clients.
00:27:54.649 --> 00:27:59.369
So um, but and I think that's maybe this is the tie tie together, right?
00:27:59.369 --> 00:28:11.129
So from a psychology standpoint, one of the things I always tell people who get especially get frustrated with sales teams, having been in sales myself before, is you've got to put yourself in their shoes, right?
00:28:11.129 --> 00:28:16.410
If you don't understand um what their incentives are, you know, it's gonna be really hard.
00:28:16.410 --> 00:28:29.450
Like I remember at a company where uh multiple sales teams, one in particular out that it was high volume, uh relatively lower uh you know average deal size, but still substantial.
00:28:29.450 --> 00:28:41.690
And I remember talking to somebody who had used was in sales, sales ops or sales enablement, uh, who had been in that team before, and I was getting really, I was sort of describing some frustration I was having, getting some change in behavior there.
00:28:41.690 --> 00:28:47.609
And I asked a question that I thought I knew the answer to, which was you know, what's their compensation structure?
00:28:47.609 --> 00:29:03.210
Well, it because I assumed that there was a pretty, you know, a standard sales one that was uh based on what they sold, and it was like, no, it was base plus plus bonus, and the bonus was more or less somewhat tied to uh individual achievement, but not totally.
00:29:03.210 --> 00:29:08.490
And um I was like, oh, this explains a lot, right?
00:29:08.490 --> 00:29:12.329
No, so I'm gonna have to go approach them in terms of trying to get changed a different way.
00:29:12.329 --> 00:29:16.329
I couldn't tie it, I couldn't use the carrot of this.
00:29:16.329 --> 00:29:22.730
What I'm asking you to do, yes, is I'm asking you to do some digital stuff, whether it was like updating Salesforce in a certain way or something.
00:29:22.730 --> 00:29:26.889
I can't tie it to that's gonna help your compensation, right?
00:29:26.889 --> 00:29:32.809
Or your place on the scoreboard, which is probably actually more where most the best salespeople live.
00:29:32.809 --> 00:29:42.250
And it was really interesting to kind of think through that and go like, oh, I need to change my strategy because of what I now know about that team and the people.
00:29:42.250 --> 00:29:47.529
Um I I couldn't base it on what I assumed I knew about the team.
00:29:48.250 --> 00:29:58.170
Yeah, I think I think you hit it on the nose, and it's something that I'm sure you learned from and integrated like into each position that you were in and situation.
00:29:58.170 --> 00:30:10.970
Um I think that that's probably the a really important part in order to understand how to collaborate and how to get your campaign to almost be important, right?
00:30:10.970 --> 00:30:16.889
When it comes to marketing operations, the things that you're doing, we get to be technical in marketing operations.
00:30:16.889 --> 00:30:21.129
And when you talk to another person, ops, you get to be technical with them.
00:30:21.129 --> 00:30:24.089
But when you're explaining outside of that, like Sales.
00:30:24.089 --> 00:30:34.970
I always started and I'm like, look, I geek out on this stuff and I love it, but let me know when I need to pull back, and you're you guys are just glazing over at this point, and it doesn't pertain to you.
00:30:34.970 --> 00:30:39.210
I will understand that and then be able to learn from that and pull back.
00:30:39.210 --> 00:30:46.089
I also in sales, especially, we really need to understand marketing, marketing ops.
00:30:46.089 --> 00:30:48.889
Where, because sales is our number one partner.
00:30:48.889 --> 00:30:50.809
Where are they at?
00:30:50.809 --> 00:31:00.410
Where are they at in their thinking, especially as you're sharing sales, sales enablement toolkit things or battle cards, tips, whatever?
00:31:00.410 --> 00:31:02.889
Um, where are they at?
00:31:02.889 --> 00:31:04.730
Where are their frustration points?
00:31:04.730 --> 00:31:13.930
Where are their goals so that you can match what you're doing with what they're doing, and then you guys can make your goals grow together and actually achieve them.
00:31:13.930 --> 00:31:19.609
So it's just is a total understanding, like you experienced of understanding where they're coming at.
00:31:19.930 --> 00:31:26.730
Yeah, which is kind of a psychology thing, kind of understanding human behavior in a general sense, too.
00:31:26.730 --> 00:31:28.250
So yeah, yeah.
00:31:28.250 --> 00:31:30.089
So you brought you brought up campaigns.
00:31:30.089 --> 00:31:36.970
Um and I don't remember the details, but one of the things that you and I talked about before was something I think you called it the love to learn campaign.
00:31:36.970 --> 00:31:43.930
And I don't remember was that an internal campaign, like with sales teams, or was it with customers, prospects?
00:31:43.930 --> 00:31:44.649
Like what was that?
00:31:44.649 --> 00:31:47.129
Can you like tell us about that?
00:31:47.609 --> 00:31:50.089
Yeah, it's actually it's with prospects.
00:31:50.089 --> 00:31:53.930
Um, it's for our continuing education brands.
00:31:53.930 --> 00:32:08.329
And what we were seeing after talking to several different departments in the sales org is what they were telling us is like, you know, we call we call these these prospects and they're like, yeah, I get my continuing education through my company.
00:32:08.329 --> 00:32:13.769
They get it through a different uh a company, uh different company that's like yours.
00:32:13.769 --> 00:32:15.609
I don't need to talk with you.
00:32:15.609 --> 00:32:18.490
But I everybody is that, right?
00:32:18.490 --> 00:32:22.569
If we're in continuing education, all of our competitors are going to be the exact same thing.
00:32:22.569 --> 00:32:30.250
So one of the things that uh a sales leader brought up is to go after the aspect of people really want to learn.
00:32:30.250 --> 00:32:35.769
It's not just satisfying their continuing education credits, it's going broader than that.
00:32:35.769 --> 00:32:39.210
It's like, yeah, I understand you've got you've got a provider for that.
00:32:39.210 --> 00:32:41.529
But what about just continuing to learn?
00:32:41.529 --> 00:32:54.410
We have hundreds of courses that you can broaden your knowledge with and get even better and understand um your customers more, whereas your competitor might not have that.
00:32:54.410 --> 00:33:08.889
We're not looking to satisfy necessarily your continuing education credits, which we'll do, but we're looking to help you to learn so that you can grow as a professional and in your career and for your other for your company.
00:33:08.889 --> 00:33:14.649
So that's really how Love to Learn came about, and it's been completely successful.
00:33:14.649 --> 00:33:27.849
I mean, in the f first 48 hours, uh, we had our subscriptions increase uh over e-commerce, and um it just continues to do that.
00:33:27.849 --> 00:33:31.529
So it was a significant increase and it looked really, really good.
00:33:31.849 --> 00:33:34.569
And it it started with feedback from sales teams.
00:33:34.569 --> 00:33:35.450
Is that what you're saying?
00:33:35.690 --> 00:33:36.009
Yes.
00:33:36.009 --> 00:33:50.569
Yeah, it started with feedback from several different sales teams, and then there was a specific leader that spoke up and said, you know, one thing that we encounter a lot on our phone calls is the fact that people are really just looking to learn.
00:33:50.569 --> 00:33:56.089
We don't necessarily need to say, hey, we're another continuing education provider.
00:33:56.089 --> 00:33:59.529
Would you like to get your course, you know, your coursework done through us?
00:33:59.849 --> 00:34:00.170
Right.
00:34:00.170 --> 00:34:09.530
I mean, that's kind of the yeah, it it's a it's a mirror or anal analogous to the the whole iPod campaign, right?
00:34:09.530 --> 00:34:16.250
Which started out as yeah, whatever formats, how many songs you could have on your iPod, yada, yada, yada, all the technical specs.
00:34:16.250 --> 00:34:22.250
And when they shifted to a thousand songs in your pocket, right, it it changed, right?
00:34:22.250 --> 00:34:26.650
So it's like, what's the feeling you're trying to elicit from the prospect?
00:34:27.289 --> 00:34:28.090
Yeah, exactly.
00:34:28.090 --> 00:34:35.690
It I mean, it's it's really understanding and flipping it on its head of like, okay, that that isn't working.
00:34:35.690 --> 00:34:37.130
Like that, that isn't working.
00:34:37.130 --> 00:34:40.010
We had a whole other campaign too that we actually just launched.
00:34:40.010 --> 00:34:44.810
It's called Mythbreakers for our CFA um category.
00:34:44.810 --> 00:34:50.970
Before we were just very product focused, we were like, hey, we have this instructor-led, we've never had that before.
00:34:50.970 --> 00:35:07.210
It did okay, but once we did the myth breakers of like breaking down the things that that this community is hearing and whether it's true or not, and how we support those different items, I mean, it's become a conversation now, right?
00:35:07.210 --> 00:35:11.450
Because it's like, oh, I heard it takes 300 hours to study for this.
00:35:11.450 --> 00:35:16.490
Well, maybe, but here's why that may or may not be true.
00:35:16.490 --> 00:35:23.050
And it's it's just it's really speaking to them instead of speaking at them and understanding where they're at.
00:35:23.450 --> 00:35:33.690
Do you I mean, were you able to have a little bit of it sounds like that's when it has a little bit of a I don't know, humor, kind of poking fun at your own self or your own audience, right?
00:35:33.690 --> 00:35:34.650
In as part of it.
00:35:34.650 --> 00:35:36.410
Is that is that true?
00:35:36.970 --> 00:35:38.490
Uh yeah, a little bit.
00:35:38.490 --> 00:35:42.890
I mean, with this particular audience, they're um financial analysts.
00:35:42.890 --> 00:35:43.050
Yeah.
00:35:43.050 --> 00:35:45.530
So you don't want to get too humorous.
00:35:45.530 --> 00:35:45.850
Yeah.
00:35:45.850 --> 00:35:50.570
So you try to stay a little bit more um to the point.
00:35:50.570 --> 00:35:55.850
But you definitely can poke fun and get a little bit fun with it, which is why Myth Breakers works.
00:35:55.850 --> 00:35:58.330
I mean, I kind of think of Ghostbusters, right?
00:35:58.330 --> 00:35:58.650
Right.
00:35:58.650 --> 00:36:00.810
And the mystery of it all.
00:36:01.050 --> 00:36:01.850
Yeah, yeah.
00:36:01.850 --> 00:36:08.650
Yeah, it's it's funny because I um what that made me think this is gonna age me, as it many things do.
00:36:08.650 --> 00:36:13.610
There's an old um company called Blend Tech, which is they made blenders.
00:36:13.610 --> 00:36:14.810
Some households.
00:36:14.810 --> 00:36:15.370
I remember that.
00:36:15.370 --> 00:36:17.130
Remember this Will It Blend bit?
00:36:17.450 --> 00:36:19.290
Yes, I love those videos.
00:36:19.530 --> 00:36:22.010
Yeah, so um I always thought those were great.
00:36:22.010 --> 00:36:33.690
I have no idea if they did anything other than you know, raise brand awareness or help with financials, but like I love that they were just like the crazy stuff they did, right?
00:36:33.690 --> 00:36:38.650
Um starting out with the handle of the rake and eventually getting to the Chuck Norris doll, right?
00:36:38.650 --> 00:36:41.610
Um, and so and everything else, a cell phone.
00:36:41.610 --> 00:36:56.010
So um, yeah, I mean I think I do think B2B, I I think I think I would love to see more B2B organizations be a little more playful with their messaging, right?
00:36:56.010 --> 00:37:02.730
Even to audiences like yours, which tend to be very fairly serious things, right?
00:37:02.730 --> 00:37:08.410
Yeah, um, I get there are certain industries where that's probably even harder to do, where there's highly regulated, right?
00:37:08.410 --> 00:37:12.810
But I mean, like we don't all have to be serious all the time.
00:37:12.970 --> 00:37:16.330
I mean, they're they're humans too, right?
00:37:16.330 --> 00:37:22.570
Like you go out and watch funny movies or maybe watch a comedian or like to kick back a little bit.
00:37:22.570 --> 00:37:27.130
They don't want to be stressed out by financial numbers all the time.
00:37:27.130 --> 00:37:27.450
Right.
00:37:27.450 --> 00:37:31.450
So you can have that little bit of fun um respectfully.
00:37:31.850 --> 00:37:32.730
Yeah, exactly.
00:37:32.730 --> 00:37:35.370
Yeah, I think that's uh I think that's good.
00:37:35.370 --> 00:37:38.330
Um well, let's let's go into a little bit.
00:37:38.330 --> 00:37:51.769
We I kind of hinted at this um in the introduction, but this whole idea of being data driven seems to have become the dominant force in marketing, in the marketing world.
00:37:51.769 --> 00:37:57.769
Um and I I struggle with that because I'm a data nerd to some degree.
00:37:57.769 --> 00:38:10.570
But um you and I talked about this, and you you know, sort of tying empathy and intuition with data and trusting in intuition versus just purely metrics.
00:38:10.570 --> 00:38:15.370
Like, how do you think about those things um in what you with your team?
00:38:15.930 --> 00:38:19.690
Yeah, we think about it together, is what it is.
00:38:19.690 --> 00:38:23.530
Um I I geek out on numbers too, right?
00:38:23.530 --> 00:38:32.170
But I geek out on numbers because it tells us a story and it tells us, it gives us key indicators of where we need to go.
00:38:32.170 --> 00:38:35.130
But there's also gut feelings too, right?
00:38:35.130 --> 00:38:37.610
Of like mixing that in.
00:38:37.610 --> 00:38:46.250
Of we have we have a brand that part of the pieces of it is telling us, man, it's doing great.
00:38:46.250 --> 00:38:54.090
I mean, like, we are getting demos all over the place, uh, form submissions, the emails are engaging.
00:38:54.090 --> 00:39:01.050
We're we're hitting those numbers, but at the same time, we're not seeing that customer base grow.
00:39:01.050 --> 00:39:12.970
So they're key indicators of telling us a story, but it's a gut reaction of okay, the emails are doing great and the forms are doing great, but are they really?
00:39:12.970 --> 00:39:24.250
Are they doing great because they're just these these people are getting something for free, like a free demo, and then they're just walking away and we're not nurturing them a little bit more.
00:39:24.250 --> 00:39:24.810
Right.
00:39:24.810 --> 00:39:33.769
Um it's it's trying to find out where are the gaps that you can connect that story in the numbers to help you to tell even a better story.
00:39:33.769 --> 00:39:40.570
It's it's just I believe it's um the data is just the support, right?
00:39:40.570 --> 00:39:46.250
It's not, it shouldn't be like the exact, like one plus one equals two.
00:39:46.250 --> 00:39:51.450
Yes, I agree with you, but that's supporting the mathematical equation.
00:39:51.450 --> 00:39:54.970
What is that equation that we need to figure out?
00:39:54.970 --> 00:40:03.370
And that is where the thinking comes behind it, the psychology comes behind it, and putting all of those pieces together.
00:40:03.690 --> 00:40:14.170
Yeah, I think um Yeah, my take on this is informed by a couple different things, but probably big biggest one is to your point, like one plus one equals two, yes.
00:40:14.170 --> 00:40:17.690
But the problem is for especially in B2B world, right?
00:40:17.690 --> 00:40:23.450
Marketing and sales data is just never quote correct, right?
00:40:23.450 --> 00:40:28.010
It's just never gonna be complete, correct, and there's a lot of reasons for that.
00:40:28.010 --> 00:40:39.610
And this is why I I kind of have a reaction to data driven, because it implies there's an implication there in my mind that says um the data is gonna tell us what to do next.
00:40:39.930 --> 00:40:40.250
Yeah.
00:40:40.410 --> 00:40:42.730
And and I just don't believe that's the case, right?
00:40:42.730 --> 00:41:05.850
I think I think you know, if you re- and I and what I see happen is people start reporting on this data, people around us start questioning it, and they lose trust, or um they don't they they spend uh extreme amounts of time, effort, money to quote, get the data right, end quote.
00:41:05.850 --> 00:41:10.730
And and and until they feel like that's right, which will never happen, right?
00:41:10.730 --> 00:41:11.930
They don't act.
00:41:11.930 --> 00:41:19.850
And I think there's this there's this fine line where you have to balance, like, I want enough data to inform what I'm doing.
00:41:19.850 --> 00:41:27.690
I also need to trust my ex, you know, experience, intuition, right, to go like, am I, am I, are we heading in the right direction?
00:41:27.690 --> 00:41:30.010
Does this seem like this will work?
00:41:30.010 --> 00:41:33.690
And um, I think that's kind of where I land.
00:41:33.690 --> 00:41:38.410
It's like I the data's never be right or complete or to the level we want.
00:41:38.410 --> 00:41:52.010
And so you have to be able to be willing to do things without all that data, which is a little different than go trusting the data to tell you exact things, which it never will in this like this is not a this is not financial data, right?
00:41:52.010 --> 00:42:06.810
Whether it's yeah, common language, extreme levels of control, right, all that kind of stuff that makes it more trustworthy, even knowing that there are people who are bad actors out there that do things with that, but set that aside, right?
00:42:06.810 --> 00:42:09.530
That's I still think that's the exception, not the rule.
00:42:09.930 --> 00:42:10.410
Yeah.
00:42:10.410 --> 00:42:13.290
I mean, I I I see where you're going with it.
00:42:13.290 --> 00:42:23.850
And I even think about if I go back to the love to learn and I implement it there, the data wasn't necessarily telling us the next step when we were about the CE providers.
00:42:23.850 --> 00:42:30.330
It was the feedback that we were getting from the sales team that we added into the data, right?
00:42:30.330 --> 00:42:41.210
And it was also the feedback of customers and prospects telling us, hey, I want to hear someone another company tell me another reason why I should go with you.
00:42:41.450 --> 00:42:41.690
Right.
00:42:41.850 --> 00:42:45.610
And that we were never going to get that from the data, from numbers.
00:42:45.610 --> 00:43:03.130
We'll get it from maybe survey results, but surveys you if you don't ask it in the right way, or be there right next to the person explaining what you're trying to really get after, sometimes survey results can even be a little bit wonky of where it's telling you to go.
00:43:03.450 --> 00:43:03.930
Yeah.
00:43:03.930 --> 00:43:09.850
So so much of a survey's um usefulness is dependent on it's the way it's been built.
00:43:09.930 --> 00:43:11.050
And yeah.
00:43:11.290 --> 00:43:14.090
And and there's an expertise that I don't have.
00:43:14.090 --> 00:43:18.890
And I I've been asked to do surveys, like post-training surveys internally, fine.
00:43:18.890 --> 00:43:31.130
The the risk is low, but I think if you're trying to do surveys or uh market research, right, you need people who know what they're doing, otherwise you're gonna get biased and flawed feedback.
00:43:31.130 --> 00:43:31.930
Yes.
00:43:32.250 --> 00:43:33.210
Yeah, yeah.
00:43:33.210 --> 00:43:36.330
So and it depends on the survey taker.
00:43:36.330 --> 00:43:46.010
I know from for me, for instance, if you tell me to score myself one through ten, I'm never gonna pick ten because I always feel like you know, something could be better.
00:43:46.010 --> 00:43:46.730
Absolutely.
00:43:46.730 --> 00:43:53.610
But that but the company that's giving me that survey may not feel that that question was what how they were posing it.
00:43:53.850 --> 00:43:54.570
Yeah, yeah.
00:43:54.570 --> 00:44:05.130
And I think there's lots of uh could be as simple as like I asked you the question about uh Slack versus other channels, and yeah, you interpreted it one way, right?
00:44:05.130 --> 00:44:07.290
And it's not neither of us was right or wrong.
00:44:07.290 --> 00:44:14.010
It was just you had one thing in your head, I had a different thing, and until you answered it, I I had then I could correct it.
00:44:14.010 --> 00:44:19.850
But yeah, if it was a uh if it was asynchronous, right, there's no opportunity for that.
00:44:20.170 --> 00:44:21.130
Yeah, definitely.
00:44:21.130 --> 00:44:22.570
Yeah, exactly.
00:44:22.810 --> 00:44:25.769
Um, so I I want to do a little bit of a follow-up.
00:44:25.769 --> 00:44:38.170
So you mentioned this idea of like personally responding to some customer feedback, like replies to your emails where maybe they weren't nice, they use uh color colorful language.
00:44:38.170 --> 00:44:38.730
Uh yeah.
00:44:38.730 --> 00:44:41.290
So we put I think we've all seen that.
00:44:41.290 --> 00:45:03.130
Um yeah, one of the things I think I would net I like my head went to was well, that sounds like the kind of thing that AI would be really useful in trying to maybe either I personally wouldn't probably trust it right away to do an automated kind of response, but um, it could be useful at identifying maybe drafting kind of responses, things like that.
00:45:03.130 --> 00:45:14.010
Do you like I I think we talked a little bit about like you still think robotic, there's a robotic kind of nature of AI and automation that can come across as cold, whatever.
00:45:14.010 --> 00:45:22.810
Um, so maybe not like you can do this in the context of AI because it's a hot topic, but just in marketing operations in general, right?
00:45:22.810 --> 00:45:35.050
Like, how do we avoid that kind of coming across as robotic, cold, you know, um not personal, I guess is the way I don't know what else titles to describe it.
00:45:35.530 --> 00:45:36.170
Yeah.
00:45:36.170 --> 00:45:38.650
So I love AI.
00:45:38.650 --> 00:45:39.530
I really do.
00:45:39.530 --> 00:45:42.970
I um I love working with ChatGPT.
00:45:42.970 --> 00:45:46.410
We use it in other programs that have AI features too.
00:45:46.410 --> 00:45:51.690
And uh even here at Cerify, we're growing AI within our LMS.
00:45:51.690 --> 00:45:59.850
But as long as you're not, when you're drafting a response, you're not taking it at face value of what AI said, right?
00:45:59.850 --> 00:46:08.170
That's the one thing is AI still isn't thinking necessarily of how the other person is thinking, how you may be thinking, the situation.
00:46:08.170 --> 00:46:11.290
It it takes all of that into a little bit into effect.
00:46:11.290 --> 00:46:30.490
But as long as we're taking what AI drafts and we're looking at it and we're tweaking it to exactly, you know, the point we may be trying to get across, or um, the campaign changes of where we really see things and truly understand, I think that's how we become less robotic.
00:46:30.490 --> 00:46:34.250
We don't let AI be the answer, the sole answer.
00:46:34.250 --> 00:46:36.730
It's AI plus us, right?
00:46:36.730 --> 00:46:40.730
That's how we we use AI and become less robotic.
00:46:41.050 --> 00:46:41.610
Yeah, okay.
00:46:41.610 --> 00:46:41.930
Yeah.
00:46:41.930 --> 00:46:45.210
So keep the human in the in the element, and in the middle of it.
00:46:45.210 --> 00:46:46.090
I get it.
00:46:46.090 --> 00:46:46.730
Yeah.
00:46:46.730 --> 00:46:48.730
Um, okay, so we've covered a lot of ground.
00:46:48.730 --> 00:46:56.250
Why don't we wrap up with kind of a pretty broad topic, which is especially given that you've got a pretty large team, right?
00:46:56.250 --> 00:47:08.090
And you described a little bit of what you do to build connections, but how do you build kind of a deeper level, a culture that encourages the kinds of things that you are describing, right?
00:47:08.090 --> 00:47:12.890
Curiosity, learning, human-centered, you know, all those kind of problem solving.
00:47:12.890 --> 00:47:20.650
How do you, how do you what are some things that you've done or would encourage people to do to try to help with that in their own organizations?
00:47:21.690 --> 00:47:25.850
Um, I think it really comes down to two things for me.
00:47:25.850 --> 00:47:31.530
One is I trust the members on the team are the experts.
00:47:31.530 --> 00:47:34.330
Um, they know what they're doing.
00:47:34.330 --> 00:47:37.050
We have them on the team for a reason.
00:47:37.050 --> 00:47:40.490
Um, so I really put a lot of trust into the things that they want to do.
00:47:40.490 --> 00:47:43.370
And especially as they bring up ideas, I'm like, yeah, let's run with it.
00:47:43.370 --> 00:47:45.210
You came up with it, let's see it.
00:47:45.210 --> 00:47:48.490
Let's see the success, the failure, whatever it may be.
00:47:48.490 --> 00:47:53.050
Um, and the other thing is, is I do ask a lot of questions.
00:47:53.050 --> 00:47:54.410
I'm the questionator.
00:47:54.410 --> 00:48:01.690
So, but I I question, yeah, I question so that the other person gets to thinking about it.
00:48:01.690 --> 00:48:14.090
If I just give the answer of like, this was wrong because of this, because of this, or this was right because of this, I want them thinking about it, which gets them curious of like, oh, you know what?
00:48:14.090 --> 00:48:15.210
I'm not really sure.
00:48:15.210 --> 00:48:17.450
Maybe I should ask before I answer you.
00:48:17.450 --> 00:48:20.730
Hold on, let me let me let me ask someone about that answer.
00:48:20.730 --> 00:48:21.370
Right.
00:48:21.370 --> 00:48:26.810
It really gets them thinking, and then they become involved in it and they have more ownership in it.
00:48:26.810 --> 00:48:31.850
So that's that's really the the two key factors that I push on.
00:48:32.170 --> 00:48:34.570
Yeah, I love this idea of asking questions.
00:48:34.570 --> 00:48:36.170
And I know it can it's interesting.
00:48:36.170 --> 00:48:49.690
I just listened to another podcast this morning, listening to a leader talk about how she hired, and she said one of the questions she asks people was like what kind of boss do they work best under.
00:48:49.690 --> 00:49:03.850
But I think what was interesting is she described herself as someone who's gonna be like she avoided people who said they didn't like to be micromanaged because she knew herself well enough to know that she didn't say she would micromanage, but she would, especially onboarding a senior person.
00:49:03.850 --> 00:49:21.690
She said she described she knew she would be actively involved with that onboarding and asking them, supporting them on a like what could come across as micromanaging, that's not the intent, but she said she asked a lot of questions, and that resonated with me, like yours did too, because I also have been told I ask a lot of questions.
00:49:21.690 --> 00:49:27.530
And for me, it's it's some of that of have you have you thought about kind of stuff, right?
00:49:27.530 --> 00:49:32.010
When it comes with the ideas, and I'm I'm totally with you on believing like you're the expert, right?
00:49:32.010 --> 00:49:33.610
Like that's like that.
00:49:33.610 --> 00:49:40.330
I agree with so I want them to be feel um you have agency to come up with ideas and solutions.
00:49:40.330 --> 00:49:42.570
Um doesn't mean they get to do all of them, right?
00:49:42.570 --> 00:49:45.370
I don't set that ex that as the expectation.
00:49:45.370 --> 00:49:49.930
But the other part is just, I mean, what happened on again, what happened in our conversation earlier, right?
00:49:49.930 --> 00:49:59.850
Part of it is just to clarify, like make sure that we're all like that we're when you say campaign, right, or contact, right?
00:49:59.850 --> 00:50:10.570
Like words that I especially when it's words that I know from experience can be uh have wildly different um interpretations or meaning depending on the context that somebody has.
00:50:10.570 --> 00:50:14.090
I will ask questions over and over and over to clarify.
00:50:14.090 --> 00:50:20.090
And I think there are some people who kind of get frustrated with that, and I don't care.
00:50:20.090 --> 00:50:20.730
Yeah.
00:50:20.730 --> 00:50:24.970
Because I think it's way better to have that clarity early on than later.
00:50:25.370 --> 00:50:34.730
Definitely, and you're on the same page, they'll appreciate, they may not appreciate it right then and there, yeah, but they will later because they're like, man, that person really understands me.
00:50:34.730 --> 00:50:38.170
They on they were on the same same wavelength.
00:50:38.170 --> 00:50:40.250
Yeah, it goes a long way.
00:50:40.650 --> 00:50:41.450
Agreed.
00:50:41.450 --> 00:50:53.530
Um I also think like that as is a handy, it's a good tool if you're working collaboratively collaboratively with people outside of your normal sort of expertise domain.
00:50:53.530 --> 00:50:57.690
So, example, right, when you're working with sales or sales ops, right?
00:50:57.690 --> 00:51:07.610
If you're talking about leads and lead handoff, right, you want to get as specific as possible about the language because there can be misinterpretations.
00:51:07.610 --> 00:51:14.090
And some of that is driven by deep technical system knowledge, right?
00:51:14.090 --> 00:51:22.970
I know that a lead record in Salesforce is different than a contact record, which is different than the lead where lead and general, like all these things matter.
00:51:22.970 --> 00:51:30.090
And uh, I think I've I've been in too many scenarios where um two things have happened, right?
00:51:30.090 --> 00:51:38.250
One is there was a nod nodding heads, but actually a lack of understanding, which led to problems down line.
00:51:38.250 --> 00:51:42.250
The other I've seen, which is what I've called violent agreement, right?
00:51:42.250 --> 00:51:51.450
Where people think in the moment they're disagreeing about something, and when you ask enough questions and poke at it, they're actually saying the same thing with different words and not realizing it, right?
00:51:51.690 --> 00:51:52.170
Yeah.
00:51:52.330 --> 00:51:56.010
Um both of which can be damaging to long-term relationships.
00:51:56.650 --> 00:51:57.130
Yeah.
00:51:57.130 --> 00:52:02.570
I mean, um, I guess communication and clarification, right, are key.
00:52:02.570 --> 00:52:03.930
So that's great.
00:52:03.930 --> 00:52:05.130
Lean into that.
00:52:05.130 --> 00:52:06.890
You have the you have world peace.
00:52:07.210 --> 00:52:07.850
There we go.
00:52:07.850 --> 00:52:08.730
So there we go.
00:52:08.730 --> 00:52:09.769
We solved world peace.
00:52:09.769 --> 00:52:12.410
Yeah, that's a good place to end.
00:52:12.410 --> 00:52:13.210
Yeah.
00:52:13.210 --> 00:52:14.970
So, Sari, thank you so much.
00:52:14.970 --> 00:52:16.410
This has been a fun conversation.
00:52:16.410 --> 00:52:19.850
I've really enjoyed it, and I know that our listeners and viewers will as well.
00:52:19.850 --> 00:52:27.210
If people want to continue that conversation with you or keep up with what you're doing, uh, what's the best way for them to do that?
00:52:27.610 --> 00:52:28.730
Yeah, that'd be awesome.
00:52:28.730 --> 00:52:30.410
I love talking.
00:52:30.410 --> 00:52:35.690
Uh, I say I love geeking out on anything marketing, especially marketing tech.
00:52:35.690 --> 00:52:38.090
So please reach out to me on LinkedIn.
00:52:38.090 --> 00:52:41.050
Um, it's Sari Hegelwald.
00:52:41.050 --> 00:52:43.610
I think I might be the only Sari Hegelwald.
00:52:43.610 --> 00:52:49.370
I I could be wrong, but if anyone finds another Sari Hegeld, please let me know because I'd love to know.
00:52:49.370 --> 00:52:51.690
Otherwise, just reach out through there.
00:52:52.090 --> 00:52:52.570
Terrific.
00:52:52.570 --> 00:52:53.210
Sounds good.
00:52:53.210 --> 00:52:54.410
Well, again, thank you.
00:52:54.410 --> 00:52:57.210
Thanks to our listeners and now viewers.
00:52:57.210 --> 00:52:58.570
We appreciate the support.
00:52:58.570 --> 00:53:09.850
If you have ideas for topics or guests or want to be a guest, you can always reach out to Naomi, Mike, or me uh directly or through the marketingops.com community, and we'd be happy to talk about that.
00:53:09.850 --> 00:53:10.570
Till next time.
00:53:10.570 --> 00:53:11.769
Bye, everybody.
00:53:12.170 --> 00:53:13.370
Thanks so much.