Ops Cast
Ops Cast, by MarketingOps.com, is a podcast for Marketing Operations Pros by Marketing Ops Pros. Hosted by Michael Hartmann, Mike Rizzo & Naomi Liu
Ops Cast
A Marketing Operations Framework Aligned with Organizational Priorities with Raja Walia
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On today's episode, we talk with returning guest Raja Walia, Founder and CEO of GNW Consulting. With over 20 years of experience, Raja shares his journey from solopreneur to leading a 16-person marketing operations agency. He also introduces a new framework designed to help marketing and revenue ops professionals articulate their value and navigate the ever-evolving landscape of Martech.
Tune in to hear:
- The unexpected challenges and lessons of building a marketing ops agency from the ground up.
- How to navigate the complexities of Martech consolidation and budget cuts.
- The development and application of a new framework to articulate the value of marketing and revenue operations.
- Strategies for improving cross-team alignment and collaboration between marketing, sales, and customer success.
- Real-world examples of how marketing ops teams can secure budget and drive impact.
Episode Brought to You By MO Pros
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Marketing Ops, RevOps, Data Pros, and AI innovators will come together to share what's really working and what's not during the week of Dreamforce. Join the conversation shaping the future of rev ops and AI, and save your spot now at AI Unfiltered, happening September 16th from 1:00 PM to 8:00 PM at Sandbox VR in San Francisco. Just steps away from Dreamforce. Visit tractioncomplete.com to learn more.
Marketing Ops Framework Development and Insight
Speaker 1Hello everyone , Welcome to another episode of OpsCast brought to you by MarketingOpscom , powered by the MoPros . I'm your host , Michael Hartman , joined today by my co-host , Naomi Liu . Up in lovely , where is it again ? Vancouver , Vancouver .
Speaker 2Where are you now ? You've been all over lately . I can't keep up with you . Vancouver , up in Vancouver , yeah .
Speaker 1West Coast , canada . Somewhere in Canada . Somewhere in Canada . Well good , it's good to be back at this with you . Joining us today is a return guest . Is this this may ? I'll let you answer this in the second , for sure . Third , maybe time on , but Maybe third .
Speaker 2We love the repeats , you know we do .
Speaker 1We do . We're getting to that point where we can actually do that , so , without further ado . Raja Walia is the founder and CEO of GNW Consulting , a strategic marketing operations agency . He has been leading teams and spearheading marketing strategies across hundreds of organizations for more than 20 years . He is recognized as a focus-driven leader who consistently delivers the perfect balance of strategy and execution for marketing operations professionals ranging from small to Fortune 500 .
Speaker 3It was not scripted by the way , he pulled that tree from his hat . It was not written anywhere , I did this is all top of mind .
Speaker 1So thanks , roger , for joining us again , of course .
Speaker 3Thanks for having me .
Speaker 1I'm glad to have you , we'll chat more .
Speaker 3The conversation is always good .
Speaker 1So I love the intro . It should be told . The little secret is that it was scripted , but it is all true . So there you go . I wouldn't have said it if it wasn't true .
Speaker 3You need a 20-year marker . Now I feel really old . We started the conversation about me feeling old and how my body randomly hurts every time I wake up in the morning , and then , during the 20-year marker , I'm like , oh my god , I've actually been doing this for 20 years so young at heart , though right now , just the body needs to catch up the mind is willing , the body is struggling to keep up right right .
Speaker 1For sure . All right , so I did mention that you started and are the founder and running GNW Consulting and when we were prepping for this , even though we've talked before , I didn't realize it's been six years , right , six years since you started it . A little more than that , yeah , about 2018 . Before we get into our topic , which is going to be a framework that you've been working on for marketing ops and revenue ops yo , what I think it'd be interesting to hear , like what's the ride been like for the last six years and are there any lessons you can share with our audience about doing this ?
Speaker 3yeah , no , it's , um , it's about as crazy as it sounds . I always , anytime someone asks me that question , I always say I never wanted to start an agency . I wanted to kind of like be a solopreneur and a contractor . Just because at that point , like in 2018 , I feel like I knew enough to be like not so much an entrepreneur , but like a solopreneur and just kind of like , you know , build my own schedule . It was before I had kids and you know . So it was like , oh , I was about to have my first kid . I was like , hey , I really want flexibility , work my own hours .
Speaker 3And now , you know , six years later , we're a 16-person company and I'm trying to figure out how to not , you know , get fined in multiple states where our consultants are , and trying to figure out why workman's comp is needed even though we're at home . There's all of these things that I've never even experienced in my entire life before . So I went from writing velocity script to trying to figure out , hey , what fine do I not have to pay and what paperwork do I need to submit so I don't get fined ? And I feel like that's the bulk of my thing right now is just trying to figure out how not to get fined because I didn't know about some paperwork that I needed to submit .
Speaker 1Talk a lot to accountants and attorneys . Is that it ?
Speaker 3Yeah , pretty much you know , but no , it's been fun . I think a lot of the stress really comes into . You know , like we have a very employee centric mindset or I do , I guess but like we invest in , like our employees wellbeing . You know we have per diems , we have health . You know we pay for health insurance for our employees and you know their dependents . You know there's a lot of stuff that if you have the capability of doing when you run your own business right , and those are the things that , um , really , I , I like doing right . Like you know everyone does profit sharing everyone's . You know , generally happy knock on wood , but uh , it's , you know , it just depends on , like , what you put into it . Uh , it sounds very cliche , um , very cliche , but it's definitely a lot of learning . Like it's not a nothing has to do with ops or DevOps . From a business perspective , it's literally running how to like do payroll on time , because we don't do payroll on time .
Speaker 2If you ever wrote a consultancy book on marketing ops , it should be called how Not to Get Bind .
Speaker 1Yeah right book on marketing ops . It should be called how not to get fined . Yeah , right , I'm . By the way , I'm just realizing that you said , because you said you , just you , you have , your had your third child , but less than a year ago . So that means you've had three children .
Speaker 3Oh , in between , all that , which is the best time to start a business , because you spend so much time building the business and you're not sleeping anyway because your kids won't let you sleep . So you might as well just be productive and start a business , because you know you're not going to sleep , it's just teething and all of the fun stuff that comes with being a parent and constantly putting them to bed and walking them back and forth . You might as well just be a little productive and start a business at the same time .
Speaker 1Yeah , all you need to do is move houses or something too right in the middle of it all . Yeah , wow , that's , that's interesting . Yeah , it's . Um , I think it's fascinating . We had , we had some , we've had folks on talking about what it was like to start a business and the things they were surprised about . And I hear echoes of some of that with you , right , the things you , just you . It all sounds like , oh , everybody , I could be a consultant , I know how to do all this stuff .
Speaker 3And then you realize there's all this little stuff that you have to be compliant with , especially if you have employees , right , that makes it like there's a big difference which I never understood by of like having you know , like an llc , and like being a contractor or consultant in companies and actually running a business which has a very sharp learning curve when it comes to that type of stuff . If you can be a solopreneur and do a side hustle or , you know , be an independent contractor and you don't really have to worry about a lot of things , but once you start getting employees and you know and knowing , like when it comes to like health care and providing benefits and what all that entails , like you have to really be able to , you know , dive into it and it's like learning a completely new profession oh yeah , all right .
Speaker 1Well , I'll just like . One last thing I'll say about is another reason to learn about finance . I know , right , that's my soapbox . Right , die on that hill . Um , okay , well , let's get into it . I mentioned briefly that you've been working on a framework for marketing ops and revenue ops folks . So I think most of our listeners can relate to . You know the challenge of articulating their value that marketing ops brings to an organization and I think your framework is an attempt to help with that . You know what was the driver and we'll put it . We'll put a link to that framework . It's on your website . We'll put a link to it in the show notes . But what was the driver for you to develop that framework ? You know kind of what was the start and how did it . How did it come about ?
Speaker 3Yeah , no for sure . I think it was a lot of conversations with our clients , especially , I think , during probably end of 2023 , when we first started working on it , to like when we had like iteration one in early 2024 , the common theme that everyone approached us with
Technology Consolidation in Marketing Ops
Speaker 3. Now we're going to talk about two segments of this . We're going to talk about the operations , people and then we're going to talk about the executives . Right From an executive standpoint , it was like hey , raj , our budget's getting cut . We have a retainer with you guys . We need to cut that back . We're just not seeing the benefit , or companies are not seeing the benefit in what marketing is doing . The second part , and that's from an executive standpoint . So that's what you know . When we look at what executives or who they report to , that's what they were hearing , and at that point it's just like okay , well , we have to cut budget . What can you help us out with ? Like ? Those are the conversations we were having . Then , from a practitioner standpoint , as an ops person , you know hey , like we're downsizing to a platform we're not going to have . Hey , we're downsizing to a platform we're not going to have . We have less licenses or we are getting rid of our ABM platforms .
Speaker 3There was a whole tech blow up back when SaaS tech first came out and everyone wanted every piece of technology and they thought they were going to make its life easier . Now , from about late 2023 to now , a lot of the conversations and a lot of projects are like hey Raj , how can GNW help us evaluate the tech that we don't need ? Like , we just have tech to have tech at this point , what can we be doing ? Like , how do we consolidate and you've seen that with just softwares in general as well , like zoom , for example . Like we consolidated Zoom because Zoom has a scheduling link , so we don't need Calendly anymore . It has a version of Loom where you can record snippets and send it to people . It has video chat , it has webinars . It also has our phone number , like our dialing service , right . So now you have one platform consolidating all these things at such a fraction of the cost of getting all of these different telephonic stuff that you need for virtual phones or lines , and it's the consolidation .
Speaker 3Hey , we're consolidating all of this tech . We're getting rid of some of the stuff that we don't need and from an ops perspective and a practitioner standpoint , you know , the common theme was we have to do more with less , or we have to . We're getting less tech . How do we utilize it ? How do we say like ? How do we identify like ? Hey , we really need this , and this is the impact that it's going to have on the organization without it . And , once again , it's not everything . But you have to pick and choose your battles on what do you absolutely need versus what is kind of a nice to have . So that's really what was the driving factor of like .
Speaker 3Okay , you know , I got with a few people . Naomi was on the initial round of like revisions on this one as well . Mike , I remember I talked to you , rizzo Andrea , like a few people said , hey , I'm making this thing . You , rizzo Andrea , like a few people have said hey , I'm making this thing and this is the purpose of it . Give me your feedback and from there you know a final iteration of what's the you know call the modern day version of the revenue operations framework . That's how it came to be Like . That was the premise behind all those array of conversations Interesting .
Speaker 1Yeah , it's . It's interesting to me because I wasn't expecting you to be talking about specific . I mean , it's not a surprise that it would have been part of the conversation . But the idea of reducing spend on marketing or technology for marketing right is a big driver . I know lots of people have talked about it . I'm just curious , just a follow-up , and this is maybe very specific to the telephony kind of stuff . You're talking about , the zoom , you know , being able to sort of pull things . Did you also have to go through and evaluate like there I assume there were like trade-off discussions . You had to have right because maybe um , take loom versus like loom , loom is probably has more capabilities that maybe you weren't taking advantage of it but then would have been better right In quotes then what Zoom could do . But it wasn't . The difference wasn't enough for you to go like I don't need to spend the extra money , additional incremental money for I think when we look at tech stacks in general , you have to look at .
Speaker 3you have to look at it from a perspective of what are the overall features , what are we paying for and what are we really using ? And dominantly . A lot of people send snippets on Loom , they send videos of something not working , troubleshooting , and then I mean obviously not to say Loom is a bad product . It's just when you evaluate tech , what percentage of all of that are you using ? And that's really what you have to focus on . Where can we cut out ? Where can we be as lean as possible ?
Speaker 1Yeah , it's interesting . So , naomi , I know you are big in tracking and monitoring adoption of technology at your organization . So I mean , did this model ? I know you saw an early version of it , but has it been something that helped you think about that or how you measure things ?
Speaker 2Yeah , definitely . I also think and I want to add like a caveat to that that there can be some situations where you may be running parallel instances of two tools that overlap greatly . One may be significantly cheaper , but you may still be doing that for a short period of time because adoption for one may be greater , right , and you're trying to move people onto something else . And it's one of those things where it's like okay , you know , you may know that tool A is not as popular in terms of usability , but it's like a significant cost savings . But if you're paying for something that you're not using , it's still a waste of money , right . And there may be a period of time where you just need to do that adoption to get people on board , find the internal champions to adopt and then eventually migrate tools over .
Speaker 2There has been a lot of consolidation within the industry . Definitely , we have tools that we use where one has bought the other , but
Connecting Marketing Operations Framework in Practice
Speaker 2we still have separate contracts and we even go through periods of time where we're like well , these renewal cycles are completely opposite of each other . How do we do this in our favor ? Now ? That just happens a lot and it will continue to happen yeah , makes sense .
Speaker 1Um , okay , so there's good history on the kind of the why behind the framework and why you saw it as important . Why don't we like and I know we're gonna , since this is going to be um , we don't have visuals to share , since we don't really do videos on this channel , but can you maybe walk through what are the major elements of the framework and how do they interplay with each other ?
Speaker 3as a starting point , yeah , If anyone is interested , we have like a YouTube video which literally breaks down the framework .
Speaker 3Yeah , so we can link that one , but at a high level . There's two things I want to point out on how it's been leveraged already by a couple of our clients . We have really nice quotes and stuff like that , you know , just from a marketing perspective , because that's what we do . So but the idea behind the framework is that in order for companies to be successful , there's layers to all of the things that expand onto on how a company operates , like what do they look at ? And the very outer layer of that framework is really a high-level understanding of what executives and board members and investors and whoever they are look at in order for a company to be successful . You know , go to market , revenue time . What are the executive and board members demands ? If those don't exist , there isn't a nice go to market and there's no revenue potential . The company will never be there . You will never have a company Right . So that's what they look at . They don't care about the nuances of how engaged people are . They look at kind of the most bottom line that there possibly is .
Speaker 3Then , one layer deep , we go into the company goal and generally across companies even my company as well we have to hit pipeline targets right . We have to increase market share , get new clients . We have to do awareness of brand , we have to grow our database . Why ? Because the larger and we use this marketing terms so many times like the larger net we cast , like the broader our reach is , the better people engage with us , the better people convert . And if those are the company initiatives and then you have the impacts that are out of our control , like the macro , like you know , from a macro economics perspective , and what board members want what a company has to do in order to be successful , then the very center of it is there's the tiny but mighty operations team and they are impacting these different layers across what we call RevOps , and RevOps is the idea of customer success . How do we retain , get as many clients as possible , make that experience really good ? How do we align sales ? How do we align marketing ? How do we market ?
Speaker 3That is the entire premise behind revenue . Operations is alignment on those aspects , and the impact of the marketing team and the marketing department overlaps all of those . We've worked with marketing teams and I've personally worked with companies , whether they're enterprise , smb or even startup , where there's one marketing person or there's 10 marketing people . We're constantly in communication with sales . We're constantly in communication with a customer just closed . We need an onboarding process . We're constantly in communication with upsell , cross-sell possibilities from a sales and client perspective , communicate internally .
Speaker 3So literally the premise behind the framework for executives is saying hey , if you want to hit your company targets and you want to meet executive and board members' demands , this is what all we're responsible for . So if we cut our budget here , this is the layer that it's going to impact . Or if we don't have marketing and sales alignment , the sales team is kind of prospecting by themselves . Right From an operations perspective , it's really to design like hey , like all of these things that we're doing in the inner layers , whereas data segmentation , analytics , like when we get very tactical , this is the funnel it belongs under and these are the outer layers it affects . If we don't do this properly , or if I don't have the appropriate tools to either navigate it , this is what it's going to affect at a higher level . That's kind of the premise behind the entire framework and , like I said , we can link the video . It explains it very well in a very like marketing way as well .
Speaker 1Well . So I remember , I think what struck to me , struck out to the , what stood out to me is how it connected , I think , really well visually . The idea of kind of surrounding everything is , hopefully you have consistent , well-understood company and team goals and objectives that are aligned , and that by itself is a challenge , especially as you get larger organizations . And then within that , then it does a good job of showing the interrelationships between the operating teams . But I wouldn't say it's just operations , right , I mean , it's the broader marketing team , the other teams that interact with sales , I can't remember if you have like legal and things like that in there .
Speaker 3Well , we have the legal and everything like that , a little bit separate from their contractual we're talking about . The core of it is what we control , right , and then the marketing team , the AKA , the department , the sales team and the client retention team , but generally the operations team is a team that gets pulled in at the very center of it to execute all of those . So if the marketing team the orange layer inside the diagram has these initiatives , these are the initiatives that they impact , then the operations someone has to execute on it . So it's literally from the single resource that is executing and everything and the broader teams that it affects to what the goals are , to even to the very highest layer of what people look at when they rate a company as successful right .
Speaker 1Well , I think it reminds me of in kind of a smaller universe is like the butterfly effect , right . If you do one thing over here , right , it's going to have impacts over here , whether or not you realize it . And I think that's the . That was a really kind of the epiphany I had from . That was like this is a great way of showing how those things are all connected . You know what I mean .
Speaker 3And what you said right there . That's not the butterfly analogy , but the analogy that you used is literally the thing . The primary feedback that we get from execs is like hey , like we didn't know that by the marketing operations team running these campaigns , that , even though they're giving us reporting that is very superficial , the impact of this is this right , the impact could be this or it could potentially be this . So that's like one of the main things that we get feedback from the framework . Just itself is just like oh , okay , now we see how these things are connected .
Speaker 1Gotcha . Okay , that makes sense . Okay , so and one quick thing from naomi's feedback .
Speaker 3We are working on a different design , like a little bit more like engaged , because I think one of the biggest things naomi had mentioned was like hey , like how do we ? It's very static , right , which I agree . It's very static , that's why we made the video . But for 2025 , really , the goal is to make it a little bit more interactive than click , like that was . That was the feedback I think I agreed with . Uh to heart is like okay , we need to make this thing more interactive so everything we're talking about people can kind of self-navigate and self-realize rather than constantly doing like pitches , pitches on it or anything like that it would be interesting , too , to also do it in a have it , have versions of it , depending on the um .
Speaker 2Adoption of marketing ops within an organization right , because some , some companies just have none . Some companies outsource it . Some companies utilize a hybrid model with an agency . Some is just like a one-person shop right , and I think that can be different depending on who the audience is . The person , maybe the person that's like making those decisions and doing the work is the same person too .
Speaker 1So right , yeah , well , that actually something that just popped in my head is also like okay , so this is a great framework that could apply . Think of it like a template . Right , it's got all the components you might consider , think about for your organization . But whether or not you have it all built out , like , is it something that you're you , you have either seen or think people could use ? Like , hey , I , maybe I'm a team of one at a small company , we don't have all this elaborate kind of team build out or tech or whatever . But the framework could still apply to me , but only like certain pieces more so than others , and I can kind of correct yeah , okay , so that , so have you . Um , you mentioned having some people who've leveraged this in their own organizations , either with you or maybe to help bring you in , or something like that . But how do you suggest people use it ? One thing .
Speaker 3Yeah , that's one thing I want to clarify . Like this isn't like the premise behind this framework is not like to bring GNW in . Like there's no way we can say , hey , use this framework and give us money because we're going to solve your problems . The premise behind the framework is not that the premise . There is a component of this that we're developing right now that shows our go-to-market and where we fit into it . But the idea behind the framework and the second part of the question of how people are using it is to literally secure budget , make sure , like whatever
Strategic Alignment and Budget Optimization
Speaker 3technology that they need is there . Because if we can say , hey , as a marketing operations team , if you want us to downsize our MA platform , if you want to get rid of it , and let's say , you want us to move to MailChimp , that's 100% of a conversation that we had , because the concept and the idea is that we're just sending emails sometimes , right , that's like when we start branching out to those layers . So people have used this framework to say , by the way , like we do all of these things in a marketing automation platform . It sends emails , yes , but it also helps us do event communication or quality assurance or implement different strategies , or it helps us look at data analytics so we can campaign better , and this helps us spread brand awareness . This helps us grow our database , which , in turn , increases demand . So when we move outside the layer and inside the layer , we get more broader and more granular . So how people have used this from an ops perspective is very specifically that way Saying if we don't have this , this platform , this is the component of the platform and this is what it does and this is what the impact is .
Speaker 3That's how we retain tech that we want . Is it going to work for everything ? No , right , like that , let's just be real . We don't need a lot of the tech stack that's currently out there . It's inflated anyway , right ? Um , and then , from an executive standpoint , it's we're getting up for 2025 budget . Okay , if you're saying that my target I have to hit pipeline targets , or I have to contribute to revenue , and this is what I'm responsible for these are all the things that we have to align on and this is how I'm going to secure my version of the budget . Like this is how I get my piece . If you wanted me to be responsible for hitting pipeline targets or increasing market share or reducing customer acquisition costs , then we need these platforms that help us do that .
Speaker 1Yeah , well , and to me , the other part , just because it does a great job of illustrating those interconnectivities between teams , I think it would help an executive who's maybe not familiar with all this stuff to realize there are trade-offs . Right , if we cut budget on technology and staff over in marketing ops , that means that there's probably an impact in these other departments . Maybe they have to spend more or they also have to reduce because the volume of stuff that's coming through . And I think to me I've always thought , when I've done budgeting , like I'm I want to do what's right for the company and I'm not necessarily one who was always out there like trying to build a kingdom of , so to speak , and so I'm sort of naturally think about like , if , if I have to go like I'm willing to give up some of my budget to help this other team be able to do more , I see there's actually a bigger need over .
Speaker 1I actually did this with a counter counterpart who led , uh , the creative team in a marketing team I was in . Is that , like he is absolutely drowning . They need , they need another person more than I do right now , because like he's , like he's upstream of what we're doing and if he can't get his stuff done . We don't need another marketing ops person to help , like , build web pages or lending pages or emails , because we like we can keep up with what's happening now because the bottleneck's up there . So I was like , rather than give me more budget as much as I could , like I had a plan right , if I got more budget , this is what I would do . At the same time , I was like I see other need . I think it's a better use of the company's money to do it there . But and I think some people who are maybe especially people who are new to managing budgets and things like that , may not think about the holistic picture across all these different functions , and this , I think , would be a helpful tool for that .
Speaker 3Yeah , I mean for sure , right , like I said , people have used this framework in various , various kind of different ways . One , even if something is collaborating on the piece of tech , if we know marketing has to collaborate with sales , what is something as simple as your marketing automation platform ? What is the sales enablement platform that you're using from a cross-communication perspective ? And let's align on which one makes the most sense rather than just kind of , you know , like working in silos , because a lot of what the framework describes is that there is , to Naomi's point , you know , collaboration as well as like oversteering . Like you know , part of the sales team's enablement piece is what marketing is doing right , Because that's what generates value propositions and conversations for the sales team's enablement piece is what marketing is doing right , because that's what generates value propositions and conversations for the sales team .
Speaker 3Well , if the marketing team is just sending one-off emails or whatever it is and the sales team is kind of doing their own thing , that's when you get into this whole siloed conversation that we can enter . So I think there's multiple uses to it , for sure , and we've seen various different ways . We've seen it from the ways that I described to even something as okay if we're going to consolidate tech . What does sales need ? What does marketing mean , knowing full well we have to collaborate at some point between everything that we're doing for marketing and sales ?
Speaker 1enablement . I'm curious now have you seen it be used ? I get the whole budget kind of conversation driving that . That makes a lot of sense to me . It's pretty obvious what what I think you just hinted at . Maybe have you seen it be used as a way to facilitate better alignment across sales , marketing , customer success in some ways , just because it's it's really highlighting those interrelationships , or is that ?
Speaker 3I , I think it's like the starting point , like , uh , the one that I mentioned is a very recent client . Well , it's a very new , older client , but in most recent initiative . I don't think that was the intention behind it , but , however , I have seen , like , hey , since the ops team is so inner interconnected with all of these things that I think there there is an avenue for it , I think people will have probably used it . I haven't heard about it directly from like the feedback has always been from executives or a tech perspective , but I can see that as well , because it highlights everything that you know we're doing from a team , from like a team's perspective . So is it ? Could it be used to consolidate software and not have overlapping software for one team to the other ?
Speaker 1yeah , probably yeah , you mentioned executives . Are you saying , are you talking about executives who are in the kind of I'll call it revenue generating part of the business , or are you actually talking about just senior executives ?
Speaker 3as a whole . Yeah , c-suite as a whole . You , yeah C-suite as a whole Because they're the ones who get marketing budget . I mean it depends on , obviously , size of the org . If the org isn't very big , then their version of a senior executive could be like a VP level , not a C level , and if an org is very huge , then it could be different departments and a director level who has action to their or who has insights to their own budget for their department , and you know so forth . So when I say executives , I just really mean , to your point , like senior leadership , but it's a cross-court trade .
Speaker 1It depends on the size and structure of the org and the titles and all the other stuff that's generally out there yeah , well , the reason again , like I keep thinking of a sort of different ways that I would imagine this could be used right . You know you started with sort of the budget conversation and coordinating across these teams . I can't remember . I don't know if it's still a valid number or not , but I think when I heard something in the last five , 10 years , it said , like when you look across company boards and senior leadership , you know C-suite level teams , it's something like less than 5% of them have exposure to marketing and managing marketing right . So like having a tool that can help like really help them understand the pieces that go into it and how operations is a piece of it in particular , could be a really valuable tool .
Speaker 3Yeah , I mean , like I said , I haven't generally seen that relationship being made , but I don't . I don't , yeah , I don't , I don't foresee like where it , like it couldn't foresee where it couldn't go in that direction and foster all the conversations .
Speaker 1Am I seeing too much , Naomi ? Am I off my rocker here ?
Speaker 2No , not at all . I think it's definitely a good point because even myself , despite how
Marketing Ops Value and Recognition
Speaker 2long I've been in marketing operations , there's still times and I'm sure folks listening can also attest to this that you get questions like can you just you get an email random emails that will say can you just give a quick rundown of what your team does and how you guys are providing ? You know what sorts of value you guys are providing and do you have any like data or sources to back that up ? And can you give a rundown of like what a typical day in your life looks like ? Like we get that all the time right , it's almost like a , I think people who work in marketing ops I mean I get that less now , but earlier on in my career definitely you feel like you're constantly having to defend your job right .
Speaker 2Like , because you know and I've always said this to my team that when things are like in general , when things work well , right , you just don't notice it . Right , we expect that our iPhone unlocks when we look at it , we expect the website to be mobile friendly . When things just work , you don't really think about all of the things and the people that went into making a great experience right . And when things are working fine leads are flowing properly , emails are going through , there's registrations to webinars , follow-ups are happening on a timely manner People just don't really think about it right . And so oftentimes that kind of success can be a detriment as well if it's not being properly internally socialized what the team is doing , proper updates , internally socialized what the team is doing , proper updates these are the accomplishments that we're having technology adoption , how we're reducing spend , et cetera , et cetera , et cetera . I feel that that is a challenge that a lot of folks in marketing ops have to deal with .
Speaker 1I mean , this is a more complicated take , I think we definitely don't toot our own horn enough .
Speaker 2We just don't , that's true , we don't toot our own horn enough . Like we just don't , that's true , we don't toot our own horns enough .
Speaker 3yes , yeah , every department and you know sales teams , like they always have bells and emails and big deal alerts and all of this . We're kind of recognition and marketing and in marketing generally it's like to Naomi's point , if you know , things go perfectly fine up until the point where someone said , hey , I wasn't able to log into this recording . Then there's like 50 threads and everyone's involved . One of our prospects , clients , wasn't able to look at the recording .
Speaker 1We need a root cause analysis right now .
Speaker 3Yeah , yeah , right , and then you're like , oh , they have to click the link , something as simple as that . But once again , like something is . And , like I said , the premise behind the framework is like something as simple as clicking a link for a follow-up email , if not done properly , leads to this mass chaos of emails and root , you know , cause , analysis of what happened and why the email wasn't sent out and what are the implications or the ramifications of it . And you know , and once again , like when everything goes right , no one , no one's . Like , hey , good job , that auto responder that you sent , with someone filled out a form , did exactly that . The person booked a meeting , right , and that's what , right ?
Speaker 3Like that's what the framework is designed is like we've had Naomi mentioned this like people who get emails saying like what do you do ? I've literally had someone CC me on an email or BCC on an email saying , hey , just FYI , this is what I do . And then just put the picture of like the overall framework and then put a little arrow saying this is what I say . And there's a smaller org so they can get away with stuff like that , obviously , but you know , to their point point is like it's a way to say , like this is what we , this is what we control , like this is all of the things that we control . This is the impact that it has on an org . Even if you don't need to explain it , you can literally just put the picture there and people will understand okay , this is what . This is what it's affecting .
Speaker 1Yeah , and I think with this , to me this is a sort of an evolution even of whatever the four pillars model and six pillars , five pillars , ten pillars , like I think this takes , it takes another step , I think , are they are , they're complementary .
Speaker 1Maybe . It's probably the best way to think of it because they , I think those those pillar models , are great , kind of within marketing apps to describe . Kind of within marketing apps to describe , like , what are the kinds of things that we do in categories and what's important when in the evolution of a team , where , where I think what your model does just puts it in the context , that in the context of an overall organization , yeah , a little more , yeah .
Speaker 3I think all of the times , even in my days of working at different consulting agencies , when we talked about pillars or milestones , or we talked about avenues and whatever we want to call them , they were always under the idea of how do you qualify ? How do you qualify ? How does marketing qualify ? Leads Like these are the frameworks that we stand on , these are the pillars , these are our milestones , and the direction of this framework was not that . I think one of the questions that generally gets asked is what is the maturity model of this ? This is not one of those frameworks where saying , hey , you're in demand gen and you need to go to lead gen because you need this .
Speaker 3The premise behind this framework is really to say that us , as marketing , are just as , if not . Framework is really to say that us , as marketing , are just as , if not , one of the key influential organizations to a company . Right , it's not a maturity thing . Like it could be a small business or a lot . Like you're not going to be in phase one or you have two out of the four pillars .
Speaker 3Like , no , like we as a department are just as important as any other department and in some cases which I would argue , even more so because , in order for sales to be enabled properly , who do they contact to make sure emails are being sent out or communications are being handled ? We push analytics , we push client success , we push welcome onboarding , we push sales enablement , we push product notices right . Like there is so much that we are responsible for , and the premise behind the framework is not to say these are the five pillars and you're in this pillar and you're doing this well and you're doing that well . The premise behind the framework is saying us as a marketing department , are cohesively intertwined with every single goal that makes a company successful , and that's really like the idea behind kind of the framework .
Speaker 1Yep , no , I think at the end of the day I think you kind of hinted at it Not only would I say most marketing ops folks don't do a good job of tooting their own horn and sort of celebrating the things that they're doing , well , I would , I think , in general , and ironically , most , most marketers are pretty terrible about marketing their stuff internally , which is weird . Right , they should be a thing that they're really good at .
Speaker 3but for whatever reason , most places I've seen it's a struggle , it's it's hard , right
Marketing Performance Measurement and Framework Development
Speaker 3because you're right , because if you , if you look at the conversations and if you want to identify what sales is doing , you close a deal , this is the revenue that it brings in . Very binary , right , correct , it's zeros and ones . When you look at marketing , the question doesn't get asked that deal was really cool , we closed a big deal . The question gets asked how do we get more of these ? And then the question is what did they do ? How did they interact with us ?
Speaker 3And then when you start peeling back that layer a little bit , you realize that marketing , whether it's indirect or direct influence , has influenced some sort of that movement conversation from point A all the way to close one right .
Speaker 3So when sales says , hey , what did you do ?
Speaker 3Oh , we closed X amount of revenue dollars , the quarter high five , each other chest bump , let's go golf , right .
Speaker 3Like that's it , like it's a very simple thing , those 10 deals in reality took probably people like yourself you know , mike Naomi a conversation with multiple different vendors , multiple different departments , creative content , brand timing , what's going on in the market . Took so many of those components that if we were to break that down every single time that it would just be a constant uphill battle of yes , by the way , we did all of these things Like , yes , by the way , all of this thing , this thing started nine months ago , right . And like , once again , so the idea behind the framework was to get away from those technical and conversations when it comes to granularity and say this is our overall impact , this is where we are on the map , right , these are all the . These are all the things that we impact . This is how we help an organization and if you take budget away from us , this is what you can expect , to expect that the impact will be or what potentially could be down the line .
Speaker 1This is part of why I did a white paper for marketingopscom five perspectives on measuring B2B marketing , and one of those perspectives is kind of what you described . Right , when we look at those deals that were closed in the last quarter , is there a story we can tell across sales , marketing and all these other teams that had some sort of impact on us being able to close and win that deal , so that we can look for common threads of how do we win right ? And I found a lot , of , a lot more success with that resonating with , in particular , sales but other departments than I did with trying to do aggregate level uh , attribution reporting , because no , like nobody really believed , like the math was too complicated to try to explain to most people , even on a simple model , and so I don't think it's a . There's a . I still think there's a place for attribution reporting , uh , but it the audience should we talk about attribution on a completely separate .
Speaker 3Yeah , like I feel like attribution and like all like these high level , like abm strategy and stuff that you know like when . Even with abm I think I've talked about this like a million times it's like you know one to many , um , or many to many , which is like marketing , like there's just marketing to people . Everyone's top 10 account list is google and microsoft . I have google and microsoft as my icp and my abm . You know strategy as well . So I I have Google and Microsoft as my ICP and my ABM strategy as well . So I think there's times and places to talk about those kind of strategies . They're really good and then , marketing being marketing , we take that strategy and we just beat the living heart of it into the ground and use it so often where it just loses all credibility and then we have to find something else to like piggyback off of yeah , yeah , I I'm a big fan of , well , I think , our mutual friend , andrea lb .
Speaker 1Right , I think she's she . I would say that she's probably like me , like , I think she's a big believer in just like there's a lot of fundamentals that people just forget about , right they glom on to in quote right is abm or whatever kind of latest methodology . When you know something as simple as just make sure leads are followed up on , like in the first couple of hours , like that's not a strategy thing , that's just ability , like just doing small stuff right , there's the small stuff that can make a big difference .
Speaker 1You know , having people at a , at a booth for a trade show , who actually will draw people in , right , instead of stand back there and look at their phones . Right , there's a lot . So , uh , I can just have conversations with people .
Speaker 3Yeah , I like I think I'm pretty sure that's like a completely separate conversation altogether .
Speaker 1I think we've had that one , too , a couple of times . We've definitely talked about attribution multiple times . All right . So , raja , we've , we've , we've covered a lot of ground here , so we definitely will make sure that people have a have a link to your website in the video . Is there anything we didn't get to in this conversation that that you want to make sure our audience hears about ?
Speaker 3Not really . I mean , I think , just the idea about a traditional framework of growth models and maturity models . We do have one that explains it , like how we operate as an agency , but the premise behind this model is not for you to take it and say , yes , I'm going to give GNW Consulting a lot of business , it's to do . What we , as marketers , always been trying to do is like , how do we show our value to an organization ? That's the premise behind it Like there's no , you know there's no sales thing or anything associated to it . We have that . We're building it right now on , like how we work with clients , but that's , you know , that's separate from this point .
Speaker 3So toot your own horn . Everyone talks about LinkedIn Post , but we do so much with so little and this is how we hit revenue numbers and I think we need to talk about that . I think we need to boast about it and I think the more we talk about it , the easier it becomes and the less conversations and emails fly around where it's like well , what do you do again ? What does marketing do ? Do you send emails ? What do you guys do ?
Speaker 1It's like office space .
Speaker 3Yeah , what is it ?
Speaker 1you do All right , well , good , well , raja , always fun . Besides your websites , where can people kind of keep up with what you and G&W are doing these days ?
Speaker 3So we have a . The website is probably the easiest way . We have a LinkedIn like if you follow our LinkedIn page . We do have a RevOps recap kind of newsletter that's automatically adjacent If you just follow the page . You get it every single month and that just covers . You know a lot of stuff that's going on , not GNW related trends and what's going on from a market standpoint . So really it's like the website and really just LinkedIn from a social perspective and that's it .
Speaker 1Terrific . All right , well , raja . Thank you again for joining us , naomi , thank you as always , and thanks to all of our listeners out there for continuing to support us and sharing your ideas for topics and guests and for your feedback . If you have new topics or guests that you are interested in us talking to , or you want to be a guest , feel free to reach out to me , Naomi or Mike Rizzo , and we will get back to you . Thanks , everyone , bye , thanks .