Speaker 1: 0:23

Hello everyone, welcome to another episode of OpsCast brought to you by MarketingOpscom, powered by the MoPros. I'm your host, michael Hartman, and actually have a co-host today, just off of Mopsapalooza 2024,. Mike Rizzo has joined what's up buddy. How are you feeling, Mike?

Speaker 2: 0:43

I am feeling really good. Thankfully, I took care of my mental and physical health for the last 12 months and and running Mopsapalooza for the second year allowed me to be more prepared for what it all takes. So I think by the end I was like okay, at least I feel you know, like I took care of the things that I needed to take care of and yeah, well, I think it was good.

Speaker 1: 1:05

I think it was great. Um, I'm looking forward to hearing what the results were from. I'm sure you're going to be doing surveys and all that, so yeah, all those are going out right now, so we're getting all the good feedback.

Speaker 2: 1:14

You know the in-person feedback is always like yeah, like we're having a blast, but then you know you get people to get home, get settled. You can't please. I think it'll be.

Speaker 1: 1:22

I think maybe you and Naomi and I need to do sort of a recap session and record it one of these days, yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:38

If we can actually get all three of us together. Yeah, we'll make it happen. Yeah, let's do that, but until then, until then, we have a guest joining us today to talk about all things Salesforce, and that is Hannah Notis. Actually, hannah, I should have asked you how to pronounce your name, so you're going to have to tell me if I butchered it. So Hannah is currently product manager of marketing ops technology at Salesforce. Prior to joining Salesforce, she held multiple roles in marketing ops and marketing ops leadership at Lucid Software. Prior to that, she was a Salesforce technology consultant at PwC I'm a former Pw, not PwC guy and had an internal marketing technology role at is it Duker? Ringwood Automation LLC. You?

Speaker 3: 2:21

nailed the pronunciation All right. Thanks for joining us, Hannah. I'm excited to be here.

Speaker 1: 2:29

All right. Thanks for joining us, hannah. I'm excited to be here. All right, so I failed at one of my usual things, which is asking to make sure I get pronunciations right, so I'm glad I muddled through it. All right, all right, so why don't we start with this? So one of the things we always like to hear is how people end up in these marketing ops roles. So I flew through a condensed version of your career journey. Could you share a little more about that? And something I always like to hear like? Are there key moments right when you, you know, went left instead of right, or right instead of left, or people that you know had outsized impact on where you think your career has ended up at this point?

Speaker 3: 3:05

Yeah. So, as you mentioned, I started the career in tech consulting with PwC where I was implementing Salesforce solutions variety of companies, industries, use cases and I just loved being able to solve problems with technology as my medium, so it was Salesforce while I was there, and that's where I really fell in love with Salesforce. So I found that no matter the company, the use case, there was always a way to build the solution within Salesforce. So definitely was drinking the Kool-Aid, loved the product and all things Salesforce. So after I did the consulting path for a few years, I started to get a little burnt out so I just began looking at it happens.

Speaker 3: 3:50

Yeah, the consulting world is so fun A lot of challenges, but sometimes you just hit those moments and so I just started looking at companies whose products I really loved and that led me to Lucid Software. So I saw the posting about the marketing operations role, figured it would be a and asking if I had experience and I said no, but I promise I learned systems very fast and for some reason they took a chance on me and that's how I entered the marketing operations world. So during my time at Lucid I learned so much about marketing operations, technology, strategy and, most importantly, product-led growth. So really you want to give a shout out to Peter Kirk here because he was an amazing advocate for the marketing operations world and just giving us resources to learn outside of our day-to-day jobs. So encouraging us to learn about how other companies are doing marketing operations and just was an awesome experience to learn as much as I could while I was working there and loved the time at Lucid. It was a mid-sized company when.

Speaker 3: 5:11

I joined so it allowed us to move fast, be impactful and, most importantly, I still got to work with Salesforce. So that was great and that's actually where I am today. So I'm at Salesforce working at Slack. So Slack is owned by Salesforce and I saw the marketing operations job open up, knew I had to apply. Salesforce is always my dream company and getting to work for Slack, which is like a product-led company, it was just my dream job, to say the least.

Speaker 3: 5:44

Yeah, so I've been here for over a year now, loving every minute. Scott Hicks is the director of our team. He's doing an outstanding job building our marketing operations, strategy, tech, all the fun stuff like post-acquisition, and we're surrounded by awesome leaders, great coworkers, solving big new challenges every day and getting to influence the roadmap of the Salesforce products that I love. So that's my journey. Kind of fell into the Salesforce marketing ops world but love it and hope to stay in the world for quite some time.

Speaker 2: 6:20

I love this Nice, and not surprising to hear that you sort of kind of fell into it. Right, that is the through line on every single marketing person.

Speaker 3: 6:30

Yes, it's like marketing and operations. I was like I know both of those, so I'll apply and kind of learned as we went and it was great.

Speaker 2: 6:39

That's awesome, there's so much I'm excited to talk to you about right now, right, I know.

Speaker 1: 6:46

So just curious. So you mentioned Peter several times. Right, it sounds like it was a big influence. Um, I'm always curious Like, so do you? I mean, do you, is he still someone you, you talk to on a regular basis? Is he like a mentor kind of thing? Has that been a valuable resource since you left, or where does that stand? Not to put you on the spot, oh, yeah, no.

Speaker 3: 7:08

Peter's awesome. He actually was based in Salt Lake as well that's where I am when I was working at Lucid, so it was great to like get to go into an office and like actually connect in person. And then now he's actually at Mad Kudu, which is a super cool tool we had used it at.

Speaker 3: 7:24

Lucid and he works there and so I actually were looking at phone attribution right now and I reached out to him the other day and I was asking his take on some systems that we had worked with in the past. So he's a really great person to like bounce marketing operations ideas off of all the time or if I have a problem to go to him. He's like a really great resource for sure.

Speaker 1: 7:47

I love that, yeah, I think. I think it's like something I would really encourage people out there. If you don't have someone you can go to, like the community is great. But if you have, if you have a connection, like a connection with someone as a, as a kind of a longer term mentor or coach, something like that, I think it's really valuable. So that's great to hear. I love that. So congratulations on that. All right, so you I just want to make sure so you're in a marketing ops role within Slack, slash, Salesforce, right? Yes, All right. So everyone wants to know, like, what's it like under the hood? Like, what's it like in that role within the big, the big, you know. I don't know what 300 pound gorilla is under the hood. What's it like in that role within the big? I don't know what 300-pound gorilla Is that the phrase?

Speaker 2: 8:34

The behemoth that.

Speaker 1: 8:35

Salesforce is Right.

Speaker 3: 8:37

Let's go, 500-pound gorilla.

Speaker 3: 8:40

I feel, like it's quite big, definitely. So I guess, okay, slack has operated pretty separately. Obviously, there's a lot of work to consolidate, have us all be one team, but it's a super unique environment here where it's almost like we have an inside scoop. At all these different companies that have been acquired, you get to run ideas off of, like okay, the MuleSoft team, what were you doing pre-acquisition, what are you doing now? Tableau team talk to their marketing ops team like it's been super awesome to get to work with like all these like insanely smart people who have insanely different experiences throughout like the marketing ops world.

Speaker 3: 9:22

Now I would say like so under the hood, slack, like marketing operations, like the team that I'm working on, uh, we are specifically in the like engineering like of marketing ops team, so so what that actually means is we own a bunch of different systems that our marketers use, so we drive the roadmap, the strategy. In each of the different tools we have a different level of responsibility. Some of them were admin, some of them were just informed. It just kind of depends. Where I've been specializing is like within the web tech, ad tech systems as well here, and like working with really amazing stakeholders like doing SEO stuff, and we're just like kind of work to drive, like the roadmap work with like problems.

Speaker 3: 10:05

Some people on our team are doing like the new, like lead routing, like using like all the cool Salesforce tools to take advantage of different data models et cetera. So all things systems our team really is focusing in around and I guess, most importantly under the hood, which was a huge initiative to drink our own champagne. So since we got acquired we've been taking advantage of the Salesforce suite, so live chat, data models for lead routing, etc.

Speaker 3: 10:38

Where there's an opportunity to use Salesforce products we want to, and leadership stance on that even was if that our tools we're not meeting our needs. If we felt like we could not use them, let's change the roadmap, Let let's make sure that, like our tools can be like delivering, like what we need it to do. So it's been super cool getting to influence like the roadmap, with that for sure.

Speaker 2: 11:01

That's really cool.

Speaker 1: 11:02

That's really interesting.

Speaker 2: 11:04

So my I'm sorry gone. I'm doing what I do best and I'm going to ask questions and go off script. No, there's not a ton for those that are listening. We don't have a script. Uh, especially me, but definitely not, definitely not me. I'm terrible, I rabbit hole. Um, I am super curious, just about like I don't know if you've heard heard me talk about it before. Michael has some of our listeners have. It's been a long time since I've been on.

Speaker 1: 11:32

I'm pretty sure I know where you're going with this. I've been fairly.

Speaker 2: 11:36

I've been fairly vocal about the notion that, um, marketing ops isn't marketing. It isn't just marketing, um it, it is so much more than that. And, um, I'm not the only one. I'm sort of like really pulling on the on the thread of quite a few other thought leaders in our space. In fact, I'm probably just borrowing from them and agreeing with them at this point, but I really love this idea of marketing operations is truly a product manager job At the end of the day the difference is that your product is made up of many products and you're enabling a go to market tech stack.

Speaker 2: 12:11

And you're enabling a go-to-market tech stack. I see in your intro and what you've been sharing with us. Your job title is literally, if this is correct, Product Manager, Marketing Ops Technology at Salesforce. Is that right?

Speaker 3: 12:25

That is Okay.

Speaker 2: 12:26

Yes, I'm loving this. This just further validates not me, but so many folks that are thought leaders in our industry, uh, are starting to talk more and more about like. How do you think about marketing operations outside the? The guise of like it's it's marketing?

Speaker 2: 12:44

quote, unquote, right with all the comments I'm throwing up um, how did? How is that translated for you and your career from where you were right, doing marketing operations, to sort of thinking now more as like this product manager and what you're doing now at Salesforce? Do you feel like it was basically the same? It's just your title changed, or are there some fair differences that, like you can maybe speak to? I don't know. Sorry, I'm putting you on the spot.

Speaker 3: 13:12

I feel like the one constant has been like solving problems with technology. Like, I feel like that is the core of like all these different roles, like even I'm doing like some solution engineer training as well. Like every path I've kind of pursued, it's like the same fundamental skills of like being able to get to the why, like being able to like understand, like what is actually being asked of you and then how can you use the technology that is available, whether you have it now, whether you need to acquire it, et cetera to like build that roadmap and like actually deliver on those wants. So it's like I mean going back to consulting. It's like doing the same thing Like okay, they have a Salesforce system, no matter what stage they're in.

Speaker 3: 13:55

Like okay, let's build this roadmap together. Like what are your requirements? What are the immediate needs, what are the enhancements, what are priorities? Like building that roadmap with those stakeholders, getting to the why, asking the right questions. And then, okay, like now let's build the technology and it's that's kind of like what it is Okay At Lucid. Like now you have a new tech stack. It's like looking at all these marketing ops tools like how do they integrate into Salesforce? Like okay, like you have so many systems like how do you prioritize those needs?

Speaker 3: 14:24

Like what actually needs to be done, like just building those roadmaps and like using the tech to like aid. That is like the constant throughout my career and that's what it's like. A product manager your tech stack just changes like from role to role is like how I would classify that yeah, yeah I really like that.

Speaker 1: 14:44

Yeah, um, clearly so for our audience. Like, yeah, like you could just tell hannah's body language like she gets excited about this, I can already tell. So there's. So this is like your jam, just curious about one thing. So do you ultimately report up to a marketing leader role or do you report more into like an IT kind of function?

Speaker 3: 15:07

Marketing leader and I was curious about that during my interview process. Like, oh cool, like I'm an engineer now, like I'm on the engineering team, right, you still are rolling out to marketing, which again it's like I feel like Michael, when we were doing the original talk of this. It's like a lot of like we were talking is like how technical do you become in a mops role? Yeah, and it's interesting. Being on the engineering team, I was scared Like I joined this job. I was like I'm going to take it.

Speaker 2: 15:37

I'll figure it out Like I love.

Speaker 3: 15:37

Salesforce. I love Slack, but it's like how much code am I going to need to know how to write? Like you're like on the engineering, but it's again it's like building the roadmap and then working with, like the strength of the team. Like some of my team is so technical and amazingly smart, but it's like some of my team is like more high level project managing. It's like working with everyone together to like kind of drive these tech roadmaps. So it's like just varying levels of technical expertise. Even though we're on an engineering team, you don't need to be able to like code, write apex, like all that stuff.

Speaker 3: 16:03

Like you can be like higher level driving the strategy roadmap, thinking of like how can we consolidate different tools, like how can we like find new opportunities, as long as you're like anchoring to the business requirements.

Speaker 2: 16:16

Yeah, that makes a ton of sense.

Speaker 2: 16:17

I mean that that that just from my experience in B2B SAS organizations and working with um product managers uh, they, you know, they are not not a hundred percent of the time Are they developers, right, or are they real engineers, right?

Speaker 2: 16:39

And but they do translate the needs of the business to the needs of the user, to the capabilities of the team and the technology, right, and the engineering team. And the engineering team says, hey, like there's limitations that we're going to face and they have to figure out how to balance all that equation Right, and and to me that's effectively what you're describing as a product manager in marketing operations You're, you're translating the needs of the business to the engineering team and working in partnership with the people that have the strengths to do the other parts Right. I think that that's, that's just a wonderful uh set of validation around this idea that, like you, can be a bridge between go-to-market needs and the technology infrastructure. And then, you know, working with the people that have the know-how to sort of take it to the next level, right even back to, like my consulting days.

Speaker 3: 17:25

They said, like when we first joined they said, historically, the roles have always been your functional or technical, and you pick a lane, you stay in it. But now, like starting with my class, they were trying to emphasize the fact of like a hybrid role where, it's like, you know enough to speak the language of the technical team, know the developers, etc. But like, why really become a niche in that department if, like you have someone else who's stronger in that on your team? It's like being able to like, kind of like swing the podium of like where the strengths of the rest of your team is so like you get put in a situation cool, I, I don't need to fill a technical role because we have a developer, or, okay, we only have functional pms. All right, I'm figuring it out. Like we're on the technical side.

Speaker 3: 18:10

It's like that hybrid role where it's like you kind of are sitting in the middle and you have enough skills to like go either way is like I feel like the new requirements like within the space almost.

Speaker 1: 18:22

Well, it's interesting to me because I started my career also in consulting, and a big consulting it was Pricewaterhouse before the Coopers merger and a lot of what you're saying like I would almost echo back at you that I think for our listeners. Right, there's, there's trade-offs, big in consulting. You know. One of the like, the big benefit is, I think just you get exposed to lots of different environments depending on what area you're in. Like you may be at one client but you may be at multiple clients. But the other part that I think is really valuable is like they really will help you learn how to approach problems and think about things holistically and give you tools and techniques and ways to do that Right.

Speaker 1: 19:04

So a lot of the things you've been describing is you know roadmaps, et cetera, et cetera.

Speaker 1: 19:07

I bet you have templates or things that you used in the past, that you either you have templates or things that you used in the past that you either you don't, whether you have them or not, right, you remember how to use them. I think there's a lot of value in that. The trade-off part is that, like you, you work your tail off um with you know, I mean decent pay, but maybe not great pay, right, um, but it's so like if you're interested in learning a lot fast and having a lot of exposure and tools that you can lean on in future, things like it might be worthwhile to consider doing something in consulting, but just know that, yeah, your life will be consumed, right yes, I, I really have only positive things to like speak to of the learning experience, like, like within, like, like you said, those frameworks, like I still use them today where it's like going in your initial instinct, like starting at a job, of someone says like oh, we want to build in sales cloud, like here, like here's what we want to do.

Speaker 3: 20:03

You're like okay, like let me go figure it out, like let me learn everything I can about this solution. It's like, uh, like consulting DG, you, you take a step back. You ask like okay, what are you trying to do? It's like the analogy like we were talking about in the solution engineering classes. A lot of people will come to you and say like I want a shovel, but what they actually want is a hole. Maybe there's a better way to dig that hole. It's like you have to take the step back and I feel like that's what consulting teaches you to do. It's like let's do discovery first, let's ask a million questions that even everyone thinks they have the solution. But it's like maybe you uncover that one reason why that solution actually won't work and then you save time before you build out a huge solution, you release it and it doesn't work. So again going back to that framework, it's like that is so important that you learn in consulting. I think it's just like asking those questions, doing that discovery before solutioning.

Speaker 1: 20:54

Yeah, no, I think I think it enabled. I think that's a critical skill for anybody in this role, because I think you, you, you, especially if you're one of those people and we hear about them all the time getting frustrated with people I'll come to us and ask us to do stuff and they just don't understand, blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay, well, that's your job, right, it's. Your job is to help figure out what does they really want? Right, they want a hole, not a shovel, and there are ways you can get there. Or they're like, or maybe like, actually, you don't really want a hole.

Speaker 1: 21:21

Here's this other thing you could do instead, right, and so, to be able to be consultative, you have to be able to work on those kinds of skills of really understanding and guiding. All right, so we did talk a little bit about the importance of technical knowledge, but I think, with your background, we wanted to talk a little bit about, as a marketing ops professional, how important is it to know, and how much should you know about Salesforce specifically? So, just in general, what do you think is the importance of knowing that as a marketing ops pro?

Speaker 3: 21:57

So, honestly, I think throughout my career, like knowing Salesforce has set me apart for multiple reasons. Like everyone uses Salesforce, I feel the more I talk about like, the more companies you talk to. Like everyone knows of Salesforce, like, not only like. Okay, there's two aspects to it. One is like learning.

Speaker 3: 22:18

Salesforce is awesome because it teaches you how to like think about architecture, how to think about like processes, how to fit requirements into a system, and there's so many resources and certification, so you're never alone when trying to like, learn or solve a problem.

Speaker 3: 22:34

So, like the materials are there and I would always recommend, like it was critical for me to start out with that system and then take a step back. Like I said when I was applying for those jobs, when Peter was like, do you know Drift? Do you know? Marcado was like I promise you, I learned Salesforce and then I opened it for enterprise companies. I can learn any tool, and so that's where it's like, pick a tool and really get in the weeds and just learn about the integrations, learn about like requirements and translating them into like actual build.

Speaker 3: 23:08

And I think I would say Salesforce is critical for that because, like so many people use it and it's just such an easy one to start with because of all the like materials that are out there to learn and like get a sandbox and test it for yourself, do a certification and then you have that on your resume to build a career off of. The certifications are pretty well known in the sense of when I've said in interviews, oh, I have a Salesforce certification, they're like, oh, okay, cool, it feels like you see that they like yes, they acknowledge that you like have that backing, so I think it's a great tool to like have in your arsenal for sure.

Speaker 1: 23:49

I'm just I'm curious because I think this would be, I think, part of important. Something important for marketing ops pros to really understand is actually not just the marketing go-to-market motions and the activities, but also the sales ones, for free to be in particular. So do you think like understanding, like as part of the understanding of salesforce, also understanding how the sales team works at an organization and how what you're doing as a marketing, marketing ops team is affecting the sales teams?

Speaker 3: 24:21

Yes. So even I feel like a lot of people that I've talked to in marketing ops, even when you're doing the quick elevator pitch of what you do, people are like oh, everything pre-Salesforce. But it doesn't just stop there. It's knowing what happens after informs so many decisions there. Like it's like knowing like what happens after, like informs so many decisions. Like if you know that, like having enrichment data, like on a certain field, will inform a like a seller down the line and like help, like get like a larger deal. Like it's like then you have the power to like add that information in earlier and then like get those requirements down there.

Speaker 3: 24:58

It's like it doesn't stop when the data gets into Salesforce. It's like so many ways that, like the sales teams work and like how sellers sell, like will inform your decisions, and like how you're pushing in those data, like what integrations you're choosing to use. Like even like, as I said, like we do like roadmap of all these tools. So it's like, as we hear of new features coming out, oh, I know sellers. Like it might not be directly related to like maybe what I'm doing now, or like how I'm pushing data in, but it's like, ooh, someone on the sales side. This is an important feature for them to know that this tool has, that maybe they want to integrate down the line or like add this feature into sales force. So I think it's so important to know like the full sales cycle and like how your piece fits into that.

Speaker 1: 25:43

I couldn't agree more I seem like you said vigorously too.

Speaker 2: 25:47

I'm like, yes, yes, 100%.

Speaker 2: 25:48

I mean, the feedback loop is super important and I know I'm sort of beating the drum on this periodically but you know, I think it's worth continuing to do so and I'm going to continue to advocate that in this broader opportunity to make RevOps the term really what it is right, this umbrella of these sales ops, marketing ops, cs ops, even other departments underneath it.

Speaker 2: 26:36

But at a core of those three, I life cycle analytics to understand how the data is moving through the system and informing the ability to close new business and upsell new business, right, like we tend to have to, you know, find those answers in the data on a fairly regular basis, and I think that a marketing operations professional can truly grow into a strong revenue operations role if that's what they aspire to do. Marketing ops isn't going to go anywhere from a vocational perspective is looking for who can be in charge of RevOps. I would say, start looking at your marketing operations senior leaders in that category who have done what you're talking about, you know right, which is really look across the funnel and the business and all that stuff. So anyway, that's my two cents here here I'm going to keep.

Speaker 3: 27:34

I'm going to keep being on that no.

Speaker 1: 27:37

I mean, I think I think, mike, you mentioned I know that one of the things that's helped me and I have no Salesforce. I don't have any certifications on any of these platforms, to be totally transparent, but Salesforce I definitely don't and at the same time, I understand enough about how the process works, how the system works, that when I've done reporting that looks across the full funnel right, whether it's attribution reporting or things like that I very often found sort of odd things coming out of the reports from what is going on within the sales team, and if it wasn't for understanding how that process worked, it would have like I probably would have been just sort of scratching my head, but it enabled me to go then ask more questions about why am I seeing those things? And I've covered different examples of that, so I don't have to do that. But I'm glad to hear that you think the same thing, hannah, because I think a lot of people who are listening may not feel like they need to go beyond that sort of handoff between marketing and sales, and I think it's really important to understand that downstream and not only downstream, because there's like I think it's not really a one way flow anymore, right, it's like the buyers buyers don't really move in a one way process right, they hop around, they move around, and so I think I think that's really important. So I know I don't know how to get so because of my my sort of limited salesforce knowledge, particularly when it comes to like.

Speaker 1: 29:09

I remember I had to add somebody on my team once I hired. It had been a salesforce admin and it was great for me to learn, uh, some of the terminology about things like and I can't remember what they are now but like different roles, like the rules about what you have access to and don't have access to, and I know there's more than one way to do that. But are there any recommendations for our listeners on, if you're working with a team that is doing like you're working on a project and you know you need to have something affected in Salesforce some sort of change or update or process implications, like, what are the? What are some tools or suggestions you have for how we could do that and make it as smooth as possible with our counterparts who are doing the administrative work or or even development work on the Salesforce side?

Speaker 3: 29:58

Yeah. So I mean, I think this goes back to like getting to the why behind everything. So, like as a stakeholder to the technical team, like I always stand by. Like you own the like what you want to build and why you want to build it, and your technical team often owns like how we're going to build it. So I always think about this, almost like when you're writing a prompt into chat GBT.

Speaker 3: 30:21

Like you're saying, like what you want to do, like why you want to do it, put up as much guardrails as possible. So saying, like here are the requirement, like here's some reasons like we can't do this, like here's some fields like, et cetera. And it's like then like hit enter and like let the like technical team like build, like how they're going to get there. But as long as, like you have like clearly explained the like why you want to build this and like the guardrails that you know are in place, then like let the technical team build the solution. It like might not be what you would have done.

Speaker 3: 30:56

Like as a technical person. I'm like, oh, I would have done that differently. But again, it goes back to like they, like your technical team is the experts in that they might have, like they're like guardrails as well, like Ooh, we can't do this because of like eight reasons why in the system, like the custom build, et cetera. It's like lean on like the subject matter experts and like own like your responsibilities in that. So like own the what and the why, let them own the how. Like again the shovel analogy. It's like tell them like what you're trying to do, you're trying to dig that hole, like maybe they have like some equipment that will do it way faster.

Speaker 3: 31:33

So just setting as much guardrails as you can?

Speaker 1: 31:35

I'm going to push back a little bit because I because I struggle with this.

Speaker 1: 31:39

Right, I believe right, don't come with a solution, come with, like the wire, the problem. But at the same time, especially if you know a little bit, right, do you think it makes sense to also, at the same time, seek to understand the why from the other side. Right, so say, I go to the Salesforce admin team, I want, yeah, my goal is to do X, and in my head, like I'm trying not to say, this is how I think it would work, and I don't, and they come back with something that's different than I expected and in sort of a material way. Should I just accept that or should I try to dig further and understand their why?

Speaker 3: 32:22

Did it meet your requirements is like what I would come back to. Like the solution that was proposed, would it still fundamentally meet your requirements? And like answer the business why? And it's like in that case it's like you might not, like you might have built it a different way, but it's like if it fundamentally meets the requirements, I would like trust them. It's like they're the experts in their area and you're the experts in yours, and so it's.

Speaker 3: 32:48

I would honestly like trust the business team and there's definitely like a solution presentation meeting that like we actually used to do at Lucid, where it's like because I was technical, I would love to like just hear what they proposed and why they did it. Like talk me through your process, like explain to me like why, why did we not do this? Like. And then it was just like a learning experience for both of us, like whenever we would do that, because a lot of the times we'd catch something like Ooh, maybe there this wasn't the right solution because it did not meet a requirement. In that case, go back to the drawing board. But a lot of the times they taught me something that I would not have known of, like why that was best practices and so super informative to like. Have those like learning sessions for both sides, I think, before anything's released.

Speaker 1: 33:34

Yeah, I mean so, and I'm thinking about some specific examples in my career where you could argue like I did a poor job of describing what I needed, right, yeah, although I would. I would say it's a shared responsibility to make sure that that is understood. Right, they should. They should be also trying to make sure they're asking, clarifying questions and making sure that we're on the same page of what was required. But I also I really like working with teams like that who, let's say, I ask for something and they're like oh yeah, we can do that.

Speaker 1: 34:06

It's going to take a million dollars in a year to do it. I'm like I don't have a million dollars, I don't have a year, right, I have 100 grand and I have like three months. Like, what can we do? That moves us towards that, and I want them to be consultative back to me as well. So like and that's part of why I'm asking these questions is like I just I would struggle with just accepting the million dollars in a year thing versus like a step in the right direction. I mean, have you run into that kind of stuff before?

Speaker 3: 34:37

I guess there's a million thoughts going through my mind, so I'll start with like we've got a dollar for every one of them.

Speaker 3: 34:43

Yeah, I think it depends on the deployment cycle too, which it's like. This is a pitch for like deploying things with, like an agile framework where it's like okay, like what is like the minimum requirements, let's deploy this. Okay, it wasn't perfect, we need to modify it in next sprint, but it met acceptance criteria Like I think that's important to define, like in those initial, like requirement gathering, like you said, all the guardrails, et cetera, but like what's important is like what is success, Like define, like. Here are my acceptance criteria. When I hit enter, this populates in this field, like, then that means I will give it the go ahead and we can deploy it. Like like, as long as you define that except and if it doesn't meet it, it doesn't get deployed, which is so hard for teams to swallow a lot of the time where it's like this isn't met.

Speaker 3: 35:29

But it's like no, like okay, we have to go through another sprint, then Like it did not meet the acceptance criteria. Where it's like I think that's so important and that's why I love deploying things with an agile framework. Where it's like, okay, what is the MVP? Let's keep iterating on this. Okay, let's make some changes the next cycle. How much do we have now? There's just constant improvement on the process when you deploy with that kind of framework.

Speaker 1: 35:55

Yeah, I'm trying to adapt to agile. I have a client who's like we're doing two-week sprints and stuff that I'd like. It doesn't really fit into that model in my head, but I see the benefits. Um, it's just hard for me to because I'm like, okay, three weeks, four weeks, that makes sense. Two weeks is like too short.

Speaker 2: 36:14

But mike, you were gonna say something it's funny, like Like I in a, in a sort of marketing practice, uh, when I think about rolling into just like a traditional for lack of a better term marketing team. Uh, I particularly love waterfall project management, just cause I think there's a lot of dependencies and there are longer time horizons and it helps paint a picture of look to get from planning a webinar to executing the webinar. There's there's a lot of steps that happen, uh, and there's likely a period of multiple weeks for it, you know, to even have come to fruition, right. Um, it's not to say that you can't chunk those things down into a sprint model after you've scoped out what that looks like, right.

Speaker 3: 37:03

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 37:04

And so you're kind of like doing a little bit of both. But I think, when it comes to thinking through more of the product management lens, on deploying technology and facilitating different features and, uh, adoption of tools, I do think the agile framework makes a ton of sense, because you're you're sort of operating more like an engineer, in the sense that, uh, there are uh minimum, you know, requirements that need to be met in order to to be able to execute and deliver, and and that strict set of guidelines um, helps a lot, Right, and you know I'm you know I'll talk out of both sides of my mouth like, even on a webinar, there's a minimum set of requirements that need to be in place before you can really launch the thing. And you know, like, if you don't have the speakers yet, you probably shouldn't promote it.

Speaker 3: 37:57

But anyway, A lot of the times, too, like you're dependent on how the technical team is working.

Speaker 3: 38:04

Like a lot of the times technical teams will work in that agile, so like then that's beneficial. But it's like if they're working in waterfall, like for your one task, they're not going to be like open to working at like. It's just it's depending on how the technical teams are working a lot of the times. But I mean mike to your point, it's like some projects you need waterfall, some projects you need agile, like when you're in the marketing side of things, for sure yeah, I'm not sure I I would go all the way back to waterfall, like I think there's a happy me, like I think there's, I think it's.

Speaker 1: 38:34

Like I think you need to just be smart about applying each kind of you know appropriately, um, and being flexible, like so, cause I liked the idea of um, you know early wins and getting something that is in the direction or a partial solution. Learning from that and going like oh, actually maybe we don't need the full solution. Like the 80% solution was totally fine and we're done. Right, I think there's uh. Or we go like oh, we took a step, actually, like we were way off on what we really needed. Let's roll that back and let's rethink the whole thing.

Speaker 2: 39:07

So I mean, I come from B2B software and project management. That was like my first gig. So I just have this affinity for project management and terms and thinking through waterfall versus agile and all that stuff. I'm not a certified PMP by any stretch, I just have a passion for the category and I think in some cases you lose the forest for the trees.

Speaker 2: 39:39

In Agile, it can be easier to chunk something down. A webinar is a great example, right? If I was trying to do that in an Agile framework and I said, oh yeah, I'm going to go build the landing page and it's like oh, I don't have any of the speakers. Example, right. If I was trying to do that in an agile framework and I said, oh yeah, I'm going to go build the landing page and it's like, oh, I don't have any of the speakers yet. Right, I don't have any of the copy yet. Like, you have to have chunked it out so much that, effectively, you've created waterfall. Like I can't do this until there's other things done and it's not my job to get the copy it. And it's not my job to get the copy. It's someone else's job to get the copy, and so it's just like to your point, you know both of you. It's a happy medium, right. Like you have to figure out how to work within those structures to make that a reality, right, and not lose the forest for the trees.

Speaker 1: 40:25

Anyway, could not agree more, so I like that you agreed with me. That's always one of my goals, so we're running a little bit short on time. I do want to pick your brain a little bit, hannah, on one last thing. So I think we've pretty much made the strong case that it would be valuable for people who are listening, if they are not familiar with Salesforce, to become more familiar with it. You talked about certifications, but are there like, how would you recommend somebody who maybe has just either slight or very little knowledge of Salesforce or sales processes for them to go about learning more?

Speaker 3: 41:05

So, salesforce, there's a great community like the Trailheads, like there's a million people that have experience that you can help. But like I personally, like when I was learning, I just did a million like trail heads, I got like the sales like super badge, like there's like a lot of like practical hands on experience you can do there to like self learn. A lot of experience, I will say, is like actually putting it into practice, like OK, when I had a client that would do do it, or you're in a job and then you have a use case from a stakeholder, and then you're actually putting it into practice.

Speaker 1: 41:48

But going through the trailheads, doing those practices gives you the experience to at least know what the lead object is before you have to go in and deploy something.

Speaker 3: 41:52

Can we get rid of the lead object please? No, she has to. Salesperson.

Speaker 1: 41:54

She has to say no, I know, I know, I know.

Speaker 3: 41:59

Can you?

Speaker 1: 41:59

get that on the roadmap, though. For us that would be nice. Yes, okay, that would be great.

Speaker 3: 42:04

I'll put the request in, don't worry, all right. And the last thing, too, around that is like reaching out to people in, like the LinkedIn community, like everyone is willing to share experience. That I found like whether it's like a problem you have, whether it's talking about where they learned, or just like giving you some examples of like applications like the LinkedIn community is awesome, or the marketing ops community is super cool as well for learning.

Speaker 1: 42:28

So if I remember right trailhead, it's like they're online. Like, do you cause? I started at one point and I was like I just it was more than I needed to do at the point when I started doing it, but if did I, I think, do you get like a like at your own little environment you can play around with? Is that right?

Speaker 3: 42:46

They're called like sandboxes on some of like the models. Yeah, you can like. It'll start like an org for you and you can test it. I just did one like to launch my own like agent for spot on the website, which is super cool, Cause it's like I am not about to get into production and like test around with someone else made so testing your production is not okay.

Speaker 2: 43:06

What's wrong?

Speaker 3: 43:07

Trust me as an intern. I learned that one.

Speaker 2: 43:09

But a trust me as an intern, I learned that one but sounds like a good moop story that you need to come share with us oh gosh, my team.

Speaker 3: 43:17

They all laughed about that now, but it's okay, I'm still fine. Now I was employed afterwards, everything's fine but yes you can get your own sandbox, which is really awesome to like play, make mistakes. Like you don't even have to follow the instructions. You can get your own sandbox, which is really awesome to like play, make mistakes. Like you don't even have to follow the instructions. You can just get the sandbox and go mess around with like whatever you want to try there, which is like an awesome feature.

Speaker 1: 43:41

I mean I do like that sort of combination of I'll call it, like in quotes, right, classroom work, right, where you're going through instruction stuff, but then actually application classroom work right, where you're going through instruction stuff but then actually application. I mean I'm torn about whether application in a sandbox, where it's like pristine data and you don't, you know you're not dealing with human behavior challenges but at the same time, right, I think it's like actually going through the steps of doing it, that's a useful thing to do. So let's hear any other. Any other suggestions for resources?

Speaker 3: 44:18

The biggest one. I mean just the communities. I mean there's the marketing apps. Communities have been my favorite, that's. I mean obviously and all the other communities there is out there yeah.

Speaker 1: 44:30

That's awesome.

Speaker 2: 44:31

All right, hannah, I have to shamelessly plug that, like we, if you don't, if you have an appetite for uh wanting to potentially speak or uh, join us at Mopsapalooza, like, please submit sessions, uh, I'm not. So I'm not so much interested in the fact that you're at Salesforce and the label there, but more that you're doing the role that I am so excited about, this idea of product management and marketing operations and that mix. At a bare minimum, let's go build a panel or something and host some web sessions and keep pushing this stuff forward. We would love that. And then, if you know anybody that wants to sponsor our conference, go ahead and just send them a little slack. It would be great.

Speaker 3: 45:18

There we go. You plugged me in. It's great. I'll have to help you out, yeah.

Speaker 1: 45:25

All right, mike, you probably don't want me on that panel if you have that discussion, because I'll just undermine it all. I'll be the counter. I could be the counterpoint. How about that? I can play devil's eye.

Speaker 2: 45:35

Yeah, I love that.

Speaker 1: 45:38

So no, at the same time, mike, I actually agree. I'll walk the fence on that one a little bit right. On the one hand I like the idea, the other hand I like it as.

Speaker 2: 45:47

I usually am right, that's good, we need all the different opinions to help round out all this stuff. I mean, we're a young vocational practice. Still it's only been like a decade-ish, a formal decade, it's true.

Speaker 1: 46:02

Awesome, got to figure it out, hannah. So much fun. Thank you for sharing. This has been a fun conversation. If folks do want to hear more about what you're doing or thinking about, what's the best way for them to keep up with you?

Speaker 3: 46:17

LinkedIn. I post a lot on there and if there's any questions I'm always happy to answer. Return the favor People were there for me when I had them, so happy to help anyone Love it, love it Well again.

Speaker 1: 46:30

Thank you, hannah. Thanks, mike for joining again. I know you've you've had. I'm sure you're still digging out. Thanks also to our audience for always continue to support us. If you, as we always like to say if you have suggestions for topics or guests, or you want to be a guest like Hannah, feel free to reach out to Mike, naomi or me on LinkedIn or in the community, and we'd be happy to chat with you about that. Until next time, bye everyone, bye.

Speaker 2: 46:58

Bye.