Speaker 1: 0:25

Hello everyone, welcome to another episode of OpsCast brought to you by MarketingOpscom, powered by all those MoPros out there. I'm your host, michael Hartman, flying solo once again today. I am hopeful that we'll get Naomi or Mike or both, back soon. Joining me today is Kanwal Ibrahim, currently Marketing Operations Manager at OffSec. Before her role in marketing operations, she held various roles in revenue operations or sales operations and analyst roles in that area as well, but she started her career in sales, holding several account manager and executive and senior account executive roles at multiple companies. So we're going to hopefully talk a little bit about the lessons she learned and how it applies to what she's doing now.

Speaker 2: 1:05

So, ken, well, thank you for joining me today she learned and how it applies to what she's doing now. So, ken, well, thank you for joining me today. Great, thank you so much. I'm so grateful to be on, michael. Honestly, I've been on the Mops Alliance Slack channel for quite a bit and when Audrey reached out and mentioned about you, it just seemed like such a great opportunity and, again, just very excited to be on the podcast. When we initially met, I know we definitely had a really great conversation. I got to learn about your background and obviously speak to mine. So definitely excited to just discuss my background today in sales revenue operations and how that's really helped shape my approach to marketing. I know obviously we're going to go into detail as well, but again, thank you so much for having me.

Speaker 1: 1:44

Of course, we're always glad to have people with different perspectives. So, while we start, so I I did the like I was going to say 10 second, I'm not even sure it was 10 second review of your career. Um, while we started, like this, so you've been. You started your career in kind of a sales, sales oriented roles where you actually I assume you had, like you had a quota and all that kind of stuff. But how long have you been in operations roles, whether it's marketing ops or revenue ops, and then what have you found to be the biggest challenge with those roles?

Speaker 2: 2:15

Yeah, definitely. So I transitioned over from sales into sales operations slash revenue operations in 2021. So obviously that was the kind of time of COVID I was in that part of my journey where I felt like it was the right time to transition and use the experience that I had really found within sales and really challenge myself, take advantage of what I was looking for, which is more structure. I was always very curious about just how the stocks are just made. I wanted to look more inside, into the strategic operational role as well, rather than just focusing on, like an individual customer interaction, which is already what I have had experience in. I've also always, always had a love for data, for reporting, for process optimization and obviously we'll go into that in detail as well. So that timeframe in 2021, I literally looked at my resume, I looked at my experience and I think, like a lot of people, I really thought to myself is this what I want to keep doing and how do I want to build on myself and in my career journey? So in that timeframe, I sat down, read out my resume and I was grateful enough to be given the opportunity by my last company, delos. I moved over and tuned that role in 2021.

Speaker 2: 3:28

I started off as an analyst, so I was a senior analyst in sales, which then became sales operations, which then transitioned into revenue operations. I was very grateful. I learned a lot in that role. I was able to get promoted twice, so I went from analyst to associate in revenue operations. So I did that for about three years and then in early 2024, I actually made the transition officially to marketing operations. Again, very excited to be in this role. I'm at OffSec, obviously. I've been here for close to a year. Definitely a lot of growth, a lot of learnings. I work with some fantastic people and time really flies when you're having fun and you're always learning.

Speaker 1: 4:10

Yeah, I'm just curious because I probably have an idea in my head of what an analyst in revenue operations, sales operations, says. But what were some of the things you did in that kind of role?

Speaker 2: 4:20

Yeah, definitely so. In sales operations and marketing operations there's a lot of similarities that tie in together. So you're working around like quotas, like helping to set quotas. You're working around, obviously, generating quotes. You're working around creating a lot of proposals. You're also doing, depending on the role, obviously, depending on small companies you're going to be raising a lot of hats so you might be involved in enablement, for example. So I did kind of a lot of those things.

Speaker 2: 4:46

Like territory assignments and things like that too Territory assignments, just making sure lead routing was done properly, For example it was a much smaller sales team, but I still got the opportunity to be able to work with sales very hands-on. We also helped with just like process mapping. So again, a lot of it overlays essentially with marketing operations, operations, operations, but you're more obviously on the sales side, right.

Speaker 1: 5:10

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 5:10

So during that role is also where I started using HubSpot more in detail, I would say I was basically like their app and I had a consultant that I was working with in Delos, but I also started just taking over the platform holistically myself, sure, and that's actually where I started working with the marketing team quite actively, I would say so I was involved in creating forms, landing pages, helping them a lot with metrics, data reporting, which channels are performing what wasn't performing, and being able to give insights, and that was a really great learning opportunity for me. It also gave me the ability to also understand, like are you cool? What's working, what's not working, starting to get feedback, obviously from sales, relaying that back to marketing, especially when it came to event and campaign performance. So during that role, I would say technically I was revenue operations, but I was very hands-on with the marketing team.

Speaker 1: 6:04

Yeah, so kind of a liaison role with them. Okay, I'm so curious. So please don't be offended, but my experience with most salespeople is it's interesting that you said that you were looking for structure. I don't know most salespeople I know. I mean to some degree, yes, I mean I think the best ones are pretty good about it, keep being organized and all that kind of stuff. But, um, so I'm just curious, like what do you think? Let me back up and we'll get into more of this. I think about, like the things that overlap between revenue ops or sales ops and marketing ops and what doesn't. But curious about from the beginning, like from a sales standpoint, like when you were doing account account executive kind of roles are there any skills, things that you learned from there that you think have helped you, that you did carry forward to that as well?

Speaker 2: 6:56

Yeah, absolutely, you're saying skills from my sales experience that helped me with marketing operations.

Speaker 1: 7:01

Or your revenue operations. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 7:05

No, definitely. So I think, just with structure. I mean, I've always had a desire for more structure, right? I think, depending on the company you're in, the role that you're doing and how good of a salesperson you are, you can definitely, as long as you're managing your book of business well and you have a very clear idea of how you want to handle the day, you're going to be a great sales rep. You're going to be medium, not that great. I think it kind of ties in all together with your overall work ethic as well, Connecting that with revenue operations and then obviously market and operations in general.

Speaker 2: 7:34

I would say one of the things I really enjoyed about this role within a general is the ability to get a better understanding of processes and systems, and that's something that I find very interesting about operations understanding what's happening behind the scenes. So I would say structure in a different capacity, because you're always thinking about what if, then almost if. That makes sense, I think, from a sales perspective, which one thing I've definitely taken away is that you're sort of focused, you're building relationships, you're doing your outreach, you're obviously doing your follow-ups. You sort of know exactly what your day-to-day looks like With operations. It's a different kind of structure. You're focusing on how sales funnels works right. You're working towards lead generation campaign management. You're definitely you're being a lot more strategic, and that's the side of operations that I really enjoy, I would say, in terms of my sales experience, and I think why it's really helpful in operations in general is it's given me the ability to really connect with audience right.

Speaker 2: 8:31

So you have your end client in sales. Those are obviously the teams that you work with. So in sales, you have whoever your end customer is right. When I was at SoftDoc, our end customer were providers right. When I was at Indeed, my end customers were HR, for example. Right At OffSec, it's going to be your different titles, like your CTOs, your CISOs, for example. So obviously, essentially, you're always going to be able to build a relationship with whoever your audience is. Connecting that back with operations, my audience is now internal instead of external, so that's a really big difference. But I'm still kind of like selling right. Whether I'm creating a workflow, whether I'm updating a process, always about selling and making sure you understand who your end audience is and what does your stakeholder care about.

Speaker 1: 9:17

Yeah, Sorry I'm smiling because I have this, like when I do coaching or other things, like I tell people all the time like, whether you realize it or not, you're always selling, right, You're selling, you're selling yourself, you're selling capabilities, you're selling what your team can do, whatever it is right, Even if you're not, even if that's not part of your title or what you're paid to do per se, that's part of, like you know, managing your career is is doing all that. So that's, um, I like hearing that is doing all that. So that's I like hearing that Curious. So I know, I know you. So you kind of walk through some of the transition from sales to revenue operations or sales operations, Like maybe go a little deeper on the drivers that led you to that. I mean, I heard you say, like you like structure and process, and then what, what were, what were some of the lessons you learned in that first transition from sales to sales ops or sales to rev ops, whichever you want to call it.

Speaker 2: 10:19

Definitely. So I would say some of the lessons I've learned is it's very important to have a deep understanding of the sales journey and the sales funnel, so understanding how your customer wants to be sold, what steps do they take, what are some issues that can potentially come up as you're making a sale. I think it's important from both obviously, a sales perspective as well as the marketing perspective. Right, because if you don't understand the customer journey, for example, you don't know, or it's not the best way to adjust your funnel. Essentially, right, depending on if you're segmented your audiences, if they're top of funnel, middle of funnel, bottom of funnel, for example, when you're nurturing your audience, when you're sending them specific material based on if they attended a specific campaign, like a webinar or an event, for example, it's important to understand what part of the journey that they're in, or an event, for example, it's important to understand what part of the journey that they're in. So I would say that was definitely a big lesson and I think, from a sales perspective, you definitely you're aware of that, but I think tying the dots together, I would say from both sales and marketing, has definitely been huge.

Speaker 2: 11:20

Other learning lessons are definitely the importance of working with data and how important obviously that can be. So, whether you're analyzing, like sales pipeline progression, or you're tracking, like marketing campaign performance, for example, and you want to be able to obviously show that pipeline performance back to stakeholders which forms were effective, which campaigns brought in X amount of pipeline based on what your initial investment was? Are they seeing the ROI that they want to be seeing? Tying that back in with sales, when you're sending over the leads from the campaigns, are they following up proactively? So I think the importance of data has been a really big piece in terms of a learning lesson. I definitely, as a salesperson, was, of course, using that in my outreach right, like, for example, like, if I'm doing like a QBR, how often is my client logging into their account? What is their adoption rate? Look like, how many licenses do they have? Right? That's a way I was using that data From a marketing perspective. I'm using the data on the back end, the operational end right.

Speaker 2: 12:20

I'm analyzing, like I said, the campaign performance. I'm looking to see how many people are actually following up with their clients on time. Which workflows are not working, but how many people are actually following up with their clients on time. Which workflows are not working, but how many people are not going through this workflow effectively. So I think it's a combination of both again understanding what your end goal is how can you better utilize that data and again really connecting the dots. So I think that was a really big one. And then the last one I would say is just again, the importance of relationship building on both sides, whether that's from a sales perspective you're building a relationship with your customers or from a marketing side you're building a relationship with your internal stakeholders.

Speaker 1: 12:56

Yeah, there's a thread there that was interesting to me. So this idea of data and consistency, I mean, I think a lot of people who are listening to this will say, well, like that's, one of the biggest problems I have with the sales team is that they don't keep their data up to date, right? So do you feel, like when you were in sales, that you were kind of at the kind of the higher, better top end of just doing that as a regular part of your process? Or do you think that you weren't? And then, as you transitioned to the revenue ops and then the marketing ops, did you have a new perspective on why it was important that your ops teams were asking you to make sure you're updating your opportunities on a regular basis and things like that?

Speaker 2: 13:43

Yeah, absolutely. I would say everything that you hit on the dot. I mean I'm sure that there were, in hindsight, things that I probably could have done better. Now that I think about it, because for me my sales career was, like I said, almost four years ago, right, but holistically thinking about it, I was an account executive, then I transitioned to an account manager. We used different CRMs throughout my career. So I started off using the internal CRM at my first organization, then moving forward to using Salesforce, and that was a really big jump for me because, again, this was like maybe I would say, six years ago when I first started using Salesforce and I think Salesforce in general has obviously developed as well, so much in the last five, 10 years.

Speaker 1: 14:23

In some ways yes, In some ways no, In some ways.

Speaker 2: 14:26

No, yeah, I know that's a different conversation, but I think, coming from a perspective of you're managing your deals, you're managing your pipeline on an internal basis something that's built in-house to then moving over to something that's you know quote unquote very robust, was also very. It was a little bit daunting, right as a salesperson, which I think is fair to say. I definitely did my best. I'm sure I could have done better, but one of the things that really helped me, I think, manage my pipeline was just continuous and regular one-on-ones with my manager, where I always was cognizant about bringing my opportunities to the table. What was holding them back, who was I working with, what were some assets that I needed, where they were in the funnel, things like that. So that really started my journey of understanding how important it is to have accurate data when you're presenting numbers, obviously back to anybody right, and also just understanding your own book of business and then connecting that back. I think, here again with sales processes. Yes, I think in every organization it's fair to say that things could definitely be done better, but I think that's also where it's helpful from an ops perspective, to have empathy for who you're working with Right and just continue to remind them like, hey, this is why this is important.

Speaker 2: 15:42

You connect with the salesperson that you're working with. I tend to message everybody that I work with. I'm not scared. So they all know my name, they know who they're getting notifications from, they know who they're getting slacks from. And then, at the same time, I'm also trying to be cognizant about working with obviously different stakeholders, right? So who the managers are on the sales teams, for example, I work very cross-functionally with the sales team, their managers, our sales operations team here they're fantastic. I work with a marketing team, obviously, and within marketing. So what I tend to do is sort of spread myself through everyone that I'm working with proactively, explain and make sure if they're not, if it's not done properly, here's what needs to be done and here's why. So I think it's a combination of it's not just hey, you need to update the information on the dashboard or the report or the deal for the sake of doing it. Here's why it's important. And then ultimately, again connecting that back with the metrics that you're presenting back to stakeholders.

Speaker 1: 16:40

Um, for pipeline, for example yeah, no, I think this idea of understanding what it's like to walk in those shoes is one that's really valuable and I tell people regularly that when I had a short stint as a sales role and it still is something that when I get into a conversation with salespeople about hey, we want your teams to do this thing in Salesforce or whatever CRM you're using, and here's why I'm also very aware of the impact that may have on the time they have available to do what they're paid to do, which is sell right in closed business.

Speaker 1: 17:30

Part of that is recognizing that, yes, you may see a bigger picture value in opportunities being updated as quickly as possible and knowing about that, but if you don't understand what it's like to be on those front lines talking with customers or prospects and struggling through that, it's easy to get lost in the perfect in quotes, perfect world scenario of them doing that. So it's something I really appreciate. Just real curious, because I think even I am not sure of a distinction when account executive, account manager. I think I know what the difference is, but what was the difference in those two roles?

Speaker 2: 18:02

Yeah, so account executive is you're a hunter, so you're essentially finding brand new business on your own. When I was an account executive and I think it depends on the organization I was basically my own BDR. So slash SDR, slash ADR.

Speaker 1: 18:17

Full life cycle seller Okay.

Speaker 2: 18:18

Yeah, full life cycle, exactly. So I was prospecting, I was doing demos, I was obviously prepping for my calls From there. I was also managing the deal from, obviously, initial prospect to fruition and then I was also making sure I actually had the opportunity up until a year. So once the deal hit a year, then it moved over to the account managers at the time. So that's essentially what I did for about three years or so.

Speaker 2: 18:46

I was obviously I told you I worked at Indeed, so I tend to I was essentially doing all industries. It was essentially a small business to mid-market and it was really cool because, again, it was my first real sales role out of college. So while it was daunting, it was scary, it was also fantastic because I just really kind of got in it. I had really great leadership. Then, from there we actually moved into more of an account management capacity. So where it sort of I was still technically a hunter, I would say, but I was almost hunting within my own book of business. So I was given a book of business and within that my job was cool. You have these 200 companies, you have your quota. That's set within a quarter and obviously that would increase quarter over quarter by like 10 to 15%. So your job is find the current spenders. Of course, keep them spending Also find retention.

Speaker 2: 19:42

Retention, exactly. So you have retention, you have expansion revenue as well and then you have upsell revenue. So those are my three sort of categories when I was there in account management. Then from there I switched actually back to an account executive role. I wanted to experience that again, so I did FinTech for about a year and that's actually where I got my first experience of working with an SDR, understanding what that was like. I'd never worked with an SDR before, so that was like I'd never worked with an SDR before. So that was also really cool because it was obviously a partnership and just understanding already cool. How often are you supposed to meet with your SDR? What does the fintech market look like? That was also really interesting because I think as a salesperson sometimes you think, hey, I can handle every industry that there is. But obviously, as tech has evolved throughout the years, you realize what you're good at and maybe what you're not good at.

Speaker 1: 20:31

Well, it's interesting. So I think, just as I'm listening through this, like I don't think we've had many guests who have talked about whether they had the experience or not of having a quota right and like you describing like it was very, probably very clear, like if you either made your goal or you didn't right, it didn't really matter why. Um, and then the other part, and this was like I don't think people who have not done cold outreach know how hard that is. It is really really hard to do and maintain a positive attitude because you get rejection all the time 90 95 of the time, right, I mean, yeah, so it's, uh, it is, it is.

Speaker 1: 21:15

It is not for the faint of heart. You know, some people love it, right, and I I was not one of those people. I learned to appreciate, kind of like how I learned I appreciate people who play golf all the time. I'm not very good, I'm not that interested in it I appreciate how good people who are, uh, who are good and consistent at it, uh, it's kind of the same thing with sales. So, uh, thanks for walking through that, because I think that this is a really good example of like just the way you talk about it is probably not what most of our listeners who are have always been in marketing or marketing ops have talked about. That part of the go to market function, right, it's like. If you don't really understand that, then it's really hard to appreciate what it's like. So, thanks for doing that.

Speaker 2: 22:02

Yeah, I think just to connect the dots there also. It's. It's also helpful, I think, from a marketing perspective, to make sure that you're getting feedback back from sales, right. So they're obviously the ones that are on the front lines doing the cold calls, right. But if you don't have that active communication, I think with your sales team and you're trying to understand, you won't actually understand, right, which forms are not effective, which campaigns are not effective, which forums are not effective?

Speaker 1: 22:28

which campaigns are not effective? Which events are not effective? Lead scoring is broken or it needs to be tweaked Maybe not even broken, but it needs to be tweaked.

Speaker 2: 22:33

It needs to be updated Exactly. So what I tend to do also is that we have Slack channels, actually built here at OffSec, so through those I tend to communicate with our BDR team quite a bit. They handle all of our live chats. They handle all of our live chats. They handle all of our like lead score mqls, for example, that come in. So what we try to do is be proactive about making sure that they're following up with them, but then also just getting some feedback on, like how they performed. Um, who's handling the lead? For example, if there's any sort of questions that they have, what tools can they use in their outreach? I tend to try to do the same thing with our sales team as well. So if I'm paying them, for example, on like a lead that they need to follow up on and they're like, hey, this, you know, this wasn't the quality lead, et cetera, I do try to push back and just understand, like what happened, and I know I could be doing a better job there or do it more proactively.

Speaker 1: 23:22

But something I've't agree more. I mean, I think, building relationship with sales teams, whether it's BDRs or sales leaders or sales people like who are. You know they have a book, business or a quota. It's really beneficial in general to go do that, because I think it would help some of the crap that I see on B2B websites in terms of the copy, because it usually is. There's so much meaningless drivel and if you talk to salespeople they don't use that same. A lot of times they don't use that same language right, they use language that the customers actually get.

Speaker 2: 24:05

Right, exactly, and I think the biggest goal and I see, I, I'm, I see the same thing honestly that, especially because it as obviously within marketing I'm sure you see this as well. You get hit up with so many vendors all the time and then you go on their websites and you're like, okay, well, what do you guys do? And so much of it is just like huge head scratcher right. Yeah, I'm like, what are you guys saying? Let's just simplify this, let's not, maybe use ChatGPT for all of our copy.

Speaker 1: 24:33

I don't even think it's ChatGPT. I think this is not a new problem. This is a problem that's been around for 10, 15, 20 years. Everyone wants to be seen as thought leaders. I just am like I want stuff that is very clear. If you can't tell people what you do really clearly and succinctly, you're going to struggle getting attention. And, by the way, if you're not matching the way that people are talking about, whatever space you're in, that they're going to be used for search, right, you're also not going to be found through search engines and now things like chat, gpt. So, anyway, I could go on for that for a while. On that, um, but let's.

Speaker 1: 25:19

So I want to go back to so you were, you transitioned to rev ops in 21 ish time frame and then you moved to marketing ops from that which, by the way, I don't think is all that common. Like I think more people go from marketing ops to rev ops, where rev ops is like across good market functions. But so I'm curious like, walk me through, like what was, what was the driver behind that? And then kind of the same thing as before. Right, what were some of the either? Both lessons you learned along the way as you moved into the marketing domain, or what things did you, what skills did you transfer it over that were helpful from your previous roles?

Speaker 2: 26:02

Yeah, definitely, let's see. So I think, like I mentioned high level, we already talked about structure. I think I've always been curious on how leads are generated, right. How do they get assigned to sales? If I go back to my experience at ZopDoc, for example, we used to our marketing team would send us notifications through like NPS surveys, for example right Cool, you had your recent lead, submit this NPS survey. Here's what they want to focus on, here's what they're looking to get out of it. Why don't you make that reach? So I always found that was really interesting because, a obviously it gave me to know who to reach out to. B it gave me content to reference in my outreach, and these were already existing clients that I was working with right, so it was a done deal. I'm like duh, I was going to obviously reach out. So I think, connecting it back, it's always been wanting to better understand the mechanics behind like sales processes how leads are being generated, how are they being sent to sales and why. I think that's always been something I was curious about.

Speaker 2: 26:58

In my experience with Delos, like I mentioned, I started working very heavily with our marketing team, so it was a really great way to kind of get my feet wet on understanding different channels right. So it was a really great way to kind of get my feet wet on understanding different channels Right. I had no idea what paid search was, what paid social was, what channels are or what, sorry what mediums are utilized in those channels Right, what's effective, what's not effective. So really kind of getting my hands dirty, sending them those metrics, being involved in starting to build reports, qualifying leads, building out dashboards, for example. I was really hands-on working with them, you know, day in and day out, and that really kind of got me excited as well about just marketing in general.

Speaker 2: 27:38

And then, before I know it, my role actually, I would say basically became marketing operations. Even in that capacity, my title was still revenue operations, but I was handling HubSpot full-time. I was working very heavily with them while also doing my own job. So it was a combination of both, I would say. Also in that timeframe I worked again with sales enablement as well help them, like with any coaching that they needed, for example, whether it came to using HubSpot, or maybe like if they needed anything like you know client calls or closing deals or whatever it may be.

Speaker 2: 28:08

So I was starting to get involved with enablement there as well, and then I think I just kind of naturally gravitated towards marketing operations. So it just made sense to transition into the role fully and I was grateful enough to find OutSec as an organization. And really, I would say, in this role, what I've been able to really improve on and continue to work towards in my career within operations is definitely process improvement, data management and then, like I said, sales enablement.

Speaker 1: 28:38

Gotcha. So the enablement piece. So you did sales enablement, but it sounds like you're doing enablement with marketing teams as well.

Speaker 2: 28:45

A little bit. Yeah, I'm trying to get my feet wet there. So, for example, if we have any like gone cadence, for example, that like I can help, you know, give a little feedback on, I do try. Or, for example, if there's any sort of like emails, for example, I can like help work with a demand gen team to revamp. I do try to do that. Or, more importantly, I would say a bigger example would be when we get like a lead score NQL that's sent over to our ADR team, for example, and they want to know exactly what to leverage in terms of their outreach, I work with them to make sure that they know exactly what's important on the contact record in HubSpot, I do the same thing with our sales team as they get a lead assigned to them as well.

Speaker 2: 29:24

So, for example, when I started here last year, a few of the things that we did was update our forms. So, for example, making sure that not only that the fields that were already there, but also just shortening the forms a little bit and adding in additional key fields, for example, that might help the sales team understand how big of an opportunity that they have. So now that was entered into the forms, now that's going over to Salesforce, but already cool. As a salesperson, how do you know you have to look at that Right. So it would be, for example, like one of the things we did last year was we created a deck we presented to our sales team, like monthly, for example. Within one of the decks we made sure to include information that they could reference in their outreach.

Speaker 1: 30:06

Along with that, I'm also as I'm like so can you give me an example of what you mean by that?

Speaker 2: 30:10

Yeah, like for like what fields, for example, to leverage when you're making outreach and what these fields mean, for example. So one of the examples was like how big of an opportunity, like we obviously have it labeled differently within the form, but it was like how big is your team or how many learners are interested, because we're obviously a certification training company for cybersecurity.

Speaker 2: 30:27

So, that was really cool because now in all of our MQL forms that's a field that's included. So when I, as a salesperson, am getting that, I can easily make sure I look at that and I leverage that in my outreach. So I really enjoy that part of my role. I wish it was a little bit more as well, but if I'm making outreach, for example, to sales reps, and if they have any questions on how they should make outreach what does the source mean? For example, why is this relevant? I'm making sure I'm assisting them as much as I can.

Speaker 1: 30:55

So are you doing that kind of in an ad hoc way? I mean, you talked about doing a presentation with the sales team, but are you doing something that's as new people come on board, right, there's our existing training and enablement content that they can go through to start with so that you sort of accelerate their onboarding process.

Speaker 2: 31:16

Yeah, that's a good question.

Speaker 2: 31:17

I would say right now I'm doing it more ad hoc with existing team members.

Speaker 2: 31:21

So if they have any sort of outreach questions that they need to know, onboarding is obviously a little bit different Like their managers will go ahead and show them like hey, these are like the ropes, for example, here's what you need to do, etc.

Speaker 2: 31:31

I'll make sure, like I introduce myself and then, as a lead, it gets sent over, for example, to our sales reps. I might ping them and just be like hey, you recently got assigned this. Were you able to see the workflow notification? Do you have any questions that I can answer? And from there the conversation will naturally flow if they have anything that I can help with. Another example might be, for example, if we have a recent campaign that we ran and I'll make sure from an operational perspective, those leads are obviously properly assigned to the reps. But along with that that, hey, we have the proper nurture workflow emails that are being sent over, and then at the same time, my counterpart and I are working together and making sure they have the proper cadence in their outreach as well. So I think it's a full cycle process.

Speaker 1: 32:13

Got it. So are you? What kind of feedback are you getting from those teams when you're doing that? I mean, is it? I'm just curious because, especially with marketers like I don't know that there's maybe it's just me have we not done a great job of providing enablement resources for our marketing teams who might be using, say, a marketing automation platform or the CRM or whatever you know know? Are you finding people grateful, annoyed, providing feedback that you can go and improve stuff?

Speaker 2: 32:48

like a little bit of all of those like I would say a little bit of all of that yeah I think it's fair to say that when you uh and I'm sure I'm guilty of this as well maybe I over slack a little bit too much, or I've been slack too much, like I think everybody has their moments where there's like already like calm, slack a little bit too much, or I've been Slack too much, like I think everybody has their moments where there's like, are you like calm down a little bit? But I do also think it's important to make sure that you are at least you know you're pinging people, or if people have questions, they're comfortable reaching out to you, for example, like, hey, why is this lead getting assigned to me? How do I make outreach? What does this source mean? For example and I've been able to also provide feedback on if any forums need updates, for example, where we should be putting certain forums, for example, based on where they are in the funnel.

Speaker 2: 33:37

I'm a big proponent of working collaboratively with our team, so I definitely don't want to take the credit there at all.

Speaker 2: 33:41

It's all about collaboration. We tend to meet on like a weekly basis, for example, on what's working, what's not working, what are some key projects that are coming up, what campaigns are going to be happening. Like I mentioned, what's going to be going over to sales, do they have the proper cadence to follow up on? And then also just trying to make sure we're getting proactive feedback, if we can, from the sales managers. The other things I'm also doing is making sure that there's proper tasks that are going over to the sales team. So, for example, for some of our high focus NQL forms, for example, I'll make sure cool you have the workflow that's already notifying you If you don't follow up within a day or two, maybe there's a task that also goes out to you as a reminder that this lead needs to be followed up on. So I try to be cognizant of, obviously, their time, giving their gap because we have a global workforce, and then also, just like a quick hey, just can you go ahead and just make sure you reach out.

Speaker 1: 34:33

Sorry, when you say you're um, you have that week. I think you said a weekly connection with is that with your counterpart in like a sales ops role, or with the sales managers or all the marketing leaders?

Speaker 2: 34:46

yeah, that's a good question. So I tend to have a weekly touch base with our marketing team, um, so usually I'll do like a one-on-one with my manager and then we'll also do like a weekly touch base with our team itself. I also have a touch base, actually, with our sales operations team. So I tend to be proactive where I'm like let me just make sure I'm setting up these meetings in advance, even if we don't have anything to cover. We'll cancel it if we don't need to. But I find that it's a really great way to have more of that one-on-one conversation with your counterparts that you're actively working with. With the sales managers, I tend to have a more open relationship, so if I need to Slack them for example, ask any questions, set up a meeting I'll do that as well. I know with my counterpart, they tend to touch base with the sales managers more proactively as well. So I think it's a combination of both meetings, as well as having open communications through Slack channels in case you need anything.

Speaker 1: 35:36

So I'm curious do you think your experience having been in sales makes it easier for you to take what I'm sure you get criticism right as a part of this feedback loop? Right, but it's open and honest, as long as it's not like personal attack, which is not okay. But if it's feedback, whether you agree with it or not, like how do you do you think that experience is having been in sales and dealing with the rejection and all the stuff that goes with it has helped you in like taking that and not like taking it personally, I guess is the best way to yeah, definitely, absolutely, because I think you develop a very um, I don't want to, I don't know if I, if I want to use the word hard exterior, uh, but it's almost like another way of saying that, right like when you're the salesperson you're.

Speaker 2: 36:21

You know you're going to be getting someone to shut the phone on you. They might use some you know not the best language. They might call you names. Whatever it might be, they could or could not be the right person to connect with. I mean, I'm guilty of this myself. I will get sales calls Now. Thank God you know when someone's a sit-AN so you can just send them directly to your voicemail.

Speaker 2: 36:41

But you know, I think it's candid to say it's okay to say like you know, you built a tough exterior as a salesperson and I've definitely brought that experience over with me to operations as well, because you're going to be. There are things that I do well and then there's also things that I can improve on as well. Right, that could be whether I'm building a better process. Maybe I sent over the wrong leads, maybe I could have communicated something more effectively. That's something that I think I have definitely developed throughout my career as well, and it's a big part of operations. When you have your data, for example, or whatever you're trying to communicate. How to effectively communicate that. That's something I'm continuously trying to improve on. But if there are times, for example, where maybe I'm over explaining something, or maybe I'm explaining a technical scenario to someone who needs it in more layman's terms, so, there are definitely times where I've also gotten feedback that I can improve on something, and that's completely fine and that's a part of life.

Speaker 2: 37:36

So I would say, to answer your question absolutely, I think being a salesperson has given me that confidence to know what's right and what's not and where I can continue to improve and not take anything personally, because at the end of the day, we're all working towards the same goal, we're all professionals, right, and if someone's giving you feedback, take the feedback, see where we can improve and do better, and that's all we can say.

Speaker 1: 37:57

Yeah, it's interesting. No, it's interesting. And there's something that happened recently in my day-to-day where someone I was talking to had some really direct not like meant to be rude or intimidating or anything like that, but it was very direct and we had a subsequent conversation and I think that person's experience with other people in the same kind of scenario was they get defensive and I don't know where it is along the way, whether it's being in sales, you know, just having more war wounds in general, right. But to me, again, I go back to like, as long as you're not taking, you know, taking personal shots at me or my character, then I welcome and encourage all that feedback, right, because I think it's valuable. It's valuable in different ways, right. One is we all have blind spots and so it's good to like know where, like if you're doing something, but the I think the more valuable one for an organization is, the more you can get that feedback loop going in all directions, is it it? It brings to light on things that are broken, that you may not have realized or that are difficult for this other team, and you didn't realize that you, what you were asking for them to do, what it actually the actual implications was on their day-to-day work. Or if you're trying to figure out a solution, right, what's like if you've got, you know, one person dominating the conversation that may have well, be well-intentioned and be smart, that still may not be the best idea, right? So I think surfacing more ideas just leads to better outcomes in general. So what I do like I'm very maybe proactive is not the right word, but I'm very, very um explicit.

Speaker 1: 39:45

When I work with teams, especially new teams, any of the key stakeholders I work with that might have feedback. I I one of the things I set the expectation with is I say I want your feedback. Right, if you've got an issue, you've got got a problem, come to me, tell me what it is. That's okay. If it's a suggestion kind of thing, I always tell them.

Speaker 1: 40:06

I may or may not do anything about it, but I want you to tell me, because what I want to know is, if you tell me and then this other person tells me something similar and another person tells me something similar, all of a sudden I'm seeing a pattern and actually I need to pay attention to this and it's going to get. I will probably then try to do some act on it if I can and if I were to. You know, give people the Heisman and not solicit that feedback or not make it easy for them to do it and feel comfortable. We'd all miss out. So do you do? I mean, do you do anything like that? Are you like, like, are you?

Speaker 1: 40:36

actively saying things like that to them.

Speaker 2: 40:40

Definitely. I always try to always end my calls with what can I do better? Where can I help you? Is there anything I can take off your plate? I think that's one of the things that everybody should be doing right, regardless of whatever career field that they end, because at the end of the day, we're all working together. We're all a team, and I think one of the things that sales has really taught me is the value of coachability and how important that is in any part of your career. Right, because that's your point. You're always going to be getting feedback. It's good to be welcome to feedback, and not just getting the feedback, but also how you handle it and how you take it and then how you move forward. Right, moving forward in stride is huge, whether that's in your career or whether that's in life. So I would say, definitely a key point I've taken away from my sales career that I've tried to add into operations is the ability to always be coachable, continue to learn, continue to train and, hopefully, you do better.

Speaker 1: 41:33

So I'm curious. So part of why I think I didn't stay in sales beyond what I did earlier in my career probably the biggest reasons I just wasn't made out to be that, especially at that point in my career. But I also, the manager I worked for, was not a good. He was not a coach, right, he was more of a slave driver type, right. Oh no, didn't really provide a lot of guidance, especially for someone who, to be true, I had a low opinion of sales people and I was like, oh, this will be easy, um, but also like, didn't get it, so do you had good sales managers or managers in general that were providing feedback?

Speaker 2: 42:11

I would say so, yeah, I was actually actionable feedback definitely yeah. So I mean, I've had some really great managers at softdoc, at indeed Indeed. Yeah, I definitely did, I would say, and even honestly, even my managers in operations have been fantastic as well. I've been trying. My goal is to take away from every single manager a part of their.

Speaker 2: 42:31

I guess everyone has different personality working styles right but your job is how malleable you can be while working underneath them, right? So obviously, not every single person is going to get along, and I think that's fine as well. But to bring something to the table I think it's important to do that as well when you're having one on ones. For example, my job, always, my goal, has always been to be proactive, right. What is my week looking like? What are some projects I'm looking to tackle, whether that's in an operations capacity, then in a sales capacity. Here's my top four clients, for example, that I'm working with. Here's what's holding them back. Here's we're going to move forward to help me close my quota.

Speaker 2: 43:06

So I would say it's a two way relationship. When you're working with your manager, obviously there's going to be some people that are just idiots, and that's fine too, and I'm not taking that away. But I think, if you can, always Michael, goal let's, let's always be proactive, right. So if you're having a one-on-one, try to always bring something to the table instead of just like asking them what should I do. Bring the ideas to the table of how you think you can maybe handle a situation right. Then get their feedback.

Speaker 2: 43:33

So, from a sales perspective, one of the things I really enjoyed was I would. My manager recommended to me hey, why don't we both listen to a call that you did this week? Let's analyze the call and see what worked well and what didn't work well. And that was really helpful, especially during COVID, because we were virtual. So it was a really great way to obviously continue to build that relationship but also find out, as I'm listening back to the call, where can I improve. And it's really difficult to hear yourself back in a voiceover and and you're not very cool, like why did I do this?

Speaker 2: 44:01

Why did I say that? But it was a really great learning opportunity from me At OffSec. I've had the again the privilege of having some really great managers as well who really guided me within this role, because switching over from revenue to marketing operations again, like I said, it's a learning curve as well. Right, I was doing marketing, I would say, in Delos as well, but really being ingrained in this role has taught me so much and one of the things I think that has been really helpful is having proper guidance.

Speaker 1: 44:29

So, whether you're being proactive about setting those one on ones, bringing projects to the table, finding gaps, finding opportunities, getting managerial feedback, getting good direction all of those things, I think, play a factor and they tie in together it's interesting I don't know if you did when you started saying that you need to be malleable, I was probably kind of doing this like kind of weird nod in my head because, um, this is going to be an example where I'm not like, I'm not not questioning, but like I think there's nuance to my position that when I've, when I've been a manager, as a people where I've coached people who are especially new, first time people, managers one of the things I tell them as part of your job is, uh well, you shouldn't expect people to adapt to your style, right. Your job is to adapt to their style, right. So it's really to me it's been more of the manager who should be malleable. Um, I think you bring up some really interesting points that it would be as a manager. It's always appreciated when people can be I don't know, malleable is not the right word Coachable is definitely something that I look for when I hire people, but also, just I like the proactiveness and not everybody's going to be able to do that and that's fine, but anything where you're kind of like open to feedback and trying to provide input in a way, that's um, trying to be helpful, and then you know, I've had people work for me who are very proactive about soliciting feedback, and not everyone was, and it's to the point where it really stood out and it still surprises, surprises me that people aren't asking for that more often.

Speaker 1: 46:04

So, anyway, I'm now like rethinking my, my, my viewpoint a little bit on this, like who should be, who should be more or less malleable or flexible, or adapt to the scenario between two different people in a kind of manager direct report situation.

Speaker 2: 46:20

So thanks, that's good, of course. No, I mean, this is really great learning from you as well and just kind of hearing your perspective, so thank you for that.

Speaker 1: 46:30

Yeah, interesting. Well, I think. I think we are going to have to wrap it up here so kind of well. Thank you so much for joining us. If, if people want to, you know, learn more about what you've you know, about what you've learned over the years, or just connect or whatever, what's the best way for them to do that?

Speaker 2: 46:46

Well, thank you so much for having me. I would say LinkedIn is the best, so I'm happy to send you over my LinkedIn URL afterwards.

Speaker 1: 46:53

We can drop that in the show notes if you want.

Speaker 2: 46:55

Yeah, definitely. Okay sure I'll send that over. That would be the best way I tend to any webinars I join, any sort of sessions I'm a part of, or any certifications I have, or I'll post it directly on my LinkedIn.

Speaker 1: 47:10

So that would be the best way to connect Perfect Right. Well, thank you again for doing this. It was a lot of fun. I appreciate these different perspectives and I don't think a lot of people who are in marketing ops have really been exposed to this kind of level of detail of what it's like to be in sales and then the transition. So I think this is going to be valuable for a lot of people. So thank you, and thank you all, always as always to our audience, for continuing to support us and share our insights and our guests. If you have ideas for topics or guests or want to be a guest, reach out to Naomi, mike or me, either through LinkedIn or the marketing ops community Slack, or if you have some other way of reaching us, you can figure it out. Please do until next time. Bye, everybody.

Speaker 2: 47:52

Thank you so much, bye.