Michael Hartmann: 0:24

Hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Opscast, brought to you by MarketingOps.com, powered by other MoPros out there. I'm your host Michael Hartman. Flying a bit solo. This is the first episode we're recording after Mops Blues of 2025. So I'm sure Mike and Numi are recovering from that. But I'm powering on. So I am joined today by Penny Hill. She's the founder and principal consultant at Three Threads Consulting. Penny has built her career at the intersection of marketing, operations, and strategy, helping teams simplify complexity, bridge gaps between departments, and make data meaningful. Today, she and I are going to be talking about one of the most common sources of friction in GoToMarket teams, attribution and alignment. Why do so many teams fight over credit? What does marketing contribution actually mean? And how can simplifying our metrics and our conversations lead to better results? So, Penny, welcome to the show.

Penny Hill: 1:14

Again. Hey, yeah, thank you. Yes, yes. Thanks for having me.

Michael Hartmann: 1:18

Yeah. I like this is a little bit odd because I think we scheduled this before you're on another episode that we already recorded because we did the one with Leslie and all the others. Um that's this is fun. Yeah. Can you do it twice? Yeah, it is. Yeah. Anyway, well, good, good to have you again. Um, all right. Once I know you and I have talked about this, but um and I'll tell you my version of this if you want, but you said that both marketing and executives across businesses have a tendency to overcomplicate things, especially in the marketing world, I think. So, like for me, I often find myself telling marketers like you're caring about stuff that only marketers care about, um, which is maybe a slight variance, but like what does that look like to you in practice? And why do you think it happens so much?

Penny Hill: 2:03

Yeah. Yeah, I think, I mean, I think we tend to overcome overcomplicate a lot of things. And we really see it when we're talking reporting and attribution models. Um, and there's a few ways that I see this. One way is, you know, we can we end up having different attribution models for different channels, right? Or segments. Um, we're hyper focusing on all the differences. So now we have all of these models. Um, or we have too many, maybe it's all the same channel, the same. We don't have it differences per channel, but we have too many attribution models. We're looking at every single cut of this. We've got it feeding our data. Um, now everything's just muddied because we we we're looking at too much. And you can also have it where we don't have one at all, or maybe we have one, but no one's using it because we just can't come to an agreement on what it should be. And I think at the end of the day, a lot of times this happens because we get really, really stuck in exceptions. So we're really focused on the details, we're digging into the weaves of everything, and we want it to be perfect, and it's just not going to be. Like perfection should not be our goal, really, with anything, but certainly not an enterprise B2B.

Michael Hartmann: 3:13

Yeah, I tell people perfection is first off, it's an impossible thing, right? That's I used to I worked with a CMO who's like, uh, what does beautiful look like? And I was like, I hate that question. You know, like I understand like like what's the best work we can do, but like I just it's just so hard to to get to. And like I think yeah, I mean, I I look at the world as trade-offs. Very different thing than like what's right, what's wrong. So I think there's very few things that are like that. So um yeah. Yeah, I mean what do you like what do you what do you think is the big driver though? Like I I do think this is tends to be I mean, I don't know. I maybe it's the same same case in other functional areas, but it feels like marketing is uh particularly susceptible to this like overcomplication of stuff. Do you think it's unique to that? Or do you think it's something that is common across other b business functions?

Penny Hill: 4:19

I mean I guess I mean most of my career I've been in marketing. Um being in ops, you know, you touch a lot of things, and I feel like I mean, I see complication in customer service. I see you see complication in sales. Um, I think we all tend to do it. I really do. I don't know if it's just marketing. Um, I think an example is ICP. I see that a lot. And that's marketing and sales, and you might have customer, you know, the customer success team. You've got lots of orgs in there. Um giving opinions on ICP and we'll end up making it so granular, you can't operationalize it. We just overcomplicate it looking for perfection. Um, I mean, sometimes it's and it's also because you have too many cooks in the kitchen. I think that that can drive a lot of it too. When you've got everyone that kind of gets everyone gets to have an opinion on it, or everyone gets to kind of drive the decision. I guess everyone can have an opinion, but at the end of the day, you have to have, you know, a few key, key people that will will drive what happens. Um, and you've got to at some point stop showing it to people, stop getting input. Right.

Michael Hartmann: 5:21

Or you'll just keep I know what one of the things I run into is where people want to and like try to solve for every every particular scenario that might possibly occur. Yeah. Right. Yeah. I mean, I create it the the the people who aren't into sports might not get it, but like if you lift the rule book for the NFL, it just keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger because they try to type rules for all kinds of different scenarios that are unique. Whereas, and I'm less familiar with FIFA and the world of actual like football for the rest of the world, but like that meanup is pretty simple and leaves a lot to interpretation in the moment, which I like I that I tend to gravitate towards that. And I think a lot of people, maybe it's an American thing, like where you want to solve for every scenario. I don't know.

Penny Hill: 6:11

Yeah, maybe. Yeah, I do. I I I see that in the attribution models for sure, people trying to do that. Like that's we get in trouble. Least and I always, you know, early, huh? Yeah, and leading score scoring. Yeah, yes, for sure. For sure. And it's funny, early in my career, like actually not even my career, this is when I this was when I was in high school, I made maps and I I did this for a government contractor. And it's funny because they always said, like, and we made maps by hand and everything, you know, had to be done pretty well. And but they always said, good enough for government work. That was something I always heard, good enough for government work. And it was, it was just this like, it's like 80% good. It's we're not looking for perfection with this because we'll be here all day. Um, and that I mean, that's something that stayed with me my whole life. I think that a lot. Like, well, we're at this is good enough for government work. This is we're at the 80%. This is good.

Michael Hartmann: 6:59

Yeah. You know, I mean, that's to me, there's a another analogy of like strategy, right? I think again, I think people tend to overcomplicate strategy. And a book that I read years ago, gosh, it's I don't even know how old it is now. It's got to be in the 20, 15, 20 years old, is called Execution. It's kind of a scary executive, the discipline of getting things done. And it kind of like it was the one for me where I was like, because I was in strategy and consulting work at the time, and um, it really changed the way I thought about it. Like, strategy is important, but uh, it doesn't really mean a whole lot if you can't actually execute on it and hold people, hold yourselves and others accountable for the results. And so it was a big for me, it was a big mind shift to go into that model of like execution is at least as important, maybe more important than strategy. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. So what what are your thoughts every time? I mentioned, yeah, I mentioned up front, but it was attribution, and I know that probably you and I both have had a lot of conversations about attribution. I think with your consulting work now, you've probably had more recently too. But like I in fact, I was just talking to somebody else about a potential of being a guest, and it was like attribution was maybe one of the topics. And like I was like, it continues to be a topic that is of interest and and a challenge for a lot of people. Like, why, like, why do you think it's continues to be such a pain point?

Penny Hill: 9:26

You know, I think, and it it really is for everyone. Every everyone I've talked to, I think every company, and there's been quite a few um since I went out of my own, attribution has it has been some source of pain for them. Either they needed to set it up or it was there, but it's not working quite like they want it to. Um, and I think it's because we just tie so much to it, especially as marketers, so many companies, um, you know, your your marketing goals are based off source pipeline, um which is isn't something I necessarily agree with. But even if you don't have source pipeline, you've got to, you've got to show what revenue you're generating, right? We got to prove there's value in the marketing we're doing. Um, and so you've got it, you know, where are we attributing that revenue? Um, I just think we tie, and we rightly so tie so much to revenue and marketing, right? That we tie so much to these models um that we then tend to overcomplicate them because we want to make sure we get credit where we're putting our time.

Michael Hartmann: 10:21

Yeah. Well, it's funny because I like I tell people all the time I have this sort of I love relationship with attribution modeling. But like my point is like it doesn't like even the simplest attribution models are complicated math if you're not kind of a math wonk. And so it and it as soon as someone sees something in the model that they don't agree with, right? It it undermines the overall message rather than supporting it. So I have yeah, I've tended to shy away from it a little bit. Um, I haven't totally thrown it out. Yeah, because I think there's there's value in it still. Um we can get to this a little bit later though, too, because like I think there's also like who you're sharing it with matters. But um yeah, you also mentioned contribution, right? It's I think you and I actually went back and forth on this when we were talking about this at one point. Like I because of my kind of change in mindset about attribution, I have probably moved more towards, I think I like the idea of a contribution-based model, right? Where you have some sort of there's some assumptions here that there's some agreement about how we're measuring, you know, who sourced the the pipeline revenue um up front, so we're not spending time in reviews about that, um, and agreeing that there's probably going to be some where it's right and some where it's wrong. And so fine, we're all working towards the same big number. But like I think you like, where do you lean on that? You know, do you lean more towards like I think you attribution reporting is a little better or or contribution-based stuff, or like what do you, what's your take on that?

Penny Hill: 12:02

Yeah, so when it comes to marketing, I think um I personally feel we should only be looking at what does marketing influence. So more of that, you know, what what part of revenue um is marketing touching? I do not, I I don't like marketing source those marketing contribution um models. And I mean, I've done them, I do them like most companies do them. Um, but I just think it causes, it just causes a lot of it causes a lot of infighting between sales and marketing. And at the end of the day, we need to be on the same team as them. And that's my goal. Usually my goal is to align with sales. Our goal in marketing is is to help sales, right? We, we are, we are there to to kind of help move that pipeline um, you know, down the funnel and make it bigger, right? Make it close faster. Like that's the kind of stuff we're doing in the enterprise B2B space. Um, it doesn't necessarily matter who sources it. I don't think that, you know, but you just you don't have a person that raises their hand on a demo form and then just walks through and is the influencer or decision maker on the closed one opportunity anymore. That that's just not the buying. Yeah. That's not the that's not how how they buy. And you know, not that it never happens, but it's in general, that's not. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And so I just think it causes, I don't know how many times like you end up just fighting with sales or like, but we really did this. And you look in the data and they may have, right? Because whatever model you do, it's made up. It's a little finger in the wind of where are we gonna set it. Um yeah. So yeah, so I do, I I like moving away from that. You know, you're not marketing's not sourcing it. Maybe you have sales of SDR source, like I I could see value in that um to see kind of which of those orcs is bringing it in. But when marketing comes along, I like to see that they are influencing it.

Michael Hartmann: 13:51

Yeah. So you you don't uh like if you found less of that um infighting when you use marketing at attribute attributed. Yes. Yeah, really.

Penny Hill: 14:01

Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. I mean, if we can anytime you say marketing source something, I feel like sales gets like gets a little kind of defensive or can, you know, they just they create the pipeline, right? Like that's that's their job, that's what they do.

Michael Hartmann: 14:16

Yeah, interesting. Yeah, because I I have I mean, part of why I have shied away from it. I mean, not to get too far down another rabbit hole, like I've kind of gone. I mean, I think the flaws in either one of those, if that's the only things you're looking at. I've had more luck with going at it with a different tack, which is less about pure numbers and more about story, right? So yeah, looking at um like recently won deals that are hopefully representative like of a more of a bigger pattern, and looking at across that that that buyer's journey, if you will, like what were all the different touch points that maybe had an influence and um the timing of them and things like that, and telling that story rather than trying to go like, here's this complicated model or this, you know, complicated way that we're agreeing, we've said that we're gonna say who sourced this deal, right? And focus more on like what were the things that what are the things that happen when we win and when we don't win? And yeah, and that I've I've found works better with the broader audience than any of those model kind of things do. Have you ever tried anything like that?

Penny Hill: 15:31

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think that's a piece, I mean, to me, and maybe maybe I'm thinking about it differently or or wrong, but that's a piece of the model. Like, because when, you know, I look at it as when we we do a model, we do an attribution model, or my team does one, we have laid out every single touch point. Like the goal is we've got every single touch point there in our data that then we can do what we please with. And part of it is that multi-touch attribution, looking at like what all is happening on this opportunity. And I do think that's the best story to tell. It's very easy to tell one by one. I think sometimes you need a way to be able to say holistically, like what is happening. And especially like for your campaign managers. Like, I'm putting money in ads. Are they in are you know, what's happening with them? Okay. Well, we see people that are interacting with their ads. Now we see they're on these opportunities or whatever. Like we can see that's influencing this kind of hype.

Michael Hartmann: 16:23

Yeah, and that's I think that's kind of getting it what I was talking about about who sees this reporting, right? I I am a big believer that attribution reporting should be used, certainly within marketing, but definitely with like if you've got campaign manager type rules, right? They should be, yeah. I mean, if I was in their shoes, I'd want to know, like, as soon as my campaigns were launching, right? How are they performing? And uh across a number of metrics, including are they driving pipeline revenue or at least having some influence on it? So, like to me, that's what I was talking about, like having the right audience. But I don't think you were wrong, like uh so you guys said if you're not if you're understanding it right or not. I think we're saying kind of the same thing, right? Like there's an agabit level attribution reporting, but then if you go down to specific cases, right, it brings such numbers to life. And that, like I literally, you know, I've been in rooms where I wasn't doing the I was just doing the attribution reporting, like with sales teams, and you know, people were not paying attention, you know. The town like and then we switched to doing these stories about specific ones, and people were leading in, and the body like they're just the body language is different. And then over time, right, the conversations I was having with those teams changed too.

Penny Hill: 17:36

Yeah. So either I guess yeah, yeah, it's it's we're we're doing all of it, I think, you know, with different audiences. Yeah, yeah.

Michael Hartmann: 17:46

And I the reason I bring it like it's it's it's not an easily scalable, repeatable thing, but it almost shouldn't be, right? Because you're looking at specific cases, but it's it requires some, you know, I go back to my playing defense and basketball, right? It's an effort-based thing, right? You have to put some effort in to do that and to build a story, but I think it pays dividends, especially outside of marketing. Yeah, so I mean that's yeah, no, I agree with that. All right, we should stop right there. I like that. No. Um let's see. So you you you've touched on this too, right? So there's a little bit of this that is about getting credit, um, which I yeah, I struggle with that as the right goal, but um when you see when you see that in these organizations where there's this sort of credit, credit gaming, credit game that's going on between marketing and sales or marketing sales BDRs, depending on where they're structured, like um like what like what's your what does that tell you about those organizations in terms of you know what's working well, what's not working well?

Penny Hill: 19:00

Yeah, I would say, you know, when I see this between any group, you see it a lot between sales and marketing. Um, you can see it even within marketing, you're there's not alignment, like they're not on the same team. And I think you know, it really shows that division when we're fighting over credit. It's part of why I like to take sourcing out of it, because I think it helps take the credit out of the equation. Um, because it doesn't matter, we're all on the same team, right? I mean, we all win whenever, you know, that we get that pipeline, we get that closed one. Um, we all lose if we don't, regardless of who sources the pipeline. Um, so I I think um I think it really can show a lot of division. I think it's very common. Like this isn't to me, this is part of the it's it's like a stretch goal wherever you are, right? You're really trying to get that alignment with sales and working at it. Um and I I even when there are sourcing models, like where it's like marketing, marketing, you know, kind of has goals based on how much pipeline they source, I tend to go into calls, like kind of throwing that off the table. Like, you know, yeah, pipeline jurors, we're here to help you. How can we help you? What are we doing to help you?

Michael Hartmann: 20:05

So I'm I was curious. Do you do you have an example you can share or a general approach to that? Because I like I like that, but like sometimes it's hard getting people to change their mind. Like, oh, we like I see job descriptions, for example, like for marketing apps roles, and it's like build attribution models, and like to me, is a like a major thing. Um, and that's not again not to say that it's wrong, but like I find the same thing, right? We whether it's attribution modeling or contribution approach, there's struggles with that, getting that alignment. Um, but yeah, yet what you described there sounds interesting, but I don't know what that like kind of trying to think about like what does that look like on the ground, if you will.

Penny Hill: 20:48

Yeah, so I think what it looks like, I would you're kind of when you're working with sales, you don't want to talk about sourcing. You're talking about things about like here's everything marketing is doing in marketing. You're looking at those deals kind of like you were talking about. We're showing them, here's an opportunity, right? Here's everything we've touched. And then hopefully, if if if it's working like we want it to, we can start to show, like when marketing's in the deal, when we are in the account, we're seeing, you know, higher revenue from it. Maybe we're seeing it, you know, be faster. It's going to close win faster. When you can start to look, you know, some of those A BM metrics that we pull together, you can start to kind of do those just A-B comparisons and make it really, really clear. And I've always found that's really helpful when you can show that. You can show the win rate to another one. You're it's a higher win rate when we are surrounding the account and we're in there with you. And regardless of whether a lead came in originally from us, it doesn't matter. Like if you take that off the table and you just talk about what are we doing to help you with these and these accounts and these opportunities.

Michael Hartmann: 21:52

Do you find that you because somebody has to take the first step towards that? Do you find that that's you're in the kind of a marketing or marketing ops role, having to be the one that takes that first step?

Penny Hill: 22:03

Yes. Yes. I yeah. I have I've found it, but I've a lot of times I'm the one that's kind of helping to drive that. So it's, you know, I mean, there can be organizations where sales is driving that as well, I'm sure.

Michael Hartmann: 22:14

Sure. Yeah. I just like I my my that's my experience too, is it um, I mean, like maybe not quite aligned with what you were talking about in general, but like I think part of this in quotes lack of alignment between marketing and sales is because they speak different languages a lot of cases. And so I know I find myself part of this is I worked in sales for a brief period of my career, right? So I appreciate the challenges and nuances of that and what they're expected to deliver on, et cetera, et cetera. And you know, I try to I try to bring that to the conversation. Um and where I can, right, if they've they're coming and they're asking for something, or if we're going to them to ask for something, right, some update to Salesforce or CRM, whatever, right, then that we're I'm thinking about it from their perspective and showing that, right? And so so working with yeah, I mean, like one of the examples I have is like a company I was at where um I inherited some already stuff in in flight that was changing, impacting the sales organization, and the top level sales leadership was aligned. But what I found, the problem was it was like the next level down, the next level down, right? That's not like it hadn't really been embedded there. And so when I started to look at making changes from what was originally the original strategy that I inherited, I specifically asked for what I call the tenants, right? The people who are kind of closer to the impact and building relationships with them as well, right? And it took a little bit of time to do that. Um, and sometimes that meant doing something kind of to help them, right? Something to like show that I was trying to listen and help so that when I went back to them, I could, you know, I'd build some credibility.

Penny Hill: 24:08

For sure. Yeah, for sure. No, I I think that's really important. Um, I know I was actually telling some people on my team recently, I mean, sellers are our customer. And and I know this isn't, you know, marketers don't like to hear it, but at the end of the day, they're kind of our most important customer. Everything we do has to work for them. Um, and it has to drive revenue, and they're the ones that are putting revenue on the books. So, like we really have to take them into account. Um, not that we don't focus, I mean, we're marketing ops, we're certainly supporting marketing. I'm not saying we don't, but we've got to make sure we're aligned with the sellers, we're taking them into account, and we're communicating with them in some way.

Michael Hartmann: 24:47

So yeah, I I mean, I it's I'm laughing. Well, I have two reactions to you then like one is like I hate the idea of internal customers, but like I'll let that go. Um I just and part of that's because of this other part, which is I there's I've talked about this probably multiple times on the podcast. And I know I've talked to other people about there's this book I got years and years ago called How to Be a Marketing Superstar, which is this silly name. Right. Um basically it was like everybody's paycheck would say this is customer money. And I think if we lose like in what we're doing, um, no matter what role you're in in an organization, right? Because he kind of made it like if we don't hit our revenue numbers, like it impacts everybody.

Penny Hill: 25:32

Yeah.

Michael Hartmann: 25:32

So um, and we need salespeople to do that final mile. It doesn't matter how much we can do it. Like if that doesn't happen, then they have, yeah. So enabling them is huge. I would say the other flip side, which I'm really this is where I think AI, I'm and I know people are doing this, but I haven't had a chance to do it is you know uh using technology and AI, like recordings of sales calls to feed back into product marketing and sales enablement teams, right? Yeah. Yeah, what should we how should we be talking about our products and services to the market? Um, I think too much it's too often it gets siloed, right? And the content that's published is not really useful. It doesn't really resonate with the market, sales teams don't use it, right? We all get frustrated. Yes. So like now we can take advantage of that. So yeah.

Penny Hill: 26:27

Yeah, no, that is that's a really good use case.

Michael Hartmann: 26:29

Yeah. Tell me when you're using it. Okay, so hands into this too, and maybe we could like take this a little bit on another level of detail later later from where we were, but you know, so one of the things about measurement, there's lots of different metrics in marketing, lots of data. Um, one of the things that I've talked about before, I would like to get your thoughts on is matching the type of metric and the level of it to the audience who's gonna be receiving it, right? So we kind of talked about like to me, attribution reporting, try to do that to say like a CFO or even the other senior leadership is probably not gonna go over really well because it's complicated. But like there, I'm sure there are exceptions. But what's your like, what do you think? How do you think about the right metrics or measurements or reporting to do for different types of audiences within an organization?

Penny Hill: 27:31

Yeah, I mean, I definitely think you've got you've got to do that and you have different views. And I think you get, you know, your executives. I mean, just simply you're they're just gonna be really higher level. Like you're gonna be focused on revenue, you're gonna be focused on overall revenue. Um, maybe you have a percent that's marketing influence, maybe a lot of times you do have sourced, like this, this is the source pipeline. You've got win rates, um, closed one, maybe you're comparing if marketing touched or not, but you're still super high level looking at that, those revenue metrics. And then on the exact opposite spectrum, say you're marketing manager. I mean, that's where you've got kind of some of what you we think of as vanity metrics, but you got clicks, you got opens, you got views, clicks to open, um, all of that, you know, um cost per click, all of that kind of stuff that we don't want to show to the executives, even though sometimes people do. We don't want to do that. We don't want to get too bound up into them because a lot of times, you know, especially like I use emails all the time. A lot of those metrics aren't real valid, right? Every server opens either, or lots of servers open emails, lots of them click them. Does not mean someone interacted, but directionally, when you're comparing all your emails, it's really good data for your marketing manager to say, hey, what content is resonating with people? Um, you know, what what where should I pivot? And things like that. Yeah. So so yeah, so I would say that, yeah, like you've got those very granular dashboards to something much, much more high level.

Michael Hartmann: 28:57

Yeah. I I mean, I I've certainly just shy away from talking about vanity metrics because I think they're just metrics too. Yeah. Because I and I think you're right. The how you use them is more of what it is. But I also think marketers and like campaign managers, if you have those, like I I I think it's really valuable to them, especially um early in the early stages of a campaign, right? You like those are the actual number, like signals of are going to tell you whether or not something's landing and working, right? That's right. Yeah, are people opening your emails? Are they reading them? Are they clicking through? Are they are they registering for your webinar or whatever it is, right? And if you're not paying attention to that and you don't know what to expect from that, then you've got a different problem. But it doesn't mean you don't want the idea of vanity metrics because I think they're early indicators of longer term success.

Penny Hill: 29:52

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, you definitely need them.

Michael Hartmann: 29:54

Yeah. So I mean that's one thing I would like any and you said dashboards. Like I the other part of this, like I have run into places where people I get a marketing leader is like, we need dashboards. You need a dashboard. And how is sort of I just sort of like do you not like recoil, I guess, like to that kind of request? Because I think I understand the goal of having a kind of a comprehensive view into what's happening within the organization or whatever. But I think starting with the idea of a dashboard might be okay, but I think doing it a little bit at a time is a better approach. Oh, yeah, yeah.

Penny Hill: 30:34

Yeah. So yeah, I definitely can see that. I do like dashboards, I like things being always on or as always on as your data allows, whatever your refresh rate is, you know, where executives can go look and see, and your marketers can be able to just log in and see you see how things are doing. Um, but I also don't get, I think we were talking about this a little bit earlier with perfection. Like you don't have to wait till you have all the answers. You don't have to wait till you have the full strategy of everything you want to see. Like we need to be able to kind of move forward and get things out there. And you can always change it. Like if it doesn't work, change it.

Michael Hartmann: 31:07

Yeah. So I mean, I think that's a lot of people put a lot of effort into. Well, I mean, this is kind of gets into like a more of an operational piece, but I like I run into lots of I run into lots of places where there's call it I'll be I'll be nice, heavy review and approval process. Processes. Um, yeah. In some cases, way too much. And unclear who who gets who gets input and uh feedback rights and who gets who gets change rights. I mean, that's like that is a whole separate on it. But I think um what I coach a lot of teams I've worked with over the past is like if it can review an approval process, be smart about where you where you're heavier and where you're lighter, because I don't think you have to treat everything the same, right? And I think the example would be email, right? Once an email is gone, it's gone. So probably put a little more review on that to a degree. Um but if it's content on your website, right, you should be able to change that within minutes, right? So doesn't mean you you don't have any care for it, right? You still should have high standards, but like it doesn't like it doesn't have to be quote perfect, right? It can be change it and you should get it out. So have you run into that before where there's like kind of overwhelming ravine approvals and unclear role. Oh, yeah. How have you worked through for sure over either overcoming that or getting it to change?

Penny Hill: 32:35

Yeah. So I think I mean you have to show what the the roadblocks are, I think. And it's I'll use email in an example because I think it's one a lot of people run into and I've seen it before too. You've got everyone has a say in it, right? Everyone's you know gets to read it and approve it, and they get to read it and approve it multiple times. Yes. And every time someone new looks at it, they're gonna maybe have a way they want to say it differently. And even certain people, every time I mean, I can do it. Every time I read it, I might want to tweak something a little bit. Yes. And and so you you have to you show kind of the delays this is causing, you know, by every time it goes back and what it's doing to the teams. I think a lot of people think, well, what's the big deal? It's just like we're just changing a sentence, it takes two seconds. Takes two seconds, but my team's having to touch it again. We don't sit around and just wait for your change, right? We have all this in queue and start to show the impacts it has um every time we have to touch it. Um, and then lay it out to like you have you have two chances. Maybe that's what I like to say. You get two reviews, you get an initial review review, and then you get a final review. And then you don't get to look at it again unless something is legally or technically wrong. Yeah. It's going out.

Michael Hartmann: 33:42

Yeah.

Penny Hill: 33:42

And we get sign-off too. Like I think too, when you have a sign off. And I have found change is always hard at first, people push back, but after you do it a couple of times, everyone's comfortable. Um, and they're happier. And same thing on the web. I've had that too, like where you can't get a web page out. Oh, because we just are just iterating it. And it's like, can we just get some? We have nothing. We need we need this content up there. When is it 80%? When is it good enough? And then we can start, we can iterate on it later.

Michael Hartmann: 34:10

Yeah. I mean, I think that's like well, it and that applies, I think, to a lot of the things we do in marketing ops, right? This is an obvious one where it's sort of public-facing stuff, but also things like um do the lead scoring model. Like, like I've like one of the things I've had to really get past with people is like, hey, this is not your one and only chance to change lead scoring. Like, if we're dying this right, we're gonna try to get it as where we feel comfortable with it, but we're gonna keep an eye on it, right? You know, if something changes, yeah, we're gonna change the model. And yeah, that's okay and to be expected, and we should be doing that together. And so I think a lot of a lot of people have been in the minutes like that's their one and only time to do a piece of content or a change in the process. And I think that's that's the mistake I think a lot of teams get into. Yeah. And to be fair, I think a lot of marketing ops people tend to go that way, right? They become rigid in how they approach things. And I think that's that's a mistake that they need to when they do that.

Penny Hill: 35:11

Yeah. We can overcome that that's part of where we overcomplicate it too, I think. And um, I think, you know, actually I just had this conversation about lead scoring, and I just had this conversation too about a campaign hierarchy. You know, it's like we are going to monitor this and we can change it and build things in a way you can change them. Yeah. You know, your your lead scoring model, hopefully you build it in a way that you can adjust scores, you can add and take, you know, add things and take them away. That's what we should be doing as ops. Um, campaign hierarchy, that's another thing. You know, you don't have to have it all figured out right now that's overwhelming. Like, let's put it together, then let's see how it's really gonna flow through um to our reporting and then change it. Yeah.

Michael Hartmann: 35:51

So totally, totally agree. Um I'll kind of circle back to our kind of where we started a little bit and this whole idea of the credit game, because it's really still sort of been bothering me. So um let's so we you and I have both been in leadership roles, and then maybe it makes it a little bit easier. And we've been, you know, for those people who are listening or watching who maybe are a small team or a team of one, or have particularly challenging stakeholders in the organization, like how would you coach them on how to approach this conversation to start to get past the credit game and all that?

Penny Hill: 36:44

I think, I mean, I would I would coach them that they need to start speaking up. I think a lot of times, especially in ops, marketing ops, we stay really quiet because we don't feel like our voice, you know, should be heard, or maybe we don't feel like we're right or wondering. And I I think you should always be speaking up with what you see and bring data behind it to show. Um and and try to, I think it's always helpful to pivot the conversation to what matters, right? Even if it's not as good of a light for marketing. At the end of the day, we need to make sure we're always looking at truth. And something I look at a lot and I've seen it happen in a lot of orgs. And it's, you know, when we're talking about sourcing, um, marketing's sourcing all this. We're doing fantastic, right? Oh, but our closed one rates are abysmal and we're not bringing the revenue. Well, what's happening here? Um, are we just really the best thing that's ever been there in your sales team is just the worst sales team in the world?

Michael Hartmann: 37:35

Right.

Penny Hill: 37:35

Probably not, right? What like we need to like step back and look at different metrics. And that's a place where sourcing, you know, doesn't really mean anything, but like, what are we sending over? Is it quality? Yeah. What are we doing, doing here? And um, and I think a lot of I I think that's a good way sometimes to start to pivot the sourcing question because I think sometimes you'll see that um when you're having that conversation. And it helps even if you're having to say, maybe what we're doing in marketing isn't as great as we've been reporting. We still need to talk about that, right? So we can do better and we're looking at the right things, kind of owning um and being honest about it. Yeah. Yeah. And and it's fine. Like I think, I mean, I've I've walked walked through this with a few orgs. There's no one's ever lost their job at the end of the, you know, because like it's kind of came to light, maybe what we're doing isn't the best thing, right? People pivot, they start focusing on what matters, and and but teams grow and they do better. So I think it just people get a little scared.

Michael Hartmann: 38:34

Yeah. I mean, I think um Yeah, my first thought when you said said that is that like typically it's not one of the other, right? These things are complicated, especially the the bigger the org and the more complicated the product and the sales cycle and all that, right? There's lots of factors that go into it. So pointing fingers at one thing is gonna probably not really be the case, like the solution.

Penny Hill: 38:59

No, um, it never is.

Michael Hartmann: 39:01

Yeah, and I and I think the other thought I had was kind of go it goes back to something we talked about a little bit is like reaching across, like putting out the olive branch to some degree. But I think I would go a step further, like start today, if you haven't already done it, with getting to know your counterparts and what it is that they're doing, right? Yeah, go hang out with them for a day. Go sit if you can go sit on sales calls, right? That'd be huge. Like, I think that would be eye-opening for people who've never done it. Yeah. And um really like go in there with the idea that you want to learn, right? Like that's yeah, because I think then when it gets to those tough conversations, yeah, you've got a little bit of a relationship you can build on. Um the risk I think people who are listening would run into with what you said is that you you know speak up, totally agree, but how you speak up matters. That's true. Yes. And if you haven't built some credibility, um, and say that maybe that's not your strong suit is communicating difficult things, which is very common. Yeah. Then um like you if you've got some credibility and you build up some trust, you you can get past that a lot easier.

Penny Hill: 40:17

Yeah. Yeah. No, that's that's I think a really good point. And we should be working um to build those bridges, you know, with our peers on the other side, within marketing, but within sales as well. I agree. Yeah, correct. It's so important. Yeah.

Michael Hartmann: 40:31

I mean, I like a simple, like for me, things as simple as going to see what it's like for a salesperson to go update an opportunity in Salesforce or whatever. So you like if you've not seen like what are the steps that go into that and what they're required to do. And if you're a kind of an organization has, you know, maybe you subscribe to one of the sales methodologies that requires you to have meet certain hurdles, right? Yeah. To move something from one stage to another, right? It's it's not it's not hard, but it's not trivial either, right? And it's cumbersome and yeah, it's probably unless you're in a like a high volume thing, it's not something they're probably doing every day. So yeah. And when we go and give them a hard time about not doing that, it's like yeah. Yeah, we don't understand. Yeah. But and then then then I can then you can have the conversations. And by the way, changing an em email five different times for five different people, right? This is why it's yes, it's not hard, but it's but in aggregate, right? It starts to become a problem, right? Yeah. So yeah. Anyway. So when like I know you've you kind of recently um started working with a client, like what you've also probably gone into other organizations. What are some of the things you look for or things where you see like signs that there's some of that complexity is has crept into the organization and you know where that you need to go try to simplify some of that.

Penny Hill: 42:09

Yeah. I mean, I look at one of the things I'd look at, I look at what are people reporting on, what are people like talking about, like, and see if there's alignment. Um, I think that's a big one. I think, you know, at a high level, if you see marketing's coming to the table with these numbers and sales is coming to the table of these numbers, which happens, um, that's a huge red flag that there there is some missing alignment. And even within marketing teams, you'll start, especially larger orgs, you'll see where like different groups are kind of reporting things differently and talking about things differently. Um, so when I come in and I start talking to people, that's kind of some of the things I'm looking for. Like, you know, what like are we all on the same team here, really? Yeah. Um, marching, you know, in the same band, um, or are we really looking at these things differently? So that's probably some of my first indicators. Like, what are the metrics and the the things you're talking about?

Michael Hartmann: 43:09

Have you um, I know like one of the things I've I've noticed, and this is probably especially true in large organizations, is um the team that I see get squeezed a lot is like a creative team. Like like getting them to understand like what's what what's their day-to-day like, um, in terms of especially within the marketing or me, that that to me, yeah, they tend to get squeezed from all sides, right?

Penny Hill: 43:34

Yes. Yes. And a lot of, I mean, I see it. I don't know if this is everywhere, but I've always seen it more than marketing. You've got like everyone's kind of reaching out to them, like all over, you got accounting asking them for things. Right. You know, like they just can't.

Michael Hartmann: 43:47

Yeah.

Penny Hill: 43:48

Yeah. It can get it can get really hard. Yeah.

Michael Hartmann: 43:51

Yeah. It's it's funny because a lot of times where I've put in place like project management systems for marketing teams, the team that's usually the one driving it and really asking for is the creative team. Because they're they're fielding so many random requests. And they don't always know how their bit fits into the bigger picture of something. Well, the reason I understand is like that's also like that when I think about those process things that are getting in the way of being able to execute quickly and consistently and confidently because they're tied into so many things. That's usually where I find like I'll hear about those first. So it's interesting. Yeah. I hadn't actually thought about it until just now that you're getting it real time for me.

Penny Hill: 44:33

Yeah.

Michael Hartmann: 44:35

Anyway.

Penny Hill: 44:36

Yeah, and I think that's the kind of stuff too, like your creative team and ops. Like I see this with the operations teams. Um, we can start to kind of call out because a lot of times we're the ones that see the misalignment because we see everything kind of coming at us. And we can be like, oh, wait, everyone's trying to do different things to the same audience, or you know, things like that. Um, and so that's hopefully, and that's where I really want sometimes that marketing operations professionals don't stand, don't speak up. And they they need to. Like you're the one that sees it, you're kind of that linchpin in all of it. Um, start to flag. People may not listen, right? But at least you're starting to voice it and we can start having those conversations.

Michael Hartmann: 45:18

Yeah, I think I think if you can do that, and if you're doing it in a way that is, you're thinking like the it's I was gonna say obvious. That's maybe too strong, but like it's where it's obvious where you are you have the best interests of the organization overall and customers, then I think you're gonna you like you'll you're gonna get heard more. So yeah, pointing it out and making suggestions of how things could be simplified, kind of going back to the original fling. I I'm I I think you we're used to in like I'm a big believer in um simple the simpler we can make things, whether it's process, technology combinations, things like that, that can accommodate that take the 8020 rule, right? Um and enables us to move and pivot quickly. Like I would take that over something that encapsulates all you know 100 billion different variations of something we might have to deal with every time. And then get 100%. And then trust people to make informed and good decisions along the way, right? Where there are exceptions.

Penny Hill: 46:28

Yeah. Yeah. Cause when you've got you've got system and pro systems and processes built for all the exceptions that you've just tried to make perfect, it even if you have it perfect for a minute, it's not going to last. And five years down the road, you've got a mess. Yeah. Everyone that built it is gone. They have no idea why the why anything's like it. It's duct taped together, it's falling apart every time you look at it. Um, and it's really a mess to untangle. Yeah. Um, yeah. Where if you just would have started simply, you would have had something sustainable. Yeah. And it it, you know.

Michael Hartmann: 46:59

Yeah. I mean, at the end of the day, like I where I lean towards is I I I would rather trust people to do the right thing with guardrails than to try to build something that um well, at your point, right, will likely not for the long term eliminate the like errors or problems. Because it's just like there are gonna be exceptions you couldn't think of. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting stuff. Um, well, I hope I hope this helps some of our listeners out there because I think um I feel like I'm uh I'm a lone voice out there sometimes, so I'm glad to have somebody else who's in. I can't help the same that we disagree about attribution versus contribution, but um, I think we both agree that they both play a role in some plays, right? Some way. Yeah, yeah. It's just a matter of how we use them. So Penny, lots of fun as always. So if if uh if folks want to hear a little more about you and what you're doing, want to go deeper on this with you, maybe what's the best way for them to do that?

Penny Hill: 48:00

Yeah, they can reach out to me on LinkedIn.

Michael Hartmann: 48:02

LinkedIn. Like I'm just gonna say we're just gonna tell people that now. Like I think I think I've had maybe a handful of people who's not said LinkedIn. Yeah. Some will sometimes say LinkedIn and my website or whatever, but you know. Um all right, well, thank you again. It's been a lot of fun. I'm glad you're able to make this work on the week after Muffs Balooza 25. So uh I appreciate that to all of our listeners and audience out there. Thank you for your support. If you have ideas for topics or guests or want to be a guest, you can reach out to Naomi, Mike, or me, and we'd be happy to get the ball rolling on it. Till next time. Bye, everybody.

Penny Hill: 48:41

Bye, thank you.