Michael Hartmann: 0:24

Hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode of OpsCast, brought to you by MarketingOps.com, powered by all the pros. I'm your host, Michael Hartman, flying solo in this holiday season. Today I'm excited to talk with Lauren McCormack, lead strategist for the B2B Experience platform at Kaiser Permanente, and someone who sits uniquely at the intersection of marketing ops, RevOps, Paid Media, and sales. She's a multi-time Marketo champion, a speaker at Mopsapalooza, and a leader who has spent her career helping organizations earn a true seat at the revenue table. She and I are going to talk about data alignment, attribution, financial literacy, and how modern marketing teams can elevate their decision making as we head into 2026. Lauren, welcome to the show.

Lauren McCormack: 1:06

Fabulous, Michael, thank you for having me. Thank you so much to uh the extended uh marketing ops family for having me as well.

Michael Hartmann: 1:17

Well, I'm glad at least one of us is also has like holiday festive stuff in the background.

Lauren McCormack: 1:22

Yes.

Michael Hartmann: 1:22

So it's always nice. So as we were what mid-ish December 2025 as we're doing this? That's right. All right. Well, let's why don't we start with? I mean, I gave the highlights there. Like you've worked across a lot of these different areas, marketing apps, web ops sales, paid media analytics, which is unusual. So how how is like how are those different experiences, the breadth of them, shaped how you think about modern ops and uh marketing, maybe marketing and over overall?

Lauren McCormack: 1:52

What a great question. And yeah, I'm a weird one, right? People, I think, try to pigeonhole marketers into niche specialties. And I think it's kind of a function of silos being accepted, workplace um characteristics, you know. And I tend to defy that notion, and which is sometimes wild, I think, for people to understand. But I've been an account executive, held to a commission structure, broke a couple commission structures in my early 20s. That was fine. Um and I've had, you know, a territory, and then I've uh I've been a journalist, you know, I was a writer. So interesting. Yeah, and um I transitioned into um marketing uh after sales, and that kind of helped me, you know, it was direct response, and that helped me understand how to create demand, especially, you know, with digital properties. And I've been playing with paid media experiments and web experiments and conversion optimizations uh, you know, for almost two decades now. So kind of an early adopter there. Early adopter when it comes to marketing ops. I was moved from direct response into a company that was running B2B SAS in early days for B2B SaaS in the suburbs of Chicago. And their marketing department was doing donut cart Fridays and pictures with the Easter Bunny and the annual company picnic. And I mean, I love those things, don't get me wrong. But uh it was when Maria Pergolino was at the helm uh for Marketo early days, long before the IPO. This is like 2012.

Michael Hartmann: 3:48

Okay.

Lauren McCormack: 3:49

And she's pitching this notion that marketing should have a seat at the revenue table. And I'm like, interesting. And so I'm in direct response and I'm doing my thing, and my husband works for this software company, and my dad is looking for a new career opportunity. He's like thinking that maybe getting away from having like uh epic um at the healthcare system like implementations and having a pager go off at 2:30 in the morning. Maybe he's just kind of ready for something new, a little bit more chill, you know? Right. And so my husband brings home these job wrecks, and there's one in there for a marketing manager, and it's completely different from all the other ones. Someone has taken the time to hand curate every word and make it exciting and dynamic. And I noticed this. I'm like, tell me again about your benefits, you know, tell me again about what it's like. Would you want to share a commute? Like Ana Lark, um, you know, none of the the wrecks matched my dad, but this one sounded pretty good for me. Uh, when I got into the interview, you know, I mean Salesforce was still new-ish and uh Marketo was real new. Like you would only see pockets of utilization in San Francisco and New York, nothing in between. And um, mainly startups. And so this company was uh really, you know, the VP at the time was really forward-thinking. And he asked me in the interview, have you ever heard of Marketo? I'm like, absolutely no, but I'm a quick learner. And you know, like that began the story. And, you know, it pivoted pretty quickly because I think to your question, having been in sales, I was like, man, what would it have been like if I had instead of an accordion folder and, you know, like an a list of contacts in my phone, which I think embarrassingly enough at the time was a Blackberry literal Rolodex? I wasn't quite Rolodex material. I was Blackberry material. So like one zip of the the paper. But um, like what would it have been like if people, instead of me just showing up places, could cultivate an interest and get um like a stage set for my conversation or having got, God forbid, book an appointment for me to show up at a given place and time and for sure find a decision maker. I'm like, this is cool, you know? And so I think instead of seeing it like this is for newsletters, I can email, this is constant contact, this is MailChimp. I think I was like super fascinated by the notion of using it as a demand engine. And like before demand gen, or heaven forbid RevOps is a term, was even a thing. Uh I just could see the synergies. And then paid media, same, you know, like of course, like that's just such a powerful lever if you can train um the platforms. Um it's it's so fascinating the ways that you know some.

Michael Hartmann: 6:42

And you get very quick feedback, right? Like if they were working over the hours.

Lauren McCormack: 6:46

But I think it's really interesting the way that you can um work with an organization to better define exactly what they want to photocopy, what they want more of, and what they never want to see again. And those algorithms, if you work with them really rigorously, can find you people that match very specific parameters at scale, you know? And I love that. The idea that the platforms will work while you sleep, while you're off, while you're on vacation overnight to uh grow the businesses that you're trying to support, you know?

Michael Hartmann: 7:22

Yeah, I think it's interesting. So I I was for a hot minute in sales um at a point where I probably really wasn't ready for it. No, if it's fucking hard and it's it isn't hard, but you can write your check. I like it. And it gave me a very deep appreciation for what that role is like. And I and I say that it's often on this and other conversations where I think a lot of marketers have a have a perception and disdain for sales, and I think that's because they don't know what it really takes. And I think for me, it's always informed, especially as from an operation standpoint. Um what's really interesting to me though is your journalism background. And the reason I is curious to me, not because you have it, but so uh one of our early guests was Brandy Sanders, and she said that something about like to be good at marketing ops, you needed to uh to understand chess and uh human psychology. Yeah, to tell a story, right? It's so powerful to be a part of the yeah, and I would like to the storytelling is such like I still feel like storytelling, which is ironic that marketers do a terrible job internally in so many places.

Lauren McCormack: 8:28

Yeah, not always, but yeah, it's not always, but a lot of them do, I think. My favorite kind of hire because they know how to get to a succinct, like journalists know how to get to a succinct lead. They understand how to build a case for something when a case is needed to persuade internally or externally. They know how to create a journey, like um, and to captivate, right?

Michael Hartmann: 8:48

Yeah.

Lauren McCormack: 8:49

And deadlines, so deadline-oriented ones. Oh, yeah, I can only imagine.

Michael Hartmann: 8:52

Yeah. Almost to a fault. Um okay, so kind of in that vein, yeah. So you just recently spoke at Mops Palooza, right? When it was owning your fate as a marketer. I wish I had been there. So when you say that, what like what do you mean? And why do you think that's important? Is it part of the storytelling bit or is it something else?

Lauren McCormack: 9:13

I love that that was the the soundbite that came away from the session. Uh, I think it was officially around building uh a demand gen engine. But when I think about it as owning your fate as a marketer, you're the driver in that car, right? So I think uh more now than ever, after all of the waves of restructuring and layoffs and everything that we've seen, to be able to confidently lean into your capability and your appetite for contributing revenue. That's what's gonna determine your upward mobility. That's gonna what's it if you can't um to steal my friend Jess's phrase, um, convert geek speak into the C-suite, yeah, you're not gonna be able to have upward mobility for yourself or for your team. And I think that's the part, you know, for people that are reticent to be like, I'm gonna commit beyond my goals for clicks and opens to a number of pipelines that I'm going to contribute and close and win, or heaven forbid, regression analysis and forecasting around what you're gonna get for what you spend. Yes, where I love to be. Um, if you're not willing to do that for yourself, okay, but if you're leading a team of people, that's your responsibility. It's almost like running the finances for your home. You have to be accountable to those numbers because you're taking care of people. Though those people are are trusting you with their their families and their their futures. So I think owning your fate is an interesting way to perceive leaning into that seat at the revenue table. I guess if we go full full circle there.

Michael Hartmann: 10:51

Yeah. Yeah. I think it's um it's interesting that that point and just is great about that translating. Um the and I thought I was decent at it until we did an exercise at summer camp a few years ago, and I was like, oh wow. Like um, it's very interesting to get that perspective because we had somebody else in the room, a CMO. And how she thought was very intriguing and helpful to hear. It's the one I think addition I might make to yours, like your thought of this, is that um there's a seat at the revenue table, but also there's this um revenue at all costs is not gonna be sustained either, right? So there's also like when I and you kind of hinted at it, like if I spend a dollar, what am I gonna get out of it? That's right. If it's easy to recoil for that question because it's so hard, like it's it's hard to answer.

Lauren McCormack: 11:42

Um it's loaded, but it's also um I I think the more that you aren't avoidant with it, the more that you embrace the fact that these are the fundamental questions that the CMO is going to get from the board, yeah, the more that you can manage upward and downward, or better yet, carve out a path toward budget and headcount and sanity and safety. And um uh my new uh uh department tends to call it reasonability, right? Yeah. Um managing expectations too. So if the board is asking something wild and they've just taken a dart and thrown it at a dartboard to say 15% growth in 2026, work that math backward once you get comfortable being in those spreadsheets to understand or those forecasts, whatever your tool is, or your power BI. You know, but whatever your your methodology is, working those numbers forward gives you the power to work them backwards so you can say, okay, 15% growth. Um, interesting. Here's our um conversion optimization, uh, best case scenario for sales, and this is what sales needs to be fed to hit that number. And this is what it looks like for my budget for 2026 for us to, you know, confidently hit this target with a margin of error. And once they see that you can be accountable, either they adjust the this, like maybe they adjust the expectations or make them more reasonable, or you get the funding and the investment and the infrastructure that you need to make your team successful. Either way, you you you can't avoid uh the inevitability of those expectations.

Michael Hartmann: 13:29

Yeah. Well, I think the the point I've heard I to put it bluntly is that they don't care how busy you are, because that'll be the complaint. Like you're asking me to do all this work, and but you're not giving me the heck of work. You've got if you can't speak to the financial outcomes, you don't get the money. Right. Yeah. Like it doesn't even necessarily like I think to your point, like, is it reasonable? You show that you're understanding and thinking about it maybe as much as you need to do. I mean, that's not everything.

unknown: 13:56

Right.

Lauren McCormack: 13:57

Yeah, and I mean like the the status quo is not necessarily what I'm advocating for there either. So if you look and do your regression analysis around what your um deal sizes and the the close-win ratio is for your sales team and you work that backwards uh through your top performing channels, and you think about you know what the cost per opportunity looks like in those top performing channels and what the lead volume needs to look like to give the at bats to the team to hit the home runs, they need to hit those numbers. Right. Um, sometimes there's uh waste. You know, sometimes you have to optimize your your return on ad spend. Sometimes you have to um think about um uh renewals and churn. Like there are more factors. It's not as linear as it sounds, but just showing that you've done the math and that you're continuing to analyze is owning your fate, I think, um professionally and being responsible with the fates that are around you, you know.

Michael Hartmann: 14:55

Yeah. So I totally agree on that. The one of the things you you taught you mentioned a little bit ago was um something about silos and in I think in marketing in general. And yes. Yeah, so so why do you think that's an issue, right? Because it's pretty much the way it is everywhere. And like what what are the downsides of that and how do you address it?

Lauren McCormack: 15:21

We're all in the same boat and we can make choices around if we're all rowing in the same direction. And it impacts um if a heavily siloed organization is more obvious to people on the outside than it ever is to the people on the inside.

Michael Hartmann: 15:37

Uh-huh.

Lauren McCormack: 15:37

And that is a liability.

Michael Hartmann: 15:39

That is really interesting.

Lauren McCormack: 15:40

Yeah, it's that solution selling. Um I was fortunate enough to go through that program as an AE and as a marketer. Yeah, oh, interesting. Yeah. It's really good. And it's, I mean, it's a little, you know, time tested, but it's like the concept of Nihido, nothing important happens in the office. And that's not work from home and that's not PTO, but that's like the decisions that influence the growth of your team happen when you're not around. That RFP process is going down when you're not in the room. And it's like, what are people, what's the impression that you're making on people that that you can quantify and qualify? Like, um when when when it's when the important moments matter, have you accidentally sent two emails and uh used the wrong name of the decision maker in one of them in sales loft? You know, as have you forgotten to respect the prospect and customer experience to the point where it's gonna damage your deal? And I think the only way if we're omnichannel, if we're thinking about personalization at scale, if we're thinking about what the future of good marketing looks like, how on earth are you gonna stay siloed? How are you gonna say, I only focus on webinars? Like that operation in a vacuum, the space for that is gone, right? And um, you know, I think sales and marketing alignment, um I still see massive amounts of dysfunction there. And it's like um some of the fundamentals are missed. And I can guarantee you, if you're not willing to um have at least a couple people that are crazy enough like me to extend across aisles and have conversations that maybe aren't mandatory, your good your competitor does, your competitor is, your competitor will, that agility and and not like just like agile project management, but like that nimbleness to have a marketer that's actually seen what it looks like when one of their crappy leads goes sideways or one of their good leads converts them to a deal. Like if you operate in a world where you're just chucking stuff over the fence and then just hoping that it's valuable, it shows in your bottom line, your top line, it shows in your churn, and it shows most disturbingly in those conversations about whether or not your prospects and customers want to choose you or somebody else that's doing it better.

Michael Hartmann: 18:20

Or or internally, what what kind of reputation you and your team have, right?

Lauren McCormack: 18:24

Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. I know your personal brand, I never thought about that, but that's interesting.

Michael Hartmann: 18:29

Yeah, you're right. Yeah. I mean, I I do coaching with people in particular who are I I love coaching people who are f moving into their first leadership role. And I tell one of the things I tell them all the time is like one of the things you're gonna be surprised about is how much talk there is about everybody that you've never heard about before. Because it's happening, guarantee must happen all the time, right?

Lauren McCormack: 18:50

Yes. And I think that's and I think that's smart. And it's it's really about those people that say good things about you in rooms where you're not. Like that's been my mantra lately is like find the people that when you're not around, sing your praises. And that's for your company, right? Those evangelists for your brand, that's for your personal career. And that's even just at the family and friend level. Like yeah, sure. Yeah. But definitely interesting that you coach around that kind of reputation management.

Michael Hartmann: 19:22

Well, I not only that, but I think I think one of the things that like new leaders, I think, are the no the reason why I like coaching is because when I first stepped into leadership role, no one told me all these uh you know new expectations that were unwritten. Yeah. Um the school counselor. Yeah, like the referee. Yeah. I mean, I heard somebody talk about your job, like your job as a leader when you were a I think it was a Simon Sinek thing. Uh when you were an individual contributor, your job was to do your job very well, right? And now your job is to manage the people who do the job you used to do, right? And it that there's just this letting go part that has to happen, which is really hard for it was hard for me. And so I like helping people get not go through all the same pain that I did. That's fascinating.

Lauren McCormack: 20:12

That would be a cool way to spend your like time, like helping people, because they're gonna help so many other people in return, and it just kind of exponentially multiplies.

Michael Hartmann: 20:20

Yeah. I mean, I think I'm a big believer that like people. People don't leave companies, they leave managers.

Lauren McCormack: 20:27

I think that's that's an interesting and and and uh wise take. I remember um when I in one of my previous roles where I was a VP and I had a lot of people um, you know, that I was uh trying to help and cultivate. Like my philosophy is just to to um enable people to be their most um successful selves, right? Not necessarily to manage them, but to empower them. And I freaked one lady out pretty bad because I told her I trusted her judgment. And she had been used to being absolutely henpecked and micromanaged to the point where she second-guessed like whether or not three sentences in a reply were going to align with expectations. And I think when I first told her that, she thought I was dismissing her, but I was absolutely trying to help her find her light and to find her confidence. And after I left that role, she sent me a card and it's like right here on my desk. I keep it to this day, that just absolutely made me cry because she was so grateful for that kind of energy and that management style. And it was helpful to her.

Michael Hartmann: 21:43

So I hope you have a stack of cards like this, and I'm sure you I wish I'd I I I've I've definitely had maybe not I don't think I've whatever, maybe it's a generational thing, but I don't think I have cards, but I definitely have messages that resonate like that. Um I I'm I'm with you. I I think it's funny that you said I trust you because I I this is another thing I tell people is like you need to like if you believe that, you should say it. Say those words.

Lauren McCormack: 22:10

Yeah, they need to hear it sometimes, right?

Michael Hartmann: 22:12

Because like it doesn't yeah, I mean, don't assume they just know. Anyway, like I could do a whole maybe I need to do another podcast about that. I don't know. We'll see.

Lauren McCormack: 22:22

I would tune in. I would I would share that content.

Michael Hartmann: 22:25

You could be a guest. We could refine that. How about that? I love it. Um so okay. Speaking of telling stories and change so it feels like every there's these cycles where it can becomes a hot topic and it goes away, it comes back, but it never goes away completely is attribution. And I think the phrase you use when we talked before is is a waste of calories when it becomes a blame game.

Lauren McCormack: 22:53

That's right. If you're arm wrestling over credit, yeah, absolutely. It's a bad thought.

Michael Hartmann: 22:57

What I guess, is there a right way to think about attribution? If so, what is it and like what's the level you should get to?

Lauren McCormack: 23:05

And yeah, great question.

Michael Hartmann: 23:07

How age-old question. Like I got a question the other day, like which which attribution model do you like? I was like, I don't think it really matters. But just pick one, stick with it.

Lauren McCormack: 23:18

Consistency is key. There, I mean, there's something beautiful about having an entire data science team that's able to implement, wield, and derive wisdom and business intelligence from multiple, like a U-shaped, a W-shaped, a time decay. Like if they can get nerdy with it and they can make it tell a valuable geek speak for the C-suite story that actually informs better business procedure, good on you. You know, I mean, but I would tell you that out of the organizations I've seen over the years in consulting, from startups to the enterprise, especially the enterprise, um nobody really is living that dream. And I think a lot of people will buy software to solve this problem. It is an inherently human problem. It is um software will help be a means to an end for measurement, but you define the accounting structure. You define the logic, the rules, the reason. And if you are not in a position where you've desiloed sales and marketing and they're all rowing in the same direction in the same boat, it's an arm wrestle for who took um, you know, uh somebody's nephew's uncle out uh after soccer practice for a coffee one time. And it's just a bad look, you know. But I think influence and attribution and sourcing and conversion optimization are contingent on you not getting overly cerebral and starting somewhere, right? So if you can't accurately put into place standardization around UTM source, this is like a fundamental level one exercise. And you can't look by channel and say, my top converting channel for the month of December 2025 is, and my cost per you know, um, qualified lead, my qu cost per sales accepted opportunity, my cost per opportunity per channel is not um, if you don't have that at your fingertips in near real time, you need to work toward that. But if you're down to the point where sales is cold calling old lists from your database that you're sending a newsletter to, and there's a uh an argument that escalates to senior leadership about whether or not to give the cold call or the newsletter the credit for the whole deal, you're thinking about things wrong. It should be a cerebral question around allocation of resources and improvement of process, not stars, gold stars on a chart for favor in the moment.

Michael Hartmann: 26:07

Yeah. I mean, my so it's interesting because my general response to attribution is I don't have a problem with attribution itself. Like I'm with you, like it's a cerebral exercise for the way I shorthand it is making like it's for marketing to understand what's working well for a particular audience, a particular channel, and making bets based on that their form. I don't think it's great for um telling the financial benefit story. My preference would be you use the word contribution, right?

Lauren McCormack: 26:37

So influence influence and attribution, I think, are two different concepts, and you can have influence on a deal without having direct sourcing attribution be the goal.

Michael Hartmann: 26:46

So okay, so good good distinction here because I would when I'm thinking attribution, I'm thinking influence. So that's so um the but when I think of contribution is somewhere along the way, we've got an agreement with sales, marketing, maybe support if you've got renewal retention kind of stuff. Say, like we are going to just agree this is how we're going to measure where something came from by blinding. And we are gonna accept the fact that in some cases marketing's gonna get credit for something that probably could have been sales, or sales is gonna get credit for something for marketing, so on, right? But we're okay with that, right? We know like there's a margin of error, but it's not what we care about. We care about the overall. Like, are we as an organization reaching the goal? I would rather talk about that than influence.

Lauren McCormack: 27:34

It's a team sport in a broader group. Yeah. It's a team sport, but I think when you do get um attribution and influence ironed out, and I mean you nailed it when you said that you have to get agreements around how you're going to define your accounting structures, essentially, like how you're going to count the beans for who gets what when. That is the piece that that software doesn't do for you. And I think that's where so many companies fall down, is they um that because that to your point, that requires somebody that's cross-functional, that sits across multiple silos, or a tiger team with a leader that can decouple the silos to make those kinds of business agreements. And it usually needs to be a leader in some capacity, or someone with the advocacy of a leader that has influence to make operational change management happen and stick. It's not going to be um a solo sales uh forced admin or a marketing ops manager that um alone can change a corporate culture to think about um these topics, uh, but they can start the conversation. And I think that's part of what I was talking about too in at MOPSO is owning your destiny by, you know, um starting the conversation. You don't necessarily have to be the CMO to get the ball rolling. You just have to pitch it well to the CMO and have their advocacy, you know?

Michael Hartmann: 29:06

Yeah. I mean, I think the reason I talk about the agreement so much and that and why I focus on the fact that inherently there's going to be things that are gonna be quite be wrong. Yeah. I think a lot of people think of this in terms of like you mentioned accounting, right? Accounting, there's very common rules and practices and controls so that if you're looking at financial statements from across industries, across businesses, right, they're more or less the same. I know there's nuance.

Lauren McCormack: 29:34

They get audited, we don't.

Michael Hartmann: 29:36

Right. And I and I think what what gets lost here with this whole idea of being quote data driven is that uh there's this sort of built-in assumption that sales of marketing data, especially in complex B2B organizations, has the same level of commonality in terms of definitions, controls, yeah, all that stuff, that it's just not there. And that's adequate. So it starts with this false assumption. So recognizing that makes me go, that's why, like, if we just all agree it's not gonna be accounting level quality and completeness.

Lauren McCormack: 30:11

If you can't get accounts, uh like uh contacts associated with opportunities, how in the heck have you ever been? Right. You know what I mean? And like, but that's the part where everybody has to agree on the uh the motive of business intelligence, the benefit of business intelligence, the fact that um we can double down on successes and put more money in the the pockets of people that are commission based. Yeah, that that's how you get the buy-in, right? Maybe that goes back to my time in sales is like understanding what is compelling to us. Yes, you know, yep.

Michael Hartmann: 30:48

Yeah, no, I I remember I remember having a conversation with a like a I guess it was a sales enablement who had been in the sales team, and I was getting frustrated with the that team not really engaging with some stuff as a marketing and not you know moving things. And I and I randomly asked the question, like, how are they paid? Yeah, I assumed they were I assumed they were commission based. Well, it turns out they were, right? They were they were you know base plus bonus, right? But it wasn't commission bonus. And I was like, oh, now I I need to change my approach to getting them to do things.

Lauren McCormack: 31:22

100%. That's how you would behave too if you were on the other side of the fence. Maybe you just don't know it yet.

Michael Hartmann: 31:27

No, it's like it's uh it the the mentality I I this is why I recommend to marketers all the time. If you don't know what it's like to sit in that sales seat, um go find someone who will they will probably let you sit in on a call or two.

Lauren McCormack: 31:45

Do it right along. Yeah, watch a recording. Gong is amazing for that kind of stuff. You know, we've got technology where you don't even have to be the fly on the wall to be the fly on the wall.

Michael Hartmann: 31:53

Yeah. I mean, I think I think there would be so much valuable to so many marketers to listen to you, like, especially the good salespeople who you get frustrated with who aren't using your on-brand templates, et cetera, et cetera, right? Um, and go like, what is the word, like what words are they using that are the rojo? Yeah.

Lauren McCormack: 32:12

That's stuff. That's how I built a career. It was like um being actively curious about, and that was part of what solution selling, I think, put forward too, was the whole notion of like win-loss interviews and like fine, and that led me to um interviewing innovative poster children of sorts for the company I was at that um I used as fodder for like omni-channel campaigns. And, you know, when I left that company, the EVP of Enterprise Sales got kind of misty. Jim didn't, Jim wasn't a sentimental fella, but he was like, we're gonna miss you. But it was the storytelling of the customers that have the magic mojo and the salespeople that knew what to say, when to say it, and how to work the art of persuasion around the features and benefits that were distinctively unique to the company. That's if marketing isn't tapping into that magic, what what are we up to? Right? What what what story are we telling?

Michael Hartmann: 33:14

What I learned in my short period of sales is like the very best salespeople are not the caricature that a lot of us are here. Because the best one very glamorous kind of folks. Well, they all can they are all comfortable speaking, but what they're when they speak, the best ones ask really good questions. That's right. They listen. And they listen, which is not what people think of. Um that's what there's way more bad salespeople who don't do that.

Lauren McCormack: 33:39

That's 100% true. And I think I would add to that, and I think the way that I was able to to wield um you know um conversations successfully when I was on that side of the fence is they keep their promises.

Michael Hartmann: 33:53

Yes.

Lauren McCormack: 33:54

You know what you don't promise something if you can't keep the promise, and if you promise it, you keep it, no matter you know, hell or high water.

Michael Hartmann: 34:01

Yeah.

Lauren McCormack: 34:03

And that that level of rapport, I think, is huge, you know?

Michael Hartmann: 34:07

Yeah. Well, the other thing I noticed with the best salespeople is they they're financially illiterate too, right? Especially on big purchase things. Um how so one of the things I harp on a lot is that I think there's a lot of marketers, and we touch kind of touched on this, like um what how you you say I think you said you would emphasize financial literacy, and I agree. Like, what did what's your like what's your take on like why that would be so important that we maybe haven't already covered for both marketing and marketing opposite teams?

Lauren McCormack: 34:44

Um why I would advocate that they have a modicum of financial literacy.

Michael Hartmann: 34:48

Yeah.

Lauren McCormack: 34:48

Usually they're trusted with budgets.

Michael Hartmann: 34:53

Yeah.

Lauren McCormack: 34:54

Yeah. And so I think it's certainly important at some point, even it so I've seen I've seen organizations that have services or products or um, you know, uh offerings that succeed despite themselves, despite a whole lot of internal procedural dysfunction and dissonance and misalignment and random acts of marketing. I've seen that show and you can skate by maybe for decades if you have a really good product or a really exceptional service. Eventually somebody sees you succeeding as a company and says, I have an idea on how to do this better, how to do this differently, how to eat their lunch. And if you tolerate a lack of literacy in marketing for a while, you might get away with it. And it might be like, Yeah, I don't need, there's no reason for me to own these conversations or to understand my contribution to the company. Eventually, Rome falls, and someone will challenge your comfort. And and they will probably um put you back on your heels if you don't have the answer. But someone will eventually come calling for, hey, that money I gave you, how did it do? What did we get for it? Maybe not now, maybe five years from now, maybe five months from now. But I've never seen an organization succeeding despite itself where incremental revenue or profit margins, or especially in the wild inflation environments we're living in today, where somebody didn't want to know eventually what the return on the investment was for whatever you're trusted with. Maybe you have to defend maybe a platform investment needs defense, maybe your headcount needs defense, maybe your personal like budget allocations, uh, maybe that's not in your in your a remit for your role right now, but eventually if you'd like to have upward mobility, those are the kinds of things that'll differentiate you.

Michael Hartmann: 37:09

Yeah, I'm I and I think the the other piece is there's a little bit of discipline that needs to go with it. I think there's I think marketers are often viewed from a as a like the perception is that they're sort of free spending, right?

Lauren McCormack: 37:24

Yeah, cost center. You have to shift to a profit center.

Michael Hartmann: 37:26

Yeah. Well, but even if it's not a profit center, you can't just um you can't just spend money recklessly. Some can. You'd be amazed. No, I know, I know some can. Not forever, though, I guess. No, no, no, not forever. I think you I agree with you. At some point they're gonna there's gonna be a a time of reckoning.

Lauren McCormack: 37:47

Yeah. And it and I mean it'll look differ different in every org. I mean, it might just be like I've seen I've seen wonderfully um well-intended marketers, and it looks different everywhere when that that day comes when there are questions about the spreadsheet. Maybe, you know, uh a venture capital firm comes in and runs an audit. Maybe there's an acquisition because y'all are so successful despite everything. But when the MA happens, questions, right?

Michael Hartmann: 38:15

Yeah.

Lauren McCormack: 38:15

Or maybe it's a leadership change, maybe it's a new board member. Um I don't gone are the days that I think being at least somewhat articulate around the PLs, gone are the days that that was optional, I think, for marketing.

Michael Hartmann: 38:33

Yeah, I I think that's a good thing. Surely. Yeah. Um probably. So all right, while we like what's maybe wrap up here, like it we're approaching the end of 2025 as we're doing this. What are some of the trends you're seeing that are gonna shape ops marketing, DevOps, whatever in the next year, 2026?

Lauren McCormack: 38:54

Goodness. Well, I think um it's interesting because I know all of my peers instantly are like, bam, AI. And for me, I think what I'm seeing looks a little different. And it's um it's around the notion that during um the early, like when you think about like the technology adoption curve or whatever, um, where we're at in that kind of chasm before mass adoption where people have already adapted to a very volatile market, especially in the States. And they've done these mass like staff reductions or re-orgs, and they've let go of people that had a certain amount of institutional wisdom or proficiency, and they've thought, okay, well, we'll automate this, or okay, we can hire somebody more junior for less money for this role because this isn't necessarily a role that requires a whole ton of years of experience in that vacuum, in that delta. I'm seeing a really big uptick in a pivot toward just being able as a company to deliver on the fundamentals of the investments in technology that have already been made. I think from a security standpoint, When we see AI, the compute um speeds and and the infrastructure um uh demand that we're seeing for the sort of superintelligence that everybody's hungry for, there's a disconnect between what the industry can deliver against expectations. So I think we're gonna start to see a bit of a pendulum shift away from incredibly wild and maybe slightly perceived as security risk-based uh technology uh investments back in the whole notion of, well, when we divested in talent, what did we miss in the fundamentals of what we've already invested in? And especially since these tech companies are facing um exponential expectations from their boards, um, prices for these fundamental platforms are ever increasing. It's a super competitive landscape. Competitors are challenging status quo, and RFPs are abundant. I think you're gonna see people that are like, what do we have? What can we use? And what are we not up against the limitations of for what's already installed? And you're gonna find that there's an appetite to to really um level up on the capabilities that are already inherent, the talents and and the the tech that's already um, you know, I think then invested in. Hopefully, that's I'm hoping people can land the fundamentals before they decide to innovate the hell out of this industry, you know?

Michael Hartmann: 42:06

Yeah, I mean my analogy is American football for international listeners. Um uh I think everything starts right in the trenches, right? I mean, so many companies get clever or do something, and it's the fundamentals are like that's what you have to build on.

Lauren McCormack: 42:23

That's right. AI is coming, but not in two weeks. And there's gonna be an interim period here while um a level of trust and reliability, a POC of sorts is built out by the more daring out on the tightrope. Um but the enterprise is not gonna be, I don't think. Um I think the enterprise has some soul searching to do around where they're hoping for a magic bullet and where capabilities are actually at.

Michael Hartmann: 42:51

Interesting take. All right. Well, Lauren, it's a lot of fun. I'm sure we could have gone on longer. As I feel like I say that every time, but if folks want to continue the conversation with you or just be able to follow you or learn more, what's the best way for them to do that?

Lauren McCormack: 43:05

Find me on LinkedIn. Um I am only a stone's throwaway. I'd love to chat with anybody, everybody. Um, I do actually read and respond uh to my messages. So um offer, standing offer for anyone out there that uh would like to bend my gear. I probably won't buy your products or services if that's your intention, but I certainly will have an actual conversation with actual people.

Michael Hartmann: 43:28

Yeah, there you go. I appreciate that. That's a good caveat. All right. Well, Lauren, again, thank you. Appreciate it. As always, thanks to our longtime and new listeners and viewers, I guess at this point. We appreciate all that. 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. Till next time. Bye, everybody.

Lauren McCormack: 43:48

Bye bye. Thanks, Michael.