Michael Hartmann: 0:26

Hello everyone. Well hopefully we'll get some uh some get people watching here soon. Might of the chat. Welcome to the first first in I was gonna say first, but it's first time long time uh live episode.

Mike Rizzo: 0:44

Yeah, well yeah, technically. Yeah that's that's part of the lore. We have to share some of that.

Michael Hartmann: 0:50

Yeah. Humble beginnings when you have a couple people listening in. No one no one was brave enough to uh actually come on audio or video with us, though, were they? I guess it was audio then.

Mike Rizzo: 1:04

Yeah, yeah, this was back when the platform we used.

Naomi Liu: 1:07

It wasn't it was something else, right?

Mike Rizzo: 1:09

I don't even remember what it was called.

Naomi Liu: 1:11

Me neither.

Mike Rizzo: 1:12

It was like it was a lot, it was live for like two seconds and then it just disappeared. It was during that time where everybody was like creating the what was what was that company that like chose not to sell to like Twitter or whatever? There it was all the chatroom technology that was out there. Yeah, you remember that?

Naomi Liu: 1:31

Clubhouse?

Mike Rizzo: 1:32

Was it clubhouse? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Naomi Liu: 1:33

Is that the one where you can drop it?

Mike Rizzo: 1:34

But we didn't use that. We used something, it was it was during a time where there was like a number of companies trying to do something similar, right?

Michael Hartmann: 1:41

Right.

Mike Rizzo: 1:41

And then we used some sort of radio show product. Yeah. So that's part of the lore folks.

Michael Hartmann: 1:45

I forgot about Clubhouse.

Mike Rizzo: 1:48

Yeah.

Michael Hartmann: 1:49

Wow. There was just the rage, right?

Mike Rizzo: 1:52

There there was it was just like super popular, and like what a shame that they didn't take their exit when they could have.

Michael Hartmann: 2:00

What was and what was the other thing that was really big around the same time where you get like celebrities to record, you know, uh speech.

Mike Rizzo: 2:09

Oh, that's still a thing.

Michael Hartmann: 2:10

Is it still there? Cameo.

Naomi Liu: 2:11

Cameo. Cameo. Cameo. Yeah.

Mike Rizzo: 2:13

Yeah.

Naomi Liu: 2:14

Yeah. I I use it sometimes to send people birthdays, birthday things, and yeah.

Michael Hartmann: 2:20

Yeah, that's kind of fun. I think it's cool. I didn't know that was still around. I hadn't heard about it in a while. Well, um, so we'll see. I think we it looks like we're starting to get a few guests joining in and listening. So if you are listening, please feel free to jump in the chat, send us a message. We'll we'll try to incorporate that. But um, it's an exciting day, five years since our first episode. Mike's birthday tomorrow.

Mike Rizzo: 2:48

Crazy. Jen, thanks for being here.

Naomi Liu: 2:50

Maybe you want a cameo, Mike. We we sent you one once. It was um Yeah.

Mike Rizzo: 2:56

Uh it was uh um the the other founder of this is Wozniak, Steve Walking.

Michael Hartmann: 3:04

Oh the other Steve. Yeah.

Mike Rizzo: 3:06

The other Steve. Yeah, yeah. Someone sent it to me. It was, I think it was actually like five years ago. Oh someone sent it to me. Someone moved their microphone. Yeah, I heard that.

Michael Hartmann: 3:16

I don't know if it was me or or what. Um we're good. Yeah, so uh I don't really have a huge agenda for this. Like I I wanted to keep it open for you guys, but maybe I've been thinking a lot about like what are the things that I come I kind of think about from the the the podcast over the last five years. You're curious before I tell you what kind of the thing that always comes to mind for me, I'd be curious what you're what you remember. Like, what's the thing that you go like, oh, this is not something I expected to to remember from the podcast.

Naomi Liu: 3:57

I think I'm I'm not surprised, but I'm also like just kind of in awe at the amount of episodes that have been recorded. I know that I haven't joined like a lot of them just due to schedule and conflicts and whatnot. Sure. But just the amount of guests and topics and things that people just want to talk about and share. And it just shows me that, you know, a lot of times in at least I feel this way in ops, you know, like we don't always get the recognition or the acknowledgement of the work that we're doing. And it's nice to be able to show off a little, right?

Michael Hartmann: 4:35

For sure. Yeah. But you, Mike.

Mike Rizzo: 4:39

Yeah. Uh things that stand out to me or that I kind of remember. Um there's like healthy debate that comes up sometimes, but just between just between like us, the three of us. Um, but certainly sometimes with our guests too. Um and I love that. I love that we're all challenging each other to think differently. Um I was like thinking a little bit about this before we jumped on today. And I was like, oh, I remember that time I was talking about something related to like a marketing option professional. There's like a there's like a cutoff point where you just don't need to be like that analytical anymore. Yeah. And we kind of like I think I think all three of us were kind of like of slightly different minds around that around that topic. I was like, there's a time where you need a data analyst. Stop asking me to be your data analyst.

Michael Hartmann: 5:32

Yeah.

Mike Rizzo: 5:32

Um was the punchline. But yeah, I remember that. That's the kind of stuff that I really appreciate. It's like every time we have a guest on the show, it's like a natural conversation that doesn't feel preloaded with a bunch of opinion or like a pitch or something like that, which I think is carried through almost everything we've ever done in the community.

Michael Hartmann: 5:50

So yeah, I love that we've been we've been able to do a platform for some people who I think, yeah, it was a stretch for them, or at least got them out of their comfort zone to come on and share an opinion or something they knew that that could be helpful. But I think the thing that surprised me, maybe maybe not surprised me, but uh I wasn't expecting at least is that I'm grateful about how much I've I've learned so much from so many people. And I think I think, yeah, it goes all the way back. The what the one that the earliest memory I have, and I don't think it was our first episode, because it was just the three of us, if I remember right, but it was um Randy Sanders, right? Her with her little statement about right to be in marketing apps, be to be be good at marketing ops, you have to learn to play chess and and study human psychology, right? Or something like that. And it's stuck with me for five years now.

Mike Rizzo: 6:46

So yeah, that was a really I yeah, that was actually a really, really good episode. If you if anybody's listening to this or watching right now or watching later, go go check that one out. Uh Brandy's Brandy Sanders episode. I see if I can find it during this, but I think that's like it definitely influenced what surprises me is how how much of these conversations, again, despite the fact that I don't get to get on as many of them either as I used to, um, but how much of these conversations, whether they're here on the show or within the community itself, influence my subconscious of just the way that I operate now. And I find myself saying things that I don't even know if it was like I came up with the thought, or it was just like by share a voice and I'm fine with it because it's just like like it just feels like it's the right thing for us to do as an organization, as a community. Um, but I I I went back like because we said, hey, let's go do an episode for celebrate five years. And I was like listening to our very, very first episode all over again. It's amazing how much of the same conversation like has carried on, but like got gotten better, like more, I don't know, more intelligent or something. I don't know.

Naomi Liu: 7:59

I think something that has surprised me too is you know, over the past five years, how quickly job titles have changed, but like often the work that supports that hasn't changed, right? Um I think thinking back over various guests, I think you can also there's a lot of like commonality, right? How universal the pain points are across the industries, no matter, you know, the company you work for. And honestly, how much emotional labor people who are in ops carry. Oh, yeah, right. It's not just like that emotional part of it is, you know, not even the stress of like deadlines or project managing something, but you know, like it's and I don't think I have to explain it too much, just saying that people know what I'm talking about. Um but yeah, the you know, those are just looking back on those five years, I think those are the things that surprise me the most.

Michael Hartmann: 8:58

Yeah. It's I was thinking about this, you know, you bring up a good point. Like I what I when I think back about like things that I'm proud of that we we've done with the podcast, I think there's two two things, two categories of things that come up to me. My one is where we've had people on to talk about those difficult times, right? Trying to find a job without coming to college, going into like having put myself into uh, you know, into a place to get better, you know, all these things. And I think it normalizes that, right? And have giving people the like the freedom to be able to say, you know, I'm really struggling and I have a place to go, or at least people understand me. That's one. The other, and I mean, I I think um when we when we hatched that plan to have the women's only episode, right? I still think about that regularly. Like that, and then we had a recent episode where we had it was they let me on, right, with a bunch of women. And like I love that we were able to do that, right? Provide those opportunities for people who maybe feel like they don't get those opportunities on a regular basis. So that you know, what's anybody, what's your thoughts on things that like proud, proud moments from the from this?

Naomi Liu: 10:13

I think uh giving first-time speakers a platform along like well-known, you know, of podcast guests. Some people there's a lot so many uh guests like, I'm so nervous, this is my first podcast ever, you know, and just having it be like a springboard for them and giving them the confidence to potentially do more speaking engagements, right? Um creating a space where, like I mentioned earlier, people in our field feel like they have a space to talk to their peers about the work that they're doing so that they can feel seen and validated. Um we're pretty vendor neutral, right? Honest. I think that's important.

Mike Rizzo: 10:54

Yeah. I mean, even when we've had like someone come on who, you know, was representing a company or whatever, they've respected our show. And I'm proud of that respect that we've earned as a as a podcast, as a community, to to ensure that you know they're not coming on here to schlep their stuff, but to really just talk shop with us. Um I'd say, I'd say that is like one one thing that I'm super, super proud of from what we've been working on in the show. I I totally agree on the um platform piece. Like I think if if nothing else, like for this episode, if you you know, take away um the opportunity, is we want you to have a place to share and be heard. Um there are countless moments where someone on this team, Naomi, Michael, or myself, get a message and they say, Hey, I heard you talking about this. It's been really helpful. Hey, I really appreciated the opportunity to come on. This is what happened next. Um, and you'd be surprised. I I I won't name names, um, but there's a minimum of like two incredible women that have reached out to me over time and have told me that this was like a way for them to step outside of the comfort zone and start feeling more confident in their voice and what they were sharing. And then there's two other men that have come to me and shared that they had new career opportunities arise because of just the topic and the way that they were discussing it in a new format and like being able to say, Hey, yeah, I've actually talked about this before. Here's a place for for you to hear that. Um I think my favorite story is the the stay-at-home mom that like found our pod and then was like learning all about this and is like now getting a kick-ass salary, like completely took a career shift and like went into mops. And then we had, I think she came on the show eventually, and it was just so cool. Like that was just that one I think is the top of the list for me. Um you know, wow. But like people are discovering their career through the stuff that we're all talking about, not just us, right? All the community members that are on the show.

Michael Hartmann: 13:09

I don't think I've heard three of these stories, Mike.

Mike Rizzo: 13:13

Oh man. I do keep sorry, I do keep some of them to myself.

Michael Hartmann: 13:18

I probably should tell you more. Yeah, that's awesome. Like I hadn't heard I seriously seriously, like I that like um that makes me smile. I like like that's yeah, awesome that it's helped people not only have a voice, but also yeah, given them opportunities that they might not have otherwise had. Love it. That's funny.

Mike Rizzo: 13:38

We do need to go back and do I mean, we've talked about it like too many times uh to have the women take over thing happen again. Like I really need I really need that to be like a standard operating model for the show. Like that was such a great episode.

Naomi Liu: 13:53

And I have just I have a I have a roster in my mind. Nice.

Mike Rizzo: 13:58

Yeah, well, let's let's go. Let's go. It was just such a great, like refreshing moment for the show in general. Like it'd be yeah, it'd be great. I'd love that to be a standard operating.

Michael Hartmann: 14:10

Absolutely, Ross. Anytime. I think that'd be great. Any um, so speaking of feedback, you know, that's one of the things like it's um it's it's sometimes it's it's weird being on this in this side, right? You were just we're recording and talking to people, and it's great, and I'm learning. But sometimes you don't know, like, is it landing? Is it like are people getting any? So it's great to have that feedback. Um, it's been interesting to be we we've been fortunate enough that we're at least if people have had negative feedback for the most part, they've kept it to themselves, right? But there are some there have been some interesting feedback ones. Um mostly like I know we had one once about background noise and um tell I tell the story.

Mike Rizzo: 14:54

I was wondering if we were gonna talk about that.

Michael Hartmann: 14:55

Yeah, I mean, I I just like I um so if the person who shared it, because it's it's anonymous, like I really have no idea who it was. Um I have no problem with it, right? Give the feedback, it's all good. But it was um I I took it and I was like, to some degree that was somewhat intentional, right? So like you go back to your point, Mike, where we like we've I think we've been really careful about staying true to what we started with, which was originally a live broadcast, so we couldn't really control for all that stuff. And we don't we try to keep it um as organic and natural as possible. I mean, there's a lot that goes into getting these things set up, recorded, and published, but um we try to we try to keep it as as lightweight as possible from a production value standpoint, you know. And sometimes that happens. And I'm I'm okay with that feedback because it's just part of the process.

Mike Rizzo: 15:53

Yeah, yeah, totally. I mean, I guess we could lean in a little harder and just be like, hey, by the way, and just like remind people all the time that this is like recorded as a live show, but we don't really ever tell anybody that. We used to tell people that, right? Yeah, at the top of the show or whatever. But yeah, for those uh who listen, we we record this basically as a live show. Unless someone says something egregious during the recording and they're like, I really need you to cut that. There's almost no editing ever done.

Michael Hartmann: 16:19

Yeah. So you can remember the Daryl Alphonse warning when the fire alarm went off.

Mike Rizzo: 16:25

That's right. I was just thinking that. And I pulled my dogs in here to avoid barking, but I can uh guarantee they're gonna bark sometime during this recording right now.

Naomi Liu: 16:33

There was another guest too, I won't say who. He'll have to figure it out, but I think um their kid's uh like sound machine was pulling twinkle twinkle.

Michael Hartmann: 16:43

Yeah.

Naomi Liu: 16:44

Oh, I know exactly where I want this. And then I know you could hear it through the entire just like a slight twinkle twinkle. Yeah.

Mike Rizzo: 16:53

That was actually our uh subconscious attempt to get someone to just fall asleep while the city doesn't show up.

Naomi Liu: 16:59

Because I think after we wrapped, we're like, Do you guys hear that? Yeah, what is that sound?

Mike Rizzo: 17:04

Yeah. Guess it's like, oh right, yeah, the kid's like trying to take a nap.

Michael Hartmann: 17:07

So and I I definitely had to go like, oh, my dog disagreed with that, or my dog agreed with that, right? Yeah, with them barking in the background. So it happens. So funny. But yeah, okay, so so Mike, I um can we share the little secret about how this stuff actually would get published for like what a year and a half, two years?

Mike Rizzo: 17:27

Yeah, sure.

Michael Hartmann: 17:28

Yeah. So for those who don't know, the person who actually did all the heavy lifting for that was Mike's wife, Amanda. And like if it hadn't been for her, honestly, I'm not sure. Yeah, for sure. I'd I am not sure we could have sustained it without her, truly.

Mike Rizzo: 17:45

So I totally agree. We and uh we owe her a big thing. There did get to a point where it's like, yeah, it was we're totally like I'm forever grateful for her stepping up and just trying to learn some of the basics of thankfully the technology evolved enough to make it like accessible for you know, for my even just like someone who doesn't even deal with technology that often. And uh, and she did a really wonderful job just taking the steps and getting it all done. But it eventually got to a point where it was like, I'm not a podcast editor, like let's go. I was like, you're right, you're not. We should we should probably not have you do this for forever. But yeah, that was the this is what it takes. If anybody ever thinks about doing a show, unless you're Phil Gamash, who runs an incredible show, good listings to it, Humans of Martech, uh, who dedicates his whole self to doing the show really, really freaking well. Um, there's a ton that goes into it. And you can ask him. Like he's like, oh wow, this is this is a lot of work. Um, but he he crushes it. It's not it's not easy. Michael makes it look easy, but it takes a lot of effort, like it, you know, especially just like not just for the host, but for the guests too, right? Like you gotta like come in and focus and give your full attention to somebody for you know 45 minutes to an hour. Um that, you know, it feels like that should be easy to do as an adult, but when you're busy and you got like the constant proverbial fire burning from a mop's perspective, yeah, there's I'm pretty sure we've had some people be like, hey, we're gonna have to stop this right now and just do it again later because I got something going on.

Michael Hartmann: 19:31

So we actually have one episode that we recorded that never got published. You I you may not remember this. So um it was one, and I won't name names because it doesn't matter anymore, but we had a guest who like was actually I thought it was a really good episode, but that person was uncomfortable, didn't feel like oh yeah, had had had done the best work that um usually could have. And so we never we never published it, and then we never yeah, it was really up to that person to decide whether or not they want to try again and didn't happen. So but in general, right. Um I don't know about you, like has has um one of the things that surprises me is how how bad I am at predicting how well a episode will do. Do you know what I mean? You right?

Mike Rizzo: 20:21

Uh yeah, I know there's some Where it's like, wow, that was a great conversation, and you know, it it just kind of falls silent. Like, yeah, nobody really picks it up. And I don't know if it's a time, like I feel like it's a combination of a whole bunch of things. Like it's a classic marketer's challenge, right? It's a positioning problem, it's a timing problem. It got published like you know a week before Christmas, and so no one listened.

Michael Hartmann: 20:46

Yeah.

Mike Rizzo: 20:47

Who knows, right? Uh but yeah, I I'm very bad at predicting that as well. There's some where you're like, this is gonna be awesome. And then it was a great conversation, just nobody actually chimed in.

Michael Hartmann: 21:03

For sure.

Mike Rizzo: 21:05

Still to this day, go ahead. We have the top episode being what was it?

Michael Hartmann: 21:11

What the fuck is marketing ops? Oh, sorry, yeah, WTF.

Mike Rizzo: 21:14

WTF is marketing ops?

Michael Hartmann: 21:16

Yeah. By so with someone who's no longer in marketing ops.

Mike Rizzo: 21:21

That's right. Right. Top episode of all time. Although I will give uh uh what who's who's was next in that list? Was it probably Paul? Was it um Paul? Yeah, Paul was Paul Wilson, and it was recorded quite a bit later and it it caught up yeah um pretty quick, which was impressive as well.

Michael Hartmann: 21:40

It was probably our first episode that touched on AI at all. Um, and we didn't have a lot in the early days, and so it was a little bit ahead of the curve from at least from our standpoint, maybe not to the rest of the world. So yeah, that was an interesting one.

Mike Rizzo: 21:59

I will say that is also another thing that I'm proud of about our show. Um, you know, there's a lot there's a lot of ways I've learned a ton about podcasting since we've done this on how to not just how to do that.

Michael Hartmann: 22:16

We had no idea what we were getting into, did we not at all?

Mike Rizzo: 22:20

Uh and there's so many ways to structure a show, but um, and and to build with great intention, right? Like for varying degrees of purposes. But um, you know, we we kind of host a casual talk show with like some loose direction and some planning that Michael does an excellent job of with the guests, but inevitably we end up going off script and never get through all the sort of bullet points. And the thing that I'm proud of is we don't really glom on to like trend jacking.

Michael Hartmann: 22:51

Yeah.

Mike Rizzo: 22:51

Right. Like like the the AI hype cycle has been here for a hot minute now. And like it's not like we went out of our way to like find all the best experts in AI and be like, yeah, like let's go talk. Not that that we couldn't try, but uh, you know, we we stay true to our core of like what do you want to talk about? Half the time when we have people like come on the show, for those of you who may not know how this really like goes down, we will either get someone that says, Hey, I'd be interested in joining, and then we get on a planning session, we're like, what do you want to talk about? And then, you know, it turns into whatever it turns into. Um, there's no like real agenda for for any of us involved, really.

Michael Hartmann: 23:33

No, I mean we at one point we tried to have a little more of a curated approach, and it actually became more trouble than it was worth, I think. Yeah. Yeah, totally. Any of any uh so we've cut we have covered a lot of topics and a lot of ground over over the time. Any topics that surprise you that either sort of dropped off the cliff we don't talk about anymore, or that have continued to be there that you would are surprised are still there.

Mike Rizzo: 24:08

Can I can I say both on this one? Yeah, sure. It's it's both, it's a little bit of both. Uh it I'm surprised it's still around in general, but it doesn't really come up as much on our show. And it's like all about the project management side of things.

Michael Hartmann: 24:26

Yeah.

Mike Rizzo: 24:26

Literally anytime we ever talk about, I mean, it's such a hot button item for everybody in in marketing apps and just marketing in general. But there was a while there where it was like we were on this like uh sprint pun intended, uh, where it was like a lot of market, like project management related stuff. Yeah. Uh, but that seems to have like fallen by the wayside a little bit in terms of the the discussion point doesn't really come up all that much, even though it's still like really important for everybody.

Naomi Liu: 24:58

Yeah. I don't know if these are topics that have kind of dropped off, but there's certain topics I think that we have kind of come in and out of talking about that they kind of they've they've faded a little bit, I guess you could say, right? So things around like especially data, right? A single source of truth.

Michael Hartmann: 25:18

Yeah.

Naomi Liu: 25:19

I don't know anybody that's like, yep.

Mike Rizzo: 25:22

Got it.

Naomi Liu: 25:24

Yeah, you know, got that one solved, check mark, single source of truth, right? Like, you know, look no further. Like, I don't like who who who has that, right? Um fully automated lead scoring models, like anybody have that? You know one size fits all attribution model? Does anybody have that? No, you know, we it's it's it's stuff we talk about a lot, but I sometimes I wonder, are they achievable end states or solvable? It's just constantly it's just constantly evolving too. Maybe it's not, maybe you're you're just trying to play that catch-up. I don't know. Yeah. So you bring a bench. And the reason it came up is because I got a call today. Uh a vendor true, right? I got two calls today, actually. And uh Did they follow your your guidance on what you looked for? Well, actually, I think it was um uh I can't remember someone I saw it on LinkedIn and and then and I can't remember who uh posted it, but it was something about you get a call from under a number and then you hit you set it to voicemail and then they call you again. It was Sydney.

Mike Rizzo: 26:37

Oh yes, it was Sydney. I read that too. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. It's like the double, the double call is like from the what's happening.

Naomi Liu: 26:46

Is yeah, yeah, my kids throwing up or whatever.

Mike Rizzo: 26:48

You're like, this must be my kid's school. And it's like it's right.

Naomi Liu: 26:51

I pick it up and they're like, yep, this is so-and-so from so-and-so. And uh I want to talk to you about your single source of have you thought about single source? I'm like, okay. Has anybody else? Yes, actor we're all good.

Mike Rizzo: 27:07

That's you know, it's like it's such a good sales question when it's just like there's absolutely no one that's figured that. So, like, of course I can't.

Naomi Liu: 27:14

It's like, excuse me, leading the witness. Like you're gonna call somebody and be like, so have you thought about your you know, health and wellness today? Do you want to you know it's only on S and N and Y.

Michael Hartmann: 27:23

Right. Exactly. All the time. Actually, so it's funny. I've I see it's for a long time we had uh, I don't know how often, but like every couple of months, we'd have an episode that touched on attribution and reporting. And I don't know that we've really had anything on that in a while now. I think about it.

Mike Rizzo: 27:42

Yeah, it has been a while. There we are organizing a webinar style session for that with uh Drew from Attributa Um and Andrew Dimick, like in the next few weeks.

Michael Hartmann: 27:54

But yeah.

Mike Rizzo: 27:56

Yeah, but like from the podcast side, we haven't really talked about it much.

Michael Hartmann: 27:59

I guess we had one that was uh the I can't remember that the title was a play on uh uh uh Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, you know. So oh yeah. Um but that was like I see this is the other thing. Like I like to me, it was like a couple weeks ago, but I'm pretty sure it was like six months ago when they came out. So I can't like the timelines on these things is all lost in my head. I'd think it was longer than that, my friend. Right. That's that's my point, right? I like I have no idea. I'd have to go back and look.

Mike Rizzo: 28:37

Yeah, yeah. I'm like trying to scroll through as quickly as I can. Uh it was definitely longer than that.

Michael Hartmann: 28:41

But you're gonna you're gonna like try to find it. You're gonna call me out. Is that is that it? So no, no.

Mike Rizzo: 28:53

Um what Hartman, what has like I don't know, been what what do you think in terms of the most surprising thing about the process about doing like a podcast?

Michael Hartmann: 29:11

You know, like there's two things. I have two things on that, right? One is how disjointed the technology is, right? So our our audience will appreciate that, but like there's very few, like a lot, like there's a couple of platforms that come out to do everything from recording to editing to publishing, but they're not the greatest at any one of those, right? And then there's what we do, which is we record in one thing, edit in something else, and publish in something else. Actually, publish it two different ways now, because you can't publish to YouTube now that we're doing that. And so like that's been a little bit of a surprise. The other is just how terrible the metrics are. Yeah, and it's just um because we get I'll get asked, you know, fairly regularly now, you know, um, like how big is your like how many subscribers or how big is your audience? I'm like, actually, it's a really hard thing to answer, believe it or not. Yep. I mean, if we only publish through Apple or or um Spotify or like one platform like that, we might have a chance at that. The problem is we publish across multiple, and there's no consolidated kind of thing for that that's easy to get to. And that's a that was a both of those are a surprise to me given how big podcasting has become Yeah.

Mike Rizzo: 31:55

Yeah, that that uh sort of the rails that all of the content streams through is like surprisingly fragile and not integrated. It is yeah. Um I agree. That was a surprise to me. I mean, like the the syndication platform we use to push into all of the outlets like gives us some semblance of like data, and that's probably our best like source of truth. Yeah, but one metric still not anywhere near. It's one metric. Yeah, it's only one.

Michael Hartmann: 32:25

Um yeah, that and then because of that, it's hard to benchmark. Like we see our numbers and it's go like, is it good? Is it bad? I don't know, right? You know, and we've had ups and downs, right? Partially when um things got hectic and outside of this, and because this is I think obviously it's kind of a passion project, right? So um sometimes it gets put in the background a little bit. So if we're not consistent, that doesn't help, right? When we're consistent, it helps. Yep.

Mike Rizzo: 33:04

Yep. The uh I mean Buzzprout tells us we're doing really well. They give us achievements. We've got uh we've reached 50,000 podcast downloads since we've been doing this.

Michael Hartmann: 33:15

So that's a big uh good celebration according to I think we're getting close to the next uh their next minute level is 75, right? And so I think we're close to 70 at this point last I looked.

Mike Rizzo: 33:27

Yeah, it's getting closer. And then we we did uh well over 100 episodes published now, getting in approaching the next milestone of 250. Yep. You know, which you know to be fair, what was I I can't even remember the stats now. Like most podcasts don't make it past like 10 episodes or something. So that's credit to all of the who the audience that wants to come on the show and tell us. Absolutely. I mean, I because we don't know what we're talking about half the time, clearly. Look at us now. We're just rambling.

Michael Hartmann: 33:57

The the thing that I was most worried about when we started this was would we have enough guests or topics to kind of keep us going? And I like so right now we are booked out to record into going into April of this year, right now. Just assume we're book recording one, maybe two a week. So like I I'm I'm just sort of blown away like it that there's so many people who've been wanting to share.

Mike Rizzo: 34:29

So yeah, yeah, and I love it because like you know, we've been since we started the show, the evolution of our community has been significant, to say the least. Um we climbed up to a peak of like 6,500 people in Slack and started kind of like pruning the edges for people who were literally just not even participating. Yep. Um we we were MoPros, we launched Opscast, we became the community of marketingops.com, we launched Mopsapalooza. Um, and then we've hosted career fairs and we've just tried to create a bunch of different outlets for people to like share their knowledge. And I love that they can come on this because it's so much more accessible than the one one anchor thing that we'll do, like a career fair virtually or yeah, Mopsapalooza in person or whatever. Um, so this has been like a really cool opportunity to give them the share of voice and space for that. One thing I wish we would do more of is like figure out how to be like super expert, like producers. Like maybe that's the thing that I'll like eventually just become secretly, like one day. I'll use all these like media features that come inside a riverside and I'll start doing like random, like I don't know, I'll tell a joke and we'll be like Yeah, there we go. Oh, do it? Wait, no, here it goes. Oh wait, ready, ready, ready, audience. Yeah, there it is.

Michael Hartmann: 36:06

Uh oh, me excited. Um and that's okay. It's okay.

Naomi Liu: 36:11

That's okay. I have a question. Uh question, go. Overrated, underrated topics. No, oops. I I can start. Go. Okay, please. So overrated. Dashboards with no decisions. Right?

Michael Hartmann: 36:33

Harvin's like, that was mine.

Naomi Liu: 36:38

Rolling out tool features without any type of timeline for adoption. Underrated. Project management, change management. Documentation. Saying no. No is a complete sentence.

Mike Rizzo: 37:02

It's underrated. It's understated.

Michael Hartmann: 37:05

No can mean not now. Yeah. That's so.

Mike Rizzo: 37:08

It can mean not now. You're right.

Michael Hartmann: 37:10

Do you want to go next, Mike or you want me to take a shot?

Mike Rizzo: 37:12

You go ahead.

Michael Hartmann: 37:13

Go ahead. So I I love the dashboard ones as being overrated. I think um overthought lead scoring model is overrated, right? Trying to get like all kinds of things. Like this in general, which the flip side is like simply simplicity is underrated. Yeah, and I think um speed is underrated, right? Agility and ability to move quickly is underrated.

Mike Rizzo: 37:49

Uh gosh, overrated. Yeah, you took a good one. Yeah. Dashboarding is just super overrated. Um I would say underrated topics. There's so much, there's so many of those. It's probably because we think they're so important and like no one in the world ever cares.

Naomi Liu: 38:09

I have one. Stakeholder education.

Mike Rizzo: 38:12

Yeah. Underrated?

Naomi Liu: 38:15

Underrated, yeah.

Mike Rizzo: 38:16

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I would say um honestly, underrated topic is is that um the the sort of nerdy unification layer of data. Like it is it is a such a such a critical critical component of like building a scalable tech stack, but nobody ever really spends time.

Naomi Liu: 38:40

Source of truth, are you saying?

Mike Rizzo: 38:41

Yeah, yeah, basically.

Michael Hartmann: 38:43

See, maybe I'd say that's overrated because I I think I think it's uh in the B2B space, I think it's an unreachable goal. Like for a lot of reasons. Not because people don't care, right? But I think this is one for me where I'd go as much as I hate to say it, right? What's good enough?

Mike Rizzo: 39:02

Right.

Michael Hartmann: 39:02

And just yeah, just assume that it's not gonna be perfect, correct, whatever. Because it's just it's the nature of it is different than say accounting.

Mike Rizzo: 39:14

Sure. I think we're just like, I, you know, I had a really interesting conversation, I'll say, with uh someone who works at Adobe. Um, none none of whom are in this specific community. So don't think it's one of those people. Um, but they're like a pretty senior leader there. And it was at their like welcome thing last year at Adobe Summit. And we went down this uh sort of path around data and and sort of my thoughts around like this idea of running the stack like a product. And and it was, it was, I didn't have those words in my mouth at the time, but um it was kind of related to that topic. And and where it sort of directionally went was the idea that you know the the B2C to turn that into a uh adjective or verb or whatever, the B2C of the B2B ecosystem. Uh and and this particular individual uh was like totally uh caught me off guard. It's like anybody who thinks that they can like and if anybody talks to me about B2B marketing in the form of B2C or thinks that it's even related, like they don't actually know anything about marketing. And I was like, oh, okay. Guess we're not friends anymore. Uh so I had to like backpedal a little bit and be like, hang on a second, let me clarify what I'm talking about so that we understand each other a little bit more. Um but where I'm going with that is is to say, I think some of the technology is just more accessible than it has been before. Right. So like the the systems that were have traditionally been in place to support really, really large sets of data for large B2C customers. Um we're certainly not ever sort of impressed upon the B2B ecosystem by any stretch. Uh, and we're starting to like build instrumentation into the B2B ecosystem that looks and feels very similar to the B2C side of things. We're talking all about this, like, you know, you look at like RB2B and all the like signal stuff in this de person or whatever it is, like de anonymization technology and uh all these different signals and things like that. And in order to leverage any of that really effectively, I do think there is going to be a place where it's like there probably should be a data lake data. Warehouse strategy in place that helps you have some level of quote unquote single source of truth. Um but you know, we just don't think in terms of those things in B2B. We think like, you know, buying group, CRM, life cycle, all those kinds of things. So I don't know. I think it's it'll be interesting to see what happens. And what what I I guess kind of on this underrated, overrated topic is um you guys remember like for like a hot 2.5 seconds, everybody was talking about like warehouse native applications getting built out, and oh yeah, it's gonna be the the like way of the future, and then AI showed up and everybody's like, Squirrel. Never mind, like we're not talking about that anymore. Although I'm seeing it kind of pop up a little bit again. I think people are realizing like in order to do AI really well, you do need to have some level of data control. So yeah, you know. Interesting. Anyway, interesting. Yeah. Look, we talked about something beyond just the five years. There you go. A little bit of future or never know what you're gonna get on Opscast, everybody.

Michael Hartmann: 42:55

Well, um, I think we're gonna maybe take take go down the path of wrapping up here, but I I just want to say, like for me, what I think a big part of what I think about is like it feels like um like we didn't really know each other going into this. And I like I'm proud to say that I consider you guys friends. And likewise. Um I feel like we we've all sort of shared life stuff together over the course of the five years. And so thank you. And Mike, thanks for trusting me with this when I pitched the crazy idea a little over five years ago. So uh it's been a fun ride and I appreciate it. I've grown, learned, uh, and I can't think of anything I'd rather be doing.

Mike Rizzo: 43:42

It's been a ton of fun to have like ventured through the learning curves of all this uh with the two of you for sure. And yeah, like yeah, for the audience out there, like we really didn't know each other all that well. Like Naomi and I knew each other a little while before this started. Um, we had some inkling that there might be an opscast podcast-y thing that happens at some point, and then Michael poked his head up and we all got to know each other. We ended up jibing, thankfully. Yeah. It's a group. And and it worked out. Um, so I want to say thank you, Michael, for like, yeah, you you it is a passion project. You'd mentioned that before. Um, I'm wildly impressed by the level of effort that you put in every single time um to you know have a really good conversation with the guest and for our audience. And you know, I think um for anybody who's ever been a parent, you understand you don't know what it's like until you have become a parent. For anybody who's ever run events, you understand that you don't know what it's like until you run events. And for anybody uh who has ever run a podcast, you don't understand until you've done it. It's a lot of work. And if I any of any of those aforementioned examples resonate with you, I'm telling you this is a lot of work. Uh and you should all be like super appreciative of Michael's time and effort that he fits into this. So yeah. I appreciate you. Right. Naomi.

Naomi Liu: 45:14

Thank you, Michael. I like to I like you know, just being able to show up and you know have conversations with with people. He makes it so, you know, you make it so easy. Like you put it in our calendar, you give us the speaking notes, you tell us about who is talking, and it's like just there, you make it seamless. And um yeah, just echoing what Mike said, um, this podcast wouldn't be what it is without you and the work that you do, and screening guests and vetting guests, and thinking of topics, and putting all that together, the administrative side of it is like that can be a job in and of itself. So thank you so much.

Mike Rizzo: 45:50

And importantly, saying no to guests. We talk about that stuff all the time too. There are some people we say no to, folks. Surprising, surprisingly.

Michael Hartmann: 45:58

There haven't been many, but there have definitely been some. Not many. So um, but with that, what I would say, like so if you if you're like on the edge, like, hey, I'd be interested in you know, taking a step out and do something like and you have an idea, don't be afraid to come to us, right? Um there have been times where I thought we were gonna say no to to somebody on the surface, and then we get into a a kind of initial conversation. I'll go like, actually, I think there's a thread there, right? And and we can connect the dots. And well, I mean, great example, Naomi. Like, Naomi really helped push. I mean, I I really want to get to Vancouver because of all the cool people that Naomi knows, and to hang out at one of Naomi's dinner parties if I get it right in. But um she really pushed us to to kind of broaden how we who we talked to. And I think it was a good thing. So, you know, that's that's a lot of I mean that's yeah, that's been a fun part of this too, is like pushing the limits a little bit. Um, we've had topics that I was not sure would resonate. Um, and other ones where I was just I was curious and I wanted to hear them. And uh the one negative, the close to negative thing I heard about one episode was an early way, like within the first year and a half or so. And it was just sort of an edge case and it just didn't land with at least one person, but that was okay, right? I like I thought it was interesting. I would go back and listen to it.

Mike Rizzo: 47:25

So um I I think we we tend to design this. Uh I think the the bias for us is towards learning.

Michael Hartmann: 47:35

Yeah.

Mike Rizzo: 47:36

And as long as it's like somewhat related to marketing and marketing technology operations, probably even skewed a little more B2B than B2C, uh, then we feel like it's probably gonna resonate with folks. But generally speaking, like if if you have like Michael said, if you have an idea, come share it with us. It's very rare that we're gonna say no. The reason we often say no is because it's a pretty clear tell that somebody just wants to like pitch their stuff to somebody. So to be fair, those are the ones we typically say no to. Yeah. Sorry.

Michael Hartmann: 48:11

Yeah. All right. Anyway, well, hey, I always enjoy talking to the two of you. So like with what maybe what we what people don't know is we probably would have could have done this without anybody you know listening in on it. Um so I truly am grateful for that. But let's was let's wrap it up. So as always, thanks to everyone for for listening and supporting. If you as we said, if you want to be a guest or have an idea for a topic, feel free to reach out to any of the three of us. We'd be happy to get the ball rolling. Until next time.

Mike Rizzo: 48:43

Yep.

Michael Hartmann: 48:44

Bye.

Mike Rizzo: 48:44

Thanks, everybody.

Michael Hartmann: 48:45

Thank you. Bye.