Welcome And The Real Focus

Michael Hartmann 0:25

Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of Opscast. Brought to you by MarketingOps.com, powered by all the MoPros out there. I'm your host, Michael Hartman. Today's episode might be a little different, and it's probably long overdue in all truth. So joining me today, Debbie Gagish, Dr. Debbie Gagish, is back on the show. She's one of the original pioneers of revenue marketing and marketing operations, and she spent years helping organizations transform marketing from a support function into a measurable driver of business growth. But this time we're not just talking about systems, processor technology. Today, we're talking about what all of that transformation has done to the people actually doing the work. Because while marketing has evolved into a revenue engine, the pressure on operators has become constant, unrelenting, and in many cases unsustainable. Debbie is now tackling the problem head-on with her new venture, the growth factor, focused on resilience, leadership, and how marketers can actually perform at a high level without burning out. So we're going to kind of connect on a few themes and threads today: the evolution of revenue marketing, the role AI is playing as an accelerator and a disruptor in many ways, I think, and what leadership needs to look like if we want people to actually thrive in the new environment. So, first off, Debbie, thanks for joining again.

Dr. Debbie Qaqish 1:38

Thanks, Michael. Always a pleasure to be here and talk about marketing operations.

Michael Hartmann 1:43

I tell people all the time when I try to ask how to pronounce names. I think I got yours right this time. I'm not sure I did it the first time you were on.

Dr. Debbie Qaqish 1:51

You did it perfect. Got geeks. You nailed it.

Marketing Becomes A Revenue Driver

Michael Hartmann 1:55

All right. So it's it's a great one. Um, okay, so you know, as I mentioned up top, you know, you were the early pioneers of revenue marketing. And yeah, as you look back, um, how how would you describe the shift from marketing as a support function uh to a more measurable driver of growth?

Dr. Debbie Qaqish 2:15

It's a it's a sea change. I mean, if you if you think about it, Michael, and we've both been in the marketing world for many years. And um I was an early buyer of Eloqua. As a matter of fact, I was customer number 12 of Eloqua. I bought Eliqu in 2004. I didn't know at the time I was customer number 12. All I knew was as the I had had a a career in sales and I had run sales organizations. Then I was working with a company where I was the CMO. And I just knew that when I saw that technology, that it was just gonna forever change sales and marketing. It was just as clear to me as looking at you right now on the camera. It was just, it was just, it was just totally clear. And so in my mind, when I bought Eloqua and set it up, it was because marketing needed to make an impact on revenue. And that was way back in 2004. It just made sense to me. And then as the technology began to become prolific and much more sophisticated, there were zero excuses for a marketing organization not to have some kind of impact on revenue. And because it was fully possible with the technology, but what didn't happen in a lot of companies was the belief that marketing could and should, and also leadership if they weren't on the revenue train. But that whole I remember back in the day, I would ask people how many people have a quota or how many people um you know make an impact on revenue. And I remember I'd get a couple of hands. Well, you go into any marketing group now and you everybody's gonna raise their hand. It's like 100%, right? Yeah. So that is where we have come. And so marketing should be accountable for a portion of the revenue, and they are perfectly positioned to do that. And, you know, I still think we struggle with that, but it's not because we don't lack the technology and the means. It really has to do with the culture and belief.

Michael Hartmann 4:28

Yeah, I mean, so I mean, I it's interesting. Um, I don't think I realized you were in a sales role. I also was at one point in my career, um, wasn't the right fit at the right time, but it was definitely a great learning experience and it definitely shapes how I think about marketing. But how much how much of that um you said that there's this like belief and kind of component of of how people view marketing outside of marketing? How much of that do you think is because of marketers not doing a very good job of communicating the value they add internally?

Dr. Debbie Qaqish 5:06

I I I I wrote my first book, Rise of the Revenue Marketer, I think we published in like 2014 or something. In that book, there was a whole chapter around how to align with sales, how to educate marketing on what the world of sales was really like. Through the years, I've worked with some incredible CMOs who, for example, before they when they hire someone to come into marketing, they make them sit with the inside sales team for two weeks first, right? I think it's great. To live and breathe and to understand the life of a salesperson. If you do not understand sales, then you will never be able to really connect it to revenue the way that you need to. And that's a total failure of leadership, not to be able to not give marketers access to that education, that knowledge, and that experience. I think if they only did that one thing, Michael, it would make a huge difference in how sales and marketing work together. So I think that is a great question. And I think it is simple as train your people. You know, they should be going to if if sales has uh sales training, they should be going to sales training. They should be sitting in on calls. One of your major metrics needs to be time on calls with customers so you can hear and see, you know, what is actually happening. I think that one action would probably erase 70% of the strife that is between sales and marketing.

Michael Hartmann 6:39

I couldn't agree more. And it makes me think back to one of my early times, having shifted out of management consulting into a more marketing-focused role when I was at Text of Instruments, it just so happened that like within the first couple of weeks, um, they were doing some market research, which included a recruited panel and a, you know, someone who facilitated the conversation. I was back behind the I can never remember if it's one-way or two-way glass, but I was back behind there. And I was finding myself like for a moment, like sort of pulling my hair out, almost literally, going like, what are these people talking about? And then it sort of dawned on me in the moment, like, oh wait, I need to pay attention to how those customers are actually talking about this stuff, because if we don't match that, we're gonna be missed opportunities that could affect revenue. And I like that was an early one for me, and I couldn't agree with you more. Like, I think more people need to spend time with sales. Um, instead of complaining about them not using the decks you put together, right? How about you go, Listen, like, how are they actually talking about the value?

Dr. Debbie Qaqish 7:36

Yeah, and understand their world. I mean, they have this big, you know, number over on top of their head 365 days a year, right? And probably about 70% of sales organizations aren't quite meeting the number. There's massive turnover in sales, it's a high pressure job, especially in the world that we live in, the SaaS world, because you know, they they have to put those numbers up for the investors and also for the street. And whether they hit them or not, that's a different story. But there is really, in many ways, a totally unrealistic set of expectations on sales performance. So again, and and you've seen those CMOs, Michael, that have a sales background, how much better things work when they've actually carried a bag and run a sales organization themselves. I mean, through the years, even talking to CMOs who never did that, and then I'll I'll talk to them a couple of years later and they'll say, Yes, I now am responsible for inside sales, or I'm now responsible for a territory. And honey, does it ever change how they approach what they do? 100% night and day, right? Night and day. Yeah.

Michael Hartmann 8:51

Yeah. I mean, I I I I could go on and on about that. But so, okay, so maybe this is a little bit tied to this. So um you've described, we've talked about the stages that um some organizations go through to become a revenue marketing organization. So, I mean, we talked about one thing there, right? Lack of understanding about how sales works, et cetera. But how like where do you see most companies getting stuck if they're not already like so? You said all these people raise their hand, yes, we've got a we've got a number to meet, but like a lot of them, in my experience, aren't actually able to communicate how they're doing that or struggle with it. So how where could they where are they getting stuck and how can they get over it?

Learn Sales To Build Credibility

Dr. Debbie Qaqish 9:32

I this is a great question. I mean, uh Jeff Pedowitz and I, we were just talking about this last week, how I never thought I'd be sitting in 2026 and we would still have this issue of credibility of marketing's impact on revenue. I I never, I never, I thought it would be done by now, just done, you know, be over. And I think it's in a couple of areas, and we've already talked about one, and that is that understanding of sales. Um, and and and it really that that lack of understanding of sales and that lack of collaboration with sales at a revenue level really permeates everything. But the other place that we can take a look at is your executive senior officers in the organization. If they believe that marketing is just a support function, then marketing will always be a support function. If you have a CEO, for example, I know CEO and CMOs that go from company to company, and it's always about driving revenue. The CEO is brought in to drive revenue, and the first thing they do is they bring a CMO that also knows how to use marketing to help drive revenue, right? Because there's a belief of what can happen. I still think there's a lot of old school mentality when it comes to sales versus marketing. And I think for those leaders who uh are stuck in that old uh mentality, it's doing more damage to the company than good. So it's uh it's a belief. And you know, you know, I'll give you an example, and I always give CMOs this advice. If your company wants to give you a number and they want you to operate like a revenue center, like a profit center, or you know, something along those lines, not just a cost center, then you have to be able to look them in the eye and tell them what you're not going to do. You cannot be the dumping ground for all projects. If you've got a revenue number, then you've got to use all of your skills, all of your talent, all of your resources to drive that number. And if you can't have that conversation and have your executive committee understand where you're coming from on that, you just you're just gonna be set up for failure. And I see executive committees do that a lot. They'll give marketing a number, 30% of pipeline, what you know, whatever the number is. And yet at the same time, they dump everything on top of marketing and they're expected to do everything. That is a failure of marketing leadership to push back and say, whoa, you got to tell me what is it that you want to have happen here, right? So I think it's the collaboration with sales is just positively number one. And and belief at the senior leadership levels of the best and highest use of marketing in their organization, I think is number two.

Michael Hartmann 12:34

Yeah. And I think, I mean, I would think of the the the revenue target stuff. There, I think there is a nuance there that I would go at, which is yes, revenue, like near-term revenue is definitely should be a part of it. But I think also long-term, which is where I think where a lot of, I see a lot of marketers sort of fall down here is that yes, they can probably get to this point of showing impact on near-term revenue, pipeline revenue. Um, and then they get struck, they struggle with the connection from things that are not near-term activities. So we'll call it brand kind of stuff, right? And that that does, I still do believe like intrinsically that there is value. It's just hard, it's harder to measure.

Dr. Debbie Qaqish 13:12

There is.

Michael Hartmann 13:14

And in it, and you don't see the results until it's like in the future far enough that it's harder to track it back. But I think you have to do the first one to earn the right to be able to do the other one.

Dr. Debbie Qaqish 13:25

You do, you do. And and I see brand actually a huge resurgence in the value of brand because customers really want authenticity now. People they're they're tired of all the machinations. They just, you know, help me do what I need to do, and I need for you to be authentic. And helping brands, you know, become that authentic uh entity for, you know, for their customers really is number one. And you do have some leadership committees who think that marketing is only about the brand and they can't, you know, they can't do both. And I've also seen organizations that they'll high they'll hire a brand-oriented CMO, you get them to a certain level, and then they need that revenue CMO, and that takes them up to the next level. I've seen that as well.

Michael Hartmann 14:14

Mm-hmm. Yeah. I think yeah, it's it's an interesting one. And I I just uh but I think it you you make a really good point that like the the marketing leader has to be able to be confident enough to push back on like they do. But but I think part of it is they've got to earn that respect. I mean, I I would the one I would add specifically in terms of senior leadership, that I if I was in the CMO role, I would absolutely CEO of obviously and the head of sales um for sure. The other one would be whoever's your head of finance, right? That could be your biggest advocate or your biggest problem, right? And I think that one is a missed opportunity.

Dr. Debbie Qaqish 14:49

Absolutely positively. Oh, I'm so glad you mentioned that, Michael. That's brilliant. The relationship you have with your uh CFO is absolutely instrumental. If if the CFO sees value that's coming from marketing, honey, your battle at the table is done. He or she will be your best advocate for that and can actually force quite a bit of change, including how sales and marketing work together. So that is a really good one, Michael. Absolutely. And having the CMO speak the language of finance, right? If you you just go in and talking about colors of the website and blah, I mean, nobody gives too about that, right? Um, they they care about can you talk the language of finance? Can you can you talk the language of business? And and you can earn that in space working directly with the CFO.

Michael Hartmann 15:47

Yeah. I mean, what I've found in a is you know, say maybe a CFO, but I have worked with CFOs, but say a finance partner for the marketing team is just like I have had them be the like help me work through how do I present the story about our impact because it is a storytelling thing. It is. And uh despite probably the the general view of finance or accounting people as not being creative, like I think they are pretty good at this.

Dr. Debbie Qaqish 16:17

They can be very creative because actually they always have to be storytellers of some kind.

Michael Hartmann 16:23

Yeah, yeah. We had an episode, gosh, it's probably closer to a year ago than six months ago where we had somebody talk about like we talked specifically about this, how if you listen to this is particularly true with public companies, right, at their earnings calls where the CFO is the one telling the story. And that's like that. I remember when the the person we it was a CMO we had on, and then I like it really hit me. I was like, yeah, that's actually true. They're really good at telling a story with the numbers. And I think a lot of CMOs can benefit from that, or marketing leaders in general.

Dr. Debbie Qaqish 16:53

So totally agree. Totally agree.

Leadership Belief And Pushing Back

Michael Hartmann 16:56

So where do you where do you see things going now? I guess you know you mentioned a couple of things, but you know, clearly AI has got to be in the conversation here. You know, it's it's changing fast. It's you know, it feels like it's accelerating in a lot of ways. How are you seeing that having an impact on marketing? And maybe let's go a little deeper into marketing ops too, in terms of what the what what's impacting them and what expectations are being placed on those teams?

Dr. Debbie Qaqish 18:45

I think that many people have completely uh the wrong idea about AI. I think that too many people at all levels of the organization and all parts of organizations are thinking about this as another piece of technology, and nothing could be further from the truth. It is a game changer at the scale we've never seen before, except for maybe the extinction of the dinosaurs. I'm I'm I'm not kidding, Michael. Okay, it is it is it is it is that big of a thing. Now, I always preface what I say with this. I am a big science fiction fan. I always have been. I remember watching the original episodes of Star Trek, and the first time I saw Jim Kirk pop that communicator up, I thought, oh my gosh, that's the coolest thing I've ever seen in my life, right? So I I'm a big science fiction fan. So for me, it's I always have a a broader view. And I think that AI is is changing every facet of we could just of our lives, but we could just keep it in marketing, you know, of our of our work life and in marketing. And if we take a look at uh let's take a look at marketing operations specifically, since a lot of your listeners are in marketing operations. Um I think that AI is a is a forcing function for marketing operations to step up and become extraordinarily strategic in the organization. And let me break that down. And you know, Michael, I've always been a big proponent of marketing ops taking being more strategic and less reactive, right? That's that's always been my thing. Um, and and I think there's a real forcing function for that right now. A lot of people are saying that AI for marketing operations or for marketing is becoming the central nervous system or the operating system. And I absolutely totally believe that. I always challenge people with this question. Okay, based on what you know about AI, let's say that you were going uh into a company right now, and they said, uh, Michael, I need for you to design for me a totally AI-enabled marketing ops organization. I'm holding up a piece of blank white paper right now.

Michael Hartmann 21:32

Right, for those who are who are just listening, nothing.

Dr. Debbie Qaqish 21:34

Yeah, just listen like what what would that look like? You would throw away so much of what you do right now, because it would just be a completely different world. And the thing about AI, unlike other prior technologies, where we kind of you know went along at a pace, that the pace of change, I mean, you need to start doing these white paper activities like now, because this is not messing around. This is this is not like taking a lot of time. And so if you if you think about marketing operations, and if you think about their knowledge of AI, the possibilities that AI can bring to an organization, and how do you reinvent how marketing happens in an AI world? Because that's what we're talking about. And the architects of that change could be perhaps the marketing ops team that's leading that change. Because who has a better vision and understanding of the possibilities with AI? It should be the marketing ops team. It it really, really, really should be. And so, you know, rather than taking a look at a campaign, the way we look at a campaign today, we should be looking at, you know, you AI helps us be always on. You launch something, you see how it's going, you optimize in real time. There's no back and forth and back and forth, right? So if you think about how AI is a forcing function to rewrite how the work of marketing gets done, beginning with the fact that the whole execution layer is gone, that is now should be done. A lot of the execution should be done by AI. And marketing at the end of the day has been an execution function for way too long, including you know, our marketing ops team. So if AI is gonna be now doing the The execution layer of things, what's left to do? What's left to do is the strategic work of how work should get done and how you can help drive revenue in the organization. So the role of marketing ops does become one that is significantly more strategic and thinking about is the what is the role of marketing ops now? Is it is it to um just show up and and marketing tells you what they need and then you build it? Nope, it's the other way around now. Marketing ops is now telling marketing here's what's possible with AI. Here's how we need to do marketing differently because of AI. Think about where that conversation is coming from, right? Yeah, it's coming from a very, very different place.

Michael Hartmann 24:39

I'm I wanna maybe challenge you a little bit on a couple of things. So you said that AI is fundamentally different than technology change. And I I I don't think I necessarily challenge that. I think it is a technology change for sure, but it's also much more than that, right? But there's also a change management component that goes to it, right? So you got the human psychology part and all that. So that absolutely needs to be a part of it.

Dr. Debbie Qaqish 25:02

But but the difference, but the difference, Michael, is you know, I remember when we started getting marketing automation systems or you know, or or CRM. I mean, you bought them and then they improved over time, but they didn't they didn't, they didn't know the pace of change now is they didn't have the massive jumps, right? So it's gonna be the ability of the marketing and the marketing ops organization to work in a when I say AI enabled, if you don't have cognitive flexibility, agility, uh curiosity, because it's never you're gonna every day that you come into work, you you could be doing something a different way because of AI.

AI Forces Marketing Ops To Rethink

Michael Hartmann 25:45

That's what I mean by it's not like do you think that sorry, that do you think that begs that there's a need for people who are a little more generalist in nature rather than specialists?

Dr. Debbie Qaqish 25:55

Absolutely, absolutely. I mean, it makes sense about it.

Michael Hartmann 25:59

Although I keep seeing, although if you look at job descriptions out there, they still tend to favor specialists.

Dr. Debbie Qaqish 26:04

They do. They do because again, what's happening is um we are breaking business models right now. That's what AI is doing. It is literally breaking old business models because the way you can do things now with AI is very different. You know, I uh I read somewhere that uh somebody said that one person can build a billion-dollar company with AI. Well, guess what? There was a New York Times article. My my friend was just telling me about it, he's gonna send me a copy of it, where somebody built a billion-dollar business with AI, like a single person, right?

Michael Hartmann 26:43

Right.

Dr. Debbie Qaqish 26:43

So, so when we get back to imagining what can be with AI, it is not like anything that we've experienced before. That it's the pace and the scale and the possibilities. It's the pace, the scale, and the possibilities. And so we have to completely reimagine how work will be done uh because of AI. Because we can be that faster or gonna win.

Michael Hartmann 27:15

So I think it also applies to the changing how we think about how the technology that we have needs to change and be.

Dr. Debbie Qaqish 27:23

Oh maybe all that's what's uh it's also gonna blow up. That's just gonna be blown up, right? Yeah.

Michael Hartmann 27:30

I can see a day where you don't want to Yeah, my concern about what you said though is that you and I want to believe that marketing apps will start to be seen and will behave more strategically. What we're reasoning about is with this new technology and how it's changing, and it makes so many things so possible quickly, is that it'll actually uh sort uh continue to maybe even more so pigeonhole, accelerate a pigeonholing of marketing apps as people who are doing app development basically, as opposed to being strategic. Am I off base there?

Dr. Debbie Qaqish 28:08

No, no, no, you're right. I I I I and I I just um had a a nice argument with somebody. Well, here's what we have to be careful about. We're using words that we've used, but when we use them in an AI context, they can't mean the same thing. For example, I was just on a conversation with somebody, and he says, you know, we're gonna be um uh what was the word that he used? Uh we're gonna be more data oriented. I'm like, uh, hell no, we're dying in data. We're drowning in data. It can't be the same words that we're using to it to explain these new possibilities. We're gonna have to think up some some new words because people associate words with what they know. And I think the same thing is true with AI. Um, I promise you this, Michael, a year from now we could have this call again, and marketing ops is gonna be completely rewritten because it is accelerating just that fast. And I think that again, if you think about the execution layer, and somebody gave me a really great example. You know, if you think about the execution layer, you think about agentic AI, it's always running, right? It's always like cleaning the data, putting stuff where it needs to go. You know, you don't need you don't need big old systems to do it. You know, it's uh it's an AI agent that just runs and keeps you know everything clean, right?

Michael Hartmann 29:43

Testing hypotheses, finding patterns, right?

Dr. Debbie Qaqish 29:47

And it's always improving, right? So, you know, the the the the function of marketing operations, it could be one person that just has a whole bunch of agents running around, right? But I but I do think that when we think about marketing ops, right now it just seems, it just seems like it what it's doing today is going to be archaic very soon. Let's just put it that way. What it will morph into, where the role will be, how that role will play out, I'm not I'm not quite sure yet. I'm still kind of looking and and and thinking about that. But the way it's done.

Michael Hartmann 30:28

I've given up on trying to predict because it just is changing so fast. It's interesting that you bring up the the language and the terminology that we use and being like being clear about it. Somebody um, this is yesterday, a friend of mine after a workout shared that an article that he had just read. I think it's a Wall Street Journal one, which I I it's gated, so I couldn't read it all. But the gist of it is that in the course of the like the last 14 years or so, the average number of words that we speak on a daily basis has dropped like 30 percent. Really? Yes, no, fascinating, right? So what that means is we're just talking less. Right. So that so what I found is talking is the best way to get clarification on what you mean on stuff, right? And if we don't have that as a practice and a capability, I'm actually kind of concerned. Like your point about I agree with you, but do we have people who are able to have those kinds of conversations to clarify?

Dr. Debbie Qaqish 31:30

And I and I, oh my God, Michael, this is such a brilliant point because the more you talk it out, the more it becomes real, the more you can think about things. And so one of the things that we need to be doing in every part of the organization, we'll talk about marketing and marketing ops, is you know, we need to be having these AI possibility conversations, right? And they're not meant to, when we walk away from this meeting, these are the three things that we're gonna do. We just need to be having those conversations because that is where you learn, that is where you can iterate, this is where you can create. Just like, just like with just like on your podcast, I'm sure, Michael, of all the people that you speak to, you're just constantly spinning up new ideas and new observations about what's happening in the market from the conversations that you're having. So that's a great idea. People should be having more conversations about this.

Michael Hartmann 32:32

Yeah. I mean, it's a little bit frightening, actually.

Dr. Debbie Qaqish 32:35

Yeah, it you know, it it is frightening, but here's what I always tell people no nobody's ahead of anybody else right now. Really, you know, very few people are we're we're kind of like all in the same place. So you're you're not gonna lose, you know, you know, but I I I I can't I I just can't express enough um the potential changes that will be happening in every part of an organization, but in marketing and marketing ops, especially. And I think the more we can have conversations around possibilities, and I want to go back to the conversation thing. Have you ever heard of uh this thing called the art of the insult?

Michael Hartmann 33:19

No, okay. No, I'm fascinated.

Dr. Debbie Qaqish 33:21

Okay, nobody did it better than Shakespeare, right? So he would have a whole soliloquy which was an insult, right? And and what do we say? Well, like, damn you, or you know, or something like that, right? It's just like, you know, one word. But um it and we are talking less. And I think especially for us in the world of technology, we typically narrow our our our phrases down a little bit, you know, too much. And um that's where that's where uh reading helps me. I mean, I'm an avid reader, I read all kinds of books, uh, fiction, nonfiction. And I think that is one of the things that helps me with my vocabulary. Because if if all you do is talk to the same people every day and use the same words, then of course you there's there's no expansion possibilities. But I got we need to find that.

Clarity Over Buzzwords In AI

Michael Hartmann 34:17

But the flip side of that, or is uh I'll see if I can find it or have somebody who can help me get it ungated. Anyway, so like I think the flip side of that also is getting too narrow in the way you the words you use in the choice of them is when you hear them from someone else, you also assume what they mean as opposed to listening to the context and going, like, is that doing are we saying the same thing? Because many of the challenge, like many of the frustrations I've had in my career were everyone in the room was saying the same thing, the words were the same, but no one had the same understanding of what we just talked about. Like the word lead, yeah, lead or campaign. Oh campaign, customer, right? Like there's all these words, right? Um, that in the marketing context that I tell people.

Dr. Debbie Qaqish 35:05

So the word was data driven. That that was, you know, you know, we have to become more data driven.

Michael Hartmann 35:10

Nobody knows that no one knows what that really means.

Dr. Debbie Qaqish 35:12

I think we're gonna be uh in the world of AI, it's gonna be uh it's gonna be really more having to do with uh clarity and decision making and judgment, right? I think those are coming to the fore because quite frankly, we're drowning in data now as it is, you know, and we just have to get we just have to get incisive about the data that we need and how we use it. And that's gonna take judgment and business sense.

Michael Hartmann 35:44

Well, I and I the way I think about it, I stop, I've tried to stop using data-driven when I can because I think it's there's an embedded assumption that there is a right answer to a lot of the questions we want to ask of the data. Um, and knowing that the quality of the data is always gonna be suspect, especially in a complex B2B marketing and sales role. I mean, it's just there's there's just it's not finance data, right? So I think there's a like don't assume this is gonna be better. I'm I'm I am bullish on the idea that AI can help improve that over time, right? Find things that are problems, et cetera, et cetera. But really, I like to use the term data informed, and that a lot of that is it's a nuance. But what I the reason I I choose that is because again, I'd like I think the the we had a guest on who kind of exposed me to this concept of the Kinevin framework, which I just can't get out of my head, which is there's like simple problems that have an obvious answer. There's complicated uh questions or or problems that have an answer, even like if you have the specialized knowledge, like Formula One vehicle, a car, right? If something's going wrong, usually like there's a solution. And then there's complex. A complex one is typically there is not a solution, right? So the best you can do is try stuff and see if it impacts the things you want to optimize for. You probably can't optimize for everything. And and I just I think marketing and sales, because you're dealing with I mean, it's the whole reason why behavioral economics became a thing, right? Because standard economics didn't describe the actual behavior of consumers, and I couldn't understand why people weren't making the right decisions. Right. The right the quote, right decision, right? Yeah, yeah. Um, we're not all logical all the time, and like anybody who's ever lived knows this.

Dr. Debbie Qaqish 37:33

But you bring up an excellent word, and that word is ambiguity. I think that more than uh any other time in marketing and marketing operations, the ability to work in an environment where all the answers are not immediately available, uh, that you will be working at ambiguity and for a long time to come because AI will continue to accelerate. And so when we take a look at the kind of leadership that requires in marketing operations, you know, it really is about putting in, it's really not so much that the leader is going to be the technical expert. It's gonna be that they are the environment and uh and architect of psychological safety at work, a place where experimentation can happen, um, a place where uh people are comfortable working with ambiguity, complex problems that aren't don't have immediate answers, and also constant change. So there has to be uh an environment or a culture where continuous change is now the norm, and you expect it, right? And in that, in that you have that experimentation that you were just talking about, right? And you and you have this constant exploration of new ideas, and that becomes part of the cultural fabric of the organization because that is the world that we that we live in now. That's that's where we are.

Michael Hartmann 39:13

Yeah, I mean, this is you're starting to touch on what um, I guess as I understand it right, the reason you started the growth factor is to address like the the mounting and continuously increasing pressure on marketers and marketing apps folks feels nonstop. Like so what what was the what did you see that was changing? Yeah, what was the catalyst for for you to do that? And like what are you trying to do with the growth factor?

Dr. Debbie Qaqish 39:38

Thank you for asking that, Michael. Here's what I saw. You know, I've I've been working directly with marketers since 2007. And um everything, you know, when you bring in a a new technology or help them use technology different, it just brings about a lot of change. And then AI kind of came in here. Um and what I was already observing through gasoline on the fire, right? Yeah, through gasoline on the fire. So so what even before AI, what was happening is that in corporate America, we used to have pressure cycles. Pressure, pressure, pressure, then you relax. And then you and then you went up again. And the pressure now is never ending, it never stops. So the first thing that I saw was guess what? We're we're not training marketers to perform under constant pressure. There are some very, very basic things that we could be doing. Um, and everything I do is from the world of science, from applied positive psychology and also neuroscience, right?

Michael Hartmann 40:44

Yep.

Resilience Skills For Constant Pressure

Dr. Debbie Qaqish 40:44

So whether it's uh whether it's uh a uh a system regulation before you push the button on that email that you want to send, or you know, whether it's uh the way that you communicate or it's your identity and your purpose, right? I mean, all of these things kind of come into the mix. So so the first thing that I saw was we we have a new environment, nobody's you know has has named it. I'm gonna name it because it's here and it's real. So, you know, how do we help marketers not only uh do well in that environment, but then also help them thrive at work, right? And thriving is just human performance at its best. And I think a lot of times, and and we all know what the world of work is like these days. We we've all seen the recent studies, we've seen the the rates of quiet quitting, we've seen the rates of people very unhappy and you know in the corporate world. And so it really has to do with um where people are and what people need. And so how to work under pressure, how to thrive at work, and then the banner around everything is just the AI world that we're in, because it it is like throwing C4 in the flames, right? It's not even gasoline, it's just C4. So I have all this pressure, or how do I, how do I do that? Okay, I can you what do you mean? You tell me I can be, I can be happy and thrive at work. What does that look like? Then all of that is in this AI world, which is just you know spinning everything out even further. And so again, I just take concepts from applied positive psychology and neuroscience, and I help marketers uh from the leadership level uh down to every part of the organization learn the skills that they need that nobody is teaching marketers right now, Michael. Right. Nobody. Um, and these are skills that they need to be successful and thrive at work.

Michael Hartmann 42:52

Well, probably in life, right?

Dr. Debbie Qaqish 42:53

I think Oh, it is life too. But I didn't want to give them that big with it, but yes, it is life as well. Absolutely.

Michael Hartmann 43:00

Yeah, I mean, the like I think this idea that we set that that we separate work life and personal life is actually a fallacy that we all believed in until COVID hit, right?

Dr. Debbie Qaqish 43:10

And the skills that I teach are universal, they can be used anywhere, anytime. But because I have a marketing background, um, I have I have intentionally built everything for marketing organizations.

Michael Hartmann 43:26

Okay. Yeah, so uh I remember uh when we talked before, you used the term, yeah, we have a I think you said caveman brain. Oh yeah, very modern brain. So it's interesting to me because like I've I've been listening to a lot of podcasts and other people talk about how, you know, evolutionarily, like evolution takes a long time to adapt, but the and it was fine.

Dr. Debbie Qaqish 43:50

We're not adapted. We have not biologically, we have not adapted to this world at all. And and when I talk about the lizard brain, I'm talking about the caveman brain, and that was the brain that kept us alive.

Michael Hartmann 44:02

Fight the amygdala, right? Flight, fight or flight, exactly.

Dr. Debbie Qaqish 44:07

It's all those things. And when you're in a constant state of pressure at work, you are using your caveman or cavewoman brain. You're using that lizard brain. And when you use that lizard brain, the neuroscience behind this is that everything else shuts down. You no longer have access to your prefrontal cortex, which is your thinking brain. And so you you you you make bad decisions, your world of possibilities shrink, and you're you cannot, you can't be your best. And and there are simple, and there are things that you do at work, which by the way, I'm gonna uh you all your listeners will get this thing called the leadership reset. It's a 10-minute reset you can do right at your desk to help you get out of lizard brain and into your thinking brain while you're at work, right? So it's just very, very simple techniques that are based in science. So they actually work.

Michael Hartmann 45:07

Well, yeah, and it's interesting. I one of the people I started listening to more is uh are you familiar with Andrew Huberman? Oh yeah, yeah. And I like I'm finding like I even um I used something last night when I was stressed out trying to go to sleep. And I, you know, it was just it was this very simple breathing technique thing that took literally seconds, and it like my whole body relaxed, right? It's a very it is seconds.

Dr. Debbie Qaqish 45:33

Breathing is the one thing that you can do when you're in complete fight or flight mode, your sympathetic nervous system is locked down. You have no access to anything else. Breathing is the single thing that will turn on your parasympathetic nervous system so that you can think or you can sleep or you can relax. Breathing is very powerful. It is not woo-woo, it is actual science.

Michael Hartmann 46:03

And it's funny because I thought it was woo-woo and until I tried it. And um, and uh I would I would demonstrate it for people, but because it is not my area of expertise, I'm not gonna do that. And so people are just listening anyway. But I, you know, it's it reminds me of when I decided I should try yoga, uh, mostly because like I thought, oh, I'm a runner and I'm like I do all the stuff I need to be more flexible and have more, which never really took. But the thing I tell people it's weird to me, like I still remember from doing yoga was all related to it was breathing, yes, but it was more like awareness of what's going on in my body, very like very specifically.

Dr. Debbie Qaqish 46:39

It's being present and and it is this mind-body connection, which we have zero sense of in our in in our modern society, right? I mean, you can get you know you can get a PhD and mind-body connection right now is so powerful.

Michael Hartmann 46:57

I did not know that.

Dr. Debbie Qaqish 46:58

Yes, and yes, you can.

Michael Hartmann 47:00

But like I tell people, well, and I tell people I learned like I could I could be out for a run and feeling myself like getting tense and go, okay, I'm gonna relax my legs and then my body, my shoulder, and I could do it and still run.

Dr. Debbie Qaqish 47:13

And it's always weird sort of it sounds counterintuitive, but it was the mind is very, very powerful, and a lot of times our body is giving us signals that something's not quite right. Um, and you if there's one thing I've learned from positive psychology, we are the stories that we tell ourselves. So change your damn story.

Michael Hartmann 47:33

Yeah.

Dr. Debbie Qaqish 47:34

As simple as that. And you can we can you can literally rewire the synapses in your brain.

Michael Hartmann 47:43

Yes. I mean, that the the idea of plasticity, right? Is plasticity. When I first heard about that, is is which fairly new.

Dr. Debbie Qaqish 47:52

It wasn't until like 30 years ago. We we thought we had what we had, and then we we lost and we died, and you know, and that was it. But but yeah, these habits that that and and these skills that I give to people actually help them rewire their brain into a positive, more fully functioning person.

Michael Hartmann 48:12

Yeah, I I couldn't agree more. Well, while we we're we're kind of wrapping up, getting close to the time we need to wrap up here, but I'd like to go a little bit deeper. We talked a little bit about this change, like it's a universal thing. How how do you see this playing out in terms of impacting the way that leaders need to work? Um, because they're also dealing with the change, the pressure. You talked about setting you know, creating spaces for psych psychological safety and experimentation. What were like, how would you guide people who are either in leadership roles or about to be in leadership roles to start getting ready for what the real world is like at this point?

Dr. Debbie Qaqish 48:51

Yeah. And and again, uh, thank you for that question as well. I actually have a new leadership uh curriculum um that I'm uh developing right now. And um, because I've given a lot of thought to what is what will what does leadership look like today? How are we preparing and training our leaders?

Michael Hartmann 49:16

And we're not, by the way.

Dr. Debbie Qaqish 49:19

We're not, by the way. Yep. Yeah, and um, especially in marketing, and um, and and what does the leader in an AI-driven world need to look like? So again, there's there's there's two elements. There's you know, the always on pressure, and then there's the thriving, and then all of that in this AI, you know, driven world. And then what does that leader look like? How is that leader different from you know, kind of like the old, you know, playbook kind of leader?

Michael Hartmann 49:52

Right. And many control kind of leader, right?

The New Leadership Job Description

Dr. Debbie Qaqish 49:55

Exactly. And I think that some of the things that I already talked about, I I think that rather than this leader being any kind of uh expert, you know, specifically in an area, I think they're they are they have to create a culture of constant change, curiosity, um humanistic, um coaching, learning, growing, and um because AI is going to be doing so much of the work for us, the execution, and what's left are you know the judgment, the critical thinking and working. Creativity. Creativity, yes, yes, creativity. Uh, you know, for example, um one of the things that I I when I coach, I always have people do, I have them do their character strengths, right? And like my top three character strengths are bravery, which is why I'm always entrepreneur. It is um love of excellence. I I love seeing excellent things and it's creativity, but it's not creativity in that I can draw, it's creativity in that I can, you know, create models and you know, and and and do things like that. So I think that the leaders will need to be, because they're not gonna be functionally driven in their knowledge, they need to be driven by their their purpose of, you know, and their identity, which is going to be, I think, very important. And I think that they need the number one job is to create a culture in which their organization can flourish. And that's a different job description. It's just very different. And psychological safety in this new world, Michael, is huge. And psychological safety is nothing more than people feel like they can speak up at any time.

Michael Hartmann 52:04

And they'll be heard, yeah.

Dr. Debbie Qaqish 52:05

And and the and they'll be respected and and and they and you know, and the and they will be heard. So, you know, so do I need a CMO that is a top expert in branding or a top expert in lead generation or demand generation? Do they need to know it? Yes, but their ability as a change agent and to create a culture of constant change, curiosity, experimentation, um, I think those are going to be some of the big differences that we're gonna see. The other thing is this is that they have to also be able to sustain themselves within this, their their energy, their drive, and their motivation. And you know, we we're doing everything we can in corporate America to wipe all that out by just working people to death. So that that that self-care part is going to be a very important component, and then allow their team to do the same thing. So there are many, many facets to it. And again, I don't I don't think anybody has any curriculum or anything like this just for the marketing organization. And uh, so that is where I that's where I am.

Michael Hartmann 53:22

Yeah, you know, the word that that I'm thinking of that came through all that is is um establishing trust, right? Trust in your leader, trust with each other, trust with your counterpart. Like I to me, that's like and and trust means um sometimes you're gonna get honest feedback that you don't want to hear. So that's part of big like because if it's not if it's not done, it can also undermine, right?

Dr. Debbie Qaqish 53:48

That's and and that's where transparency will also be very important.

Michael Hartmann 53:53

And and just one other transparency with the humanity. You said humanity too. And I think a lot of people like, oh, I'm gonna be trans, I'm just being honest with you, but I'm gonna be an asshole about it. It's not the same as being, I'm gonna be transparent with you, yeah, but still respect your humanity.

Dr. Debbie Qaqish 54:07

That's exactly right. That's exactly right. So, anyway, and and again, um we're gonna see flatter organizations, we're gonna see different or models, we're gonna see, you know, so many changes in in the world of work. And uh, you know, we've just begun to explore what that will look like for marketers and and marketing operations.

Michael Hartmann 54:30

Love it. Dr. Gagish, thank you. We could have gone on for a while, I think.

Dr. Debbie Qaqish 54:35

Yes, we could have, Michael. Thank you so much. I really enjoyed the show and and thank you for allowing me to share kind of what I'm seeing in the market and what I'm doing because I'm very passionate about it.

Michael Hartmann 54:45

I'm very so so with that, yeah. If people if people want to um continue like to learn more, since we didn't cover probably everything we could have, like what's the best way for them to?

Dr. Debbie Qaqish 54:55

Uh growthfactor.us is the website, and there's 10 million ways to contact me on the website as well as my LinkedIn profile, you know, book a meeting, find out more. And again, I'll be providing the leadership reset for your listeners so they can uh you know get rid of that lizard brain and and bring their thinking brain back while they're at work.

Michael Hartmann 55:20

Fantastic. Well, thank you again. It's been a pleasure. It's always fun talking to you. And uh thanks to our uh our supporters, listeners, viewers now. Uh we always appreciate that. If you have ideas for topics or guests who want to be a guest like Dr. Gagish, then please reach out to Naomi, Mike, or me. We'd be happy to get the ball rolling to the next slide. Thank you, Michael.