November 24, 2020 • 60 mins
In this episode we're talking to Lorena Morales, VP of marketing at Go Nimbly.
Get ready for a wild ride through the lessons of becoming a marketing leader: from moving to the US as an immigrant student to the often-overlooked importance of self-awareness and its impact on building a happy team.
Other topics we dive into:
- the role of speed and adaptability in marketing
- how to measure branding ( if you think you can't, give this episode a listen!)
- why sleep is on her one on one meeting checklist
Upraw media: https://uprawmedia.com/
Episode highlights: https://uprawmedia.com/blog/lead-go-nimbly
If you are keen to know more about Upraw Media or be a Masters of SaaS guest speaker, visit uprawmedia.com or DM us on LinkedIn. We are also on Youtube if you'd like to put a face to the names and voices of the best in SaaS. Thanks for tuning in!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Todd Chambers (00:08):
Hey guys, welcome to the Masters of SaaS podcast
brought to you by Upraw Media, agrowth marketing agency for SaaS
specialising in paid mediacontent and conversion rate
optimisation. I'll be your host,Todd Chambers. I have the
absolute pleasure of chattingwith really smart people from
the SaaS industry. The goal isto extract as much value as
(00:29):
possible. What are theirstrategies, the tactics, the
failures, funny stories, keylearnings? All of this can then
be used to help you grow andscale your own SaaS business.
In this episode, I speak withLorena Morales, the VP of
Marketing at Go Nimbly, a SanFrancisco based revenue
operations company withapproximately 15 million ARR and
(00:50):
50 plus headcount. As always, wecover a lot of ground.
Firstly, we discuss Lorena'sstruggle as a Mexican immigrant
to make a successful life andcareer in the US. in her own
words; she had pretty much zerochance of making it Silicon
Valley. But her stubbornness andpersistence, among other things,
made the difference.
I wanted to lean into Laura'smarketing experience, so we
(01:12):
touch on the role of speed andadaptability in marketing, being
self-aware and how yourpersonality type influences
leadership and management,justifying spend on brand and
the unmeasurable, and how toensure as a manager, you don't
lose that execution sharpness.
We wrap things up nicely on apersonal note, with the
importance of sleep, protectingyour own time, and Lorena's
(01:34):
weird obsession with watches. Itwas a fun episode, and I hope
you guys enjoy it.
Lorena, welcome to the show!
Lorena Morales (01:41):
Thank you, Todd.
It's such a pleasure to be withyou and let's see what you can
get out of me! Not a lot ofpeople get a lot of information
from this Mexican but let's saylet's see how it goes.
Todd Chambers (01:54):
I will definitely do my best. Well, if you don't
mind, we can start off with yourkind of background and your
heritage. I believe you'recurrently based in the Bay Area,
but that wasn't always the case.
How did you kind of end uppursuing the American dream and
ending up in the US if that'sthe right way to put it?
Lorena Morales (02:12):
Oh, the famous American dream. As I said, I am
Mexican. I was born and raisedin Mexico City, my Mexico lindo
querido. That wasn't always thecase As you said, I also lived
in Argentina and a couple ofother places in Latin America
(02:34):
before I actually came to theUS. The reason why I pursued
coming here for graduateeducation was I call it life.
You know, it was never in myplans.
Actually, I was accepted to theUniversity of Carnegie Mellon in
Australia. I am the youngest ofthree siblings, and I come from
(02:56):
a very traditional family, sowhen my mother got the news, of
course, she was super excited.
But she, you know, like thiskind of mental game that your
parents do. And like, I'm sohappy for you, which is crying
at the same time, becauseAustralia, she knew she wouldn't
be able to see me that often andI am very, very close to my
(03:18):
mother. So that's a moment whenI started to see other options.
And soon enough, we came as afamily to San Francisco in a
trip in a Christmas. Actually, Iremember it very well. When I
was here, we were staying in oneof the hotels at the top of the
heels in downtown. And Iremember saying to my father,
(03:40):
like "I'm gonna live here". Idon't know when I don't know
why, I don't know how, but I amgonna live in this city. I
couldn't help it, and SanFrancisco was love at first
sight. I don't even believe inthose type of things, but that
was a moment, that was a yearprobably it was 2009 around
(04:02):
those years.
And my father told me like,yeah, of course, let's go and
have breakfast because I'mstarving. And then when I came
back to Mexico, there was thisinternational business school
that reached out to me afterthey knew I had other
opportunities. Also, my otherplan was to move to Paris to th
(04:24):
HEC. I just realised that it wan't downtown Paris, so my dr
am school schooling exerience was not going to be as
dreamable, so I was like, "yu know what? No, I don't kn
w". And this international scool, Hult, they had a very in
(04:45):
ernational programme as well, mening that you could rotate ev
ry couple of months to cities lie Rio de Janeiro to Dubai, to li
e very exotic places. And I'e always had a very exotic pe
sonality. So, I said, "You knowhat, this is the place" and
one of their locations was preisely San Francisco. So gue
(05:08):
s what?
I ended up applying; I hadalready my Jima and JRI, all the
fun stuff that all every singleimmigrant has to go through. And
I applied, they gave me ascholarship, and I came here in
2012. After being here, Irealised that I didn't even want
(05:30):
to rotate in the programme,because I understood that I
needed to build a network. Andthat was very hard for me as an
introvert. So I sacrificed onething for another, right? Like
you can't have everything inthis life. I stayed my entire
programme here in San Franciscoto start to understand the
companies, how to apply to a jobin the US, how to even
(05:55):
understand how to talk to peoplein the US. You don't have to
meet the same applications herein the in the US. And in Mexico,
for God's sake, in Mexico, youcan have your picture in your
resume, which is kind of f*ckedup if you ask me. But
understanding all thoseprocesses was was super hard for
me. And that's how I ended uppursuing the American dream, by
(06:20):
education. It's the only theonly way that I know how to
thrive in life.
Todd Chambers (06:25):
Yeah, and what did your chances look like? An
immigrant coming from Mexico toSilicon Valley, what kind of,
realistically, your chances ofmaking it and getting a VP of
Marketing type job in a companylike Go Nimbly, which we'll get
to soon?
Lorena Morales (06:42):
Oh, my God, I would say zero to none. Here's
the reality (06:49):
back in the 80s, and 90s, Mexicans, we are very
agile. We're an agile culture,we're going to find a way, and I
can promise you that. The badpart of that is that all the
immigrants that came to the USback in those years, they found
(07:10):
a way, and it wasn't the rightway of doing things. And with
that, they put a stigma. Andthey created these, what I
thought was a cliche of like,the US things. This concept of
Mexicans that every singleMexican that comes to the US is
(07:31):
not educated, they are comingfor the wrong reasons, and they
are coming to steal something tothe US citizens. When in
reality, the new generations ofMexicans are very well educated
people. I'm very capable. Andjust in general, Mexico City
right now, for example, is a hubfor tech, which not a lot of
people know.
(07:52):
So that's when I say, my chanceswere zero because back in 2012,
I heard people telling me like,you know, Lorena, the system in
the US is one of the mostpenalised, and you're going to
have to spend probably 15 yearsof your life just getting to
know potentially, and you'regoing to have to be depending on
(08:13):
companies and on processes thatare hurtful and that are going
to be a challenge. And they werenot lying, Todd. Day one that I
came here, there was not a pairof open arms waiting for me and
saying like "Hey, welcomeMexican", it was the opposite.
(08:35):
The good thing is that with thisschool that I was mentioning,
where I did my first master'sdegree, we were all in the same
boat. We were all immigrants, wewere all very international
people, and that made me feelthat I could have a chance if I
worked hard enough. And that'swhat I did. I started to
(08:56):
understand people the best waythat I could. And people
believed in me, so I never, Idon't think I never disappointed
anyone that gave me anopportunity. And I worked my
tail three to five times morethan the usual American if you
have to say like that. Yeah.
Todd Chambers (09:17):
Though, that leads nicely on to my next
question, which is (09:19):
were there any special characteristics or
traits that you think you have?
Either from your Mexicanupbringing, something from your
family or just somethingintrinsically new? What was it
about you that kind of managedto break out and actually make
it and be the person you aretoday?
Lorena Morales (09:36):
I think this is gonna sound weird, but, out of
the three of us, my siblings andI, I am the one that has been
very solitary since I'm very,very little.
My family is like you have toknow them. They like to spend a
lot of time together, and now Ihave two beautiful nephews that
I talk about in every singlepodcast just because I have to
(10:00):
and they love to stick together.
I was always very solitary. Itwas easy for me to kind of be
attached to a certain level anduse visualisation tools or
psychology, psychology tools oflike, picturing what I want in
my life and going after that.
(10:22):
The second thing, I'm stubbornas hell, like I haven't known
anyone as stubborn as I am,which is a good thing, but it's
also a bad thing. But on thegood side of it, I always knew
the path to staying in the USnot only as an immigrant but as
(10:45):
a Mexican immigrant. And Iliterally, I cried a lot, so I
always live with notebooks like,here is the proof of that. All
my life I've been doingjournaling and like stuff like
that. So I literally visualisedthings, and I wrote down the
things that I needed to do inorder to succeed. And I didn't
(11:08):
check off the bullet point untilI achieved that thing and I kept
a journal of my successesbecause you know what Todd, the
reality is that after 13 yearsof uncertainty; and not only
uncertainty but ambiguity. It'svery tough for the brain to
believe that it's time to giveup because you have better
(11:30):
chances, even in your homecountry or even in Europe or
because that's true. I do haveother opportunities in other
places in the world but I just Ican't let go of San Francisco, I
can't.
Todd Chambers (11:43):
That's almost like the stubbornness within you
is. Stubborn that you will seethis go through and you will
persist no matter what. So it'skind of stubbornness backed
persistence.
Lorena Morales (11:56):
Yes. And like that curiosity, it's a
combination of things, right?
You're never a one qualitything. You're always like pieces
of characteristics or pieces ofpeople or pieces of moments. My
father, for example, is alsothese. I come from a successful
family. Both my mother, myfather, my grandparents, were
(12:17):
successful people, aresuccessful peopleboth in the
business and in their personallives. I grew up understanding
success, and that might sound alittle arrogant, but that's all
I knew when I was little andexpectations were freaking high
on me. Also, that developed achip in my mind that I put
(12:42):
myself that nobody else put it.
Of expectations of myself aswell that went way, way, way
high to the roof. And I'vealways seen that as a good
thing.
Todd Chambers (12:57):
Yeah, that's nice. And we can talk more about
that as we go on with theinterview. But just to even get
some context of your currentposition and your current role.
Maybe you can just explain, GoNimbly, your position within it
and then any kind of contextinto the company size, revenue,
anything you're kind ofcomfortable sharing.
Lorena Morales (13:16):
Sure, um, Go Nimbly is not only the first one
in the field, but it's the onlycompany doing executional work
on revenue operations. What thatmeans is that we see it on the
operations teams of companieslike Zendesk, Twilio, Pager
duty, we have helped some ofthem go to all the way through
(13:38):
IPO. And it's been a really funroller coaster. Before the
pandemic, our forecasting was tohit 20 million ARR. That didn't
happen, of course, but we arevery close to 15, which is
(13:58):
something that you don't seethat often in a consultancy
space. We have grown year overyear of 100%. We even opened our
third office back in 2019theends of 2019, where Chicago.
Today, we still have thatoffice, we have the New York
office, our secondary home,let's say, and we have San
(14:21):
Francisco the headquarters.
Todd Chambers (14:23):
Yeah, okay. So I personally am not hugely
experienced in revenueoperations, and I was just doing
my research for this podcast.
I'm just gonna read thisparagraph and then maybe you can
stress test and kind of expand
upon it (14:36):
revenue operations is the alignment of sales,
marketing and customer success,operations across the full
customer lifecycle to drivegrowth, through operational
efficiency and keep all teamsaccountable to revenue. This
holistic approach is designed tobreak down silos between
departments." Do you thinkthat's like an accurate
depiction of in your mind of Revops?
Lorena Morales (15:00):
That's kind of our fancy definition because
probably you found that in oneof our fancy sites. It is very
accurate. Important keywordshere: breaking down silos,
success and operations, and themost important thing here is the
(15:21):
customer lifecycle.
So in fewer words, it's whatrevenue operations do, like when
you put it to practice, and youbecome an organisation in the
actual transformation to revenueoperations, instead of legacy
operations. What happens is, youalign your entire GTM team and
(15:43):
operations team to always lookat revenue. And the thing is you
have to be customer-obsessed.
There is no other way to succeedin revenue operations. I have
said this before the dayswhere there were companies
product-based are gone, and theyare gone for good. Today, it's
(16:04):
either customer-based companiesor what I like to call
relationship-based companies.
Because that's the way thatthrough the methodology of
revenue operations, you canstart to identify revenue
leakages through your funnel,and that's pretty much what it
(16:26):
means. And then let's say theconsequence of doing this
effectively is that you aregoing to break silos in each of
the departments that I havementioned already.
Todd Chambers (16:39):
Yeah. So you're not actually a software company.
You're actually more of a I'mnot sure if you have an agency
is a right way to depict it, butyou're more of a human-driven,
giving strict strategy andexecution support led by humans
as opposed to software wouldthat be a fair thing?
Lorena Morales (16:57):
I love the word human; it's my favourite word in
English. Yes, we're veryhuman-led. Actually, humans are
our product, because we deploy,we have the capacity to deploy
entire teams or just singlepeople in these companies to, it
can be as tactical as it'sneeded, or as strategic as a
(17:21):
company needs or wants. It cango both ways. Ideally, we have a
mix of tactical work andstrategic work, which has been a
very interesting journey. As oftoday, we are not a product
company. I can't tell you moreabout that. But there's a very
(17:45):
interesting 2021 for Go Nimbly.
Todd Chambers (17:48):
Yeah, interesting. Why did you choose
Go Nimbly? Was there somethingthat stood up about the company
or?
Lorena Morales (17:55):
Oh boy, Todd, that's a funny one. It's
actually the first company thatI get to choose in my career
here in the US because beforethat, I was tied to a VISA, and
Go Nimbly is the first onethat's not the case.
I chose the industry first, soSaaS. Our primary customers are
(18:17):
SaaS. And even though I hadfriends here and there that
worked, like at Twilio or likeLinkedIn; If you live in in the
Bay Area, you are gonna know anengineer in one of these
companies. And even though Iknew them, and I heard of them,
(18:38):
I never really got to see thesecompanies inside. What I mean by
inside is how they functionoperationally. And like the
things that made them orqualified them as being a
hyper-growth company.
When I saw what Go Nimbly wasdoing, of course, I had zero
(19:00):
ideas about what was revenueoperations. It's like someone
told me to eat entirely new foodand I didn't even have the
silverware to eat it, you know.
But that has never been theproblem for me because if I
believe in something is inlearning and on learning things,
so I was not worried. But when Iinterviewed with them their
CEO is this very particularcharacter. He happens to be my
(19:23):
boss and my friend today, JasonRyko. And when he interviewed
me, he saw something on me withmy background in branding and
design thinking and all thesethings that not only I applied
to my job, but I am genuinelypassionate about.
(19:44):
He has a little bit ofbackground in advertising as
well as design. He's also a verykind of in the art type of
type-of-guy. So I think weconnected automatically and
then, of course, I knew our CSO,our CRO, our Director of
Operations. And all of them areincredible people. Like let
(20:08):
alone the talent. The talent Iknew it was there because this
was new. It was a company thathas been profitable since day
one. The CEO was not afterfunding. So that for me was a
relief. I've been working withCEOs all my life and the
difference between being with aCEO that is after funding and a
CEO that number one believes inmarketing and second, that is
(20:29):
involved in marketing, it'sheaven on earth. So that was
Jason. And when I saw that, andit was a new thing, I'm telling
you, when I'm curious aboutsomething, I can't, I need to
let it consume me; otherwise, Iwon't sleep. Well, I don't sleep
that much anyway, but it'ssomething that I need to pursue.
(20:50):
So that's why I ended up with acrazy Jason Reichl. It's been a
little more than two years and ahalf running their, their
marketing department as their VPof Marketing.
Todd Chambers (21:01):
Okay, and you were initially hired a VP of
marketing. Do you mind give mesome context to kind of the size
of the team currently and whatthe scope of your role covers?
Lorena Morales (21:12):
We are about 54 employees. I don't know the
exact number because with thepandemic, like numbers kind of
fluctuated a little bit. But Ithink that would be accurate to
say. And, and the other questionwas, what was the other
question?
Todd Chambers (21:31):
Goodness me, I can't even remember. But I will
ask you another question,though, funding. A common thread
I always hear from peopleactually on this show and
actually speaking some of ourcustomers is when you have a
company that's chasing funding,as you put it, the kind of the
mindset is very different. Canyou just touch on, you just
Lorena Morales (22:00):
I actually meant like heaven and hell, but sure.
It can be heaven on earth if youare not pursuing funding. Here's
the difference (22:12):
I've been working the last decade for
almost exclusively for startups.
And when you have the head ofthe entire management team, or
leadership team, however youwant to call it just focusing on
like how to get more money andtouch ,and he said it was heaven
and earth? Can you just talk onhow to make the businesses stay
afloat, it's really hard for maketing, or the marketing le
(22:34):
der to execute on the vision ofthat CEO, let's call him or he
because they are not avathat a little bit?
lable to you. It's not their jobThey're almost out of the cou
That can be a positive thing ifyou are little in later stages.
t.
(22:55):
I believe that if you're inseries, for example, C, V all
the way to IPO or after IPO, itshouldn't be the CEO job to be
right there with marketing. Butin their early stages, I think
you do need someone that isfocused in, "okay, how are we
going to sell this?" and someonethat understands the clients in
(23:19):
the most human way so they canork together with marketing an
the CEO or marketing and sles. Because otherwise, you e
d up with the silos that wewere talking about in a little
hile ago, where you say, "youknow what? I'm marketing, I'm
gonna have my own KPIs and sale, you can and do whatever you
want, and be loud and like, bethere in your corner, and tha
(23:41):
's how we're going toIdeally, that's not how you want
to do things from the verybeginning because the truth is
what we've seen with companiesthat we have helped from very
early stages like Lattice isthat at the end, that pain that
you're feeling internally onlike, "Oh, sales are complaining
to me about leads or marketingis bickering about, Hey, why are
(24:05):
you not doing anything with theleads that are coming in?" That
bickering that you're feelinginternally guess who is feeling
it as well? Your customer.
When your customer feels thatfriction, it's something that is
really hard to change when youare in late stages. It's not
(24:26):
impossible. Revenue operationsis a solution, of course. But
that's what I am telling youabout the difference between
when you have a CEO that it'sinvolved in the day to day GTM
strategy or that it's involvedin what we call that going in
with a revenue team. Whereas aCEO that is always talking or
(24:47):
like seeing venture capitalistsor like working in PowerPoint
point presentations, which bythe way, I've also been with
that CEO and my job has changeddramatically over these last
decade where I've doneeverything from content to paid
acquisition to like talking toVCs, I think I became a very
(25:07):
well rounded marketer, kind ofthe Jane of all trades. But
yeah, it's huge, like thefeeling for the marketing leader
is tremendously huge, becausethat's what, it's not a
coincidence that the tenure ofthe CMO is the lowest in the C
level suite. And I think thathas something to do with it.
Todd Chambers (25:28):
No, that's really interesting. I actually didn't
know that. It sounds like you'vedone many different roles, and
you've worn different hats overthe years. And it ties quite
nicely into this, and if youdon't mind, I just wanted to
read you just this quote, whichis the I'm sure you're familiar
with, which is the only constantin life is change. So on that
(25:48):
note, how important do you thinkspeed and adaptability are in
marketing?
Lorena Morales (25:56):
I would even remove the word important. It is
crucial. It is crucial if youwant to be in the marketing
world. Because if you comparethe functions in an
organisation, and if you lookhistorically, this doesn't come
from me as these come from realexperts in the field. Even from
(26:17):
Forester Research, wheremarketing has been the
department that has experiencedthe most change in the last
let's say, two decades, than anyother instance of the revenue
team. That needs a specific typeof mentality or individual to
(26:45):
run those things.
You can only be effective orhave an impact to revenue if you
understand that, for example,you start asking the right
questions of like, "okay, howmany leads of our pipeline were
(27:06):
actually close to our ICP?".
Those questions you couldn'teven ask them yourself, what,
like 10 years ago. And nowbecause of the automation that
happened, we have moreinformation than ever. And
that's on the internal sideOn the external side, now you
have a customer, that it's notonly super high maintenance,
(27:28):
which they should have. Weshould have been those customers
from day one. Advertising was alie. Back in the 60s in the 70s,
it was all about manipulating.
And that for me, felt wrong.
Today, you need to do marketingthat. I mean, it's a great time
to be a marketer if you ask mebecause now not only we have the
(27:51):
trust of the customer becausethey can see everything, it's
like they have these laservision where they can see
through the entire company, butespecially marketing, your
customer is going to know ifyou're selling something that is
not good for them or that is nota fit.
And with that, what it happenedis that marketing has to be like
(28:15):
once you have your qualifiedleads, and once you have that
alignment with your sales team,and once you understand your
CFO, and once you understand thestretch of your land and expand,
that's the moment that you cankind of be a more strategic
leader. But what if you don'thave those things, and if your
(28:36):
systems, for example, are notconnected, you are going to be
the person that it's 60% of yourtime very tactical, very kind of
making sure that those thingshappen. And the other 40% you're
going to be talking about likebrand and like, like awareness
in general and things that aremore high level and that our
(28:57):
people would call them more fun,for me is not about what is fun
and what is not fun. For me is"what is more what what what
gives more impact to the to thebusiness". And that might be a
different thing in seed fundingthan in series C or D.
Todd Chambers (29:14):
Yeah, yeah, for sure. Maybe we can just take a
bit of a left turn and talkabout managing a team.I'm sure
you've built your own team, andyour core function now is
managing and getting the bestout of your team. Do you have
any kind of key learnings orobservations or advice that you
(29:34):
would give to someone that wasspecifically looking to set up a
marketing team?
Lorena Morales (29:40):
Oh, wow, this is one of my favourites, and I'm
gonna tell you why - because Iended up managing things by
coincidence. I'm sorry people,but yes, it was a coincidence. I
perfect coincidence that someoneup there put in front of me and
I decided to take theopportunity. But honestly, this
is gonna sound weird. The Lorenaof 10 years ago, didn't like
(30:04):
people at all. Like I hadreally, really big trust issues.
I mean a lot of Mexicans do,honestly. But especially me, I
been I'm telling you all my lifeI've been very extremely
introverted I find my energy in,in being by myself in reading
books in learning. I'm an IMTJpersonality. Not that it
(30:30):
matters, but there are somecertain traits that apply to
those people. And so when myfirst opportunity of managing a
team arose not only I needed ajob, but I needed to say yes
because an immigrant can'tafford to lose a job. That's it;
(30:51):
I can't be more transparent.
The first thing that happenednd that taught me a huge lesson
s when you start managing, iteans that automatically you
top being the do-er. You don'to things anymore. Your job
hanges dramatically to beinghe person that is more coaching
(31:15):
omeone else, or that it'saking sure that your people are
eeling good emotionally, orhat your people are in the
ight positions, or that youreople like the things that are
ay more people-oriented thannything else. And at the very
eginning, I said like, Oh myod, "am I gonna be good at
his?" because I don't, I don'tike to be the psychiatrist or
(31:38):
y friends. I really don't, andthey know that. Even though I
end up being that person, Idon't ask for it. It's not, it's
not like a comment on me yor entire life, because that
s something that I enjoy. Buthat I do enjoy are mean
ngful conversations.
And then I realised that I wasvery good at connecting with
(31:59):
people on a deeper level. Sotoday, eight, nine years after
So my recommendation for someoneis: making sure that you want to
that first experience, my teamat Go Nimbly, it's one of the
things that I am most proud of,because not only they didn't
have the experience in reenue operations. Nobody had th
same thing when they hired mebecause revenue potential re
(32:20):
enue operations wasn't a thng back in 2018. Today, not on
y they are crazy effective at thir job, but they are happy hu
ans at their jobs. And they hae told me that to my face, li
e, "Hey, you know what, this habeen the best job that I've ha
. And I think you have soething to do with that". So ev
(32:40):
n though I have trouble caling myself a leader, I think I
m very good at understanding mypeople. And that's a full-ti
e job.
be around people, that you wantto be the person that makes s
(33:04):
re that your team has as a leafor at least eight hours; tha
you want to be the person tht is not doing things anymore. Y
u're not gonna receive a pat ithe back. Recognition is out o
(33:24):
the door at that moment, becuse, again, you're not going
o be fixing things or at leasnot the tactical things that
have a bigger impression in thecompany. You're going to be kind
of the back-end person of theorganisation. But if you do it
(33:44):
right, and if you like thatsensation of "I have to do with
he potential of this perso, and I get to see these perso
bloom to their entire, full,full potential". For me, there
is no better feeling. So justake sure that you under
tand what it takes to deal witpeople on the on a daily basi.
Todd Chambers (34:07):
Yeah, it's interesting. You were speaking,
and correct me if I'm wrong,that maybe you're more of an
introvert. How important is itto have self-awareness around
the kind of who you are as aperson your own personality
traits? And then using that tolean into being a manager or
leader? Can you speak on that?
Lorena Morales (34:25):
That's what I talk about every single day. The
introspective work that it'sneeded and this is not only in
marketing people, it'sespecially important also in
sales, also in product. I thinkin every instance if you are
going to be managing a team ormanaging a department even if
you don't don't manage a team. Ithink that the self-awareness,
(34:50):
homework that you need to doevery single day on yourself,
it's primarily gonna beimpacting how you present
yourself at work.
If you don't know, the firstthing that you need to
understand is the areas whereyou need to improve. And
believing in the honesty andbelieving in humility and
(35:12):
believing just seeing the truth,in general, is gonna set you
apart from the other leaders. Ifyou come to the table saying
"hey, you know what? I amfantastic at doing these million
things".
The reality, at least inmarketing, is that you're not
gonna find that unicorn thateveryone wants. The Super CMO
that has taken a company to the100 and $50 million ARR and they
(35:38):
scaled in one year and a half.
Well, yeah, but that was notonly marketing. That was, that
was your entire team, and atleast, I don't know, a single
market that is very effective inall the areas and all the tools
in the toolbox of a marketer.
That's a myth. That persondoesn't exist.
(36:03):
If you want to be in aleadership position in
marketing, you need tounderstand three things and own
them, or take responsibility ofthem, because ownership tends to
have this meaning of like,nobody touches these that I own.
And that shouldn't be the case.
It's more around what are youresponsible for. I think there
are two main things (36:22):
insights on how their business is going, so
you have to bring youranalytical mind. Understand if
that's your weakness, forexample, it's been a weakness of
mine for a very long time, andmy team at Go Nimbly is
fantastic, helping me become abetter marketer, in that sense.
(36:43):
Product you need to understandwhat the hell you're selling,
and you need to talk to yourproduct team often, even as
often as, as with your customer,if you can, and you need to, to
breathe and live branding.
(37:04):
Understand what is the brand andmake it effective.
With those three things, I thinkyou're in an in a good path to
become the head of marketing atx or y company. And so I think,
yeah, that self-awareness of,hey, these are my areas where
I'm gonna need help, and I'mhonest. And you know, what? I am
(37:28):
an immigrant and are like. Ilike English is not my first
language. Don't expect from meto create the content. But I'm
gonna freaking make sure that Ibring a superstar. And for
example, that's what I did at GoNimbly. Even though I write on
both, and I love to write, and Iand I do a lot of thought
leadership content out there.
Because it's in me to be awriter, I understood, and I knew
(37:51):
that I couldn't put creatingthat content on my hand at the
very beginning when I started asa single marketer. So having
that intuition and recognitionof these are my highs, and these
are my lows, and my lows canimpact the business, but I'm
gonna work on those. That'shyper important.
Todd Chambers (38:17):
Yeah, that's a really, really good device. I
have a couple of follow upquestions. One of them was on
branding. And I think we live ina world now, certainly, in my
world, where everybody wants to,you know, spend x and get y
returns. And you spoke about theimportance of branding there.
How do you kind of balance, orhow do you justify marketing
(38:39):
spend in areas that are kind ofless easy to measure and an
attribute to your specificmarketing initiatives?
Lorena Morales (38:49):
The golden question for every marketer.
Okay, so here's the thing, Todd.
It's not a coincidence thatthere's new kind of metrics that
the very sophisticated marketersin very sophisticated companies
are looking at, that eventuallybecome ROI. So, for example, the
(39:11):
cost per outcome. That's ametric that not everyone is
talking about. What it means is,in your head, the cost of not
only one strategy or one tactic,but the cost of, let's say, a
campaign, that it's gonna impactone of the areas of marketing.
(39:34):
If you set a level on that, andthen you match it, that's when
and you attach an amount ofdollars to that. That's when it
becomes ROI.
How do you measure branding? Ithink that's what you're also
asking. A lot of people willtell you, you can't, because
(39:56):
it's one of those things thatit's qualitative metric instead
of a quantitative metric. Youcan't measure feelings. But I
have an answer. I am the type ofmarketer that believes that it
can be measured. It absolutelycan because you see it.
If in a conference, you see thatpeople are coming to you after,
(40:18):
I don't know, six months(because the speaker happened to
be someone from your company)and you see people going to
them. And you see people askingabout like, hey, well, what is
this? Or like I had a questionabout X or Y, or you start
seeing people recognising yourname more and more, you're not
(40:38):
going to be able to pinpointexactly what's the value of
that.
At Go Nimbly, what I made sureto do was that one of the KPIs
that I bring, or that I broughta long time ago, was the number
of conversations happening.
Because I do believe, as I wastelling you that the business
(41:02):
should be relationship-based,probably they are not going to
convert in the timeline that youare expecting. You shouldn't tie
your ROI to the, to the fiscalyear, ever. especially not in
branding. But if you do know thecost per outcome, and then you
can tie that to a value, that'swhen you be you measure
(41:22):
branding.
The other very easy way ismeasuring organic against paid.
Why people try to complicatethings that are not complicated?
Like if you're getting traffic,is the same or less than, than
than your paid acquisition.
Sweetie, you have a problem ifyour organic traffic has been
(41:44):
increasing over the last quarteror the last year or over the
campaign that you didn't insiston why, that gives you a pretty
good starting point to start tomeasure branding, or how people
understand brand awareness.
Todd Chambers (42:03):
Yeah, for sure. I couldn't agree more. And my
other follow up question, whichis also kind of tied into some
of the things you said, isaround being a leader. Your main
position, of course, is lookingafter the people in your team. I
always joke that I feel like afull-time therapy therapist
sometimes, but how do you howyou keep that kind of
(42:26):
executional sharpness becausethings are changing so fast. How
do you, as a VP of Marketingstay kind of low enough in the
trenches to know what's going onto taste things to see where you
should be allocating spend, butthen also having that kind of
top view where you're just kindof getting the best out of
people? How do you balance thosetwo things?
Lorena Morales (42:48):
You're gonna make me think here. Actually no,
it's a fairly easy question toanswer for me. I have understood
that delegating is one of thetoughest parts for people that
are escalating in the corporateladder. They don't want to let
go of things. And I've neverbeen that kind of person.
(43:10):
Actually, for me, I guess it'sbecause again, my personality,
it's very, very nice to see theother person shine. And when
that person is shining, it meansthat I'm not going to have
access to every single thingthat is happening every single
day. What I asked my team is, ifmovement happens in some of the
(43:34):
areas that you are working on, Ineed to know. But if you are in
X or Y meeting or if you need totalk to X or Y people in the
organisation, please go for itand like they don't need my
authorisation to execute.
There's a difference betweenbeing kind of the the eagle
flying above everyone and makingsure that that everyone is I'm
(43:56):
telling you first of all happyhumans or, as close as they can
be to that, and secondly, thatthey are in the right positions
to grow not only their theirpath, but you need people that
can expand to other areas andtheir own specialisation. So you
(44:18):
ultimately become an eagle andyou're just flying happily. I
mean, I hope most of the time isjust making sure that that your
team is doing things the waythey should. And what that means
is trust.
But people tend to think thattrust comes in your contract or
(44:40):
in your benefits packages. It'snot. It's something that it
needs to be gained every singleday and how you gain trust by
being accountable. If I tell myteam "hey guys, I am travelling
for a conference, but you canabsolutely count on me". Let's
say, recording that video thatyou need from me. And then I
(45:02):
deliver right on time, rightwhen I said that I would that I
would do that thing. And I amconsistent with being that
person that they expect me tobe. They're slowly gonna start
to trust me as a professional.
And then if I start peeling theonion and then letting them know
like, "Hey, you know what, guys,today I had a really tough
(45:25):
conversation with my sister I'mnot going to be available for
the next two hours". It was hardfor me I'm telling you because I
don't think people that haveknown mean they like the past 15
years ago describe me as apeople person. Today probably
people good but uh, that was ahard transition for me to to
open up my life like that. Butif you expect people to come
(45:49):
with their true honestpersonalities to work and do the
best work that they can, becauseI believe that you can do your
best work and actually enjoy it.
When you when you trust yourleader and when you feel safe
around that person. But it's atwo way street, I can't expect
my people to tell me if they aresleeping eight hours or if they
(46:10):
are being they are overworkingif I don't do the same. So on my
one on ones, the two questionsthat I always always ask is how
many hours of sleep you got thisweek? And how many hours of work
you got.
At the pandemic, for example,some of my team, the answer was
like, "you know what? I worklike around 30 hours". Todd, my
(46:34):
answer was, "congratulations".
Does that relate to it to yoursleep? If your sleep is higher,
than I am super happy, keepdoing that! It's okay to expect
less from you. And I amexpecting less from you because
we are trying to survive,everyone. But if you're telling
me that you work less, and thenyou slept less, and those
(46:55):
metrics... because they aremetrics at the end and those
metrics keep decreasing, then wehave a problem, and we need to
talk about it. So I think it'san entire way of doing things.
Again, it's not one ingredientto the pie, right?
Todd Chambers (47:14):
Yeah, absolutely.
And actually, the sleep thingyou mentioned a few times that
you when I think when westarted, you said that you don't
get much sleep and then you'vementioned sleep with people in
your team a few times it's anice segue into maybe more
personal questions. How muchsleep do you get?
Lorena Morales (47:32):
Okay, there's a difference between going to bed
and sleeping. I am actuallyunder medication because my
brain at night, it's almostimpossible to stop. So I am very
protective of my sleep but whenthings happen, or you end up
(47:54):
becoming kind of the caregiverif you are a good head of X or Y
and when people worry you. Thenyou have your own worries, and
then you have your family, andthen you have all these things
going in your mind it's toughactually to sleep, but if you
find a way to force it and thenprotect it, the same thing with
(48:18):
your time, you can get toamazing levels of everything. So
my answer to you is I do sleepmy eight hours, but only because
of the help of my therapist fortransparency, yes.
Todd Chambers (48:34):
Yeah but I really really appreciate the honesty.
Sleep is it to me, it seemslike the one that people speak
about you know, stress andeating and exercising but I'm
not sure sleep really gets theattention that it needs, and for
me personally, I'm twice asproductive if I get I get good
(48:54):
sleep. I'm also a huge protectorof my sleep. I have this sleep
tracking ring and what you said.
There's a difference betweenbeing in bed or and actually
getting good quality sleep. Sofor me, if I get good quality
sleep, I think all my gooddecisions and good work kind of
stemmed from that, but it'sreally interesting to have that
(49:17):
in the one to ones as well asthe first question you asked..
Lorena Morales (49:20):
I want to try the ring. Honestly, Todd we're
gonna have our conversationafter this about that but uh, I
just I hate to feel things on mybody when I am sleeping so I
can't sleep with masks I can'tsleep with rings or with my
water with I can't. So that waskind of the thing that made me
not buy into the ring, but I'veheard fantastic things about it.
Todd Chambers (49:42):
Yeah, it's a maybe as well. How have you
tried I would assume to helpwith sleep you've tried
meditation or forms ofmeditation to help with that?
Lorena Morales (49:53):
Yeah, the very beginning back in March I think
I underestimated it because I'vealways been sceptical of things
that seem not, that seem notvery active for me. And the idea
of calming my mind, throughgoing inside of your mind and
(50:17):
through breathing, honestly feltkind of stupid, because I was
like, "wait a minute, breathingis something that your body does
naturally, like what is this? Ineed to run like, I don't know,
10 miles".
I used to be a professionalswimmer; I still swim. And those
things seem to be way moreeffective. But thanks to my
(50:39):
therapist was like, "why are youso hard on trying things if
you've been that person all yourlife?" like every single thing
that life has put in my way, Ihave tried. And I didn't want to
do it with meditation, because Ithought it was dumb. It was the
dumbest thing ever. Like, sitthere and do nothing and just
breathe. That was my firstimpression.
(50:59):
Then a company that now theyshould be paying me for like
talking about them everything,every time that I can. It's
called Core. It's a littlegadget that when you meditate,
it vibrates, it matches yourbreathing. And you feel the
thing vibrating. So I realisedthat a person like me that that
(51:25):
it's very physical, very, very,very aware of my body, I needed
to connect my physical body withmy emotions and with my
breathing. So that connectionthat happened between my hands,
and literally focusing on myhands feeling something actually
worked. And now it's been morethan six months. I'm not gonna
(51:49):
say I'm successful. Every singleday, sometimes I am the type of
person that I can throw thingsat the wall, and I can get very
frustrated with myself. But I'velearned to be more compassionate
towards my practice. And Iusually do it when I can't move
anymore when I have swum, and Ihave run, and I have to the
(52:12):
bike, and I have to do somethingthat tires my physical body so
that my mind is a little morewelcoming to the meditation
practice. So for someone thatthat has that problem, please
give it a try. For me it hasdone fantastic things. And I
don't think I'm going to stopdoing it anytime soon.
Todd Chambers (52:35):
Yeah. Is there anything else aside from the
sleep? And I'm not sure ifthat's exactly what you meant,
if it's it really helps yoursleep. But has there been
anything profound that you'venoticed a difference in yourself
since you've done meditation?
Lorena Morales (52:49):
Yes, I think, for me, when I was not sleeping,
I was trying to, like I now Iunderstand from the experts in
this, that I was doing the exactwrong thing. So when I was not
sleeping, like, let's say at 4am, and I would wake up with a
problem, or they say, you know,you got older because now you
(53:11):
don't need an alarm because yourown problems wake you up at
night. And it's absolutely truepeople, as you get older, you
don't need a frickin alarmbecause it's your own problems
waking you up.
So if I would wake up at four,oh my God Todd, instead of just
recognising, like, hey, my braindoesn't want to sleep right now.
(53:33):
Okay, I'm gonna get out of mybed, I'm gonna go to the couch.
And I'm going to start reading,let's see, I could force myself
and punish myself seeing theclock and saying like, Oh my
god, I have only like threehours until I have to start my
day or like, "Oh my God, if Idon't sleep in 12 minutes or
(53:54):
12.5, then this means that thatand that". And then you create
this cycle where you just becomelike, yeah, that you're losing
some type of like, like thing,which is true. The most valuable
things that the human has, inthis life or any other that
(54:17):
exists is precisely your timeand how you spend it. So your
sleeping time should be asprecious as your time with your
significant other, with your dogwith your coworkers. So for me,
when I was not sleeping when Iwas supposed to be sleeping was
like I am wasting my time, and Idon't waste my time. That's
something that I everyone knowsabout me. I don't waste a single
(54:41):
second of my time. But now I'mtelling you, thanks to
meditation; I'm morecompassionate.
It still happens even if youare in medication or whatever.
Nothing is perfect, right? Itstill happens sometimes, so when
it happens, I just wake up, pullmyself out, even if it's cold,
(55:02):
whatever it is, I stay away frommy bed. And I do something that
doesn't include anytechnological gadget. And I even
done Yoga, like at 3 (55:11):
30 am. And it helps, yeah..
Todd Chambers (55:19):
You spoke about time, and this will be my final
question. I really appreciateyour time. You said that you
don't waste time and time is themost precious resource we have.
How do you protect your own timefrom things that are not really
opportunities, but they'redisguised as opportunities?
Lorena Morales (55:40):
Yeah, I needed I'm telling you, I'm a very
worried human being. I've beenobsessed about time since I
recall. And my father is someonethat really likes watches, like
a fiscal watch. And I am thesame. So I kind of developed
this obsession for having awatches collection. And even
(56:04):
though some of them like youneed to change the battery, or
like they are sold at X or Y,and they don't tell you that the
right time at that moment. Ialways have a watch on my wrist,
simply because it's very aconstant reminder of like, these
minutes won't ever come back. Sobe careful who you're giving it
to. And so from very earlystages of my life, even when I
(56:28):
was a teenager, my friends usedto hate me because it was like,
why couldn't you go out on aFriday? And I'm like "because I
don't want to because I havemore important things to do. And
there's only this Friday". Andthey were like, "no, but then
there's next Friday if youdon't" and I was like, "No, no,
no. Next Friday, I don't know".
Today, this Friday, I don't wantto do it. And it was very easy
(56:49):
for me to say no.
Now, as an adult, I just crossedvery recently, the third decade,
I am exactly the same, and thathasn't changed. Like if I don't
want to go to, and the peoplethat I work with, they know
that. When we go to conferencesor something, and I don't want
(57:09):
to do like a happy hour orsomething, I simply say "you
know what, I'm not gonna bethere". And if I say no, they
know there's no way they canconvince me like not even with
mezcal, not even with food,like, there is no way. So I made
up protector in my mind. So it'sa little creature. Please don't
laugh.
Todd Chambers (57:28):
Sorry, too late.
Lorena Morales (57:30):
I knew you were gonna laugh, but it has a name,
and it has a shape andeverything, and that's the one
protecting my time since I wasvery, very young. And I started
to see before the pandemic, andpeople could be out every single
weekend. And I was like, andthey would ask me like, "why do
you like to stay in your houseso much?" And I would ask the
(57:53):
opposite like what's so growingyour house that you want to
leave all the freakin time? Soyes, I created a protector.
That's a short answer. Yep.
Todd Chambers (58:05):
How many? How many watches do you have? I'm
really intrigued now.
Lorena Morales (58:08):
Here in the US, I have around 25.
Todd Chambers (58:12):
25 watches. Wow.
And they're all like, analogue?
Are they old school? Watches orare they, is it like a mix of
digital as well?
Lorena Morales (58:22):
It's a mix.
Like, I mean, it's thingsbecause some of them are like,
Yeah, quite like very specialpieces. Some of them they are
just like, I mean, I love thedesign and when I need to have
it and so it's a lot aboutdesign. And if I like it, I'm
gonna have it. Then some othershave more emotional connections
(58:45):
on like my grandfather gave itto me or like my father giving
it to me on my birthday. So likesome stuff like that, or I
bought it to myself when Iaccomplish x or y or so it's
kind of a mix, but uh, but yeah,it's a collection that it's
yeah, it's my obsession. It'sme. I don't care about clothes.
(59:06):
I don't care about bags. I don'tcare about shoes. I am not a
normal woman. What I care aboutare watches.
Todd Chambers (59:17):
Very cool. Well, thank you so much for doing this
was a really great interview. Iappreciate you taking the time.
And yeah, is there a place wherepeople can reach you? Twitter,
LinkedIn, email?
Lorena Morales (59:30):
All of the above! My Twitter handles:
Morales Lorena SF, My LinkedInhandle Morales Lorena and my
email you can reach out to me atLorena.Morales@gonimbly.com and
thought it had been a fantastictime with you today. Thank you.
Todd Chambers (59:48):
Yeah, thank you so much for this, speak soon.
See ya!Thanks for listening to the
podcast, guys. If you want toget links to any of the
resources we discussed in theinterview, head over to
uprawmedia.com/slash podcast.
Until next time, take it easy.
Hey guys, welcome to the Masters of SaaS podcast
brought to you by Upraw Media, agrowth marketing agency for SaaS
specialising in paid mediacontent and conversion rate
optimisation. I'll be your host,Todd Chambers. I have the
absolute pleasure of chattingwith really smart people from
the SaaS industry. The goal isto extract as much value as
(00:29):
possible. What are theirstrategies, the tactics, the
failures, funny stories, keylearnings? All of this can then
be used to help you grow andscale your own SaaS business.
In this episode, I speak withLorena Morales, the VP of
Marketing at Go Nimbly, a SanFrancisco based revenue
operations company withapproximately 15 million ARR and
(00:50):
50 plus headcount. As always, wecover a lot of ground.
Firstly, we discuss Lorena'sstruggle as a Mexican immigrant
to make a successful life andcareer in the US. in her own
words; she had pretty much zerochance of making it Silicon
Valley. But her stubbornness andpersistence, among other things,
made the difference.
I wanted to lean into Laura'smarketing experience, so we
(01:12):
touch on the role of speed andadaptability in marketing, being
self-aware and how yourpersonality type influences
leadership and management,justifying spend on brand and
the unmeasurable, and how toensure as a manager, you don't
lose that execution sharpness.
We wrap things up nicely on apersonal note, with the
importance of sleep, protectingyour own time, and Lorena's
(01:34):
weird obsession with watches. Itwas a fun episode, and I hope
you guys enjoy it.
Lorena, welcome to the show!
Lorena Morales (01:41):
Thank you, Todd.
It's such a pleasure to be withyou and let's see what you can
get out of me! Not a lot ofpeople get a lot of information
from this Mexican but let's saylet's see how it goes.
Todd Chambers (01:54):
I will definitely do my best. Well, if you don't
mind, we can start off with yourkind of background and your
heritage. I believe you'recurrently based in the Bay Area,
but that wasn't always the case.
How did you kind of end uppursuing the American dream and
ending up in the US if that'sthe right way to put it?
Lorena Morales (02:12):
Oh, the famous American dream. As I said, I am
Mexican. I was born and raisedin Mexico City, my Mexico lindo
querido. That wasn't always thecase As you said, I also lived
in Argentina and a couple ofother places in Latin America
(02:34):
before I actually came to theUS. The reason why I pursued
coming here for graduateeducation was I call it life.
You know, it was never in myplans.
Actually, I was accepted to theUniversity of Carnegie Mellon in
Australia. I am the youngest ofthree siblings, and I come from
(02:56):
a very traditional family, sowhen my mother got the news, of
course, she was super excited.
But she, you know, like thiskind of mental game that your
parents do. And like, I'm sohappy for you, which is crying
at the same time, becauseAustralia, she knew she wouldn't
be able to see me that often andI am very, very close to my
(03:18):
mother. So that's a moment whenI started to see other options.
And soon enough, we came as afamily to San Francisco in a
trip in a Christmas. Actually, Iremember it very well. When I
was here, we were staying in oneof the hotels at the top of the
heels in downtown. And Iremember saying to my father,
(03:40):
like "I'm gonna live here". Idon't know when I don't know
why, I don't know how, but I amgonna live in this city. I
couldn't help it, and SanFrancisco was love at first
sight. I don't even believe inthose type of things, but that
was a moment, that was a yearprobably it was 2009 around
(04:02):
those years.
And my father told me like,yeah, of course, let's go and
have breakfast because I'mstarving. And then when I came
back to Mexico, there was thisinternational business school
that reached out to me afterthey knew I had other
opportunities. Also, my otherplan was to move to Paris to th
(04:24):
HEC. I just realised that it wan't downtown Paris, so my dr
am school schooling exerience was not going to be as
dreamable, so I was like, "yu know what? No, I don't kn
w". And this international scool, Hult, they had a very in
(04:45):
ernational programme as well, mening that you could rotate ev
ry couple of months to cities lie Rio de Janeiro to Dubai, to li
e very exotic places. And I'e always had a very exotic pe
sonality. So, I said, "You knowhat, this is the place" and
one of their locations was preisely San Francisco. So gue
(05:08):
s what?
I ended up applying; I hadalready my Jima and JRI, all the
fun stuff that all every singleimmigrant has to go through. And
I applied, they gave me ascholarship, and I came here in
2012. After being here, Irealised that I didn't even want
(05:30):
to rotate in the programme,because I understood that I
needed to build a network. Andthat was very hard for me as an
introvert. So I sacrificed onething for another, right? Like
you can't have everything inthis life. I stayed my entire
programme here in San Franciscoto start to understand the
companies, how to apply to a jobin the US, how to even
(05:55):
understand how to talk to peoplein the US. You don't have to
meet the same applications herein the in the US. And in Mexico,
for God's sake, in Mexico, youcan have your picture in your
resume, which is kind of f*ckedup if you ask me. But
understanding all thoseprocesses was was super hard for
me. And that's how I ended uppursuing the American dream, by
(06:20):
education. It's the only theonly way that I know how to
thrive in life.
Todd Chambers (06:25):
Yeah, and what did your chances look like? An
immigrant coming from Mexico toSilicon Valley, what kind of,
realistically, your chances ofmaking it and getting a VP of
Marketing type job in a companylike Go Nimbly, which we'll get
to soon?
Lorena Morales (06:42):
Oh, my God, I would say zero to none. Here's
the reality (06:49):
back in the 80s, and 90s, Mexicans, we are very
agile. We're an agile culture,we're going to find a way, and I
can promise you that. The badpart of that is that all the
immigrants that came to the USback in those years, they found
(07:10):
a way, and it wasn't the rightway of doing things. And with
that, they put a stigma. Andthey created these, what I
thought was a cliche of like,the US things. This concept of
Mexicans that every singleMexican that comes to the US is
(07:31):
not educated, they are comingfor the wrong reasons, and they
are coming to steal something tothe US citizens. When in
reality, the new generations ofMexicans are very well educated
people. I'm very capable. Andjust in general, Mexico City
right now, for example, is a hubfor tech, which not a lot of
people know.
(07:52):
So that's when I say, my chanceswere zero because back in 2012,
I heard people telling me like,you know, Lorena, the system in
the US is one of the mostpenalised, and you're going to
have to spend probably 15 yearsof your life just getting to
know potentially, and you'regoing to have to be depending on
(08:13):
companies and on processes thatare hurtful and that are going
to be a challenge. And they werenot lying, Todd. Day one that I
came here, there was not a pairof open arms waiting for me and
saying like "Hey, welcomeMexican", it was the opposite.
(08:35):
The good thing is that with thisschool that I was mentioning,
where I did my first master'sdegree, we were all in the same
boat. We were all immigrants, wewere all very international
people, and that made me feelthat I could have a chance if I
worked hard enough. And that'swhat I did. I started to
(08:56):
understand people the best waythat I could. And people
believed in me, so I never, Idon't think I never disappointed
anyone that gave me anopportunity. And I worked my
tail three to five times morethan the usual American if you
have to say like that. Yeah.
Todd Chambers (09:17):
Though, that leads nicely on to my next
question, which is (09:19):
were there any special characteristics or
traits that you think you have?
Either from your Mexicanupbringing, something from your
family or just somethingintrinsically new? What was it
about you that kind of managedto break out and actually make
it and be the person you aretoday?
Lorena Morales (09:36):
I think this is gonna sound weird, but, out of
the three of us, my siblings andI, I am the one that has been
very solitary since I'm very,very little.
My family is like you have toknow them. They like to spend a
lot of time together, and now Ihave two beautiful nephews that
I talk about in every singlepodcast just because I have to
(10:00):
and they love to stick together.
I was always very solitary. Itwas easy for me to kind of be
attached to a certain level anduse visualisation tools or
psychology, psychology tools oflike, picturing what I want in
my life and going after that.
(10:22):
The second thing, I'm stubbornas hell, like I haven't known
anyone as stubborn as I am,which is a good thing, but it's
also a bad thing. But on thegood side of it, I always knew
the path to staying in the USnot only as an immigrant but as
(10:45):
a Mexican immigrant. And Iliterally, I cried a lot, so I
always live with notebooks like,here is the proof of that. All
my life I've been doingjournaling and like stuff like
that. So I literally visualisedthings, and I wrote down the
things that I needed to do inorder to succeed. And I didn't
(11:08):
check off the bullet point untilI achieved that thing and I kept
a journal of my successesbecause you know what Todd, the
reality is that after 13 yearsof uncertainty; and not only
uncertainty but ambiguity. It'svery tough for the brain to
believe that it's time to giveup because you have better
(11:30):
chances, even in your homecountry or even in Europe or
because that's true. I do haveother opportunities in other
places in the world but I just Ican't let go of San Francisco, I
can't.
Todd Chambers (11:43):
That's almost like the stubbornness within you
is. Stubborn that you will seethis go through and you will
persist no matter what. So it'skind of stubbornness backed
persistence.
Lorena Morales (11:56):
Yes. And like that curiosity, it's a
combination of things, right?
You're never a one qualitything. You're always like pieces
of characteristics or pieces ofpeople or pieces of moments. My
father, for example, is alsothese. I come from a successful
family. Both my mother, myfather, my grandparents, were
(12:17):
successful people, aresuccessful peopleboth in the
business and in their personallives. I grew up understanding
success, and that might sound alittle arrogant, but that's all
I knew when I was little andexpectations were freaking high
on me. Also, that developed achip in my mind that I put
(12:42):
myself that nobody else put it.
Of expectations of myself aswell that went way, way, way
high to the roof. And I'vealways seen that as a good
thing.
Todd Chambers (12:57):
Yeah, that's nice. And we can talk more about
that as we go on with theinterview. But just to even get
some context of your currentposition and your current role.
Maybe you can just explain, GoNimbly, your position within it
and then any kind of contextinto the company size, revenue,
anything you're kind ofcomfortable sharing.
Lorena Morales (13:16):
Sure, um, Go Nimbly is not only the first one
in the field, but it's the onlycompany doing executional work
on revenue operations. What thatmeans is that we see it on the
operations teams of companieslike Zendesk, Twilio, Pager
duty, we have helped some ofthem go to all the way through
(13:38):
IPO. And it's been a really funroller coaster. Before the
pandemic, our forecasting was tohit 20 million ARR. That didn't
happen, of course, but we arevery close to 15, which is
(13:58):
something that you don't seethat often in a consultancy
space. We have grown year overyear of 100%. We even opened our
third office back in 2019theends of 2019, where Chicago.
Today, we still have thatoffice, we have the New York
office, our secondary home,let's say, and we have San
(14:21):
Francisco the headquarters.
Todd Chambers (14:23):
Yeah, okay. So I personally am not hugely
experienced in revenueoperations, and I was just doing
my research for this podcast.
I'm just gonna read thisparagraph and then maybe you can
stress test and kind of expand
upon it (14:36):
revenue operations is the alignment of sales,
marketing and customer success,operations across the full
customer lifecycle to drivegrowth, through operational
efficiency and keep all teamsaccountable to revenue. This
holistic approach is designed tobreak down silos between
departments." Do you thinkthat's like an accurate
depiction of in your mind of Revops?
Lorena Morales (15:00):
That's kind of our fancy definition because
probably you found that in oneof our fancy sites. It is very
accurate. Important keywordshere: breaking down silos,
success and operations, and themost important thing here is the
(15:21):
customer lifecycle.
So in fewer words, it's whatrevenue operations do, like when
you put it to practice, and youbecome an organisation in the
actual transformation to revenueoperations, instead of legacy
operations. What happens is, youalign your entire GTM team and
(15:43):
operations team to always lookat revenue. And the thing is you
have to be customer-obsessed.
There is no other way to succeedin revenue operations. I have
said this before the dayswhere there were companies
product-based are gone, and theyare gone for good. Today, it's
(16:04):
either customer-based companiesor what I like to call
relationship-based companies.
Because that's the way thatthrough the methodology of
revenue operations, you canstart to identify revenue
leakages through your funnel,and that's pretty much what it
(16:26):
means. And then let's say theconsequence of doing this
effectively is that you aregoing to break silos in each of
the departments that I havementioned already.
Todd Chambers (16:39):
Yeah. So you're not actually a software company.
You're actually more of a I'mnot sure if you have an agency
is a right way to depict it, butyou're more of a human-driven,
giving strict strategy andexecution support led by humans
as opposed to software wouldthat be a fair thing?
Lorena Morales (16:57):
I love the word human; it's my favourite word in
English. Yes, we're veryhuman-led. Actually, humans are
our product, because we deploy,we have the capacity to deploy
entire teams or just singlepeople in these companies to, it
can be as tactical as it'sneeded, or as strategic as a
(17:21):
company needs or wants. It cango both ways. Ideally, we have a
mix of tactical work andstrategic work, which has been a
very interesting journey. As oftoday, we are not a product
company. I can't tell you moreabout that. But there's a very
(17:45):
interesting 2021 for Go Nimbly.
Todd Chambers (17:48):
Yeah, interesting. Why did you choose
Go Nimbly? Was there somethingthat stood up about the company
or?
Lorena Morales (17:55):
Oh boy, Todd, that's a funny one. It's
actually the first company thatI get to choose in my career
here in the US because beforethat, I was tied to a VISA, and
Go Nimbly is the first onethat's not the case.
I chose the industry first, soSaaS. Our primary customers are
(18:17):
SaaS. And even though I hadfriends here and there that
worked, like at Twilio or likeLinkedIn; If you live in in the
Bay Area, you are gonna know anengineer in one of these
companies. And even though Iknew them, and I heard of them,
(18:38):
I never really got to see thesecompanies inside. What I mean by
inside is how they functionoperationally. And like the
things that made them orqualified them as being a
hyper-growth company.
When I saw what Go Nimbly wasdoing, of course, I had zero
(19:00):
ideas about what was revenueoperations. It's like someone
told me to eat entirely new foodand I didn't even have the
silverware to eat it, you know.
But that has never been theproblem for me because if I
believe in something is inlearning and on learning things,
so I was not worried. But when Iinterviewed with them their
CEO is this very particularcharacter. He happens to be my
(19:23):
boss and my friend today, JasonRyko. And when he interviewed
me, he saw something on me withmy background in branding and
design thinking and all thesethings that not only I applied
to my job, but I am genuinelypassionate about.
(19:44):
He has a little bit ofbackground in advertising as
well as design. He's also a verykind of in the art type of
type-of-guy. So I think weconnected automatically and
then, of course, I knew our CSO,our CRO, our Director of
Operations. And all of them areincredible people. Like let
(20:08):
alone the talent. The talent Iknew it was there because this
was new. It was a company thathas been profitable since day
one. The CEO was not afterfunding. So that for me was a
relief. I've been working withCEOs all my life and the
difference between being with aCEO that is after funding and a
CEO that number one believes inmarketing and second, that is
(20:29):
involved in marketing, it'sheaven on earth. So that was
Jason. And when I saw that, andit was a new thing, I'm telling
you, when I'm curious aboutsomething, I can't, I need to
let it consume me; otherwise, Iwon't sleep. Well, I don't sleep
that much anyway, but it'ssomething that I need to pursue.
(20:50):
So that's why I ended up with acrazy Jason Reichl. It's been a
little more than two years and ahalf running their, their
marketing department as their VPof Marketing.
Todd Chambers (21:01):
Okay, and you were initially hired a VP of
marketing. Do you mind give mesome context to kind of the size
of the team currently and whatthe scope of your role covers?
Lorena Morales (21:12):
We are about 54 employees. I don't know the
exact number because with thepandemic, like numbers kind of
fluctuated a little bit. But Ithink that would be accurate to
say. And, and the other questionwas, what was the other
question?
Todd Chambers (21:31):
Goodness me, I can't even remember. But I will
ask you another question,though, funding. A common thread
I always hear from peopleactually on this show and
actually speaking some of ourcustomers is when you have a
company that's chasing funding,as you put it, the kind of the
mindset is very different. Canyou just touch on, you just
Lorena Morales (22:00):
I actually meant like heaven and hell, but sure.
It can be heaven on earth if youare not pursuing funding. Here's
the difference (22:12):
I've been working the last decade for
almost exclusively for startups.
And when you have the head ofthe entire management team, or
leadership team, however youwant to call it just focusing on
like how to get more money andtouch ,and he said it was heaven
and earth? Can you just talk onhow to make the businesses stay
afloat, it's really hard for maketing, or the marketing le
(22:34):
der to execute on the vision ofthat CEO, let's call him or he
because they are not avathat a little bit?
lable to you. It's not their jobThey're almost out of the cou
That can be a positive thing ifyou are little in later stages.
t.
(22:55):
I believe that if you're inseries, for example, C, V all
the way to IPO or after IPO, itshouldn't be the CEO job to be
right there with marketing. Butin their early stages, I think
you do need someone that isfocused in, "okay, how are we
going to sell this?" and someonethat understands the clients in
(23:19):
the most human way so they canork together with marketing an
the CEO or marketing and sles. Because otherwise, you e
d up with the silos that wewere talking about in a little
hile ago, where you say, "youknow what? I'm marketing, I'm
gonna have my own KPIs and sale, you can and do whatever you
want, and be loud and like, bethere in your corner, and tha
(23:41):
's how we're going toIdeally, that's not how you want
to do things from the verybeginning because the truth is
what we've seen with companiesthat we have helped from very
early stages like Lattice isthat at the end, that pain that
you're feeling internally onlike, "Oh, sales are complaining
to me about leads or marketingis bickering about, Hey, why are
(24:05):
you not doing anything with theleads that are coming in?" That
bickering that you're feelinginternally guess who is feeling
it as well? Your customer.
When your customer feels thatfriction, it's something that is
really hard to change when youare in late stages. It's not
(24:26):
impossible. Revenue operationsis a solution, of course. But
that's what I am telling youabout the difference between
when you have a CEO that it'sinvolved in the day to day GTM
strategy or that it's involvedin what we call that going in
with a revenue team. Whereas aCEO that is always talking or
(24:47):
like seeing venture capitalistsor like working in PowerPoint
point presentations, which bythe way, I've also been with
that CEO and my job has changeddramatically over these last
decade where I've doneeverything from content to paid
acquisition to like talking toVCs, I think I became a very
(25:07):
well rounded marketer, kind ofthe Jane of all trades. But
yeah, it's huge, like thefeeling for the marketing leader
is tremendously huge, becausethat's what, it's not a
coincidence that the tenure ofthe CMO is the lowest in the C
level suite. And I think thathas something to do with it.
Todd Chambers (25:28):
No, that's really interesting. I actually didn't
know that. It sounds like you'vedone many different roles, and
you've worn different hats overthe years. And it ties quite
nicely into this, and if youdon't mind, I just wanted to
read you just this quote, whichis the I'm sure you're familiar
with, which is the only constantin life is change. So on that
(25:48):
note, how important do you thinkspeed and adaptability are in
marketing?
Lorena Morales (25:56):
I would even remove the word important. It is
crucial. It is crucial if youwant to be in the marketing
world. Because if you comparethe functions in an
organisation, and if you lookhistorically, this doesn't come
from me as these come from realexperts in the field. Even from
(26:17):
Forester Research, wheremarketing has been the
department that has experiencedthe most change in the last
let's say, two decades, than anyother instance of the revenue
team. That needs a specific typeof mentality or individual to
(26:45):
run those things.
You can only be effective orhave an impact to revenue if you
understand that, for example,you start asking the right
questions of like, "okay, howmany leads of our pipeline were
(27:06):
actually close to our ICP?".
Those questions you couldn'teven ask them yourself, what,
like 10 years ago. And nowbecause of the automation that
happened, we have moreinformation than ever. And
that's on the internal sideOn the external side, now you
have a customer, that it's notonly super high maintenance,
(27:28):
which they should have. Weshould have been those customers
from day one. Advertising was alie. Back in the 60s in the 70s,
it was all about manipulating.
And that for me, felt wrong.
Today, you need to do marketingthat. I mean, it's a great time
to be a marketer if you ask mebecause now not only we have the
(27:51):
trust of the customer becausethey can see everything, it's
like they have these laservision where they can see
through the entire company, butespecially marketing, your
customer is going to know ifyou're selling something that is
not good for them or that is nota fit.
And with that, what it happenedis that marketing has to be like
(28:15):
once you have your qualifiedleads, and once you have that
alignment with your sales team,and once you understand your
CFO, and once you understand thestretch of your land and expand,
that's the moment that you cankind of be a more strategic
leader. But what if you don'thave those things, and if your
(28:36):
systems, for example, are notconnected, you are going to be
the person that it's 60% of yourtime very tactical, very kind of
making sure that those thingshappen. And the other 40% you're
going to be talking about likebrand and like, like awareness
in general and things that aremore high level and that our
(28:57):
people would call them more fun,for me is not about what is fun
and what is not fun. For me is"what is more what what what
gives more impact to the to thebusiness". And that might be a
different thing in seed fundingthan in series C or D.
Todd Chambers (29:14):
Yeah, yeah, for sure. Maybe we can just take a
bit of a left turn and talkabout managing a team.I'm sure
you've built your own team, andyour core function now is
managing and getting the bestout of your team. Do you have
any kind of key learnings orobservations or advice that you
(29:34):
would give to someone that wasspecifically looking to set up a
marketing team?
Lorena Morales (29:40):
Oh, wow, this is one of my favourites, and I'm
gonna tell you why - because Iended up managing things by
coincidence. I'm sorry people,but yes, it was a coincidence. I
perfect coincidence that someoneup there put in front of me and
I decided to take theopportunity. But honestly, this
is gonna sound weird. The Lorenaof 10 years ago, didn't like
(30:04):
people at all. Like I hadreally, really big trust issues.
I mean a lot of Mexicans do,honestly. But especially me, I
been I'm telling you all my lifeI've been very extremely
introverted I find my energy in,in being by myself in reading
books in learning. I'm an IMTJpersonality. Not that it
(30:30):
matters, but there are somecertain traits that apply to
those people. And so when myfirst opportunity of managing a
team arose not only I needed ajob, but I needed to say yes
because an immigrant can'tafford to lose a job. That's it;
(30:51):
I can't be more transparent.
The first thing that happenednd that taught me a huge lesson
s when you start managing, iteans that automatically you
top being the do-er. You don'to things anymore. Your job
hanges dramatically to beinghe person that is more coaching
(31:15):
omeone else, or that it'saking sure that your people are
eeling good emotionally, orhat your people are in the
ight positions, or that youreople like the things that are
ay more people-oriented thannything else. And at the very
eginning, I said like, Oh myod, "am I gonna be good at
his?" because I don't, I don'tike to be the psychiatrist or
(31:38):
y friends. I really don't, andthey know that. Even though I
end up being that person, Idon't ask for it. It's not, it's
not like a comment on me yor entire life, because that
s something that I enjoy. Buthat I do enjoy are mean
ngful conversations.
And then I realised that I wasvery good at connecting with
(31:59):
people on a deeper level. Sotoday, eight, nine years after
So my recommendation for someoneis: making sure that you want to
that first experience, my teamat Go Nimbly, it's one of the
things that I am most proud of,because not only they didn't
have the experience in reenue operations. Nobody had th
same thing when they hired mebecause revenue potential re
(32:20):
enue operations wasn't a thng back in 2018. Today, not on
y they are crazy effective at thir job, but they are happy hu
ans at their jobs. And they hae told me that to my face, li
e, "Hey, you know what, this habeen the best job that I've ha
. And I think you have soething to do with that". So ev
(32:40):
n though I have trouble caling myself a leader, I think I
m very good at understanding mypeople. And that's a full-ti
e job.
be around people, that you wantto be the person that makes s
(33:04):
re that your team has as a leafor at least eight hours; tha
you want to be the person tht is not doing things anymore. Y
u're not gonna receive a pat ithe back. Recognition is out o
(33:24):
the door at that moment, becuse, again, you're not going
o be fixing things or at leasnot the tactical things that
have a bigger impression in thecompany. You're going to be kind
of the back-end person of theorganisation. But if you do it
(33:44):
right, and if you like thatsensation of "I have to do with
he potential of this perso, and I get to see these perso
bloom to their entire, full,full potential". For me, there
is no better feeling. So justake sure that you under
tand what it takes to deal witpeople on the on a daily basi.
Todd Chambers (34:07):
Yeah, it's interesting. You were speaking,
and correct me if I'm wrong,that maybe you're more of an
introvert. How important is itto have self-awareness around
the kind of who you are as aperson your own personality
traits? And then using that tolean into being a manager or
leader? Can you speak on that?
Lorena Morales (34:25):
That's what I talk about every single day. The
introspective work that it'sneeded and this is not only in
marketing people, it'sespecially important also in
sales, also in product. I thinkin every instance if you are
going to be managing a team ormanaging a department even if
you don't don't manage a team. Ithink that the self-awareness,
(34:50):
homework that you need to doevery single day on yourself,
it's primarily gonna beimpacting how you present
yourself at work.
If you don't know, the firstthing that you need to
understand is the areas whereyou need to improve. And
believing in the honesty andbelieving in humility and
(35:12):
believing just seeing the truth,in general, is gonna set you
apart from the other leaders. Ifyou come to the table saying
"hey, you know what? I amfantastic at doing these million
things".
The reality, at least inmarketing, is that you're not
gonna find that unicorn thateveryone wants. The Super CMO
that has taken a company to the100 and $50 million ARR and they
(35:38):
scaled in one year and a half.
Well, yeah, but that was notonly marketing. That was, that
was your entire team, and atleast, I don't know, a single
market that is very effective inall the areas and all the tools
in the toolbox of a marketer.
That's a myth. That persondoesn't exist.
(36:03):
If you want to be in aleadership position in
marketing, you need tounderstand three things and own
them, or take responsibility ofthem, because ownership tends to
have this meaning of like,nobody touches these that I own.
And that shouldn't be the case.
It's more around what are youresponsible for. I think there
are two main things (36:22):
insights on how their business is going, so
you have to bring youranalytical mind. Understand if
that's your weakness, forexample, it's been a weakness of
mine for a very long time, andmy team at Go Nimbly is
fantastic, helping me become abetter marketer, in that sense.
(36:43):
Product you need to understandwhat the hell you're selling,
and you need to talk to yourproduct team often, even as
often as, as with your customer,if you can, and you need to, to
breathe and live branding.
(37:04):
Understand what is the brand andmake it effective.
With those three things, I thinkyou're in an in a good path to
become the head of marketing atx or y company. And so I think,
yeah, that self-awareness of,hey, these are my areas where
I'm gonna need help, and I'mhonest. And you know, what? I am
(37:28):
an immigrant and are like. Ilike English is not my first
language. Don't expect from meto create the content. But I'm
gonna freaking make sure that Ibring a superstar. And for
example, that's what I did at GoNimbly. Even though I write on
both, and I love to write, and Iand I do a lot of thought
leadership content out there.
Because it's in me to be awriter, I understood, and I knew
(37:51):
that I couldn't put creatingthat content on my hand at the
very beginning when I started asa single marketer. So having
that intuition and recognitionof these are my highs, and these
are my lows, and my lows canimpact the business, but I'm
gonna work on those. That'shyper important.
Todd Chambers (38:17):
Yeah, that's a really, really good device. I
have a couple of follow upquestions. One of them was on
branding. And I think we live ina world now, certainly, in my
world, where everybody wants to,you know, spend x and get y
returns. And you spoke about theimportance of branding there.
How do you kind of balance, orhow do you justify marketing
(38:39):
spend in areas that are kind ofless easy to measure and an
attribute to your specificmarketing initiatives?
Lorena Morales (38:49):
The golden question for every marketer.
Okay, so here's the thing, Todd.
It's not a coincidence thatthere's new kind of metrics that
the very sophisticated marketersin very sophisticated companies
are looking at, that eventuallybecome ROI. So, for example, the
(39:11):
cost per outcome. That's ametric that not everyone is
talking about. What it means is,in your head, the cost of not
only one strategy or one tactic,but the cost of, let's say, a
campaign, that it's gonna impactone of the areas of marketing.
(39:34):
If you set a level on that, andthen you match it, that's when
and you attach an amount ofdollars to that. That's when it
becomes ROI.
How do you measure branding? Ithink that's what you're also
asking. A lot of people willtell you, you can't, because
(39:56):
it's one of those things thatit's qualitative metric instead
of a quantitative metric. Youcan't measure feelings. But I
have an answer. I am the type ofmarketer that believes that it
can be measured. It absolutelycan because you see it.
If in a conference, you see thatpeople are coming to you after,
(40:18):
I don't know, six months(because the speaker happened to
be someone from your company)and you see people going to
them. And you see people askingabout like, hey, well, what is
this? Or like I had a questionabout X or Y, or you start
seeing people recognising yourname more and more, you're not
(40:38):
going to be able to pinpointexactly what's the value of
that.
At Go Nimbly, what I made sureto do was that one of the KPIs
that I bring, or that I broughta long time ago, was the number
of conversations happening.
Because I do believe, as I wastelling you that the business
(41:02):
should be relationship-based,probably they are not going to
convert in the timeline that youare expecting. You shouldn't tie
your ROI to the, to the fiscalyear, ever. especially not in
branding. But if you do know thecost per outcome, and then you
can tie that to a value, that'swhen you be you measure
(41:22):
branding.
The other very easy way ismeasuring organic against paid.
Why people try to complicatethings that are not complicated?
Like if you're getting traffic,is the same or less than, than
than your paid acquisition.
Sweetie, you have a problem ifyour organic traffic has been
(41:44):
increasing over the last quarteror the last year or over the
campaign that you didn't insiston why, that gives you a pretty
good starting point to start tomeasure branding, or how people
understand brand awareness.
Todd Chambers (42:03):
Yeah, for sure. I couldn't agree more. And my
other follow up question, whichis also kind of tied into some
of the things you said, isaround being a leader. Your main
position, of course, is lookingafter the people in your team. I
always joke that I feel like afull-time therapy therapist
sometimes, but how do you howyou keep that kind of
(42:26):
executional sharpness becausethings are changing so fast. How
do you, as a VP of Marketingstay kind of low enough in the
trenches to know what's going onto taste things to see where you
should be allocating spend, butthen also having that kind of
top view where you're just kindof getting the best out of
people? How do you balance thosetwo things?
Lorena Morales (42:48):
You're gonna make me think here. Actually no,
it's a fairly easy question toanswer for me. I have understood
that delegating is one of thetoughest parts for people that
are escalating in the corporateladder. They don't want to let
go of things. And I've neverbeen that kind of person.
(43:10):
Actually, for me, I guess it'sbecause again, my personality,
it's very, very nice to see theother person shine. And when
that person is shining, it meansthat I'm not going to have
access to every single thingthat is happening every single
day. What I asked my team is, ifmovement happens in some of the
(43:34):
areas that you are working on, Ineed to know. But if you are in
X or Y meeting or if you need totalk to X or Y people in the
organisation, please go for itand like they don't need my
authorisation to execute.
There's a difference betweenbeing kind of the the eagle
flying above everyone and makingsure that that everyone is I'm
(43:56):
telling you first of all happyhumans or, as close as they can
be to that, and secondly, thatthey are in the right positions
to grow not only their theirpath, but you need people that
can expand to other areas andtheir own specialisation. So you
(44:18):
ultimately become an eagle andyou're just flying happily. I
mean, I hope most of the time isjust making sure that that your
team is doing things the waythey should. And what that means
is trust.
But people tend to think thattrust comes in your contract or
(44:40):
in your benefits packages. It'snot. It's something that it
needs to be gained every singleday and how you gain trust by
being accountable. If I tell myteam "hey guys, I am travelling
for a conference, but you canabsolutely count on me". Let's
say, recording that video thatyou need from me. And then I
(45:02):
deliver right on time, rightwhen I said that I would that I
would do that thing. And I amconsistent with being that
person that they expect me tobe. They're slowly gonna start
to trust me as a professional.
And then if I start peeling theonion and then letting them know
like, "Hey, you know what, guys,today I had a really tough
(45:25):
conversation with my sister I'mnot going to be available for
the next two hours". It was hardfor me I'm telling you because I
don't think people that haveknown mean they like the past 15
years ago describe me as apeople person. Today probably
people good but uh, that was ahard transition for me to to
open up my life like that. Butif you expect people to come
(45:49):
with their true honestpersonalities to work and do the
best work that they can, becauseI believe that you can do your
best work and actually enjoy it.
When you when you trust yourleader and when you feel safe
around that person. But it's atwo way street, I can't expect
my people to tell me if they aresleeping eight hours or if they
(46:10):
are being they are overworkingif I don't do the same. So on my
one on ones, the two questionsthat I always always ask is how
many hours of sleep you got thisweek? And how many hours of work
you got.
At the pandemic, for example,some of my team, the answer was
like, "you know what? I worklike around 30 hours". Todd, my
(46:34):
answer was, "congratulations".
Does that relate to it to yoursleep? If your sleep is higher,
than I am super happy, keepdoing that! It's okay to expect
less from you. And I amexpecting less from you because
we are trying to survive,everyone. But if you're telling
me that you work less, and thenyou slept less, and those
(46:55):
metrics... because they aremetrics at the end and those
metrics keep decreasing, then wehave a problem, and we need to
talk about it. So I think it'san entire way of doing things.
Again, it's not one ingredientto the pie, right?
Todd Chambers (47:14):
Yeah, absolutely.
And actually, the sleep thingyou mentioned a few times that
you when I think when westarted, you said that you don't
get much sleep and then you'vementioned sleep with people in
your team a few times it's anice segue into maybe more
personal questions. How muchsleep do you get?
Lorena Morales (47:32):
Okay, there's a difference between going to bed
and sleeping. I am actuallyunder medication because my
brain at night, it's almostimpossible to stop. So I am very
protective of my sleep but whenthings happen, or you end up
(47:54):
becoming kind of the caregiverif you are a good head of X or Y
and when people worry you. Thenyou have your own worries, and
then you have your family, andthen you have all these things
going in your mind it's toughactually to sleep, but if you
find a way to force it and thenprotect it, the same thing with
(48:18):
your time, you can get toamazing levels of everything. So
my answer to you is I do sleepmy eight hours, but only because
of the help of my therapist fortransparency, yes.
Todd Chambers (48:34):
Yeah but I really really appreciate the honesty.
Sleep is it to me, it seemslike the one that people speak
about you know, stress andeating and exercising but I'm
not sure sleep really gets theattention that it needs, and for
me personally, I'm twice asproductive if I get I get good
(48:54):
sleep. I'm also a huge protectorof my sleep. I have this sleep
tracking ring and what you said.
There's a difference betweenbeing in bed or and actually
getting good quality sleep. Sofor me, if I get good quality
sleep, I think all my gooddecisions and good work kind of
stemmed from that, but it'sreally interesting to have that
(49:17):
in the one to ones as well asthe first question you asked..
Lorena Morales (49:20):
I want to try the ring. Honestly, Todd we're
gonna have our conversationafter this about that but uh, I
just I hate to feel things on mybody when I am sleeping so I
can't sleep with masks I can'tsleep with rings or with my
water with I can't. So that waskind of the thing that made me
not buy into the ring, but I'veheard fantastic things about it.
Todd Chambers (49:42):
Yeah, it's a maybe as well. How have you
tried I would assume to helpwith sleep you've tried
meditation or forms ofmeditation to help with that?
Lorena Morales (49:53):
Yeah, the very beginning back in March I think
I underestimated it because I'vealways been sceptical of things
that seem not, that seem notvery active for me. And the idea
of calming my mind, throughgoing inside of your mind and
(50:17):
through breathing, honestly feltkind of stupid, because I was
like, "wait a minute, breathingis something that your body does
naturally, like what is this? Ineed to run like, I don't know,
10 miles".
I used to be a professionalswimmer; I still swim. And those
things seem to be way moreeffective. But thanks to my
(50:39):
therapist was like, "why are youso hard on trying things if
you've been that person all yourlife?" like every single thing
that life has put in my way, Ihave tried. And I didn't want to
do it with meditation, because Ithought it was dumb. It was the
dumbest thing ever. Like, sitthere and do nothing and just
breathe. That was my firstimpression.
(50:59):
Then a company that now theyshould be paying me for like
talking about them everything,every time that I can. It's
called Core. It's a littlegadget that when you meditate,
it vibrates, it matches yourbreathing. And you feel the
thing vibrating. So I realisedthat a person like me that that
(51:25):
it's very physical, very, very,very aware of my body, I needed
to connect my physical body withmy emotions and with my
breathing. So that connectionthat happened between my hands,
and literally focusing on myhands feeling something actually
worked. And now it's been morethan six months. I'm not gonna
(51:49):
say I'm successful. Every singleday, sometimes I am the type of
person that I can throw thingsat the wall, and I can get very
frustrated with myself. But I'velearned to be more compassionate
towards my practice. And Iusually do it when I can't move
anymore when I have swum, and Ihave run, and I have to the
(52:12):
bike, and I have to do somethingthat tires my physical body so
that my mind is a little morewelcoming to the meditation
practice. So for someone thatthat has that problem, please
give it a try. For me it hasdone fantastic things. And I
don't think I'm going to stopdoing it anytime soon.
Todd Chambers (52:35):
Yeah. Is there anything else aside from the
sleep? And I'm not sure ifthat's exactly what you meant,
if it's it really helps yoursleep. But has there been
anything profound that you'venoticed a difference in yourself
since you've done meditation?
Lorena Morales (52:49):
Yes, I think, for me, when I was not sleeping,
I was trying to, like I now Iunderstand from the experts in
this, that I was doing the exactwrong thing. So when I was not
sleeping, like, let's say at 4am, and I would wake up with a
problem, or they say, you know,you got older because now you
(53:11):
don't need an alarm because yourown problems wake you up at
night. And it's absolutely truepeople, as you get older, you
don't need a frickin alarmbecause it's your own problems
waking you up.
So if I would wake up at four,oh my God Todd, instead of just
recognising, like, hey, my braindoesn't want to sleep right now.
(53:33):
Okay, I'm gonna get out of mybed, I'm gonna go to the couch.
And I'm going to start reading,let's see, I could force myself
and punish myself seeing theclock and saying like, Oh my
god, I have only like threehours until I have to start my
day or like, "Oh my God, if Idon't sleep in 12 minutes or
(53:54):
12.5, then this means that thatand that". And then you create
this cycle where you just becomelike, yeah, that you're losing
some type of like, like thing,which is true. The most valuable
things that the human has, inthis life or any other that
(54:17):
exists is precisely your timeand how you spend it. So your
sleeping time should be asprecious as your time with your
significant other, with your dogwith your coworkers. So for me,
when I was not sleeping when Iwas supposed to be sleeping was
like I am wasting my time, and Idon't waste my time. That's
something that I everyone knowsabout me. I don't waste a single
(54:41):
second of my time. But now I'mtelling you, thanks to
meditation; I'm morecompassionate.
It still happens even if youare in medication or whatever.
Nothing is perfect, right? Itstill happens sometimes, so when
it happens, I just wake up, pullmyself out, even if it's cold,
(55:02):
whatever it is, I stay away frommy bed. And I do something that
doesn't include anytechnological gadget. And I even
done Yoga, like at 3 (55:11):
30 am. And it helps, yeah..
Todd Chambers (55:19):
You spoke about time, and this will be my final
question. I really appreciateyour time. You said that you
don't waste time and time is themost precious resource we have.
How do you protect your own timefrom things that are not really
opportunities, but they'redisguised as opportunities?
Lorena Morales (55:40):
Yeah, I needed I'm telling you, I'm a very
worried human being. I've beenobsessed about time since I
recall. And my father is someonethat really likes watches, like
a fiscal watch. And I am thesame. So I kind of developed
this obsession for having awatches collection. And even
(56:04):
though some of them like youneed to change the battery, or
like they are sold at X or Y,and they don't tell you that the
right time at that moment. Ialways have a watch on my wrist,
simply because it's very aconstant reminder of like, these
minutes won't ever come back. Sobe careful who you're giving it
to. And so from very earlystages of my life, even when I
(56:28):
was a teenager, my friends usedto hate me because it was like,
why couldn't you go out on aFriday? And I'm like "because I
don't want to because I havemore important things to do. And
there's only this Friday". Andthey were like, "no, but then
there's next Friday if youdon't" and I was like, "No, no,
no. Next Friday, I don't know".
Today, this Friday, I don't wantto do it. And it was very easy
(56:49):
for me to say no.
Now, as an adult, I just crossedvery recently, the third decade,
I am exactly the same, and thathasn't changed. Like if I don't
want to go to, and the peoplethat I work with, they know
that. When we go to conferencesor something, and I don't want
(57:09):
to do like a happy hour orsomething, I simply say "you
know what, I'm not gonna bethere". And if I say no, they
know there's no way they canconvince me like not even with
mezcal, not even with food,like, there is no way. So I made
up protector in my mind. So it'sa little creature. Please don't
laugh.
Todd Chambers (57:28):
Sorry, too late.
Lorena Morales (57:30):
I knew you were gonna laugh, but it has a name,
and it has a shape andeverything, and that's the one
protecting my time since I wasvery, very young. And I started
to see before the pandemic, andpeople could be out every single
weekend. And I was like, andthey would ask me like, "why do
you like to stay in your houseso much?" And I would ask the
(57:53):
opposite like what's so growingyour house that you want to
leave all the freakin time? Soyes, I created a protector.
That's a short answer. Yep.
Todd Chambers (58:05):
How many? How many watches do you have? I'm
really intrigued now.
Lorena Morales (58:08):
Here in the US, I have around 25.
Todd Chambers (58:12):
25 watches. Wow.
And they're all like, analogue?
Are they old school? Watches orare they, is it like a mix of
digital as well?
Lorena Morales (58:22):
It's a mix.
Like, I mean, it's thingsbecause some of them are like,
Yeah, quite like very specialpieces. Some of them they are
just like, I mean, I love thedesign and when I need to have
it and so it's a lot aboutdesign. And if I like it, I'm
gonna have it. Then some othershave more emotional connections
(58:45):
on like my grandfather gave itto me or like my father giving
it to me on my birthday. So likesome stuff like that, or I
bought it to myself when Iaccomplish x or y or so it's
kind of a mix, but uh, but yeah,it's a collection that it's
yeah, it's my obsession. It'sme. I don't care about clothes.
(59:06):
I don't care about bags. I don'tcare about shoes. I am not a
normal woman. What I care aboutare watches.
Todd Chambers (59:17):
Very cool. Well, thank you so much for doing this
was a really great interview. Iappreciate you taking the time.
And yeah, is there a place wherepeople can reach you? Twitter,
LinkedIn, email?
Lorena Morales (59:30):
All of the above! My Twitter handles:
Morales Lorena SF, My LinkedInhandle Morales Lorena and my
email you can reach out to me atLorena.Morales@gonimbly.com and
thought it had been a fantastictime with you today. Thank you.
Todd Chambers (59:48):
Yeah, thank you so much for this, speak soon.
See ya!Thanks for listening to the
podcast, guys. If you want toget links to any of the
resources we discussed in theinterview, head over to
uprawmedia.com/slash podcast.
Until next time, take it easy.
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