April 11, 2023 • 55 mins
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In this episode, we talk CMO-Ops role with returning guest, Raja Walia. Raja is the founder and principal consultant of GNW Consulting, a marketing automation and CRM consulting company. GNW is the latest in a series of marketing, marketing operations and marketing automation consulting organizations.
Tune in to hear:
- What Raja means by "CMO Ops."
- How differentiates these roles from “traditional” CMO roles or marketing ops roles.
- Raja elaborates on how this could be a fractional role and talks about what he thinks the scenarios are where the "fractional" CMO role would work well vs those that would not?
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Michael Hartmann (00:00):
Hello everyone, and welcome to another
(00:01):
episode of OpsCast, brought toyou by MarketingOps.com, powered
by the Mo Pros.
I'm your host, Michael Hartmann.
Joined today by my co-host MikeRizzo.
What's happening there?
California, Mike.
Uh, you know,
Mike Rizzo (00:12):
weather's been okay, although the whole country feels
like it's in turmoil.
It doesn't matter where you areand, uh, but you know, I'm in
sandals today, so
Michael Hartmann (00:20):
that's nice.
Nice.
Well, and I, and I'm making a,you know, the.
Modern sort of.
Uniform.
I quarter, zip, got your quarterzip, and a and a golf shirt.
And a golf shirt underneaththat.
Yeah.
So, all right, so, uh, we aregonna talk today by, we got a
returning guest and uh, it isRaja.
(00:44):
Walia he is, uh, he's got aninteresting topic that we're
gonna talk about today about,uh, something he's, he, I guess
he's coined it, CMO ops,sometimes fractional.
And so Raja, if you don't, forthose who, uh, are not familiar
with him from last episode wehad with him is a founder
principle consultant at GNWConsulting and marketing
automation and CRM consultingcompany GNW is the latest in a
(01:06):
series of marketing andmarketing op ops and marketing
automation consultingorganizations that he's worked
with.
So, Raja, welcome back and thankyou for joining us again, today.
Raja Walia (01:16):
Yeah, no, it's awesome.
Thank you for having me back andthank you for having us talk
about this topic.
It's gonna be, um, it'sdefinitely gonna be a little bit
of a, uh, confrontational onefor us, so to speak.
I wouldn't say confrontation.
No, wouldn't sayconfrontational.
We
Michael Hartmann (01:28):
need to mark this, definitely.
This episode is as havingexplicit content.
Is that it?
Raja Walia (01:33):
I think, uh, explicit opinions maybe.
I guess
Michael Hartmann (01:38):
that's all right.
We've had to do that before.
I think we did.
We have to do that with our lastone, with Andrea.
I don't know if Andrea's on theshow yet.
Yeah, pretty much.
Mike Rizzo (01:48):
But it's, well, good.
It's just part of the vibe, youknow?
And, and let me, let me just,let me jump in right now and say
for all the listeners, GNWConsulting is also one of our
very first three sponsors of MOAPalooza this year.
So we have to thank Woo woo Rajafor that.
We got hooked up at B2BMX.
We had a great.
Specifically around some of whatwe're gonna talk about today.
(02:09):
And then I was like, yeah, youdefinitely need to come hang
out.
So thank you for sure.
Michael Hartmann (02:13):
Absolutely.
That's fantastic.
All right.
And yeah, so MOps-Apalooza is,I've already gotten the dates
off, so Mike, November, right?
November,
Mike Rizzo (02:22):
yep.
November, November.
Five through
Michael Hartmann (02:24):
8, 2023.
Okay.
So someone's listening to thisafter that, right?
You missed it.
Raja Walia (02:30):
Yeah.
In 2024.
Michael Hartmann (02:33):
Um, alright, well, let's, let's dive in.
So I think, you know, this topicor something that you, you,
Mike, you mentioned that you andRaja started talking about, you
kind of both seem fairlypassionate about it and it felt
like it would be a good one forour audience, uh, to listen to
and see.
Uh, you're calling it CMO Ops.
So Raja, why don't we startthere?
Give us, yeah, give us ourlisteners a little bit of a
(02:55):
definition.
Sure.
Like what do you mean when yousay CMO Ops?
Raja Walia (02:58):
Yeah.
So I'll give you a littlebackground about like my
background for people whoweren't able to like listen to
the original one.
But I've been kind of a dev,like I've been, I've been an
operational person my entirelife, right?
Like the consulting agency thatI started, GNW Consulting was
driven and founded off of thefact that we needed.
To have someone where we neededmore operational, quote unquote
(03:22):
high level, if you wanna call'emexecutives, you can call'em
strategists, whatever it is.
Um, but that's why I kind ofstarted GNW Consulting cause
majority of my life.
And we touched on this a littlebit last time, was that I,
operations individuals areusually translating.
Vision into executablestrategies from a tech stack
(03:43):
perspective.
So the idea behind, you know,fractional CMO in a nutshell is
that we have a vision, and oneof my favorite quotes by Thomas
Edison is like, you know, visionwithout execution is kind of a
hallucination.
And that's the idea behindfractional CMO ops is that you
can, you can have a vision, youcan have a very clear and
defined vision, but how do youexecute and.
(04:06):
Operate for a lack of a betterword on it.
And one of the things that wetalked about, and one of the
things that, you know, Risa andI kind of saw eye to eye is
that, you know, right now we'rein the process of running like
this kind of poll, but from myexperience personally, from my
experience and other operationalpeople is that when we get a
hundred thousand page strategy,PowerPoint deck, it really
(04:26):
results in us translating all ofthose.
All of those items intofunctional components.
So the idea is that there's somuch, there's so much out there
about fractional CMO strategy,but there's not enough about
operations.
And even in organizationsoperations is like the last
person.
To know a finalized version andyou know, lack of better word,
(04:50):
like we're just trying to figurethat shit out.
Like, you know, we get it, it'sbeen approved and it's the go
forward strategy, businessinitiative, whatever you want to
call it.
And we're like, well, we don't.
Either have a lot of thesethings, or we need to translate
a lot of these things intosomething that's functional for
whatever the businesses techstack is.
And that, and that's kinda likethe, the founding premise about
(05:11):
like CMO ops is like, you know,having a seat at the table and
talking about operationally, howare we going to execute on this?
Mike Rizzo (05:21):
Yeah.
Um, definitely.
I mean, I think like, look, we,there's books on from backroom
to boardroom.
There's talks about like howdoes marketing operations
professionals, rev ops as well,right?
Um, if you're proper rev ops,not just sales ops, uh, you
know, how do you earn a seat tothe table?
And I think like, This idearather than, rather than having
(05:46):
to take what you're handed andtry to like figure out how to
smash together a bunch ofdifferent existing tech or
workarounds, which is, you know,feels like most of the time is
what's happening.
It's like, how do you becomethis strategic enable?
At like, when the conversationhas started, right?
(06:08):
Like that is, that is the thingthat is missing today.
And, and I like this idea oflike CMO ops, right?
Like it's something that isadjacent to this chief marketing
officer role, but it'soperationally oriented.
And, uh, at, at my talk thatI'll be giving at the b2b, or
(06:29):
sorry, the best of breed, um,event.
I talked a little bit aroundthis same subject matter.
I have no idea what this thingis supposed to be called Roger.
You're calling it CMO ops.
I was like, I don't
Raja Walia (06:41):
know what it's gonna be called.
Yeah.
You know, I, I, I, I'm talkingit, I'm talking about it mainly
from a, and the reason I call itCMO ops is because, and once
again, like from my experienceand like my fellow colleagues
who have been in Rev inoperational, like positions
their entire life, uh, you know,we always talk about sales and
marketing a.
However, which is a nice topicto talk about.
(07:02):
It's very trending, but one ofthe things we always fail to
mention is like, what aboutmarketing to marketing
alignment?
Like where are, oh, the mar,where are the
Michael Hartmann (07:10):
marketing strateg?
There's the elephant in the roomright there.
Raja Walia (07:13):
Yeah.
And, and you know, like we're,we're so hellbent and focused on
aligning the sales getinternally between what's
developed now from a rev opsstandpoint.
Right.
Is we don't, we're not evenaligned on how strategy is going
to work with the rev ops portionof it.
Like it's, it's, it's twoseparate roles, but we're so
(07:35):
hellbent on aligning with sales.
Is that, Marketing nowadays isnot even aligned on what the
hell is happening, whattechnology is going to do one,
or what, what technology isgoing to do what.
So, so that's kind of like
Michael Hartmann (07:49):
the idea.
Let's just wanna make sure I'mhearing what you're intending,
cause I think what you're sayingis like, within most marketing
teams or a lot that you've seen,there's not even alignment
between keep it simple, likedemand gen or, or, uh, you know.
Would call it demand, demand genand ops.
Right.
Raja Walia (08:08):
I, I wouldn't even take, I wouldn't take even one
higher level of that than that.
Right.
Like that's why the idea aboutCMO ops, it's, there's not even
alignment between like peopledevising strategy.
For demand, like demand gen isan operational item of we need
to de generate demand, right?
Lead generation, we need togenerate leads.
Content's syndication is we needto create content, right?
(08:29):
Like, and then we syndicate thatcontent through programs and
operational and so forth.
How about you even take, say itone step higher than that is
that within marketing, thepeople designing the strategies
that have to be executed on areso misaligned on what technology
can do that functionally.
It's just kind of fluff in theair, right?
(08:50):
It, it's
Michael Hartmann (08:50):
just So just do you think it's techno, just
like what there, there's a gapin their knowledge or
understanding of what technologycan do or, cause one of the
things I see, cause I thinkyou're hitting at a point that
is actually really, reallyimportant is that, well two, one
is that connection betweenstrategy and execution, right?
Like the knowing, doing kind ofgap, whatever you wanna call it.
But the other one that I thinkyou're hitting on, to me that is
(09:12):
resonating at least, so this iswhat's hitting me, is.
What I often see is, um, yeah,everybody wants to do, like we
have a strategy.
We all want to go be coordinatedacross those different kinds of
go-to-market activities.
At the same time, those teamsare incented in gold.
According to their own thing.
So they don't like, and it's notanybody's particular fault,
(09:34):
right?
People follow their what'sincentive, how they're ient,
right?
So if they're ient in their leadgeneration to generate leads,
they're gonna do one thing.
If they're incentive to generatecontent that gets a lot of
eyeballs on it, or ultimatelylead.
You know, that's what they'regonna do.
They're not gonna necessarily beworking on it to affect revenue
per se.
Right.
Or maybe they all think theyare, but they're not doing it in
(09:54):
a coordinated effort.
And so they, you sort of getsome traction, but not maybe as
much as you could if there wastrue coordination.
Yeah.
Raja Walia (10:02):
Yeah.
I'm sorry.
Go ahead.
No, no.
I'm
Michael Hartmann (10:04):
just like, am I am, am I, am I coming at it
with a different thing or areyou, is that, is that kind of
what you're addressing?
Raja Walia (10:11):
That's all that, that's all encompassing under
the marketing to marketingalignment thing.
Right?
Like that.
Okay.
It's all there.
There's a portion of.
Not understanding technology andnot understanding your own tech
stack enough to do all of thoseitems that you're talking about,
like or to translate all ofthose items.
Right.
A lot of things that I've seenis that we can call them
strategists, we can call themgrowth target us, we can call
(10:32):
them fractional, whatever,insert, you know, visionary that
you have.
You know, whatever their titlesare will traditionally plan.
Strategy.
That's such a higher levelwithout even understanding
technology and what it can do.
That's one part of it.
Without understanding what thecapabilities are of an
organization and just say, thisis our go to business market
(10:54):
strategy looks very good onPowerPoint, right?
Looks very good.
When you graph it out and shitlike that and you have a funnel
and you're like, if we get morepeople here, we're gonna get
more closed.
One opportunities.
That means more dollar signs.
In what?
How does that even operate?
Like if you're telling me a goto Strat, if a go to market
strategy or a strategy for abusiness is to make more money,
(11:16):
I'm on board.
Right?
Like that's, you have toincrease your revenue.
I'm a thousand percent down forthat.
Yeah.
But what are the functionalsteps and what are the
components of everything that wetalk about in marketing that is
going to get you to that?
And that is always missed andthat is always on the
operational side.
Rev ops always has to dissect.
(11:36):
And say, okay, well if yourtarget is$3 million for the
quarter and you wanna do some adspend, what does that mean?
How do we track it?
How do we source it, and how dowe funnel back and attribute it
to the associated campaigns,which is never talked about
because rev ops just fuckingdoes it, right?
We we're just like, okay, well,and what I'm saying is that if
(11:57):
it happens earlier, In theentire planning funnel, it's a
lot easier to execute on onrather than, you know, go to
market being we really need todeploy in two months.
Why can't we do it?
What's going on?
Because no one is talking aboutthe functional aspects of it.
People are just talking aboutthe glorified funnels and
(12:17):
PowerPoint presentations of it.
Mike Rizzo (12:20):
Yeah, it, it's, it's tough.
Like there's a whatever cartonhorse, chicken and egg
conversation that comes updepending on the size of your
organization.
Um, but let's just pretend for amoment we're talking about an
organization that's at leastbeen established for a few
years, has maybe 50 or moreemployees.
And I think this conversation iswhere like it needs to happen a
(12:42):
lot sooner there, there might besome flexibility.
You know, or not flexibility,understanding in that, hey, in a
startup we might not have allthe tools and resources and so
we, we have to be a little piein the sky and then sort of
operate within our limits.
Michael Hartmann (12:56):
I would argue that that's also the case in
many medium, min, larger.
Organizations
Mike Rizzo (13:01):
too.
Yeah, I think that is, I thinkthat is the case.
And what I'm saying is, uh, I'madvocating here for, for the,
the alternate, which is thatconversation should be what I
call, I don't call it this, Iuse the phrase, the art of the
possible all the time withfolks, right?
And educating them on.
I've seen firsthand as acommunity builder and as a
(13:23):
marketing ops profess, Whensomeone says, Hey, how do I
execute on building out acommunity?
Or How do I execute on buildingout these programs or my go to
market framework?
If I sit down with a VP ofcommunications, for example, and
I say, Hey, these are all thethings we have access to it, it
creates this.
This is like this wonderful ahamoment that takes place when, if
(13:47):
and when that ever gets tohappen, right?
And they go.
Oh, you mean we could, you know,host an entire virtual
conference on this platform?
Like it's meant to feel like anin-person, like things like that
where they're like, they didn'teven realize, oh, I thought I
could just run one webinar amonth.
Right?
Like, yeah.
It's stuff, it's like, it's sogoing back to what Hartman was
(14:08):
saying and, and that's some ofthe points you were making there
earlier, Raja were like, whenyou don't know what is possible,
it is very difficult.
To, to try to think about, okay,well how do I go to market?
How do I implement strategy?
How do I build a business aroundthe tools and resources that I
have?
(14:28):
People or tech,
Michael Hartmann (14:29):
right, or, or you make a or you make
assumptions about what'spossible.
Raja Walia (14:32):
Yeah.
Which is, which is what happens?
Well, I wanna say 95 to 98% ofthe time.
Cause you make assumptions ofwhat's possible then.
And if you think about amarketing, the marketing
alignment, right?
Like we talk, once again, wetalk about sales and marketing
all the time.
But marketing, the marketing, itgoes into a loop.
Someone will design thestrategy.
We will, they will makeassumptions based off on it.
(14:54):
It will get handed off tooperations.
Operations will say, either wecan do something or we can't do
something.
It'll go back into this loopuntil it turns out that really
the go-to-market strategy is anemail campaign, right?
Like that's what we have to dumbit down into, because we have
this broader view of generatingleads from an email campaign, or
(15:14):
it's a multi, or it's an onlinechannel or multi-channel
strategy, or it's a paid adsplay, or it's a demand gen
piece, right?
So we run into this little.
The circle of where we're justtrying to catch up to our own
marketing, and at that point,sales is just, What the hell are
you guys doing?
And then we finally execute onit.
(15:35):
And then we're like, oh, we needsales and marketing alignment.
Like sales and marketingalignment needs to happen.
But like we've already talkedabout this back between vision
to execution to possible to backto what changes need to be made.
And I think it would just be alot easier in just general if
someone who knew.
The Rev op side or operationalside of the thing, and that's
why I call it CM Ops, right?
(15:55):
Is really, it's a C-levelexecutive that has operational
experience to kind of eitherhelp or devise what's feasible
and a company perspective,regardless of what size
essentially is.
So, uh,
Michael Hartmann (16:08):
to, to follow up two sort of follow up
questions and not reallydirectly related to each other.
So let me just pose them andthen you guys can kind of talk
to him.
One is.
Mike, you mentioned how this issomewhat sounds because this to
me sounds a little bit like thechief of staff stuff that we've
talked about in a couple ofprevious episodes multiple
times, right?
So I'm curious, but like, how doyou see that different, um, from
(16:31):
what you're talking about Raja?
And then the second is like, I,I, the sense I get is that there
is, you know, whether it's c aschief of staff, These kinds of
roles that are like ops rolesthat are becoming more VP and
even there's a handful.
I think they're becoming C levelroles as well.
Like what do you think is thedriver behind that?
(16:51):
Like what do you, what's, what'smaking this something that
you're like really passionateabout?
Raja and Mike, and at this pointin time,
Mike Rizzo (16:59):
oh yeah, I'm gonna tackle the chief of staff thing
first.
Um, I do think that the chief ofstaff can act as a facilitator
in the.
How does your, like I need tofilter the, the quote unquote
noise of the C-suite to what ispossible, and then also take the
(17:20):
inputs from the team on whereare your constraints, right?
Like do you have limited budget,bandwidth, technology, all of
those things so that I can actas that layer, whether that is
CMO ops or chief of staff.
I think they're sort ofinterchangeable in that.
I think the difference is fromthe perspective of like what is
your responsibility as a C levelexecutive chief of staff sounds
(17:46):
like a C level executive, but inreality it's not quite that,
that tenure, so to speak.
Uh, at least that's my take onit.
I certainly never sat in therole, but my take is you're sort
of reporting into the C level,right?
Um, sure.
I think on the CMO side ofthings, The dash ops is the only
(18:07):
way that you'll ever ha like,let me just say, this is what I
shared in this upcoming sessionthat's, that's coming out with
the best of breed thing withwith Brinker.
I said briefly, I said, A CMOwho has an operational
background hired by a CEO whowould like that individual to be
an expert or have a proficiencyin operations.
(18:30):
They go to hire for that role,and it's all.
But at the end of the day, theCMO is always going to be tasked
with generating demand andhelping to hit revenue targets,
which means your operationalproficiency will always take
second seat to what needs tohappen to the go-to-market,
which means tech debt and all ofthe things that you can't go
(18:51):
execute on and the efficienciesthat you would like to put into
place are going to take secondseat to, oh, I gotta get that
campaign out.
Yeah.
Right.
And so that CMO function, unlessit changes dramatically
overnight or in the next 10years to be like, no, no, no.
CMOs are operational experts andthey're gonna do all like,
(19:13):
they're never going to take to,to have the board's approval to
be like, yes, spend 30% of yourtime, budget, and resources on
creating operational excellenceso that we can go to market.
They're gonna be like, no, howare we gonna generate leads?
Which markets are we gonnaenter?
Like your job is to tell mewhere to go sell and who's
buying.
(19:34):
Right?
Right.
And so anyway, I like the CMOops Chief of staff, or
potentially a future version ofthe COO could be this thing that
we're talking about.
I just don't, like, I propose, Ihave no idea what it's gonna
Raja Walia (19:49):
Yeah, and, and I think this.
This is where from acounterpoint, Mike, I would
probably challenge one part ofwhat you said.
Hmm.
I feel like if you ask any clevel, if you have an operating
offers or, uh, you know, op coooperationals, or if you have a
tech or even information personat C level, th this, this role,
(20:09):
whatever you wanna call it, um,from a CMO level.
Needs to have the ability totalk about those things but not
execute on them, right?
Like you need to be able, ableto have strategy.
And also operational experienceenough to not sit and do the
work.
Mind you, I'm not saying likethat's not what the C-suite is
for, but to be able to guidestrategically how we're going to
(20:33):
execute on this, I feel likeit's, I mean, an information
officer can do it right.
Like there's how many times hassomeone brought on a piece of
technology and the informationofficer, he's not doing the
work, but he's guiding his team.
He is asking the rightquestions.
He's saying, how are we gonnaimplement this?
A CTO is the exact same way,right?
If the CEO is the visionary ofthe company and all these other
branches of the C-suite aresupposed to help with their
(20:55):
component, why is it that we'reseparating a C M O'S
responsibility just to.
Writing books about fuckingstrategy.
Like why can't we talk aboutoperational?
Like why, like, I'm not sayingthat you have to do it, but I'm
just saying like, you should beable to operationally articulate
what's possible and feasible aswell as the strategy as well.
(21:16):
Not just talk about onecomponent of it.
Because Yeah, if a CTO jumped ona call and said, that's a really
cool piece of technology.
Yeah, it's gonna make usoperate, operationalize this and
all this other stuff, and you goto implement it and it doesn't
fit the, uh, the tech.
Whose neck is on the line?
The cto.
Yeah, because they, they have tobe able to know, and I feel like
that, that's why I'm, I'm, I'mkind of lost of like, I feel
(21:39):
like the C M O and the ops rulehas to be almost one and the
same, what it's called later inlife or whatever it is, but the
reason that, the way that I'mdefining cmmo ops is I'm saying,
If you're in the marketingspace, just like an information,
just like a security person,just like a technical, any part
of the C-suite, you have to havemore than just your ability to
(22:01):
write a book about strategy.
You have to also be able tofigure out how those strategies
are going to operate from abusiness to business
perspective, not just talk aboutthat.
Yeah.
Michael Hartmann (22:11):
So you know, I like, I like your term Mike, of
the art of the Possible, and ithas like what I'm hearing, and
I'll just throw this out therelike this feels.
Uh, what you're suggesting,Raja, is sort of a shift in what
we should expect out of CMOs,right, to be, not just the
person who can talk about brandand demand gen and writing copy,
(22:35):
and writing emails and buildingwebpages and all that, but also
one who can talk about, um, howto translate strategy and goals
and objectives, business goalsand objectives into executable.
Stuff, uh, within the context ofwhat's possible with what we
have from a tech stack andstaffing and resources.
Mm-hmm.
Um, and know, be, be able toknow.
(22:55):
Like if, uh, the head of salescomes to me and says, we need to
do, what'd you say?
3 million in the next quarter.
You know, what do you wanna do?
And you can go, well, with ourcurrent, you know, resources, we
can do X, Y, and Z.
That will get you close to that.
You know, in the future, if youthink this is where they're
actually going, then, then, thenwe need to invest in this other
technology and Right.
(23:16):
But that's, I think,consultative approach.
Right.
Yeah, but,
Raja Walia (23:20):
but here's the thing.
Like, why is that like such aweird ask?
Am I I don't think it is.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
I'm not, I'm not talking to you.
I'm not talking to you.
I'm saying just in general,right?
Like people are gonna listen tothis and some people are gonna
agree and they're like, you knowthe, I know.
I've been in the game longenough to know like what they're
gonna say.
Like, you know, you need todefine a vision strategy, but
every other C-Suite personoffers more than just strategy.
(23:42):
They offer a certain specialtyand a skillset that you also
have as a sweet suite person.
Right?
Marketing is the only ones.
TalkinGNWriting about andreleasing books about all of
these topics with no indicationof how to implement these,
right.
The implementation has alwaysbeen tr, you know, traditionally
(24:03):
on the operations person or anIT person or whoever, they can
get to freaking sit there andlike do the job, right?
Right.
But, but what I'm saying isthey're not particularly to you.
I didn't want to come acrossthat way is like, I feel like
that's not a hard ask.
I feel like that's an ask as asea level person who's in the
day, in day, day to day, day.
As something that we, you know,there's so many pieces of
technology and there's so muchstuff out there and you know,
(24:26):
marketing always has like, youknow, shiny object syndrome
because we've never had thesepieces of technology before.
Yeah.
So we start investing in allthis shit and because we're loo
looking at reading of Google Top10 reviews on what you should
invest in 2023 and 2024.
But we don't ask, thefundamental question is, does it
just like a CTO.
Does this fit into our company'svision and does it cohesively
(24:49):
integrate into our company'stech stack because we'll just
straight up buy shit.
You know what I mean?
Yeah, yeah.
Like we just, we just need onegood pitch.
And we're like, yeah, ABM one tomany, I'm all about that life.
Right?
So I, and what I'm saying islike, I don't think that's a
tough ass.
I feel like that's almost neededin order to marketing, in order
for marketing and rev ops tohave a seat at the table.
(25:09):
That's almost a require.
That you have to know a littlebit more than just, you know,
fluff talk and strategy.
Totally.
And I think
Mike Rizzo (25:18):
we're, I we're saying a lot of the same things,
honestly.
It's, uh, I'm
Raja Walia (25:23):
not, you just dunno what to call it.
Yeah.
We just dunno what to call it.
Yeah.
Like the
Mike Rizzo (25:26):
future, like, I'm, I'm challenging that the cmo,
the today's CMO would struggleto fight for if you, if you
think, you know, I've got onepool of money to use on people.
And technology and then go tomarket marketing spend, right?
And so all three of those thingsare things I have to think
about.
What staff am I gonna hire?
(25:47):
What tools am I gonna buy?
And, and, and how am I gonnaactually like put it into the
market?
When the board, or your CEO orwhoever it is that you're
interacting with is saying now,like, how do you go deploy that?
And you happen to be somebodythat cares a lot about like,
well, we need to go buy a datawarehouse, build a whole data
infrastructure and a data lake,and then a process that
(26:08):
integrates all of these datatools so that we can have a more
efficient and effectivego-to-market strategy.
They're gonna be like, wait aminute, like that feels like
you're not generating enough.
Like where's, so how many leadsare you gonna.
Right.
Yeah.
And it's like, so it's going tobe a challenge is all I'm gonna
say.
And like, I'm not saying thatthe CMO can't become this thing
(26:29):
in the future.
In fact, I think there, I wouldargue there probably are some
CMOs that are really proficientat this
Michael Hartmann (26:34):
already.
Yeah, I, I know I've talked tosome that I did.
I would argue probably fit that,but I, I think,
Raja Walia (26:39):
I'm not gonna mention her name because it's
gonna inflate her ego, but weall know one that's a really
good cmo.
Oh, yeah.
That, that comes from anoperational background.
Might have been a,
Michael Hartmann (26:48):
might have been a previous guest on our, on
our podcast.
Raja Walia (26:50):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Might have been a previous Yeah,that Does it articulate, you
know, that does it relativelywell.
Right?
So,
Mike Rizzo (26:56):
Yeah, but it's, but at the end of the day, I think
it is a challenge for, intoday's state, for this
individual, in this role.
To, to try to bifurcate theresponsibility between how do I
generate demand and revenue andsales from how do I build
something that's effective andefficient and go to market
capable?
Michael Hartmann (27:17):
So, so cause they're measured differently.
No, I.
Totally.
Well, and one's like, one'sreally hard to put, like you
shouldn't measure spend
Mike Rizzo (27:26):
spending, don't measure your
Raja Walia (27:27):
CTO and your CIO ability to generate revenue.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But once again, it's, it's thesame thing across the board,
right?
Like, yeah, it's might bedifficult to do, but I, I feel
like.
I feel like in today's day andage, ultimately, like I almost
feel like it's a requirement foreveryone to know more than just,
you know, a, a a, an informationofficer is not gonna tell you
(27:50):
why CRMs are not going to work,right?
And so I feel like it's nothingnew.
Like I feel like this is justsomething that has to happen
regardless.
Michael Hartmann (27:58):
Well, so I think, so I wanna take this back
to our core audience, which is,you know, people who are
marketing ops, rev opsprofessionals.
I think, um, what, what thisfeels like to me is that we
should be holding ourselvesaccountable as professionals in
that area to be, if that's nothappening, like we should be the
ones.
(28:19):
Taking that stance.
And I like, I've had examples inmy career where I had a lot of
pressure to say, you mentionedabm, Roger, right, let's go get
abm, right?
Let's do abm.
And, and what they meant was,let's go buy some technology.
And I pushed back with art.
Like I would've call, would'vecalled it art of possible if I
had heard that phrase.
But yeah, I was like, we, likewe can make.
(28:41):
The tech stack we have withoutbuying more.
But the first and most importantthing is we need to agree on who
are those accounts we wanna gotarget.
Yeah.
If we can't do that, there's nopoint in getting technology to
scale it because it doesn'tmatter, which we never did end
in mind.
Yeah.
And I said, and I'm willing todo experiments.
Let's, let's narrow, let's,let's work together to define
that top hundred.
(29:01):
Let's figure out a way that wecan do some coordinated efforts
from a marketing standpoint withsales.
Right.
And we never got past definingthe hot top.
Yeah, we never got to that.
And so, and
Raja Walia (29:13):
that's why things like one to few and one to many
exist because the, the entireconcept about ABM was to have a
targeted solution on aone-to-one basis for a
counselor.
Similar, well, people didn'twant to do that.
Because it was a lot of effortand work.
Then they released one to few,which is like, you know, all
right, we can be a little looseygoosey.
Right?
And then they came out to one tomany, which is just casting a
wine net.
I'm like, isn't that justtechnically marketing at this
(29:35):
point?
Like you're just casting to5,000 accounts with no
personalization and no target.
I'm like that, that's justmarketing.
Like, you're just Right.
You're not doing anything new.
You just, you identified yourbuying audience.
Yeah.
Mike Rizzo (29:48):
Yeah.
Michael Hartmann (29:49):
My tam is the whole world, and, um, here you
go.
But, and, and, I, I thinkattribution is another one where
like, like, you know, I thinkevery place I've been the last
10 years has wanted to do someversion of what you would call
attribution modeling today.
And, um, you know, there'stechnologies out there, no
disrespect to any of the vendorsout there and ABM technology or,
(30:10):
yeah.
Or, or attribution.
It's like sometimes no.
Those things you gotta like,like what's the purpose of it?
So I think like, I'm, what Iguess I was suggesting is people
in the roles that we're inshould also be voicing, like
they should be standing up for,Hey, like I hear what you're
saying and this is what, likedon't say, just say no.
(30:32):
Right?
It's like, no, I see what you'rerunning.
You get to, um, and we can getyou partway there, whatever that
is with our existing stuff bydoing these things.
Right.
And it's a, it becomes a more ofa consultative approach as
opposed to a.
Yes or no?
Right?
And there's tradeoffs, right?
You gotta talk about thetradeoffs, like there's no right
answer.
I'm huge believer that there'snot al almost with exceptions
(30:58):
out there, I'm sure, right?
There's virtually no decisionyou'll make, especially in a
business world where it has avery clear yes or no.
Mm-hmm.
There's always trade offs, andthat, by the way, includes all
the things like compli.
Privacy laws, and I'm not, Imean, I'm saying that like, I'm
not joking, like there's tradeoffs.
Like are you willing to take onthe risk of getting Yeah.
(31:18):
A fine and, and like that's areal, I think that's a real
decisions people need to makeand not every company thinks
they have that decision.
Yeah,
Raja Walia (31:27):
well, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'm gonna red card one
part of that, what you said,just please do one, one part of
that.
And I feel like from anoperational perspective, we can
ask, um, and I'll tell you ahundred percent from a, from a
junior operations person tohave, You know, now I have a,
like a senior operations person,though we can voice opinions as
(31:48):
much as I, I've a hundredpercent voiced my opinion on
this, right?
I've been in consulting for overlike 15 years.
Like I'm very good at voicing myopinion on this, but the idea is
that, The voice will always fallon deaf ears.
If there's not an operational ora, or a leader, uh, you know, a
executive leader that is pushingit down if, if they don't have
(32:09):
the abil, because I can tell youexamples upon examples of where
it makes sense, but it alwayshas a decision, or the chief
technical officer always trumpsa cmo.
Why is that?
Is.
The CMO can't talk to it at thesame level as a technical
officer, right?
Like how many implementationshave you done of a tech stack
where a marketing person reallywants to do it?
(32:32):
And then all of a sudden theyjust get trumped by, by just,
just had that happen in, in thelast 12 months.
Yeah.
Right.
And the, and the reason is,like, as operational as a junior
operations person into a middleor a senior, whatever you wanna
call it, is we can voice ouropinions, all the want, all they
want.
But once again, when you go tothe very, very top, again, there
has to be someone that canarticulately explain the
(32:54):
reasoning why.
And if it's not there, it's justgonna get sidelined.
You know, no one's gonna listento the senior, you know,
marketing operations managersthat's saying, Hey guys, uh, I
don't think we can run email,because we don't have a
marketing email tool.
Right?
Like, they're like, we don'thave a marketing automation
platform.
How are we gonna send email?
They're like, no, no, let's justuse Outlook and send it out.
Like, you know, everyone's doingthat, rather I read this on
(33:15):
right.
But it's not gonna work up untilthe point where shit hits the
fan and then it's gonna.
Circle all the way back up andall of a sudden you're see,
you're gonna see a bunch of jobchanges in LinkedIn happening.
You know, like a reorg of likeexecutive alignment happening
because it got so far down trackthat by the time you tried to
execute on it, it didn't happen,and then all of a sudden there's
(33:37):
a reorg.
Mike Rizzo (33:38):
Yeah.
I honestly like just, I think,yes, for our audience, it's
important for you to keep tryingto voice the opinion.
I think.
I think.
It's going to consistently behard, to your point, Raja on
like falling on deaf ears.
But if you don't try, then younever, you know, you're never
really gonna get anywhere.
(33:59):
Right?
Yeah.
Um, and I think, I think we're,you know, we're continuing to
advocate for this idea that,hey, you're not a button pusher,
right?
You're, you're not just supposedto take the order and like put
it in and, you know, fulfill.
Um, it should be brought.
Rules and guidelines and, andyou know, I don't know about you
(34:19):
Raja, but like some of thethings that I think about that
help put in some of thepracticality around, well, how,
like where do you go, right?
Whether you're junior or senioror you're a cmo, how do you
start to put in something thatallows for that checks and
balance to happen?
Yeah.
You know, maybe it starts withdocumentation.
Maybe it starts with, here'swhat we have at our, uh, at our
(34:43):
disposal, right?
The, the things that we can.
Um, he, if we're going to go tomarket, these are the core data
policies and practices and, anddata points that we actually
want to use in order to createcampaigning.
So don't come up with a pie inthe sky campaign until you're
first informed by what it isthat we actually have at our
(35:03):
fingertips.
Um, and, and I think a lot ofthat just starts with
documentation, right?
Like just, and I don't meanbuild it by, Like, yeah, yeah.
We'll sit there and write it alldown.
Like go talk to everybody and belike, what are you doing?
How are you using the
Michael Hartmann (35:16):
tools?
I, I was just gonna say, like,asking really good questions is
an underrated skill.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
So, and I think, I think it can,
Mike Rizzo (35:24):
this here I'm gonna read, I'm gonna read this quote
from, from Simon Daniels, uh,over at Forrester.
He says, um, although the floodof tech is helping solve some
problems, it's creating others.
In particular, B2B organizationsare buying rev tech faster than
they're refining thego-to-market processes that the
te.
Has been brought in to enable.
Right.
And I,
Michael Hartmann (35:44):
and I, truth, I'm proposing hashtag truth.
Right?
And I'm
Mike Rizzo (35:47):
proposing like that right there in my talk.
And for this conversation rightnow, we're all saying the same
thing.
Your biggest opportunity is tofigure out how to stop buying
Rev Tech faster than it is meantto refine the go-to-market
process.
Yeah.
And start figuring out how tohelp refine the go-to-market
process before you
Michael Hartmann (36:04):
go buy Rev Tech.
Yeah.
Because you might find it, youdon't need it.
So, um, just, I'm.
One of the books that was reallysort of, uh, significant in my
career was, was a book and it'snow probably dont.
15 years old, maybe more.
It's called execution subtitle,the discipline of getting things
(36:25):
done.
Raja Walia (36:26):
Yeah.
I, I, I, I
Michael Hartmann (36:27):
know that book.
Yeah.
Do you like, is it one you likeor not?
Raja Walia (36:31):
No, no, no.
I I, I, I feel like the basis ofmy operational career is that
getting Shut done book because Iread, I mean, I remember
someone, someone had given methat book to read and I was like
a junior operations consultant.
I was just like, This is what wedo.
Like, you know, I mean like,like operation, like this is,
this is the, this is how we doshit and get it done.
(36:53):
And that, that's the basis
Michael Hartmann (36:55):
of it.
So, well I thought that thething that I always think about,
like my summary is right,strategy's important, but not
the whatever, like volumes ofstrategy, but that.
Going from strategy to startingto execute and holding people
accountable to the resultexpected results.
That's the secret sauce, likemoving fairly quickly.
And I always, the way I equateit, and I'm not a sailor, so if
(37:15):
I get this analogy wrong, Istill use it anyway.
Like strategy me tells me you'relike, you're at this point.
And you wanna get to that pointand you, so you know generally
the direction you want to go,but all you really know when you
start is what are the conditionswhere you at.
So you're gonna start heading inthat direction, even if that
means you're tacking off alittle bit and then you're gonna
adjust as you learn, right?
You got new conditions, thenyou're gonna adjust.
(37:36):
But you always know, this iswhere I'm going.
And I think.
To me, that's the way I like toapproach things is like I, I
want to have a roadmap.
Like I wanna have a roadmap andI wanna have plans, but I wanna
be, I wanna leave myselfflexibility on how I get to the
end result.
And so sometimes you have moreor less control over that, or
more or less say over it.
(37:57):
But I think it's a model thatworks.
Um, and, and Raja, if you likethat book, there's a new book.
Um, like I think you and I havetalked about this actually with,
with my wife called Traction.
Which it's, it is reallyinteresting cause I think it
references that e execution, itreferences good to greate, it
references several other booksthat I'm also a fan of.
(38:18):
Um, I'm not a total fan of thisbook, but I think it has, it's a
similar vein and like putting inthat one goes a little more
detail into like, how do youoperationalize that concept of
strategy execution, strategy,execution with both long-term
and short-term goals.
In in mind it's, it's, uh, Yeah,I'm actually re-listening to
(38:40):
audiobook.
Raja Walia (38:42):
Yeah, I mean, I'll, I'll definitely pick it up.
I, I feel like it's tough totalk about strategy without
pissing someone off today andday and age because I feel like
the, the
Michael Hartmann (38:50):
modern day market, how about we talk about
best practices?
Then it just pissed me off causelike i's like, It's like I, I
Raja Walia (38:55):
feel like it's the same thing.
I feel like you cannot, justlike in Facebook, you cannot log
in and throw stone untilsomeone's talking about growth,
hacking your appointmentsettings and getting you 500
appointments.
I feel like you cannot log intoLinkedIn to have someone.
With no operational experience.
Talk about strategy andmarketing.
(39:16):
Go to market targets.
I mean, they're, they're likethe executive version of the
growth hackers that are on leadon on, um, LinkedIn.
Oh, not LinkedIn, on Facebook,right.
Like all those lead generators.
And so like, I feel like youcannot just throw a stone on
LinkedIn and you are gonna findsome.
You know, I, I don't wanna sayany of these words, I'm pretty
sure.
Like, just fuck it, I guess.
(39:37):
So, like, you're not gonna,you're not gonna be able to find
like some evangelist or somestrategist or some conceptual
thought expert or some strategicthinker that's out there that
probably would lock themselvesout of every single tool that
Marketing Operations uses to doany of their strategies and not
be.
Oh, okay.
(39:58):
So you want us to make moremoney?
That's cool.
I mean, that's a veryfundamental good strategy.
Like, and I'm not, I'm notpointing on anyone specific.
So please, if you're listeningto this and that's in like your
title or something like that, Iapologize.
I'm not, it is not intended.
It is not intended for anyone.
No,
Mike Rizzo (40:16):
I, but the, the standout, you know, the standout
strategists out there, whoeverthey might be, uh, definitely
figure out.
Have real conversations andalign people with the business.
Right.
Um, but you know, I think it'sthat tactical piece of like, how
do you even implement thisstuff?
What are the, like, I don'tknow, do you measure your, as an
(40:40):
operations person, like, firstof all, we're not measuring any
of the, in my mind, I don'tthink we're measuring any of the
right things to, to say where wefit into the pie of.
All of the spend and all of thego-to market strategy, right?
It's like if, if you're, youknow, state of the mopro
research says you're measuredpredominantly on your, um, your
(41:03):
KPI's predominantly, uh,pipeline, right?
It's like, well, but you're notactually responsible for
generating pipeline.
So like, what does that mean?
Right?
And I, I know everybody's heardme say it a thousand times.
Like I hope that it's just aboutthrough.
And efficiency.
But if you haven't built thosesystems to say, here's how we're
impacting the pipeline, not thecampaigns that we like created
(41:27):
ourselves or anything like that.
It's like, here's how much wecan do.
Here's how fast it reaches.
Here's how we're measuring theefficiency and the effectiveness
of our go to market.
If you're not doing that, Thenyou're not going to ever get to
a place where you can advocatefor why that matters.
Raja Walia (41:43):
Right.
Or know of those things.
Yeah, yeah.
Oh yeah.
Right.
If you don't even know aboutthose things, it's the same
concept applies.
Michael Hartmann (41:50):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, I, I, and this maybestarted way back when I started
my career in consulting, but Ialways wanted to understand the
context, what, you know, I'dhave a, you know, my manager,
senior manager would come to meworking on a client project,
like, go do this coding work,and I was.
What's it for?
Like I wanted to understand thebusiness, um, cause that
(42:12):
sometimes made me push backsome, but at a minimum I tried
to learn, you know, so I thinkthat's what you're saying, Mike,
right?
Is like, like if you're in thatrole and you're, you know, the,
the marketing being measured on.
KPIs that are around, say,revenue or pipeline or leads or
whatever, that you don't havedirect control over, but you can
(42:34):
enable, even if it doesn't meanyes, you think that that's what
you should be as an ops personmeasured on, it's good to know
it, right?
Why, and then how Then you canhelp figure out, well, how can I
be enable those, those teamsbetter?
Yeah.
Mike Rizzo (42:47):
And it just helps you unlock, you know, more
questions, right?
Like when you start poking intolike, Why, you know, how long
does it take for us to, tolaunch a campaign down to seeing
the first lead put into thishands of the salesperson?
When you start analyzing thebusiness in that way, you're
doing something that really noone wants to sit there and take
(43:07):
the time to do.
Oh, right.
But it's like incrediblyinsightful and helpful.
Yeah.
And so, you know, you might notactually be measured on it, but
you knowing it is an entirelyawesome and kind of dangerous
thing, right?
Like you, you create like this,I don't know, I don't wanna call
it a total moat, but like, it'ssomething that you have access
to and not everybody does so,
Michael Hartmann (43:29):
so, Raja and Mike, so we've, we've gone all
around and around on this, like,so where do you, like, what do
you think is the feature here onall this?
And like, yeah, I know one ofthe things we didn't get to yet,
and we can, maybe you can hit onit here, is that maybe this is
an opportunity for somefractional scenarios, but like,
where do you think the future isfor this?
(43:50):
Like, where do you think it'sgonna go?
Mike, you're speaking orpresenting at something, coming
up Raja, I dunno if you're doingsomething similar somewhere.
So how can people learn moreabout.
Raja Walia (44:02):
I, um, that's a tough question to, to answer the
first part of that question.
I, going forward, I, I feellike, I feel like any operation
or any C-level company like thatsounds weird.
Like any company that hasC-level executives really need
to kind of start thinking andoutlining how do you get
(44:24):
individuals that.
The company's technology as muchas the company's business as
well.
And if you have separate rolesfor that, that's perfectly fine
as well.
But at a, at a executive level,you know, no one's gonna say,
oh, let's, you know, and I knowsomeone's gonna say, um, because
I've been on calls where like,oh, well let's just throw that,
(44:45):
let's just listen to theoperational people because they
obviously know what they'retalking about.
Right?
Like, someone's gonna say that.
And, and that's not what I'msaying.
What I'm saying is, Either it'sa hybrid role or it's a role,
but the concept of operationalexecution has to be incorporated
at strategy in order, in orderto, you know, In order to devise
(45:05):
a plan that works and you'rejust not stuck in like this loop
of what's possible, just becausewe designed it well, we designed
it already, it's been approved,let's get it out the door.
Like the next step is like somesort of like, you know, to
Mike's point, like either it's aseparate role or it's this role.
In my personal opinion, I feellike the CMO needs to own it.
You know, I call it CMO ops,just because that's the best way
(45:29):
I can describe it.
But in my personal opinion, Ifeel like the, if you're a chief
marketing officer at a company,you also need to have
operational skillset andknow-how to fully devise a
strategy along with what youalready.
And you need to be able toassess like what are the
operational tactics are neededfor that strategy.
(45:49):
So you can convey at boardmeetings what's possible rather
than going to a board meeting,devising a strategy, going to
the operations person, changingthe strategy, going back to the
board and, and the board'ssaying, well, what the hell, we
already fucking talked aboutthis.
Why are we doing this?
Like all that loop just needs togo.
So in my.
Michael Hartmann (46:06):
Maybe that's contributing to the reduced,
like shortening, shorteningtenure of CMOs.
Raja Walia (46:10):
I, I'm, like I said, what did I, what did I say like
probably 30 minutes ago, I said,you devi a strategy.
It goes down to the person thatsays, Hey, we can't do it, and
runs right back up and then allof a sudden you have a person
has switched a LinkedIn jobpost.
Right?
Like all, all of a sudden yournetwork is like, these people
are.
I feel like that is the nextstep.
Like, and like I said, in myopinion, I feel like the CMO
(46:32):
needs to own it.
I don't think there has to be aninternal, like I don't think
another role needs to becreated.
I feel like it's just like a CTOand a c o own their tech stack.
Marketing has technology now,right?
We're not sending direct mailpieces.
I mean, some people are, andthat works perfectly fine.
We're not, you know, just tryingto figure and wing it.
(46:53):
That's tech enabled.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I know, I know.
But I'm just saying like, youknow, like in order to QR code
and attribute, like then that'swhy companies don't really have
a grasp on attribution isbecause.
We don't know what technology isdoing what, but I, like I said,
answer your question, I feellike personally the CMO needs to
have operational, notexperience, but knowhow,
(47:14):
knowledge, skillset, whatever itis, to be able to talk about
these strategies inside meetingswhere all of that shit is
dictated rather than circlingback and forth on it.
Mike Rizzo (47:24):
So I'm, I'm in agreement.
I don't know that there, I don'tknow.
I don't know that it needs to bea net.
Functional category.
I'm, I'm talking out of bothsides.
I, I know, but I.
I'm saying, it sounds like theCMO is gonna have a hard go of
it given their current focus.
Yeah.
I think a chief of staff isexcellent.
(47:45):
I think it's an awesome functionto, to roll up into, especially
for those that don't necessarilywant to sit on the C level,
right?
Like mm-hmm.
You want to be that in betweenand you want to be like
respected in that strategicfunction, but you don't
necessarily want to be likereporting to the board and doing
all the rest of the thing.
Who knows?
Right?
Um, maybe that's the right spotfor you.
Uh, it's, it's funny, I justmet.
(48:07):
A member of our community, Tony,we were talking about this and,
and he reports, he's ha he'sreported into the CMO and the
CTO in a tech enablementfunction, right?
At the end of the day, he'smarketing ops.
He came from a dev backgroundand he, he just published a blog
post for the listeners.
Go check it out.
It's why Marketing Ops shouldhave its own seat at the table.
(48:27):
And he ends up saying, Hey, likemaybe it's the chief digital.
And he goes through and breaksall, I'm not gonna sit here and
break it all down for you, buthe does talk about the
differences in what that mightlook like between B2C and and
B2B companies.
And then there's uh, this otherindividual who's the CEO and
founder of Exigent and is Davidhome?
And he's saying, Hey, I wouldditch the COO for the dpi.
(48:50):
And you could add chief to thatif you want.
And he's just basically sayinglike, Hey, there's a ubiquity of
digitization across the entirebusiness infrastructure, and
perhaps the COO needs to have ashakeup.
Again, I don't know who's gonnaend up owning this at the end of
the day, but I do.
I do think we've come fullcircle in the way that all of
this has been implemented.
(49:11):
There's a piece that I'm workingon with the Stack Moxi team
about this idea that, hey, forthe last 20 years we've been
doing things around like leadgeneration and us utilizing the
lead object literally because itwas put in front of us.
Yep.
And it's like, and there are somany of us that say, I don't
(49:31):
know that that thing should everexist anymore, but it's not
going away anytime soon.
Yeah.
Right.
And so we are at this, so toillustrate the point of full.
We were first in a place whereit was like, well, here's what
the technology can do, so I'mjust gonna do what the
technology can do.
Yes.
Well now we are like, I knowwhat all the technology can do.
I now need to be specific abouthow to best utilize the
(49:54):
technology because using thelead object might not be right
for us, or utilizing an ABM toolmight not be the right solution
for us.
Right.
But I can go and I can surveythe landscape and today's
practitioners are like, Youknow, tomorrow's future leaders
because they're able to look atthis ecosystem of technology and
(50:15):
say, Hey, don't do that.
Just because the tool does itthat way, right?
It's like it's sort ofpigeonholing you in that
direction.
Go build a business around whatyou need to do and invest in the
technology the way that you needto do it, right?
So anyway, I don't know whatit's going to be.
Raja Walia (50:33):
I think that it, and, and I'll double down
though.
I'll, I'll double down.
I feel like if, if we, I mean,the last last podcast we talked
about was, um, Was regardingyour position, right?
Like I think it was like how togrow in your CMO obstacle,
right?
I feel like if, if you're anoperational person and you want
to move to the C level, I feellike all the stuff about decks
(50:57):
and creating PowerPointpresentations about all those
things are just part of anotherskill set that you need to learn
to have, right?
Yes.
So, and once again, like that'swhy I say like the, the next
level of cmo.
That are being created, thatwe've seen being created based
off on, you know, people whoI've known that have been doing
operational stuff, they becomecmo.
They're hyper successful.
(51:18):
Why?
Because you just get shit donefaster.
Because you know at, at.
At point, what's possible, andthat's possible, right?
Yeah.
You don't have to consult withsomeone, you just know, Hey,
this is, this is gonna be a wayto do it.
Yeah.
So I will still, I will stillsay that the C, the CMO still
needs to own it.
That position needs to berefined operationally as well as
(51:39):
strategically as well.
I,
Mike Rizzo (51:40):
yeah, I think, I think it's a great call out.
I think it's a good challengefor the CMO to take on.
I don't know who it'll fallunder, but to your point, I
think if you, if this is a pathyou want to go on and you're a
practitioner in marketing apps,rev ops today, you do still have
to like become morewell-rounded.
Michael Hartmann (51:58):
Right.
So, well, I mean, I think it,you gotta go learn some of those
other things to Roger's point,right?
That stuff doing do likelearning how to be a better
communicator, whether it'sthrough speaking or, or writing.
It's just another skill set youhave to learn as you, if you
expand your role, like you haveto learn how to manage people
and lead and manage a budget andlike, these are not the things
that you normally get early onin your career.
(52:20):
So just like those, they can belearned.
Right.
Yeah.
But, but
Raja Walia (52:24):
so like, and you know how many technical design
documents that I've created inmy entire life from my
implement, like, you know, howmuch fun those were?
Never there.
There were never fun.
There was never a time in myentire life where I was like,
you know, what I feel like doingtoday is documenting and
creating a functional reason ofa technical design doc.
But they're some people who do Iknow.
(52:45):
I know they.
That's very true.
But I'm just saying like in thatcategory, like I actually get
some joy outta this.
I
Mike Rizzo (52:52):
dunno why I'm just like, paper makes
Raja Walia (52:55):
me happy.
Yeah.
But to grow into a role and tosay, well, You know, we need
someone at the table to talk tothose things.
Like, you also need to know thatthere's certain things that sea
level executives do that are notvery fun.
They just do it because theyhave to.
Just like any other role that
Michael Hartmann (53:09):
plays, right?
Yes, absolutely.
Like every job, every situationhas things that, you know, give
you energy and take energy away,right?
Totally.
Yes.
Um, well this is like, okay, sofor all of our listeners, like I
came into this, like knowingthat Mike and Raja had talked
about this before, and.
Um, wasn't quite sure where thiswas gonna go.
This has been a really fun,interesting conversation.
(53:31):
So, Raja, thank you for, forjoining us.
If, I'm sure there's probablyother stuff we didn't get to and
all this, but we're gonna haveto wrap it up.
What, uh, if folks wanna kind ofkeep up with you or what you're
doing or what you're doing withGNW, like what's the best way
for them to do that?
Raja Walia (53:45):
Um, just on our, um, Uh, just on our main website,
um, everything's un gated.
Um, we can talk about how Idon't believe in gates later in
life.
Uh, but everything's un gated.
They can look at everything.
They can review everything, andif they have any questions, they
can always feel free to reachout to me on LinkedIn or connect
with me on LinkedIn, or ifanyone got mad about me throwing
out random stuff, uh, and theywant to yell at me.
(54:06):
Yeah, connect me on, shoot me amessage.
Michael Hartmann (54:08):
You can take it.
I can already tell.
You'll be sure to, uh, leaveyour home address on the show,
Raja Walia (54:13):
right.
I
Michael Hartmann (54:15):
just, well, good.
Well, Mike, thank you.
Uh, it's been a funconversation.
Uh, I have a feeling like ourlisteners are really gonna enjoy
this.
So thanks, Joel, your listenersout there for continuing to
support us.
Um, and we will look forward togetting you more content out
there soon.
And until next time.
Thanks everyone.
Bye.
Awesome.
Thanks everyone.
(54:35):
Awesome.
Mike Rizzo (54:36):
Thanks
Raja Walia (54:36):
everyone.
Okay.
Hello everyone, and welcome to another
(00:01):
episode of OpsCast, brought toyou by MarketingOps.com, powered
by the Mo Pros.
I'm your host, Michael Hartmann.
Joined today by my co-host MikeRizzo.
What's happening there?
California, Mike.
Uh, you know,
Mike Rizzo (00:12):
weather's been okay, although the whole country feels
like it's in turmoil.
It doesn't matter where you areand, uh, but you know, I'm in
sandals today, so
Michael Hartmann (00:20):
that's nice.
Nice.
Well, and I, and I'm making a,you know, the.
Modern sort of.
Uniform.
I quarter, zip, got your quarterzip, and a and a golf shirt.
And a golf shirt underneaththat.
Yeah.
So, all right, so, uh, we aregonna talk today by, we got a
returning guest and uh, it isRaja.
(00:44):
Walia he is, uh, he's got aninteresting topic that we're
gonna talk about today about,uh, something he's, he, I guess
he's coined it, CMO ops,sometimes fractional.
And so Raja, if you don't, forthose who, uh, are not familiar
with him from last episode wehad with him is a founder
principle consultant at GNWConsulting and marketing
automation and CRM consultingcompany GNW is the latest in a
(01:06):
series of marketing andmarketing op ops and marketing
automation consultingorganizations that he's worked
with.
So, Raja, welcome back and thankyou for joining us again, today.
Raja Walia (01:16):
Yeah, no, it's awesome.
Thank you for having me back andthank you for having us talk
about this topic.
It's gonna be, um, it'sdefinitely gonna be a little bit
of a, uh, confrontational onefor us, so to speak.
I wouldn't say confrontation.
No, wouldn't sayconfrontational.
We
Michael Hartmann (01:28):
need to mark this, definitely.
This episode is as havingexplicit content.
Is that it?
Raja Walia (01:33):
I think, uh, explicit opinions maybe.
I guess
Michael Hartmann (01:38):
that's all right.
We've had to do that before.
I think we did.
We have to do that with our lastone, with Andrea.
I don't know if Andrea's on theshow yet.
Yeah, pretty much.
Mike Rizzo (01:48):
But it's, well, good.
It's just part of the vibe, youknow?
And, and let me, let me just,let me jump in right now and say
for all the listeners, GNWConsulting is also one of our
very first three sponsors of MOAPalooza this year.
So we have to thank Woo woo Rajafor that.
We got hooked up at B2BMX.
We had a great.
Specifically around some of whatwe're gonna talk about today.
(02:09):
And then I was like, yeah, youdefinitely need to come hang
out.
So thank you for sure.
Michael Hartmann (02:13):
Absolutely.
That's fantastic.
All right.
And yeah, so MOps-Apalooza is,I've already gotten the dates
off, so Mike, November, right?
November,
Mike Rizzo (02:22):
yep.
November, November.
Five through
Michael Hartmann (02:24):
8, 2023.
Okay.
So someone's listening to thisafter that, right?
You missed it.
Raja Walia (02:30):
Yeah.
In 2024.
Michael Hartmann (02:33):
Um, alright, well, let's, let's dive in.
So I think, you know, this topicor something that you, you,
Mike, you mentioned that you andRaja started talking about, you
kind of both seem fairlypassionate about it and it felt
like it would be a good one forour audience, uh, to listen to
and see.
Uh, you're calling it CMO Ops.
So Raja, why don't we startthere?
Give us, yeah, give us ourlisteners a little bit of a
(02:55):
definition.
Sure.
Like what do you mean when yousay CMO Ops?
Raja Walia (02:58):
Yeah.
So I'll give you a littlebackground about like my
background for people whoweren't able to like listen to
the original one.
But I've been kind of a dev,like I've been, I've been an
operational person my entirelife, right?
Like the consulting agency thatI started, GNW Consulting was
driven and founded off of thefact that we needed.
To have someone where we neededmore operational, quote unquote
(03:22):
high level, if you wanna call'emexecutives, you can call'em
strategists, whatever it is.
Um, but that's why I kind ofstarted GNW Consulting cause
majority of my life.
And we touched on this a littlebit last time, was that I,
operations individuals areusually translating.
Vision into executablestrategies from a tech stack
(03:43):
perspective.
So the idea behind, you know,fractional CMO in a nutshell is
that we have a vision, and oneof my favorite quotes by Thomas
Edison is like, you know, visionwithout execution is kind of a
hallucination.
And that's the idea behindfractional CMO ops is that you
can, you can have a vision, youcan have a very clear and
defined vision, but how do youexecute and.
(04:06):
Operate for a lack of a betterword on it.
And one of the things that wetalked about, and one of the
things that, you know, Risa andI kind of saw eye to eye is
that, you know, right now we'rein the process of running like
this kind of poll, but from myexperience personally, from my
experience and other operationalpeople is that when we get a
hundred thousand page strategy,PowerPoint deck, it really
(04:26):
results in us translating all ofthose.
All of those items intofunctional components.
So the idea is that there's somuch, there's so much out there
about fractional CMO strategy,but there's not enough about
operations.
And even in organizationsoperations is like the last
person.
To know a finalized version andyou know, lack of better word,
(04:50):
like we're just trying to figurethat shit out.
Like, you know, we get it, it'sbeen approved and it's the go
forward strategy, businessinitiative, whatever you want to
call it.
And we're like, well, we don't.
Either have a lot of thesethings, or we need to translate
a lot of these things intosomething that's functional for
whatever the businesses techstack is.
And that, and that's kinda likethe, the founding premise about
(05:11):
like CMO ops is like, you know,having a seat at the table and
talking about operationally, howare we going to execute on this?
Mike Rizzo (05:21):
Yeah.
Um, definitely.
I mean, I think like, look, we,there's books on from backroom
to boardroom.
There's talks about like howdoes marketing operations
professionals, rev ops as well,right?
Um, if you're proper rev ops,not just sales ops, uh, you
know, how do you earn a seat tothe table?
And I think like, This idearather than, rather than having
(05:46):
to take what you're handed andtry to like figure out how to
smash together a bunch ofdifferent existing tech or
workarounds, which is, you know,feels like most of the time is
what's happening.
It's like, how do you becomethis strategic enable?
At like, when the conversationhas started, right?
(06:08):
Like that is, that is the thingthat is missing today.
And, and I like this idea oflike CMO ops, right?
Like it's something that isadjacent to this chief marketing
officer role, but it'soperationally oriented.
And, uh, at, at my talk thatI'll be giving at the b2b, or
(06:29):
sorry, the best of breed, um,event.
I talked a little bit aroundthis same subject matter.
I have no idea what this thingis supposed to be called Roger.
You're calling it CMO ops.
I was like, I don't
Raja Walia (06:41):
know what it's gonna be called.
Yeah.
You know, I, I, I, I'm talkingit, I'm talking about it mainly
from a, and the reason I call itCMO ops is because, and once
again, like from my experienceand like my fellow colleagues
who have been in Rev inoperational, like positions
their entire life, uh, you know,we always talk about sales and
marketing a.
However, which is a nice topicto talk about.
(07:02):
It's very trending, but one ofthe things we always fail to
mention is like, what aboutmarketing to marketing
alignment?
Like where are, oh, the mar,where are the
Michael Hartmann (07:10):
marketing strateg?
There's the elephant in the roomright there.
Raja Walia (07:13):
Yeah.
And, and you know, like we're,we're so hellbent and focused on
aligning the sales getinternally between what's
developed now from a rev opsstandpoint.
Right.
Is we don't, we're not evenaligned on how strategy is going
to work with the rev ops portionof it.
Like it's, it's, it's twoseparate roles, but we're so
(07:35):
hellbent on aligning with sales.
Is that, Marketing nowadays isnot even aligned on what the
hell is happening, whattechnology is going to do one,
or what, what technology isgoing to do what.
So, so that's kind of like
Michael Hartmann (07:49):
the idea.
Let's just wanna make sure I'mhearing what you're intending,
cause I think what you're sayingis like, within most marketing
teams or a lot that you've seen,there's not even alignment
between keep it simple, likedemand gen or, or, uh, you know.
Would call it demand, demand genand ops.
Right.
Raja Walia (08:08):
I, I wouldn't even take, I wouldn't take even one
higher level of that than that.
Right.
Like that's why the idea aboutCMO ops, it's, there's not even
alignment between like peopledevising strategy.
For demand, like demand gen isan operational item of we need
to de generate demand, right?
Lead generation, we need togenerate leads.
Content's syndication is we needto create content, right?
(08:29):
Like, and then we syndicate thatcontent through programs and
operational and so forth.
How about you even take, say itone step higher than that is
that within marketing, thepeople designing the strategies
that have to be executed on areso misaligned on what technology
can do that functionally.
It's just kind of fluff in theair, right?
(08:50):
It, it's
Michael Hartmann (08:50):
just So just do you think it's techno, just
like what there, there's a gapin their knowledge or
understanding of what technologycan do or, cause one of the
things I see, cause I thinkyou're hitting at a point that
is actually really, reallyimportant is that, well two, one
is that connection betweenstrategy and execution, right?
Like the knowing, doing kind ofgap, whatever you wanna call it.
But the other one that I thinkyou're hitting on, to me that is
(09:12):
resonating at least, so this iswhat's hitting me, is.
What I often see is, um, yeah,everybody wants to do, like we
have a strategy.
We all want to go be coordinatedacross those different kinds of
go-to-market activities.
At the same time, those teamsare incented in gold.
According to their own thing.
So they don't like, and it's notanybody's particular fault,
(09:34):
right?
People follow their what'sincentive, how they're ient,
right?
So if they're ient in their leadgeneration to generate leads,
they're gonna do one thing.
If they're incentive to generatecontent that gets a lot of
eyeballs on it, or ultimatelylead.
You know, that's what they'regonna do.
They're not gonna necessarily beworking on it to affect revenue
per se.
Right.
Or maybe they all think theyare, but they're not doing it in
(09:54):
a coordinated effort.
And so they, you sort of getsome traction, but not maybe as
much as you could if there wastrue coordination.
Yeah.
Raja Walia (10:02):
Yeah.
I'm sorry.
Go ahead.
No, no.
I'm
Michael Hartmann (10:04):
just like, am I am, am I, am I coming at it
with a different thing or areyou, is that, is that kind of
what you're addressing?
Raja Walia (10:11):
That's all that, that's all encompassing under
the marketing to marketingalignment thing.
Right?
Like that.
Okay.
It's all there.
There's a portion of.
Not understanding technology andnot understanding your own tech
stack enough to do all of thoseitems that you're talking about,
like or to translate all ofthose items.
Right.
A lot of things that I've seenis that we can call them
strategists, we can call themgrowth target us, we can call
(10:32):
them fractional, whatever,insert, you know, visionary that
you have.
You know, whatever their titlesare will traditionally plan.
Strategy.
That's such a higher levelwithout even understanding
technology and what it can do.
That's one part of it.
Without understanding what thecapabilities are of an
organization and just say, thisis our go to business market
(10:54):
strategy looks very good onPowerPoint, right?
Looks very good.
When you graph it out and shitlike that and you have a funnel
and you're like, if we get morepeople here, we're gonna get
more closed.
One opportunities.
That means more dollar signs.
In what?
How does that even operate?
Like if you're telling me a goto Strat, if a go to market
strategy or a strategy for abusiness is to make more money,
(11:16):
I'm on board.
Right?
Like that's, you have toincrease your revenue.
I'm a thousand percent down forthat.
Yeah.
But what are the functionalsteps and what are the
components of everything that wetalk about in marketing that is
going to get you to that?
And that is always missed andthat is always on the
operational side.
Rev ops always has to dissect.
(11:36):
And say, okay, well if yourtarget is$3 million for the
quarter and you wanna do some adspend, what does that mean?
How do we track it?
How do we source it, and how dowe funnel back and attribute it
to the associated campaigns,which is never talked about
because rev ops just fuckingdoes it, right?
We we're just like, okay, well,and what I'm saying is that if
(11:57):
it happens earlier, In theentire planning funnel, it's a
lot easier to execute on onrather than, you know, go to
market being we really need todeploy in two months.
Why can't we do it?
What's going on?
Because no one is talking aboutthe functional aspects of it.
People are just talking aboutthe glorified funnels and
(12:17):
PowerPoint presentations of it.
Mike Rizzo (12:20):
Yeah, it, it's, it's tough.
Like there's a whatever cartonhorse, chicken and egg
conversation that comes updepending on the size of your
organization.
Um, but let's just pretend for amoment we're talking about an
organization that's at leastbeen established for a few
years, has maybe 50 or moreemployees.
And I think this conversation iswhere like it needs to happen a
(12:42):
lot sooner there, there might besome flexibility.
You know, or not flexibility,understanding in that, hey, in a
startup we might not have allthe tools and resources and so
we, we have to be a little piein the sky and then sort of
operate within our limits.
Michael Hartmann (12:56):
I would argue that that's also the case in
many medium, min, larger.
Organizations
Mike Rizzo (13:01):
too.
Yeah, I think that is, I thinkthat is the case.
And what I'm saying is, uh, I'madvocating here for, for the,
the alternate, which is thatconversation should be what I
call, I don't call it this, Iuse the phrase, the art of the
possible all the time withfolks, right?
And educating them on.
I've seen firsthand as acommunity builder and as a
(13:23):
marketing ops profess, Whensomeone says, Hey, how do I
execute on building out acommunity?
Or How do I execute on buildingout these programs or my go to
market framework?
If I sit down with a VP ofcommunications, for example, and
I say, Hey, these are all thethings we have access to it, it
creates this.
This is like this wonderful ahamoment that takes place when, if
(13:47):
and when that ever gets tohappen, right?
And they go.
Oh, you mean we could, you know,host an entire virtual
conference on this platform?
Like it's meant to feel like anin-person, like things like that
where they're like, they didn'teven realize, oh, I thought I
could just run one webinar amonth.
Right?
Like, yeah.
It's stuff, it's like, it's sogoing back to what Hartman was
(14:08):
saying and, and that's some ofthe points you were making there
earlier, Raja were like, whenyou don't know what is possible,
it is very difficult.
To, to try to think about, okay,well how do I go to market?
How do I implement strategy?
How do I build a business aroundthe tools and resources that I
have?
(14:28):
People or tech,
Michael Hartmann (14:29):
right, or, or you make a or you make
assumptions about what'spossible.
Raja Walia (14:32):
Yeah.
Which is, which is what happens?
Well, I wanna say 95 to 98% ofthe time.
Cause you make assumptions ofwhat's possible then.
And if you think about amarketing, the marketing
alignment, right?
Like we talk, once again, wetalk about sales and marketing
all the time.
But marketing, the marketing, itgoes into a loop.
Someone will design thestrategy.
We will, they will makeassumptions based off on it.
(14:54):
It will get handed off tooperations.
Operations will say, either wecan do something or we can't do
something.
It'll go back into this loopuntil it turns out that really
the go-to-market strategy is anemail campaign, right?
Like that's what we have to dumbit down into, because we have
this broader view of generatingleads from an email campaign, or
(15:14):
it's a multi, or it's an onlinechannel or multi-channel
strategy, or it's a paid adsplay, or it's a demand gen
piece, right?
So we run into this little.
The circle of where we're justtrying to catch up to our own
marketing, and at that point,sales is just, What the hell are
you guys doing?
And then we finally execute onit.
(15:35):
And then we're like, oh, we needsales and marketing alignment.
Like sales and marketingalignment needs to happen.
But like we've already talkedabout this back between vision
to execution to possible to backto what changes need to be made.
And I think it would just be alot easier in just general if
someone who knew.
The Rev op side or operationalside of the thing, and that's
why I call it CM Ops, right?
(15:55):
Is really, it's a C-levelexecutive that has operational
experience to kind of eitherhelp or devise what's feasible
and a company perspective,regardless of what size
essentially is.
So, uh,
Michael Hartmann (16:08):
to, to follow up two sort of follow up
questions and not reallydirectly related to each other.
So let me just pose them andthen you guys can kind of talk
to him.
One is.
Mike, you mentioned how this issomewhat sounds because this to
me sounds a little bit like thechief of staff stuff that we've
talked about in a couple ofprevious episodes multiple
times, right?
So I'm curious, but like, how doyou see that different, um, from
(16:31):
what you're talking about Raja?
And then the second is like, I,I, the sense I get is that there
is, you know, whether it's c aschief of staff, These kinds of
roles that are like ops rolesthat are becoming more VP and
even there's a handful.
I think they're becoming C levelroles as well.
Like what do you think is thedriver behind that?
(16:51):
Like what do you, what's, what'smaking this something that
you're like really passionateabout?
Raja and Mike, and at this pointin time,
Mike Rizzo (16:59):
oh yeah, I'm gonna tackle the chief of staff thing
first.
Um, I do think that the chief ofstaff can act as a facilitator
in the.
How does your, like I need tofilter the, the quote unquote
noise of the C-suite to what ispossible, and then also take the
(17:20):
inputs from the team on whereare your constraints, right?
Like do you have limited budget,bandwidth, technology, all of
those things so that I can actas that layer, whether that is
CMO ops or chief of staff.
I think they're sort ofinterchangeable in that.
I think the difference is fromthe perspective of like what is
your responsibility as a C levelexecutive chief of staff sounds
(17:46):
like a C level executive, but inreality it's not quite that,
that tenure, so to speak.
Uh, at least that's my take onit.
I certainly never sat in therole, but my take is you're sort
of reporting into the C level,right?
Um, sure.
I think on the CMO side ofthings, The dash ops is the only
(18:07):
way that you'll ever ha like,let me just say, this is what I
shared in this upcoming sessionthat's, that's coming out with
the best of breed thing withwith Brinker.
I said briefly, I said, A CMOwho has an operational
background hired by a CEO whowould like that individual to be
an expert or have a proficiencyin operations.
(18:30):
They go to hire for that role,and it's all.
But at the end of the day, theCMO is always going to be tasked
with generating demand andhelping to hit revenue targets,
which means your operationalproficiency will always take
second seat to what needs tohappen to the go-to-market,
which means tech debt and all ofthe things that you can't go
(18:51):
execute on and the efficienciesthat you would like to put into
place are going to take secondseat to, oh, I gotta get that
campaign out.
Yeah.
Right.
And so that CMO function, unlessit changes dramatically
overnight or in the next 10years to be like, no, no, no.
CMOs are operational experts andthey're gonna do all like,
(19:13):
they're never going to take to,to have the board's approval to
be like, yes, spend 30% of yourtime, budget, and resources on
creating operational excellenceso that we can go to market.
They're gonna be like, no, howare we gonna generate leads?
Which markets are we gonnaenter?
Like your job is to tell mewhere to go sell and who's
buying.
(19:34):
Right?
Right.
And so anyway, I like the CMOops Chief of staff, or
potentially a future version ofthe COO could be this thing that
we're talking about.
I just don't, like, I propose, Ihave no idea what it's gonna
Raja Walia (19:49):
Yeah, and, and I think this.
This is where from acounterpoint, Mike, I would
probably challenge one part ofwhat you said.
Hmm.
I feel like if you ask any clevel, if you have an operating
offers or, uh, you know, op coooperationals, or if you have a
tech or even information personat C level, th this, this role,
(20:09):
whatever you wanna call it, um,from a CMO level.
Needs to have the ability totalk about those things but not
execute on them, right?
Like you need to be able, ableto have strategy.
And also operational experienceenough to not sit and do the
work.
Mind you, I'm not saying likethat's not what the C-suite is
for, but to be able to guidestrategically how we're going to
(20:33):
execute on this, I feel likeit's, I mean, an information
officer can do it right.
Like there's how many times hassomeone brought on a piece of
technology and the informationofficer, he's not doing the
work, but he's guiding his team.
He is asking the rightquestions.
He's saying, how are we gonnaimplement this?
A CTO is the exact same way,right?
If the CEO is the visionary ofthe company and all these other
branches of the C-suite aresupposed to help with their
(20:55):
component, why is it that we'reseparating a C M O'S
responsibility just to.
Writing books about fuckingstrategy.
Like why can't we talk aboutoperational?
Like why, like, I'm not sayingthat you have to do it, but I'm
just saying like, you should beable to operationally articulate
what's possible and feasible aswell as the strategy as well.
(21:16):
Not just talk about onecomponent of it.
Because Yeah, if a CTO jumped ona call and said, that's a really
cool piece of technology.
Yeah, it's gonna make usoperate, operationalize this and
all this other stuff, and you goto implement it and it doesn't
fit the, uh, the tech.
Whose neck is on the line?
The cto.
Yeah, because they, they have tobe able to know, and I feel like
that, that's why I'm, I'm, I'mkind of lost of like, I feel
(21:39):
like the C M O and the ops rulehas to be almost one and the
same, what it's called later inlife or whatever it is, but the
reason that, the way that I'mdefining cmmo ops is I'm saying,
If you're in the marketingspace, just like an information,
just like a security person,just like a technical, any part
of the C-suite, you have to havemore than just your ability to
(22:01):
write a book about strategy.
You have to also be able tofigure out how those strategies
are going to operate from abusiness to business
perspective, not just talk aboutthat.
Yeah.
Michael Hartmann (22:11):
So you know, I like, I like your term Mike, of
the art of the Possible, and ithas like what I'm hearing, and
I'll just throw this out therelike this feels.
Uh, what you're suggesting,Raja, is sort of a shift in what
we should expect out of CMOs,right, to be, not just the
person who can talk about brandand demand gen and writing copy,
(22:35):
and writing emails and buildingwebpages and all that, but also
one who can talk about, um, howto translate strategy and goals
and objectives, business goalsand objectives into executable.
Stuff, uh, within the context ofwhat's possible with what we
have from a tech stack andstaffing and resources.
Mm-hmm.
Um, and know, be, be able toknow.
(22:55):
Like if, uh, the head of salescomes to me and says, we need to
do, what'd you say?
3 million in the next quarter.
You know, what do you wanna do?
And you can go, well, with ourcurrent, you know, resources, we
can do X, Y, and Z.
That will get you close to that.
You know, in the future, if youthink this is where they're
actually going, then, then, thenwe need to invest in this other
technology and Right.
(23:16):
But that's, I think,consultative approach.
Right.
Yeah, but,
Raja Walia (23:20):
but here's the thing.
Like, why is that like such aweird ask?
Am I I don't think it is.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
I'm not, I'm not talking to you.
I'm not talking to you.
I'm saying just in general,right?
Like people are gonna listen tothis and some people are gonna
agree and they're like, you knowthe, I know.
I've been in the game longenough to know like what they're
gonna say.
Like, you know, you need todefine a vision strategy, but
every other C-Suite personoffers more than just strategy.
(23:42):
They offer a certain specialtyand a skillset that you also
have as a sweet suite person.
Right?
Marketing is the only ones.
TalkinGNWriting about andreleasing books about all of
these topics with no indicationof how to implement these,
right.
The implementation has alwaysbeen tr, you know, traditionally
(24:03):
on the operations person or anIT person or whoever, they can
get to freaking sit there andlike do the job, right?
Right.
But, but what I'm saying isthey're not particularly to you.
I didn't want to come acrossthat way is like, I feel like
that's not a hard ask.
I feel like that's an ask as asea level person who's in the
day, in day, day to day, day.
As something that we, you know,there's so many pieces of
technology and there's so muchstuff out there and you know,
(24:26):
marketing always has like, youknow, shiny object syndrome
because we've never had thesepieces of technology before.
Yeah.
So we start investing in allthis shit and because we're loo
looking at reading of Google Top10 reviews on what you should
invest in 2023 and 2024.
But we don't ask, thefundamental question is, does it
just like a CTO.
Does this fit into our company'svision and does it cohesively
(24:49):
integrate into our company'stech stack because we'll just
straight up buy shit.
You know what I mean?
Yeah, yeah.
Like we just, we just need onegood pitch.
And we're like, yeah, ABM one tomany, I'm all about that life.
Right?
So I, and what I'm saying islike, I don't think that's a
tough ass.
I feel like that's almost neededin order to marketing, in order
for marketing and rev ops tohave a seat at the table.
(25:09):
That's almost a require.
That you have to know a littlebit more than just, you know,
fluff talk and strategy.
Totally.
And I think
Mike Rizzo (25:18):
we're, I we're saying a lot of the same things,
honestly.
It's, uh, I'm
Raja Walia (25:23):
not, you just dunno what to call it.
Yeah.
We just dunno what to call it.
Yeah.
Like the
Mike Rizzo (25:26):
future, like, I'm, I'm challenging that the cmo,
the today's CMO would struggleto fight for if you, if you
think, you know, I've got onepool of money to use on people.
And technology and then go tomarket marketing spend, right?
And so all three of those thingsare things I have to think
about.
What staff am I gonna hire?
(25:47):
What tools am I gonna buy?
And, and, and how am I gonnaactually like put it into the
market?
When the board, or your CEO orwhoever it is that you're
interacting with is saying now,like, how do you go deploy that?
And you happen to be somebodythat cares a lot about like,
well, we need to go buy a datawarehouse, build a whole data
infrastructure and a data lake,and then a process that
(26:08):
integrates all of these datatools so that we can have a more
efficient and effectivego-to-market strategy.
They're gonna be like, wait aminute, like that feels like
you're not generating enough.
Like where's, so how many leadsare you gonna.
Right.
Yeah.
And it's like, so it's going tobe a challenge is all I'm gonna
say.
And like, I'm not saying thatthe CMO can't become this thing
(26:29):
in the future.
In fact, I think there, I wouldargue there probably are some
CMOs that are really proficientat this
Michael Hartmann (26:34):
already.
Yeah, I, I know I've talked tosome that I did.
I would argue probably fit that,but I, I think,
Raja Walia (26:39):
I'm not gonna mention her name because it's
gonna inflate her ego, but weall know one that's a really
good cmo.
Oh, yeah.
That, that comes from anoperational background.
Might have been a,
Michael Hartmann (26:48):
might have been a previous guest on our, on
our podcast.
Raja Walia (26:50):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Might have been a previous Yeah,that Does it articulate, you
know, that does it relativelywell.
Right?
So,
Mike Rizzo (26:56):
Yeah, but it's, but at the end of the day, I think
it is a challenge for, intoday's state, for this
individual, in this role.
To, to try to bifurcate theresponsibility between how do I
generate demand and revenue andsales from how do I build
something that's effective andefficient and go to market
capable?
Michael Hartmann (27:17):
So, so cause they're measured differently.
No, I.
Totally.
Well, and one's like, one'sreally hard to put, like you
shouldn't measure spend
Mike Rizzo (27:26):
spending, don't measure your
Raja Walia (27:27):
CTO and your CIO ability to generate revenue.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But once again, it's, it's thesame thing across the board,
right?
Like, yeah, it's might bedifficult to do, but I, I feel
like.
I feel like in today's day andage, ultimately, like I almost
feel like it's a requirement foreveryone to know more than just,
you know, a, a a, an informationofficer is not gonna tell you
(27:50):
why CRMs are not going to work,right?
And so I feel like it's nothingnew.
Like I feel like this is justsomething that has to happen
regardless.
Michael Hartmann (27:58):
Well, so I think, so I wanna take this back
to our core audience, which is,you know, people who are
marketing ops, rev opsprofessionals.
I think, um, what, what thisfeels like to me is that we
should be holding ourselvesaccountable as professionals in
that area to be, if that's nothappening, like we should be the
ones.
(28:19):
Taking that stance.
And I like, I've had examples inmy career where I had a lot of
pressure to say, you mentionedabm, Roger, right, let's go get
abm, right?
Let's do abm.
And, and what they meant was,let's go buy some technology.
And I pushed back with art.
Like I would've call, would'vecalled it art of possible if I
had heard that phrase.
But yeah, I was like, we, likewe can make.
(28:41):
The tech stack we have withoutbuying more.
But the first and most importantthing is we need to agree on who
are those accounts we wanna gotarget.
Yeah.
If we can't do that, there's nopoint in getting technology to
scale it because it doesn'tmatter, which we never did end
in mind.
Yeah.
And I said, and I'm willing todo experiments.
Let's, let's narrow, let's,let's work together to define
that top hundred.
(29:01):
Let's figure out a way that wecan do some coordinated efforts
from a marketing standpoint withsales.
Right.
And we never got past definingthe hot top.
Yeah, we never got to that.
And so, and
Raja Walia (29:13):
that's why things like one to few and one to many
exist because the, the entireconcept about ABM was to have a
targeted solution on aone-to-one basis for a
counselor.
Similar, well, people didn'twant to do that.
Because it was a lot of effortand work.
Then they released one to few,which is like, you know, all
right, we can be a little looseygoosey.
Right?
And then they came out to one tomany, which is just casting a
wine net.
I'm like, isn't that justtechnically marketing at this
(29:35):
point?
Like you're just casting to5,000 accounts with no
personalization and no target.
I'm like that, that's justmarketing.
Like, you're just Right.
You're not doing anything new.
You just, you identified yourbuying audience.
Yeah.
Mike Rizzo (29:48):
Yeah.
Michael Hartmann (29:49):
My tam is the whole world, and, um, here you
go.
But, and, and, I, I thinkattribution is another one where
like, like, you know, I thinkevery place I've been the last
10 years has wanted to do someversion of what you would call
attribution modeling today.
And, um, you know, there'stechnologies out there, no
disrespect to any of the vendorsout there and ABM technology or,
(30:10):
yeah.
Or, or attribution.
It's like sometimes no.
Those things you gotta like,like what's the purpose of it?
So I think like, I'm, what Iguess I was suggesting is people
in the roles that we're inshould also be voicing, like
they should be standing up for,Hey, like I hear what you're
saying and this is what, likedon't say, just say no.
(30:32):
Right?
It's like, no, I see what you'rerunning.
You get to, um, and we can getyou partway there, whatever that
is with our existing stuff bydoing these things.
Right.
And it's a, it becomes a more ofa consultative approach as
opposed to a.
Yes or no?
Right?
And there's tradeoffs, right?
You gotta talk about thetradeoffs, like there's no right
answer.
I'm huge believer that there'snot al almost with exceptions
(30:58):
out there, I'm sure, right?
There's virtually no decisionyou'll make, especially in a
business world where it has avery clear yes or no.
Mm-hmm.
There's always trade offs, andthat, by the way, includes all
the things like compli.
Privacy laws, and I'm not, Imean, I'm saying that like, I'm
not joking, like there's tradeoffs.
Like are you willing to take onthe risk of getting Yeah.
(31:18):
A fine and, and like that's areal, I think that's a real
decisions people need to makeand not every company thinks
they have that decision.
Yeah,
Raja Walia (31:27):
well, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'm gonna red card one
part of that, what you said,just please do one, one part of
that.
And I feel like from anoperational perspective, we can
ask, um, and I'll tell you ahundred percent from a, from a
junior operations person tohave, You know, now I have a,
like a senior operations person,though we can voice opinions as
(31:48):
much as I, I've a hundredpercent voiced my opinion on
this, right?
I've been in consulting for overlike 15 years.
Like I'm very good at voicing myopinion on this, but the idea is
that, The voice will always fallon deaf ears.
If there's not an operational ora, or a leader, uh, you know, a
executive leader that is pushingit down if, if they don't have
(32:09):
the abil, because I can tell youexamples upon examples of where
it makes sense, but it alwayshas a decision, or the chief
technical officer always trumpsa cmo.
Why is that?
Is.
The CMO can't talk to it at thesame level as a technical
officer, right?
Like how many implementationshave you done of a tech stack
where a marketing person reallywants to do it?
(32:32):
And then all of a sudden theyjust get trumped by, by just,
just had that happen in, in thelast 12 months.
Yeah.
Right.
And the, and the reason is,like, as operational as a junior
operations person into a middleor a senior, whatever you wanna
call it, is we can voice ouropinions, all the want, all they
want.
But once again, when you go tothe very, very top, again, there
has to be someone that canarticulately explain the
(32:54):
reasoning why.
And if it's not there, it's justgonna get sidelined.
You know, no one's gonna listento the senior, you know,
marketing operations managersthat's saying, Hey guys, uh, I
don't think we can run email,because we don't have a
marketing email tool.
Right?
Like, they're like, we don'thave a marketing automation
platform.
How are we gonna send email?
They're like, no, no, let's justuse Outlook and send it out.
Like, you know, everyone's doingthat, rather I read this on
(33:15):
right.
But it's not gonna work up untilthe point where shit hits the
fan and then it's gonna.
Circle all the way back up andall of a sudden you're see,
you're gonna see a bunch of jobchanges in LinkedIn happening.
You know, like a reorg of likeexecutive alignment happening
because it got so far down trackthat by the time you tried to
execute on it, it didn't happen,and then all of a sudden there's
(33:37):
a reorg.
Mike Rizzo (33:38):
Yeah.
I honestly like just, I think,yes, for our audience, it's
important for you to keep tryingto voice the opinion.
I think.
I think.
It's going to consistently behard, to your point, Raja on
like falling on deaf ears.
But if you don't try, then younever, you know, you're never
really gonna get anywhere.
(33:59):
Right?
Yeah.
Um, and I think, I think we're,you know, we're continuing to
advocate for this idea that,hey, you're not a button pusher,
right?
You're, you're not just supposedto take the order and like put
it in and, you know, fulfill.
Um, it should be brought.
Rules and guidelines and, andyou know, I don't know about you
(34:19):
Raja, but like some of thethings that I think about that
help put in some of thepracticality around, well, how,
like where do you go, right?
Whether you're junior or senioror you're a cmo, how do you
start to put in something thatallows for that checks and
balance to happen?
Yeah.
You know, maybe it starts withdocumentation.
Maybe it starts with, here'swhat we have at our, uh, at our
(34:43):
disposal, right?
The, the things that we can.
Um, he, if we're going to go tomarket, these are the core data
policies and practices and, anddata points that we actually
want to use in order to createcampaigning.
So don't come up with a pie inthe sky campaign until you're
first informed by what it isthat we actually have at our
(35:03):
fingertips.
Um, and, and I think a lot ofthat just starts with
documentation, right?
Like just, and I don't meanbuild it by, Like, yeah, yeah.
We'll sit there and write it alldown.
Like go talk to everybody and belike, what are you doing?
How are you using the
Michael Hartmann (35:16):
tools?
I, I was just gonna say, like,asking really good questions is
an underrated skill.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
So, and I think, I think it can,
Mike Rizzo (35:24):
this here I'm gonna read, I'm gonna read this quote
from, from Simon Daniels, uh,over at Forrester.
He says, um, although the floodof tech is helping solve some
problems, it's creating others.
In particular, B2B organizationsare buying rev tech faster than
they're refining thego-to-market processes that the
te.
Has been brought in to enable.
Right.
And I,
Michael Hartmann (35:44):
and I, truth, I'm proposing hashtag truth.
Right?
And I'm
Mike Rizzo (35:47):
proposing like that right there in my talk.
And for this conversation rightnow, we're all saying the same
thing.
Your biggest opportunity is tofigure out how to stop buying
Rev Tech faster than it is meantto refine the go-to-market
process.
Yeah.
And start figuring out how tohelp refine the go-to-market
process before you
Michael Hartmann (36:04):
go buy Rev Tech.
Yeah.
Because you might find it, youdon't need it.
So, um, just, I'm.
One of the books that was reallysort of, uh, significant in my
career was, was a book and it'snow probably dont.
15 years old, maybe more.
It's called execution subtitle,the discipline of getting things
(36:25):
done.
Raja Walia (36:26):
Yeah.
I, I, I, I
Michael Hartmann (36:27):
know that book.
Yeah.
Do you like, is it one you likeor not?
Raja Walia (36:31):
No, no, no.
I I, I, I feel like the basis ofmy operational career is that
getting Shut done book because Iread, I mean, I remember
someone, someone had given methat book to read and I was like
a junior operations consultant.
I was just like, This is what wedo.
Like, you know, I mean like,like operation, like this is,
this is the, this is how we doshit and get it done.
(36:53):
And that, that's the basis
Michael Hartmann (36:55):
of it.
So, well I thought that thething that I always think about,
like my summary is right,strategy's important, but not
the whatever, like volumes ofstrategy, but that.
Going from strategy to startingto execute and holding people
accountable to the resultexpected results.
That's the secret sauce, likemoving fairly quickly.
And I always, the way I equateit, and I'm not a sailor, so if
(37:15):
I get this analogy wrong, Istill use it anyway.
Like strategy me tells me you'relike, you're at this point.
And you wanna get to that pointand you, so you know generally
the direction you want to go,but all you really know when you
start is what are the conditionswhere you at.
So you're gonna start heading inthat direction, even if that
means you're tacking off alittle bit and then you're gonna
adjust as you learn, right?
You got new conditions, thenyou're gonna adjust.
(37:36):
But you always know, this iswhere I'm going.
And I think.
To me, that's the way I like toapproach things is like I, I
want to have a roadmap.
Like I wanna have a roadmap andI wanna have plans, but I wanna
be, I wanna leave myselfflexibility on how I get to the
end result.
And so sometimes you have moreor less control over that, or
more or less say over it.
(37:57):
But I think it's a model thatworks.
Um, and, and Raja, if you likethat book, there's a new book.
Um, like I think you and I havetalked about this actually with,
with my wife called Traction.
Which it's, it is reallyinteresting cause I think it
references that e execution, itreferences good to greate, it
references several other booksthat I'm also a fan of.
(38:18):
Um, I'm not a total fan of thisbook, but I think it has, it's a
similar vein and like putting inthat one goes a little more
detail into like, how do youoperationalize that concept of
strategy execution, strategy,execution with both long-term
and short-term goals.
In in mind it's, it's, uh, Yeah,I'm actually re-listening to
(38:40):
audiobook.
Raja Walia (38:42):
Yeah, I mean, I'll, I'll definitely pick it up.
I, I feel like it's tough totalk about strategy without
pissing someone off today andday and age because I feel like
the, the
Michael Hartmann (38:50):
modern day market, how about we talk about
best practices?
Then it just pissed me off causelike i's like, It's like I, I
Raja Walia (38:55):
feel like it's the same thing.
I feel like you cannot, justlike in Facebook, you cannot log
in and throw stone untilsomeone's talking about growth,
hacking your appointmentsettings and getting you 500
appointments.
I feel like you cannot log intoLinkedIn to have someone.
With no operational experience.
Talk about strategy andmarketing.
(39:16):
Go to market targets.
I mean, they're, they're likethe executive version of the
growth hackers that are on leadon on, um, LinkedIn.
Oh, not LinkedIn, on Facebook,right.
Like all those lead generators.
And so like, I feel like youcannot just throw a stone on
LinkedIn and you are gonna findsome.
You know, I, I don't wanna sayany of these words, I'm pretty
sure.
Like, just fuck it, I guess.
(39:37):
So, like, you're not gonna,you're not gonna be able to find
like some evangelist or somestrategist or some conceptual
thought expert or some strategicthinker that's out there that
probably would lock themselvesout of every single tool that
Marketing Operations uses to doany of their strategies and not
be.
Oh, okay.
(39:58):
So you want us to make moremoney?
That's cool.
I mean, that's a veryfundamental good strategy.
Like, and I'm not, I'm notpointing on anyone specific.
So please, if you're listeningto this and that's in like your
title or something like that, Iapologize.
I'm not, it is not intended.
It is not intended for anyone.
No,
Mike Rizzo (40:16):
I, but the, the standout, you know, the standout
strategists out there, whoeverthey might be, uh, definitely
figure out.
Have real conversations andalign people with the business.
Right.
Um, but you know, I think it'sthat tactical piece of like, how
do you even implement thisstuff?
What are the, like, I don'tknow, do you measure your, as an
(40:40):
operations person, like, firstof all, we're not measuring any
of the, in my mind, I don'tthink we're measuring any of the
right things to, to say where wefit into the pie of.
All of the spend and all of thego-to market strategy, right?
It's like if, if you're, youknow, state of the mopro
research says you're measuredpredominantly on your, um, your
(41:03):
KPI's predominantly, uh,pipeline, right?
It's like, well, but you're notactually responsible for
generating pipeline.
So like, what does that mean?
Right?
And I, I know everybody's heardme say it a thousand times.
Like I hope that it's just aboutthrough.
And efficiency.
But if you haven't built thosesystems to say, here's how we're
impacting the pipeline, not thecampaigns that we like created
(41:27):
ourselves or anything like that.
It's like, here's how much wecan do.
Here's how fast it reaches.
Here's how we're measuring theefficiency and the effectiveness
of our go to market.
If you're not doing that, Thenyou're not going to ever get to
a place where you can advocatefor why that matters.
Raja Walia (41:43):
Right.
Or know of those things.
Yeah, yeah.
Oh yeah.
Right.
If you don't even know aboutthose things, it's the same
concept applies.
Michael Hartmann (41:50):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, I, I, and this maybestarted way back when I started
my career in consulting, but Ialways wanted to understand the
context, what, you know, I'dhave a, you know, my manager,
senior manager would come to meworking on a client project,
like, go do this coding work,and I was.
What's it for?
Like I wanted to understand thebusiness, um, cause that
(42:12):
sometimes made me push backsome, but at a minimum I tried
to learn, you know, so I thinkthat's what you're saying, Mike,
right?
Is like, like if you're in thatrole and you're, you know, the,
the marketing being measured on.
KPIs that are around, say,revenue or pipeline or leads or
whatever, that you don't havedirect control over, but you can
(42:34):
enable, even if it doesn't meanyes, you think that that's what
you should be as an ops personmeasured on, it's good to know
it, right?
Why, and then how Then you canhelp figure out, well, how can I
be enable those, those teamsbetter?
Yeah.
Mike Rizzo (42:47):
And it just helps you unlock, you know, more
questions, right?
Like when you start poking intolike, Why, you know, how long
does it take for us to, tolaunch a campaign down to seeing
the first lead put into thishands of the salesperson?
When you start analyzing thebusiness in that way, you're
doing something that really noone wants to sit there and take
(43:07):
the time to do.
Oh, right.
But it's like incrediblyinsightful and helpful.
Yeah.
And so, you know, you might notactually be measured on it, but
you knowing it is an entirelyawesome and kind of dangerous
thing, right?
Like you, you create like this,I don't know, I don't wanna call
it a total moat, but like, it'ssomething that you have access
to and not everybody does so,
Michael Hartmann (43:29):
so, Raja and Mike, so we've, we've gone all
around and around on this, like,so where do you, like, what do
you think is the feature here onall this?
And like, yeah, I know one ofthe things we didn't get to yet,
and we can, maybe you can hit onit here, is that maybe this is
an opportunity for somefractional scenarios, but like,
where do you think the future isfor this?
(43:50):
Like, where do you think it'sgonna go?
Mike, you're speaking orpresenting at something, coming
up Raja, I dunno if you're doingsomething similar somewhere.
So how can people learn moreabout.
Raja Walia (44:02):
I, um, that's a tough question to, to answer the
first part of that question.
I, going forward, I, I feellike, I feel like any operation
or any C-level company like thatsounds weird.
Like any company that hasC-level executives really need
to kind of start thinking andoutlining how do you get
(44:24):
individuals that.
The company's technology as muchas the company's business as
well.
And if you have separate rolesfor that, that's perfectly fine
as well.
But at a, at a executive level,you know, no one's gonna say,
oh, let's, you know, and I knowsomeone's gonna say, um, because
I've been on calls where like,oh, well let's just throw that,
(44:45):
let's just listen to theoperational people because they
obviously know what they'retalking about.
Right?
Like, someone's gonna say that.
And, and that's not what I'msaying.
What I'm saying is, Either it'sa hybrid role or it's a role,
but the concept of operationalexecution has to be incorporated
at strategy in order, in orderto, you know, In order to devise
(45:05):
a plan that works and you'rejust not stuck in like this loop
of what's possible, just becausewe designed it well, we designed
it already, it's been approved,let's get it out the door.
Like the next step is like somesort of like, you know, to
Mike's point, like either it's aseparate role or it's this role.
In my personal opinion, I feellike the CMO needs to own it.
You know, I call it CMO ops,just because that's the best way
(45:29):
I can describe it.
But in my personal opinion, Ifeel like the, if you're a chief
marketing officer at a company,you also need to have
operational skillset andknow-how to fully devise a
strategy along with what youalready.
And you need to be able toassess like what are the
operational tactics are neededfor that strategy.
(45:49):
So you can convey at boardmeetings what's possible rather
than going to a board meeting,devising a strategy, going to
the operations person, changingthe strategy, going back to the
board and, and the board'ssaying, well, what the hell, we
already fucking talked aboutthis.
Why are we doing this?
Like all that loop just needs togo.
So in my.
Michael Hartmann (46:06):
Maybe that's contributing to the reduced,
like shortening, shorteningtenure of CMOs.
Raja Walia (46:10):
I, I'm, like I said, what did I, what did I say like
probably 30 minutes ago, I said,you devi a strategy.
It goes down to the person thatsays, Hey, we can't do it, and
runs right back up and then allof a sudden you have a person
has switched a LinkedIn jobpost.
Right?
Like all, all of a sudden yournetwork is like, these people
are.
I feel like that is the nextstep.
Like, and like I said, in myopinion, I feel like the CMO
(46:32):
needs to own it.
I don't think there has to be aninternal, like I don't think
another role needs to becreated.
I feel like it's just like a CTOand a c o own their tech stack.
Marketing has technology now,right?
We're not sending direct mailpieces.
I mean, some people are, andthat works perfectly fine.
We're not, you know, just tryingto figure and wing it.
(46:53):
That's tech enabled.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I know, I know.
But I'm just saying like, youknow, like in order to QR code
and attribute, like then that'swhy companies don't really have
a grasp on attribution isbecause.
We don't know what technology isdoing what, but I, like I said,
answer your question, I feellike personally the CMO needs to
have operational, notexperience, but knowhow,
(47:14):
knowledge, skillset, whatever itis, to be able to talk about
these strategies inside meetingswhere all of that shit is
dictated rather than circlingback and forth on it.
Mike Rizzo (47:24):
So I'm, I'm in agreement.
I don't know that there, I don'tknow.
I don't know that it needs to bea net.
Functional category.
I'm, I'm talking out of bothsides.
I, I know, but I.
I'm saying, it sounds like theCMO is gonna have a hard go of
it given their current focus.
Yeah.
I think a chief of staff isexcellent.
(47:45):
I think it's an awesome functionto, to roll up into, especially
for those that don't necessarilywant to sit on the C level,
right?
Like mm-hmm.
You want to be that in betweenand you want to be like
respected in that strategicfunction, but you don't
necessarily want to be likereporting to the board and doing
all the rest of the thing.
Who knows?
Right?
Um, maybe that's the right spotfor you.
Uh, it's, it's funny, I justmet.
(48:07):
A member of our community, Tony,we were talking about this and,
and he reports, he's ha he'sreported into the CMO and the
CTO in a tech enablementfunction, right?
At the end of the day, he'smarketing ops.
He came from a dev backgroundand he, he just published a blog
post for the listeners.
Go check it out.
It's why Marketing Ops shouldhave its own seat at the table.
(48:27):
And he ends up saying, Hey, likemaybe it's the chief digital.
And he goes through and breaksall, I'm not gonna sit here and
break it all down for you, buthe does talk about the
differences in what that mightlook like between B2C and and
B2B companies.
And then there's uh, this otherindividual who's the CEO and
founder of Exigent and is Davidhome?
And he's saying, Hey, I wouldditch the COO for the dpi.
(48:50):
And you could add chief to thatif you want.
And he's just basically sayinglike, Hey, there's a ubiquity of
digitization across the entirebusiness infrastructure, and
perhaps the COO needs to have ashakeup.
Again, I don't know who's gonnaend up owning this at the end of
the day, but I do.
I do think we've come fullcircle in the way that all of
this has been implemented.
(49:11):
There's a piece that I'm workingon with the Stack Moxi team
about this idea that, hey, forthe last 20 years we've been
doing things around like leadgeneration and us utilizing the
lead object literally because itwas put in front of us.
Yep.
And it's like, and there are somany of us that say, I don't
(49:31):
know that that thing should everexist anymore, but it's not
going away anytime soon.
Yeah.
Right.
And so we are at this, so toillustrate the point of full.
We were first in a place whereit was like, well, here's what
the technology can do, so I'mjust gonna do what the
technology can do.
Yes.
Well now we are like, I knowwhat all the technology can do.
I now need to be specific abouthow to best utilize the
(49:54):
technology because using thelead object might not be right
for us, or utilizing an ABM toolmight not be the right solution
for us.
Right.
But I can go and I can surveythe landscape and today's
practitioners are like, Youknow, tomorrow's future leaders
because they're able to look atthis ecosystem of technology and
(50:15):
say, Hey, don't do that.
Just because the tool does itthat way, right?
It's like it's sort ofpigeonholing you in that
direction.
Go build a business around whatyou need to do and invest in the
technology the way that you needto do it, right?
So anyway, I don't know whatit's going to be.
Raja Walia (50:33):
I think that it, and, and I'll double down
though.
I'll, I'll double down.
I feel like if, if we, I mean,the last last podcast we talked
about was, um, Was regardingyour position, right?
Like I think it was like how togrow in your CMO obstacle,
right?
I feel like if, if you're anoperational person and you want
to move to the C level, I feellike all the stuff about decks
(50:57):
and creating PowerPointpresentations about all those
things are just part of anotherskill set that you need to learn
to have, right?
Yes.
So, and once again, like that'swhy I say like the, the next
level of cmo.
That are being created, thatwe've seen being created based
off on, you know, people whoI've known that have been doing
operational stuff, they becomecmo.
They're hyper successful.
(51:18):
Why?
Because you just get shit donefaster.
Because you know at, at.
At point, what's possible, andthat's possible, right?
Yeah.
You don't have to consult withsomeone, you just know, Hey,
this is, this is gonna be a wayto do it.
Yeah.
So I will still, I will stillsay that the C, the CMO still
needs to own it.
That position needs to berefined operationally as well as
(51:39):
strategically as well.
I,
Mike Rizzo (51:40):
yeah, I think, I think it's a great call out.
I think it's a good challengefor the CMO to take on.
I don't know who it'll fallunder, but to your point, I
think if you, if this is a pathyou want to go on and you're a
practitioner in marketing apps,rev ops today, you do still have
to like become morewell-rounded.
Michael Hartmann (51:58):
Right.
So, well, I mean, I think it,you gotta go learn some of those
other things to Roger's point,right?
That stuff doing do likelearning how to be a better
communicator, whether it'sthrough speaking or, or writing.
It's just another skill set youhave to learn as you, if you
expand your role, like you haveto learn how to manage people
and lead and manage a budget andlike, these are not the things
that you normally get early onin your career.
(52:20):
So just like those, they can belearned.
Right.
Yeah.
But, but
Raja Walia (52:24):
so like, and you know how many technical design
documents that I've created inmy entire life from my
implement, like, you know, howmuch fun those were?
Never there.
There were never fun.
There was never a time in myentire life where I was like,
you know, what I feel like doingtoday is documenting and
creating a functional reason ofa technical design doc.
But they're some people who do Iknow.
(52:45):
I know they.
That's very true.
But I'm just saying like in thatcategory, like I actually get
some joy outta this.
I
Mike Rizzo (52:52):
dunno why I'm just like, paper makes
Raja Walia (52:55):
me happy.
Yeah.
But to grow into a role and tosay, well, You know, we need
someone at the table to talk tothose things.
Like, you also need to know thatthere's certain things that sea
level executives do that are notvery fun.
They just do it because theyhave to.
Just like any other role that
Michael Hartmann (53:09):
plays, right?
Yes, absolutely.
Like every job, every situationhas things that, you know, give
you energy and take energy away,right?
Totally.
Yes.
Um, well this is like, okay, sofor all of our listeners, like I
came into this, like knowingthat Mike and Raja had talked
about this before, and.
Um, wasn't quite sure where thiswas gonna go.
This has been a really fun,interesting conversation.
(53:31):
So, Raja, thank you for, forjoining us.
If, I'm sure there's probablyother stuff we didn't get to and
all this, but we're gonna haveto wrap it up.
What, uh, if folks wanna kind ofkeep up with you or what you're
doing or what you're doing withGNW, like what's the best way
for them to do that?
Raja Walia (53:45):
Um, just on our, um, Uh, just on our main website,
um, everything's un gated.
Um, we can talk about how Idon't believe in gates later in
life.
Uh, but everything's un gated.
They can look at everything.
They can review everything, andif they have any questions, they
can always feel free to reachout to me on LinkedIn or connect
with me on LinkedIn, or ifanyone got mad about me throwing
out random stuff, uh, and theywant to yell at me.
(54:06):
Yeah, connect me on, shoot me amessage.
Michael Hartmann (54:08):
You can take it.
I can already tell.
You'll be sure to, uh, leaveyour home address on the show,
Raja Walia (54:13):
right.
I
Michael Hartmann (54:15):
just, well, good.
Well, Mike, thank you.
Uh, it's been a funconversation.
Uh, I have a feeling like ourlisteners are really gonna enjoy
this.
So thanks, Joel, your listenersout there for continuing to
support us.
Um, and we will look forward togetting you more content out
there soon.
And until next time.
Thanks everyone.
Bye.
Awesome.
Thanks everyone.
(54:35):
Awesome.
Mike Rizzo (54:36):
Thanks
Raja Walia (54:36):
everyone.
Okay.
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