How to Continuously Learn and Grow in Marketing Ops with Raja Walia

Episode Transcript
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Michael Hartmann (00:02):
Hello everyone.
Welcome to another episode ofOpsCast, brought to you by
MarketingOps.com, powered by theMO Pros.
I'm your host, Michael Hartmann,today joined by Naomi Liu.
Naomi, I think this is one ofthe few times you just, just you
and me,

Naomi Liu (00:16):
so I know.
Just the, just the two of us.
Just the two.

Okay.
I don't, I don't think we

Naomi Liu (00:21):
need me singing.
Can't harmonize with you.

No, wouldn't, I'm not sure that would end
well.
So we'll just cut it.
Um, like I even had, couldn'teven really do much in that,
that MarketingOps.com rap songthat Mike just reposted
recently.
So, uh, anyway, so let me moveon then.
So, joining us today, uh, we'regonna be talking about how to

(00:45):
learn and grow in your marketingops role.
Uh, and joining us to talk aboutthat is Raja Walia.
Raja, I should have asked youbefore, like, did I pronounce it
right?
Well, you can get to,

Raja Walia (00:54):
yeah, no, you're good.
Yeah, no, you're good.
Yeah.
Raja Walia is good.
Uh, a lot of people call me Rajor Raja.
Um, I will tell you, a lot ofpeople just call me Raj, so.
Got

it.
Okay.
That's whatever works.
So Raj is the founder andprincipal consultant of GNW
Consulting, a marketingautomation CRM consulting
company.
GNW is the latest in a series ofmarketing and marketing
operations, and, Automationconsulting organizations that
he's been a part of.
And, uh, I think he had a littlebit of a stint in, uh, in-house
in the marketing role.
But, uh, Raja welcome and thankyou for joining us today.

Raja Walia (01:24):
Yeah, no pleasure to be here.
And actually I've never had anin-house role, so it's, ever
since my career kicked off, I'vealways been in consulting
outside of like, you know,whatever jobs you get after
college and whatever comes up,uh, whatever comes up and
whatever jobs will accept youafter you get your degree.
Uh, but I've always been inconsulting, so ever since.
Oh, okay.
Career.

All right, there you go.
So I, there's failure number onefor me day.
So, well, at least first one onthis.
It's probably not the first oneon the day, but, um, so, okay.
So I really, I think this isgonna be a good one for the
folks who are our listeners and,um, because I think a lot of
folks, I know I get a lot ofquestions, we see'em in the

(02:04):
MarketingOps.com community aboutlike, how do you learn, what
should I learn next?
That kind of stuff for ourfolks.
But before we get into that, um,So we just highlighted a little
bit about your career.
Why don't we, you share a littlebit about, you know, your
career, um, and, uh, you know,what led you to stay in

(02:24):
consulting the whole time.
And, and maybe one of, one ofthe things I know I'm interested
in is, are there sort of, sortof points in your career where
you sort of could have gone downpath A or path B that you, you
know, kinda led you this way andor are there people that you
think were significant in, inkind of helping you through
your.

Raja Walia (02:43):
Yeah, no, absolutely.
Um, so can I give you abackground by myself?
Uh, me, myself, I startedconsulting, I wanna say in 2011.
Uh, I worked for a consultingagency at the time, and that was
actually just when marketingautomation was kicking off.
At that point in time, I don'tthink Marketo had branded
themselves of Marketo, but theyhad just rolled out
certification after the firstyear of consulting.

(03:05):
Uh, so I was one of like, Ithink the first 10 pilot members
of the original, original,original Marketo Certifi.
Exam or whatever, whateveressentially that was, that was
called.
Um, uh, real quick, the secondpart of your question, as far as
what made me stay in consulting,so

yeah.
So because I know I, I startedin consulting, different kind of
consulting way back in my careerand then I.
I shifted away and I always, Ithink, I always thought I would
go back to consulting and thennever did.
And,

Raja Walia (03:34):
you know, consulting's, one of those
things is that once you, eitheryou hate it or you like it, and
I always, and I just gravitated,gravitated towards it mainly
just because there was so much.
Uh, differences, right?
There's so many companies thatyou work with.
There's so many marketingstrategies, there's so many
flavors and so many builds thatyou learn across platforms.
So, you know, I originallystarted with like, you know,

(03:54):
Marketo and then I slowlyexpanded to HubSpot, Eloqua.
At one point in my career, I wascertified in Pardo and Marketing
Cloud, and I'm active certifiedin the Salesforce and Dynamics.
you know, slowly kind of go downthe, uh, realm of strategy.
And I think one of the bestparts about consulting program
me was that it was never thesame.
I think one of the things Ialways felt going in-house is

(04:14):
you market one product.
Maybe we have expansions,there's upsells, and it gets,
and it gets a little bit like,uh, I wanna say it gets a little
bit repetitive, right?
Because essentially you'remarketing one product and the
life cycles are alwaysanonymous, closed, one where are
upsell opportunities.
But with consulting you get theidea, you get the benefit.
I wanna say not even with the.
Um, well, you have to have ideasactually, with consulting, you

(04:37):
have to have ideas for multipleorganization, whether it's B2C
or whether it's b2b.
So I think that's one of thethings that just made me stay in
consulting for the longest time,because when one project stops,
another project starts.
and sometimes there's 10projects that starts and you
have to be very quick on yourfeet and you have to be very
intuitive enough to know what acompany's or what, what a

(04:58):
company's goals is.
Goals are, sorry.
And how does that tie into theircurrent tech tech?
How are they leveraging it?
Um, so first when I started, um,you know, I think everyone had
every strategy in the world,right?
They would, they would talkabout like lead scoring as this
mythical thing.
And they're like, you can score.
Leads and you can organize themand people will know that the

(05:20):
points make them more, thepoints the better.
And now I think, uh, kind of tieinto the topic is like, you
know, what, what makes, uh, likehow do, how do you grow and your
marketing ops career is like,we've come to a point where you
really have to kind of like knowyour shit.
Like there is no more pie in thesky strategies anymore.
Like you have to understandtechnology cuz if you.

(05:43):
you might be able to pitchyourself and you might be able
to sell yourself, but as soon asyou start actually doing the
work, people will catch onrelatively quickly that Hey, you
know what this is, this issomeone that has either been
doing it for a small amount oftime or it's just been bullshit,
like from the get go.
So, and I think that's one ofthe cool things about consulting
is cuz you're constantly gettingknowledge checked.
You're constantly getting, doesthis person actually stand

(06:06):
behind what they're saying anddo they know how to do it?
Like actually physically do.
Compared to not do it.
And I think that's one of thethings that kind of keeps me on
my toes is because even though Ifounded G N W Consulting and you
know, we've grown exponentiallyover the last four years as an
organization and we have clientsthat are with, you know, various
marketing automation platforms,not just one is that you get

(06:27):
knowledge checked and you haveto be, you have to do your due
diligence and make sure yourknowledge is on point.
If not a person that juststarted that's been doing more
research will find out veryquickly if you're, you know, if
you're just blowing hot smoke,uh, or if you're blowing like
hot air their way.
Yeah.
So I think that's one of myfavorite parts about consulting.

That's interesting.
Um, I'm, so, I'm curious going alittle bit off track here, but I
wanna follow up on something.
So I'm curious when you, thatthat being checked for knowledge
that aligns with my experiencein being consulting, right?
So you're sort of forced to stayup with stuff.
I'm curious, do you get calledin.
Either clients, new clients orexisting clients when they're
considering new, new technology.

Raja Walia (07:08):
So, um, well, it's not too off track, but we get
called in at various stages of,with our clients.
So it could be they, they couldbe in the vendor selection
process.
And since we have clients that,you know, have different
platforms, they'll ask us, whichis our favorite one, and then
based off on their skillset,like if someone's more techn.
Advanced and you know how towrite sequel phrase and run code

(07:31):
and you're a B2C customer.
Well, hey, guess what?
You know what Marketing cloudmight be the king.
But if you have someone that's avery good mar marketing strategy
person, but you know, it mightbe like an ops role or they
might not be very technical.
Then you have other platformslike Marketo, which is huge that
comes in the play, right?
So we will either get pulled infrom a vendor selection, we're
trying to do this, what is ourtech stack to, we have this tech

(07:54):
stack.
What do we do with it?
Like, are we optimizing like thestandard consulting type of
questions people get asked,right.
So, yeah.
Well, it's

it, sorry.
It was so, it was top of, notsort of top of mind for me
because I had a, I was in aconversation earlier today with
somebody talking about, uh, whowas, it was actually is a
MarTech vendor was asking forinput on like, how should we be
selling to marketers ormarketing tech people and, and,
um, Like they were strugglingand I was like, I think part of

(08:25):
this is because.
Yeah.
Marketing tech or marketing opspeople tend to be a, they're
really busy, right?
And so like to get theirattention alone, right?
So they're, they're gonna bewanting to get, move stuff
along.
And we're used to sort ofevaluating stuff.
Like I, I was, we got in theconversation about if I asked
for a demo, I want a demo.
I don't want you to be asking mea bunch of questions.
And at the same time, so weactually had a couple of

(08:47):
episodes on this, uh, like ayear ago on, like, we actually
talked about how to sell to marmarketing ops.
And then we, we actually had acouple sales people.
Wanted to counter that, whichwas great.
We actually had a really goodconversation, but at the same
time, I'm like, the reason I'msaying that is because I know
that your demo's gonna be like areally clean Right con

(09:08):
controlled environment.
Yeah.
Of data and SY in a, that islike, this is the best case
scenario, but I'll also belooking like, okay, I want to
know.
given what I know about my shitstorm, right.
in my environment.
Right?
What or what, you know, maybeit's not even a shit storm, but
I know that there are issues ornuances or difference in the way
we go to market than the waythey think about it.

(09:29):
That, um, I, you know, I, I canpretty much go like, okay, I get
the.
The strategy or the potential ofthis, but I'm not sure I could,
it, it will match up with usright now.
Right?
Or I

Raja Walia (09:39):
might, yeah.
And, and see that that what yousaid right there is probably
like one of the most key thingsin the modern day marketing
automation space, right?
Like knowing what I know andknowing.
What it is like, does thatstrategy match up with the
technology and does that, doesthat strategy match up with,
from a business objectives?
Right.
So when you, when you wanna growin your ops role, whether you're

(10:01):
starting, you have to make surethat c, I mean, the tech
landscape is so huge and peoplewill sell you the most.
Pristine conditionedenvironments.
And then when you get it and youstart setting it up, either data
isn't there.
And that as something, asconsultants, you just know,
right?
Like Naomi said it like, youknow, you said it like, it's
just, you just know, like thatis not the current state of

(10:21):
things right.
For yourself.
And I think when you grow intoyour ops role, that's something
that is, is, is tenure.
Like you just, you just learnthat over time, rather than kind
of believing a flashy demo.
Yeah.

Naomi Liu (10:34):
Mm-hmm.
what did I say?
What I always say, um, Michael,is, uh, I wanted you to present
your deck backwards.

Raja Walia (10:40):
Ah,

yeah.
That's really, that's, that'sthe secret with

Naomi Liu (10:43):
Naomi.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Present your deck to mebackwards cuz I wanna see the
end Yeah.
I don't need to see what Fortune500 companies also utilize your

platform Totally.
I was like, I don't need to seeyour logo page.
Like I don't care.
Not right now.
Like at some point if we getfurther along, maybe that makes

Raja Walia (10:58):
a difference.
You know, it's funny, it's funnycuz when I actually do pitch to
extra companies and you know,they wanna know what about our
consulting, like, you know,packages and services.
The second slide is a bunch oflogos and like, all right, this
is my validation page.
These are the companies we'veworked with and we.
From that one, right?
Like this is, the logos are justthere to give you some sort of,
you know, some sort of easement.
Like, okay, it's just not like,you know, a a, a mom and pop

(11:21):
shop or something.
Or it's not, it's not somethinglike local or something that you
made up.
Like these are actual companiesthat have trusted us and we move
off.
It's like a one second slide.
And that's how it's exactly itspitch.
So I have

Naomi Liu (11:33):
actually gotten that question like, a couple of
linked, like a bunch actually ofpeople on LinkedIn being like,
do you ever want to see logos ona presentation?
And I'm like, well, actually,yes.
Yep.
And it comes when I'm trying todo internal selling.
Exactly.
And I'm trying to tell thepeople who hold the purse
strings, right.
These are what our competitorsor people in our industry are

(11:56):
using and we need to do the sameor similar, right?
So that's when I do want to seelogos, especially if they're
competitors of ours are in thesame

landscape.
That is exactly the same for me,right?
Mm-hmm.
like it's, it is important.
Just not, I don't, I think it'simportant at the different time.
So I'm curious.
So Naomi, I'm.
So what Rod said about, um, likeseeing new stuff all the time,
having been in consulting, likethat resonated with me and like
I, but I'm in a, I'm in a big.

(12:25):
Like in an organization where Ithink his, his description of
like the same, basically thesame stuff.
Selling the same stuff, the sameaudience, right.
No, no, no.

Raja Walia (12:35):
I'm not saying it's boring or anything,

I'm just No, I, I, no, but I think I'm
curious though, cuz Naomie, youwork for, you also work
internally, but you just, evenlike you work with across
multiple brands, right?
Mm-hmm.
So do you, do you feel like youget some of that kind of
creativity of.
Applying stuff in different waysbecause of that for sure.

Naomi Liu (12:54):
Because every business unit has its own needs,
right.
And, um, not all of therequirements are gonna be the
same.
So we are, we are, my team isrun like a small, like an
internal agency for.
The company definitely.
Um, it sometimes feels likeyou're working for a bunch of
different companies, but, youknow, trying to align everything
under the same, um, end goal,so,

yeah.
All right.
Well let's, so let's get intosome of the things that we we're
gonna talk about, Raj, with you,about, um, kind of how you like.
Because you've been inconsulting for a while, um, and
you're sort of forced to keep upwith stuff.
Maybe going all the way back, Ithink you mentioned this, like
you were in, call it an og,right?
With with Yeah.
was it Marketo or whatever, butyeah.
What, like what have you seenkind of in the landscape of

(13:40):
marketing automation or MarTechin general, right?
What do you see that.
you've seen that has come alongand gone, gone through that way,
and what have you learned andwhat do you think we should be
looking, you know, how do youthink people, whether they're
in-house or consulting, can thenkind of try to.
keep up with what's going on.

Raja Walia (13:58):
Yeah, no, I mean, a lot from the very, very
starting, I think if you go backto like 2011 when Mark, uh, when
Mark Tech or marketingoperations, even before MOPS was
a mops, right?
Like before even the word mop,marketing operations consisted
everyone were like marketingmanager, and you had a, you had
a platform that you used,

you know?
Yeah.
I, I was an e-marketing personfor a while, like whatever that
was like, nobody uses thatanymore.

Raja Walia (14:21):
I was a marketing manager.
Yeah, you, I'm not sure wherethe one was or where the two
began or where the three beganor anything like that, but I was
originally a marketing managerone, and this was before Marketo
had programs and before, youknow, marketing operations was a
thing.
But one of the things that I'veseen kind of change drastically
is that, you know, circle ba,what I was saying is like the

(14:44):
knowledge of something new canbe kind of overhyped and fluffed
up.
And I think there were a lot ofstrategy that.
Existed that no longer kind ofapplies or is kind of like what
we were saying is.
Yeah, obviously, right?
Like the whole pitch deckbackwards.
We know in what you're sellingus, and it's the hardest thing

(15:04):
to do as to sell to marketers,is because when you look at a
pre-header, you don't look at itas a pre-header that has
something, you look at what thepre-header is, what the subject
line consists of.
Is there a hero image?
Is there a c t A button?
And I think one of the biggestchanges with marketing
operations over time is thatmore and more.
the next generation of marketersare just more tech savvy, right?

(15:27):
So it's very hard.
Even though technology and theconcepts are kind of the same,
you can't talk about conceptsanymore.
You have to talk about actual,you know, rolling up your
sleeves and doing the work andhow does it.
How does it trickle down intowhat you're saying into worse,
like versus just talking aboutthis unicorn jumping over a
rainbow, shitting Skittles, andall of a sudden you have

(15:50):
marketing operations in anutshell, and then all of a
sudden you have revenue.
Right.
Um, that's, I think the biggestchange is that if you talk to
someone that's a c t or a cio,or even at the highest level,
they know their products in andout.
And from a marketingperspective, the biggest thing
that's changed is when you.
You know, someone at the sealevel, they need to understand

(16:10):
the product and the technologyin order to devise a a cohesive
strategy.
And I think that's one of thebiggest things that I've seen
change, is that you can't walkinto a group of people such as
yourself or even Naomi or intoan org and say, Lead scoring
will solve everything.
Okay, well how, like, how is itgonna solve it?
How do we implement it?
Where do we start?

(16:31):
Where all those questions werenever asked.
Because when we used to pitchdecks to companies and we said,
lead scoring is this amazingthing and you can rate your
leads and you know, they're hot,warm, and cold leads and people
are like, that's amazing.
That's the most, that's the mostbrilliant thing I've ever heard.
and now it's more of like, okay,well what's a hot lead?
Like how do you define it?
What are the characteristics?

(16:52):
What are the what?
What is the ideal customerprofile?
All of those other componentsyou have to be able to talk to,
but you also have to be able toknow the product that where it's
being implemented to truly kindof graft a strategy.
That makes sense.
Yeah.

That's interesting.
Um, how do you think, um, do youthink that's become even harder
as there's been thisproliferation of marketing
technology platforms that arelike, I I think of'em as very
sort of bespoke for really nichethings, right?
That Yeah, you generally, youhave a core, right?
Some sort of marketingautomation platform, a crm, and

(17:27):
then after that, like things.
Some

Raja Walia (17:31):
sort of a quick that's sort of content.
Yeah.
Some sort of content manager.
Yeah.
Um, I, I don't think it's, andthis is obviously my personal
opinion, I don't think it'sbecome more difficult.
I think it's just choosing, uh,of what array of products are
the easiest for your team to useand get to your goals.
Like, it's not ne like a b mstrategy conceptually Makes

(17:53):
sense.
But what product is gonna helpyou achieve your ABM strategy
and which one can you use easilyand train and net new people and
onboard as fast as possible?
I feel like those are the itemsthat people have to look into,
into, like, you know, sometimeswhen people go with a big name
company and they'll be like,yes, we need this.
Why?
Because everyone's using it.
Not necessarily the case.
Cuz you're onboard to onboardingtime is where it's gonna kill

(18:16):
you, uh, the most.
Right?
Like, so Yeah.

Like, I think it's interesting.
So for like ABMs a great examplefor me.
Like I've never actuallyimplemented ab.
Platform because every time Iget into the conversation with
the companies I've been at, Ialways push back and go like, I
don't think we're ready from anorganizational standpoint to
just go and buy technology.
It's not gonna fix our strategyor how we approach things.
Right?
Yeah.

(18:38):
So like we have to thinkdifferently and like, and I
think we can probably make somesteps forward with our existing,
like our Cortex stack withoutbuying new stuff.
And what was interesting, theone in particular, I'm think.
like we couldn't even get to atop hundred account.
Yeah.
So what's the point of ABMtechnology at that?

Raja Walia (18:58):
Well, so ABM is a huge push, right?
Like everyone wants ABM andthere's a lot of product and
vendors out there.
And what they do is they can,they consolidate all of what
you're talking about, thetechnicalities of it easier.
Like they just make it easy foryou to identify what your target
accounts are.
Well, if.
Know, once again, what yourtarget accounts are or what the
digital makeup of those targetaccounts are.

(19:19):
Those technologies will give youwhatever that you plug in, and
if you don't know what you'replugging in, then the output is
gonna be just as you know, asjust as.
Bland, so you don't even knowwhat you're paying for a
product.
And that's where people get intoconversations like, why are we
paying for something that we'renot using?
You know, traditionally ABMstrategies really fall under

(19:40):
like two concepts.
You know, one are doppelgangeraccounts and one are la land and
expand model.
And you can do that within yourc r m, like, you know, you don't
need, you don't need a, a pieceof software to essentially kind
of show you, you just need apiece of software to make your
life easier to consolidate allof those things.

Yeah, so this is really interesting.
Uh, my dogs agree with youthere, You can hear'em.

Raja Walia (20:05):
They're just talking.
Um, they're just like all aboutabm, I'm telling you.
That's right.
That's that.
That's how hot of a topic is.
Even people don't understandabm.
You mentioned ABM and people'sears perk up, Um, I'm, I'm
speaking on ABM at B2B mx, justregarding that topic.
Uh, particularly, uh, topic, butI so reason shows that topic is
everyone's ears are always out,cuz that's what Google's top 10.

(20:27):
ABM strategies going into 2023blogs are, you know, taking over
everyone's feed and so, right.

So, um, shifted a little bit here.
So one of the other things we'vetalked about is like, how do it,
like are there differences inthe type of marketing or
marketer that you are like, so Ithink, I think it's probably
safe to say the majority of thepeople who, who are lister,
podcaster mostly b2b, um, Soprobably some b2c, we've had a

(20:54):
few guests on that were moreb2c.
So, um, I guess there's adifference.
But one of the things I'venoticed lately is a lot of B2B
marketers talking about like,needing to kinda bring in
perspective or similarities,some of the B2C kind of things.
Like I think basically saying,don't be boring.
Right?
Try to be Yeah.
You know, but, um, do you, whatdo your, what is your take on.

(21:14):
uh, like are there, are theremore common things that are
common in sort of, I hate to usethe term best practices, but
principles, I guess, for b2b,b2c, and you even mentioned
something B to student, which wecould elaborate on maybe if you
want, but, or do you see there,there's more differences in, you
know, what do you, what are youseeing that's common or
different?
Those.

Raja Walia (21:35):
So, so business a student or BDS is essentially
just mailing for the higher edspace that I've done consulting
and that's what they're called,their BS model.

Make sure, make sure you get the two in
that one

Raja Walia (21:44):
there.
Yeah.
The number two.
Yeah.
The B two s.
Yeah, the bs.
Um, but that's common in thehigher ed space cuz they always
market, you know, they refer totheir, you know, prospects of
students.
We refer to our prospects ofprospects and.
Refer to them as clients, uh,you know, obviously they're
students, uh, that arecontinuing their education
career or something along thoselines.
Oh,

I'm very familiar cuz I have a high
school senior right now.

Raja Walia (22:05):
Yeah.
All right.
Um, well, so the differencebetween B2B and b2c, I, you
know, this is gonna be very, I'mnot sure if it's gonna be an
unpopular opinion or I don'tknow if it's gonna be a popular
opinion.
I'm not too sure.
A lot of people talk about thesecomponents as like very
separate.
They say, well, B2B marketing isyour marketing to the business.
Business and consumer, you'remarketing directly to the

(22:25):
consumer.
So consumer side has to be moreflashy because you have to get a
person's attention.
Right?
That's the, that's the, ideallylike, oh, they have these
buttons, they have thesegraphics, and one of the things
that technology has changed iseveryone's removing themselves
from the conversation of themain purpose of any type of
marketing is getting, likegetting.

(22:48):
Prospect, I'll just call'emthat, to notice what you're
talking about and to believewhat you're saying is true.
And you can have the flashiestemail, email in the world, but
if it doesn't drive home anykind of messaging, it's kind of
irrelevant.
Um, design, I feel like has gonethe way of, you know, Cascading

(23:09):
style sheets inside.
You know, it's just designinside email is very, is very
heavily looked at as the end allbe all to get someone's attack,
uh, uh, attraction.
But as consultants, we know thatif person never gets your email,
because every single company hasso many filters blocking it.
It's, it's never gonna work.
So when people really talk aboutin a consulting space, like,

(23:31):
Hey, we want to be more likeb2c.
It's not that B2C emails.
If you look at, you know,MailChimps or whatever,
companies like open rates, andthat's where like the strategy
drives from.
That's not necessarily like b2c.
Open rates are drastically.
Crazy high because of the del,because of what they're
delivering, right?
Like is what the design or whatthe messaging is.

(23:52):
But a lot of B2B marketers thinkthat the emos need to be more
B2C related.
But what is B2C selling?
What is the product?
Their volume of people thatthey're marketing is a lot
higher, right?
Uh, So I think, um, to original,like, you know, to go back to
your question is like, you know,what can B2B take from b2c?
I think they can, B2B marketingcan really kind of take away

(24:13):
like what is a good cadence?
You know, not every email needsto go out Monday, Wednesday,
Friday at 8:00 AM you know, busbusiness to a consumer marketing
is.
Seven days a week.
Yeah, I check emails onSaturday.
You check emails on Saturday,right?
There's a big thing at Myth, youknow, a myth host and B2B is we
only wanna deliver Monday.
People are busy.

(24:34):
We're gonna send an emailTuesday, Wednesday, Thursday at
optimal time.
Don't send Friday.
People are gonna drive home.
And B2C is just like, we don'tcare.
We're just gonna send you anemail.
We're gonna send you an emailcuz we know that you're gonna
either read it or you.
Talked to messaging and a lot ofB2B clients that we worked with,
we've just randomly AB tested.
We just shot an email out onSaturday and lo and behold, you

(24:55):
know your kids are, I mean, Ihave two young kids and they go,
they go to naps effectivelybetween 12 to 3:00 PM and we
just shot an email out at 11 orfour or something like that, and
glance, and there you go.
You had a higher conversion ratejust because people are not busy
through the day of the day.
So like, I think that's the,those are a couple concepts to
kind of take away from B2Bversus B2C marketing.

(25:17):
It's not getting structured intothat.

Well, I think that's an interesting, like,
that's a really interestingpoint in that, um, cause I think
a lot of people when they seelike, what can B2B take from
b2c?
They think about the, thecreative elements, right?
And the copy and the like.
The, the tone of voice, thingslike that, but

Raja Walia (25:35):
a lot of exclamations and emojis.

Well, yeah, but not even that.
But I think your point of like,oh, well actually, like don't be
afraid to challenge yourassumptions about like, is it
okay to send on a Fridayafternoon?
Like I tell our, I've actually,I remember years ago seeing some
stated, and I have no idea ifit's still accurate, that Friday
afternoons were actually, were agreat time to get senior
executives if that was yourtarget audience.

(26:00):
Cuz Friday afternoons they'renot in meetings, they're
cleaning up their email and ifyou catch'em while they're in
their inbox Right, you get achance.
So like, um, yeah.

Raja Walia (26:12):
And you know, one of the, one of the biggest things
to, to not take away is that B2Cmarketing.
And the design heavily focusedis gonna, is gonna actually
deter you because, uh, when,when I say deter your, like,
open rates or, or yourengagement rates is because in
B2B marketing, a lot of peopleuse Outlook.
We have scanners, like if wework at corporations, oh, you

(26:32):
know, B to B2C marketing isGmail, Yahoo, iCloud, you know,
top three and then a coupleother ones I can't think of
right now.
Hot Hotmail still, ya.
Yeah.
Live or, yeah, an outlook.
And in b2b, if you go verydesign heavy or you start using
custom font and you startthrowing Google fonts in there,
that's an immediate, you know,we did, we did so many validity

(26:54):
tests through Everest, and wejust found that.
If you, the more design youhave, and b I mean, everyone
knows this, right?
It's not like something, it'snot like a a, a crazy strategy
that I'm saying is that in B2Bmarketing, you wanna take design
from b2c, you're not gonna getthe same return as B2C because
they're sending to people thathave Gmail accounts for y mail
accounts, and we're sending toOutlook and, you know, yeah.

(27:15):
We were sending Outlook orbusiness domains that are very
heavily monitored.
So, yeah.

Curious, Naomi, like in your, have you.
had challenges with that.
Like people saying, oh, we canonly send on certain days and
times a day.
And have you ever

Naomi Liu (27:31):
challenge that?
Yeah, I think, um, yeah,actually it's interesting
because just a couple weeks agoI had like an email trends and
best practices call with myinternal business partners who
we kind of debunked a lot ofthese things.
Um, and saying like, well, whosaid who said that?
What's the source?
Why?
Yeah.
Right?
And how, and then I actuallypulled, um, our business
partner.
I was like, how many of youactually.
Email on a weekend.

(27:51):
How many of you actually checkemail on in the evening?
Right.
Um, and so it was, I think itwas pretty eye-opening for
everybody and I was just like,you know what?
We don't know until we try andit's better to try an AB test
and to just make theseassumptions based on information
that is potentially out of datethat we just don't.
Have any basis for, so why don'twe just try?

(28:12):
And so I think that was reallywell received and there's
definitely, um, uh, moreopenness I think to, you know,
it, it seems to be this likemental block where people are
like, I don't wanna send workemail on a Saturday or not a
work email, but like a workmarketing email on a Saturday.
Right?
Right.
But, but, and

Raja Walia (28:27):
I'm like, why?

Naomi Liu (28:28):
Yeah.
Worst that's happened.
They'll get offended.
I, I don't know why.
You

Raja Walia (28:31):
know, and, and that's the, and that right there
I think is like consulting 1 01, right?
And that's what I love aboutconsulting is like, how do you
know if you haven't tried?
And the worst thing that they'regonna do is they're gonna
unsubscribe to you anyway.
Right?
Like no matter what, likethey're gonna unsubscribe
whether they receive an email onMonday, Wednesday, Tuesday, but
it's not like someone's gonnaget a email on Saturday and be
like, these.

(28:52):
Unsubscribe, like, you know,the, if we can work until 10:00
PM and the whole work from home.
Items and everything that'stalking about, like all of this
stuff, people check emailsduring the same time.
It's, you know, the worst casescenario if someone
unsubscribes, but they're gonnaun if that person was gonna
unsubscribe, they're gonnaunsubscribe Monday through
Friday just as much as Saturdayand Sunday.

(29:13):
Well, I,

yeah, I think, I think it's like the more
important thing is like,regardless of when you send it,
is it, is it gonna be useful andvaluable to the recipient?
Right.
And if it's not, it doesn'treally matter when you.
So, yeah.
You know what I mean?
All right, so let, let's getinto this.
So you already talked about likeas a consultant, you're expected
to be sort of the expert onprobably a lot of things, even

(29:35):
things that are like new.
So what, what are somestrategies that you apply to
keep up with stuff and kind ofcontinue to learn that our
listeners could benefit fromthat they could try to apply to
their own sort of career anddevelopment?
Yeah, so

Raja Walia (29:52):
that's kind of a.
Question because it's one ofthose things, it's a mindset.
There's not really anything thatI apply, like, I don't go out of
my way to do something.
I, it's not like I, I, I'm notgonna sit here and tell you,
like, read every tech notes thatcome with your platform.
You know, I, I'm a big fan oftechnology and one of the
reasons I've stayed inconsulting and martex along is
because I like technology,right?

(30:13):
So, if you like something,you're gonna pay attention to
it.
I'm really, really terrible atfantasy football because I have
no idea what's going on.
Why?
Because I'm not vested into it.
So it's not.
I don't have, I don't have asubscription to a newsletter.
I don't get like a 10 type type,uh, you know, top 10 topics.
This is trending.
I think if you're in the mopspace and you're looking at,

(30:34):
like, even in your guys'channel, you know, for the, for
the Slack channel, like I feellike being part of communities
in my personal opinion is a lotmore important because in those
type of communities, that'swhere people are asking
questions.
Like, there's so many questions.
I.
Answer it inside like your Slackchannel where someone posts
something and there's stuff thatsomeone is posting that even I

(30:54):
didn't know about because theyfound a different solution to
it.
I feel like those to me, mattermost, like being engaged and
being part of those communities.
I feel like that's what helpsyou learn.
Like asking people that haveeither done it or doing it or
have D done something or will bedoing it right, like I feel like
those are where I kind of putall my time.

(31:18):
I mean, yeah, I reach patchnotes.
I kind of have to, right?
Like you have to know whatMarketo is changing or what
marketing automation platform ischanging.
But I think that's probablywould be my recommendation is
join communities and connectwith people that are actively
working on projects.
Doing it and then see what youcan learn from them.
Seeing what takeaways, becausethat's the best way to, you
know, increase your skillset.

(31:39):
Like that's the skillset I have.
I don't have a skillset ofreading documents or watching
YouTube videos.
I have a, I have a skillset ofdoing and listening and working
with other agencies, uh, in mycareer, and that's where I
learned everything from.
Yeah,

it's interesting.
I, I.
Early in my career, a lot olderthan either of you, I think.
But I, like I say, tricky upwith stuff I subscribe to, like
very nerdy, like publicationsthat were free, and I was pretty
consistent about reading'em.
I mean, the idea, like therewasn't really this idea of a
community, but it's interestingjust again, just today, earlier

(32:13):
today in the marketing ops.comSlack, I had posted a question
like last week.
People chimed in and someoneactually, I was like, Hey, can
you talk about this?
Cuz it's like, I didn't, I,something I hadn't seen.
And that person gave me a call.
We talked for 15 minutes and Ilearned a whole bunch, like in
15 minutes just like that.
So it's,

Raja Walia (32:33):
yeah, it's, that's where.
That's where you and I gotconnected, right?
Like there was, there was no,like, you know, LinkedIn is such
a broad atmosphere and you know,there's so many agencies,
there's so many companies,there's so many people working
on stuff.
But that's where you and I gotconnected and that's where we
had our conversation as far aslike, hey, like what do you do?
Yeah.
That's where we

started Naomie.
How, like, I'm curious how,like, how do you, like, how do
you and maybe your team, likehow do you help your team keep
up, uh, kind of up like learningand developing on.
Whether it's technology orprocess or whatever.

Naomi Liu (33:03):
Yeah, I think, um, and this goes back to how I
structure my team, right?
So everyone on my team is asubject matter expert in their
own area.
Um, it's a, what I did not wantis a team of kind of marketing
general generalists.
So the way that my team isstructured, everybody can, you
know, execute a campaignend-to-end.

(33:24):
Everybody is, you know, veryproficient in Marketo.
Either has passed their CE or istaking their CE within the next
couple weeks actually.
Um, and.
So every, so everybody has thatsame baseline, right?
So that helps with things likecoverage and holidays and, you
know, people being out of officeand things like that.
But additionally, every personhas their own kind of like area

(33:46):
that they're responsible for.
So I have a full blown webdeveloper on the team.
Um, a data operations person, aprocess slash documentation
analytics person, and thensomebody that I, who.
Sit on the ops team, but um, ison a different team.
But I, I do rely on for somedesign stuff and how that has
benefited the team is that noteverybody has to know everything

(34:07):
exactly perfectly right?
So they're, everybody isresponsible for their area and
there's.
Situations where, when we're ona team call or whatnot, um, if
there's things that will impact,you know, the way that our team
functions or process or what orum, how we kind of aid our
business partners, they will letthe team know.
And so that way everybody, wecan just mind share and it's

(34:31):
just a lot better than everybodytrying to keep on top of
everything, all at.
Um, like that movie, what is it?
Everything Everywhere.
All at Once or um, right.
Yeah.
So it's just, it, it's, it'smade it much easier to handle
because like, as you all know,everything changes all the time.

Yeah.
Yeah.
That's interesting.
Yeah.
In my case, cause I'm goingthrough a little bit of like
shifting a little bit of kindaresponsibilities around it, but
part of it is to also build incoverage.
Just like, yeah.
Like we didn't have that.
There was not a lot of slack forthat.
and, but one of the things I dois I try to make sure as I'm

(35:09):
working with them, especiallyfor the folks who are relatively
new either to the business or tothis function, is try to answer,
like provide the context aboutwhy we're, why, either why I'm
suggesting something or doingsomething.
But I want them to understandthe why.
Cuz I think beyond thetechnology, cuz I think we've
all hinted at it, right?
There's usually more than oneway to solve a business thing,

(35:30):
especially in marketing, right?
with technology, there's notnecessarily one that's better
than the other set of tradeoffs, but I try to help them
think about like the, thebroader perspective, um,
particularly if we're talkingabout things that tie in with
like marketing to sales, kind oflead, lead flow and things like
that.
Because there's just so manythings that are downstream that

(35:51):
you have to take, think about.
and that, I think that's thething I try to do for my own
team.
And then yeah, for myself, I, Itry to keep up with stuff.
Community is definitely a pieceof it.
I mean, I probably said itseveral times on these podcasts.
Like if it, I could, I'm tryingto, like, if I could imagine
what my career would've beenlike had this been around 20
years ago, like it would'vebeen.

(36:12):
I think of actually differentexperience.
You would've

Raja Walia (36:14):
retired cause you would've invested in Slack
right?
Yeah, yeah.
But I mean it's Naomi's point,like even as you know, A as g
and W consulting has beengrowing, what she said is a
hundred percent what you have todo.
Like everyone has to be do.
Everyone has to be able to dosome.

(36:34):
of a role in marketingoperations, right?
When we were, you know, when I,we were like, uh, I still talk
about it like where every,everywhere where I worked when I
was still starting, and oneperson could build campaigns and
you know, if that person went onvacation, you would have to
wait.
Why?
Because like that skillset wasstill being developed.
Right?
So if you think about growth inmarketing ops, like.

(36:55):
You cannot, you cannot be afraidof doing something.
Like you have to be well versedenough to know that I can run a
campaign, I can set up aprogram, I can execute an email,
uh, you know, coding and stufflike that.
Yeah.
There, eventually that gets intospecialty skills.
But even as g and w Consultinghas been growing, the idea is
everyone has to learn everythingand let, then let's find.

(37:16):
What your, uh, then let's findout like what your skillset is.
What, like what is the thingthat makes you you and then you
have your baseline and then youhave something that you're very,
very specialized at.

That's a good, I think.
Good way.
All right.
So one other thing that, uh,Raja you and I talked about is
you, you had mentioned somethingand, uh, total transparency for
our, our audience.
Right.
I I didn't take very good noteswhen I talked to Roger.
So, um, he, he, you mentionedsomething about, um, kind of on
the ground learning or, or likein real time I think is maybe

(37:50):
how you would've phrased it, butlike, what do you mean by that
and kind of how, how, how doyou, how does that fit into this
whole kind of idea of trying tocontinue to learn?

Raja Walia (37:59):
Yeah, I'll, I'll give you a prime example and I,
I don't recommend anyone tryingthis at all.
Uh, even remotely.
At first when I was starting inconsulting, when I mean on the
ground learning, I mean, it'sjust like doing something,
following instructions wellenough and.
Not failing as hard as I've hadcuz I've straight up deleted a
company's Google Analyticsaccount.

(38:21):
Now I don't recommend anyonedoing that.
Right?
That taught me a lot of things,But at the same time, when I
talk about like actual lessonlearned on the ground, what I'm
really talking about is actuallydoing stuff, you know, not just
talking and.
Theoreticals and, you know,strategy and like getting
wrapped up into like all ofthese, the top 10 things to

(38:44):
optimize your marketing operate.
Like, are they really top 10things or they really like two
things somewhere over there.
Like so on the ground.
Just, you know, it is just a wayof meaning.
It is just a way of meaning.
Like, you know, do it, test it,you know, you don't ha.
Marketing automation platformscurrently allow you to send
yourself an email, like be thetarget audience for yourself,

(39:05):
and execute a campaign with oneperson and knowing that you're
gonna send it to yourself andwalk through that.
Entire process.
So that way, you know, you learnby doing right.
And that's really what it means,right?
Like, you know, knowing thathey, something's gonna go off.
Was it like, I think like lastyear, hbo, which is like a huge
company, send out like a giantemail with someone like Lead

(39:26):
Token, and they were gettinglike, you know, made fun of and
they released a statement andall of that good stuff.
That's all I'm talking about.
Like if that person, whoever didthat, they learned by doing and
they will never make thatmistake ever again in Ter in
inside their entire life.
Just like I will not delete aGoogle a.
Account for the entire company,cuz I was up until two in the
morning calling Google saying,can you please, please restore

(39:48):
this account?
My life and my job depends onit.
Like, and like, once again, I, Iwouldn't recommend people doing
that, but that's kind of the,that's kinda like the, um, the
backbone behind, behind it.
I think

Naomi Liu (40:00):
anyone that works in marketing ops has horror stories
like this or anyone who's workedin the industry long enough
knows, has like instances whereit's.
Wednesday at like three in themorning, and then they
immediately wake up and likecrawl to their laptop or bring
it into bed, and it's like, letme just double check that I'm
sending this in the right timezone to the right people.

(40:20):
mm-hmm.
So

yeah.

Raja Walia (40:23):
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
so.
So that's, that's the premisebehind it, right?
Like, until, until you do stufflike that.
Because once again, until you dostuff like that, you're never
gonna not do it ever again.
And I could tell you about myteam, you know, that, you know,
some relatively new, sometenured that have done stuff,
you know, a as g and wconsulting and been growing.
We talk to clients, we're veryopen about it.
We handle it, but.

(40:43):
That's, that's the premisebehind it.
So

yeah, I mean, I think there's so much, there's
a couple things there that pickup.
One, I think is like, don't beafraid to try stuff, even if you
feel like you don't know it allthe way.
Right.
You can learn from just trying.
Um, the other part, and, and I,you know, I haven't thought
about this as much lately, but Ithink it's really easy.
I'm not like, it's, I think it'simportant to.

(41:07):
You know, care about the workyou do.
But at the end of the day, formost of us, right, in these
roles with, I'm sure someexceptions, right?
If you have an email that goesout with tokens in it, or you
delete the Google Analyticsaccount, right?
The world's not gonna, like,nobody's gonna die.
Um, nobody's, like,

Raja Walia (41:25):
nobody's, we're not sending, we're not sending
people in the space.
It's not hard search.

I mean, um, like I, I, I.
sort of fortunate enough that Ihave a, I have a friend who's
literally is a neurosurgeon,right?
And so like, I don't know howhe, he handles that kind of
stress.
Um, I may have some idea, butlike, I, that, to me, I'm like,
okay, that's like, that's a jobwhere you know, like your
decisions can actually havetrue.

(41:50):
true important consequences.
And so yeah, it's, it's, it'seasy to get caught up in the, in
the frenetic pace of what we doand the expectations of always
being on and that kind of stuff,and delivering more faster with
less Right to that it, itmatters more than it really is.
So, yeah.
Um.
Interesting stuff.

(42:10):
Okay.
So what, I guess I'll just leaveit with, is there anything else
that you wanna share with ouraudience about like how, you
know, learning growth, kind ofkeeping up with technology that
we haven't already covered?

Raja Walia (42:21):
Yeah.
One of the main highlights isthat, you know, we're a
technology agnostic.
I'm a technology agnosticperson, meaning I've, I've, I
know HubSpot, part up MarketingCloud.
There's things, even thoughthey're unrelated, you can learn
from other platforms.
I would say don't put yourselfin like.
I am a professional at onesoftware and system.

(42:43):
There's stuff that you're gonnapick up from another platform
that's gonna carry over, right?
You're, who knows what thefuture's gonna hold.
So as long, the best way to likekind of diversify your skill is
to learn more than one platform.
Like do not be.
The best Marketo person on theface of this planet be a really
good Marketo person, but areally good HubSpot, really good

(43:04):
qua, really good, like dabbleinto all of these items because
that's what's gonna really roundout your skillset.
And I feel like that's whereI've personally had the most
success at is that whensomeone's like, oh, you've used
Qua, you've used HubSpot, you'veused these items, you've used
Salesforce, you use Dynamics,and you know, pretty much don't,
don't funnel yourself into just.

(43:24):
One item and learn it becausethere's things that you're gonna
learn.
And we ran it, we ran acrossthis.
I, I, I pitch it.
I, I, I say as much as stuff,uh, there's stuff that I've
learned and there's stuff that,you know, consultants that work
at g w Consulting and that we'velearned, that we've solved, like
as issues and problems thatwe've solved in one platform.

(43:44):
where we've gone into anotherplatform and we have a
resolution because we alreadysolved it in something else, or
we already know how this wouldwork, uh, or how like a workflow
or sequence is gonna affect asmart list or a flow.
Like we've already seen thoseelements.
So yeah, that, that, that wouldbe like, I guess the biggest
thing is like, don't you knowthe technology space is growing
so much.

(44:04):
Don't combine yourself into justone platform.

Got it.
Uh, I think that might generatesome debate, actually.
I think that's a common kind ofthing we have here.
So, good stuff.
Uh, RA Raj, thank you so much.
If folks do wanna keep up withyou or what you're doing, uh,
what your agency's doing, how,what's the best way for them to
to do that?
Um, yeah, I

Raja Walia (44:26):
mean, uh, go to the website, obviously.
Hey, you know, you can go to gwconsulting.com.
Uh, we have a blog, uh, youknow, there's a LinkedIn page.
The LinkedIn page iscontinuously updated as well.
Uh, there's a lot of good stuffon there.
There's a lot of good stuff onthe website.
The cool thing is I'm not a bigfan of gated content cuz we live
in a world where everyone'sinformation is readily

(44:46):
available.
So if you wanna go to thewebsite, you can click on stuff,
you can download.
And you know, whenever peopleare ready to talk, you tell me
like, you're not gonna have togive me your entire information
because we live in a world whereI already can technically have
access to all your digitalprofiles.
So uh, LinkedIn or the websiteis pretty much the best bet, so.
Sounds

good.
All right.
Well, Raj, thank you again forsharing with our, with our
listeners and our audience.
Appreciate it and thanks to ouraudience for, for, uh,
continuing to support us andprovide us good feedback.
And, uh, if you are interestedin.
A topic that you want us tocover or a guest you want us to
include or you wanna be a guest,feel free to reach out to Naomi,
Mike Rizzo, or me eitherLinkedIn or the marketing

(45:27):
ops.com community.
Um, Naomi, thanks.
It's always fun to get on one ofthese with you, so we'll have to
do this more often.
I know you guys definitely.
So, um, Raj, thank you toeveryone else.
We'll talk to you now anothertime.
Thanks.
Bye.

Raja Walia (45:44):
Thanks everyone.
Take care.
Bye.

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