February 27, 2023 • 51 mins
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In this episode, we talk with Scott Vaughan about how to maximize the relationship between marketing ops and the CMO. Scott is currently a Fractional Executive & GTM Advisor to CXOs & Investors at Vaughan Go-to-Market Advisory - his own advisory/consulting business. Prior to that Scott was the Chief Growth Officer and CMO at Integrate. Scott was also CMO at UBM TechWeb and has held other marketing leadership roles in other industries. Scott is a prolific writer and speaker about marketing, leadership and business.
Tune in to hear:
- What the best marketing ops leaders and teams do to help their CMO.
- What skills and experience are needed to reach the CMO role.
- Listen to Scott talk about the common or potential career path for marketing operations professionals to CMO and how can our listeners set themselves up to move up.
- What Scott meant when he mentioned learning to step outside of marketing - understand customer journey, etc.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Michael Hartmann (00:02):
Hey.
Hello everyone.
Welcome to another episode ofOpsCast, brought to you by
MarketingOps.com, powered by theMO Pros.
I'm your host, Michael CMOn.
Joined today by co-host MikeRizzo.
Mike's in the house.
What's
Mike Rizzo (00:14):
happening?
I'm in the house.
I'm literally
Michael Hartmann (00:16):
in my house.
In the house.
I think that's the way we allare, including our guests.
So, so many of us.
Let's just get right to it.
So joining us today, talk abouthow to maximize your
relationship between marketingops and the CMO uh, is one of my
favorite marketers and leaders,Scott Vaughan.
Scott is currently a fractionalexecutive and go to market,
advisor to, uh, the C-suite andinvestors, um, with Vaughan
(00:39):
Go-to-Market advisory.
Which is his own business.
Um, prior to that, Scott was thechief growth officer and CMO at
Integrate.
Uh, Scott was also CMO at UBMTech Web, which is at the
predecessor of where I work now,and was held, has held all their
marketing leadership roles inother industry.
So Scott is a prolific writerand speaker about marketing,
leadership, business and uh,just an all round great guy
(01:03):
Scott.
Welcome and thanks for joiningus.
Scott Vaughan (01:06):
what an intro.
Thanks, Michael.
Thanks.
Nice to, nice to talk to youguys.
Talk shop.
Love what you do.
Michael Hartmann (01:13):
Yeah, well it's, it is, no and no one
better.
So We are, we are glad to haveyou here.
So, all right, so let's getright to it.
So, Scott, you do have a uniqueperspective on the intersection
of marketing operations in.
CMO role because you were a CMO,you've led marketing, you also
worked at MarTech companiesselling to marketing ops
probably a lot.
I know.
That's kind of how you and Imet.
(01:34):
Um, so when we chatted beforethis, um, that you said that
like folks that are in marketingops are primary audience should.
Should understand what is on theCMOs agenda, but I think it
would be good to have you sortof explain what do you mean by
that and then how can our, youknow, the listeners we have or
audience kind of get a betterinsight into that maybe for
(01:56):
their particular situation wherethey have a different, maybe
their marketing leader.
Um, they haven't reallyconnected the dots on that.
Yeah,
Scott Vaughan (02:04):
well every organization's unique and in my
background, um, I got excitedabout market tech and you.
2005 67 when put in a firstinstance of eca, probably more,
uh, correctly shoved it into,uh, an organization that was
using an old database.
And, uh, I bought the dream thatwe were going to be revenue
(02:27):
marketers because we had somemarket marketing tools at last,
beyond an analytics that we justdidn't have before.
So that's been my passion aroundthe, the value of technology and
the process.
as a CMO, but one of the thingsI've learned over time,
especially getting to sit downand work hand in hand with so
many marketing ops people and,and also bringing marketing, uh,
(02:50):
technology into theorganization.
And I mean, when I saytechnology, I mean data process,
analytics, all the components isthat the marketing ops role has
a chance to be, and it dependson the company, but a chance to
be literal.
the chief of staff, um, to runmarketing like a business.
I believe that from day one, thetechnology and data process is
(03:15):
exactly what's needed.
Because one of the biggestchallenges, uh, in marketing and
certainly for A C M O is to, uh,not just prove the value, but to
deliver business value to somany different aspects of the
organiz.
We go through periods where weget so locked in as sales as our
customer, which is important,don't get me wrong.
(03:36):
Uh, but sometimes we over steerthere.
We only serve, uh, sales.
And really what we need to do isserve the market, serve
customers.
And to do that, we have to lockarms and share data,
interconnect our tech with theoperations teams, the finance
teams, the product teams.
(03:57):
And to me, That's wheremarketing ops can play such a
pivotal role.
Uh, of course we have to deliveragainst our, our revenue numbers
and our quota and all of that.
But Marketing Ops has a, I thinkis a, is in a perfect position,
especially after a decade plusof, uh, putting in, uh, a lot of
the systems and building up thedata and analytics and
(04:18):
intelligence capabilities andredefining the lead to revenue
process.
We've gone.
Michael Hartmann (04:24):
Yeah.
I think we, we, we've talkedwith several guests about like
the, the unique position thatmarketing ops teams tend to be
in because they understand howthe, like, how that not only do
they have access to the data,but they understand the sort of
the mechanics of how it getsthere, what it, how to interpret
it, and the best time to startshowing that is right now.
(04:45):
Right.
Not waiting for perfect data.
Cuz I think we all, everyonewho's listening is like, yeah,
but my data's.
So what?
Right.
Everybody's is, so you gottawork around it.
I think it's really, um, it'sreally interesting your point
about sales being seen as theinternal customer.
And I, I, and I think I probablyfall that trap too.
(05:06):
Like if a salesperson sort ofscreams, Hey, we're not getting
the right leads, or we're notgetting enough leads, right.
It's easy to sort of shift andmove everything over there.
So how have you, like, havemaybe, um, maybe a little, like
how would you guide marketingops if you had, I'm sure you've
had marketing ops teams thathave gone through that same kind
of scenario.
(05:26):
Like how have you guided them orsupported them on addressing
that kind of sort of panicattack from a sales team?
Scott Vaughan (05:33):
Yeah, so I, I'll take that a couple ways.
The first thing, let's, let'stake the holistic view of how do
you get the credibility to earna seat at the C M O table, so to
speak, or to have that.
and then we'll tackle.
How do you avoid the, uh,everybody to the right e every
day, right.
Everybody to the left the nextday.
Yeah.
Where you just, you, you can'tdo that.
(05:55):
And I know that's reality of thejob, by the way.
I'm not naive about that.
But the first thing is how doyou build your credibility?
Um, marketing Ops does haveunique access to.
The data, the intelligence, thesystems, the processes, but
sometimes we stay in our ownlane.
And it's almost like you're thewhisperer for the cmo, right?
(06:16):
Um, uh, and I'm using CMOs aheadof marketing.
They could be, you know,whatever.
But the CMO office, let's callthat, um, you're the one who is,
uh, able to understand startingfrom the, uh, OKRs or the
objectives or the kpi.
and keeping laser focused onthat, and then building or
(06:38):
adapting the systems, the data,the processes around those.
But to do that, to be thatwhisperer in the ear that's so
valuable.
Um, my friend Deb Wolf, who, um,has uh, been a colleague and a
customer, been a confidant,whatever she used to say, you.
My head of marketing ops is myBFF.
(06:59):
We go nowhere.
We go everywhere together.
We're never apart because thatability to go in a marketing ops
person can also do the homework,excuse me, across the
organization to look at what'sthe data warehouse, what's the
data lake?
What's the BI systems that areoperating across the company?
How do we.
(07:20):
Work with those and those teams,what are their KPIs?
So, um, you're feeding thatinformation and the C M O now is
going proactively so they get afull picture.
Um, what's happening in producttoday with product led growth,
right?
So much of that is inside theproduct.
So I need that data, I need thatsystems, and I need to
(07:41):
understand.
Well, marketing ops can gobeyond running those systems and
be that confident to the officeof the C F O, either literally
because they, they are a moresenior person or a person on the
team who has that expertise,right?
And I know it's hard because,you know, the building's on fire
sales are screaming, right?
And, oh my God, I can't get thisreport and I've got 10 minutes
(08:04):
to my, I, I get all that.
That's reality.
But every job has that.
Absolutely.
At some point, you, you have toget proactive and, and that is
where that education happens.
And, um, when you work withsales, the key is to treat sales
as a partner, not a.
And that is, uh, I know I'veseen a lot of the stuff that
(08:26):
comes out from your group about,uh, when to say no, how to say
no.
Right?
Um, right.
How to delicately do that, butit's not about the being the
office of, no, you don't wannaget that reputation, but rather
reset the relationship andpartnering with your C You can
do that.
You can go in locked armstogether and sit down with sales
(08:46):
and say, let's review thosepriorities again.
Let's.
Let me make sure I understandwhere the gap is or what your
need is, et cetera, but treatthem like a partner, not like a
customer, because at the end ofthe day, you guys, one of the
things I've learned the most isstart in market.
Start, and I'm not just withcustomers, but holistically.
What is happening in yourmarket?
(09:07):
What is happening with youraudience, not just your
customer.
and what are the things that,um, that you can do to better
engage those audiences, etcetera, if you get that going in
the right direction, it seemslike the priorities get closer
and aligned.
because at the end of the day,that's for example, what sales
needs is to Right.
(09:27):
Get that engagement.
Michael Hartmann (09:29):
Yeah.
I, uh, what I've, I think theway I approach it, one, I feel
like sometimes we're the onesconnecting dots, right?
So I may have one marketing teamasking for something or wanting
to know something and the salesis asking for something else,
and.
Yeah, maybe, uh, finances aswell, right?
And being able to sort ofunderstand the connection,
connectivity between all thoseto help then go like, here's
(09:51):
where I think we really need tobe focusing on, because this is
a real issue.
And, and by the way, I, like,I'm dealing with this right now,
there is a problem with our leadflow, right?
That needs to be fixed.
So pivoting from that, likeknowing when to pivot because
there is actually something todo versus somebody just.
Being a squeaky wheel is a thingyou have to de differentiate on.
I think that's something that I,I,
Scott Vaughan (10:12):
I've learn it's not an easy one.
Yeah.
I can feel it.
The way your, your tone of voicethe way you're doing that.
It's not an easy one.
It's reality.
It happens every day.
But reason number, you know.
111 of getting that relationshipwith your C M O and staying in
sync and being able not to just,uh, you know, complain and bitch
(10:33):
about it.
Right.
Although there's times therapyis important, right?
But rather being able to sitdown and say, Hey, here are
things that are, are repeating.
Can you, here's a solution, orhere's how I think we should
tackle it.
Um, you know, what do you think?
It goes both ways.
So that relationship, again,going back to the CMO marketing
op.
Relationship is so highlyvalued.
(10:53):
Um, and you wanna be careful,uh, in my opinion, that you
don't get stuck as the techperson either.
Absolutely.
Because then you're going aroundwith your toolkit one by one,
solving everybody's one-offproblem.
It had the same problem stilldoes at times, but certainly
they had it a decade or two agowhere that's, it is the reactive
(11:14):
people.
you want to be on your frontfoot when you, as much as you
can and proactive.
And that's where you reallystart to drive value in the
business, value in your role.
You get to see and experiencemore and you know, if you're
interested, your career takes,uh, new opportunity, new right,
new doors open.
Mike Rizzo (11:35):
Yeah.
That trap of getting stuck.
the tools, the, the person thathas like the, the tool chest,
right?
Or like, Hey, can't we just dothis?
Right?
And it's so easy.
Uh,
it's
Michael Hartmann (11:47):
super easy.
And like
Mike Rizzo (11:48):
the, the challenge is like a lot of us have a lot
of fun
Scott Vaughan (11:52):
with that
Michael Hartmann (11:53):
right?
Like, like, yeah.
Yeah.
It's very, it's very satisfying,right?
You see something
Scott Vaughan (11:59):
complete.
Yeah.
You accomplish things.
You fix things.
by the way, I'm not saying thatnever, that's a part of the job.
That is.
Absolutely.
But if that is your whole job,then you may not get to the
aspirations and the things thatyou want to do because you've
now been put in this role, thisbox that's more tech oriented
only, by the way, if that's whatyou dig and love, there is a
(12:22):
career for you because there is,that is a big need at companies
and there is nothing wrong with.
I wanna underline that.
However, what, what you ask andwhat we're talking about is how
do you continue to, um, advance,escalate, get to new and new and
new interesting things, add morevalue.
Hopefully, you know, increaseyour incentives and your income
(12:45):
so you can do things in life andfamily.
All the things we, we, you know,a lot of people wanna do it.
That's important.
Mike Rizzo (12:52):
Yeah, absolutely.
I, I think it's, it, it's reallyimportant to understand that the
function of, uh, being a deeptechnical expert in a field and
a practitioner in a spacedoesn't mean that you're limited
by financial earning potentialand all those things.
Like there's a lot of greatorganizations that will pay very
well for your desire to be thatexpert and that enabler and that
(13:15):
partner to the c.
But if you have that desire togo more strategic, there's a lot
of opportunity for you touncover that in this function.
And I love that this started offright away with, uh, the idea of
the chief of staff comcommentary again, right?
The last episode we just airedwas all about chief of staff,
and this was not exactly plannedyou know?
(13:38):
Uh, so I think, I think that'ssuper spot on and timely for a
lot of the conversation thatwe're seeing right now.
Um, I curious, uh, from yourperspective, Scott, There was
this wonderful post series ofposts that have been going out
from Jessica Cow lately, uh, onLinkedIn, but the one that's
Yeah, yeah.
She's doing a, she's doing areally great job of really
(13:59):
elevating some of theconversation in the space.
Um, the one that came up thismorning was, uh, around the idea
of like building a roadmap.
Um, how, how have you seen that?
um, in your sort of partnershipwith marketing ops in the past.
Um, you know, she, she reallycalls out the roadmap as, you
(14:22):
know, a, a little bit of theobjective O K R model, right?
Um, so objective is improve, youknow, M Q L quality by
implementing processes to allowfor optimization, right?
Um, that's not, you know,updating your lead score Pro,
pro program, right?
like, yeah.
Um, so I, I'd be curious.
how has roadmap sort of comeinto play throughout your
(14:44):
career?
I know this is a bit of a curveball, so I apologize if I'm
dropping this on you, but I havea feeling
Scott Vaughan (14:49):
you haven't.
No, not at all.
It's a no.
Uh, well, at the end of the day,we're delivering, uh, whether
it's a product or a service, youneed a roadmap, right?
It needs to align with themarket, it needs to align with
the company.
it needs to align with yourgo-to market and then it needs
to align with marketing.
So there's alignment everywhere.
Yeah.
And if you don't have a roadmapand you're one not sharing that
(15:12):
roadmap, So let's go back justfor simplicity's sake to the C M
O marketing ops relationship,our main theme today.
Yeah.
You wanna be side by sidefeeding into the overall
marketing strategy, plan androadmap for sure.
And align what you're doing.
You wanna build a roadmap.
(15:33):
and to me, just my own bias,it's not just a tech roadmap,
although that's a piece of it,of course, but it's a roadmap to
how you mature your capabilitiesand services in ops to support
marketing and the business andmore and more the customer.
So that's the kind of thinkingthat has to go in.
So roadmaps are, are essential,and that's why I said whether
(15:57):
you're a product or a serviceand in marketing ops we're often
a service to the organization.
that needs a roadmap.
And so otherwise you stay stuckin reactive mode.
Yeah.
And you know, you, you don'tmake the advances to advance
with the business or the marketor the customer, uh, depending
on what your objectives areoverall in the company.
(16:19):
And that's really where you getstuck.
And, and that can getfrustrating because all you're
doing is fixing things andreacting to things.
So that roadmap is, isimportant.
And the other thing, and youknow, Jessica so can scale up
and down so quickly.
Oh yes, she can
Michael Hartmann (16:37):
Yeah.
Mike Rizzo (16:38):
It's amazing lady.
We go from top strategy downinto the weeds,
Scott Vaughan (16:42):
like super well.
That, that's a, that's, that'sso great.
And that's what we're talkingabout though.
Absolutely.
That's the reality of marketingops.
You have to be able to hang in aconversation, uh, uh, you know,
around scoring models inalgorithms.
And the next minute you'retalking about breakthrough go to
market and, you know, are wegoing to apply generative AI now
(17:03):
to our email?
You know, it, it, it's, it'sgonna vary drastic.
But I think the main point on,on having a roadmap is you, you,
you're able to share it, you'reable to build it, you're able to
get buy-in from people, ofcourse your C M O and people
across your marketing leadershipteam, because at the end of the
(17:24):
day, you're if, if you havedifferent marketing and sales
ops or or finance ops, you wantthat buy-in because the more
they get and see and touch andfeel, the more they're going to
support the effort cuz they seethe outcomes if you hide it,
right?
Oh, this is mine, this is myroadmap.
Yeah, don't look at it, I'mbeing dramatic here.
But that's where you get intotrouble because then all of a
(17:47):
sudden, you know someone, theyhave to slash some budget
somewhere.
And if that hasn't been wellcommunicated, With clear value.
It, it, you could get the, the,the swatch or you go to do
things and everybody's lookingaround like, what are you doing?
I didn't know you were doingthis.
Right.
I want you to do that.
And so you haven't been able todo that.
Yeah.
You haven't been able toaccomplish what you wanna do.
Michael Hartmann (18:08):
Excuse me.
Yeah, so I think, I think it'sinteresting even, so the only
thing I push back on there isthat there's this sort of, I
want to protect it like it'smine.
I don't wanna share it.
I think some people might in therole have a solid roadmap but
are uncomfortable or don't knowhow to.
fair.
Yeah.
Right.
So I think, I think there's someof that too, which, you know,
cuz it's, it's like anybody, Ithink you have to learn, like
(18:31):
when you get that criticism,like you're gonna, you might get
criticism of it and how you takethat is gonna be really
important to like, okay, wellyeah, maybe I can learn
something.
So there's a
Scott Vaughan (18:39):
couple things you can do.
My, I'm so glad you pointed thatout because, um, you know,
whatever you call it, impostersyndrome or Right.
That all, it's so real.
It, it is.
Um, and, and I have learned overtime that as long as you're
authentic and you're there andyour, your odds of success are
pretty high, but there's thingsyou can do.
(19:01):
There's a couple things I'vedone.
So who does great roadmaps?
Product marketing people.
Okay.
Do I have a pal?
And product marketing.
The product team typically.
um, our friend, you know, any,any form of search, AI driven or
otherwise, you can really seedifferent roadmaps that were
built that you can getinspiration from.
(19:22):
Right.
That help,
Michael Hartmann (19:23):
that's a really help you.
That's really, I, I even, I havenever thought of going to a
product marketer or productmanagement team.
Yeah, that's, they're great atit.
Scott Vaughan (19:30):
Yeah.
That's a great idea.
You know, and, and because theycan take an eye and say, you
need a little more detail here.
You're gonna get, you know, orthat's not quite clear.
You need to visualize this, youknow, in a graph so that people
see the motion and the timeframetogether with your written, you
know, or whatever it is.
Sure.
And, and those kinds of thingsthere, those resources all
around you.
(19:51):
and that's where there is someconfidence and, and um,
humbleness to come forth andsay, Hey, do you have a few
minutes?
Can I show you something?
Um, very few people will say,well, no, you can't show me any,
you know, this is Right.
I don't wanna help you Right,exactly.
And this is what is so greatabout working with colleagues
and, and learning et cetera, andit, and again, it builds a bond.
(20:13):
If you go to product marketing,now you've got product.
as an ally, as an example, oryou go to product, you, you have
product as an ally who's nowexcited and rooting for you and
understands more of what we'retrying to do.
It,
Mike Rizzo (20:26):
it's such a great call out, uh, Scott and the
like, when you, as a marketingpractitioner of any kind, in any
professional function for thatmatter, when you go to somebody
else and you say, can you, canyou take a look at what I'm
doing?
right, because I believe you cangive me the feedback I need in
(20:47):
order to improve on my work.
It actually, if I, if I go toScott or CMOn here and I say
that to them, they go, wow, thisindividual really respects my
opinion.
They think highly of me, highlyenough to ask for my opinion,
and therefore you're, you'reearning this, this trust.
And then all of a sudden whenthey see what you're doing,
imagine an entire, entirelydifferent functional area of
(21:09):
the, the company seeing whatyou're.
They're gonna turn around and,and wanna be a champion for you
cuz they're gonna go, wow, whatyou're doing is really cool.
I had no idea that's what youwere trying to accomplish.
Scott Vaughan (21:19):
Right?
Absolutely.
And, and by the way, that's agreat byproduct of it, but
you're, you're.
your service will get betterover time.
Yeah.
With those inputs.
And you, and you don't want towait.
Stop till I get 37 points ofinput.
You know, as Michael, you alwayssay, and you've said to, let's
keep iterating, let's keepmoving.
The data's never gonna beperfect.
Right.
But you're gonna keep buildingoff of it.
(21:40):
Um.
And that's, that's important.
And then sometimes it becomesadopted as the, as the standard.
If you show a way that part ofyour roadmap is part of your
strategy plan, I'm always amazedhow often that gets adopted as
maybe a standard or a corepiece, Hey, product marketing,
you need to do this and, uh, comcommunications or Markcom, you
(22:02):
need to do this, and, you know,et cetera, et cetera.
Um, you want to be that unifyingforce, I think certainly across
the marketing function, and thenbeing able to put your tentacles
out to those key connectionpoints through finance and
through operations, throughproduct where it makes sense to
have more of an impact, uh, etcetera.
(22:24):
And you'll know that by yourorganization and by mm-hmm
asking questions and, andbuilding relationships over
time.
Yeah.
You know, that will help you.
Michael Hartmann (22:34):
Yeah.
So, okay, so I wanna bring thisback a little bit.
So one of the things, um, Ithink people in our role also
struggle with is reallyunderstanding, and this really
came, this really became obviousthat summer camp this last year
and bring up Jessica again.
Jessica helped facilitate athing where we had a CMO in
there.
We were talking about how to,how to present and communicate
(22:55):
the findings from some datadidn't really matter what it
was, and it was.
For, especially even for peoplewho I think probably felt like
they were pretty good at that,I'll put mine myself in that
camp.
Like was very humbling, right?
It was like, oh my gosh, yes.
How that CMO is interpretingthis or really what they're
looking for is a very differentone.
So what, what are the thingsthat would, you know, as a CMO
(23:17):
or marketing leader, you know,would you like keep you up at
night and where do you thinkthat marketing ops folks could
help with?
Or is there, maybe, do we needto just have that direct
conversation with our marketingleaders and then work from
there?
Scott Vaughan (23:31):
Well, ev every, uh, you know, marketing leader
is a little bit different intheir style, how they present.
what they share, what they don'tshare.
And I mean, share up, sharesideways, share down.
So you've gotta read the room alittle bit.
Like always.
You don't want to go in assumingso, yes, absolutely.
Reach out.
Know, know what's important.
Um, ask for feedback, do thosethree or four questions, even if
(23:54):
it's over email, you know, etcetera.
But some of the best techniquesI've seen, and I've completely
stolen them by the way.
I worked with somebody, um, whoI respect was a C M O and vp and
they were, this is a majorenterprise, this was five years
ago.
And they said, I can't go intosales and tell them that I know
(24:17):
everything about the buyer'sjourney and everything about,
you know, lead routing andscoring cuz they had just
stepped into this role and ourdata and reporting is good, but
it's all over the place.
So what they begin to do attheir monthly, Uh, business
review together sales andmarketing is they would lock
arms with sales and they wouldpick two stories, the story of a
(24:42):
win.
And so they would have.
The data, but the data wouldn'tbe like so perfect and an
analytical, let's break down the27 points cuz that's what we
strive for, right?
To really be data driven,analytical.
But they begin to change theirtone of, before we get into the
macro data, let's talk aboutwhat worked in, you know, a
(25:02):
couple of wins.
And there they could show, oh,well we know they went to the
website, you know, 26 peoplewent to the website over a three
month period and they start totell a story about.
there was still data in it, bythe way, but it wasn't so
analytical that you, you know,you're kind of spinning, well,
what's the, what's the freakingpoint?
I don't, so that was something Ifound valuable to say, well,
(25:25):
let's, we picked a win of theweek and we wanted to dissect
what we learned.
people lean in like, okay, whatcan I learn from that?
What?
And then you can go, okay, letme give you the macro of, or
maybe the micro, maybe you needto drill down.
Yeah.
If you send your reports inadvance, someone has some
questions.
And I got used to that you guys,by having to go to investor
meetings cuz you have to sendyour package in advance.
(25:48):
Oh.
And, and then you don't wannaput too much, but you know that
question's gonna be asked, soI'll put it in the append.
And you kind of know which,which investor's gonna ask
probably what questions, thenyou're always surprised.
So that's part of it.
You do have to prepare and overprepare, uh, for those
discussions.
but you want to be able to tellthat, tell a story first.
(26:09):
And I don't mean wax poetic andthat you have to be an elegant
speaker in all these things, butjust say, Hey, we took a couple
of wins of the week.
We dissected what they did overthe last 60 days, six months a
year.
Right.
The account, the buyer.
and some of that is manual forsome folks.
Michael Hartmann (26:25):
It is.
Absolutely.
I, I for, so for those on video,probably seeing me smiling at
this like, and for ourlisteners, I am, because this is
so much in line with what Ithink that has been missing
with, to me, like if we get intodebate about marketing
attribution, I think there's aplace for it still.
But I think that storytellingpiece, and that is exactly the
word I would use, is I found itto be way more.
(26:48):
When, especially going up withsales or to finance, it's having
those examples because humansare wired for storytelling,
right?
Yeah.
And it is.
Well, and you can still have the
Scott Vaughan (27:00):
data.
Yeah.
Your still can have a sectionwhere, let's break down what we
know, what we, but what welearned and giving an example
is, is helpful.
Right.
And we don't stop there and go,okay.
Yeah, absolutely.
Here's my story of the week.
I see you guys later.
but then you can show, well, wemade this kind of progress.
What we're seeing now, threethings we're observing, right?
(27:22):
One of the things we need toimprove.
So you need to be humble aboutthat.
One of the things we, we didn'tget done that we promised you,
you've gotta be right therebecause, um, otherwise you lose
credibility quickly and you goon the defensive and because you
brought it up, I'm saying it andI'll say it, uh, or Mike had to
see me.
(27:43):
My 2016 17 article that I referto all the time, attribution is
essential, let's just call it.
But if you're in the creditgame, if you're out to prove
something, it will get you everytime because that's trying to
do, put the end game and thentry to prove your case versus
let's see what the data tells.
(28:04):
does that pass the, the te thesniff test of, does that feel
like what's going on?
Let's put that against somescenarios that we're seeing in
our company, in the market, inour sales process, or in the, in
the pipeline, whatever it is.
Um, yeah, and I think, let'snever be confused.
Uh, a huge part of the job ofmarketing ops is, um, proving
(28:28):
value and delivering.
You can deliver value, but ifyou can't prove it or at least
have some data and facts to backit, you won't be in this gig for
long.
Uh, as a CMO forget it.
You're done.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Let's stop debating it, eventhough that's why attribution's
fine.
I don't arm wrestle it to theground anymore, but.
(28:50):
If it becomes a game of creditand we're running around trying
to prove stuff, boy is thatunproductive.
Yeah.
It may not seem like it for acouple of quarters, but over
time you're now getting furtherand further into a trap that you
can't get out of and, um, it'sdeadly.
No,
Michael Hartmann (29:05):
I'm, I'm, I'm a hundred percent there with
you.
The credit thing, like.
Irks
Mike Rizzo (29:10):
me to my core.
I know I'm never gonna changeanybody's opinion about the, the
word credit, but that's
Michael Hartmann (29:15):
okay.
Well, even if, I think, I thinka lot fundamentally,
Mike Rizzo (29:18):
I, I think it's the right,
Scott Vaughan (29:19):
but that is the right, I got Michael Ri here.
That's good.
That true stuff.
It just, it just
Mike Rizzo (29:24):
like, like, it's so sad to me that credit ended up
being a four letter word, likein the, in the world of B2B
marketing.
Like it's just, it's silly, likeat the end of every movie.
there are credits.
Everybody gets credit for makingthat movie possible.
Like, yeah.
It's ridiculous to me that theword credit means that it's
mine.
Uh, and that it's not everybodyand it's not shared success.
(29:46):
Literally, you take collegecredits to earn a degree, many
credits, uh, in order to getthere.
And I keep like fighting thisfight.
I know I'm never gonna changeanybody's mind on it, but Well,
but you're, the message isright, right.
At the end of the day, we'resaying
Scott Vaughan (29:58):
same thing.
That's right.
The message is right, because ifyou can't.
if you can't deliver value andput things into analytical
terms, it may not be at themicro level.
Mm-hmm.
but if you can't see how needlesare moving to a good portion of
your investment or your effort,you go, yeah.
I mean you, you're not gonna bein that gig very long today.
(30:20):
And I think that's fair.
And by the way, different stagesof different companies.
Are you a disruptor, startup, alegacy?
Category, uh, you know, wannabeleader or are you the category
queen or whatever it is.
There are different dynamics indifferent markets.
So there's no one set way tothat level of, of, um, analytics
(30:42):
and attribution that's required.
But understanding that is, isreally important.
And that's why I think themarketing ops profession can't
just stay within marketing.
You have so much morecredibility.
if you have access to data atthe company.
BI level.
Yeah.
Or you know, walking arms withthe Office of Finance or the
(31:04):
office of the cfo, F dependingon their size of company, what
you have access to.
And, and certainly with sales, Ithink that's getting better and
better.
Not perfect, but sales ops is,we're seeing that more and more.
Mm-hmm.
uh, consistently.
Um, you know, again, never.
not every company, but boy, ifwe made progress in that area
over the last four or five
Michael Hartmann (31:24):
years.
Well, and I think, I think youbrought up something in the kind
of this thread here that I thinkwas really important.
I wanna put a kind of highlighta little bit, which is in that
development, development of thestories, right?
And you talked aboutanticipating the questions that
might come up.
So I think, I think that is areally important sort of sub
(31:44):
skill or sub, you know, thingsyou can learn.
Cause if.
running reports and sending'emout.
Even if, like, if you're notactually looking at them going,
oh, this is an interesting,like, something here yes.
Is unusual.
Like it stands out, right.
It doesn't match the pattern orwhatever.
Like I'm doing, I have a dataguy and I'm like, I'm always
like, oh.
like I think of it this way,right?
(32:06):
And have we thought about that?
And it, it does beg additionalquestions, but then you're just
like, then you can start toanticipate this other person
who's a commercial leader forour business may ask about this
particular thing.
And we like if we can have somework started on trying to answer
that next question again,another way of sort of building
credibility, but it's
Scott Vaughan (32:26):
something you have to look for.
Yeah.
And, and role playing with acouple of people, maybe even.
You're, you're marketing amarketing leader or the
marketing leader, right?
The CMO or a marketing leader inthere.
Hey, could I run this by, youwanna see what your view is and
how do you think the, thefinance team will look at this?
Or how do you think the salesops team will view this?
What, what do we got?
(32:47):
I even, now this is gonna soundcornball, but um, sometimes I
would go with, with my wife andI'd ask her if, can you look at
this?
She's pretty savvy on data thatI just, can you take a look at
this?
What do you.
and it's unbiased.
She doesn't know necessarily allthe levers of the business.
So even that can be of help.
By the way, this is not advocacyto get your partner involved,
(33:10):
work that might blow up.
Uh, you, but you get the ideathat there's all kinds of
sources at your fingertips, butyou just have to ask and you
have to build a relationship.
And by the way, you have to bereciprocal.
and the more you're reciprocal,the more you.
Wow.
I didn't realize that we weredoing that over in our digital
team and now you see somethingthat you didn't know.
(33:31):
That's how organizations learn,uh, because it's really freaking
hard to do this on, on Zoom orany other, you know, we don't
have the.
we're gonna pile in a, in aconference room and, and
whiteboard this out as a team.
You know, we have to gettogether and plan and, you know,
there's just different things,dynamics that, so this is a
natural way to help fuel aboutit.
(33:53):
Mm-hmm.
Michael Hartmann (33:54):
I love it.
Uh, okay, so we'll kind of, Ithink I wanna shift back, but
you, you, you brought up thechief of staff.
model.
And it could be a potential likein terms of sort of career paths
for people who are marketingops.
Cause I think up until recently,I think a lot of people would've
told you like it's sort of deadends at a director level.
(34:18):
Right?
Almost.
Um, there has, and there's nowsome VP levels, uh, and there's
some people who are doing, youknow, moving into revenue
operations roles.
Although I would, my perceptionis that most of the people get
into those roles come from thesales side as opposed to market.
that's a whole separate thing,but, um, I, I'm, I'm really
curious to get your thoughts on,you know, where, where do you
(34:39):
think, you know, marketing opsfolks who do want to go beyond
just the technology stuff as wetalked about?
Like what are some logical nextsteps, and then what are the
things that would make them.
that they should be thinkingabout, not only for those next
steps, but say they want, theyhave aspirations to be like
ahead of marketing, right?
Um, yeah.
What, what do you think they,that our listeners should be
(35:00):
thinking about for that, thatpath?
Scott Vaughan (35:03):
So you want to acquire, uh, more skills, more
discipline, right?
More discipline, experience, uh,of disciplines, I should say.
So for example, if you're inMarTech, you may move over to
the digital.
Because you have credibility ofthe market, the business, and
what probably what campaigns andprograms and analytics been run.
(35:24):
You can exercise those skillsand those muscles and go and
take on those, that that role.
Um, because the more diversityof experience you have that are
tied to the drivers of thebusiness or the outcomes
revenue, for example, the muchhigher experience you.
and you can do that a little bitearlier in your career because
(35:46):
once you have the, the marketingops chops, they don't go away.
They're built into you.
Uh, and that's the great partbecause you can get up to speed
pretty damn quickly, uh, on, ontech and, and process, et
cetera, cuz you're, it's alwaysgonna be a part of what you do.
And I'll use the example ofmoving to digital, uh, or the
digital team.
(36:07):
Um, the other way to do that.
To think about it, you can moveinto finance.
So much of finance today, andI'm not saying to be a bean
counter in accounting and youknow all that necessarily, but
they've got power, uh, data andbi and analytics people that
look across the business that isa chief of staff kind of
thinking where you can see, uh,gain a different view, but you
(36:30):
have all the analytical process,the, the technology.
um, and the budgeting, all thosethings you've had experience
coming up through that.
Move over into finance.
I had, uh, uh, one example of aperson who, um, I was, I'll call
it mentoring, but a very closeconfident.
I knew I'd be working for herany day now.
(36:51):
That's how good she was as ayoung pro.
She went and she worked for theboard of directors at a public
company in the strategy group.
Whoa.
Because she, she was soimpressed.
all the analytical thinking andwhat she put together on
roadmaps and planning andstrategies.
She, they, she was seen assomeone and her, uh, c m o
(37:14):
unleashed her to not just the cm o to speak, but her to speak
and, and, and in front of otheraudiences.
And so that was a, uh, a move.
Let's go to the side.
But it was moved to up and nowshe's back in and she actually.
She's a VP of marketing over anumber of functions.
(37:35):
So there are ways to do that.
But the key is talk to people.
Be part of your group.
Uh, step outside your, yourcomfort zone.
Reach out to people on LinkedInyou admire, where you see
they've done some of that work.
People are so open.
You guys, not every singleperson, but for the most part,
it's so great to be able to getother people's perspective.
(37:57):
Um, you know, everyone asked me,how do you see so much about the
market?
I have a lot of conversations.
I yes you do.
I take my theories, right?
Of here's what I'm seeing, whatare you seeing?
And go research that and, and,and kind of formulate the point
of view and what might happen.
That becomes a skill, um, thatyou can get.
And that's going towards thatchief of staff kind of thinking
(38:18):
where you can, you can see abroader picture, right?
Your eyes, ears, whisper.
you're organized.
Um, that kind of thing.
Michael Hartmann (38:28):
I, I wanna get back into the chief of staff
stuff in a minute, but I, uh,there's you, you've mentioned, I
think, both directly andindirectly a little bit a a
couple of times the idea ofmentorship and I'll add sort of
advocacy cuz that scenario you,you painted about that person
Right.
Had an advocate and that CMO whounleashed her, right?
Yes.
And, and basically I'm sure wasthe person who was like
advocating for, so how, like,how important do you think that
(38:51):
is for people who are gettingstarted?
Like is do you think it, becauseI've, I've done some mentoring
as well and I'm, I'm like, I'malways impressed with the people
who actually.
uh, early in their career.
Really seek that out.
I think.
I'll, I'm curious what your takeis on.
I had the same question.
Mike Rizzo (39:09):
Yeah.
I was like, cause I like, I, youknow, just transparently, Scott,
and for all the listeners, like,I'm really trying to wrap my
head around how we enable moreof that connectivity, uh, as a
community for mentorship type ofprogramming, right?
So we've got folks like CMOn,we've got folks like Hannah,
she's doing more coaching thanmentorship.
(39:30):
Uh, and I think there's, there'sa slight variation between what
those things really mean, but Iam curious.
Back to CMOn's question, youknow, the importance of that and
how you sort of leverage that inyour
Scott Vaughan (39:41):
career.
Well, you need a mentor, they ora coach, and they are slightly
different.
But let's not get into semanticsfor this purpose.
you need somebody who you canbounce things off of.
Maybe they're in yourorganization, maybe they're not.
I think having a couple ofpeople that aren't in your
organization that either youhave regularly scheduled calls
with or that you have on yourcalendar to reach out, um, et
(40:05):
cetera.
I'm gonna say this quick andthen I'll come back.
Then you gotta give back.
Now as you get more experience,you've now gotta give back to
the next group that's comingthrough.
It's the pay it forwardmentality, uh, not just for good
karma.
It just makes you better.
Uh, I do, uh, some work now,people coming just into the
(40:26):
workforce.
I'm at that point in my life agewhere friends now have kids
coming into the workforce, soI'm very happy to spend time.
and Damn do I learn a
Michael Hartmann (40:36):
lot.
I, I have the same experience.
Scott Vaughan (40:39):
Yeah.
And, and so this mentoring as,as you guys talked about, is
important.
Yes, they can become advocatesfor you, but that will happen
naturally.
You don't have to go, can yougive me a LinkedIn ref
reference?
Right.
Those days are kind of, eh,right?
I don't know, but like thepeople I talked to, I know them.
(40:59):
I know what they're about.
I seen how they thought throughthings, how they've navigated,
how they've, you know, knockeddown obstacles.
What they've, what they've done.
So you're gonna more naturallybecome an advocate for that
person, right?
Even a referral for that person.
So mentoring is you, you, nomatter where you are in your
career, you always need one.
(41:21):
I know I benefited from it and Iworked, um, at a school as a
marketing communications managerat a young company of 20 people
that went to 400 and just underfour years.
So as one of the firstexplosions of a tech company,
lucky as hell.
But I had a, um, and I'll say awoman, uh, head of.
(41:42):
and she, man, she made mebetter.
Yeah, it's amazing.
She would, and she gave me leashto go, maybe hang myself, but
she'd like give me leash to go,go and, and run.
And then she'd say, okay, what'dyou see?
What'd you hear?
Why didn't the product teamreally think, why did, she
wouldn't tell me what to donecessarily.
(42:02):
There are times where you haveto do that, but that always set
with me like forever.
I was motivated and understoodand also empowered.
and, and, um, I did a stint for,for about 10 years in sales too,
between a 10 year marketingcareer and in the last, uh, 10
or so in, in, um, the C M Orole.
(42:23):
But it was, it was f phenomenalto have those mentors.
Mm-hmm.
uh, when you, especially whenyou're moving into a new role or
trying to move into a new.
you need people that kind ofhave either chartered that
course or know where, maybewhere the landmines
Michael Hartmann (42:39):
are.
Yeah.
No, I, I, I think it'sinteresting.
Um, I'll just one other aside.
So I have also over my careerhad people that were just, I
ended up being mentors withoutany real planning, and then
times where I've activelypursued.
I've got one person right nowthat I don't know why I thought
about it, but I, I actuallythought, well, I wanted somebody
who's maybe not as far in acareer or maybe younger.
(43:02):
And like, so that person is amentor for me, which I think
most people would be surprisedabout, but it's been one of the
most valuable Yes.
Mentor relationships becauseespecially as I've gotten
younger, newer people coming in,like I've talked through a
challenge and I'm like, and I'mlike, this is what I think I do.
And then they give me anotherperspective on how that might
come across.
And it's been super valuable.
Ah, yeah.
It's,
Scott Vaughan (43:21):
it's humbling all the time.
And you know, it's just neverstopped learning.
You know, these aren't cliches.
There's a reason for it.
Not just to be Well, you wannabe relevant in your career for
sure, but I think you get to domore interesting things.
You get the opportunities.
Let's just take marketing ops.
I remember it was not aprofession.
(43:42):
We, uh, I'll give you back.
When I put in this significantinvestment, seven figure
investment in equa, one of the,the first to do it right, had no
idea what we were doing.
We looked around.
who's done anything around crmRight, right.
Do you even have the aptitude tobe able to handle an app and you
(44:02):
know, the iPhone, it was justcoming out all that and, okay,
we got a SWAT team and you'reup.
And that became, you know,honestly, the, uh, all three of
those people now are inmarketing ops and.
and, and et cetera.
But that's how you pick thatsometimes, right?
Mm-hmm.
as AI comes in, you may be aperson that's very comfortable
(44:23):
with, with how you build, uh,apps and how you apply those
things.
That might be a calling cardthat, you know, someone younger
gets plucked and said, you getit.
You show it, you prove it, youshow that you can learn as fast
as anybody else.
You get the opportunity cuz it'snuts to.
The best was like when, uh, ABMcame around, like 2000, you
(44:45):
know, came out a while ago, butlet's be realistic.
15, 16 people started.
Well, I need a, you know,someone who's been doing ABM for
four years and all this stuff,and I'd roll my eyes again.
you need someone who'sinterested, curious, who gets
the mechanics of sales andmarketing and, and you know,
data and, and you're gonna givethem this role and you know
you're gonna send'em to a fewconferences you're gonna and
(45:07):
support them and let's getgoing.
Now if you're doing somethingafter the, the best practices
playbook's been written, thenmaybe that's not the case.
But there's so manyopportunities like that, uh, uh,
in marketing ops to, to grabthat and write it, and then that
takes you to another place, tothe chief of staff to maybe more
expansive, something moreinteresting.
(45:29):
But I always was the person whoraised their hand and say, yeah,
I'll do that.
I'll try it.
You need someone to runcustomer.
I think I can do that.
Let's go.
You can figure it out.
So I might uh, the team that,that if they ever watched this,
they'll go, well, okay, we'llgive'em about a c uh, tough
case.
But we, we got through the yearof that and we got to a better
(45:50):
place and, and that's the kindof thing I think that you have
to embrace it.
For me in your career, no matterwhat it is.
Yeah.
But marketing ops, because thefoundation is so strong in the
fundamentals of running abusiness and, and, and certainly
running marketing, that there'sa lot of opportunity.
Yeah,
Mike Rizzo (46:08):
I think I, I think it's spot on.
I, I definitely echo the samesentiments repeatedly to folks
that communicate with me abouttheir career trajectory in
marketing ops.
I think you have a, anincredible line of sight on what
happens inside of anorganization.
Um, yes.
And because you know what'sgoing on, that foundation can
just, Just skyrocket you tototally new places.
(46:33):
I mean, thank for a moment aboutif you're in a, a tech company
or just a services company, likethere are business operations
problems that you actually couldfigure out how to solve with
technology, not MarTech, justlike typical technology
solutions that say, Hey, it'sreally hard for me to take a
quote and get it to an invoiceand get that thing.
(46:55):
Well, you have a technicalacumen for understanding how
things integrate.
I'll bet you, you can figure outhow to do that really fast,
right?
Absolutely.
That's like client success,
Scott Vaughan (47:04):
like all of it, right?
You can go to your network, youcan hack, you can, you can
research.
It's, it's your, it's your brainpattern.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Absolutely.
It's an invaluable skill.
There's,
Mike Rizzo (47:15):
there's a QuickBooks integration into HubSpot these
days, right?
And so, How do I marry those twothings together?
That's not a marketingoperations person's problem
necessarily, but you have thetechnical acumen to figure out
how that infrastructure works,and now you can partner with
finance and,
Scott Vaughan (47:31):
and you have the process thinking too.
Yeah, I you emphasize thatbecause you can see things now
play out.
So you can, you, you, you gofrom, in the beginning of your
career, your soap, you know, youhave the microscope down cause
you're typically working onsomething hands-on or specific.
Typically not everybody.
Then you kind of, oh, okay.
I start to go into meetings andI got the windshield view.
(47:53):
I kind of see what's going on infront of me.
I got it.
And then over time you've gonethrough enough patterns.
You put your hand on the hotstove enough, you start to look
up.
Right now you got a telescope.
and now I can see out and I canproject more.
I can see if I do this, this,and this, or we do this, this,
and this.
You can see the end game.
And that's what's so valuable,uh, about being in, in, to me
(48:16):
martek as a foundation, um, ofthinking.
And I say Martek as a.
An example of the opsprofession.
Mm-hmm.
because once you, you have thatops mindset, you, as you said,
like you can go across differentfunctions, you can go into
different roles.
Michael Hartmann (48:32):
So better or worse, Yes.
Well, I was, I was just say, I,I, I'll maybe we, we wrap it up
here after this, but I, I was,uh, had somebody I've worked
with at my company, we got tomeet in person for first time
earlier this week, and he waslike, you.
You really ask good questionsand it really hit me.
I was like, but I think that'sone of those things like, I
think that's why people in thiskind of role who are good at it,
(48:54):
if they move to anotherfunctional area, like we just
naturally ask questions like wewanna understand.
Yeah.
Scott Vaughan (49:01):
Right.
It's how your brain's been wiredto do.
Yeah.
Because you can't solve, youknow, if you only got a partial
piece of the information, youwent out to do something,
Michael.
Oh boy.
Mm-hmm.
So now you're wired, we, whatare the information we need to
get going?
So you said your brain getswired like that.
It's really powerful.
We, uh, we underestimate that.
No, I, I've had that be
Mike Rizzo (49:20):
a crutch to me before, but, uh, for the most
part it's an
Michael Hartmann (49:23):
asset.
well, asking too many questionsI have been told, like, stop,
Mike Rizzo (49:28):
you're questioning it too much.
Just accept it.
like, this is good enough.
Stop asking.
Scott Vaughan (49:34):
Well, there's that too.
All right, that you do have tofind the balance therapy
sessions next week.
Michael Hartmann (49:41):
Yeah.
Oh, that's great.
Well, I, you know, I would loveto go on, Scott, I always enjoy
talking to you.
Um, same.
And I, and I think, I think, Ithink our audience is gonna
benefit from this quite a bit.
Um, but if folks want to connectwith you or con kind of follow
or learn from you, what's thebest way for them to do that?
You know, I,
Scott Vaughan (49:59):
I'm kind of prolific on LinkedIn as a, as a
hub to share points of view and,and put points of view out on
different topics.
I am an analyst in the AI.
Space.
It's something calledacceleration economy.
So I get to write and I kept mycolumn in MarTech, you guys,
cause I can't let go of my rootsSo I still publish once a month.
(50:20):
Uh, this one's on contentmarketing.
Um, and it's not an AI story.
It's the opposite.
Uh, just to give for fun.
It's nice AI.
Putting content in the spotlightcould not be a better thing cuz
now you can show what greatcontent is.
You can elevate your game.
Um, so not to go run outnecessarily and, and turn
everything into ai, but use itas an opportunity to showcase
(50:42):
what you guys do and to levelup.
And that's the example of thestuff I write on MarTech, but
almost always push most of itthrough LinkedIn.
That way for, for, to connectwith my networks and people I
trust and admire and learn from.
Michael Hartmann (50:56):
Fantastic, Scott.
Awesome.
This has been so much fun.
Um, thanks to all of our, ourlisteners.
Thanks Mike for hanging in therewith me and, and, and supporting
this.
We'll get Naomi back here soon,I'm sure, Absolutely.
Until next time.
Bye everyone.
Scott Vaughan (51:11):
All right.
Bye everybody.
Thanks you guys.
Bye-bye.
Hey.
Hello everyone.
Welcome to another episode ofOpsCast, brought to you by
MarketingOps.com, powered by theMO Pros.
I'm your host, Michael CMOn.
Joined today by co-host MikeRizzo.
Mike's in the house.
What's
Mike Rizzo (00:14):
happening?
I'm in the house.
I'm literally
Michael Hartmann (00:16):
in my house.
In the house.
I think that's the way we allare, including our guests.
So, so many of us.
Let's just get right to it.
So joining us today, talk abouthow to maximize your
relationship between marketingops and the CMO uh, is one of my
favorite marketers and leaders,Scott Vaughan.
Scott is currently a fractionalexecutive and go to market,
advisor to, uh, the C-suite andinvestors, um, with Vaughan
(00:39):
Go-to-Market advisory.
Which is his own business.
Um, prior to that, Scott was thechief growth officer and CMO at
Integrate.
Uh, Scott was also CMO at UBMTech Web, which is at the
predecessor of where I work now,and was held, has held all their
marketing leadership roles inother industry.
So Scott is a prolific writerand speaker about marketing,
leadership, business and uh,just an all round great guy
(01:03):
Scott.
Welcome and thanks for joiningus.
Scott Vaughan (01:06):
what an intro.
Thanks, Michael.
Thanks.
Nice to, nice to talk to youguys.
Talk shop.
Love what you do.
Michael Hartmann (01:13):
Yeah, well it's, it is, no and no one
better.
So We are, we are glad to haveyou here.
So, all right, so let's getright to it.
So, Scott, you do have a uniqueperspective on the intersection
of marketing operations in.
CMO role because you were a CMO,you've led marketing, you also
worked at MarTech companiesselling to marketing ops
probably a lot.
I know.
That's kind of how you and Imet.
(01:34):
Um, so when we chatted beforethis, um, that you said that
like folks that are in marketingops are primary audience should.
Should understand what is on theCMOs agenda, but I think it
would be good to have you sortof explain what do you mean by
that and then how can our, youknow, the listeners we have or
audience kind of get a betterinsight into that maybe for
(01:56):
their particular situation wherethey have a different, maybe
their marketing leader.
Um, they haven't reallyconnected the dots on that.
Yeah,
Scott Vaughan (02:04):
well every organization's unique and in my
background, um, I got excitedabout market tech and you.
2005 67 when put in a firstinstance of eca, probably more,
uh, correctly shoved it into,uh, an organization that was
using an old database.
And, uh, I bought the dream thatwe were going to be revenue
(02:27):
marketers because we had somemarket marketing tools at last,
beyond an analytics that we justdidn't have before.
So that's been my passion aroundthe, the value of technology and
the process.
as a CMO, but one of the thingsI've learned over time,
especially getting to sit downand work hand in hand with so
many marketing ops people and,and also bringing marketing, uh,
(02:50):
technology into theorganization.
And I mean, when I saytechnology, I mean data process,
analytics, all the components isthat the marketing ops role has
a chance to be, and it dependson the company, but a chance to
be literal.
the chief of staff, um, to runmarketing like a business.
I believe that from day one, thetechnology and data process is
(03:15):
exactly what's needed.
Because one of the biggestchallenges, uh, in marketing and
certainly for A C M O is to, uh,not just prove the value, but to
deliver business value to somany different aspects of the
organiz.
We go through periods where weget so locked in as sales as our
customer, which is important,don't get me wrong.
(03:36):
Uh, but sometimes we over steerthere.
We only serve, uh, sales.
And really what we need to do isserve the market, serve
customers.
And to do that, we have to lockarms and share data,
interconnect our tech with theoperations teams, the finance
teams, the product teams.
(03:57):
And to me, That's wheremarketing ops can play such a
pivotal role.
Uh, of course we have to deliveragainst our, our revenue numbers
and our quota and all of that.
But Marketing Ops has a, I thinkis a, is in a perfect position,
especially after a decade plusof, uh, putting in, uh, a lot of
the systems and building up thedata and analytics and
(04:18):
intelligence capabilities andredefining the lead to revenue
process.
We've gone.
Michael Hartmann (04:24):
Yeah.
I think we, we, we've talkedwith several guests about like
the, the unique position thatmarketing ops teams tend to be
in because they understand howthe, like, how that not only do
they have access to the data,but they understand the sort of
the mechanics of how it getsthere, what it, how to interpret
it, and the best time to startshowing that is right now.
(04:45):
Right.
Not waiting for perfect data.
Cuz I think we all, everyonewho's listening is like, yeah,
but my data's.
So what?
Right.
Everybody's is, so you gottawork around it.
I think it's really, um, it'sreally interesting your point
about sales being seen as theinternal customer.
And I, I, and I think I probablyfall that trap too.
(05:06):
Like if a salesperson sort ofscreams, Hey, we're not getting
the right leads, or we're notgetting enough leads, right.
It's easy to sort of shift andmove everything over there.
So how have you, like, havemaybe, um, maybe a little, like
how would you guide marketingops if you had, I'm sure you've
had marketing ops teams thathave gone through that same kind
of scenario.
(05:26):
Like how have you guided them orsupported them on addressing
that kind of sort of panicattack from a sales team?
Scott Vaughan (05:33):
Yeah, so I, I'll take that a couple ways.
The first thing, let's, let'stake the holistic view of how do
you get the credibility to earna seat at the C M O table, so to
speak, or to have that.
and then we'll tackle.
How do you avoid the, uh,everybody to the right e every
day, right.
Everybody to the left the nextday.
Yeah.
Where you just, you, you can'tdo that.
(05:55):
And I know that's reality of thejob, by the way.
I'm not naive about that.
But the first thing is how doyou build your credibility?
Um, marketing Ops does haveunique access to.
The data, the intelligence, thesystems, the processes, but
sometimes we stay in our ownlane.
And it's almost like you're thewhisperer for the cmo, right?
(06:16):
Um, uh, and I'm using CMOs aheadof marketing.
They could be, you know,whatever.
But the CMO office, let's callthat, um, you're the one who is,
uh, able to understand startingfrom the, uh, OKRs or the
objectives or the kpi.
and keeping laser focused onthat, and then building or
(06:38):
adapting the systems, the data,the processes around those.
But to do that, to be thatwhisperer in the ear that's so
valuable.
Um, my friend Deb Wolf, who, um,has uh, been a colleague and a
customer, been a confidant,whatever she used to say, you.
My head of marketing ops is myBFF.
(06:59):
We go nowhere.
We go everywhere together.
We're never apart because thatability to go in a marketing ops
person can also do the homework,excuse me, across the
organization to look at what'sthe data warehouse, what's the
data lake?
What's the BI systems that areoperating across the company?
How do we.
(07:20):
Work with those and those teams,what are their KPIs?
So, um, you're feeding thatinformation and the C M O now is
going proactively so they get afull picture.
Um, what's happening in producttoday with product led growth,
right?
So much of that is inside theproduct.
So I need that data, I need thatsystems, and I need to
(07:41):
understand.
Well, marketing ops can gobeyond running those systems and
be that confident to the officeof the C F O, either literally
because they, they are a moresenior person or a person on the
team who has that expertise,right?
And I know it's hard because,you know, the building's on fire
sales are screaming, right?
And, oh my God, I can't get thisreport and I've got 10 minutes
(08:04):
to my, I, I get all that.
That's reality.
But every job has that.
Absolutely.
At some point, you, you have toget proactive and, and that is
where that education happens.
And, um, when you work withsales, the key is to treat sales
as a partner, not a.
And that is, uh, I know I'veseen a lot of the stuff that
(08:26):
comes out from your group about,uh, when to say no, how to say
no.
Right?
Um, right.
How to delicately do that, butit's not about the being the
office of, no, you don't wannaget that reputation, but rather
reset the relationship andpartnering with your C You can
do that.
You can go in locked armstogether and sit down with sales
(08:46):
and say, let's review thosepriorities again.
Let's.
Let me make sure I understandwhere the gap is or what your
need is, et cetera, but treatthem like a partner, not like a
customer, because at the end ofthe day, you guys, one of the
things I've learned the most isstart in market.
Start, and I'm not just withcustomers, but holistically.
What is happening in yourmarket?
(09:07):
What is happening with youraudience, not just your
customer.
and what are the things that,um, that you can do to better
engage those audiences, etcetera, if you get that going in
the right direction, it seemslike the priorities get closer
and aligned.
because at the end of the day,that's for example, what sales
needs is to Right.
(09:27):
Get that engagement.
Michael Hartmann (09:29):
Yeah.
I, uh, what I've, I think theway I approach it, one, I feel
like sometimes we're the onesconnecting dots, right?
So I may have one marketing teamasking for something or wanting
to know something and the salesis asking for something else,
and.
Yeah, maybe, uh, finances aswell, right?
And being able to sort ofunderstand the connection,
connectivity between all thoseto help then go like, here's
(09:51):
where I think we really need tobe focusing on, because this is
a real issue.
And, and by the way, I, like,I'm dealing with this right now,
there is a problem with our leadflow, right?
That needs to be fixed.
So pivoting from that, likeknowing when to pivot because
there is actually something todo versus somebody just.
Being a squeaky wheel is a thingyou have to de differentiate on.
I think that's something that I,I,
Scott Vaughan (10:12):
I've learn it's not an easy one.
Yeah.
I can feel it.
The way your, your tone of voicethe way you're doing that.
It's not an easy one.
It's reality.
It happens every day.
But reason number, you know.
111 of getting that relationshipwith your C M O and staying in
sync and being able not to just,uh, you know, complain and bitch
(10:33):
about it.
Right.
Although there's times therapyis important, right?
But rather being able to sitdown and say, Hey, here are
things that are, are repeating.
Can you, here's a solution, orhere's how I think we should
tackle it.
Um, you know, what do you think?
It goes both ways.
So that relationship, again,going back to the CMO marketing
op.
Relationship is so highlyvalued.
(10:53):
Um, and you wanna be careful,uh, in my opinion, that you
don't get stuck as the techperson either.
Absolutely.
Because then you're going aroundwith your toolkit one by one,
solving everybody's one-offproblem.
It had the same problem stilldoes at times, but certainly
they had it a decade or two agowhere that's, it is the reactive
(11:14):
people.
you want to be on your frontfoot when you, as much as you
can and proactive.
And that's where you reallystart to drive value in the
business, value in your role.
You get to see and experiencemore and you know, if you're
interested, your career takes,uh, new opportunity, new right,
new doors open.
Mike Rizzo (11:35):
Yeah.
That trap of getting stuck.
the tools, the, the person thathas like the, the tool chest,
right?
Or like, Hey, can't we just dothis?
Right?
And it's so easy.
Uh,
it's
Michael Hartmann (11:47):
super easy.
And like
Mike Rizzo (11:48):
the, the challenge is like a lot of us have a lot
of fun
Scott Vaughan (11:52):
with that
Michael Hartmann (11:53):
right?
Like, like, yeah.
Yeah.
It's very, it's very satisfying,right?
You see something
Scott Vaughan (11:59):
complete.
Yeah.
You accomplish things.
You fix things.
by the way, I'm not saying thatnever, that's a part of the job.
That is.
Absolutely.
But if that is your whole job,then you may not get to the
aspirations and the things thatyou want to do because you've
now been put in this role, thisbox that's more tech oriented
only, by the way, if that's whatyou dig and love, there is a
(12:22):
career for you because there is,that is a big need at companies
and there is nothing wrong with.
I wanna underline that.
However, what, what you ask andwhat we're talking about is how
do you continue to, um, advance,escalate, get to new and new and
new interesting things, add morevalue.
Hopefully, you know, increaseyour incentives and your income
(12:45):
so you can do things in life andfamily.
All the things we, we, you know,a lot of people wanna do it.
That's important.
Mike Rizzo (12:52):
Yeah, absolutely.
I, I think it's, it, it's reallyimportant to understand that the
function of, uh, being a deeptechnical expert in a field and
a practitioner in a spacedoesn't mean that you're limited
by financial earning potentialand all those things.
Like there's a lot of greatorganizations that will pay very
well for your desire to be thatexpert and that enabler and that
(13:15):
partner to the c.
But if you have that desire togo more strategic, there's a lot
of opportunity for you touncover that in this function.
And I love that this started offright away with, uh, the idea of
the chief of staff comcommentary again, right?
The last episode we just airedwas all about chief of staff,
and this was not exactly plannedyou know?
(13:38):
Uh, so I think, I think that'ssuper spot on and timely for a
lot of the conversation thatwe're seeing right now.
Um, I curious, uh, from yourperspective, Scott, There was
this wonderful post series ofposts that have been going out
from Jessica Cow lately, uh, onLinkedIn, but the one that's
Yeah, yeah.
She's doing a, she's doing areally great job of really
(13:59):
elevating some of theconversation in the space.
Um, the one that came up thismorning was, uh, around the idea
of like building a roadmap.
Um, how, how have you seen that?
um, in your sort of partnershipwith marketing ops in the past.
Um, you know, she, she reallycalls out the roadmap as, you
(14:22):
know, a, a little bit of theobjective O K R model, right?
Um, so objective is improve, youknow, M Q L quality by
implementing processes to allowfor optimization, right?
Um, that's not, you know,updating your lead score Pro,
pro program, right?
like, yeah.
Um, so I, I'd be curious.
how has roadmap sort of comeinto play throughout your
(14:44):
career?
I know this is a bit of a curveball, so I apologize if I'm
dropping this on you, but I havea feeling
Scott Vaughan (14:49):
you haven't.
No, not at all.
It's a no.
Uh, well, at the end of the day,we're delivering, uh, whether
it's a product or a service, youneed a roadmap, right?
It needs to align with themarket, it needs to align with
the company.
it needs to align with yourgo-to market and then it needs
to align with marketing.
So there's alignment everywhere.
Yeah.
And if you don't have a roadmapand you're one not sharing that
(15:12):
roadmap, So let's go back justfor simplicity's sake to the C M
O marketing ops relationship,our main theme today.
Yeah.
You wanna be side by sidefeeding into the overall
marketing strategy, plan androadmap for sure.
And align what you're doing.
You wanna build a roadmap.
(15:33):
and to me, just my own bias,it's not just a tech roadmap,
although that's a piece of it,of course, but it's a roadmap to
how you mature your capabilitiesand services in ops to support
marketing and the business andmore and more the customer.
So that's the kind of thinkingthat has to go in.
So roadmaps are, are essential,and that's why I said whether
(15:57):
you're a product or a serviceand in marketing ops we're often
a service to the organization.
that needs a roadmap.
And so otherwise you stay stuckin reactive mode.
Yeah.
And you know, you, you don'tmake the advances to advance
with the business or the marketor the customer, uh, depending
on what your objectives areoverall in the company.
(16:19):
And that's really where you getstuck.
And, and that can getfrustrating because all you're
doing is fixing things andreacting to things.
So that roadmap is, isimportant.
And the other thing, and youknow, Jessica so can scale up
and down so quickly.
Oh yes, she can
Michael Hartmann (16:37):
Yeah.
Mike Rizzo (16:38):
It's amazing lady.
We go from top strategy downinto the weeds,
Scott Vaughan (16:42):
like super well.
That, that's a, that's, that'sso great.
And that's what we're talkingabout though.
Absolutely.
That's the reality of marketingops.
You have to be able to hang in aconversation, uh, uh, you know,
around scoring models inalgorithms.
And the next minute you'retalking about breakthrough go to
market and, you know, are wegoing to apply generative AI now
(17:03):
to our email?
You know, it, it, it's, it'sgonna vary drastic.
But I think the main point on,on having a roadmap is you, you,
you're able to share it, you'reable to build it, you're able to
get buy-in from people, ofcourse your C M O and people
across your marketing leadershipteam, because at the end of the
(17:24):
day, you're if, if you havedifferent marketing and sales
ops or or finance ops, you wantthat buy-in because the more
they get and see and touch andfeel, the more they're going to
support the effort cuz they seethe outcomes if you hide it,
right?
Oh, this is mine, this is myroadmap.
Yeah, don't look at it, I'mbeing dramatic here.
But that's where you get intotrouble because then all of a
(17:47):
sudden, you know someone, theyhave to slash some budget
somewhere.
And if that hasn't been wellcommunicated, With clear value.
It, it, you could get the, the,the swatch or you go to do
things and everybody's lookingaround like, what are you doing?
I didn't know you were doingthis.
Right.
I want you to do that.
And so you haven't been able todo that.
Yeah.
You haven't been able toaccomplish what you wanna do.
Michael Hartmann (18:08):
Excuse me.
Yeah, so I think, I think it'sinteresting even, so the only
thing I push back on there isthat there's this sort of, I
want to protect it like it'smine.
I don't wanna share it.
I think some people might in therole have a solid roadmap but
are uncomfortable or don't knowhow to.
fair.
Yeah.
Right.
So I think, I think there's someof that too, which, you know,
cuz it's, it's like anybody, Ithink you have to learn, like
(18:31):
when you get that criticism,like you're gonna, you might get
criticism of it and how you takethat is gonna be really
important to like, okay, wellyeah, maybe I can learn
something.
So there's a
Scott Vaughan (18:39):
couple things you can do.
My, I'm so glad you pointed thatout because, um, you know,
whatever you call it, impostersyndrome or Right.
That all, it's so real.
It, it is.
Um, and, and I have learned overtime that as long as you're
authentic and you're there andyour, your odds of success are
pretty high, but there's thingsyou can do.
(19:01):
There's a couple things I'vedone.
So who does great roadmaps?
Product marketing people.
Okay.
Do I have a pal?
And product marketing.
The product team typically.
um, our friend, you know, any,any form of search, AI driven or
otherwise, you can really seedifferent roadmaps that were
built that you can getinspiration from.
(19:22):
Right.
That help,
Michael Hartmann (19:23):
that's a really help you.
That's really, I, I even, I havenever thought of going to a
product marketer or productmanagement team.
Yeah, that's, they're great atit.
Scott Vaughan (19:30):
Yeah.
That's a great idea.
You know, and, and because theycan take an eye and say, you
need a little more detail here.
You're gonna get, you know, orthat's not quite clear.
You need to visualize this, youknow, in a graph so that people
see the motion and the timeframetogether with your written, you
know, or whatever it is.
Sure.
And, and those kinds of thingsthere, those resources all
around you.
(19:51):
and that's where there is someconfidence and, and um,
humbleness to come forth andsay, Hey, do you have a few
minutes?
Can I show you something?
Um, very few people will say,well, no, you can't show me any,
you know, this is Right.
I don't wanna help you Right,exactly.
And this is what is so greatabout working with colleagues
and, and learning et cetera, andit, and again, it builds a bond.
(20:13):
If you go to product marketing,now you've got product.
as an ally, as an example, oryou go to product, you, you have
product as an ally who's nowexcited and rooting for you and
understands more of what we'retrying to do.
It,
Mike Rizzo (20:26):
it's such a great call out, uh, Scott and the
like, when you, as a marketingpractitioner of any kind, in any
professional function for thatmatter, when you go to somebody
else and you say, can you, canyou take a look at what I'm
doing?
right, because I believe you cangive me the feedback I need in
(20:47):
order to improve on my work.
It actually, if I, if I go toScott or CMOn here and I say
that to them, they go, wow, thisindividual really respects my
opinion.
They think highly of me, highlyenough to ask for my opinion,
and therefore you're, you'reearning this, this trust.
And then all of a sudden whenthey see what you're doing,
imagine an entire, entirelydifferent functional area of
(21:09):
the, the company seeing whatyou're.
They're gonna turn around and,and wanna be a champion for you
cuz they're gonna go, wow, whatyou're doing is really cool.
I had no idea that's what youwere trying to accomplish.
Scott Vaughan (21:19):
Right?
Absolutely.
And, and by the way, that's agreat byproduct of it, but
you're, you're.
your service will get betterover time.
Yeah.
With those inputs.
And you, and you don't want towait.
Stop till I get 37 points ofinput.
You know, as Michael, you alwayssay, and you've said to, let's
keep iterating, let's keepmoving.
The data's never gonna beperfect.
Right.
But you're gonna keep buildingoff of it.
(21:40):
Um.
And that's, that's important.
And then sometimes it becomesadopted as the, as the standard.
If you show a way that part ofyour roadmap is part of your
strategy plan, I'm always amazedhow often that gets adopted as
maybe a standard or a corepiece, Hey, product marketing,
you need to do this and, uh, comcommunications or Markcom, you
(22:02):
need to do this, and, you know,et cetera, et cetera.
Um, you want to be that unifyingforce, I think certainly across
the marketing function, and thenbeing able to put your tentacles
out to those key connectionpoints through finance and
through operations, throughproduct where it makes sense to
have more of an impact, uh, etcetera.
(22:24):
And you'll know that by yourorganization and by mm-hmm
asking questions and, andbuilding relationships over
time.
Yeah.
You know, that will help you.
Michael Hartmann (22:34):
Yeah.
So, okay, so I wanna bring thisback a little bit.
So one of the things, um, Ithink people in our role also
struggle with is reallyunderstanding, and this really
came, this really became obviousthat summer camp this last year
and bring up Jessica again.
Jessica helped facilitate athing where we had a CMO in
there.
We were talking about how to,how to present and communicate
(22:55):
the findings from some datadidn't really matter what it
was, and it was.
For, especially even for peoplewho I think probably felt like
they were pretty good at that,I'll put mine myself in that
camp.
Like was very humbling, right?
It was like, oh my gosh, yes.
How that CMO is interpretingthis or really what they're
looking for is a very differentone.
So what, what are the thingsthat would, you know, as a CMO
(23:17):
or marketing leader, you know,would you like keep you up at
night and where do you thinkthat marketing ops folks could
help with?
Or is there, maybe, do we needto just have that direct
conversation with our marketingleaders and then work from
there?
Scott Vaughan (23:31):
Well, ev every, uh, you know, marketing leader
is a little bit different intheir style, how they present.
what they share, what they don'tshare.
And I mean, share up, sharesideways, share down.
So you've gotta read the room alittle bit.
Like always.
You don't want to go in assumingso, yes, absolutely.
Reach out.
Know, know what's important.
Um, ask for feedback, do thosethree or four questions, even if
(23:54):
it's over email, you know, etcetera.
But some of the best techniquesI've seen, and I've completely
stolen them by the way.
I worked with somebody, um, whoI respect was a C M O and vp and
they were, this is a majorenterprise, this was five years
ago.
And they said, I can't go intosales and tell them that I know
(24:17):
everything about the buyer'sjourney and everything about,
you know, lead routing andscoring cuz they had just
stepped into this role and ourdata and reporting is good, but
it's all over the place.
So what they begin to do attheir monthly, Uh, business
review together sales andmarketing is they would lock
arms with sales and they wouldpick two stories, the story of a
(24:42):
win.
And so they would have.
The data, but the data wouldn'tbe like so perfect and an
analytical, let's break down the27 points cuz that's what we
strive for, right?
To really be data driven,analytical.
But they begin to change theirtone of, before we get into the
macro data, let's talk aboutwhat worked in, you know, a
(25:02):
couple of wins.
And there they could show, oh,well we know they went to the
website, you know, 26 peoplewent to the website over a three
month period and they start totell a story about.
there was still data in it, bythe way, but it wasn't so
analytical that you, you know,you're kind of spinning, well,
what's the, what's the freakingpoint?
I don't, so that was something Ifound valuable to say, well,
(25:25):
let's, we picked a win of theweek and we wanted to dissect
what we learned.
people lean in like, okay, whatcan I learn from that?
What?
And then you can go, okay, letme give you the macro of, or
maybe the micro, maybe you needto drill down.
Yeah.
If you send your reports inadvance, someone has some
questions.
And I got used to that you guys,by having to go to investor
meetings cuz you have to sendyour package in advance.
(25:48):
Oh.
And, and then you don't wannaput too much, but you know that
question's gonna be asked, soI'll put it in the append.
And you kind of know which,which investor's gonna ask
probably what questions, thenyou're always surprised.
So that's part of it.
You do have to prepare and overprepare, uh, for those
discussions.
but you want to be able to tellthat, tell a story first.
(26:09):
And I don't mean wax poetic andthat you have to be an elegant
speaker in all these things, butjust say, Hey, we took a couple
of wins of the week.
We dissected what they did overthe last 60 days, six months a
year.
Right.
The account, the buyer.
and some of that is manual forsome folks.
Michael Hartmann (26:25):
It is.
Absolutely.
I, I for, so for those on video,probably seeing me smiling at
this like, and for ourlisteners, I am, because this is
so much in line with what Ithink that has been missing
with, to me, like if we get intodebate about marketing
attribution, I think there's aplace for it still.
But I think that storytellingpiece, and that is exactly the
word I would use, is I found itto be way more.
(26:48):
When, especially going up withsales or to finance, it's having
those examples because humansare wired for storytelling,
right?
Yeah.
And it is.
Well, and you can still have the
Scott Vaughan (27:00):
data.
Yeah.
Your still can have a sectionwhere, let's break down what we
know, what we, but what welearned and giving an example
is, is helpful.
Right.
And we don't stop there and go,okay.
Yeah, absolutely.
Here's my story of the week.
I see you guys later.
but then you can show, well, wemade this kind of progress.
What we're seeing now, threethings we're observing, right?
(27:22):
One of the things we need toimprove.
So you need to be humble aboutthat.
One of the things we, we didn'tget done that we promised you,
you've gotta be right therebecause, um, otherwise you lose
credibility quickly and you goon the defensive and because you
brought it up, I'm saying it andI'll say it, uh, or Mike had to
see me.
(27:43):
My 2016 17 article that I referto all the time, attribution is
essential, let's just call it.
But if you're in the creditgame, if you're out to prove
something, it will get you everytime because that's trying to
do, put the end game and thentry to prove your case versus
let's see what the data tells.
(28:04):
does that pass the, the te thesniff test of, does that feel
like what's going on?
Let's put that against somescenarios that we're seeing in
our company, in the market, inour sales process, or in the, in
the pipeline, whatever it is.
Um, yeah, and I think, let'snever be confused.
Uh, a huge part of the job ofmarketing ops is, um, proving
(28:28):
value and delivering.
You can deliver value, but ifyou can't prove it or at least
have some data and facts to backit, you won't be in this gig for
long.
Uh, as a CMO forget it.
You're done.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Let's stop debating it, eventhough that's why attribution's
fine.
I don't arm wrestle it to theground anymore, but.
(28:50):
If it becomes a game of creditand we're running around trying
to prove stuff, boy is thatunproductive.
Yeah.
It may not seem like it for acouple of quarters, but over
time you're now getting furtherand further into a trap that you
can't get out of and, um, it'sdeadly.
No,
Michael Hartmann (29:05):
I'm, I'm, I'm a hundred percent there with
you.
The credit thing, like.
Irks
Mike Rizzo (29:10):
me to my core.
I know I'm never gonna changeanybody's opinion about the, the
word credit, but that's
Michael Hartmann (29:15):
okay.
Well, even if, I think, I thinka lot fundamentally,
Mike Rizzo (29:18):
I, I think it's the right,
Scott Vaughan (29:19):
but that is the right, I got Michael Ri here.
That's good.
That true stuff.
It just, it just
Mike Rizzo (29:24):
like, like, it's so sad to me that credit ended up
being a four letter word, likein the, in the world of B2B
marketing.
Like it's just, it's silly, likeat the end of every movie.
there are credits.
Everybody gets credit for makingthat movie possible.
Like, yeah.
It's ridiculous to me that theword credit means that it's
mine.
Uh, and that it's not everybodyand it's not shared success.
(29:46):
Literally, you take collegecredits to earn a degree, many
credits, uh, in order to getthere.
And I keep like fighting thisfight.
I know I'm never gonna changeanybody's mind on it, but Well,
but you're, the message isright, right.
At the end of the day, we'resaying
Scott Vaughan (29:58):
same thing.
That's right.
The message is right, because ifyou can't.
if you can't deliver value andput things into analytical
terms, it may not be at themicro level.
Mm-hmm.
but if you can't see how needlesare moving to a good portion of
your investment or your effort,you go, yeah.
I mean you, you're not gonna bein that gig very long today.
(30:20):
And I think that's fair.
And by the way, different stagesof different companies.
Are you a disruptor, startup, alegacy?
Category, uh, you know, wannabeleader or are you the category
queen or whatever it is.
There are different dynamics indifferent markets.
So there's no one set way tothat level of, of, um, analytics
(30:42):
and attribution that's required.
But understanding that is, isreally important.
And that's why I think themarketing ops profession can't
just stay within marketing.
You have so much morecredibility.
if you have access to data atthe company.
BI level.
Yeah.
Or you know, walking arms withthe Office of Finance or the
(31:04):
office of the cfo, F dependingon their size of company, what
you have access to.
And, and certainly with sales, Ithink that's getting better and
better.
Not perfect, but sales ops is,we're seeing that more and more.
Mm-hmm.
uh, consistently.
Um, you know, again, never.
not every company, but boy, ifwe made progress in that area
over the last four or five
Michael Hartmann (31:24):
years.
Well, and I think, I think youbrought up something in the kind
of this thread here that I thinkwas really important.
I wanna put a kind of highlighta little bit, which is in that
development, development of thestories, right?
And you talked aboutanticipating the questions that
might come up.
So I think, I think that is areally important sort of sub
(31:44):
skill or sub, you know, thingsyou can learn.
Cause if.
running reports and sending'emout.
Even if, like, if you're notactually looking at them going,
oh, this is an interesting,like, something here yes.
Is unusual.
Like it stands out, right.
It doesn't match the pattern orwhatever.
Like I'm doing, I have a dataguy and I'm like, I'm always
like, oh.
like I think of it this way,right?
(32:06):
And have we thought about that?
And it, it does beg additionalquestions, but then you're just
like, then you can start toanticipate this other person
who's a commercial leader forour business may ask about this
particular thing.
And we like if we can have somework started on trying to answer
that next question again,another way of sort of building
credibility, but it's
Scott Vaughan (32:26):
something you have to look for.
Yeah.
And, and role playing with acouple of people, maybe even.
You're, you're marketing amarketing leader or the
marketing leader, right?
The CMO or a marketing leader inthere.
Hey, could I run this by, youwanna see what your view is and
how do you think the, thefinance team will look at this?
Or how do you think the salesops team will view this?
What, what do we got?
(32:47):
I even, now this is gonna soundcornball, but um, sometimes I
would go with, with my wife andI'd ask her if, can you look at
this?
She's pretty savvy on data thatI just, can you take a look at
this?
What do you.
and it's unbiased.
She doesn't know necessarily allthe levers of the business.
So even that can be of help.
By the way, this is not advocacyto get your partner involved,
(33:10):
work that might blow up.
Uh, you, but you get the ideathat there's all kinds of
sources at your fingertips, butyou just have to ask and you
have to build a relationship.
And by the way, you have to bereciprocal.
and the more you're reciprocal,the more you.
Wow.
I didn't realize that we weredoing that over in our digital
team and now you see somethingthat you didn't know.
(33:31):
That's how organizations learn,uh, because it's really freaking
hard to do this on, on Zoom orany other, you know, we don't
have the.
we're gonna pile in a, in aconference room and, and
whiteboard this out as a team.
You know, we have to gettogether and plan and, you know,
there's just different things,dynamics that, so this is a
natural way to help fuel aboutit.
(33:53):
Mm-hmm.
Michael Hartmann (33:54):
I love it.
Uh, okay, so we'll kind of, Ithink I wanna shift back, but
you, you, you brought up thechief of staff.
model.
And it could be a potential likein terms of sort of career paths
for people who are marketingops.
Cause I think up until recently,I think a lot of people would've
told you like it's sort of deadends at a director level.
(34:18):
Right?
Almost.
Um, there has, and there's nowsome VP levels, uh, and there's
some people who are doing, youknow, moving into revenue
operations roles.
Although I would, my perceptionis that most of the people get
into those roles come from thesales side as opposed to market.
that's a whole separate thing,but, um, I, I'm, I'm really
curious to get your thoughts on,you know, where, where do you
(34:39):
think, you know, marketing opsfolks who do want to go beyond
just the technology stuff as wetalked about?
Like what are some logical nextsteps, and then what are the
things that would make them.
that they should be thinkingabout, not only for those next
steps, but say they want, theyhave aspirations to be like
ahead of marketing, right?
Um, yeah.
What, what do you think they,that our listeners should be
(35:00):
thinking about for that, thatpath?
Scott Vaughan (35:03):
So you want to acquire, uh, more skills, more
discipline, right?
More discipline, experience, uh,of disciplines, I should say.
So for example, if you're inMarTech, you may move over to
the digital.
Because you have credibility ofthe market, the business, and
what probably what campaigns andprograms and analytics been run.
(35:24):
You can exercise those skillsand those muscles and go and
take on those, that that role.
Um, because the more diversityof experience you have that are
tied to the drivers of thebusiness or the outcomes
revenue, for example, the muchhigher experience you.
and you can do that a little bitearlier in your career because
(35:46):
once you have the, the marketingops chops, they don't go away.
They're built into you.
Uh, and that's the great partbecause you can get up to speed
pretty damn quickly, uh, on, ontech and, and process, et
cetera, cuz you're, it's alwaysgonna be a part of what you do.
And I'll use the example ofmoving to digital, uh, or the
digital team.
(36:07):
Um, the other way to do that.
To think about it, you can moveinto finance.
So much of finance today, andI'm not saying to be a bean
counter in accounting and youknow all that necessarily, but
they've got power, uh, data andbi and analytics people that
look across the business that isa chief of staff kind of
thinking where you can see, uh,gain a different view, but you
(36:30):
have all the analytical process,the, the technology.
um, and the budgeting, all thosethings you've had experience
coming up through that.
Move over into finance.
I had, uh, uh, one example of aperson who, um, I was, I'll call
it mentoring, but a very closeconfident.
I knew I'd be working for herany day now.
(36:51):
That's how good she was as ayoung pro.
She went and she worked for theboard of directors at a public
company in the strategy group.
Whoa.
Because she, she was soimpressed.
all the analytical thinking andwhat she put together on
roadmaps and planning andstrategies.
She, they, she was seen assomeone and her, uh, c m o
(37:14):
unleashed her to not just the cm o to speak, but her to speak
and, and, and in front of otheraudiences.
And so that was a, uh, a move.
Let's go to the side.
But it was moved to up and nowshe's back in and she actually.
She's a VP of marketing over anumber of functions.
(37:35):
So there are ways to do that.
But the key is talk to people.
Be part of your group.
Uh, step outside your, yourcomfort zone.
Reach out to people on LinkedInyou admire, where you see
they've done some of that work.
People are so open.
You guys, not every singleperson, but for the most part,
it's so great to be able to getother people's perspective.
(37:57):
Um, you know, everyone asked me,how do you see so much about the
market?
I have a lot of conversations.
I yes you do.
I take my theories, right?
Of here's what I'm seeing, whatare you seeing?
And go research that and, and,and kind of formulate the point
of view and what might happen.
That becomes a skill, um, thatyou can get.
And that's going towards thatchief of staff kind of thinking
(38:18):
where you can, you can see abroader picture, right?
Your eyes, ears, whisper.
you're organized.
Um, that kind of thing.
Michael Hartmann (38:28):
I, I wanna get back into the chief of staff
stuff in a minute, but I, uh,there's you, you've mentioned, I
think, both directly andindirectly a little bit a a
couple of times the idea ofmentorship and I'll add sort of
advocacy cuz that scenario you,you painted about that person
Right.
Had an advocate and that CMO whounleashed her, right?
Yes.
And, and basically I'm sure wasthe person who was like
advocating for, so how, like,how important do you think that
(38:51):
is for people who are gettingstarted?
Like is do you think it, becauseI've, I've done some mentoring
as well and I'm, I'm like, I'malways impressed with the people
who actually.
uh, early in their career.
Really seek that out.
I think.
I'll, I'm curious what your takeis on.
I had the same question.
Mike Rizzo (39:09):
Yeah.
I was like, cause I like, I, youknow, just transparently, Scott,
and for all the listeners, like,I'm really trying to wrap my
head around how we enable moreof that connectivity, uh, as a
community for mentorship type ofprogramming, right?
So we've got folks like CMOn,we've got folks like Hannah,
she's doing more coaching thanmentorship.
(39:30):
Uh, and I think there's, there'sa slight variation between what
those things really mean, but Iam curious.
Back to CMOn's question, youknow, the importance of that and
how you sort of leverage that inyour
Scott Vaughan (39:41):
career.
Well, you need a mentor, they ora coach, and they are slightly
different.
But let's not get into semanticsfor this purpose.
you need somebody who you canbounce things off of.
Maybe they're in yourorganization, maybe they're not.
I think having a couple ofpeople that aren't in your
organization that either youhave regularly scheduled calls
with or that you have on yourcalendar to reach out, um, et
(40:05):
cetera.
I'm gonna say this quick andthen I'll come back.
Then you gotta give back.
Now as you get more experience,you've now gotta give back to
the next group that's comingthrough.
It's the pay it forwardmentality, uh, not just for good
karma.
It just makes you better.
Uh, I do, uh, some work now,people coming just into the
(40:26):
workforce.
I'm at that point in my life agewhere friends now have kids
coming into the workforce, soI'm very happy to spend time.
and Damn do I learn a
Michael Hartmann (40:36):
lot.
I, I have the same experience.
Scott Vaughan (40:39):
Yeah.
And, and so this mentoring as,as you guys talked about, is
important.
Yes, they can become advocatesfor you, but that will happen
naturally.
You don't have to go, can yougive me a LinkedIn ref
reference?
Right.
Those days are kind of, eh,right?
I don't know, but like thepeople I talked to, I know them.
(40:59):
I know what they're about.
I seen how they thought throughthings, how they've navigated,
how they've, you know, knockeddown obstacles.
What they've, what they've done.
So you're gonna more naturallybecome an advocate for that
person, right?
Even a referral for that person.
So mentoring is you, you, nomatter where you are in your
career, you always need one.
(41:21):
I know I benefited from it and Iworked, um, at a school as a
marketing communications managerat a young company of 20 people
that went to 400 and just underfour years.
So as one of the firstexplosions of a tech company,
lucky as hell.
But I had a, um, and I'll say awoman, uh, head of.
(41:42):
and she, man, she made mebetter.
Yeah, it's amazing.
She would, and she gave me leashto go, maybe hang myself, but
she'd like give me leash to go,go and, and run.
And then she'd say, okay, what'dyou see?
What'd you hear?
Why didn't the product teamreally think, why did, she
wouldn't tell me what to donecessarily.
(42:02):
There are times where you haveto do that, but that always set
with me like forever.
I was motivated and understoodand also empowered.
and, and, um, I did a stint for,for about 10 years in sales too,
between a 10 year marketingcareer and in the last, uh, 10
or so in, in, um, the C M Orole.
(42:23):
But it was, it was f phenomenalto have those mentors.
Mm-hmm.
uh, when you, especially whenyou're moving into a new role or
trying to move into a new.
you need people that kind ofhave either chartered that
course or know where, maybewhere the landmines
Michael Hartmann (42:39):
are.
Yeah.
No, I, I, I think it'sinteresting.
Um, I'll just one other aside.
So I have also over my careerhad people that were just, I
ended up being mentors withoutany real planning, and then
times where I've activelypursued.
I've got one person right nowthat I don't know why I thought
about it, but I, I actuallythought, well, I wanted somebody
who's maybe not as far in acareer or maybe younger.
(43:02):
And like, so that person is amentor for me, which I think
most people would be surprisedabout, but it's been one of the
most valuable Yes.
Mentor relationships becauseespecially as I've gotten
younger, newer people coming in,like I've talked through a
challenge and I'm like, and I'mlike, this is what I think I do.
And then they give me anotherperspective on how that might
come across.
And it's been super valuable.
Ah, yeah.
It's,
Scott Vaughan (43:21):
it's humbling all the time.
And you know, it's just neverstopped learning.
You know, these aren't cliches.
There's a reason for it.
Not just to be Well, you wannabe relevant in your career for
sure, but I think you get to domore interesting things.
You get the opportunities.
Let's just take marketing ops.
I remember it was not aprofession.
(43:42):
We, uh, I'll give you back.
When I put in this significantinvestment, seven figure
investment in equa, one of the,the first to do it right, had no
idea what we were doing.
We looked around.
who's done anything around crmRight, right.
Do you even have the aptitude tobe able to handle an app and you
(44:02):
know, the iPhone, it was justcoming out all that and, okay,
we got a SWAT team and you'reup.
And that became, you know,honestly, the, uh, all three of
those people now are inmarketing ops and.
and, and et cetera.
But that's how you pick thatsometimes, right?
Mm-hmm.
as AI comes in, you may be aperson that's very comfortable
(44:23):
with, with how you build, uh,apps and how you apply those
things.
That might be a calling cardthat, you know, someone younger
gets plucked and said, you getit.
You show it, you prove it, youshow that you can learn as fast
as anybody else.
You get the opportunity cuz it'snuts to.
The best was like when, uh, ABMcame around, like 2000, you
(44:45):
know, came out a while ago, butlet's be realistic.
15, 16 people started.
Well, I need a, you know,someone who's been doing ABM for
four years and all this stuff,and I'd roll my eyes again.
you need someone who'sinterested, curious, who gets
the mechanics of sales andmarketing and, and you know,
data and, and you're gonna givethem this role and you know
you're gonna send'em to a fewconferences you're gonna and
(45:07):
support them and let's getgoing.
Now if you're doing somethingafter the, the best practices
playbook's been written, thenmaybe that's not the case.
But there's so manyopportunities like that, uh, uh,
in marketing ops to, to grabthat and write it, and then that
takes you to another place, tothe chief of staff to maybe more
expansive, something moreinteresting.
(45:29):
But I always was the person whoraised their hand and say, yeah,
I'll do that.
I'll try it.
You need someone to runcustomer.
I think I can do that.
Let's go.
You can figure it out.
So I might uh, the team that,that if they ever watched this,
they'll go, well, okay, we'llgive'em about a c uh, tough
case.
But we, we got through the yearof that and we got to a better
(45:50):
place and, and that's the kindof thing I think that you have
to embrace it.
For me in your career, no matterwhat it is.
Yeah.
But marketing ops, because thefoundation is so strong in the
fundamentals of running abusiness and, and, and certainly
running marketing, that there'sa lot of opportunity.
Yeah,
Mike Rizzo (46:08):
I think I, I think it's spot on.
I, I definitely echo the samesentiments repeatedly to folks
that communicate with me abouttheir career trajectory in
marketing ops.
I think you have a, anincredible line of sight on what
happens inside of anorganization.
Um, yes.
And because you know what'sgoing on, that foundation can
just, Just skyrocket you tototally new places.
(46:33):
I mean, thank for a moment aboutif you're in a, a tech company
or just a services company, likethere are business operations
problems that you actually couldfigure out how to solve with
technology, not MarTech, justlike typical technology
solutions that say, Hey, it'sreally hard for me to take a
quote and get it to an invoiceand get that thing.
(46:55):
Well, you have a technicalacumen for understanding how
things integrate.
I'll bet you, you can figure outhow to do that really fast,
right?
Absolutely.
That's like client success,
Scott Vaughan (47:04):
like all of it, right?
You can go to your network, youcan hack, you can, you can
research.
It's, it's your, it's your brainpattern.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Absolutely.
It's an invaluable skill.
There's,
Mike Rizzo (47:15):
there's a QuickBooks integration into HubSpot these
days, right?
And so, How do I marry those twothings together?
That's not a marketingoperations person's problem
necessarily, but you have thetechnical acumen to figure out
how that infrastructure works,and now you can partner with
finance and,
Scott Vaughan (47:31):
and you have the process thinking too.
Yeah, I you emphasize thatbecause you can see things now
play out.
So you can, you, you, you gofrom, in the beginning of your
career, your soap, you know, youhave the microscope down cause
you're typically working onsomething hands-on or specific.
Typically not everybody.
Then you kind of, oh, okay.
I start to go into meetings andI got the windshield view.
(47:53):
I kind of see what's going on infront of me.
I got it.
And then over time you've gonethrough enough patterns.
You put your hand on the hotstove enough, you start to look
up.
Right now you got a telescope.
and now I can see out and I canproject more.
I can see if I do this, this,and this, or we do this, this,
and this.
You can see the end game.
And that's what's so valuable,uh, about being in, in, to me
(48:16):
martek as a foundation, um, ofthinking.
And I say Martek as a.
An example of the opsprofession.
Mm-hmm.
because once you, you have thatops mindset, you, as you said,
like you can go across differentfunctions, you can go into
different roles.
Michael Hartmann (48:32):
So better or worse, Yes.
Well, I was, I was just say, I,I, I'll maybe we, we wrap it up
here after this, but I, I was,uh, had somebody I've worked
with at my company, we got tomeet in person for first time
earlier this week, and he waslike, you.
You really ask good questionsand it really hit me.
I was like, but I think that'sone of those things like, I
think that's why people in thiskind of role who are good at it,
(48:54):
if they move to anotherfunctional area, like we just
naturally ask questions like wewanna understand.
Yeah.
Scott Vaughan (49:01):
Right.
It's how your brain's been wiredto do.
Yeah.
Because you can't solve, youknow, if you only got a partial
piece of the information, youwent out to do something,
Michael.
Oh boy.
Mm-hmm.
So now you're wired, we, whatare the information we need to
get going?
So you said your brain getswired like that.
It's really powerful.
We, uh, we underestimate that.
No, I, I've had that be
Mike Rizzo (49:20):
a crutch to me before, but, uh, for the most
part it's an
Michael Hartmann (49:23):
asset.
well, asking too many questionsI have been told, like, stop,
Mike Rizzo (49:28):
you're questioning it too much.
Just accept it.
like, this is good enough.
Stop asking.
Scott Vaughan (49:34):
Well, there's that too.
All right, that you do have tofind the balance therapy
sessions next week.
Michael Hartmann (49:41):
Yeah.
Oh, that's great.
Well, I, you know, I would loveto go on, Scott, I always enjoy
talking to you.
Um, same.
And I, and I think, I think, Ithink our audience is gonna
benefit from this quite a bit.
Um, but if folks want to connectwith you or con kind of follow
or learn from you, what's thebest way for them to do that?
You know, I,
Scott Vaughan (49:59):
I'm kind of prolific on LinkedIn as a, as a
hub to share points of view and,and put points of view out on
different topics.
I am an analyst in the AI.
Space.
It's something calledacceleration economy.
So I get to write and I kept mycolumn in MarTech, you guys,
cause I can't let go of my rootsSo I still publish once a month.
(50:20):
Uh, this one's on contentmarketing.
Um, and it's not an AI story.
It's the opposite.
Uh, just to give for fun.
It's nice AI.
Putting content in the spotlightcould not be a better thing cuz
now you can show what greatcontent is.
You can elevate your game.
Um, so not to go run outnecessarily and, and turn
everything into ai, but use itas an opportunity to showcase
(50:42):
what you guys do and to levelup.
And that's the example of thestuff I write on MarTech, but
almost always push most of itthrough LinkedIn.
That way for, for, to connectwith my networks and people I
trust and admire and learn from.
Michael Hartmann (50:56):
Fantastic, Scott.
Awesome.
This has been so much fun.
Um, thanks to all of our, ourlisteners.
Thanks Mike for hanging in therewith me and, and, and supporting
this.
We'll get Naomi back here soon,I'm sure, Absolutely.
Until next time.
Bye everyone.
Scott Vaughan (51:11):
All right.
Bye everybody.
Thanks you guys.
Bye-bye.
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