May 12, 2025 • 48 mins
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Ever wondered why your marketing data isn't delivering the insights you need? The answer lies in what Nicole Alvarez calls "the ugly work" – those essential but unglamorous tasks that create the foundation for beautiful marketing results.
In today's episode, Nicole, a Solutions Architect at ClearPivot with a fascinating background in psychology and cognitive science, explains why field audits, permission sets, and process documentation deserve more attention. Drawing from her experience across multiple industries, she reveals how these behind-the-scenes elements enable the exciting, visible outcomes that marketing teams celebrate.
We explore a powerful technique for demonstrating the value of data cleanup – building reports with bad data to show stakeholders why investment in data quality matters. When executives see inaccurate reports that don't reflect business reality, they better understand why dedicating resources to "boring" operational work is essential.
Whether you're struggling to maintain clean data, communicate the value of operations work to executives, or simply looking to improve your marketing systems, this episode offers practical wisdom from seasoned professionals. Subscribe to OpsCast for more insights on the critical work that happens behind the scenes in successful marketing operations.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hello everyone, Welcome to another episode of
OpsCast brought to you byMarketingOpscom, powered by all
the MoPros out there.
I am your host, Michael Hartman, joined today by my co host,
Naomi Liu.
How's spring up there inVancouver?
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Great, we've been having a stretch of sunny
weather, so I can't complain.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Rub it in, while I've got thunderstorms going through
here, such as North Texas thistime of year, although we had a
beautiful weekend, so I can'treally complain, other than all
the pollen.
That's covering everything,anyway.
So let's get started.
Joining us today is NicoleAlvarez and she's going to talk
to us about all the ugly workthat goes on in behind the
(00:42):
scenes for beautiful CRMmarketing data.
So Nicole is a solutionsarchitect with ClearPivot.
She is a solutions architectwith seven years of experience
with clients across multipleindustries.
She was born in New Jersey andhas since lived in three
different countries, which we'llget into a little bit.
When she's not working, she islikely neck deep in an online
(01:02):
course we also talked about thatprobably Trying to create
hybrid plants.
This site we haven't talkedabout, so I'm curious now, or
contemplating how to how muchrotisserie chicken it takes to
train her cat, or is taken totrain her cat.
So, nicole, thanks for joiningus today.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
It is a pleasure, it is absolutely a pleasure, thank
you.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
Yeah.
So let's uh, let's get intothis a little bit before we
really get into the meat of thetopic.
Yeah, it's always interesting.
I think maybe your audiencedoesn't care about it, but I
like it, so we're going to do itanyway.
But I like to know a littlemore about people's.
You know their story and theircareer journey, and so, yeah,
(01:44):
you mentioned that you've livedin three countries.
I know you're in Uruguay now.
Hopefully I'm not butcheringthe pronunciation but, yeah, if
you could share a little moreabout your career journey, how
you ended up where you are, andmaybe a little bit like how you
ended up in all these differentcountries, and Uruguay being the
latest.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Absolutely so.
Part of it is my obsession withalways learning something new,
which you have, I mean, when youwork in operations.
It's part of it, so it's kindof what led me here.
I also always loved to travel,and there is a necessity to
travel while working if you doit long term.
(02:23):
So I started working remote,actually in 2015.
So the landscape was completelydifferent and at that point it
was very limited to marketing,to programming, like any kind of
development work, and, quitefrankly, that was really it.
(02:45):
So I decided to try my hand atbeing a developer in 2015.
And I bricked both a phone anda computer and decided that
wasn't for me.
So I started as a contentwriter.
What happens with that?
Well, you have to knowmarketing to be a good content
writer.
And then I realized, when I gotinto marketing, okay, it doesn't
(03:06):
matter if I'm getting the bestleads in the world, if sales
doesn't have a process forworking them, it doesn't matter
how good the leads are.
So then I got into marketingand sales operations, and then
there came the service part, andone day I woke up and realized
I'm working in RevOps now.
So marketing still has a veryfond place in my heart and that
(03:32):
affects a lot of what I keepstudying too.
So, for example, here inUruguay, I am studying cognitive
science, which, oh my gosh,it's programming, it is
psychology, it's philosophy Eventhe philosophy of the animal
mind was the last course I took,and all of that comes into how
(03:56):
I work with my clients, how Idesign processes and how I
approach data.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
I think it's interesting.
It's funny how cognitivescience kind of has an overlap.
I don't know, amy, you may notremember this, but one of our
very first episodes, early earlyon, we had Brandy Sanders on
and she said she she mentionedsomething like I probably won't
get it exactly right, but it wassomething like if you're in
marketing ops or rev ops, right,you should really understand.
(04:24):
I don't think she saidcognitive science, but basically
that kind of like.
That kind of stuff like thatand chess right, because just
like being able to see threesteps ahead or four steps ahead.
Do you remember that, naomi?
Speaker 2 (04:42):
Like vaguely, yes, like I remember the conversation
, but not like the specificdetails like that.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
I just I remember.
I don't know why that one hasstuck with me ever since, like
now, four plus years later.
Right, it's crazy.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
That's incredible yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
But, yeah, I ended up in um.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
I I always liked psycholinguistics.
From when I studied, I neverthought my psychology degree
would apply so much to dataoperations and to marketing
operations.
But it really does, and becauseit is all just based on our own
psychology, it's trying to takewhat's really happening, reduce
it to numbers that are stilluseful to us and reflect a
(05:23):
reality.
I ended up actually watching adocumentary during the pandemic
on how we process information.
I realized everyone they wereinterviewing had studied
cognitive science.
I went on linkedin.
I looked them all up I sent aconnection request, and then I
started uh studying it here Ilove it.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
Yeah, I mean, I think I think to me the part that
really connected the dots for mewas like, yeah, like human
psychology and we.
One of the unique things Ithink which I enjoy about ops is
the you know, the interactionwe have with so many different
types of people and so manydifferent types of roles who
have different kinds of thingsthat they care about, different
motivations, different umdifferent of things that they
(06:05):
care about, differentmotivations, different um
different, different things thatthey're incented by.
So like understanding all thatis actually really really
valuable if you kind of thinkabout it that way.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
Mm-hmm, I think the thing working in operations for
basically my entire career thething that I always find is, you
know, the challenges and theissues that the different teams
have tend to have underlyingsimilarities, right?
Oftentimes they're trying tofind ways to automate certain
(06:36):
processes, they're trying tofind ways to streamline certain
initiatives that they have,they're trying to find ways to
utilize the tools that theorganization has in their
wheelhouse to do their jobbetter with fewer resources.
And I think a lot of times inops marketing ops it's highly
(06:59):
creative because of the problemsolving aspect of it.
There's many different ways toget to the same end goal, but
what is the best way?
And it's always kind of thatchallenge, because I find that
if you come up with a solutionand you implement it, it's very
rare that you will then changeit to something else.
(07:22):
Like once it gets implemented,then it's kind of there and it's
like you know, five years lateryou have okay.
Why do we do it this way?
Oh, because we implement.
You know, it's like so it'salmost like you have to get
right, like you have to get itright.
You know, and it's it's it'sbecause otherwise that kind of
stuff just like stays aroundforever.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
We need more creative destruction, right destruction
happening on all this stuff.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
Yeah well, there's something to be said for that,
which is it can reflect a stateat a point.
But what's the essence of whatwe do?
It's reflecting what actuallyhappens with people and trying
to approximate it with processes.
Of course, five years later, Ican assure you your team's not
doing the same thing they weredoing five years ago, or at
least I hope not.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
So I think it unfortunately happens more often
than we want to believe it does, cause I've seen that.
Yeah, like I was working at aplace where the poor procurement
person.
When I walked through cause Iwas trying to go, I was in the
middle of that in my role fromthe marketing context and I was
like every time it was like thisreally convoluted, complex
(08:28):
process to do it and updatingthis one document and updating
this other place and submittingsomething in the system, and I
was like why?
And it was just kind of like,just because that's the way we
had been doing it right and noone had ever.
I was like, oh my god, like Ifeel so sorry for you because
you've got all this extra workthat is not really adding value
but is killing time.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
All right, I want someone that does those AI
meeting note takers to sound analarm every time someone says
that's the way we've always doneit.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
Like yeah, that would be.
I actually like that idea.
Yeah, right, yeah, I hope anydeveloper listening.
Speaker 3 (09:04):
I actually like that idea.
I mean, yeah, right, that wouldyeah, I hope any developer
listening if you.
If you hear that, uh, get intouch.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
Definitely it would be an interesting one to to flag
that, um, okay.
Well, this that's.
It's a really interestingconnection point, um, to go
through that and why you movedthere to your and I I'm not
going to pronounce like you do,I'm going to pronounce it like
the gringo.
I am Uruguay, okay.
So when we talked about thisbefore, this whole idea of I
(09:33):
think you've now called it theugly work we talked about it
before as the boring parts ofoperations being important.
Talk to us about what you meantby that and and why you think
it's so important.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
If I come to a client and I start saying things like
lead scoring, automation,workflows, dashboards, everyone
gets super, super excited.
These are the big, big, shinygoals that everyone wants, and
it's not built by adding morethings.
(10:09):
It's built by taking the datayou already have or collecting
better data and then using it.
So no one will get excited if Icome in saying field audits,
permission sets, processdocumentation.
Everyone kind of just you know,their eyes glaze over and
they're like wait a minute, Idon't want to do that.
(10:30):
But sometimes even the best wayto show the quality of a data is
build that ideal.
You know, quote, quote, reportand show them.
If we're reporting on the datain the state that it's in right
now, this is the kind of resultwe get and this doesn't reflect
reality.
So sometimes it's a backwardsapproach where you can build
(10:53):
something on bad data and theneven use that as a way to
demonstrate.
This is why we need to clean itup.
So part of this is thepsychology of communicating to
someone that, like, these big,shiny goals are based on a lot
of hard and sometimes quote uglywork.
(11:13):
But that's how we get thebeautiful processes.
That's how we get the beautifulresults of it.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
Do you see, you said that the data doesn't reflect
reality.
Like what?
Because I initially forlisteners, like I was like sort
of had a look on my face,probably.
But what do you mean by itdoesn't reflect reality?
Because in some ways, I wouldargue, it actually does reflect
the reality of the processes andsystems that are in place.
Speaker 3 (11:43):
Well, let's take the example of reporting right.
Say you want to build a fairlysimple report on lead sources
right Now.
That gets us into the questionof attribution.
How do we define attribution?
I know we could go down thatrabbit hole for as long as we
(12:04):
wanted to, but let's take a sidejourney.
Um, let's say we're trying toreport on a field called lead
source.
But let's say the whole teamhas permissions to create fields
and everyone has realizedthere's a need for a lead source
field.
So suddenly you realize there'slead source, lead source, new
lead source, test, lead sourceV1, lead source final.
(12:27):
And imagine now that they aremy nightmare of single line text
fields.
How do you consolidate thatinto this simple or shiny or
beautiful lead source report?
So that's what I mean when Isay that these little details,
like having unified fields thateveryone knows how to find or
(12:48):
use, and having permission setsthat are guardrails and not
handcuffs when it comes tothings like this, make those
processes easier and makeeverything flow better
downstream.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
Makes sense.
So everything we've talkedabout so far you mentioned, I
would say, put under thecategory of data.
Are there other domains,documentation, and nobody gets
excited for?
Speaker 3 (13:27):
the process documentation meetings.
Actually, one thing I see a lotis people being afraid to admit
how their processes are, and wetouched on this earlier.
I assure you nobody's processesare perfect and they're never
going to be perfect, and this issomething you will constantly
have to look at.
So when you go in, when I gointo a process documentation
(13:52):
meeting, I'm not looking for theideal state.
I'm looking for what's actuallyworking, because something is
happening.
We need to at least track that.
That's how we can get data thatreflects what's.
You know what the reality ofthe situation is, and then we
can improve it from there.
But we have to look at what'sactually happening first.
The other hand of this iswhere's the documentation?
(14:14):
Who manages the documentation?
So this gets into the categoryof delegation responsibilities,
management audits, which are notwords that spark joy in a lot
of people.
So it's necessary.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
My accounting friends probably get excited about
those words.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
I'd like to meet these people.
Yeah, when you can show someonethe value, it really drives it
home, and that's where you canget someone's attention.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
So, Naomi, I know you do, I think you still do like
quarterly business reviews withstakeholders that you support,
Like, do you like?
Are you?
How?
How are you getting?
Are you getting into that kindof conversation about all these
things that are sort of like thehidden activities that need to
happen, but are that areimportant, that for the visible
ones?
Speaker 2 (15:12):
I mean, that's almost what I think about it um, I
find that those types ofconversations are better in
written form because, really, Ithink that when you start
talking about like hidden, likethings that were being mentioned
, like you know, process docs,and like integrations and field
(15:32):
changes and all of like it, eyesglaze over, people start paying
attention.
This is not something that theylike.
These are just words.
It doesn't actually, you know.
So I find that those types ofupdates are better suited for,
like when you talk about likewhat does this actually mean for
the person?
Right?
(15:52):
So if there's like a fieldchange or like an update to
certain like integrations orwhatnot, like how does that
actually impact them?
Like, what's the end and resultof that?
The end result of that is nowit's easier to see if somebody
has left the company, right?
it's easier to see if, um, anemail has bounced things like
that, right, but those types ofthings I find are better
(16:15):
communicated, in my opinion, inbritain form via.
You know, either via like alike a monthly like recap, or
maybe it's posted somewhere onsome kind of internal like a
confluence, or it's like sharedon an internal shared space, on
show pad or whatever it might be.
Sure, right, um, just fordocumentation purposes and like
(16:38):
what has been communicated outto people.
Um, but it just depends on youraudience, right?
Instead of if it's for yourbusiness partners.
Instead of saying like we madethis field change, I moved it on
the page layout to here it'snow you can more easily see that
this person has left thecompany.
Um on this date like that.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
It's really interesting because, um, I'm
fascinated, because this isprobably my own tendency, like,
I prefer conversations aboutstuff like this because I find
that it's hard to so many thingscan be misinterpreted with
written, especially if I'm not,like I don't consider myself a
great writer.
(17:17):
I think I've gotten better overthe years and tools have helped
for that, but I feel like thenuance gets to be less.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
But if you're trying to communicate it to like, sorry
to interrupt, but if you'retrying to communicate it to like
, sorry to interrupt, but if youare trying to communicate it to
, like, a wider audience, youcan't have that conversation
with, like, like, there's a lotof people that are just not
gonna, they're gonna completelymiss it.
You know, and I want to makesure that it's written down,
just so that I'm also like, didI remember to say this?
You know, did they watch therecording?
Did they?
You know x, know X, y, z, andit can also, if it's on a
(17:46):
meeting, you can also, like, youcan write it down on a slide,
you don't?
Speaker 3 (17:49):
have to read it all, but then also like reiterate it,
there's actually a whole.
One of my focuses with myextracurricular studies is
psycholinguistics and I highlyrecommend, if you haven't
listened to anything from him orread anything from him, there
is a person named steven pinkerwho focuses in psycholinguistics
(18:12):
and I recognize the name, thedynamics of communication and
the way we receive an interview.
It's just mind-blowing.
But he's got a great sense ofhumor so it's easy to digest oh
good, like that, don't takehimself too seriously.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
Yeah, it's really interesting.
I just because I I wasn'texpecting it.
So this is.
This is why I love talking tonaomi and others, because, like,
I get another perspective andit challenges how I might think
about it, my my default mode.
So, um, okay, so this is.
This is kind of interestingbecause there's all this hidden
stuff, or boring stuff, or uglywork, whatever term we're going
(18:51):
to use.
So you listed a couple ofthings, nicole, like what are,
what are some other, some of theother, like major categories of
things that you think fall intothat, into that bucket workflow
audits for sure.
Speaker 3 (19:10):
Like we mentioned before, if you build a workflow
and you leave it alone for fiveyears and someone builds maybe 3
, 5, 10, 15, 20 workflows on topof it and then suddenly you
wonder why fields aren't doingwhat you would expect them to do
, check the workflows.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
Marketo seems to be ripe for that kind of stuff,
where there's all theseworkflows that are interacting
with data and doing things thatlike if people set them up or go
on and like you start gettingsort of butterfly effect stuff
that happens when you put newstuff in.
Right Did this one thing andnow we're like but something
crazy is happening.
(19:48):
Well, you gotta go yeah, diginto and to me it's like
plumbing.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
You know, if when your plumbing's working fine,
you don't notice it and that isthe sign of a good workflow, um,
but when something happens withyour plumbing, I can assure you
you will notice immediately andit will not be a pleasant
experience, but much like goingthrough your workflows early and
doing audits, maybe quarterly,let's be honest.
(20:16):
I mean, not every team can dothat.
It's ideal but it's not alwayspractical.
If you can do it even once ayear, just set a goal, that's
realistic.
Do it even once a year, justset a goal, that's realistic.
But if you can at least look atwhat you have and revise it and
say, okay, I understand whatthese are, I understand what
they're doing, it is way betterthan dealing with something way
(20:39):
down the line.
That is much less appealing.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
Yeah, definitely Any other major categories we want
to talk about here?
Speaker 3 (20:54):
um, one use case I see a lot more is forecasting.
Um, everybody, I meanforecasting is such an easy sell
.
I mean everybody wants to seewhat's going to happen.
That black box of uncertainty,of this fantasy of what does my
future look like?
How many marketing qualifiedleads can I expect?
(21:16):
I mean it would be great.
But again, that's all based ondata.
Yeah, so it's not like you canjust tack things on to a system
that has its own faults.
You have to look at it, youhave to audit the actions you
know you have to really thinkabout.
(21:36):
You have to.
When I, for example, do a leadscoring project, the first thing
I look at is closed one deals,which kind of gets us out of
marketing, but it does have todo with it.
So you think what actions dothese people take?
How are you measuring them?
Are you measuring them?
And then even going into namingconventions?
(21:58):
Because if you, for example, saythat I don't know, there are so
many different lead scoringmethods, right, you could rank
them on grades, you can rankthem on percentages, you can
rank them with emojis, you canrank them with wording
conventions that are easilyreadable by humans.
But does it make sense?
(22:19):
Does it work and I assure youthere are workflows, fields,
permission sets and a lot ofdocumentation behind that and
it's like good, it's, it's goodembroidery, right?
You see the beautiful pictureon one side and you flip it over
and you go, oh my gosh, maybeI'm also just a terrible
embroiderer, but I mean, that'swhat my embroidery looks like,
(22:39):
at least yeah, no, that visualis great.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
I know exactly what you mean, right?
That's so funny, nami.
You look like you were about tosay something.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
No, I'm just.
I'm chuckling because I relateto that embroidery.
Speaker 3 (22:58):
It's so true, it looks great on the front and you
turn it over and you're like,oh, that's a hot mess, but you
said something really I mean,both of you had really
interesting points before tooabout this is great.
I mean, we understand this aspeople that work in this every
day.
But how do you explain this tosomething like a client who may
be focused on those beautifulthings and might be, quite
(23:20):
frankly, repulsed by all thework that has to go into it?
So that's when those nuanceslike do they prefer an email,
(23:43):
you know?
Do they prefer a call?
That's where that comes in.
I have two clients right nowthat are at startup level
intensity.
I actually don't know if theyeven sleep down for even a half
hour meeting to go throughreports.
They will be like why am I here?
So that's a great case for anemail and they understand it and
they have the need tounderstand it.
And then I have some clientswho really value that FaceTime
(24:11):
dashboard.
I might know that they needthat kind of question and answer
session or that they may giveme another suggestion or say,
hey, you know this report looksgood, but can we add some more
detail or can we add some morenuance?
So it really does depend, andthat's that communication aspect
of, how do you make these uglybits not only appealing but, you
(24:32):
know, desirable?
You know, how do you, how doyou wrap these in this pretty
package and say this is leadscoring, this is forecasting,
this is that workflow, this is,you know, lead rooting.
All these magical things youwant, this is it.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
So I think something with like the reports and
dashboard piece too is I'veactually for a long time now,
when I create dashboards inSalesforce and you add your
widgets right and instead of, Ithink, by default like the title
of each tile defaults to thereport title and then you can
(25:12):
end up with a dashboard thatyou're sending to people.
That can not make a ton ofsense because it's something
like you know why, year overyear, you know like web lead
bubble.
It's just like you just have awhole bunch of acronyms and
people are looking at it andyou're just like what does it
actually mean?
You have to really sit down andlike have a ton of mental
energy to like see andunderstand what you're looking
(25:35):
at Right.
So I found just even like areally simple I don't want to
call it a hack, but just like areally simple change was
retitling all of those tiles andthose widgets to how many leads
that I generate this quarter,how many leads are currently
open.
You know what stage areopportunities created last month
(26:00):
at.
Everything's a question, right,and so when I find that people
yeah, so every single piece, orevery single report too, that I
send to people is.
I always title it as a questionso that they know what they're
looking at is the answer to thatquestion, and that makes sense.
Speaker 3 (26:17):
That's brilliant and honestly so.
So naming conventions isanother thing that I would
consider one of the ugly parts.
But that's it.
It's human Like the.
You know right away what you'relooking at.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
right, and it stopped me getting questions about can
we jump on a call so you canexplain what this report is?
But they know what it is.
It's XM report.
It says you know like, how manyleads does X sales rep still
have from last month?
Right, like it's every singlereport that I create now, every
single dashboard I create,always is titled with a question
(26:50):
.
Speaker 3 (26:51):
That's really fascinating to me but honestly,
that's brilliant because it'swhat is the question?
And then you have the answer.
Here's the answer Yep, oh, I'mso using that.
I'm so using that.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
No more like QOQ.
Why?
Why year over year, you know,like previous fiscal year, like
it, just no.
Speaker 1 (27:10):
So get over the whole idea of trying to be super
concise about those titles.
Right Be descriptive.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
Yeah, yeah, cause even sometimes I look at it, I'm
like what am I looking at?
Oh yeah, right so.
Speaker 3 (27:22):
Yeah, I've worked with a lot of cases where there
is an entire dictionary that myclients have put together to
just educate people on thejargon they use, which sometimes
, let's be real, that'snecessary Depending on the
industry.
You know, you can't be sayingfive words when it could be an
acronym, but there are thingslike those reports where it's
(27:43):
like it has to be understandable.
What's the basic essence of areport?
We're asking a question andthere's your answer.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
Exactly Love that and it's so much, especially with
people who are just like tryingto understand, like you're
looking at reports all day long.
And I have seen a few othersinternally who have kind of
copied my method, which is great.
I love it right.
I love that because it just itshows that it works right and it
(28:17):
just keeps things much clearer.
Speaker 1 (28:20):
That's a really interesting, without confusion.
I love that.
I love that hack.
It goes back to humanpsychology, right, okay, so
we've got all these things.
So my experience is I thinkprobably everyone, or the
majority of people listening tothis or watching this, will go
like yeah, we all know this isreally important to get the
plumbing right.
(28:40):
Right, get the data right, getthe plumbing right.
But we are stretched so thinbecause of all the more highly
visible stuff.
Right, getting a campaign outthe door, getting an email
generated, get a line to pay,like all these things.
Getting a dashboard, even right, I think that falls in that
category.
What advice do you have?
(29:03):
I'm actually going to ask bothof you, because I think you're
going to have two differentperspectives One from a kind of
more of a consulting side, onefrom in-house, like what?
What have you done that hashelped to create some time and
space for your you know, for youto you or your teams, to be
able to focus on some of that,you know, background work?
(29:25):
Nicole?
Speaker 3 (29:29):
So for me and this may be a controversial opinion
what I have found works in 90%of my cases and again, this
might be a controversial opinionmy background we're visual
creatures.
We want to see something.
Most of our brain is devoted tovisual processing.
(29:50):
I'll build a bad report.
So if they want to see a leadsquaring model and it's a hard
sell Bad meaning like, I'llbuild it with the data we have.
Speaker 1 (30:02):
Okay, so exposing the bad data?
Speaker 3 (30:05):
Exactly, exactly, exactly.
So I'll build it as it shouldbe.
It's something you can look atand see, wow, this doesn't
reflect the reality at all.
And then I can go in, I cantake that curiosity, that
question from whoever I'mworking with and then say, okay,
so this is how I build it and Itake kind of an education
(30:28):
stance because they should knowthis.
My ideal is in a dream world.
As someone who primarily worksas a consultant, I would love
for every single one of myclients to know what I know in a
few years, and my ideal worldis I would be without a job
because they would know as muchas I do.
(30:49):
So I want them to see you know.
If we build a report with thedata we have, this is what it
looks like.
Are these reflecting thereality of your situation?
No, this is how we fix it.
And then we get that aha momentLike that's it, that's what
works, and then they understandthat value.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
Yeah, I mean I I'm an advocate for like don't wait on
reporting until your data isright.
Cause it will never be that way.
So like, start, start thereporting to expose it so you
can then go incrementally cleanit up and fix it.
So totally love that.
How about you, naomi, I curious, like what you've done over the
years to years to be able toget some time and space for your
team to do some of that kind ofstuff.
Speaker 2 (31:37):
I think it's a challenge.
I think a lot of teams arestretched very thin
resource-wise.
You're always trying to do morewith less.
To be honest, I'm stillstruggling with that.
Speaker 3 (31:56):
Yeah it very much depends on the person you're
working with too.
There are some people that arevery open.
I mean, you know, some of mymore technically focused clients
can honestly get overwhelmedknowing the work that goes into
it, and you would think that thepeople who work more heavily
with this and have moreunderstanding might understand
(32:16):
the value more at first.
But ironically enough, some ofmy clients who have never even
touched a CRM before are some ofthe most open-minded and
curious.
But there's such a spectrum ofpeople to work with.
I mean, understanding how towork with people is
understanding how to work withdata.
It's just one form of using itto reflect what's happening, be
(32:42):
honest with yourself and thenimprove, which I think everyone
wants to do in basically everyaspect of their life I think I
remember having a conversationlike and I've always sorry,
michael- no, go ahead
Speaker 2 (32:56):
I was just saying.
It's like I think somethingthat I have I've struggled with
is you know, like you aregenerating reports because
you're either asked for them oryou're proactively doing them
because you know that.
You know some of these reportsare needed for the business.
But then what do people do withthem?
Right?
So yes, whenever I guess I getasked for reporting like it's
(33:19):
very rare that I will just hereyou go, because I find the last
thing I want them to do isreceive the report and then they
look at it like that's nice andthen file it away into a folder
called reports from Naomi orsomething.
I think something that I realizeis oftentimes, when people are
asking for reports, it's notactually the report that they're
(33:40):
looking for, but they'reactually looking for is like,
what am I supposed to do now?
Right?
So if and I think it's justunderstanding like where the ask
is coming from, who's asking it, and you know, if it's somebody
who is not necessarily, um,someone who, like, likes looking
very granularly at data,oftentimes they just want to
(34:02):
know what happened and what canwe?
do.
Did it work or not?
Should we never do this again?
Should we do more of it?
Should we put more money intoit?
Where are the gaps?
Tell me what to do.
Speaker 3 (34:15):
It goes back to the essence of why we're doing any
of this in the first place.
There's a question, there's adesire that they have, and this
is one way of answering it.
Speaker 1 (34:25):
Yeah, I mean I I probably push back every time
someone comes to me and says weneed a dashboard for blah right
Whatever that blank is.
Speaker 2 (34:34):
What are you going?
Speaker 1 (34:34):
to do with that dashboard?
Speaker 2 (34:35):
Well, and I'm going to do anything.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
The level of effort to create a dashboard.
I mean in the general sense,not just like Salesforce.
Right is, essentially, you'reconsolidate, you're putting all
a bunch of different reportsinto one that have some sort of
connection.
And my argument would be if wedon't have anything today, let's
not start with the idea, like,let's not go with the goal to
build a dashboard, let's go tobuild the first report.
Build the first report, getthat nailed down, then we can
(35:05):
move to the second one andeventually, over time, we might
have a dashboard that weactually can use for an
appropriate audience.
But if you go into it like wehave to have this dashboard and
(35:26):
we already know what thesethings are like.
I think, first off, you probablynever finish and, second, if
you do, you're probably going tobe wrong as much as you're
going to be wrong Absolutely.
I truly believe that.
So I was going to go kind ofgetting back into this like, how
do you convince leadership togive you the ability to spend
time on this?
I actually worked with amanager of mine at one point who
I was trying to do like hey,like our data is kind of messy.
We need to.
(35:46):
My team needs to be able toallocate some time to try to
address that, whether it's, youknow, mass updates or go find,
like what's causing it from aprocess or system standpoint,
and address that over time.
I said I know this is not sexystuff, like that's the words I
used and I mean I was kind oflike expecting to get pushback
and what I actually got wasshe's like, she's like actually,
(36:07):
yeah, that's very sexy.
Like we need, like we she.
So she recognized it.
So I think, if you're fortunateenough to have somebody who
gets the value of it even if Iwould say that that person
probably didn't really wouldn'tunderstand all the details about
behind what it was, andsomebody who trusted me, which
is helpful, but I was like I hadto, like that was somebody who
(36:30):
would get have my back.
Let's go do that Right, andit's going to be useful.
They saw the vision to me.
I keep coming back to a lot ofthese things, as we've talked
throughout the earlier part ofthis conversation.
The human psychology part of itdefinitely is.
I think, something is important, right, understanding your
audience.
But I think there's also thiselement of storytelling and,
(36:52):
nicole, you might have this like.
The one thing that I alwaysthink about is humans are wired
for stories, right, and so Ialways find my thing about like,
how do for stories right, andso I always find myself thinking
how do I tell the story to thisperson or this group of people,
whether it's written or verbalor whatever?
Is that a part of it too?
(37:14):
Connecting the dots, like thestory is like.
We need to invest this time andeffort in this boring ugly,
whatever activity, because theoutcome is going to be this.
That's going to be a benefitfor all of us, right?
Speaker 3 (37:28):
Yes, actually, fascinatingly enough, this is
one of the things that currentlywe think is, as far as we can
tell, unique to humans theability to tell stories, the
ability to take these abstractsymbols and connect them, to
extract meaning out of them.
And it applies everywhere inlife.
And listen, if I'm going to bestaring at data for eight hours
(37:50):
a day, I better have somemeaning I can get out of it.
So I've developed this likeZen-like relationship with data
and sometimes explaining it tostakeholders that don't have
time to sit down and drink waterfor 15 minutes out of their day
.
So how do you tell a story?
How do you communicate?
This is going to be an eighthour project.
(38:11):
You may have thought it wouldbe 15 minutes.
Here's why, and here's why thisis actually a good thing, right
?
So that skill is so essentialand I very much thank my
background as a, as a copywriterand when I was younger, and
even today sometimes I stillwrite fiction and I think that's
been one of the most valuablethings to every part of my
(38:33):
career, even the day, especiallythe data part.
Speaker 1 (38:37):
Interesting, yeah, changing course a little bit
like.
Another thing you and I touchedon when we first talked was and
I think this ties back to dataand process and everything else
is like I'm going to put it acouple of different ways, I
guess being an advocate forcustomers and understanding the
(38:58):
buying journey.
How does that tie into like allthis as well?
Right, I mean, is it?
Is it, um, somehow like reallytied to it?
Is it a different topic?
Like, how does it?
How do you find that relates towhat we do as operations folks
and the data stuff?
Speaker 3 (39:17):
Oh, absolutely, oh my gosh, if everything so, to
start off, every single thing istied to the buyer's journey, I
would, if I could, have one wish, and I'm not even asking the
genie for three wishes, I'm justgoing with one.
I want every CEO of everycompany to go through the exact
process that their client goesthrough, just to see what it's
actually like.
(39:38):
Goes through just to see whatit's actually like.
Everything we base everythingoff of starts there, and that's
again touching on thatstorytelling aspect.
What is actually happening?
What are they going through?
What's that process like tothem?
If you lose sight of your owncustomers, everything is going
to fall apart.
You could look at the best datain the world.
(39:59):
It really could reflect what'shappening and you could still be
scratching your head if youlose sight of what a person
actually does when they'reinteracting with your company.
Speaker 1 (40:12):
Definitely it's interesting to me.
I don't know what you all do,but because of the space I've
been in now for a couple ofdecades I guess marketing and
data and all that I tend to like.
I know a lot of people getannoyed like unsubscribe on a
regular basis, but I'm justgoing to unsubscribe from all
these things that I don't reallycare about anymore.
I almost never unsubscribe fromanything and part of that is
(40:33):
because I'm trying to at leastloosely observe how they're
operating.
What do they do, and I'm alwayssurprised and this happens, I
think, more on personal stuff,right.
So retailers, where I have hadno real interaction with them
for years, and I continue to getdaily, weekly emails and I
(40:56):
often wonder, like, how much isthat costing them in terms of
actual cost?
Right, database size, becausethey've got a bunch of people
like me who are not reallyinterested new life stage or
whatever and like it's like tome, it's like plus, it's also
just like, are they even movingthe needle?
Right?
And some of them are justnaturally like tied to, like
(41:19):
life sky, like life stage, right?
My kids were younger so I waslike paid attention to things
that were more for each of themand it's no longer relevant
because they're older, but someof them are just like I bought
one thing one time, rightResearch one thing one time and
then never done anything else,and it's just like I don't know
why they continue to do that.
B2b is not immune from that,but it's like the same thing
(41:42):
applies, right.
Speaker 3 (41:44):
I would even argue that you'd be a valuable.
In my opinion which again mightbe controversial I would even
argue that that's a value in itsown.
You're interested.
I mean, you may not need this,but they're top of mind, you're
following their story.
They're providing somethingthat attracts you.
You may not be looking for thesame stuff you were looking for
five years ago, but you'refollowing the story of the
(42:07):
company.
They're present in your mindand, let's be real, we all know
how much a word of mouthrecommendation is worth.
Speaker 1 (42:13):
So yeah, I mean, I mean they're not really top of
mind.
I mean I think I'm an outliercase because, like I think many
other people would have startedjust automatically deleting or
unsubscribing, like I'm justlike sending you the slow
breakup emails.
Yeah, I mean I've.
I mean this is a good examplealso of like, tell me if this
(42:36):
rings true, naomi, like you getinto the conversation when it
comes to, hey, we've got torenew with Marketo or HubSpot or
whoever right, and you know oneof the drivers is going to be
database size, right, hey, we,you know our database is so big.
If we, you know that means thecost is going to be, you know, x
times whatever percent that wecurrently pay.
So how can we clean up ourdatabase In?
(42:59):
I find out.
Find is that we make a casewhere, like these people who
haven't interacted in, pick thetime frame 18 months, 24 months,
36 months right, let's just.
We can do one of two things.
We can just say they're justnot interested.
We're going to just delete themor move them into a space like,
uh, what, we're going to try todo one last crazy attempt to
(43:20):
try to get them re-engage and ifthey don't, then we'll do it
like, but at the end of the dayyou're dropping and it typically
, even if you do the second casewhere you try to re-engage them
, most people won't.
So then people get freaked out.
They're like, oh, we're goingto lose 20 of our database like
but you're not really.
Speaker 3 (43:40):
But what's the value?
We may be scared by that 20%,but what's the actual value?
We're going back to thatessential question Is it worth
the?
Speaker 1 (43:50):
cost.
Was it worth the cost to keepthose records in your database
versus losing them.
I mean if they come and getre-engaged, naturally great.
I'm not saying never, just, butit's often like the volume,
like this desire to see a largenumber of in our day.
Our database has X number ofpeople Like I.
(44:13):
Don't get the fascination withit.
Speaker 2 (44:18):
I think it's one of those things where it's like if
you tell someone they can't havesomething, they then want it.
Speaker 1 (44:26):
Yeah, it's like, it's like, it's like hoarders, right
, right.
Speaker 2 (44:32):
In the off chance that that one person is going to
open that email and then buyour product.
Speaker 3 (44:39):
Yes, well, this is another thing.
Going back to just the way thehuman brain works, we are
extremely risk adverse.
So if you frame it like that,like oh my gosh, out of that 20%
of people, we could have foundone actual client, instead of
saying, hey, if we focus ourefforts on this 80%, we could
(45:01):
put so much more effort intoactually getting this to convert
to a good sale or a marketingqualified lead or whatever.
Your why, whatever your desireactually is.
Speaker 1 (45:11):
I think a lot of this is like a misunderstanding of
how buying actually happensnowadays, especially in the B2B
space, right?
So much of that researchhappens outside of anything that
we have visibility into, and soit's like you know, why are we
doing nurture again?
Speaker 3 (45:30):
Yeah, and those are the and I mean that's again.
I come from four years rightnow of client managing.
I've been in-house, I've beendoing consulting roles, I've
worked with startups, I'veworked with enterprise level
companies in just about everyindustry under the sun.
But that is the one unifyingthing, is the why.
(45:51):
What, ultimately, are we tryingto get at here?
And it's so easy, given howmany details are involved in
these operations, in this data,in all your technology, you can
easily look into that and neverlook up again.
But if you keep asking yourself, why are we doing this, what do
we actually want to get?
And if you go back to thoseoriginal kind of essential
(46:14):
questions, everything else flows, even the ugly bits of your
data.
Speaker 1 (46:18):
Yeah, all right, well .
Well, this has been a funconversation.
It's like we've covered allkinds of random stuff and still
got through everything we wantedto, I think.
But, um, one last thing, nicole.
Is there anything that wedidn't cover?
You want to make sure ourlisteners heard?
It's okay to say no too no, Ithink that's it.
Speaker 3 (46:40):
The beauty is in the ugliness.
The final results are in allthis hard work that goes to it.
It may seem subtle, but whenyou can look at something like a
good forecast, a good dashboard, a workflow that works well or
something that's actually doingwhat you wanted, that's it.
And when you see all the workthat went into it, that's your
own prize, love it anddefinitely's it.
Yeah, and when you see all thework that went into it, that's
(47:00):
your own prize, love it anddefinitely celebrate it.
Speaker 1 (47:05):
For some reason in my head, I'm coming.
I think it was Da Vinci whosaid, like when they asked like
how do you get you know, how doyou carve these amazing figures?
He's like it's already there.
My job is just to remove theright pieces, right?
I don't know why that popped up.
Speaker 3 (47:20):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (47:22):
Um, and I may misattribute that, but there's a
like an old famous sculptor whodid the A wave.
So but if people do want tohave like how to continue this
conversation with you or learnmore about what you're doing,
what's the best way for them todo that, nicole?
Speaker 3 (47:44):
LinkedIn, always LinkedIn.
Which?
Speaker 1 (47:45):
I am on all the time.
Fantastic Well, Nicole, thankyou, it was great, Enjoyed the
conversation.
Naomi, as always, good to seeyou and thank you to our
longtime and new listeners andsupporters.
We are always grateful for that.
If you have suggestions fortopics or guests or want to be a
guest, as always, reach out toNaomi, Mike RZA or me and we
(48:06):
would be happy to engage withyou on that Until next time.
Bye everybody, Thank you, Thankyou.
Hello everyone, Welcome to another episode of
OpsCast brought to you byMarketingOpscom, powered by all
the MoPros out there.
I am your host, Michael Hartman, joined today by my co host,
Naomi Liu.
How's spring up there inVancouver?
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Great, we've been having a stretch of sunny
weather, so I can't complain.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Rub it in, while I've got thunderstorms going through
here, such as North Texas thistime of year, although we had a
beautiful weekend, so I can'treally complain, other than all
the pollen.
That's covering everything,anyway.
So let's get started.
Joining us today is NicoleAlvarez and she's going to talk
to us about all the ugly workthat goes on in behind the
(00:42):
scenes for beautiful CRMmarketing data.
So Nicole is a solutionsarchitect with ClearPivot.
She is a solutions architectwith seven years of experience
with clients across multipleindustries.
She was born in New Jersey andhas since lived in three
different countries, which we'llget into a little bit.
When she's not working, she islikely neck deep in an online
(01:02):
course we also talked about thatprobably Trying to create
hybrid plants.
This site we haven't talkedabout, so I'm curious now, or
contemplating how to how muchrotisserie chicken it takes to
train her cat, or is taken totrain her cat.
So, nicole, thanks for joiningus today.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
It is a pleasure, it is absolutely a pleasure, thank
you.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
Yeah.
So let's uh, let's get intothis a little bit before we
really get into the meat of thetopic.
Yeah, it's always interesting.
I think maybe your audiencedoesn't care about it, but I
like it, so we're going to do itanyway.
But I like to know a littlemore about people's.
You know their story and theircareer journey, and so, yeah,
(01:44):
you mentioned that you've livedin three countries.
I know you're in Uruguay now.
Hopefully I'm not butcheringthe pronunciation but, yeah, if
you could share a little moreabout your career journey, how
you ended up where you are, andmaybe a little bit like how you
ended up in all these differentcountries, and Uruguay being the
latest.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Absolutely so.
Part of it is my obsession withalways learning something new,
which you have, I mean, when youwork in operations.
It's part of it, so it's kindof what led me here.
I also always loved to travel,and there is a necessity to
travel while working if you doit long term.
(02:23):
So I started working remote,actually in 2015.
So the landscape was completelydifferent and at that point it
was very limited to marketing,to programming, like any kind of
development work, and, quitefrankly, that was really it.
(02:45):
So I decided to try my hand atbeing a developer in 2015.
And I bricked both a phone anda computer and decided that
wasn't for me.
So I started as a contentwriter.
What happens with that?
Well, you have to knowmarketing to be a good content
writer.
And then I realized, when I gotinto marketing, okay, it doesn't
(03:06):
matter if I'm getting the bestleads in the world, if sales
doesn't have a process forworking them, it doesn't matter
how good the leads are.
So then I got into marketingand sales operations, and then
there came the service part, andone day I woke up and realized
I'm working in RevOps now.
So marketing still has a veryfond place in my heart and that
(03:32):
affects a lot of what I keepstudying too.
So, for example, here inUruguay, I am studying cognitive
science, which, oh my gosh,it's programming, it is
psychology, it's philosophy Eventhe philosophy of the animal
mind was the last course I took,and all of that comes into how
(03:56):
I work with my clients, how Idesign processes and how I
approach data.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
I think it's interesting.
It's funny how cognitivescience kind of has an overlap.
I don't know, amy, you may notremember this, but one of our
very first episodes, early earlyon, we had Brandy Sanders on
and she said she she mentionedsomething like I probably won't
get it exactly right, but it wassomething like if you're in
marketing ops or rev ops, right,you should really understand.
(04:24):
I don't think she saidcognitive science, but basically
that kind of like.
That kind of stuff like thatand chess right, because just
like being able to see threesteps ahead or four steps ahead.
Do you remember that, naomi?
Speaker 2 (04:42):
Like vaguely, yes, like I remember the conversation
, but not like the specificdetails like that.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
I just I remember.
I don't know why that one hasstuck with me ever since, like
now, four plus years later.
Right, it's crazy.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
That's incredible yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
But, yeah, I ended up in um.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
I I always liked psycholinguistics.
From when I studied, I neverthought my psychology degree
would apply so much to dataoperations and to marketing
operations.
But it really does, and becauseit is all just based on our own
psychology, it's trying to takewhat's really happening, reduce
it to numbers that are stilluseful to us and reflect a
(05:23):
reality.
I ended up actually watching adocumentary during the pandemic
on how we process information.
I realized everyone they wereinterviewing had studied
cognitive science.
I went on linkedin.
I looked them all up I sent aconnection request, and then I
started uh studying it here Ilove it.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
Yeah, I mean, I think I think to me the part that
really connected the dots for mewas like, yeah, like human
psychology and we.
One of the unique things Ithink which I enjoy about ops is
the you know, the interactionwe have with so many different
types of people and so manydifferent types of roles who
have different kinds of thingsthat they care about, different
motivations, different umdifferent of things that they
(06:05):
care about, differentmotivations, different um
different, different things thatthey're incented by.
So like understanding all thatis actually really really
valuable if you kind of thinkabout it that way.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
Mm-hmm, I think the thing working in operations for
basically my entire career thething that I always find is, you
know, the challenges and theissues that the different teams
have tend to have underlyingsimilarities, right?
Oftentimes they're trying tofind ways to automate certain
(06:36):
processes, they're trying tofind ways to streamline certain
initiatives that they have,they're trying to find ways to
utilize the tools that theorganization has in their
wheelhouse to do their jobbetter with fewer resources.
And I think a lot of times inops marketing ops it's highly
(06:59):
creative because of the problemsolving aspect of it.
There's many different ways toget to the same end goal, but
what is the best way?
And it's always kind of thatchallenge, because I find that
if you come up with a solutionand you implement it, it's very
rare that you will then changeit to something else.
(07:22):
Like once it gets implemented,then it's kind of there and it's
like you know, five years lateryou have okay.
Why do we do it this way?
Oh, because we implement.
You know, it's like so it'salmost like you have to get
right, like you have to get itright.
You know, and it's it's it'sbecause otherwise that kind of
stuff just like stays aroundforever.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
We need more creative destruction, right destruction
happening on all this stuff.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
Yeah well, there's something to be said for that,
which is it can reflect a stateat a point.
But what's the essence of whatwe do?
It's reflecting what actuallyhappens with people and trying
to approximate it with processes.
Of course, five years later, Ican assure you your team's not
doing the same thing they weredoing five years ago, or at
least I hope not.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
So I think it unfortunately happens more often
than we want to believe it does, cause I've seen that.
Yeah, like I was working at aplace where the poor procurement
person.
When I walked through cause Iwas trying to go, I was in the
middle of that in my role fromthe marketing context and I was
like every time it was like thisreally convoluted, complex
(08:28):
process to do it and updatingthis one document and updating
this other place and submittingsomething in the system, and I
was like why?
And it was just kind of like,just because that's the way we
had been doing it right and noone had ever.
I was like, oh my god, like Ifeel so sorry for you because
you've got all this extra workthat is not really adding value
but is killing time.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
All right, I want someone that does those AI
meeting note takers to sound analarm every time someone says
that's the way we've always doneit.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
Like yeah, that would be.
I actually like that idea.
Yeah, right, yeah, I hope anydeveloper listening.
Speaker 3 (09:04):
I actually like that idea.
I mean, yeah, right, that wouldyeah, I hope any developer
listening if you.
If you hear that, uh, get intouch.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
Definitely it would be an interesting one to to flag
that, um, okay.
Well, this that's.
It's a really interestingconnection point, um, to go
through that and why you movedthere to your and I I'm not
going to pronounce like you do,I'm going to pronounce it like
the gringo.
I am Uruguay, okay.
So when we talked about thisbefore, this whole idea of I
(09:33):
think you've now called it theugly work we talked about it
before as the boring parts ofoperations being important.
Talk to us about what you meantby that and and why you think
it's so important.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
If I come to a client and I start saying things like
lead scoring, automation,workflows, dashboards, everyone
gets super, super excited.
These are the big, big, shinygoals that everyone wants, and
it's not built by adding morethings.
(10:09):
It's built by taking the datayou already have or collecting
better data and then using it.
So no one will get excited if Icome in saying field audits,
permission sets, processdocumentation.
Everyone kind of just you know,their eyes glaze over and
they're like wait a minute, Idon't want to do that.
(10:30):
But sometimes even the best wayto show the quality of a data is
build that ideal.
You know, quote, quote, reportand show them.
If we're reporting on the datain the state that it's in right
now, this is the kind of resultwe get and this doesn't reflect
reality.
So sometimes it's a backwardsapproach where you can build
(10:53):
something on bad data and theneven use that as a way to
demonstrate.
This is why we need to clean itup.
So part of this is thepsychology of communicating to
someone that, like, these big,shiny goals are based on a lot
of hard and sometimes quote uglywork.
(11:13):
But that's how we get thebeautiful processes.
That's how we get the beautifulresults of it.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
Do you see, you said that the data doesn't reflect
reality.
Like what?
Because I initially forlisteners, like I was like sort
of had a look on my face,probably.
But what do you mean by itdoesn't reflect reality?
Because in some ways, I wouldargue, it actually does reflect
the reality of the processes andsystems that are in place.
Speaker 3 (11:43):
Well, let's take the example of reporting right.
Say you want to build a fairlysimple report on lead sources
right Now.
That gets us into the questionof attribution.
How do we define attribution?
I know we could go down thatrabbit hole for as long as we
(12:04):
wanted to, but let's take a sidejourney.
Um, let's say we're trying toreport on a field called lead
source.
But let's say the whole teamhas permissions to create fields
and everyone has realizedthere's a need for a lead source
field.
So suddenly you realize there'slead source, lead source, new
lead source, test, lead sourceV1, lead source final.
(12:27):
And imagine now that they aremy nightmare of single line text
fields.
How do you consolidate thatinto this simple or shiny or
beautiful lead source report?
So that's what I mean when Isay that these little details,
like having unified fields thateveryone knows how to find or
(12:48):
use, and having permission setsthat are guardrails and not
handcuffs when it comes tothings like this, make those
processes easier and makeeverything flow better
downstream.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
Makes sense.
So everything we've talkedabout so far you mentioned, I
would say, put under thecategory of data.
Are there other domains,documentation, and nobody gets
excited for?
Speaker 3 (13:27):
the process documentation meetings.
Actually, one thing I see a lotis people being afraid to admit
how their processes are, and wetouched on this earlier.
I assure you nobody's processesare perfect and they're never
going to be perfect, and this issomething you will constantly
have to look at.
So when you go in, when I gointo a process documentation
(13:52):
meeting, I'm not looking for theideal state.
I'm looking for what's actuallyworking, because something is
happening.
We need to at least track that.
That's how we can get data thatreflects what's.
You know what the reality ofthe situation is, and then we
can improve it from there.
But we have to look at what'sactually happening first.
The other hand of this iswhere's the documentation?
(14:14):
Who manages the documentation?
So this gets into the categoryof delegation responsibilities,
management audits, which are notwords that spark joy in a lot
of people.
So it's necessary.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
My accounting friends probably get excited about
those words.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
I'd like to meet these people.
Yeah, when you can show someonethe value, it really drives it
home, and that's where you canget someone's attention.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
So, Naomi, I know you do, I think you still do like
quarterly business reviews withstakeholders that you support,
Like, do you like?
Are you?
How?
How are you getting?
Are you getting into that kindof conversation about all these
things that are sort of like thehidden activities that need to
happen, but are that areimportant, that for the visible
ones?
Speaker 2 (15:12):
I mean, that's almost what I think about it um, I
find that those types ofconversations are better in
written form because, really, Ithink that when you start
talking about like hidden, likethings that were being mentioned
, like you know, process docs,and like integrations and field
(15:32):
changes and all of like it, eyesglaze over, people start paying
attention.
This is not something that theylike.
These are just words.
It doesn't actually, you know.
So I find that those types ofupdates are better suited for,
like when you talk about likewhat does this actually mean for
the person?
Right?
(15:52):
So if there's like a fieldchange or like an update to
certain like integrations orwhatnot, like how does that
actually impact them?
Like, what's the end and resultof that?
The end result of that is nowit's easier to see if somebody
has left the company, right?
it's easier to see if, um, anemail has bounced things like
that, right, but those types ofthings I find are better
(16:15):
communicated, in my opinion, inbritain form via.
You know, either via like alike a monthly like recap, or
maybe it's posted somewhere onsome kind of internal like a
confluence, or it's like sharedon an internal shared space, on
show pad or whatever it might be.
Sure, right, um, just fordocumentation purposes and like
(16:38):
what has been communicated outto people.
Um, but it just depends on youraudience, right?
Instead of if it's for yourbusiness partners.
Instead of saying like we madethis field change, I moved it on
the page layout to here it'snow you can more easily see that
this person has left thecompany.
Um on this date like that.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
It's really interesting because, um, I'm
fascinated, because this isprobably my own tendency, like,
I prefer conversations aboutstuff like this because I find
that it's hard to so many thingscan be misinterpreted with
written, especially if I'm not,like I don't consider myself a
great writer.
(17:17):
I think I've gotten better overthe years and tools have helped
for that, but I feel like thenuance gets to be less.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
But if you're trying to communicate it to like, sorry
to interrupt, but if you'retrying to communicate it to like
, sorry to interrupt, but if youare trying to communicate it to
, like, a wider audience, youcan't have that conversation
with, like, like, there's a lotof people that are just not
gonna, they're gonna completelymiss it.
You know, and I want to makesure that it's written down,
just so that I'm also like, didI remember to say this?
You know, did they watch therecording?
Did they?
You know x, know X, y, z, andit can also, if it's on a
(17:46):
meeting, you can also, like, youcan write it down on a slide,
you don't?
Speaker 3 (17:49):
have to read it all, but then also like reiterate it,
there's actually a whole.
One of my focuses with myextracurricular studies is
psycholinguistics and I highlyrecommend, if you haven't
listened to anything from him orread anything from him, there
is a person named steven pinkerwho focuses in psycholinguistics
(18:12):
and I recognize the name, thedynamics of communication and
the way we receive an interview.
It's just mind-blowing.
But he's got a great sense ofhumor so it's easy to digest oh
good, like that, don't takehimself too seriously.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
Yeah, it's really interesting.
I just because I I wasn'texpecting it.
So this is.
This is why I love talking tonaomi and others, because, like,
I get another perspective andit challenges how I might think
about it, my my default mode.
So, um, okay, so this is.
This is kind of interestingbecause there's all this hidden
stuff, or boring stuff, or uglywork, whatever term we're going
(18:51):
to use.
So you listed a couple ofthings, nicole, like what are,
what are some other, some of theother, like major categories of
things that you think fall intothat, into that bucket workflow
audits for sure.
Speaker 3 (19:10):
Like we mentioned before, if you build a workflow
and you leave it alone for fiveyears and someone builds maybe 3
, 5, 10, 15, 20 workflows on topof it and then suddenly you
wonder why fields aren't doingwhat you would expect them to do
, check the workflows.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
Marketo seems to be ripe for that kind of stuff,
where there's all theseworkflows that are interacting
with data and doing things thatlike if people set them up or go
on and like you start gettingsort of butterfly effect stuff
that happens when you put newstuff in.
Right Did this one thing andnow we're like but something
crazy is happening.
(19:48):
Well, you gotta go yeah, diginto and to me it's like
plumbing.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
You know, if when your plumbing's working fine,
you don't notice it and that isthe sign of a good workflow, um,
but when something happens withyour plumbing, I can assure you
you will notice immediately andit will not be a pleasant
experience, but much like goingthrough your workflows early and
doing audits, maybe quarterly,let's be honest.
(20:16):
I mean, not every team can dothat.
It's ideal but it's not alwayspractical.
If you can do it even once ayear, just set a goal, that's
realistic.
Do it even once a year, justset a goal, that's realistic.
But if you can at least look atwhat you have and revise it and
say, okay, I understand whatthese are, I understand what
they're doing, it is way betterthan dealing with something way
(20:39):
down the line.
That is much less appealing.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
Yeah, definitely Any other major categories we want
to talk about here?
Speaker 3 (20:54):
um, one use case I see a lot more is forecasting.
Um, everybody, I meanforecasting is such an easy sell
.
I mean everybody wants to seewhat's going to happen.
That black box of uncertainty,of this fantasy of what does my
future look like?
How many marketing qualifiedleads can I expect?
(21:16):
I mean it would be great.
But again, that's all based ondata.
Yeah, so it's not like you canjust tack things on to a system
that has its own faults.
You have to look at it, youhave to audit the actions you
know you have to really thinkabout.
(21:36):
You have to.
When I, for example, do a leadscoring project, the first thing
I look at is closed one deals,which kind of gets us out of
marketing, but it does have todo with it.
So you think what actions dothese people take?
How are you measuring them?
Are you measuring them?
And then even going into namingconventions?
(21:58):
Because if you, for example, saythat I don't know, there are so
many different lead scoringmethods, right, you could rank
them on grades, you can rankthem on percentages, you can
rank them with emojis, you canrank them with wording
conventions that are easilyreadable by humans.
But does it make sense?
(22:19):
Does it work and I assure youthere are workflows, fields,
permission sets and a lot ofdocumentation behind that and
it's like good, it's, it's goodembroidery, right?
You see the beautiful pictureon one side and you flip it over
and you go, oh my gosh, maybeI'm also just a terrible
embroiderer, but I mean, that'swhat my embroidery looks like,
(22:39):
at least yeah, no, that visualis great.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
I know exactly what you mean, right?
That's so funny, nami.
You look like you were about tosay something.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
No, I'm just.
I'm chuckling because I relateto that embroidery.
Speaker 3 (22:58):
It's so true, it looks great on the front and you
turn it over and you're like,oh, that's a hot mess, but you
said something really I mean,both of you had really
interesting points before tooabout this is great.
I mean, we understand this aspeople that work in this every
day.
But how do you explain this tosomething like a client who may
be focused on those beautifulthings and might be, quite
(23:20):
frankly, repulsed by all thework that has to go into it?
So that's when those nuanceslike do they prefer an email,
(23:43):
you know?
Do they prefer a call?
That's where that comes in.
I have two clients right nowthat are at startup level
intensity.
I actually don't know if theyeven sleep down for even a half
hour meeting to go throughreports.
They will be like why am I here?
So that's a great case for anemail and they understand it and
they have the need tounderstand it.
And then I have some clientswho really value that FaceTime
(24:11):
dashboard.
I might know that they needthat kind of question and answer
session or that they may giveme another suggestion or say,
hey, you know this report looksgood, but can we add some more
detail or can we add some morenuance?
So it really does depend, andthat's that communication aspect
of, how do you make these uglybits not only appealing but, you
(24:32):
know, desirable?
You know, how do you, how doyou wrap these in this pretty
package and say this is leadscoring, this is forecasting,
this is that workflow, this is,you know, lead rooting.
All these magical things youwant, this is it.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
So I think something with like the reports and
dashboard piece too is I'veactually for a long time now,
when I create dashboards inSalesforce and you add your
widgets right and instead of, Ithink, by default like the title
of each tile defaults to thereport title and then you can
(25:12):
end up with a dashboard thatyou're sending to people.
That can not make a ton ofsense because it's something
like you know why, year overyear, you know like web lead
bubble.
It's just like you just have awhole bunch of acronyms and
people are looking at it andyou're just like what does it
actually mean?
You have to really sit down andlike have a ton of mental
energy to like see andunderstand what you're looking
(25:35):
at Right.
So I found just even like areally simple I don't want to
call it a hack, but just like areally simple change was
retitling all of those tiles andthose widgets to how many leads
that I generate this quarter,how many leads are currently
open.
You know what stage areopportunities created last month
(26:00):
at.
Everything's a question, right,and so when I find that people
yeah, so every single piece, orevery single report too, that I
send to people is.
I always title it as a questionso that they know what they're
looking at is the answer to thatquestion, and that makes sense.
Speaker 3 (26:17):
That's brilliant and honestly so.
So naming conventions isanother thing that I would
consider one of the ugly parts.
But that's it.
It's human Like the.
You know right away what you'relooking at.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
right, and it stopped me getting questions about can
we jump on a call so you canexplain what this report is?
But they know what it is.
It's XM report.
It says you know like, how manyleads does X sales rep still
have from last month?
Right, like it's every singlereport that I create now, every
single dashboard I create,always is titled with a question
(26:50):
.
Speaker 3 (26:51):
That's really fascinating to me but honestly,
that's brilliant because it'swhat is the question?
And then you have the answer.
Here's the answer Yep, oh, I'mso using that.
I'm so using that.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
No more like QOQ.
Why?
Why year over year, you know,like previous fiscal year, like
it, just no.
Speaker 1 (27:10):
So get over the whole idea of trying to be super
concise about those titles.
Right Be descriptive.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
Yeah, yeah, cause even sometimes I look at it, I'm
like what am I looking at?
Oh yeah, right so.
Speaker 3 (27:22):
Yeah, I've worked with a lot of cases where there
is an entire dictionary that myclients have put together to
just educate people on thejargon they use, which sometimes
, let's be real, that'snecessary Depending on the
industry.
You know, you can't be sayingfive words when it could be an
acronym, but there are thingslike those reports where it's
(27:43):
like it has to be understandable.
What's the basic essence of areport?
We're asking a question andthere's your answer.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
Exactly Love that and it's so much, especially with
people who are just like tryingto understand, like you're
looking at reports all day long.
And I have seen a few othersinternally who have kind of
copied my method, which is great.
I love it right.
I love that because it just itshows that it works right and it
(28:17):
just keeps things much clearer.
Speaker 1 (28:20):
That's a really interesting, without confusion.
I love that.
I love that hack.
It goes back to humanpsychology, right, okay, so
we've got all these things.
So my experience is I thinkprobably everyone, or the
majority of people listening tothis or watching this, will go
like yeah, we all know this isreally important to get the
plumbing right.
(28:40):
Right, get the data right, getthe plumbing right.
But we are stretched so thinbecause of all the more highly
visible stuff.
Right, getting a campaign outthe door, getting an email
generated, get a line to pay,like all these things.
Getting a dashboard, even right, I think that falls in that
category.
What advice do you have?
(29:03):
I'm actually going to ask bothof you, because I think you're
going to have two differentperspectives One from a kind of
more of a consulting side, onefrom in-house, like what?
What have you done that hashelped to create some time and
space for your you know, for youto you or your teams, to be
able to focus on some of that,you know, background work?
(29:25):
Nicole?
Speaker 3 (29:29):
So for me and this may be a controversial opinion
what I have found works in 90%of my cases and again, this
might be a controversial opinionmy background we're visual
creatures.
We want to see something.
Most of our brain is devoted tovisual processing.
(29:50):
I'll build a bad report.
So if they want to see a leadsquaring model and it's a hard
sell Bad meaning like, I'llbuild it with the data we have.
Speaker 1 (30:02):
Okay, so exposing the bad data?
Speaker 3 (30:05):
Exactly, exactly, exactly.
So I'll build it as it shouldbe.
It's something you can look atand see, wow, this doesn't
reflect the reality at all.
And then I can go in, I cantake that curiosity, that
question from whoever I'mworking with and then say, okay,
so this is how I build it and Itake kind of an education
(30:28):
stance because they should knowthis.
My ideal is in a dream world.
As someone who primarily worksas a consultant, I would love
for every single one of myclients to know what I know in a
few years, and my ideal worldis I would be without a job
because they would know as muchas I do.
(30:49):
So I want them to see you know.
If we build a report with thedata we have, this is what it
looks like.
Are these reflecting thereality of your situation?
No, this is how we fix it.
And then we get that aha momentLike that's it, that's what
works, and then they understandthat value.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
Yeah, I mean I I'm an advocate for like don't wait on
reporting until your data isright.
Cause it will never be that way.
So like, start, start thereporting to expose it so you
can then go incrementally cleanit up and fix it.
So totally love that.
How about you, naomi, I curious, like what you've done over the
years to years to be able toget some time and space for your
team to do some of that kind ofstuff.
Speaker 2 (31:37):
I think it's a challenge.
I think a lot of teams arestretched very thin
resource-wise.
You're always trying to do morewith less.
To be honest, I'm stillstruggling with that.
Speaker 3 (31:56):
Yeah it very much depends on the person you're
working with too.
There are some people that arevery open.
I mean, you know, some of mymore technically focused clients
can honestly get overwhelmedknowing the work that goes into
it, and you would think that thepeople who work more heavily
with this and have moreunderstanding might understand
(32:16):
the value more at first.
But ironically enough, some ofmy clients who have never even
touched a CRM before are some ofthe most open-minded and
curious.
But there's such a spectrum ofpeople to work with.
I mean, understanding how towork with people is
understanding how to work withdata.
It's just one form of using itto reflect what's happening, be
(32:42):
honest with yourself and thenimprove, which I think everyone
wants to do in basically everyaspect of their life I think I
remember having a conversationlike and I've always sorry,
michael- no, go ahead
Speaker 2 (32:56):
I was just saying.
It's like I think somethingthat I have I've struggled with
is you know, like you aregenerating reports because
you're either asked for them oryou're proactively doing them
because you know that.
You know some of these reportsare needed for the business.
But then what do people do withthem?
Right?
So yes, whenever I guess I getasked for reporting like it's
(33:19):
very rare that I will just hereyou go, because I find the last
thing I want them to do isreceive the report and then they
look at it like that's nice andthen file it away into a folder
called reports from Naomi orsomething.
I think something that I realizeis oftentimes, when people are
asking for reports, it's notactually the report that they're
(33:40):
looking for, but they'reactually looking for is like,
what am I supposed to do now?
Right?
So if and I think it's justunderstanding like where the ask
is coming from, who's asking it, and you know, if it's somebody
who is not necessarily, um,someone who, like, likes looking
very granularly at data,oftentimes they just want to
(34:02):
know what happened and what canwe?
do.
Did it work or not?
Should we never do this again?
Should we do more of it?
Should we put more money intoit?
Where are the gaps?
Tell me what to do.
Speaker 3 (34:15):
It goes back to the essence of why we're doing any
of this in the first place.
There's a question, there's adesire that they have, and this
is one way of answering it.
Speaker 1 (34:25):
Yeah, I mean I I probably push back every time
someone comes to me and says weneed a dashboard for blah right
Whatever that blank is.
Speaker 2 (34:34):
What are you going?
Speaker 1 (34:34):
to do with that dashboard?
Speaker 2 (34:35):
Well, and I'm going to do anything.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
The level of effort to create a dashboard.
I mean in the general sense,not just like Salesforce.
Right is, essentially, you'reconsolidate, you're putting all
a bunch of different reportsinto one that have some sort of
connection.
And my argument would be if wedon't have anything today, let's
not start with the idea, like,let's not go with the goal to
build a dashboard, let's go tobuild the first report.
Build the first report, getthat nailed down, then we can
(35:05):
move to the second one andeventually, over time, we might
have a dashboard that weactually can use for an
appropriate audience.
But if you go into it like wehave to have this dashboard and
(35:26):
we already know what thesethings are like.
I think, first off, you probablynever finish and, second, if
you do, you're probably going tobe wrong as much as you're
going to be wrong Absolutely.
I truly believe that.
So I was going to go kind ofgetting back into this like, how
do you convince leadership togive you the ability to spend
time on this?
I actually worked with amanager of mine at one point who
I was trying to do like hey,like our data is kind of messy.
We need to.
(35:46):
My team needs to be able toallocate some time to try to
address that, whether it's, youknow, mass updates or go find,
like what's causing it from aprocess or system standpoint,
and address that over time.
I said I know this is not sexystuff, like that's the words I
used and I mean I was kind oflike expecting to get pushback
and what I actually got wasshe's like, she's like actually,
(36:07):
yeah, that's very sexy.
Like we need, like we she.
So she recognized it.
So I think, if you're fortunateenough to have somebody who
gets the value of it even if Iwould say that that person
probably didn't really wouldn'tunderstand all the details about
behind what it was, andsomebody who trusted me, which
is helpful, but I was like I hadto, like that was somebody who
(36:30):
would get have my back.
Let's go do that Right, andit's going to be useful.
They saw the vision to me.
I keep coming back to a lot ofthese things, as we've talked
throughout the earlier part ofthis conversation.
The human psychology part of itdefinitely is.
I think, something is important, right, understanding your
audience.
But I think there's also thiselement of storytelling and,
(36:52):
nicole, you might have this like.
The one thing that I alwaysthink about is humans are wired
for stories, right, and so Ialways find my thing about like,
how do for stories right, andso I always find myself thinking
how do I tell the story to thisperson or this group of people,
whether it's written or verbalor whatever?
Is that a part of it too?
(37:14):
Connecting the dots, like thestory is like.
We need to invest this time andeffort in this boring ugly,
whatever activity, because theoutcome is going to be this.
That's going to be a benefitfor all of us, right?
Speaker 3 (37:28):
Yes, actually, fascinatingly enough, this is
one of the things that currentlywe think is, as far as we can
tell, unique to humans theability to tell stories, the
ability to take these abstractsymbols and connect them, to
extract meaning out of them.
And it applies everywhere inlife.
And listen, if I'm going to bestaring at data for eight hours
(37:50):
a day, I better have somemeaning I can get out of it.
So I've developed this likeZen-like relationship with data
and sometimes explaining it tostakeholders that don't have
time to sit down and drink waterfor 15 minutes out of their day
.
So how do you tell a story?
How do you communicate?
This is going to be an eighthour project.
(38:11):
You may have thought it wouldbe 15 minutes.
Here's why, and here's why thisis actually a good thing, right
?
So that skill is so essentialand I very much thank my
background as a, as a copywriterand when I was younger, and
even today sometimes I stillwrite fiction and I think that's
been one of the most valuablethings to every part of my
(38:33):
career, even the day, especiallythe data part.
Speaker 1 (38:37):
Interesting, yeah, changing course a little bit
like.
Another thing you and I touchedon when we first talked was and
I think this ties back to dataand process and everything else
is like I'm going to put it acouple of different ways, I
guess being an advocate forcustomers and understanding the
(38:58):
buying journey.
How does that tie into like allthis as well?
Right, I mean, is it?
Is it, um, somehow like reallytied to it?
Is it a different topic?
Like, how does it?
How do you find that relates towhat we do as operations folks
and the data stuff?
Speaker 3 (39:17):
Oh, absolutely, oh my gosh, if everything so, to
start off, every single thing istied to the buyer's journey, I
would, if I could, have one wish, and I'm not even asking the
genie for three wishes, I'm justgoing with one.
I want every CEO of everycompany to go through the exact
process that their client goesthrough, just to see what it's
actually like.
(39:38):
Goes through just to see whatit's actually like.
Everything we base everythingoff of starts there, and that's
again touching on thatstorytelling aspect.
What is actually happening?
What are they going through?
What's that process like tothem?
If you lose sight of your owncustomers, everything is going
to fall apart.
You could look at the best datain the world.
(39:59):
It really could reflect what'shappening and you could still be
scratching your head if youlose sight of what a person
actually does when they'reinteracting with your company.
Speaker 1 (40:12):
Definitely it's interesting to me.
I don't know what you all do,but because of the space I've
been in now for a couple ofdecades I guess marketing and
data and all that I tend to like.
I know a lot of people getannoyed like unsubscribe on a
regular basis, but I'm justgoing to unsubscribe from all
these things that I don't reallycare about anymore.
I almost never unsubscribe fromanything and part of that is
(40:33):
because I'm trying to at leastloosely observe how they're
operating.
What do they do, and I'm alwayssurprised and this happens, I
think, more on personal stuff,right.
So retailers, where I have hadno real interaction with them
for years, and I continue to getdaily, weekly emails and I
(40:56):
often wonder, like, how much isthat costing them in terms of
actual cost?
Right, database size, becausethey've got a bunch of people
like me who are not reallyinterested new life stage or
whatever and like it's like tome, it's like plus, it's also
just like, are they even movingthe needle?
Right?
And some of them are justnaturally like tied to, like
(41:19):
life sky, like life stage, right?
My kids were younger so I waslike paid attention to things
that were more for each of themand it's no longer relevant
because they're older, but someof them are just like I bought
one thing one time, rightResearch one thing one time and
then never done anything else,and it's just like I don't know
why they continue to do that.
B2b is not immune from that,but it's like the same thing
(41:42):
applies, right.
Speaker 3 (41:44):
I would even argue that you'd be a valuable.
In my opinion which again mightbe controversial I would even
argue that that's a value in itsown.
You're interested.
I mean, you may not need this,but they're top of mind, you're
following their story.
They're providing somethingthat attracts you.
You may not be looking for thesame stuff you were looking for
five years ago, but you'refollowing the story of the
(42:07):
company.
They're present in your mindand, let's be real, we all know
how much a word of mouthrecommendation is worth.
Speaker 1 (42:13):
So yeah, I mean, I mean they're not really top of
mind.
I mean I think I'm an outliercase because, like I think many
other people would have startedjust automatically deleting or
unsubscribing, like I'm justlike sending you the slow
breakup emails.
Yeah, I mean I've.
I mean this is a good examplealso of like, tell me if this
(42:36):
rings true, naomi, like you getinto the conversation when it
comes to, hey, we've got torenew with Marketo or HubSpot or
whoever right, and you know oneof the drivers is going to be
database size, right, hey, we,you know our database is so big.
If we, you know that means thecost is going to be, you know, x
times whatever percent that wecurrently pay.
So how can we clean up ourdatabase In?
(42:59):
I find out.
Find is that we make a casewhere, like these people who
haven't interacted in, pick thetime frame 18 months, 24 months,
36 months right, let's just.
We can do one of two things.
We can just say they're justnot interested.
We're going to just delete themor move them into a space like,
uh, what, we're going to try todo one last crazy attempt to
(43:20):
try to get them re-engage and ifthey don't, then we'll do it
like, but at the end of the dayyou're dropping and it typically
, even if you do the second casewhere you try to re-engage them
, most people won't.
So then people get freaked out.
They're like, oh, we're goingto lose 20 of our database like
but you're not really.
Speaker 3 (43:40):
But what's the value?
We may be scared by that 20%,but what's the actual value?
We're going back to thatessential question Is it worth
the?
Speaker 1 (43:50):
cost.
Was it worth the cost to keepthose records in your database
versus losing them.
I mean if they come and getre-engaged, naturally great.
I'm not saying never, just, butit's often like the volume,
like this desire to see a largenumber of in our day.
Our database has X number ofpeople Like I.
(44:13):
Don't get the fascination withit.
Speaker 2 (44:18):
I think it's one of those things where it's like if
you tell someone they can't havesomething, they then want it.
Speaker 1 (44:26):
Yeah, it's like, it's like, it's like hoarders, right
, right.
Speaker 2 (44:32):
In the off chance that that one person is going to
open that email and then buyour product.
Speaker 3 (44:39):
Yes, well, this is another thing.
Going back to just the way thehuman brain works, we are
extremely risk adverse.
So if you frame it like that,like oh my gosh, out of that 20%
of people, we could have foundone actual client, instead of
saying, hey, if we focus ourefforts on this 80%, we could
(45:01):
put so much more effort intoactually getting this to convert
to a good sale or a marketingqualified lead or whatever.
Your why, whatever your desireactually is.
Speaker 1 (45:11):
I think a lot of this is like a misunderstanding of
how buying actually happensnowadays, especially in the B2B
space, right?
So much of that researchhappens outside of anything that
we have visibility into, and soit's like you know, why are we
doing nurture again?
Speaker 3 (45:30):
Yeah, and those are the and I mean that's again.
I come from four years rightnow of client managing.
I've been in-house, I've beendoing consulting roles, I've
worked with startups, I'veworked with enterprise level
companies in just about everyindustry under the sun.
But that is the one unifyingthing, is the why.
(45:51):
What, ultimately, are we tryingto get at here?
And it's so easy, given howmany details are involved in
these operations, in this data,in all your technology, you can
easily look into that and neverlook up again.
But if you keep asking yourself, why are we doing this, what do
we actually want to get?
And if you go back to thoseoriginal kind of essential
(46:14):
questions, everything else flows, even the ugly bits of your
data.
Speaker 1 (46:18):
Yeah, all right, well .
Well, this has been a funconversation.
It's like we've covered allkinds of random stuff and still
got through everything we wantedto, I think.
But, um, one last thing, nicole.
Is there anything that wedidn't cover?
You want to make sure ourlisteners heard?
It's okay to say no too no, Ithink that's it.
Speaker 3 (46:40):
The beauty is in the ugliness.
The final results are in allthis hard work that goes to it.
It may seem subtle, but whenyou can look at something like a
good forecast, a good dashboard, a workflow that works well or
something that's actually doingwhat you wanted, that's it.
And when you see all the workthat went into it, that's your
own prize, love it anddefinitely's it.
Yeah, and when you see all thework that went into it, that's
(47:00):
your own prize, love it anddefinitely celebrate it.
Speaker 1 (47:05):
For some reason in my head, I'm coming.
I think it was Da Vinci whosaid, like when they asked like
how do you get you know, how doyou carve these amazing figures?
He's like it's already there.
My job is just to remove theright pieces, right?
I don't know why that popped up.
Speaker 3 (47:20):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (47:22):
Um, and I may misattribute that, but there's a
like an old famous sculptor whodid the A wave.
So but if people do want tohave like how to continue this
conversation with you or learnmore about what you're doing,
what's the best way for them todo that, nicole?
Speaker 3 (47:44):
LinkedIn, always LinkedIn.
Which?
Speaker 1 (47:45):
I am on all the time.
Fantastic Well, Nicole, thankyou, it was great, Enjoyed the
conversation.
Naomi, as always, good to seeyou and thank you to our
longtime and new listeners andsupporters.
We are always grateful for that.
If you have suggestions fortopics or guests or want to be a
guest, as always, reach out toNaomi, Mike RZA or me and we
(48:06):
would be happy to engage withyou on that Until next time.
Bye everybody, Thank you, Thankyou.
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