234: How to run a marketing ops audit and turn it into a roadmap with Kelsie Dube

Phil: Everyone loves a good audit in, in marketing ops, but, like, No one really defines what it means?! Kelsie: you have to have that knowledge before you start changing things, otherwise you're just band-aiding, and you might not be focusing on the biggest rocks. what systems are in my swim lane that I have full ownership over and my team does, where is the website sit today? Where does, lead routing?

Where does lead imports? Where does the full web lead capture process, who owns it? Where's that handshake happening? And that's where I got curious, and then I did that through a series of interviews too.

say, "okay, walk me through how we re- do a lead import." Recording, so that you can Take all those transcriptions, feed them into your favorite LLM to kind of pull out the patterns, and that really helped to kind of put together the roadmap and figure out where I might need to dig a little deeper. ​ In This Episode - Phil: What's up, everyone? Today, we have the pleasure of sitting down with Kelsey Dube, Director of Marketing Operations and Automation at Unanet.

In this conversation, we explore how to run a marketing ops audit when you join a new company, how to turn marketing ops audits into a prioritized roadmap, what happens to junior marketing ops when AI eats entry-level work, and how to turn marketing ops from ticket takers into business partners. All that and a bunch more stuff after a quick word from two of our awesome partners ​ Phil: Kelsey, thank you so much for your time today. I'm really excited to chat Kelsie: Phil, it's been so cool to be on the show.

I've had years of watching your show, and then all of the guests that have joined, I've learned a lot, and so I feel like I have a private network being a part of the show, and now getting to join. I'm so excited. Phil: yeah, it does feel like a little bit of a network. I, I try to, like, keep in touch with some of the previous guests, and I'll have people on that are just like, "Oh, I know this person that was on and that person."

It's like we all live in this tiny little ego chamber of, of MarTech. It's, it's not, it's not huge, right? Kelsie: It's so true, and if you're, like, trying to problem solve something and you find an episode where someone's talking about it, I've learnt so much. I feel like it's, gets you outside of your bubble of your own company, which is what you really need to do Phil: Yeah, 100%.

And you recently switched companies, so it's part of the reason we invited you to, to come on, and you were part of, uh, Daryl's, uh, town hall where he chatted a bit about this. We were talking about, it's like the survival tactics and tips for, like, this weird job hunt right now, and we kinda beat that horse to death a little bit. Maybe folks are tired of listening to this. So we pivoted a little bit because you did land at a new place, and you've been there for a couple months now.

Um, so the new company is Unanet, and your first move was kind of trying to figure out how to understand how work gets actually done before you're changing anything. You're not being that person like, "We're gonna rip this out and, and put this new thing back in." I love hearing this when new people are joining a new company ' cause it makes me so sad when someone joins a company and they're like, " Yeah, I haven't really had time to audit or, like, interview different people, my, like, stakeholders and, and marketing ops 'cause my boss threw me into, like, four big projects in the middle of launch and I'm just, playing catch-up on where things are and I'm totally blind."

So maybe we can start there. Like, I, I've, like, I've seen the new leader in, in marketing ops who feels, like, pressure when they join a new company. They have to, like, 1 - Why New Marketing Ops Leaders Should Audit Before They Act - Phil: plant their flag in week one or week two and ship something, feel like they did something. What made you choose to kinda slow down to start off and, and just audit stuff instead of, like, feeling the pressure to ship something really fast or get, like, a visible win?

Can you jam on that a little bit? Kelsie: I feel like when you're joining a new company, there definitely is that pressure, but my choice to slow down was twofold. One is you have to have that knowledge before you start changing things, otherwise you're just band-aiding, and you might not be focusing on the biggest rocks. And so that's kind of the, the main reason why I was like, "Okay, we do a system audit."

And the other one was when I chose Unanet, that we were very aligned there. It was very clear in the job description, and that was one of the reasons I was like, "Okay, this is a company I can get behind." I could tell by the leadership team that that's what they were looking for. And for me, as a marketer who grew up through marketing ops, and now as a leader, it's something that I feel like is so valuable.

You have to be able to understand what's happening enough to be dangerous to then say, "Okay, actually, here's what we need to focus on," and build out that roadmap Phil: Yeah. D- d- like I'm sure you've worked at companies where, like, new person comes in and they're just like, "I don't like this tool. I've used that tool at my last company. We're just gonna make this plan of, of ripping this out and, and putting the new one in."

How do you fight that feeling when you obviously have experience and familiar- familiarity with certain tools when you're coming in, sometimes new tools? Like, how do you fight that instinct to just, like, go back to what you're kinda used to even though something is a little bit new? Kelsie: Yeah, I think that historically is very common, right? You s- a new CMO comes in, they're like, "Nope, I want a different map because I used it at the last company."

Like, that is so common. But, um, nowadays where we've got AI, we've got other ways to, to work. Um, a great example of this is there's a few systems where I'm learning them for the first time, but there's a lot that I've got experience in, but I'm like, "Oh, I haven't actually personally worked in this tool." They're all very similar, but how do we make it work with what we have today, and then just determine later if we actually need to replace it?

'Cause it's gonna cost us more to replace it, and I bet there's another way to do it if we're just rethinking the way the process should be. Um, an example of that is we have just your, how we're capturing campaigns and tagging them to campaign members is a huge thing that I'm working on right now, and, um, it doesn't mean I need to, to replace the tool we have because of the way it's working today. I'm like, "All right, how do we do this with Power Automate? How can we do this with a, just a Salesforce workflow?"

There's other ways to do it, and so it's just finding that opportunity. Phil: Do you find that sometimes, like your own experience interviewing, maybe not with this company, but like previous companies too, usually in marketing ops it's like, "We have all of these problems, and we're looking for someone to come in and fix all of the things," or like a, a lot of the things. Usually you're getting hired to fix stuff because stuff is broken. And, you know, it's like this everywhere.

There's no company where like data is in complete mess and everyone... There's always room for improvement in, in the tech stack. But like typically, that is the mandate, right? Like you're hired to fix a bunch of stuff.

Um, doesn't like this idea of I'm still listening, I'm getting to know people, I'm getting comfortable a little bit with stuff, doesn't that kind of also say out loud in your second month, like that you're not like pushing stuff out the door yet? Like, I guess I'm asking like how long can you stay in this like listening mode before Thoreau reads as kind of you're taking a bit too much of your time? Kelsie: Yeah. And I think even for yourself, you're probably thinking that too, 'cause we want the wins on the board.

And so yeah, you sit in this moment of, okay, I've been doing, putting my listening hat on. That's what I keep saying. I'm like, yep, I'm learning. Or my learning hat.

And so a- as I'm learning, I have to find out w- where's my deadline? And so I had 30 days was my first deadline of like, all right, I'm gonna do all my auditing, and went through and said, okay, there's gonna be opportunity each week. And it's really easy when you join a company, you don't have a bazillion meetings on your calendar. So really protecting that.

So in my calendar, I would put block, you know, Friday at 2:00, an hour of I will find the quick wins that I identified in that week or maybe even the week prior. I just kind of have a log going, that I'm gonna actually work on. Uh, one of the examples of that was campaign taxonomy was a real thing that I wanted to educate the team on and show the value of it. And so I just put together a deck, and then planned for an opportunity to present that to the leadership team so we can, like, all start thinking of like, hey, this is gonna lead to better reporting if we can properly structure our campaign structure.

And so that was something that probably took me 30 minutes to, to jot down a little diagram of how it works, and I was able to in my, for myself say, "Hey, here was a win," and then hopefully that resonated with the leadership team as well Phil: Nice. Let, let's talk about 2 - How to Run a Marketing Ops Audit When You Join a Company - Phil: some of the audits that you did do. I wanna say, like, audits in plural because, like, y- you know, there's a lot of stuff to audit when you're joining a new company.

Everyone loves a good audit in, in marketing ops, but, like, do an audit is one of those phrases that everyone's just like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do an audit. Do an audit." No one really defines what it means across companies, across different areas of the funnel or the stack.

So maybe we can talk about, like, the version where someone could copy this in their first month of joining a company similar size as, uh, Unanet and, you know, maybe full-time or contract, doesn't really matter. When you say you're auditing systems, joining a new company, does that include processes? Does it include workflows? Like, what are you literally doing in that first couple of weeks?

Like, walk us through that. Kelsie: Yeah. So the first thing I started doing, and I actually started doing this when I accepted the offer, was, okay, where are the lines that marketing ops owns? What, what does rev ops own?

And what does IT own? And so I started jotting down a bunch of questions I had. Um, and I kind of have this framework, but I went a little deeper now knowing after you go through, you know, the interview process, you've kind of learned a little bit about the company. And I actually sent them over to my leader ahead of time, just be like ...

'Cause I'm so excited about the new role, like, "Hey, how can we get some questions going?" But essentially, where I'm looking at is what systems are in my swim lane that I have full ownership over and my team does, that I'm responsible for, and building out that RACI of like, okay, uh, if, you know, if I'm joining a team where actually l- lead routing, for example, lives in revenue operations, then all right, that, I'm tabling that. I'm gonna still look, dig into that process, but that's not hot and red right now.

I don't need to know, understand it end to end. Um, I will eventually. So that's kinda how I worked through. I, I looked at, you know, where is the website sit, website sit today?

Where does, you know, lead routing? Where does lead imports? Where does the full web lead capture process, who owns it? Where's that handshake happening?

And that's where I got curious, and then I did that through a series of interviews too. So interviewing everyone from my level to the level above, to my team, uh, to all my business partners, and then any names, I would always ask, like, "Who else do you think I should meet with?" And just kind of that list just keeps growing. And you see some patterns in there.

Uh, but once I identified the processes that were within my team, the systems, that was the other thing I sent over, is like, my understanding from the job description and from our interviews is these are the martech systems we have that are in the ownership. Am I, am I missing any? And that really helped to say, okay, system. Then you can kind of figure out, okay, there's probably these processes in there.

And then just scheduling dedicated sessions to say, "Okay, walk me through how we re- do a lead import." Recording, using your transcriptions so that you can actually build... I got this tip from a mentor, right? Take all those transcriptions, feed them into a, you know, your favorite LLM to kind of pull out the patterns, and that really helped to kind of put together the roadmap and figure out where I might need to dig a little deeper.

Phil: Nice. Yeah, I feel like in those early couple months, you're just like, "Who else should I talk to?" And you look at your list of people to chat with, and you're like, "Damn, when am I actually gonna do work here? Like, there's so many people to meet."

The b- even, like, smaller companies too, like in, in startups. So do you start with, like, this list that's, like, a standard, you, you name, like, lead routing, lead qualification, you know, obviously in B2B. Um, like, do you follow the funnel steps first, and then you make sure that, like, all those boxes are checked, and you have, like, areas of responsibility? Or like, how do you also catch, like, the systems and the processes that maybe are a bit more custom and, like, not standard?

Like, I'm sure you've chatted with a couple people that you're just like, "Okay, um, lead routing isn't this actual simple flow. It, it's actually involving three different teams here because of this thing that we have and this old-school tool that we're using." Like, how do you make room for that while also, like, checking off the standard things that you know you need to answer? Kelsie: Yeah, it's so true because I think just even going from how do we capture leads on the website, let's say, and how does that flow and what's the automation to get all the way to opportunity, that tells a lot.

And so every- I- that's kind of the first thing I did, was sit down with the stakeholders that could help really walk me through in detail, and I'm a very vis- like, I love hands-on understanding. So walk me through that, and then I would flag things like, you know, just, just taking notes, like questions I'm gonna have on the process. If they don't understand it, going to ask someone else. But then d- flagging things of like, okay, this seems like I might need to dig deeper.

It could be a risk area, or it's just I'm not properly understanding it right now. And so that's kinda how I built out my list, and it's just lots of meetings of going deeper and deeper into the process. Um, and even I've a- like, one of the things, first things I did joining a v- much smaller team than where I'm used to is I said, "I want to do these tasks that you're doing. So give me a lead import.

Give me a campaign creation task." Like, I want to be doing them, and that way we also have additional support 'cause director isn't really a do-rector, and so I wanna be able to really apply that to, um, you know, to the work and be right there with the team Phil: How do you make time for things like data policy and, and privacy governance while you're doing this audit? Is that like a whole separate thing for you? Is it something you're doing kind of at the same time since you are diving into tools, and a lot of them do have, like, tracking and data collection?

Is that something that is in your area of responsibility? Is that a different team? Is that something you think about? Kelsie: Yeah, it is.

It's something I'm really passionate about, especially coming from the cybersecurity industry, where we had really strict frameworks on that. Um, so joining a new organization, I definitely was asking those questions to start figuring out, okay, do we have a data retention policy? What's our opt-in, opt-out policy? And then, um, it is.

It is really important, and so it's definitely on the list of, like, okay, we, we need a little more structure around this, but not, not on fire is what I would say. So that's kind of where I have to weigh, okay, is it working today? Is it something that's a high risk, or is it something that, okay, we can get to this and maybe put a little bit more refinement on it Phil: Mm-hmm. How do you balance this idea of, all right, I, I, I want...

I'm joining a new company, I have all these things that I want to audit. I 3 - How to Balance a Full Audit Against Your Boss's Priorities - Phil: want a full map of, like, everything that's going on, like a map of the map and, and all the things that are coming into it. How do you balance that with, okay, I also have a boss that has a mandate for me and a list of priorities, and maybe he's given you or, or she's given you a bit of leeway into getting settled and getting your answers, uh, to, to certain questions.

But then you also have, like, KPIs or metrics or OKRs, whatever the function is that your team maybe is responsible for. There's, like, these things that are maybe not on fire, but high priority that are not, like, in circus or in battle with, like, you getting a full understanding and, like, drinking from the fire hose. But, like, how do you balance those two things? Like, I've always battled with that.

Joining a new company is like, the, the... Like, my boss wants me to do all these things, quick wins, like, we need to show impact. But to do those things really well, I need context, and it takes time to get context depending on the company and how big it is or whatever. So how do you battle those two?

Like, talk to me about that. Kelsie: Yeah. So I think really where it comes from is really clear communication, and so that's where, um, I've had really great experience here at Unanet. But what I've done is said, "Okay, here is the roadmap now that I'm working to build.

It's gonna be two quarters out, and I need alignment from the team." That's gonna help lead to what leadership's priorities are as well, but be really clear about that. "Okay, great. You want us to get better reporting.

Great. We can do that. We're gonna need to kind of dig a little deeper here," and just educating on what I've found. What was amazing, um, in, in this experience, and it doesn't happen every time, is that you get the opportunity to where the leadership team is like, "Educate us on what you know and what you've found."

And so that first 30 days, I did a full audit, but then I presented that to the team of like, "Okay, here's everything that I was im- impressed with," right? "Here's what's working well that I see, and then here are some things that was surprising that maybe we're gonna need to dig into." And then do it at a level of like, "Okay, here's the categories," and it kind of basically led me right into my roadmap, which is gonna give me the outcomes that they're looking for. And now we're going into Q3 planning, which is great, so I'm already putting things on, you know, KRs that I'm like, "All right, that bucket's under here.

We'll get that working." Um, I love the OKR framework and, and Unanet does as well, which is exciting. But that's how I've done it each time, is really look at, "Okay, I understand where, what we need to get to. Here's how we can do it really well, and I wanna make sure we have the data foundation," which is a big one for me, before we go into maybe building out some reporting or, uh, you know, a whole executive suite Phil: So data and the tools obviously like big parts of the audit itself, but sometimes when you're going through the audit, the clear problem isn't the tools because, you know, maybe sometimes the tools are okay.

Like, um, you know, nothing seems to be super broken. You have your familiarity with, with certain tools, but, you know, the job gets done with, with certain tools sometimes. And, and sometimes what jumps out in the audit has nothing to do with the tech itself. Like we're the humans of MarTech, and we know better than most that 4 - How to Spot a Process Problem Disguised as a Tool Problem - Phil: sometimes the humans, uh, are the problem sometimes when...

Or not the problem, but like the area of improvement when you're doing the audit. What's the tell that tells you like the real problem isn't the tool sometimes? And, and maybe you've talked to like people that are describing one process three different ways. Is that kind of the signal?

What, what jumps out to you? Kelsie: Yeah, I think it comes down to also being a leader that you are dangerous enough to know, like, okay, well, I think we could think about this a different way. And what I often would challenge the team is, is like, "That's how we've always done it," which is the worst thing to say, and I've had an amazing leader that's always said that, like, "Don't ever say this is how we've always done it." Uh, which is even more true now, you know, years- couple years into AI, right, is how do we rethink this?

So I'll look at something and say, "Okay, well, it- the proce- you know, we need a new tool to fix this solution," is what I'm hearing maybe from the business. But then if I dig deeper, like we don't even have a clear defined process that actually is... Adding a tool is gonna be a Band-Aid, and we're gonna have a much higher cost between resources and ripping and replacing, and then we're just gonna throw it on top of this poor process that we have right now. Or maybe we just need to educate the team a little bit more on, hey, here's how we could think outside the box on it.

And so how I would do that if it was a people person, um, w- if I identify, like this is more the, the, the skill set of the people behind it, is to challenge everyone, go build your digital twin and start riffing with it and asking it how you could think of this a different way, and come back to me with an idea. And then we can kind of start work of shopping that as a, as a group, because I love a good rumble, and I think that can really help to get everyone thinking outside the box.

And sometimes we're just in the BIU day-to-day, get- you know, repetition, um, and that's what we need to be upscaling right now compared to what we were doing before Phil: What do you mean by digital twin? Like, just like a, like custom GPT of yourself and you're like ar- arguing with yourself? Kelsie: Exactly. So, um, I had the fortunate opportunity of working with Liza Adams, uh, was this last year now?

It feels like it was forever ago 'cause it's just the world of AI. But that was really what we went through as a marketing organization, is building our digital twin. And so yes, I have a GPT that does it. You could do it, you know, in, as a Claude skill.

You can do it in different ways. But, uh, essentially it's the, I think I call it the Doobie Strategist or something. It's, like, silly. Um, and it knows, like, everything about me that I've been able to feed it.

It knows the way I think, what I like, um, and it's pretty good, like, considering what I want it to be able to do. But it'll challenge me. So like, I have this idea, um, you know, I wanna restructure my team, and here's the pain points I'm trying to solve, and, you know, keeping the people as is, but we don't wanna change titles and buckets around. It's really good at just kind of questioning and asking me questions back that I'm maybe not thinking of, and maybe I'm having a bad day, and I'm just like, "Ah, this entire thing isn't working."

And then as I kinda go back and forth with them, like, it's a little bit more sound than me today and actually knows. So yeah, digital twin, um, I will definitely... I should add that as a, as a, a link for you to put in here. Liza does a great job of putting together some articles on that, on how to get started Phil: Very cool.

So it's like a replica of how you think, but it's made to spot areas where you don't have, like, a super good strength on or, like, areas that you might be missing? Kelsie: Yeah. it's still, it's taking what it knows about you, you know, it's, it's a marketing ops leader, it's done, you know, these different experiences, these different projects, but it's also using deep research to kind of say, "Okay, how could you do this a different way?" And that's how I will kind of go back and forth.

And I really t- tell it, like when I'm feeding an idea, I'm like, "I want you to challenge this idea and poke all the holes you can possibly poke in it." It can help too if you're presenting. Like if I'm about to present to someone, I can do the same thing of like, "Here's who I'm presenting to. Think of it from your mindset.

What, how should I go about this?" And it really helps to kind of get you r- prepared to go into that presentation. Phil: Yeah, we'll add, uh, we'll add that to the list of, uh, takeaways for folks. I think, uh, we're gonna try to build out this, like, audit checklist, uh, 2026.

Like, w- we did one, like, five years ago, and I was looking at it, I was like, "Oof, yikes." Lead scoring was, like, number two, and we were just like, "Eesh." Yeah, like, uh, that's, that's a bit dated. Uh, we need to update that little whole lead management thing there.

But, um, I feel like the digital twin could be useful, too, for, um, like, not just for yourself, but other people in the team, too, and just, like, bouncing back things. Like, one of the questions I was gonna ask you was, 'cause I know you're a big fan of project management, and it was a big, like, through line in, in your career. And you actually said before we recorded that the gap between how a process is documented and how it's actually run is where a lot of problems surface and, and how a, a lot of problems are hiding.

How do you... Like, maybe you're using that, um, the, the digital twin there, but, like, 5 - How to Surface Shadow Processes and Duplicate Tools in an Audit - Phil: how do you find these, like, shadow spreadsheets or, um, like, side tools that people are paying for out of their own pockets and, and they're not, like, corporate tools or side processes that someone's kinda keeping because the system doesn't always do what they need? Like, how do you surface that during the audits?

Kelsie: It's really tough 'cause those are those niche things that you have to ask the right question for it to all of a sudden be like, "Oh, wait, you're using that?" And then you also are trying to bring your, the, the person along to trust you and really open up about how things are working. So I always lead with, we wanna understand a process. And if, if that is happening, where there's a process that's not fully documented, it's likely because it's a, um, one-man show.

Like, that, there's a fail... That's another issue. So where I would always challenge is say, "Okay, I need you to document this to the fullest so that if you are out of the office tomorrow, I can just jump in and do it, and it's not gonna be an issue." And that's like, I'll give a hard deadline.

Um, because that's... And then walk me through it. "So now I'm gonna do the process following your guide, you on the call, and we're gonna go through it, and let me know if I get stuck anywhere." 'Cause maybe they're actually gonna notice, "Oh, wait, I forgot to add this one thing."

Um, but yeah, it's, it's tough 'cause you might find that random reference sheet that they're using that's on their local desktop. It's like all of those things, and so getting really clear on the documentation and the expectations we have, and it can be an OKR of like, this is what we're gonna do this quarter. Get everyone aligned so that I can just read this document and do the task without needing to talk to you. Phil: Um, I was gonna ask you also, like, one thing that jumps out a lot when you join a new company and you're doing these audits, you discover very quickly that there's a ton of overlap in certain tools, especially across departments.

Like, oh, this team is using Revenue Hero, and then the other team is using HubSpot, and the other team has Calendly, and this other team is using Cal.com. And you're just like, "Guys, we've got four different tools doing the same thing. What's going on here?

You guys have this standup every week. Like, how did no one surface this yet?" Um, and I, I think you've said this, too, in our pre-interview that, you know, most organizations don't need another tool, um, that, that the biggest challenges aren't really technology problems. It's process, governance, adoption, and finding duplicate or sometimes triplicate tools doing the same thing.

Uh, you've got a ton of allies on the show, myself included, a lot of people that have come on that have said that, you know, like, clarity isn't, doesn't come from adding more tools. It comes from stripping the complexity involved there. So I wanted to ask you, like, when you finish this audit, you're gonna... going through it, maybe you're not done yet, but, like, what's the actual test that you use to tell that there's this tooling gap from a process failure that just maybe looks like one on paper?

Kelsie: Yeah. So it's so true because there's, is those opportunities where you're like, "Oh, we have a lot of duplicate systems here." And maybe just in that first like, "Hey, s- give me all the systems," and then you're looking through, you're like, "Oh, there's, well, that can do that functionality." So I keep flagging things as I'm going through of like, be aware of these three tools could be consolidated, but then as I'm talking to individuals, I'm really getting curious before I get critical is, okay, what's happening here?

Hey, why do you... H- have you guys thought of this? And then why haven't we thought of that? And, um, it kinda helps just to get people talking of like, oh, so there is a really niche reason why we're using that other tool.

Um, doesn't mean that we're not gonna add it to our roadmap, but maybe we're gonna consolidate or make it better. Um, and so that's where, where I really try to, again, l- putting my learning hat on, there is opportunity where a tool can solve some problems, and so that's also something I'm noting down of like, okay, this process is on fire. First thought is actually this tool could do that, but I'm gonna dig a little deeper before I'm gonna make that s- decision Phil: That's super good advice and something that I could have used myself, uh, earlier in my career.

Like, you're hired to be the ops person, the tools person, and when you find these competing versions of the same tool, your instinct is right away, like, "This is dumb. Why are you guys doing this? This is so dumb. Let's fix it."

And you're just, like, screaming how dumb these teams are for doing the same... like, using the same tool pane three times. But I love your point about, like, yo, you're the new person here. The last thing you wanna do is, like, create a bad name for yourself in the first couple of months.

And instead of assuming that that was a dumb decision, maybe they just adopted that from their predecessors, and they've got 70 other things on their roadmap, and, like, saving 5K per, like, two months isn't, like, at the highest list on, on the priority. And maybe s- like you said, there is this one little niche custom thing that RevenueHero does that Calendly doesn't or that, like, HubSpot Calendar doesn't do. So yeah, I like your, like, wearing the listener hat on. Is that what you called it?

Kelsie: Yeah. Wear, uh, w- yeah. Wear my listener hat or my learning hat right now because you gotta find those things, and if you kinda come in hot, then you're not gonna bring the people along as well. And so, "Hey, I'm just really trying to understand.

I noticed these three tools. Walk me through what each one does from your perspective," and then go to the next person that's using that tool. Um, and it really does help 'cause I've had the same thing. It's like, oh gosh, this is such a cost impact.

We've got this overhead. And so you'll eventually work your way to building that trust and then slimming down tools, but it probably isn't the biggest thing you need to solve for today. Now, if you had, like, three webinar tools, I might be like, "Ah, that's gonna be, that's pretty expensive. Let's fix that."

Phil: Yeah, I'm actually always shocked by how expensive webinar tools are. Kelsie: Event platforms are not cheap. ​ Phil: talk to me about, like, a situation where 6 - How to Choose a New Martech Tool With a Tiger Team of Power Users - Phil: the solution was actually a new tool, and, like, you're interviewing people, there's this process or this problem that kept popping up, and you've used a solution in the past that was, like, we hate saying, like, a tool doesn't solve solution...

A tool isn't a solution to problems, but sometimes it kind of is, like, especially in the, the early, like, information-gathering phases. Is, is there a time that jumps to mind, uh, when I ask you that? Kelsie: Yeah, it actually relates to events platforms is what I'm gonna talk about. So, um, yeah.

What comes to mind is, and I'll kinda step back a few years, I had come back from maternity leave, and there was, um, uh, spoke, you know, with my new, my new leader, 'cause there had been some shifting in the organization, and it was like, "Hey, you're gonna take over the team, and here's also the big problem child at the moment. We have event platform that, that went live while you were out, and no one's ena- you know, the marketers are upset they can't use the tool." And so same thing, I got curious before I got critical.

I went and talked, you know, set up one-on-ones with the actual users of the tool, 'cause the, the ops team was okay with it. They're the ones that made the decision to purchase it. They're the ones that, you know, onboard and went through the whole process of training and everything. But there was a clear gap between the actual day-to-day users of the tool.

And so sat down, made sure everyone, uh, those users felt heard so that I could buy myself some time to figure out what was going on. Um, and then long story short, we ended up needing to purchase a new tool, because it was very clear that it wasn't even just enablement, even though we put a lot of effort into enablement and retraining, office hours, having, you know, a dedicated team member to a dedicated department. That did not... It got us better from an enablement side, but what it didn't do is the actual reliability of the tool ended up kind of falling on its face.

And that's where we said, "Okay, the time has come. We need to find a new tool." And it was a really great opportunity, because we took a different approach, and we gathered a tiger team of those power users that were very passionate about why the tool wasn't working and what, what they really needed. Gathered requirements, clear requirement documentation, which we all love in ops.

Um, and then we went through a whole RFP process, and when we had the top three vendors, we brought the tiger team through those dev vendors. So they were a clear part of the choice of the tool we used. And I've done that process on repeat since, and it always pays off tenfold on the, the choice of tool you choose, because you've got now people that are bought in. They're excited.

They're like, "Oh, I just love that demo. I can't wait to get my hands in it." That's when you... When as soon as I get a message on the side when we're in a demo where someone's like, "I can't wait to...

I wanna use this today," that's when I know. I'm like, "All right, we got this." Um, and so that's really helped. And so replacing the tool was the solution even though I tried hard not to at first.

I really wanted to make sure, we had six months left on the contract, how do we make this work what we have? 'Cause it's a lot quicker to renew a tool than it is to find a new one. Um, but long story short, we renewed the tool, and the enablement process was so much, I'd probably say like 75% quicker than it was with the original tool, and it was the right decision in the end Phil: Hmm. Yeah, I'll, I'll ask you, uh, off the record what, uh, what those tools were if we don't have to uh, yeah, throw shade at, at Kelsie: no.

Everyone's working hard. Yeah Phil: Yeah, I feel that. It's, yeah, I, I mean, obviously I've never gone on mat leave, but I can totally empathize with the situation of going away and then coming back and being like, "Man," like, "What? Like, we had all this process in place for buying tools.

Why didn't we follow this process?" And you train the team and, um, but you weren't there, and it's a little nasty surprise from coming back from, from break, and you're probably sleep, sleep deprived on top of it. Kelsie: A little tired. And also during that transition for me career-wise, I went from...

I left for maternity leave as an individual contributor on the team, and when, as soon as I came back, I was promoted to lead the team. So that's where it really was a very, you know, now I've got these team members that are dependent on me. They've got a new leader that was previously a peer, and so there was a lot there that was a lot of, you know, just trying to figure out what is the best path forward. Um, and I had lead teams previously, but not at this scale, and so it was much different.

I'm like, "All right. Here we go. Put my, put my operations hat on. Let's go."

Phil: Welcome back, Kelsey, nothing's changed too much. Kelsey, you're just a completely new job now and, uh, all these tools, and by the way, our webinar platform sucks. Please help. Kelsie: Exactly, yeah.

Here's a list of problems. Good luck Phil: So let's talk about like 7 - How to Turn a Marketing Ops Audit Into a Prioritized Roadmap - Phil: turning this audit into something tangible like a roadmap. 'Cause like I feel like there's like a, a learning exercise with the audit here. You're gathering a bunch of information, you're taking notes, you've got transcripts from all the interviews that you're doing, and then you're surfacing a bunch of stuff from there, right?

Like, so there's like artifacts and like problems, uh, processes, like missing tool, tool consolidation, uh, things that are missing that we need to add, things that are super data that we need to fix, things that are cumbersome that we need to remove and simplify. Like, there's all these things that come out of an audit. How do you go through the process of putting all those things down on paper and turning it into a roadmap, prioritizing it from like red, yellow, green, or, or whatever the prioritization process is?

Like, walk us through that, um, that train of thought or the process. Kelsie: Yeah, I think just in the 30 days, I identified over 30 different things that I wanted to tackle. And just looking at the list, I was like, "Oh gosh, where do I even start?" But I, I weighted them, right?

So I was like, all right, in order to fix this, you need to fix this, and so I kind of built out that scale of, like, order of operations plus effort versus impact and all of that. Um, and that helped me build out the roadmap. So out of that 30-day, when I kind of presented my assessment to the leadership team, I also had, "And here's what our next step should be," from a, "Here's, like, the, the mainly the things we're gonna solve," but I know each one of these things we're gonna solve is probably, like, four or five different epics inside.

And so building that out is a little bit trickier. And so, um, I took it, I weighted it, and then a lot of things are, those are FY27 problems. I mean, honestly, there's things that need to get done, but they're not a on fire today, and they're not gonna have the biggest impact, and so we can make it work until then. Um, and then where are those quick wins that we can throw into, you know, Q3 and Q4 that will be small, and then what are the big rocks we're gonna move?

Phil: give us a couple examples of like couple things that came out from that list of 30 and how you assess whether that was like something we push off to later, we put in the parking lot, or like that's a quick win, or this is something we need to do that's multiple epics. Like walk us through a couple examples Kelsie: Yeah. The biggest thing that I was hired, the problem I was hired to solve is kind of like one of the things is, uh, reporting. We need a proper reporting suite so that marketers know what's working, what's not.

And so that is, you know, something we can build, but when we are kind of going the levels deeper, we actually need to fix the way we are gathering that data. We don't have the data foundation to... I could build a report today, but it's gonna tell them the same thing they have right now, which is, we know is interact- inaccurate. So, um, that is an example of, like, being really c- clear in my communication of like, all right, we need...

We want this. Yes, that is gonna be the next quarter. Give me this quarter to fix this part. And that really comes down to tactical things like how we're using UTMs, how we're capturing them, how we actually tag in the campaign source that they came from.

Um, and so there's some real structural things that will happen to get us that data. The campaign taxonomy I talked about earlier, that's actually a quick win. Um, but an example of something that I'm gonna table would be, um, I wanna have us get to the spot where we just have a form you s- com- you complete that spits back out your campaign code. I've done this, had this done at previous organizations, and it was awesome, and that will be quicker, but today it takes, like, a few seconds for an ops request to come through and us to do that.

So, like, we can handle that as a BAU for now, but we are gonna automate that in the future. So those are the areas that, um, kind of weigh and I'm like, "Oh, we don't need to do that right now," but we will Phil: Very cool. Yeah, I'm sure looking at that list of 30, you're just like, "Damn, there's so many things that I wish I could do if I could, um, hand some of those off to my, my digital twin there." If I couldn't just, like, bounce backup ideas, but actually get them to, to put them to work.

But yeah, prioritization I feel like is, is so different at different companies too, because like you said, you were hired with a mandate to fix measurement and, and reporting. So even though there's a bunch of maybe red flags that came out with, like, lead routing and lead qualification that you're just like, "Yo, we need to fix that," it wasn't, like, the number one mandate that you were hired to do. Um, but, like, how do you maybe tackle that with your, your manager or... 'Cause, like you said, you got OKR, so the team is handed, like, metrics that you need to ladder up to fix.

Maybe part of that is revenue or, like, influencing revenue or engagement or number of projects out the door or whatever it is. How do you make the case that you hired me to fix the measurement, but all of these things were surfaced up in lead routing and lead scoring that I think will have a huge impact on this one OKR that we are trailing behind right now a- as part of this year? Like, how do you have those con- those conversations just hypothetically? Not saying that that's the case.

Kelsie: No, that is a really good point because you're gonna... You might find in your audit that something has been called out that was not a part of the original project you were given. And so that's where the really building that trust of, hey, presenting it. Think about who you're s- presenting to is always key.

What's in it for them? And then really articulating that in your presentation to say, "Okay, here's why I think we need to do this, and here's the road forward if you're okay with us going forward with this. We maybe table this. You know, maybe you need a few extra months before you get that measurement.

But in the meantime, the payoff is gonna be faster leads to the right reps, and less friction with, you know, BDRs or SDRs coming to you with complaints, and more revenue, which is ultimately the end goal for everyone." So, uh, that's how I would tackle that, and I think just being really clear and catching it early Phil: Very cool. You said your, your, one of your mandates was, like, fixing measurement and, and knowing what's working and what's not working. I wanna riff on that, uh, a little bit.

I feel like part of solving that at companies is, like, there's a tooling side of it, there's a data foundation side of it, but there's a third side that I think is underrated, and it's, like, 8 - How to Align Your Team on a Measurement Philosophy - Phil: the philosophy of measurement in, in marketing. And, um, how much did that come up in interviews with you? 'Cause I feel like you could hire three different people that are super qualified, that can do the job really well, and you've got one person that is a multi-touch attribution truther.

You've got one person that's 100% bought in on MMM, and MMM is the only way to do it. And then a third person who's just, like, always on experimentation. They hate MTA, they hate MMM. I feel like, you know, like, n- all three of those people could add value to your company, but there's, like, a philosophy piece that as a hiring manager, as the company, you need to have that discussion.

Maybe you're having it with the team. Maybe they had it already. But, like, talk to us about that, like, the philosophy of measurement when, when you're joining a new company or, like, trying to fix it. Kelsie: Yeah, it's a big one.

And even if you come in with ideas on how you've done it previously, you always have to stay in this thought of reimagining the way we're working, and that's what we're doing with AI anyways. Our roles are changing. How do we make ourselves relevant and reimagine the way we do things? And me and re- me, reimagine the entire role.

And so that's the same philosophy I applied here, is that kinda coming in, doing the, in those interviews, "Hey, what are you looking to achieve? What's important to you? What do you find you're not able to get out of your current reporting?" And what I found was it's not really about the, um, attribution.

It's more so like we just wanna know what's helping drive what. Like, are we ac- You know, today we know from our engagement, but we actually don't know if it's actually driving pipeline. So how do we do that in a way that is impactful? And so I really was very fortunate to have an offsite early on in my s- um, time at Unanet, and so we were actually able to do a whole workshop.

We recorded it, walked through all the different, um, ways that everyone wants to be able to report on something, and it's different by channel, too, right? So we're trying to find those synergies where we can have a very clear path forward. Um, and then reimagining it, right? So using my digital twin, I'm talking, like, "All right, here's how I would've done it.

Here's, like, the standard I would wanna done it, but how could I do it a different way?" And do deep research on how B2B companies are doing it today and just to make sure that I'm not pigeonholing myself in a box where, hey, let's just do last touch, and then here all of a sudden I'm like, "Wait a second. That's not what everyone wants anyway." So, and really leading the team through that process is so important because we all need to be aligned, and we need to make sure that the outcome is what everyone is ready to buckle down and use until we change it again.

So you wanna make sure that everyone is ready, they know what they're doing, and, um, they know what they're looking at when they open a report Phil: Very cool. I love that you started with an, an offsite with a company, especially like for companies that are remote, like you're starting off and you don't meet the team until like one year into the tenure. Getting that out of the way and like actually meeting those people, having human conversations with them is, is, is so huge.

Um, yeah, happy you had the chance to do that. You mentioned this idea of reimagining the role in, with AI. Obviously you only a couple of years in here, and something you talked about, um, pre-interview is this idea of like 9 - What Happens to Junior Marketing Ops When AI Eats the Entry-Level Work - Phil: AI is eating the rung that you climbed in marketing ops. I found that super interesting, so I wanna riff on that a little bit.

Like, you wrote that you started scrubbing lead lists and learning VLOOKUPs, and those foundations kinda really do stick for you in, in marketing ops. Um, that's the exact work you could argue that AI does for a lot of folks now. You could ... And, and you also tell operators to grow beyond being experts in any one platform.

Huge fan of plastic- uh, platform agnostic, uh, myself. So I wanna like sit in that tension between those like two things because if you have someone who's fresh out of college, 22, 21, whatever, and you know, they can't get the lead list job that taught you, how do they ever build the judgment that you lead with today? Like there's a version where we get a missing generation of operators. Like there's, they don't have the juniors getting the reps that we did.

Um, like there's no seniors that are like 10 years in that have done those like junior reps. Like maybe riff on that a little bit. I'm curious to get your thoughts. Kelsie: Yeah.

'cause it, it really started at, like, that was the foundation for me, so now I have the logic to be able to apply that. And so, it... We are gonna be in a very different world, and so the advice I would give to someone coming fresh out of college that's not gonna maybe have that experience is build out your digital twin. You need to be doing some research on AI.

You need to be understanding it enough, like, bu- you know, even if you're just coding something yourself. Then you kind of start to think, "Okay, if I were to go get a job, what am I looking to do, and am I... can I actually use AI to help train me on how I'm gonna do it?" But in a role like that, you have to know when to, when to say, "Hey, I think an agent could do this for me," and when to say it couldn't.

Uh, or what... And then to be able to test it, right? So like right now, I could have an agent clean the data and do a VLOOKUP on something, and I can actually go cross-reference it. But maybe someone coming in doesn't have that experience, and so I'd say, "Make sure you know what you're doing before you're just adding AI to it."

And so I would have them do that process. If I were to hire a junior today that is starting fresh, and maybe is their job is gonna be to manage a series of data cleanup agents, like that is a n- reimagined new role. They're managing agents. Um, that would be the first thing I'd say is, "Okay, this agent," and I'm making this up, right?

"Does a VLOOKUP." Like, that's what they do, and then it passes over to this agent. Um, you need to first be able to do this process yourself to be able to, like, cross-reference and understand it, and then test it, and then now run the agent and see what your outcome is. And okay, if you got it wrong or they got it wrong, really understand the logic because if you don't understand it, then I've hired someone that's just gonna be passing things through incorrectly and not actually monitoring things.

Phil: Yeah, such a good point. I, I have this conversation with a lot of different folks, and most of them are, like, worried about what happens to the junior marketer, the junior marketing ops person, because we're hiring less of those people, but the work is handed off to agents and AI. And so some of those folks that are, you know, two, three years into their careers, the work that they did in those two, three years is different than the work that, you know, we did two, three years into our careers.

And so a lot of folks are, like, worried about it. But I actually had a conversation with someone, um, he's on the board at Growth Loop now. Uh, he's our former CEO, but he was the opposite of worried, and I think a lot about his take when I have this conversation because h- his idea was that, like, these kids, I call them kids, but, like, people that are coming out of college right now, the ones that are booing all the speeches that are mentioning AI, um, but, like, they're AI native more than a lot of us are today.

Like, we've been using AI for two, three years in our work, but, like, they, they grew up on AI tools. A lot of them did. And so, like, his stance was, like, these AI native fresh grads are already magicians with AI, and we should actually build new roles around how they work instead of mourning the old training grounds and all the reps that we built. Like, it's just, like, self-fulfilling a little bit.

But yeah, I'm curious to get your thoughts there. Kelsie: Yeah, I think it is, there's a whole new world where it actually gets me excited, 'cause I had this thought the other day when I was just looking at, like, how we could do different processes, and when you start, going back to my rethink, if we rethink the way you work, it's actually anything is possible. It's just you have to have that creative idea. And so if you're a creative person and you're able to apply that and you can now have a new role that is, hey, I can bring this experience over, I've got this idea.

And it can be tough, right? You gotta figure out what market you're going into, if you're going to rev ops or marketing ops. In any of those industries, you do need to kinda get up to speed on what you're gonna be trying to solve. But I think you have much more, um, c- breadth of, of, uh, coverage because you're actually able to do a lot of different things by pulling in hopefully a lot of, a team of agents, versus before where you were just a group of juniors helping do one process Phil: Yeah.

Yeah, it's such a good point. Um, couple last questions for you, Kelsey. Uh, I did wanna let, let you riff a little bit on, like, 10 - How to Turn Marketing Ops From Ticket-Takers Into Business Partners - Phil: leading the team that nobody sees. Um, so something that came out in your, your pre-interview that you said you were really passionate about is, like, building and leading the marketing ops team, and you've kinda named this really interesting truth that a lot of other folks have said on the show, marketing ops is the engine behind go-to-market, but it doesn't often get the visibility or, like, the credit or the responsibility on paper that it deserves.

A lot of folks have said that, you know, marketing ops is, like, the hidden machinery of, of go-to-market, and the way out is to pull people outside the tech team and turn ticket-takers into partners. I'd love for you to, like, riff on that a little bit. Do you agree with that, and how do you keep, like, good operators motivated and out of permanent firefighting, like, ticket answering mode? Um, yeah, just curious your thoughts there.

Kelsie: Gosh, Bill, you don't like a firefighting saying? Like, I feel like that is such a, a, a huge piece. Um, no, I totally agree with this, and actually I love... Mike Rizzo did a post on this recently, and I was just like, "Yes, this is what we need to be talking about," because it can be disheartening when you're s- when you only hear about what's not working.

And but for the team, and, you know, not to be ticket takers, I talk about this a lot with my teams, but we're a business partner. We're not just, you know, behind the scenes taking a ticket, moving on to the next thing. And so what I have always done with my teams is you're a business partner with your stakeholders. You should be actually meeting with them to build that relationship regularly, so that way at the other end of a ticket when you guys are going back and forth, one, you're a little bit more prepared because you've met to talk about what priorities are coming up, and if they need a last-minute request, you've got that rapport with them that you probably are gonna be like, "Yeah, yeah, let me get that done for them."

Um, and if something goes wrong, you're now, whether it's the op side who goes wrong or maybe they put in the request wrong, there's that person behind the ticket that you're actually able to add that human element. So I've always really been very passionate about that. That helps just in your career in general, so now they... that person moves on to another organization, you might have a network connection there, and, like, it just builds much more than a ticket.

So I've always challenged my team, you should know every single person that you're getting a request from. And especially, and it's tough at bigger organizations, you might be getting requests from 30 different people, but find ways that you set up sessions, that you're doing maybe just an ops, um, you know, workshop once a month where you invite all your stakeholders to, " Hey, do you have any problems with your tools?" Just open office hours or share something new, but bring that person element to it really helps.

And then as a leader, I think it's really important to be talking about the wins, and so holding time in your team meetings, in the broader t- you know, marketing team meetings to be like, "Here's the wins." You know, instead of talking about the two leads that got routed wrong, let's talk about all the leads that actually got routed correctly, and just throw up some highlights that are exciting. So I think that's super important. Um, and finally, I would say having strategic projects for everyone on the team to be a part of pulls away and it adds that barrier between the BAU and then, "Hey, I'm making an impact.

I'm moving the needle by doing this other work as well." Phil: Mm-hmm. That's such a good point. Love the, the strategic angle there, 'cause people can get lost in the VA use, so especially like the, the, the more junior folks that are just, like, answering the tickets and, and, and fighting those fires.

Um, I wanna ask you about this, you know, like, your, your go-to in- your 11 - How to Use One Interview Question to Screen for Team Fit - Phil: go-to interview question is about the best leader a candidate's worked for. Um, I've actually gotten this question too, so I'm, I'm curious to get your take here. Like, uh, y- like you're, you're probably asking this to see, like, if they would thrive under your leadership style. So, like, where's the line between how you build a team that fits and, like, filtering out the people who tell you your process maybe is wrong?

What are your thoughts there? Kelsie: Yeah, this is a good one. And I don't think it's bad if someone's gonna tell you your process is wrong, but I do think where, what I'm looking for when I'm asking that question in the interview process is exactly what you said. Are we gonna be able...

Are they g- actually going to enjoy working with me? Because if they are someone that enjoys, you know, I need a structure, tell me what I'm doing exactly every day, that's, we're not gonna, we're not a gel well. I want you to be autonomous, you get your work done, and come talk to me when you need me of like, "Hey, I have this issue. I wanna brainstorm."

Like, that's what I want versus I shouldn't have to watch, monitor your work. That's kind of my style. But, uh, where it comes down to is I also want every individual on the team to do the best work of their careers, and so are they gonna be able to do that under my leadership? That's what I'm looking for.

And if I find someone that, you know, they maybe answer that question and I, I dig a little deeper. I'm always like, "All right, you know, tell me about that leader. Tell me more. Tell me about a leader maybe you didn't actually enjoy working with."

I really do dig to figure out if this is gonna be a good fit. But if I have someone on a team, and sometimes you inherit teams, right? And so you're trying to figure out how I gel them together. It's really important to bring a, uh, I'm big on feedback, and so it all starts with me.

And so in my one-on-ones with my team members I'll ask them, "Is there anything I could do or start doing to make your job easier?" And it takes a while for someone to actually kinda give me feedback, but once they start opening that door, and then we bring feed- then I, when I'm giving feedback back, it's a two-way street. And, and in team sessions, the same thing. So if someone were to ask, you know, say, "Hey, this process is broke."

I'd be like, "Great. Okay, tell me why." And it's okay if it's in front of a group of team members because we're gonna actually work together. We're gonna rumble and we're gonna work our way through this, and hopefully they're actually gonna pinpoint something that could be better.

Um, now if it's done unprofessionally, we got a whole nother issue. Yeah. Phil: Nice. Yeah.

Storming and norming, sometimes doing it live in front of a bunch of people is the, the best way to dig through certain problems, and it saves time sometimes too. Like, I'm still a big fan of interviewing people one-on-one, getting the transcript like you said, uh, getting like that color commentation aside from just like someone writing something about it. But there's something about being in a group session together and doing it live and people just like feeding ideas off each other, 'cause when you're just talking to someone one-on-one it's like it's all on them, like they're downloading their stream of thoughts.

But then when someone says something different, they're like, "Oh yeah, shit, that's really true. That made me think of this and that." And so it's like a lot more color and sometimes like different ideas then, uh, kinda comes through. But yeah, I, I love your point there.

Kelsie: We've done it too where, uh, we were workshopping, documenting a process that we wanted to improve, and we did it virtually with white, you know, sticky notes. And we would have a sticky note where someone was like, "Well, I do this step." So kind of back to your point of, like, someone going rogue off the process. "Well, I think this step is really valuable."

And so we would flag it as a certain color of, like, needs review. And then we spent... So we got- we did, like, the, um, must-have in the process, and then we had a level of, like, up for negotiation on it, 'cause we really were trying to standardize everyone has to do this process the same. And so then with the, I think we probably had 10 or 12 sticky notes of could be added as required, and then we took two a week, and whoever came up with the idea had to present in our team meeting of, like, why, why this is important, and then we all had to agree as a group, I mean, majority had to agree of, yes, we'll do it, or, yes, we won't.

And it was actually kind of fun, 'cause there was... I had one team member that probably had 90% of those sticky notes, and so every week she was up there like, "All right. Ready, guys? Here's why this is important."

And, you know, some of them didn't make it and some of them did. And we ended up with a really fine-tuned process of us all operating the same, and there was no fall th- fall out of... Especially if you're taking over tasks for a different region or a different group, it really helped us to all be aligned. Phil: Super cool.

Kelsey, this has been super fun. I feel like we could, uh, we could keep jamming for, for a while here. But, um, I got one last question for you. You're obviously a marketing ops leader, seasoned project management leader, uh, but you're also a mom of two and an amateur basketball player, snowboarder.

You love keeping active. One question we ask everyone on the show is, how do you 12 - How a Marketing Ops Leader Decides What Deserves Her Energy - Phil: decide what deserves your energy at any given moment, and what's your personal system for staying aligned with what actually makes you happy? Kelsie: Yeah, this is so important, especially in ops. And so I always think of, am I doing the best work of my career right now, and what is kind of the focus?

And I should always be challenged. I'm always happiest when I'm tr- trying something new and I'm not just doing the same old. And so saving space for that from a work perspective, but then also disconnecting and holding those boundaries. It's important to recharge personally, recharge with the family, making sure I'm connecting with them, 'cause the job might not be there tomorrow.

And so it's really important to have those boundaries. And, you know, having my morning routine, having those things, and I've learned a lot from others of like, oh, I'll try this new morning routine or this new evening i- you know, ritual. Uh, but really staying grounded in that. And I mean, I have my hard gap of between 5:00 and 7:00 I don't open my laptop or check it because that's when I'm with the kids, and I want them to see that value of that.

And then there'll be seasons where I may need to do that, and I am prepared for it, and it's communicated and like, "All right, we're going through a tough quarter. I'm gonna be a little busy." And that allows me to kinda have that, that balance that I, I look for Phil: What's the morning routine or, uh, nighttime routine right now that you're sticking with that you like? Kelsie: A morning routine.

With this new position, I'm working different hours. I was a 6:30 AM worker before, and now logging in more normal. Yeah, it's the whole global company thing. Um, so now I've got a more normal routine, and I actually get to wake my kids up in the morning, which is super exciting.

And so waking up, I get a workout in, move my body. And some days it's not an actual lift, I'll actually just, you know, walk on the walking pad, and I might answer some emails. But, like, that's some things that I'll do just to kind of move my body, and then I gotta have a good cup of coffee. Like, there's...

We work too hard to have shitty coffee is, like, my big thing. So I have a good cup of coffee, and then get the kids ready to go and, uh, enjoy snuggling with them for a bit, and then hit the ground running Phil: Nice. I love it. Yeah.

There's probably, like, a roundup episode of just, like, morning daily routines, cause people have, like, a bunch of different ones. I chatted with a couple people that, like, were super intense, like, like cold shower, 100% true, they're on cold showers. This other person is like, "I, uh, I get up in the morning and I don't look at my phone. I don't open my email.

Like, the first thing I do is I touch my dog. I need to, like, pet my puppy." And it's just, like, a different type of dopamine than opening your phone and looking at your emails. But yeah, I, I, pick up new routines Kelsie: I love that.

Yeah, I've had someone tell me that they walk outside and they look at the sun. That's like the first thing they do in the morning. I mean, not directly at it, but yeah. You just gotta find your thing Phil: Yeah.

Kelsey, thanks so much for your time today. Really appreciate it. Um, for folks that are starting a new gig or, um, you know, hopefully on the job planning about to start something new, I think this is gonna be super valuable, so really appreciate your time. Kelsie: Thank you for having me.