Breaking Down Silos: RevOps, Data, and the Modern Marketing Mindset

Speaker A: Welcome to Revops Revolution, where we focus on changing the game for driving revenue. I'm your host, Jesse Morris. In each episode, we take a look at the different areas that affect change and drive revenue across your organization. If this is your first time joining us, please subscribe so you don't miss out on any future episode. Here's the revolution. Welcome to another day of the Revolution. I am your host, Jesse Morris, and today we are lucky to have one of my former colleagues, friends, and marketing leader Lindsey Mahoney. Lindsey, thanks for joining.

Speaker B: Thank you for having me. Jesse, I'm so excited to be here,

Speaker A: stoked to have you on. So it's. It's fun. Lindsay and I worked together at our last company. Really excited to have you on the show today. We've been trying to get some time together. Um, I think one of the cool things that I always think about with you, and I like how you'll talk probably a little bit about today, like, how our relationship built over time. And I think you're one of the best marketing leaders I've ever worked with. And I think one of the cool things about that is just a few things that you did. One, it's this idea that, like, we partnered together, which is very unique. And I think it wasn't just us. I think we talked about this, like, even with finance and, uh, you know, sales and all the other aspects as well. And then I think this idea, too, like, you've been leading teams for over 15 years now, which I think goes a long way. You've seen a lot of different things. You were talking about that earlier, and I think one of the things that always stood out to me, too, is how you build your cultures. And I think very similar. You and I have kind of similar, similar leadership styles and how we do that, and I always admire that. So, really excited to have you on. Can you share a little bit more about yourself?

Speaker B: Yeah, sure. Thanks. Thanks again for having me. And thanks for the nice words. I, uh, really appreciate it. So, uh, I'm Lindsey Mahoney. I am a North American marketing leader for MRI Software. We are headquartered out of Cleveland, Ohio, and I'm actually out of the Atlanta office. Um, I've been here. It'll be actually a year next month in July. And before that, I've always really been in tech. Actually, at the very beginning of my career, I started as an intern in PR in healthcare, and I was gonna stay there. I loved it. And then, um, there was no job, but there was a job in tech. And so I took that One, and really the rest is history. And I mean, man, what an awesome time to be in tech. What an awesome time to be a marketer in tech. Uh, the technology we get to use and the technology we get to market is, um, just awesome right now. So, um, I started my career really focusing on the demand component, but have really, um, now kind of do the whole thing inclusive of product marketing and content marketing and demand and events and all of the different pieces. But I think my favorite part is really the intersection of where marketing connects with sales and sales ops and how those pieces come together. And actually at uh, my current role, where, uh, we kind of define that team as the go to market team. So that's a mix of ops, solutions, marketing, um, and then of course, sales. So that's where I'm going now and just really am loving it and having a lot of fun with it.

Speaker A: Not surprised at all. I mean, I think the thing that always stands out is you. You're similar to me where we just love what we do. And that makes a huge difference. When you think about, like, your career and you think back on some of the things that have led you to today. We were talking before this a little bit about, you know, the different experiences you've had and you've seen a lot of different things. Like, what do you think has driven your success? I mean, are there some core things you always come back to?

Speaker B: Yeah, no, for sure. So, I mean, if I look back to the beginning, I think one of the pieces of success that, um, was really most probably the. The biggest influential piece that was driving me as I didn't want to have to go home. And so I moved to Atlanta right from school. I'm originally from the Maryland D.C. area, and I didn't want to have to go home. And I only had a certain amount of money to keep me in Atlanta. And once that was gone, I, uh, was in trouble. And that happened 21 years ago at this point. So, um, that drive was what, um, really kind of started my career. But I realized when I looked at where I saw people be successful, it was the people that were always learning. I never, every day I try and learn something, even if it's about myself, about someone else, if it's a new skill. But every day I'm always learning. And so I think that that's one of the big pieces just to always focus on learning. And then this one is a hard one. And it's taken a long time to get to this point, but, like, you got to always be listening to Listening more than you're speaking and really listening to hear people that you admire, how they're positioning things, how they're solving problems, the people that are building the products that you're marketing. I mean, you've got to know your stuff. If you don't know your stuff, it's really hard to market. And then I think in addition to listening and learning, it's just leaning in, leaning into opportunities, identifying new opportunities, raising your hand, having your voice be heard, and just not sitting in the back and letting kind of life pass you by for a better way to put it. And then, you know, at the end of the day, it's also a little bit of luck too, because being in the right place at the right time, but having the right attitude to really capitalize on, uh, an opportunity.

Speaker A: I think those are really good. And I like, I mean, the acknowledgment of luck. It's also being in the position to be able to take advantage of the luck. Right. Which is always.

Speaker B: Absolutely.

Speaker A: I want to double click a little bit on leaning in, and I'm going to put you on the spot a little bit here. Can you talk about a time in your career, maybe even early on, where like, you felt like you leaned in and it really paid off in a big way and you took maybe a risk or something around those lines?

Speaker B: Yeah. You know, early on in my career, I, um, was working for a startup where, um, we were kind of the bell of the ball for a little bit. And there was a lot of transition in marketing, um, leadership. And the CEO liked me. You know, he thought I was smart. He asked me for my opinions and I was, I mean, I was probably 26, 27, so very, very early on in my career. But, um, he asked me for my opinions and at first I was cautious to share them, and then he kept asking and so then I started sharing them more. And then when we had some transition in the leadership, I went to his office and said, give me a chance, you know, let me try and do it. Was I doing it the way the CMO was? Of course. Like, was it anywhere close to that? No. But what I learned by leaning into that opportunity truly transformed my career. It made me so much more relevant. I was exposed to things that I, most people my age weren't exposed to. And I would go home and I would, you know, call people that I admired and say, this is what happened today. What's, what's your advice? You know, and so I think that's probably an opportunity where you just leaned in I saw. And you know, I've leaned in before and was told no. So it doesn't mean just because you're told you lean in and you ask for something, you don't get it, that you're never going to. It's. It's leaning in every time, and sometimes it's going to work and sometimes it's not. Um, but that's probably something that comes to mind is when I worked at mfg, that was a big lean and opportunity that really did shape the next 10 years of my career.

Speaker A: That's really cool. And I think the unique thing about that too is, again, a, you put yourself in that position because you built trust over time, but then, B, when that opportunity came to your point around luck, you went after it and ultimately able to pull it off. Right.

Speaker B: Yeah. Fingers crossed.

Speaker A: When you think about the leadership side, because I think this is something that you and I both have talked about in the past, and we often think about, like, how do you feel like you. You encourage your team to lean in more? Like, what are some of the things you're doing? And again, I'm kind of putting on the spot with this one. Yeah. That you feel like that is helping drive some of that own behavior. And so. And I think part of that's innately. I think partly some people have that innately, you probably agree with that. But I also think part of it is we can encourage that or bring that out of people. What are some things you're doing or thinking around those lines?

Speaker B: I push people to solve things themselves. And I think one of the things that, um, has really changed in my own leadership over time is that different isn't wrong. And so just because I would solve something a specific way and someone presents a different opportunity to solve it, it doesn't mean it's wrong. And so I really push my team, the people I work with, the people that I partner with my peers, to say, okay, tell me how you want to fix it, tell me what you want to do with it, and then let's talk about that. And I think that that level of empowerment goes a long way. Um, I think also from a leadership perspective, having to be okay not being the one that knows the answer, but your team knows the answer, and you realize that that's actually more empowering than anything, is giving them that voice instead of you always being the voice. So I hope that answers the question. But I think that's kind of where, um, I really focus is on empowering people, letting them drive. And if they need my Help I come along the way. But I mean, the team I'm working with now, we have come so far in the past six months and it's by them being in the steering wheel, taking it and just running. And the results have just been amazing.

Speaker A: It's interesting when you look at it because I think both of our personalities are kind of doers. Let's execute, let's get this thing done. And, and a shift for me, very similar to what you were just talking about is like my natural right off the bat thing is always like, you know, if I get asked a question, I'm going to want to answer that question. And now it's almost okay, uh, take a deep breath. And then it's. It's exactly what you said. It's like pushing it back and going, hey, what do you think? Like before I answer you, and I did, I was on team meeting this week and you know, right away I was like, oh, I got the answer. And I'm like, wait a second. Like, that's not the purpose of this whole thing anyways. The whole purpose is to get them thinking. And so it's been fun to like, even as a leader, to evolve and, and sometimes I have a hard time with it because I do love having the answer. Like, we all feel good about that. You're, it's like you get that, you get that self satisfaction of winning, but it also is a reframing from a leadership perspective of like winning no longer is actually you and I having the answer. It's, you know, it's seeing our teams. Right. Fully fulfill their own capabilities, which is cool.

Speaker B: And uh, I like to think that 85% of the time I've got the right mindset. 15% of the time, man, I still want that answer, you know, and I, and I want to give it and I want to, I want to have my hands on the button that's, that's making it work. And so I think it's finding that balance too is when do you need to push the button and when do you need to step back and be a supporter to those that are pushing the button?

Speaker A: Yeah, completely agree. Okay, I want to shift gears a little bit here. And one of my favorite topics and something that you and I have spent some time on, uh, is really about, I would say kind of the dynamics and tension across different departments and really go to market because I think it's something that a lot of companies start. I mean, almost every company I've been into, there's tension either between sales and marketing or Rev ops and finance or whatever parts of the business. And I think like, one of the cool things, I was actually talking to, uh, sue the other day about this and like, tension isn't always bad, right? Like, there's actually good tension and bad tension. Um, like how do you think about. There are places where you actually think it's productive and others where you're trying to smooth things out. Any examples you can give around that?

Speaker B: Yeah, you know, I think that the, like you said, tension is not necessarily bad. I do think the tension often comes from everyone needing to lead. And I think there have to be times when marketing is leading. There's times when sales should be leading, there's times when solutions should be leading, uh, sales ops should be leading. And when you have partners that understand that, uh, that's where I think the relationship is really strong. You know, when I actually started two companies ago, um, I came in and I was talking to someone in the marketing org and they were like, we don't work for sales. And I was like, oh, I do. I absolutely work for sales. Because if sales is successful, the company is successful. Working for someone doesn't mean you become an order taker or you lose your sense of direction or you have no input on strategy. Working for sales means you understand that revenue and bookings is what drives the organization. And so I think being able to be a leader, that's okay with that, um, comes a really long way and having partners that feel the same way. You know, our number one metric is pipeline creation. And so if I'm building all of the pipeline in the world and we're missing bookings targets, that's not ideal. If we're not building pipeline and we're hitting bookings targets, still not ideal. You know, so it's just really understanding, um, that balance and that shuffle, like we're all in it for the same goal. Even if we have individual goals, I

Speaker A: think that's a good call out. When you think about, um, that piece of it, like what has been something you've seen around those lines to help get that alignment. Because I think it's easy, it's easy to be like, you know, hey, I, I, I work for sales, but that's a shift for, and I think mindset, especially for people maybe who haven't always thought that way. Some of the things that you've either done or you've seen can work to help people get in that. Because again, it's like we all have a little bit different objectives, but we should have the same central objective. Right.

Speaker B: Uh, absolutely. So I think a lot of it is building trust. And building trust is one of those things that, like, you say, and it's like, you got to build trust. I mean, how do you do that? Uh, I had Gary, uh, Brooks, who I absolutely adore. He's a marketing leader that I worked with at Synchron. He always talked about, um, you have to build up your chips like you want. You want to go to the table, and you want someone to gamble on your idea, to spend their time with you, you have to have built chips with them. So it's maybe building that trust by doing some things that maybe you don't think are super strategic, but your partner seems to think that they are and just kind of working on that relationship and say, I'm going to go here. So then when I need an ask, maybe you can come help me. And so, like, I'm really big on building. Building that. Your chips, building your bank and having people see you as valuable. I also think it's. It's about honesty, too. And if you get off to the wrong foot just being honest, I mean, you and I had a very, uh, we had a little bit of a tense relationship when we started, and now things have come the wrong way. And, I mean, I actually learned so much from you. You sat me down, and I had one of the most awkward conversations. Jesse literally looked me in the face and said, you're my headwind. Why? And I was like, uh, that's not. That's not true. No, no, that's not. And I went to just save face. And then finally we ended up having an amazing conversation, and we both wanted the same things, and I was fearful that you were trying to move my cheese, and you were. But my cheese needed to be moved, you know, So I think being able to be aware enough to also be that vulnerable and say, oh, uh, man, maybe I got this off to a wrong start. And that's. That's tough. But that's how you build the relationship. That's how you build the trust. And without that, the marketing, sales, who gets credit? Who doesn't? It's. It's never going to work. It just isn't. You have to be willing to be vulnerable and honest in order to get there.

Speaker A: It's amazing. Like, I think back on that, that time, and you and I've talked about this before, like, it's. It's actually a very pivotal moment, even in my career, because it. I think it, A, affirmed some things, and B, I also think it was an encouragement of like, when it seems like I don't want to say all things are lost, that sounds like, you know, all hope is lost. It sounds, like, really dire. But I was. I was at a point, like, at that point, like. Like, I don't know if I can keep doing this. And I remember vividly, like, there was a lot of tension. And what's crazy is how quickly it shifted. Right? Like, we had the most awkward conversation. I was not excited about that. Uh, I was willing to do it. I'm willing to have that hard conversation.

Speaker B: Yep.

Speaker A: And then to your point, like, it was just like this instant, like, exhale, I feel like. And then it was, yeah, okay, we have established which direction we want to row. We both acknowledge we can row pretty powerful together, and let's do it right. And I think that just. I. And it's. It is funny because, like, so many points since that point even, I've been presented with this option of like, do I have hard conversations? Do I lean in? Is back to your leaning in thing. Do I lean in here? Uh, and your natural inclination is like, oh, I don't really want to put myself in that vulnerable position. And it just. It's. It's so cool when you do. And it's just amazing how quickly something that you feel like is, like, done for, over. Not possible. And it just all of a sudden just, you know, completely dispelled. And it actually was like. It literally just feels like the wind shifted, and it was just a powerful force the other direction.

Speaker B: And it's being able to realize that being vulnerable actually makes you a stronger leader, you know, and it's okay to be wrong. Sorry. Goes a long way. You know, maybe you came off the wrong way to someone, which I know I absolutely have before. Just say, oh, gosh, that wasn't my intention. I'm so sorry. That goes a long way. And. And it just, uh. I think it builds that trust, it builds that partnership, but more importantly, it allows you to build something great together versus trying to build two empires side by side. So, like, uh, the. Really. I'm very fortunate with the team I've got now. Really, all the teams I've worked with have always had incredible partnership. But, um, it starts with making sure we want to be partners and we're working towards the same goal.

Speaker A: And I think back to your leaning, and I just. I love that analogy because it is that willingness to go there sometimes, even when you don't feel.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, no. And you think about it like, you do that in your personal life. I mean, if I. If me and my husband are in an argument, I'm not just gonna, like, I'm gonna lean in and say, gosh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean that it should translate to work. It should translate throughout all of our life. It's okay to be sorry. It's okay to make a mistake. Um, and it's okay to forgive people too and get, take a minute to get back on track, like have a little bit of State of the Union and get things, get things back moving well.

Speaker A: And I also think, like, even when I think back to that conversation, like, it wasn't one sided either. It was like, hey, here's the perspective that I'm coming from. And also an acknowledgement of like, I don't know if my perspective is right. And you're kind of approaching the same way. So I think it's like how you do that conversation too. It's not like, well, I'm right, you're wrong. It's the reality of like, to your point, all relationships, like, there is this acknowledgment that like, maybe I just don't see the whole thing or maybe I'm only looking at it from my limited viewpoint. And I think that willingness to, that acknowledgement back to your learning thing, like, that is where I think, teacher, when we think about like, people we want to work with, uh, both as peers, but also like, people were leading, like that teachability piece and it just goes such a long way. And it's the acknowledgment of my limitation in perspective.

Speaker B: Yeah. 100. Yep. And you can never stop, never stop learning, never stop leaning in, you know, across the board, personal and professional.

Speaker A: Yeah. There's this, this idea of like, I've arrived. I don't think that. I don't, I don't know where that if I'll ever get to that point. Probably not. I hope not.

Speaker B: No, no, I hope not.

Speaker A: That would get boring. I, uh, want to show, here's a little bit like, let's talk. You know, I think one of the things that you're phenomenal at as a leader in marketing in particular is you actually use data, which I say that in. Like, I think a lot of people who listen to this would actually acknowledge that sometimes. And I think that's on both sales and it's not just a marketing thing. Um, but I would say it's actually less common that people genuinely use data. You have a lot of people that talk, you know, talk about it, but very few do. I think you've done a Great job at doing. That's why we actually had a really great partnership. Like, talk to me a little bit about, you know, what things are you looking at? How are you deciding you're spending your marketing dollars? Like, what metrics are you running things off of?

Speaker B: Yeah, no, for sure. So, uh, pipeline, um, in my. My world, actually, in the last. My last three orgs, pipeline is really king. And I think from a marketing perspective, if you are measuring things the business does not report on, you have to wonder what you're measuring. So I've worked for orgs, and, you know, they're like, we had a, you know, a million mql Neat. What does that mean? You know, and it doesn't mean it's a clean metric. Do I think pipeline is the cleanest metric? I don't. It's a tough one, but it's a valuable metric. And so, um, yes, it's unifying. It's something that sales and marketing jointly have a responsibility with. Um, I was actually talking to one of our sales guys this week, and, and we were at an event, and he, uh, said that, uh, he had two really great conversations with prospects. And I was like, that's awesome. I said, will you do me a favor when we make sure. Send me the information. I'll make sure to tag him with campaign. He was like, well, I was talking to him m. Before I came here, and I said, okay, that's fair. And he's like, I mean, I've been talking for two years. And I was like, okay, no, that's really funny. He said, when. When I ask you to give it to me, I'm not trying to take credit for it. That's not the goal. You know, the goal is to say, over the course of this buyer's journey, all of these things happened. And I think that's, like, where marketing ROI results is kind of shifting to. You still have to have that metric. That's. That's the king, right? But then there's this story underneath it of all of the things that are happening. And that is where I think it's starting to really shift. Gartner, um, put out this thing, um, that basically said, like, you know, I don't know how many years ago, X number of years ago, like, buyers just come in, they'd identify a problem, right? They'd go look for solutions, and then they build their requirements, and then they'd select something. And now, like, the. It's this wild graphic, but now basically, like 100 other touch points come in. And those are the things that are happening during the buying process. People are entering, you're doing more research on the front end, you're attending a webinar, you're reading an analyst report, you're watching a podcast, you know, you're listening to peers, you're attending an industry event. Like all of these things are happening. There's so many different touch points before, before anything happens that how do you really know what's working, what's not? And so, uh, you know, there's this, uh, the other stat I think was that 70% of the buying process has occurred before they ever reach out to a vendor. So when you do something like Sixth Sense, or when you do something like a trade show, you may not have a direct conversion there, but, but those pieces all have value. And then you get the question from finance or from leadership or from yourself or from your team that says you had a webinar, what deals closed from that webinar. And I hate saying that's a really tough thing to answer, but it's a really tough thing to answer. And so I think for having a metric like pipeline, are we going in the right direction here? Okay, cool. And then you can look at like. And all of these channels influence that pipeline. Okay, cool. And we're going to try these new things. And sometimes the new things that you try might not actually have the desired income or not income outcome, but they start impacting making your other channels more valuable. I remember at Onslaught we used to do a lot with um, third party, like affiliates, so advertising in different magazines. And we cut all of the spend because we didn't have direct conversions from it. But what we saw is our paid traffic and our organic traffic dropped significant. And so trying to make correlations where you can, but understanding that you do have to show a metric, you do have to say, this is what, this is what we think we're going to do for this year. We're going to build a hundred million dollars in pipeline. And this is what I think we can do and how much money it will take us. I can't tell you exactly what every dollar did. I'll try. But there's two the buying process is more complex than it ever been. And then you think about the number of people in it too. You gotta have a metric, you gotta use as much data as you can. But you also have to understand a lot of it's just happening on the back end and you may, may or may not be able to track it back.

Speaker A: I think you have a lot of great points in there. I Want, uh, to highlight a few of them. And we've, we've spent a lot of time on this. Right. Like you've got the, what I call lead source attribution, which is your ROI metric, right. It's really like, you know, who gets the first credit for the thing that gets the full credit. And, and that's never clean. And I think a lot of you see a lot of companies wanting that to just be perfect. And the reality is on both sides of it, like original source vs most recent source and that whole discussion, we could literally spend an entire podcast episode on that alone. And you know, the reality is there is value in measuring. So that's the last thing. As somebody who loves data, but there is. And I think this is the tricky thing with marketing and one of the reasons why you're actually one of the first people, I think that really pushed me so much into the pipeline focus away from. I always had pipeline as a metric. This is kind of the central one and I really appreciated it because it kind of opened my eyes. Exactly. You said one to the unifying piece of it. But then two, again, it's this like overarching theme of like, well, we're never going to get attribution perfect. It's just not possible with the way data is. And even though, even if data was perfect, still you're going to have exactly what your, you know, your person eva the example for has, right? Which is, hey, marketing did a reach out campaign and I, as the ae, picked up the phone and did a cold call and those added value. And so it's like this idea of like, well, who should get more value? Well, I talked for 10 minutes and 15 seconds and marketing's like, well, they rewatched the video 15 times. Like where, you know, where do you define and draw that line? And I think what I love about what you're saying is like, hey, look, we still need to hold some accountability. It's just the nature. Absolutely, yeah, do that. But we also want to understand what more holistically of what things had an impact. And also, guess what, some things don't ever have an impact. Great. We tried it, we learned, we moved on and we moved off of that. And I think that's where a lot of the power, I think where you do a great job leading and also the partnership I think you and I have. But I think where a lot of people struggle is wrapping their heads around kind of being able to hold both

Speaker B: of those things right and one metric, we've actually started just leveraging in the last six to eight weeks is actually um, customer ARR impacted. So if we're at an event and we have 15 customers come by the booth and each of those customers have a million dollars in business, we would have $15 million in ARR impacted by event a. That's with, you know, everybody knows it's more costly to keep a, uh, customer than to get a new customer. And so we're starting to show that impact too. Especially when you're a big, a big player in the market and your customers are everywhere or one of your big plays is cross seller expansion. That, that becomes a piece that we're starting to track. So when we do our client conference, like what is our ARR goal to be at the conference? When we go to a trade show, we have a net new goal. Right. But then also like how many clients do we want to make sure we're engaging with? So that's a new one that I'm, um, playing around with. I'll, I'll uh, keep uh, you posted on, on how.

Speaker A: So I'm going to repeat back because I just, I've never heard this one before. So I just want to make sure I understand this.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: So it's literally not what did the customers do after the trade show and upsells. It has nothing to do with that. It's just like, hey, we engaged with face to face 15 customers and we look at essentially what their total, you know, TCV is or ar. Whatever we look at, for each one of those customers, we sum that up. And that is our. What did you, what was the metric you called it?

Speaker B: I'm blanking. Customer, ar, customer, customer, army, impact, impact, client, client are impacted. Yeah.

Speaker A: And that's how you measure it. So I might. Did I get that right? Yep.

Speaker B: And basically it's your roll up of what their contracts are worth. And so um, and really you're just

Speaker A: communicating like the value of having face to face time. Another touch point.

Speaker B: Marketing plays that, sales plays that uh, that everybody plays in customer retention as well. You know, like we're so focused on new and new is so important. Like we as marketers, not necessarily in my current role, but like new is so important. Current is also really important. And so I actually think back to on solve sometimes. And I'm like, that was a view that I, I think we missed a lot of the time. The impact of the, the events, the impact of webinars on current clients and the value that it provided to them. So I'll, I'll keep you posted. But like It. We just started doing it, like I said, about six weeks ago, and it started to be a really interesting conversation. And so, um, I think there is something to that. And then also pipeline, which pipeline can be inclusive of customer pipeline, new customer pipeline. But there is that like retaining piece that's so important that marketing and sales play such a huge role. That is tough to talk about, you know, so we're trying that. So we'll see.

Speaker A: I like it. I've never. Yeah, I've never even heard of it, but I'm actually now I'm like, I'm making a note because I'm totally.

Speaker B: And you know how I came across it is I, um, I saw a field in Salesforce and I was like, I wonder if I sum that what that looks like. And I just kind of started playing around. I was like, oh my gosh, that's the total of all the contracts that were in this campaign. That's interesting. You know, and so, um, yeah, no,

Speaker A: something you came up. You hadn't heard about this.

Speaker B: You just like literally came across field and Salesforce. Like, I'm still getting used to the new Salesforce instance and I hadn't seen it rolled up like that before. And so it's. It's interesting because we started doing some roadshows and things like that. It's like, what does that mean? You know, because it's. The goal is to get and talk with our clients. Clients. But then how do we talk about it in a number that's important to

Speaker A: people, you know, so, yeah, it's interesting. And again, I think the biggest challenge with trade shows, you know, that a lot of companies have, is like, well, we didn't get a deal or we only got two deals out of this. We needed to get 10. And so therefore we're not going to do it anymore. And this enriches the conversation to be like, hey, hold up, hold on. Like, let's think about this. Our biggest customers were there. They saw we were there. Like that. That also has to count for something as well.

Speaker B: And so now in like our goal sheet, we have like, uh, a. What's your. What's your pipeline goal? What's your bookings goal? And those have like a six to nine month lead time. Right? But then what's your customer. Our client impacted ar. So it's. It was. It was a good conversation. You know, it's a great conversation. Starting and starting to look at it from a different way.

Speaker A: All right, I'm gonna. I'll trademark it with Lindsey Mahoney. When I bring it.

Speaker B: I love it. I love it.

Speaker A: Uh, so. Okay. I want to shift gears a little bit. I think marketing always has had and I think we've kind of covered some of the things, but there's always this black box component a little bit to marketing. Sales, I always feel like is a little bit. It's just more quantifiable. It's just like one plus one equals two. Right? Marketing, Exactly. Some of the things we talked about and I think sometimes there's validity and concerns around a business of like, because of that black box. And part of the job I think of a marketing leader is to try to dispel some of that. We've talked about some things today, but I also think there's a responsibility on leaders outside of marketing to better understand marketing.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: So can you talk a little bit about what are some of the things that you wish the go to market team really understood about marketing and what they do and any big misconceptions surrounding it?

Speaker B: I think one of the big pieces is that like the buying landscape is changing all the time. All the time. And I talked about it a little bit earlier but like it is not as linear as it used to be. Um, when I built my first SDR team, gosh, at this point it was probably 2010, 2011, um, maybe 2012, I don't know. But a long time ago it was so different. I read that book Predictable Revenue, which is like the start of all of it. And it basically says put in 100 calls and you get 15 meetings out. Like that was awesome. You know, like that part was awesome because it was so easy. It's so different now. Um, you know, you have tools like sales loft and 6 cents, that's tracking intent and, and then you have things like, uh, I don't even know if it's called Copilot anymore. What Copilot and Wingman and all those solutions that we used to use. Like you have, there's so many tools that you can use that we're hitting all these prospects, we're hitting all these buyers, so is everybody else. And so it's just different than it ever was before. And so I think um, for the go to market team to understand, especially when you have reps that are very seasoned and have been at the same work for a long time that the 50 leads you maybe used to get or 50 ops you used to get every May, that's different. It's harder now. Things have changed. But hopefully with all of the marketing activities that we're putting in the market, they're coming to us in different ways. Maybe they're not coming through forms anymore, maybe they're coming through chat, maybe they're coming direct to us from LinkedIn. Maybe they're picking up the phone, maybe they're placing an order online. Like it's just, it's just different. But it does really mean as marketers we have to continue to work with our team. We have to make sure at gkos and things we're talking about the shift in landscape, but we're also saying these are all the things we're doing to stay in front of customers and prospects. Um, but just it's changing, it's changing every day. Uh, I think how we're as how marketers are using AI now compared to how we were using it six months ago, like that's going to continue to shift and change. And so the landscape makes clear cut attribution, clear cut consistent results a lot harder than they've ever been before.

Speaker A: And it's noisier, right?

Speaker B: Like it's like so noisy.

Speaker A: That's so much automation now that, so much automation.

Speaker B: So, uh, yes, it's noisy. I mean I, I usually try and take SDR calls when they come because I think it's good karma. And I get so many. I can't anymore. I've gotten three sitting on, sitting, chatting and view that. Like it's just, it's a, it's just there's so much. But you got to break through that noise. And there is a way to do it. There's a way to do it. And you think about the messages that you as a buyer actually respond to. You know, it's back to base. It's just like heavy personalization and hitting a pain point. Um, you know, previous works we used to always say like, you got to make people feel fiscally irresponsible for not taking the call. Like how you got to figure out what that, that tick is with somebody in order to do that.

Speaker A: It's interesting. So along both of those lines. Like I try to take two SDR calls a month. That's my goal. And partly just because I want to see, you know, part of my job in Rev Ops is to understand our wholesales motions and see what's working well and bring that to the rest of the company. And then also just because I buy the most software in the company. So I'm like literally the buyer of uh, you know, and we work, you and I both work for software companies. So like I am the target buyer in a lot of Ways for what they do. And it's interesting because you're right. Like the SDR calls. And now that I say that, I don't think I've taken an SDR call in two months because I've been so busy. Um, before that, I was pretty good about it. And I would say, like, it was probably a batting average of 50% of the time they would actually land a meeting with me.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Where I actually, and this is a tidbit for anybody listening where I actually, I would say, have the highest conversion rate is LinkedIn messaging.

Speaker B: I agree.

Speaker A: I have a compelling message because I read everything in my inmate. It's like the, uh, I'm actually better at my LinkedIn in mail. This is terrible. Than my inbox at work. Right. Like, Yeah, I get 150 emails a day. I get maybe one, you know, one, two LinkedIn messages.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Different scale and size. And the other thing that's interesting, too, is like, video. I've only had two people send me video messaging on LinkedIn in the last year, and I think I took a meeting with at least one and at least the other one I responded to, which is awesome. So I think, to your point, there's a way to cut through the noise and still be, you know, still be unique. I think even with all this automation and AI and all the other things that you and I geek out over, there's still that capability.

Speaker B: And I think video with, uh, captions.

Speaker A: Oh, yeah, with captions.

Speaker B: I never listen to it, but I'll read it. I'll read it, I'll watch the video. But, like, so it's. It's all of those little pieces. So I, you know, it's just. It's changing so fast. It's changing so fast, but in the same breath, it's what makes it exciting. I mean, if it was the same, we'd all be bored. Right.

Speaker A: So one of the things that I just thought of and one of the things that I never seen done before, I'd heard of it, I'd never seen it done until you and I worked together was putting SDRs under marketing. Um, and I, like, at the time, I remember being like, that's a sales function. And then I think is just again, back to the pipeline being the center point metric. The more and more I kind of, I would say, came around to it, and I would say I'm actually a big believer in that approach. And talk to me a little bit of like, are you still doing that today? And what is just the impact you've seen by having that piece of it as well?

Speaker B: Yeah, no, I have actually, um, every org I've ever worked for STRs have been in marketing and there is always at some point in time in my lifespan in each of those orgs we say should it report to sales? And in most cases every single one of the sales leaders have said, we don't need that. We've got such a great partnership. And so, I mean, last company you and I worked together before, I mean we had a great relationship with chief growth officer, chief Revenue Officer before that. And they believed that keeping the SDRs and marketing kept them truly focused on prospecting versus focused on sales activities, completing accounts, finding contacts and things that maybe became more of like a sales admin. Um, once again, as long as you have that partnership, as long as you have that transparency for sales, having them report to marketing actually in my opinion is cleaner and ensures that they're measured properly, that they're focused on pure production and they're focused on introducing and creating ops, not necessarily helping to close deals. I think you can get in trouble when they roll into sales too because they're booking fourth, fifth, sixth meetings. They're doing a lot more hand holding and maybe for the type of sale that makes sense. Um, but for me, I think having them in marketing keeps them very focused on. I mean we always said pick and roll. I don't need you to sell the solution, I want you to demo the solution. I want you to set a meeting and then roll off and let the AA do what they do.

Speaker A: It's pretty cool because I was thinking the other day too and it relates to this of just sometimes as well understanding what leaders and capabilities you have in organization. So I think a lot about you and I like, you know, my current role, I have what I would say almost all of rev ops other than enablement still. Um, whereas when you and I were together, you had marketing ops. And you know, I remember, uh, part of that distinction we had was, you know, around like, you know, my cutting for this. And I think I look back at that moment a lot and you know, I think it's pretty cool because I think my take as well as yours was like, hey, this is working well. Like, why would we break this thing? Like, why would we move it? And I think it comes back to like, same thing around the SDR thing. It's like, if you can make that work really effectively, ah, like why change it? Just because we have a strong opinion that this is how we've only it kind of goes back to what you and I talked about of like, the more you see different things work back to perspective, your mind is open and you're like, you know what? There are so many other things in this company we've got to fix. Why would we try to fix, take something that is actually working and then put more work into that when we've got 17 other things we need to do down the line?

Speaker B: If the need, like, I don't need an empire. You don't need an empire. What I need is a functioning organization. I don't care if they report to me or not. And so focus on what is broken. If you, if your SDR team is currently reporting to marketing and you believe it's broken, figure out what needs to be fixed. But if your SDR team is currently reporting to figure out what needs to be fixed and if moving it to sales makes sense, that might make sense for the specific org. For the ones I've always worked for, the marketing piece has always made a lot more sense. Um, but they, they have, they have to be laser focused on, you know, what you want them to do every day, what their goals are. They have to be compensated to support that. And um, you know, I think marketing allows it to look a little bit differently than sales just because of the nature of the business. But I love it. Reporting to marketing, I think it's great and we've had some really great success in past orgs with it. But I've also seen people that it rolls to sales and it's equally as successful. So you can do it either way.

Speaker A: Last question. Uh, what are you energized about right now? Like when you look at potential within marketing, within SaaS, uh, within being a leader, like what, what is the thing that you're like? Thing or things that you're just like, man, this is getting me excited right now. What are those things?

Speaker B: I think, um, a couple things. So I start, I think I said it already, but it's the. How fast tech is moving right now. Like, it's an exciting time to be here. I had an awesome conversation with Sales Loft the other day and they were talking about some of the agents they're rolling out within sales lo. And I mean, it was a cool conversation. You look at agentic AI, you look at all of the different pieces of AI and how you can use them, how they can make you stronger and better as a marketing team. Uh, that's really exciting to me. You know, I think it's funny if you think about, uh, you know, when you and I were prepping for this. It was kind of like, what's a campaign that you've thought is successful? And there are lots of campaigns I thought that are successful. Uh, the evolution of what a campaign is, is exciting. You know, it used to be send out a direct mail and people to book a meeting and you go to the meeting, you give them an iPad. And that was awesome. That used to be like something I talked about all the time, like that. That seems so archaic now, you know. And so I'm uh, excited about how fast it's moving. I'm excited to stay, um, how much I have to push myself to stay up to speed. You know, I'm one of those people that works best when they're overloaded. And so like that piece is really fun to me. Um, I'm excited about the constant overlap between sales and marketing, the tech that we have to more efficient and successful. There's just this a lot, a lot of movement. And that's, that's fun. That's really fun to me.

Speaker A: On the leadership side, is there anything fun or unique you feel like you're doing in your org that would be helpful for other people that you're like, hey, this is like something fun, you know, like on Thursdays we do this. Or is there anything at all that you, you think that you're like, hey, this is something that I've tried to implement that I've seen make a real impact across my org.

Speaker B: So I wish I had a really good answer there. Um, but I'm not sure I do. Um, I think one of the things I'm trying to do is to create absolute transparency every single quarter on how we're doing against our goals. So you remember five, uh, by five from, uh, McKinsey 5x5. It's basically five big goals with five little goals underneath. A lot of people hate it. I love it. I love it because it enables you to be laser focused on what you're doing. And so we set out at the beginning of the year, we said we're going to do these 25 things and they're going to be focused on these five areas. And every single quarter, really with my leaders, we're doing monthly, we read Yellow green, them and it keeps us like hyper honest, hyper focused. I think that level of transparency down all the way throughout the org really is helpful for people. And so, you know, I don't know if anyone from my team will listen to this or not. But like, I hope I have, please if you do, tell me. But um, I think that that creating Transparency, creating opportunities for people to come up with ideas. I think that's been really helpful. I know at, uh, MRI M as a whole, we do an annual hackathon, um, so that happens in November. I was so new when we did it last time that I'm excited to do that again. But it's taking ideas from the team, giving everybody a voice. I think that that is, um, probably something that's working. Um, and also like, letting my leaders lead. You know, I walked in, we do a bell ringing every Thursday, which is basically like every office kind of gets together and like, celebrates, wins. And we have a bell in the office and you ring and it's. And it's fun. And, um, a bunch of folks from my group were in a conference room with their leader who's out of Ohio, and I, like, popped in. I was like, we're doing the bell ringing. Can you guys come? And, uh, he was like, what are you doing in here? Why are you talking to my team? Obviously joking, but, uh, it just, it. It's fun. So, like, let, um, giving Trent, being transparent, like, getting people excited, trying to get. I know it's taboo depending upon what you read, but trying to get as much face to face time with people as you can, um, even if it's just a, ah, video, but actually being in rooms with folks, like, we're really trying to increase that where we can. It just helps build everything. And I think it's helping people be more comfortable. And as a newer leader too, it's giving them, hopefully showing them that I'm a person and I want to hear from everybody and all those pieces. So I don't know if that 100 answers it, but I think that was great.

Speaker A: And actually, weirdly enough, I think some, like the five by five seems simple. I very. I bet you very few do it. And I actually, I'm sitting here going, actually, I kind of like that idea because I'm having a challenge right now too, of like, how do we keep focused? So I'm gonna take that one back because I. We have. We had that before, right? And it's just. It makes it tough.

Speaker B: So it was great. And I. We rolled out. Uh, actually this is another thing that we've started doing is like a not we me. Uh, it's like a personal five by five. What do I want to do for my year? You know, I'll be a better mom. I want to be a better spouse. I want to learn this. I want to read books. Like, I've actually adopted it into my personal life just so it becomes something that I said this was important. I want to work out three times a week. Like, am I still doing that? And sometimes the answer is no, and that's okay. But, uh, the five by five is a great way to center yourself. If you Google McKinsey 5x5, you'll find an awesome template. But, um, yeah, that's been really helpful.

Speaker A: That's awesome. Well, thank you so much for joining today. This has been a lot of fun.

Speaker B: Yes, this is awesome. Thank you for having me. Um, come to Atlanta or I'll come to Colorado.

Speaker A: Yeah, most definitely. And those of you listening, uh, if you aren't following Lindsay on social, follow on LinkedIn. Uh, also feel free to subscribe to the podcast. But thanks again for joining. Thanks for listening and hope everybody has a great rest of the day.