The Revenue Growth Architects

Are you struggling to understand the difference between funnel metrics and MT attribution? Have we got an episode for you! Special guest Alison Rouse joins the Revenue Growth Architects to set the record straight and help you learn about the challenges of analyzing data, the importance of strategic thinking, and the tools that can provide better ROI and data analysis.

Your revenue team is focused on Account-Based Marketing (ABM). So why should you track a person-level funnel? We’re going deep on the answer in this episode of The Revenue Growth Architects. Listen to develop an understanding of the two different funnels - the person funnel and the account funnel - and grasp the critical importance of tracking a person-level funnel even when the whole team is screaming ABM.

So you may have listened or read up on our content around why Custom Object Funnel tracking is the best tracking method. But now you need to get your executives on board to make the change and do the work and you are wondering how to ACTUALLY do that.

Well on this episode, Charlie, Crissy, and Xander discuss how you can "sell" the project to non-technical stakeholders. We break down the many benefits that you will see across the business.

Some of the details we discuss include:

• Getting the data into a single source of truth table to use in Salesforce and/or your BI tools
• Improve the quality of the data you report on
• Gain visibility into campaign success with the tipping point

So tune in and start building your case for the stakeholders with our help!

Brian, Gany, and Xander wrap up the New Marketing Automation Platform mini-series with tips and tricks on how to ensure that you have a successful launch!

Learn how to:

• QA your new instance
• Enable your teams on the new systems and processes
• Ensure that your launch is efficient
• Sustain your build and optimize

These tips are very transferrable to launching any project and are sure to be helpful for your next initiative. And if you want to watch the whole series - check out the latest episodes for Parts 1-3.

Building a new Marketing Automation Instance from scratch is the perfect time to get things right and set yourself up for success. In this week's episode of the podcast, and 3rd installment of the "New MAP" series, Gany and Brian share best practices around setting up your essential operational programs for efficient processing. They also share how you can set up your instance with best practice templates that align with your Center of Excellence.

One of the biggest keys to having success in your role and your projects in operations is getting buy-in from your team, your stakeholders, and executive leadership (aka CRO, CMO etc). But sometimes, as many of us likely know, this can be tough.

So this week we asked CS2's Director of Marketing Operations, Christie Fusco, to hit the pod and break down three key steps to getting the buy-in you're looking for.

Learn from Christie how to:

Listen in to learn more about how you can put these tips into action!

Gany and Brian join the podcast this week to continue the New Marketing Automation Platform Series. Here we talk through key admin settings needed for a brand new instance.

Join us as we chat through:

- Domain Registration and Setup

- Dedicated IP Warming

- CRM Sync

- and More!

Whether you're implementing for the first time or auditing an existing platform, this practical episode has a lot of valuable insights for you.

Cassie Vitelli, VP of Marketing at Litify, joins this week to share her experience building their Revenue Growth Architecture with CS2.

When Cassie took over the marketing team, they did not have a strong operational foundation built out, which was a first-time dilemma for her. After selecting and working with CS2, her experience drastically turned around after building a dependable funnel that not only improved their sales process and buyer journey but also one that could be leveraged to make better decisions as a leader.

Tune in to this week's episode to learn from a fantastic marketing leader who has seen what works and what doesn't.

Xander Broeffle is joined again by Brian Morris and Gany Rodriguez for part 1 of 3 in their discussions on how to implement a new Marketing Automation Platform. This episode they explore the importance of proper preparation, and how it can make the difference between having a successful transition and a chaotic one.

A few of the topics they go into include:

• The potential benefits of starting fresh, especially when implementing things like order of operations.
• The importance of including relevant stakeholders at the beginning to ensure alignment and buy-in.
• Considerations for auditing existing assets like templates, current lifecycle, lead scoring, and enrichment tools.

Get ready to plan and prep successfully for your new MAP from the experts!

Step into your buyer's shoes on this week's episode as Xander Broeffle and Crissy Saunders explore the power of "secret shopping" your company's buyer journey. In Crissy's first guest episode since her maternity leave, she dives into why you need to regularly test out your buyer journey yourself to give you and the revenue team guidance on how to optimize and improve it.

In this episode, you will learn:

• Why to "Secret Shop": Discover the friction points in your buyer journey and understand the gravity of lost business due to poor follow-up or an overly complex journey.
• How to actually do it: Learn Crissy's tips for how to actually secret shop your buyer journey technically, what to look out for, and the importance of bringing in your key stakeholders who own parts of the buyer journey on this activity.
• How to turn your insights into action: Learn how you can use your findings to drive action and improvements to the buyer journey.

Tune in and let's get shopping! 😁

On this week's episode, we welcome one of our favorite guests - Alison Rouse, Chief Architect and Analyst at CS2, to talk about why using a custom object to track your funnel is our preferred method.

Historically marketers have been stuck with some less-than-ideal solutions to track their funnel properly. Whether it's only on the lead/contact object and losing out on multi-journeys and causing inaccurate data, or having to invest money into solutions that are separate from your CRM, trying to track the funnel has always felt "hard."

Well - Alison has a solution that she has developed for our clients that uses an SFDC custom object and it has made us all true believers.

So sit down and hear why you need to think about adopting this approach and the benefits you will see from using it! And if you are interested after the show to learn more, reach out to us on our website www.cs2marketing.com.

These days we are hearing from so many marketing teams that they just need to get some "quick wins." Well, in marketing having a quick win can be tough, but Crissy thinks there is one great source of data to inform some actions to get quick wins. And most of them don't require any spending.

So what is it?

It's your funnel data!

In this episode of Revenue Growth Architects, join Crissy and Xander as they dive into the importance of tracking your funnel properly, and how you can look to your conversion data for insights that you can put into action to improve your pipeline and revenue.

Get ready to hear how you can move away from random acts of marketing to show a win and move toward prioritizing strategic decisions that can really provide fast improvements and results.

In this episode of Revenue Growth Architects, Matt Cronk, Director of Marketing Operations at CS2, joins Xander to discuss why it's necessary to "tier" your MQLs and how it can drastically improve both your lead follow-up and improve the buyer experience.

In this episode, we cover:

• How you should treat your 'Handraiser' or 'Hot' leads compared to your 'Warm' leads to optimize both of their journeys.
• How lumping all MQLs together can skew your analytics and risk misguiding your optimization efforts.
• Some handy tips on separating online and offline hot leads, activating this in your systems, and effectively reporting on the data to get better insight into the performance of your different types of MQLs.

If you're aiming to bring more precision to your marketing efforts, improve lead handling, and ultimately drive more revenue, this episode is your essential guide.

This week, we're diving into the crucial yet often overlooked area of Opt-In Management and Compliance.

We're breaking down:

• Importance of Opt-In Management and Compliance: The relevance of data privacy regulations, how preventing fines from GDPR non-compliance can provide peace of mind, and how proper opt-in management can enhance email deliverability rates.
• Tips for MOps teams: Establishing strong data governance, understanding different data privacy regulations, and providing a pleasant buyer experience without compromising on privacy.
• GDPR Dashboard: Advice on why and how you should track opt-in regularly through a GDPR dashboard

Whether you're navigating the ever-evolving world of data privacy laws or seeking ways to make your opt-in management process more efficient and less of a headache, this episode is a must-listen.

In this episode, Xander and Joy dive into the different lifecycles in sales and marketing: Lead, Account, and Product Lifecycles/Funnels. They review each one's unique Go-to-Market motions, involved teams, and key stages.

Let's unpack:

• Understanding Lifecycles: Recognize distinct characteristics of lead, account, and PLG funnels. Learn how these different approaches to driving demand, selling, and growth significantly impact their specific lifecycles.
• Navigating Tools & Metrics: Talk about the wide array of tools that support tracking and data in each funnel type, the differing metrics to track, and areas of the funnel that need optimization.
• Getting Started: Learn some of our quick tips to kick-start your journey in mapping out each funnel. Consider critical factors such as understanding your value metrics and identifying the 'aha' moment in your product.

If you are looking to understand the distinctive features of these lifecycles and how to optimize them for success, this episode is for you.

In the world of MOps & RevOps, it's not just about who you work with; it's about how you work together. So, we're breaking it down to help you become a master in working with Marketing and Revenue Ops agencies.

We're diving into:

• Agency Selection: Finding the right agency doesn't have to feel like speed dating. Learn how to differentiate between different types of agencies, and get the right balance of strategic vs. tactical expertise.
• Leveraging Strengths of the Agency: Once you've found 'the one,' how do you get the most out of the relationship? We'll guide you through five ways to get the best from your partner: from embedding them in your team to getting different agency partners to partner with each other to improve your business across all channels.
• Systemizing the Work: How do you build a system that gets the work done? It's all about establishing a shared roadmap, setting expectations, regular check-ins, and harnessing the power of shared Project Management tools.

An agency should be your secret weapon, not a secret worry. So optimize your operations to hit the high notes and gain better results from your agency relationships.

Looking for the next promotion in your career? Are you hungry for growth, but not sure if you're interested in managing people? We've got you covered.

On this week's episode, Claire Pockell-Wilson, CS2's Senior Manager of People Operations, joins Xander to discuss how to shift career development talk into a new perspective. We're challenging conventional wisdom, discussing not just career growth, but how you can lead, inspire, and instigate change, regardless of your current job title.

We break down some alternative routes for professional growth that don't have to necessarily involve conventional ladder-climbing, such as:

• Self-Driven Growth: Own your 1-1s, separate career discussions from tactical talks, and identify opportunities for skill enhancement. Make your growth journey your own adventure.
• Fostering a Growth Culture: Understand how clear progression paths, learning and development budgets, and feedback cycles contribute to a robust growth culture. And bonus - learn how to evaluate these aspects right from the first interview.
• Helping Others Level-Up: Dive into the world of delegation, succession planning, and stretch assignments. Discover how promoting others' work and effective escalation can accelerate team growth.

We'll also delve into the skills and challenges that come along with assessing readiness for growth, figuring out what you want out of your career, and the role of skill assessments in shaping career trajectories.

If you've ever wondered "what's next" in your career, this episode is tailored to you.

In this week's episode, Charlie and Xander dive into the latest AI Rev/Marketing Ops news and showcase seven use cases and tools they're experimenting with.

Learn more about:

• Vowel: An AI meeting platform that transcribes in real time, effortlessly integrates with your favorite tools, and helps your latecomers catch up with AI-generated summaries.
• ChatGPT Code Interpreter: Our go-to tool for data visualization and analysis, capable of creating interactive charts and providing you with effortless insights.
• Marketo Velocity Scripting and Excel Formulas: Leveraging ChatGPT to learn technical MOps skills faster than ever before.
• Trained AI Chatbot: The ability to train your own chatbot so your team can ask questions and get accurate answers from your own vast knowledgebase.
• Lead Scoring: An AI scoring system that not only provides a score but also outlines its reasoning.
• Strategy Creation for ABM: A on-demand strategist to help develop and document your ABM strategy.
• Data Cleanup: How we use the ChatGPT plugin for Sheets to streamline our data cleanup process.

As we've seen already, AI has the potential to change the day to day of marketing and revenue operations completely, but only for those who take full advantage of its capabilities.

CS2 is taking you on an epic journey in a galaxy not too far away. This is a new mini-series, where we walk you through the many phases of a brand-new Marketing Automation platform. In this episode, we're joined by industry veterans Gany and Brian as we tackle the intimidating yet exhilarating task of establishing a fresh start in your Marketing Automation platform.

In this episode, we'll be navigating:

• The Prep-work: To rebuild or not to rebuild? We'll weigh the pros and cons of each approach. Gany and Brian will guide you through the need for stakeholder alignment, dealing with constraints like contract negotiations and balancing daily tasks, and who you should rope in for this mission.
• The Implementation: Here's where we roll up our sleeves and get our hands dirty. We'll walk you through the down and dirty of the tech setup, laying down the foundation with templates, campaign management, GDPR programs, and more. And then we'll leap into the optimization phase where we discuss deprecating old processes, data hygiene, and nurturing campaigns.
• Testing, Enablement, and Launch: We'll demonstrate how to thoroughly test every lead scenario, enable users based on their comfort level with the new tool, and finally, prepare for the grand launch. But the journey doesn't end here. We'll also talk about monitoring and further optimization once you're in a live state.

Join us as we embark on this thrilling journey, blasting off into the world of Marketing Automation platforms. This episode is a must-listen for anyone looking to explore new territories in their Marketing Automation journey or those seeking to optimize their current platform. May the force of good data and efficient processes be with you!

Welcome to another insightful episode of the Revenue Growth Architects podcast, where we untangle the complex world of marketing operations. Today, we're joined by Grant Booth, a seasoned Salesforce admin with a passion for clean data. Buckle up for an intriguing ride into the depths of Data Normalization, and learn how you can save yourself hours and headaches down the road.

In this episode, we're demystifying:

• The Basics: What is Data Normalization, really? Often referred to as data cleaning, we'll discuss its role in simplifying complex data and eliminating redundancy, ensuring you're not slowing down your processes with countless redundant values.
• The Why: Why should you care about Data Normalization? We highlight its importance in facilitating easy and reliable reporting, fostering standardized data, and contributing to simplified automation downstream. We'll discuss why minimalism is key in retrieving and grouping particular datasets.
• The How: How can you do Data Normalization efficiently? We'll explore strategies for future-proofing your data structure, determining the 'correct values', and how to categorize for simplicity. Most importantly, we will share detailed steps you can do to leverage CSV supported automation out of both Salesforce or Marketo to make this scalable and easy to maintain.

We're not about blocking data - we're here to transform it. We want to flip the script on the old adage, "Garbage In, Garbage Out" and make your marketing ops work smarter, not harder. And at the end of the day, it all comes down to your ABC's - Always Be CSV-ing.

Are you ready to take your HubSpot game to the next level? This week on the Revenue Growth Architects Podcast, Gany Rodriguez joins to dive into how to maximise your use of HubSpot.

Get ready for a whirlwind tour of HubSpot best practices as we break down:

• Strategy: Learn how to approach your go-to-market process, whether or not to adopt HubSpot's built-in features or customize them to fit your own, and the ins and outs of opt-in/opt-out strategies and global forms
• Operations: Discover the secrets of operationalizing global forms, templatizing workflows, and managing marketing vs. non-marketing contacts
• Analytics: Uncover the power of HubSpot's campaign tracking and reporting features, including form submissions, workflow details and audits, and the versatile journey report builder

Whether you're a HubSpot novice or a seasoned pro, this episode is packed with tips and tricks to help you optimize your enterprise experience with this powerful marketing tool.

Are you struggling to measure the impact of your marketing channels and track the origin of your leads? You're not alone! This week on The Revenue Growth Architects Podcast, Nina Valtcheva, Director of Solutions Architecture at CS2, comes back to chat about how to unravel the mystery of SFDC Campaign/Channel Tracking and help you master the art of attribution.

In this information-packed episode, we'll cover:

• The Where/What Challenge: Discover how to track how someone got to your content and what they converted on, and learn about the different methods to set up your SFDC Campaigns for better attribution
• Setting Up SFDC Campaign Tracking: Dive into the process of creating SFDC Campaign Types, defining UTM values, and setting up automation to streamline your tracking and reporting
• Reporting and Utilizing Data: Explore various reporting techniques and learn how to use the data to optimize your marketing campaigns and boost your ROI, and finally,
• Common pitfalls to be aware of, key monitoring strategies, and the importance of not setting and forgetting your tracking process

This episode is sure to help you take your campaign tracking skills to the next level!

AI has gone from 0-60 in the past three months. The speed of development is both exciting and unnerving. In this week's episode, we're diving deep into AI and exploring its potential impact on how we interface with our marketing/revenue ops tech stack.

From SFDC's AI flow builder, Zapier's AI automation builder, Chatspot.ai by Hubspot, AutoGPT, and dozens more examples of marketing and sales tech embedding advanced AI into their products, we'll examine the wild developments in AI-driven chat interfaces and their potential to revolutionize the way we interact with technology.

Join us as we explore:

• The current state of AI in Rev Ops tools and the move towards a more prompt-driven interface

• The possibilities and potential stages of AI evolution, from building complex automation to fully autonomous AI doing our jobs

• The pros and cons of AI-driven tool development, including the good (increased efficiency) and the bad (tech debt)

• The future of AI in sales and marketing, and the potential for a centralized AI that could change the fabric of our economy

Will AI eventually replace the need for marketers and salespeople or even reshape the entire tech industry? We are not sure, but we're going to discuss it nonetheless.

Is your campaign operations process a little chaotic? Do you want to scale up your campaigns without adding stress? In this week's episode of The Revenue Growth Architects, Jerel Allen and Ruben Rangel, two of CS2's top Campaign Ops experts, sit down to discuss the do's and don'ts of campaign operations that will help you scale your campaigns like never before.

In this episode, we dive into the key components of a best-in-class Campaign Ops process, covering aspects like:

• The importance of having a project management tool and a well-defined request process, and the necessity of training, enablement, documentation, and optimized MAP assets

• The necessity to have clear roles and responsibilities, reporting, and regular meetings or check-ins

• The essential technical and soft skills you need to own and manage your COps processes, and

• Some of the most common challenges faced in developing and maintaining a robust Campaign Ops process.

Don't miss this opportunity to learn from the pros and discover how you can avoid common pitfalls to revolutionize your campaign operations.

Are you looking to build a top-notch nurture strategy that effectively engages your audience and drives results? Dive into this insightful episode of The Revenue Growth Architects, where CS2's Joy Martinez joins Xander to explore the ins and outs of creating a successful nurture campaign.

We broke down some essential aspects to consider when building a nurture strategy:

• Establishing clear goals and reporting needs

• Understanding entry and exit points for a seamless sales funnel experience

• Crafting content that speaks to your audience at every stage of the buyer's journey (ToFu, MoFu, and BoFu) and,

• Finding the perfect cadence and frequency to keep your prospects engaged

We've got some great tips for setting up a nurture campaign that drives real results, so stick around while we break it down.

"AI isn't going to steal your job, but someone using AI might."

Welcome to the newly branded Revenue Growth Architects Podcast (formerly fwd:thinking podcast). In this episode, Charlie joins us to discuss his take on the quickly-evolving developments of ChatGPT, AI, and how that's going to change the way we work in marketing and revenue operations.

Specifically, we'll dive into these topics:

• Why you need to care about AI now, and what you can do to keep up with this technology

• How to make AI work for you,

• And practical ways you can integrate AI and ChatGPT into your workflow, including use cases surrounding using AI to optimize lead scoring, how to write an effective ChatGPT prompt, and using AI to improve your company's documentation processes.

This topic has the business world buzzing, so you won't want to miss out. Charlie and Xander break it all down for you. PLUS - we've got some exciting news to share with you!

Get ready to get technical with us, because in today's episode of fwd:thinking, we dive into the art of building a successful nurture program within Marketo.

Colton Slauson, Senior Manager of Marketing Operations at CS2, joins us to share some valuable insights on how to approach this project.

Specifically, we'll be talking about how to:

• Start with a solid plan and identify your nurture audiences.
• Overcome common hurdles by creating a repeatable process with set guidelines.
• Prioritize effective reporting to evaluate and optimize your nurture programs.

We’re getting detailed today, so grab a pen and some paper and be prepared to take some notes.

For more information on Nurture Handling, check out Colton's step-by-step Nurture Handler Guide.

In this episode, Xander is joined by CS2's Director of Solutions Architecture, Nina Valtcheva to talk about an essential need for your business, data enrichment.

If you can optimize your enrichment process, you'll improve your database's health, completeness, and accuracy - a win for both marketing AND sales teams!

Join us as we break down:

• What is data enrichment and why is it useful
• How to build a business case if you don't already have a data enrichment tool
• What to do (and not do) when setting up a data enrichment tool, and
• How to measure the impact data enrichment has on your business

At CS2, we're all about working smarter, not harder. Enrichment is one way you can improve the quality of your data and make it easier on your sales and marketing teams to connect with your target market.

How To Level Up Your Operations Using the CS2 PRODUCT Method

Too often, we see clients approaching their roles with a project mindset. A project mindset is a temporary endeavor, with timelines, budgets, endpoints, and deliverables. Project mindsets can make MOps teams feel like they are seen just as order takers who only process incoming tickets.

Today, we're going to introduce you to CS2's PRODUCT method. This method focuses on ongoing concerns, and is positioned for strategic conversations that influence business decisions. A product team is never done as long as the product remains on the market, which means there are continual opportunities for learning, feedback, improvements, enhancements, and expansions. The focus here is on outcomes.

The PRODUCT method is actually an acronym. It stands for:

P - Prioritization

R - Roadmap

O - Outcomes Measured

D - Documentation

U - User Experience

C - Continuous Improvement

T - Team Structure and Alignment

Join us as we break this all down for you with Joy Martinez, CS2's Senior Director of Marketing Operations. Joy is an expert in shifting clients from the project mindset to the PRODUCT mindset.

This method will be a game changer for you and your teams - trust us.

It's 2023, so why on this forward thinking episode are we still talking about lead scoring? Is using “lead scoring” still relevant?

In this episode, CS2's Director of Marketing Operations, Matt Cronk, talks us through how to do lead scoring right. And, disclaimer, we use the term “lead scoring” here, but really it’s setting a priority to prospects so you can optimize where and how sales spends their time - even if you are just sending hand-raisers over to them.

So join Matt and Xander as they take a deep dive into why lead scoring is still useful especially when done right, how we at CS2 suggest approaching your model, and lastly, how to set it up to be successful and have sales singing your praises!

If you missed last week's episode - Technical Debt to Technical Equity Part 1 - you're going to want to give that a listen first.

This week we're bringing you part two, featuring CS2's Senior Salesforce Consultant, Grant Booth, for the second week in a row. We're covering topics including:

• Apex CPU Limits - what it is and why it matters
• Why you should move to flows
• How to build and run a tech debt project

Disclosure: we recommend checking this episode out on our YouTube channel or our website, cs2marketing.com, because Grant shares his screen as he walks through some great examples of salesforce automation, workflow rules, process builders, and running tests and analyses.

If you're deep in technical debt, and are desperate to reach technical equity, this episode will help.

We all talk about technical debt, but talking about it doesn't make it go away. One of our predictions at the start of 2023 was that technical debt was going to skyrocket this year, and companies would struggle to dig themselves out of that hole come 2024. That's one prediction we hope doesn't come true, but it's going to take more than wishful thinking to make that happen.

On this week's episode of fwd:thinking, CS2's Sr. SFDC Consultant, Grant Booth, joins us to discuss technical debt: why you need to prioritize fixing it and how to get executive buy-in for this critical project.We didn't stop there though.

This episode is a two-parter, and Grant will be back with us next week to dive more into the weeds of what CPU limits are, the types of Salesforce automations and flows and their impact on processing, and what a successful SDFC tech debt project looks like.

After hearing this episode, you'll definitely want to mark your calendar for part two next week.

Inheriting a new instance can be tricky. You need to understand the context around how things were built, align with the marketing strategy, and identify the business goals related to your marketing automation platform.

Once you've uncovered the why, you need to focus on uncovering the "who". Who are your key stakeholders? Who's in charge of using the system, and what are team expectations? And then finally, focus on the "how". How do you get the information you need out of a new instance? What's the first thing you tackle?

On this week's episode of the fwd:thinking podcast, CS2's Senior Manager of Marketing Operations, Chelsea Byron, breaks down the do's and don'ts of inheriting a new instance, and provides several key takeaways.

If you or your company is in the middle of this process, you'll definitely want to tune in.

Most marketers have used Account Based Marketing (ABM) strategies before. It's not a new concept by any means. In a sea of multi-colored rubber duckies, you pinpoint the blue ones and focus your marketing there. (Don't know what we mean? Give the episode a listen)What many teams get wrong is that ABM is not just a for large enterprise accounts requiring white glove marketing tactics. You should be using an ABM strategy for all of your accounts.You have to ask yourself:

• Which buyers should we be targeting?
• Which buyers should we not be targeting? (Not doing something is a great strategy)
• Which of those buyers are in market... now

Once you've got those three questions roughly answered, you can start operationalizing your ABM strategy.On this week's episode, Xander and Crissy break down all the ins and outs of an ABM strategy and how you can use it to get the maximum return on your marketing investments. If this seems right up your alley, you'll definitely want to give this episode a listen.

CS2's Guide to Customer and Prospect Communication Orchestration

On this week's episode, Xander sits down with Crissy to talk through CS2's Guide to Customer and Prospect Communication Orchestration.

In the last several years, companies have brought on more and more technology and adopted more channels to communicate with their prospects and customers. From marketing automation, sales engagement platforms, to social messaging and their product itself, companies are creating disjointed customer experiences with duplicative messages and lack of cohesive efforts across the whole revenue team who work in silos.

How we communicate to prospects and buyers is a HUGE part of that customer experience alone so we need to care!

During the episode we will share our tips for creating great communications orchestration within your org, how to get buy-in and alignment toward this effort, and also what outcomes you will see as a result of it.

Get your notepads ready. Trust us.

We've seen a huge growth gap within organizations over the last several years: the executive team wants to grow faster than the operations team has capacity to keep up with. MOps teams want to make impact aligned with the executive priorities, but often times get bogged down in day-to-day tasks and responsibilities. This makes it difficult for their teams to prove their value to the C-Suite.If you relate to this, have no fear. During this week's episode, host Xander Broeffle, and CS2's CEO and CRO, Crissy and Charlie Saunders, introduce a framework that's been in the works for the last several years at CS2. Enter: Revenue Growth Architecture and the GROW Framework.First, let us break it down for you:

• G - Go-to-Market Design
• R - Revenue Analytics
• O - Operational Infrastructure
• W - Wins

Use this GROW Framework to align your teams on the most impactful projects and objectives. Align with core marketing strategy, execute the processes efficiently, and leave every initiative with meaningful analytics. Get the results that will make your executive team cheer.Intrigued? Then this is the episode for you. Grab a pen and some paper and be ready to take some notes.

Change - some of us love it, some of us hate it. But no matter which side of the fence you fall on, change is inevitable, especially in business.

What's the best way to get buy-in from your team and make the change stick?

CS2's Senior Director of Marketing Operations, Joy Martinez, joins us on the fwd:thinking podcast again this week. She breaks down the do's and don'ts of introducing change in your organization, through these three key steps:

• Building great documentation
• Empowering your team through training
• And enabling them to be successful through open lines of communication

Whether you're a C-level exec, or just starting out in your marketing career, Joy's advice applies to you to get the most out of your next process improvement.

CS2's founder and CEO, Crissy Saunders, knows a thing or two about building a career in operations, starting an agency, and consulting in general! And over the past few months, she has received dozens of questions on LinkedIn from others looking to do the same. So this week, Xander sat down with Crissy to get her answers to a few of the top ones.

Whether you are looking to make a career change to an operator supporting the revenue team, looking to get into independent consulting or building a small agency, or thinking about how a create a path to ops leadership and beyond - this podcast is filled with great career advice you can take yourself or share with your team.

"All Models Are Wrong, But Some Are Useful" - British statistician George E. P. Box

We have quoted our good man George so many times on this podcast, and today's episode title is even inspired by it as we talk all about Pipeline Source.

Right now when jobs are on the line or teams are looking to show their impact, it can be very tempting to want to try to use pipeline source to give "credit" as to which team or channel (marketing, sales, partner) drove the opportunity.

Or, even if the intention is to not use pipeline source for credit, some teams are just identifying it in the wrong way.

So on today's podcast we will give you or take in under 30 minutes on:

Take a listen and let us know -- are we wrong or was our advice useful? 😄

2022 was another unexpected year that we couldn't predict in the B2B SaaS and tech space. During the summer, companies were all in the thick of a talent war and now heading in 2023, many companies have had to do layoffs and are on hiring freezes.

But even though this space feels unpredictable, we wanted to come to the podcast like we have done over the years with our team's predictions for 2023 in marketing, sales and operations and B2B SaaS in general.

Join Xander Broeffle as he sits down with Crissy and Charlie to talk through predictions provided by the team and give our commentary on whether they agree or not.

This episode is always a fun one so listen in and see if any of our predictions match up to yours!

CS2'S Guide to Revenue Planning

It's the end of year and many revenue teams are looking to do their revenue planning and tapping operators to help work with finance to do so.

However, from our experience, companies are often missing the proper data or practices in order to revenue plan with success.

So want to be the hero and lead this important project successfully? We got you!

On the podcast this week, new host Xander Broeffle interviews Alison Rouse, CS2's VP of Solution Architecture and Analytics as she walks through CS2's guide to revenue planning.

They both dive into:

• Tops-down versus Bottoms-up data modeling
• The risks when only utilizing one of these models
• Foundational data points needed for both models
• How goals should be communicated and revisited by the revenue team
• And how to approach next year's planning if you already do have a strong data foundation

Get ready to take some serious notes!

Product-Led Growth is all the rage right now and has infiltrated it's way into B2B SaaS and many sales-led first companies are dipping their toes on the PLG waters and deciding to launch this new strategy.

The only problem?

Companies are underestimating all the changes and things you need to do strategically and operationally in order to make it work. And you can't just apply your same sales-led processes, team, or data structure to it and assume it will work.

So what are the most common mistakes we see sales-led first companies do?

Listen in to hear from Xander, Crissy, and Charlie all the things to avoid so we can't tell you we told you so ; )

It's that time of the year. Time to prep for end of quarter business reviews and annual reviews.

Whether you're attending sales QBR's or prepping your own, there are key insights that you should be preparing to show what marketing is doing well and also highlight areas that can improve.

This week, Crissy, Charlie, and Xander discuss key metrics to highlight, and how to tell stories from your data. They also share insights into which teams you should align with prior to the QBR to make sure that your review is aligned with other revenue teams.

This is a must listen for anyone looking to be a strategic partner with their marketing and sales leadership teams!

Making the case for budget and resources for RevOps or MOps is..... tough. Especially when you are trying to get the buy-in from execs like your CMO or CEO.

But why is it so difficult?

What are the negatives impacts that they care most about that are tied to being under-resourced?

What can you do to make it so you can get enough resources?

What types of resources or support should you be looking for?

Well, we cover all over that and more in today's episode.

Join Xander, Director of MOps from CS2 as he takes over as host for the first time and see what him and Crissy and Charlie have to say on the topic.

Building a strong team culture is hard.

Especially while remote. And especially as your team grows.

But how do you maintain the same level of connection for the team while also ensuring they feel supported and are growing as you add on more people?

Well, on this week's podcast our very own Sr. Manager of People Operations, Claire Pockell-Wilson, takes us through why culture is so important and dives deep into some of the many programs and tactics she has rolled out or refined here at CS2 to maintain our strong culture based on our values even while doubling our team size.

This is a great listen for any leader - even if it is just of a small team, to gives you ideas on how to make sure your team is happy and healthy and ready to take on their job!

To connect with Claire and keep the conversation going, find her on LinkedIn!

Do you know that your marketing automation system can easily be attacked or threatened?

And these attacks, when not handled properly or prepared for, can really impact not only your reputation, but your customer experience and trust with your whole revenue team, especially sales?

It's better to be prepared than surprised, so this episode is a must listen if you manage the marketing automation platform for your org.

This week, we introduce our new cohost Xander Broeffle, Director of MOps at CS2, and he joins Crissy and Charlie to dive into two very common security threats to any marketing automation platform that happen a lot.

During the episode we will cover:

• What the two (kind of 3) threats are
• How to identify or tell you have been attacked or at risk
• What proactive steps you can do to be prepared for one
• What to do in the event you are attacked
• And how you can minimize the impact of a potential attack on your reputation, your systems, your customer experience and your trust from sales.

So join us for this quick chat and then go inform your revenue team and the IT/ security team and build a preparation plan. You will be SO happy you did!

You or your team is discussing switching marketing automation platforms. 

But wait! Are you about to make the right decision? 

After listening to this podcast episode you will find out! 

Join me and CS2’s very own Xander Broeffle, Director of MOps, as we dive deep into all the things to consider and plan for before you switch MAPs. 

We cover: 

This podcast will be your savior - trust us. 

If you have any more questions for Xander or just want to network, connect with him here on LinkedIn! 

So many times we position and measure people on our ops teams based on their technical skills. But how do we actually understand what someone’s true strengths are?

These aren’t skills they learn or train themselves, but really the traits they just naturally have that can help them be successful and energized. 

So this week, we have our very own Sr. Director of MOps, Joy Martinez, on the podcast to talk all about one her favorite topics, strengths, and how mangers and individuals can identify their own and their team’s strengths and use that knowledge to make them and their team more effective. 

Joy will also cover how she led our CS2 team through a workshop on strengths at our team offsite this summer and how it can maybe inspire you and your team to do the same!

To learn more from Joy, connect with her on LinkedIn and check out some of the strengths resources we talked about on the podcast below.

Find out more about CliftonStrengths

Find about more about 16 Personalities

Measuring ROI on marketing is probably one of the trickiest things to do for operators and analysts.

There are so many things to consider from your campaign structure, how you track cost, and even what tools to use.

But this week, our very own VP of Solutions Architecture and Analytics Alison Rouse will dive into another meaty topic for analytics - and that is yup, marketing ROI!

On the podcast we will dive into:

• The definition of ROI and the different types you can measure for marketing
• What pitfalls or issues you can face when trying to track ROI
• What methods we see work best across clients and an overview on a few tools to use
• And, what you really to also track first before even trying to measure marketing ROI to tell the full story

If you loved our attribution episodes on the pod - you will love this one! Whether you are a CMO trying to understand marketing ROI, or an analyst tackling it yourself, it will be super helpful.

To connect with Alison and ask any follow-up questions for her, connect with her on LinkedIn.

Lead scoring is getting a lot of hate recently. You know, the same hate MQLs get. But like MQLs, is it warranted or are people just doing it wrong or using it for the wrong purpose?

On this week's episode, Charlie sits back down with Crissy again to dive deep into a lead scoring project they have done for a client and repeatedly iterated on over the 10 months. In the episode, Crissy will give her tips on:

• What you need to do ahead of creating a lead scoring model to make it effective
• What analysis and modeling you can do before launching a model to ensure it's effective
• Why having a goal conversion rate of MQL to SQL to model to is effective in your modeling
• Why having the right data is so important
• And why it's not a "one and done" project

So sit back and learn how you can take CS2s same approach to your own organization to see success with a lead scoring model.

Your budget just got cut and you are on a hiring freeze, but your marketing team's goals stayed the same. How do you deal? Where should you make the sacrifices and what should you stay invested in? And how can you articulate to finance why you actually need more to deliver on those goals?

On this week's episode, we have a MarTech veteran and now VP of Marketing at Metadata.io, Jason Widup on to discuss all about what to do when your budget is cut and all the ways he handled it himself in his current role during this "slow down" and in past roles.

We answer all of those burning questions above and more so this is a great one not only for MOps but anyone in marketing.

To learn more about Metadata.io go to their website here or follow them on LinkedIn. And to continue the conversation with him, connect with Jason on LinkedIn here.

When your company is focused on revenue growth, one of the most impactful things the whole team can do is approach working together like a unified team.

Not just separate teams aligned to each other, but one team that is unified on goals, strategy, and thinking about the experience for the prospect and customer through their whole journey.

On this week's episode, we have Chief Growth Officer at Klearly, Mary Blanks on to talk about why revenue growth is team sport, how approaching it that way can have some amazing beneficial impacts on customer journey and pipeline creation, and what it takes to move the revenue team to this way of working by managing organizational change effectively.

To connect with Mary, check her out on LinkedIn and make sure to follow Klearly, as they are about to also launch their very first podcast all around revenue growth best practices.

If you have a small marketing operations team supporting a marketing team creating a lot of campaigns, you might be interested or even have a decentralized campaign operations model where marketers can create campaigns and send emails themselves.

This can be great for giving your team more time to be strategic on other projects. But how do you do it well? What processes and documentation need to be put in place? And what happens when your marketing scales so fast, the decentralized model starts to show some signs that it is not working anymore?

On this week's podcast we will dive into all of that with two incredible women marketing operators, Amy Goldfine, Head of Marketing Ops and Geraldine Gudino Garcia, Marketing Operations Manager at Iterable.

Both Amy and Geraldine have had experience with adding processes and enabling the decentralized model at their organization and share their experience and tips with us all. And, (SPOILER ALERT) they also go into why they are planning a to change to a new model this year.

This episode is so informative and jam packed with great advice and things to consider if you have or you are thinking of putting in a decentralized campaign ops model.

To learn more from Amy Goldfine, check her out on LinkedIn or go to her website MarketingOpsAdvice.com and to learn more from Geraldine, you can also connect with her on LinkedIn.

Alignment across sales operations and marketing operations is crucial to company growth and efficiency. They are the life line to supporting the revenue function. And whether you are under one team in RevOps or not, you really can have strong alignment and have a "power partnership."

Case in point: Veronica Lazarovici, Marketing Ops Lead and Doris Hu, Director of Sales Ops at Alma who were our guest speakers this week. Once you take a listen you will be so inspired by the incredible alignment and relationship they have between their teams - and even with a 6-hour time different between them!

Both Veronica and Doris dive into the benefits of their partnership, what impacts on the business there can be without the strong partnership in place, how they both manage their requests processes and stay aligned on their roadmap, their approach to aligning teams to "tech" and not "processes" and then how they support the whole revenue team with reporting and training and enablement.

Get your paper out because you will be wanting to take notes! And also, if you loved this - share it with your Mops or Sops counterparts!

Feel free to connect with Veronica here and Doris here on LinkedIn to hear more from them!

In May 2022, Demandbase and Highway Education teamed up to survey MOps pros and uncover what the MOPs industry is up against through its State of Marketing Operations Talent Study.

I was happy and lucky to also be interviewed for the report, so it was my pleasure to have Toby Murdock, CEO and Cofounder of Highway Education back to the pod for a second time to discuss the findings and both of our takes on the State of Mops and how it has changed but mostly stayed the same since the report was published.

If you are interested in learning about how we got to the state we are in and how companies can help combat the issues, then give it a listen!

Also if you want to check out the report you can find it here and also learn more about Highway Education here.

You may have heard about a center of excellence or operational excellence but do you know what it is? And do you know the value or how to architect for operational excellence at your org?

On this week's episode we sit down with Senior Director of Demand Marketing and Operational Excellence at Actian who takes us through what operational excellence is to her and how she has architected and positioned their people, process, and technology in a way that supports the marketing and sales teams to be aligned and reach their goals.

This is a must listen and I think you will have some laughs as well!

To connect with Kimmah, please connect with her on LinkedIn.

Unless you are at a big enterprise, the reality is that you are on a small ops team. Even with an ops team bigger than one person, it's very rare to have a team that fits proportionally to the size of the revenue team you are supporting or the amount of work you need to do.

So - how can you still be small but be mighty and get a lot great strategic work done?

Well, this week we have past Marketo Champion, marketing ops extraordinaire, Paris resident, and Mom to two, Chloe Pott, Senior Mops Manager at Lokalise who shares her advice from leading small but mighty Mops teams.

Chloe walks us through common challenges small teams overcome, what challenges you cannot face without getting more headcount, how a small team can stay focused and prioritized, and also shares her essential tips for "how to survive" and also "how to scale" with a small team.

This is a great listen for all you small but mighty team leaders! And, if you are interested in connecting with Chloe and learning more, you can follow her on LinkedIn here.

Our mental health plays a huge role in how we show up for work. Work is a big part of our lives, so with the wrong environment, heightened expectations, or lack of boundaries we set for ourselves, we can find ourselves dealing with mental health problems or triggering a mental health issue we already have. Add on the heightened expectations, fear, and anxiety that comes from the outside world today - it is no wonder that many folks are struggling.

But how do we know if ourselves or others we work with need help? What are the places we can go to for help? And how does self advocacy play into getting us back to a mental state that makes us productive and healthy? Our special guest, Courtney Chatteron, Content Marketing Specialist at Hyperproof is here to talk about all of that and more. Courtney is a big mental health advocate and also has dealt with mental health issues that would resonate with many of us, so hearing her story and tips are sure to inspire you or open your eyes on how to be an ally to those around you.

If you want to connect with Courtney, you can find her here on LinkedIn. Also, for those who were interested in the series #RealConvo from The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention that Courtney mentioned on the podcast, you can find that here.

Coaching is a tool that typically is only available for executive and on top of that is usually only used as a tool to help someone who is underperforming or a situation that needs remediation. But it shouldn't be this way and coaching can actually be an amazing tool for executors and managers in their roles so they can be productive and happy.

On today's episode we sit down with Hana Jacover, who is the owner and Chief Hyper Officer at Hype House Consulting. Hana has a long history of working at B2B tech agencies or in house in demand gen so not only does she empathize with all of us marketers, because she was us, but she is now coaching high performers in our space who are looking for the tools and advice to be happier and more fulfilled in their jobs.

During the episode, Hana gives us some amazing tips and exercises we can all do to better at self advocacy, setting boundaries, prioritizing, and being more productive. She also shares some of her top applications and books to help you as well.

If you are thinking this podcast has nothing to do with doing your job in marketing better - think again. It might be the most important advice.

To connect with Hana Jacover feel free to connect with her on LinkedIn or follow her @thehypemama on TikTok!

Times have swiftly changed in B2B tech, and instead of companies burning cash and growing at all costs, many have now been pushed to cut costs and do more with less during this economic slowdown.

With budget cuts, hiring freezes, and layoffs many marketing teams are feeling the pain of how they can maintain momentum and make it out on the other side even stronger. Who do we think can help? Yup - marketing ops!

With the ability to cut costs through evaluating tech, give valuable insights to help them make decisions, and put in automation where we can replace a human or team ( just to name a few), MOPs can help companies scale "back" effectively during this time.

So tune in this week to hear more and see how you and your team can help and provide a big impact during this economic slowdown.

Do you know what technical debt is? Though the term has been widely used across product engineering teams, technical debt describes what results when development teams take actions to expedite the delivery of a piece of functionality or a project which later needs to be refactored. Does this sound familiar to you?

Now that marketers are dealing with systems that are getting more dated and with more hands and tech touching them, we are seeing tech debt on the rise. And on top of it, timelines and expectations to deliver projects are not changing, so many teams are just adding to the problem.

We were lucky to have Lindsay Rothlisberger, Head of MOps and Email at Zapier join us on this episode to discuss all things tech debt and why it's hindering your marketing. We cover signs that show you may have a lot of tech debt, reasons why operators and marketers need to care, ways to prevent or combat tech debt, and what some folks are doing wrong when trying to eliminate it.

If you enjoyed hearing from Lindsay and want to hear more from her, connect with her on LinkedIn here.

In some ways, helping a company go through a merger or acquisition is like a right of passage for a marketing ops professional. We know many folks or consultants who have helped support this large undertaking. But how do you do it well? How do you start the process? What challenges might you run into?

This week, Jessica Meyers, Director of Marketing Ops and Technology at Tebra (previously PatientPop) takes us through her strategies and experience she had had while tackling a merger at her current org.

Whether you are going through a merger or acquisition or not, there is some great advice on how to tackle the project, but also how to maintain a tech stack and database that is ready if a merger or acquisition does present itself.

To learn more from Jessica, feel free to connect with her on LinkedIn.

This week we have a new REWIND episode where Crissy and Charlie (CS2) will give their thoughts and comments on a past episode including things that have maybe changed or adding on to advice they gave that they have learned since. After the 10 minutes of going down memory lane, you can listen to the full original recording of “Dealing With MOps Stress”. Enjoy!

This week we have a new REWIND episode where Crissy and Charlie (CS2) will give their thoughts and comments on a past episode including things that have maybe changed or adding on to advice they gave that they have learned since. After the 10 minutes of going down memory lane, you can listen to the full original recording of “7 Essential Steps To Elevate Your Career In Marketing Ops”. Enjoy!

This week we have another REWIND episode where hosts Crissy and Charlie will give their thoughts and comments on a past episode including things that have maybe changed or adding on new advice they have learned since. After the 10 minutes of going down memory lane and hearing their take on what was missed, you can listen to the full original recording of “5 Ways To Win Over Your Sales." Enjoy!

This week we are launching the first episode in a new series we're calling REWIND. In this episode, hosts Crissy and Charlie will give their thoughts and comments on a past episode including things that have maybe changed or adding on to advice they gave that they have learned since. After the 10 minutes of going down memory lane, you can listen to the full original recording. On this week's rewind we are going back to “5 Ways to Win Over the CMO” and not a surprise to us but all 5 still remain valid and true but we do have some extra advice to add that we have learned a few years later. We hope you enjoy this oldie but goodie from the archives!

So many times we create process with our internal users in mind without really thinking about the impact on our end users. And now more than ever when our prospects are taking on the buyer journey on their own and really value their privacy, it is time we took a difference look at how we create and operationalize that customer experience with that in mind.

On this week's episode, our very own Director of MOps, Xander Broeffle takes us through why this is important and how you and your marketing team can really change their mindset when operationalizing projects like an opt-in strategy or preference center to name a few and all while thinking about how to respect the end user's privacy and match your marketing to their expectations.

After listening to this, you will want to hear more tips from Xander, so follow him here on LinkedIn!

If you listen to this podcast, you are well aware of the importance of marketing operations and why it is important for companies to invest in building the function from an early stage of the company. Of course this isn't always the case and some functions get built out or invested at different stages but one fact remains true. As a company and the revenue team grows and matures, so does your marketing operations team and process. So on this episode we have our guest Rick Collins, Senior Director of Marketing Operations at ConnectWise on the podcast to give his tips and experience as he has started to scale and address common growth pains in his role over the last 5 and half years.

In this episode we cover everything from when to hire mops, how to build out the team, what responsibilities the team members should have, common pain points with hiring and scaling as the marketing and sales functions grow, and what projects will likely arise as you see the company grow that MOps should tackle.

Rick is a contributor on LinkedIn and in the MO Pros Slack community, so we suggest you go connect with him here.

As the landscape has evolved for marketing ops teams with what tools we use, the problems we solve, and technical solutions we are building, it feels like MOps is starting to closely resemble data engineering, software engineering, web dev, IT, and DevOps.

Because of this, it is becoming increasingly important for MOps folks to understand what is possible and how you can leverage code to develop solutions that are not only innovative but also can help your marketing scale - instead of creating even more technical debt. And our guest Jordan Bergeson, Senior Director of Marketing at Coalesce.io explains on this episode why it matters, shows off some cool uses cases for how it can be used, and talks through ways to get started no matter what comfort level you have with coding now.

This is a great listen for those interested in learning code or who want to spark ideas on what is possible and hire or bring in resources who can code, so I highly recommend giving it a listen, or better yet a watch if you can because we do screen share his use case which you can find documented here.

To learn more about Jordan, follow him on LinkedIn and check out his blog!

We are back and talking about MOPs hiring and job searching again. But this time we are chatting with Garrett Erny, Owner and Independent Marketing Ops Consultant of Poppy's Tech Aid who just went through a long job search process after having a history of working in-house and agency.

As you can see, Garrett is now independent, but before going that route Garrett went through a few months process of trying to find a job. So, he shares with us the good, the bad, the ugly, and the surprising things he saw across his search so you hiring managers can take note and you job searchers can be aware.

Garrett also shared his extensive journey into the MOps space with us to where he is now, so if you are looking just for tips and his experience, feel free to fast forward to about 12 minutes in.

If you want to learn more about Garrett feel free to follow him on Linkedin and check out Poppy's Tech Aid.

Are you still struggling to understand how to make attribution successful at your organization? Or are you just gearing up thinking about using attribution at your org? Then this week's podcast is a MUST. On this episode independent consultant and long-time MOPs expert Carey Picklesimer of Condurrio shares her Do's and Don't for attribution that she has learned after executing MANY attribution projects for her clients. We cover this complex topic in a very actionable and insightful way so you feel empowered to revamp your company's thinking of attribution or ready to take on an attribution project the right way.

On this episode we also answered questions from some of Carey's fans from LinkedIn which we know are likely to be some of your top questions too!

Make sure to subscribe to Carey's newsletter for more tips here and follow her on LinkedIn.

In this week's #MOpsin10 were digging into our favorite polarizing topic, attribution. In this episode, we're specifically going to be talking about what we see a lot of marketers doing wrong with it comes to attribution.

We'll briefly dive into why the hate on attribution is misplaced, a topic we've covered thoroughly in a past episode. We also cover why attribution shouldn't be used to prove your worth and why you may not be getting the full picture from your attribution model. So tune into the quick episode to get the low down on what you may (or may not) be getting wrong with attribution!

We know that you MOps professionals already have a TON on your plate and making time for documentation seems like just another task on your list that keeps getting pushed down the priority list. So in this week's super quick and informative #MOpsin10, we're giving you tactical strategies to help you make documenting your awesome efforts a part of your workflow. So tune in to this episode to get ahead of the "Oh no, I didn't document that" problem we see more often than we'd like!

When you have a potential customer perform a handraiser event, you want to make sure that lead gets to sales as soon as possible, right? In a perfect world, we'd see that lead with a sales rep almost immediately. Unfortunately, we don't live in a sales Utopia and many high-intent leads never even make it to a first meeting. In fact, the number of "ghosted" or no response leads is around 30% according to a new report from Chili Piper.

So in this week's episode, we're joined by Chili Piper's Senior Manager of Field Marketing and Community, Arthur Castillo, who helps us understand why speed to lead times have gone up and how you can help your org improve your lead velocity and overall customer experience. Arthur takes us through why your inbound lead experience can be a make-or-break differentiator against your competition and why traditional qualification and sales handoff needs a facelift. So tune in to this jam-packed episode for more info on why your speed to lead process might be negatively impacting your revenue and what you can do to fix it.

In this week's episode, CEO, Crissy, and COO, Charlie take us behind the scenes at CS2 and talk about our culture, values, and teamwork tactics that make our dreams (and our client's dreams) work! We're answering questions about what a client relationship looks like with CS2 as well as the dynamics within our team.

We all know marketing operations is a fast-moving field and has grown dramatically within the past few years so we'll share our favorite tips on how we are elevating the MOps practice and the people in it. So be sure to tune into this ep if you've ever wondered what MOps can look like at an agency or if you've ever been interested in working with us! Be sure to check out cs2marketing.com for more information.

When it comes to building or adding to a tech stack, the "less is more" approach is typically our go-to response for clients but, of course, what is more important than size is how the tech is actually used and if it really supports the process and objectives for the teams. However, due to some great marketing and overly excited team members, sometimes the original need for that new addition gets lost along the way. In this week's episode, Mollie Bodensteiner, Director of RevOps at Syncari, takes us through how operations teams can really build efficient tech stacks focused on their organization's people and processes and how to avoid the "Shiny Objects" that can lead them astray.

Mollie's years of experience in RevOps have helped her understand that technology is never the solution by itself, it is only as good as the processes it supports and the people who execute them. So be sure to tune in to this episode to learn why focusing on people and process first can help your tech stack stay lean and efficient and how to best manage and implement new tech in your org. And be sure to follow Mollie on LinkedIn for more great insights: https://www.linkedin.com/in/molliebodensteiner/

Last week we talked about how crazy the job market is right now, especially when it comes to marketing operations roles. So this week we sat down with MOps master and returning fwd:thinker, Justin Norris, to chat through what those first few days, weeks, and months look like in a new MOps role. After working within marketing ops both in-house and on the agency side, Justin was just about to surpass his first 90 days in a new role as Director of MOps at 360Learning when he joined us.

From his recent transition to an in-house team, Justin shares his experience and insights with us on what it's like to get started in a new MOps role and what activities he needed to prioritize to familiarize himself with the organization, the tech stack, and the key stakeholders. While Justin gives us his first-person perspective from a more senior position, he still provides great insight into what junior positions should expect when starting a new MOps job and what red flags to look out for. So whether you're just starting your MOps journey or you're looking to make a shift, be sure to tune in to this episode and follow Justin on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/justinnorris/

This week's guest needs no introduction to MOps professionals! Long-time marketing ops guru, Sara McNamara, joins us to talk about THE hot topic of the moment; hiring and job hunting in marketing operations. In this episode, Sara gives us her best advice on both sides of the hiring spectrum. We cover what the best methods and strategies are for companies trying to build out their MOps teams but we also talk about how you as a MOps professional can find the best jobs out there, whether you're just starting in your career or making a shift.

Marketing operations is still a growing field and there are still a lot of scenarios that come into play when hiring that people aren't fully thinking through. So Sara walks us through what people are doing wrong when it comes to hiring in MOps and how you can change your perspective to create a foundation for success for your MOps hire and organization as a whole. Sara also gives some great advice on red flags you should stay away from when looking for a job in the MOps community and what you should look for from a company you're interested in.

So take a seat, grab your notes and listen in to this ep for all of your job searching and hiring questions. And if you aren't already, you need to follow Sara on LinkedIn for more MOps wisdom: https://www.linkedin.com/in/saramcnamara/

The average tenure of a CMO in B2B tech today is less than 2 years! But one way the CMO can really hold on to their job is by having analytics and reporting they can understand that will help them improve their marketing, make better decisions with their budget, and also articulate their impact on revenue to the business.

One quick way for operators to be valuable and become your CMO's best friend is delivering that reporting to them. So to discuss how to do it, I have asked the amazing Camela Thompson, VP of Marketing at CaliberMind, who helped us understand why it is important, how to build an analytics framework that works and how to really educate your marketing leaders on how they can use the analytics and reports and what maybe might be missing. We dive into so many key points from quantitative data to qualitative data and how you can start at any size so this one is not to be missed!

Camela shares insider secrets from 15+ years of RevOps experience including; why you should actually be paying attention to "vanity metrics" and what types of data points you should and shouldn't share with your CMO. So be sure to listen in to this ep for all of your reporting questions and follow Camela on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/camela-thompson/

In this week's episode, we're joined by the Director of Marketing Operations at McGraw Hill and 5x Marketo champion, Chelsea Katich. McGraw Hill isn't using your typical lead lifecycle or traditional lead scoring strategies so Chelsea walks us through their unconventional handoff off and internal procedures and how those techniques are not only driving revenue growth but also enhancing the customer experience overall.

Chelsea explains why it's important to keep an open mind when it comes to how you're structuring your sales and marketing teams because there may be some gaps in your process that may be easily fixed with an unconventional approach. She also explains why being flexible in your mindset can help team alignment which in turn strengthens the customer experience. Be sure to follow Chelsea on LinkedIn for more MOps content: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chelsea-kiko/

Event-based marketing has drastically changed in the past couple of years, but it may have been the wake-up call that B2B marketers needed. Event expert, Julius Solaris from Hopin, an all-in-one hybrid event platform, joins us to chat through everything a B2B marketer needs to know about operationalizing successful events in 2022.

Julius takes us through the current landscape of B2B marketing events as well as where he sees the industry going. We cover a lot of topics in this episode around events including accessibility and sustainability challenges and solutions, creating value for your attendees in a remote setting where they may feel like their "losing out" on the face to face experience and how marketers can use event data to not only improve engagement but also the content strategy overall. This episode is jam-packed with so many helpful insights so be to take a listen and follow Julius on LinkedIn for more information: https://www.linkedin.com/in/juliussolaris/

This week we are talking about podcasts on the podcast. So Meta, right?! If you are a marketer or individual and have thought about starting a podcast, you will want to grab your notebook and press play. On this episode we're joined by the hosts of the RevOps Podcast by Revenue.io, Jordan Henderson, and Brandon Redlinger to pull back the curtain on what it actually takes to ideate, produce, and host a podcast that makes it past the first few episodes.

In addition to hosting the podcast, both Jordan and Brandon have full-time jobs at the company as Sr. Directors of Revenue Operations and Product Marketing, respectively, and use the podcast as a platform to give tactical and strategic advice they have learned to other RevOps pros.

On the episode, they take us through how they manage the work-podcast balance as well as helpful tips and tricks to help you execute or even decide if a podcast would be a good fit for you or your company. So tune in to this week's ep for all of your podcast inquiries and be sure to follow Brandon and Jordan on LinkedIn!

In this week's episode we are joined by one of our new team members Brad Couture who is our Sr. Manager of Marketing Ops but at the time was working for a Boston start-up Tulip as their Marketing Operations Manager. Brad joined us to discuss why order of operations is important for marketing ops, how it can impact your systems, and then dives into how Marketo users can leverage the executable campaigns feature in order to take back control. While we dive into Marketo-specific tactics in this episode, you should still listen in even if you aren't a Marketo user for helpful ways to think through how to structure your order of operations.

PS. Definitely make sure to follow Brad on LinkedIn where he posts #relatable memes and mops commentary and useful tips and tricks for MOps pros. You can find his profile here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradcouture/

Marketo executable campaigns article mentioned in this episode: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/eliminate-wait-steps-from-your-marketo-instance-brad-couture/

This week we have a very special guest and 2021's Marketo Champion of the Year, Chiara Riga! Chiara joins us to talk about how to be more strategic in marketing ops at your organization. She takes us through her journey as a BDR to MOps pro and how those insights have helped her have a better understanding of roles throughout the company and how having empathy for other teammates' problems can help make the wider team function more strategically. Whether you are a manager or a VP, there are ways in which you approach your work and focus on the impact on the business that can really set you apart and Chiara takes an example of a project to show tangible ways how to do this.

Tune into this episode for a stimulating conversation on MOps, RevOps, and more! And be sure to follow Chiara on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chiarariga/

This week we're joined by long-time storyteller and content marketer, Brianna Valleskey! In this episode, Brianna takes us on a journey to help us understand why an organization's brand recognition is so important especially right now in B2B marketing.

She goes over the benefits of brand awareness, what you can do to build up your brand, and how to measure the impact your content and brand are having on your revenue. Be sure to follow along in this episode for insider tips & tricks for creating and tracking the value of your org's brand and follow Brianna on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/briannavalleskey/

Don't just survive 2022, thrive! In this week's episode, we decided to celebrate our 100th episode milestone and invite the entire CS2 team to share their best MOps advice as we start to dive into 2022. Hear from each one of our consultants as they divulge their tricks of the trade and best-kept secrets for all areas of MOps.

The CS2 team has years of combined knowledge and experience inside and out of SaaS, B2B, and agency life. So be sure to tune in to this episode to hear our thoughts on how to have the most productive year yet and get to know the other amazing minds behind CS2.

It's 2022 and we know that Operations is a critical part of your organization that works cross-functionally to support revenue, marketing, and sales teams. We also know that ops can no longer be a team of one for growing companies. So how can we be sure that we are creating a foundation to grow and support these dynamic operations roles?

In this week's episode, we're joined by the Vice President of Field Operations at Drift and host of the Operations Podcast, Sean Lane, who takes us through everything from planning, structuring, and operationalizing an operations team. Sean condenses his years of experience in and around the customer funnel and how he built his field operations team at Drift into 40 minutes of tried and true insights to help your organization build a tactical operations team that is aligned to your business goals. Be sure to follow Sean on LinkedIn too!

In this week's episode, we're diving deep into the world of human-focused experiences; what they are, why they matter, and most importantly, how to make them happen and work for your organization. To lead us through this journey, we're joined by long-time marketing specialist, Amelia Roberts.

Over the years, Amelia has helped multiple organizations run human-centric marketing campaigns that have proven to have had a valuable impact on the company. So tune in to this episode, Amelia walks us through how you can leverage micro-influencers and other types of human-based experiences to your advantage in B2B marketing. Be sure to follow Amelia on LinkedIn for more marketing insights: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ameliaroberts/

In this week's episode, we're expanding the fwd: thinking umbrella to include another subset of the podcast; re: thinking! In this spin-off series, Charlie our COO and Co-founder takes his years of experience and challenges the status quo of some fundamental topics in marketing (and more) to help us rethink how we look at this field as a whole.

If you're in MOps you know the tech, platforms, strategies, etc. are always changing, so isn't it about time we start re: thinking how we look at the most basic aspects of our work? Tune into this episode to see in a new light how marketing should be operationalizing its teams and strategies.

Does your operations team have a business outcome problem? We think so. In this week's #MOpsin10, we discuss why we think ops teams, specifically MOps, have a hard time having an outcome-driven mindset instead of a project-driven mindset.

We shine some light on why it's really important to prove your value to the business by having an outcome-driven mindset. Doing this will help you not only increase your usefulness in the overall business objectives but will also help substantiate your asks for more resources down the road. Be sure to listen up to this super important (and quick) #MOpsin10!

If you have been following our content lately, you've probably heard us talk about our product MOps method. We even talked about it a few weeks ago in this episode. So in this week's episode, we're joined by Jessica Kao, Senior Director of Demand Operations at F5 who has been implementing this type of thinking for her organization recently and was happy to share her advice and success with us.

Jessica takes us through how she is operationalizing the product MOps method within her company and the tools and strategies she uses with her teams to be more productive, efficient, and strategic. Tune in to this episode to learn how to start thinking to a product team and be sure to follow Jessica on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jesskao/

When trying to deliver features or projects that deliver on your business objectives, it can be hard to do this in a SILO. One way to tackle this is with team coalitions. This week on #Mopsin10 we're diving into team coalitions; what they are, why they're important, and how to start them to deliver on your key outcomes for the revenue team. So listen in to this episode to learn our secret sauce to getting measurable results from your MOps work.

In this week's fwd:thinking episode we're joined once again by Asia Corbett who took us through the fundamentals of data governance a few months back. This time we're diving deeper into data governance and how to actually operationalize it at your organization.

Asia walks us through her best practices for good data health and framework that she's learned over her years of experience. She also explains just how important data is for your company overall and how it directly affects your revenue won. Be sure to follow Asia on LinkedIn for the latest content on data governance: https://www.linkedin.com/in/asiacorbett/

In this week's #MOpsin10, we're digging into a highly debated topic- the MQL. In this ep, we're contesting the popular opinion that "the MQL is dead" and showing you why they're not pointless, just misunderstood and utilized wrong. We want you to stop the hate for MQLs and instead get back to the true roots of a "Marketing Qualified Lead" and why it was developed in the first place.

By definition, an MQL is a metric showing a lead who has indicated interest through marketing activities so how can that be wrong if you're setting the right standards? Tune into this quick #MOpsin10 to get back to the basics and understand why your MQL hate is misplaced and where you should maybe be putting in the work to make it great again!

In this week's episode, we're joined by a long-time colleague, client, and friend, Sydney Sloan who is the CMO at SalesLoft. Sydney is well-versed in the language of Account-based Marketing, Sales Enablement, and Revenue Operations. So in our discussion today, we're going over how you can bring all of those factors together to create the most efficient and effective tech stack for your sales and marketing team and how to orchestrate their efforts.

We're covering how to roles of marketing ops and sales have changed in the past couple of years, where those roles have overlapped, and which teams should own certain types of tools. We'll also discuss everything surrounding your Sales Enablement Platform; what teams should own the strategy, who manages the platform, and what types of data you should be reporting on. Tune in to this jam-packed episode if you're ready to take your tech stack to the next level and be sure to follow Sydney on LinkedIn for more awesome tips and best practices: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sydsloan/

Welcome back to another episode of our series, #MOpsin10! This week, we're breaking down our best tips to help you improve your Speed to Lead - the process of an inbound lead getting followed up with and connected to a salesperson.

In this mini-episode, we'll give you action items you can take back to your own organization that will help you gain an edge over your competitors. This is a super important topic for MOps pros, so be sure to take notes as we cover enrichment, lead routing, automation, and more in just 10 minutes!

In this week's episode, we're joined (again) by a very special guest and our VP of Solutions Architecture, Alison Rouse! In a previous episode, we chatted with Alison about attribution and you all loved it. So in this episode, we're diving deep into building an Analytics Framework.

If you've been following our content, you may notice that this is a topic we discussed in our OpsStars workshop. However, we were only able to give a quick introduction to the analytics framework so in this episode we're really digging into why you should build, where to start, and how to successfully execute an analytics framework in your organization.

In this week's #MOpsin10 we're diving deep into one specific area of a topic we think is very important to marketing operations; the analytics framework for your revenue team. In our quick 10 minute episode, we're specifically going to cover what questions you should be asking to help you plan how you are going to build your framework.

Building a framework that suits the needs of the C-suite and individual departments and provides them with the valuable data and feedback they truly need will ensure you have more time for strategic projects because you'll no longer receive one-off reporting requests.

So tune into this quick episode for what we believe are the most important questions to ask yourself and your executive before building the analytics framework.

In this week's podcast, long-time marketer Chantelle Marcelle joins us to chat about content marketing and strategies. We also take a deep dive into why you should be building buyer communities in B2B marketing and how you can do it right.

Chantelle's marketing background started in journalism so she walks us through the importance of storytelling in your content marketing and how you can use that as an advantage across your brand. We also discuss strategies to operationalize buyer communities and then how to take data from those cohorts and show its impact as a marketing tactic to executives.

Tune into this episode to help elevate your brand through your content and communities and be sure to follow Chantelle on LinkedIn and check out her website for more tips and advice.

In our newest #MOpsin10, we're giving you our top tips for why marketing operations should own "Speed to Lead" at your company. As one of the most important functions in B2B, Speed to Lead, or how quickly and efficiently you can connect an inbound lead to sales, can help determine just how well your customer experience is and potentially prevent revenue lost.

In the 10 minutes we have today, we'll cover Speed to Lead documentation tools and strategies, testing do's and don'ts, and our general best practices for SLAs and touchpoints.

In this week's episode, we're joined by our long-time client, friend, and marketing ops leader, Liz Medlicott. Liz is the Director of Marketing Operations at Model N, a revenue growth platform, where she leads a cross-functional team that is always thinking about how their work ladders up the overall business objectives.

Liz takes us through her journey as a MOps professional and how her challenges and successes have helped her understand and grow marketing operations' role and value in the business. She also takes us through her tips to help MOps people build their own business cases and get the resources they need to be successful. Follow Liz on LinkedIn.

In our second installment of #MOpsin10, we're covering how to build an analytics framework. We'll take you through what exactly it is, why it is so important and how you can start to build one yourself.

So if you're in MOps and run into issues with out-of-control report requests, spending too much time at the end of the quarter pulling data, or team members skewing data because they're looking at the wrong fields, then you probably need an analytics framework and to listen to this episode.

We have a surprise for you in this week's episode! drumroll, please... It's #MOpsin10! We're kicking off a new mini-series where we dive deeper into MOps subjects and hot topics all within 10 minutes - perfect for a quick break or commute.

In our first #MOpsin10 episode we're walking you through why you should treat your approach to running your marketing operations team like a product team would. So tune in to find out how this way of thinking can help elevate your team and streamline your efforts for more efficient work.

In this week's episode, we're joined by Melissa Meinert, the Director of Demand Generation at SalesLoft! She's helping us unpack the complexities of supporting the SDR team operationally and shares her advice she has learned along the way with the SDR reporting under her in marketing.

Melissa takes us through actionable tips and tricks she's found over the years including what team structure she finds the most helpful, tools that help communication flow easily, and what processes are the most impactful to the company as a whole.

So tune in to this episode to learn the ins and outs of SDR operations and be sure to connect with Melissa on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melissa-meinert-26440613/

This week we're back to dive into the MOps content you all know and love. In this episode, we're going to give you our top three tips to help you stand out as a forward-thinking MOps leader. Go from good to great in your role with these topics and you will not only elevate your career but you will also learn how to level up your strategic value in the business.

If you're interested in diving into this topic (and many more) then you definitely should check out the OpsStars conference and check out our workshop: Good to Great: Top Three Differentiators for Forward-Thinking MOPs Leaders. Register here: https://events.ops-stars.com/events/details/opsstars-opsstars-presents-opsstars-powering-the-modern-revenue-engine/?code=MAINSITE

Ask anyone who has been in marketing operations more than a few years and they will likely tell you how much harder it has become. But why is it?

In this week's episode, we're discussing the changes we've seen in marketing and revenue operations in the last 11 years we have been in the space and we believe that the reason things are harder all comes down to one thing.

Tune in to find out what that reason is and also what you can do to make things, well, easier!

In this week's episode, we're joined by Kirti Dewan, VP of Marketing at Bugsnag (a SmartBear Company), who has had a career as a marketing leader at different technology companies for almost a decade.

Kirti takes us through her journey as a marketing leader transitioning from large, in-house work to fast-paced start-ups, a few years consulting, and back to tech start-ups. She also talks about her roles leading marketing teams and how she has taken all of her cumulative experience to build strong value-based teams that do amazing work- without burnout.

So, if you're in a leadership position (or hope to be one day) and are looking to learn more about hiring practices, this is definitely the episode for you! And be sure to sync up with Kirti on LinkedIn.

Fwd:thinking is back! And in this week's episode, we're joined by seasoned start-up marketer, Sruthi Kumar who is currently the Director of Demand Generation at TripActions. Sruthi has been immersed in marketing her whole career and has worn dozens of hats. This has helped her develop a wide-ranging skillset and become a marketer with a wide range helping her get closer to her goal of becoming a CMO one day.

In this episode, Sruthi takes us through her field & content marketer journey and deep dives into her best strategies for integrated event campaigns, pre, and post-Covid. She walks us through planning, hosting, and extracting data from the events to best inform business decisions. So listen up for a great jump back into fwd:thinking and be sure to follow Sruthi on LinkedIn.

In this week's episode we're joined by Francis Brero who is the Co-founder and CPO at MadKudu, where they are working to help B2B companies use predictive modeling and AI to improve their operations and drive more revenue.

Francis takes us through all of the facets on today's AI in marketing. We chat about how to get your team onboard and comfortable with AI, where it can be the most (and least) useful in your business and how it can even help improve your customer experience.

So if you've ever been interested in learning more about artificial intelligence and data science in B2B marketing, this is definitely the episode for you! And be sure to sync up with Francis on LinkedIn or check out MadKudu here.

In this week's episode, we're joined by Toby Murdock, co-founder and CEO of Highway Education. If you are looking for MOps talent and haven't heard of this company yet, or you are new to the field and wanting to learn more about opportunities in MOps, then be sure to listen along to this episode!

Finding young MOps talent is hard work. So on this week's ep we're discussing how Highway Education is helping to close the gap in the digital marketing and MOps field by providing aspiring marketing professionals with the skills they need to thrive. Their platform also helps connect employers to the new talent as well! Be sure to connect with Toby on LinkedIn and check out www.highwayed.com/

This week's episode is a great level-set for anyone who owns, inherited or may be implementing a new sales engagement platform (ie SalesLoft or Outreach) in their business. We're going to walk you through 5 best practices we've learned over the years about what to do when adding this type of solution to your tech stack.

We're covering a lot of great info including, platform ownership, email deliverability/opt-in protocol and lead stage mapping tips. So if you want to make sure you don't make some commonly made mistakes with your sales engagement platform, then be sure to check out this episode!

What happens when you are propelled into a leadership position and then handed over managing the SDR team right when a pandemic starts? In this week's episode with Be'Anka Ashaolu (VP of Marketing at Propel) she shows that your leadership skills really stand out!

On this week's episode, Be'Anka walks us through her history in various roles leading up to running marketing at a Silicon Valley based start up, where she quickly built out a strong operational foundation and secured tight alignment between the SDR team and marketing when she took over as their manager just under a year ago. If you are in marketing or demand gen and want to be inspired to take on more leadership at your company, then this podcast is for you! And after you are done, be sure to follow Be'Anka on LinkedIn so you can add her to your growing network: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bashaolu/

In this week's episode, we're joined by the Head of Demand Gen at Qualified, Sarah McConnell. Sarah's path has not been linear by any means, from competitive volleyball to PR to B2C at a small beer company, her past experiences have helped shape her into the rockstar marketer she is today.

In the chat, we're tackling the hot topic of conversational marketing- how you can implement it into your ABM strategy and how it can improve your pipeline! Sarah takes us through the basics of ABM and conversational marketing but also how to operationalize your strategy leading to revenue growth.

Be sure to follow Sarah on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahscott5/ or on Qualified.com in the chat!

In this week's episode, we're talking about a topic that every MOps person should care about... data governance! And we're joined by someone who knows all of the ins and outs of data, Asia Corbett, the Director of Revenue Operations at Postal.io.

With a background in economics and finance, Asia gives us her insights on data governance based on years of experience working in the field. Now in revenue operations, she takes us through her best practices for starting a good data foundation, monitoring, and maintaining a healthy database. Most importantly, she talks about why data governance is so important and why you and your company should invest time and resources in it.

So listen in to this week's episode and get ready to feel empowered to take your business's data governance head-on! And don't forget to follow Asia on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/asia-corbett-02433b84/

In this week's episode, we have a very special guest, Brooke Bartos, who is the Director of Marketing Operations & Analytics at Invoice Cloud! With years of marketing experience both in-house and at an agency, Brooke takes us through her journey in MOps and some of the advantages and challenges she's faced in these roles along the way.

Brooke also goes into depth on how her career has helped her develop a foolproof nurture strategy leveraging your content to engage and educate your audience that, most importantly, leads to conversions! She talks us through where to start planning your nurture strategy and goals, personalization to drive revenue, and the best content tips & tricks she's learned over the years!

So take out your pens and notepads because this episode is super insightful for all marketing professionals! And be sure to follow Brooke on LinkedIn for more insights from her: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brookembartos/

The journey to a marketing career doesn't have a specifically laid out path. And this week's guest Bartek Woroniecki is a great example of that. From BDR to now running demand gen programs and marketing operations at a fast-paced startup, Bartek has grown his career by taking on different roles that helped him hone a broad skill set across marketing and even operations. Bartek is a rare unicorn demand gen lead who really understands how to execute all parts of marketing from developing a campaign idea to creating paid campaigns, developing content, and then reporting on its success.

In this week's episode, follow Bartek along his journey and find out how he was able to develop these skills and why it has really paid off for his career in a B2B SaaS startup.

Follow Bartek on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bartekworoniecki/

2020 proved that having a strong operational foundation was the key to success for the move to relying on all things digital. Companies that had the most strategic advantage to stay agile during an uncertain time were the ones who had their sh*t together operationally.

In this week's episode, we're talking about how having strong operations can be a key differentiator in make your marketing and your company successful and truly be a competitive advantage. Topics we cover include;

-Scaling online programs

- Easily adding tools to a tech stack for supporting digital events and activities

- Implementing reporting structures to determine where to spend money when your budget gets slashed

- How to use (not abuse) email as a channel of communication and as a PART of a marketing strategy

Are you struggling to keep up with 'industry' benchmarks? Do you even know what yours are? Do you think they're useful? Well, we think they're a bit pointless and in this week's episode, we're discussing why we think so.

We get asked this question A LOT- specifically, anything around funnel reporting. So in this podcast, we'll go over why we don't find industry funnel benchmarks helpful and why you should actually be focusing on improving your marketing overall.

In this week's episode, we're joined by one of our MOps consultants, Christie Montague-Fusco, to go over the do's and don'ts of sending mass emails to your database. This is an especially tricky topic because if you want to do a mass send without getting a ton of backlash, there are very specific things to consider. But don't worry, we've created a handy decision tree to help you out!

Our tips and best practices on email deliverability will not only improve your email's performance but will also help keep your database healthy and customers happy. So tune in to this episode for your step-by-step guide to mass email blasts.

You can view and download the decision tree here: https://www.cs2marketing.com/blog/should-i-send-a-mass-promotional-email-to-my-database-decision-tree

In this week's episode we're hitting the ground running and taking a deep dive into data & reporting. We're joined by Klearly's Founder & CEO, Alex Krawchick who conceived the platform based on the lack of proactive analytics tools for marketing teams.

We cover predictive analytics, 'invisible' touch points, how much data you should be saving and so much more. So if you feel like you're stuck in a data standstill, sit back and let us unpack some key challenges marketers have been facing and hopefully this episode will help you move your reporting in the right direction.

Be sure to follow Alex on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/krawchick/

In this week's episode we're taking a step back to focus on one of the most important parts of marketing ops... the people! We're taking a break from our typical tech-heavy topics to help you and your team reset, recharge and revamp your work environment.

We're covering how to boost morale, drive adoption of your tools and programs with gamification in the workplace and why you should invest in your team and yourself!

These quick tips are not marketing related but crucial for a good team dynamic and can improve your marketing efforts in the long run. So tune in to find out what simple things you can do to better your marketing that have nothing to do with marketing!

Attribution seems to be a very hot topic right now. But do you know what it really is and, more importantly, how to do it the right way?

This week we have our measurement and analytics expert, Alison Rouse, back to talk all things attribution. We're diving into where things might be going wrong for you (hint: using attribution to prove your pipeline contribution to the C-suite is NOT the way to go about it). We also are going over how to fix these common misconceptions so you don't start "hating" attribution for the wrong reasons.

So listen in to this week's episode and join the attribution conversation!

Does your team have a clear insight into the customer journey, especially when it comes to email? Is your customer (potential and current) experience aligned to what their expectations are? Do you have clear definitions for when each department in the revenue team interacts with them?

If you answered no to any of these questions, you might want to check out this week's episode!

This week we are discussing customer journey ownership, mapping and documenting your customer journey, how to audit/implement necessary changes, and everything in between! So listen in to get a head start on improving your customer's experience before it turns into chaos.

In this week's episode we're helping you, the MOps extraordinaires, communicate with your teams better! We're going through the top four things you should be relaying to the revenue team to make your (and their) life easier.

We dive into topics like project timeline expectation, technical debt, tool efficiency, and attribution misunderstandings.

These are some great topics to start educating your revenue team on to prevent some common misconceptions and frustrations.

Has your tech stack grown out of your control? Or did you inherit one that was already a mess? Then this week's episode is for you!

We're heading to the fwd:thinking laboratory to dissect the ominous Frankenstack. We'll cover how to identify if you have one (spoiler: you probably do), how to take back control, and prevent it from ever happening again!

So tune in to this week to get your stack back on track!

Wondering where to start when it comes to ABM Analytics? Well, you're in luck!

In this week's episode, we're talkin' all about ABM analytics- specifically how to operationalize and set up your data and reporting. We're covering target account tracking, engagement, MQAs, and everything in between.

So get your checklist out and take some notes on how to get your ABM analytics off the ground!

In this week's episode, we've created a visual aid to help you understand how well your business' marketing/revenue strategy aligns with your ability to execute it through operations.

The Magic-al Operations Quadrant is a great tool to help you determine where your team may need to make changes in strategy, technology, or staff in order to be what we call a "Market Winner."

This episode is pretty visual so be sure to check it out on our site here: https://www.cs2marketing.com/fwd-video-podcast/the-magical-operations-quadrant

In this week's episode, we're going to show you how to develop your opt-in process the RIGHT way.

It may seem simple from the outside but there's a lot that goes on behind the scenes. So we've developed a great visual guide to help you stay out of trouble* and streamline the process to best suit your needs.

Listen along this week to build your opt-in process from the ground up or just brush up on your knowledge.

*Disclaimer: This is our personal take from years of experience but please consult your legal team for expert advice.

Got your whole marketing team on board with creating a frictionless experience and using fewer forms? Great! Or are you still in the process of swaying them? Keep fighting!

Either way, this week's episode is for you because we talk all about what you need to do and keep in mind when deciding to let down those gates.

We discuss the basics like when you should gate and when you shouldn't and some of our tried and true practices like alternatives to form fills. But we also dig into a few things you may forget about like how to modify your reporting for this new change, and what changes you need to inform the whole revenue team about to set expectations correctly.

So, if you're about to make the leap, make sure you are prepared!

In this week's episode we're joined by Asana's Marketing Technology Program Lead, Jessenia Francisco!

Jessenia takes us on her roller-coaster of a career path. From finance to sales ops and now in marketing ops, Jessenia gives us a look at how and why she made the changes she did. She also talks about the similarities and differences she's seen in her experience between marketing and sales operations for those who are interested in making the switch.

Follow Jessenia on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jesseniafrancisco/

In this week's episode, we're taking an even closer look at the Golden Rule of Marketing; market to others how you would like to be marketed to.

Crissy leads us through the fundamentals of building a great marketing and sales strategy by, you guessed it, looking inwards and understanding how and why we market the way that we do. These 10 tactics can be implemented by companies of all sizes. She also gives us her opinion on how to improve current processes to make the most of your customer engagements.

So get ready to take some notes and listen to this episode for Crissy's go-to tactics for great strategy.

In this week's episode, we take a further dive into the MOps roadmap and we get to hear first-hand from Perkuto's Director of Solutions Architecture, Justin Norris!

Justin gives us a behind the scenes look at the steps of building, implementing, and maintaining a roadmap and why we should even care about this. He also gives us some great anecdotes and advice from his years of experience in the world of MOps.

So tune-in to this episode of fwd:thinking to find out more about the ever-important MOps roadmap!

Follow Justin on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/justinnorris/

Happy New Year! In this week's episode, we discuss the Golden Rule of Marketing: Market to others as you would market to yourself and how developing empathy for your prospect can be the key to better strategic selling and marketing.

We walk you through a simple, yet effective exercise to get you and your team to start thinking in this way.

So sit down, grab a pencil & paper, and tune into fwd:thinking to improve your 2021 marketing strategy and really start connecting with your customers!

In this week's episode we dive into a topic we've been wanting to go a little deeper into with one of our own, Alison Rouse!

We take RevOps head-on and discuss the wins and setbacks these teams have going on right now and if you should build (or expand) a team of your own.

Interested? Tune in to find out more!

Is refining your email strategy on your 2021 roadmap? It probably should be.

A successful strategy requires thorough planning and cross-team collaboration.

This week, we discuss email protocols, best practices and the do's and don'ts of automation.

Tune in to find out how to refine your strategy so you don't leave your readers searching for that unsubscribe button!

On this week’s episode, we take a look back from the beginning of 2020 and confirm which predictions we got right, which ones we got wrong, and what we learned through a wild year.

We also dive into which predictions will carry on into 2021. Tune in!

On this week’s episode, we have not one, but two guests! Joining us are Courtney McAra and Grant Grigorian from The Society of Marketing Technology Consultants. We dive into some surprising things they've learned from interviewing MOps consultants on their podcast, the pros and cons of being a consultant, and some worthwhile advice on growing in MOps. Tune in!

On this week’s episode, we are delighted to have the CEO of Syncari, Nick Bonfiglio, joining us. We dive into the importance of a roadmap for both product and marketing teams, a deep look into prioritization, and his experiences owning the roadmap at Marketo vs. his new company, Syncari. 

This will give you a lot to think about. Tune in.

On this week’s episode, we are excited to have Darrell Alfonso joining us. We dive into Darrell’s transition from small-scale companies to working for Amazon, the importance of prioritizing, and tons of valuable advice for the MOps community. Tune in!

On this week’s episode, we are thrilled to have Jason Raisleger, the king of MOps memes, joining us. We reveal where it all started, the technical and creative side of MOps, and we even go through some of our favorite memes!

If you’re in MOps and want something to lighten up your week, while also getting some real actionable MOps lessons, don’t miss this one.

On this week’s episode of fwd:thinking, we have the CS2 squad! We have a casual team chat discussing reactions to our "Elevate Your MOps" workshop at OpsStars.

And we discuss the state of marketing ops, issues a lot of small MOps teams are facing, and how we can continue to elevate the role.

On this week’s episode on fwd:thinking, we talk about how to develop your marketing operations roadmap.

We use a doctor’s office analogy to explain the steps needed to run a health check on your entire marketing ops function. We also dive into how to diagnose issues, prioritize the most important projects, and the best way to work on delivering the items in your plan.

Tune in as we go further in depth on where you should focus your health check.

On this week’s episode of fwd:thinking, we dive into some of the best advice for people in marketing ops (that we crowdsourced from LinkedIn) and share our reactions to the comments.

If you have great advice for someone in MOps or if you are just looking for some, tune in!

On this week’s episode of fwd:thinking, we talk about the uniqueness of MOps stress, tips on how to deal with it, and share real-life examples.

So many in MOps are tired and burnt out but it doesn't have to be that way. Tune in, reduce your stress, and do your best MOps work.

On this week’s episode of fwd:thinking, we discuss “lumpy” attribution models, like the w-shape model, and we react to some of your Linkedin comments on this topic.

Tune in to join the conversation and be part of our #marketingopsdebate 

On this week’s episode of fwd:thinking, we discuss our love/hate relationship with MQLs through the years and why our opinion has evolved over time.

We argue the case for MQLs still having a place in b2b marketing, if they are used in the correct way, and if you have a mature approach to marketing metrics.

If you’re interested in reporting and tracking your lifecycle this one is for you.

On this week’s episode of fwd:thinking, we are delighted to have a very special guest, Leah Allen, VP of Marketing at ModelN. We dive into the world of reporting and the metrics that you should (really) care about. Tune in!

On this week’s episode of fwd:thinking, we talked about how complicated marketing ops is getting, why you can’t focus on everything, marketing ops anxiety, and ways to audit your skill-set in order to achieve longevity in your career.

The sunk cost fallacy is dragging down marketing. It's defined as continuing a behavior or endeavor as a result of previously invested resources (time, money or effort). Think: shelf-ware tools, poor marketing channels etc.

How many marketing channels do you know are not performing but you keep them anyway? How much tech do you have that isn’t producing the results you had hoped for, but you are continuing to use it anyway because of the large investment? 

In B2B marketing, sunk costs are bound to happen. But don’t fall into the trap of letting them continue and get worse. 

Tune in to see how common it is and the questions you can ask yourself to understand when to kill something in marketing before falling for this fallacy. 

On this week’s episode, we are delighted to have a very special guest, Shonal Narayan, Sr. Director of Marketing at Everstring.

Well said. Marketing operations won’t get the credit they deserve and seem to be often undervalued. Michael Jordan will get all the praise, but without Pippen, there is no championship.

That’s why it’s critical not to undermine the importance of alignment, especially with demand gen and marketing ops.

Having both teams on the same page moving towards the same goals of the business is so important to drive the results you need.

Some great takeaways from our conversation includes:

• How marketing ops and demand gen can support each other
• Marketing ops as strategic partners for demand gen
• Getting into the details of an ABM Play Everstring is running now
• And much more!

Tune in for a great listen and see how marketing ops can deliver a championship to you.

On this week’s episode, we are delighted to have a very special guest, Shari Johnston, Account-Based Practice Lead, Winning by Design, previous marketing leader at Demandbase, OpenDNS, & Radius

"Operations folks hold the keys to the kingdom" - Shari Johnston

It's true. Marketing ops and B2B marketing are indistinguishable these days. I mean, how would your company’s marketing work if your marketing ops team didn’t do the work. It would be a disaster. 

And this is especially true for ABM. 

With ABM, we are getting actionable data to the people who need it, getting it to them quickly, and enabling them to take action on it to help drive revenue.

Sounds like MOps could be pretty important, right?

And it's even more important during "these times" when deal volume could be down. Sales NEEDS to know who is in the market NOW.

This is where operationalizing buyer intent data from platforms like G2 takes your ABM to the next-level. 

Tune in for a great listen and see where MOps has a very particular set of skills to make shit happen.

We must stop neglecting soft skills. It is holding us and the entire marketing ops function back.

Soft skills help us navigate work more effectively and in MOps they are just as important to our professional growth as tech skills.

This is why we were really stoked to have an awesome guest on fwd:thinking this week. Our friend, previous client, and Crissy's old boss Kristen Alexander.

Kristin was the global brand marketing leader for Disney, led marketing at Agari and the marketing platform Certain. And now she is the co-founder of Ox, a SaaS platform for training soft skills.

We dive into the world of soft skill development and touch on:

• The three most important soft skills for people in b2b marketing/ops
• Where the biggest gaps are in soft skills
• Why you need to treat soft skills training like working out and other positive habits

If you want to move up in our career this one's for you.

On this week’s episode we are honored to have a very special guest, Dan Frohnen, CMO of Sendoso join our podcast.

Dan has been a repeat client of ours at 3 companies where he led marketing at Apttus, Skedulo and now Sendoso.

Dan shares some amazing insights and experiences into what a CMO looks for from their MOps team and how someone in MOps can elevate themselves all the way to CMO. Like he did.

Some great takeaways from our conversation includes:

• Career path from MOps to CMO
• MOps leader traits and how to separate yourself
• What a CMO looks for in MOps professionals
• ABM strategy and tech stack
• And much more!

Tune in for a fun listen (you won’t be disappointed) and let us know what you think!