Category: Jo.e Pulse

Hi Joe,

My Sales Ops team has been growing rapidly over the past year or so.

With that growth, we’ve also added a Sales Enablement team.

But the problem is I feel like our two teams just aren’t on the same page lately.

There seems to be a lot of confusion about which team is responsible for what and things aren’t getting done.

How can I turn this around and make sure everyone is collaborating smoothly again?

Thanks,

Team-Player Taylor

Hi Taylor,

I’m happy to hear about your company’s recent growth! It’s always exciting when things are looking up and I want to congratulate you and your team on this success.

But with growth comes, well, growing pains.

 

“What works for smaller teams won’t necessarily work as you scale up your organization.”

 

What works for smaller teams won’t necessarily work as you scale up your organization.

Things can break along the way. So how do we prevent this from happening?

Here are a few key points that will help.

 

1. Organizational Structure

As your teams grow, it’s important that at all stages of expansion (whether you have a sales team of 3, 30, or 300), there is a clearly defined vertical hierarchy or chain of command.

Of course, it is essential for teams to collaborate cohesively and support each other.

But if your company lacks this vertical structure and the hierarchy is “flatter,” there will often be problems where team members don’t know whose job it is to do a certain task.

I’d also recommend the use of stakeholder maps to help all team members gain a clearer understanding of who is depending on them and what they’re accountable for.

Stakeholder maps are not only very practical for refining and communicating the responsibilities of everyone involved in each project, but they’re also a great tool for guiding new hires on:

• who can offer them support
• who to approach with queries, and
• who can approve decisions to keep projects moving forward.

 

2. Clearly Define Roles & Responsibilities

There can be a lot of confusion in a company – especially a growing one like yours – between Sales Ops and Sales Enablement.

Many members may not fully understand the delineation: Where does Sales Ops end and where does Sales Enablement begin?

This is common in my experience so don’t worry, you’re not alone.

The two teams are closely related, but they differ in important ways.

 

“Start by laying out a clear definition of the roles, responsibilities, and parameters of each team.”

 

I would start by laying out a clear definition of the roles, responsibilities, and parameters of the Sales Enablement team in comparison to Sales Ops. If everyone can agree on this, you’re already halfway there!

One way I like to communicate this is to look at Sales Enablement as the “execution arm” of Sales Ops.

Here’s a quick example to illustrate what I mean by this:

Let’s say Sales Enablement realizes many leads become closed lost during the middle of the funnel.

The buyer had the initial introduction and pitch, but then the proposal is sent a few days later and things fall through.

Sales Ops receives this information and takes a closer look at the operational level – where they discover their sales reps don’t have enough content (case studies, whitepapers, etc.) to send proposals sooner.

This is where Sales Enablement comes back in and goes about producing that needed content (which could mean acquiring collateral from marketing, content creation, etc.). They are effectively enabling the execution of Sales Ops by making sure the buyer experience is everything that it can be – hence the “execution arm”.

 

Calibrate Expectations

Once everyone in Sales Ops and Sales Enablement is on the same page about their roles and responsibilities, it is crucial to set up continuous points of communication between the two teams to calibrate expectations.

At all times: Sales Ops must know what data they’re expected to report to Sales Enablement, and Sales Enablement must know the type of support they’re expected to provide so Sales Ops can execute at their highest potential.

At first, it might take some time for members to fit into their new teams, and that’s okay.

With clear roles, responsibilities, and expectations defined through active communication, I’m confident that you and your teams will be more productive together than ever.

You’ve got this,

Joe Pulse

Hi Joe,

I’m worried that we’re not doing enough when it comes to security in MOPs.

There are some pretty big gaps and I’m not quite sure what to do about it.

• How do I go about asking for help?
• Should I create a plan beforehand?
• How transparent should I be with leadership?

Thank you,
Concerned Casey

Casey, I can’t thank you enough for that question.

 

“I don’t think we talk about security enough in MOPs—but we should.”

 

I don’t think we talk about security enough in MOPs—but we should.

Marketing automation software holds a ton of sensitive information, whether it’s user account details or some level of personal identifiable information (PII), and our customers trust us to keep it safe.

Particularly now, where marketing relies so much on personalization and connecting the dots between what our business offers and our customers’ needs.

 

The risks of mismanaging this data are huge.

If a hacker or bad actor gets access to a pool of customer information, you better believe they’ll use it for nefarious purposes.

• Whether it’s selling that information to other cyber criminals or your competitors, using it to access your customers’ accounts on other high-value platforms, or blackmailing your company. There’s no shortage of ways your data can be used.

After a company has been compromised, they’ll spend millions of dollars addressing their security vulnerabilities and the loss of reputation that comes with a cyber attack.

The MOPs teams and businesses that are doing security right are focusing on the following areas:

 

Data integrity

All of these variables influence how secure data is:

• what data you collect
• how you collect it
• where you store it, and
• how you maintain it.

For instance, there’s no need for you to have your customers’ social security numbers—so don’t ask for them.

And if you do have passwords or PII on your marketing systems, you should look into encrypting or hashing them so that if a hacker gets their hands on them, they can’t read anything.

You can also evaluate whether there’s even a business need for this sensitive information on your marketing system.

 

Controlled access to your systems

Security savvy teams ensure that only the right people have access to the right data — at the right time.

It can be dangerous to have too many user accounts with permissions to access and manipulate the information on your systems.

Instead, you should take a look at all your roles and permissions, and limit access to the people who need the data on a daily basis.

Not everyone should be an admin.

In addition, conducting regular scrubs on your systems to remove any old user accounts will also ensure you’re not at risk of a disgruntled employee compromising your data or your systems.

 

Robust security policies

With solid policies in place that let the right people in and keep the bad actors out, you and your team can focus on what you do best: marketing ops.

If you’re seeing gaps in any of these areas, you should absolutely have a conversation with your security team (if you have one) and your executives.

 

“Good security should mean that you don’t have to think about security.”

 

Be fully transparent about what you think is lacking, what the impact of those gaps are, and what the business should be doing instead.

If they ask you whether this is an immediate need, the answer is yes.

At the end of the day, securing your data is all about being proactive. You need to stay one step ahead of the bad guys—and avoid being the next big data breach in the news.

You’ve got this,

Joe Pulse

Hi Joe,

I’m a marketing ops professional and I’ve just been told that my company is moving towards adopting a RevOps model.

I actually think it’s a great idea. I’ve read about the approach and think there are a lot of benefits to bringing typically siloed teams together under a combined goal.

However, I’m not quite sure how to help make it happen. Do you have any advice?

Thanks,

Helpful Harriet

Hi, Harriet.

Let me just say: it’s so great that you’re asking this question.

As things keep changing in the marketing ops world, we need people that are willing to put their hands up and be enablers. Thank you.

You’re right that, while still a relatively new concept, RevOps has a lot to offer.

 

“Marketing, sales, and customer success teams can operate better when they’re working towards a collective goal.”

 

It’s the notion that marketing, sales, and customer success teams can operate better when they’re working towards a collective goal—helping their clients and prospects succeed—rather than as disparate silos.

Plus, it relies on an integrated tech stack that easily shares customer data and lets prospects flow through the customer lifecycle with a personalized experience.

Sounds great, doesn’t it?

While it might sound easy, getting to this integrated place is a long-term project.

 

Ensure alignment

First off, you need to do a lot of work to ensure alignment between these three teams.

That means a lot of conversations around goals, metrics, and performance to get rid of any discrepancies.

There’s also a technology and data aspect here. To build a RevOps tech stack, you need to look into where there are gaps or redundancies, and make decisions accordingly.

All that said, there are also things you (as a MOPs team member) can do at an individual level that will make a big difference, and help things move faster.

 

Expand your knowledge

If you want your sales, marketing, and customer success teams to be fully aligned, it can’t just happen at the executive level.

You need alignment on the ground as well.

Start this off by learning more about how things are done in those teams, including:

• how they communicate
• what their metrics are, and
• how they measure performance.

Talk to a colleague and ask if you can shadow them for a couple of days; you can observe them as they go through their daily tasks and join them in team meetings.

 

Become a champion for the RevOps approach

You know it, we know it: Marketing and Sales aren’t always best friends.

In fact, they often find themselves in a rather antagonistic relationship. So, once you’ve taken the time to learn more about what your sales team does, and why they do it, share that knowledge within your team.

These insights should help build comradery and make it easier to collaborate better down the line.

You’ve already done the work to learn about the benefits of the RevOps model, so make sure you share that as well.

People tend to be wary of change, but a lot of the time that comes down to a lack of understanding.

Empower your team with the knowledge they need and it might make for an easier transition when the time comes.

 

Keep putting your hand up

As I mentioned before, rolling out RevOps is going to be a long process—and your leaders are going to need help.

Talk to your manager about how you can actively contribute to the project.

You never know, they might need someone to bring the MOPs perspective to the decision-making table, or they may be looking for someone to champion the project and help communicate it’s value.

Good thing you’re likely already doing that last one!

You can read more about this topic in our Tough Talks Made Easy post “How to Explain RevOps to Your Marketing Ops Team.”

You’ve got this,

Joe Pulse

 

Hi Jo,

After several years in a single-person marketing operations team, my company is now willing to invest in growing MOPs.

Encouraging as it is to have initial support from leadership, this will be my first time in charge of building out a team.

How can I hire, structure, and lead a MOPs team effectively? What should I account for in my plan?

Thanks,
Leading Leah.

Congrats on getting buy-in, Leah.

By giving the green light to growth, your company is showing they take the success of MOPs seriously.

Creating a team from the ground up is no easy feat, but as a new and rapidly evolving function, building and leading a team in the MOPs space comes with a few unique challenges to plan around.

Here’s a rundown of the key considerations your strategy should address:

Competencies

While the tools and processes in your organization will determine some of the fine print, the essential mix of skills in a MOPs team broadly breaks down as follows:

• People leader who understands marketing technology platforms.
• Day-to-day owner of each marketing system and tool.
• Data expert to own reporting and data warehousing, with expertise in BI tools (e.g. Tableau).
• Someone to handle day-to-day deployment and requests from Marketing, building campaigns, emails, and other tactical pieces.

Note: Depending on your budget for headcount, multiple functions can live in one individual; for example, you might own admin or reporting while leading the team.

 

Role design:

Whether you’re hiring one person or several, indicate in the title if each role is a generalist or specialist position, and to what extent the position’s deliverables roll uphill and have the candidate interfacing with C-Suite.

A smaller team might have a MOPs Manager (wearing all hats) and a Junior MOPs Specialist in support.

In larger organizations, you tend to see Senior Directors and VPs of MOPs along with Managers of Martech and Analytics. Note how those roles suggest degrees of seniority and focus.

 

Attracting candidates:

The benchmarks of expertise in MOPs are different from more standardized functions like IT.

It’s not uncommon to see job postings for senior MOPs leaders that ask for 10-15 years of experience—in a function that hasn’t existed for that long.

Without prior experience hiring in MOPs, collaborate with HR to research the correct compensation and realistic skill sets for roles in the space.

We’re in a candidate-driven job market right now, so your offers need to be compelling to poach top talent.

 

Nurturing internal talent:

For the same reason, recognize and reward effort.

Don’t overlook junior colleagues from adjacent teams (e.g. Marketing, IT) who want to learn new things.

Some of the best professionals get their start after an organization gives them the chance to grow, so keep an eye out for ambitious internal candidates.

 

Leadership initiatives:

MOPs people are driven to excel and willing to take a swing at things; you want to harness that competitive nature in productive ways.

Your team should understand what success looks like, so share high-level KPIs for the organization that cascade downwards to Marketing and MOPs.

Encourage your team to create job descriptions for more senior roles above them.

This accomplishes several things:

Clear upward career trajectories will incentivize people to act for the jobs they want.

If your team is displaying these advanced competencies, it’ll help in negotiating promotions, training, and raises with HR.

You’ve got this,

Jo Pulse.

Hey Jo,

I’ve been asked to manage a webinar campaign at work.

It’s my first time taking charge of webinars, and I’m unsure of all the processes to account for and the information I need to gather.

Where do I start with webinars? What do I need to do to make this succeed?

Thanks,
Webinar Willa.

Willa, thanks for writing in.

Putting a webinar campaign together for the first time isn’t always easy, but it’ll be a rewarding experience and a good step forward in your role.

From my time working on webinars over the years, I’ve found there to be a pretty low general awareness from other stakeholders towards the demands of webinar campaigns and the required preparation.

 

“The concept of your webinar needs to be compelling and have a solid strategy.”

 

Before you can start to build a registration page, the concept of your webinar needs to be compelling and the strategy solid.

So, before focusing on anything technical, take some time to clarify the fundamentals. Your manager and team are there to help.

 

Key points to establish:

👉 Purpose: What’s your webinar trying to accomplish? Who’s the target audience?

👉 Content: What’s your webinar about? Who’s presenting?

👉 Delivery: Which webinar software will you be using? Is it integrated with your marketing automation platform?

👉 Promotion: Do you know which channels you’ll use and how you’ll allocate spend? What copy and assets do you need?

Look back at past webinar campaign report data to inform your decisions here.

👉 Scope: Ask a colleague to work with you to develop a webinar blueprint or briefing form that contains all of the relevant information.

This can help to establish and convey the scale of the work involved to other team members as you go through the process.

At this stage, you can start working out the flow of processes and getting stuck into the technical side.

👉 Share your steps: You want all your relevant stakeholders to understand the steps, timescales, accountable team members, and dependencies involved in getting each piece of the puzzle together.

A visualization tool can help you communicate your processes succinctly.

👉 Templates and testing: Program templates are likely to save you some time.

Once you’ve uploaded them with the relevant details, loop a colleague in to test them out.

Play with it until you can register for the webinar, get the correct emails flowing at the right time, and generate a link to access the session.

👉 Self-serve: Self-service updates will make your life easier after you start the program. Create a shared space where relevant teams like Sales can see automatic updates with registrants and attendees.

 

“Think about how you want to engage your registrants after the webinar.”

 

👉 Follow-up: Think about how you want to engage your registrants after the webinar, whether you send a follow-up email to suggest other relevant webinars or set up a nurture program.

After you’ve got performance data on the webinar, bring your team together to show how your processes worked and share the results.

You’ll get the opportunity to reflect on what went well and what you can improve for the next campaign.

But this is also your moment of recognition; congratulations, you pulled it off.

You’ve got this,

Jo Pulse.

Hi Joe,

I’m not sure what to do.

As a MOPs professional, I do so much for the company and am always juggling a ton of things on any given day.

 

“My boss thinks I only work in Marketo, but I actually take care of so much more!”

 

My boss thinks I only work in Marketo, but I actually take care of so much more!

What can I do to show them my contributions and how I’m actually spending my time?

Thank you,
Undervalued Uriel

Hi, Uriel,

I wish this weren’t a common problem, but it is.

So often, MOPs “teams” are made up of a small group of people that sit under Marketing or Sales, reporting into leaders that don’t fully understand what MOPs is and how much effort it takes to get it right.

It’s a challenge, particularly for small teams that are left to manage multiple tasks and projects without much investment or support.

There’s hope on the horizon, though.

The talent pool of MOPs professionals and leaders is growing every day, and that means that companies are far more likely to hire managers and directors who understand how many plates you have to spin in a role like yours.

In the meantime, here are some of the things you can do to improve your current situation.

 

Have a transparent conversation

Your manager doesn’t know what they don’t know.

And while it’s not your job to educate them, you can have a frank conversation about the different things you’re doing and how you can’t do them all.

Going into this conversation, take the time to:

➡️ List out tasks you do

➡️ How much time you spend on them, and

➡️ Prioritize them based on how much value you feel they add to the marketing team.

If you feel that you need another person on the team, share your advice around how you would divide the tasks to make the most impact. At the end of the day, you’ll be the MOPs expert in that conversation, so make sure you show that expertise.

 

Take a forward-looking approach

Another important conversation to have with your manager is about the direction you want your career to take.

As you know, there are so many paths and specializations to follow in MOPs.

Choosing a path and communicating that to your manager will help them understand that you can’t be the “catch-all” for MOPs, and it will give them the opportunity to support you with the training and mentorship you need.

Pair this with strategic thinking around where your organization can take MOPs moving forward, and a good manager will be even more inclined to craft a role that is right for you.

 

Don’t be afraid to make a change

If none of that works, then it might be time to look elsewhere.

You deserve to work for a team that understands how important your role is — so start looking for one.

Companies that have built a strong marketing ops culture will have various people in MOPs roles, including a director or VP who has years of experience in the space.

The job descriptions will also be telling.

If the hiring manager has written down a laundry list of tasks they want a specific MOPs role to fill, you can bet they don’t fully grasp what MOPs is all about.

 

“Your future is in your hands — and it’s bright.”

 

Your future is in your hands — and it’s bright.

As MOPs continues to grow as a space, there are going to be so many more solid opportunities for you to build your career with. Just wait and see.

Read our recent column I’m All Alone in Marketing Ops, How Do I Get Help? for more advice.

You’ve got this,
Joe Pulse

Hi Joe,

The data situation in my organization is a mess.

Whenever it’s time for Sales and Marketing to collaborate, they both bring different insights to the table from data sets that don’t correspond with each other.

 

“We struggle to make confident decisions about campaign activities and spending.”

 

As a result, our data is unreliable, and we struggle to be proactive and make confident decisions about campaign activities and spending.

What sort of change needs to happen to improve our data integrity? How can I encourage teams in our organization to participate in sorting out our data?

Thanks,
Siloed Sam.

 

Break silos

To align your efforts, avoid duplication, miscommunication, and rogue analytics coming from each business unit, all your data needs to live under one roof.

 

“Your first move should be to invest in a central data warehouse.”

 

Your first move should be to invest in a central data warehouse.

Your teams can easily maintain the cleanliness of your data through master data management and data cataloging.

 

Allocate costs based on each team’s resources

Modern platforms like Snowflake make it simple to allocate costs across different parts of the organization.

Your organization can treat storage and processing as separate line items that can be easily monitored by different business areas. This makes it easier for organizations to manage data in a way that’s focused on their needs.

Teams with limited budgets can invite more teams to join and enable easy data sharing among them without having to cover the entire cost.

 

Get leadership buy-in

Marketing and sales teams that lack data literacy tend to shy away from data management. To overcome this, leadership needs to infuse the value of data into your culture.

Leadership can accomplish this by:

👉 Requesting data from Marketing to clarify insights and support decisions.

👉 Investing in data enablement for their marketers.

👉 Setting a course for data and reporting initiatives.

 

Find the right leaders

Any data transformation effort needs to be staffed with people who know about data pipelines, business intelligence (BI), and how to present to various stakeholders.

Depending on where these skills lie, this initiative might live under your CMO or IT.

Is IT’s partnership with Marketing strong? Can MOPs translate the technicalities for Sales and Marketing?

Consultants and agency partners can jump-start the process, but you need internal clarity beforehand on what your organization wants to achieve.

The rise of new data warehousing tools like Snowflake has made it more achievable than ever for businesses to de-silo their data with minimal upfront investment.

 

“As more Marketing activities take place online, the consequence is growth in campaign data.”

 

As more Marketing activities take place online, the consequence is growth in campaign data.

Take advantage of these newly accessible methods for sorting, capturing, and analyzing data, and your revenue machine will run more effectively than before.

If you need any other help, let us know.

You’ve got this,
Joe Pulse.