Hi Joe,

I work in a growing startup, and my role has evolved to become about Marketing Operations.

The problem is I’m the only MOPs person in the company.

As a one-person team, I’m overflowing with deadlines and requests to get campaigns moving.

There aren’t enough hours in the day for me to execute more ambitious projects.

There’s simply more work to do in MOPs than I can handle alone. How can I get help? Where do I even start to manage everything?

Thanks,
All Alone Alvin.

pink seperator line

Alvin, I empathize with your situation.

Even in more mature companies that consciously try to add a marketing ops role, it’s tough to handle an incredibly busy function alone.

I’ve certainly felt the strain of being the lone MOPs person in my company.

Work can become a frustrating and isolating experience without the support of a team or the resources to do your job effectively.

On top of that, your organization may lack an understanding of your role and the challenges you face.

You might feel lost and overwhelmed, but there’s hope. Having grown my one-person MOPs function into an actual team of people, I can say that it’s definitely achievable to no longer be alone.

 

1. Find your community

Patience is definitely a virtue here. It’s going to take some time to build up the department and get the help that you need.

Even before you reach that point, there are ways to find a sense of community where you can go for help and guidance, including:

 

2. Build your case for growth

Longer term, you’ll want to focus on building a compelling case to grow MOPs in your business.

For your boss (and their boss) to get on board, your argument needs to have sound financial logic. If hiring someone or working with an agency helps you do more profitable, productive work, then the dollar investment makes sense.

To that end, marketing operations contributes more to growth as your business nurtures it.

Investing in brain power and technical expertise is the only way to move from executional campaign work to advanced projects that drive productivity and revenue like:

 

3. Collect data

Of the many tools in your stack, you’re likely using just a handful to run campaigns — and that’s time-consuming enough as it is.

The smartest way to use your time is to investigate your stack’s different functionalities. Find out where your data points come from.

Investigating the functionality of your tech stack helps you do two things:

1. Surface good data about how your campaigns generate leads and revenue.
2. Identify areas of opportunity for a new hire or agency to take on particular responsibilities that can fuel the growth of your business.

For your boss, the conflict is between what MOPs can achieve with technical maturity and the limited hours in the day you have to get there.

You’re at a bottleneck right now regarding what you can do. You can advance your case for help by focusing on analytics and reporting.

 

Key takeaways

Being the only marketing operations person in a growing startup can be overwhelming.

However, by building a sense of community, making a compelling case for growth, and collecting data, you can move from being a one-person MOPs team to a fully functional department.

It takes time and effort, but with patience and determination, it’s definitely achievable.

By investing in technical expertise, moving from executional work to advanced projects, and leveraging the data points from your tech stack, you can fuel the growth of your business and get the help you need.

You’ve got this,
Joe Pulse