Speaker 1Welcome to the RedOps Lab, a podcast exploring the art and science of revenue operations. To find more episodes and resources on scaling your revenue engine, visit getweflow.com slash RedOps. This episode is brought to you by WeFlow, the gone alternative at half the cost made for Salesforce. I mean, we get it. Gong is a super solid product, but it's really, really expensive. That's why we built an affordable alternative for Salesforce users. Here's two simple reasons why you should go with WeFlow over Gong. First, we don't lock you into a platform that oversells you. Instead, you pick and choose only the products that you really need with no strings attached. Second, WeFlow was built to respect best practices in your Salesforce data schema, so you don't have all the issues that many customers have with Gong when it comes to reporting and flexibility. That's what 250 RedOps leaders at companies like BlackLane, Coder, IDNow, and many more love about WeFlow. So go to getweflow.com to start your free trial today.
Speaker 2Hello, and welcome to another episode of the RedOps Lab podcast. My name is Janis, and I'm unfortunately not with Philip today because he's too busy doing other stuff. But more importantly, I'm here with Molly Bodensteiner. I hope I pronounced this correctly.
Speaker 3You got it.
Speaker 2I got it. Okay. I butchered all the names. So welcome back. You were here before. We had a fantastic chat, and this is the V2. So how are you?
Speaker 3Good, good. Thanks for having me today. And Philip, you're missing out.
Speaker 2Yeah, Philip is definitely missing out. I remember last time we spoke, it was one of my most favorite episodes. You were at Engine. Now you're the VP of RedOps at ZoomInfo. I think everybody knows ZoomInfo over a billion revenue. So yeah. And we're going to talk about how AI is changing RedOps teams and roles, which I think is a big topic. I've been thinking a lot about it, posting a lot about it on LinkedIn lately. And I know you think about it very deeply, a lot more deeply than me. So I'm super excited to have you on the pod. But maybe for the folks who are watching, I'm going to ask you a question. For the folks who don't know you, who are you, what do you do?
Speaker 3Yeah, absolutely. So Molly Bodensteiner, I like to joke that I have been in RevOps before it was cool. I've been in operations some way, shape, or form on a go-to-market team, whether that's sales, marketing, et cetera, for the last 15 plus years. So you never know what's on your bingo card. I'm not sure. Six years ago, I would have said we would have been in this transformation that we're in today, but we're here for it. And I think it's one of the most exciting times that I've probably had professionally, being able to get into this world of just agentic workflows, automation, agent builds, et cetera. And I have led revenue operations at six organizations now, most notably Deal, Engine, and now at Zoom Info. So it's been
Speaker 2a fun ride. Well, I'd say we all know these companies, so let's learn as much as we can. I'm just curious, like, how have the jobs to be done evolved over the last, you know, three years, right? Like with AI coming on board now? Yeah, absolutely. I think even if you go
Speaker 3probably three to four years ago, you know, RevOps was still in that support function type of mindset, right? It was a lot of triaging, manual work, you know, working to, let's call it, you know, the reactive, you know, help desk type components. And, you know, it started to become more of like a change agent, especially as, you know, more technology came on onto the space. We started leaning in on better process, workflow automations, right? And now we're in this really fun, like scalable component where we are using, you know, more AI, more automated workflows, more intelligence versus just analysis because the access to the information that I'd say like four years ago that took us so much time to get to be able to just execute, we're now able to extract that information, that insight, and like make decisions off of it way faster than we ever have been. And with that, right, your org is ultimately changing, right? The skill sets that you need, the work that people are actually doing is getting elevated. And I think that that's just a really fun time, right? You know, I, no one on my team is like, oh, I sit in an Excel spreadsheet all day calculating, you know, things now. You can use Gemini to use that as just such a low, low lift, right? So I think like RevOps, you know, used to be the team that like reported on the business. Now it's like becoming the team that's starting to build and govern the systems that are really running the business.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think we're entering this like, right, we went from kind of rule-based workflows to sort of intelligence to orchestration, right? And I think that's actually quite an exciting journey. I talk to a lot of folks right now, it's an exciting journey, it's a stressful journey. I feel like everybody's like, you know, it's also really stressed out given that there's high expectations and sometimes a big disconnect between let's say the board and executive layer on the floor. Is that something you're seeing as well?
Speaker 3Yeah, absolutely. I think we, you know, when we look at the maturity on this and you're seeing this on the news, you're seeing this everywhere. And like even myself, as I've, you know, presented to boards and that, right, it's like, how are you using AI? How are you using AI? How are you using AI? And like, you know, it's like, oh, we're doing these 50 million things all the time with no, let's call it like no strategy necessarily other than use, right? Like the strategy was use. Use use, use, adopt, right? Now it's actually like, what's the ROI? What's the impact? How are you, you know, making sure your consumption makes sense? I think for organizations that took the approach of like, give everyone access, I think that was, I mean, I think that's still the right approach to get people comfortable. But now you're overcoming the like, I now have to like, govern this access, right? And like, we're in this world of sprawl because every sales rep could, you know, connect their MCP. Where they wanted to within their Slack or build their own, you know, agents to run. And now you run the risk of harder ability to like report on what's working because you don't necessarily know everything that's going on. It's not centralized. You have, you know, inflated costs because you likely have inefficiencies in the way people have built and architected and governed. And again, you just go back to like the sprawl because now no one is managing those things. So like in a traditional sense, you know, you would have your automation, your workflow, it'd be centrally managed. And kind of what you're running into in today's market, like everyone has their follow-up agent. They're controlling it. You don't know what it's actually doing. And you run the risk of, again, if a person leaves, if an LLM goes down, if, you know, you have hallucinations, your customer experience suffers.
Speaker 2Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we see this all the time, right? Like data, infrastructure, compliance, governance is one of the biggest challenges for the AI transformation. I like being able to centralize data, reducing silos. It's similar to, you know, it always reminds me of this like reality in BI, right? Like, oh yeah, it's great. Everybody has a dashboard. Everybody can build their own thing, but then, you know, everybody comes back to reference to ask, okay, why is this number how it is? That doesn't make sense. And everybody has their own definition of the number and tweak the number to their own needs, right? Like now you have LLMs where suddenly, you know, you have similar realization if you don't do the foundations well. And yeah, I think that's something that I think certainly a lot of folks are still trying to figure out. But, you know, that's actually not the topic of today. We'll probably find more.
Speaker 3I was like, it's a great topic though.
Speaker 2It's a great topic. But I'm curious because you're so close, right? Like I think ZoomInfo is a very like AI-first organization, like embracing a lot of things. I know you've been in that for a long time and you think deeply about... Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think, you know, it's a newer role, right? As like the go-to-market
Speaker 3engineer. And, you know, I think there's some maybe like fanfare around what that role like actually, actually is and how it's, you know, it's a new role. And I think it's a new role. Perceived in the market, right? To me, it's truly an engineer, right? It's the person who is doing the development, managing the workflows, like the integrations, right? Getting things connected in the right way, but understands the business really well. And I think those are like the things that will continue to persist within revenue operations, right? It's now going to be this balance of like the technical, but also the business acumen. And that's how we make things come really well, right? And so this builder mindset, I think everyone who, you know, comes into my org as an operator is a builder as well, right? Like you have to be able to build, but you have to understand the business to be able to do that. And I think those are really where like the strongest go-to-market engineers come in are the ones who know how to sit on the floor with the sales rep and understand their workflows, identify where those opportunities are, work cross-functionally, but have that API. fluency, that system integration fluency. And that way to really build, you know, a product behind supporting kind of the go-to-market motion. So, again, I think that role will continue to expand. It's not just outbound email marketing, in my opinion. Like, I think what is coming a lot on, like, LinkedIn around a go-to-market engineer, like, it is truly somebody who can manage, like, the data modeling, the prompt engineering as a craft, like, the right logic behind the infrastructure that's, like, needed to support the motion.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, I find this interesting because, you know, I think the ability to go from, let's stay in the output example because I think it's the most used example here. And it obviously, I think, has a lot of application, right? Like, to really understand, okay, what is a good message, right? Like, how do you mirror the signal, right? The intent and the message, which is very much centered around, like, what I think the kind of... Right. Being really good at understanding that, measuring that, with the ability to then actually build the system end-to-end. And to a certain extent, you could say there's certain channels that are easier to automate these days, right? Like, email was more automated. There's others where you have a handover to an, you know, SDR that sits in NUCs or so and just parallel dyes, right? And, like, building that end-to-end and going from, you know, the very beginning to the very end. I think that, to me, is very, very powerful, right? Like, and it's very hard to do, to be honest, right? Like, and I would say, you know, like, certainly cannot see this BS on LinkedIn anymore, you know, that, like, I just, you know, get a reply rate of 9%.
Speaker 3No, no one's sending a million emails a month, like, unless you're B2C.
Speaker 2It's like, I don't know where you get your 9% from, but they're definitely not emailing me. But, no, I mean... Like, right, like, I think that's, like, it's just so interesting. Maybe, you know, what are some of the other roles you're observing, yeah?
Speaker 3Yeah, absolutely. I think, you know, one of the other roles that, you know, I'm bullish on is, like, you're going to start to see, like, let's call it what it is, right? Like, orgs are going to start to get a little flatter, right? You're not going to be having probably as much of, like, the span, you know, you're going to have larger spans of control. You're not going to have these, like, smaller sub-pocket, like, truly functional-led teams. With that, though, you're going to have... More of, like, humans that are going to manage people, but also manage agents, right? And I think we already see that, but we're going to start to see that named in this concept of, like, digital workforce. And so I think there's this agent operations-type concept where, you know, your operators are going to really manage the day-to-day health of, like, your agent fleet, right? I think it's the same way, you know, DevOps manage, like, uptime on software, but, like, you're going to monitor your drift. You're going to look at, like, just skill shifts that needs to happen in your QA. And you're going to, you know, it's, like, funny to say this, but, like, you're going to manage the cost, right? So the same way, like, I manage a budget of software, right, and tech and tooling, like, you're going to monitor consumption. You're going to have budgets around these. You're going to always have to be looking to optimize costs as well as making sure, like, you're getting on the right back end and, like, your prompts are adjusting. And, like, ultimately building that within parallel to, like, the jobs to be done and making those critical decisions of, like, what is human footprint? First versus, like, what is agent first and how did those come together? So I do think, like, that's going to be this, like, agent ops role that I think businesses are starting to try to figure out. But, like, it's likely going to, you know, I don't know that it's a net new person that's coming in. In my opinion, it's a lot more of a skill set you're building within your existing operators that are the ones that are really excited about building, right? Back to, like, you're going to be a builder and, like, you might, you know, and it's hard, right? Because I think history. Historically, we've worked in kind of the environment where, like, growth is managing people, right? Like, you know, it's this laddered career path of, like, I go from being an analyst to being a manager to being a director to being a VP, etc. Like, and that means I have bodies under me. I think that's going to change, right? I think it's going to actually start to look more like a portfolio, right? So it's going to be less of, like, this, like, laddered career path. And it's going to be more of, like, the person who's, like, overseeing the most, like, consequential systems and, like, business operation components are going to be those, like, senior people.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think it's already happening in the engineering org, right? Like, you basically have an engineer runs various different, you know, agents overnight and then, you know, orchestrates them, almost doesn't code anymore, has basically a team, right? Like, and yeah. There also needs to be operations around that, right? That you don't burn through 3 billion of, you know, tokens like Uber did. But, you know, in a quarter, whoops, that just happened. But then also being very aggressive, right, on it. So you could look at it either way. But, like, I think the point being, right, like, my question here on the agent operations, right? Like, is that something, right? Like, you're in, let's say, sales operations today or you're in CS operations, right? Like, you're a business partner to the team, right? Like, is that just another skill set you need to look at? Or is that something that would be your new job title, right? Like, would it be, like, a sales agent operations or how do you think about that?
Speaker 3I think it's just more of a skill set that you learn, right? Like, I think you are, you know, operators do this today, right? You're going in and you're, you know, defining a sales methodology and alignment. Now you're putting, like, the automation and, like, the AI behind it. You likely now have this, like, this agent component. Like, you're now accountable and responsible for, like, managing that agent in the right way. Like, that is part of the process. It is now just not a human-led component of it. It is an agentic-led. So, like, you still need to be monitoring, defining, iterating, improving, controlling kind of that agent. But it's now, like, named and managed. It's just managed in a different way.
Speaker 2Yeah. Wow. That makes a ton of sense. That's exactly how I think about it. And, like, what's happening to the analyst role? What's your take on that now?
Speaker 3Yeah. I mean, I think, like, the traditional analyst, which, you know, historically have been more reactive in nature, a lot more, you know, let's call it spreadsheet, pulling data, manipulating, managing pivot tables, sending a file that, you know, most people can't open because half the business has Excel and the other half doesn't. You know, that's always the fun problem, right? Is, like, you're going to see, again, back to, like, maturity and, like, that curve, right? Like, you're going to go from insights to, hopefully, intelligence. And I think a lot of organizations still have work to do on this, especially within their data models and getting to those, like, semantic layers that, like, truly unlock self-serve analytics. I think when you look at a lot of, like, what traditional analysts are doing, it is a lot of, again, reactive, the firefighting, like, the ad hoc of just trying to get to the right data because they've historically been more of, like, the keeper of the actual data. The plumbing's not necessarily been there. Like, businesses, well, you know, let's, I think Salesforce's kick, what, however many years ago was, like, customer 360, right? Like. Yeah, sure. But, like, there's so much more data. There's so many more places. Like, having that infrastructure is what will unlock that intelligence layer because you're going to free more of your analysts up to do that, like, proactive work versus the, like, just let me get this data pack out every week. Like, all of that stuff should be automated. But you have to make the investment, obviously, to have that foundation, right? Like, I can tell you, like, having self-serve analytics is, like, one of my favorite things, where the team can go in and ask the questions and get the data that they need to, and I know it's pulling from a shared layer on our back end, which is saving me time from just the random requests that I'd get on, like, hey, why'd this happen or what's happening here, right? And being able to unlock that into your field is huge.
Speaker 2Yeah, for sure. I mean, I think, obviously, as long as you have the definitions and the infrastructure and the data model right, you almost democratize the insights. And you enable folks to get to these insights. And so the analysts can go more into being really, like, proactive intelligence, you know, like, keeper that spends more time on thinking about what is the business, what does the business need from an analytics intelligence perspective, and then go out and see, okay, where are some of those gaps and how do we present that back, right? Which I think has always been the idea of many, but because of, you know, the data, plumbing, infrastructure, warehouse, and then analytics reporting took almost all of the time, you almost never have time to do that strategic work, right? And I think that's, like, at least a lot of the analysts I talk to, like, it's been always a key challenge for them.
Speaker 1And I think that's, like, you know, what's the best way to do that. And I think that's, like, the most important thing for me to be able to do in the future. And I think that's, like, the most important thing for me to be able to do in the future. And I think that's, like, the most important thing for me to be able to do in the future. And I think that's, like, the most important thing for me to be able to do in the future. And I think that's, like, the most important thing for me to be able to do in the future.
Speaker 3And I think that's, like, the most important thing for me to be able to do in the future. And I think that's, like, the most important thing for me to be able to do in the future. together, put this, you know, like you're just kind constantly in kind of that motion and again i think the more you can free up that like right capacity you're going to get more of the ability to like model the data and like again being being able to do more of that i'd say like that hybrid between analyst and engineer and scientist has like been a little bit like it's been a lot it's a lot easier now for somebody to come in and build their own models directly and like freeing up that capacity for the person who truly understands the
Speaker 2data is going to be a huge unlock so question for you i know that in larger companies there's these like ai transformation teams center of excellence right like do you feel there's a political and i'm not referring to zoom in for now specifically but more like in general right like when you talk to people like is there this like you know battle within organizations who owns ai who's in charge of this and then also who gets the promotion when it goes well or not right like you know do you do you see that happening and what do you think like you know who's best positions to do that is that you know the ref ops teams is it the it teams right like and yeah how do you see that that that topic yeah i'm gonna say like you know the the fun
Speaker 3answer of like it depends right so i've sat in an organization where you know when i ran operations at engine like digital transformation sat under me across the business lens and then worked really closely on the product and engineering side to make sure we were in support of each other in terms of like our strategy of like which tooling we were going to use and our spend and our cost there at zoom info we have a little bit more of i'd call it a center of excellence type from like a collaboration standpoint but like each team has their ability to execute within you know their function versus like strong governance oversight there i've worked with and talked to a ton of other companies that are taking you know a lot stricter approaches with it being really really centralized and controlled almost through like a pmo type function right where somebody is going in embedding into an org then stepping out right and helping to execute the roadmap and i don't know what the right the right way is i think there's probably not a right way i think the right way is the one that's generating probably results for the business more than anything but i do think there's such a learning curve that if you aren't educating and like bringing your field and your team along with you which is where i do think some of that like center of excellence can come in and i think that's where i'm at i think that's where i'm at i think that's where i'm at i think that's where i'm at i think that's where i'm at i think that's where i'm at like you're gonna keep people behind on things and you're like likely not going to get the best outcomes so when somebody is coming in from a decent like a decentralized team to say like okay we're gonna go improve all this stuff like finance is a great example you're seeing a ton out there of like how do we improve closing the books like really building a lot more automation into historically what have been super manual processes if the person can't come in and understand what they're building and why they're building and the best way to build it and that right collaboration like you're gonna get crap built and so i think there's just a huge component of you have to balance like the skill sets that you have within the function who may or may not be able to build with the context of understanding kind of what the business needs and is doing with somebody who might not know that but has the hard skills and that's that's an investment and i think a lot of organizations just you know think that they can just flip the switch and turn everything on and like you know one of the key a key rules that i think companies are missing is that like i'm gonna call it the librarian right and like that process process stuff you know it's like you don't know what you're building on right and i think it's like oh it's so easy to be like just yeah flip a switch and create this follow-up agent right but like what are the variables that go into it what are the outliers like when shouldn't it work right like in getting the true understanding of the process of the data model all of that like has to go in to success on this because we all know like clod lover you're confidently wrong a lot and like you have to make sure you're building on again good data
Speaker 2good context everything that so you're confidently right yeah yeah yeah 100 yeah someone just walked in so you know it's live guys i'm sure i'll have a kid run behind me at some so so yeah no i mean i think uh look i think the the reality is right like if your infrastructure the data model is the data infrastructure the labeling like isn't right right like the outputs isn't right i think i think that's as true as always it's almost more amplified these days i feel i mean we deal with that every day you know with our customers so so we see this a lot you know i want to switch gears a bit like you know just another you know thing and you already mentioned this and i think you rattled off a few things but like in your in your mind right like how are the the team structure changing right you already mentioned that you know orgs are going to get flatter right like expensive controls get wider but like yeah what are some of the other things you're seeing currently and especially with regards
Speaker 3to ref ops right yeah absolutely like i think again you're gonna see we're gonna see teams you know i wish i could sit here and be like rev ops teams are gonna just get way bigger and it's gonna be a huge investment area like i'm not actually sure that will be the case i think for some organizations that have ran a little like leaner there likely will be more investment because of the fact of meeting more of like this these technical type roles to come in but i do think like team sizes will likely stay in the same like ratio mindset but they're going to produce more output right because they are going to have more of that infrastructure behind them and i think that will you know still continue to keep that flatter flatter organization you know because you're likely not going to need three analysts to do kind of this business as usual work right you're probably going to need one you know whether it's an analyst or an intelligence or whatever the title is who's managing a fleet of x number of like agents right i think there will also be probably a unique shift of like right now everything tends to be very vertical in terms of function right like marketing ops sales ops cs ops right you might get more more flat in that right and like have a more of an end-to-end across like the entire customer base right and like have more of these like horizontal layers around like the architecture the engineering
Speaker 2and like the governance components yeah that's fascinating to me i mean i think we went through this like you know low interest rate era where suddenly a lot of things got pretty bloated i'd say with a lot of handovers and i think in tool language more silos and i think we're doing the reverse both on all the go-to-market tools and i think we're doing the reverse both on all the go-to-market tools and i think we're doing the reverse both on all the go-to-market tools and i think we're doing the reverse both on all the go-to-market tools and i think we're doing the reverse both on all the go-to-market teams right like you have one person in aeo that runs you know like 25 different workflows instead of a team of 15 freelance writers right on the seo site compared to the seo already you have somebody who is very senior on the you know paid marketing side strs you know you i think you see a lot more full full cycle aes that rely on lower ratio to se's you know and then this like implementation csm expansion renewal specialist right and then you have like a lot of people right like i think like less people you know broader capabilities and also all very amplified with agents you know helping them automate a lot of the annoying workflows ideally so i think that's a like it's a you know i think it's a bit like you know you did engineering 25 years and you join google and you're an ic and that's totally fine and you might be paid a lot better than you know being an engineering manager before hey why not right like so you i think what's what's the takeaway yeah right like what's the takeaway here right like you have to find something you love doing right like where you wake up in the morning and you do something the whole day that you know fires you up and then you become really good at it and then you can grow without having a big team and i think that's that's that's something that's definitely worth finding out for for anyone in life i guess the thing for me is i think you're
Speaker 3in sorry to cut you off there but like i think your impact now becomes far more measurable than it is now i think that's a big thing i think that's a big thing i think that's a big thing ever has been before too right so like when you think about like what's firing you up and like you coming in like you know i four years ago as a man i did 52 jira tickets right like what the heck does that even mean right and it's like now i have you know an orchestrator that's driving this productivity here and i'm seeing you know my demos per reps increased by x y and z like i think you can quantify impact far more than you ever have been able to historically and this is i think
Speaker 2this is sometimes getting for getting forgotten in ref ops a bit right like like that's exactly why we do it right like we should look at these measurable results and if they're not there right we should fight very hard to get them right and and i think like if you think of icp right it's not just this fun exercise it's basically your orchestrate where a lot of people actually work on right like if you score and prioritize accounts that's where a lot of strs and aes will spend their time on right and so i think that's a big thing right and i think that's a big thing right and so actually right like like these things they matter deeply and they should have a big impact and you know ideally you have more leverage these days and that means you know you might have less headcount for yourself but like you know a lot more higher impact i think that's always worth striving for which which which personally i i you know i mean as a as a founder you know somebody who's you know deeply passionate about product and go to market i feel like you know it's it's also how you build different type of companies I like, and there's a huge component complexity to organizational size, right? Like, and huge cost to that, that very hidden. I think a lot of people refer to it and like, you know, oh, I sit in so many meetings and I don't get anything done, right? Like, I think these times very much like over and they've been over for a while, but I think it's more severe now. And I think it's right, like you either embrace it or it embraces you at some time where it's very uncomfortable. And so I think, you know, it's just something that, you know, I think deeply about it when building WeFlow, for example.
Speaker 3Yeah. And I think the expectations for people are changing, right? Like, and this is, you know, one of the reasons, like, I was really bullish when I came to ZoomInfo is like, I am a builder, right? And my background has been in being able to do development and architecture and engineering components from an operational lens. And like, I wanted to stay close to the work. And I think like anyone who's in even just like the operations leadership roles, like, you're going to know that you're going to be able to do that. And I think that's, I think, you need to know how to build, right? And like, and not just, you know, I can go in and like vibe code something, like really understand, like how to productize, like what you're building and what's going into, into the field and like own and manage that too. And it's not, you know, and it's not because it's downgrading, like the work, it's actually up leveling the impact and the value that you're able to provide. And I think those that aren't willing to like embrace that are going to be the ones that are going to fall behind professionally.
Speaker 2Yeah. So last, last two questions for you. Start with the first. So, I mean, I don't know how big your team is now, but I assume it's probably, you know, 15, 20 people or so.
Speaker 3It's about a little shy of 30 people.
Speaker 2Yeah. Okay. Almost 30 people. So you're hiring a lot, I assume, right? Like there's people coming and going, like, how has hiring changed? What have you adjusted?
Speaker 3Yeah. I think, you know, anytime that I'm hiring, a new role, like really thinking about, you know, what's, what's the future kind of skill that it's going to need to have and like not hiring for today, but hiring for tomorrow, I think is really key. One of the main things that I've changed recently in like my hiring process is like, I no longer do case studies. I think that quite frankly, they're bullshit. Sorry for swearing on this. Like what, anything you give to somebody, they're going to put it in to AI and they should, right? Like I would expect them to, I'd probably, I'd probably actually be disappointed if they didn't. Like, I think that's a natural thing. But when I look at like who I'm going to hire and like why I'm hiring them, like it's how they can work with the team. So instead of that, I usually send a simple, simple, here's the topic we're going to talk about and put them in a room with their peers. And like, there's the people that are going to work day to day with and give them the prompt and say like, work through this problem together. Like you don't, you're not going to know the right, all the right answers. Right. Like, but like truly figure out how you work with people. Can you, can you disagree and argue and like bring a perspective into the room? Cause like, that's the stuff that's going to matter on the day to day. It's not how well can you take this spreadsheet and analyze the data and tell me what it says? Like anyone with a license to cloud chat GPT or Gemini can like figure that one out. It's like, how can you show up and how can you work through like hard problems that get to good outcomes? And I think that's a really good question. And I think that's a really good question. And I think that that's been like a really strong, like game changer, because I think the person aspect of things is going to matter so much more than it ever has. Yeah. That's funny. We're in
Speaker 2this like super amplified world and suddenly, you know, the basics of organizational communication play a big role again. Um, for sure. And, and, and, I mean, maybe one last question. I mean, I know we could go deep on this one, but you know, we're also running out of time. I know you're so busy. So like. You know, for, for folks that are listening here, right. We, we, we also have a lot of folks that are, you know, younger in their career, right? Like what skills would you recommend them to, to learn? What should they embrace to be really successful in rough ops?
Speaker 3Yeah. I think, you know, the biggest thing is like there's skill and there's will, right? Like, and whenever I look at people, right, like you can teach skill and like, you know, your ability to go and, you know, figure out the skills you need, that's will, right? So like be curious. Be hungry, like be passionate, be okay being wrong. Right. Like initiative, I think is huge. Right. And like, you can take initiative and like it not work out, but like you took the initiative, right? Like you at least get up to the plate. And I think for people who are younger in their career, like really important to like, just be curious. Right. And like, don't look at this, I think as like, how do I get to the next promotion? How do I get to the next promotion? How do I get to the next promotion? It's like, how do I drive impact? How do I learn? How do I continue to grow? And like, in the beginning, I was like, I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this. In those right environments, like the progression will move with you. Right. But like, it's like drop the ego, drop the arrogance. Like those are the things that I think kill people's careers a lot is like when they have the ego and they come in and it's, I know it all. And I'm the greatest thing in the world. And like, they aren't willing to like learn, embrace and like grow, I think are the hard thing. So it's like, come in, be curious, like roll up your sleeves. Don't be asked questions and get into other areas of the business too. I think that was one of my kind of key learnings. Like as I started to develop, you know, my career, it's like, how do I go learn about other functions to build connective tissue? Like the more I understand about finance, the better operator I am. Right. And like most, most finance leaders will open up the model for you and take you through the assumptions they made. And guess what? If you know their assumptions over here, you make better decisions over here.
Speaker 2It's so important, right? Like as in, in rough hopes, right? Like FPN, you know, what's the conversation on a C-level? How do you actually, you know, take that dashboard and formulate the story so that the C-level understands what's in a board deck, right? Like all these things, they matter a lot. And I think I really love what you said about like, you know, leading from impact and curiosity instead of demanding your promotion and pushing for that. Because like when you have impact and when you're like very eager and you have good work ethics, right. And you're a good communicator, like good things will happen from there. And I think that's a really good thing. And I think that's a really good thing. And I but like, that's, that's not the, that's not the norm. Right. And I think being proactive is another one that is just so nice, right? Like when you have people that, oh, this is not my job. I don't like, like there's always an organization that has people that try to avoid taking ownership and accountability. And there's people who strive in ownership and accountability. If you take more ownership and accountability, and that has positive impact, good things typically start from there. So yeah, I love it. Absolutely love it. Maybe one last closing question I didn't ask you before, any book, research report or anything really to, to recommend to, to learn more about the topic or, you know, your career, you know? Yeah. I mean, around like the topic of this,
Speaker 3I think we're all just still trying, trying to figure, figure this one out. You know, I tend to listen to a lot of just different podcasts, nothing that like I always just like have consistently. I think it's kind of just whatever shows up, like recommended in a newsletter or not in terms of just like the way I'm thinking about things. There's a great book called like the accountable organization that I read a few, you know, I'm like, I probably read it three times over the last decade of just like the good reminder back to what you talked about is like, how do you build accountability? Right. How do you build your personal accountability, but how do you build accountability in your organization? And I think like, you know, that's probably one of like the kindest things that I can do as a leader is hold people accountable. And like, it's really hard to do, but like, again, back to probably the kindest and best thing I can do for my teams is like to really give them the ownership and hold them accountable for delivery. And I think like organizations that are highly accountable are just like very different organizations in terms of their throughput, what they're getting done, like how they collaborate, because they take that ownership in their work.
Speaker 2Love it. Love it. Molly, thank you so much for coming on. I'm sure we'll have you again. I hope we have you again. It's always great talking to you. Really appreciate it. All the best for your, for your run.
Speaker 1Thank you for listening to the RevOps Lab podcast. If you enjoyed this episode and would like to support us, share it with a RevOps friend or drop us a five-star rating right now. And if you have feedback, questions, or guest ideas, just send a message to Janis or me on LinkedIn. Thank you, and see you next time.
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