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 Gong 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 like. 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. Unfortunately, Philip's out. He's never out, but he's actually taking a week off vacation, which is very well deserved, to be very honest. Which means you have to, you know, spend the next 30 minutes with me and our guest, Nicole Redshaw. Nicole, great to have you.
Speaker 3Thanks, Jonas. Good to be here.
Speaker 2Yeah. Thanks for joining. I'm super excited about this episode. So before we kick off with the topic, who are you, what do you do, and tell us a bit more about your journey.
Speaker 3Yeah. So Nicole Redshaw, I'm out of the Nashville, Tennessee area. I started my tech career at a part of marketing automation when it was a 40-person startup. Actually, as a CSM, asked a lot of questions about how do we know if what we're doing is having an impact, which little did I know at the time, is RedOps. So I ended up creating that function there. We were acquired by Salesforce, of course, spent some time there. Ended up at Box, Campaign Monitor, a small CRC startup in manufacturing tech, and then at Eventbrite, and currently I'm at PandaDoc, leading our centralized RevOps function here. It's been really fun. I've really enjoyed solving different problems at different stages. So publicly traded, recently IPO'd, Series D, kind of all over the board, and it's really fun to see. What are some of the common problems that we have to solve in RevOps, and what are some nuances based on company maturity and company culture and making some adjustments there? So it's been a fun ride for sure.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah. I mean, actually, when we prepped for this, we thought about, hey, the topic could be how to best onboard in RevOps. And I think what you just said is so true that you have the common things, and then you have the company specifics and the DNA, right? And that's always a bit. And the go-to-market motion, and what segments and how international you are, the complexity scale is obviously always a bit different. But actually, that's not our topic today. We want to talk about how sales made you a better RevOps leader. And I find that actually quite interesting. And when we double-click on that, how do we navigate exec stakeholders, create alignment, and then also, especially in the context of AI. Because I think that's something that a lot of people, like I talk to these days, face, right? Like there's a lot of expectations. But I'd say, you know, a lot of things that the board and the executive team wants. But, you know, at the same time, all of those things, there's not one magic wish, and someone has to still implement it. And I think the dreams are wild these days. And that often, you know, puts a lot of stress and anxiety on the RevOps teams, particularly. But yeah, I'm curious, like, you know, what's your take on that? So, I mean, like, what are some of the learnings you've had, you know, how to best align with
Speaker 3exec stakeholders? Yeah, I'll tell you a little bit about how I ended up thinking about that topic was I actually had my daughter, when I was at Eventbrite, I came back from mat leave, and our global VP of sales and our CRO both left the business. And the executive team said, well, Nicole, you're probably the closest to understanding how that function operates. Can you be the interviewer? Can you be the interim leader of our global sales organization while we fill that role? And I did that for about six months. It was a pivotal time in my career. I didn't know it at the time, of course, I was like, I've been doing this for a decade, I know what I'm doing. I know, I have the hard skills to execute RevOps. Well, I know what industry best in class looks like I've been able to recreate it in a number of organizations. And then I let a sales team and I was like, oh, there's a lot I did not know about RevOps. And I didn't realize it until then. I realized it until I was my own stakeholder. So there are a couple of pieces that I took with me. The first was, I prided myself on seeing around the corners and anticipating problems before they materialize. And I surfaced all those problems. And as the global sales leader, when my own team did that to me, I was like, oh, no, no, no, no, I don't. I don't care about all of those things. I actually only care about the first two things you mentioned everything else. I don't have the mental capacity for there are so many other things in flight or so much else on my plate that I need my RevOps partner to actually prioritize for me and to tell me what to care about. So that was one of the biggest pieces that I learned. And then I think it kind of came out after I was back in my fully dedicated RevOps seat that I realized my team and myself, we are here monitoring sales performance. We know what methodologies look like. We know what best in class looks like. We know what good enablement looks like. But we weren't actually applying it to our own behaviors. So if you think about RevOps, again, you can be so good at your job, but if you can't get your stakeholders to heed your recommendations, you're not going to have a business impact. And so every day we're running up against objection handling, the need to multi-thread, making priorities, compelling events, and we are just kind of trying to like power through a wall versus taking a step back and be like, if I were a seller, I know exactly how I would navigate this situation because I see the data and I know what works. And so I've really evolved my approach to stakeholder management, prioritization, even how I lead my RevOps team on, you know, there are some really important things that you've found and some really meaningful things you've found. And the reality of the situation is if you want to drive business impact, let's whittle this down. And so it's really helped me be more effective. I would say, very grateful I learned this after my daughter was born, I've been able to drive greater impact doing less. So kind of like pick two things that make a difference versus I would be executing on like half a dozen things. And just wearing myself to the bone. To what end, right?
Speaker 2I think it's funny because, so I have two kids and I felt like when I became a father, I just naturally had a little bit less time to work compared to my crazy times where I worked sometimes 60 to 70 hours a week, right? Like without kids and during the weekend, you know, early startup life. And what I, you know, realized was like, I have to just prioritize. A lot stronger and like, I'm curious what, what you, how you feel about that? Because I think obviously when you drive initiatives, not just with yourself, but like across a wider angle of people, like prioritization is obviously crucial. So when you, when you say, you know, kind of like don't share everything, be the filter, right? Like what, what are things like, you know, how do you know what the execs want, right? Because obviously if you filter out the wrong thing, then. That's not great. Right. So like, I mean, I'm curious, like what's your like learning there now?
Speaker 3Yeah. The way that I've talked to my team about it is there's kind of two different things to consider. One is like business impact. What is the degree of business impact? And the other is time to impact. So it's well and great if you can drive really meaningful business impact, but if it's going to take you 12 months to get there, you need to balance that with something that's going to get you better time to impact. So we do a lot of sequencing in my work, which is. Let's focus on the thing that will get us there faster. That will buy us a little bit of time, give us a little bit of padding to work on the thing that maybe is a little more long tail, but we'll have the greater business impact. And so you can imagine that means kind of making sure that you're massaging the messaging. You're getting your timing right on getting the buy-in for those effort, figuring out like what needs to be true as a prerequisite for those longer tail options. And the reality is like before I was a head of sales interim leader. I would just like fight tooth and nail for the right thing, which is usually those longer term, larger impact efforts. And then I realized, no, no, no, building the plane and flying it is a very real challenge for executives. And so how do I give them quick wins while behind the scenes building up to those bigger picture items or bigger ticket items? And so that's been a really helpful approach for my teams.
Speaker 2And is there any rule of thumb, like when you go to an executive and you present your roadmap, right? Like kind of what is a time frame that you see typically clicks, right? Is it like three months, six months, nine months, 12 months, right? Like how many items do you typically present, right? And how do you describe the trade-offs? And like, is it something where you come with a clear recommendation or you discuss it or, yeah. And I mean, I think that depends also a bit on the role, right? Like, but as a VP of ref ops that reports into the CRO, into the CFO, right? Like what would be your recommendation?
Speaker 3Yeah, that's a great question. I think about it in two different ways. So one, I'm a very big OKR fan. I think OKRs are often blamed. For poor operational execution, whereas like they are a vehicle, not the solution. And the way that I think about it is I've had great success with like three month increments. So like every quarter we're going to make meaningful progress. That doesn't mean we're not doing smaller things to get like greater time to impact. In the meantime, those like quick wins that I mentioned before, it just means I'm more thoughtful about what level do those plays work at, right? So those bigger items go to. So the executive team, we have this every three quarters. How are we unlocking and delivering impact? But in the meantime, also, are there like director level folks or senior manager or frontline leader folks that can really help us on some of the more tactical, like buying our time, getting some results to bridge the gap in the meantime and kind of dividing and conquering with that approach as well?
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah. So Philip and I, we like product by heart. And I mean, the way we build WeFlow, right? It's like we have kind of the big vision, right? There's no like kind of cloud code for go to market as of today. And I don't mean that chat interface, but like the end to end workflow automation intelligence system that, you know, like frees up a lot of the people from the day to day doing bits and met men, you know, meeting prep, follow up, you know, yada, yada, yada, right? Like lots of different use cases. But obviously, that's like a grander vision, right? Like where you want to get to and not something you do in three months or even a year. And then, you know, you have these like small things where like customers come back and say, well, wouldn't it be great? Or, you know, this is missing, right? And then there's this like, you know, very specific roadmap. And I think that's actually very similar to what you're describing here. It's like kind of you think about like the stories, you know, the, you know, kind of features and the bigger picture. And it all has to come together. But at the same time, right? Like if you only talk about vision or if you only talk about the small stuff, that really. It doesn't excite any, you know, customers or executives, right? Because it doesn't really have the meaningful impact you're looking for. Do you have like specific meetings or setups to ensure that like people actually know what you're presenting? And like, is there a specific cadence you follow for getting these kind of buy-ins?
Speaker 3Yeah, absolutely. So the operating cadence is relative to the levels that we're working with, right? So we do have our. Like monthly business reviews and quarterly business reviews at the executive level, but more at the director level. We're meeting weekly and keeping a pulse. The idea being that there won't be any surprises by the time we meet with the executive team. We've ended up proactively tackling some of the more tactical opportunities that we've uncovered. And then we can use those MBRs and those QBRs with the executives on those bigger picture, more cross-functional initiatives, more long tail impact that we mentioned. That's worked really well too, because I think. With revenue. With revenue, yeah. With revenue, there's so much you could be doing that any opportunity you have to fold it into existing cadences and existing deliverables is the approach that I want to take. Else you end up. Your remit just grows and grows versus, oh, this is just part of how we work day in and day out.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I 100% agree. It's so important. We talked a lot about agency, right? And like, you know, kind of. I think you said something and correct me if I'm wrong. But like, sometimes you've seen. You've seen RevOps not having enough agency. You know, A is that. And obviously it depends, right? But like, what do you mean with that? And obviously showing up with agency is, I think, what you mean, right? So curious how you think about that, because I think that's obviously super interesting.
Speaker 3Yeah, I think if you take it back to if you were a seller, how would you drive the deal? Your successful sellers are not letting the customers drive the conversations. They're coming with a point of view. They're willing to be wrong. They ask a lot of questions in discovery. They share their point of view. They receive feedback and adjust accordingly. That's how I want my teams and how I want myself to show up. It's based on the information I have available to me. Here is the perspective I have. That whole idea of strong opinions held loosely and coming in to be that thought partner. I found that a lot of organizations are really hungry for that thought partner and have given the seat. The seat at the table to RevOps and RevOps is kind of reticent to lean in at that table, but the business is hungry for and the business knows that we have a skill set that is complementary to what the rest of the organization has. And so if we don't speak up, that perspective is missing and the business is kind of making decisions with the blind spot and we are here to fill that blind spot. So I think it's a RevOps is a tricky place. Like we're kind of the hub of where all the. Information processes systems live, so we're uniquely positioned to understand how everything is interconnected and therefore if we don't speak up, there's a pretty big gap likely to take place. So, um, I kind of explain it to my teams as like, uh, if you think about a conspiracy theorist wall, we are, we are that wall. And so if we aren't the ones showing those connections, there's going to be a miss in the execution of what's being talked about in the room. So. Be bold, be willing to be wrong, but if you're doing it from a place of understanding business context, leveraging the data, sharing your expertise, and you're building that relationship in the way that a strong account executive would, you're not going to be penalized for having that, that perspective.
Speaker 1Hey, Philip here. Are you enjoying this episode? Well, good news because you can find more free RevOps and go to market resources on getweflow.com. Access over 20 cheat sheets, reports, and guides that will help you become a better revenue operator, or join over 2000 subscribers who already get the latest resources right into the inboxes with our free newsletter. Just go to getweflow.com slash RevOps.
Speaker 2Yeah, exactly. I think as long as you optimize for the business, right. And you come with this, like. Hey, look, this is best. And this is what I, like, these are the three to five points that would really make a difference, right? Like every exec appreciate that, right? Like, I mean, why wouldn't they? And then of course, right? Like, it doesn't mean all of those need to happen immediately and there should be kind of an alignment. But at the same time, if you don't speak up, you know, like, I think you will, you like, you will also not kind of keep the, keep, keep the place at the table, right? Because like, that's almost like in the good organizations we've been working with. Right. Like where CRO, like in the kind of VPs or SVPs or COOs at some point, right? Like, like closely work together. I think that is really, um, like, uh, the, the, the best ideal state. And, and if, if that state is not in place, then right. Like the question is really like, what can you do to change it? And, um, like I think proactively. Suggesting change that has high business impact and like significant business impact, right? Like if you, if you come in and like, like you had like 150 million run rate and you come and you say, we can save, you know, a hundred K here, right? No exec is actually interested and it's not like a, it's not what they are golden for, right? So like understanding what are the board goals, what are the budgets, right? And then understand, and then like, what are kind of the financial goals of the business and then really understand, like thinking about like, okay, like, what are the goals? We have a pipe jam problem here. And if we don't act on this now, right. Like we need to, you know, or like we have a conversion problem or, you know, we have an expansion renewal problem with a churn problem, right? Like really speaking in that language, like, you know, that, that they have and, and, and, and, and then tying that back and then tying initiative to that. Right. I think it's, it's, it's just so, so, it's so, so important.
Speaker 3Yeah. I think that's really interesting in the like context of AI, right? Everyone's talking about is AI taking our jobs. I haven't heard a lot of people talking about the fact that being an order taker, rev ops function, forget AI, out of the box automation can take your job, right? So having that consultative approach is going to be your differentiator as technology evolves, as you become more nuanced in both your consultative approach, but also your stakeholder management that we've been talking about. Like that's, that's something that AI could probably get there eventually. AI can absolutely take orders and execute. So I think that's a really, meaningful part of the story for the teams that I work with as well is like, if you want to AI proof your role, you really have to have a POV. Otherwise, you're kind of just a cog in this workflow. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2A hundred percent. A hundred percent. I love that. Like, I mean, from your experience, right? Like if you compare it to the sales world, like how do you, how do you create impact, right? Like what are some of the key principles
Speaker 3that you apply? Yeah. Yeah. It's a good question. I think one of the things that we kind of touched on earlier is like, how do you operate at the strategic and tactical levels? And I think that's really how you have to think about driving impact is holding the organization accountable to all of those altitudes of decision-making. So I'll work in organizations where they're tactically executing. You're like, oh, we could really 10X this if we got. Really clear about our strategy here. Cause now it feels like we're, we're getting results, but there are suboptimal because we don't have a bigger picture understanding or vice versa. A lot of times you'll have a really clear strategy set, but then nobody to turn that into a practical application. And I think RevOps again, uniquely is positioned to figure out how to thread the needle between both of those two pieces. And again, both of those parties, right? Boots on the ground and your executives. You understand the pain points for both of those parties. And you can bridge them effectively. That's the impact that I don't think other teams within the organization are well positioned to bridge. And so that's kind of where I think about where my teams often can drive the most impact is, is there clarity we can drive from a strategy perspective or we have clear strategy and is there clarity on like, what does that practically mean for the boots on the ground doing the work itself?
Speaker 2Yeah. What, what do you find harder?
Speaker 3Like. Ooh.
Speaker 4Um, I think
Speaker 3what I find harder is when the strategy is less clearly defined. Um, I think once you've got the strategy defined, typically there's a cascade effect and you're like, we're fully empowered. Let's just go do it. Um, when you've got people executing and you're like, Ooh, we could optimize this. If we just had strategic alignment here, there's a lot more nuance. It's a lot more cross-functional in nature. It's a lot more senior in level. Um, and there's a lot more sensitivities and political dynamics at play there. So it's a, it's a lot harder. I'd say from that, because you can just run if you've got the strategy and you just have to interpret and execute.
Speaker 2Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think, I think if, if the, if the kind of the strategy is unclear, right? Like because you need like the buy-in from the executives, but then especially from the middle management, right? Like I think the middle management is so crucial to execute. And so if, if, if kind of, if they are all running into different directions, right? Like then obviously like the people side of things in ref ops is, is really hard to execute, right? Like the kind of the execution layer. Yeah. And that, that is something that, you know, like as a more product minded person, I find always so hard to do in the go-to-market org is like, like while, you know, we go out and, you know, we kind of spec the tickets and then, you know, like engineers are executing them and yes, that can be done at different quality levels. Here, often the execution has also a lot to do with kind of the human element and the, and, and the quality of the humans also kind of being spread. I, I feel like more widely than on the engineering orgs typically, right? Like where, where you have a few top performers and then, you know, kind of like, like the, the, the distribution there is, is quite different in my experience. And that makes it, that makes the execution part sometimes really hard. But yeah, I think if you don't have a strategy or like, let's say conflicting strategies, it's, it's painful. I mean, it's, it's, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3Well, you can experiment with tactics, but experimenting with strategy is incredibly costly. So you can't move as quickly. You're, you're, it's a, a lot less of that two-way swinging door that tactics are.
Speaker 2Yeah. And I mean, typically, right? Like if you're like a kind of 50 million to 2 billion revenue, right? Like also strategy means that those are the things where you take some bets that cost money, that costs a lot of money, right? Like 60% of like the SaaS P&L is in like go-to-market typically, right? So it costs a lot of money and you actually don't know whether it works and you will only find out, you know, one or two, three years later. And that's obviously, right? Like, like it's a, and then there's a lot of change often like in executive teams, which is also not great. I think it's, it's, it's, it's actually devastating. Yeah. I feel like, you know, every 18 months new CRO on, on average, right? Like it's a devastating, devastating stat for, for companies, how I would think of it. But maybe outside of, you know, outside of that, like what are other kind of sales best practices that, you know, helped you like create impact? I think you mentioned something like multi-threading, like what do you mean with that?
Speaker 3Yeah. Multi-threading is something that's been super helpful in my career. You know, you might have a recommendation that the business isn't hitting, but there are lots of people with a vested interest in revenue performance. And so how do you bring in the right folks at different levels? We've got partners across the organization, right? My financial planning partners, my data team partners, whether it's marketing sales or even the post-sale side of the house. I've had product marketing be really strong advocates for some of the recommendations we're making, even folks on the product side as well. Like it kind of depends on the challenger phase of the business. So I think it's really important to have that conversation. And I think it's really important to have that conversation. But again, like we are uniquely positioned to have built and establish all these relationships to bring more people into our cause, right? So when you're going into something that you're advocating for that you think is going to be a meaningful impact on the business, but you also think might be a hot button issue, seeding it ahead of time with those advocates where, you know, they have a vested interest in this success. And you know that you can speak their language and get them to chime in on your behalf. It's going to be a much more compelling case.
Speaker 2But champions, right? Like if you're multi-threat, like do you have multiple champions? Do you have like a strong champion? Do you try to always have a champion in the executive team or multiple? Or like, yeah, how do you think about that?
Speaker 3Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think the ideal state would be that you've established relationships across all the functions I've mentioned. And you're very thoughtful about who is the, who's going to be the most influential on this specific topic. Let me tap that person here, because you also don't want to tap out your champions for all the things. And you want to kind of allocate those appropriately. So for conversations around rules of engagement, usually compliance related things, finance will be much more of an advocate for you. For things around data integrity, obviously your data team will help you and advocate for you. And so figuring out like who has a vested interest and who will also have a louder voice in the room on this topic and be very mindful about that being your champion for that specific initiative.
Speaker 2Do you feel there's a risk that like this seems to be kind of manipulative or like that, you know, people like that it destroys trust rather than it earns it?
Speaker 3That's a great question. I really struggled with that early in my career. I am a people pleaser by nature. And so the idea of politics just kind of feels slimy. But I think what's really helped me is I had a mentor frame it as we want what's best for the business. We all do. And if you truly think this is what's best for the business, then the goal here is not, you're not like tricking anybody. You're saying this is a perspective I have. Can I get other people to come along? Feel free to poke holes in it. But if other people start to go along and I'm like, oh, no, this is definitely the best thing in the business. OK, great. Now, in order to drive that impact, we've got to work together to get this other person on board. It's a little bit of a shift of perspective of like if you focus on the intention rather than feeling like you're playing a game of politics. You're motivated by driving that business result. And at the end of the day, if people say no, you can accept the loss, but you want to make sure you're not regretting. I think I have a lot of regrets early in my career where, shoot, I couldn't get them on board. And then 18 months later, what I predicted would happen happened. And I never want to feel that again. And so I'm willing to make myself uncomfortable and build these bridges to avoid a failure that I see coming down the line. I think that's what I'm trying to do. And I think that's what I'm trying to do. It's almost like that nightmare is what motivates me to get past the discomfort.
Speaker 2I love that. I mean, I think, you know, if you I mean, the way you talk about taking agency, right, like being proactive, really driving for outcome, not just having the recommendation, but actually having that perspective, having that point of view and then also kind of, you know, fighting for the business to execute it. Right. I think that obviously I think that's what you need to be an executive at some point. Right. Like, I think without that, like, I don't think you'll you'll become an executive. And I think without, you know, the buy in of the other folks, you actually don't execute well. Right. So it is a super skill. like that that is super important i mean how do you how do you handle the objections especially from the executive team right like what if yeah you have this initiative you have some good you know kind of folks that are supporting it but there's just like there's just a few folks that like or like one folk maybe in the in the executive team that just says like i mean it's not like maybe you just say hey cool you know good we talked about it see you next year like it's fine we don't or like do you go into the risk right and do you like how far do you go there and like how do you handle those objectives yeah that's
Speaker 3a great question i think of objection handling as kind of like planting a tree like you want to get to know your audience and your stakeholders well enough before you have the objection so you can anticipate the objection right so if i know i'm going into a conversation with a recommendation i will immediately go into i know this person what do i anticipate they'll push back on and what prep work do i need to do to anticipate that so we're talking about making changes in what's in scope for our account management team for example we know there are some sensitivities around a specific cohort of customers great let me run some analysis to answer questions i anticipate will be pushed back on this change we want to make so then when the objection comes up i'm ready like i have the data i know that question's coming if there's something that comes up that's unexpected that's totally fine too we go back to i'm willing to be wrong let's look at the data let's let the data inform us we'll come back we'll do our diligence and i think that really helps lend credibility because i'm not arguing for my position i'm saying this is what we think is right and based off of your objection you know i think there's an objective way for us to figure out whether or not this is a concern and we should halt or if it's something that we can move past so it's a it's a very um nuanced approach but one that i think to your point like it's all about establishing trust trust and credibility and being able to react in the moment in a way that's constructive and gets us to if all i want is what's best for the business let's let the data help us understand what the answer is for that yeah
Speaker 2i love that i love that yeah that's really strong i think that's really really important and and and right like the outcome might be that you change initiatives but you don't give up so easily and like you you you follow through um maybe like one one last question like kind of uh you mentioned our prep talk uh you know kind of partnering partnership right like what do you mean with that um you know how do you build that um what do you build what do you think build trust right in in the partnerships with the key stakeholders
Speaker 3yeah yeah i think that um something that's been really key from a partnership's perspective is how do we make other people's lives easier right i think in bosses we've talked about so much of what we do is making other people's lives easier but we do so reactively so how do we proactively find ways to make things easier very simple things our intake process is laborious how do i simplify that to make it easier for people to get help from us our sales process requires 12 clicks to update technically one thing how do i proactively solve for that and the more you do that again it's kind of like planting a tree the more you do that the more that partnership is just going to organically form where when i need to call in favors for advocacy or prioritization from a team that i don't manage it's a lot easier because they're like oh my gosh you really helped us out on this thing or you proactively made my life easier in this way of course i'm gonna help figure out how to get some resources to support this again it's it's um to your earlier question i think young nicole would have been like feels like you're playing you're like gaming the system but the reality is like we're all people and we want to help each other when we want to like drive meaningful progress and so the best way to do that is in like how are you making decisions day to day how do you get other people to come along with you by going along with them when appropriate
Speaker 2yeah yeah i love that i mean i think it goes a long way and people right like people feel whether you have your own agenda or you're truly helping them right and anything and if you if you like right like you sit down you understand that problem you've like maybe you don't fix them all but you fix some and the quick wins right and and they they'll remember that and and i think uh yeah i think that's just super super important this role in general right because like in the end it's cross-functional stakeholders and you know thinking about also the different stakeholders not just the executives right i think especially middle management also reps right like um you know goes a long way if you if you help them make their life easier if the managers feel like you help them achieve their numbers right like um you know and and and so um that's really how you fundamentally drive change right like as a in a company which is essentially what you know everyone in this role should aim for right and it's hard sometimes because the circumstances and the organization structure and the interest are might not be aligned and there's complexity around those things given that you deal with different interests also compensation different compensation schemes and things like that
Speaker 3yeah it's actually um makes me think of i had a coach once that introduced this whole framework for me of like these win-win scenarios right so you can think about this when you're talking about getting executive alignment or getting currying that cross-functional help is what you're really going for is a win-win scenario right because at the end of the day you don't want to nobody wants a lose-lose scenario but if you're winning and the other person is losing it only takes so long before you've lost their trust and you're going to move into a lose-lose because neither of you is going to get what you want or if they're winning and you're losing you're going to start to feel resentful you're not going to be able to be performing at your best you're not going to be driving the desired impact and so reframing all of those opportunities to get stakeholder buy-in to get cross-functional prioritization is all about like do does what you want and what i want align or how can i frame this in a way so that it's clear that this is a win-win scenario those are the things that we're going to pick to work on together
Speaker 2love it yeah um well i didn't prep you for this but um i know we're coming up on time um do you have a book or research report or anything you know and that doesn't need to be related to ref ops or podcasts or anything else a good resource that you'd like to share with us in the comments below and i'll see you in the next one bye bye with the audience
Speaker 4oh my gosh yeah
Speaker 2sorry you know i
Speaker 4will give a little bit of a cop-out answer but it's very true
Speaker 3i think early in my career i had a manager recommend spending like 30 minutes every friday just like reading professional development articles and midway through my career i stopped doing it and i have since reinstated it um harvard business review always a really good one but i find that it's like so easy later in your career to be like i got this i know what i'm doing and to not remain pliable and so i've challenged myself it's not like bi-weekly instead of weekly but to keep reading those things even though every title i'm like i know this topic i read the article and i keep learning and i keep developing and so um less a book or an article and more committing to regularly developing yourself in that way i think it's really meaningful
Speaker 2yeah i love it love it thank you so much for coming on board nicole i think this was great i really appreciate your time and uh your learnings uh wish you wish a great rest of your day
Speaker 3thanks so much janice have a good one thank you for listening to
Speaker 1the red ops lab podcast if you enjoyed this episode and would like to support us share this video with your friends and family and also subscribe to our with a rev ups friend or drop us a five star rating right now and if you have feedback questions or guest ideas just send a message to janice or me on linkedin thank you and see you next time
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