I didn’t follow a traditional path in my personal or professional life. In my twenties, I wasn’t working on a career. I lived in Argentina for a few years and came home at age 30 during a recession. I decided to go to grad school to study international business, figuring that when I graduated, the economy would be better. But we were still in a recession when I graduated, and I had to take a job I hated.
One of my colleagues there encouraged me to attend a leads group. I couldn’t find one with an international focus, so I created one. Through that network, I met someone building websites for a global customer base, and they hired me as a project manager.
I changed jobs a few times after that, looking for the right fit. Then I worked for a small company that was migrating to Marketo. My manager said, “I don’t have time to do this, I need you to go and figure it out.” I know so many people in marketing operations say that they got the gig because they just needed somebody to “figure it out”. It was the same for me, and I thought it was a lot of fun.
I am passionate about process and finding efficiencies, especially when technology can enable those efficiencies. The ecosystem of data and all the touchpoints you can measure is a fun puzzle that’s never exactly the same. So, it’s exciting to find new ways we can leverage technology to solve problems and build a better solution.
The other aspect that excites me is watching my team learn and grow. I love mentoring people—whether that means helping them excel in their current role or grow into leadership.
Communication will always be your best tool, and I mean that in several ways.
The first is that you have to get comfortable with presenting. If you’re nervous about it, present even more. Face that fear.
The second is to learn how to speak your manager’s language. Understand their challenges and how to solve them. This will mean a continuous education as you grow in your role, meet new leaders, join new teams, and change employers as every one of those things will require an adjustment on your part, but it’ll help them trust you to build better campaigns and take on leadership roles.
The third way is you have to be very vocal about what direction you want to take your career. If you don’t let management know you want to be in a leadership role, either through action or by telling them straight up, they may pass on you when the time comes.
Prioritize and consolidate based on what drives revenue and what eats revenue. To do this, constantly measure time and projects in dollars. If you’re underutilizing a tool, or it’s eating up too much time in admin, consider eliminating it from your tech stack. For each campaign, ask how it’s impacting the sales funnel, MQLs, and opportunities.
Essentially, just follow the money because that’s what your CEO and leadership care about.
I would say six things:
A Slack community to share strategic marketing operations best practices