Ops Cast
Ops Cast, by MarketingOps.com, is a podcast for Marketing Operations Pros by Marketing Ops Pros. Hosted by Michael Hartmann, Mike Rizzo & Naomi Liu
Ops Cast
Why the Next Generation of CMOs Will Come from Marketing Ops with Richard Wasylynchuk
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In this episode of OpsCast, hosted by Michael Hartmann and powered by MarketingOps.com, we are joined by Richard Wasylynchuk, VP of Marketing Operations and Interim Head of Marketing at Trulioo. Richard brings a unique perspective as an operations leader who stepped into an executive marketing role, offering valuable insights on why more CMOs of the future may emerge from Marketing Ops.
The conversation explores how the changing business environment, evolving investor expectations, and increasing focus on profitability are elevating the role of Marketing Ops leaders. Richard shares his perspective on visibility, data literacy, team design, and how an operational mindset aligns with modern marketing leadership.
In this episode, you will learn:
- Why Marketing Ops leaders are well-positioned to become future CMOs
- How shifting from growth-at-all-costs to profitability changes leadership priorities
- The difference between activity reporting and outcome reporting
- How data literacy and financial acumen build trust at the executive level
This episode is perfect for Marketing Ops, RevOps, and marketing professionals who want to expand their strategic influence and prepare for senior leadership roles.
Episode Brought to You By MO Pros
The #1 Community for Marketing Operations Professionals
Hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode of OpsCast, brought to you by MarketingOps.com and powered by all of those MoPros out there. I am your host, Michael Hartman, Flying Solo as we're getting closer and closer to the end of 2025. Hard to believe. Uh, and close to five years of this podcast. So uh watch for news about that coming up in early 2026. Okay, my guest today is Richard Wazilinchuk. I knew I was gonna screw it up, Richard, so you can reverse me on that. VP of marketing operations at Trulio and currently serving as the interim head of marketing. Richard has lived both sides of the equation, deep operations experience and now executive level marketing leadership. And we are going to talk about why more future CMOs may come from marketing ops. Uh, I'm sure that'll be interesting for everyone who's listening. What's changing in the environment and how ops leaders can prepare themselves for executive roles, even if they never thought that was on the table. So, Richard, welcome to the show and accept my apologies for butchering.
Richard Wasylynchuk:No, you're you you got it. Thanks for thanks for having me.
Michael Hartmann:Yeah, I'm I'm I'm looking forward to this. I know we talked a while ago, um, and I'm grateful that we have guests lined up for enough time that we we haven't talked in a while. But um, so maybe let's start with just the story. Like you stepped into this interim head of marketing role after leading marketing ops. Curious what surprised you about you being the person who got kind of pulled into that role? And why do you think that the organization looked at you as an ops leader for that role? Um, instead of maybe what I would guess most people would just say like a demand gen leader or something like that, a more general marketing person.
Richard Wasylynchuk:Yeah, I think um like I think the thing that surprised me most is honestly, it's nothing that I was ever chasing. Like I never really thought of myself as uh moving into uh um a marketing leadership role, other than you know, a leader in in that ops pillar. Um my background, you know, I spent a lot of time in Demand Gen, moved into marketing operations. I I even segued into revenue operations and the the role before this role at TruLU, I was a broader BizOps uh leader. So, you know, owning things like IT, uh VI. Um so I've always had a very um operational-minded uh focus. So looking at systems, bottlenecks, enabling teams. Um so when when this first came up, my honest reaction was really me? Um a little a little tentative, but um, you know, when I took a step back, um it actually does make a lot of sense. I think ops is really one of the few functions that sees the entire ecosystem from end to end. So you are thinking through things like uh data strategy, you're thinking through the funnel, you're thinking through technology, you're thinking through performance and friction points. So you're not just thinking and focused on uh what's happening, but why it's happening. And so I think um in moments where um there is change and transition, not just internal to an organization, but I think broader in the industry, which I think everybody knows with AI and everything that's going on, like things are fundamentally changing and shifting. Um, and I think in those moments, I think companies are really looking for somebody who can bring clarity quickly. And ops leaders are trip typically trained um to think that way and identify root causes very quickly, make sure that there's alignment across teams, build the predictability and the scalability. Um, and those are really um a lot of those executive muscles that you need to build. Um, so you know, when I took a uh a step back, I'm like, okay, yeah, actually maybe this is uh the natural progression when you're in an ops role. I think, you know, five years ago, we probably would have been having a conversation of like, is it even possible to be a VP of operations of corporations as at an organization? I think things are moving so quickly now that yes, like full scale.
Michael Hartmann:There are some, yeah. Yeah.
Richard Wasylynchuk:Marketing, um, but even ops like leaning into your career progression actually is full-scale leadership in marketing. Like I think that's a fundamental show.
Michael Hartmann:I was talking to somebody yesterday and they asked me, like, what's my view of marketing ops? And I and I said, you know, like it's a really interesting question because I hadn't heard it asked that way, right? My initial reaction was like, is this, you know, my family asking me what at holidays, right? What do you do for work and have tried to explain it? But it was a slightly different one. And I think of it as I I've always thought of it as an enabler kind of function. Yeah, but I uh what I said is like I think it's more than that, and it should be more than that. It should be like a consultant almost, like an internal consultant, because you did like to your point, you see across all these different parts of the organization, you have to deal with them. It's part of what I love about it. Yeah. And it was even for me, it was like I hadn't really thought about it that way. So I think you're right in in that respect.
Richard Wasylynchuk:Yeah, and I think it's it's um, you know, the ops function and the leadership that I think companies are looking for from marketing now is is a fundamental shift that you have to be a systems thinker, right? Like it's all about scale, it's all about profitability, it's making the right investments. Um, and you have to think of the ecosystem that you're thinking of trade-offs and yeah.
Michael Hartmann:Uh so I want to kind of drill on that a little bit, but just curious, I'm gonna put you on the spot. Maybe like, were you actually like initially resistant to the to the idea?
Richard Wasylynchuk:Uh yes. Funny story about a year before, um somebody on the team had actually said to me, Well, you know, like I think you'd make a great CEO, a CMO. And I was like, nah, like not something that I I really want. And yeah, like uh I would say I still have a little bit of resistance uh sure to it, but um yeah, I I think initially there was the resistance of like uh like I'm happy to pitch in and help out as every ops person is, you know, like we'll get in there and we'll get it done. Um but there was there was that level of resistance.
Michael Hartmann:Yeah, interesting. Yeah, so it's interesting that you brought up like there are now VP of marketing ops roles, and I think that's right, but at the same time, I also see basically teams of one, right? And the like the title is doesn't really reflect it, I think. And so I hope that there's more to that. But one of the things that you and I talked about and was kind of the trigger for this conversation was the idea that you like you th you believe that feature CMOs, um, that there's real like a real opportunity for them to come from ops backgrounds. Well, like what makes you think that that's the case? And like yeah, you touched on system thinking. Um, but what makes because on the one hand, I think you're right. On the other hand, I don't I still see I feel like I still see more people going into those marketing, most senior marketing leader role CMO, head of market of VP marketing that don't come out of ops background. So do you are you like are you seeing something that's changing that I'm not? I'm just curious.
Richard Wasylynchuk:I I think I am, and I mean this is really not evidence-based by any means.
Michael Hartmann:No, I mean it feels like there's anecdotal stuff all over the place.
Richard Wasylynchuk:Yeah, I think I think there's a couple of things at play, right? I think um, you know, coming out of uh coming out of COVID, I think a lot of things have changed. I think the current economic and political conditions, right? Like the the money that was um in the market from an investment perspective before COVID was a little fast and free. I think now there's a lot more tied to it. So there is an increasing pressure on um uh on the drive for predictability, making the right investments and making sure that you're scaling a business uh appropriately. And I think like the old way, it was yeah, let's invest a million bucks in brand, right? Like let's do all the things, let's make the splash. Um and I think a lot of um a lot of marketing leaders in that that world forgot to pivot, right? So it's great, you're doing a lot of the the brand work, but then at some point you have to pivot to growth. And I think that's where a lot of of um uh a lot of leaders that don't have that solid operational background get caught, right? So I think now that that there's that focus on profitability and and efficient and effective scale, like an ops person is well suited because you are always switching gears, right? And you're always thinking of what do we need to do to get to that uh level of growth and that predictability and that scale that we need to do. It has to be that balance of growth and brand, right? And they play off of each other. And that's very hard to um, if you're not a systems thinker, it's very hard to um to like measure brand, to understand the impact, to communicate that. Uh, so I think I think uh an ops person um is just wired a bit different from a systems and an ecosystem perspective. And that's really fundamentally in their DNA to be thinking about the data, the funnel, the tech, the workflow, and and the economics behind what we're doing, right? So then there are not a lot of other functions in marketing where you're actively having conversations with finance around things like CAC and margin and investments. So that's already part of a marketing operation, a good marketing operations function. You're already there.
Michael Hartmann:Yeah. It's funny because like what's going in my through my head right now, and I agree with you on all that, is that I think what gets in the way of many marketers is they get focused on things that what I would call things that only marketers care about. Right. And um it ends up becoming about outputs rather than outcomes.
Richard Wasylynchuk:Yes.
Michael Hartmann:So and I I have a real life example that happened recently, actually with uh someone very close to me. I won't go into details, but where it just as I had to go like this is fight the fight, but this is something that only a marketer cares about. And if you can get over it, that's good. But it's you know, you you may have to negotiate through that a little bit. So yeah.
Richard Wasylynchuk:I you know, on that point, it's it's an interesting one because there, yeah, there is a lot like it's it's important for marketing, but it's not really important for anybody else. And I think also like when you're in an ops world, like you have that hat on where you're like, this conversation can't happen over there, right? Like this is just for marketing. Yes. That was coming back to like, you know, I don't want to bring it up, but I'm gonna bring it up, like attribution.
Michael Hartmann:That was the one I was like, that's exactly my take, right?
Richard Wasylynchuk:That that word should never be used uh upstairs, right? Like everybody has a different connotation of what that means, and you spend all your energy trying to just corral that conversation. Like attribution is for understanding marketing performance, right? Like that's what we use to base our decisions off of. We don't need to lift that up to an executive level and say, oh, artw shape model is telling us that no, like that's way too much.
Michael Hartmann:I had this exact conversation yesterday too, right? It was like, which like which attribution model do you care? It's like, okay, here we go. Like like at the end, and also like I I don't think it really matters that much, right? Pick one, stick with it, but more importantly, don't try to avoid taking it outside of marketing. Yeah, like like there are better ways to communicate outside of marketing than an attribution model because no one believes it, the math is complicated, and as soon as something comes out that's an anomaly, people start to question it. And it's it's an uphill battle. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Um so okay, so I I'm with you on all that, the systems thinking. I do hope that there's some change there in what we start seeing in the mar in the market uh for people getting in those roles. Um you mentioned you touched on this a little bit too earlier. You talked about like the the the unique, somewhat unique perspective that marketing ops folks have. Um how do you think that also helps for someone who's in marketing ops is being kind of being more prepared for a senior role that go goes across all of marketing?
Richard Wasylynchuk:Um in terms of like having that experience to see broadly occurring. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
Michael Hartmann:I think you use the phrase like hub of the wheel, right?
Richard Wasylynchuk:Yeah. I think, you know, I think every um, like if I think broader across marketing, every function has a focus and they really are focused on that function, right? So you know, events person is really about like how do I execute on this event? Um, you know, webinars, same thing. Um ops is the under underlay across all of that, right? So you are the one that is seeing um all of that connective tissue. Um and in past in past ops roles, um, you know, when you start thinking of the number of touch points that that we have to have from marketing to get us over to uh sales and to an opportunity, like everybody needs to start thinking about the throw, throw to. So like you run a webinar, what are you throwing to next? Right. So I've done a lot of work in the ops framework to say, here's the sequencing of touch points that we understand that will get us to that point. Um, and that's not something that you see in um in other functions, right? Like that's typically not how some of those functions work. I think that is changing with AI and and how uh you know marketing is gonna look in a year or two from now, right? But I think that, you know, in that ops role, you are that connective framework. So what that opens up and what that unlocks is that visibility allows you to start to um understand and make decisions or recommendations that are not biased, that are based on data, that are more a reflection of the reality, the outcome, than hey, I did a great event. Like it shifts the focus off of we're doing all these great things. Right. Right. It's like really what is the outcome? Um, so you could have something like a program that's not performing very well, but hey, if that's actually feeding into something else, maybe there's a use case to keep it, right? Um, and those are the conversations I think and the mindset that come from an ops person versus a program manager that would be, hey, I don't think this is performing well. I'm just gonna cut it.
Michael Hartmann:Yeah. I think it's interesting to me. I think the the the two connective points within an organization that marketing ops tends to have other over other marketing functions would be the obvious one's right sales and sales ops. Yeah. You know, and I think to your point, right, if we do this thing that's gonna generate something, right? So what, right? What's the next, like how's that tie into the customer journey? The other and you touched on this is finance. Yeah. And and I think I've I've I've worked with or run into marketing leaders who I think are pretty good with finance and numbers, but I've worked with probably more, many more. I don't know whether I could put a percentage of that are really don't they don't really don't get it. And I think that's to me, no, you know, our longtime listeners will not be shocked by this. Like, I think that's a real miss. And I think it's a really important skill that we should all everyone should be finding. Do you find like do you do you think those are two I mean, legal's another one, but like it's uh legal and yeah, those are big ones. But I think I think the sales one, because I think everyone wants to go like how do you bridge the gap between marketing and sales? There's always friction. Yeah, I think I think a marketing house person, someone with that background, is uniquely positioned to uh have a better chance of understanding where they're coming from.
Richard Wasylynchuk:Yes. Yes. I think um, yeah, like I I think that alignment um and that connective tissue, like it is like the further you get away from marketing, the harder it is for people to get there. So like if I think of that connected connective tissue, like we're we're fairly in lockstep with sales, right? Because that's our handoff, right? But if you get further down the road, like okay, like we close a deal, we've got a customer up and running. Now we're talking about like margins, payback period, CAC, right? Like that that's further away um from where we need to be. So a lot of uh I think a lot of ops professionals or marketing in general, like it's it's very hard to get there or get that exposure because it is further away. Um, but I've always had the the uh opportunity to be very close partner with finance.
Michael Hartmann:Me too.
Richard Wasylynchuk:Um and uh, you know, interesting conversations, right? Because they also don't finance also doesn't a hundred percent understand the marketing world, right? Right. Um, you know, I remember not at at Trulio, but at a previous organization having um a bit of an awkward conversation with a finance team because they wanted to know the conversion from MQL to opportunity. They just wanted the number, right? I'm like, well, it's not one-to-one. Yeah. They're like, well, what do you mean? I'm like, well, we can have an account that has multiple multiple MQLs on it, one op. Right. Are we calculating this, right? Um, so I I think it's it's um because we're also so far away, like the the inverse is the the same, right? So when you have junior people in finance that you're talking to, like they also don't have a lot of that exposure to the guts of marketing and how things work. They often just see they see a million bucks on brand. What's going on, right?
Michael Hartmann:With with no, with no they see all the I, they don't see any of the R in R, right?
Richard Wasylynchuk:Yeah. And so I think there is a there is a skill in there in operations on how to talk to different areas of the organization in different ways. Like again, what's important inside of marketing is not going to be important with finance, right? So you have to figure out like what is it that um that we need to communicate to finance. And it's it's interesting, like as I'm saying that, because I never like coming from an ops background, like I never consider myself a storyteller. But as I'm saying that, I'm like, oh, actually, yeah, you are, right? Uh, because you have to figure out like what is the story that We're we're or what is it that we're going to be communicating with finance? It's very different than talking about program performance.
Michael Hartmann:We we had some guests on uh a couple months ago. Uh one was a senior marketing leader, but both of them were. And the senior marketing leader, we talked about this, like I because my assertion my assertion is that there's a lot of marketing leaders out there who are really good at storytelling with everyone except for their own organization. And it was interesting because this was this guy who'd been a CMO, he's like, Yeah, that like actually the best finance leaders are great storytellers. Because if you listen to how they talk about stuff, if it's a public company in particular, right? To the sort of to the investors or to the to the markets, they do a really good job of telling the story about data. And I think that is a like it was a really big like, oh wow, like I can't like I would not have said that. Yeah. But as I thought about it, I was like, that's actually really, really true. Makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. So like I tell people all the time, like I I I do coaching with people who are maybe moving into leadership roles, particularly in ops. And I said, if you don't understand finance, you should start learning the basics and become friends with your finance partner. Like really try to understand what they care about because it will help you down the road.
Richard Wasylynchuk:And they like my experience with finance, they always want to partner with you, right? Absolutely. They always, I mean, yeah. Yeah, they're they're always open and they're open to the questions, they're open to understanding, they're open to debate. So it's uh, you know, I I always say that too to to um people that have been on my team. Like you want to make good friends with finance.
Michael Hartmann:Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, otherwise they look at you like you're the ones just writing checks from like nonstop, right? It's and uh you don't want to be that person because it'll be really easy to go if you can't tell the story about what's happening from that money actually going out the door, then it's gonna be really easy target to cut when times get tough. And you know, it's not a fun place to be. So um, yeah, okay. So that's I think we're on the same page there. Um another thing you touched on a little bit ago is this shift. I think the word the way I would phrase it is like there's all like this, especially in the the kind of PE backed early stage growth companies, like growth at all costs, right? Top line is most, it feels like what I'm seeing and hearing is that the shift has really been to adding the word profitable, like profitable growth is now what they're looking for. Are you seeing the same kinds of things? And then maybe tying that back to like how do you think that uh bodes well for marketing apps folks who want are interested in a broader leadership role?
Richard Wasylynchuk:Yeah, I mean, I uh anecdotally I'm seeing that with other other uh marketing colleagues, right? Like there's an expectation to be doing more with less. Um whether it's headcount, whether it's budget. I think uh again, like fast and free money is gone. You really have to be uh focused on uh building something that is scalable and efficient. So I think you know, there is uh I think there's a different expectation from boards as well. Like coming back to it's it's not just being able to tell the story, it's being being able to measure and prove and show. Um and I think that is, you know, if you think five years ago, marketing ops really was positioned like you're the right hand of the CMO, like you're feeding all the data, you're feeding all the insights, you're making sure like things are operating the way that they they should be, like it should have been a natural progression that the right hand moves in, right? Um so I I just think that with that uh focus on efficiency. Um, I also think with the seismic shift now with AI and and not just in marketing, but how businesses as a whole operate, like everybody is gonna have to be dealing with that. How do you uh how do you drive more efficiency? How do you focus on the right things? And again, that comes back to ops. Like we've been sitting in that world for years, right? Like attribution, how do we measure this? What's the data strategy? Do we understand what's going on? What are the sequences? What are the patterns? What are the signals versus what's the noise, right? Like all of those things that we've been dealing with lean in heavily to how do we make sure that we're doing things the right way? And you know, coming into the the this role, like we also had to do a restructure, right? Uh, and that was very like for me, I've I've had to do that in previous roles as well, as the ops person, where a CMO is coming to you to say, where can we find money?
Michael Hartmann:Yeah.
Richard Wasylynchuk:Where do we find the money? Where do we find the money that's not going to impact our our KPIs or it's gonna have the minimal impact on KPIs? But then also like both from a people and capacity standpoint like, are we maxed out? Are we not maxed out? Like that's always been a question that a CMO would feed to an ops person.
Michael Hartmann:Yeah.
Richard Wasylynchuk:And so I think like we're already there, we've been there for years. So it only makes sense that like we should be that natural lift into the leadership role because we we're well suited, we have the muscle.
Michael Hartmann:Yeah, I I I tell people often I'm like, I'm creative, but not in the way people think of marketers as being creative. I'm creative and like how to maximize the like the limited resources we have people, money, yeah, solutions, whatever. Yes.
Richard Wasylynchuk:It's a different level of creativity, right? I'm glad you brought that up because um most people don't think that ops people are creative. I mean, we're a special bunch, yes, but uh there is a lot of creativity, right? And I I I think about you know, like when a project completes, like you're already spinning through how would I have done this differently? Yeah. Like where could we have been better if we're gonna do it again? What like, and that's a lot of creativity to think through that.
Michael Hartmann:Yeah, yeah. I I mean, I like I go back to my before I was in ops, I did IT consulting at one point. I I kind of was an architect for a very boutique y kind of um software platform, and I always was thinking about uh well, longer story is like there was somebody on the team who was really, really creative, like came up with really cool stuff, but they like there were always holes in the solution. So I was always the one closing the holes. But he always like I loved it, like it was a good partnership. But um, like I was always looking for how can we be more efficient, you know, like optimizing stuff, and I think that's the what you're talking about. Yeah, and then if you get into like somebody comes to you and says, That's another thing I coach to, you know, be ready to answer the question, where would I cut X amount? Or if you're lucky enough, like what would you spend the next dollar on? Like those are questions that you should be thinking about. Um things that are like that. I mean, I think that's a good skill to have. Yeah. So I'm curious, you talked about you had to do a restructure. Like, how did you how do you how do you think you thought about structuring it? I assume there was some a little some of that was maybe cutting. I don't know. You didn't really say that, but maybe that's what you were meant, but also like maybe it was sh moving moving roles around or shifting things. Like, how did you how do you think you approached it differently than like um maybe I'll call it a traditional CMO with a different kind of background?
Richard Wasylynchuk:Yeah, I th I think the fundamental difference is just in that my ops mindset, like you're thinking about the outcome, not the action. Right. So um rather than thinking uh we need this title, we need this title, we need this title, it's taking that step back and saying, what is the organization asking us to support? And then how do we set up the system to support that? Whether that's people, whether that's a new type of role, uh, you know, with um, you know, the impacts of AI, right? Like I think as I'm starting to take a step back, and and the way we restructured really was we needed to make some room to rebuild uh the right function for the organization. Um and as we're doing that, like it's a very different profile that we're we're looking at. Like everything has to have a flavor of AI, right? Um, but I think also like as you're thinking through the future of marketing, um it's no longer gonna be I just do this function, right? Like I think you need to, as a marketer, um broaden what you're bringing to the table, right? And and thinking, um, like we had a session with a team yesterday, uh a workshop. And I was like, listen, like we have a very exciting opportunity in front of us right now to reenvision how we work as a marketing team. Right. And again, if you're thinking of like who's great to lead that, it's probably the ops leaders because you understand the connectivity, right? So if somebody in their function is like, I don't think we should do this, you're already thinking, oh yeah, but over there, that's where the impact is going to be, or that over there, or you know, like now we're gonna create some friction points uh somewhere else.
Michael Hartmann:Not as this is like I think at one point this was called a T-shaped marketer, right? And I think what I what's going through my head is like marketing apps folks were sort of forced to do that just because of the nature of the role.
Richard Wasylynchuk:Yeah. Yeah, 100%. 100%. So, you know, like I think um I think it really, you know, like as I'm like reenvisioning and as I'm interviewing people, you know, was interviewing for a product uh product marketer, and I was like, okay, how is AI gonna change product marketing? As an interview question, right? And it's it's uh, you know, the answers are are very interesting, right? But I think marketing in general is going through a pretty seismic shift in how it's how it's operating.
Michael Hartmann:Yeah. And I think maybe this is where you were going too is like there's a little bit of you've you've almost got to be a little bit of an architect for change. Yeah. That's and so understanding how all these things work together and where where things could break down and how to kind of minimize that risk and all that. Those are like things that the best marketing ops folks think about naturally to some degree or forced to. Um, that's really interesting. Are there any, I mean, I won't put you on the spot too much, but are there any particular titles or roles that you think are unique to what you've structured or um we have I wouldn't say that we've like changed the titles per se, but the profiles are very different.
Richard Wasylynchuk:So, you know, if you're looking for a content marketer, um I'm like, well, how are you left? Like my first question is gonna be, how are you leveraging AI?
Michael Hartmann:Yeah.
Richard Wasylynchuk:Um, you know, when we did the restructure, I giggle uh on this one a little bit. When we did the restructure, um, yes, we did have to uh part ways with with some people, and we had a capacity constraint and a lot of pressure for the business. Um, and in the space of a couple of hours, I wrote a 12-page white paper. And I'm not a writer.
Michael Hartmann:Right.
Richard Wasylynchuk:So uh like that's the fundamental shift that's happening right now. So, like, if we are gonna hire a content marketer and we've got a an FTE capacity, what are you doing with AI? And then what does that like this the space you're saving, what are you filling that up with? Right. So um that that profile is shifting. Have the the titles themselves changed?
Michael Hartmann:Not really, but the expectations are different.
Richard Wasylynchuk:Yeah, and and that will change, right? Because, you know, like what are you filling up if you get 50% efficiency using AI as a content producer? Like, what are you doing with other 50%? Now is it a hot like it does it become a hybrid role? Like, you know, like a lot of these things are um are very fluid right now. Like we are having discussions. It's even like like where does customer marketing sit?
Michael Hartmann:I don't mind if you're even just talking about it because I think a lot of organizations so focus so much on you know new new logos, new, yeah, which is a myth, uh in my opinion, right?
Richard Wasylynchuk:Like a lot of organizations I've been with, yeah, marketing, budget, new, go new.
Michael Hartmann:I got into marketing that was in the heyday of when everyone would say like the cost to acquire new customers way higher. Like, I don't remember the the multiplier compared to retaining a customer. Like guys, I I don't think that's really fundamentally changed. Yeah, right. So it's a miss in my book for the companies that aren't thinking about it. Yeah. Um, I'm curious, there's this is a little bit of an aside as a in your hiring philosophy. Well, like one that I say a lot is that I I would hire for attitude over aptitude pretty much everywhere. So, in other words, like I want someone who is coachable, yeah, to learn. Well, work hard. Like, those are not skills, right? Versus aptitude, which I think of as skills. Do you uh because I think it can teach a lot of that? I mean, yeah, there are certain roles where there's got to be a like a minimum, but after that, it's like I've seen people who maybe didn't have all the skills I really wanted for, but I could tell like the added the attitude was there, and they've just you know done great. Do you do you think about that at all when you're hiring?
Richard Wasylynchuk:Yes. A hundred percent. Like it it um yeah, like for a role, there's the baseline of skills that you need, right? So like you're you're not gonna get to the interview if if you don't seemingly have the baseline of of what we're looking for. But I think really what um what goes a long way is the soft skills, the EQ, um being able to understand and make the connections within an organization or within the team. Um you can you can skill, uh you can upscale people, right? Like you can teach somebody new tricks. Uh if they don't like those who those um those EQ traits are very, very, very hard to to train somebody up on, right? Like if somebody doesn't have self-awareness, like that's gonna be a very hard challenge.
Michael Hartmann:And and and I agree and I disagree. I think I think I think it it's it maybe it's I think you as a leader you should you can't just give up, right? I think there's no it doesn't mean that somebody is gonna be the best, but I think people can become more proficient uh to uh to the point where I I almost I I almost sort of recoil at the idea of the term soft skills because they're just skills.
Richard Wasylynchuk:I mean uh that's a that's uh I mean we could probably do a whole session on that one. Um I yeah, I agree either you can train people up on soft skills, but I think uh, you know, coming back to what you said, like that that openness, right? I think maybe that's what I'm sort of referring to in the self-awareness, right? Like if you don't recognize that you don't have those soft skills, um, when you get feedback and you you get into a very uh uncomfortable space with with your direct reports. Like I have somebody on my team that is um very open to the feedback and desperately wants to um upskill their soft skills. And it's it's great, right?
Michael Hartmann:Like there's so much you can do with that. So much you can do with that.
Richard Wasylynchuk:Yeah, like there's it's it's exciting because like there is so much you can do and you can see the progress versus somebody who may not have an understanding that their soft skills aren't quite where they need to be. And when you have those conversations, they're closed off.
Michael Hartmann:That's they get defensive, yeah. Yeah, totally.
Richard Wasylynchuk:To your point, like good point that they are soft skills, right? So you should be able to train people or coach people on these soft skills.
Michael Hartmann:Yeah. I mean, I've even got to the point like just that the baseline skills, I've tried to get it as like low that bar as much as I can. The simple one is like if the default job description says must have a college degree, if I can get the HR team to agree to take that off as a hard requirement, I will do it.
Richard Wasylynchuk:Yeah. Well, I mean, what is yeah, I'm I'm of the same opinion, right? Like um I mean, there are there are certain jobs where you do need that level of education, but um yeah, it's it's uh if if you took arbitrary yeah, it is arbitrary, right? Like if you took that off and you didn't see that in an application, would you be able to determine it through the interview process?
Michael Hartmann:I mean, depending on the role, maybe I think then that's when experience takes over, right? Yeah, Sarah. It's not that um it's kind of like to me, it's um it's a little bit like certifications, yeah. In which I don't necessarily give a whole lot of stock in those, but they do like all things being equal, it shows a level of commitment to craft or to like learning that I think does speak to it. Yeah. Um, plus I would also be a bit hypocritical because I have very few certifications.
Richard Wasylynchuk:And I as a guy who has a lot of certifications, it's just I don't I don't know. I'm stubborn and competitive, so I I'm always like, oh, I need to get one. Um and I think, yeah, to your point, it is an indication of commitment to your craft. Yeah. But I will say, like, a lot of those certification exams are just about how you take a test.
Michael Hartmann:Yeah.
Richard Wasylynchuk:Not what you know, right? So um, and and I place more value on the practical experience, right? Because just because you have a cert does not mean you know what you're doing.
Michael Hartmann:Yeah. So one of the things I think we didn't quite talk about this, but we touched on, I think this bit is um like the point I made, like the only things that marketers care about is a little bit of it feels like there's a lot of marketers who their ego is tied into what they produce, right? Um and what they create and works or not. Like, how do you think that is? I mean, I'm proud of the work I do too, and I'm self-critical, and all those things, but do you think that there's a little bit of a different mindset that you see generally this is all generalizations, of course, yeah between marking up professionals and called general marketers?
Richard Wasylynchuk:Yes. So it's you know, it's interesting. Like marketing tends to, you know, you're you're attracting creatives, you're attracting people who want to build things. Um my my undergrad talking about degrees, my undergrad degree was actually in fine arts, um, in visual communications. Um, and I I go back to like week over week, you're doing critiques where you're putting your work up on the board and people are to shreds. Right. Um, and you start to develop that thick skin, right? But a lot of people don't have the benefit of going through that that process. Process. And I think when you're creative and you put all of that effort in, your identity gets attached to that artifact. And so when people start to give you feedback on that artifact, it can become very personal.
Michael Hartmann:Yeah.
Richard Wasylynchuk:And I think, you know, when you come back to an ops mindset, it's not necessarily about the artifact. It's about what's happening with the artifact. Right. So you're, you're, again, like conflict, conflict resolution. Stay away from the emotions, focus on the data, right? Like an ops role, you're you're breaking that cycle because you're like, okay, like let's look at what it did. You could have an artifact that people are like, oh my God, it's the best thing we've done ever. And it falls flat. It doesn't perform. Right. So it again, it's that shift from activity to outcome. It's um the neutrality of looking at how that's supporting scale and and really delivering the outcomes for the business that we're looking for.
Michael Hartmann:Yeah. And that is it's funny because I think about when I was running search marketing for an organization and and I see this a lot where people get caught up in is the grammar correct and they add you know the copy. And especially on search, like I have found more probably equal, right? Where good well written good grammar performs well and times when shitty grammar, right? Poor punctuation, mistellings actually works as well or better.
Richard Wasylynchuk:Yeah.
Michael Hartmann:And so to me, like I don't care.
Richard Wasylynchuk:Yeah.
Michael Hartmann:I just and I also I also think about this is, I think, another mindset thing that I think about because I've had to coach very often in marketing teams where I see, you know, there's a lot of pressure to get a lot of stuff out, and it's you know, every people get frustrated, it takes too long, why isn't it going out? Blah, blah, blah, blah. And and when I look at it, you go like the process is broken internally. We've got way too many people involved or too many review processes. And I say, what I tell people is like, you need to start thinking about these in different levels of review, right? Yeah. So if you've got something like an ad, like a search ad that you could literally change in seconds, why are you spending so much time trying to get it perfect? Because it'll never be that way. Like, yeah, get it, get it out there fast and learn from it, adjust, cut it, modify it. And I think if you think, I think if if they thought about it differently, right? Yeah. Like that's like there's this this to your point, this ego is caught up in the perfection.
Richard Wasylynchuk:Yeah. It's perfection over progress.
Michael Hartmann:Yeah.
Richard Wasylynchuk:Yeah. And then you can get caught in it, right? And I think uh, but I think also like part of that is is uh providing the psychological safety for the team to make mistakes, right? Like when you're talking about that approval process, like, yeah, we we we get in our own way. I like at every organization that I've been at, we get in our own way, right? Like, so what I try and do is is uh make sure everybody knows, like, I I got your back, right? If shit hits the fan, like I'll stand in front of it. Yeah, I'll take it, right? Uh I just my only S there is like, just try to give me some warning that it's I was just about to say that. I'm like, you just need to give me a hands up, right? Because the last thing I want is like, wait, what now? Like, I feel like you know what's going on here. Um, so like, you know, already in the last couple of months, I've seen the team where where they're like, do I need to? And I was like, no, just do it. Right? Like, we we want to run fast. You know, all organizations are we want to run fast, we want to do this, but then everybody wants to get involved. And like, you want to go fast, you go alone. If you want to go far, you go together, right? Like, so it's that balance. There's certain things that we need to do together. But yeah, like a search ad, just go, right? Like, yeah, we're also like as we're trying to figure out ways to better harness what's going on with LLMs and search, and you know, we're getting into Reddit. And and I had somebody on the team, they're like, Well, can I just start responding to posts? I was like, Yeah. Right? Like, just go, right? Like it, but like just keep me in the loop. So yeah, if something does hit the fan, like I can get in front of it. Um, but yeah, you like you wanna, as a leader, you want to provide that psychological safety and everybody understand that, yeah, okay, you got my back, but that also rests on having that that level of open communication.
Michael Hartmann:Richard, I wish we could keep going, but I don't have to cut it, cut it off. I feel like we barely just touched the surface of some of this stuff, and we didn't even get into a real debate about hiring. No. Uh uh, but I you know, this has been, I think, really fascinating. And I do I would encourage hopefully this is encouraging to the people who are in marketing ops wondering like what's next, like what's the the the career path for me? Is it always going to be in this ops thing? Could it be something broader? Because I think I think there's a lot of potential there. Uh, and I hope that there's some marketing leaders or or just business leaders in general who start to pay attention to this because I I don't feel like it's quite there yet. It's getting there. I think there's a lot of potential.
Richard Wasylynchuk:Yeah.
Michael Hartmann:So why don't we we end here? Two two questions for you. Why was there any like other things that we didn't touch on that you might want to just like think about this for the the people? And then after that, maybe what's um if people wanted to kind of continue the conversation maybe with you, or at least uh understand, like learn more about what's going on in your your world, what's the best way for them to do that? So those two questions and we'll wrap up.
Richard Wasylynchuk:Yeah, I think the first one is is um, yeah, I would agree with you. Like we're not quite there where it's like, oh, the ops ops career path is a shoe in a CMO. Um I think there is hope though. Like I think a couple of years ago, you know, I'd start to see a lot of ops people move on from ops, which is really unfortunate, right? You see people go back to demand gen.
Michael Hartmann:Um I know of one person who's actually has been a guest who got out of marketing altogether and is doing uh uh like bookkeeping accounting.
Richard Wasylynchuk:Yeah, I I and I think that I honestly like I think the burnout is real post-COVID. Uh but I I do hope this offers a little bit of hope for everybody, right? Um, that there is progression in ops um and keep fighting the good fight. Um in terms of of getting a hold of me or or wanting to talk more, like connect with me on LinkedIn. I'm always happy to uh have a quick coffee chat or what have you, or or Michael, if you want to do round two doing another episode.
Michael Hartmann:So we should we we should plan on that in 2026.
Richard Wasylynchuk:How about yeah, see where I've ended up.
Michael Hartmann:Yeah, there we go. We could do that. That would be great. Richard, thank you so much. I think this would be a great uh I do, I think it would be encouraging for for users, especially as we're kind of heading into the the end of the year and getting ready for next year. So thank you for that. Appreciate it. Thanks to our uh our audience out there for continuing to support us. If you have ideas for topics or guests where you want to be a guest, like Richard, please feel free to reach out to Naomi, Mike, or me, and we'd be happy to get the ball rolling on that. Till next time. Bye everybody.