THA S02 EP#24 - Revenue Habits: How Marketing Systems Work Like Personal Routines

Growth doesn’t usually stall because people stop caring. It stalls because teams are solving problems from different angles, leaders are chasing priorities without shared clarity, and progress gets buried under misalignment, mixed signals, and habits that no longer support the next stage of growth.

In this episode of The Habit Architect, host Michael Cupps talks with Nataly Huff, founder of Innovate Forward Marketing and Inspire Forward Coaching, about what it really takes to move forward as a professional and as an organization. Nataly explains why both sides of her work come back to the same idea: growth requires better systems and better habits. From coaching mid-career professionals who feel stuck, to helping organizations rebuild the way marketing, sales, and customer success work together, her focus stays on clarity, alignment, and forward movement.

Nataly shares why so many capable professionals reach a point where they are no longer asking, “How do I keep climbing?” but instead, “Am I even on the right ladder?” That question leads into a deeper conversation about values, energy, and the habits that help people refill their mental capacity instead of draining it. She also breaks down how that same principle applies inside companies: when teams define the customer journey differently, measure success differently, and operate from different assumptions, growth becomes harder than it needs to be.

The conversation then moves into revenue operations, where Nataly explains how she diagnoses gaps across the customer journey, helps teams align around one shared understanding of value, and uses unified metrics to rebuild trust in the numbers. Michael and Nataly also talk about change management, why people need to be included in redesigning new processes, and how ongoing feedback loops keep teams connected when things get difficult. Later in the episode, they explore AI and automation, including the danger of bolting AI onto unclear processes and why the better starting point is always the same question: what problem are we actually trying to solve?

This episode is for founders trying to align their teams around a clearer strategy, revenue leaders working through silos between marketing and sales, professionals navigating the next stage of their careers, and anyone who wants a better framework for building habits that actually support growth instead of just filling the calendar.

This Show is sponsored by TimeBandit.io

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Transcript

Hello and welcome to the Habit Architect. My name's Michael Cups. I'm your host, as usual, and I'm looking forward to our conversation today. We've actually got a multi-talented, I think that's the right way to say it. Lady joining us who is the founder and CEO of two companies. One is Innovate Forward Marketing. Michael: 0:23

We're gonna talk a lot about that, but I also want her to touch on inspire forward coaching because it's really interesting how she coaches people on their headspace. What, what is going on in their brain when they are trying to manage change, when they're trying to stick to habits, what are they and things like that. Michael: So I'm really looking forward to talking about that. And then we're gonna get into innovate forward marketing, because what she's doing there is building systems for her customers to build revenue engines. And it's a, we're gonna walk through kind of step by step of how she does that. So both are very good topics and they're somewhat interconnected, but. Michael: For the most part, they're two different companies. Again, as usual, do go to your favorite podcast and and share and all that stuff with us, whether it's Spotify, et cetera. And also do go check out Time

bandit@timebandit.io. So without further ado, let's bring on Natalie Huff. Hello. Hello. Nataly: How are you today? Michael: Good. Except I'm not seeing you yet. There we go. Now I can. Nataly: Hello. Michael: How are you now? You're coming to us from Minnesota today, right? Nataly: I am coming from balmy Minnesota where we had enough sun for everybody to go outside for the entire weekend. Michael: Nice. Nice. That's fantastic. I'm in Louisville, Kentucky and I noticed they packed up some snow, but there's not a lot of snow. Michael: 1:23

It's actually kinda green, which is scary. Yeah. Welcome. Thank you so much for joining us. I look forward to talking to you about these topics. Why don't we start with just an introduction of yourself and those two companies. Nataly: Yes, absolutely. I'm Natalie Huff. I have spent my entire professional life in driving growth. Nataly: My corporate side of my life has always been in growth, marketing and driving revenue and companies of all kinds of sizes and industries. And over the last several years, I have run, innovate forward marketing and inspire it

forward. Coaching. Those two are also fo focused on driving growth, one through organizational systems and driving businesses forward. Nataly: And the other one specifically focused on professionals, teams, and individuals. But it all comes back to the same concept of driving growth requires better systems and better habits. Michael: 2:23

Yeah, absolutely. And that's the topic that we love to talk about. I, it's interesting because I'm sure this wasn't an accident, but you have forward in both of your titles of your companies, which I think is smart because it is about the next steps and the next, the next things not necessarily staying where you are. Michael: And I think we're all challenged with that. And sometimes it can be daunting, sometimes it can be challenging to think about changing things, but, so let's start with inspire forward coaching. Nataly: Absolutely. Michael: An executive comes to you and says. I'm stuck. I've got these problems. I need to do this better. Michael: How does that engagement go? Nataly: Absolutely. Usually I actually don't work with executives. There are a few executives here and there that I support and while my focus is executive coaching, I like to support mid-career

professionals. Michael: Nice. Nataly: Where the moving forward aspect really comes along. So somebody will come to me, they have been successful in their career. Nataly: They have been making progress, and they've been checking boxes, and either they want to move the next step up the ladder and they're not exactly sure how. Or they're looking around their ladder and they're saying, ah, I think I'm on the wrong ladder. Yeah. What do I do now? So the focus of the engagement usually is around that next step forward. Nataly: 3:23

What is the right step? How do we take it? And one of the things that we focus on a lot is the why. Where are you trying to go? Why are you trying to go there? Because the process of the how might change with every step where you're gonna learn something, you're gonna gain new perspective. Nataly: But as long as we're sticking to the why, we can make sure that we can find the how. Michael: Yeah. And when you said what the demographic there that you work with, the mid mid level, there is somewhere in their career they've been successful, but now they're looking at the next thing. Michael: I've not

worked for a lot of big companies, but all the companies I've worked for didn't have a program to help them do that. It was in most cases, tell me if this is wrong. In most cases it was. You followed what your boss did and then they went and did something else and you did their job or something like that, and it may not have been a lot of thought into it. Michael: I Maybe that's understood. Nataly: 4:23

No you're absolutely right. Most companies don't actually offer mid-career professionals unless it's specifically a retention tactic that this is a high potential talent that they don't want to lose. Or it is somebody that is on an executive path. But even in that case they tend to not really offer executive coaching unless somebody's actually an executive. Nataly: Yeah. And sometimes that's too late. Sometimes might want to recognize what is it that is driving your actions, that is driving the actions of people around you? How do you bring your best self forward? And how do you bring out the best from your team before you're an executive? That could be a very helpful trait to have and very, a helpful set of skills to have before you're role. Michael: And I think it's the thought process too, right? It's yes. It's sitting

down and saying, do I like what I'm doing? And is this gonna be where I wanna spend the next decade or two decades of my career? And I think that's valuable. 'cause there's, we, especially during COVID, the burnout was a big topic and a lot of times. Michael: Burnout happens when you're not really enjoying what you're doing too. There's other reasons burnout happens, but that could be a very big reason. If you're, you got that drudgery, we wake up and go, Ugh, gotta do that again. That's just not gonna help you with the, with that with being inspired in your role. Nataly: 5:23

Absolutely. So there's two things that I talk about in this case, and they are very much tied in. One is, what is it that is actually important to you, and how are you integrating that into your daily life and your daily work life, which sometimes is a very sober reflection. You figure out what your set of values are, and you're recognizing that you're not spending any of your professional time on it. Nataly: Yes. No wonder you're drained. And then the other one is integrating some of the habits that refill your energy. If we think about how our brains work we have a prefrontal cortex that is

using up 20% of all of the energy that our entire brain uses. Yeah. Our brain. Just, this big uses 25% of the energy of the entire body, so it is very inefficient, which means that the part of your brain that is doing the thinking and the problem solving runs out of calories. Nataly: Very, yeah. Very basically. Exactly. After a certain amount of time, you just can't think anymore. So how do you integrate little habits into your day that allow you to refill that tank and then come fresh and actually useful to the next meeting, into the next problem. Michael: 6:23

Yeah, I love that because what the way the training that I do with Time Band is we start with your values, right? Michael: We understand what those values are, and it's not a one word, 'cause I, when I, you probably get this too, when you ask somebody, what about the values? They could say family Health and Wealth or something like that, right? And they Nataly: you actually mean Michael: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And then we try to put an action to it. Michael: So I, I love the way you approach your engagements there. So let's move on into the, because I think what you do with marketing teams.

Sounds very similar. It's just not a one, it's not one brain, it's many brains. Is that fair to say? Nataly: Yes, absolutely. So when we talk about marketing and revenue operations, yes, there's some cases that we're looking at fairly siloed problems that we're trying to solve. Nataly: 7:23

But really my goal is to look at what the entire customer journey is and understand how that entire process flows. And where are we seeing gaps? Where are we seeing repetitions? Where are we seeing overlap? Where are we seeing things that are not efficient? Not effective and really detract from the customer experience. Michael: And yeah. And that is a collective head space too, like you were talking about earlier, right? Yeah. And then, so the goal of the of your work there is to help them grow their business, right? They come to you and they say we're stuck. We've hit a revenue plateau. Michael: We are, we're not we think we should be doing better. So can you help us? So walk us through the diagnostic, all the way through the engagement. Nataly: Two of my favorite things to do is sit down and talk to the different people and figure out what they think the customer journey

is. Michael: Yeah. Nataly: And we'll very frequently see the very different perceptions of how the customer journey actually goes. Nataly: And then we'll do a study of some sort to understand what the customer journey actually is, and the look at the gaps between those two is usually very informative. That is a great place to start. The other element I will do, 'cause the teams that I will usually work with are marketing, sales, customer success, operations, and tech. Michael: Yeah. Nataly: 8:23

And we will ask the same questions for the all those teams individually. Nataly: So our value proposition. What are differentiators? What are top three objections and how do we handle them? What are the top three reasons customers churn, and how do we fix it? And what are the top three ways that our customers can see success? Nataly: Early after they buy, Michael: right? Yeah. Nataly: The most of the time, you don't have any team that can answer all of those questions, Michael: right? Yeah. Or they're answer, they're answering it.

When they learned it or what, how they, what their customers play back. Customer success may have a different view than sales, for example. Nataly: Yeah, exactly. And my goal is to get the organization to the point where everybody on all of those teams answered those questions the same way. Michael: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's that the diving reference. Plan your dive and dive your plan. So if, yeah, so Exactly. Okay. So you start out by interviewing everybody and. Michael: Do you find that people get anxious? Nataly: 9:23

Depends on the people and depends on the leadership. Sometimes when, and actually most of the time I am brought in when there's a new leader in the organization and they say, okay, we need some help. Then some of the previous subject matter experts in the team feel like I'm gonna come in and tell everybody that they've been doing their job wrong. Michael: Yep. Nataly: Some of this is just basic relationship management and sometimes it is my job to repeat something that they have been saying for years, but I have more credibility 'cause I come in from the outside. There's pluses and minuses to being an external

consultant. But oftentimes people are just excited that somebody's going to actually give a voice to a problem that they've seen. Nataly: And a lot of the work that I do ends up being cultural as well. Sometimes we talk about incentives, sometimes we talk about processes, but the goal is for all of these disparate, siloed teams to start thinking about themselves as a part of the same revenue engine and talking to the same clients throughout the process. Michael: 10:23

Yeah I, what I like about that, it's the interesting thing is you said people are really excited and it's because they're, they feel like they're gonna be listened to. Most likely, everybody wants to feel listened to because they have ideas or they have they have experience or whatever it may be. Michael: And that, that just sometimes we get so busy in our day in, day out as a team that we don't sit back and listen to what each other are telling us. 'Cause email's not a good thing and even worse or instant messaging and stuff like that. So that that's an interesting thing. Michael: And if I'm. Thinking about that. Going back to your other

coaching business, you're clearing their head space a little bit too, right? So they're getting 'em refocused. Is that a fair way of saying it? I don't know. Nataly: Refocus is probably one of the ways to say it, but we're getting them focused together. Nataly: 11:23

So in those conversations, one of the questions that I will always ask is, okay, so these, this is a priority for you. Why hasn't it been solved before? What have been the obstacles so far? And in that we start seeing some of the patterns and some of the internal hiccups that are preventing some of the progress. Nataly: And granted, there is usually a big pile of opportunities and we need to figure out which ones are urgent, which ones are important, how do we do, which ones do we do first? And communicating that, but how do you manage that prioritization once you have your full list is a conversation all of its own. But having somebody. Nataly: With a safe space to clearly say, I've been raising my hand about this, but nobody listens. Michael: Yeah. Nataly:

Or, we really want to do this. But it requires that this technological investment, it really gives you clarity around where things are hiding. Michael: Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. And it is interesting. I I've been a part of some, and hopefully this question isn't too off track, but what do you do when there's obstacles like a founder that has a very strong opinion about what it is, but the team feels it's a little different? Nataly: 12:23

Where the founder has priorities that the team doesn't agree with, or where the founder doesn't see the, you. Usually that's an issue with a communication of founder strategy. And I do see this a lot specifically with founders who have a very clear vision in their mind. They have never been able to translate into anything on paper. Nataly: For communication. Michael: Yeah. Nataly: That is more of a coaching opportunity. Yeah. And Michael: depending Nataly: on my relationship with the founder, we might have those

conversations or we might not. But in those cases, it's really a communication, internal communication strategy that hast been in place. Michael: Yeah. Nataly: But sometimes we'll see just very. Nataly: 13:23

Blind optimism from the founders versus from what the team is see yes. Every day. And from there, this is actually where unified metrics become really important. Many times I'll come into an organization, you'll have the marketing team and the sales team and success team all measuring different things or maybe the measuring the same things. Nataly: Differently. Michael: Differently. Nataly: There's no trust in the numbers. There's no ability to have a sober look at reality, and clarity is an absolute requirement for any sort of progress moving forward. So step one is, okay, we all know what the customer journey looks like. Step two is how do we measure it? How do, what do we look at to see if we're doing better, if we're doing worse, or where our issues are. Michael: Yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense. So

let's take it so you've gone through that exercise and now you're at the revenue engine standpoint, where you've got, let's say top three ideas. You may have 20 ideas, but the top three how do you help the team get ready to take that on? Nataly: 14:23

Change management is part of the process, right? Change in general can be very terrifying. And we oftentimes think about change as a beginning of something new, but really change from a mental percep perspective. It's the end of something previous. So we need to one, identify who are the people that are emotionally tied to the previous process. Nataly: Understand why and communicate and over communicate with those people, bring them into the definition and the redesigning of the process moving forward. And just because we launched something doesn't mean it's done. So if a new process is launched, having that ongoing feedback, communication, and iteration, especially with

those that have grief, for lack of a better term, for the loss of the certainty of something that they've been doing for a long period of time. Nataly: That's going to help with the adoption, but that's also going to help with the improvement of whatever initiative we're putting in place, because we're never going to get it exactly right the first time. Yeah. We're gonna put it in place. We're gonna try it. We're gonna learn something, we're gonna fix it. Nataly: We're gonna learn something again. We're gonna fix it again. Michael: Yeah. Nataly: 15:23

And setting the expectation that this is going to be the process. This is not just gonna launch undone. Michael: Yep. Nataly: It's a big part of the equation, but also following through on that. Michael: Yeah. Yeah. And I think the measurement helps 'em reinforce that they're on the right path. Nataly: Exactly. And you set the foundation for what are we measuring and how do we want it to look? In the beginning. Michael: Yeah. Yeah. And if you think about any of our personal habits that we inject in our personal lives, measuring those and seeing results keeps us motivated to do the next time, right? Michael: And same thing in

business. I think, I don't know if a lot of business teams think of it that way, but it really does help them when they have a good staff meeting that says, Hey, we saw a bump in this, because of. That change, right? Nataly: Absolutely. And we wanna talk about interim metrics as interim metrics. Nataly: 16:23

We don't know what the end result's going to be, but directionally, this was X, now it's Y. That's really promising. Or directionally, this was X, now it's z. Here's some things that we're gonna watch for, but the transparency and the intermittent approach and conversation about it is also really helpful. So just like when you're building your roadmap for whatever your big vision is, you're not gonna go from zero to a hundred, you're gonna go from zero to one, one to two, into three. Nataly: Having that conversation and that expectation for any strategic initiatives within an organization is the exact same approach. Michael: It's so important for what you just said there, that you have to go from one to two to three. You can't go from one to five. And so often I've seen in it, 'cause I've been in sales and marketing my

entire career and I particularly with sales leaders because they, they have this in innate confidence in their own ability to change the outcomes and. Michael: So they apply that to the teams, and not that we do these anymore maybe somebody does, but remember, I remember call blitzes, right? So they bring all the sales reps in from around the country or the city or state or wherever they were, and they'd say, all we're gonna do is make phone calls today, and we're gonna make outreach to everybody and. Michael: 17:23

Thinking that was gonna change the overall trajectory. It might change a little bit of behavior. It might be good teamwork, it might be, there might be good benefits of it, but it's not gonna change the way the company's path is, right? Because you can't go from one. Nataly: So one of the things, this example is perfect. Nataly: 'cause most of the time the issue is not volume. And most of the time the issue's. Call efficiency or sales efficiency. The issue is who are we calling and what are we telling them? Michael: Yes. Nataly: So if we start bringing marketing and sales and product and success into the equation and talk about who are the people that we can make successful

easily with our product today? Michael: Yeah. Nataly: Not with our product vision 10 years down the road. But who is going to be really excited with what we have to say right now and be willing to hand over the money? 'cause those are the people that we want to talk to as marketers. Those are the people that we want to talk to as qualified leads within sales. Nataly: 18:23

Those are the people where the sales process, the average order value. And the time to close is going to be the shortest. And those are the people that are going to be the easiest to retain and expand with once they're customers. So start with who are you going to make happy now? But you can't do that without having the entire conversation with the entire team. Nataly: And you have many sales leaders that are gonna say, we're gonna go after enterprise accounts 'cause that's what money is. Michael: Yeah. Nataly: Usually the answer is no, because that's a very hard sale. But unless you have that entire conversation, you don't know. Michael: Yeah, exactly. I think that's beautifully sa stated because it is. Michael: I, I having had sales teams that did

well and did poorly it was always the we don't need to talk to 10 people. We need to talk to two people that really get what we do. Yes. Nataly: Yes. Michael: 19:23

Yeah. Yeah. So that's fantastic. I really love the aspect of it. So now you set up a system, you set up a revenue engine and it's going, life is hard, right? So you hit bumps in the road. How do you keep teams really focused on it? I know the metrics play an a, a role in that, but sometimes it just gets hard, right? It's something new. It's outside of our muscle memory. Haven't done this before, done this it this way or something. Michael: How do you keep 'em going? Nataly: One of the things that I find really helpful is setting up closed feedback loops where the different teams are consistently talking to each other because when things get hard, they can support each other. In the difficulty, I, none of my conversations are actually even remote to closing today. Nataly: I don't know why. I know what you're saying because all of my ads are held, their click-through rates are dropping right now. Okay. Let's look at solve this together. This. These conversations allow for that

kind of support, but also allow for that kind of learning. And we don't just sit down once and figure out what we're gonna make successful. Nataly: 20:23

We continuously have these conversations. Yeah. The other things that I really like to do is having people sit with the other teams. On a regular basis, once a quarter, every marketing person should sit on three sales calls. Every salesperson should sit on three customer success calls, yes, and so that people can start to really live in those experiences and continue to hear from the customer directly, not just from what we think the customer should be doing. Michael: Yeah, that makes sense. All, all so that's a, I enjoyed that conversation a lot because I've been in those shoes a lot, over, over my career, I guess there's been a lot, lots of opportunity, but the world is, as we know it I had Bloomberg out here on, in, in the TV and they're talking about how the death of SaaS and AI is gonna. Michael: To put everybody outta work. So how are you, how are your teams coming to you saying, are they excited about it? Are

they hesitant about it? What's going on with AI and automation? Nataly: Oh, AI and automation is a really good conversation. Really, people fall into a couple camps. One is, oh my God, AI is going to kill everything, so why even try? Michael: Yeah. Nataly: 21:23

That's a hard place to start a conversation. And usually if I do have to start that conversation, we talk about all the places where AI has been for years and we've been actually using it and nobody's died from that yet. Then there's people who are AI everything and they just bolting on AI tools, AI processes, AI automations. Nataly: Onto things where AI has no business being quite yet. Michael: Yep. Nataly: That's where I go back to the concept of clarity for productivity. Figure out what it is that you are automating and that you're introducing AI into, make sure it's very clearly structured. The data is very clean. Everybody knows what would happen manually, and then you can introduce that process into it. Nataly: And then there, there's people who are a little bit

more in between that they want to integrate it. They just know that they don't know enough. And I think that's the most interesting space because I'm not necessarily an AI expert and there are plenty of AI experts out there, but I think when we go back to what is the thing that we're trying to solve, right? Nataly: Yes, that's our why. Michael: Yes. Nataly: 22:23

Then we figure out is it solvable with ai and who's the right AI expert to bring in at that point? So going back to the idea, what are you trying to accomplish and why, and then we can follow the path. Michael: Yeah. Yeah. I, when you said something, and there's a lot of AI experts out there, one of the challenges I think we have with that is there are experts. Michael: What they know AI does for them, right? Yes. And it's that open, it's that curiosity maybe is the right word for it, that it might or might not be the right thing for everybody, and most likely it's not for everybody. That's more fair to say. It's not, but it's interesting to me because I do see leaders using AI and

saying, we've gotta use ai. Michael: Without the PR proper training even. Yes, you can write a very simple prompt and get a really bad answer. And then you see it all all the time on social media. You might see it, you may see it in marketing teams, they, it's where their copy is now turned into, just cut and paste. Nataly: Would've gone bad this morning. Yes, absolutely. Michael: 23:23

Exactly. But it, so there's a, that, you talked about change management before. I think there's a huge change management opportunity there to say, okay, you're gonna use a prompt, but let's do it. This way so you can, so there's not I get the guardrails. Michael: You have to have those too, but I meant just teaching people how to use it in a way that's productive as opposed to just. A search engine kind of thing. So Nataly: absolutely, and I think there's also focus on context, right? When we just have some basic AI literacy that is helpful. But whatever AI tools you're using need to have the right context because, if it looks like something that can be done by anybody off the street without knowing anything about your company, it's gonna,

whether it's an automation process, whether it's content creation, whether it's media optimization strategy, if it's generic enough that somebody off the street can. Look at your website, plug it into Claude or chapter et, and come up with the same solution. Nataly: It's gonna fail. So really making sure that both you as the user and the prompter and the LLM have the context is incredible. Michael: 24:23

Yeah. Yeah. And so are you, I'm just curious how many of your engagements are about AI these days? Is it, I'm guessing it's in every engagement, but it may not be about that. Nataly: It is not necessarily a priority for every engagement. On the, I do sometimes support small business owners and solopreneurs. In those cases, I will help them set up and train their own lms. For ease of content creation in the future, once we have the personal brand established a lot of my other clients have internal processes where we'll advise on how to make sure you provide basic foundational

context to train those LLMs and where the gaps that we might be. Nataly: Watching for that, quite get it. One of the stats that I like to quote, and this is I guess relatively old stat now, was from August last year. But we saw something like 90 and 92% of AI initiatives in large organizations failed. Michael: Yeah, Nataly: and they failed because we just tried to slap automation on top of something we didn't really understand, and we tried to avoid the friction of defining it clearly. Nataly: 25:23

So this is where I go back to, yes, absolutely. We can use the tool. Let's figure out where it's going first. Let's make sure you can, we can actually validate that this process is working before we automate it. Michael: Yeah, and I love that analogy too because I, and the timing of it, you, so there's a conference in Dallas every year. Michael: It's called Convergent ai, and I don't know if people know this, but Dallas has a bevy of AI application AI people, it's because a lot of companies have moved there. There's just a rich set, people

that are practicing ai, not necessarily. Inventing it, but practicing it. And so this convergence ai, I've been to it three years, or this will be the third year and the first year it was all like, what is it, the second year I said, it's some very big companies, airlines, petro oil companies. Michael: 26:23

And they were talking about, they were just giving it to their employees and say, use it. Tell us how you like it. And I was thinking, you can't do that. That's can fail from the start. So yeah, it probably helped aid that 92% of failures by, the MIT study, because they didn't really have direction or a purpose. Michael: It was just like, try it, use it, and. So I think this year I'm really excited to see what people are. Hopefully it's more we are using it to do this outcome, right? Nataly: So what I'm seeing a lot of organizations do is actually create AI internal committees, or whatever term you particularly wanna use, where they have representatives from multiple teams bringing in the specific use cases that they would like to implement ai. Nataly: Onto, and then having the organizational conversation about

whether it makes sense and how do we do it, and how do we provide that guidance. I think it probably still a little bit limited in terms of input because there's probably a lot of ai, personal AI use experts with the teams that are not necessarily joining these committees. Nataly: But I think that approach is definitely better because at least you're. Coming in with very specific intent in mind. Michael: 27:23

Yeah, absolutely. I think that's critical. And I add one thing to every prompt I do, and it's challenged me on this at the end of it. And so instead of getting the answer right away, in my case, Claude or Gemini, when I use them they, I, sometimes it's annoying, but I get a lot of questions about do you really wanna say that? Michael: And it just helps me work through it. But That's awesome. So ai, we don't have to bury our conversation that Now you said something when we first met to talk about. You're in this podcast you had mentioned that said, sometimes you have to clear the. I don't you used a better word. Michael: Can you tell our audience about that? You said you gotta make space for it, I think is what? Nataly: It's gotta make space. In order to gain productivity, in order to add habits, in order

to introduce something new into any equation, you have to make space for it. Which means something's gotta go and something's gotta give the very basic corporate. Nataly: Approach for this as a stop start, continue. Whatcha gonna stop? Whatcha gonna start? Whatcha are you gonna continue doing? Requires just overlook of what's actually performing. Eisenhower Matrix is really good, a way to look at it. Yeah. But in terms of habit stacking or habit building, can't necessarily keep adding things to your to-do list. Nataly: 28:23

Some things going to fall off. And unless you have a really clear prioritization process. Which usually starts with what's really important to you. It's you are not going to know what's going to fall off. Things are just gonna fall off for you, and hopefully that's what you've intended to ignore to begin with. Nataly: This is the same thing in terms of revenue operations. You can't just add another tool and another process and another question and another step to the equation without really understanding what is it meant to replace and what is it meant to streamline. I always like to have a

conversation of. Nataly: Make space before you add, whether it's through coaching clients or marketing clients. Let's figure out what is this meant to replace. Michael: And I think that's an important lesson for everybody that, regardless of what it is, if you're gonna take on, you wanna become the best bread maker in your house, you have to have space for that. Nataly: Yeah. You have to have space literally on the counter. You have to have time, you have to al energy to research and process and document your recipes or whatever it might be. Michael: Yeah. Yeah. Nataly: 29:23

Space is absolutely required for introduction of anything into your life. Michael: That's fantastic. Michael: Anything that we missed or we covered a lot of ground here, but I do have a final question to ask you, but anything that we missed about your companies that you wanna, that we didn't cover? Nataly: No. Just to rehash, I'm here to support growth, whatever shape that, look at what that takes and whether it's individual or team or organizational. Nataly: So if growth and forward progression is something that you're interested in, reach out. Always happy to have a conversation. Michael: Yeah,

absolutely. Okay, so I ask every guest what is a and most people say coffee but is what is one non-negotiable habit that Natalie has? Nataly: Ooh, okay. Coffee is not necessarily it. Nataly: 30:23

I don't, although I do have a tea practice that makes me, brings me an incredible amount of joy. Before we get sleep. I am a champion sleeper. I'm very lucky. I go to sleep very easily. I sleep a solid seven, eight hours every night, and. I, no matter even back in college, all nighters were never an option for me. Nataly: I very painfully exist on laptop sleep when my daughter was going through her nons sleep period. It was very challenging for me. So sleep is one of those things that is a non-negotiable. Negotiable. It's not negotiable for most, they just don't feel it as specific, Michael: right? You say? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Michael: That's a, that's such an important one too. I just did, I was just started with the R ring and then I'm learning my sleep patterns and it's