The Final Showdown: Marketing vs Ops, Who is REALLY Slowing You Down?

Summary

Special Ops Podcast Episode Summary Episode Title: The Final Showdown: Marketing vs Ops, Who is REALLY Slowing You Down?
Release Date: May 13, 2025
Host: Emma Rainville
Guest: Yara Golden

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Introduction: The Love-Hate Dynamic Between Marketing and Operations

In the latest episode of Special Ops, hosted by seasoned entrepreneur Emma Rainville, the focal point is the often tumultuous relationship between marketing and operations teams within businesses. Emma and her guest, Yara Golden, delve into the intricacies of how misalignment between these two critical departments can hinder business growth and scalability.

Notable Quote:

Emma (00:12): "I can't live without you. For the yin to my Yang, it's a love-hate relationship."

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The Importance of Marketing and Operations Alignment

Emma sets the stage by highlighting the essential synergy between marketing and operations. Without this alignment, businesses risk stagnation and inefficiency. Marketing drives visibility and customer acquisition, while operations ensure that the backend processes can support and fulfill marketing promises.

Key Points:

• Interdependence: "Marketing without operations is hype. Operations without marketing is invisible."
  — Emma (00:54)

• Hidden Revenue Leaks: Misalignment leads to repeated work, missed deadlines, and lost opportunities, directly impacting the bottom line.

Notable Quote:

Yara (02:50): "There were so many times where we had to rework things. And those are hidden costs, right?"

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Identifying and Addressing Hidden Revenue Leaks

Yara provides concrete examples from her experience where lack of coordination between marketing and operations resulted in significant inefficiencies. She discusses how unstructured processes and poor communication can lead to extensive rework, wasting valuable time and resources.

Key Points:

• Systematic vs. Creative Processes: The clash between structured operations and the free-flowing creativity of marketing teams often results in confusion and inefficiency.
• Strategic Mapping: Implementing strategic planning to ensure both teams are on the same page from the outset can mitigate these issues.

Notable Quote:

Yara (05:23): "Writing, I don't want to follow it."

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Building Trust and Enhancing Communication

Emma and Yara emphasize the necessity of trust and open communication in bridging the gap between marketing and operations. They discuss various strategies to foster a collaborative environment where both teams can work towards common goals without undermining each other.

Key Points:

• Vulnerability and Trust-Building: Sharing personal strengths and weaknesses using tools like Myers-Briggs can help team members understand each other better.
• Structured Meetings: Designing meetings that respect both teams' perspectives ensures productive outcomes rather than unproductive brainstorming sessions.

Notable Quote:

Emma (09:04): "How do we commit to attacking the problem and getting rid of the problem instead of attacking each other?"

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Team Building and Personality Types

A significant portion of the discussion revolves around understanding individual personalities within teams. By leveraging personality assessments and fostering vulnerability, leaders can create a more cohesive and effective team dynamic.

Key Points:

• Myers-Briggs Assessments: Utilizing personality types to enhance team understanding and collaboration.
• Addressing Team Conflicts: Facilitating discussions that allow team members to express their frustrations and work towards mutual understanding.

Notable Quote:

Emma (12:22): "When you can understand where someone is coming from, it can really change the way that you work with them."

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Navigating the Challenges of Firing and Hiring

Emma shares a personal and poignant story about the difficulty of letting go of an underperforming team member. This segment underscores the emotional and operational complexities involved in maintaining a high-performing team.

Key Points:

• Emotional Toll: The struggle between personal loyalty and business necessity when considering firing an employee.
• Constructive Separation: Approaching terminations with empathy and professionalism to ensure both parties can move forward positively.

Notable Quote:

Emma (22:00): "I felt like I needed to be as loyal to him as I felt like I needed to be to him."

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Effective Meeting Structures for Alignment

To prevent marketing and operations from clashing in meetings, Emma and Yara discuss best practices for structuring interactions between the two teams. The goal is to ensure that meetings are productive and lead to actionable outcomes rather than endless brainstorming with no follow-through.

Key Points:

• Purpose-Driven Meetings: Clearly defining the objectives of each meeting to ensure that both teams contribute effectively.
• Action-Oriented Outcomes: Establishing next steps and responsibilities to convert meeting discussions into tangible actions.

Notable Quote:

Yara (27:11): "It's in how you structure the meeting."

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Conclusion: Scaling Through Collaboration

Emma and Yara wrap up the episode by reinforcing the necessity of collaboration and mutual respect between marketing and operations. They provide actionable insights and encourage listeners to leverage available resources, such as the downloadable playbooks, to implement the discussed strategies.

Key Takeaways:

• Unified Vision: Aligning both teams towards a common business objective is crucial for scaling effectively.
• Continuous Improvement: Regularly revisiting team dynamics and processes ensures ongoing alignment and efficiency.

Notable Quote:

Emma (34:00): "Marketing without operations is hype. Operations without marketing is invisible. If you want to scale, they have to work together."

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Additional Resources

For listeners looking to implement the strategies discussed, Special Ops offers a free downloadable playbook available at www.specialopspodcast.com/forward/vault.

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About the Hosts and Guest

• Emma Rainville: A seasoned entrepreneur dedicated to helping companies grow through actionable strategies and leadership development.
• Yara Golden: An expert in direct response marketing and operations, Yara brings firsthand experience in navigating and resolving marketing and operational misalignments.

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This episode of Special Ops provides a comprehensive exploration of the friction between marketing and operations teams, offering valuable strategies to harmonize these critical business functions for enhanced growth and efficiency.

Transcript

[A]

I can't live without you. For the yank to my Yang, it's.

[B]

A love hate relationship. I don't think that there's anything dangerous about ops other than maybe dimming the light of the marketing team. That is dangerous because you need that spark there.

[A]

FTC comes up for marketing teams.

[B]

That's true. That's so true. Yeah, marketing. I would say marketing is more dangerous, but it's really about understanding that at the end of the day, you're on the same team.

[A]

The problem's the problem. So how do we commit?

[B]

It's in saying okay, operations is not my strength. No.

[A]

You're so annoying. This turned into no kidding.

[B]

What a disaster.

[A]

An absolute sorority house nightmare of eight girls between two ops girls, one social girl and the rest marketing team. It's not a family, but true loyalty is recognizing when they need to go do something better somewhere else.

[B]

You put a bunch of creatives on a call and then you're staring at spreadsheets and like a bunch of creatives.

[A]

On a call, nothing happens. That's my creative hate call.

[B]

No one even takes like next steps.

[A]

One of the worst things I've ever done. I knew I should have fired this guy. Welcome back to another episode of Special Ops podcast where we create actionable insights for direct trust marketers and e commerce sellers. Let's be real. Marketing thinks they run the show. Operations thinks marketing is reckless and both sides are wrong. Here's the truth. Marketing without operations is site. Operations without marketing is invisible. If your business feels like it's constantly fixing problems instead of scaling smoothly, this is why on today's episode we're diving deep into the biggest resilience. Businesses break down as they scale. Marketing and operations don't communicate, don't collaborate and don't respect each other. We're fixing this today. I'm joined today by Yara golden, who's worked on some of the biggest plans and direct response. She's seen firsthand how bad messaging, leadership, misalignment and poor hiring lead to marketing chaos and operational nightmares. If marketing operations aren't aligned in your business and you're leaking money, today we're going to show you exactly how to fix it. Today we are talking about why operations and marketing can't live without each other. The Yang to my yang.

[B]

It's a love hate relationship.

[A]

I love to fucking hate you. In all seriousness though, like we it's a yin yang relationship and when you can figure it out, you can make magic. And when it doesn't work, it doesn't work. And you get a house on fire. So I want to just walk through some things. We've got a hidden revenue leak, and that's operations and marketing being misaligned and really hurting businesses. I'd love for you to just talk to me about what that specifically looks like when the two sides are just that chaos and what it looks like when they're not.

[B]

Yeah, for sure. I think last time we were here, we were talking about how our team doesn't do anything unless we have the strategy mapped out first. Client agrees, our internal team agrees, and then we can move. The reason that came about was because for so long we were moving before we had the strategy lockdown, which is really an operations thing, right? It's like, hey, this is the operation we're going to use to get the marketing out the door. And the marketing team was just like, we've got this ops. Go take a walk. We're gonna do our thing. This is what we know. And sure enough, we would have changes and changes and changes. And we didn't have access to things or we didn't have design write off or approvals were wishy washy. And we were asking people like, are things done or are they done done? And it just. There were so many times where we had to rework things. And those are hidden costs, right? Because most of the time you're just like, it's just what the marketing team does. But in reality was hours and hours upon hours of the team's time, which costs real money. Deadlines were pushed, opportunities were missed. There were so many costs involved in that. And so when our ops people actually came and showed us in black and white, hey, every time you have to go back and do copy, this is how many hours of the copywriter's time it's taking when you change that copy. This is how much of the designer's time it taking. Because now they have to go redo the sales page and we have to proofread everything, right? And you see the numbers in black and white add up and you're like, holy crap. All of that. Because we didn't get that very first thing checked off our list. And it happens all of the time in so many different ways. But that's one of the ways that I saw it in our business so clearly. And I was like, I don't want to do this anymore. And that was one of the points where I really started leaning on our ops team, where I was just like, okay, this is what we're trying to do. Help me create a process for it because we're following a process, even though we don't know that we're following a process. And I think that's what happens with creatives a lot of the time, is that we are doing things in a systematic way. We just don't realize that we are. We're like, no. It's just free flow. The inspiration strikes, and you sit with an OPS person, and they're like, okay, so step one is you sit at your desk and you turn the computer on and you have a warm cup of coffee. Step two is you're gonna open up this program, and you start wr. And all of a sudden, you sit there and you're just like, oh, my gosh, I do the exact same thing over, over and over and over again.

[A]

But now that you put it in.

[B]

Writing, I don't want to follow it.

[A]

I love that. It's really funny, actually. One of the world's most renowned copywriters, I created how to do a VSL step by step. And when he saw the sop, he lost his mind. I don't do it this way. Nobody does it this way.

[B]

He's like, it's intuitive.

[A]

He doesn't have it like this. And I'm like, so you wrote 3vsls exactly the same way? Yeah. And I just copied the process around sop. And then he sends out this email. He had two other partners that were copywriters. He sends out an email to me. The other operator happened to be Cat Merritt. I love her. Speaking and drinking. And then all three partners who's like, don't ever do it this way. It's your process, bro. Anyway, go back. I think it's so funny. I call it that he said, she said. Ops and marketing. Marketing is Operations is slowing us down. Perry complains about operations all the time. The dangerous thing about operations is nothing. There's nothing.

[B]

Says the operator.

[A]

Well, there's nothing dangerous about operations. Nothing dangerous about planning or. Or watching how much money you're spending or creating a strategy or whatever. But then marketing is like. Operations is like. Marketing is making promises we can't keep.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And ruining our reputation. So you have this, like, back and forth angry. We talked about this before. How do you sit down and get alignment between the two teams?

[B]

Yeah, I actually agree with you. I don't think that there's anything dangerous about ops other than maybe dimming the light of the marketing team. That is dangerous because you need that spark there. I do think that the marketing team is a little bit more dangerous because they can go off a Cliff.

[A]

Right. Do three times your money back if this doesn't work perfectly for you.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. This works 100% of the time for 100% of the people who do 100%.

[A]

Of the steps and operations. Never got anybody put in jail. The FTC comes up for marketing teams.

[B]

That's true. That's so true. Yeah, marketing. I would say marketing is more dangerous, but it's really about understanding that at the end of the day, you're on the same team. Right. And it all comes back to relationship and to communication. Right. If we're right now, we happen to be sitting across the table from each other. And if you are on that side and I'm on this side and we're looking at the problem, it's easy to forget that we're both looking for a solution.

[A]

I'm not the problem, the problem's the problem. So how do we commit to attacking the problem and getting rid of the.

[B]

Problem instead of attacking each other and being like, you're right or you're wrong and I'm right or whatever. It's. This is the problem that we're looking at and that we're attempting to solve right now. Can we work together? My business partner and my life partner, James, is a very logical person. I'm a very creative person. And we've done, like, deep dives into Myers Briggs personality types and all of these things, and we're basically the exact opposite of each other. And so what that means, really, is that we look at the world in completely different ways, and we've learned that what that really means is that we have opposite strengths of each other. The way he sees things isn't wrong. It's just different than the way I see things. And it's actually my blind spot. And the same is true for me with him. And so I see the same thing in marketing and ops. You see my blind spots because I'm going to be in marketing. I'm going to be in this creative whirlwind, and I'm going to be like.

[A]

Isn'T that great, Emma?

[B]

And you're going to be like, well, yes. And he's going to knock on our door, the FTC is coming. Or we're going to need to hire 12 team members to be able to do that, or we don't have manufacturing.

[A]

Capabilities to keep up with the system scale.

[B]

Exactly. Did you think about shipping costs and cost of goods and, like, all of these other things that weren't part of my. Oh, my God, this is so exciting. Brainstorm. And so I think that's where collaboration really lives. It's in saying, okay, operations is not my strength. I understand it, but it's not my strength. And marketing may not be your strength, but you understand that it's essential to what we're trying to do here. And so how can we meet in the middle and. And bring both of our strengths together to solve the problem that we're looking at.

[A]

For me, when I'm dealing with marketing and ops similar to you, you come in and you're a marketing team for people. I come in on the operations team for people. For actually.

[B]

What do you think is harder?

[A]

I think every business is different.

[B]

I would hate to be someone's ops team. But you might hate to be someone's marketing team.

[A]

No, we do provide marketing. It really depends on the business. If you have a marketer as a business owner, the marketing is going to be harder because nothing you're ever going to do is going to be good enough.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

If you have someone who just is absolutely egotistical around the product and the business and can't understand their own issues and problems or everything's their baby. So you can't in any way attack it. It's going to be the ops that have a hard time.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Because marketing can run with things and just keep making shit up that's. This is the best in the world and they'll be coddled and well, operations is like. But this isn't bringing in any money. There's a product issue here. It's not the marketing team. But for us, when we were working with marketing teams. I really love a book by Patrick. I never say his last name. Lincolni Never say it right. Doesn't matter. But I love this book. Five Dysfunctions of Team and then Overcoming Five Dysfunctions of Team. And so I make everyone who I work with that I make a manager directly. Read those two books. When you're working with these two teams, my instinct is to fire everybody. I've said that to you before. Fire them all. Rehire. It's gonna be so much easier. It's really not. It's just. But that's usually not an option.

[B]

It's on brand for you. Right.

[A]

People who are so petty that they would like. We're not a team. I'm just gonna fight every day and make your job hard.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Which puts all of our jobs at risk. I have a real hard time coming to. We should work on them and build them up so that we can build the company up. I personally would rather start from scratch. But they have all the tribal knowledge of the business. And when I'm coming in and don't have any tribal knowledge, I can't just fire two teams.

[B]

Yeah, totally.

[A]

I have to figure out how to make them work together. And so we generally come in and we work the five dysfunctions of team from the very beginning. And so we'll come in and we're going to build trust and we're going to build vulnerability and we're going to build communications. I actually, it's funny you mentioned Meyer Briggs because I always do team building and for team building, everybody gets their Myers Briggs. And we go page by page and it always starts with me. And it's a very vulnerable look at my personality. And then they each go, I'm very honest and vulnerable and open. And this is what's wrong with me.

[B]

Are you an intj?

[A]

I'm an executive. I don't remember what the letters are. Probably. I'm not judge, I'm turbulent.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

That's the only thing I know.

[B]

That's a shocker.

[A]

I studied the 16 personalities.

[B]

I didn't the letters.

[A]

Okay, so much. And how they work together. And so they actually offer this like whole book of every single one of them and breakdown of everything.

[B]

Oh yeah, we have it.

[A]

And then, yeah, so do I. And so I go through that. And when you learn each other's personality, then I'll start taking people that didn't get along and I'll be like, so Samantha, you and April have had a lot of turbulent issues over the course of the past two days. We can see that April feels very attacked. Anytime people are asking her questions and a cadence, she feels like she's under the Spanish Inquisition.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Do you think that maybe the way that you approached her, trying to learn and gain sight into what was going.

[B]

On in her department during your inquisition. Do you understand why she felt like that?

[A]

Sam is a lot like I am. And so she's just. I don't want to waste your time. I have four or five questions. Here's the questions over slack. Can you just get back to me? But Ava would read those and she'd be like, why is she questioning me? Does she think that I'm doing a bad job? I'm not doing a bad job. Does she know how hard I work?

[B]

I work so hard.

[A]

And this is how she was. And then we had another girl, Sarah, who like, anytime she had to talk to anyone, had to like do push.

[B]

Ups and get herself all pumped up.

[A]

Yeah. Because she was a copywriter, very much a creative Absolute brilliant what she did. But if you asked her for a phone call, she couldn't work the rest of the day. Another girl on the team, Rebecca, who, like, really needed phone calls. The back and forth text drove her crazy. So she'd be calling Sarah all the time and saying, hey, can we.

[B]

Sarah's like, under her desk, we've all got a call.

[A]

And. And Sarah's, no, you're so annoying. And then Sarah would talk bad about Rebecca over text because it's the only thing she can do to all the other girls. And then it's getting back to Rebecca like this turned into no kidding.

[B]

What a disaster.

[A]

An absolute sorority house nightmare of eight girls between two ops girls, one social girl, and the rest Martin and grader team. And so runs my house in Austin, Texas. We did the 16 personalities. And I've done this with every team ever since. And so we just literally go through. And it's like when you can understand where someone is coming from, it can really change the way that you work with them. So now I know that I can't send you a slack message and ask you six questions in a row. I say, hey, how are you? I'm really wondering about this. This project, because I'm one. I'm nervous now. I gotta speak my truth. I'm nervous that you guys are gonna get done with it and I'd have a bunch of things to do and I'm gonna get yelled at that it needs to be done today, and I just don't have the bandwidth. Can I ask you a few questions so I can understand where we're at? Meanwhile, I would hate that if someone sent that to me. You just asked me a question. Why don't you just ask me the questions? Understanding different people and their modalities, right, is so huge. But then when you can bring up some real vulnerability. And so one of the best ways that I love to do that is you go around in a circle and you say, if your life or a book. I think we've done this with Kevin. If your life or a book, what would the title be? You know, is make up some ridiculous thing. I love ChatGPT now because I can come up with all kinds, but I always make it so ridiculous and so vulnerable and so out there that has some, like, hidden ounce of truth to it so that everybody feels comfortable. And one of the guys that I worked with, he was on the tech team. Everybody hated the tech team. Tech breaks everything. Tech didn't get good specs. We don't speak tech. And then we expected tech to understand what we needed, but his title was is there even something here? You want to know how often people were meeting to him after that? Never. Never, never. And that team surrounded him and made him feel important and special every opportunity they got. So now we built this vulnerability and now we build the commitment. And the commitment is I'm not just some work friend of yours or some co worker. I can call you out and question you because I know how to. In a safe space. You're vulnerable enough to listen because we've been vulnerable together and we can talk out the outcome that's best for the business without any personal feelings involved. I feel comfortable in calling you out, how many times you sat in teams and someone comes to you after the fact, so and so said, it will never work. When you can get people, both ends of that spectrum, to A, be comfortable enough to bring it up and not feel like they're going to be hated, and B, be comfortable enough to bring it up because it's a responsibility to their friend. And now we can create. This is what we're going to do. No matter whose idea it was, we're all committed to getting it done. When you can create that in the team, which is why I have that 90 minute breaker, by the way, that has to be nurtured and continue to be nurtured over and over.

[B]

And it has to be. It has to be modeled for people like, you've got to go first. And I think that's one of the things that leadership management misses so often is that they're just like, do what I say, not what I do do. Right. Like, and you can't do that. You literally have to get on the calls with your team and just be like, hey, this is what I'm nervous about. Or this is what I'm working on. Or this is what I've been thinking. There's a mistake. I made all of those things because that creates the space for them to be like, hey, let me jump in and help you.

[A]

I made a mistake. I need help figuring out how I fix my mistake.

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

That is the best thing you can do. I'll make it up sometimes.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Mostly because I don't do anything anymore. Sometimes I'll just stop noticing people going on their own way and I'll just. I'll really just. Okay, we need a unifier. And how do we. What do you unify around problem?

[B]

Yep.

[A]

And solving the problem podcast isn't doing so great. I never look at the stats.

[B]

That's right.

[A]

Louis Diaz's problem from top 10 podcasts. I pay him to that he'll let me know if there's an issue. The podcast isn't doing so great. Our insights are tanking. What are some ideas we can have for promoting the podcast? And what's so funny is they'll brainstorm and they'll give me a bunch of ideas, and like, two, three days later. It's always Richard. It's always Richard. Hey. I looked at the podcast stats, and they're perfectly fine. They're actually better this week than they were last week. I don't know what those people are talking about. I read it wrong.

[B]

Yeah. It's important, though. We're tasked with growing companies, but also growing each other. And so when somebody's on your team, like, we say this all the time about our team. We're like, we don't want followers. Like, we want leaders. We want to bring people into the company who are going to learn, who are going to grow, who are going to share their thought leadership with us so that we all get better.

[A]

Answering the phone can be a leader.

[B]

Absolutely. Yeah. And so that's. I think that's what the task is. It's like, the more you're able to grow your people and the closer those bonds, not necessarily familial. Like, we hate it when people are like, oh, like, our team is our family. It's. No, it's not. Like, it's not.

[A]

You want to know what I won't do? I won't kill off one of my kids.

[B]

Yeah, exactly. Like, we don't.

[A]

I'll fire one of my kids.

[B]

Fired.

[A]

Every single one.

[B]

We always say we're like, you're not gonna fire grandma. But we totally would fire grandma. I would buy grandma. Yeah, but I'm not gonna kick you.

[A]

Out of the family.

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

If you stop showing up to Sunday dinner.

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

I'm a hundred percent gonna kick you off this team if you're not present when you do show up. Yeah.

[B]

Not only that, but, like, it's just like in a sports team. Right. Sometimes they're free agents and they get traded, and they're there for a reason and for a purpose and for a season. And sometimes. Do you have team players that stay for the. Their career? Absolutely. You have career players, but the coaches, the managers are in charge of saying, we need to bring this talent in. We need to trade that talent out. You served your purpose. Thank you so much. Like, it's not you as a human, just the place that you had on this team is no longer available. Or not needed or has changed and you may not fit the new role. Right. Growing and developing people, talent, team members is what helps you grow and develop your company and scale. Like that's, to me it's a no brainer. But I think that it needs to be said because some people just get so attached to like their roles and their positions in companies and as owners they're just like, oh, but they've been with me from the beginning and it's cool. But what got you here is not going to get you there. And that includes the people sometimes.

[A]

Absolutely. You need Q as a leader, mentor your people to try and develop them as quickly as your business is developing. Ultimately it's their choice or capacity that is going to limit them. You owe them and the other people on your team the courtesy of saying, this is not working anymore.

[B]

Yeah, because how sucky does it feel?

[A]

Terrible. Terrible. Absolutely terrible. One of the worst things I've ever done. Ever done. I knew I should have fired this guy for probably about six months. He had only been with me for six months, but I adored him. I thought he was so great. And I, I just, I can, I can work with him through this. I can work with them through this. And the more time around, the more angry he was getting and the worse he was getting in his job. He did not have the capacity to deliver. He was really good at taking notes that he couldn't comprehend because he was so busy taking notes.

[B]

Do you know what I mean?

[A]

And so the simplest things he would have on his plate for three months, he'd be like, I understand what needs to be done, but what's the difference?

[B]

You're like, but you wrote it down.

[A]

Right, right.

[B]

Understand, I understand.

[A]

I need more details on there. And then I'd give it to somebody else with even less direction and they have it done in days. And I happened over and over again. I don't know what the hell was wrong with me. I couldn't fire it. And so at some point I sat down and I was just like, damn it. And so I was like, I don't want to hurt him financially, so I'm going to take his pay and bring it down to what I know his contribution of expenses are to his house so I don't screw him up, which will make him go look for another job. What an absolute toxic thing to do. Meanwhile, I've got him working for a year, making him more angry because he cannot live up to his job. He of course, did not blame himself. He blamed me for following, right? So he gets more miserable. He lived a year of being miserable. I lived six months of being miserable. And then in the end, I did the most toxic possible thing I could do. And I really. From. From my soul. I meant it.

[B]

Right.

[A]

To be a decent human thing to do. I don't want to hurt you in any way.

[B]

There's this ops, being creative.

[A]

Back on topic. You got to let people go. Yeah.

[B]

Because it's a bad situation for both.

[A]

It's way worse for them, like their self worth, self esteem, their ability to trust themselves. Have you ever worked with somebody that couldn't make a decision that absolutely needed you to look at absolutely everything? You want to know why they needed that? Because someone yelled at them multiple times for taking a chance and doing it.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah. It's incredible. And when you let those people go, I think everybody's relieved. Everybody's relieved. And they're able to go find something that truly is fulfilling and makes them happy. Because he may have been staying because it's a paycheck and I've been here for so long and some cost. Right.

[A]

I think he really felt that he had to be as loyal to me as I felt like I needed to be to him.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I don't.

[B]

There's so many dynamics.

[A]

I remember the exact moment that I knew that I sure let him go.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And it took me six months to come to shit.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I got to do something. And I still didn't let him go. I still didn't let him go. What I thought was a great thing, but the meanest thing ever here. Continue to work for me for a quarter of the price.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

To force you to go get another job. Like just go get unemployment and take some time.

[B]

Yeah. That's so crazy.

[A]

Anyway, round us back.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You were saying, feeling this loyalty, the team members. True. It's not a family, but true loyalty is recognizing when they need to go do something better somewhere else.

[B]

Absolutely.

[A]

They're so damn concerned about them because they've been there. Give them severance so they have plenty of time to find another job.

[B]

And just to show the flip side of that conversation, the story that you just told, we had a junior consultant who had worked her way up.

[A]

Right.

[B]

She was an EA then she worked her way up to being a junior consultant. And she came to my partner, James, and she's just, hey, I really need to start making more money for my family. And we were just like, okay, the current position that you're in doesn't really provide for more. And there's not really a Next rung right now. And she says, I've been talking to this other company who, you know, is willing to offer me a position. And James sat with her and he talked with her, and he's just, let's talk about it. Let's talk about the offer. Let's talk about the role. Let's talk about the company. And it actually happened to be somebody that we knew. So it was a client of ours who had a position that she had already been doing the work through us, but there was a bigger opportunity for her. And so he was just like, this is a good fit for you. And if they're going to pay you the amount of money that you see as necessary and for your family and all these things, and it checks all the boxes. Godspeed. And he's just, can you help us find your replacement and make sure that they get trained up and all this? And she was like, absolutely.

[A]

And so are always happy when my people, they leave on good terms. Exactly. Step up.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And I get to play a role in that journey. I can't. You're not worth that dollar amount to me in the world that you're in right now. I don't have a role that has that equivalent. Say, oh, my gosh, I hate to see you go, but I'm going to love to watch you leave and. And succeed.

[B]

Totally. And that's exactly how we felt. It was such a beautiful moment for us where we were like, we grew you and you learned under us, and now you have this greater opportunity for yourself. And you're not leaving us in a bad place. Position. We still have a relationship to this day, and it's just. It's really cool when that happens. So it's like the Ying to that yang where it's okay sometimes you hang on for too long and they end up leaving. And on the other end of it, it's like sometimes you grow somebody and they end up leaving. And that's okay, too. That's okay, too.

[A]

I met two people that started off as my EA and left my company to take a CEO role.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

It's so rewarding. So amazing.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I want to pull us back a little bit on track, though, because we're talking about marketing and operations. Operations and alignment. Sometimes firing people who are toxic to the journey is important.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But I just want to come back to that. We've talked through team building and we've talked through communication channels and meetings and all other things. Is there anything else you want to add before we close out to keep marketing and Operations aligned.

[B]

I think that as much as I dislike ops and marketing being on the same meeting, I think that they're so necessary.

[A]

I do literally just knock you out right now. I know, I know. They, you're in a strategic meeting and then a follow up before launch.

[B]

I. Yeah, but, but tell me, tell me that marketing isn't like sitting there rolling their eyes most of the time because it's, it's not the way that we look at the world. And so I think it's in how.

[A]

You structure the meeting.

[B]

Totally.

[A]

I believe that I run marketing ops meetings where I told you we have a do not dim the light.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

It's like we have some challenges on the delivery process, which is our problem. We may come back and ask for some shifts in coffee. What do you want the customer experience to be? And then we listen.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And then when operations comes back with, hey, great, this is really awesome what you guys built, but we will never be able to deliver a free ticket to an in person event because your numbers say that we're going to sell 20,000 people. So what can we put in place for that?

[B]

How are we feeding them?

[A]

We. The hotel fits a thousand. So what are we putting in place to that? Can we do a virtual free ticket instead? Or can we raffle off to 100 of our members? Like, how can we, how can we adjust this to make it work?

[B]

It is in the way that you run it. And I think that's where I was getting to. Right. It's if you put a bunch of creatives on a call and then you're staring at spreadsheets and like a bunch.

[A]

Of creatives on a call, nothing happens. That's why creative hate calls.

[B]

Totally. Very, very.

[A]

It's gonna be a whole bunch of ideas.

[B]

No one even takes, like next steps. Everyone's just, I feel great.

[A]

I, I hate that. I know this, but if you turn lights on and there's cockroaches in the house, like, you'll see a thousand roaches scatter. Just get on a past life. But if you pass life, I saw a movie, actually. You know, I'll play that rope and confidence.

[B]

She's walking. For those of you who can't see her.

[A]

I don't even know the light with doctors.

[B]

The cockroaches scatter.

[A]

So cockroaches scatter. And that's, that's what I think of when I hear, oh, the marketing department's on a team brainstorming ideas. And I'm just like, oh, God, all the cockroaches are Gonna be running around, like, freaking all over the kitchen.

[B]

Damn it. No. Damn it.

[A]

And then you get on. You're like, so, you know, what are you. What are you gonna do? And your. Your email copy person is like, yeah, so many great ideas. What are you going to do? I don't know.

[B]

I don't really know.

[A]

You go to your DSL person, like, what's the big idea? What's the mechanism? Like, what you guys decide?

[B]

I can't tell you how many calls I've been on where we're like, in Ads Manager, looking at all the numbers, and I'm just like, I don't, like, I'm just not interested.

[A]

I never, ever have marketing people in ads.

[B]

No.

[A]

Here's what heat maps found. Here's what Vitalytics is saying. Put it all together. And we need to change the buy buttons. We need to change the headline. And the intro is we.

[B]

Exactly. Exactly.

[A]

How are you guys gonna fix it?

[B]

Yeah, go have a brainstorm session about how you're gonna fix that.

[A]

And then when you create 9,000 things, I'm gonna get back on a call with you and we're gonna determine next steps.

[B]

Exactly. Yeah, but that's the thing, right? So that. That would be the only thing. It's. Yes, there are. There. It's a Venn diagram. Right. It's like marketing operations. And then there's like a little slice in the middle where they, like, overlap for meetings. Because there is optimization that needs to happen, and both of those departments are involved in that. And so that's the piece of the conversation where it's okay. What does all of the data say? Like, ops interpret the data, tell us what that means, and then we'll go.

[A]

The data.

[B]

No, like, we.

[A]

Spreadsheets.

[B]

Exactly. I'm like, I don't. I don't. I didn't even look at them. Like, I didn't look at them.

[A]

Of course you look. Of course you look at them. You also didn't read your brief before the meeting? No, it's fine.

[B]

But I took notes in colored pens.

[A]

I'm actually seeing your notes in color. I do colored pens as well, by the way. I really do. I think the colored pens is a brilliant way. We do it very differently, though.

[B]

Probably yours mean stuff. Mine is just for aesthetics. I do.

[A]

It's very scattered and interesting. Mine absolutely means things. It's like, red is. Take action right now. Make sure you don't miss this. Pink is. Hey, this is getting red, but not quite red.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Orange is. This is nonsense. And I'm Just writing to make it look like I'm in interested on what this person is saying. Green is. This is an idea out of a hundred ideas that actually will work and I should revisit soon. Purple is. Don't ever do this. But remember that he's trying to. I have lime green. I have 16 colors and they all.

[B]

So I write on the right side of the notebook, all of my notes, whatever catches my attention. And then on the left side. No, on the left side. I actually do like my action items. So I. So I separate them out. Yeah. But I have to keep myself busy because I'll listen better if I'm.

[A]

Same.

[B]

Yeah, same.

[A]

It's the adhd. One time I was on a call. Oh, God, I'm sorry. I have to say this because it's so funny. I'm on a call and I'm talking to this guy and I'm just like. I write down while I hear a panther on fire. Why the am I on this call? And so I get up and I'm like, hey, Perry, do you want to jump in here? Because he's at my house, right?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So we're talking about. Perry Belcher is a client of mine. Good friend Tiyata. And so I get up, I'm like, perry, okay, you better hop on his call. He's got some stuff he wants to share with you. And Perry sits down and I hear him like he's talking to the guy for about three minutes.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And he must have looked down and saw. And he starts laughing and she doing. He goes this crazy. She has liar pants on fire. What the am I doing on this call? I wonder who. And he just stops and he's. You know how he does that where he sticks his die out?

[B]

He's.

[A]

I guess it's time for me to go.

[B]

Nice. He just pulled the grenade.

[A]

Absolutely. Okay, guys, if this episode hit home for you and you are realizing you've got a marketing versus Ops gap to fix, good news. We built a resource that's going to help you do it without hiring another consultant. Consulting. The marketing and Ops alignment blueprint has the exact three step framework we discussed today. Checklists to implement these strategies in your own company. And you can get this by downloading it inside the Visionary vault for free at www.specialops podcast.com forward/vault. Marketing without operations is hyped. Operations without marketing is invisible. If you want to scale, they have to work together. Fix this and your business runs like a machine. Thank you so much for joining us on Special Ops podcast today. How do they find you?

[B]

You can find me at yadagolden.com y-a r-a G-O-L-E-E.n.com pay attention to the R.

[A]

Because her name is spelled stupid yada, but it's Y A R A. Thank you so much.

[B]

Absolutely.