Oct. 12, 2021

How Ramsey Solutions Organizes Their Marketing Team for Fast Results w/Trey Sheneman

In this episode, Dan Sanchez talks with Trey Sheneman who is an Executive Director of Marketing at Ramsey Solutions about how they are organizing their marketing teams to move fast.

In this episode, you'll discover:

  1. Ramsey's approach to a matrix style organization
  2. The squad marketing model that allows for the kind of cross-functional buy in that allows team to go fast.
  3. How they layer Kanban on top to make for an agile environment.
  4. How to get it started in your own department.

Trey's book recommendations:

  1. Inspired: How to Create Tech Products Customers Love
  2. Empowered: Ordinary People, Extraordinary Products
Transcript
WEBVTT 1 00:00:02.540 --> 00:00:02.740 Yeah, 2 00:00:05.240 --> 00:00:09.000 welcome back to BTB growth. I'm dan Sanchez with Sweet fish Media and I'm 3 00:00:09.000 --> 00:00:13.240 here with Trey Scheunemann who is the executive Director of marketing at 4 00:00:13.240 --> 00:00:18.440 Ramsey solutions tray, welcome to the show dan my linkedin buddy. This is a 5 00:00:18.450 --> 00:00:21.490 long time coming here. You and I've been connected for, I don't know, a 6 00:00:21.490 --> 00:00:25.230 year, year and a half or so. I love your content, I love this podcast and 7 00:00:25.230 --> 00:00:28.950 I'm stoked to be here excited to talk to you today. Yes, I've been looking 8 00:00:28.950 --> 00:00:32.119 forward to this show for a long time. It's been months, months in the works 9 00:00:32.119 --> 00:00:35.800 of back and forth and now we're finally here and I'm excited to talk to you 10 00:00:35.800 --> 00:00:40.840 because I know Ramsey's Had some huge growth over the last decade. Remember 11 00:00:40.840 --> 00:00:45.440 listening to Dave way back in 2010, just went onto the leadership was 12 00:00:45.440 --> 00:00:49.230 launched and of course it's it's grown tremendously since then from a few 100 13 00:00:49.230 --> 00:00:53.630 people to well over 1000 employees now and I know you guys are building a 14 00:00:53.630 --> 00:00:57.480 whole new building, you're probably you're going to be at Maybe over 2000 15 00:00:57.480 --> 00:01:02.840 soon. Yeah, with all that change, all that growth comes a significant amount 16 00:01:02.840 --> 00:01:07.310 of change. And so one of the things we talked about in our pre interview was 17 00:01:07.310 --> 00:01:11.800 some of the changes taking place in your marketing team and I thought the 18 00:01:11.800 --> 00:01:14.760 audience would just be fascinated to know how you guys are organizing those 19 00:01:14.760 --> 00:01:19.160 things but to kind of kick it off, I wanted to know how many marketers do 20 00:01:19.160 --> 00:01:23.940 you currently have at Ramsey. So we are a Matrix organization. So marketing is 21 00:01:23.940 --> 00:01:26.470 a Matrix discipline within Ramsey and we're going to talk more about that as 22 00:01:26.470 --> 00:01:30.150 we go. I actually had to go and look this number up because I was unsure. As 23 00:01:30.150 --> 00:01:34.630 of just last week we have 100 and eight marketers who work here at Ramsey, so 24 00:01:34.630 --> 00:01:39.310 about 10% of the company is in some marketing discipline. Um And that just 25 00:01:39.310 --> 00:01:42.420 accounts for the actual marketing strategist or the channel specialists 26 00:01:42.420 --> 00:01:46.800 that we have, that does not account for the sort of support personnel that go 27 00:01:46.800 --> 00:01:49.970 into creating marketing work, which we'll talk about that structure here 28 00:01:49.970 --> 00:01:53.070 shortly, but that, you know, writers, designers, engineers, so on and so 29 00:01:53.070 --> 00:01:57.430 forth. But just pure marketers a little over 100. So for those who aren't 30 00:01:57.430 --> 00:02:00.590 familiar with like the whole Matrix style, like there's usually a few 31 00:02:00.590 --> 00:02:04.750 different ways to organize market departments within a, I can't even say 32 00:02:04.750 --> 00:02:07.980 large organizations but mid sized to large companies, What are the few 33 00:02:07.980 --> 00:02:12.140 different types of ways to organize marketing? Yeah. So my client's 34 00:02:12.140 --> 00:02:15.770 experience, I've experienced two ways. Uh And then I had agency experienced 35 00:02:15.770 --> 00:02:19.840 before that and I'd say I experienced most of these ways as well, you tend to 36 00:02:19.840 --> 00:02:24.510 either have the fully embedded model where if you're in a specific business 37 00:02:24.510 --> 00:02:28.430 business line item or a business unit within the overall P and L. Of a of a 38 00:02:28.430 --> 00:02:32.680 mid sized company, you have fully embedded teams who only work on that 39 00:02:32.690 --> 00:02:37.390 information or you'll have sort of the somewhat embedded Center of Excellence 40 00:02:37.390 --> 00:02:41.040 model where some of your team fully work in the business and some of your 41 00:02:41.040 --> 00:02:45.250 team act more as consultative voices around specific channels or specific 42 00:02:45.250 --> 00:02:48.390 strategies. And then the third model that I've seen when I was an agency 43 00:02:48.390 --> 00:02:52.430 world is the other model where there were no embedded marketers anywhere 44 00:02:52.440 --> 00:02:56.860 inside the actual business units of the organization. They were all the center 45 00:02:56.860 --> 00:03:01.450 of excellence and they kind of acted as an internal agency within the brand. So 46 00:03:01.450 --> 00:03:06.960 or so I've seen that range of client side, uh kind of set ups and Ramsey 47 00:03:06.960 --> 00:03:10.420 functions very much in the middle. One of those three that I that I discussed, 48 00:03:10.420 --> 00:03:14.500 some embedded in some more center of excellence. I've seen a few of them 49 00:03:14.500 --> 00:03:17.880 myself and I've noticed going back from one to the other, I was kind of like, 50 00:03:17.890 --> 00:03:21.200 uh like it's always, there's always pros and cons, right? There's never 51 00:03:21.200 --> 00:03:25.370 enough resources. Usually when you have dedicated marketing teams working for 52 00:03:25.380 --> 00:03:29.980 an individual business unit, right, they're always missing something or one 53 00:03:29.980 --> 00:03:32.730 team has this specialty person, you're like, oh, can we get some of that 54 00:03:32.730 --> 00:03:36.250 person's help? Right? So there's always a downfall with that model. But at the 55 00:03:36.250 --> 00:03:39.720 same time, the agency model, I think we both know how that's panned out at 56 00:03:39.720 --> 00:03:43.340 times where the biggest business unit gets all the attention and there's 57 00:03:43.340 --> 00:03:47.160 always the smaller business units that are always crying crying foul. We never 58 00:03:47.160 --> 00:03:50.460 get treated enough. But for marketing, right, we never get our fair share, 59 00:03:50.940 --> 00:03:53.520 which is pretty much at every organization that runs that that's 60 00:03:53.520 --> 00:03:56.550 happened to me and I'm usually the project manager in the middle trying to 61 00:03:56.550 --> 00:04:01.930 keep the peace, which is no fun. Now the Matrix model has been interesting, 62 00:04:01.930 --> 00:04:06.190 right? And I've seen a lot of people recommended, I've no verne Harnish is a 63 00:04:06.190 --> 00:04:11.110 big fan of the Matrix model, but where verne Harnisch from scaling up would 64 00:04:11.110 --> 00:04:16.660 recommend essentially, I think having like a brand manager within the middle, 65 00:04:16.670 --> 00:04:19.640 in the marketing department that reports to the business unit leader and 66 00:04:19.640 --> 00:04:24.370 has a dotted line to the CMO, you guys do the opposite? How did you, how did 67 00:04:24.370 --> 00:04:28.900 you arrive at that conclusion? To mix it up that way? I would say primarily 68 00:04:28.900 --> 00:04:31.550 because if you think about Ramsey's history. So for those who are 69 00:04:31.550 --> 00:04:35.010 unfamiliar with Ramsey solutions, most people would know our Ceo Dave Ramsey's 70 00:04:35.010 --> 00:04:39.580 gotta talk radio show that he's had for 20 some odd years on money management, 71 00:04:39.580 --> 00:04:42.680 personal finance management, things of that nature. But we do lots of other 72 00:04:42.680 --> 00:04:46.490 things books, you know, we've got B two B services, we have about 15 different 73 00:04:46.500 --> 00:04:50.770 business lines within the Ramsey Solutions umbrella. So in the early 74 00:04:50.770 --> 00:04:54.470 days here, you know, when we, the marketing was very centralized into 75 00:04:54.470 --> 00:04:58.480 that kind of agency or single team approach, there were certain things 76 00:04:58.480 --> 00:05:01.640 that got the coverage is certain that didn't and so we knew there was gonna 77 00:05:01.640 --> 00:05:05.560 be a scale and when you're moving out of sort of the traditional channels of 78 00:05:05.560 --> 00:05:08.870 radio, live events, book kind of traditional media and into digital 79 00:05:08.870 --> 00:05:12.910 media, uh, there was, there was a real need and a desire to make sure that the 80 00:05:12.910 --> 00:05:17.150 discipline of marketing stay true to the craft and stayed straight through 81 00:05:17.150 --> 00:05:20.730 to the growth model while the business units kind of caught up. And so that's 82 00:05:20.730 --> 00:05:24.700 why we, we have, it's still even today, you know, we are direct line to our 83 00:05:24.700 --> 00:05:28.150 discipline and then died aligned to the business. Now, that's a reporting, 84 00:05:28.150 --> 00:05:32.870 that's an organizational structure. Um, I would say functionally I spend 85% of 85 00:05:32.870 --> 00:05:37.730 my time and the businesses that I serve. And so with my teams that I lied, but 86 00:05:37.730 --> 00:05:40.310 at the end of the day, you know, who do I ultimately report to? You know, my 87 00:05:40.310 --> 00:05:44.000 seat reports up through to the CMO of the organization and so do the business 88 00:05:44.000 --> 00:05:47.690 unit Marketer's report up through me. And I think it's more from a discipline 89 00:05:47.690 --> 00:05:52.380 oversight standpoint than it is necessarily a objective or key results, 90 00:05:52.380 --> 00:05:56.030 sort of accountability standpoint. All that comes from the business. And it's 91 00:05:56.030 --> 00:05:59.430 worked for us. It's worked for us in that we've, like I said, we've, we've 92 00:05:59.430 --> 00:06:03.410 grown a hunt, you know, from, from 12 or 15, 10, 12 years ago to over 100 93 00:06:03.940 --> 00:06:06.990 going to grow even more now, you know, is it something that's up for 94 00:06:06.990 --> 00:06:10.360 discussion long term might be, I don't know, that's just the model that we've 95 00:06:10.360 --> 00:06:14.380 deployed up to this point. Would you guys say that Ramsey's is like a 96 00:06:14.380 --> 00:06:18.300 marketing almost feel like, I don't know like even 10 years ago, like a 97 00:06:18.300 --> 00:06:21.860 popular mantra that people have been banging the drum on ever since then is 98 00:06:22.240 --> 00:06:25.820 marking department should become media departments, right? I feel like 99 00:06:25.820 --> 00:06:29.320 Ramsey's has kind of grown up like that. Like Ramsey literally started as a 100 00:06:29.320 --> 00:06:33.010 radio show and then grew into a business. Like it's always been a media 101 00:06:33.010 --> 00:06:36.020 company, It's always had marketing at the forefront. Do you feel like that 102 00:06:36.020 --> 00:06:40.730 might play into like why it's such a marketing focused organization? Yeah, I 103 00:06:40.730 --> 00:06:43.370 would say we're heavy sells the marketing driven organization and that 104 00:06:43.370 --> 00:06:47.720 kind of his nuance very specifically from the D. N. A. Of of our ceo himself 105 00:06:47.720 --> 00:06:52.010 and Dave, I mean in his core, he is an incredible salesman. He's an incredible 106 00:06:52.010 --> 00:06:56.270 marketer. The gentleman can, can do positioning like very few other people, 107 00:06:56.280 --> 00:06:59.670 um that I've ever seen. And he's also the only Ceo I know in America that 108 00:06:59.670 --> 00:07:03.420 talks to our customer for two hours every day on the radio, so he's very in 109 00:07:03.420 --> 00:07:08.160 tune with the customer and the customer psyche. And so for us as the marketing 110 00:07:08.160 --> 00:07:13.440 department, he's a great confident or a great advisor to us in that regard. And 111 00:07:13.440 --> 00:07:17.390 so yeah, we pride ourselves on being a marketing first company who creates 112 00:07:17.390 --> 00:07:20.630 transformative media, it's not just Dave you know, and the other, we have, 113 00:07:20.640 --> 00:07:23.240 you know, a handful of other personalities, we've got our first full 114 00:07:23.240 --> 00:07:26.580 length documentary coming out in 10 days about the student loan debt crisis 115 00:07:26.580 --> 00:07:31.460 in America, which is just crazy right now. $33 trillion I think in in debt. 116 00:07:31.460 --> 00:07:34.820 It's incredible. Full link to our documentary that we made. You know, 117 00:07:34.820 --> 00:07:37.660 we've got other projects like that coming in the years to come because we 118 00:07:37.660 --> 00:07:42.160 do view ourselves as media makers and not just product makers at the same 119 00:07:42.160 --> 00:07:47.150 time, my specific division is heavily in the digital products space because 120 00:07:47.150 --> 00:07:51.180 we do see that as the future of this brand is that we have the media out 121 00:07:51.180 --> 00:07:54.030 there in the marketplace, creating those first connections and the 122 00:07:54.030 --> 00:07:57.150 emotional touch points with people where we move them into from a 123 00:07:57.150 --> 00:08:00.780 transformational standpoint is into digital products and that's ultimately 124 00:08:00.780 --> 00:08:03.620 what we think the long term future is, is the way we connect media and 125 00:08:03.620 --> 00:08:08.200 personality to product kind of long term. Yeah, I mean when I saw Dave 126 00:08:08.200 --> 00:08:12.780 Ramsey start to get into like the sash and recurring revenue model was like, 127 00:08:12.790 --> 00:08:17.860 oh, watch out like he's going to start blowing up because the recurring 128 00:08:17.860 --> 00:08:22.160 revenue model is just so powerful and being able to just do normal things 129 00:08:22.160 --> 00:08:26.250 like forecast and then budget according to an accurate forecast. That makes the 130 00:08:26.250 --> 00:08:29.690 difference when you're trying to grow. So I'm excited about the continued 131 00:08:29.690 --> 00:08:34.270 growth at Ramsey is about to see, I know within your marketing teams, you 132 00:08:34.270 --> 00:08:38.890 guys don't just organize according according your your your teams 133 00:08:38.890 --> 00:08:42.520 according to specialties, but before we dive into the specialties, like kind of 134 00:08:42.520 --> 00:08:46.450 give me an idea of like how you're marking, departments are structured and 135 00:08:46.450 --> 00:08:51.070 then with the specialties, um, teams at the bottom. So we sort of have two 136 00:08:51.070 --> 00:08:55.260 lines of marketing function. We have business unit marketing, which are is 137 00:08:55.260 --> 00:08:58.870 designed to be a more of a generalist marketer who can come in understand the 138 00:08:58.870 --> 00:09:02.400 needs of the business, the functions of the product, the voice of the customer 139 00:09:02.400 --> 00:09:06.430 for that specific product line. Um in a lot of ways they function sort of like 140 00:09:06.430 --> 00:09:10.210 a product manager would function just on the marketing side of the equation. 141 00:09:10.220 --> 00:09:14.340 And then we have specialty marketers within the building. So going to your, 142 00:09:14.340 --> 00:09:18.040 you know, you and I have talked owner and paid before, so content strategist, 143 00:09:18.040 --> 00:09:22.810 content marketers. S ceos paid media buyers cros specialist, which is the 144 00:09:22.810 --> 00:09:25.550 newest discipline we've added in the last two years since I've been here, 145 00:09:25.560 --> 00:09:29.300 which is, which is awesome. So we're running split tests, pretty much 24 146 00:09:29.300 --> 00:09:34.210 hours a day, seven days a week across the scope of our funnel. Um so you have 147 00:09:34.210 --> 00:09:36.850 those channel specialists and those businesses and marketers and it's sort 148 00:09:36.850 --> 00:09:40.530 of like we understand the customer, we understand the business needs, we 149 00:09:40.530 --> 00:09:43.380 understand the problems are product solves, we understand the go to market 150 00:09:43.380 --> 00:09:46.630 strategy and then they partner with those channel specialists who then come 151 00:09:46.630 --> 00:09:49.560 in and say we understand the channel, we understand the tactics, we 152 00:09:49.560 --> 00:09:53.240 understand the bid strategies, we understand, you know schema markup in S. 153 00:09:53.240 --> 00:09:56.780 E. O. So those groups put their heads together and the best way for us to go 154 00:09:56.780 --> 00:10:01.360 and problem solve this objective with these key results is to do X, Y and Z. 155 00:10:01.370 --> 00:10:05.400 So it's a real partnering kind of symbiotic relationship from a strategic 156 00:10:05.400 --> 00:10:09.220 thinking standpoint. Um And then when we're ready to deliver the work that 157 00:10:09.220 --> 00:10:12.800 we've dreamed up, we actually use a squad model kind of from the Inspired 158 00:10:12.800 --> 00:10:16.380 empowered world from marty Kagan from Silicon Valley product group. Great 159 00:10:16.380 --> 00:10:20.290 book series. If you have something you want to read. And those two books um to 160 00:10:20.290 --> 00:10:24.050 where those these groups almost function like internal little many 161 00:10:24.050 --> 00:10:28.130 agencies inside of the one business unit that they now serve as a fully 162 00:10:28.130 --> 00:10:32.700 dedicated resource to drive that businesses. Gold channel specialist, 163 00:10:32.700 --> 00:10:36.940 generalist marketer and then writer designer or two writers to designers 164 00:10:36.940 --> 00:10:40.140 and an engineer so that they can actually build a so they can idea to 165 00:10:40.140 --> 00:10:43.260 solution and then deliver it to the market and then iterate from there. 166 00:10:43.840 --> 00:10:48.740 Yeah. So did I hear a right that you have about 78 people on one squad. Yeah 167 00:10:48.750 --> 00:10:51.710 it's a really depends on I would say that's a healthy squad that that would 168 00:10:51.710 --> 00:10:54.890 be ideal. Do we have some squads that are smaller and one or two that might 169 00:10:54.890 --> 00:10:58.510 be a little bit bigger. Yeah but you tend to want to try and have you know 170 00:10:58.510 --> 00:11:01.690 one generalist market whose function is what we would call the request manager. 171 00:11:01.690 --> 00:11:04.700 So they're driving the work and then you're gonna have a couple of writers, 172 00:11:04.700 --> 00:11:07.770 one might be long form and one might be a copywriter, you're gonna have a 173 00:11:07.770 --> 00:11:11.750 couple of designers, one might be a little more U. X. And one might might 174 00:11:11.750 --> 00:11:16.480 be a little more production driven like you know kind of ads and and that sort 175 00:11:16.480 --> 00:11:20.050 of kind of creative and then you're gonna and I are within some of my teams 176 00:11:20.050 --> 00:11:23.290 we have dedicated engineers and some of our teams the engineering work is so 177 00:11:23.290 --> 00:11:27.290 light that they use an engineering pool like a hat team like how the available 178 00:11:27.290 --> 00:11:31.710 team and then they pull them in when they need to so yeah 5 to 8 people kind 179 00:11:31.710 --> 00:11:35.440 of working together to solve a problem together from a multidisciplinary 180 00:11:35.440 --> 00:11:38.830 approach to the to the problem. So that's fascinating. How long did the 181 00:11:38.830 --> 00:11:41.620 team stay together? Do they just stay together through the one project and 182 00:11:41.620 --> 00:11:45.690 then disband or do they kind of do you have like you give them names and they 183 00:11:45.690 --> 00:11:50.000 take on multiple projects? We've tried it a couple of different ways in the 184 00:11:50.000 --> 00:11:54.010 last two years since we went to went to this model. This squad squad centric 185 00:11:54.010 --> 00:11:57.490 setup is about two years old. The Matrix has been here for a while but 186 00:11:57.490 --> 00:12:02.020 that squad delivery system kind of the actual marketing approaches a couple 187 00:12:02.020 --> 00:12:06.080 years old. Um I would say this year we committed to the durability of the 188 00:12:06.080 --> 00:12:10.130 squads. So what I mean by that is we might change what objective they work 189 00:12:10.130 --> 00:12:13.180 on but we rarely want to change who's working with who so that they can 190 00:12:13.180 --> 00:12:16.560 develop really great chemistry and learn to work well together and drive 191 00:12:16.560 --> 00:12:20.100 to those problems. So we haven't made any squad level adjustments personnel 192 00:12:20.100 --> 00:12:23.810 wise this entire calendar year, even though we've changed objectives, you 193 00:12:23.810 --> 00:12:27.820 know, four or five times. Gosh, that sounds amazing. It kind of sounds like 194 00:12:27.820 --> 00:12:32.690 you have the nimbleness of a, like a startup marketing team, right? I mean I 195 00:12:32.690 --> 00:12:36.620 know my marketing team is about four or five people on my hiring a few more but 196 00:12:36.620 --> 00:12:38.860 we'll be nimble, we'll be able to move fast because I'll have all those 197 00:12:38.860 --> 00:12:43.360 disciplines represented because there's not a huge organization but you guys 198 00:12:43.360 --> 00:12:47.460 gotta have it the best of both that way I would say as the leader of the bunch, 199 00:12:47.460 --> 00:12:51.650 I probably always wish we'd go a little faster but but I would say the key 200 00:12:51.650 --> 00:12:56.670 driver that we have seen this year is buying and until you really have buy in 201 00:12:56.670 --> 00:13:01.030 from the people on the teams, there's always there's always room for there to 202 00:13:01.030 --> 00:13:04.260 be a nay Sayer in the group who's like, well that was never going to work in 203 00:13:04.260 --> 00:13:08.590 the first place. And so by forcing that camaraderie and that collegial kind of 204 00:13:08.590 --> 00:13:11.800 approach to the work, we are driving a high level of buying with the teams 205 00:13:11.800 --> 00:13:15.480 where they take ownership over the things they commit to, which is what I 206 00:13:15.480 --> 00:13:19.590 want, five days a week. I want people to really feel it in their bones, like 207 00:13:19.600 --> 00:13:22.200 I agree with the work I'm bought into the work, we're going to deliver the 208 00:13:22.200 --> 00:13:25.430 work and it's either going to work or it's not and we're gonna own it every 209 00:13:25.430 --> 00:13:29.100 step of the way. And we have seen that from our team since we've been to this 210 00:13:29.100 --> 00:13:32.660 model, which I think is a powerful force for momentum, within a team, 211 00:13:33.640 --> 00:13:38.330 who's the leader of the group, is it outside the group or eternal embedded 212 00:13:38.340 --> 00:13:41.660 right now? You know, we kind of have that sort of where the senior marketer 213 00:13:41.660 --> 00:13:46.070 sits within my structure, within my team at least. Um, you know, somebody 214 00:13:46.070 --> 00:13:50.130 that's got some got some years on them, they, they kind of, they understand the 215 00:13:50.130 --> 00:13:54.180 customer, they understand the product, they understand history and they also 216 00:13:54.180 --> 00:13:58.540 understand forecasting and they were able to still then ask great questions 217 00:13:58.540 --> 00:14:01.870 and listen well to their team members that do great research, talk to the 218 00:14:01.870 --> 00:14:06.240 customer of the prospect, you know, we were big proponents of user testing, uh, 219 00:14:06.250 --> 00:14:09.040 you know, various things before you launch it and doing focus groups and 220 00:14:09.040 --> 00:14:12.360 things of that nature, definitely running multi variant tests as many 221 00:14:12.360 --> 00:14:16.500 times as you possibly can so that I would say they're the holder of the 222 00:14:16.500 --> 00:14:20.100 opinion that kind of but I would say it's a pretty loose grasp at the end of 223 00:14:20.100 --> 00:14:24.870 the day. The data is gonna manifest exactly where it is. We're supposed to 224 00:14:24.870 --> 00:14:28.300 go and opinions can stay to the side. But yeah there is a drawstring, we do 225 00:14:28.300 --> 00:14:31.970 have a drawstring approach where I think this is always saying this way 226 00:14:31.970 --> 00:14:35.070 it's kind of like a vulgar thing but like the phrase is a single readable 227 00:14:35.070 --> 00:14:44.030 neck like we have a single renewable neck kind of strategy and it's just the 228 00:14:44.030 --> 00:14:47.390 idea of like who are we going to if there's an issue and and they all know 229 00:14:47.390 --> 00:14:51.660 who that is at the same time though. They sit, they sit together, they talk 230 00:14:51.660 --> 00:14:54.970 together you know they're held accountable together. So yeah they're 231 00:14:54.970 --> 00:14:58.040 group has buy in which I think again is a competitive advantage that a lot of 232 00:14:58.040 --> 00:15:01.050 companies should want their teams that have in the work that they're doing. 233 00:15:01.640 --> 00:15:07.620 Hey everybody Logan with sweet fish here if you're a regular listener of 234 00:15:07.630 --> 00:15:11.390 GDP growth, you know that I'm one of the co hosts of the show but you may 235 00:15:11.390 --> 00:15:15.520 not know that I also head up the sales team here at sweet fish. So for those 236 00:15:15.520 --> 00:15:19.540 of you in sales or sales ops I wanted to take a second to share something 237 00:15:19.550 --> 00:15:24.010 that's made us insanely more efficient lately Our team has been using lead I. 238 00:15:24.010 --> 00:15:27.920 Q. For the past few months. And what used to take us four hours gathering 239 00:15:27.920 --> 00:15:33.460 contact data now takes us only one where 75% more efficient were able to 240 00:15:33.460 --> 00:15:38.300 move faster with outbound prospecting and organizing our campaigns is so much 241 00:15:38.300 --> 00:15:42.660 easier than before. I'd highly suggest you guys check out lead I. Q. As well. 242 00:15:42.740 --> 00:15:49.470 You can check them out at least I. Q. Dot com. That's L. E A D. I. Q. Dot com. 243 00:15:49.480 --> 00:15:57.770 All right let's get back to the show. So that guy or a girl is a generalist 244 00:15:57.770 --> 00:16:02.780 marketer. Sam. And what is that person? Usually a manager or director? That's a 245 00:16:02.780 --> 00:16:05.090 great question and I'm not sure we actually talked about this much in the 246 00:16:05.090 --> 00:16:09.080 pre interview but it's not a people leadership position. So each one of the 247 00:16:09.080 --> 00:16:12.870 people that are in their groups has an art director or you know a. D. Of 248 00:16:12.870 --> 00:16:16.820 content or a channel specialty leader that they get their people leadership 249 00:16:16.820 --> 00:16:21.900 from its a work product leadership position. So there are a manager of the 250 00:16:21.900 --> 00:16:25.220 output of the group but they're not going to be doing one on ones personnel 251 00:16:25.220 --> 00:16:29.200 wise with the people that are in their squads. So we don't create that dynamic 252 00:16:29.200 --> 00:16:32.760 within the group. All that dynamic stays with we kind of have a coaching 253 00:16:32.760 --> 00:16:36.840 model that we use with our mid senior level where they're like our A. D. 254 00:16:36.840 --> 00:16:39.970 Level positions on our team are really designed to be people leaders and 255 00:16:39.970 --> 00:16:43.180 coaches more than anything else? They don't do any work, they don't do any 256 00:16:43.190 --> 00:16:47.370 production level work. And so that frees the request manager up to kind of 257 00:16:47.380 --> 00:16:51.940 kind of both keep the squad committed to what they're doing um in partnership 258 00:16:51.940 --> 00:16:55.490 with project management, which we would call a delivery manager and this model 259 00:16:55.500 --> 00:16:58.490 and then they can stay out in front of the squad of going where we're going 260 00:16:58.490 --> 00:17:01.290 next, where we're going next, where we're going and when that proves itself 261 00:17:01.290 --> 00:17:04.569 out where we're going next. So that is a great clarifying questions. Not a 262 00:17:04.569 --> 00:17:09.569 people leadership position, it's a work leadership position. Gotcha. So are 263 00:17:09.569 --> 00:17:12.550 they the tiebreaker if two different disciplines within that team are 264 00:17:12.550 --> 00:17:17.480 arguing over this way or that way, I would say sometimes I'm the type record. 265 00:17:17.490 --> 00:17:21.819 But for the most part, if they really get landlocked, I would have a higher 266 00:17:21.819 --> 00:17:25.160 expectation on the generalist to speak up and say this is I'm going to make 267 00:17:25.160 --> 00:17:28.650 the call, I'm the one that's going to go into what we use a meeting structure 268 00:17:28.650 --> 00:17:32.710 called a stakeholder meeting, which is basically where the the generalists 269 00:17:32.710 --> 00:17:36.160 bring in their body of work that they intend to do for the next commitment 270 00:17:36.160 --> 00:17:39.830 cycle, seven days, 10 days or whatever it is. And that's a chance for myself 271 00:17:39.830 --> 00:17:43.650 and the other leaders to say have a question about that, why, why why that 272 00:17:43.650 --> 00:17:46.360 not this or you know, how do you guys arrive at that conclusion? And so and 273 00:17:46.360 --> 00:17:51.430 so forth. So since they're the ones that have to own that room, they tend 274 00:17:51.430 --> 00:17:55.300 to get to be the tiebreaking voice. It makes a lot of sense to me, it almost 275 00:17:55.300 --> 00:18:01.300 sounds somewhere between a project manager and a marketing director, kind 276 00:18:01.300 --> 00:18:05.670 of somewhere in there. It's an interesting role. It is and someone 277 00:18:05.670 --> 00:18:10.470 who's actually just really good at creating buy in for people. So people 278 00:18:10.480 --> 00:18:15.950 really good people strength. Yeah, that's right. Really great listeners do 279 00:18:15.950 --> 00:18:21.340 well in this role because they are in a way driving and leading a group of 280 00:18:21.340 --> 00:18:24.220 people that they don't leave directly. You know, they're not responsible for 281 00:18:24.220 --> 00:18:29.670 leading directly. So they have to be really committed to the well being of 282 00:18:29.670 --> 00:18:33.850 the group, while also being responsible for the ultimate in product that we're 283 00:18:33.850 --> 00:18:36.780 trying to drive, which in this case, you know, one case might be a free 284 00:18:36.780 --> 00:18:41.470 trial start or the download, downloading of an app or a lead based 285 00:18:41.470 --> 00:18:46.030 business to set up a call for a sales team, so and so forth. So yeah, it's 286 00:18:46.030 --> 00:18:48.970 it's a very different model. It's again, because we're in the digital product 287 00:18:48.970 --> 00:18:52.040 space, this is the way we do product management and development here. So 288 00:18:52.040 --> 00:18:55.020 that's kind of where the model was birthed out of and we want to keep 289 00:18:55.020 --> 00:18:58.090 teams on similar meetings and, you know, we're finding success with it. And it's 290 00:18:58.090 --> 00:19:02.010 one of those things that were sort of tinkering with all the time because the, 291 00:19:02.020 --> 00:19:05.690 the biggest wildcard in all of it is the people of dynamics, of the people 292 00:19:05.690 --> 00:19:10.080 that you stick together within a group. And so, um, you know, that is something 293 00:19:10.080 --> 00:19:13.240 that, you know, we don't necessarily have all of our groups jelling the way 294 00:19:13.240 --> 00:19:16.210 we like all the time, but it's something that, you know, marketing 295 00:19:16.210 --> 00:19:19.600 leadership, project management, leadership, engineering, leadership, 296 00:19:19.610 --> 00:19:22.840 maker level, kind of a designer writer level leadership, we would all be 297 00:19:22.840 --> 00:19:26.170 monitoring and working on together to make sure that the squad is set up as 298 00:19:26.170 --> 00:19:31.420 best you can to succeed. You mentioned a little bit ago about how you manage 299 00:19:31.420 --> 00:19:35.660 projects or that you're taking short sprints or workloads for a time. Tell 300 00:19:35.660 --> 00:19:39.050 us a little bit more about there are project management philosophy and how 301 00:19:39.050 --> 00:19:43.510 you organize that with these squads. So we, we use an agile and agile 302 00:19:43.510 --> 00:19:48.080 methodology combined, uh, from a system standpoint, jurors are actual project 303 00:19:48.080 --> 00:19:53.360 management platform per se. And so the squads work in what has been dubbed 304 00:19:53.360 --> 00:19:58.420 roles in cadences. And so essentially, uh, their cadence meeting structure is 305 00:19:58.430 --> 00:20:02.270 they do ideation where they kind of come together as a group and say what's 306 00:20:02.270 --> 00:20:05.450 the best way for us to solve this next problem that we have, then, you know, 307 00:20:05.450 --> 00:20:09.600 once the ideas is committed to and everybody's on board is a valid idea 308 00:20:09.610 --> 00:20:12.720 that we think is actually gonna deliver the value, we want the marketplace, 309 00:20:12.730 --> 00:20:16.050 they commit. Once they commit, they decamped the work and decamping the 310 00:20:16.050 --> 00:20:19.250 word, breaking it down into bite size pieces so they could see how long the 311 00:20:19.250 --> 00:20:22.400 delivery schedule is going to be to get the work done and then they come into a 312 00:20:22.400 --> 00:20:26.520 delivery schedule and then they deliver and then they retro after that, how did 313 00:20:26.520 --> 00:20:29.590 it work? You know, what worked, what didn't do we get the impact we wanted 314 00:20:29.590 --> 00:20:33.220 to be not those cycles could be two days long, that, that could all be two 315 00:20:33.220 --> 00:20:37.710 days. If it's, if it's one size of work, it could also be three weeks if it's a 316 00:20:37.710 --> 00:20:42.470 big body of work. And so I will say at times when we find work that, so let's 317 00:20:42.470 --> 00:20:45.840 say one of my groups might have 33 objectives at one time, which means 318 00:20:45.840 --> 00:20:49.980 they have three squads, each working on a different objective. It might be that 319 00:20:49.980 --> 00:20:55.630 we find out in a stakeholder meeting, that this second squad overhears third 320 00:20:55.630 --> 00:20:59.780 or fourth action that they want to drive to their objective is actually 321 00:20:59.780 --> 00:21:03.160 more beneficial to the business than the first. The second action that this 322 00:21:03.160 --> 00:21:06.690 other squad wants to drive. So that cross communication of like what's the 323 00:21:06.690 --> 00:21:09.410 next most important thing, we need to be working on a drive impact for the 324 00:21:09.410 --> 00:21:13.890 business is key in this model and then, and so sometimes when that comes up, 325 00:21:13.890 --> 00:21:17.870 what might happen is, is the squad's might all decide to stop their own 326 00:21:17.870 --> 00:21:22.270 commitments, cycles for a week and actually coming together and sprint for 327 00:21:22.270 --> 00:21:26.650 a week on one big delivery item, you know, a new set of landing pages are an 328 00:21:26.650 --> 00:21:29.910 entirely new funnel and we want to reshape this entire funnel in a week. 329 00:21:29.920 --> 00:21:33.570 So we're gonna put six designers, four riders going, everyone go all hands on 330 00:21:33.570 --> 00:21:37.580 it and friday we're going to deliver, but we leave were as leadership, we 331 00:21:37.580 --> 00:21:41.360 stay pretty open handed with that unless some sort of an external force 332 00:21:41.540 --> 00:21:45.680 or a deadline or something have a market dynamic shifts and we kind of 333 00:21:45.680 --> 00:21:50.330 have to happen to it. We'd rather see the teams bubble that information up 334 00:21:50.330 --> 00:21:52.490 from within when they see those opportunities and they're still 335 00:21:52.490 --> 00:21:54.930 learning and we're still learning it because again, we've only been doing it 336 00:21:54.930 --> 00:21:59.220 for a couple of years now. I've been throwing a lot of curveballs at years. 337 00:21:59.220 --> 00:22:02.310 I have a lot of questions that are, I didn't even have another question list. 338 00:22:02.310 --> 00:22:06.710 But when I'm thinking about the implications of all these things, one 339 00:22:06.710 --> 00:22:10.620 of the things that comes to my mind that might be difficult, nuanced as 340 00:22:10.620 --> 00:22:14.300 marketing operations, especially around marketing automation? Like how are 341 00:22:14.300 --> 00:22:19.020 teams approaching some of the more sophisticated hurdles of like your 342 00:22:19.030 --> 00:22:23.480 marketing automation streams first? What text act do you use to deliver 343 00:22:23.480 --> 00:22:26.810 those kinds of things? And then how how do teams approach marketing ops do you 344 00:22:26.810 --> 00:22:30.620 have a separate marketing ops team or is like do squads kind of take turns 345 00:22:30.620 --> 00:22:34.000 and handling marketing apps? You found the fly in the ointment with that 346 00:22:34.000 --> 00:22:38.960 question I would say sort of your baseline level. Like if you always have 347 00:22:38.960 --> 00:22:43.460 groups that are only focused on innovation and not operation, you run 348 00:22:43.460 --> 00:22:46.710 the risk of like, oh no, that thing that's just been running for six months, 349 00:22:46.710 --> 00:22:50.010 nobody's been watching it and here's what happened. So I would say kind of 350 00:22:50.010 --> 00:22:54.670 evergreen marketing Ops is is a call out for us that I would imagine our 351 00:22:54.670 --> 00:22:58.150 next iteration of this, we end up with the team who is dedicated to the 352 00:22:58.150 --> 00:23:02.080 chassis while the other teams are dedicated to the add ons, if that makes 353 00:23:02.080 --> 00:23:05.100 sense. It's kind of the best way I can think of in my head. So with that being 354 00:23:05.100 --> 00:23:08.350 said, we also have different chassis. So I have B two B teams and I have the 355 00:23:08.350 --> 00:23:13.130 D. C. Team. So the dtC teams, you know, they're using Claudio is the primary sp, 356 00:23:13.140 --> 00:23:16.950 you know, we're using salesforce from a, from a Crm standpoint. And then on the 357 00:23:16.950 --> 00:23:20.010 B two B side we have things like part of plug ins and and other things that 358 00:23:20.010 --> 00:23:24.570 are going on um as well as you know, sales loft and all kind of other text 359 00:23:24.570 --> 00:23:29.690 tax stuff on the sales side. So we have a couple of people that are dedicated, 360 00:23:29.690 --> 00:23:32.970 you know, admit like Salesforce administrators or you know, kind of 361 00:23:32.970 --> 00:23:37.620 Martek personnel that sit with us that actually tends to be a global resource 362 00:23:37.620 --> 00:23:40.930 at Ramsey though, they're the ones that are kind of the most global, so they 363 00:23:40.930 --> 00:23:43.730 act more as consultative than they do anything else and they keep the 364 00:23:43.730 --> 00:23:47.320 system's going. But we, we are even looking at one of my generalist 365 00:23:47.320 --> 00:23:51.930 marketers right now who just has a bent to ops and a bent to analytics, who is 366 00:23:51.930 --> 00:23:55.760 not necessarily the creative marketing type that say maybe you me like those 367 00:23:55.760 --> 00:23:58.590 of us that are wired a little more that way, like kind of the campaign driven, 368 00:23:58.590 --> 00:24:01.640 what do we want to say? How do we want them to feel? He's not wired that way. 369 00:24:01.640 --> 00:24:04.430 So we're actually looking at creating like an operation slash analyst 370 00:24:04.430 --> 00:24:08.770 position where he can focus more on the chassis and keeping the system's going 371 00:24:08.840 --> 00:24:12.950 um, so that the other markers can, can build on top of what's there. So 372 00:24:12.960 --> 00:24:16.410 marketing ops is one of those things in the agile model that we have to account 373 00:24:16.410 --> 00:24:19.690 for and we haven't necessarily accounted for all that well because 374 00:24:19.690 --> 00:24:23.500 we're trying to constantly spin up new things in the squads. Um, that's a 375 00:24:23.500 --> 00:24:27.510 great question man, I mean it's really hard, especially in an organization, 376 00:24:27.510 --> 00:24:32.210 the size of yours, I'm sure your salesforce instance is ridiculous and 377 00:24:32.210 --> 00:24:36.370 complicated with as many business units as you have. Um, and it's become hard 378 00:24:36.370 --> 00:24:40.750 to figure out like okay, like is this a devops thing or is this a marketing ops 379 00:24:40.750 --> 00:24:44.830 thing, the lines start to get really blurry sometimes. Right. I know. Even 380 00:24:44.830 --> 00:24:50.230 with my small teams of which my best dev marketing person, you guys just 381 00:24:50.230 --> 00:24:55.760 recently hired um to do C R O of all things. But he's uh like, I don't know, 382 00:24:55.760 --> 00:24:59.350 I felt like my marketing team started taking on more and more of what most 383 00:24:59.350 --> 00:25:02.860 people would just call devops because we were just more heavy in automation 384 00:25:02.860 --> 00:25:08.690 and crm management space. But man, I know it's a harry harry thing. What 385 00:25:08.690 --> 00:25:12.620 have you seen as a result of this reorganization and you've been there a 386 00:25:12.620 --> 00:25:16.690 few years now, you've been able to see a lot of these transitions through, has 387 00:25:16.700 --> 00:25:22.300 it been good? Are you are you a big fan of this way of managing people? If so 388 00:25:22.300 --> 00:25:25.280 like, well first I'll let you answer that question. How what do the results 389 00:25:25.280 --> 00:25:30.750 been for you? Yeah, I see. There's two primary things that have satisfied that, 390 00:25:30.750 --> 00:25:35.190 that are very satisfying to me and I full transparency. I was not on board 391 00:25:35.190 --> 00:25:39.110 at first when this started, I couldn't see it, it's just not the way I was 392 00:25:39.110 --> 00:25:43.340 used to working um and you know, my good friends in tech and product and 393 00:25:43.340 --> 00:25:46.450 project management, like just giving them in like give it some time, you 394 00:25:46.450 --> 00:25:49.090 know, let's get there. It's going to be, we have to work through it. So let me 395 00:25:49.090 --> 00:25:51.370 that's that's the point of clarity. Before I start, I would say the two 396 00:25:51.370 --> 00:25:57.580 primary main benefits I've seen is a centralized ownership of the key 397 00:25:57.580 --> 00:26:01.440 metrics of the business living with more than one person and it sounds a 398 00:26:01.440 --> 00:26:06.770 little backwards to what I said earlier. But I've genuinely see seen the squads 399 00:26:07.740 --> 00:26:12.890 start to really believe that they owned the metrics which is a powerful thing 400 00:26:12.900 --> 00:26:15.530 when people are coming and going like especially in our business because you 401 00:26:15.530 --> 00:26:18.730 know we say all the time, we exist for the people that are outside these walls 402 00:26:18.740 --> 00:26:21.110 that if you help with other people get what they want, you never have to worry 403 00:26:21.110 --> 00:26:24.470 about money. Like we want to serve people here and so for them to be able 404 00:26:24.470 --> 00:26:29.240 to connect the metrics of if we move this number, this family has this life 405 00:26:29.240 --> 00:26:32.140 change that happens outside these walls like guys we got to move this number 406 00:26:32.140 --> 00:26:35.940 like it's important so being able to see that connection of data to like 407 00:26:35.950 --> 00:26:40.740 real world impact and the squad's owning that together is incredible. And 408 00:26:40.740 --> 00:26:44.320 I would say the other benefit that we've got from this is just incredibly 409 00:26:44.330 --> 00:26:48.710 clearer lines of communication between leadership all the way down to what we 410 00:26:48.710 --> 00:26:51.940 would call here kind of the maker level or at the production level where work 411 00:26:51.940 --> 00:26:56.680 is actually going out. It's forced us because we have those set times of 412 00:26:56.680 --> 00:27:00.770 stakeholder times as meeting rhythms, it's, we used to be the type, 413 00:27:00.770 --> 00:27:05.780 especially me walk the floor pop up beside a cube and go do this, you know, 414 00:27:05.790 --> 00:27:09.990 And now you just skipped seven kind of set lines, communication. And somebody 415 00:27:09.990 --> 00:27:12.960 here is like why do we do that? Well, it's because someone so said and so by 416 00:27:12.970 --> 00:27:16.490 funneling everything into that stakeholder rhythm that room where it's 417 00:27:16.490 --> 00:27:20.070 like this is when you get to speak up or not. It's holding our leadership 418 00:27:20.070 --> 00:27:23.780 layer even more accountable one to another to make sure that we're all 419 00:27:23.780 --> 00:27:27.260 bought in, invisible in the work that we've said yes to. And more importantly, 420 00:27:27.260 --> 00:27:32.330 that means the work we're saying no to, which is a part of the system that you 421 00:27:32.330 --> 00:27:36.080 always have to account for it. Like we can only, we only get so many yeses. So 422 00:27:36.080 --> 00:27:39.150 let's use our yes as well every time we get on that. So there's been the two 423 00:27:39.150 --> 00:27:42.400 big events, you know, connecting data to the marketplace in a good way and 424 00:27:42.400 --> 00:27:43.860 just clear lines of communication, 425 00:27:44.940 --> 00:27:49.000 ma'am. It's so good to hear as someone who's kind of grown up in marketing and 426 00:27:49.000 --> 00:27:52.380 digital marketing. And one of the things I found is just that it's just 427 00:27:52.380 --> 00:27:56.710 so complicated. It's sophisticated. There's a lot more complexity to 428 00:27:56.710 --> 00:28:01.090 marketing than just running campaigns now that it's good to see an 429 00:28:01.090 --> 00:28:07.640 organization whose scaling it well and I can see your hesitation with it 430 00:28:07.640 --> 00:28:10.850 because it seems more complex even and how you organize teams, you're like 431 00:28:10.860 --> 00:28:14.120 usually simple is better, right? And we gravitate towards simple because we 432 00:28:14.120 --> 00:28:17.350 usually know if it's simple, the likelihood that it's going to work the 433 00:28:17.350 --> 00:28:21.180 way we expected to is going to work. But at the same time, marketing has 434 00:28:21.180 --> 00:28:24.210 been thrown for a loop and how complicated it's gotten with all the 435 00:28:24.210 --> 00:28:29.170 technology mixed in with, I don't know the amount of little tiny pieces that 436 00:28:29.170 --> 00:28:32.470 need to be right otherwise one wrong piece and the whole thing, like a whole 437 00:28:32.470 --> 00:28:36.440 campaign could be messed up. Right? That's right. And, and I would tell you 438 00:28:36.440 --> 00:28:40.520 dan, you know, uh, you know, one of our primary, um, marketplaces that we've 439 00:28:40.520 --> 00:28:44.600 served for years and years, years has always been the nonprofit space in the 440 00:28:44.600 --> 00:28:48.540 church space, you know, with some of our products And obviously with COVID 441 00:28:48.540 --> 00:28:51.390 last year in the pandemic happening. And rightfully so, you know, the doors 442 00:28:51.390 --> 00:28:55.400 shuttering and people, people's social distancing and that the church has been 443 00:28:55.400 --> 00:28:59.420 one of those places that has not necessarily quote unquote recovery. It 444 00:28:59.420 --> 00:29:02.840 certainly hasn't gone back to the way it was 24 months ago. And I would tell 445 00:29:02.840 --> 00:29:06.840 you like having our approach and having changed our model and the way we do 446 00:29:06.840 --> 00:29:10.990 work shortly before that happened, I'm not sure we would have been able to 447 00:29:10.990 --> 00:29:14.330 pivot as quickly as we were able to pivot last year, when that happened 448 00:29:14.340 --> 00:29:17.910 with this model compared to the model that we were, that we were in 2.5 years 449 00:29:17.910 --> 00:29:22.280 ago. So I actually see there's a lot of providence in foresight and benefit 450 00:29:22.280 --> 00:29:25.570 that we got out of that and being able to be agile and quick when market 451 00:29:25.570 --> 00:29:29.220 dynamics change that. We might not have been afforded the opportunity to be the 452 00:29:29.220 --> 00:29:33.710 year before. So kind of last question at least last official question I might 453 00:29:33.710 --> 00:29:37.190 ask more. How how does someone get started with this the way you guys have 454 00:29:37.190 --> 00:29:41.330 your marketing teams organized like what size would you say you need to be 455 00:29:41.330 --> 00:29:45.710 in order to start having the approach with the squads. Can you started with 456 00:29:45.710 --> 00:29:49.440 it right away. Do you just start off with a this is squad one and then once 457 00:29:49.440 --> 00:29:52.390 you get a certain size you had another one. How do you do it? That's how we 458 00:29:52.390 --> 00:29:56.360 did it. We started with minimum we call minimum viable squad journalist, 459 00:29:56.360 --> 00:30:01.180 marketer. Writer designer because with our with our CMS that we use, if you 460 00:30:01.180 --> 00:30:04.670 have those pieces, you can actually deploy landing pages, you can deploy 461 00:30:04.670 --> 00:30:08.770 blog articles, you can deploy ads, you can deploy a lot of emails, you can 462 00:30:08.770 --> 00:30:12.580 deploy a lot of the tactical things that you would need to be able to ship 463 00:30:12.590 --> 00:30:16.400 in order to drive value for the customer value for the business. And so 464 00:30:16.410 --> 00:30:21.020 minimum viable squad to me is that it's generalist market or writer designer. I 465 00:30:21.020 --> 00:30:26.560 think that if you should do it or not really depends on if you want a how 466 00:30:26.560 --> 00:30:31.250 much trust that you have in those people and just being transparent if 467 00:30:31.250 --> 00:30:35.020 you've got good season two people in those seats who understand the customer 468 00:30:35.030 --> 00:30:39.930 understand the business objectives. Um, and and are great at being drivers are 469 00:30:39.930 --> 00:30:44.000 wired a certain way. I would say go for it. I would say not everyone that we've 470 00:30:44.000 --> 00:30:46.750 used in this model has thrived in this model either. And I think that's an 471 00:30:46.750 --> 00:30:50.820 important thing to call out is there are some, uh, and not everywhere in 472 00:30:50.820 --> 00:30:53.920 Ramsey uses the model that I'm using specifically within digital products 473 00:30:53.920 --> 00:30:57.000 either. So that's also important to call out. And so I think you have to 474 00:30:57.000 --> 00:31:00.760 understand the wiring of the personnel as to if the squad model might work. 475 00:31:00.940 --> 00:31:04.750 But again, a great place to start exploring these concepts is to read the 476 00:31:04.750 --> 00:31:09.110 two books inspired and empowered by the same author. That's where the squad 477 00:31:09.110 --> 00:31:12.400 model is kind of burned out. Once you get an inspired team, you're inspired 478 00:31:12.400 --> 00:31:15.000 by the customer, you understand the problem, you're trying to solve an 479 00:31:15.000 --> 00:31:18.620 empowered team is when they've matured into being an autonomous group that can 480 00:31:18.620 --> 00:31:22.530 run objectives down at will. And so that's, I would say we're somewhere 481 00:31:22.530 --> 00:31:25.670 between the two right now, we have some groups that are a little more empowered 482 00:31:25.670 --> 00:31:30.220 than others. But again, it's the makeup of the squad that it's the trust level. 483 00:31:30.230 --> 00:31:34.300 Honestly with that, that senior market or kind of hybrid seat of like their 484 00:31:34.300 --> 00:31:37.340 maturity that they bring to the table, how much business they've done, how 485 00:31:37.340 --> 00:31:40.730 much marketing they've done, that's a key factor. But I think if you've got 486 00:31:40.730 --> 00:31:44.750 three trustworthy people, you can start the squad model right away and work on 487 00:31:44.760 --> 00:31:48.080 shorter delivery cycles, trying to draft iterative impact in the 488 00:31:48.080 --> 00:31:52.240 marketplace instead of 18 month planning rhythms, which is kind of what 489 00:31:52.240 --> 00:31:55.520 my background was before I got here. You know, you gotta, you gotta always 490 00:31:55.520 --> 00:31:58.950 have these forecasts and everything like ship the work and see if it has 491 00:31:58.950 --> 00:32:01.880 the impact that you thought it has and then it's so shit more and if it 492 00:32:01.880 --> 00:32:06.530 doesn't pivot and so that's the that that that agility, that nimbleness that 493 00:32:06.530 --> 00:32:08.980 we talked about the beginning, like it's a really powerful thing to give 494 00:32:08.980 --> 00:32:12.990 the team if you want to see them grow and really unlock new things that they 495 00:32:12.990 --> 00:32:16.720 didn't think they could do. Fantastic. And I will certainly linked to those 496 00:32:16.720 --> 00:32:21.150 books in the show notes. But thank you so much for joining me on B2B growth 497 00:32:21.150 --> 00:32:24.480 today. Um where can people go to learn more from you and learn more about 498 00:32:24.480 --> 00:32:28.270 Ramsey online. Yeah, just connect with me on linkedin. That's my favorite and 499 00:32:28.270 --> 00:32:31.470 only social media channel. I'm on the others. But anyways, to create a lot of 500 00:32:31.470 --> 00:32:34.870 content on there. Like to write about leadership in digital marketing and for 501 00:32:34.870 --> 00:32:37.910 me personally, uh, you know, faith at work, I think it's a big part of my 502 00:32:37.910 --> 00:32:41.220 life and you can always find out more at Ramsey by going to Ramsey solutions 503 00:32:41.220 --> 00:32:45.310 dot com. And uh if you have any questions let me know, we'd love to 504 00:32:45.310 --> 00:32:47.470 help you. If there's any way we can partner together, whether it's 505 00:32:47.470 --> 00:32:52.140 personally with your finances or if you want to look at having uh you know, say 506 00:32:52.150 --> 00:32:55.170 an employee benefit added to your HR line up for your team to be able to 507 00:32:55.170 --> 00:32:58.380 manage their money better. We'd love to help. Fantastic. Thanks again for 508 00:32:58.380 --> 00:33:00.160 joining me on GDP Growth. Thanks dan, 509 00:33:03.040 --> 00:33:04.060 mm. Mhm 510 00:33:05.740 --> 00:33:09.940 At Sweet Fish. We're on a mission to create the most helpful content on the 511 00:33:09.940 --> 00:33:14.510 internet for every job function and industry on the planet for the B two B 512 00:33:14.510 --> 00:33:18.550 marketing industry. This show is how we're executing on that mission. If you 513 00:33:18.550 --> 00:33:22.020 know a marketing leader that would be an awesome guest for this podcast. 514 00:33:22.030 --> 00:33:25.580 Shoot me a text message. Don't call me because I don't answer unknown numbers 515 00:33:25.590 --> 00:33:32.080 but text me at 4074 and I know 33 to 8, Just shoot me their name may be a link 516 00:33:32.080 --> 00:33:36.020 to their linkedin profile and I'd love to check them out to see if we can get 517 00:33:36.030 --> 00:33:38.960 them on the show. Thanks a lot