Marketing Org Transformation: How to Build a Future-Proof Operating Model with Jen Ross

Jen Ross: And marketing's doing a lot of great stuff. Um, they're working really hard and many cases are even doing more, but the contribution is less. It's a sign that the org model is likely misaligned with. The growth goals.

John Common: Welcome to Growth Driver, brought to you by Intelligent Demand, where the best minds in B2B are redefining growth. Hey everybody. John Common here. Welcome to Growth Driver. You know, B2B, CMOs and CROs have to solve two really difficult challenges right now. One, they have to uplevel and innovate. Their go to market strategies to drive revenue growth more effectively, right?

So that's all about go-to market effectiveness, but they also have to hit their growth goals with flat or often shrinking budgets. And that's all about operational and budget efficiency, right? It's the old cliche. Well, we have to find a way to do more with less, which is easy to say, but really hard to do.

So I got a question for you. How is your company. Working through its budget and resourcing challenges while still trying to drive growth. How is that going for you really, you know, and what strategies work best for how to rethink and rework your marketing operating model to be more efficient, you know?

And what mistakes do rev uh, revenue leaders make when they go to try to do this kind of work? You know, and what does a smarter approach look like? All of those questions. What we're gonna focus on today, I know, uh, on growth driver, we tend to focus a lot on go-to-market, uh, effectiveness. But today it's all about how to redesign your marketing operating model for efficient growth, which is why I invited my friend Jen Ross today on the show.

I'm gonna tell you about Jen here. She has many years, decades as a B2B marketing leader in a variety of different. Company sizes, use cases, industries go-to market models. She has, um, uh, amazing experience in tenure at Forrester and Serious Decisions where she was a research director and an advisor and consultant to CMOs.

Um, she has a true thought leader when it comes to organizational design and go to market strategy. She's exactly my kind of go-to-market and growth geek who I like to geek out with. Welcome to Growth Driver, Jen Ross. 

Jen Ross: Thank you, John Collin. I'm so excited to be here today and this is such an exciting topic.

And you know, you started out by saying, you're often talking about go-to-market strategies, and today we're talking about operating model and I always think of those two things as just interlocked. Like you can't have one without the other. Yeah. So really, really great discussion. Looking forward to it.

John Common: Me too. Me too. I have been a fan of yours from afar, really my entire B2B career, and now we get a chance to work together here at Intelligent Demand and two x where these two topics are fitting together more and more. And I couldn't, I couldn't agree more. I, I, it's, it's, it's two sides of the same coin of efficiency can drive effectiveness, effectiveness.

Can drive efficiency and we're gonna unpack it, uh, for sure, all, uh, altogether, you and I today. But first, uh, the most important first question I have for you is how did you acquire. Your next level cocktail recipe skills and bartending skills. Like you, you talk, I'm, I'm like, this is a serious question.

Like, uh, when I, we started to get to know each other, you were like, Hey, John, I, I, I heard you have, have a thing for whiskey. Let's talk. And you dropped this recipe on me. That blew my mind. Where does this come from? 

Jen Ross: It's so funny you say that because, you know, some people like love to cook and love to bake and like I cook to eat.

Um, I bake because I like sweets. One of the things that, um, started, it was just being in a restaurant one evening and having somebody convince me to order a cocktail that was bourbon based. And I thought, you know, I'm not really a bourbon or a whiskey drinker, but I went along with it for the ride and it was the best cocktail I ever had, and it just drove me home to try to recreate it.

And it took a few tries, but once I was able to do that, I thought, oh, this. That hard and it set me on my quest for different really unique craft cocktails and just, you know, have fun trying to find the right balance and make it work. It's like a chemistry experiment. 

John Common: Exactly. I was just gonna say, it's like, uh, the best kind of a chemist.

Um, well look, um, you always invite me to your parties 'cause I always want to come and uh, and try that for sure. Uh, alright, I have a question for you. Let's start right off at the top here around just marketing org transformation. You hear that phrase? You could take it in a lot of different directions and I don't wanna leave it to chance.

So what is marketing organization transformation? 

Jen Ross: I'm so glad you started there with a definition, because transformation is one of those words, like strategy, right? Yeah. It can be used at so many different levels, and to me, transformation means big things. And it isn't just a buzzword. I think of it as a survival strategy.

Like if you were. If you are in a B2B organization that's transforming in some way, whether it's marketing or it's across the organization, it's typically related to big changes like you are introducing the, OR companies introducing a new business model. You are going through a significant rebranding, meaning changing who you are as a brand.

Maybe you are, you know, going through a merger acquisition like, you know, the two of us are in right now. The biggest thing that's often missed with those kinds of transformations is you honestly can't deliver those kinds of transformations without making sure that your marketing team is, it can enable them and sustain them.

And so often people forget that they need to rethink about how their marketing team. The functions, their roles, the way that they work together, the way ensuring that the right skills, processes, ways of working, are in place to drive consistent, scalable impact in the context of that transformation that the organization may be going through.

John Common: Yeah. So there, there's like a few phrases that I think we're gonna say during this episode here, and I, I just wanna hear your take on how they relate. 'cause I think they're adjacent and overlapping. So one is. Marketing org transformation. You'll hear Jen and I talk about that. Uh, another one is marketing operating model.

You'll hear us talk about that. And then of course, our favorite word budget or resources. Right. And so how, I know this is sort of a big question, but how should we think about the adjacency or relationship of, of those three things? 

Jen Ross: Yeah, great question. So here's how I think about it. I think about transforming a marketing organization.

We'll start with that one first. People tend to think of work chart, and it isn't just about changing titles and teams. When you're thinking about transforming your marketing organization, you really should be thinking about it in terms of how do I re-engineer the the, I always think capabilities first.

Like capabilities. What are the things that we're going to need to do to be successful? Because if I can define those capabilities, I can then easily align to those. What competencies are required to perform those activities? Competencies being knowledge, skills, system tools. How do those knowledge, how do those competencies kind of group together that can help inform functions in your marketing organization?

Um, it's about re-engineering the way that you are all aligned, both inside and outside of marketing with how your buyers engage. And how technology enables scale would be another way that I would think about it. And when you think about like a marketing operating model, I think of that in terms of how you define strategy, execution, um, analytics, how they all work together across both internal and external teams and partners to drive growth and sustainable growth.

John Common: Yeah, and then of course the budget is like, okay, in light of those decisions, hopefully conscious, intentional decisions, not inadvertent decisions or legacy thinking decisions, but in light of that set of org structure, role definition, capability, decisions, and yes, operating model decisions, then you say, what is the right budget?

Frankly the, the realities and the opportunities when it comes to how do we resource and pay for that strategy. Am I getting that right? 

Jen Ross: Yeah. Getting that, getting that right. Okay. 

John Common: Okay, cool. Very good. Alright, so we've defined marketing org transformation. Um, why is it so relevant and urgently important today?

Like, what are, what market forces. Externally and inside companies, do you see every day that's now maybe taking it from a good idea to a mandatory idea to, to to think about? 

Jen Ross: Well, you know, I think some would say, what I'm about to say has been true forever and will remain true forever. So when I think back on my own career, I'm being a CMO, like those things aren't new.

What's new, John to me, I think is the pace at which. The market is evolving faster than our organization, certainly our marketing organizations, but even our entire organizations can keep up with. So if today you're a CMO and you're thinking we're falling short of meeting customer expectations, you are already behind and you can't keep doing things the way that you've always done them in the past and, and legacy.

We're running on models today that were designed for a world where marketing could afford to operate in silos, right? It's like, oh, I'm brand, oh, I'm product marketing. And they still exist today. But we kind of like had our own agendas and moved along forward, but not necessarily together. Um, and, and now with the way that our buyers expect to engage with providers and the complexity of the digital environment and the speed of change.

It's kind of made that model, that siloed model obsolete. 

John Common: Yeah. Yeah. What I love about this is why, uh, you and I have been so excited about doing this episode here today is I think there's a lot of, um, well-intended, but how can I say this and not sound like a jerk, uh, intended, and I totally understand why, but I think a lot of marketing teams, marketing leaders and even CEOs walk into work or walk into their role.

Thinking that that the way that they've experienced and thought about and operated and budgeted marketing 10 years ago, 15 years ago, 20 plus years ago, is sufficient. And that they don't really need to pull it out and discreetly explicitly, strategically examine it. In light of all the things you just mentioned, the, the fact that buyers have changed the fact that the art and science of go to market itself.

Has grown up and did we mention, to your point, the technology and the data shifts, all of that complexity and set of levers that can be polled, um, breaks down if you don't take a fresh, honest look at how your marketing organization is organized, how it operates, how uh, your skill sets, your capabilities, your talent profiles.

And I think there's just a lot of, um, again, well intended. I get why. But I think that what's so exciting to me about this topic is that, is that it, it's, it's an unexamined critical success driver in a lot of go-to market, uh, teams. I think so. Um, I don't know. I I'm very passionate about it as well. 

Jen Ross: I'm super passionate about it too.

Uh, because over the years I've had the luxury of working with a lot of B2B marketing leaders and, you know, there's a couple of things that would ring true across the board in every organization for. The 10 years that I was a CMO advisor and that was, I don't have the right skills on the team. 'cause with the pace of change, I can't keep up with the skills.

We would do surveys every year and the number one need from CMOs would be skill. I have a skill gap, a huge skill gap. And the interesting thing is we also studied at it at back at that time of I. What's happening with marketing enablement? So if you've got a skills gap, but what we don't see is a change in budgets being allocated for marketing enablement, not the way you see sales enablement.

And it's still true to this day. So marketing leaders have to be, think outside the box and be more creative than about, um, how they're gonna address some of the challenges that they have. And. It isn't just for me when there's a big transformation happening. I would say even if you don't fit that category of business model changing, big huge rebrand, you do have new revenue goals every year.

You do have priorities changing in organization, and I always say. Part of what you should do is annual planning in any of those scenarios. In any scenarios, to think how well poised am I in marketing with the capabilities and the skills and the technologies? Am I gonna be able to contribute what the business is expecting me to contribute to this year's goals?

Even if you don't call it big TE transformation. 

John Common: Yeah. How, how do you, what are some of the classic indicators or symptoms that it is time. For a company or for a marketing team to, to take a fresh, honest look at how it's organized and how it operates. 

Jen Ross: I know, I think probably the, the top of the list and one that everybody suffers from is when marketing's doing a lot of great stuff.

Um, they're working really hard and many cases are even doing more, but the contribution is less. It's a sign that the org model is likely misaligned with the growth goals. So if you feel like there's a lot of things in motion. 'cause John, I don't know about you. You've probably experienced the same thing in your career is I've never worked in an organization where I would say, meh.

Marketing's just sitting around. They're not doing a lot of stuff. You know, it's like you're I don't see that. No, we never see that. Right? No, you ne And anytime anyone has come to us to say. Hey, you know, the, this is what's happening in my organization. It's never a lack of a lot of activity going on, but why aren't we hitting the numbers?

Why aren't we hitting the growth goals? Sure, it's not all marketing's fault. There's other things happening in the organization, but if you don't feel like you're getting any closer to the goalpost, um, it's probably time to take a look at whether or not you are organized in a way and your ways of working.

Are efficient and effective, um, and you're leveraging the, the skills and capabilities that you have within the team and those that you could acquire outside of the team. 

John Common: Yeah. Yeah. I like, I like, I, I really love that answer. So how do you know it's time to take a look at, um, maybe rethinking your marketing operating model is when you stare out and you look honestly and you say, we're busy, we're doing lots of activity.

Is all of that hard work and activity actually driving the results that we need. And if there, if the answer is honestly like, no, then that's a, that's number one indicator. That's great. Yeah. And let me ask you another follow on though. Uh, does it show up in, can it show up? Does it show up in the data?

Like go to market efficiency? Um, CAC numbers, it's, um, like, like it shows up. 

Jen Ross: Yeah. Yeah. Great question, John. It shows up in a lot of areas. So, uh, in every scenario where we're working with a client and just, just coming off of an engagement with a client who was looking at their organization, everything from their workforce and how it was distributed and the skills, um, we, there's, I always kind of level up with the client to say, well, let's think about.

Where is the growth expected to come from, from the business? Because if you think about the growth strategy and you're, you at, ID have always been so great with growth plays and like, let's level this up to, clues to me are if our growth is gonna come from entering new markets we've never been in before.

Now we gotta start looking at, well, is our brand known and recognized in that market? Well, if they're not, then I'm probably gonna need strengths around brand positioning, brand messaging. Do I have that capability in my organization? If you've got a new product offering, um, another client, for example, was moving, had a combination of both.

I've got a new offer, but also the greatest opportunity for us for that offer is in the us and we're actually. Not as big in the US as we are in other regions. And so they came looking at for help with how do I think about breaking into that market and how do I think about, I know what we need to do since our motion is very, we've got a very defined universe, so we're talking about now.

Okay, so it's a BM, it's one to one or one to few. It's. Now if we can figure that out, we know what skills we need, then we start looking at what skills are present in the organization and talking about whether or not those skills and those capabilities exist. So it all ladders up and ties back to what are the things you need to do mm-hmm.

To get to where you need to be and unpack it from there and say, yes. If I don't feel ready, then it is time to look at the makeup of the, the operating model and the, the. The marketing organization. 

John Common: Yeah, totally. It all flows. I know you and I agree about this emphatically with each other, but it all flow.

I couldn't agree more. It all flows from your growth plan, the priorities that that must be achieved, uh, by your company to hit its growth goals that leads to these kinds of decisions. It's not, I, I love the connectivity and the laddering up that you just, that you just spoke to, like I couldn't agree more.

And one other thing I want to, I want to throw out is, um. In my experience, there are some softer, sort of softer indicators or symptoms that it's probably time for a, a marketing rethink, uh, about the organization and operating model. Things like if you stare across your marketing team and the velocity with which things are getting done is slow or painful, if there, um, if your ability to a, uh, adapt and pivot.

To the never ending series of things that you must adapt and pivot to if you're really slow, not just in doing the work, but in pivoting to the next new thing that's an indicator. Another one is skill gaps. If you're like, Hey, we have lots of, uh, people who are good at apples and oranges, but, um, the cupboard is bare when it comes to the skills I need for bananas and pears or whatever.

That's a fruit metaphor. Um, you know, like, so skill gaps. And then the last one I've seen is either. Systemic perpetual resource gaps or de d bursts in demand where you're like, I don't, I don't need three extra copywriters, 12 months a year. Couple of times a year, we, everything slows down because it's a, you know, there's a seasonal thing.

So. Yep. When I, when you hear me speak about that, are those symptoms as well, 

Jen Ross: those, I'm so glad you brought that up. Um, yes. Every one of those, and couple of things I'll, I'll comment on that. You called out, 

John Common: please. 

Jen Ross: One thing we didn't talk about when you said, you know, like, how do I know we kind of went to the well, or is the business doing something different and you've gotta think about your capabilities.

Another one is. Hopefully most of the marketers out there listening to us today have some kind of access to employee engagement surveys and scores in their organization. So a marketing leader's looking at that you might not naturally think what you're seeing connects to. So an an example I had with another client the other day was, Hey, we, I, I was working with A CMO and their HR partner, and the HR partner said to me, Jennifer, I.

As the HR partner for marketing, I get requests from every function in marketing that they need more resources. They we need to add headcount. And she said, I don't know. How do I know that? How do I know that they're doing the job the best way they can do the job and they really need more resources? Or is something else broken and.

What that point of, to that led to a conversation about whether or not they even tracked, did they have service level agreements in their organization? Yes. Were they tracking productivity? And in their case, they weren't. It was like a, one of the, what we've seen all the time to the marketing deli counters, if I need this, okay, I have to respond to it.

Right. Um, and so all of that is true. And you, you touched on something at the end. I'll say one more thing because it was one of the reasons I was so excited to join two acts. Um, 'cause I'd spent a lot of time hearing about these things and working on marketing org design and you know, there's, marketing is one of the functions in an organization where unlike other functions like finance and even, um, you know, to the extent definitely technology, sometimes even HR a little bit, our functions in an organization that will often leverage outsource resources, offshore resources, even.

Yet in marketing you don't really see that very much. You don't think of it. You, you, in marketing, you think of, oh, I need an agency to go do that. Well, an agency is usually a kind of point in time thing, and they still don't really operate like they're part of your organization. So looking at this model that two X has a new ways of working, where, to your point, sometimes you need to dial things up and dial things down quickly.

I can do all of those things now if I'm more open to thinking about a model like that. So it's, it's re it's really exciting and I think we've never been at a time like we're at right now with all the challenges we've been talking about, where a model like that is really like, ugh. Light bulb. Yeah. And each like, there's my answer.

John Common: Yeah. That's so great. That's really great. Alright, so we've defined. Marketing org transformation. We've, uh, talked about what are the symptoms, the indicators, how, you know, it's time to take an honest look at that. What I wanna do next is, the next two things I want us to talk about is I wanna go to the, the mistakes side first, and then we're gonna go to how to do it right?

'cause I, I think that's, that's often how it happens, right? So imagine you're, um, a, a listener to growth driver. You're A-C-M-O-C-R-O. Someone who's a revenue leader at a, maybe a larger company or even a mid-size company, you're listening to this episode and you're like, okay, cool. I'm sold John and Jen, I know I'm gonna take a fresh look at my marketing organization.

And what are the mistakes that often get made when companies are in this, uh, contemplating transformation, starting to test and do it? Then, and then we'll talk about next, we'll talk about how to do it maybe with some best practices and guiding principles. But first, what are some mistakes that you see when people go to rework it?

Jen Ross: Oh, we could spend an entire episode on this topic and, and a bourbon drink. I'll, I'll do it in a bourbon drink, by the way. Yeah, that would go really well with this topic. I'll, I'll just kind of rapid fire a few things and Yeah, hit it. Yeah. You could add to this list, but thinking of it as a one time thing.

Like, uh, this is a one time project and like, no, your operating model should always be evolving and changing and looking at, you know, you're, you're assessing how you're, your, the team skills and how they, their daily work that's done is, is a never ending ongoing. The second one is, is thinking about it. As marketing alone, like, oh, I need to do something just in marketing.

Failing to align sales product, customer success teams with your marketing transformation efforts as a recipe for failure. Um, you're likely to have friction on coming in and thinking, yeah, I told you I could go on this one forever. Yeah, no, please do it. Coming in and thinking, I, I, I, I, I have a feeling, and you're probably right, you know, if your marketing leader, you've been observing the team, you probably have a sense of what's working and not working.

You're probably not aware of all of the things that might be happening in how the day-to-day work gets done. Um, and then the one I talked about earlier on in the call that we keep coming back to is I can't tell you how many times someone will think, yeah, I've gotta do something differently and I need to look at the team.

They usually, it's because of people on the team and they'll bring an org chart and say, Jen, here's. So how I'm structured today, is it right? What should I do? It's like, hmm, put the org chart away, put the boxes away for a minute. Back to that, how is the company growing? What are you trying to achieve? How close are you to achieving that today?

It's like the from in the two state, what's, what can I do today? Current state, where are there gaps? Now let's bring in how you're structured today and how well that aligns to the vision you've created for where you need to be. Um, the last one, and it's not the last one, but the last one before I let you add to this list, is some will also evaluate their marketing model just by looking at metrics.

And it isn't just looking at your performance metrics. I mean, of course that's probably the first indicator that you need to look at it, but it's about assessing how well your team, the processes we've been talking about and their partners internally, externally align to business outcomes. 

John Common: Oh my gosh, those are great.

Every one of those is great. Um, I'm not sure I, I, I had a couple of thoughts that I could add, but you, you're, you're the expert. Let me, let me float a couple past you. Uh, your list was, I, I was typing your list down. 'cause I, I have a feeling you and I are gonna do a joint blog article or something about this, I hope, um, uh, on our, on our blog.

But, um, e everything you said and what are your thoughts about, um, so. I'll call it blunt force and discriminate cuts. I've seen this a lot of times where the decision makers who hold budget and marketing budgets and their CFOs, CEOs boards, sometimes they'll say, um, we need to do more with less. And they will just sort of 20% cut indiscriminately.

Jen Ross: I've had it happen. 

John Common: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Um, um, and then, and then. Okay, so that's good that, that's a mistake to avoid. And, and, and of course we'll talk about how to avoid it next in our conversation. But the, the other mistake I see, I think, and I wanna see what you think is, um, embarking on your marketing transformation without a sense of priority, that that helps you un understand.

Like you, you might bump into something that needs to be improved in marketing, but it might be a small thing. And, and, and what do they call it? Uh uh. Tripping over quarters to get to, to pick up pennies. Have you heard that phrase before where, you know, in like, in other words, no, but it's a no, but it's, it's a good one.

So I think I, what I've seen is people go to, uh, go to transform marketing, and it's not that they're wrong to focus on this, it's that there's, that they're missing the elephant in the room. So a sense of priority is what I've seen as well. 

Jen Ross: Yeah, I, I think too sometimes. I'll say two, two more things about that.

Sometimes it's easy when you think, Hey, things don't work. We're not meeting our performance goals. And then you start to think, well, maybe, you know, maybe I have some issues here with these, with the people that I have on the team without, under, without having a conversation with your team and looking at where are you spending your time.

I, it's easy to make the assumption that I am not seeing enough come out of here. Uh, they didn't deliver what I expected them to deliver. I, I worked, couple of weeks ago, I joined a workshop that a client was having, and I really liked that as a marketing leader. She took the time to do this. She had everybody, everyone on the team.

Now, of course, she had a smaller team, so she could do this. I mean, large organizations, you can't have everybody. Um, and all she wanted, it was very informal and they, they just had two or three slides to present. Really, all she wanted to know is where are you spending your time all day? Um, and what do you think, you know, your biggest bottlenecks are and like, what's holding you back?

And one of the things that comes out of doing an exercise like that is you'll find that you have a lot of. Strategic roles, people who are in core roles in your organization. I'll give you a great example that comes up all the time. Product marketers who, when you ask them, Hey, do you have all your personas defined?

And you know how, like how strong are your value props? And you like, do you know your buyer needs a time and time again? I will hear, yeah, we started that project. Yes, we have a, oh, we have to go back to it. The things that are keeping them from going back to those things that are so core Yes. To your performance are they are focused on a lot of execution related things.

'cause they have 

John Common: to Yeah. Right. 

Jen Ross: By default. Um, same thing like event marketers. Oh, they're doing lots of, you know, how much time it takes me with procurement and vendors and stuff. There are lots of roles in the organization where there are a lot of execution related tasks and. Um, that's another really good thing to understand because there are other options and avenues you can pursue, like a marketing as a service model.

And I use that one because that's dear and dear to my heart, um, for solving that. So that's why when I look at organizations and I look at those, what capabilities do you need? What do you have today? Okay, here are their gaps. Well, the next step after you define the gaps is identify. All the ways to fill that gap.

'cause oftentimes it, it'll, it's one way I need to go hire somebody. Do you, I mean, 

John Common: do you 

Jen Ross: That's 

John Common: that, that's exactly right. That's really great. I love that. Um, you've, you all consultants love a good two by two. Uh, uh, uh, when you were just talking, I was thinking about, I've heard it described as the Eisenhower Matrix.

It's the urgent versus important and two by two. Right. And things can be very urgent, but not really. They're urgent, but they're not gonna move the needle for growth. And what, like that pro uh, that product marketing example is, I've, I've seen it across so many marketing roles every day in, in so many businesses, is that they're choked with urgent but not necessarily strategically critical things on their plate.

And that's how you end up at the end of a quarter or a half year or a year, saying, why is it that we underperformed. Against our growth goals and lurking in, there is 3-year-old personas that are out of date that never, that never actually got done in a professional, rigorous way. And why was that? It was week after week of urgent, but not strategically important stuff.

Yeah. I, I think that's so, so true. That's 

Jen Ross: back to that my team is so busy and there's all these activities. They are, there are, but in then. That also leads to burnout of some of your, you know, your right, higher value people that are doing lower impact work. Not to say that the other work isn't critically important, it's just that you've got a distinction in your, you know, the, this marketing as a service model is all about making the distinction of you've got people who need to know, be the expert in your business, in your market for your, but you've got all these other things that you want to be.

B2B marketing industry best practices that other organizations are using. You don't have to create those yourself. They're being done. So why not go leverage people who are doing that day in and day out so that your core strategic people. Can do more, be more innovative, be more forward, forward looking.

John Common: Do you need an expert B2B media partner? I'm not talking B2C. I'm not talking just pay per click. I'm not talking rando consultants. I'm talking about an expert B2B media team with a chops. And the expertise to reliably find your target audience, the right segments, the right accounts, the right buying teams, the right personas, and at the right time when they're ready for your message and the platforms and the channels they frequent and trust.

That's what a B2B media partner needs to do for you, and that's what you'll get when you go talk to the folks at Intelligent Demand. Yeah. Well, let's, let's go right into it then. So if, if those are the mistakes that we wanna avoid as we go into marketing organization transformation, what does the smarter way look like?

Walk us through it. Yeah. 

Jen Ross: Smarter way. Well, just a couple of things of what you, I'll start with what do you wanna achieve, right? You wanna, you know, I'll go back to a word that, um. I didn't, I didn't create the use of this, but back in my serious decision slash Forrester days where we would talk about marketing as an ecosystem, but I always liked it because it was the idea of interconnection between components, both inside and outside of marketing.

So that's one thing. And the other thing is starting point, is to be willing to think about that concept that you and I just talked about of. Yeah. Are like, are the activities distributed in a balanced way in my organization? Can I unburden some of those roles that can be higher impact? Have I asked them, you know, we've got a client who took an approach, um, when he was implementing a a, you know, considering this marketing as a service model of just saying to his team.

'cause 'cause there's this stigma, John, I think with outsourcing offshoring models that is like. Taboo. Like, nah, it's like cheaper. You know? I'm getting people for lit. It's not just about, it's not just about that. It's about, no, I, I'm actually, can I get capabilities I don't have today that will accelerate our efforts?

Can I unburden and unlock strategic core value by doing something like that? Um, so I think before, but before even jumping to the solution, I'll, I'll, I'll keep, I probably sound a little bit like a, a broken record at this point, but I'll go back to the starting point really is, um, you're gonna laugh at this 'cause you and I said these words about something else the other day, like.

Admit you have a problem. It's like the the AA of marketing. Like I recognize performances, I recognize I might need to look at my marketing operating model. Right? And then be willing to take a different approach in doing that and put the org chart aside for a minute and think as a business leader and strategically, because that's the other thing that I think CMOs are challenged with, sometimes they don't.

Often get a seat at the table. You know, at the, at the, at the I I joked on another webinar that we did that it's like being at the kids' table at Thanksgiving, right? Like, you're invited, but you don't get to sit at the, at the adult table. And sometimes you don't help yourself when you don't demonstrate that you're thinking like a business leader.

Um, so recognize it may take a, you may need a re-look. Uh, think about what the business is trying to achieve. Map out what needs to be done, the work that needs to be done in marketing, and then think about what is the smartest way to get the work done in marketing? What do I have today, what do I need?

And be open to the different ways to fill those gaps. Um, would be, you know, first starting point, you know, my recommended first step starting points. Um, and understand when you're looking at all of these options. Um, again, I'm on my soapbox because I love this model, but. It isn't just of doing it cheaper, it's doing it smarter.

It's filling gaps. It's again, you know, unleashing core strategic value. It's flexible, it's, it's, it's all the things that you don't have with your legacy marketing operating model. 

John Common: Yeah. Alright, so I'm, I'm making notes here as we're talking. So it sounds like step one is. Have the courage to take a fresh look and determine is there a need in an opportunity for upleveling or evolving how we, how we think about our marketing org, number one.

Number two, um, which is, which is the AA meeting moment? Do we have a problem potentially here? Number two, what I'm hearing for you say is once you've recognized that there might be an opportunity worth exploring around your marketing org, start with your growth goals and priorities. Understand. Don't use a generic understanding of what marketing needs to do.

Use what your company at this point in your company's lifecycle, what, what are the jobs that must be done by marketing critically for the organization to hit its growth goals? And then translate those, think deeply about in light of those growth priorities, what marketing capabilities must we be great at?

What, what capabilities must we be great at to achieve those specific growth priorities? I, I heard you say that. Then you get to, okay, now I know what cap, what we've gotta be great at to achieve our, our growth goals over the next 6, 12, 18, 24 plus months. Now it's time to say, what is the right organization structure?

What teams, what roles freshly thought about in light of those capabilities with those growth goals? What, what, what's the right way to organize ourselves? And then what I heard you say is, okay, now we've got a fresh take on that. Then you look at them and you say, okay, what are the, what are within those roles and teams?

What are the jobs where I'm like, I, I, I shouldn't, and I can't outsource those. We've gotta, we've gotta have people who are inside experts for these services or capabilities or jobs to be done. And then with, which then sets up the last piece, which is now for the ones that maybe are. Um, uh, maybe I can take a fresh look at partnering or, or insourcing differently or outsourcing these other skill sets, and that's where you can start to bring in, um, uh, a new, new thinking, new new partners.

Am I, am I, am I, yeah. Capturing this. Okay. John, 

Jen Ross: you master you mastered the course. 

John Common: Yeah. 

Jen Ross: Uh, you know, uh, what, when I think about, so what is everybody trying to do right now? The things that I hear all the time are. Speed. Speed. Flexibility. Yeah. Agility, like modern execution means we just have to be able to react and respond faster, right.

Than we've been able to. And that's probably one of the things that as we think back to the way we've always structured, our teams legacy models tend to favor, for lack of a better word, I, I think control. Over agility and today an example of what I see from clients who are, are leveraging this kind of model, this marketing as a service model are, you know, I'm working with an organization right now who they've got their demand generation go to market motion nailed, like they consider themselves a used, you know, all the B2B industry best practices and they perform really well there.

What they realize is, you know, we've kind of not paid attention to the growth that comes from our own customer base and we're really not good at driving customer programs, you know, driving advocacy and loyalty and, but yet we cannot add resources right now. And I don't wanna distr, disrupt business as usual because it's performing and going well.

That's where, you know, creative thinking like, but what I could do is I could spin up through a marketing as a service solution, a team to beginning to begin doing some testing, some piloting, some kind of like, you know, an, I called it for them, an incubation hub, um, where they could do rapid testing and trials of things.

So, you know, the, the, the models like that enable you to do. More of those things, um, that you weren't able to do with your, with your legacy model. Um, those models also put a lot of emphasis on perfecting processes, but the value does lie in being able to rapidly test, learn, and scale What's working 

John Common: if, uh, if, if, uh, someone listening to this right now is like, okay, okay, you defined it for me, you, you.

Remind me of the symptoms about what I might be seeing in my marketing org or company that would indicate it's time to take a fresh look. You told me about the mistakes I might want to try to avoid. Now you're kind of walking me through the smarter way to think about transformation within the marketing org.

Um. I'm, let's imagine they've started to do that in their own mind, even as they're listing and they're like, okay, yeah, I see what you're, you know, 'cause smart people listen to Growth Driver and so they're like, oh, I, I get it. I get it. So you're saying that there are tasks, skillset, priorities that I could partner with or think about partnering with differently.

Oh, by the way, it also could come with lower costs, but it's not just about lower costs, it's also about gains in agility and speed. Time to value. And even, you didn't mention this, but I know this also deeply certified experts, right? So like versus using, you know, Paul, the generalist at the bottom of my org chart, and he's a, he's a, he fakes marketing ops on Tuesday and he fakes copywriting on Wednesday.

Paul's great. But like sometimes you need an actual six sense expert. Sometimes you actually need someone who is a, who is a trained creative. So imagine I'm there, what would be, what do I do? What do I do? How do I, how do I do? Is it, is it start with a pilot or go big? How? How would I start to look at 

Jen Ross: that?

Great question. And we get asked them question all the time, so, you know, back to this word, transformation, starting small with pilot initiatives. Is really good. In some cases it helps prove value, but scaling actual transformation requires a more holistic, phased approach. So, you know, if you, you, there's agencies out there, let's use an example, right?

There's agencies out there that would do like staff augmentation, like, uh, yeah, I need Paul to your, let's use Paul, your example, right? Is doing all these things. Paul, the generalist. Yeah, Paul, the generalist. Now we can't have Paul take on this. Here's one person. Sure you can go, you agencies exist to do that.

I don't consider like a true marketing as a service model, as part of org transformation, that component of staff augmentation. Sure you can, you can, you can do that. Is that gonna be transformative? Is it going to really change the ways you work? It's, it's gonna help solve a, a current pain you might be having either with capacity or something, but it, but is it going to actually change the way that you're working and really have an impact on performance?

Probably not. So, you know, if, if you are really, if you are really in a situation where you're truly thinking more along the lines of the topic of what we're talking about today, where there's, you know, I think a lot of, you're, you're right. The people listening to your podcast are smart people, and we've all done it.

We've all done that kind of augmentation. Yeah. We've all worked with those one-off agencies. And we know too that that also takes. It's not like you can just offload that, right? Like, these are resources that become yours. They become embedded in your teams. They are working in your technologies, they are using your processes.

They come to your team meetings. You're not doing that agency management of project to project, they become embedded in your organization. Um, and that's a, that's a big difference. 

John Common: Yeah. And I, and, and I know this, so I want to call this out. It doesn't go from like, thinking about it, like we're thinking about it here on, on this episode today to immediately executing this sort of, uh, partner model that Jen's talking about.

There's a, there's a critical, thoughtful, strategic middle step, which is, um, I'm gonna brag about you some more. Jen, you and your team literally are experts at this. You, you, you meet with organizations and help them. Um, you don't leave it to them to do all that hard planning work. You actually are experts at that and you work with them, and it's actually part of the process is to come alongside them with that expertise, that organizational transformation expertise, and make certain, make certain that we, we, we know exactly what needs to happen.

Where, why, how so that when you do, whether it, it's a, it's a, it's a phase one pilot or, or a, a go bigger, full transformation. When you go to move into execution, you know it's gonna work because of the planning that was put up front and I. I know that's a best practice as well. 

Jen Ross: Yeah. Leaders, John, underestimate, um, and thank you for bragging, but you know, I can't take credit.

It's, you know, two, two X has been in this business and so for all the clients that we work with that have done this, you know, we really do the two x being, we two X really has a best in class playbook for this. And leaders can underestimate sometimes how much change management is needed. And you know, going back to your question about pilots versus transformation, pilots can show quick wins, but.

Lasting transformation really demands a sustained commitment. Like it's not a, you know, think about any marketing initiative you do. Every marketer would say, oh, well you're expecting results in four or six weeks. No, you're not gonna get that from any marketing campaign or effort. You need needs to, need to run it over a period of time.

Um, and your point about transition is so true in that, with that, you know, enabling change, managing change. Because every transformation has critical pivot points. Um, early warning signs like misalignment or lack of adoption that can derail a whole effort. So, you know, we're, we are with a client every step of the way.

And, uh, I guess the last thing I'll say, because it's another thing that, that drew me to join two XI spent all these years working on. Coaching advising, giving best practices to B2B CMOs and, and in CMO roles myself, implementing those things. And when I started talking to the people at two X and looking at their solution, I thought, wow, it's now we're not just telling you what we think you should do and given you best practices and tips and things like we've done on today's call, but now.

You brought a problem. Let's say you are, you know, kind of nascent in your A BM efforts and we're giving you a strategy. We don't leave you at that point. It's just a right. Here's your blueprint for the strategy. Go forth and talk. Good luck. Go forth and conquer. Yeah. Right. It's, we're saying, okay, and we can enable the execution against that strategy, via this marketing as a service model.

So that was for me, my wow, that finally being able to bring those two things together because, um, you know, how perfect is that? 

John Common: Yeah, and I'll use, I'll 

Jen Ross: use one of yours. What is it? Uh, like a Reese's Peanut butter cup or peanut butter jelly. No, I had to c get your chocolate and peanut butter. Had chocolate and peanut butter.

I had to get your food analogy in there. 

John Common: God bless you for that little bourbon, little, little chocolate and peanut butter. Um, that's fan. Yeah, that's it. And, and I think to unlock this, to unlock this stuff that Jen and I have been talking about now on this episode, it. I think the biggest piece of advice I would offer is it, it goes all the way back to the beginning.

Take an honest look, go for a walk, go for a run, go for a long drive, whatever your, uh, get some space and do your deep thinking moment and step back and be like, or is it time for us to take a fresh look at this or not? And if everything's working great, then don't. Then everything's working great. But if it's not, I think that the most important thing to do is say our.

Am I as a, as a marketing leader, as a revenue leader, are we as an organization ready to think differently? Is it time for us to think differently about it? Because if, if, and if the answer is yes, then there's all kinds of options and lever let levers to pull, not only to your point in the strategy piece, but also the execution piece.

And that is, that is the, the Reese's peanut butter cup. Right? It's, it's the chocolate of strategy. But to your point, you don't leave them. Leave 'em with a, a PowerPoint deck. 'cause a PowerPoint deck doesn't change anything. It has to come to life in your revenue engine with execution. So a strategy and execution, uh, under the guidance of a, of a smarter, more modern operating model.

Um, gosh, I get a, I'm getting excited thinking about it. Um, good stuff. Okay. One more thing before I let us go. Uh, future look out into the future. What trends related to marketing. Operating model. And I already know the first one, you, the ai. So talk to me about ai. So I'll, I'll skip, I'll, 

Jen Ross: well, I can talk about ai, skip ai.

'cause you're right, that's on everybody's mind. Uh, if there's so much, uh, to unpack here, but, uh, if I were to sum it up, I'd say, you know, future of marketing org design, I'll say what it's not would be the easier way to say it. It isn't just a centralized versus decentralized. 'cause how many times have we seen that?

Oh, we're a distributed model. Oh, we're a centralized model. It's a hybrid model of distributed resources, central, decentralized in onshore, offshore, inhouse, designed to optimize for agility and expertise. Um, that would be the thing. And, and yeah, sure. AI automation, customer data platforms, everything.

Reshaping marketing, operating models that organizations need to embrace these technologies to scale faster and smarter. But it's easy to say you might not have the number of resources you need, the resources with the right skills to leverage those technologies, even if you have them in place. Um, so you know, again, another way to creatively think about how you can maximize the value of the investments that you, that you've made or you're, you're going to make.

John Common: Yeah. Yeah. That's great. Well. We have made it almost to the end. Jen, thank you for being such a wonderful expert and guest on Growth Driver. 

Jen Ross: Thank you for having me. 

John Common: Um, what, what, what did we not cover? What's something where you're like, Hey, parting thought for, for folks listening to this episode, interested in this topic.

What's, what's something that you're like, oh, I didn't get a chance to say this? Or, or, or a final thought? 

Jen Ross: No final thought for me, I think would be, if you wanna dig deeper, I mean, 'cause we all listen to podcasts like this. Go to webcasts and think, oh yeah, okay, that's. Talk to other marketing leaders, you know, talk, and I would say seek out those marketing leaders that, that to you.

And I have a bunch of them in my head. You probably have a bunch of them that you think of as these are marketing leaders that are paving the way. These are marketing leaders that are thinking like business leaders. What if they've done, um, what, you know, have they led successful transformations in their organization?

How have they done it? What do their marketing operating models look like? 

John Common: That's great advice. That's really great advice. Well, again, thank you for, uh, Jen, for being on Growth Driver. Uh, I I, I have a feeling you're gonna become a repeat guest on this show, at least if I have my way. You will. Um, thank you so much.

Thank you. Happy to be, I'd love to come back. Oh, good. And, and to, to those of you listening and watching, thank you for spending some time with me and Jen today here on Growth Driver. If you like what we talked about, if you like this show, I want you to do us both a favor, follow us. When you see these, uh, episodes and these clips come out, share 'em with your team.

I think they would be valuable for them. Definitely. If you're not subscribed, subscribe, you pick the channel Growth Drivers Everywhere, YouTube podcast app you pick. And also, um, reach out to Jen or me on LinkedIn. We love to talk to you and I know Jen would love to meet you as well. And I guess just the last thing I want to say is Growth Driver is brought to you today by the smart and multi-talented people at Intelligent Demand and two x.

So here's the thing. If you work at a company that needs to grow smarter, that's literally what Intelligent Demand stands for. Smarter growth. So go to intelligent demand.com, request a consult with one of their growth experts. It can help you in either or both areas. You need to uplevel the effectiveness of your growth program.

Gotcha. Need to level up the efficiency of your marketing operating model. Gotcha. So go check 'em out Intelligent demand.com. And the last thing to say is, see you soon here on Growth Driver. Bye everybody.