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Speaker 1: (00:00)
I'm composed. Hello and welcome to Elevate a podcast by Aptitude eight. Uh, I'm Connor Jeffers and I'm joined today by my co-host, Caitlin Crock.

Speaker 2: (00:17)
Hey, guys,

Speaker 1: (00:19)
Uh, today we're super excited to have, uh, Matt and Khalil, uh, who both actually work with us at Aptitude eight, uh, is consultants in our rev op practice. So guys, I'll let you do an your own introduction and a little insight into your role and kinda what you guys are working on.

Speaker 3: (00:34)
Yeah. Hey, everyone. Uh, excited to be here. This is Matt [inaudible]. Um, I spend most of my time leading audits, implementations, integrations in the HubSpot ecosystem. Uh, and so working with folks like Khalil, uh, and other solution consultants on our team is how I spend most of my days in my weeks. Hey everybody. I am Khalil Cos I am also, uh, on the ops teams spending a lot of my time, most of my time in the HubSpot environment. Uh, I do spend, I'm now going to spend a lot of time, um, doing solutions consultant work. Um, and that means looking at, uh, looking at problems, fixing those problems all in the rev op scope. So, uh, happy to be here and, uh, thanks for having me. To me,

Speaker 1: (01:22)
Kalil is low key flexing on his, his recent consultant promotion, uh, from as he should, his associate world, as he should, as he should, uh, I think a call out too. So I think what's super interesting and the reason that we wanted to have, uh, both of you guys here is cuz you guys have super interesting backgrounds, um, that are somewhat unique to, to folks on our team. Um, in that you both came in the organization, uh, in our associate role. So, uh, for aptitude eight, uh, our sort of most junior role on our consulting team is associates. Uh, we pull them into sort of a whole range of diverse backgrounds and then throw them into projects, work on our project teams. They sort of get exposure and knowledge and understanding. And, uh, Matt has kind of been our, uh, our prototype for the associate role, uh, and has sort of grown with the organization as a whole. But I'd love to hear a little bit from you guys on like your background prior to coming to a eight, and then we'll sort of transition into what your experience here has been over that timeframe. But, uh, Matt, if you wanna kick us out in terms of what were you doing before?

Speaker 3: (02:19)
Yeah, so, uh, my entry into the workforce is a little bit different than probably most folks. My generation. It kind of started with, well, it didn't kind of start, it did start with an apprenticeship at a tech startup. So, uh, I spent my, maybe let's say first six months of my career as what we would probably refer to as an sdr, uh, selling for a marketplace and, and the city of Chicago. And so, uh, learned a lot, drank, uh, water through a fire hose. Uh, eventually moved up to an AE like role at that startup. Uh, and eventually then to like a business development man, business, uh, development manager role where basically I was managing both, uh, selling, selling things to the supply, uh, the demand side, excuse me, but also managing the supply side as well. Um, and then I kind of, uh, learned more about marketing, generally speaking, and, uh, I wanted to scratch that itch, uh, learn more about what's going on in that world. I thought it was a better fit from a personality and interest perspective. And that kind of is kind of where, uh, Connor, you and Epi two day came in and started to scratch the itch. And now I'm here.

Speaker 1: (03:25)
Matt, Matt was, uh, an early employee. I, I remember right at the beginning when uh, we decided we were gonna go do this. I called Matt and I was like, Hey, what are you doing? Was it like today? Did I meet you? Like same day or was it like in a day or two?

Speaker 3: (03:38)
It was probably a day or two

Speaker 1: (03:39)
For, it was probably a day or two. Uh, I hit up Matt and I was like, yo, we should chat. Uh, and then I was like, you should definitely come and do this. And it was awesome. Uh, and so it's been super fun. Matt's been here since, uh, the early days. And Khalil, I know you guys were friends before this also, but, uh, what were you doing?

Speaker 3: (03:54)
Yeah, I, I went the more traditional route. So I went to college after I went to high school at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. Uh, did a political science route. So I spent a lot of my time, uh, being involved in politics. But the roles that I had, um, a lot of them were sales oriented, so like we would have different products or different things that we were trying to get into, we were trying to get people to, to buy into. So a lot of it was kind of the sales, a little bit of a sales cycle, just talking with them responses, overcoming objections, that whole thing. And that was kind of, most of my college experience was kind of scratching that itch as Matt said, um, doing that sales stuff. And then because I knew Matt and because I, um, he was always hyped about this stuff and he was always, he's a really good hype man and he's always able to get, uh, me excited. He kind of showed me some of these other alternative things apart from, uh, the sales, um, apart from the sales world, apart from the sales cycle. Um, and after I graduated, um, after a few months hiatus, uh, Matt was, was beefing up this, uh, this opportunity and I, and I jumped in and that's, that's why I'm here.

Speaker 1: (05:03)
So I'm gonna assume, uh, I'll, I'll do a little bit. So I, we will talk a lot today. So both Matt and Glue both work in our rev ops practice, uh, instead of like batting around particular definitions, most of the work that we focus on is sort of, uh, building out business process, combining it with systems, uh, and sort of helping businesses get a handle on their data, their overall process, and sort of deliver those better customer experiences. But I think what's really interesting for both of you guys, and I know we've sort of started to, to look at with folks who are hiring as well, but, um, how much do you guys think that your backgrounds in sales, uh, contributed to your understanding of and interest in, uh, the work that you guys focus on now?

Speaker 3: (05:43)
I think that's a good question, Connor. Yeah, I can, I can take a stab at that. I think that a big portion of, uh, my time in, in college, at least in the sales portion and in other ways was solving problems and trying to get to the root of the problem. So with, with sales, for example, if I'm, if I'm pitching, uh, something to a, a potential client or to a potential person, I am thinking of what they need and how the product that I can solve them or that I have can, can solve that problem. So it was always thinking about what does the client really want or what does this person, what is this person really looking for, and how can I give that to them? And I think that that translates really well when I'm speaking with clients now and I'm trying to dig deeper, um, into what they actually want and what they're actually looking for and how can I provide that in a, in a HubSpot environment solution. So I think that the background itself is just talking with people and understanding the reasoning behind the reason, uh, for their, for their issue.

Speaker 1: (06:48)
Matt's not,

Speaker 3: (06:49)
Yeah, , I'd agree with a lot of what Khalil said. It's like you're not taking no at face value. Uh, you're extremely interested in peeling back all the layers of the onion. Uh, and I think that definitely helps inform, uh, or that curiosity rather, I think is, uh, translates to consulting and what we do, which is, uh, translating business pain points, challenges, so on and so forth into solutions. Um, so yeah, I think that's a big role. Big role plays a big role in it.

Speaker 1: (07:18)
If you guys, so something you guys started touching on is like this, this concept of, uh, someone says there are, here's my challenge, here's my, here's what I'm trying to do, here's what I kind of think that thing looks like to, how does that work to like, now it's built and I'm using it. Where do you guys feel like in that sort of like solution journey for, for lack of a better term, uh, do you guys feel like things either get stuck or where the, where, where's the magic in that process of like, here's where things really start to get stuck on if you were gonna think about how to solve those types of problems. This is like the, the skillset that's significantly differentiating.

Speaker 3: (07:59)
Yeah, I can, I can answer that. I think that when it comes to like listening to clients and when it comes to understanding what, what they're saying, I, I think the biggest the biggest thing is just like drilling down into why. So like, you know, we've heard of like the five why's and like, you want to know why, but why then, but then why is that? But then, and it keeps going five times and you want to understand what, um, what they have, what they're truly trying to get at. So a client could give you a problem that has, and they have a solution and you're thinking about the, their problem, but the solution itself might be kind of sh strung together. So the next step then, um, to kind of unstick that point, um, is to say, Hey, that's a great idea. We could do that, but why? What is it, what you're getting at? And then, oh, it's, it's because of this next thing and then, okay, that's, that's a little bit more information, that's a little bit more meat. But then why, what are you, what are you trying to get at? And then offering reasons as to maybe why they're trying to get there. Um, trying to conceptualize, trying to reify all of these ideas into, into one reason, um, and presenting that to them. I think that's a good way that I un get unstuck, um, when I have those client conversations.

Speaker 1: (09:10)
I think the thing that's so key there is like the context around it. I know, and I do so much more of sort of the front end, uh, of those conversations these days, but I think that so much of the detail in, in what actually happens is surrounded in like, why are we doing this and what's the reason? And I, I feel like we encounter lots of problems where we start solving a problem and then we find out that that either either isn't the actual problem, uh, or that problem maybe isn't even important. Uh, and we're, we're sort of like doing a symptom from somewhere else and you sort of like lead down this line of questioning. It re always reminds me of, um,

Speaker 1: (09:47)
Like there was this episode of House a million a million years ago, uh, but there's this episode of house where there's a guy who comes in and he's like, Hey, there's something wrong. And every time he pokes something he's like, yeah, like it hurts. Like this hurts and this hurts and this hurts. And like goes in, he like grabs his finger and the guy's like, oh my God, that hurts a lot. He's like, it's your finger man. Like what? Yeah. Like, that's what's actually broken. But I think that that's like anecdotally is so similar to so many of the conversations that we end up having.

Speaker 3: (10:13)
I agree. And to pull in what Matt said a little bit is that like you have to, I think the rev ops role is like, you really have to be genuinely interested in, in what they're trying to solve for. It's not just like checking the box of like, why I have to ask these questions. It's, it's trying to get to their point. Like, you're, you're really trying to understand and you're really trying to listen to them.

Speaker 2: (10:32)
Yeah. And kind of to that point, um, I think one of the things that I notice about our rev op team here is that I almost feel like to be good at rev ops, it's almost like a personality type, right? Like you have to enjoy like solving puzzles and not knowing like where the answer is and trying to like even make up answers where they don't exist sometimes. So I feel like it's less of like a hard skill and more of like a soft skill and most of the time saying it's okay that you don't know something.

Speaker 1: (11:05)
There's like a professional curiosity to it too. Matt. I'd love to know. I mean, I, I think we've described it in sort of conversations before, right? Which is like, the watch isn't ticking. And so instead of it sort of like, oh, this one isn't working, let's go find a new one. It's like I disassembled the whole watch and I like found all of the gears and like this particular one was broken and like now I don't, I can't put it back together again maybe. And like now I actually have to go get a new watch, but I just like couldn't handle the idea that I didn't know why, why this was happening. It was like driving me crazy. Uh, how much do you feel like there's a, I don't want to use the word neuroticism cuz it sounds way more negative than what I mean, but sort of this like, uh, obsession, obsess with obsession what's, yeah, obsession, right? Like what, how, how does this actually work? Like what's actually happening here and how much do you think that that's something that you find either consistent across people you work with or consistent in terms of folks that you've seen excel?

Speaker 3: (11:53)
Yeah, I think it's definitely consistent with people on our team. I think it's consistent, at least in my experience with people who excel at rev ops. Like you have serious issues accepting someone telling you like something doesn't work or can't work and it's like, it, it nos at you and that you just, you, you absolutely won't accept it. So I think that's definitely a key component of what may make you a good fit slash uh, make you good at rev ops. And then like, kind of similar to that point is like solving problems is addicting to you. You like, you kind of are super stimulated from the journey of like peeling back the onions asking why, well, like where do we want to go? Uh, and then trying to like, you know, master the order of operations to get there. Um, you're also probably like not disorganized. You may not be the most organized person in the world, but you're probably not disorganized. You like,

Speaker 1: (12:47)
You like labeling things Yeah, everything, sub plates, ,

Speaker 3: (12:50)
You have some sort of like, you have some sort of like buckets or places and homes for things. You have your own little process that you work through, even if it's not, uh, the most fancy thing on the face of the planet, you'd enjoy connecting dots to make sense of the world, right. Is is kind of just a general thing as well. Um, and you probably, this is another interesting thing I had for someone who's good at rev ops is you probably didn't hate math growing up.

Speaker 1: (13:17)
I I don't agree with that one. ,

Speaker 3: (13:20)
You don't. No, no. I

Speaker 1: (13:21)
Hated math hat. I hated math. I hated math too. I hated math. Yeah, really? Yeah, yeah,

Speaker 3: (13:26)
Yeah. Well this is good. This is good data. I,

Speaker 1: (13:27)
I think, I think you're uh, I think the example of like, you, you don't, you just like, don't believe someone. We were like, oh yeah, we tried that. It didn't work. You're like, Hmm, it, it'll work. I can make it work for sure. It reminds me, we had one recently, I remember, uh, it was a larger project. Both of you were working again without naming too many names. Uh, but we were, it was like we kept having this roadblock and we kept escalating and like bringing in more and more people and like asking someone else if they did this. And like everyone in the the wrap hop sea show up, we'd be like, okay, so the premises are like, uh, this isn't possible. You can't export the data as a csv. And everyone's like, no, no, no, no, no. Like that, that's not right. Like let's just stop talking right now because I don't believe you for like this first premise that you're saying.

Speaker 1: (14:07)
And I think that that is so critical of a skillset. And in this situation it was like other people were coming and like, no, no, no. Like seriously, I I I checked that. But being able to say, are these premises true? Like, do I actually believe that what you're telling me and are these confines, right? And I think that there's this concept of like, Hey, can you come play in the sandbox? And I, I think that there's sort of this pattern of like, I don't believe that the sandbox is real and and I can, I can build outside of it and it's not really a problem. Uh, and I've found that to be relatively consistent for sure.

Speaker 3: (14:40)
Yeah. I actually just had a point. Yeah, I will, I would say that my No, it's all, it's all good. I would would say that my, uh, my time in, in political science, just the time, the four and a half years that I spent in college, um, half me wished I could get back. Uh, but uh, the time I spent there, I think a lot of it was digging into, or at least my perception of how I absorbed information was like, yeah, what you said is could be true, but like, not really. And I'm gonna go see if it's, see if there's some, if there's another reason, if there's another nuance, if there's something else I can bring to the table. Um, and I think that that was, I think that's definitely an influence of, of I guess a personality type, like you were saying, Caitlin, and, and just kind of like how I approach being told something is a certain way, um, is that like I take it with a grain of salt and then I, or like confirm but verify or verify. But whatever that mantra is,

Speaker 2: (15:34)


Speaker 3: (15:35)
Trust for verify.

Speaker 2: (15:37)
Yeah. Do you feel like there's like a large element of like having to create your own roles a lot of the time too, and like, being comfortable in that and like going off and doing something that maybe like hasn't been done before that people can't tell you the answer to?

Speaker 1: (15:57)
Do you feel, do you feel excited or afraid when there's no manual?

Speaker 2: (16:00)
Yeah, I guess that's a better way of phrasing what I'm saying.

Speaker 3: (16:03)
Yeah. Yeah. Uh, it, I could speak for me, it doesn't scare me. It ki it kind of excites me. I do, I do, I'm always searching for some sort of like framework where like source the truth. Like what are the bare minimum, uh, what's the bare minimum requirements for whatever we're talking about, but definitely doesn't scare, uh, me when there's not a manual. Yeah, I, I agree with that. I think that it's also about like, I don't wanna say making it your own, but also knowing what works best for you and how you operate in that environment. Um, and know, knowing how you operate in an, I guess an environment that is new to you, you should probably have a really good understanding of that. And like if you, like if you got dropped in the middle of a city that you have no idea where you were at, would you, would you excel? Like how would you, would you make, what would you make of that? I think that's kind of like a similar, a similar question, um, is, would you break down? Would you, you know, whatever, or would you, you know, go and and do whatever you're, you you want to do and, and make it your own? So I think that that's like another, another way to think about that.

Speaker 1: (17:07)
Cool. Something I, I want to, to touch on, uh, and I think I know that both of you are also incredibly hardworking people that take like your own development and your career success super seriously. But I think something that's been super interesting, uh, for me and I know for some of the other folks on the leadership team as well is like seeing the both the speed with which, and also the intensity with which you guys have sort of approached your own professional development. And I'm super interested in how you guys think about that or what you would sort of give to people that are starting out, uh, in their career. I think both of you obviously came in from, uh, if not sort of early stage career positions, but sort of biting something off and then we'll dovetail more into like rev ops specifically. But I think generally you guys have tremendous insights on that, especially for younger people just starting to get into their professional career.

Speaker 3: (18:02)
Yeah, I can, I can ask a little bit or I can talk a little bit about that. I think one piece of it that stands out to me is, is a little bit of like an internal competition. Um, a healthy internal competition. Um, not, not something unreasonable that's going to to break you down, but having standards for yourself, um, and expecting to meet those expectations because you have a, you expect things of yourself, you expect to do that. And I think maybe there was a little external competition as well, just like knowing Matt was like a star and like knowing that like I have to, I want to meet that and I, and I want to hit that as well. So I think that for me it was like a little bit of like an internal and external healthy competition. Like I'm stressing healthy because I think that it can turn unhealthy quickly. So I think it was, I think it was like a healthy of like, hey, I need to, I need to do this, um, to prove this to myself and, and cuz I know I'm capable of doing it. And I'm gonna, I'm just gonna go back to your asking Connor what the original question was. Just because

Speaker 1: (19:06)
, I think, I think my question is on, like, I think my question is more geared towards, um, if you were to speak to someone whether, whether here at eight or, or generally, right? Someone who's early off in their professional career, um, and saying, Hey, listen, you have this, uh, you have a runway. And I think that there's sort of this like currency of youth, uh, that you can sort of leverage and you can, you get forgiven for a lot more stakes mistakes. You get access to things and people just are like, oh, why don't you just tag along, see what happens? Uh, and those sorts of opportunities dissipate, uh, as you get further in your career. And I think maximizing those is something, uh, both of you have excelled at. And so I'm curious in terms of like recommendations for folks who are earlier in that career cycle, um, of things that you think they should be focusing on or where you just even anecdotally call back as here's what I accredit some of that success to.

Speaker 3: (19:59)
Mm-hmm. . I think some of it starts with, uh, not asking for permission. Like, uh, I think a lot of us feel like we have to ask Ruman to like go do something, uh, or have blockers in our own minds. Um, so it's just being, uh, it may sound dramatic, but being fearless in that regard, I guess. Um, it's also like caring a lot, like a lot, a lot. Um, if you don't, if you don't ha and also having an end goal in mind, right? If you don't have like a short term goal and a midterm and a long term goal, then you probably are just wondering about wondering about. And so if you have a framework to work by and some goals to, to hit and manage against, then um, you kind of have, you can have laser vision to kind of like, like accomplish those short, mid-term long-term goals. Um, so if you care a lot, if you're kind of fearless and, and, uh, not asking for permission to go out and do stuff and you're a go-getter, I think just generally speaking, those are some good recipes for high gross sounds like high

Speaker 1: (21:00)
Fil to me. , high Fieldy, yes.

Speaker 3: (21:03)
Yes. Lots of that. Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 1: (21:07)
Phily. Phily. Yeah, go for it. Cle

Speaker 3: (21:10)
I would, I would add, yeah, just being like being willing to, to kind of brush off the failure if it's a bad failure. Like obviously learn, like learn from all failures, but being willing to like not let it like nag at you. Yeah. Not being, not letting that failure like scare you from doing anything else. Um, letting that failure like teach you. Um, and then just getting right back at it.

Speaker 1: (21:30)
Cool.

Speaker 3: (21:31)
Yeah. And if I could piggyback on that point just really quickly, like I'm somebody who obsesses over like feedback, um, and I, I don't shy away from it. Like I, I want feedback, I want, I want the good, I want the bad, I want to be able to build on everything. And so if you kind of take your ego out of it and you embrace failure as like kind of a learning experience, I think that like those are great recipes for someone who's early on in their career, just in their career in general. Um, who wants to grow exponentially I guess.

Speaker 1: (22:01)
I think both being, uh, young people that are also, I think there's the, the general career, but I wanna get a little more specific with it on rev ops. I think what's really, really interesting for you guys is I think, um, I feel like I've been bouncing around sort of this space before anyone gave it a term and there wasn't really, like, there was no like a career in rev op as a statement still sounds n so new that it almost sounds hoy to me anyway. I think it's, I think it's very real. I think there's, there's a long opportunity for everyone that's there, but I think like even saying that out loud is still really interesting. And I think we're at the early stage of thinking about this as a core function and thinking about this as a career and an area that you can have longer tail participation in. Um, I'm curious, do you guys see that? Do you agree with that? Where do you guys see that going or how are you thinking about I'm, I'm excited about? Or, or where, where does this go and how do you guys see yourselves fitting into it? Or how do you guys plan on fitting into the longer tail of sort of rev ops as a career path?

Speaker 3: (23:06)
Yeah, I, what I love the most about Rev ops and maybe we should define that or, or have Yeah, let's go

Speaker 1: (23:14)
Do us your definition that just do it. Yeah.

Speaker 3: (23:16)
Yeah. Let, let me start with defining it, kind of how I see it. I know everyone has their own little flavor, but they're all kind of similar, I guess. So my, my definition of rev ops is you're connecting specific business units processes to a larger overall business process. And how that translates to the real world is you're making it marketing easy to work with sales, sales to work with customer success, sales to work with finance, so on and so forth. Uh, and therefore you're having uh, you know, a great customer experience, um, so on and so forth. And so if that's my definition of rev ops, what I love about it the most is that you're kind of like building or you're the architect on the inside of the business that helps make everything flow and flow and grow. And so I really like the idea of building things and making and like growing businesses, I guess. And so there's no better role, I think to kind of get an inside view of what a business is doing than rev ops because you're kind of orchestra or you're either orchestrating or help or helping orchestrate all of the tools and processes that make a business grow.

Speaker 1: (24:25)
I also think make it work. I think that there's this like component Yeah. That everyone loves. And I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna denigrate on the marketing side on on your end, Caitlin, but I do think that there's this element, right? If you think about like people, people like in business school, right? Everyone's like branding and advertising and like that's cuz that's like the big flashy like exterior component. But at the end of the day is like stuff has to get made, things have to get done, people have to produce things and people need to be able to buy them. And all of those machines have to be operating a cohesion on the backend. And I think that there's, looking at that holistically, uh, I think also has powered a lot by just technology in general that that's even viable at this stage. But, um, thinking about businesses more as machines, uh, is a perspective that I think Rev up certainly tailors you to Matt, is your perspective that, and maybe I can open it up to Khalil also, but is your perspective that like if you are looking at either being an entrepreneur or being in any sort of a, even an executive leadership position or helping grow a business overall that Rob Ops is like, that's the place to be and that's why you're here

Speaker 3: (25:38)
. That's my hypothesis. That's my for sure. . Yeah, a hundred percent. Um, I think that no better way to, no better way to learn the ins and outs of a business and how you can make goals or actual things happen, uh, than knowing the processes and technologies at play. Uh, a lot of times like we're, we're removing technology or processes or simplifying those two things in order to make things actually work. And so, yeah, I think absolutely, uh, if you're somebody who's interested in rev ops, you're somebody who thinks it's a good personality fit as well and you have interest in becoming an entrepreneur, I think that like happy two date's the perfect place for you because you're gonna get so many different reps and have so much exposure to so many different sophisticated clients and, and problems to solve that. It's like, yeah, one day if you go off and do your own thing, you may have uh, you may have quite the roledex of things that you can pull upon in order to, uh, execute against your idea. And at least that's how I like to think about it.

Speaker 1: (26:40)
We're gonna, we're gonna clip that and throw that on the careers page. Matt plan. Done. That's all good. Now, uh, we'll just have you chat with Matt. Uh,

Speaker 2: (26:49)
Well one thing that's interesting, Connor, that your earlier point made me think of is the four of us here, none of us studied business or marketing.

Speaker 1: (26:58)
Is that true across the board? Yeah. Is everyone nodding?

Speaker 2: (27:01)
Mm-hmm. .

Speaker 1: (27:03)
Good job guys.

Speaker 2: (27:05)
,

Speaker 1: (27:08)
MBAs, they won't teach you to rev ops. Maybe they will now though. I bet you there's, I bet you anything there are going to be mba rev ops courses, Matt teach 'em .

Speaker 2: (27:18)
And when you were, you know, mentioning studying, um, like basically going into marketing or advertising, I think it's interesting because I think that that operations is still so early that like there will eventually be courses for it.

Speaker 1: (27:35)
I there's, there's not operations piece. I think that the other piece of it though too, right, is like there's, it's hard to see. Like it's, it's like if you really like, and I think, I don't know, I often have uh, what hap I was at a lunch yesterday and it was like a client lunch and there was this whole covid scare during the whole thing, . And it was cuz the email that went out was just like a bad email. Like it was an email that was like, the emails like diagnosis confirmed cuz that was the subject line that they had. And then the name of the test was like possible covid exposure. And so like someone at the table like got this email and read this email, I was like, oh my God, it's like results inconclusive. I need to go like do handle and do all these things.

Speaker 1: (28:14)
And I think that there's, when you start to understand how all of that interplays of like, oh, like there's this test and someone named that test and throw it in a database and then that got pulled into an email and it ended up getting sent to somebody. And like when you start to put all those pieces together, there's this overarching elegance to how a customer experience gets delivered. But it's, it's so behind the scenes, like the work that people are doing to try to get things to stitch together is so far removed from what you end up experiencing. And I think unless you are ingratiated it in it in some capacity, you, you, you miss it. Like you wouldn't know, uh,

Speaker 2: (28:55)
I'm having flashbacks to the HBO O intern Yes. Sent

Speaker 1: (28:59)
That email. Hundred percent . Absolutely. Everyone on our team was like, ugh, that poor HBO o intern. Like I've, everyone's been that HBO intern like a hundred percent of the time. Uh, wait, I have, I have a question for you guys, which is, um, I, if you guys experience this, so sometimes I feel like I have uh, a, I'm gonna call it like a business tech superpower, which is just because I'll well I'll, I'll know. So I'll I'll tell an anecdote here. Caitlin's laughing at me. It's like not near , it's not nearly as self-aggrandizing as I'm making it out to be at all. That's your virus is. So I was, uh, I was at the Lego store, uh, and I was buying, uh, I like, they were like, oh, sign up for this v i p program and like do whatever. And so I signed up for this VIP program, but I did it from my phone and then I finished it and then the um, the person was like, oh, well you're not showing up in the system yet.

Speaker 1: (29:51)
And so I don't know why that's not working, but if I try to like enter your u if I try to like enter your user Id as like create a new user, it won't let me because see Matt's smiling, he knows what I'm talking about and they're like, oh that's rejected. And I was like, oh yeah, well that's probably cuz like this thing's on a batch, but it's also authenticating. I was like, it's okay if we send up through a new email, like put this in and then we'll do this and it'll probably merge it on the back end or whatever. And this woman looked at me, she's like, you're a cr like what is happening right now? And I was like, no, no, no, no. Like I just like this makes sense. In this situation, do you guys run into those, do you feel like you can like navigate those types of a problem because you're like, oh no, I like, I understand how whoever set up this thing, probably it's working.

Speaker 3: (30:31)
I, uh, never been to a Lego store.

Speaker 1: (30:33)
, I recommend it. Lego stores are awesome

Speaker 3: (30:37)
Uh, no I, uh, I think that it, I think that it could, I think that you'd scare people maybe with your knowledge, but I think that I think to maybe a broader point you might be making is that this applies, this can apply to like a lot of a lot of things. Um, or even just like personal like understanding like, you know, things that are going on in your own life and like bucketing them or like segmenting them, I don't know. And then, uh, analyzing them and then going forward and then scaring whoever you just talked to about your personal problems. I don't know, there's probably something there. I, I concur. I think that's an awesome skill. My , my building that I live in probably hates me because all their like resident services like suck. Um, so I'm always like, hey, like if this is like something that you're hearing from other residents as well, like I'm happy to like help like drill down into this and, and see what we can do for you guys because like this shouldn't be this hard. So yeah, I think,

Speaker 2: (31:31)
Yeah, I think it gives it's hard points of personal frustration, trying to solve other people's problems.

Speaker 1: (31:37)
, it just gives you anxiety where you're sitting, you're like, did you know that this doesn't have to suck? Are you aware of that? Yeah. Are you aware of that? You

Speaker 2: (31:43)
Have every website? Yes.

Speaker 1: (31:46)
My, my favorite Caitlin anecdote, uh, and you'll have to stop me cuz I'm saying it on on the first, the first recording of this, but I won't tell it again, is Caitlin got to the bottom of the Hulu marketing funnel, uh, for fun and like what was, what did you end up with at the end of it? What was your like final bottom of the funnel offer?

Speaker 2: (32:06)
Oh, it's because I wanted to get, like, I wanted to try Hulu but I was too cheap to pay for Hulu so I got like, what was it, three or five months of like free Hulu or something. So this was like back in college. I don't know. Yeah, it was an adventure head, head by me. .

Speaker 1: (32:26)
I think those types of things are really interesting. I think that like it bleeds into everything else you do. It's kind of similar. They always have the, like people who work in healthcare are hypochondriacs cuz they just like see a whole bunch of stuff happening all the time. So they just have like confirmation bias and their ability to understand it much. Yeah. You know too much and you're like, I don't know, I've seen a lot of people with meningitis in the last month, so maybe that's it. Even though it's like definitely not. Uh, and I think that that plays into other parts of your life also where you're, you encounter something and you're just like, oh, come on man, like you really hard coded this. Like just to hit this deadline, like why'd you have to do it that way? , why this is really screwing me up.

Speaker 3: (33:06)
Yeah.

Speaker 4: (33:08)
Cool.

Speaker 1: (33:10)
Uh, to close this out, uh, on this one guys, um, in terms of people that are looking, we touched a little bit on, on things that make someone, uh, in a rev ops career successful or some of these other things, but for anyone who's either in sales, marketing, service, anything you guys think is kind of applicable, um, what do you guys think is the most important thing for people to either get exposure to or learn, uh, or do if they want to sort of make the jump more into a rev ops type of role?

Speaker 3: (33:40)
You can say. So I think, um, if you're in sales and you find yourself like asking like, why do I have to go through these hoops or why do these hoops exist in the first place? Or could they, what if I tried this instead? Uh, if you have like this urge to experiment and to like optimize, I think that's something that's, and that doesn't have to be set out sales specific, right? It could be in any role, but if you have that itch to figure out why things work and how they work and if you can make them better, I think that's a good indicator that you may have an interest or strong interest in the operations and you should probably go scratch that itch in, uh, literally just Google rev ops. There are a ton of podcasts out there. Tons of content. It means a little bit something a little bit some different to everyone, but uh, generally speaking it's like it's the framework or the backbone of the company. So that's what I would say. Okay. I agree with all that. And I think that, um, if you're also interested in like how your, where your role is at interacts with like other, other uh, departments, like a sales department interacts with the marketing department, I think that that would be, that's a sign that you are, you know, you should definitely be doing some more research and then considering if this is a route for you.

Speaker 1: (34:51)
Cool. Well thank you guys so, so much for taking the time. Uh, I really appreciate it. Uh, and I'll catch up with you guys soon.

Speaker 3: (34:59)
Thanks for having us.

Speaker 1: (35:01)
Cool. Thanks everybody. Bye.