Mari Manglaras: Podcast Interview: Mastering RevOps Before It Was RevOps

Welcome to Go to Market, the podcast for RevOps, sales, and marketing leaders to dive deep into industry insights and best practices. My name is Dr. Amy Cook, And I am so excited to welcome Mary Manglaras, who is a management consultant and expert in sales and revenue operations. Mary, thank you so much for having a great conversation with me earlier and for being willing to come on the podcast today.

Thank you. I really appreciate that. This is really exciting.

Oh, it is for me too, especially because when I first started talking with you, I was absolutely stopped in my tracks by the amount of knowledge that you have in so many different areas and how it's all converged into revenue operations. So would you mind just telling us a little bit about your background?

Yeah, absolutely. So I actually started my career as a mainframer, and I was certified in webmaster certification from IIT as well. So I was a mainframer and a web engineer. And really focused on data and, and reporting to financial, um, leadership and so forth. And the economy crashed after 9/11, um, where a lot of engineers were laid off and I had to make a switch in my career. And I, the only job opportunities that were open at that time were sales. Mm-hmm. So I got a job as a salesperson at a startup, and by my third month I was 1,113% to goal. Um, it was inside sales. I sat there and listened to other people and listened to how their prospects were reacting to the sales process and so forth. So that's how I kind of fine-tuned my whole development as a sales individual. Uh, rapidly got moved up and led the highest performing sales team that this company had. Uh, we were always 200%, and the reason that we were always 200% was I started to build out within our CRM basically RevOps. I built out territory alignment and made subject matter experts in industries and all the reporting was focused in or around their specific revenue that they can generate. So leads were going to them that were specific to their industry or subject matter expert areas and so forth. And so my team just kind of like started to function really well and become 200% to goal every single month. Wow.

That is so amazing, first of all, that you were over 1,000% to goal on inside sales. Like, when does that ever happen? That is so, so hard to do, especially in inside sales. So that is incredible, first of all.

Yeah, especially coming from a mainframer.

Yes, exactly. We should hire more mainframe— more web people as inside sales is what— that's what I'm getting from this. But that's really incredible. And I love that, you know, with With the policies and the processes and that you put in place, you were able to be able to, you know, hit 200% all the time. That's really incredible.

No, I appreciate that. The cool part about being a part of a startup was that we didn't have anyone running operations, so I just jumped in and did it for my team. And so I progressed into other, you know, got promoted to the sister company, built a $35 million department within 2-year period from $0 to $35 million. Again, building out all of sales onboarding and then also all the operational, which really focused in on RevOps. And that's where my management consulting started throughout my career.

That's amazing. Okay, so I have to ask you the burning question. Everybody's got a different opinion on this. What is RevOps?

What is it? So that is a very Interesting question because as an operations slash RevOps leader, I have been asked that by many executives that I either have done management consulting with or that I've worked full-time with. They just really don't understand what it is. Why do we need it? And if we do, why don't I just hire someone in as a consultant and then after they get it up and running, you know, goodbye.

And then it should flow and everything should be fine. Right.

I don't need— Yeah, exactly. So, um, RevOps is focused— it's actually a concept that, you know, was built in the early 2000s. I felt like I was one of those individuals that was doing RevOps back in the day.

Yeah.

Um, but it didn't really get a presence until 2016. And, um, it was a way to bring sales and marketing together. It's a way to manage all the inner workings of Rev revenue-related process from sales leads that come through marketing, through the sales channel, really understanding that forecasting, lead gen, um, customer journey, quotas, territory alignment, um, reporting, analytics, go-to-market strategies. It's really data-driven analytics that can help companies see where the revenue is, and how to accelerate for the next year. Then the reason why you most likely don't want to hire someone as a contractor and then, you know, build it out and that's it is because your business will constantly change. Products will evolve. There's always turnovers that happen within an organization in sales. So you need someone to kind of have that mindset of where to put that territory alignment in, so you can ensure that your quota hasn't taken a dip when someone leaves the organization. And then when new people come on board, how to divide your territory from that. And then going into like new budget for the next year, projections, if you're planning on, you know, fast-paced hiring growth, having someone to kind of take on all that and build it all out. Where do we want to put them? How do we want to align the territory? How do we want to do the quotas, et cetera?

Well, it's so funny to me because I feel exactly the same way you do about what RevOps is and how it should be utilized, right? And I think about like any other department, would you say— so as a web, former web person, would you say, all right, let's use the waterfall method, it's super relevant for today, and let's just get everything done in the website that we need to, and there will be no changes once this happens?

No, absolutely.

You would never do that. Or would you say to like your CFO, I only need you for 1 month while we do our annual numbers, and then next year at this time, let's see how we did. Would you ever do that? So to me, it's mind-boggling to me because I have done a lot of work with Salesforce and revenue operations, especially from the marketing side. And it's an everyday, every hour occurrence. And I can't even imagine doing this once a year or on an annual planning cycle.

Right. And it's also, I mean, as many times as I've gone on, you know, PTO or had vacation days, the number of times that I've had people text me or call me while I'm out to put out fires, again, another reason why you need to have someone there full time. Because you never know what's going to happen. And, and us as individuals, like, outside of, you know, work environment— work is in— and, um, the internet's constantly evolving, constantly changing. I feel people constantly evolve, constantly change. If you set your goals to stay, like, build yourself into one person, that is it for the rest of your life, and you're just going to go that direction, you're going to become out of date. So that's why it's really important to you know, not only improve upon yourself, but also like you want to make sure that you keep people in those RevOps positions to help the company evolve constantly, because it's, it's inevitable.

That is such an insightful comment, and I can tell that you've had that experience happen before. And, you know, as a sales leader and as a RevOps leader, you probably see that interplay between having the operations support the changing needs of sales and sales supporting, you know, the, the revenue operations better than most.

Right, exactly.

That's really interesting. Um, I, I think about that a lot, and, and I think, you know, what if I were just the same person that I was going and on my trajectory at age 20? I'm a totally different person. I don't know about you, but I, but I love that comparison. You know, things It's dynamic. The world's different. You can't plan for it. You can't set it and forget it.

So exactly. I wanted to bring up one other point about the reason why it's so confusing for, you know, and it's not just executive, it's anyone within an organization to really understand operations. There has become more and more subdivisions of operations where it's marketing ops, it's go-to-market ops, it's go-to-market strategies, it's marketing That's a terminology another company had.

It's kind of like my medium, like I'm a medium right now in my size. Right.

We have Strat Ops now and RevOps. So it gets so confusing on all these different ops departments that it's really important for us to have this kind of dialogue, this kind of conversation. This is why I'm excited about this podcast is It's really important to get that definition out there so others can really understand what we bring to the market.

That's 100% right. So would you advocate then that we standardize within our industry what those titles are more than we're doing?

I, I think so. I think that in the operations, people that have, you know, the background in operations, we all understand it, but it doesn't necessarily mean that everyone within an organization really understands what it is. And I think we need to make more awareness about what the different parts of it are and what might be important for your company to bring on, whether that's RevOps, whether that's someone that has full operations and can do RevOps because it's a startup, let's say, or if you're a larger organization, maybe you want to have it, those sub-departments underneath it type of thing.

Yeah, that makes sense. The other thing that I think is confusing about it is that it can mean different things in different organizations and depending on the capabilities of your leader, it could be broader or more narrow, right? So for someone like you who is a, a true sales leader, I'm sure that strategy is a very strong component of your RevOps style, whereas someone who has never had sales leadership before and is more— has come maybe from IT or operations, I'm sure they would have a different, more like process-based experience with security or, or whatever. But what do you think about that?

I would agree with that. So when I was a mainframer and software engineer, web engineer, I was just in this one tunnel of being that techie head, that, you know, data nerd, that person that was focused, didn't really understand the outside stresses or needs that sales needed on a daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, yearly basis. Until I got put into that role and flat out my first 2 months I sold nothing when I was at my initial very first sales job. But I figured out the math and I figured out what I needed to help me elevate. And that's why I ended up doing over 1,000% to goal my third month. So being put in that position has really accelerated my what I can bring to the table as an ops leader now, a RevOps leader now.

I think that's so fascinating too, because it's like you, it was almost like it was a chess game for you where you sat there for 2 months and you analyzed all the different pieces and then you're like, oh, I see this goes here and this goes here. That's just so interesting to me. So if you had like, like what are some of the like variables that you were studying, like that were super important and impactful to you being able to achieve that?

I, so I mean, and this, and this kind of comes underneath the, um, this comes underneath what RevOps is all about, like the different components of it. I, I mean, outside of listening to other salespeople kind of talk through their, their talk track and try to engage with customers or prospects to sell them, it was more than just that. It was kind of understanding like What industry are they in? Because you have different conversations with a hot new tech company, right? As opposed to a manufacturing company that has more of a conservative background and standard, and they don't do things as flashy or— I don't know if I want to use the word flashy.

No, but I understand what you're saying. Like, for example, a manufacturing company or a healthcare company, for example, there are very traditional ways of marketing that are more well accepted within that industry, right?

Correct. Because of the people that they're trying to attract, the people that they're trying to sell to, the people that they're trying to— the companies, the organizations, it's just much different. So you have to— that's where it started to come into place for me. Where I was like, okay, we need clean data. Is the data out there clean? And if it's not, let's get some of these, um, in our CRM system, getting a standardization of what those industries should be, and then a standardization of what company size. Now, now that I understand which industries I do well at selling and the company sizes that I'm— I really can close very quickly, um, All right, let's talk about territory. Let's figure out— and this is another thing, when you speak to someone that is in New York, it's going to be much different than someone in the South because there's just different way of living. Like, New York is just really, really fast-paced, and somewhere in like the South, it might be not like— it's just like a, just an average pace, you know?

So that's so interesting. So when you were in those first couple of months, you were analyzing all the segmentation, you you were analyzing the industry and the company size and down to dialect and the way people talk and, and what's accepted, what are the right messages within those industries. And that's super interesting, right?

And also within New York, like, they— that's— if the dialogue that you're going to have is more direct and to the point. But when you're talking to someone in like Midwest, right, we, we want you to kind of have conversation and get to know us and and build upon that. And so, Leah, I was looking into everything. And then it came down to like, how am I forecasting? Am I forecasting appropriately? Do I really understand when something's gonna close? And you have to understand all those analytics. And that's how I kind of built out everything for myself and then brought that to my teams.

See, that's so cool because I can see now that I understand a little bit more of that, that you had a RevOps mind from the very beginning and you used it to grow your revenue. Massive amounts. And that's at Fulcast, essentially what we're trying to get the word out about is that when you do your RevOps correctly, when you segment correctly, when you route correctly, when you do your territory planning correctly, your revenue numbers are massive, massively different than if you're trying to do what we talked about earlier, that one time a year, set it and forget it, and let's cross our fingers and hope it goes well, you know.

Right.

So that's so interesting. And I love how then seeing your career, you were able to take all of that learning on, you know, adapting like the right audience to the right, at the right time with the right channels and the right people. You took that and helped your sales team learn that. And then you took it a step beyond and said, not only can I help you guys sell, but I can create the underpinnings through which you all can sell better. And so I think that that evolution from inside sales to sales to RevOps is so relevant. And it's interesting to me as I keep seeing over and over as we talk with leaders that so many of you are former sales leaders and you are now on the strategic RevOps side because you're like, I've moved beyond sales and now I can show you kind of develop the secret sauce for you and how things are on the foundational side. That's so cool.

Exactly. And I feel like it resonates more when you're working with sales leadership and individual contributors when you've been there and you've done that. Like, I feel your pain, let me help you out. And that's all I want to do being a RevOps leader.

I love that too, because, you know, as a marketing, um, person, like when I do RevOps, I'll come at something sometimes from a marketing perspective and say, hey, you should do this because XYZ. And they're like, you never been a salesperson. You don't know what I'm talking about, right? You know, luckily, since I used to run my own business and do all my own sales, I can come at it from the sales side. But many of us who are coming from the marketing trajectory can't do that. And so having that ability to be able to lean on sales leaders like yourself to be able to say, hey, this, this is the best practice. This is how it's going to be the easiest for sales to, to manage. It's really cool. There's one other thing I wanted to ask you about that you mentioned, and that is the importance of clean data. Can you tell me a little bit more about your, like, experience with data and why this is such a passion for you?

I have always had a love for data and data analytics. I mean, that is just my jam. That's what I I love doing, and that's, that's what inspires me every single day. So when I have, when I'm working with either clients or in my full-time roles where they want me to do a CRM overhaul, and which could be Salesforce, HubSpot, Salesloft, right? Any of those, I, you can't, you can't make the appropriate decisions for go-to-market like analytics if you don't, if your data is not clean. So it's very true, garbage in, garbage out, right? If there's not, if you don't have consistency in your industries, you're buying, you're buying lead lists or you're getting leads from different forms and people may or may not put in industry. And if they do, they can put in whatever they want, those lead lists that you get, they're not consistent, they're just all over the place. So it's really important to take any company that does manufacturing and funnel it into one standardized manufacturing industry instead of the manufacturing clothes or they manufacture widgets or whatever, right? So having that makes it more concise into when you're building out analytical reports about trends or who you're closing or what company size or industries are your top. If you don't have that standardized, you're going to be producing reports that have maybe one manufacturing of clothes and one manufacturer of widgets and one manufacturing company of this. So it doesn't show you that you have an abundance of manufacturing companies that you've been closing and they're all mid-market size. They're not enterprise, right? You really wanna, you really, to understand how to distribute your leads appropriately and make the right go-to-market strategies, you have to standardize and clean all your data. You have to do it with industry, you have to do it with company size. You, I mean, even coming down to like people nowadays, they're in companies maybe 1 to 2 years and then they move to a new company. So even making sure that your contact list is up to date is really important too because people have it— they're, they're more likely to switch into different companies like every 2 years now, from what I understand. That's so interesting.

Yeah, that's what I heard too, was that the, the average tenure at a company is now down to about 2 years, which seems like— how can you, uh, I don't know, that's another— that's a topic for another podcast.

But also on the marketing side, for, for us to understand, when you're doing like forms or you're doing email campaigns or you're doing events, Yeah. Have that all standardized and having that data clean. And, and if you need to put in the time to, to go in there and add the right standardized information into it, then it can bring it back to a marketing leadership where you're saying, hey, this is what campaign did well in these industries and these company size and et cetera, in these locations, right? So you know how to go about for a next go-to-market strategy for where you're going after for the marketing side, right? What was working? What wasn't?

Yep, that's right. That is so important to us, obviously. And I have to chase the sales team a lot to be able to say, hey, did anything come out of this opportunity? Make sure we, you know, log it in Salesforce and associate it with a campaign. So you've got your value opportunities in there. And do you have a favorite tool for appending your data? When you've got data that's missing? Or like, obviously, you know, like, there's kind of that tension in marketing between like nobody will fill out a 10, you know, a 10-field form on the website, but you still need the data to be able to sell, right? So you've got to append that somehow. Do you have a favorite vendor?

I, I don't because I am, I guess I'm like a little bit of a control freak that way where I want to, I want to make sure it's done properly and that there are no mistakes in it. Um, so I tend to just do it myself.

I see. Well, that's, that's good. I like that. So you can make, make sure that the, the data is perfect and that it is, um, it's accurate. So that's awesome. Well, I have to ask you, appreciate your time so much, and I know that I've taken a lot of it. I just think that you are so amazing, and to have a career like yours where where you start from the mainframe to the web to sales to RevOps is such an incredible, you're such an incredible source of knowledge and I really appreciate your time. Before we go, what is your trick or favorite something to help you stay at the top of your RevOps game? You're clearly there at the top, so stay there.

Well, first off, thank you for your time. I really appreciate this. And I tend, I'm a learner personality, so I tend to like going on and getting those different certifications from the different CRMs. I also like joining, I'm in a couple of different RevOps groups and operation groups and CRM groups. And also just interacting, you know, constantly having, you know, within my network, reaching out and talking to people that are in the same situation, asking them for advice, or them coming to me and asking for advice. That's the way I like to do it because it's constantly evolving and you never know. And there's a lot of really great innovators out there in the operations area that they're going out and just trying new stuff. They're, they're trying new software, they're trying new processes, they're trying new everything. So hearing about those things within these groups is the best way that I like to do it.

I love that too. It's the same with marketing ops, right? Somebody's got some crazy new tool that allows you to, you know, improve your email deliverability or something like that, right? And so I feel exactly the same way. Those groups and peer learning for me is number one. So yeah, thank you. And Mary, thank you so much for coming on and chatting with me. And it's just been such a pleasure, and I really really appreciate all of the, the amazing insights and knowledge that you've given all of our listeners and our viewers today.

I appreciate you as well, and I appreciate all of this. This is really great. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you.