**MOOPs** Episode 7 - Independent Consultant Anna Leary Shares Her Cloning Mistake and How That "Translated" to a Rough MOOPs

Hi, I'm Michael Hartman.

I'm Naomi Liu.

And I'm Mike Rizzo. And this is OpsCast, a podcast for marketing ops pros and rev ops pros created by the MoPros, the number one community for marketing operations professionals.

Tune into each episode as we chat with real professionals to help elevate you in your marketing operations career.

Anna, thank you so much for getting on to talk about a MOOPS moment that you had, or maybe 2. And prior to jumping on, it sounds like you have some, some history with this topic of MOOPS. And so I'm really excited to learn about that with you.

I do. Thanks for having me. Yeah, excited to be talking about it because I make mistakes all the time.

Don't we all? I'm pretty sure I made one earlier today. So I would love to— let's just kick things off, like tell us who you are and where you work and And all of that fun stuff. Like, how many years have you been practicing marketing ops? And yeah, let's, let's talk about that. Let's learn about you. Yeah.

So I'm Anna Leary. I am currently self-employed as a marketing ops and technology consultant. So I have been building my client base, which has been really fun for me to kind of explore clients that I like working with. I definitely prefer smaller business to mid-market and trying to help set people up for success. So that's what I've been doing the past few months, which has been awesome. I have been in marketing ops. I fell into it accidentally, as most people seem to do, since January 2015. So is it 2021? Yeah. So over 6 years. Yep. Okay. I can't keep the years straight. So yeah, coming close on 7 years in marketing ops. And I love it. I'm like such a nerd about MOPS.

Oh yeah, me too. So you've like, just real quickly, I've heard this question, especially coming off of summer camp. Like you said, you fell into the role. Were you doing like sales ops or just general marketing before?

I actually have quite the interesting story. So I had moved to Australia on a working holiday visa and I had no job when I got to Australia. I luckily found a house with, um, some mutual friends and found a job within a week of being there. But the stipulation of the visa is that you're only allowed to work at one job for 6 months and then you have to change your jobs. So I was coming up on that 6-month mark because they don't want— they don't want you to stay, essentially, is what it comes down to.

Yeah.

They don't want you taking their jobs. So, um, I was looking for jobs. I was trying to get more I actually wanted a career-based job. I didn't want anything that was like— I worked in a juice shop for a little bit, you know, so I was trying to find something that I could put on my resume. And so I ended up applying to this education company called Navitas based in Brisbane. And I thought it was just going to be like managing social media and that kind of thing. And the first day on the job, my manager asked me, have you ever heard of Marketo? And I said, no. No, and she was like, okay, well you're about to learn it. And the rest is history from there. I was sponsored to stay, like stayed in Australia for a little bit, moved back to the US, and my career's just taken off since learning Marketo. So really thankful for falling into it.

That's awesome. Well, that's great. So you fell into the role, you've been, you know, coming up on 7 years here. So at what point in that track record did this mistake happen? Like TSF, were you early, mid, like? Further along?

This was literally like 2 months into that role at Navitas.

Okay.

And it's funny, I think back on it and I'm actually still really close with my manager there. She's become like a big sister slash mentor. So we still talk pretty much every day. And I think back to that time of being like given the keys to this castle like that. At that time, Navitas was one of the bigger Marketo instances in the entire world because this was before the time of enterprise-level companies kind of honing in on the B2B marketing org. And so at the time, you know, like student recruitment and that kind of thing led to like a huge database. So we're talking, you know, 2 million people in this database managing 30+ business units. So being given the keys to this castle, I'm like, you really want me to press the button that says send? You want me to press the button that says activate? Like, no way.

It's like on Mailchimp, like the, the, like, like sweaty monkey paw. That's like, yeah. Like freaking out.

Like, oh yeah, totally get it. Um, and so what happened was I had to build all of these different student recruitment event programs in Marketo. And what I did was I just cloned the old one that they had and I updated it. And this was like a really advanced one that we only had like one example to clone. And it was, it was for a student recruitment event in Bahrain. So it had to be in Arabic, which was also, you know, throwing another wrench into everything because you actually have to like turn your landing pages and your emails so that it writes from right to left instead of left to right.

Mm-hmm.

And so I had cloned a Vietnamese template and little did I know that I didn't update the steps and everything.

Right.

And so tons of people were getting these Vietnamese autoresponders, and I'm talking like high volume here. And I only realized it probably like 3 days after because I was just going to look at something. I needed to go look at something in the autoresponder email. And I, I saw that it was the Vietnamese email going out. And this was also linked to a partner event too, which is like, you know, in student recruitment, There's a lot of history there, but partner events are like really crucial to your business as well. And seeing this mistake, I remember just sitting at my desk. My manager literally sat right next to me and I'm like, how do, how do I, what do I do? I'm like, are they going to send me back to the US now? Are they done with me?

Jeez.

'Cause this had my visa riding on it. Like I'm just like sweating bullets, like at my desk, like probably looked like a deer in headlights. Pale as a ghost.

Oh, I can only imagine.

And, and I'm so new too. And so I'm like, yeah, they're definitely done with me. And so I finally was like, I have to tell her. And I looked over and I said, hey, Tamara, um, do you mind coming over here really fast? I need to show you something.

All calm and collected. Yeah.

And she handled it like a freaking champ. Like, this is when I knew that she was the person that I needed to like follow in terms of like a career and like have her as my mentor because she was like, And she was like, it's okay, we're just gonna fix it, like no big deal. And I was shocked, like being so young in your career. I was probably 24 or 25 at the time. And, you know, you're just sitting there thinking like, they're definitely gonna fire me.

It's gotta be.

And for her to handle it— I'm done.

Yeah.

And for her to handle it so well, I think that kind of helped shape like knowing, hey, she actually doesn't think I did something like insanely wrong, or she sees value in me regardless of the mistakes that I made. Knowing that, I think that's helped me with all of the other mistakes I've made following that.

Yeah, because they never seem to stop, right? We all just keep making mistakes. Yeah. And, you know, like, that's part of the journey, right? Like, we're learning. And like, if you haven't made a mistake, I think we've said this in many places in the community, like, if you haven't made any mistakes, like, you're not that seasoned, right? Like, or you just happen to have like some really amazing process and admins Yeah, you must have some great QA as well. Yeah, like, it's just, it's rare, right? Like, HBO Max made a mistake recently. Come on, like, everybody does it.

So— I know. Yeah, I love seeing those because it just reminds me everyone at every level makes mistakes. It doesn't matter who you are.

Yeah, absolutely. So what did y'all do to remedy that situation? Did you end up like acknowledging it or what happened? Yeah, I think we acknowledged it.

And it's hard to even— it's really hard to remember like the remedy of that. But I know process-wise, that's when program templates kind of came into play because then we were saying, hey, we're gonna have these kind of events over and over and over again. Maybe we should have something that's like bare bones skeleton and let's just clone that.

Amazing.

So we remember what we need to fill in rather than just cloning old programs. And that was something that I talked about in my Adobe Summit session last year was the importance of scalability and efficiency, because not only is it like helping with that, but it's helping you prevent these types of mistakes as well.

Yeah, I think that's like super key. So when you think about like what you learned through like the remediation process of like, you know, having this mistake happen and you're trying to, you know, fix it and resolve it and like talk to your clients or your prospects or whoever it is that you made this mistake with. It's, it's just like, it's key to hone in on how to improve upon that in the future. And, you know, just the people that I've talked to, I don't know, like, I don't know about you, but in organizations that I've been in, process sometimes is like a 4-letter word, right? Like, people think of it as like, it's not— it's, you know, stop, you're slowing me down.

Oh, yeah.

To your point, right? Like, It helps with scalability, it helps with efficiency. And like, if it's a good process, like you can avoid costly mistakes or just embarrassing mistakes. You know, sometimes they're just embarrassing.

Yes. And I feel like that is what has made me very process-oriented in this, in this whole arena of marketing operations, because, you know, I've become like a really big stickler on process. with clients. When I was in-house, I was like, you have to submit it this way. You have to submit a ticket. You have to follow this process. You have to make sure you're following the documentation. And it's— I think it's crucial to help. You know, you're, you're going to make mistakes regardless, but the huge ones can be missed if you actually kind of sit down and develop that process as well.

Yeah, totally. So what's the process that you have in place either for that type of— to avoid that specific mistake or these days? Are you doing testing of any kind? Sounds like you're interacting with lots of different clients, so you're doing process documentation. Is that your bread and butter?

Yeah, process documentation and training. That kind of goes hand in hand with one another with clients. But I definitely am actually working with a client right now that I'm preaching the use of program templates and cloning them and things like that. And so making sure that we're having some sort of process set up. So using program templates for webinars or anything that they're going to be doing over and over again every month, and then making sure there's some sort of process. And then QA is really important. You know, I know sometimes we have people that are a one-person team, so it's really hard to QA, but my recommendation there is put it in like a spreadsheet or something so that you can go Take your eyes off of it for a little bit and then go back later when you're fresh and have another look just to make sure everything's there that you need. That's another important tip.

Yeah, yeah, I love that. Um, that's a really good tip. So just thinking through, um, you know, a couple of the last little questions that we like to ask everybody who's coming on the Moops TV episodes is, um, what would you say to someone who is like making this mistake right now or has made something similar? Um, You know, like a piece of advice that you would give them?

It's not the end of the world and you most likely aren't going to lose your job. And if you do, there's another better job out there for you.

Especially right now, right?

Yeah. Crazy.

There's so many opportunities these days.

But also take it as a learning lesson. Like, that's how, that's how all of the seasoned experts in the marketing ops I keep looking for the word. I keep wanting to say arena. I'm like looking for the word and it keeps escaping me.

I think arena's a great word.

Yeah.

Like practice, vocation.

Yeah, yeah, there you go. I think that making mistakes is what helps shape the seasoned experts into having the knowledge that they have, because without that you don't learn essentially. And so just take it as a learning lesson. Like it's not the end of the world and you will make more.

Yes.

And just keep going.

Yes, you will. You will make so many more mistakes, but it's okay. All right. Any other things you'd like to share? Maybe a shameless plug?

Oh, shameless plug. Add me on LinkedIn. It's just Anna Leary on LinkedIn. You'll find me.

Very good. Well, Anna, thank you very much for coming on and talking about your MOOPs, you know, your mistakes in marketing operations.

And yeah, thanks for having me.

Appreciate learning with you.

Yeah, totally. Thank you so much.

Thanks.