My Marketing Ops Journey with AJ Navarro

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 and your marketing operations career.

Hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode of OpsCast brought to you by the MoPros. I am Michael Hartman, joined today With one of my co-hosts, Mike Rizzo. Mike, say hello. Hey everybody. We gotta work on that, Mike.

I know, every time.

Let's— we need, we need like a— we need like our own catchphrases maybe. Yeah, our own. What was it? Sonic, uh, Sonic signatures. Is that what it was we talked about? Yeah, I don't remember.

I think I'll just open every— the year of the Mopro.

The year of the Mopro. There we go.

For the whole year, I'm just gonna say that.

So speaking of the year of the MoPro, so joining us today to talk about his journey into marketing ops is AJ Navarro. AJ is currently a marketing/marketing ops consultant with Shift Paradigm. I think that's formerly LeadMD. Prior to his current role, AJ has held various roles in marketing and marketing operations, both in-house and as a consultant, and like some others we know, has also had a little bit of sales experience. JJ, thanks for joining us today.

Hey, thanks for having me. I'm really excited to be here and hang out with you guys and talk everything marketing ops.

Awesome. All right. So just for those listening, so for a change, Texas is holding fort on this one, right? So AJ and I are both in Texas. So yeehaw. Yeehaw. All right. So let's get this started. So, you know, AJ, as we were kind of mentioning to you, like one of the things I've enjoyed about this series where we're talking to people about their journey in marketing ops is just seeing all the different kind of paths and just like all the rest, right? Yours is also a different path. So, but I think one of the things that's been really helpful is for everyone to sort of just sort of walk us through their career path and how they ended up in marketing ops, what attracted them to it. And I think in your case, right, maybe the Getting to the marketing ops and in consulting world, right? Talk us through how you got there.

Yeah, absolutely. So like various other members in this industry, it was a very unique way. Really, I would say my first hands-on experience with like a CRM or anything like that started back when I was working in sales at T-Mobile, you know, ways away when I was in college. That was my first hands-on experience with just something like a system like Salesforce. And it was one of those where like you're kind of scared of it 'cause it's just such an intimidating system at first. But me being curious and just nerdy, just played with the system and just kind of liked it. And that just kind of grew to like just more of like a side hobby of just learning systems and things like that. Outside of that, As a hobbyist, I was working with like music and stuff at the time, and that really led to like learning about content management systems and just some of those easy things, you know, for, for making Instagram posts and all sorts of things. And that ironically just kind of circulated to like dabbling in like Marketo or like HubSpot for like just small startup companies that were around the city in San Antonio. So it was stuff that I kind of just dabbled in on the side, but I still Really didn't know much of it. Probably in January of 2020 is when I landed a Marketo administrator role. Outside of doing just all the side work, I landed a Marketo administrator role with a company called Digital Defense. And that was really the the catalyst of just what really propelled me. I had a great manager, Joe Brajas, and I also got to meet Pete Furseth from ORM Technologies, who just to this day, both of them serve just as my mentors. And really, I got exposed to not only to what it meant to be an in-house consultant, but just understanding the, like, or just really soaking in all the different avenues that like marketing operations that I never really even knew existed. That, like, you know, you could spend countless hours on the internet searching for and never really find. So that was awesome. Then that led to being an independent consultant for Tyler Technologies, also out of Dallas, Texas. So I did that for a little while, which was really great. You know, I got to be really hands-on, you know, learn, you know, there's different avenues. You're either in-house, independent, or consultant agency. And then lo and behold, one day I got a call from formerly LeadMD, which is now Shift Paradigm, to join the team. And I've joined the team and have been there and have loved it. It's, you know, I could not write a better fairy tale. It's just been phenomenal in learning and just being there with the leadership team and being really immersed into this marketing world. I have to give you know a shout out to also in between just those transition periods between the some of the career changes. I spent a lot of time like as I was understanding marketo and stuff, I spent a lot of time just joining any webinar that I could find on LinkedIn. You know which is how I came you know across Mike Rizzo here or Michael Tucker, just the marketo champions like and I just just indulged and just jumped in and. That sense of community, you know, I remember first joining, I never knew what they were talking about, but it was just like, man, this sounds really cool. And now it's like—

I still feel that way most of the time. Yeah, me too.

And it's just, it's really cool because it's such like a close-knit community and community just has played a big role. But that's kind of my short story of how I got to where I'm at through the wacky world of marketing ops.

I think everybody's journey has a wacky, wacky track record, it seems like. But—

It's funny that way.

It's, yeah, it's so, it's so interesting. I, uh, AJ, uh, from a timeline perspective, you know, without Googling you and looking at your LinkedIn profile, what are we talking about in terms of your sort of journey there? Was it like a couple of years?

Yeah, I'd say, you know, officially, I, for me, you know, I, while we, I did the side stuff, for me, my day one of, like I said, that the catalyst was probably when I started working at Digital Defense. That's when I would consider my Real day one. Um, so that's been about— that was January 2020. Um, so it's just over a year, you know, officially, I'd say. What are we, 2021? Almost 2022.

Yeah, we're— yeah, we're—

yeah, we're 2022, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Last year was a long decade, I know.

Yeah, yeah. But yeah, with everything going on, you know, the years just kind of flash. Yeah, so going about 2 years officially. Um, counting all the side stuff, I'd probably add about another year and a half of just kind of hobby work and just sitting in and doing team, you know, sitting with teams and different things like that. So all in all, I'd say 3 and a half years, just about.

Nice.

Yeah.

I have a, I have a kind of a follow-up question to that too. So maybe I, same thing. I, I don't think I remember, like, what did you study in college or like, was it anything related to this stuff at all?

Absolutely not. No, I went, I went to originally be an accountant, and I figured out from the first class that I needed to change that. That was not going to work out perfectly okay. But I ended up studying a dual major in communications and marketing. And so, you know, you learn about marketing and stuff, but it's never— there isn't a course that's like Salesforce 101 or CRM 101 or like buyer, you know, there's buyer personas, but nowhere near the level of like marketing ops, you know, you don't really get exposed to that. So to me, you know, and marketing is like, you know, for lack of a better word, I, it's, I feel like field marketing just comes into your head like, oh yeah, I do marketing for concerts. Like you're standing at a table handing out koozies or something, you know, and there's just so much more. Yeah.

That's crazy. Yeah. So it was just, it's just interesting. I think we've got the part of why I was asking is the, you mentioned that you did music and recording and that kind of stuff. And I think, uh, I have no, like zero musical talent, but I really appreciate music. And I've lately started sort of following people who really break down songs and stuff like that. And I've found like, I'm very, very interested in the whole process now about how they're built. And I can see there's probably some parallels, right? So.

Yeah.

Do you see that, like, from your experience of doing music to this?

Oh, definitely, definitely. Where, like I said, where it really crossed paths, and like I said, where I think helped me in my interviews, um, was the thing about the music stuff is I did a lot of the technical side. So I did a lot of the mixing and mastering and things like that. So the one constant in that is you're using various amounts of software. And, you know, I didn't go to school to become a recording engineer. So of course, like, like MarTech, you're picking up a book and you're, you know, you're Googling and YouTubing left and right. And it was the ability to learn a software. And then once you learn it, you know, whether it be like something that made an Instagram story pop or just anything like that, was now to use it strategically. So all of that, like Hootsuite and just those little tools came around full circle on just a much bigger scale. You know, like I was using things like for fundraising for groups that I was in in college, like we were using things like Mailchimp and just things that, you know, SurveyMonkey or just things that are real life tools. But it's just funny how they just all connected. And I think that played a big strength was just the ability to learn a software efficiently. And to be able to troubleshoot, because I feel like that, that is the running joke in market ops, is you fix one thing and break 3.

Yeah, I think there's been a number of memes about just different versions of like the cobweb or the pipes all over the place or whatever it is, right? So, um, that's really— so it's really interesting. I, I'm glad I asked that question because it was— for the people who, who have not been on, right, we do a fair amount of preparation for this, but we Kind of see where this goes, but I was not sure what I was expecting when I asked you about the music thing, but your answer doesn't surprise me knowing that you're now in marketing ops and why you've kind of attracted to it, 'cause it's that problem solving, figuring stuff out, curious, like all those things, right? Are I think elements for someone to be successful in marketing ops.

Yeah, absolutely.

And, you know, Michael, I think, had a little smile on his face when he said— when you said that you were going into the accounting side of things at first and then you ended up in marketing ops, because he said repeatedly that everybody in this function needs to have some fundamental understanding of accounting practices.

And so I'm pretty sure I say finance, but, you know, whatever.

Oh, all right. I feel like they're the same.

Trust me, you talk to people who are in finance, they don't say they care.

I just like them fighting words. Way to go, way to go, Mike, showing your ignorance.

No, no, but I mean, I think they're, they're definitely related, right? So you can't have— you can't really have one without the other. But, um, yeah, so this is really— I'm fascinated now about this. So you mentioned, and this is another thing that I think has been a consistent theme with people I think we've had on is having had mentors, right? Can you talk through like what role those people have played and kind of how they ongoing? And then we can maybe talk about the community aspect as well.

Yeah, definitely. So first and foremost, I mean, my immediate mentors, you know, that really just come to top of mind is, would be, you know, the person that initially hired me, which was Jill Barajas. She was my manager and just, she had been in the demand generation space for quite some time, still is. Just really learning from her, learning from her to not only be a leader, but I got a lot of that, like, trust and verify. And like the conversations we would have when we were problem solving or just, you know, in that critical, you know, think tank type, think tank type of mode was just very, very valuable. And she actually introduced me to Pete. Pete had done some previous work there with the company at the time. And so when I was first kind of getting onboarded, you know, I had just kind of like a run-up call with Pete of, okay, hey, this is how everything works. This is more or less what you should look for. And that just kind of became, you know, a check-in for me where I could just ping Pete like, hey, well, what do you think about this? Or, you know, and, you know, both Joe and Pete were— check out these resources, check out, you know, this community, get involved here. You know, it was just constant support and education to where, you know, that led me to the fantastic team that I'm at now, which, you know, at Shift Paradigm. And, you know, talking about mentors, like, I really, you know, without sounding cheesy, I have to give the whole team at Shift Paradigm, like, the mentorship badge because the learning doesn't stop. The leadership team is just, it's fantastic and supportive, just on all levels. Really, like what I came in knowing, they made me just better, you know, in all sorts of ways. And, you know, they're there and they're just very supportive. And so I'm very happy to be there. But I would say, you know, those are probably the big 3 for me, you know, my current team, Jill, and Pete. and getting to me where I'm at, and also knowing that I can trust in where I am going, because all of those 3 areas, or those 3 people, do care about my future and my growth, and likewise, I care about theirs.

So that's awesome, man. I, uh, I'm so, I'm so glad that you had mentors along the way, and I encourage everybody in our community to, you know, to— whether that's just direct messaging someone in the forum or on LinkedIn, or if you're a premium member, you know, tapping into the MeetC program and just getting automatically introduced to people. Like those things are exactly what they're there for. It's to help accelerate you in your growth. But, but shameless plug aside, like, uh, interesting, um, for you to be in this agency role now, right? I saw a post the other day on LinkedIn, uh, from one of our other community agency leaders, and, um, she talks about how being in an agency is like dog years, right? Like you, you accelerate growth really fast.

And I—

Arguably, it's very similar for startup life too. You, you tend to accelerate learnings, um, a lot more rapidly when you're having to do a lot of things all at once. Um, so I'd be curious to just hear your thoughts on, you've, you kind of were on the in-house side, you've been in your agency role for a little while, you're getting a lot of exposure to probably lots of different things. Um, does that resonate with you? Like, tell us a little bit about the kind of life of Mops and, and what you're doing now.

Oh yeah, absolutely. I personally, I love it. I love the fast pace, but this stems back from, I am naturally born and bred a salesman at heart. I was a manager and all that. So I'm for the hustle and bustle. I like being in the huddle. I like being there 4th down and inches. And I make a lot of sports references, so I'm out there to win Super Bowls and stuff. So the competitiveness is really cool. And it's funny because this is one of the things that Unwillingly, unknowingly, you know, there's kind of those 3 areas on how to do this job. It's either you're in-house, you're independent, or you're part of some type of agency. And within my short 3 years, I've kind of been able to experience those. And this is something that, you know, me and Pete conversation I had when I was first joining, you know, the team at LeadMD or formerly LeadMD. It was exactly that, you know, his words were, hey, you're going to learn at a pretty rapid rate. You know, see if you like it, go for it, you know. And yeah, I love it. I— the challenges are unique. Um, you know, it keeps me on my toes and I am constantly learning. Um, but I think what I really appreciate about it the most is the ability to— one, I have full trust and confidence from my leadership and my team.

Mm-hmm.

But I think the really thing that just sells this and sells this across the industry just for me is I love being on the call with the client, with these high-level executive teams and being in the huddle and just being that trusted advisor or that friend and that partner and say, hey, let's try this route, or why isn't this working? How can we get you there? Yeah, I love being in that huddle. And for me, it's just addicting. And I get a lot of that at Shift Paradigm. And I get a lot of opportunity to do self-learning, professional development. So yeah, as my life in the agency, it's just been great. It's phenomenal.

That's really— I think it's so important to be in a place— well, I think learning and having that desire to learn, you along with our last Yes, both kind of talked about— you both sort of independently talked about how you on your own pursued resources to help you learn and grow, in addition to sort of building a network. So I think that's a really important lesson that is coming through these conversations as well. Just so I'm curious, so you mentioned that you're a salesman at heart, or you've done that, right? I definitely can see that in you. But I'm curious. So, you know, there's, you know, I kind of look, I've done a number of different jobs in my life. And so I'm always like, there's some that I think have fewer things that I dislike than others. Right. But there's always some aspect of just about every role that I didn't, didn't like. So just curious, like, you know, what are your least, your favorite, like, what do you like the most about being in marketing ops? And maybe it's a little different in the agency world. And what do you like the least? And then Maybe like, what do you miss about some of the other roles you had in kind of more, in air quotes, right, pure marketing or sales?

Yeah, I'll start with what I, you know, don't like. And it's really not even that I don't like it, but I think it's just the constant challenge that we all face is just the ever-changing technology. You know, it's, there's so much more tech out there.

Like, yeah, amen.

I don't know that if I could say, you know, besides like learning the big 3, like HubSpot, Marketo, and Salesforce, like if you were to say, hey, you need to know this, this, and this, and you're going to be Gucci or you're going to be fine. I don't know that I can give you that because there's just so much depending on what you are trying to do as an organization and how you're attacking the market. So that is the content challenge, is just keeping up with. So there's a lot of self-learning off the clock. If you're someone like me, I enjoy reading those blogs and stuff, but I think to keep your competitive edge, that's something that you have to keep up with.

What do you think? We haven't really had a chance to talk about— I know you've got mentors, so you probably have conversations about career growth or maybe different roles. All right. Are there things that are, you think are becoming more important for you from a skill and experience standpoint that go beyond sort of the traditional, I'll say traditional marketing ops or martech stuff that you think, like whether it's leadership or in your case, right, how to work with clients and have difficult conversations, that kind of stuff. What do you like? What are the things you're working on that are related to that?

I would say it's, you know, it's just constantly growing and having those difficult conversations. Those don't really ever go away and those aren't ever a bad thing. But I think the constant thing that— the repetitive thing that like should always be worked on in general is just really understanding the whys on why a client has implemented a technology or the truly desired outcome. Because sometimes, you know, when we're— when we're helping somebody is we think we know, hey, this— I was pitched that this tool is going to get me here. And as you kind of poke holes or you ask questions and you just understand, well, okay, well, how are you attacking this market and what do you want to happen? It tends to just expand and open up this world of like so much more and kind of give you more just context and And how they're really trying to use these tools. And so I think like that, that is something that should just focus on is just really understanding the whys, whether it's come, come into like segmentation or like implementing like a journey, like, you know, automation cycle or leads scoring, just anything like the full why, not just because, you know, I try to always stay away from, okay, here you go, it's done. You know, I really want to enable that. But that comes from, again, when we talked about, like, when I work with you or get to work with you, I truly feel like a part of your team and your success is my success. And this is truly, you know, and you learn this in sales. This is truly a people-first business. And it, you know, it's my goal to, like, I want you to feel the, you know, there's going to be marketing hurdles. That's never going to go away. You know, that's the nature of any business that, you know, you're in or any industry. But working together, we know that like when push comes to shove, that there's trust, that I know that this person can get it done. And that helps just ease at night because these are executive leaders that you're dealing with and there's just so much going on. And I have come to learn when someone knows that they can trust you and they can rely on you, the relationship is just so much more, you know, in-depth with that. And it really goes on. And that's how you develop that mentorship or that's how you become just even lifelong friends past that. Like, I'm your client, you're my client, and you're paying me to be here, and you have 1 hour to give me your problem so I can fix it. Right.

You've got, you've got an hour of my time, and now I'm gonna fix it.

Yeah, and the clock is running.

Yeah, I think, um, for me, my takeaway, you know, just filtering this a little bit, um, If I was tuning into this episode, I think one of the things that resonates for me is that while you're kind of speaking from the purview of, you know, this, this individual has to interface with clients and it's a people-first business, is that, um, that is not any different for the internal person as well, right? Like it is absolutely unequivocally totally the same experience. You are servicing other parts of the business and other team members. And you are trying to make the best of the technology to make their problems, their situation more manageable, more scalable, more efficient, more effective, whatever sort of descriptor you want to put out there. And I think that that is a really valid way to describe that where sales individuals are often taught that, right? That you are trying to build relationships with people at least the really good ones build relationships with people and then the technology kind of comes after. And if you, if you take that approach along with some of the other things that I agree with in terms of being broadly skilled in other areas of marketing, you can accelerate your growth in marketing operations. And so I think that's a strong takeaway for anybody sort of tuning into this. Like, you know, just because AJ is on the agency side doesn't mean that you're not actually also servicing You know, people first, right?

And so, for what it's worth. I think it's, I hadn't really thought of that. As soon as you said that, I was like, oh yeah, that's kind of obvious, right? One of the, it's part of why I like these ops roles is because you have connections to so many other parts of an organization if you're internal, if you're an agency, right? You're working with lots of different types of organizations potentially and people. What I appreciate from AJ's kind of view of how he looks at his clients and how he wants that relationship to be built. I appreciate it as someone who's, you know, selected and hired and brought in agencies in the past. Like, I, I, on the, on that, on my side, also want them to be— feel like they're a part of an extension of the team. Clearly, the relationship is a different kind of one than, say, with an employee. But at the same time, I want to make it as close to that as possible because I want them invested in our success as well. As theirs. And so I think that's a really important thing for, you know, I, I think I would encourage anybody who's in the position where they're going to be hiring people like AJ or, you know, stuff like that, that they, they think about it that way as opposed to just a transaction.

Yeah, and I would agree too. Whether you are in-house or you're independent or you're at an agency, you're making an impact. You know, you are making an impact to the overall business function, you know, to sales and marketing alignment, which is just huge. And, you know, and that's why, like, I always preach, you know, to any of my friends, hey, you got to check this out or check out this industry. And, you know, it is, it's very life-changing and there's just so many avenues to it. You know, it's almost unfair to be so untapped.

Right.

Yeah.

But with that, back to our conversation about mentors and just things like that, with that is, if I could give any advice, I would say is find sort of the things you like, find the things that maybe draw your ear, whether it's just watching some videos or a blog or something, and then just kind of start attending a webinar or just learn more about it and just kind of start dabbling. in those things and, and try it. If you don't like it, but you still want to be in the marketing ops world, there's so many other avenues. But my advice is just to just throw the line out there and see what you get back and, and kind of navigate it. Because I could not tell you, you know, when I was first getting started, like, yes, in-house is the way to go, or yes, uh, by yourself consultant, independent consultant is the way to go, or yes, the agency is the way to go. I still probably couldn't tell you because I had a great experience in all 3. Right now with where I'm at, it's been fantastic. So, um, you know, I would just say that is just to experience it and just immerse, immerse yourself in it and yeah, fully get in it.

Well, and I think even if someone is maybe considering a move to marketing ops, right, at least getting exposed to it is going to help them if they're going to stay in any— I was going to say marketing, but I think really any any of the sort of the revenue-focused parts of an organization, whether it's sales, marketing, customer success. So AJ, I'm just, I'm kind of curious now. So one of the things I think that does sort of put off some people or is a challenge for those of us who are in marketing ops is that we get people coming to us like, oh, we need to do this thing or that thing, you know? And I like just personally, like I've had ABM or I've had chatbot or whatever that where, you know, I, the technology part of it is something that you're like, we gotta go do this. But I'm like, that's just the technology part, right? So I think there's, I think there's a number of things in the, in the space that marketing ops covers that are maybe overhyped, underhyped. And what do you think? In fact, there was somebody who posted, I think it was Darryl Alfonso today posted something on LinkedIn about like, what's the most underrated or like Kind of thing. And I have my opinion on that, but yeah, what do I do? You know, based on your recent experience, you're seeing lots of clients, right? Who's like, what's the topic that's coming up that you're like, well, maybe it shouldn't be as big of a topic right now, or vice versa, right? What's not coming up that should be?

Yeah, I would say the most overhyped and the most is the set it and forget it mentality. of just anything when you're doing programs. Like, you know, while it's ease of use, nothing is really set it and forget. You know, in my mind, if you're setting up initiatives that are for 2022, you should be reevaluating those in 2023. You know, like, look back, like, how did those work? How can you, you know—

So true.

How can you make adjustments? And, and, um, and to the contrary, the thing that I think is severely underutilized is data hygiene and a clean instance. Um, you know, I can't—

I, I need like some sort of like, you know, like light from the sky music coming out. That doesn't make any sense, light from the sky, but you know what I mean, right?

I know what you mean.

But, uh, oh yeah, you know, because a lot of things, you know, especially with systems, you know, and this is something that I'll share with my clients and, you know, whether we're just going over basic folder structure or anything, is I always try to pull up those real-world scenarios like, hey, think about it. In 2 or 3 years from now, when you're making another program, you're going to say, what was that one program that we did in 2022 that really worked? Got it. You know, by simple labeling, it just makes things— your database, your instances, they're going to grow over time as they should. All your marketing efforts are taking an impact and it's— everything's got to be scalable. And what helps things become scalable outside of good strategy is Just keeping it clean and organized as best as you can. And I'll even double down on that and documentation, documentation, documentation, documentation, because without that, everything just gets lost in the ether. And what tends to happen is when we— when you ask a question, it— the response is, well, it's supposed to be this, or this is the process versus like, no, this is the documented process.

And that's usually where I see the imbalance of like, For our listeners, you can't see that we can see that, like, Mike and I are both, like, nodding our heads vigorously. Yeah.

Yes, vigorously. I'm experiencing it currently. Like, why is there no documentation on this thing that I, that I myself wrote? Yeah.

Well, I'm guilty. Guilty as charged.

And it also, like, when you, and when you set stuff up to, whether you, like I said, no matter what type of role you are in a consultant, like, document it because I can't tell you how many things that I build, like, Oh, why did I do it this way? Oh, okay. You know, because so many scenarios, while some are the same, some are so different just based off of the workspace that you're in or based how they have things set up. And it's just helpful. You can't keep, you know, a million tabs on everything in your mind. Document it, save yourself, try to be organized, and it'll help you tremendously.

Well, I think being organized is, is disciplined about that is way underrated. It's so, it's interesting you said the set it and forget it. The, my mind went immediately to, I don't know if it's the other side of the coin or the corollary to, to that, which is this sense that we have to build something exactly right or we're not gonna be able to do it right. So there's always this pursuit of what I would call perfection. And I think it gets a lot of people caught up in not being able to actually get stuff done. Because of that, right? They don't realize in certain cases that there's certain things that you, like, once an email goes out, right, it's gone. You can't get it back, but you can change a webpage. You can change your ad copy. You could, like, there's lots of things you can change over time if you are debating about 2 different words to use in ad copy, for example, or a webpage post.

Yeah.

Yeah.

No, and I think Go ahead.

Go ahead, AJ.

I'll say, to piggyback off that, like, in my mind, I don't think, you know, profession just doesn't exist. And in my mind, we should chase innovation because, you know, and I'll use a sports analogy again. You had a fantastic season if you won a Super Bowl, but you should be focusing on, okay, what efforts can I get to win 2 Super Bowls and 3 Super Bowls and 4 Super Bowls? And if things are working, you know, if you have a lead scoring model that did really great, Measure that, measure that against your benchmarks and metrics on, okay, where can we tweak this and how can we improve it? You know, and if you made $1 million this year, great. Now how do I make $2 million? And then I made $2 million. Now how do I get to $3 million? And it's just constantly innovation across all those things. When you, you know, when you talk about emails, like, okay, we've had some good response. How can I mix it up with some A/B testing? And again, back to documentation. Let's document those results. Let's see what we're— We're doing. And to me, that's just how you stay on the edge of the— you as a company, but also you have to be aware and embrace your team's strengths and weaknesses and where you understand, okay, hey, we're great at this, but we're not so good at this, and call that out. That's perfectly fine. But then let's make a plan and turn those Goals into like attainable action items and hold yourself accountable and just innovate, innovate. Don't chase perfection. Chase innovation.

Yeah. I always say this, progress over perfection is kind of the motto. So, um, I love that. Yeah. So, okay. So AJ, this has been really good. I, I think this is going to be a really good last question for you because of your, how much you pursued other sort of training and education on your own. But one of the things that we talk about a lot with the community with the MOPROs and what Mike set up and what we're eventually trying to get to is, you know, a place where people can learn. Yeah. What does it mean to be a marketing ops pro and how do you get there? If you, you know, if there was a certificate or a formal education, like what do you think would be the non-negotiable? Like this has gotta be a part of that basic training to be a marketing ops pro.

It's a very interesting question.

We get that a lot.

Yeah, I say first and foremost is first understand what marketing operations is like. What does it even mean? And what does attribution mean in the terminology and those things? In terms of resources, you know, where you can go and like, and how you can get those things, you know, shameless plug, Ship Paradigm. We have a ton of blogs and a ton of great resources for all of that. Another shameless plug, you know, MoPros, like ton of blogs, attend the webinars and stuff. But if I had to say like, for sure, these are the definite things that you're gonna come across. I would say be familiar with the big 3. You know, those don't really ever go away, you know, Marketo and your HubSpot And your Salesforce. Um, I'd say learn about, uh, what is the word I'm looking for here?

Um, you want to say finance, don't you? You want to say finance?

No, I'm looking for, uh, I can't think of the word. Maybe you guys can help me. Like the tools that help, uh, data enhancement, like that help enhance your data.

Oh yeah.

Yeah.

Data enrichment, like stuff like that. Um, I think goes a really long way. Intent marketing, ABM marketing, I think those are really useful.

See, so we're, you know, we talked about this a little earlier too. I think having some broad understanding across, you know, when you think about that T-shaped marketer, for those that maybe are new to that term, go look it up. And, you know, having a broad understanding of those things, I agree. I think that that really helps set some standout marketing ops pros apart from others.

Yeah.

Yeah. And just having a general sense there. And I think that once you kind of understand, okay, this is what this area does or what this avenue looks like, then I think as time goes on, you can say, okay, this is where I want to go. I want to be in revenue operations. I want to be in marketing operations. I want to be, you know, I want to do this with marketing operations, or maybe I just want to focus on data and analytics. But I think to kind of make that decision, play with, play with everything and, and just have a general understanding because with the calls and things that I've come across, like regardless of where you are in the circle, there's gonna be a lot of cross-collaboration. And the more you know, it just kind of helps and it helps you stay creative and strategic. Like just when you're approaching and you're adding your piece of the pie to the overall, you know, effort.

Good stuff. Yeah, so just also shameless plug. So what is marketing ops? Very first episode of OpsCast was— that was the exact topic we had.

Yep.

Still one of the most popular episodes. So that's one. And then he mentioned— AJ mentioned his mentor and friend Pete Firth, who is also a guest in the past, talking about, so now that you have attribution modeling, now what, right? So Tons of good stuff out there.

Yeah.

So we've, we've, you know, I think we, we hit on some of those things in here and there's always the community. AJ, it was a pleasure to get to know you a little more and share your story with us, um, and our listeners. If, if folks want to get a, you know, get in touch with you or follow you, what's the best place for them to do that?

Same, my LinkedIn. Um, just go and type in AJ Navarro or Alan Jacob Navarro. I think it should show up either way. Got it.

N-A-V-A-R-R-O. And so, right, so there you go. Awesome.

And well, when we publish the podcast, yeah, I'll make sure to share it.

There you go.

Those things.

So we appreciate it, and we appreciate you coming on, man. Thank you very much.

Very much.

I appreciate the opportunity though. This is great. Um, like I said, whenever I can contribute to the community, I, I've always tried to because I'd be like— and Mike knows this, I said this a million times, you know, when we first met— but I wouldn't be here without without community. And this whole industry, regardless, like I said, agency, independent consultant, whatever, like, it's been phenomenal. It's been life-changing. And it's just, it's an awesome, awesome ride. So I'm just holding on and enjoying every bit of it.

Awesome. Thank you.

Yeah. Well, and thank you to all our listeners and our, our guests. This is, uh, this has been a fun ride. We're looking forward to a fun 2022, a few more of these stories and additional things. If you ever have suggestions for guests or topics, or want to be a guest, reach out to Mike or me or Naomi, and we'll, we'll see if we can make that happen. Until next time, thanks everyone for listening. Continue to support us and review, rate, etc. Thanks everyone. Bye.

Thanks everybody.