Sean Lane 0:01
Hey everyone, Sean here. Before we get to the show today, I have an exciting announcement for you all. My go to market services business minded light Consulting has a new name, new look, new feel beacon GTM. And we are still doing all the same type of work at Beacon GTM. We are helping founders and revenue leaders improve their go to market execution. One of my partners is a former sales leader, one of my partners is a former customer team leader. And with my background in OPS, we've got a pretty good chunk of the go to market spectrum covered. So we're excited to unveil this new brand for everyone to check out head to Beacon gtm.com To learn more about it. Alright, that's enough of that on with the show.
Hey, everyone, welcome to operations, the show where we look under the hood of companies in hyper growth. My name is Sean lane. This show has always been about seeking out role models, you can listen to a podcast, you can read a case study, browse a blog post or LinkedIn looking for those role models. It's not often though that someone build something so high functioning that it's worthy of an entire book. But that's exactly what we have on the show for you all today. Today, I'm joined by Hillary Carpio and Travis Henry both employees at snowflake the data cloud platform with a $50 billion market cap and authors of the new book busting silos. This book is about how snowflake unites sales and marketing to win its best customers. Now I get it uniting sales and marketing is a claim that's made by many and accomplished by few. But I have to say after reading their book, and speaking to the two of them, I think they might have pulled it off. Hilary is the Senior Director of growth, marketing and lead the company's ABM efforts while Travis is the director of SDR operations and enablement. So they're living the partnership between an ABM team and an SDR team. In our conversation, they teach me the right and wrong questions to be asking when it comes to attribution. We talked about how snowflake is set up to empower people and to help them autonomously make decisions to control what they can control. And we'll cover how their ABM, SDR partnership, two to 4x, the meeting rate at the company. Now, instead of just kicking things off with a softball, I wanted to jump right into a topic that is always at the heart of the tension between marketing and sales attribution. I asked Hillary how they think about attribution at snowflake and what they've learned to make the topic a value add versus a black hole.
Hillary Carpio 2:46
Yeah, I think there's two ways you think about attribution. One of them is who gets credit to justify their expenses and prove their ROI in order to continue down their path. And then there's attribution from a different perspective, which is what's working best to drive the business goals of the company, think the motivation behind why you're doing attribution really drives the productivity of it. So you know, it's snowflake, we have an attribution dashboard, but it has four different models on it. So we can say, hey, if we're trying to figure out what the best campaign is, in order to get people in the door, let's look at first touch. If we're trying to figure out what the best campaign is to close it, let's look at last touch, as opposed to my experience in my career has been, if I'm in demand gen, let's call it right blood demand gen at a previous company, I'm going to look at the model that makes me look the best. And then you have four different organizations all doing that. And you're just each proving a point that's irrelevant to each other because your motivation is off. So I think that's the spirit of what we're talking about with attribution. Is it when you know Travis and I are looking at attribution together? We're looking at it and what is driving that new logos? Not who is trying to take credit for the deal. And when you're looking at it from that business perspective, instead of team perspective, I think is most beneficial. Travis,
Sean Lane 4:03
how do you get together on which question in that list of questions that Hillary just said is the right one to ask right? Half the battle of looking at those different models is knowing which question you're trying to solve for. And so how do you to get together on that? In a way that doesn't just lead to while I'm trying to ask the question that gets me the best credit?
Travis Henry 4:23
Yeah, for sure. I think a big part of what's made our partnership successful. And what we talk about a lot is this idea of one team go to market. So it really starts before any conversation about attribution or turning the knobs of your programs to make them more efficient, because then you're just risking tuning into the wrong results or the wrong direction for the go to market team as a whole. So the answer that question really starts back with getting together with your leadership and whether that involves customer success and SDR leadership marketing demands And Account Based Marketing, if you have that, and certainly the sales organization, you want to do that planning conversation and that strategic conversation ahead of time. And one of the things we talk about, often at snowflake that Hillary and I focus on with those other leaders is pipeline coverage. So we look not just at what's the health of the current quarter, what are we trying to accomplish there, but we really do that fiscal year planning. And like, Sean, you and I were talking about I'm in the throes of wrapping that up before February. But really, it's the more diligence you can do in that planning cycle as a business to understand what is your north star that is going to feed the answers to those attribution question. So in the pipeline coverage example, usually, we're focused by default on net new logos. And what we call capacity one, like a lot of growth businesses are we need to go land new logos, so they can renew with us, they can expand with us and drive that increase growth over time. But there's times where we find that our pipeline coverage is at risk, because we're getting meetings, we're getting conversations, we're getting top of funnel activity, but we're stalling in the early stages of the sales cycle, for example, we're not able to get from like stage two to stage four, and we're seeing some some grinding in the gears there. So what that means is, then the question we're going to ask as a group, as a result of that is not, hey, how do we get more, you know, registrants to learn about snowflake, one on one or whatever the product is, but we're going to look at optimizing campaigns for deal acceleration deal conversion stage to stage, so then that becomes the lens that we look at, hey, do we need to do a field marketing event around our biggest opportunities or most strategic deals to really accelerate them? And what types of events are the most effective at moving those stages, and then you're having a really tailored conversation, that's also actionable to say, Let's do more of that. And let's put more dollars there. Let's cut some dollars from over here. That kind of rudders that attribution conversation. And one of the analogies we've used in the past just for like, attribution as a whole is a car assembly line, right? You've got people who are different specialists, different pieces of the car, maybe you're building the transmission, maybe you're building the suspension, all these different people need to work down the assembly line. They're very focused on their one piece. But ultimately, we've all agreed that we're building a Honda Civic at the end of that line, right. And so we know what the Northstar is. And oftentimes, the attribution conversation can be very similar to saying, hey, Hillary, we're going to pay you your salary based on your contribution to that overall car, and you build the suspension, and then it becomes a question of like, Well, is it the weight of the suspension? Is it how long Hillary takes to build the suspension? How valuable is the suspension that's like, well, if we're having suspension issues with those cars out on the road, then we know we need to go optimize that piece of the process. But we don't need to build our value based on the particular job. We're doing a particular piece and try to justify that. So yeah, I think it's that balance of like, what Hillary was saying, attribution, were a little provocative in the book, it's dead. You know, don't ever talk about it. But the reality is, it's not the overarching conversation. attribution is great for tuning the knobs of the operation for answering specific questions. That's how I think about it.
Sean Lane 8:24
If you're a marketer, send this episode to your sales counterparts. If you're a sales or SDR leader, send it to your partner on the marketing team. Travis and Hillary are telling us it's not about who gets the credit. It's about investing in what's working. And I get it, plenty of people will give you lip service like this. But these two are actually practicing it. They pick their campaigns based on this approach. They measure their success based on this approach. And okay, they did say that multiple sources are on the hook for that overall success. Even if a car is the end result at the end of an assembly line. Somebody's still responsible for putting that suspension in that Travis was talking about. So let's take Travis, for example. He owns the STR number. I was curious, how do they balance their all hands on approach to attribution with the necessary accountability that you need to hit a plan?
Travis Henry 9:19
Yeah, absolutely. So to make it really tangible, just for the SDR side of the business, we can draw a very straight clear and bright line between meetings, which is our main work product does an SDR team and the SDR function. So we do that and that you could call attribution, right. And that is that an SDR on the team? Drive that meeting was a result of their call or their email or their LinkedIn touch or whatever the channel was. And we credit those back to an SDR so great. We've got meetings that we can attribute to the SDR team, and then we can do some math and some planning and say, Here's how many meetings we need based on history and do that whole fun. little math and say, here's what the SDR teams on the hook for from a meetings perspective. And then we do take that to the next level of the pipeline, and look at contribution to opportunities. And we do source opportunities. And so that's one nuance here. If we look at where our pipeline comes from, at least at snowflake, we have some level of attribution, but we keep it super stupid simple, which is, we have four different buckets for where pipeline comes from. It's either an ad or sales. So that means partners and SDRs. didn't touch anything. Prior to that opportunity being opened, is the SDR team, which means there was an SDR meeting prior to opening that opportunity. Or it was from the partner team, which means a partner referred us a deal directly and created that opportunity. And then we have a small overlap, which is STRS can touch things from partner sometimes. So those are our four buckets. And we keep the definitions very simple. We track to those. But from a marketing perspective, and I met the point the finger at the marketing team, but like marketing is usually the one most concerned about justifying value and proving asked for budget, and then building somewhat convoluted or self serving attribution models. And I think the thing we've done really well as a company, as we say, new marketing is kind of unique, because it touches everything, the outcome, what marketing is on the hook for is actually snowflakes pipeline. Regardless of that was that sales pipeline and mentioned SDR never touched it, or came in from the partner channel, like marketing is doing everything from the billboard, on the 101 freeway in the Bay Area to demand gen, to building the pitch decks to thought leadership and brand awareness. Right. So the doer die for marketing is actually the entire pipeline of the company. And that's the target. And I think it's a very simple concept. But it's actually really powerful when that goes into play. And then it becomes a marketing conversation of what are our best levers to grow the pipeline or to accelerate deals and so on.
Sean Lane 12:11
And I would imagine Hillary, that goes back to your first point about the types of questions that you're asking, right. And within marketing, is it less about those buckets of sources of who personally book The which human book the meeting? And for you? It seems like it's probably more on a tactical or program or spend level, what can you look at in terms of what's contributing to the demand? Am I thinking about that? Right? Yeah,
Hillary Carpio 12:37
I think the difference is that we're starting and ending with data in snowflake, right? So we're not trying to get back into this was the number How did marketing contribute? It's this is a number we need to get to as an organization for sales. Therefore, this is what SDRs need to drive based off an optimized version. This is what demand gen, and ABM for example, need to drive. So we're starting the quarter with knowing how they're going to contribute to that, right. It's not a claiming credit after the fact. So yes, it's it's data from that perspective. And then it's also data from those fine tuning knobs of what's performing best within within the programs. And then also obviously balancing out to there's the conversion points that we're looking at. But there's also introducing messaging into the market, helping drive new products into the market, right that those may not immediately convert into pipeline today. But we're still thinking ahead, and that's where that pipeline forecast model comes in as well.
Sean Lane 13:32
My favorite part about the circles that people run in on attribution is it. The quote problem you're haggling over is actually an awesome thing for your business. If you have so many interaction points with your prospects that you need some fancy weighted model to measure the types of interactions you're having, this is a great problem to have. But Travis and Hillary have made it even simpler for all of us. Instead of that crazy weighted model. The opportunities come from a EES STRS or partners. And marketing meanwhile, is on the hook for supporting all of them. Which may sound a little scary if you're the marketer. As Hillary mentioned, oftentimes, the conversations around attribution stemmed from marketers needing to justify their work. So in a world where marketing is on the hook for everything, how does Hillary talk about this approach with her team and get them bought in on this mindset?
Hillary Carpio 14:27
So I speak to the ABM side because I currently am leading growth marketing as a whole. So I have customer growth. I have demand digital and ABM. But ABM is something I came in about four years ago. It really did that shift that you're talking about, how should we be getting measured? And I think it's really important to remember that measurement is reflective of the era of your company, right? So what you're trying to achieve what the team you're you have with you is going to affect what that measurement is. So, when I came in, the goal was and is what I was hired for is ABM needs to work with STRS to help them become more efficient what they're doing, we need to drive the same messaging at the same time to the same people and the right accounts in order to help sales. So with that being the goal I started working into how do we contribute and when looking at the data, we were realizing that when ABM was working with SDRs, STRS, were seeing the two to 4x, the meeting rate in the accounts they're going after, meaning that they're going to call 100 accounts, they would, you know, get into four times the number within that same 100 as opposed to calling four times them. So when we narrowed in on that, then it's okay, this is where we specifically adding value within these accounts, how do we tweak and tailor our programs in order to do more of that? And the reason I bring that up is because early in that process, at the time, there was a lot of comparison to field marketing, right? Sales loss Field Marketing, as I showed, we have a phenomenal Field Marketing team, they're lovely people, but there was insecurity with how are we being measured? What are we driving Field Marketing has this pipeline number field marketing is out there in the field, sales, Field Marketing, their their go to in marketing, and it was a conversation we had over the course of probably six months to sit down and go, What is Field Marketing driving and we do not need to do the same thing because they're doing a great job at it. We're not trying to do the same thing. We're trying to complement in a different way. On the outbound side. And they're part of it right? We call ourselves a three legged stool, Travis, Caitlin and I between build marketing STRS and ABM. I think that's a good example of that conversation you're talking about is there's human insecurities that come with it, and how are we contributing? And it's the leaders job to understand what is the specific goal of how you're contributing with your business, and then align your team to that goal. And then give them the metrics, give them the frameworks give them the funnels, which are things I had to build with them at the time, so that they have something to grasp onto, and they know exactly what they're measuring, and where they can find you in their own knobs within that funnel.
Travis Henry 16:52
Yeah, I think that's also like, Hillary hit on a really important point, I think, which is the concept of AB testing. For some reason, AV testing seems to sit in very specific places traditionally, and go to market teams alike. Very common to do that in prospecting messaging over email, right? Everyone's like, of course, you're going to a B test, email effectiveness or a subject line. It's very common on marketing forms, like a as this form, if we remove this field, what's the impact? Are we better or worse, but I feel like it's not as often talked about from like a program or an effort, or even a strategy level of let's AB test this new team or new function like, Hey, we're a series B startup. And we have a little bit of demand gen going on, we're doing some lead based programming. But what happened if we dedicated a true account based motion to what we're doing? Again, you could approach that from let's set a goal. Let's define attribution. And let's try to like tease different spins and programs apart from each other. Or you could simply say what we've done it, we're doing something today, here's a conversion rate or an outcome benchmark that is pretty reliable. Let's take a cohort out of that, you know, let's either split the team or let's do a time based cohort, and then let's put a BM on top of it change nothing else than what happens. And for us, it was that two to 4x conversion rates. So for calling 100 accounts, we're getting into three, four times the number of accounts with ABMS help, that kind of is the beginning and end of justifying BMT, right? It's like, we're getting that many more meetings, we already have a model for saying How valuable is a meeting based on conversion off and close and all that good stuff. So now we've got some hard numbers. And we're more effective as an organization. And we've proved that this function helps us through that kind of simple idea of AB testing. So I think it's really applicable for a lot of different teams, not just that example, I just thought I'd underscore that. I think it's a good point, Hillary.
Sean Lane 18:56
So let's kind of pull that string and move forward. Right? Because to your point, once you've got everybody convinced that this is the way to do things, then you actually have to run the business using that, right. And you've hit this point where Hillary said, you know, sometimes it'll take six months to get people bought in on these types of conversations, which is a feat in and of itself. But you all were able to successfully do that. And so once that's bought in is the mentality within the go to market organization. What are some of the routines that you would put in place to inspect how this is going? Make sure that those higher conversion rates are are still coming true. testing different ways. Hilary, Becca, start with you. What are some of the routines there that helped you to inspect the results that you're able to talk about? Yeah,
Hillary Carpio 19:46
it's a timely conversation because Travis and I met about an hour ago putting these into place for our upcoming fiscal year and just we're looking at them so I think it's narrowing down on what are the high level and consistent KPIs you can pay attention to that are specific to those goals for the business. Right? So of course, you have your typical lead funnel, of course, we have our now that we have an established outbound funnel for ABM. But where do we need to narrow in within that for the goal we're focusing on. So if it's a certain segment of accounts, let's use that right. So for this upcoming year, we want to focus on this segment of accounts. It's choosing KPIs that we can say this is specific to that goal. And we're going to track it consistently quarter over quarter, and then enabling the team to track that. And like I said, like, I'm not talking total responses. I'm not talking like your typical flow, it's giving the team have focus. And I think that's the most important thing we can do as leaders and say, Hey, here's where I want you to focus on, I'm going to keep every week checking in on this number. So we can identify early, if there's a red flag, we can make changes. And then that's going to guide how we change our programs, how we add tests, because we're going to be looking at it so regularly will know before the end of the quarter if it worked or not. And then at the end of the quarter, were evaluating,
Sean Lane 20:58
can you give me an example of what one of those numbers might be, let's say opportunity rate, right.
Hillary Carpio 21:02
So we're generating a lot of meetings, but they're not converting into opportunities. So say for the last year, or the first part of the fiscal year, ABM was looking at this funnel that we have built and with those from accounts targeted to accounts, engaged accounts touched by SDRs meetings, opportunities within those accounts, all within that ABM outbound. And for the first how I made was like even a full year the focus was on, we've got to get STRS and ABM aligned STRS need to touch every account that ABM engages otherwise, what's the point if we're engaging one set, and they're going after another? And it can sound like oh, this is STRS job. That's not the case. This is also ABM job and picking the right accounts and aligning with sales so that everybody is on one page. Right. So that was the key metric. And just for example, recently, I was reviewing what the goals are for ABM, and their STR tester. And I said, that's not the goal anymore. We don't need to just touch them, we need to convert them. If you only put the focus on SDR touch rate going into this fiscal year, why would anybody on the team be focused on opportunity, right? So I had the leader of the team, switch it and say, Yes, that's important. But this is the number every quarter, we're looking at this number to go on. And so it's just human behavior, right? Of course, we're still going to look at country but we're good at it. We already know how to do that. We know what levers to pull, we know how to fix it. So now from a human behavior perspective, I want them to focus on two things they don't know how to fix, and that's going to drive the behavior will they become experts at that. And then once we get that nailed, then we'll go to the next thing. What
Sean Lane 22:36
you're hearing is someone who has such a high level of operational command of their business. Hilary knows every key milestone in her funnel, starts with accounts, targeted accounts, engaged accounts, touched by SDRs, meetings, and ultimately opportunities. Now, she already taught us earlier that measurement is reflective of the era of your company. So once you strengthen one area of focus, you can't just rest on that strength, it's time to move on to the next thing the next era. So if we pull the thread that they were talking about around opportunity rate, once Hillary says that this opportunity rate metric is the new focus, how does that focus then cause a ripple effect to Travis and his team? Immediately I assume that the types of conversations between an SDR and their ABM counterparts might change? How might they change?
Unknown Speaker 23:29
Here's Travis.
Travis Henry 23:31
So number one is just human conversation, human alignment. So one of the things we're not specific to that example. But in the past when we were trying to run, coordinated motions, or coordinated improvements with sales, Account Based Marketing and STRS, one thing we saw happen was a little bit of what Hillary said, SDR would meet with Account Based Marketing. Great, here's all the accounts we care about. Here's the outcomes we're looking for in those accounts, fantastic, then the SDR would go and meet with their account executives, and they would get us a different set of directions. And then the whole thing falls apart because the SDR is then splitting their brain splitting their time between two different outcomes and directions. And they're less effective because lo and behold, you need an AE to give you knowledge and direction and guidance on a particular account. And that gets doubly amplified when you have an account based market are aligned to it with the same messaging with the same point of view. So does that piece having the conversation every single time being maniacal about the fact that everyone needs to be in the room is a super important point. And then for that specific example for opportunity rate that goes directly into how we qualify and the personas that we're going after. So it requires us to meet with ABM and say, Okay, maybe it's been a data warehousing play in the past So that's, that's been our go to, we're talking to analytics leaders and bi leaders. And that was our way of the door. Well, now we've done some research and understanding that, hey, we need to get more into the business side. So we need to understand asset manager leaders inside of banks, for example, we need to get them involved, we need to qualify and have those types of meetings in order to increase the rate at which opportunities are generated from those meetings. And so they'll sit together, they'll map out the personas we're going after, and then we'll build the campaigns on top of it, in this case, to drive up the opportunity rate from the meetings we're booking.
Sean Lane 25:37
And how do you help them work through when there are those differences, right, especially when it comes to the types of accounts and the types of personas that you're going after within those accounts? Right? I'm very much imagining that like poor SDR with the split brain that you're talking about. They're being pulled in two different directions. You all have clearly done a whole bunch of work to figure out what are the best accounts? And what are the best people to go after. But to your point in he knows their territory better than anybody. And so how do you balance that Travis when it comes to actually picking where these teams spend their time? Great
Travis Henry 26:15
question. So I think we've come up with a little bit of a best practice here and is playing to each party's strengths. So number one, we empower the sales team to identify first and foremost, what are the accounts that they want to go after. From that we take the Account Based Marketing team and all of the information we have about those accounts from marketing standpoint, hey, here's potential models, right? How much propensity is in that account to open an opportunity? Here's where we're seeing a higher than normal lead flow. Here's where intent is surging from our third party intent tools were kind of bring that data to the table to question scrub review the list that sales has. And then the big learning was, the sales team needs to not only pick that list at that point in time, they need to commit to that list, because lo and behold, all the stuff we do at least in snowflake land, or any b2b enterprise class sale, it's not a one day, beginning and end of an effort to be successful in any kind of effort. You're talking minimum weeks, if not months. So it's a commitment and a lock in and accountability for at least in our case, the quarter that we look at that from a quarterly perspective, we reflect that like literally accountable, hey, sales rep. This is the final list. This is who we're going after, this is how we're prioritizing. These are the personas we're going after, and we document that. And you know, people go rogue people or people things change over time. But we really empower the SDR manager, as well as the account base marketer kind of keep accountable to that list as new assets and new directions come up from sales. So like it's a little bit playing to each other's strengths, but it's good old fashioned accountability at the same time.
Sean Lane 28:03
And Hillary, how have you learned to navigate that at the scale that snowflake has reached? Right? Clearly that scale has changed during the time that you've been there? And look, I get you guys are wildly successful, you wrote a book to prove it, right. But not everything can go perfect all the time. And so whether it's through the routines that we're talking about, or other means, like how do you navigate both when things aren't going perfectly according to plan? And also kind of like the different groups and personalities that are involved at the scale that you all are at? Yeah,
Hillary Carpio 28:38
I think a big part of my approach is just my personality and how I personally like digest information and can tackle it. And so whether that's for better or worse, I'm not sure. But I chunk things out into what I can control versus what I can't, right. One of the things we talked about in the book is like don't worry about your haters. Like I said, the conversation today with someone is, if somebody and he or whoever doesn't want to participate, just ignore that for now take the people who are really excited about what you're doing. Take the Travis's of the world who are like I'm bought in as your partner, what can we do to fix this and find that piece of the puzzle that you can control and figure out how to fix just that. And then once you figure that out, you can start applying it to the other segments of the business. And it doesn't take very long for people who are being compensated on these quotas to go okay, well, if it's working over there, then I'll take it. But if you spend your time trying to convince the person who doesn't think there's a problem, that this is a solution you're wasting everybody's time doing is finding almost a path of least resistance, but like where it makes the most sense where you can have a little experimentation isolated piece and start there and then just start chunking away at what you're trying to get to and it's never going to be perfect. Everyone's not ever going to be aligned. There's never going to be something that's not working. But you need good people, good partners who are on the same page with that end goal with you so we can get there together.
Sean Lane 29:55
Everything in this conversation keeps coming back to two things in my mind. discipline and people discipline to put Travis's best practices about target accounts into place discipline to follow Hilary's example of controlling what you can control. And then the people who are willing to buy in, roll up their sleeves and collaborate with one another, versus second guessing the model that you're building at every step of the way. This part of the conversation about snowflake scale is really interesting to me, it's hard to apply and what we've talked about universally across an entire business. And even if you are controlling, you can control in your area of focus. I'd like to think that maybe there's somebody somewhere connecting all the necessary dots to bring all of these different pieces into one cohesive picture. But I was curious, is that even fair? Who could do that? And it turns out that it's actually all about the empowerment and the autonomy that's been embedded in the DNA of the company.
Travis Henry 31:00
I'd like to say there's a single brilliant person at the top of the pile, who's pulling all of the strings and telling all of us exactly what to do. But it really is, I guess the right term for it is empowering your leadership and empowering your functions. So, for example, you know, Hillary and I both roll up under our VP of demand generation. Think about that, like VP of pipeline generation, basically, he reports to the CMO. And I think his leadership style in particular, and what's kind of worked for us is really empowering each function to solve the how so to speak, and make sure we're all focused on the same what. So what is the focus for this fiscal year for us? Well, that's pretty clearly laid out from a high level in our board deck that we go and present to very important stakeholders and leaders of the company. But then it's not a hey, Hillary, here's exactly how you should work. And hey, Travis, here's how SDR should work. It's giving us quite a bit of latitude. Like Hillary said, we're not the CEO or CMO. But we've been empowered to write a book by our employer, pretty cool stuff, we're getting powered to try new things right now, you know, rolling out generative AI, of course, like everyone's trying to do, trying new tactics and campaigns, new ways of working together. But at the end of the day, it's, you do need to then navigate those. They're not fiefdoms, but those functions, right? Like you need to hire the right leaders who can play well with others in the sandbox, you need to have people who are collaborative, you need to build a culture that supports that like at snowflake. When big decisions are made, or when big questions arise. I give credit to snowflake for being like, hey, how does this like look at our values? And how, what are our values telling us? And how do we literally attach, make each other the best as a value to this decision or the strategy we're going to go make. And I think more of just creating that context inside the business that does come from the leadership team really helps us go to market with all these different functions, who have different ways of thinking and different outcomes somewhat that they're looking to do, and really work together better. That's one way to do it. Right? You could have a very command and control top down approach. But I do think that allows for more innovation and getting stuff done and improving the way we've had to run it. Are
Sean Lane 33:28
there anything you'd add to that?
Hillary Carpio 33:30
I've just been sitting here thinking while Travis was saying that there's a fairly long tenure. It's not like there's a lot of people who've been here for a long time. I think this is why is because you know, you're working with good people, we're aligned to the same goals. We're trying to innovate together, and we are being empowered. And so you know, there's a part of it, there's gratitude for the company that we work at Travis's point, we have leadership in place that is very strong, and is giving us the opportunities as leaders to also create a downlevel effect within the organization.
Sean Lane 34:03
I think it's also one of those things that's much easier said than done, right? It's easy to list a set of values on your website or put it up on the wall in the office or even write a book about it. But clearly, from the way you talk about it, it's not just something that is written down. It is something that is embedded in the DNA of the company such that when people have to face a hard decision, they can lean on those things to help them make that call.
Before we go at the end of each show, we're going to ask each guest the same lightning round of questions. Ready. Here we go. Travis, I'll start with you and you cannot pick your own for this question. Best book you've read in the last six months
Travis Henry 34:50
unconditional parenting just celebrated my kids when your first first boy is one year birthday. Congrats Happy Birthday. Yeah, the looks fantastic. So it kind of flips the whole conditional discipline, outcome kind of behavior tuning that a lot of old school parenting books are based on. And it's very much about trying to understand where your kids coming from and parent them from that perspective without being like, you know, Snowplow parent. Never say no, all that stuff. It's a very pragmatic book, I thought was awesome. Cool.
Sean Lane 35:21
Have to check that out. All right, Hillary, normally, I asked favorite part about working in OPS, you're an honorary ops person for this conversation. favorite part about working in ops. My
Hillary Carpio 35:30
favorite part of working with Ops is they have a view of the business that I don't, and they have relationships with parts of the business that I don't. And so they're an extended part of our team success and expand our impact in a very complimentary way. Travis,
Sean Lane 35:47
I'll give you the flip side, least favorite part about working in or with ops. You
Travis Henry 35:52
know, you're usually the recommender, the guider, the facilitator, rather than the ultimate decision maker on a lot of directions, the business goes or strategic direction. So I think sometimes it's like, kinda wish I was just, I was given the control rod, I could just make the decision of exactly what I want to be implemented. But it forces you to be a good politician and a good facilitator, right? Because you need to bring people to consensus without formal decision making authority.
Sean Lane 36:20
You're talking about that's never happened to me before. All right, Hillary, someone who impacted you getting to the job you have today.
Hillary Carpio 36:27
Oh, there's so many people. One of the people and I call him out in the book is my previous boss, Tim Freestone, who was the head of North America demand that brought me over to fortunate with him where I grew there and just have learned a ton about leadership frameworks, how to work with people, etc. So it's been a really instrumental person in my career.
Sean Lane 36:49
All right, last one, I'm gonna hit both of you with and we'll start with you, Travis, one piece of advice for people who want to have your job someday, if you're
Travis Henry 36:55
lost for how to add value or move up in your job, focus on what's going to make your boss's life easier. Your immediate boss,
Hillary Carpio 37:03
Hillary. Yeah, my piece of advice is figure out what you love and do more of that and not from like the Eat, Pray Love whole thing side of the house. But think if you're really interested in what you're doing, then you're more driven to be innovative and creative and work harder at that. And so if you find that piece of where you add value in a way that maybe other people don't, or that's unique to you, you can be more successful than trying to force yourself down a path that looks good on a financial spreadsheet of where you're trying to go.
Sean Lane 37:40
Thanks so much to Hillary and Travis for joining me on this week's episode of operations. If you learn something from these two today, first and foremost, go buy their book busting silos. Also, make sure you're subscribed to our show, so you can get lessons like this in your feed every other Friday. Also, if you enjoyed what you heard today, make sure you leave us a review on Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts six star reviews only. Alright, that's gonna do it for me. Thanks so much for listening. We'll see you next time.
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