Applying Lean Methodology in Marketing and Revenue Operations with Rutger Katz

Today we are going to be talking about how to apply lean methodology within marketing and revenue operations , so to join me in the conversation today is Rutger Katz , currently Senior Digital Strategist and Marketing Technologist at Conclusion Consulting .

Rutger is a marketing operations leader and digital strategist with a deep passion for steering organizations through digital transformation towards becoming customer-centric powerhouses . His career is a mix of roles where data and technology meet customer experience and marketing .

His journey began in neuroscience , which I would love to dig into if we have time , but where he researched the application of virtual reality and bodily illusions , like the principle of the rubber hand illusion , and social robotics .

He proceeded to work at Capgemini in customer data analytics , where his work with global clients and social listening and digital marketing set the foundation for his expertise in marketing technology .

Rutger actively shares his knowledge through LinkedIn , which I can attest to public speaking and now podcast guests , thanks to this and probably others focusing on applied innovation , sort of AI , digital strategy , integration of technology and marketing ops . He has a passion for exploring and applying various technologies , methodologies and theoretical models .

This led to an adoption model for CDPs which can be applied to most more tech in the top of for today , the application of Lean in marketing and revenue operations . So , Rutger , thank you for joining us today , especially since it's I don't know exactly what time it is there , but it's evening for you in the Netherlands , right ?

You know , I kind of walked through probably a truncated version of your career journey , but yeah , what kinds of projects and stuff are you working on with your clients at your current place ?

I've worked with clients of all different stages of maturity , so those that just started with implementing the CDP because they want to do more impersonalization , or they just started using marketing automation in B2B , and , on the other hand , I've worked with implementing social analytics , did an express action modeling , and I was lucky enough to be able to set up my

own innovation lab at Kebgemlai , which was a ton of fun because you get free toys and attention and trips .

Yeah , and in terms of clients , currently I'm working on a completely new digital platform still technology for our biggest HVAC organizations in Netherlands , and these kinds of activities just come and go , and right now I'm also focusing more and more on moving away from just customer experience to also think about hey , can we move a little bit more towards sales ,

can we move a little towards customer success or customer support ? And that's exactly one of the things I'm doing at my current line . We are looking at sales and marketing together and seeing , okay , what are the solutions that are actually fit to work with both departments .

So I would really love to dig into the neuroscience background , but there's a rabbit hole that I think we could take up the hook . So done because I have some familiarity with it . My wife worked for a research organization that did stuff with that for a few years . But let's keep going .

So I know , you and I , when we first talked about this , this idea of lean methodology , I think my first question and maybe the same for some of our audience was oh , this is , you're talking about lean Six Sigma , but I think , if I remember right , this is something different , maybe slightly related . But can you walk through ?

When you use the term lean methodology , what does that mean ? How is it related to , maybe to others or not ?

It was the lean methodology itself was focused on maximizing value and minimizing ways , and part of that is what they call a de-mic process , which is define , measure , analyze , improve and control a process , and where Six Sigma is focused specifically around those processes and it uses statistics to limit the defects to no more than 3.4 million per sorry , 3.4 per a

million opportunities of errors , which is the six standard deviations from the mean . So that's where the Six Sigma comes from . But Six Sigma is mostly applied in manufacturing , for instance , AI chips right now .

Right , If you're producing a whole ton of AI chips every step of the way , you need to minimize the amount of error effects , because you can throw weight into our product .

that there's an important skill to have , especially in this day where , yeah , we have more data than we know what to do with and knowing how to apply it , even in the age where AI might come in and do some of the heavy lifting of data preparation and normalization all that .

When you get output of an analytics that happens through AI you need to be able to evaluate whether or not it was .

It has a lot of good stories about the application of statistics and how people can get confused by the assumptions that they have about large numbers , thinking , oh , then it has to be A , whereas if you really interpret it correctly and if you ask the right questions like , okay , based on how large of a population are we talking about , then you understand oh

wait , it actually not that big of a change .

I always come back to one of my favorite Mark Twain quotes their lives , damn lives and statistics Anyway . So I'm sorry I took us off in that direction , but I had to take advantage of the opportunity .

So , if I understood you right , right , lean is a more generalized methodology looking for efficiencies and things like that , and the Six Sigma variant is a variant of it that is specifically focused on statistical analysis and probably most appropriate for repeatable processes and manufacturing environments . Okay , got it .

All right , so it sounds like there's also maturity levels for understanding these methodologies or being seen as like a certification level , and you mentioned to me that you had recently gotten a green belt or gone through training for green belt level . So what did you learn from that ?

How does that apply and I know we didn't talk about this , but what are the levels for those certifications in Lean methodology ?

We did research on our own organization . Okay , where can we find efficiencies ? We'll go through the entire process of what you do in Lean . So you've proven . Okay , you understand , you know how to do a Lean process . So that's the green belt certification that I did in fall and now I've started with my black belt training .

The first day it's actually tomorrow , which is the next level where green belt you can do it , for instance , within the marketing department . Black belt is where you would look across departments at a more strategic , you know higher organizational level to find efficiencies , to find , you know , improve to value stream .

In that sense , and when I did the course for the first time , you know I saw Lean pop up here and there during my career , usually at banks , for whatever reason , and when it started for me it was just a candy shop of frameworks and structures which consultants like me love .

Here are some tools which I can apply very easily to cover a certain question or to cover a certain issue that I'm encountering of . Okay , I'd like to improve this process . I know I should . Do I have an urgency somewhere ? No , okay , how do I ? What can I use to cover up that or show that demonstrated urgency to the rest of the people ?

So they , oh yeah , we should change that process .

Sorry to all the PMI certified people , though , but I've worked with PMI certified project managers who are terrible and they know the models and everything else , but they don't know how to apply them .

And I think these templates and methodologies should be seen as a tool , and where you get real value is where you can leverage those and adapt them to a specific scenario , and I think that's what I'm hearing from you is that the the part of the methodology provides that , and then these certification levels help you develop that skill set of knowing how and when

to use different parts of it and how to adapt . You know , adapt them to the scenario . Okay , I am swinging for the fences today . I Don't even know if that applied to that . Does that , does that , even that analogy even ring true ? Like it's a baseball thing ? So I don't know if that works for those of you in Europe . I .

I'm big tour fan , so , okay , so , let's , what ? So when you and I talked to again I'm coming back to that part of the lean methodology and I think you've hit on this a little bit it's , it's , its goal is to help Organizations , do you know , with doing the right things and doing them the right way . Right , so it sounds . That sounds .

Yes , absolutely , I think we could all get behind . That sounds simple , but there's , I'm sure , more nuance , that can you explain a little more about what that means ? And , well , we can , I can , I can hold my next question and maybe you'll touch on it , but I think to me , the hard part there is what are the right things ? Right ?

And , and I always tell people like , the model seems simple , it's knowing which ones are the high priority or in the different range , right yeah , important but not urgent , or important versus urgent , and so I think that I would love for you to dig into that as a specifically , if you can .

will absolutely . So maybe just start at the basics for those of those of the people who don't really know lean . So they build it around three P's Purpose the right thing , process the right way and then people , the ones that are doing it . And so the goal always has been to sort of enhance efficiency , productivity and customer satisfaction while cutting waste .

In for instance , one of the videos that we saw , they applied it very successfully to the volunteer group that was packaging food relief in the in the US .

So you saw that they took a long time , you know putting every , you know can of beans and and and today's potatoes , whatever it was in the specific box , and they used the lean methodology to figure out Okay , how can we quick , as quick as possible , as efficiently as possible ? Yeah , as many boxes ready within a certain set of time .

So you know , they reorganized the room , they , they change people's position to change people's tasks and it's fine . Okay , that's the best way of doing it .

And it was also one of the the things I hear from from looking through LinkedIn , hearing the people from marketing operations here in people revenue operations that they're getting requests that they don't add any value , that they don't have any strategic value .

You know , for instance , a last minute request to start and launch a new campaign because we need to deliver more leads Right before the end of the month , or whatever . And then , sure , you'll get leads , but those won't be sales qualified leads , they'll be useless . But wait you , you got the KPI of leads .

So I think a lot of us are challenged in in these positions that we don't really have a lot of tools or frameworks in In . You know how to start the discussion at least challenge the work that we are getting thrown over the fence or or or from higher up . And I'll give a brief description of a couple of those .

So for me , the one I really like the most . I think this is the my best , my favorite one is the Ho Chi-Ni , which is a X matrix , they call it , and it aligns your , your company goals of three years right , strategic goals with one year . So the things you want to do this year , you break it down in link with activities over the top .

So , okay , which activities does that mean for my department , for my mobs department , whatever ? And then on the right hand side , you cover that with KPIs and the ones actually responsible for the activities .

So in one overview , you have who's responsible for which activities and how do your activities actually pull back towards the global and strategic goals , so that whenever someone asks you , hey , can you do this for me ? And you can . You know , look , here is the , the ocean matrix . No , no , we're not doing that this year because we are focused on these topics .

These are K our KPIs to . You know , get our strategic goals for the year in place . Everything else goes to the bottom of the prioritization list . Sorry for that .

to marketing ops folks , is this might provide a framework for you to not just push back and say no , right , which is maybe what you do is , but to change the . The way that you are seen is where you're being Strategic and being strategic about how you work with the organization , so you can tie those things back .

My guess is most people will not immediately be able to Say no on things . There'll be a lot of pressure for highly visible things like turning around leads happens all the time .

And , at the same time , I think you can start to use something like this as a tool , for this is how we're thinking about , how to prioritize our limited resources , but people , technology , time and money and I think that was what I think I want our listeners to take away from this is think about this as a , as a tool for Not necessarily of a full

methodology , but tools that you can use in your tool belt to help you be seen as more strategic , without just simply saying no , that's a stupid thing to do , which I sorry to all of our . You know , I think , a lot of marketing apps , folks who Complain about this and are in search of ways to change that , that perception .

Everything else Waste . Don't focus on it . You have my blessing of saying no to things that are falling off . So another thing which I like on doing the right things is called the KNO . The KNO is free bars and it's a good way to plot your CX related activities .

So you have a line which is basics , line which is prestige , and the line that is sort of the while factor , and it goes on one axis . It is the amount of effort you have to put in and then the amount of benefits you're getting from it .

I'd have to do it in a visualization , because we're talking on a podcast and this is something that you would like to see . Yeah , yeah . I know you share . You share some stuff .

When you're in your hotel , right when you're , whatever your , your engagement with your customer is , whatever your product is , you need to have the basics in order . If it doesn't function , you can forget about any customer satisfaction whatsoever .

So that's a basic you need to have an order doesn't need to be excellent in quality notes at a certain amount of time . They're sort of a cut off of when it will increase or add value to the you know net promoter score , or yeah , there's just like a baseline expectation you have to meet . Exactly .

I'm very happy with that stare . It doesn't need to be , it's still a hotel room . If it's not there , I'm very happy . That stare , for me it's a very big prestige component . And then the wow factor is something that if it's there , it surprises you .

You can really win points by it and something like that will be like getting everything just right good customer service , proactive communication , personalized here and there . That is that prestige , that finesse stuff .

If the other two are not in order , the prestige stuff won't really matter , because you still have sort of like a disconnect between oh , I've got very nice people at front desk and they're very nice to me , but my hotel room is just very basic . So it's sort of a disconnect for what I'm experiencing .

So if you get , say , some sort of great benefit or something you think that will appeal to people , like snacks or money towards having a home office if it's a remote thing but otherwise the underlying culture is not great that benefit really doesn't solve the baseline expectation .

If there's a good working culture , if there's a good manager , they'll be okay with it . It's a very good pay . They'll be very happy with it , but it's not really that large of an influence if the basic is in order .

Well , so , first off , I have a little bit of a hard time going right to the right way , anything where it says the right , the right that I struggle with , because it assumes there is one answer , which I find difficult to accept it's the same with the right thing and the right way .

So if you have UPS or Amazon with their trucks , right , or whatever right , they can optimize for a number of different things . It could be fuel consumption , time to delivery , maximizing how many things they get out , minimizing something else , right ? So you don't have to get into , like , what are those kinds of things ?

But I think for our audience and important for them to know , like optimizing a process means you need to know what you need to optimize for .

And whenever you're sort of lost in thinking , okay , how would we further improve our offering or further improve our services or processes , whatever , you can throw in a customer arena where you invite a bunch of customers and you put them sort of in this middle arena and your own colleagues are sort of in a half circle around it and you would use it as a way

to get first hand feedback about your proposition , your service , whatever , where you ask , okay , what is the thing that bothers you the most ? So you can know , okay , what are my priorities in fixing it . And , of course , you can do this with a survey or you know whatever , a structured way . I also like it .

Besides the quantitative stuff , get some qualitative stuff , because quantitative stuff often tells you this is something that's wrong , but the qualitative stuff will tell you why is it wrong or what are they expecting . Sometimes they don't know it , but you could get some insight .

So , moving over to the process , you know Lean sort of assumes and you know everyone usually has sort of a process in place . Right , we are creating a marketing campaign . We're whatever you can think of .

We are creating a product , there's a process in there , and so you have your customer request or demand , you know whatever it might be , and then the process is the answer okay , how do I build this product or how can I answer this request ? It doesn't matter that you ask for customers to request or to collect the product . We will see you then , bye , bye .

Now let me just figure out how I wanted to follow this up , because your question as well , mike , was about the technology . You can assume that there's already technology in place . It doesn't have to be , but it could be , and it might not be the ideal piece of technology at the time .

But work with what you have and then figure out if you need to change any technology further down the line . So , in terms of process , you could go and this is where the focus of lean is is you have this thing that's called the kaizen , and the kaizen is six steps and you go through these and you constantly iterate small changes .

There's this great story about and I use it constantly as an example there was a Tour de France team and they didn't do very well . They had a team , they cycled and they tried to figure out how can we improve our team in such a way that we are winning the Tour de France , constantly winning the Tour de France .

So what they did is they found any small , whatever small piece of improvement they could find for their cyclists to become better . They would bring them their personalized pillows , they would give them massages , they would check whatever tiny little thing they could on a bike to further improve it .

If you can think of it , they tried it in terms of just a 1% improvement of the team and I think after three years they won the Tour de France , I think five times in a row or something . That number they got there to consistent improvements . And that is the idea of the kaizen that you walk through . You're constantly checking .

Okay , what are things that are going wrong , let's analyze them and if you're doing a six-sec rule , you would also use statistics here . Try to figure out what kind of solution it is . We implement the solution , we test it to see if it okay , it does actually fix the problem , and then we standardize the solution . So we are ensuring that it stays in place .

So if I'm doing a process change in my marketing department , I want to ensure that everyone still keeps following the process . If I'm changing or adding a CRM and I'm expecting my sales team to use the CRM , then I for sure need to figure out some way to incentivize them to use it consistently . Otherwise , I'm building a solution with no one's using it .

The difference now is becoming greater , in sort of multiplier effect . So I like that . Still , at the same time , you need to identify what do we think the most impactful little changes are that and maybe impactful is a combination of both what does it take to do it , as well as what do you expect the outcome to come ? So there's a little bit of a

cost benefit .

Because we're thinking they're the most influential ? So you already have sort of like a way of okay . These are the two things from this challenge that I should cover first and see how that fixes the problem .

So the idea , if I understand it right you can maybe add to it is that the concept is you've got an issue or a challenge or something you're trying to do and you get with the right stakeholders or stakeholder and you ask them why ? Literally five times right to let them and ask them to .

It's not to be a jerk , right , it's to get them to actually explain themselves five different ways and to get to the heart of what you know . More of a root cause analysis . Yeah , okay , yeah .

What is the reason for doing it in such a way that we know do we need to change something down there or not ? Yeah , and sometimes after three you're done already . So it doesn't right .

You may have a series of questions and you can flip flop , going back and forth between who does it , but the key is , when the person answers your question , don't immediately ask the next question . Be quiet . People do not like to have silence .

I'm a chatterbox in that sense , but same , and at a certain point of time people will just like maybe they're still expecting something from me .

It's a subtle thing , but it is hard , especially if you're a vocal person , to fight that urge to say the next thing it is , it is Right . Okay , so this also , so this . We're trying to like this reinforcing loop of getting better , but could it also be one where you know you hope for improvement but you might get something that doesn't work ?

Is the idea also that you learn fail fast ? I mean , whoever , I can't think that was a guru . I didn't model it .

You know , performing the kaisen , you want to do this quicker and better and you'll notice that as soon as you've done the couple of times and the people are sort of enjoying , you know , becoming better . You know , because you'll notice that their KPIs , that their their , their team KPIs or the department KPIs , they'll increase .

You know , you , you compete with each other for okay , so now we , we've reached an eight in our response . Let's go for a nine . Can we get a nine ? Sure , let's try for that nine .

You'll see that they're , they're , they'll become a culture of people who are trying to be better and that is sort of the , the goal of the kaisen , the , the lovely culture behind it which , which they've achieved at Toyota at least , where people become sort of self motivated to , you know , find issues and for , okay , let's , let's do this , let's try and and fix

this one , because I think this is also something that we we are encountering as a as a blocking issue for whatever improvement we , whatever process we're trying to improve .

The analogy I like to use is sailing . I'm not a sailor , but , as I understand it right , the only thing you really know is you want to go from point A to point B , and what you really know right now is what are the conditions where I'm at ?

So how can I make steps in that right direction , learn and adjust , and sometimes that means you're not going in a straight line , and that's okay . You know , sometimes you may find that your destination was not really where you wanted to end up , or you're getting close to close . Enough is so . I'm a big believer in that .

So I think I like some of these concepts and it frees people to , yeah , be comfortable with . Things are ambiguous , which is most of real life , but you don't always want have all the answers you want . So , all right , well , let's . So let's keep one of the , so we started to touch on this a little bit .

So one of the challenges with any change effort , though , is communicating the change and what it means for the people in the organization . Some and it'll be different depending on what the roles are right . Does the ? Does the lean methodology provide tools for helping with communication of change and managing change ?

You know you listen to your boss or you've you've got a certain mindset in in Performing , but they do have a change component , so it falls under the people . But a work right with those free bubbles , purpose processing people and the change falls on the there . So one of the tools that they have is a sort of four-dimensional matrix with multiple levels with .

I believe I can do , I understand and I receive support in order to want to change . So most change , you know you find resistance somewhere along the way .

Yeah , we look at LinkedIn and people posting a certain way to think , oh , this is something that they so , yeah , so , originally to lean doesn't have a lot of tools for managing a larger change , but they did add I think it added it a little later which is they call it the , the change acceleration process , which was designed with general electric and that has

seven steps of change and it is something similar to Carter's Model for change , which is , I think , eight steps . That covers roughly the same . So , okay , sort of change management I would defer to one of those . You know , if you , if you know I'm going to pull like a larger change operation here .

You know it's best to sort of pull from those , those methodologies , at least to get the Organization department , you know , moving .

You need to get a couple of people in the leadership team to sort of Understand where lean is coming from and see , oh yeah , this is something that we are going to try , we are going to do with an organization , we are communicating about it .

This is our way of Reducing costs while at the same time , you know , improving our Product quality or our processes , because we know , or we feel , we have an idea that our operational cost is too high or that we are made to any Errors in our product release or product production , and this is the way we're going to move forward on trying to fix it .

Yeah , it sounds interesting .

Is there anything we haven't covered here yet that you would want to make sure , like I want to make sure the listeners Know about this ?

We on our training day with building Legos basically and trying to figure out that how do we get the , we had to make little flowers as quickly as possible in the best way of processing .

And while we were so focused on the process , know when once we had like a test around , we noticed we didn't actually ask the client what they wanted and how they wanted it to be delivered and we could Change our entire process based on that . Oh , damn it . So those things are really , really fun to do .

If anyone wants to try the certification , I really recommend it . Okay , it was one of my most fun certifications and trainings to do in terms of hey , I can apply this to so many things . Sure , I love that . Yeah , okay .

I'm also exploring it and my own organization the clients are working with now In the specific area of marketing and revenue operations . Fantastic Well , Rutger , thank you again and thanks especially for staying up late for us .