Episode 20

full
Published on:

20th Feb 2024

Community-Led Growth (or, How to Host a Million-Dollar Event) - Mike Rizzo

B2B communities are everywhere these days.

It's easy to forget that 10 years ago, it wasn't nearly so easy to connect with peers, ask for unfiltered recommendations, celebrate wins, and commiserate about dumpster fires.

Mike Rizzo has made community his career - both in developing B2B customer communities and in building the top community of practice for marketing operations.

In this episode, we examine how B2B companies can leverage community as part of their GTM strategy, what makes a community tick, and the inside scoop on what it took to host MOps-Apalooza.

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About Today's Guest

Mike Rizzo is a career marketing operations professional passionate about community. In 2017 he also founded the growing community of MO Pros - a place where thousands of Marketing Operations Professionals connect, collaborate and help elevate the practice of Marketing Ops. He is also the co-host of the podcast called Ops Cast.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikedrizzo/

Key Topics

  • [00:00] - Introduction
  • [01:42] - Why start a MOPS community?
  • [05:17] - Community is like a product
  • [08:40] - Each community is a vibe
  • [10:40] - Maturity of marketing ops vs. sales ops
  • [16:37] - Lack of strategic MOPS leadership roles in the marketplace
  • [19:13] - MOPS pros should be like product managers
  • [21:08] - Community-led as a GTM motion
  • [25:40] - Balancing community and economic concerns
  • [33:22] - MOps-Apalooza
  • [39:59] - What motivated Mike to put on the event?
  • [42:26] - The future of marketing operations

Resource Links

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Transcript
Justin Norris:

You're listening to RevOps FM with Justin Norris.

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Mike Rizzo: Most of

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Justin Norris: our go to market

motions in B2B tend to have these

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predatory metaphors associated with.

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We talk about capturing inbound leads

or hunting down outbound prospects,

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but community is something different.

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It's something so valuable that

people will go and voluntarily

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spend hours of their week there.

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Make it a real part of their lives, even

pay, in some cases, to be a part of it.

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So we know from experience that

communities are valuable to participants.

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The question for me is, what does it

mean for a company to be community led?

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How do businesses derive value from it?

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What does it mean when the

community is the business model?

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To help answer these questions, I'm

chatting today with Mike Rizzo, the

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man behind the MoPros community.

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And marketingops.

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com as well as the

Mopsapalooza conference.

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Over the past seven years, Mike has forged

an incredible network and platform and

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really become one of the main voices for

marketing ops out in the world today.

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So, we're going to dig into all of that.

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Mike, it is great to finally

sit down with you on the show.

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Mike Rizzo: Hey, uh, I

appreciate it, Justin.

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I would argue I am less a

voice for marketing ops and

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more of like the megaphone.

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The mascot.

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Yeah, I'm fine with that.

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As long as we get attention for the

criticality and importance of this

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vocation, we can amplify through

all the other great work that

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people are doing, like That's a win.

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Well, I

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Justin Norris: think you certainly

are achieving that, and I want

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to go back to the origin story of

Mike Grizzo, the mob's superhero.

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What radioactive spider

were you bitten by?

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No, I mean, I saw, as I was looking at

your bio prior to this show, it reminded

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me that you've been running the Slack

community for seven years, which blows my

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mind, as I think I joined it fairly early

on when it was still relatively novel

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that there were these Slack communities.

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What led you to do this?

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Why did you do it?

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What is

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Mike Rizzo: motivating you to do this?

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I would say there wasn't a formal motion

in place to say, Hey, this is a community.

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In fact, community wasn't really

on the tip of the tongue of most

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B2B SaaS technology companies,

let alone practitioners.

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When I started the Slack channel, the

reason for starting the Slack channel

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was purely that I was a team of one.

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And every time I was trying

to talk about a problem I was

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having with some technology.

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Or some integration or even a process.

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I was trying to sort of massage

to fit the needs of our business.

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Most of the team members around me didn't

necessarily understand the intricacies

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of what I was trying to deal with.

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And so I started this channel on Slack.

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At the time I was at a company known

as Mavenlink, now known as Contata.

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And I think at the time

Slack was new on the scene.

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And so I was like, Oh,

this is a free tool.

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Maybe I can find other people to

hang out and talk shop with since

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we can all download this app.

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And eventually I met people as I went

to these conferences that were doing

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what was deemed marketing operations

and I wrote a blog post about it on

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Medium, positioned it as a place for

anyone from any background to come and

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talk shop in hopes that I would find

more friends because the team had won.

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And it wasn't until 2019.

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When, pre pandemic, all of a sudden I had

5, 10 or so requests to join, like, that

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Medium post that I wrote suddenly got

traction, and people were reaching out

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to me on LinkedIn asking for an invite.

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And so I don't know if it was a Google

algorithm thing, more active searches

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happening, or a need in the market,

or some Mix of all of those Venn

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diagram overlaps happening all at once.

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Being in automation, I had to

figure out a way to streamline

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that invite process a little bit.

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As I couldn't do one to one invitations

for five to ten people a week or more.

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And we took off at that point.

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I wrote a post about it, and someone

that I think many of your listeners

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would probably know is Sarah Mera.

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She saw it, and also mentioned it.

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And then We grew 110 people a month.

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We're joining and it's been

consistency since:

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And so the fun last part of

that story is I actually had

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boomeranged back to Mavenlink.

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And at the time when this was

happening, so I had gotten off and

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done other roles and growth marketing

and worked at an agency for a minute.

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And, uh, ended up back at

Mavenlink as this thing was

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suddenly starting to take off.

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But the difference this time at

Mavenlink was I was in a community.

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So I was actually brought back

specifically to build out a

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B2B customer community and

customer advisory board program.

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So I'm very community minded, which

meant that I got to experiment with,

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well, what works in community of

practice versus a customer community.

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And I tried things in both places.

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Eventually I was given the opportunity to

go spend at least a third of my time on

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what eventually has become marketing ops.

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com.

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And, uh, now is much more

than a third of my time.

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Is founding a

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Justin Norris: community just a matter

of getting the right people in the

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virtual room and letting them have at

it, or do you have to do specific things

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to cultivate interaction and engagement

before it becomes self sustaining?

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Mike Rizzo: Yeah, it's a bit

like building a product, right?

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You have a hypothesis, a problem that

needs to be solved, and you go to market

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and you do user interviews and you say,

what is it that you feel is missing from

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either the thing that I'm endeavoring

to build or that I've started to build?

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What would be better?

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And you get that feedback in that market

validation time and time again, and

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eventually you land on something that

resonates and over time, word of mouth.

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Ideally, press marketers is what grows it.

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And that means that it is a

mix of sort of a magic moment.

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There needs to be a need and a

problem to solve in the market.

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If you've got a product and

there's no problem to solve, then

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it's not going to go anywhere.

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And then it does have to be the

right people using it and getting

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the right type of value out of

the thing that they're doing.

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And so you think of community

like a product in that regard.

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There's quite a lot that has to.

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Most of it though is just talking to

people and asking them for their input.

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And, and then creating programs

that sustain that value.

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One of the things that is helpful

for those, perhaps thinking about

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building a community is first, I,

I sort of said it already, but like

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identifying, in our case in marketing

hops, there's lots of problems.

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There's always something to solve,

but the actual problem is that you're

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usually not able to communicate

with someone else that is a peer.

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At least historically speaking,

that wasn't the case for lots of us.

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It's pretty rare even today, I think,

to have more than a team of two.

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You know, our data suggests that there's

larger teams out there from our research.

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And so the real problem that we're

solving is elevating the knowledge

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share and accelerating your

ability to grow in your career.

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When you start thinking about the people,

even though we're talking a lot about

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technology, especially communities of

practice, your focus is about enabling

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the practice and the people behind that

practice, which means you rapidly get

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into things that people really care about.

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Salary, roles, tenure,

all kinds of things.

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If you can identify those things and

speak to your audience, right, if

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you're a product person, it's your

potential customers, community, it

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would be potentially your members.

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You can go build to solve for the pains.

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Justin Norris: For me, I take it

for granted now, but you're right.

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I mean, prior to having these sort

of professional communities available

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to me, I couldn't go and say, Hey,

has anybody used tool X and get

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like really valuable feedback?

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That's not, you know,

a paid promotion on G2.

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That's not been edited

or filtered in any way.

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Just real life user feedback immediately

or Do you all like for this use case or

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how do you folks solve this problem or,

you know, none of that was available and

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my usage of communities varies depending

on how busy I am and things, but just

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it's always this hum in the background

of my work life feels very artless

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and from my point of view as a user,

it's just like the people are there.

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There's the channels.

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It's a room and I'm going

to go hang out in it.

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So it's interesting that there's

a lot of thought and craft

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behind how that comes together.

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Mike Rizzo: What I found and

perhaps you found it as well.

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There are lots of communities.

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There's RevOps communities There's another

really well known mops community and mops

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pros that other folks spend time into

each have their own vibes Eventually you

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gravitate towards the energy of one and

it sounds funny to describe a virtual

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environment as having a type of energy

But it really does there's different

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clicks and some are noisier than others.

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We tend to take As much as we can, we've

instrumented rules in our community that,

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as admins, we have a threshold of how many

announcements we can ever make in a week.

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Whether they're self serving or about an

event or, you know, a webinar we're going

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to host or whatever, we actually have hard

and fast rules for our team to follow.

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And so we know we can't use

the at channel or at everyone.

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Here, capabilities, uh, more than

just a certain amount of times,

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we're very cautious about how

much activity we're trying to put

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in and seed into the community

because this location is very busy.

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We want to just be there, as you

said, humming in the background.

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And then you might end up finding

yourself gravitating towards one that

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just is popping off all the time.

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And that's great.

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There's.

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A little bit more art behind the

scenes to the way that we try to

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moderate and manage the group, too.

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You also have to be cautious.

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You have to watch.

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I don't have any white, bold text in my

slide ever, in any of them that I'm on.

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Doing something they shouldn't

be, they'll get kicked out.

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Right?

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And so there's a whole piece to that, too.

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You have to have rules.

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And you have to have ways

to enforce those rules.

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And you have to encourage

members like yourself to tell us.

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Or to tell the person who's the bad actor.

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That's against the rules.

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We, I tell all, anyone

who ever messaged me.

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Somebody did something

they shouldn't have done.

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You are also empowered to say this.

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If you feel comfortable, you

are not required to do so.

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But if you feel comfortable,

you absolutely should take

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responsibility for making sure

this is a safe place for all of us.

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But otherwise, don't worry about it.

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I

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Justin Norris: want to look a

little bit at the focus of the

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community from a subject point of

view, which is marketing operations.

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And it's this thing that we do, and I

want to just Dive into your perspective,

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the function and maybe a useful foil

to start with this comparing marketing

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operations to sales operations.

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So I see is sort of the older

sibling or older cousin.

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Where do you view mops in

terms of its evolution?

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It's maturity.

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It's kind of centrality

within the business.

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Where are we at in terms of

marketing operations today?

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Mike Rizzo: Oh, it's a good question.

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I just did a post positing that admins,

for lack of a better description of a

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role and a function, should actually

be considered product managers.

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Ties in very nicely to this

aspect of comparing marketing

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operations to sales ops.

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I would agree, I think it's

an older cousin or sibling.

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I think deal desk, some of the technology

that's happened inside of the sales

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ops ecosystem, there's certainly a

lot of supporting solutions there,

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but fundamentally they're pretty

focused on one particular aspect

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of that buyer's journey and the.

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Interesting thing, I've actually

shared a graphic about this before

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as well, is that marking operations

is actually required by nature.

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Look from the, even before the funnel, the

pre funnel, the awareness building piece.

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You're supposed to figure out how do you

enable tracking, reach, identification,

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ideally, of your ICP, your buyers.

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All the way through to the end, and really

there is no end in a lot of businesses.

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When somebody becomes a customer

and is potentially up for renewal,

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becoming an evangelist, etc.

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Your job in this vocation is

often to think about that in the

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entirety of that underlying pieces.

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The foundational aspects of the

data, the technology, the people,

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and the process that goes into

enabling that full funnel view.

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And that isn't true of

any other organization.

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role operationally anyway, specifically,

for example, and if you think about

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the rev ops umbrella, if it's truly

a rollup as we all aspire it to be

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of client success, ops, sales ops,

and marketing sort of underneath

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this categorical rev ops umbrella,

CS operations and sales operations.

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As I said a moment ago, sales ops is

a very specific piece of that funnel,

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and so is the client success part.

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Tremendously important to the

entire business itself and the

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customer journey, and intricately

unique and complex to deal with.

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It doesn't mean that marketing ops is

harder, it just means that Marketing

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Ops has to look and interact with

those two other vocations in ways

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that those other vocational roles

may not actually be interacting

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with each other or marketing Ops.

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I have yet to interact with a sales

Ops person trying to like stop

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and say, have I ever and that just

could be a symptom of my having

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not worked in enough organizations,

but around somebody in a sales Ops

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function or another operational role.

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That said, Hey, tell me about how

that, you know, analytics funnel

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journey really worked for this

particular group of customers.

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I kind of want to know where they started

and where they ended up after they ended

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up going through our sales process.

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I want to surface that information

back to our sales team and talk about

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where they could go back upstream

to go find more customers like them.

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I have yet to have them ask that

question directly to anybody else.

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Marketing never

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Justin Norris: stops.

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I mean, that's what Hits

me from what you're saying.

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It's from the beginning, potentially

through the sales process, depending on

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the company, but that's not uncommon.

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And certainly with customer

marketing, it carries on forever,

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potentially, until they unsubscribe.

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From lead capture to unsubscribe,

we're with you all the way.

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And yeah, that is unique, you're right,

it's cyclical, it's ongoing, so that

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part's unique, not to be morbid, but

if we thought with the climate of

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layoffs happening here, if you put

the proverbial gun to the head of

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the CEO and said you can get rid of

marketing ops, you can get rid of sales

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ops, who are you going to get rid of?

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They choose to keep sales ops.

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And why?

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Assuming that the intuitive

perspective is correct there.

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Why is mob still perhaps not

perceived as central to the business,

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despite having a much broader

scope, as you just pointed out?

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Mike Rizzo: Yeah, I would say it is

a symptom of just like human nature.

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You're in sales, you're associated

to sales, sales means sales.

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And you're closer to the dollar, closer to

earning that paycheck from our customer.

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And so, you know, it makes

sense that sales needs help.

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Sales always needs help.

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They're always asking for more

things, and well, sales ops does

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those things, at least some of them,

so I'm going to keep that function.

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So it's

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Justin Norris: really a reflection

of the relative priority of

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marketing versus sales, in some ways.

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I

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Mike Rizzo: think it is, in some ways.

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Because sales is considered more

important than marketing, then their

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Justin Norris: ops function is also, to

some extent, considered more important.

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I

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Mike Rizzo: think often

that can be the case.

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I mean, sales is a very difficult

job and it takes some very unique

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skills to be able to close deals

no matter what industry you're in.

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It's relationship building and

understanding the products, the needs and

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the pains of the buyers and addressing

those and selling that service or product.

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And, you know, marketing needs to

understand, go back to the P's, right?

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Pricing and positioning the product

and all these things, right?

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And we have to figure out how to identify

the audiences and Sales does a bit of

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that too, but it just feels more nebulous.

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And sometimes, I mean, that's

why there's the ongoing debate

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about attribution, right?

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Like nobody's ever going to figure it out.

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Quick hint there, everybody.

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Just stick to your version of

attribution and you've done well.

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You've done it.

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You nailed it.

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I also

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Justin Norris: find, like, I

look at a lot of different job

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descriptions just to, like, understand

what's going on in the market.

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It's just something that interests me.

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There's a good number of VP

RevOps or Senior Director of

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RevOps type roles out there.

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They usually are just

referring to sales ops still.

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I think that word is becoming

increasingly corrupted.

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The roles themselves, the way they're

described, sometimes I read them and

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I'm like, what's the sales leader doing?

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Because it feels like it's describing all

the ops stuff, and then a lot of the sales

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stuff too, like sales strategy, go to

market strategy, those high level things.

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And then I compare, and A, almost

never see a VP of marketing ops

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roles, there's like half a dozen

of them, you know, in the world,

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maybe more, but still not that many.

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And B, they're still, those roles are

still very technically oriented, they're

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not saying like, We want you to work

with the CMO on marketing strategy.

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Sometimes they do, they can see blended

roles, but even then the strategy is

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not, it's like the operational strategy

rather than like, no, we really mean

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like, work on the marketing strategy.

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So is there an extent to which, maybe

it's just the nature of marketing and

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sales and how they are different, but

an extent to which marketing ops is

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less close to the heartbeat of strategy.

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Mike Rizzo: Then sales offices.

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Fascinating that we're

still seeing that trend.

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There's been an evolution over

the last decade plus right in the

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category of the traditionally named

marketing operations role, and I think

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we're reaching a new tipping point.

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There's been a sort of a well established.

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Norm for what does it mean

to do marketing operations?

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More or less, right?

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We have the pillars introduced.

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Daryl Alfonso Introduced additional

pillars and a restructuring in a way

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to think about that at Mopsapalooza

last year I think that's a natural

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evolution of where this is headed and

We as a community of practitioners.

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We're all In our tenure of doing

marketing operations and go to market

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systems, we're reaching for lack of a

better way to validate someone's role

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in market is sadly age is a factor.

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It's a human thing.

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For whatever reason,

you see someone who's.

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Younger in their years of life and often

and incorrectly often, you assume that

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they don't have experience and that's

sometimes true and sometimes they've

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just got really great innovations

that they could bring to the table.

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And so you exercise caution.

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But just to get back to the point of

time and role and our age, literal

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page that's favoring this move towards

discussions that are more strategically

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focused, And I think as a community,

we're doing a nice job of saying, hey,

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we should be involved at the earliest

possible stage of your go to market ideas.

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:

We can talk about what is the

art of the possible and the tools

346

:

that we currently have in place.

347

:

How do we actually

implement a go to market?

348

:

And I think we're doing a nice job of

getting closer to those conversations,

349

:

but we have to continue to educate

the executives that are building these

350

:

businesses and the board members and all

those that are involved in some of these

351

:

strategic decisions, the vocation and that

it's much less an administration and much

352

:

more management of a go to market system.

353

:

It is a product in and of itself.

354

:

You built a SaaS company today,

and you hire product managers.

355

:

They are interviewing your users, trying

to understand the pains, understanding

356

:

whether or not a potential solution

and feature should be introduced to the

357

:

market or not, and they're eventually

working in project managing with the

358

:

developers to bring that product.

359

:

Your marketing operations team

is doing the exact same thing to

360

:

enable your business to reach new

markets or stay within a market

361

:

and enrich that experience.

362

:

Their job is to figure out how to

enable your sellers, your marketers,

363

:

and your leadership team to have

that visibility and help you execute.

364

:

And then they have to project manage

the implementation of all that,

365

:

whether that's with service providers

or internal teams or what have you.

366

:

They have to identify all of those

things and it's running a product.

367

:

When you start thinking about it

strategically in that way, introduces a

368

:

new concept for executives to say, Ah, I

need a technologist, I need a strategist

369

:

to help me figure out how to use all of

the tools, the 11, 000 plus tools that

370

:

are out there, which ones do I use?

371

:

Justin Norris: I think the product

management metaphor approach, it's not

372

:

even a metaphor, I think it's a reality.

373

:

It's spot on.

374

:

I want to think a little bit about,

back to the idea of being community led.

375

:

There's two different

models of this, right?

376

:

There's like creating a community as

a business with things surrounding

377

:

it, whether it's a paid community or

a free community with paid add ons

378

:

like marketing ops or like pavilion

or there's a few others out there.

379

:

You see them all the time.

380

:

People get a lot of value out of them.

381

:

So it's like that approach where

the community is the product.

382

:

And then there's what maybe is interesting

to lots of people, but the idea of being

383

:

community led, where the community sort

of is the go to market motion for a

384

:

software product or maybe a consulting

business or something like at my company,

385

:

360 Learning, we have a community,

so it's a part of our go to market.

386

:

I'm curious, what is your perspective

on what it means to be community led?

387

:

Are there companies that are doing this

literally as their sole go to market?

388

:

Is it a supporting factor?

389

:

When is it appropriate?

390

:

When is it not?

391

:

What should somebody think about if

they're like, we should start a community?

392

:

Like, should they?

393

:

What to

394

:

Mike Rizzo: consider?

395

:

Yeah, things to consider.

396

:

Let me make a couple of recommendations

for material that I learned from,

397

:

that I found incredibly helpful.

398

:

There's an organization known as Feverbee.

399

:

And it's a consultant out in

the space of community building.

400

:

Tons of research, really.

401

:

Great resource to start

absorbing some content from.

402

:

Gentleman by the name of

Jono Bacon, that's J O N O.

403

:

He wrote a book called People Power.

404

:

Also an excellent resource to think about

how to learn and consider communities.

405

:

And then there's a community

for community builders.

406

:

There's a few of them,

but the first one is CMX.

407

:

They are now owned by a platform known

as Bevvy, so they were acquired a while.

408

:

popularized a framework called spaces

and it helps you sort of orient yourself

409

:

around the type of community in certain

cases it's like a support community for

410

:

example would be what the s stands for

support community is perhaps driven by

411

:

some KPIs related to reducing caseloads

and tickets And support type because

412

:

you're building a knowledge base.

413

:

And so the programs that you instrument

there would be about knowledge forums.

414

:

And how do you get people

to contribute to the forum?

415

:

And what are the systems and the rewards

and the badging and the gamification

416

:

and the model around creating a better

support environment that alleviates the

417

:

burden your own internal support staff?

418

:

Justin Norris: Would you

consider the Mercado community

419

:

to kind of be in that niche?

420

:

Mike Rizzo: I would consider it To

fall closer to a support oriented

421

:

community for sure at scale.

422

:

Right?

423

:

These enterprises can't provide, you

know, one to one support indefinitely.

424

:

Right?

425

:

And so you have to have forums that

are sort of knowledge base oriented.

426

:

That means you have to try to

figure out ways to make that

427

:

really easy for folks to discover,

utilize and ideally contribute to.

428

:

And so when you're thinking about

the idea Should I build community?

429

:

Look at the spaces model, consider

first what type of community it is

430

:

that you're trying to build, and then

identify whether or not you as a brand

431

:

should be tied to it very directly.

432

:

Like a good example of being tied pretty

darn directly is the inbound movement.

433

:

There was a period of time where inbound.

434

:

org was a thing.

435

:

It was very clearly owned by HubSpot.

436

:

Like, no one ever shied away from

the fact that this is a HubSpot.

437

:

And they leaned into that.

438

:

They popped their eyes to this motion,

they created a community and an ecosystem

439

:

for it, and they owned it wholly.

440

:

Perhaps one that's, like, less clear,

uh, Wizards of Ops is a great community.

441

:

Most people don't realize that's

actually run by a software company.

442

:

Because they do such a great job of

keeping those two entities very separate.

443

:

And they do that with great intention.

444

:

They don't want you to feel like

you're joining their community to

445

:

suddenly be sold their products.

446

:

Because their community is a community of

practice focused on this operational sort

447

:

of rev ops, marketing ops, conglomeration,

wizards of ops is the name of the thing.

448

:

And they've got, product

came later anyway.

449

:

And so they're like, hey,

that's not what this is for.

450

:

And I think any time you start to

tiptoe back and forth across those

451

:

lines by accident, you can very quickly

lose the trust of your community.

452

:

So the intentionality with which you

build that really matters right from

453

:

the get go and staying very clear.

454

:

So that your buyer, whether that's

your customer in a support oriented

455

:

community, etc., or your community

member, is very clear about the

456

:

fact that I'm here, I trust.

457

:

This type of relationship and

you're not going to like pull

458

:

the rug out from underneath you.

459

:

How do you

460

:

Justin Norris: thread that needle

though of let's take Wizard of

461

:

Ops, which I think Sonar is the

company or the product behind it.

462

:

You could argue that on the one

hand, the separation of church and

463

:

state is good for the community.

464

:

It feels like a very vibrant, independent,

almost grassroots place, which is awesome.

465

:

Keep them two separate.

466

:

All of a sudden you say, where is the

benefit to Sonar of continuing to do

467

:

that outside of just the altruistic

benefit of providing that space?

468

:

There's a huge difference

between like using the community

469

:

as shooting fish in a barrel.

470

:

Like, I think we all know That should

be a no for a real community that you

471

:

shouldn't just use it to like identify

sales signals and stick your BDRs on them.

472

:

But still even just to have the

brand present to be sponsored by

473

:

to at least affiliate some of those

positive sentiments back with the

474

:

parent brand or the parent product.

475

:

How do people thread

476

:

Mike Rizzo: that needle?

477

:

It's very difficult.

478

:

It should be easy.

479

:

What becomes difficult is the

practicality of running a business.

480

:

Like there's a very practical question

that needs to be answered which is

481

:

We're spending money and people's

time resources, which time is money

482

:

and managing this asset to the brand,

you know, much like a lot of brand

483

:

marketing has intangible value, but is

critically important to your organization.

484

:

It's a little hard to draw the

line between does that community

485

:

derive additional dollars.

486

:

And so the solutioning, the business

level, when you're looking at, if I was,

487

:

you know, an investor and for example,

like sonar, they have clearly taken

488

:

really good leadership internally and

they've got great, what I would imagine

489

:

sounds like her great partners and

investors that believe in their motion.

490

:

There's a chance that you build

this thing and suddenly someone

491

:

at the board level is going.

492

:

Why are we spending 300, 000

a year to manage this thing?

493

:

You know, what is it doing for us?

494

:

And the answer to that question is

not going to be very black and white.

495

:

It's not going to be clear, right?

496

:

And, uh, and I think threading

that needle is one that Has to be

497

:

done with very like delicate hands.

498

:

It is great programs that perhaps

enable your organization to be reflected

499

:

positively in different discussions.

500

:

I can tell you just from my

experience when I was at Mavenlink,

501

:

customer community, it was a

support oriented community.

502

:

Actually rolled into the

customer success team.

503

:

Marketing very quickly and really

leadership in general was, well, how

504

:

do we cross sell and upsell in here?

505

:

That's it.

506

:

This isn't working!

507

:

That's not what this is for.

508

:

There's a totally different motion

for this if we want to do that, right?

509

:

Let's be intentional.

510

:

Either we're going to create

an environment that's all about

511

:

productizing our product, or we're

going to create a support environment.

512

:

But a hack, perhaps.

513

:

An idea.

514

:

Brain and the value of the products alike.

515

:

Is to bring in your partners, your

experts and say for the next 60

516

:

days, we're going to prop you up

as the foremost expert of Maven.

517

:

All you have to do is be available

to answer the questions that are

518

:

being posted to the forum and

you just have to answer them.

519

:

It's great.

520

:

FaceTime for you in

front of our customers.

521

:

We are going to tee them up with potential

questions that you might be able to solve.

522

:

You might even be able to

do a few posts yourself to.

523

:

Show them the art of the possible.

524

:

Inevitably, you're creating an environment

that reflects positively on your products.

525

:

It gives your partner a chance to earn

some business, and ultimately, hopefully

526

:

drives additional adoption of the features

that perhaps the customers weren't using.

527

:

And that's being helpful.

528

:

And that's a support oriented thing.

529

:

I think there's ways around it, and you

can create programs that don't feel icky.

530

:

I think

531

:

Justin Norris: the support and product

related community, it's easier,

532

:

because there's a really clear line

of sight, there's gamification.

533

:

Like I've come up through the Marketo

community and getting those badges getting

534

:

to the top of those leaderboards was

a Significant aspiration in the early

535

:

days or you have someone like Sanford

Whiteman with his 25, 000 probably closer

536

:

to 30, 000 posts or whatever it is with

a community of practice I mean, that's

537

:

the motion that we're taking right now So

we've developed a community practice for

538

:

learning development, and the personas

that use our product, but it's for all,

539

:

use our product, don't use our product,

and it is a difficult thing, because The

540

:

way I'm thinking about it, and tell me

if you think this is accurate, is you

541

:

almost want to feel like the brand is

The host of the party and they're there

542

:

in the background and they're welcoming

you, they're ensuring you have a good

543

:

time, but it's not in your face and it's

certainly not selling to you and you want

544

:

to feel like, almost like the community

is a form of nurturing, like the idea

545

:

of email nurturing, that you may not use

our product today, you may not be ready

546

:

to use our product today, but if you can

develop a relationship and trust with me,

547

:

Be open to using your product when the

time comes, when I need to reconsider.

548

:

And just through becoming their partner

on their journey professionally,

549

:

whatever software you use, now achieving

that, executing that well is hard.

550

:

That's sort of like my

personal thought about it.

551

:

Is that realistic?

552

:

As a way of thinking about a community

practice that's sponsored by a vendor?

553

:

Mike Rizzo: Yeah, yeah, I think so.

554

:

I think it's a nice way to create

that relationship and think about

555

:

that relationship with the brand.

556

:

The question, I think naturally

for those that are paying attention

557

:

in the community itself, is there

an apprehension to mentioning any

558

:

other competitive product inside?

559

:

If they don't feel comfortable enough to

mention a competitive product, neither

560

:

here nor there, maybe that's a good thing.

561

:

A community of practice in its truest

form would be that, what would happen

562

:

if someone from a competing product

line said, hey, we want to get involved,

563

:

is there stuff we could do together?

564

:

Naturally, you know, 360

might say this is ours.

565

:

Like you can't run a webinar with us.

566

:

That's okay, because you control the

experience doesn't mean that others

567

:

can't also talk about it, right?

568

:

Do you encourage it?

569

:

Do you create programs to say,

Hey, let's talk about some of these

570

:

other challenges that you're having?

571

:

The further you head in the direction

of I actually am very well aware of

572

:

the fact that there's lots of you

using other products that are not

573

:

ours, and we're just going to lean into

that and allow that and support it.

574

:

You can create even more trust and,

and perhaps lurk, right, on the, well,

575

:

how do we address those pain points in

the rest of our messaging up market?

576

:

But that is

577

:

Justin Norris: scary for

people, even if that's the plan.

578

:

Speaking of the proverbial board

member sticking their nose into plays,

579

:

like, Oh, I was in our community and

they're talking about our competitors.

580

:

Shut it down.

581

:

Like, you know, those more old

school mindsets, I think, can easily

582

:

emerge in reaction to those things.

583

:

Mike Rizzo: My message there

is it's going to happen anyway.

584

:

You said it at the top of this, right?

585

:

You said, Hey, there's this.

586

:

I take it for granted that I can

go and ask about the usage of

587

:

a technology or recommendation

of something to solve my needs.

588

:

Yeah, you can do that.

589

:

In fact, they could probably do that too,

because now they know 10 other people that

590

:

they've seen in the chat and they're just

going to go off into the LinkedIn ether.

591

:

You can't stop

592

:

Justin Norris: it.

593

:

You might as well be

able to watch it happen.

594

:

Mike Rizzo: So you might as well

watch and observe silently and in fact

595

:

support and just say, Hey, it's okay.

596

:

You're not our buyer today.

597

:

Maybe we'll be in the future, but

you'll remember us as creating

598

:

an environment that supports you.

599

:

If you've got clear goals,

right, as a business, you want to

600

:

grow 30 percent year over year.

601

:

That means that The vast majority

of the people that are engaging

602

:

with your brand and looking at

it, they're not in market to buy.

603

:

You have to know that.

604

:

They're not going to buy.

605

:

They're going to talk about your

other products, and so why not just

606

:

be the supporting ecosystem that

allows that to happen and assume that

607

:

you're going to try to go capture a

percentage of the market that's in

608

:

market, facilitating that experience.

609

:

You're not going to get 100

percent of it, so just be

610

:

Justin Norris: there.

611

:

Makes perfect sense to me, but I think

it's an evolution for a lot of people.

612

:

I want to talk about Mopsapalooza, because

you did this crazy thing this year.

613

:

You hosted a

614

:

Mike Rizzo: conference.

615

:

It was really crazy.

616

:

It's really

617

:

Justin Norris: crazy, and I, so I

want to give you my perspective.

618

:

I wasn't able to go,

unfortunately, so I wasn't there.

619

:

Mike Rizzo: But you're coming this year.

620

:

I hope to, so that I can give the keynote.

621

:

Absolutely.

622

:

Justin Norris: Renouncing it.

623

:

No, I'm just teasing.

624

:

But I watched it unfold on LinkedIn

and heard the feedback and it was

625

:

like this amazing thing was happening.

626

:

And I remember chatting with you

shortly before it was happening and

627

:

I saw what you were putting into it.

628

:

It wasn't like this billion dollar

company doing this thing with 20

629

:

events people and it's no big deal.

630

:

They've all got it in the budget.

631

:

You were doing this thing like.

632

:

Out on a limb really making it happen

and to see the community embrace it.

633

:

That was what struck me about it at the

time was that it wasn't just an event.

634

:

It really was a community led event

in the sense that like all these

635

:

people actually came together to

make it a thing and seem to feel

636

:

like a sense of ownership around it.

637

:

And the feedback I got from all

the people there was that it was

638

:

really like that on the floor.

639

:

So why did you do this crazy thing?

640

:

What were your greatest fears?

641

:

And I know this is 20 questions

in one, but like, how did you feel

642

:

Mike Rizzo: seeing this thing unfold??

643

:

First and foremost, the why.

644

:

So, I always had aspired to

create something larger than

645

:

our summer camp experience.

646

:

Well, always is relative to the time in

which we started these events, I guess.

647

:

So, like, my dream was

to host a big conference.

648

:

It's in fact I had done demand generation,

marketing operations, and event

649

:

marketing while at Mavenlink my first go.

650

:

So I was the marketing ops and events guy.

651

:

And I will tell you, hosting events to me

and getting things done is like chores.

652

:

It's like a really painful thing

that I don't necessarily want

653

:

to be responsible for when I was

doing it for these other companies.

654

:

Ordering the internet, and the trash,

and the carpet, and the, all the things.

655

:

There are people that love

that stuff, that checklist.

656

:

That is not for me.

657

:

And the reason is, the

community asked for it.

658

:

We hosted summer camp.

659

:

People loved these 50 person,

2 and a half day experiences.

660

:

And we were really worried about

whether or not that energy, that vibe,

661

:

that intimacy would break at scale.

662

:

Fun fact, it didn't.

663

:

We'll touch on that in a second.

664

:

But while we were hosting these

things, they said, hey, Adobe

665

:

really dominated the marketing ops.

666

:

Community space and conversation.

667

:

Marketo summit.

668

:

And there's like very few

speaking sessions for us anymore.

669

:

We want to showcase our

knowledge and our experience.

670

:

And I said, that's all great.

671

:

We can't do this just for marketa.

672

:

It's not why marketinghouse.

673

:

com exists.

674

:

Pull a conference together, the

agnostic of the platform, and we're

675

:

going to start talking about some

of the practices and stuff beyond.

676

:

So they literally asked for it, and I

endeavored to try to figure out how to

677

:

do that, and I said, while you and I

were talking prior to the event, and to

678

:

many others, If anybody ever wants to

reach out and see what it takes to put

679

:

these things on, I would be so pleased

to show you, because it's tremendous.

680

:

Volm over at RevOps Co op,

another great community, is

681

:

hosting an event this year in May.

682

:

He's experiencing that now and guiding him

as much as I possibly can on the things

683

:

that I journeyed through in the last year.

684

:

I always said I should write a book on

how to throw a million dollar event before

685

:

you ever do a million dollars in revenue.

686

:

Because like, there was no world

in which we had done money.

687

:

And I could not have done it if

the community wasn't asking for it,

688

:

if they weren't hungry for sharing

their knowledge, if they didn't

689

:

want to actually make it happen.

690

:

You know, we asked everybody to chip in.

691

:

They had to pay their

way, right, to be there.

692

:

Speakers included, right?

693

:

Hey, you might not have paid the same

price that others paid to join in the

694

:

event because you contributed your

time and your energy and your content.

695

:

We said, hey, we've got costs,

we've got to cover these things.

696

:

And so, that means you have to have

the mindset of I'm invested in this

697

:

community and I want to make it happen.

698

:

And so when you did get to the floor,

it was incredible to go from what I

699

:

had experienced with thrice over with

about 50 people in a room for two

700

:

and a half days to now 330 people.

701

:

Across these four rooms, 120 plus speakers

or what have you, the amount of folks

702

:

that came up and said, This is amazing.

703

:

It was so inspiring, and it was

definitely the hardest thing that

704

:

I've ever endeavored to try to do.

705

:

I didn't do it by myself.

706

:

While we might not have had a team of

like budget aligned and 20 to help us do

707

:

it, we definitely had a production team

that was Tremendous, the speakers said

708

:

they were even better to work with than

some of the other big events they've

709

:

spoken at, names of which events, but they

were just so complimentary of our team.

710

:

And we're really excited to try to do it

again this year, but yeah, it's crazy.

711

:

Going into it was the biggest learning

curve I've ever had in my careers.

712

:

Justin Norris: It looks stressful,

but it was truly impressive.

713

:

Also just the way that people

Really wanted to support it.

714

:

We're talking about it felt invested

in it, even perhaps a bit beyond

715

:

like the Marketo summit always

was people really got into it.

716

:

Like, you know, there's the wall of

tweets and posts and you know, there's

717

:

always that chatter and stream around it.

718

:

But it just, yeah, seeing people

take ownership of this, that

719

:

there was the hunger for it.

720

:

It was really cool.

721

:

I was impressed.

722

:

I remember noting on this at the time

and even thinking like I have to have

723

:

Mike on at some point and talk about it.

724

:

I would pull this thing off because

just feeling so surrounded by it, you

725

:

know, that's a real achievement when

you can kind of take over LinkedIn,

726

:

or at least the corner of little

corner of LinkedIn that I inhabit

727

:

Mike Rizzo: in that way.

728

:

I don't see much the silos they create

on LinkedIn or their algorithm does it.

729

:

Very good job niching us down and for

better or worse, I guess I appreciate

730

:

words of encouragement and the feedback

It is a tremendous effort to just to

731

:

get I always say when we work with other

brands and we work with speakers We say

732

:

hey the faster you can get to the part

where you talk about how the cookies made

733

:

The sooner this community will actually

pay attention because we don't want the

734

:

fluff and so that sort of no BS Point

to make is it cost us about a million

735

:

dollars We did not run it profitably.

736

:

That is exactly what you would

expect from an event, right?

737

:

We're not in the business of

hosting events for profits.

738

:

We are in the business of creating

great content and community

739

:

and elevating this vocation.

740

:

If we come out in the black or

break even, that is fantastic.

741

:

We did take a loan.

742

:

For those that ever want to know more,

like, yeah, took a 100, 000 plus loan.

743

:

I opened two other credit cards.

744

:

I looked at taking a lien

on my house, because it's a

745

:

significant amount of money.

746

:

But this comes

747

:

Justin Norris: back, Mike, to,

I didn't want to go there, but

748

:

since you've mentioned it, the

why, like, why are you doing this?

749

:

Like, you know what I mean?

750

:

Like, the level of commitment, there are

easier ways to reach fame and fortune,

751

:

and yet you are so committed to this

project, to put yourself out in that way.

752

:

Do you just love marketing operations?

753

:

Do you just love bringing people together?

754

:

Mike Rizzo: Like, I do.

755

:

I love the category.

756

:

I love the people that I've met.

757

:

In the last handful of years where this

has grown, I mean, yourself included,

758

:

right, some of the best people I've gotten

to know, and that wouldn't have happened

759

:

if any of this wasn't happening, and just

to echo back to what I was talking about

760

:

with Matt, who's hosting his event, he

just posted last night, yesterday, someone

761

:

sent him an email and said they got a job.

762

:

Because of the community, right?

763

:

And that happens all the

time in our community too.

764

:

And it's the best feeling in the world.

765

:

I know that we're helping without

knowing literally, like without getting

766

:

emails from folks or DMs constantly

or even when it happens rarely.

767

:

I know that's happening and that's what

matters from the business side of this.

768

:

There's an opportunity here.

769

:

We're generating revenue.

770

:

I can finally pay myself

something this year, I think.

771

:

Yeah, we're trying to treat it more like

a business and it's doing quite well

772

:

from a year over year growth perspective

if you want to put the business hat on.

773

:

It's been a double,

double, triple, triple.

774

:

That's what we did in terms of revenue.

775

:

And those first few years

when you're, if you go from a

776

:

dollar to 100 percent growth!

777

:

We did it!

778

:

Yeah, we've done really

well as an organization.

779

:

When you isolate the conference,

it did not run profitably.

780

:

However, we did operate the business

in the black for the very first time.

781

:

Just barely.

782

:

But the reality is that I

still haven't paid my cell.

783

:

And yes, it is a passion.

784

:

So that means, in truth, a long road

ahead of us, but I think there's

785

:

an opportunity here for us to

create the vocational platform of

786

:

the future for this critical role.

787

:

As a community, as many of the

leaders in our community are

788

:

already aware, we're going to

create that certification program.

789

:

That's bought into by the majority.

790

:

Ideally, cross our fingers, knock on

wood, whatever you say, it is bought

791

:

into by the majority of the community

that says this is truly what it

792

:

means to be a marketing operation.

793

:

When you establish that salaries go up,

a company goes, I need one of those.

794

:

We've identified through conversation

year after year with the community that

795

:

there's a need and there's something

that we should try to go fix together.

796

:

I think to

797

:

Justin Norris: my last question,

which is just the future outlook

798

:

for marketing operations two to

three years from now,:

799

:

Where is MOV standing at

that point in the world?

800

:

Where are we as a discipline?

801

:

What's changed from your point of

802

:

Mike Rizzo: view?

803

:

Hopefully some more VP

of marketing hostiles.

804

:

I would say more senior leader,

potentially executive leaders.

805

:

A shared understanding broadly about

the importance, the role as a product

806

:

go to market systems manager and

strategy function, a certification

807

:

program that establishes credibility,

and ideally a couple hundred thousand

808

:

folks that hold that certification

809

:

Justin Norris: program.

810

:

Well, we'll check in and see.

811

:

I hope that's the case.

812

:

Thank you, Mike, for all you do.

813

:

And fun learning about this.

814

:

Appreciate the community and the

experiences that you've built.

815

:

And look forward to speaking

816

:

Mike Rizzo: with you again.

817

:

Yeah, thank you, Justin.

818

:

I really appreciate it.

819

:

Justin Norris: Hey, everyone.

820

:

I want to invite you over to

the RevOpsFM substack community,

821

:

where you can sign up to get rough

transcripts, show notes, longer form

822

:

articles, and other bonus content.

823

:

Just head over to revops.

824

:

fm slash subscribe to get free access.

825

:

I'd also love to know what you thought

of the episode and to hear suggestions

826

:

for topics you want to learn about, feel

free to leave a comment on sub stack or

827

:

send me an email at Justin at revops.

828

:

fm.

829

:

Thanks for listening.

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About the Podcast

RevOps FM
Thinking out loud about RevOps and go-to-market strategy.
This podcast is your weekly masterclass on becoming a better revenue operator. We challenge conventional wisdom and dig into what actually works for building predictable revenue at scale.

For show notes and extra resources, visit https://revops.fm/show

Key topics include: marketing technology, sales technology, marketing operations, sales operations, process optimization, team structure, planning, reporting, forecasting, workflow automation, and GTM strategy.

About your host

Profile picture for Justin Norris

Justin Norris

Justin has over 15 years as a marketing, operations, and GTM professional.

He's worked almost exclusively at startups, including a successful exit. As an operations consultant, he's been a trusted partner to numerous SaaS "unicorns" and Fortune 500s.