The Journey to Influential Leadership with Dionne Mejer

Ready to transform your leadership approach in revenue operations? Our conversation with Dionne Mejer, a trailblazing sales executive, guarantees you’ll learn how to empower your team and master the shift from marketing operations to revenue operations. Dionne candidly shares her journey from being a perfectionist and people pleaser to becoming an influential leader. She unveils her upcoming course, "Lead the Shift: Mastering the Bridge to Revenue Operations Leadership," designed to help you navigate the ever-evolving landscape of revenue operations with confidence. Alongside my co-host, Mike Rizzo, we reflect on our collective experiences and the invaluable lessons learned from overcoming challenges to achieve genuine growth and development.

Ever wondered how Malcolm Gladwell crafts such compelling narratives? We tackle this intriguing question by exploring the collaborative essence of intellectual work. Our discussion highlights how Gladwell masterfully integrates ideas from various sources into his writings, creating a tapestry of thought-provoking concepts. By showcasing specific instances where he acknowledges the contributions of others, we emphasize the interconnected nature of creative processes. Whether you’re an aspiring leader in revenue operations or a fan of insightful literature, this episode promises a wealth of knowledge and inspiration.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:23

Hello everyone, Welcome to another episode of OpsCast brought to you by MarketingOpscom, powered by the MoPros. I'm your host, Michael Hartman, joined today by my co-host, Mike Rizzo.

Speaker 2: 0:34

Howdy, howdy.

Speaker 1: 0:35

Hopefully it's not raining like it is for me here in Dallas. We went from hot and humid yesterday to rainy and cooler today. I'll take that.

Speaker 3: 0:45

Well, at least it's not raining. Fickle weather, gods yeah.

Speaker 1: 0:51

So joining us today to talk about a couple of things One like a path forward for marketing ops folks into revenue ops, but also a course that she's going to be doing is Dionne Major. She is a 25 plus year sales veteran and executive. She, as she would like to say, leverages her superpower of a recovering perfectionist. I can appreciate that. I'm married to one and a people pleaser also married to one.

Speaker 1: 1:13

And teach leaders and sales professionals how to have sales with soul. She's helped organizations create and deploy sales ready programs that shape teams to be agile, fast, flexible, fluid and successful all things we want. And she's the author of the Stepped Approach and a Highly Sought After Speaker, and so we are going to jump right into it. So, Dionne, thanks for joining us.

Speaker 2: 1:34

Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. Nice to see you guys again.

Speaker 1: 1:37

Yeah, so the course that you're going to be doing is called Mastering oh sorry, Lead the Shift. Mastering the Bridge to Revenue Operations Leadership right, yes, it's going to be amazing to revenue, operations, leadership, right.

Speaker 3: 1:49

Yes, it's going to be amazing, awesome. I'm super excited. So, for those listening, dion and I go pretty far back now. We actually met quite a few years ago over at Mavenlink when I had my time at Mavenlink, and suffice it to say we didn't get to interact enough Opposite sides of the business, so to speak although aligned on revenue. I think there was a lot less talk about revenue and alignment and rev ops back then, cause that was probably a decade plus ago, um, but we always wanted to sort of work together and when we were reacquainted recently we were like hey, what are you doing?

Speaker 1: 2:30

What should we do and?

Speaker 3: 2:33

yeah. So I thought you know why not get you on the show, talk a little bit about what it is that you're doing today just in your practice area, and then we'll dive in a little bit into like why we think this is an important subject matter to be teaching on. We'll go into the course a little bit more, so why don't you share a little bit about sort of your backstory and what got you to where you are now and why maybe why you're so passionate about what you do.

Speaker 2: 2:57

Yeah, oh gosh, all right. So quick, quick backstory. Like everybody, like Mike, it's so nice to work with you again. I always loved our interactions because I'm a firm believer in life is better together. How you do that is totally different, right, and everybody has a journey at the end of the day, and my GARP has crossed briefly for the first time earlier this week and synergies there as well, and so love, love, everything that we're doing.

Speaker 2: 3:25

And my background is like you were talking about in the intro is full on perfectionist, full on people pleaser, right, and it only got worse. And then you finally get to a point where you're like none of that is serving me or anybody in my life or sphere of influence. Well, anymore Got to change it up. And the epiphany for me came when I had kids, because I was like well, at some point I will most likely die and they have to know how to be in the world without me. Number one and number two when I had my very first team that was the feedback from the team was it was more Dion, how do I do this? Teach me how.

Speaker 2: 4:09

And so for me I say that to say that's kind of the big idea is. We have to teach people how to do things, and I am super passionate about that because I think helping people achieve their goals now that I know what that means and what that looks like is amazing. Helping people live out what they're really good at is amazing, and that not people-pleasing and not being the perfectionist, which are both forms of control, stops people from being their best. So if we remove ourselves from the equation and say, wow, we've got a really great framework, or I, as your fearless leader, have created this framework that teaches you how to be the best version of yourself in whatever role you're in, that's awesome. And those people are off to the races and killing it that's awesome.

Speaker 1: 5:07

Yeah, I love that. Yeah, I mean you and I did connect, like when we we we chatted earlier this week it was it was great Cause I think we had a lot of the same things. But I, I'm with you. Like there's some there's it's hard to describe for people who have not been in a position to actually, um, help people grow and become a better like really, especially people who are maybe don't believe in themselves in the first place right To show them that they can. They can do great things and sit looking back and seeing what they can accomplish. Like I love that. It's such, a, such a great feeling yeah.

Speaker 2: 5:42

It's, it's, it's so fun and I I love Malcolm Gladwell Michael, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off Nope and huge fan, and if you haven't read his book, I think it's an outliers. And it talks about this myth of the I think it's the Asian culture being good at math and how we as Americans just aren't, and he goes. It's a myth and he goes. You know why they're good at it? Because they are left to struggle through the math problem instead of somebody coming in and giving them the answer.

Speaker 1: 6:17

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 6:18

So it's the struggle and it's not struggling a bad way, like you can't get it. It's like going to exercise. I'm not going to go to the gym and do one pushup and have the amazing summer biceps I'm hoping for.

Speaker 1: 6:30

That's not how it works. No, I think there's, whether you listen to Joe Rogan or not, but Joe Rogan talks about.

Speaker 1: 6:38

It's funny because I've been going through some health stuff and it has included me trying the thing with ice baths or cold plunge and stuff it's funny how the reaction I get from people from that about like that just sounds awful and there's something about just, and actually I've come to actually like, really like it, for it's really counterintuitive. Like it's, it's super relaxing, but what did it like? His point is like that's the thing he does first thing in the morning.

Speaker 1: 7:05

He's like do like that's the thing he does first thing in the morning. He's like do the hard shit right, yes, and then it makes everything else easier. And if, like, I think there is something to this like going through this struggle of learning um, you talked about being a parent like one of the things that it's really hard, being a parent is like, I think, um, rescuing and just giving them answers, like doing the stuff for them, and and um, it's, it's. It's funny to me, like I love, like my I've. I just had one of my kids this week won some awards, uh, including scholarships. He's junior in high school and you know my, my a. I'm proud of him and I told him that, but I was like I. What I really like is that all the hard work you've put in right to develop these skills is being it's. You're getting rewarded for it, and it's not just that it's a guy given thing, like you had to work at it, yeah absolutely, Absolutely.

Speaker 2: 7:58

There's a I am a huge fan of reading right, and there's a book called the talent is overrated and in that book, if you haven't, if you've heard either one of you heard of it before, I've not heard of it.

Speaker 3: 8:11

I feel like I have, but I'm like blanking now.

Speaker 2: 8:15

Yeah, so talent is overrated. It was exactly that, and it's basically the person with you know, born. Talent will be outperformed by the person who has sub talent but practices. Talent will be outperformed by the person who has sub talent but practices. And oh, by the way, in order to call yourself an expert in something, it takes 10,000 hours of doing that thing.

Speaker 3: 8:36

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 8:36

And 10,000 hours is 10 years yeah 10 years.

Speaker 3: 8:41

Yeah, that was. That was the Malcolm Gladwell stuff.

Speaker 1: 8:45

That's another. I was just saying he also wrote about he. That was not it. He lifted someone else's idea. He did borrow.

Speaker 3: 8:51

Yeah, or he did reference someone else's stuff.

Speaker 2: 8:55

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.

Speaker 3: 8:57

I was trying to like. I was like actively trying to find the book, Not that.

Speaker 1: 9:00

Yeah, I was too.

Speaker 3: 9:04

I was trying to publish the video ever, but I wanted to be like.

Speaker 1: 9:06

Dion, look, I read that book, yeah, yeah, it's funny that you brought up Gladwell and Outliers because literally, just I think I may have been smiling when you said it it was like literally probably two days ago at dinner. We were talking about it at dinner. Oh, really, my oldest has read it and he's a big fan. He's not quite 20, right, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3: 9:35

He's really not, so not not quite 20, right, which is yeah, um, yeah, yeah, I think. So it's a good. It's just a good and, you know, it's just a good sort of set of observations and things to learn as you're sort of developing you at, you know at any stage of life, really. Definitely as an adolescent moving into adulthood and all those things that was super helpful. I thought especially in the professional field.

Speaker 2: 9:55

I think the more we read, the bigger our horizon grows and our vocabulary. And you know, brene Brown always says you can only go as far as your vocabulary can take you Something a lot horribly paraphrasing.

Speaker 1: 10:12

So for those of you that are Brene Brown fans.

Speaker 2: 10:14

don't like poo poo me on some of that, but it's true. Where, if we can't you know one of the leaders I follow he goes. If you can't name it, you can't tame it. Yeah, interesting, I like that.

Speaker 1: 10:28

I've not heard that.

Speaker 2: 10:29

Yeah, so it's. It's one of those things. Like you know, people like oh, don't label me and I'm like hey mom, like just calm down everybody. Like you can't fix something if you don't know what you're trying to fix.

Speaker 1: 11:39

Right.

Speaker 2: 11:39

It's like go to the doctor and go, I hurt everywhere and the doctor is going to ask you well, what's wrong You're? Like, don't label me right Like no, no, no, no, no. What we're, what we're talking about when we think about naming something, is being able to describe what it is we're trying to do.

Speaker 1: 11:54

Yeah, so yeah, Well, and I think there's an interesting corollary to that, one which I've talked about a lot, which is, I think people like I tend to ask a lot of questions, especially if I'm in a new place or I'm doing consulting or something like that. I ask a lot of questions because part of what I'm trying to understand is the language that particular organization uses yes, 100%.

Speaker 1: 12:11

Because what I find in a lot of places is people use certain words or internal acronyms or things like that, and if you don't actually ask about that and you just assume, like you're going to like, they assume you know. If you don't actually ask about that and you just assume like you're going to like, they assume you know, and I think people are afraid to to look stupid, which I've gotten, I've gotten past a long time ago, because I think what I found is much more valuable to actually ask the question and understand and then you can adapt, like, then you can also adapt your language and to your point. Right, if you have the vocabulary you can, you can articulate like what you heard in a different way, just to make sure, like you can, you can verify, because I think a lot, a lot of problems in most organizations have come down to, in a lot of cases, just communication. Right, it's either people are not talking about the same thing or they're talking passionately about the same thing, using different terms and thinking they're disagreeing.

Speaker 2: 13:08

Yes.

Speaker 1: 13:11

It's like what I've called it. They're in violent agreement, sometimes right Like they're fucking arguing, but they're actually agreeing and they don't realize it.

Speaker 3: 13:22

And sometimes it takes somebody who's observing and going like.

Speaker 1: 13:25

I think you're actually saying the same thing but using different words.

Speaker 2: 13:29

Same team, same team, same team.

Speaker 3: 13:31

We're all headed the same direction here. You're just not using the same thing. It was funny. I was at the CFO breakfast on Tuesday this week.

Speaker 1: 13:42

CFOs don't do happy hours, do they?

Speaker 3: 13:45

Maybe they do, I don't know, but this particular community, the CFO Alliance, hosts these quarterly breakfasts in their regions and just incredibly well facilitated by the CEO of CFO Alliance. But what was fascinating was they were talking about all the same things. I guess not that surprising, but, like, definitely all the same things we all talk about, just like trying to actually understand the problem, um really boil down to communication and and truly like digging into the needs of, of someone's role, right, whether that's technology or their career aspirations or whatever. Um, it was just, it was so many of the the same topics that you know we talked about, uh, in marketing ops and I was like gosh, we all need to be hanging out more often. So we're we're going to work on that, uh, hanging out more with the finance folks.

Speaker 3: 14:34

But, um, to get back to this idea of professional development and and sort of your, your area of expertise nowadays, anyway, I guess it's always kind of been there, right, but you're really focused in um, in providing these, these various sort of like coaching environments or educational platforms. Um, you know we were talking about books. Let's talk a little bit about what. What is the stepped approach? What have you written there? And then let's uh, let's dive into our course that we're going to do with you coming up here in a couple of months. We're going to start in August.

Speaker 2: 15:09

Yes, we are going to start in August. Yeah, so I finally wrote a book. It was on my list of things to do for the last I don't know five, some odd years, and so I finally wrote it. It came out in January of last year and it's taking everything we've done to build a team and, more importantly, the framework for the team and put it in a book, basically. And so that's what the stepped approach is. So if you're curious about how to actually build a system for your team, not just a team, that's what that book is going to give you. So that's what it is, and I've got colleagues of mine who have ordered it and they've gone through three of them. I am a Midwesterner by nature. I'm from Chicago, I have a military family background, right, so we didn't do anything willy nilly If we my dad always had a Mickey mouse watch and if we were late we were grounded one day for every minute we were late.

Speaker 2: 16:11

So yeah yeah, there were five kids in my family three boys, two girls like everything.

Speaker 2: 16:17

There was a system for everything. If you, if there were initials on the calendar for cooking, cleaning, like you name it, we had a system for it, and so I mean, but it worked and so basically took that same approach, as well as the agile software development approach. I've been in sales and tech for 25 years and I said why can't we take that same agile approach to creating a sales team and scaling our sales team? And so that was 10 years ago and I'm sure it was out there somewhere. But I think popular culture is kind of caught up with the whole learning paths and graduation and certifications and all that good stuff, and it's like we've been doing that for years and promoting that thought process for years. So that's what you're going to get in that book is literally a stepped approach creating a system for your team working with sales enablement. If you have them, great. If not, this book will give you everything you need to create the system that you can use as a manager.

Speaker 3: 17:17

Yeah, see, I love that. And so for our listeners, you know we're obviously a marketing operations centric sort of community, right, and, and certainly I'm sure our listenership falls more squarely in line with marketing operations professionals and you know if not the aspiring or current RevOps professional? Yeah, absolutely on a regular basis, right, so we might not know the ins and outs of what it takes to run a sales organization or build a team, and I think that you know we actually already touched on it in this podcast recording is understanding the vernacular and the language that they use. This is ideally going to be our path toward helping this community um, take a little step in that direction, right, yeah? And so, uh, I've I guess we've teamed up with with Dion to to focus on bringing a course um to the community. It is a live course for all of you that are listening now. And, um, we have some sort of wait list, uh, registration open right now. We'll link to it in the show notes, but it is going to be over. Gosh, what are we doing Six weeks?

Speaker 2: 18:48

Six Yep, yep. It's yep, yep Every two weeks, so about 12 weeks, yep.

Speaker 3: 18:53

Yeah, over 12 weeks, six, six live sessions. You will get a free copy of that book if you take the course. By the way, the book is called the Stepped Approach Onboard Better, systemize, smarter and Bring Out the Best in your Sales Team, and so we'll also link to that in this session. And, you know, give people a sense of why they might, you know, why this might be helpful for them as they think about moving further in their career, beyond just being a MarTech specialist. Right, what are we doing here?

Speaker 2: 19:31

Yeah, absolutely, and thank you for saying all that, Mike, because I want to share with everybody. You might be going oh man, I'm in marketing, I don't need a book on sales teams, because I want to share with everybody. You might be going, oh man, I'm in marketing, I don't need a book on sales teams. And I hear you and I appreciate that feedback. I would say, knowing the stepped approach and having lived it out, it's more of a system and framework book. So, for example, one of the things that we call out in that book and we're going to talk a little bit about in our course is your skills matrix. So it doesn't matter if you're leading a sales team or you're leading any team. The goal is to have aces in the right places. But you can't do that if we don't know what we need on our team. And so having a skills matrix for people on your team and for you like, what do I know I need to be good at in my role? What do I necessarily not need to be good at, but what should I know? And so it's really taking the time to look at those things in your role. So, if you're in Martech, we again, like we talked about at the beginning of the show. We are all better together. There's going to be a healthy tension. We know that to be true because a lot of times we're in violent agreement on things and we really lack the ability to see from somebody else's point of view.

Speaker 2: 20:56

So in our course we're going to talk about all of those things. We're going to talk about what it means to be a leader and really give everybody the framework and the system to identify those things that you're really good at from a leadership perspective and give you the confidence to be good at that Right, and give you the confidence to talk about those things. How would you identify yourself as a sales leader, Mike? We talk about communicate, and collaborate is a verb. I'm a word nerd, not a marketing, but I'm still a word nerd and we talk about that, and so you know, if you're looking at the course, it's you know. The first thing we're going to talk about is the 10 irrefutable laws for being a leader, and one of the one of those laws is communicate and collaborate. Those two words are verbs. And so, Mike, a lot of what people are going to come in to get is that foundation for themselves and that, um, the system for themselves to create as a leader Right we're going to talk about. What's your purpose statement? What, Mike?

Speaker 3: 22:01

I said, I'm just super excited by this whole concept. I could take the course.

Speaker 1: 22:05

I'm not going to take somebody's seat, you should Well you know what? We'll give you a pass.

Speaker 2: 22:10

We'll give you a pass.

Speaker 3: 22:12

Oh, okay, that's true. Yeah, yeah, we'll see.

Speaker 2: 22:20

So I know you, I want to. I'm sorry to interrupt, but so no, please do. Please do I get super passionate.

Speaker 1: 22:23

I know, I know you and I, you and I talked about, like the, the things about being especially for people who are new leaders. Right, I think there's a lot of things that apply regardless of the functional area that people who people who are, who are, you know, just getting into a role where they're leading people or are aspiring to do that, I think anything that can help those people become better or more prepared for that because there's a lot of stuff that I know I didn't know, that was just sort of assumed it was like unspoken things about being in those roles that are out there.

Speaker 1: 22:55

That can really trip you up.

Speaker 2: 22:57

Which is dumb?

Speaker 1: 22:58

Yeah, I'm also curious, curious, and I don't know if you're familiar with the book. Uh, the first 90 days, yes, okay, so I'm a big fan of that. I've, I've got I actually think I have three copies, because I keep losing it and then I find them again and then I've given them out and but, um, that's awesome. So I'm curious, just I didn't until I I haven't read your book, and now I saw my list. But now, knowing, seeing the subtitle also, it sort of triggered me, like is there some parallels there? Like I know the first 90 days is really intended for how do you accelerate, like building momentum as a new, you know new role in those first 90 days? I mean, it sounds like there's some similarities in what you're trying to do with the stepped approach, along with the training or my reading things incorrectly.

Speaker 2: 23:45

No, I think that's a good point, and I hadn't heard of the 90 Day book before I had written mine, but yeah, there is definitely some similarities to it, and one of the things we'll talk about, I think, in this course, but we talk about in general general is people are never as excited as they are when they first start something new.

Speaker 1: 24:04

Truth.

Speaker 2: 24:06

Make it easy for your people to love what they're doing and that whole. Well, they should just know. Okay, you know what? It's not the eighties anymore and we don't live in that world. We just don't. There used to be this tribal knowledge and we just don't have that anymore. And so I think, mike, to your point, we host on a side note, we host our executive peer groups within Revenue by Design. We have three right now, we're spinning up five more, we're going to have eight across the country. So if you're curious and want some executive company, we got you covered.

Speaker 2: 24:41

But, that being said, is the discussion we just had in one of our local groups was, I feel like I'm micromanaging somebody if I'm instructing them how to do something. And so, to your point, we talk about state the obvious, because it's what we don't say that causes the problems, whether pick a, pick a relationship right, don't look at them right now, but pick one right If you're with somebody listening to this podcast. So it's the things we don't say that cause the biggest problems. So, when we're number one, number two, when we were talking about this, I said there's a huge difference between accountability and micromanaging.

Speaker 2: 25:26

So here's an example for those of you that have children. So here's an example for those of you that have children. So for me, it was really important for my kids to have a good routine, hygiene, all that good stuff. I never want them to be the stinky kid, right? So since they were little, they're now 15 and 12 up, you know, shower teeth, deodorant whole nine yards, like, take care of your, take care of business. So my daughter's, 15. I think she was 14 at the time, which was just a few months ago, and I'm like all right, all right, everybody brush your teeth. Like to this day I am still saying hey, get your bedtime routine, brush your teeth, all that good stuff, right? Well, now we're at the age where everybody wants to skate, right, and they're lazy, okay. So she goes. Yeah, I did, okay, well, mom is not dumb, it's really funny, darling daughter, your toothbrush isn't wet and there's no water in the sink.

Speaker 2: 26:20

Wait, what? Yeah? So, oh, no, I didn't. I was like, okay, so here's the deal. So now we're done lying because I've had it so for those of you that have teenagers, right. And I was like here's what's going to happen. Every day for the next five days, you are going to brush your teeth in front of me in the morning and at night, cause I'm done with you lying to me.

Speaker 3: 26:38

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 26:40

So I know we're not going to show a video, but like her eyes got huge and she's like I'm not doing that, she's never lied about it since.

Speaker 1: 26:47

Yeah Well, so it's interesting. I can't remember if we talked about this when we first met, but, like the whole thing about micromanaging, I I have a sort of a different view on that. I think that many people, which is, I think there are people who, whether they acknowledge it or not, actually perform better when they are micromanaged. But what's your?

Speaker 2: 27:11

definition of micromanaging.

Speaker 1: 27:12

Oh, like I. So I, this was one where I'd actually didn't have direct. It wasn't a direct report, but somebody who essentially was like I, was giving direction to you on a regular basis, and this person was really, really good. If I gave her like, do this, do this, do this, do this, do this, like here, this, here are the things need to be done here, the steps to do them.

Speaker 1: 27:35

And then usually I had to be working on the next set because she would go through so fast, yeah, but if she ever ran into like something that didn't follow that script, so to speak, right of here's the steps you go through she really struggled with try to resolve it, get around it and would immediately come to me right, yeah, now is that my preferred style of having people work for me? No, at the same time I think we did talk about this like, I believe that, as a, as a people leader, your job is not to expect people to to adapt their style to you. It's the other way around, right, you need to, you need to be, you need to be the, the person that is working around their style to help make them the most productive and, and, um, you know, in, in practice probably even just the right word, right just, but perform like at the best that they can, in that, you know, even if that means doing stuff that you like.

Speaker 1: 28:26

It's not your normal mode of operation or preferred mode of operation.

Speaker 2: 28:35

I agree with that, mike, but I also think that doesn't sound like micromanaging. To me, that sounds like showing somebody how to do something and now the but I could be. I wasn't there right.

Speaker 2: 28:43

But I think it's that prescriptive approach right, where, if somebody doesn't know how to do something and they generally want to know how and, to your point, a lot, in my opinion, right Is that's not micromanaging, that is teaching somebody how because they didn't know how to put the pieces together. And there's a lot of that right now. We are coaching that in every single engagement we have right now. People, it's not that they're dumb, right, and it's not that we don't know.

Speaker 2: 29:08

I can Google anything, I can ask Alexa anything, right, it's, what do I do with it when I have it? So now, in that scenario and in the scenarios we have, it's hey, you're expected to learn how to do this. So if the scenario comes up again, we're not starting with this very prescriptive delineated, you know, stepped approach, no pun intended, right, you delineated, you know, stepped approach, no pun intended, right, you're able to go and take it. So there's a really great book called the way they learn, Right, and it's the concrete thinking versus abstract thinking and when somebody is learning something, it is linear and it is step by step.

Speaker 2: 29:45

When they master something, it's abstract, because I can go and run and do whatever I need to.

Speaker 3: 29:50

Right, and that makes it like just to anchor it for me, the way I'm interpreting this, because I'm the marketer, marketing person. I'm like, ok, yeah, I remember building out my first emails, right, like there is a step by step approach and a checklist you sort of have to go through and it's fairly regimented, right, and you know, maybe there's limitations to what you're allowed to do, depending on how controlled the templates are. 100 percent.

Speaker 3: 30:22

But over time you start to look at, well, you know, now I know how to do this, right, you know now, I know how to do this. And if someone throws the task at you, to how do you make it perform better, you start to, you know, maybe think more abstractly about things. I think on the micromanaging piece too, you know, I think, for, for our listeners who are leading teams, aspire, you know, or aspiring to lead people, um, you know, just to sort of stick with the email marketing example. Um, you know, I think there there does come a point where I think so the definition of micromanaging is to control every part, however small, uh, of of a particular enterprise or activity, right, and so in the email marketing example it might be, the person feels like they have to get approval for the color of the button, the words on the button, the shape of the button, every single thing they have to go to you and get approval for.

Speaker 3: 31:20

And the difference is, yeah, if you equip them with a system right to operate within, and then you eventually say, say like you can pick any of these, and then you know, maybe there's three different button colors, there's three different options for text, all the time you're equipping them with some level of autonomy. They know they're operating within the bounds right. So you're not necessarily micromanaging, but you're, I think, giving them that step in the direction of autonomy to eventually say, ask them a new question why did you choose that one? Yes, right, yes. What made you make that decision this time? And okay, why, or why, haven't you chosen a different one yet?

Speaker 3: 31:59

A hundred percent, you know, and and and start heading down this new path. So I think I don't know I think that's how I was anchoring on like a lot of what you guys are talking about.

Speaker 2: 32:07

It's like you're learning something, and then there's this iterative, creative approach to it that says now you're going to measure what's working or not. Yeah Right, exactly, and that's the beautiful thing about learning.

Speaker 3: 32:17

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 32:17

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 32:19

It's never static. Yeah, absolutely so okay.

Speaker 1: 32:23

Go ahead, norman, so maybe you're going to go where I was, like I interrupted her train of thought on the description of the course, but also I'm curious, if you want to finish, that If people were to register for the course, what can they expect coming out of it after the 12 weeks and six sessions?

Speaker 2: 32:42

Yeah, they can absolutely expect their own leadership framework and a really clear path of what they need to do next to get to where they want to go, and the confidence to do it.

Speaker 1: 32:54

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 32:55

I'm really, really excited by this. So we just to sort of round out some of the details. So we're talking about getting this sort of irrefutable laws of leadership. Yes, you're going to talk about the number one reason to complete your annual plan 100%, and everybody gets one of leadership. Yes, um, you're going to talk about the number one reason to complete your annual plan.

Speaker 2: 33:12

A hundred percent. And everybody gets one of those.

Speaker 3: 33:14

Yeah, I love it. Um gosh annual planning sucks.

Speaker 2: 33:21

So it's not what people are thinking. It's a really simple. It's your own personal annual plan, professional annual plan. I'll send it to you, Mike, so you have it.

Speaker 3: 33:29

Okay, I like that, um, and then we're headed in. So by the time we get into September, here we're going into crafting your purpose statement to drive results. Um, so is this sort of like a mission, vision, purpose type of thing, but for an individual?

Speaker 2: 33:44

Yes, these are personal professional purpose statements. I despise mission and vision statements and only begin anything and Mike is laughing because he knows me so well Because they go flat and companies spend oodles of money and time and energy on creating them and nobody knows what they are.

Speaker 1: 34:07

They tend to use words that are sort of meaningless 100% Dribble.

Speaker 2: 34:12

So yeah, Personal professional purpose statements ties to your annual plan and I guarantee you 100% hit rate that everybody loves that course.

Speaker 1: 34:23

Yeah, and maybe this is just a nuanced thing, but I remember doing when I took training training for I used to use the franklin covey planning system and it was like part of that was doing a personal mission statement. So his mission, but it's probably similar and and I thought that was actually really, really valuable to the point of like, really anchoring like, and it's you look at it every day.

Speaker 1: 34:42

Right, it was there every day, so in the middle of the middle of the day and you come up against a decision you have to make. If it goes against what your mission was, it was really easy to made a lot easier to say no to stuff or say yes to only you know.

Speaker 2: 34:54

Yeah, yeah, yeah, we did that exercise with a team before. This was pre COVID. Everybody was in the office and they the team. So part of your crafting your own is crafting it for your team. And the team had it literally on the banner hanging up over their, their section of the cubicles. I love that. Yeah, Clarity, perspective, focus. That's awesome.

Speaker 3: 35:15

Well, all right, so we're going to go through. I'm going to round this out cause we're running out of time. I want to make sure that everybody gets to hear the last couple of things that are going to happen over these six sessions. So, um, we're in your, in your module, we're going to talk about the power of, uh, you putting in your great goal setting not just goal setting, which I think is key, right? Yeah? Um, then you're, we're going to go into. Session. Five is the simplest way to determine your metrics, kpis and dashboards. I think that rings true to so many of us in marketing ops.

Speaker 2: 35:49

Yes, yeah, that'll be a really good session. I look forward to hearing from everybody on that one.

Speaker 3: 35:53

Yeah, and then we'll round it out with creating your schedule for maximum results, not just any schedule, your dream schedule to maximize your results. So that'll be where it sort of ends and then for all the listeners it's on the page so you guys can go check it out. But I'm really, really excited by creating this kind of opportunity for everybody and I hope you can take advantage of it. We will be giving away a free copy of that book. As we mentioned before, we will have a private group for us all to interact with Theon and do some follow-up questions, interact with the cohort. Again, it's limited to 10 seats, although we might be able to run two cohorts, so we could open it up, and then we will.

Speaker 3: 36:45

If you haven't already gotten your Mopsapalooza ticket, we will give you an exclusive discount to be able to come to Mopsapalooza, because the goal here, not surprisingly, is to bring everyone together. So here you are, you've gone through this learning, and then we ideally all show up at Mopsapalooza together. We get to sort of interact with each other face to face, maybe dive in. Where have you been since? The course has ended, because you'll have a bit of a break. It'll end in October, so you'll have a handful of weeks to sort of like sit and mull over your things and talk about it with your team, and then we can come together the first week of November and maybe share some insights on how things are going. So did I miss anything, dionne?

Speaker 2: 37:28

No, I'm so excited. I look forward to meeting everybody in our course. If you're not taking the course, I hope you are right, but connect with me on LinkedIn Always happy to chat. Mike, what you're doing with your community is amazing and it's inspirational, so I really appreciate that. And, michael, it's always nice to meet you as well, and what you all are doing and within your community and giving people a home and an ear and a place to go, is amazing.

Speaker 3: 37:58

Fans of mission and vision statements, but, funny enough, our mission is to facilitate the advancement of marketing ops and empower mo pros everywhere through educational and entertaining content, resources, research and events centered around a diverse and inclusive community. And I think we're living up to that with this particular course.

Speaker 1: 38:24

It's going to be amazing. I just did a post about this this morning.

Speaker 3: 38:26

So I was like I have it written down. You're right, I don't have it memorized.

Speaker 2: 38:31

I know, see, I will share with you our purpose statement. You and I will get together soon and we'll talk about it. I love this. It's easy to remember.

Speaker 1: 38:41

I am excited for the people who get the opportunity to take this course Because I think Having these kinds of frame I'll call it practical frameworks, this is what it sounds like Practical frameworks it's really practical, like you're going to get benefit out of it from probably day one. Yes, and I also love this idea of doing this, doing this hard work, because it won't be easy, right, doing this hard work and introspection, like doing that kind of stuff of a like a personal mission statement type thing, yeah, it's kind of hard right To really it and what your values are and all that kind of stuff. But it's coming out of it, doing it with a group of people and coming out of it on the other side is going to be. I think really, really, the people get to do it, are going to look back on that and be. It's going to be a life changing event. It is.

Speaker 2: 39:22

It is. It's always better to do stuff like that together. And once you go through it, you can't undo it.

Speaker 3: 39:27

And once you go through, it, you can't undo it and it's amazing. Yeah, it's the best.

Speaker 1: 39:31

I look forward to it.

Speaker 3: 39:32

Thank you, Dion Hartman. You want to close this out or you want me to do the honors?

Speaker 1: 39:37

Go for it. You need some practice, Mike.

Speaker 3: 39:40

I do need some practice. One of these days I'll do more of the hosting and closing. So thank you, listeners, for all of your attentiveness during this episode and any of the previous ones. Please don't forget to rate and review us. Um. I looked the other day. We have like all five-star ratings on uh Apple, so that doesn't mean anybody should go give us a lower rating. That's right. That's right. But we would love for you to go rate and review us. Uh, and if you have ideas on guests or topics, don't ever hesitate to reach out and hopefully we'll see you all in the course and at Mopsapalooza this November.

Speaker 2: 40:18

Thanks, everybody, let's do it, everybody. Awesome, thanks for having me. Bye, all You're welcome, thanks Bye.