Weekly newsletter #61
The best of what I've read this week, about operations, training and education, communication, and more
Hello!
On Friday, I graduated a great cohort of my live, 2-week documentation class, and I think this was the first cohort of all ops people, including a team! They all had excellent questions about documenting processes for reporting and integrations, enablement and change management amounts needed for each change, specific objections they are facing, and more. I started documenting my thoughts and gathering resources on these specific topics to first share with these professionals, and later for a slightly more ops-focused version of the course, coming soon! In the meantime, I’ve opened up the next cohort for my current live courses (scroll to the end of this email).
In other news, I had a chance to take a documentation course myself! Read my summary and takeaways from the Building a Business Playbook Masterclass from Trainual.
Onto the resources!
Thanks to this week’s sponsor:
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Last week’s most popular link:
MJ Smith shares the most important KPI for building a demand engine from scratch
What I've been reading, watching, and listening to:
LinkedIn
Sam Jacobs shares how the hardest part of moving from startup to scaleup is handing off the processes to the right people with nothing lost in translation (good documentation can help!)
Nataly Kelly shares her 60-day plan as a company’s new CMO
Zaharo Tsekouras shares the importance of creating a user manual about yourself (We called these “how to work with me” documents in my last role, created and read during onboarding)
Jeff Ignacio shares two approaches to tracking time in sales stages, and a checklist for building out a dashboard for the sales and customer success stakeholders
Rosalyn Santa Elena shares why you may be a good fit for revenue operations
Maggie Olson writes about how finance can be the area a Chief of Staff is least confident about, and how to gain knowledge
Taft Love shares how an early RevOps hire’s responsibility is to set boundaries with the sales leader about how to prioritize and work well with RevOps
Josh Elmore shares why Executive Assistants and Chiefs of Staff are the true backbone of any thriving organization
Generalist World shares how to overcommunicate with your remote team via a single emoji
Chris Walker writes about how not using external experts just because you had one bad experience with one is like saying you’re never going to a restaurant again because you had one bad meal
Sara McNamara shares observations about the current marketing operation job market
Gagan Biyani writes about giving positive feedback to your boss
Lila Krutel Meyer shares a customer education strategy, and tips for promoting your academy
Elle Chappell writes about how demanding a CIPD qualification (or other HR certification) as a must-have for Head of People positions overlooks a plethora of essential skills
Jennifer Smith shares her journey from a consultant running around with a Lenovo ThinkPad documenting processes to CEO of Scribe
Megan Galloway shares why it is so hard to make the transition from individual contributor to manager (and how documentation helps)
Julie Zhou shares takeaways on the anniversary of her book The Making of a Manager
Xander Broeffle writes about when someone asks "can you do X", follow up that question with another question "SHOULD I do X?
Josh Carter shares ten tactics Pavilion uses that helped get to 100k followers on LinkedIn
Kristin Cummings writes about the bridge from admin to COO (including systemizing what you do, to hand it off!)
Justin Sharaf shares what does and does not make a good marketing ops leader
Will Rippetoe shares a roadmap for changing careers
Rachel Nazhand writes how your reputation at work is your responsibility
Darrell Alfonso shares about marketing ops team structures
Max Maeder shares takeaways from a report on 100 Rev Ops Teams at SaaS Startups
Twitter
Amanda Goetz writes about the #1 trait I see with bad leadership: Opacity
Amanda Natividad shares how to normalize senior-level roles that don't require people management (more in the article below)
Dave Kline shares three management non-negotiables
Adriane Schwager writes about how bad hiring is killing your startup and how to fix it
Articles, Reports, Guides, Newsletters
Sam Seo shares The Complete Guide to Process Documentation and Process Improvement (with Templates)
Amanda Natividad writes about Embracing the High-Level Individual Contributor: How to Hire for This Unconventional Role
Jeff Ignacio writes about Change Management: The Knoster Model applied to RevOps
Ro Fernn writes about Collaboration Unleashed: When Digital Whiteboards Don’t Work
Irina Stanescu writes about The Dance Between Getting Managed, Self-Managing, and Managing Up
Jen Abel writes about Tips/Tricks for Running GTM Experiments
Elad Gil writes about hiring a gap filler for your startup
Jennifer Daniel writes about how emoji submissions are re-opening April 2
Wes Kao shares 11 ways to get better feedback from your manager
Podcasts & Webinars
Crissy Saunders, Charlie Saunders, and Xander Broeffle discuss their Top 3 Tips for Creating RevOps Documentation on The Revenue Growth Architects podcast - 18 minutes
Philip Lakin and Seth Colaner discuss the No-Code Ops journey on the Modern Business Operations podcast - 34 minutes
Dani Worthman, Michael Hartmann, Mike Rizzo, and Naomi Lu discuss The Importance of Good Planning on Productivity and Mental Health on Ops Cast - 56 minutes (documentation for mental health and career growth is discussed)
Rutger Katz, Michael Hartmann, Mike Rizzo, and Naomi Lu discuss applying Lean Methodology in Marketing and Revenue Operations on Ops Cast - 49 minutes
Layla Pomper discusses 6 Myths on Building Systems to Organize Your Business on a ProcessDriven video - 18 minutes
Molly Graham discusses how to grow your career with every role on a Maven Lightning Lesson - 30 minutes
Lauren Aquilino, Sydney Mulligan, and Justin Norris discuss Navigating the World of Marketing Ops Consulting on the RevOps FM podcast - 52 minutes
Camille West and Christina Garnett discuss Remote Work & Representation 101 on The Women’s MBA podcast - 25 minutes. “Document everything!” :)
Natalie Nichols and Adi Klevit discuss Scaling Your Digital Marketing Process on the Systems Simplified podcast - 31 minutes
Carlos Nouche and Sean Lane discuss: Should Enablement Report to RevOps on the Operations with Sean Lane podcast - 43 minutes
Featured Events or Classes:
March 26: Run 1:1 Meetings That Empower Your Reports from Dave Kline and Marsden Kline and Maven
March 27: Business Led L&D: Tying Learning Investment to Performance from CLO
March 28: Presenting Designs to get Executive Buy-In from Ryan Scott and Maven
March 28: Does your business pass The Fiji Test? From Jenny Blake
April 9: From Marketing Eras Past to a 1:1 Future from RevGenius
April 10: The State of RevOps 2024: Redux from Rattle
April 11: Attribution Showdown: Marketing Ops vs. Sales Ops from RevGenius
Starting April 17: Present Yourself with Confidence ($ but scholarships are available) from Women Talk Design
Starting May 8: The Customer Enablement Accelerator ($) from Donna Weber
May 29: First-Time Manager Bootcamp: Management and Leadership Essentials ($) from AMA
Starting in June: First time / Aspiring COO Course ($) from Operations Nation
Featured Book:
Featured Remote Jobs:
A Few Ways I Can Help You
New dates for the next live cohorts:
Documentation writing workshop: May 7, 1-4PM Pacific time
Documentation systems workshop: May 10: 1-3:30PM Pacific time
2-week documentation course: June 18-28, starting at 9AM Pacific time
On-demand courses:
How and Why to Document Your Business Processes — full course
Thanks for reading!
Thanks, @jen, for mentioning my book.