---
title: "The Hidden Mistakes of Scaling RevOps and Enablement"
episode: 60
podcast: "The LeanScale Podcast"
publisher: "LeanScale"
guest: "Andy Mowat"
guest_title: "Founder & CEO, Whispered"
date_published: 2026-05-15
date_modified: 2026-07-22
duration: 00:34:29
word_count: 6507
topics: ["revenue-operations", "sales-enablement", "ai-in-gtm", "gtm-strategy", "sales-leadership"]
canonical_url: https://leanscale-knowledge-hub.netlify.app/podcast/andy-mowat-scaling-revops-enablement/
source: "LeanScale Podcast Knowledge Hub — https://leanscale-knowledge-hub.netlify.app"
license: "Free to quote and cite with attribution to The LeanScale Podcast."
---

# The Hidden Mistakes of Scaling RevOps and Enablement — Full Transcript

> Episode 60 of The LeanScale Podcast, with Andy Mowat.
> Published May 15, 2026 · 00:34:29 · 6,507 words.
> Machine-transcribed and **not diarized** — speaker attribution is inferred, so verify
> attribution against the audio before quoting a specific person.
> Structured breakdown: https://leanscale-knowledge-hub.netlify.app/podcast/andy-mowat-scaling-revops-enablement/

## 00:00 — Intro: Andy Mowat and Whispered

**[0:00]** Today we have Andy Moet, founder CEO of Whispered and previous head of operations for some of the biggest names in tech like Upwork, Fox, Culture Amp, and Carta. He thrives in environments where it's time to amp up the acceleration, begin scaling, and bring breakout companies to their full potential. With Whispered, he's helping execs find the hidden roles because when companies are looking for a new C-suite member, they're not posting on LinkedIn and sifting their resumes. Andy, so stoked to have you here. Thanks for being on LeanScale Podcast. Thanks Anthony. Great to be here man. Yeah, you bet.

## 00:39 — Where scaling companies neglect the fundamentals

**[0:39]** Well, I think one thing to kick off, I think, especially for us at LeanScale, we're all about GTM ops, RevOps, helping these companies scale to that next level of growth, and you've had such an impressive background and have advised so many startups as well. I think one thing that would be interesting for us is, as these companies are growing and scaling, where do you see them neglecting things during their scale-up phase, underestimating the complexity? What are just some of those things that they're missing as they're going through that phase? God, yeah, I wrote an article on it and I'll have to see if I can dig it up.

**[1:16]** We should dig it as an asset after. Yeah, there's so many mistakes people make, right? They don't get their data foundation right, they don't get their GTM tooling right, so then they're just ending up giving clunky tooling to their reps. They're not building the data foundation the right way, so they can't put in AI, they don't have a data enrichment layer that can really make sure that they're targeting the right things. Then as they scale, you'll see mistakes. The other one is they just don't know the right metrics to track. They are building processes really inefficiently.

**[1:56]** Then you'll see things like, "Oops, they forgot CPQ," or they don't know how to mature the system side of things as they need to start to do that. A lot of people don't invest in enablement until it's too late. I always say if you're going to be a revenue leader at a company with crappy enablement, that's a pretty big risk as well too. There's lots of mistakes people make for sure. I think people are starting to maybe get their idea wrapped around hand, you'd have the data infrastructure done well, maybe earlier than we thought. Some of those foundations, maybe people are a little bit more aware.

## 02:34 — Enablement: the most neglected area

**[2:34]** I'd love to actually double click on enablement because I think that is an area of the business, especially on the ops side, that is just unbelievably neglected. I found, by the way, the article I was thinking about, I called it the Series A GTM checklist. I wrote it for a couple of friends that are just growing fast and forgot a lot of stuff, but yes, enablement, it's critical. If you don't have it or you don't do it well, your teams just end up cycling and doing a lot of the same things over and over and over again. I'm happy to go as deep down that rabbit hole as we want.

**[3:12]** I've run it at two unicorns and really know what good enablement looks or great enablement looks like and what bad enablement looks like, and are able to understand where to focus in on to be able to make it better. I think actually it's something that would be really cool, is understanding stage fit investment and enablement and what it might look like. If you're like Series A, Series B, Series C, pre-IPO kind of stage, when's the right time to invest in? What does that early investment look like? I think about it this way, as you're building out the number of sales teams, when you have

## 03:54 — Stage-fit: when to invest in enablement

**[3:54]** one sales manager and a bunch of reps, it's that manager's job to do enablement. If you have a team of less than 10 reps, you probably don't need enablement, but as you're going to start to clone that team, you're going to start to have multiple products, you're going to start to have a lot of complexity thrown out these people. That's when you should start to really think about it. Early on, the manager is oftentimes covering for rep ops and they're covering for enablement, but at some point that manager just gets pulled in too many directions. Then you start to figure out how can you clone it, how can you do it the same way.

## 04:32 — Coaching with call review (Gong / Chorus)

**[4:32]** I think it's also like you have to have leadership believe and understand the value of this. I remember I wrote an article in my 2015, I'm like, "How could you ever manage a team without analyzing voice?" That was before Kors and Gong ever existed and I got to become friends with those guys. To me, I won't name the company, but at one company I was looking at, I asked all the managers, "How do you coach with Gong or Kors?" They're like, "I guess I listen to a call here and there." I'm like, "Okay, that's the wrong answer." We had to restructure like, "How do you use these tools to be a good manager?"

**[5:08]** I remember another company talking to people, a lot of them just didn't like the best managers were reviewing lots and lots of calls. I remember somebody, actually I think it was Roy, the founder of Kors who said, "You can listen to 100% of one call or 1% of 100 calls and if you can focus in and listen in, that's good." I think also, it's not all like on enablement, like you've got to create the right frameworks and dynamics. How did sales team meetings work? Most of them are like, "Hey, where we at? Where's pipeline?" In a dream scenario, you're saying to your sales team, "Hey, let's bring in discussions around this topic."

## 05:54 — Hiring the right enablement leader

**[5:54]** You're getting the reps to help you kind of learn and evaluate and understand and be a part of their own training as well too. I could talk for a long time, but call review is a core part of enablement. Also new releases and new trainings, getting the corporate pitch right, those are all things that are critical on enablement too. Maybe you could help me understand a little bit about the talent profile. When you're looking for someone to lead enablement or be an enablement practitioner, I think before starting Lean Steel, I ran RevOps for three companies. I had a really strong enablement team at one of them.

**[6:36]** For me, and I have, this is a data point of one, so it might be an anecdote, but he was a rep before, he carried a bag before, he kind of knew what it meant to be in the field, and I think he was really able to empathize, but he had a kind of teacher and ops mind as well. I felt like that worked well, but sometimes it's tough to find those perfect unicorns. What have you found be successful in getting the right enablement leader? There's two obvious profiles. There's the former rep that I like to train, and then there's the school teacher, teacher type of thing. I think they both work in different scenarios.

**[7:14]** You have to be able to be partnered with the sales managers and leaders to be able to be their prioritization function. So either profile could fail or either profile could succeed, depending upon that. But if you show up and you're like, "Cool, just tell me what we should train on," you're kind of toast. You have to have an opinion on, "We should be training on this, not on this," and you should be able to really get aligned with that sales leader. I think either profile can, but what you'll find is the wilting flowers that are just order takers aren't going to be very effective at enabling that.

## 07:50 — Tech-stack missteps: the email-system mess

**[7:50]** Yeah, I find order taking isn't really effective in most things, but I could definitely see where the aid is. It never is, yeah. Except at restaurants. Except at restaurants. And even then, maybe like, "Hey, have an opinion of what the experience is at each table." But I think that makes a ton of sense. So for those scaling companies, making sure you have the right enablement set up, stage fit level of investment in it. Maybe on the tech stack side, are there any big categories of tools you see teams not implementing, implement poorly, taking too long to bring on, maybe bring on too early? What do those missteps look like? Yeah, lots.

**[8:39]** It's a broad question, so I can tell you in any direction. Maybe also get in the direction of a company that I really am passionate about. People make shitty designs in their email systems continuously. I can't tell you the number of unicorns I've showed up that, that they've got seven to eight email systems. And when you show up as a leading RevOps person there, everyone flocks to you like, "God, can you fix that email shit show? I should be able to see all my emails in one," or anything like that. Honestly up until this company called Inflection.io, I presumed that was an unsolvable task and I just didn't touch it.

**[9:23]** But I think what they did was they brought, so in theory what you should have, and I'm again talking about companies that have enough trajectory and data within their product that you can use it. But you should be understanding that event stream and being able to send intelligent emails with data in them to people at the right times versus just like, "Hey, we should send an email today." So Clay's week in review is powered by Inflection. But every company I've been at, you've got Marketo or HubSpot for top of funnel, and then you've got something else like Iterable or Braze for late stage funnel, and then you've

**[10:04]** got a product triggered notification one, and then somebody else has been like, "None of those work, so let me get another one." It always exists. If you're not getting that stuff right early, it's almost impossible to roll it back later unless you're willing to blow it all up. We got pretty close to buying Inflection a card before I left. I think they probably will soon. A number of my companies that I advise and help also take a look at that. That's one example of how you can get one thing wrong, but there's probably 20 of those types of examples. Yeah. No, it makes sense. It makes sense.

## 10:43 — Andy's path into tech and RevOps

**[10:43]** I'm interested a little bit about going through maybe your career trajectory. I mean, a really impressive lineup of logos, going into a newer-- I'll say a newer. Probably this type of work was being done in the past, but newer titles on it being in RevOps and GTM. Maybe just walk through the story. How did you end up getting into tech? How did you end up finding yourself in these roles? What were you passionate about? How did it lead to what you've done so far? I joined a wealthy family that owned the third largest movie theater chain, and I basically helped them build a chain of athletic clubs. It was fun. I got paid well.

**[11:27]** I didn't fly around on their jet, but I realized it wasn't tech. I read 4-Hour Work Week and basically said I wanted to go work at Odesker E-Lance, which ended up merging to become Upwork. I just cold called the CEO of both of them, ended up meeting them, just networked like crazy to get in, and had an offer to work for each of them, and ended up taking the one at E-Lance and worked directly for the CEO of what became Upwork. I was hired to start doing BD, but in month 3, he said, "Can you run my SMB sales team? Can you figure out my systems?" That was when I first realized we needed something like Gong, because I couldn't hear what these

**[12:13]** people were talking about, and that was before Gong existed. Then I started sending emails, and I think I automated an email to 800,000 people that got us in a little bit of trouble. Like most RevOps people, I just fell into the function. Yeah, yeah, same story on my side too, ended up a collective background of GTM roles at tech companies. We had a new CRO come in. He asked, he said, "Hey, who runs Ops around here?" I was like, "Oh, we don't have anyone." He's like, "Well, who manages the systems?" I was like, "Well, I run customer success, and we have the most going on, so I tend to just lean in." He's like, "Well, who runs the forecast?"

**[12:52]** He's like, "Well, most of the revenue is existing, so I run most of the forecast." He goes, "You're not CS anymore. You're Ops." Then that was it. That's cool. I was like, "Okay." I didn't really ask for it, but I'm very, very happy it happened. I think his name is Tom Miller. I thank him all the time for getting me in. I feel like nobody went to college to be RevOps, but we figured out what we were good at. Then from there, I just would do it again and again and again, but periodically I'd go start something in between. I got really good at navigating that job search between things.

## 13:29 — Getting 'punched in the face' in the job search

**[13:29]** Because I'd been punched in the face early and I knew what it took to network and to get to a job, I think I got really comfortable at when I need to define the next role, how would I go do that? That's what sponsored eventually. I think some of the most successful professionals, they're not doing a bunch of applications, they already have jobs lined up, or they're networking and getting recruited into new roles and they always have some other option. I would say you are until you get punched in the face and you aren't. I see plenty of really impressive people and there's this mind of cool, I have something

**[14:14]** lined up, I'm following my mentor, people are recruiting me out. But the day when you're at a company that you get laid off, you don't get along with your boss, the company runs out of money or you for some other reason leave and you have to proactively search. It's not like just shitty people are proactively searching. At some point in your career, you will get punched in the face and by that I mean you will have to go search proactively for a job versus being able to be like, "Oh no, I don't want to take that call right now." That is a very jarring moment for lots of people. Yeah, I agree though. I think you need to be really proactive.

## 14:55 — What Whispered does: the unposted role flow

**[14:55]** What have you seen work really well and maybe this would be really good to tie into the type of work you're doing at Whispered as well. Yeah, Whispered kind of believes that we work with VP and C-level people in for go-to-market roles. We know that at that level, the odds of that role that you find being posted are really low. Odds are it's Whispered to you, right? And so what we've done is built the network, the insights on companies and just the flow of roles and the community to support people looking for those things. And so if you think about it, if you're an exec and you go out and you interview for

**[15:33]** a role, you learn a lot about that company and you throw it away. And so for the last three years, people have been giving that to us. So we know confidential insights on lots of companies. It's brutal if you take a job and you go to that company and either they've been a little bit untruthful to you or your boss is a little bit of a crazy person. I was just on with a gentleman this morning who's like, "Yeah, I was there for ... He was at a five-year run at a really great company running RevOps. And then he was at four or five months at a place and he's like, "I'm really struggling."

**[16:06]** He's an incredible operator, but that's on him now, which is he made any choice at a company. Even if the company sucked, lied, whatever, it's on his resume for the rest of his career. And so how do we help people make the right choices on those things? And then how do we help people open those doors? And so that's really what we've built. And so when I was searching for my last job, I just called all my friends running RevOps and I'm like, "Hey, when a recruiter hits you up, send me to roll and send me any insights on any hot companies." And that's what kind of became and we got whispered. Amazing. Amazing.

## 16:42 — Inside the Whispered process: playbooks and Pro

**[16:42]** So if I'm, let's say, a head of RevOps, PPS sales, I come to Whispered, what does the process look like? There's a bunch of stuff for free on the playbook side. So we have like 100 playbooks on everything from how to work with a talent partner. That is something that if you've never been at that level before, you don't know how to meet those people, talk to them, what you can ask them, what you can't, how to show up prepared and all that. And so we've got 100 playbooks on everything from how to work with talent partners to like how to get your niche and be really clear how to show up right to a recruiter. And so that's all free.

**[17:16]** And so thousands of people a month are coming and using that. On the platform side, if you want to explore that, you just apply for Pro. We still talk to every single person before we admit them to Pro. But effectively, if you join Pro, you get access to all the insights on all the companies, all the unposted role flow, you get access to this network where you can basically get plugged into pretty much any company you can imagine. It's like every Whispered member, we've plugged all of their networks in together. So they're working together. And then we've got this community that supports them.

**[17:48]** And so that I think as a RevOps person, you'd appreciate that, right? But it's the how do you help people open doors? And we always say we're not here to do someone's search for them. We're here to give them the tools to do it better. And so yeah, we've helped a lot of people. And the coolest part now is companies are just finding us directly, right? Like this week, I talked to three companies about like VP level RevOps. I have a version of me, a former like CMO at New Relic, a person that so she's like on the marketing side. We've got a person on the CS side and a person on the sales side that are also working with companies there.

**[18:26]** And so what we're starting to see is companies just call us directly because we're free for companies. Nice. So they're tapping into your network of talent, and then you're making sure you're getting the right matches. Are you doing skill matching, culture matching, or just kind of like exchanging that marketplace between the two parties? We do a little bit of everything, right? So like I was helping a CRO at a billion dollar company yesterday and talking about a role they had and they actually had four roles because they were just onboarding somebody new and they needed to backfill a couple of them quickly.

**[19:03]** And his comment was like whisper to sense as higher quality talent that we can move faster on than our internal recruiting or external recruiting, right? And so I think when you call a recruiter and recruiters are you absolutely in some cases need to call them, but you generally will try and fail on your own first, right? Like let's put it up. Let's work through our network. Let's do all this. We're getting the calls at the, oh crap, I just need to start seeing candidates right now. I don't have a job description. I'm still thinking it through. I was talking to a public company last week about their role, how to craft it, how to get it right.

## 19:38 — The impossible RevOps job description

**[19:38]** And I really appreciate that. I mean, you've been a RevOps person too. Like how many times do you look at that role and you're like, oh God, nobody's going to touch that one with a 10 foot pole, right? We see all those at the time. It's like an individual operator needs to be able to like build the GTM systems, build the metrics cadence, get CBQ running, um, run enablement, run commissions and two other things. And it's an IC role for 200 grand and you're just like, you laugh at those rules, right? And so with that company, I talked to him and I was like, Hey, here's how you think about it. Here's what you do. Here's what you're missing.

**[20:08]** And they were like, amazing. Can you help us? And then I had another company recently where I talked to a COO and I was like, you got one of these rules. It's not that attractive. But anyway, your CRO and your VP of sales are also not there and you're looking for those two. This thing's kind of a mess and then you're willing to pay 225 for this thing. You're not going to get a legit rev ops person, um, for that price. And so they didn't like what I said and I was like, cool, like no problem. We won't help you then. And so I think what we get to do is be on the side. We're on kind of an interesting role.

**[20:39]** Like we're not a recruiter, um, recruiters definitely can help more than like, we aren't going to keep searching and keep searching for companies. Um, we're going to be like, wait, here's a group of candidates and it's good. And if not, we'll make recommendations on the right recruiters. But we help like give feedback on that stuff, um, all the time. And so it's kind of fun, right? Because it's like all the train wrecks and mistakes that you and I have seen on rev ops rules before we get to kind of call out and try to help a little bit on that side. I love that. 100%.

**[21:10]** I love the genesis of, of lean scale because I walked into those roles with really high expectations and like, yeah, we need you to do all everything you said, Oh, plus go to the board meetings with us and report on all of our data. Oh, and help us do fundraising. And it's like, I, well, one, what one person has all of those skillsets in one thing. And then two, like you said, if they are, then they're going to be demanding, um, a pretty high salary that most of these companies aren't prepared to pay with. So you mentioned it's mostly go to market executives, is it focused on rev ops or are

## 21:41 — Coverage across GTM leadership roles

**[21:41]** you opening to the VP of sales roles, the CRO roles, uh, marketing, where, where is the like breath and then level of depth? You mentioned VP and up, but VP plus go to market leadership roles. So that would be CMO and VP of marketing, CRO, VP of sales, CCO, VP of CS, and then rev ops. Um, I would say just given my background, I'm personally very deep there. I think we see 90 to 95% of all roles, um, in rev ops, you know, either we see them from the companies or just an executive whispers that role to us. Uh, and so sometimes we have deep relationships with them there.

**[22:21]** I'd say we're getting to that point in sales and marketing and CS, but it's broader, right? Like you may have one VP level role in rev ops, but you may have four or five in marketing or sales, um, and in CS as well too. And so it's taking us, you know, we're, we're going to get to the place where we see every role in those functions as well too. You can go to apt dot whisper.com and see every single role we see. We just don't share the names of the companies on that side. So we're very, very open with what we have and how we work. Very cool. Very cool. I'm curious, since you're in the space and thinking about talent, um, what do you see

## 23:01 — AI and the next-gen GTM tech stack

**[23:01]** in the next one to five years, especially with better implementations of AI, um, the type of roles that you would expect to see in tech companies? Um, yeah. And then maybe a little bit focused on rev ops, if like the role of rev ops will change a little bit. Will we see new roles, less roles? What do you think the talent landscape is going to look like in the next couple of years? I see it changing a lot. Like I've got a, we have a group of like 50 VP plus rev ops people separate from whispered that we all kind of slack back and forth with each other on like the future of GTM tech.

**[23:38]** I think we all recognize that it's still the legacy Marketo Salesforce, even HubSpot there, but you're seeing this next gen build, right? I talked about inflection on the marketing side. I've got a Google doc of like 20 next gen AI powered CRMs. I don't think they're ready to replace Salesforce yet, but I think they're coming for it. Right. And so when all of a sudden you have data built in, you have product data feeds built in, you have call data built in, and you have like enrichment data built in, right? So it's kind of like, imagine Clay Gong, HubSpot, and it all had a baby and they had it together and that baby like actually worked.

**[24:24]** And like, that's what I think is going to come. And so I'm helping out a couple of those companies. I get really excited about that change. I think data, data architecture is really important, right? So like, if you ask a company, you say, what is your source of truth? Is it Salesforce or is it Snowflake or is it Redshift or something like that? And I'd say that, that needle started to change. It used to be like five or 10% now it's more like 20 or 30%. But then I ask, okay, if people are like, oh, it's a data warehouse, I'm like, cool. If your CRM gets like killed and we delete the instance, how fucked are you, right?

**[25:02]** And the people that are really strong are the people that have a true data warehouse. So like, I'd be fine, like just turn me on with a different front end and I'd be fine. And so I really respect those people that are true data warehouse first. I think data skillset is a really important one, right? Like I would never hire, if people didn't understand SQL now, I think with AI, SQL becomes insanely easy, right? You just need to have like the mind, it's the mindset of RevOps, right? Which is, I always say RevOps people are configure, not customize people. And so I feel like that mindset keeps going.

## 25:36 — GTM engineering, Scale Stack, and the rep UX layer

**[25:36]** You're seeing this GMTM engineer role evolve, which I think is a cool role as long as it's aligned with RevOps. If it's a bunch of biz ops people running around being like, dude, I ship this thing. It's awesome. I just observed biz ops people too many times solving the problem in front of them, but not solving the root problem and just causing more havoc and chaos. And so I'm big on, you got to make sure GTM engineering is part of your org. So in my mind, it's data foundation for RevOps. It's then building AI agents on top of it. So I'm a big fan of like scale stack, which is kind of like an enterprise version of clay.

**[26:12]** But there's lots of those tools, but scale stack has been amazing for us. We've been using it on everything for like, you name it, like agents are going out there enriching stuff, bringing it back to us and doing the work for us. And so you should be able to have that. I think the thing that people haven't figured out yet is the UX layer for reps, right? Like I invested in scratch pad. I love the concept, but the second they charged me like 50 grand more, I was like, ah, Jesus. And so like my vision is that somebody shows up and is like, Hey, we'll take this team out of Salesforce for you.

## 26:41 — Will RevOps survive? Upskill or fall behind

**[26:41]** We're going to save you money and we're going to give you a better UX for like, that's what I really want at some point. And when that starts happening, and I see a couple companies starting to do that, um, that I'm helping and kind of trying to do is there. So I guess my belief is that the entire tech foundation is going to turn over in the next three to five years within RevOps, but RevOps as a function continue to continue to exist for sure. Yeah. So I'm, I'm bullshittled continue to exist. I think there are a few, um, if you don't upscale, it's going to be an interesting situation.

**[27:12]** Um, cause I think there's a good population of the RevOps community that is very focused on Salesforce and Marketo, like you said, and like, if you're kind of stuck in those platforms and have a tough time transitioning out or getting more holistic and broad, um, you know, I do think your position is in danger at least in the next couple of years. Yeah. Couldn't agree more. It's a, it's a very, like there are so many great solutions for GTM. I mean, you probably see it too, but there's so many places where people have said like, oh, I'll use AI and I'll use the same two or three data sets to do the same stuff. And so there's a lot of these me twos.

**[27:52]** I think it's going to be a lot of mess, but it's going to end up being a much better overall setup for executive, like for GTM overtime. Yeah. I'm enjoying working. I help out a couple companies that are like in the new AI empowered that are growing really fast that are, I mean, I, spending time with a company, it's a hundred million in revenue, has no enterprise sales, starting to think that through, right? Those are really fun for me because it's like you get this start from ground zero for the B2B side. Yeah. Yeah. And we also have this amazing base of a hundred million dollars in revenue where you have

## 28:28 — Where RevOps people should learn + get a mentor

**[28:28]** a lot of probably decent brand at that point in time too, that I'll build that out. For anyone who's in RevOps now, we have a lot of people who are in RevOps obviously who listen to this and the companies we work with all in the B2B SaaS and AI space, where should they be going to learn, get their information and then what tips would you have for anyone who's in RevOps right now? Wow. That's an interesting question. I mean, I'm a big fan of what Matt Vollms built with RevOps co-op, it's a good community. I used to be a fan of the WizOps and what Brad Metz had built, the Brad left Sonar and Sonar changed its name.

**[29:11]** So I think that one's kind of gone, that one's been a lot quieter lately. So I spend more time with Matt. If your VP of bluffs of RevOps has dropped me a note, we've got a fun community like VP plus level folks that are there. I think the questions are, I mean, if I was somebody, I would go get a mentor. I'd never mind. I mean, I've had a lot of these chats recently with people that are like, "Hey, I'm a director level." I actually mentor two or three people that are at director levels and they can call me anytime about their career, how to think about it, how to get to that next level.

**[29:43]** And so I don't ever mind helping out really great people at great companies as well too. There's a lot of people that are like, "I want to be head of RevOps." And it's more about the title, but I'm like, sometimes it's maybe better to go be like a number two at a really well-run company and a well-run team. And so I've done a lot of growing the people that have worked for me. I think a lot of people would be like, "Cool, I'd come up in CSOps or I've come up in mops or I've come up in sops." But I don't know the other functions. And you even said, I think what you were talking about is like cross GTM ops rather than just

## 30:19 — Tours of duty across GTM ops functions

**[30:19]** sales ops or mops or something like that. And so I think people can learn a lot. And so I was a big fan of that at culture ramp and at Carta, which is, I move my people around so they become full function experts as well too. And so that I think has been really supportive and I try to do a lot of that. Yeah. And I think that's really smart. Go do a tour of duty in a few different areas on GTM and really use that context to better whatever role you end up being. Obviously if you do want to be holistic, you had a rev ops at one point in your career, it's unbelievably helpful to spend some time.

**[30:54]** The one time I wish I would have spent a little bit more time in is marketing ops. Because I spent a lot of time in sales ops, I ran customer success, so I knew the ops of CS really, really well. And marketing was always just kind of like tangential and I didn't get that level of depth in the weeds with it. And I think that would have been really, really amazing to have. So obviously at LeanScale, I supplement with really great thought partners and marketing ops here, but I think doing a tour of duty and a few other functions just makes you so much more well-rounded and will give you the context and help you be a better thought partner

## 31:29 — Why the best RevOps comes from marketing ops

**[31:29]** in the future too. Couldn't agree more. I wrote a phone article on like the best rev ops people come out of mops. It was a little tongue in cheek, but I agree. Not to speak against myself, but I agree because it's more technical, there's more data, there's more working in the gray, I'd say, and ambiguity. It's just, I think it's trying to define ROI in a little bit more difficult way versus sales where it's just very much like a funnel, whereas marketing, how do you do that? And some people can go down the wrong rabbit holes and yeah, you're right. It's a data skill set that's really valuable. Yeah.

**[32:03]** I think you have more difficult challenges to solve in marketing ops. Sales ops gets a lot of visibility because everybody wants to know when the deals are coming in, the forecast and everything, but I agree. I think some of the best rev ops people I know came from marketing ops as well. Yeah. I mean, to me, there's like six functions within rev ops. I'll just lift them off the top of my head, but if I miss one, let me know. But it's like there's ops, mops, CS ops, GTM systems, strategy, and enablement, right? And it's like, you're probably not going to be good in all of them, but I think it's hard to add them and go to a new place.

## 32:41 — The six functions of RevOps

**[32:41]** Sometimes you can do that, but you're like, Oh, we'll take a flyer on this person. I guess I got lucky. Like I had never run SOPS before I went to culture ramp and they didn't have any commissions. And so I was like, great, like no commissions, like I can do this. And so I was able to like transition to full funnel GTM ops. And then when I went to Carta, they were like, Hey, commissions is under financed. And I was like, cool, great. Like not the area that I gravitate towards. And so I feel like if I was somebody trying to build a career in rev ops, I would try to go work for a great PP and really like somebody that was wanting to move me around

## 33:14 — Close

**[33:14]** and challenge me and push them. I like that. I like that a ton. Andy, this has been absolutely awesome. Thank you so much. I appreciate you spending time with us. I feel like I've learned a ton. I know people listening will learn a ton. I really, really like the insights that you have from your career and kind of how you felt in to rev ops. And then the advice that you have of doing some tours of duty in different areas, finding that mentor, finding a good VP to follow along. And I think what you're doing at Whisperd is just really, really exciting to match people who are serious about their GTM career, getting them in front of opportunities that would

**[33:53]** be really, really difficult to find democratizing that access to these roles. And then for these companies, getting access to better talent and doing it in a way that really matches those really well. So I'm just really, really excited about what you're building, your vision for rev ops in the future. And I can't wait to follow what you're building and what you're doing. Thanks, man. I enjoy it. It's fun talking and I enjoy our conversations as well, too. Amazing. Well, thank you, Andy, so much for being on the podcast and hope to have you again in the future. You got it. Have a great day, Andy. Thank you.