October 8, 2021 marks one year since we launched shOPS Talk, an original Zoom series on all things that matter to ops professionals. What a ride it’s been! We’ve had the opportunity to chat with leaders from across the ops profession – from RevOps to marketing.
Ops is changing constantly. Roles are evolving, objectives are shifting, and new technologies are popping up. We began shOPS Talk as a way to get the ops community talking to one another to help ride this constant wave of change. Sharing tips and tricks of the trade is how we elevate each other individually, and the profession as a whole.
Career advice from leading ops professionals
In the spirit of sharing wisdom, we decided to corral some of the best career advice our shOPS Talk guests have given. Whether you’re considering a career in the ops profession or if your career is already well underway, there’s something here for you.
We asked: “If you could roll back the clock and go back to the start of your ops career, what advice would you give yourself?”
Here’s how our guests responded.
“Trust your gut and follow the things you’re interested in. Then talk to a lot of people doing that. It’s one of the best ways to really get helpful intel.”
– Manas Kulkarni, Sr. Revenue Operations Manager at Spring Health
“Join WizOps, join Modern Sales Pros, and learn from your peers.”
– Pete Kazanjy, Founder of Atrium & Modern Sales Pros
“The imposter syndrome you’re feeling. It’s not yours. You don’t need that.”
– Benjamin Reynolds, Founder of Alternative Partners
“Having strong relationships with leadership and managing up when you need to is important so that you can surface the right problems to the right people.”
– Mallory Lee, Vice President of Revenue Operations at Terminus
“Don’t try to boil the ocean. I think we need to treat our functions like true project managers. Being able to zoom in down to an inch and then zoom back out to 10,000 feet, that’s a skill that’s learned over time, and we need to be comfortable with that.”
– Kevin Wisniewski, Sales Operations Manager at Onna
“Try to identify an issue or niche and specify on it. Tell people about it and start getting your hands dirty.”
– Kenny Goldman, Co-Founder of Kicksaw
“Join WizOps and ask as many questions as you can.”
– Erol Toker, Founder and CEO of Truly.co
“Seek out role models.”
– Sean Lane, Director of Operations at Drift
“You don’t need to know everything right now. People are going to do things differently than you and you’re going to learn from them.”
– Samantha Riggs, Manager of Business Systems at Calendly
“Slow down, listen more, and write stuff down.”
– Dan Grossberg, Director of Sales & RevOps at LeagueApps
“Get your hands on everything you can. You don’t have to do everything that everyone asks, but don’t be afraid to grab new projects that you don’t know how to do and learn them on the fly. Consult with your manager as you go and make sure you’re not going to break anything.”
– Nic Swider, RevOps Manager at Briq
Watch the video to hear even more great advice:
shOPS Talk partners and notable guests
Bringing shOPS Talk to life requires a collaborative effort, and we’ve been joined by some stellar guests:
Pete Kazanjy has started multiple SaaS businesses, with Atrium being his latest venture. He also started and runs Modern Sales Pros, the world’s largest sales operations and management peer-education community with tens of thousands of members.
Rosalyn Santa Elena, Vice President, Global Revenue Operations at Neo4j, is a major thought leader in ops. If you keep up with ops content on LinkedIn, then chances are you’re familiar with her words of wisdom backed by more than two decades in this field.
Jeff Ignacio is the Sales Operations Lead for AWS’ West region, and he’s done a bit of everything you can do in ops at companies large and small. Like Rosalyn, Jeff’s a prominent ops thought leader, frequently providing insights on the strategies and tactics needed to build scalable revenue teams.
Sean Lane heads up operations at Drift, a company widely admired by ops pros. Sean hosts a weekly podcast covering the strategies and best practices ops teams need to use to help companies scale and generate more revenue.
These are just a few of the amazing guests we’ve had the opportunity to talk with. Many other leaders in the ops space have taken the time to share their wisdom with us, and we’re eternally grateful.
In addition to our amazing guests, shOPS Talk is supported by the following sponsors:
- Sonar, the top-rated Change Intelligence platform made for ops teams
- WizOps, a community where ops professionals gather, question, and share their expertise
- Salesforce, the world’s #1 customer relationship management tool
Learn more about shOPS Talk
This is just a snapshot of the types of conversations we have every month on shOPS Talk. As we head into year two, we plan to bring in even more thought leaders, and some familiar faces will be back as well.
To get caught up on all the previous episodes check out our recordings here.
