What does it mean to "bridle" your GTM processes?

When I started GTM Wranglers, as a classically trained marketer one of my goals was to "brand" the specific value proposition that I would, through this organization, provide.  The basic tagline that I landed on was this:

"GTM Wranglers bridles your untamed technologies and processes to efficiently and effectively reach your organization's revenue goals." 

You're reading this blog now, and I can image you are asking this question:

"Okay Chris, this sounds very marketing-ish, but what does this 'mean' exactly?" 

I'm glad you asked. 

I live in Wyoming, the Cowboy State, and we have a lot of ranches where people ride horses for work and for recreation here.  I lived my formative years in Texas and am doubly familiar with this metaphor.  The Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo was a favorite time for me.  Ranches and rodeos expose one to the essentials of horseback riding.  

A "bridle" is an instrument placed in a horse's mouth that, when used well by a skilled rider, allows a horseback rider with a tool to steer the horse in the way you want it to go.  It's their tool to guide the animal and create synergy between the horse and the horseback rider. 

In order for the bridle to work effectively, two things need to happen:  The horse needs to be tamed so that it can be safely ridden, and the rider needs to understand how to effectively work in synergy with the horse in harmony.  

Take this analogy to tech stacks and marketing's operational processes... 

I have worked in Revenue Operations since 2008 and in Marketing Operations specifically since 2012 in a variety of client-side, agency, and independent consulting roles.  Many marketing processes and even operations are in an "untamed" condition. 

Here are a few examples:

• Sales and marketing are not aligned:  Sales and Marketing have a different definition of what a "lead" is, Sales does not value marketing leads and follow-up is sparse and/or ineffective, Sales and Marketing compete vs. cooperate on engaging the customer, Sales' use of the CRM and marketing's expectation of Sales' CRM use is misaligned (causing issues with audience identification, lifecycle reporting due to stage-skipping, marketing attribution is not reliable, etc. 
• Lack of Revenue Ops data governance:  The data revenue teams collect do not help marketing with targeting, segmentation, and telling the revenue story.  Segmentation relies on "fuzzy" reporting ("contains 100 job titles" for example) to identify a single buyer persona (much less a buyer group) and constantly needs to be updated.  Sales and marketing use different data containers to capture the same data.  Audience identification is bespoke versus based on strategic segments that the organization can align on.  It takes 2-3 hours to develop a Smart List to send out a single email.  
• Revenue Operations Tech Debt:  It's not a secret that Marketing and Sales teams (including Marketing Ops and Sales Ops teams) are notorious for buying up technology to experiment or because they saw something "shiny" that could solve a unique niche use case.  The technology was hurriedly implemented and the integration is either non-existent or sub-optimal.  This isn't always MOPs or SOPs fault... these teams are often charged to "do more with less" and don't have the team or the skillsets in-house to execute a thorough implementation or effectively own the technology.  However, most teams spend more for technology than they have to, and experience "weird glitches" from a poorly set up and undocumented processes within a tech stack that few in the organization understand or can justify the expense for.  Many times, a symptom of this tech debt is an executive decision to replace Marketing Automation platforms - as they believe that the problem is the technology (it may be, but most often it is not) rather than process and team misalignment.  

I could list more examples, but I believe that this paints a good picture of the untamed world.  In fact, this may represent your organization's processes and technology today.  Don't worry.  I've seen a lot of teams, processes, and technology setups... you're not alone.  

How do we address these issues?

• Process-oriented technology expertise:   I work with organizations using Adobe Marketo Engage, Hubspot, Salesforce CRM, and their connected engagement technologies to bring scalable technical solutions to your operations.  I believe that technology is present to help your organization solve it's business challenges and do so in a way that enables your team to focus on sales and marketing over technology administration.
• Process Audit/Mapping:  Regardless of whether you work with me specifically to audit your processes or your technology stack, or you have hired GTM Wranglers to provide fractional staff augmentation for Platform and Campaign Operations, keeping an eye on the scalability and sustainability of how marketing and sales alignment are executed are core to my thought process as a partner to my clients.  At the end of the day, I am aiming to enable you to do more with less, including with the "rinse and repeat" tasks we are executing on.  
• Technology migrations:  Let's be honest, I do get a lot of work from organizations' decision to migrate CRMs and/or Marketing Automation tools.  Why?  These systems (and their costs) get blamed for "why things are not working" often (even if they are not).  Over the years, I have worked in migration projects from Silverpop to Marketo, from Eloqua to Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Pardot to Marketo, Hubspot to Marketo, Pardot to Hubspot, and even Marketo to Pardot (I don't recommend this move, and not just because I advocate for Marketo for good reason).  These decisions are motivated by cost, favored vendor relationships among leaders, leadership turnover, leaders misunderstanding the ROI of marketing automation, and acquisitions.  At the end of the day, regardless of the technology move, there is one common denominator:  A MIGRATION IS AN OPPORTUNITY TO REALIGN ON MARKETING PROCESSES.  Therefore, with every migration project, that "how can we make {this process} better?" is at work and I will work with you to, within your goals and objectives, to execute the migration in such a way that enables you to execute effectively in the new tech stack.  
• Mentoring and Training:  At the end of the day, my goal is to enable your team to take ownership and execute.  This includes mentoring team members on the fundamentals of marketing operations, as well as working to enable your team to upskill on the technology to enable them to scale in the work that they do.  Does this mean that I may work myself out of a job?  Yes.  However, I do believe this means that as teams upskill, this creates new opportunities for clients and also for GTM Wranglers to create value.  
• Partnership with agencies and collectives:  Teams many times need more resourcing or diverse skillsets that a solo practitioner can't always bring to the table.  GTM Operations needs are diverse and complex.  I work within a group of agencies and collectives that are aligned on these goals, and you may have worked with me in the context of one of these amazing organizations.  My goal as a professional is to do amazing and interesting work with smart and fun people who share these values.  These collectives allow me to serve you as a part of a best-of-breed team for "BHAG" projects in addition to being a fractional extension of your team.  

The goal, with each specific process, is to enable you to operate your processes and your technology stack similarly to the way that an expert horseback rider works in synergy with his or her horse.  A tech stack that is tamed to work in alignment with your goals and a team that understands how to leverage the tools at their disposal to reach those goals.  

I hope that you find this explanation insightful.  I love the partnership I have with my clients and the collectives I work through, and it's been great seeing the value and insights that we have gained collectively through this journey.