#009: Working with Business Stakeholders

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[00:00:21] Hi everyone. Welcome to the digital analytics power hour.

[00:00:29] This is episode as you’ve probably noticed in your distinguished analytics career. At some point you have to interact with other people in the business successfully navigating easily those other people. So early on all of these really do is more art than science. Tonight we engage in alcohol soaked speculation Haddaway approve my work your relationships with the business stakeholders I hold so dear. And like any Lao bar I am joined by some other people. Let me introduce them to you right now. Jim Kane is one of our steady cohosts or unsteady cohosts all depends on how much he’s been soaking himself in alcohol SlideShare Rico and of course Tim Wilson our other host and also alcohol soaked and worth. I have Michael Helling. All right guys. This is one of those aspects of the digital analyst’s career that is I like to call it the art side of the science.

[00:01:42] How do you interact with the business. I thought I was just going An Inconvenient Truth. Well it is that too. Like wouldn’t it be great if we could just be you know walled off from all that and just really mess with the numbers all the time and just live in that world. But that’s not the case. We have to we’ve got to talk to people we’ve got to communicate. We have to interpret. We have to give our opinions we have to convince so let’s talk about that.

[00:02:09] I’ll go first. So you know I was keen on this topic because frankly it’s the conversations that business stakeholders that got me into analysis. It’s by far my favorite part of the job I can’t tell you how many times we’ve saved 10 20 40 hours of work by just going. Well we called the stakeholder and have a conversation. And the I liked the fact that he used the word Michael because there’s a real I mean we’ve talked about it in other podcasts you know sales skills bartender skills architecture skills you know things around truly understanding someone’s requirements and that allows you to do great work. And I actually think in a lot of cases that conversation trumps the data around being a good business analyst or a good digital analyst. So I think this is going to be a really good conversation to the way.

[00:03:01] Michael you set it up almost feel like probably echoes a lot of analysts reactions and I will say I am not immune to that which is there some level of us in them or some level of trepidation some level of oh this is going to be an unpleasant thing to initiate and continue interaction with the business which I think is a dangerous place to be but I’ll be honest I kind of lived there. You know the first time I’m heading into a conversation with the business stakeholder sometimes the the umpteenth time because you know they’re just difficult to work with whereas Jim it sounds like you kind of relish those interactions.

[00:03:42] Yeah I think we get to that point through experience right. You know and somebody comes up to you and says Hey with our analytics tool can you give me a report. The least viewed pages on our site and the pages that have gotten no views. Yeah. And so like those are kind of like those kinds of things you know build up for you in questions of that ilk I think are the ones that kind of be the thing that drives the analysts crazy and makes them want to wall themselves off from the rest of the world.

[00:04:15] When we bring on a new analyst at napkin one of the single biggest things that we provide kind of coaching and mentorship and training on isn’t just how to have the right conversation and ask a lot of good questions around learning what someone wants before you start doing the work. But again when you guys made the point it’s a little easier for us because we’ve been around the block. And I think secondly the three of us are all also executives. So when one of us is talking to a CMO or a vice president or you know a senior director on a big company we feel that we’re speaking at a peer level and there’s definitely a lot of trepidation for a more junior analyst or someone who’s lower in that org chart or were in their career to go toe to toe with someone who’s got 35 years of experience and have a peer level conversation with them about data. It’s really hard. But again the second that you can do that you know to me that skill set is the difference between you know toiling in vain with no promotion and you know eventually being the CIO.

[00:05:18] Yeah I mean I guess maybe I’m maybe I just got more rampant self-doubt and self loathing and self. Who knows what else I’d probably. I actually don’t feel like I’d go into those discussions with that much confidence.

[00:05:32] I mean I will say the experience has been getting to those conversations is definitely super valuable but it’s still kind of an unknown. When you walk in you’ve got somebody just obsessing about time on page. Like that’s what they want. And for all we know I know it’s been somebody who’s been touting that for months in their little world in the organization and somewhere there they are. They are the customer right. I mean that’s that’s where I find it’s fun and it can be challenging but I don’t always get to a win. If somebody is just hell bent on something that’s wrong headed. I feel like I wind up in a spot where I’m the analyst. Everything I know is right. I can’t just flat out say you’re wrong because that it takes so little to drop a little bomb in that relationship and I’m never going to recover from it. So a lot of what what I feel like I have learned to do is walk in and say OK I’m never.

[00:06:35] Going to tell somebody that that’s just the you know the dumbest thing since insert some Jim witticism here dumbest thing since bagged milk can no longer leave Canada.

[00:06:48] So I kind of lay it out as there’s sort of three scenarios business takeovers. They’re the one they’re looking to you the analyst for expertise and you’re looking to them for business expertise and you both kind of walk in with not super super high defined expectations of what’s what’s going to happen and you have a very good dialogue in a relationship and back and forth where there’s kind of mutual learning the analyst is learning more about the business and the needs for that specific user and the business user is learning more about kind of what data is available what’s the right way to approach it how to kind of frame things. In my experience that. Almost never is where the first interaction with a business stakeholder starts. That’s what you want to get to. But the other two that are kind of equally nefarious is one somebody walks in and they are they just cannot tell you how many times how you’re going to love working with them because they’re all about the data. And in my experience that means they are going to be the most deluded and misguided about the data and they’re going to be the hardest because they just so want to tell you just more and more and more data and they’re waiting for you to just just give them hugs because you they just want you to Pew data.

[00:08:02] They want they want you to vomit all over them with numbers and you’re like This is not going to be useful and it’s not a long term thing that’s kind of one challenging invite way way to go in it and the other challenging one is the person who’s frankly kind of scared of the data. They want the data to just kind of validate their their beliefs and their opinions and they kind of want to be somewhat a high level order givers you know and tell the analysts you know go tell me why my campaign was successful or go find me an insight because that’s such a vague ass that no matter what you deliver it’s not going to be big enough and grand enough and it’s going to be easy for them to kind of beat you down. Next

[00:08:38] person who says low hanging fruit to me I’m going to slam a door on my own head. I hate that phrase so much now in my career. So what term do you use for low hanging fruit easy wins high opportunity cost anything that’s not tied to food. I just that phrase it just it kills me and it makes you want to drown yourself in a bag of milk. Oh it was you were saying before that the vomit data thing. Let me repeat that whatever it was it was fantastic. I’m going to I’m going to listen to the mike so I can steal that sounds you know.

[00:09:14] Agency that’s one of the challenges for an agency analyst is that there’s almost always one or two layers between the analyst and the person to have that conversation with. But I just have a super super vivid memory of a of an account manager coming back from a two day kickoff onsite with a client saying you’re going to love these guys because they’re all about the data they have just binders and binders of data and they just they just they’re so excited about all this stuff going to do with data they have all this data and they just they just don’t know how to make any sense of it. My can you be all about the data. If all you’re doing is just making massive massive reports you know that’s it that’s a tougher road to hoe than somebody who walks in I’ve got another client who came to the first meeting and said you know what I want to learn.

[00:09:59] I know what I. I know what I know. But I have no idea what I don’t know.

[00:10:04] And let’s just start talking. You know can you help me understand the data. Help me understand digital. And you know we started with what she was trying to do as a brand manager and that was a very kind of positive and productive relationship. But it’s it’s the people who were kind of come in with a little bit of the most open minded are the ones who were easier business stakeholders to work with. But you can’t control that right. As an analyst you just have to deal with whatever business stakeholders you’re present anyway.

[00:10:32] You know it’s interesting as you’re talking about that and I’m thinking I’m like it’s true like as you get that point and I feel like it’s sort of partially our jobs to help shift people over to that kind of mentality of like hey you know here’s what I know. Can you bring what you know. And actually a lot of times I’ll even tell people be like here’s my expertise and your expertise is over here in the business. Let’s combine our resources so we could really create some value.

[00:11:03] And that’s you know sometimes hopeful because a lot of times people will just be like oh yeah I know all about the data. I know all everything about time on site. That’s the most important metric for us. And those kinds of conversations are the ones where you yeah you go home and increase your blood alcohol content.

[00:11:23] But the point that you made that there the customer and that you know couldn’t be more true and I would actually take it far and go. And I think I’ve been fortunate in this regard. But you know the people the I provided analysis to my career some of them have been. I read a book once and they’re kind of brutal at first. And there are people who who want to be coached but at the end of the day they’re the customer whether you’re an internal employee or not. And I think a little more than that there are also experts and stuff that we’re not.

[00:11:55] And our job is to claim we don’t actually do anything as analysts we provide decision support. We help people do their jobs better. We help people understand what happened so they can do it again better right. So when you’re dealing with a business person your job is to acknowledge the fact that they have a job that has action tied to it and you want to enhance the quality of the actions they take with your work. But we don’t actually directly do anything for the business. And I think you really need to go into a conversation with a mindset like that because I have dealt with analysts before and the community kind of think you know everybody’s a knucklehead but me and you know if only I was a CMO we wouldn’t make all the shit decisions because I understand data and all these kinds of things and I know some Simos who aren’t great with data but they’re damn good marketers. And when we can figure out how to have the conversations with them to move past what I call so like the puke data discussions I find tend to be very much tied to historical analysis like this thing happened or wide sales go down last week or you know let’s look at year over year bounce rate from people from Secaucus New Jersey who came from branded paid search on a Tuesday and that kind of stuff. And the second that you can move the dialogue with a business stakeholder towards supporting decisions that are yet to be made than than the quality of the work goes up you start having a lot more fun you start getting more stakeholder understanding and buying.

[00:13:30] So you know that same stakeholder comes to you and says Tim I think you’ve done this one before you know. What are some areas in our website that we should improve next quarter like help us plan better with data and that’s what happens when when you have a good kind of business user decision support relationship.

[00:13:50] I’m hearing a little bit someone one you made me realize that and I’ll use your phrase which have given you a hard time about in the past but it’s it’s actually true that access and access to power can access the power that the higher up you go in the organization generally the more the stakeholder talks in terms of the decisions they’re trying to make whereas the more junior sometimes they’re kind of the oh I need to know I need to be about the data so I’m going to spout out metrics that I’ve learned. But but I do think going in with some I mean humility maybe is the word that keeps kind of bouncing in my head. I think that’s a totally fair statement to say that analysts don’t do anything and that we’re not the ones that take the action. We are facilitating and enabling decisions in action as soon as the analyst starts to get preachy or starts to get kind of cocky about hey if I was in that seat you know I would just change. Change the website that can kind of somewhere it can poison a relationship even if those words don’t come out of the mouth like recognizing that other people are the ones who are on the hook to make those decisions and take the action. And how do you actually work with them to steer them and I sort of see it as I never say no. If somebody says I want 250 data points trended for the last three years I’m not going to say yes I may say that’s a little tough. That’s going to take a ton of time.

[00:15:27] I’ll try to redirect a little bit but then I’m still going to probably give them some handful of data points trended for some period of time and hopefully some of that is showing. Yeah you don’t need to go back three years on all of these.

[00:15:39] So I refer to that as being a hostage negotiator. Right. You can’t say no. But it doesn’t mean you have to say yes. Find out why they need 250 data points. Right.

[00:15:51] There’s a certain level of showing that I am the data expert I can go and get all of this stuff. So I do need to build some credibility that I can get the data that you the business user can’t get to. Now that has to stop short of maybe in your data badge that you just go and ask me if whatever data point you want.

[00:16:11] So what I see is that where people get shut down is that they go in and they hear that you know outrageous request and they’re just like no we’re not. And no we’re not going to do that. No we’re not going to do that. And before long what ends up happening is that person is like useless to me.

[00:16:28] I’m never going to come ask them for anything and now you’re sitting over there and you’re never going to talk to that stakeholder executive account out there that are the ones who complained about them not coming to you. So they’re slack down there. Every time they did. Yeah.

[00:16:43] And that was the analyst walks out of the meeting and they go Yeah sure asshole and then they dial it in and they do sloppy work and they bang it out and they don’t put any analysis in it.

[00:16:52] Like instead of saying like we don’t say no either I don’t like. No because it’s not a good relationship building statement. But yes I could do that but once they really understand and like I steal this from from to and from you so much that I think this and if I’m right then I’m going to do that. Like you kind of have that conversation and you say if I knew what you were going to do with what I’m trying to help you find I might be able to do it in hours instead of 40 and you can make your decision faster. So yes but yes but I like that a hostage negotiator thing. That’s a good way to describe it isn’t it.

[00:17:30] We’re describing these characteristics humility described empathy. And I just wonder like are we basically business butlers good butler as someone who is going to like be there no other routine.

[00:17:46] No what and inject at the right time but never like you know I mean like I don’t know maybe in a place like a thousand have become a bully. Oh yeah let them down. Batman Batman kind of. BUTLER Well I mean you know you’re multivariate hawting is ready to go.

[00:18:07] And read they had the wrong direction but it’s my goal to do that.

[00:18:13] You know the presentation and the metrics ages ago about Batman and Robin in pop culture references and stuff.

[00:18:19] I do remember it but I sure wish you’d refresh my memory.

[00:18:25] How is that hostage taking right there. I didn’t want him to include the listeners in my anecdote but now I guess I well I just do this big pop culture analytics routine a few years ago and I actually and we do this to this day when we’re training new analysts is we say every business stakeholder that you work with is Batman. So they are the star of the show. They do things you support things every stakeholder and we actually filed them this way internally. They either look at their analyst as Elford or they look at them as Robin.

[00:18:57] And that literally I go through every stakeholder we work with the napkin and they’ll fall into that category and we do have a number especially as you go higher up in the org chart. We end up being Alfred. So the perfect analyst for them who is someone who like you know in a Batman movie he’s about to leave an Alford’s like you should probably bring this with you sir. And it’s exactly what he needs. That concept of like the Proactiv think of things before I need them kind of be quiet in the corner. But you know I can’t win without you. Is that Buttler thing. I think makes total sense. We do however have a number of stakeholders especially in online retail who view their analyst more like Robin like you’re my sidekick and I will call my analyst to go. What are your thoughts on this. Like they want not a peer but someone to bounce decisions off and get the perspective back in terms of data.

[00:19:51] Yeah absolutely. It’s funny I had any metrics presentation did for a couple of years about that community management and it was based on the Gilligan’s Island theme no shocker and my my premise. Was that the community manager is Gilligan kind of the star of the show but not necessarily in very very well intended. And then I kind of walked through the other cast members and kind of tied them to different dimensions of the of the analyst kind of supporting the star. I couldn’t come up with anything for luvvie how much was pretty much useless but so it goes. I feel like I feel like I’m cutting out we never actually gave the excuse that whatever jerks and fits in this episode is because I’m recording from a hotel room with a spotty spotty Internet access.

[00:20:37] Ladies and gentlemen to him Wilson is so pleased to be here tonight.

[00:20:41] He’s joining us from an exotic location on a boat in the South Pacific. I got my kids Craig in a little hand generated internet router.

[00:20:50] Tim Wilson is available from space. TIM WILSON Not available in the province of Quebec. The elderly and pregnant women should not consume. TIM WILSON Again if this Tim wasn’t the last for longer than.

[00:21:02] Four hours or so I was going ahead down the path of where where is the point for humor. I mean I’ve found in my my own interactions there’s a need to be even though I am a irascible curmudgeonly negative nelly. I also realize that somehow I can I can crack wise just enough and deliver the goods just enough that generally the stakeholders actually do want to interact with me. I mean it’s hard to tell an analyst at work on your people skills but you honestly need just raw relationship people skills.

[00:21:41] I would be very careful though about recommending that people have a laid back crack in lies like you can get away with it. I can get away with it. I’m pretty good at it and I’ve had people who worked for me before who are again starting their careers and they watch the way that I dialogue with a stakeholder and they start you know throwing puns around making jokes and it’s a pretty good way to lose.

[00:22:06] Then you’re not you’re not taking me you’re not taking my business seriously I have to make real decisions I’m trying to run a business here.

[00:22:11] And I checked it out on LinkedIn you’re 26 you know I got to know friends give me my data now. Like you lose your angle. But the point about having really good people skills and really really good listening skills is hypercritical. So I think you guys a question sir Michael you’re one thing.

[00:22:29] Did we just decide that millennials aren’t allowed to make jokes in meetings that we just decided.

[00:22:33] What are millennials to it in the meetings.

[00:22:36] There you go right back to the conversation my my unholy everything I’m saying and my whole approach is around starting with the person who owns the entire digital silo in a business and working my way down from them. So that concept of trickle down and all that. So if we can answer all the questions for the vice president to be commerce then the people who are underneath that person in the org chart will have a lot of their questions removed. And you know it’s kind of a cultural thing. A lot of analysts don’t have the luxury of going to their bosses boss’s boss and having those conversations. What do you guys think when you’re dealing with the people at the manager level or are people at the business level who have questions what the single most important thing that they should be trying to do.

[00:23:26] Because it’s less requirement solicitation and more just get in and get out quickly like I feel like I’ve worked it kind of all levels and it’s just a matter of the scope and scale of what that individual that I’m working with is grappling with if there are PPC manager and they are specifically looking at it there they’re paid search. Yes I know that rolls all the way up to the CMO but. That doesn’t mean that I have to be kind of working at the CMO level at the same time when I’ve gone in and actually met with the CMO. That provides some fantastic context and may set up some kind of larger analysis or may set up some very very directed targeted targeted questions. But I sort of kind of come at it with who is the person I’m working with. Role one of you guys has said you know what are you what’s your bonus getting paid out on whether they’re literally getting a bonus or whether it is. What are they going to be able to hang their hat on at the next review period to say I did X and that kind of cuts across all levels of the organization.

[00:24:31] Yeah.

[00:24:31] So I think it’s actually more natural to work with someone who’s delivering things kind of at the channel level or at line level only because you honestly get fewer reps in front of a CMO. So a lot of times it’s the hardest one to really get comfortable with. I mean typically it’s about hey how do I help you kind of do the things you’re trying to do with your responsibilities. Right. So if you’re a merchandiser you know how do I help you kind of understand how digital is impacting your merchandise performance or if you manage a channel. How do I help you understand how the channels and acting with the other channels and what you’re trying to do. So yeah I don’t know. I find that one probably easier than the high level one because it’s going to be a little bit more tactical which is pretty human nature I think to drop to more of a tactical approach to some of these things.

[00:25:22] So the problem that I always have is that like if you get asked a question by a senior business executive you really want to put a lot of spit polish on it before it goes out the door. So instead of just putting it in a table you’ll think about the presentation or you do deep analysis you’ll do three rounds of QJ like you’ll do but like you said Michael you don’t get a lot of face time you want to make sure that you’re sending out solid gold. And so sometimes I find that when I’m dealing with someone lower down the org chart who frankly just needs a quick and dirty answer right now I send them the you know the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and they’re like that’s gorgeous. Thanks. I could have used it four days ago. And so one of the things that I’m trying to really get a lot better at personally as an analyst is if I’m talking to someone in the org chart who’s asking a question I won’t just like that concept of teaching someone to fish so you know I run e-mail and I would really like to understand you know the performance of e-mail at the landing page level. And I will say now great. Do you do that often.

[00:26:25] Could I build you a report in tool that could be emailed to you daily or show you how to pull the report yourself and how to interpret it like you know I think the concept especially with the way analytics tools are now regardless of which tool you’re using to have part of your job is not just all do work but I’ll be an internal coach and trainer to facilitate self-service is also really really important and it works very very well at certain levels of the org. Yeah.

[00:26:58] And I think you brought up something that’s really good question to ask somebody when any level is when they ask for something to get a sense of the timeline that’s around right. So I’m walking into a board meeting in 15 minutes I need some analysis. It’s a much different exercise than you know in a week. We need to review these five things. Two things from that.

[00:27:21] One of the self-service thing the fine line to walk there is making sure that this is something where you are empowering them. It’s not because you’re trying to shirk works. I’ve seen that done with you know an analyst saying look you have a logon to Google Analytics go pull that yourself and they may say it politely but they’re still delivering the same message. Read the fucking manual. Good old RTFM. Now technical writing days which is not to say that you don’t want it but to me it depends on the business stakeholder sometimes they want to be empowered that way and they’re into it sometimes they don’t. And that the trick is not trying to teach someone to fish who has no interest whatsoever in going anywhere near the river bank with the pole. But I agree like that should always be an offer to say hey I can show you kind of how to get to some of this or I can actually like you said I can set something up so that you’re you know the hook is perpetually baited and all you have to do is walk down and drop it in the water. You don’t have to wait for me to come and beg your hook. So the other thing you talked about was the Sistine Chapel and I feel like I’ve gotten a lot better at and doing more and more of is getting comfortable with quick and accurate and partial answers.

[00:28:42] And this goes higher and the organization of low and the world ization of I can walk back and come out of a meeting and I’ve got seven questions I’m trying to answer and two of them I can answer in about 15 minutes of work. I’ll get the answers to those two question. Bins and I’ll go ahead and send them out. And I also have already gone in and answered these. Or. The other is I will walk in with something especially if it’s a recurring report. I will pretty much come in and say this is not final. I am expecting to iterate on this thing I want your feedback and that even I think even goes to the cómo level as well. We have this tendency to say oh we we’re really nervous who wanted to deliver the grand deliverable and I’m getting more and more comfortable saying I’m not going to deliver the grand deliverable I’m going to I’m going to kind of trickle it out. I’m going to become a partner. I’ve got a very specific example in mind some social media stuff with the business stakeholder that was kind of known for being very very demanding and never happy with what was given. And when we sat down and met with her and said here’s something we’ve produced we want your feedback. She had written Gittleman feedback’s definitely weren’t listening. That was part of the issue too the analysts weren’t listening very well and she’d say but what about this what about this and that and I said Can we table that. We want to get through one thing that is useful and polished and final and then as soon as we have that wrapped up we’re going to tackle those other two things which is like oh yeah that totally makes sense.

[00:30:14] That’s a good point. So I’m going to start to wrap this up here. I feel like tonight we. Have kind of ranged across a few things that I think are helpful and I think it’s interesting where we landed. But I’ll let you guys to your piece. What’s your what’s your big takeaways from this.

[00:30:35] Jim why don’t you go first. I want you to I’m curious about where we land it.

[00:30:40] Well you know it’s funny because I felt like we spent some time talking about it and then delivered a pretty impassioned defense of the hippo. You know to me certain in a certain context what we exist to do and it’s so interesting because you hear the hippo talked about some negatively in so many parts of the analytics community. But the reality is is that helping the hippo getting the hippo to understand what we’re doing seems to be kind of the keys to kind of really having a great relationship with your business stakeholders. Obviously the ability to manage those relationships well seems to be kind of the critical pieces of success to success that none of us are are okay with saying no right. So I thought it was really interesting I think we all brought that up in her own way.

[00:31:30] I think that that’s well put. I wouldn’t have framed it occurred to me that way but I totally agree. To me the the We’ve said it now the humility empathy Altro and kind of respect you know recognizing that there is knowledge they have that you don’t is big and then I actually like Jim’s line of pointing out the analysts don’t actually do anything that reminded me of a guy named Fred Duran’s here in Columbus home in Columbus instead of a hotel room with shitty Wi-Fi.

[00:32:02] He ended a presentation where he just kind of got to where he talked and talked and he said at the end of the day the analyst just needs to fucking own it. The point that analysts cannot draw a hard line of where their job stops and say I’m not going across that line the analyst needs to go as far into the business stakeholders world as they possibly can. Purely 100 percent in the service of their stakeholders being able to make informed decisions because analysts have to recognize right they’re not they’re not actually going to make the decision or take the action. All they can do is drive as hard as they can to support good decisions.

[00:32:42] That was a good point. And you know again this is one of my more favorite topics. I just had kind of a real fun time going through it today but it reminds me of a talk I gave once with a senior stakeholder in a big brand that we were working with and he sat down in front of a room that was predominantly analysts and said here’s my name here’s my title and full disclosure. I don’t give a shit about web analysis which is what we called it that everybody. You know what that’s what I just said this morning.

[00:33:10] No everybody in the room got really uncomfortable and they were probably tweeting like this guy’s back and then he said let let me tell you why I spend a lot of money on measurement once a year for about 40 days.

[00:33:21] I negotiate for next year’s budget and I’m going to take you through the numbers that I use and the things that I need to report on to my CMO to double my budget because that’s part of my mandate. And then he went through all of his math and the structure and how he uses measurement and that started to lead to obviously over the course of the year when he’s not fighting for a budget. The ways He leverages his analyst to leverage it and he really kind of let everybody inside his head. And he made it very aggressively uncomfortably clear that the role of the analyst is to empower him to shoot the lights out. And you know the point that was made earlier about you know of a hippo. You know I should probably be clear and say that at several points it doesn’t happen often but at several points in my career I quit a job or fired customer because they had unsaveable executives. There is such a thing as like we support decisions. Our goal is to not be Batman and all these things are true. But there’s such a thing as as a marriage that will not last. I

[00:34:32] will say the unsaveable are the people who see their role in their businesses is increasing their own budget to me and I’ve definitely run across that and I get the realities of how business works.

[00:34:44] But the people who are focused on that that tends to be a little bit of a pull you know it has the potential the potential to be extremely toxic and you know I think the reason that that he brought it up the way he brought it up was to make a very hard point about. You don’t have a budget. You are an internal service bureau to me. Let’s start off with my number one KPI which is to be so good at marketing to drive sales that I get my marketing budget to drive more sales. So you know one of the things that he said was if I can prove that this year with this budget we generated this revenue and next year with triple the budget I can get five times the revenue we’re cooking with gas and I win and everybody else wins. And it was tied to revenue. And it was tied to a whole year of you know improvements and things. But just like kind of a big glass of cold water in the face on you know again you inform people who do things is important. It doesn’t mean that every business stakeholder you work with is going to be the kind of person who can compete on analytics or take advantage of an analyst. But it does mean that with the proper development of people skills you should be able to get very far down the path of trying before you give up.

[00:36:02] You know I think that’s good. So you can either be Robin Alfred or razzle ghoul but you should probably learn what that little fork is that they put across the top of that fence table setting.

[00:36:17] For my KPI.

[00:36:19] Right. So anyways it’s interesting how this conversation went tonight and Tim AGM I really like your perspectives and I think I think we had a lot of alignment tied actually which is new for us as a group and not let that happen again. And while I think we’re all struggling under the stress of that and so I’m going to turn it over to our audience so you guys as you listen you know let us know your comments and thoughts are their perspectives here that maybe we’re not we’re not capturing him. Let us know on the Facebook page or on Twitter or on the measures like Channel. If you are not part of that group it definitely should just hit up one of us on social media. We’ll get you to the right people to get signed up. It’s a great crew. A lot of great information happening there. Slack hash tag measurer group. All right. Well hey that’s our show.

[00:37:11] And thank you all for listening. Half of my co host Tim Wilson and Cain. Thank you very much. We look forward to hearing from you next time. Cheers.

[00:37:25] Thanks for listening. And don’t forget to join the conversation on Facebook Twitter. We welcome your comments and questions to the dot com boom with slash and Onizuka hour or on Twitter.

[00:37:39] Smart guys wanted to fit in. So they made off a term called analytic. Now the links don’t work.

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