How a Better Marketing Operating Model Creates Better Work (And Better Results!)

Summary

This post explores how smarter processes, better operating models and thoughtful use of AI can make work more effective and less frustrating. It shows why giving people greater clarity, autonomy and time to focus on higher-value work ultimately leads to better business performance.

By Maria GeokezasOpens a new window, Chief Operating Officer at Heinz Marketing

The best operating models don’t just improve performance. They give people more clarity, autonomy and control over how they work. For years, marketing leaders have been under pressure to become more efficient. Usually that means producing more with the same—or fewer—resources.

But I think we’ve defined efficiency too narrowly. A truly efficient marketing organization isn’t one where everyone is working at maximum capacity. It’s one where people understand what matters, know what they own, have the information they need and aren’t spending half their day navigating avoidable complexity.

At Heinz Marketing, we’ve spent years helping organizations build predictable, repeatable and scalable revenue systems. We usually talk about that work in terms of better conversion, stronger sales and marketing alignment, greater accountability and more predictable growth.

Those outcomes matter. But there’s another benefit I’ve come to appreciate just as much: Good systems make it easier for good people to do good work.

They remove unnecessary friction. They reduce ambiguity. They give teams more confidence in their decisions and more control over their time.

And in my experience, when you improve the way work gets done, better business results tend to follow.

We’ve confused efficiency with productivity

Especially over the last several years, “efficiency” has too often become shorthand for doing more with less.

How much more content can this team produce? How many more campaigns launched faster? How many more accounts can sales cover? How much more can we put through the same organization without adding people?

People may be busier, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they are spending their time on the work that creates the most value.

Asana’s Anatomy of Work research found that knowledge workers spend 58% of their workday on “work about work”—activities such as communicating about tasks, searching for information, switching between tools, managing changing priorities and coordinating work rather than doing the skilled work they were hired to do. Respondents estimated that better processes alone could save them nearly five hours every week.

Think about a good marketer spending a large portion of the day tracking down an approval, reconciling spreadsheets, looking for the latest version of an asset, updating multiple systems, figuring out who owns the next step or attending another meeting simply because no one is quite sure what happens next.

None of those activities is necessarily bad on its own. But when they dominate the workday, we don’t have a people problem. We have a system problem.

A better measure of efficiency might be this: How much unnecessary work can we remove so people can spend more time doing the work that actually creates value?

Chaos has a human cost, too

When processes break down, we tend to measure the impact on the business by way of lower than expected lead volume and conversion rates, or longer sales cycles, lower pipeline volume and smaller deal sizes.

But there is another cost that is harder to see on a dashboard: what it does to the people operating inside those systems. When ownership is unclear, people hesitate. When priorities constantly change, people stop believing the latest priority will last. When every process depends on tribal knowledge, your most experienced employees become bottlenecks. And when people spend every day putting out fires, they never really feel caught up.

We see some version of this regularly when we begin working with organizations that have undergone a reorganization, leadership change or major technology implementation. The organization has changed, but the processes underneath it haven’t caught up and the people involved end up compensating to make things work by creating workarounds, adding meetings, and there is no keeper of how everything actually works.

Those workarounds keep the wheels turning for a while. Eventually, though, the workarounds become the operating model.

Research from Atlassian illustrates how significant the problem can become. In its 2024 State of Teams research, 64% of knowledge workers said their teams were constantly being pulled in too many directions, while 55% said it was difficult to track down information even though they knew plenty of people inside their company who presumably had it.

Repeatable doesn’t mean robotic

This is where process sometimes gets a bad name. Talk about repeatability, workflow or operating models and people can picture rigid rules, bureaucracy and less freedom to do their jobs.

Done well, the opposite should be true. The purpose of process isn’t to control people. It’s to eliminate the decisions they shouldn’t have to keep making.

A good operating system answers routine questions like:

• Who owns this?
• What happens next?
• When should sales engage?
• What makes an opportunity qualified?
• Which accounts take priority?
• What information should someone have before acting?
• Where does the work go next?
• How will we know whether it worked?

When those questions have clear answers, employees can stop spending energy figuring out the mechanics of getting work done and use that energy where judgment really matters.

Consider a BDR who starts every morning trying to determine which accounts deserve attention. They check intent signals, review CRM history, research contacts, look for recent account activity, figure out who has already engaged and decide what to do next.

But when given a clear prioritization model, the right account context and a defined workflow that BDR now has the space to use their skills where it counts: deciding how to engage another human being and having a good conversation.

Predictability creates autonomy

We typically think of predictability as something the business wants. Predictable pipeline. Predictable conversion. Predictable forecasting. Predictable execution. But predictability is good for individuals, too. When people understand the outcomes they are responsible for, know which decisions they can make, can find the information they need, understand how work moves between teams and know what happens when something goes wrong, they require less oversight.

Clarity and autonomy aren’t opposites. Clarity enables autonomy.

One of the things I’ve appreciated most over the years at Heinz Marketing is watching people grow into roles where they don’t need someone constantly telling them what to do. Our frameworks and systems aren’t intended to prescribe every answer. They’re there to provide enough structure, context and common understanding that smart people can confidently determine the answer themselves.

And when that happens, something else changes.

Managers can spend less time managing tasks and more time coaching. Employees can make decisions faster. Teams become less dependent on one or two people who know where all the bodies are buried. The business becomes more scalable because the people become more capable.

This is where AI can actually make work better

AI obviously creates an enormous opportunity to make organizations more efficient. But I think there is an important distinction between automating tasks and redesigning work.

McKinsey estimates that, at current capability levels, AI agents could perform tasks that account for approximately 44% of U.S. work hours. Importantly, McKinsey points out that this doesn’t mean 44% of jobs disappear. In many cases, the composition of those jobs changes as specific activities are handled differently. The conversation changes to: If we were designing this job and workflow today, knowing AI is available, how should the work get done?

Go back to that BDR example:

Instead of arriving each morning and spending valuable time gathering account information, comparing signals, researching contacts, reviewing past activity and deciding where to begin, imagine an agent doing much of that administrative and research work overnight. The BDR starts the day with a prioritized work queue, relevant account intelligence, buyer context and recommended next actions. Now the BDR can spend more of the day doing what we hired them to do: selling.

And there’s plenty of room for improvement. Salesforce’s latest State of Sales research found that the average sales rep spends only 40% of the workweek actually selling, with the remaining 60% consumed by activities such as planning, quotes, data entry and other non-selling work.

The objective should be to give that person back time they can spend doing the higher-value work we hired them to do.

Add one more measure to your operating model

When we change a process, implement new technology or redesign an operating model, we naturally look at business outcomes such as:

• Did conversion improve?
• Did pipeline increase?
• Did cycle time decrease?
• Did costs decline?
• Are we getting better visibility?
• We should absolutely ask those questions.

But I’d add one more: Did we make it easier for good people to do good work?

• Are people spending less time looking for information?
• Are there fewer unnecessary meetings?
• Do they understand what they own?
• Can they make more decisions independently?
• Are handoffs between teams clearer?
• Are fewer things dependent on one heroic individual knowing how everything works?
• Can people finish the day feeling that they worked on the things that actually mattered?

Over the years, I’ve become convinced that the best operating systems accomplish both things. They make businesses more predictable and they make work more manageable and meaningful for the people inside those businesses. Efficiency shouldn’t simply mean finding ways to produce more with the same resources.

The bigger opportunity is to design marketing organizations where talented people can spend more of their time applying the judgment, creativity, expertise and human connection they were hired for in the first place. When that happens, people become more effective. Businesses perform better. And work becomes better.

Want to create a marketing operating model that helps your team work more effectively? Learn more about our Marketing Orchestration services or give us a shout at Acceleration@HeinzMarketing.com.

Thanks to Magnific for their awesome selection of imagery for this post.