From Agency to In-House to Independent Consulting with Nate Hall

Michael Hartmann (0:00)

Hi, I'm Michael Hartmann.

Naomi Liu (0:01)

I'm Naomi Liu.

Mike Rizzo (0:02)

And I'm Mike Rizzo. And this is Ops Cast.

Michael Hartmann (0:06)

A podcast for Marketing Ops Pros.

Mike Rizzo (0:08)

And Rev Ops Pros.

Michael Hartmann (0:10)

Created by the MoPros, the number one community for the marketing operations professionals.

Naomi Liu (0:15)

Tune in to each episode as we chat with real professionals to help elevate you in your marketing operations career.

Courtney Makara (0:23)

Hello, I'm Courtney Makara, and this is the Society of Marketing Technology Consulting Podcast. SMTC has joined forces with the marketingops.com community, but our mission is still the same, to educate and support anyone involved in the MarTech world as a consultant.

Mike Rizzo (0:39)

Hey, this is Mike from marketingops.com. If you're thinking about going into consulting or you're already a successful consultant, join us online by becoming a member. As a pro member, you can join the SMTC and other private networks at marketingops.com.

Courtney Makara (0:55)

In this podcast series, Grant Gregorian and I interviewed guests on their journeys as consultants. We discussed all that it means to be a great MarTech consultant from setting up their business or joining an agency and how to find new clients and keep their existing clients happy. I hope you enjoy the interview.

Grant and I are joined today by Nate Hall, who is in Seattle, Washington and is currently a independent freelance Mops consultant. Hi, Nate.

Nate Hall (1:21)

Hey, how's it going?

Courtney Makara (1:24)

Hi, Grant. You're also joining us today, of course.

Grant Gregorian (1:27)

Hello.

Courtney Makara (1:27)

Hello.

Grant Gregorian (1:28)

Looking forward to it.

Courtney Makara (1:29)

Yeah. Grant and Nate actually have a little bit of a background relationship.

You guys want to talk about how you met and then maybe transition into how Nate got to his independent spot now.

Grant Gregorian (1:41)

Yeah. I met Nate when I was at Engageo and Nate was at SIFT, I think.

We did not have a consulting relationship. He was a vendor, he was a customer of Engageo.

But then since then, I learned that he went off on his own. So that's why we wanted to talk to him because Nate has the trifecta experience. He's got the agency experience back in the day. So we want to ask him about that. He's got the full-time MOPs on a team, on an internal team, and he's now independent. So Nate, can you tell us just a little bit about that background and how did you navigate all three of the different things? And then tell us what made you decide to go off on your own.

Nate Hall (2:35)

Oh, yeah. So full background is kind of out of college. I kind of dropped into marketing ops by meeting someone at a Marketo roadshow, actually, that I knew from high school. And I was looking for a job. And she said, okay, well, we have this contracting job at this company, El Tigamon. He'll come in, do some Salesforce cleanup, Marketo cleanup, learn about marketing attribution. And when I got there, worked for a few months, there was a company they were working with called DigitalPi, which was a consulting agency who I got to know. And they basically took a chance on me to be kind of their first junior hire, to teach all things Marketo and become a Marketing Ops Consultant. So I did that for 2 years at DigitalPi and then moved on to a company called SIFT for 3 years. B2B, a fast company in San Francisco. Worked as a Marketing Operations Manager. It was about 75 people when I joined.

And then did that for 3 years as they grew. And just in March, moved out to be a freelance consultant.

But yeah, I could talk a little bit about kind of why I made each move. I think that gives a good context.

Courtney Makara (3:51)

Yeah, I'd love to hear the decision of, you know, you're at the agency. You have that relationship. You know, some people think that that's like the pinnacle. That's the best it could be. You know, you've got that work-life balance. A lot of consultants in the agency can work from home.

What made you see the SIFT opportunity and think, oh, I actually want to go in-house again and I want to be an employee?

Nate Hall (4:12)

Yeah. So at that time, I was... Let's see. I was 24 and I had been living in Mountain View, which is more kind of suburb. A lot of SaaS companies, families, and had just moved to San Francisco with my now wife. And all my friends were working at kind of B2B SaaS companies in other areas where there was awesome culture, happy hours all the time. You got to meet a ton of people, not only in marketing, but all these different areas where people are kind of excited to get into the office and meet each other and really become friends. So I was working from home, as everyone was at the company, about 25 people. And in my tiniest San Francisco apartment, in my living room with my desk, and I was like, okay, it would be cool to actually not work from home. Even though everyone else at the company was 30 or older, families loved the flexibility of being able to pick up their kids from work or do, or put a grocery store in the day. I didn't have any of those responsibilities at that time. So I just wanted to go out and kind of meet people while I lived in San Francisco.