This week on Revenue Rehab, Brandi Starr is joined by Leah Russo, a veteran marketing and rev ops executive and founder of Novara, who believes “treating ops like a cleanup crew is killing your go-to-market”—and she’s ready to prove it. In this episode, Leah challenges the widespread practice of sidelining marketing and revenue operations, arguing that only by giving ops an equal seat at the table can companies unlock faster, more scalable, and burnout-free growth. By exposing the cost of reactive ops and sharing playbook-shifting strategies, Leah makes the case for why it’s time revenue leaders stop seeing ops as tactical support and start leveraging them as true growth architects. Is it time to rethink your approach, or will you change her mind?

Episode Type: Problem Solving

Industry analysts, consultants, and founders take a bold stance on critical revenue challenges, offering insights you won’t hear anywhere else. These episodes explore common industry challenges and potential solutions through expert insights and varied perspectives.

Bullet Points of Key Topics + Chapter Markers:

Topic #1: Why Treating Ops as a Cleanup Crew Is Broken [05:21]

Leah Russo boldly asserts that the biggest myth in go-to-market is viewing operations as an afterthought or “cleanup crew.” She challenges the conventional wisdom that strategy comes first and ops simply executes, arguing, “when you build without your ops team in the room, you're not really moving fast... you're actually moving blindly.” Brandi Starr pushes for practical ways to elevate ops, spurring debate on where the real strategic value of ops lies.

Topic #2: Ops as Strategic Architects, Not Order Takers [07:38]

Leah Russo reframes operations as critical “architects” of scalable growth, rather than mere tactical support. She insists that modern ops leaders understand both the back-end structure and front-end goals: “Ops isn't a band aid. Ops is truly your blueprint for scalable growth, but you have to treat it as such to get there.” Brandi challenges her with a “building a house” analogy, sparking discussion on how early ops involvement powers cleaner, faster execution and prevents costly rework.

Topic #3: Stop Hiring More Ops—Fix the Strategic Process [29:07]

Leah Russo contends that the default reaction to operational chaos—simply hiring more ops staff—is misguided. “They hire more ops people to clean everything up faster instead of changing how they strategically plan,” she states, urging leaders to overhaul their approach and involve ops early. The debate zeroes in on practical actions: bringing ops into strategy meetings and empowering them to identify root issues before launching new initiatives.

The Wrong Approach vs. Smarter Alternative

The Wrong Approach: “They hire more ops people to clean everything up faster instead of changing how they strategically plan.” – Leah Russo

Why It Fails: Simply adding more operations staff treats ops like a reactive cleanup crew rather than addressing the root issue—poor planning and lack of early involvement in go-to-market strategy. This results in inefficiencies, repeated fixes, burnout, and a failure to build scalable, sustainable processes that drive predictable revenue growth.

The Smarter Alternative: Instead of reacting with more headcount, companies should bring ops into go-to-market strategy discussions from the start. Treat ops as architects who help sequence priorities, identify potential pitfalls, and architect scalable solutions—ensuring the revenue engine is set up right the first time and reducing the need for expensive, disruptive fixes later.

The Most Damaging Myth

The Myth: “Ops is an afterthought, right. That we're here to clean up the mess once your strategy's already been put in place.” – Leah Russo

Why It’s Wrong: When companies treat operations as a post-strategy cleanup crew, they believe they’re moving fast, but in reality, they’re going blindly. This reactive approach slows down execution and leads to preventable mistakes, inefficiencies, and burnout, ultimately undermining the effectiveness of the entire go-to-market strategy.

What Companies Should Do Instead: Involve your ops team early in the strategic planning process. Treat operations as true architects of scalable growth by giving them a seat at the table from the start—ensuring that plans are executed in the right order, with the right people, and built to scale without costly rework.

The Rapid-Fire Round

1. Finish this sentence: If your company has this problem, the first thing you should do is _ “Stop treating ops like the help and start treating them like architects.” – Leah Russo

2. What’s one red flag that signals a company has this problem—but might not realize it yet? “When ops is the last to know but the first expected to actually clean it up.”

3. What’s the most common mistake people make when trying to fix this? “They hire more ops people to clean everything up faster instead of changing how they strategically plan.”

4. What’s the fastest action someone can take today to make progress? “Bring ops into your next go-to-market strategy meeting and ask them what’s broken before you decide what’s next—and listen.”

Buzzword Banishment

Buzzword Banishment: Leah’s buzzword to banish is "hustle." She dislikes this term because it has created a mindset where speed is prioritized above all, leading organizations to act reactively, often at the expense of careful strategy. Leah argues that the hustle mentality leads to burnout and reactive operations, which ultimately undermines go-to-market efforts; instead, she believes teams should focus on aligning strategy and execution in the right order, with operations involved from the outset.

Links:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leahrusso/

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