Weekend newsletter 1.0

Hello! Last week I started to start a process and routine for publishing a weekly newsletter again. You can read a bit more about it here.

I haven't decided on email subscription/membership software yet. I do want to keep making progress toward the habit, and figure out structure, and get feedback on what is helpful or not, so this week I'm starting with a LinkedIn article as the format...maybe next week it will be a Medium article. Maybe by the end of Feb I'll have the subscription ready to sign up for! :)

I tried a new process this week of not reading any newsletters in my inbox until Saturday...which failed. There were 600+ emails to look through, which led to procrastination until today. This week I'll go back to sorting through, reading, deleting, saving links every day or two, in addition to articles I email myself or save in Twitter and Linkedin.

What I've been reading (or sometimes listening to)

• 11 Jargon Phrases to Avoid -- Marketing Profs. I hate jargon.
• Buzzwords Sabotage Executives Careers --ThinkWarwick. Seriously. Stop with the jargon. Stop.
• Why Success Doesn't Lead to Satisfaction -- Harvard Business Review (4 free articles per month). Very relevant to high-achievers. Things I am working through.
• 7 Ways Managers Can Help Their Team Focus -- Harvard Business Review. Many things we built into the culture at Remotish, which you can likely read more about soon on Culturish.
• Airtable's Distributed Team Blueprint has helpful advice I talk about in my documentation course, such as having good internal communication, visibility, and a team's “home base” for their work, where documentation of processes lives or integrates into.
• You can't just cancel 76,500 hours of meetings -- Twist. Asynchronous culture doesn't happen overnight because of one decision.
• Alison's Maslan's The Scale it Method podcast, Optimizing Business Systems for Sustainable Growth with Vrushali Nistane. Yes, documentation is discussed! This will likely make its way into required listening for my course.
• How to Manage the Emotional Side of Projects --Supercool , this looks like expanded and excellent advice for some of the topics I included in my course and the HubSpot RevOps bootcamp starting this week. Found in this tweet response to Amy Hupe.
• Micromanaging or Helping -- Radical Candor podcast and takeaways. This caught my eye because I heard some people may think having documentation is micro-managing, instead of it helping you be clear and expectations to be clear. Clear is kind. There, I just combined two of my favorite things, Brene Brown and Radical Candor. My job is done.
• Liz Murphy had an excellent post about how 33% of marketers say they have a content strategy...but it's not written down. If it's not documented, it doesn't exist! So as Liz says, is the strategy just a wish or a dream?
• Twitter thread about the best courses people have ever taken. Go learn something.
• ExcellenceTalks post with a video about documenting processes clearly, I saw this reposted a few times and had the honor of being tagged. This example will likely make its way into the course reading/watching homework.
• The half-life of productivity tools -- Ways of Working. I found this through the Operations Nation community, great insights about how most problems are people or process problems and a tool won't magically fix the issues, by just buying it!
• Alicia Butler Pierre's series on The Lean Canvas -- I'll be taking a closer look at this as I get my own business sorted out.
• MOPS and RevOps Career Questions Answered -- CS2 Podcast. Let's help people better understand and succeed in these ops careers, yes! HubSpot certifications get a shoutout.
• Harmonizing ABX Strategy through Revenue Operations: A Symphony for B2B SaaS Companies -- Leore Spira. I interviewed Leore for my book (in progress) and I recommend reading her work!

Other mystery category I don't know what to call:

• This visual and written article about an Antartica trip is from two of my favorite creative people, Roxane Gay and Debbie Millman. Travel is another topic I enjoy, though I have zero interest in being cold. (I’m cold in 60 degree San Diego weather haha.) Worth a read! Found in Roxane's newsletter which I highly recommend.
• Really, you should subscribe to her newsletter. Another example from this edition: “Here’s a profile of Channing Tatum where he casually mentions we are writing a romance novel together. Which is true!”
• I have also been enjoying Atoosa Rubenstein's newsletter (also a podcast), as she talks about leaving hustle culture and more, something I am trying not-so-successfully to do. Fun (or not fun) fact: Atoosa started as Editor-in-Chief at Seventeen when I was an intern there and I believe I was super scared to run into her in the office. Maybe a random fact from one of my past lives should be a future newsletter section :)

Event or Class:

Jan. 31 -- Teamwork User Group -- first event for the new group from my friend and former boss Nicole Pereira and Amber Kemmis.

On-Demand -- TrustInsight's PowerUp your Linkedin free course -- mentioned in Christopher Penn's newsletter (subscribe!) with the amazing subject line of 'Blantant promo email.' I haven't started the course yet, but that caught my attention so I enrolled.

Book:

I am reading too many books right now!

One is for Travis Scott's book club, Flux by April Rinne, which is very relevant for me at the moment.

I also re-read Ben Stroup's book, Pivot, in preparation for a fascinating Zoom chat we had last week. Another relevant title! Thanks so much for the time, Ben!

Organizational Tip:

Last week I renewed 2 certifications, HubSpot CMS For Marketers and Guided Client Onboarding. So my tip is for taking and renewing HubSpot certifications!

• Download the study guide (usually the cloud icon on the top right side of the screen) and take notes as you go along. Pay special attention to the questions.
• Tips for the notes: If you have a PDF editor and like it, use that. I over-rely on Google Docs so I copy the study guide into a Google Doc. Name it with the certification name and put it into a HubSpot certifications folder.
• Then when you renew the certification in 1 or 2 years, you can easy search and/or navigate to find the study guide, to help you pass the test again.

Thanks to Nick Lafakis for this section recommendation!

Featured Job:

Front End Web Developer - HubSpot at BetterUP

Self-Promotion of the Week:

My latest article for MarTech was published, a manager's guide to December updates in HubSpot.

Thanks for reading! Please comment below with anything you'd like to see from these weekly newsletters, as this gets closer to actually being a newsletter :) And yes, it is way too long!