Transcript

A Stranger Complimented My Forehead on LinkedIn (We Have Questions)

From Pretty Funny Business · Episode page · Watch on YouTube

· 40 min · 7,019 words · 184 timestamped sections

This is the full, timestamped transcript of "A Stranger Complimented My Forehead on LinkedIn (We Have Questions)", an episode of Pretty Funny Business published October 6, 2026 (40 min, about 7,019 words). It mentions 21 people, works and ideas, including Pretty Funny Business, Lauren Aquilino, Marketing Ops, Sydney Mulligan, Frankenstack.

What this episode is about

Two hosts discuss dealing with online “haters,” sharing personal anecdotes about authenticity, self-acceptance, and the ways negative comments can affect how they present themselves, while balancing candid personal chatter with business topics.

Key takeaways

  • Hedging on identity: charmingly chaotic, the Gryffindor hoodie saga doubles as a meta-commentary on self-definition.
  • Misread color seasons reveal social media as a carnival mirror—truths bend, labels wiggle, surprises emerge.
  • Haters as mirrors: the real friction is not the jab, but how we reinterpret it into self-growth.
  • Self-disclosure draws trolls, yet latency of vulnerability accelerates authentic connection—awkward, but powerful.
  • From Slytherin to Ravenclaw: embracing complexity defeats binary pride; the best branding is imperfect patchwork.

Who speaks in this episode?

What is discussed, and when

  1. – 5:00: Gryffindor, Slytherin, Hufflepuff, Gryffindor sweatshirt
  2. – 10:00: LinkedIn, Gryffindor, Slytherin, Ravenclaw
  3. – 15:00: LinkedIn, Narrative / Mommy comments segment
  4. – 20:00: Claude, LinkedIn, TikTok, Narrative / Mommy comments segment
  5. – 25:00: Salesforce, Marketing Ops, Claude, LinkedIn
  6. – 30:00: Marketing Ops, Salesforce
  7. – 35:00: Marketing Ops, Frankenstack, Salesforce, Google Analytics
  8. – 39:58: Marketing Ops, Claude, ABM

Notable quotes from "A Stranger Complimented My Forehead on LinkedIn (We Have Questions)"

  • Hello and welcome to Pretty Funny Business. I'm Sydney Mulligan.
    about Pretty Funny Business · at
  • From podcasting, the other two comments are on our podcast. This is just on a selfie I posted on LinkedIn, which I will add there is a certain amount of embarrassment maybe to this one because you think I want to be posting selfies.
    about LinkedIn · at
  • Worked There's been a lot of growth in this area. When people offer a compliment, Lauren's instinct for a long time has been to ask follow-up questions so they will tell her more compliments.
    about Lauren Aquilino · at
  • It was on TikTok. Which like I actually Jamie sent this over.
    about TikTok · at
  • Your stressed out marketing ops self will thank you.
    about Marketing Ops · at
  • Anyway, so I had Claude analyze I've been doing This is research. This is for real CMO purposes. doing some research on pain points for our customers and prospects. And so I.
    about Claude · at
  • But stuff coming out of like your CRM versus your marketing automation platform versus your data warehouse it should be pretty close.
    about Looker · at
  • But most people are calling it Frankenstack or spaghetti.
    about Frankenstack · at

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

  • Lauren Aquilino — Person · Co-host · 1 mention · first at
    Co-host and co-founder of Pretty Funny Business and EMMIE Collective; main storyteller in the episode (LinkedIn selfie, forehead comment, sleepover anecdote) and presented Marketing Ops analysis.
  • Sydney Mulligan — Person · Co-host · 1 mention · first at
    Co-host of the Pretty Funny Business podcast; participates in episode discussion about social media haters and Marketing Ops findings.
    We can start with the pretty funny and then we'll go to the business later.

Companies & orgs

  • Salesforce — Company · Referenced product/company (CRM example) · 5 mentions · first at
    Mentioned as the CRM system name the hosts used jokingly and as an example of tools involved in Marketing Ops issues (lead syncing problems).
    Not share this. It does take a little bit of the whimsy away, I think, but in any event, I recently did an analysis using Claude and our personal bespoke word of the day CRM system called It is called Salesforce.
  • Looker — Company · Data platform example · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned as a reporting tool that disagreed with Salesforce on SQL counts in the hosts' analysis (example of mistrusted numbers).

Products & tech

  • Google Analytics — Product · Referenced analytics product · 1 mention · first at
    Used as an example of web analytics that often don't align perfectly with other reporting systems; included in input as product with Google attribution.
    The ones that I The ones that I get annoyed with are the ones that are Well, Google Analytics says this and Instagram said that and our UTMs like I think honestly, there's like you have to keep in mind how technology actually works. Like.
  • Gryffindor sweatshirt — Product · Incidental product mention · 2 mentions · first at
    Physical sweatshirt (Harry Potter Gryffindor) purchased by Lauren's husband at Universal; part of the anecdote that starts the episode.
    My husband bought me a Gryffindor sweatshirt. He bought it for me and I was You [ __ ] you don't even know me.

Concepts & topics

  • Marketing Ops — Concept · Core topic · 7 mentions · first at
    Major business topic in the episode; hosts share findings from two years of sales calls about common Marketing Operations problems (lead flow, trust in reports, Frankenstack, churn).
  • Frankenstack — Concept · Core topic / Metaphor · 3 mentions · first at
    Used to describe messy, cobbled-together marketing stacks (composable tech stacks) that break when the person who built them leaves; emerges as one of the top problems in hosts' Marketing Ops analysis.
  • Gryffindor — Concept · Cultural reference · 5 mentions · first at
    Referenced in the episode as the Harry Potter house appearing on Lauren's sweatshirt and as part of a conversation about identity and color season.
    My husband bought me a Gryffindor sweatshirt. He bought it for me and I was You [ __ ] you don't even know me.
  • Claude — Concept · Tool / AI assistant referenced · 5 mentions · first at
    Referenced as the AI assistant used to analyze sales call data and to summarize ideas; used conversationally in episode.
  • Slytherin — Concept · Cultural reference · 4 mentions · first at
    Mentioned as an alternative Harry Potter house assignment in the hosts' conversation about identity (house vs color season).
    I have to tell you, when I saw this post about the post was about for the people who have not treated themselves to viewing this post and the selfie,.
  • Hufflepuff — Concept · Cultural reference · 2 mentions · first at
    Used by the hosts to describe personality/identity (Lauren identifies as a Hufflepuff and expresses ambivalence).
    I feel the same way about being a Hufflepuff. Feels lame as [ __ ] I don't want to be a Hufflepuff.
  • Narrative / Mommy comments segment — Concept · Segment label / discussion theme · 2 mentions · first at
    Represents the hosts' segment(s) discussing negative comments directed at mothers and parenting-related trolling; labeled in input as a concept.
    God forbid a woman work full-time.
  • Emmy's existence and brand — Concept · Audience perception / brand identity · 1 mention · first at
    Quoted listener comment praising the hosts' brand (Emmy) as meaningful and likening it to a 'Lizzo agency'; used to close the 'haters' discussion on a positive note.
    So, you know what? If it means that people are going to be You know what? I'm like actually not a bad person cuz I slept through the night during my kids'.
  • Lizzo — Concept · Cultural reference / compliment · 1 mention · first at
    Referenced in a positive listener comment describing the hosts/agency as a 'very Lizzo agency'—used to characterize the brand/persona they aim for.
    Who said Emmy's existence and brand means a lot to me. It is a very Lizzo agency in our dumb tech bro industry.
  • Ravenclaw — Concept · Cultural reference · 2 mentions · first at
    Hosts reference Ravenclaw as the 'cool' house they'd prefer to be associated with; part of the playful identity discussion.
    I know Ravenclaw is so cool. Someone guessed I was a Ravenclaw and I was If only I was.
  • ABM — Concept · Related marketing concept · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned in passing as an example of marketing trends/tools that companies buy into (Account-Based Marketing purchases during 'shiny object syndrome').
    Of shiny object syndrome as of late. It feels like there's a lot of smaller tools that are popping up that are like five coded and it's an AI startup and our mandate is to use AI, so we need to buy all these AI tools. It's just It's.

Places & events

  • LinkedIn — Place · Platform / Setting · 5 mentions · first at
    Platform where Lauren posted the selfie that sparked comments (including the 'I truly wish I had your forehead' remark); discussed as a 'professional networking platform' context for surprising comments.
  • TikTok — Place · Platform / Setting · 1 mention · first at
    Platform mentioned as hosting a comment about Lauren's parenting during a sleepover episode; one of the social platforms where hosts receive haters.
  • Universal — Place · Setting / origin of gift · 1 mention · first at
    Referenced as the place Lauren's husband and son visited where they purchased the Gryffindor sweatshirt.
    He and my son went to Universal a couple months ago and he bought it for me and I was you [ __ ] you don't even know me.

Media & podcasts

  • Pretty Funny Business — Media · Podcast (show) · 1 mention · first at
    The podcast in which the episode occurs; hosts Lauren and Sydney discuss social media comments and marketing operations problems.

Full transcript with timestamps

My husband bought me a Gryffindor sweatshirt. He bought it for me and I was like, "You [ __ ] you don't even know me."

I thought you were Gryffindor but it wasn't your colors. No. Luckily it is my colors.

Wait, what are you? Slytherin? It is something that takes a minute to accept about yourself.

I feel the same way about being a Hufflepuff. Feels lame as [ __ ] I don't want to be a Hufflepuff.

I want to be Ravenclaw. I know Ravenclaw is so cool. I know I'm a Hufflepuff cuz I'm so sad and people send mean comments about me on our videos.

Hello and welcome to Pretty Funny Business. I'm Sydney Mulligan. I'm Lauren Aquilino.

And today we're talking about the haters. So where do you want to start? Yeah. We may never leave.

It's okay. I think we can move on from it cuz we have other stuff to talk about, too, but it's not as interesting.

It's not as interesting. The business part. We can start with the pretty funny and then we'll go to the business later.

Yeah, so you know, I think there's a couple things at play here, I believe. Which is we have not done a lot of these I feel like when we're remote recording, we're like a little bit more chatty, like we haven't like caught caught up in a while.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know? Yeah, when we're in the studio together, we're like we we've been together for a while and then we have like a topic to talk about and then another topic to talk about and then another topic to talk about. But this is basically our one-on-one.

Yeah. That's what we call method podcasting. Right. And I think like sometimes maybe we talk about things a little bit more off the cuff, maybe something I wouldn't normally share.

Sh- share. Yeah. The curtain. A peek behind the curtain. Which it's fine. I'm I I I overshare generally. Like it's who we are.

I'm not embarrassed. It's okay. But I do think that it's attracted some commentary.

A certain audience that perhaps was not in our ICP. No. And we have, you know, been posting publicly even on Instagram for years.

Yeah. So why now? Why now do the haters find us? The trolls, the bot farms are coming for us in the comments. My enemies. I ask me.

In the social media comments. Uh okay, why don't you start? Should I I should start with the mean one, right? We've been talking about the meanies.

Yeah. Or should I talk about the weird one I got this week? Well, I was I thought you were going to start with the weird one. Or we can start with the mean one.

We can start with the weird one. Okay. This week I posted, this is separate from podcasting, the other two comments are on our podcast. This is just on a selfie I posted on LinkedIn, which I will add there is a certain amount of embarrassment maybe to this one because

you think I want to be posting selfies on LinkedIn? No one posts selfies on LinkedIn. No.

No one who's ever posted a selfie on LinkedIn felt good about it, okay? I don't know.

Maybe some of the privilege that we are in known as the algorithm. Exactly. There I I I guarantee there's some people who feel so good about it.

Me. Yeah. Not so much, but I I you know, have been wanting to share more of my basic thoughts lately cuz I don't know where else to put them.

Great. And my husband bought me a Gryffindor hoodie hoodie? No, sweatshirt. Uh he and my son went to Universal a couple months ago and he bought it for me and I was like, you [ __ ] you don't even know me.

Not because you're not a Gryffindor. No, because I'm not a Gryffindor. Because I'm not a Gryffindor.

you were a Gryffindor, but it wasn't your colors. No, luckily it is my colors. Oh, well, maybe that's why he bought it for you cuz he knows your colors.

NO, IT'S GRYFFINDOR. WAIT, WHAT ARE YOU? SLYTHERIN. YOU KNOW, I have to tell you, when I saw this post about the post was about for the people who have not treated themselves to viewing this post and the selfie, uh that you have your Harry Potter house that you identify with and you have your Harry Potter house that is your color season and they're not They're not always the same. And I obviously misinterpreted this post cuz I thought you meant that you were a Gryffindor, but it wasn't your color season. And then you were like, "And I was like, Gryffindor." I was like, "Gryffindor? I think she's a Slytherin."

And then I was like, "That's mean. I can't say that." I know. It's another honestly it is something that takes a minute to accept about yourself.

I feel the same way about being a Hufflepuff. A Hufflepuff? Lame as [ __ ] I don't want to be a Hufflepuff. I want to be a Ravenclaw.

I know Ravenclaw is so cool. Someone guessed I was a Ravenclaw and I was like, "If only I was."

If only. So kind-hearted. I know I'm a Hufflepuff cuz I feel so sad when people say mean comments about me on our videos.

I You know what what I would like to say is I think Cancers might be Hufflepuffs.

Hufflepuffs? Yeah. Maybe there's a lot of overlap in that Venn diagram. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think like being a Slytherin, you just kind of have to like be like there is so much good about it. You just got to like

You got to find your own story. Yeah, sure. Sure. Sure. like just Just use it for evil. Use it for smashing the patriarchy instead.

There we go. Yeah. So, anyway, that's what this post was about. I got many comments that were like, "Wait, you're not a Gryffindor? What are you?" Or, "Totally agree." Or, "I truly wish I had your forehead." Hard eyes.

Do you think that means that she's coming to slice off your forehead in the night? Should you be making sure your doors are locked? I truly wish I had your forehead.

It's a snack. For Is forehead code? I don't know. foresight? She my wisdom? No.

She was like, "Your forehead's so cute. Your forehead's so smooth and beautiful. What's your secret? Is it Frownies? Is it Botox?" Yeah, it is Botox.

So, you can have her forehead, lady. Great news. Got to call Carolyn. You could spend United States dollars at Carolyn's.

in Cleveland, Ohio, uh my girl is doing a promo, although I don't really know when this is going to air.

You know what? I'm just going to say that she's going to She's going to honor it.

She's going to honor it, and she's going a new client promo this month, whatever month this is, uh for $9 a unit, which is really unheard of in this economy. So,

Um also, if I refer you, I will also get $9 a unit. I Why haven't I been doing this before?

Link in bio for Link in bio for Carolyn. Um but yeah, she really likes my forehead, which is great, you know? I I don't have anything to say about my forehead. It's It's always been there. It's It's always been there for me.

me. It's not long. It's not short. I don't think it's long enough for real life. I wouldn't call it a three-head, I wouldn't call it a five-head. I think it's a perfect forehead.

So, I did, you know, I don't know if we've talked about this or if this is private, that I like to ask why people

pay compliments. Yes, and when you shared this comment about the forehead with the table, I did offer you a permission slip, a one-time hall pass to ask probing questions about what it specifically it was about your forehead that they liked. We really worked There's been a lot of growth in this area. When people offer a compliment, Lauren's instinct for a long time has been to ask follow-up questions so they will tell her more compliments. And it's not

No, that's not what it is. That's not what it is. I That's how it comes across, which is why we had to work on it.

What it actually is is Lauren trying to um enrich her data set about what it was that people liked so she could do more of it to make more people happy. It is a very pure desire.

Yeah, it's just marketing attribution, okay? But we've been working on this as a social skill. And she's come a long way. But in this scenario, and that was such an odd thing to say, a real out-of-pocket statement, that it is okay for you in turn to also make some out-of-pocket follow-up questions.

I said something like, "Hey, that was a very bespoke compliment. Do you mind me asking what you like about it?"

A very bespoke compliment. That's LinkedIn for what a weird [ __ ] thing to say to a stranger, no less. On this supposedly professional networking platform where we are now talking about our color seasons, our Harry Potter houses, and what it is that you like about my forehead.

So it's silly, man. Did she ever reply? Not yet. Do you think she'll reply? Do you think this is someone with AI commenting turned on and the robots just picked up

I also thought maybe she was like trolling me. Was she actually hating your forehead?

Yeah. Like I, you know, I like to say I let things roll off my back. Is that what I'm supposed to say?

Roll off very easy. But then but this was so weird that I really started overthinking it. So I was like maybe

she's actually making fun of my forehead. So I started looking at it and I was like, well, there is some kind of like filter on it. Like I shouldn't say filter, but it's like fuzzy-looking. Like it's like done with the selfie camera of my phone. You know what I mean? Like it's not quite like

auto touch-up something going on. Yes. Like it's not like a makeup or anything, but it's certainly like you can't like see my sunspots. And I was like so maybe she's like I know what's going on here.

so. I think she likes your forehead. That's not your real forehead. That's not your real forehead.

Forehead imposter. Bringing your forehead imposter ass out here on LinkedIn. Publicly. You do that. I will Right. Exactly. I will shame you for doing that. Disgusting. Free forehead pics.

foreheadfinder.com, man. Population: Jess Lawrence forehead. [snorts] Now I'm like, wait.

No, you have a perfect forehead. I I don't know. If that person was trolling you, they're in the wrong. Your forehead's fine. I've never thought anything positive or negative about your forehead and I think that's exactly what they're looking for in for?

No comment. No comment. Very neutral forehead. [gasps] Oh my goodness. I feel like this was like if we had um someone in the room with us right now, they'd be like Got it.

It's time to move on from the forehead joke. forehead Well, um in the spirit of the trolls we had a podcast clip posted yesterday, today, something like that about uh our last episode that went up and it was about me I tried to hire a nanny. And then, you know, it was kind of funny that like I tried to hire this nanny and then she couldn't do it because she got a job with the Polar Express. Um but this troll

I knew you were going to be sad. You got real sad. but only for a second. And then I was like, you know

This is what happens when you put yourself out to the general public. It wasn't even that. It was It was more that the content of the comment is so absurd that I was like God forbid a woman do anything.

Exactly. So, that's the point I kind of wanted to make we'll make over and over again in the next four to seven minutes is this commentary is still happening for women. Like if you think it's not

Troll. This must be a bot. I don't know what this is. I mean the account does have posts. It's not like an obvious bot. It looks like someone posting their art. I don't know, man. Who

Who can tell? Don't worry. I'll share them later. What I immediately thought of was, you know, you can share comments to posts to your story. I will be doing that later.

Oh, yeah, great idea. What they said was the fact that you're complaining about not having a nanny is so dystopian. Go take care of your own child or keep your legs closed.

God forbid a woman work full-time. God God the school day end at 2:15. I What are you talking about?

That's what I mean. It's like somebody that is so obviously so removed from reality.

Yes. Like maybe we should send a well a well check to them. What are they called?

Wellness, welfare, welfare check on this person. Are you in a bunker? Like have you met a woman?

Kimmy Schmidt? Have you been trapped in your tenement bunker? Who's going to watch the kids? Bro. Who's going to work? Tell a man to keep their legs closed.

God forbid women do anything. God forbid moms do anything. Just I don't I was sad about that for about 5 seconds and then I was like, no.

No, absolutely not. They are very obviously wrong and in the minority and so shocking to like it's really it's not shocking. Like I see people comment this stuff, but for for it to like be on hours when we're like couldn't be more normal. Yeah, when I put this through, I was like feeding Claudio Claudius all of our um ideas for today's episode to put them into like a little outline for us. It was like What?

Why would someone say that? Like even AI was like That's messed up. That must be a sign it's not a bot because the bots were like, we wouldn't go that far.

Oh my gosh. Here's the point that Claude made. There's no version of mom that will ever pass inspection.

Exactly. That's what I'm saying. God forbid a mom do anything. Claude said that to me. That was so nice. Well, it wasn't nice cuz it was a robot. So. Oh, well, it landed with me. It was one of the passive aggressive.

You got to make it passive. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It landed for me what Claude did there.

Mhm. I like that. Um okay, so the second one was a comment on my sleepover moment. And you know what? I agree. This was not my best moment.

This was on LinkedIn, wasn't it? What? Was this on LinkedIn? No, this is on TikTok.

It was on TikTok. Which like I actually Jamie sent this over. So we've really hit all the platforms. We got haters on Instagram, we got haters on TikTok, and we've got weird forehead perverts on LinkedIn.

Don't call her that until I know for sure. I got to support a woman, you know? Okay, so I told the story about how my son had some friends over and he wanted to have like a last minute sleepover. And I'm like, I don't know why you want to have this sleepover. I can't help you. Like it's not like this is going to be some like cute Pinterest mom setting up stuff. Also, it doesn't matter. I shouldn't have to explain myself. But like these kids got to our house at like 9:30. Like it was already bedtime.

Like they were When you were a child, how much were parents facilitating the sleepover situation too?

is never. We were doing light as a feather, stiff as a board. I know you don't know what that is. That's what I was doing at a sleepover. It was a lot of like trying to talk to ghosts.

My sleepovers were mostly uh let's go on the family computer and show you all the YouTube videos I know about.

The playlist in my head. Maybe my mom ordered us a pizza, maybe not. All Santa's. And honestly, if this is what the sleepovers are today,

I would like We have just I have a new way of way too high for moms. Like I'm not

Better to let the ghosts watch our kids. to watch all the YouTube videos that you can think of. No nothing served with an algorithm. Everything is just the YouTube videos that you have in your memory bank.

And it's always a cat. Yeah, there's badger badger, there's salad fingers, there's the Harry Potter puppets, you know, the classics. Back back when we were a society back when there was culture.

of Homestar Runner. Like so much. Um yeah, no my kids are just playing video games. And I told this story in a much longer way and someone commented, what kind of mom checks out like that? Wow.

So mean. Uh the kind of mom that sleeps at night. Like just like goes to bed. So I don't know how in 2026 we are continually raising the bar on the expectations for moms. Truly. I don't Where is this coming from? It's not COMING

OUT? IT'S NOT COMING FROM US. WELL, that was my first obvious this was a woman. I was like, oh my god, who says that? And so I looked and I was like, I don't know maybe she doesn't have kids. And that's a low bar, you know what I mean? Like plenty of people don't have kids, plenty of people like kids, plenty of people tolerate kids, plenty of people realize like unfortunately kids are part of society.

If not society over. That's how society works. That's how humanity works. Right.

Do you want someone to be there in the nursing home wiping your ass when you're 80? Then got to have kids today. Those kids have to be born.

They have to be born. They don't have to be your kids, but the those children have to exist.

Just be neutral. Like it'd be better. Just say less, say nothing. the existence of children the way that you to the existence of foreheads, which is neutral at a baseline.

We all wear one. We all have one. We all wear one. We all have one. Foreheads and kids keep it neutral.

Oh my gosh. And you know what? So, should I stop talking about this kind of stuff? And I think the answer is no. Although I realize it's off the wall, but

And I would like to use that as a segway to bring us to a positive comment that we received recently that I think will put a nice bow on this segment and leave us with something other than anger at the forehead perverts and children intolerant among us. And that is a text I got from a friend who I will allow to remain anonymous cuz I did not ask her if I could share this. Who said "Emmy's existence and brand means a lot to me. It is a very Lizzo agency in our dumb tech bro industry."

I love that. That's where That's our ICP. That's where share this same friend said something else really kind this morning?

Yeah. I had said I had promoted this episode on LinkedIn and said I was absolute toasted and you can tell. Like my eyes are barely open during this. I'm like look I was like looking at myself on the in Instagram and I was like, "How do I make that not happen next episode?" Because I think I was just really tired, but I do think there is some kind of makeup tricks that I haven't fully

My eyes look like they're not dead. Like Like they're not rolling back into my head.

Makeup tutorials for moms. onreverseside.com [gasps] She says, "I listened to that episode where Lauren said she was toast. I love it. I felt very seen. The recorded face of Lauren so exhausted, still lovely. Laughing killed me because I've been that person so much lately." Uh So, you know what? If it means that people are going to be like, "You know what? I'm like actually not a bad person cuz I slept through the night during my kids' sleepover, then I'm going to keep talking about it.

Yeah. Until I get a letter from a senator for like a cease and desist. You think a senator's going to care about this?

Is that what senators are for? Yeah. I don't know. That's their whole job actually is reviewing podcasts of their constituents

[snorts] to decide if they agree or disagree with the commentary. They're going to see these two comments and be like, "That's two too many."

That was that podcast I knew that forehead lady was bad news. Exactly. Um anyway, thanks to that person. She says a lot of kind things to us all the time and I appreciate that.

If your marketing tech stack is basically a haunted house of random automations and abandoned salesforce fields, marketingops.com is your new happy place. Templates, advice, a job board that doesn't suck, and a community of humans who get it. Honestly, it's like therapy, but cheaper. Sign up with code PFB10 for 10% off paid membership. Your stressed out marketing ops self will thank you.

So, this is a segment we were going to run past Mike and Audrey, which that episode has already happened now. Um hope it was good. Haven't seen it yet.

Order of ops, I wish I I should maybe not share this. It does take a little bit of the whimsy away, I think, but um in any event, I recently did an analysis using Claude and our personal bespoke word of the day uh CRM system called It is called Salesforce.

But, it's called Salesforce in the sense that we named it that. It's a base. Mark Benioff, do not come for me.

We're not selling it as Salesforce yet. Yeah. Yeah. We're going to start marketing it as Salesforce for small businesses.

Salesforce. Salesforce for small businesses.com. It's going to be a boat. A sailboat. This is such a good idea.

Oh my god. Anyway, so I had Claude analyze I've been doing This is research. This is for real CMO purposes. Um doing some research on pain points for our customers and prospects. And so I had to analyze 2 years worth of data for like the most common things that people come to us for. And I honestly thought it was pretty interesting because I realized recently that I'm not for the very first time in a long time. It's not true. I mean, this has been true for a couple of years. Like I'm not in marketing ops. I'm like, wait.

Yeah. Like you're not doing client work. Yeah. And like I'm not an admin of [ __ ]

Right. doing marketing, which is great, but I'm not in this world every day anymore. And so I was very surprised that it's honestly like the same things.

I felt the same way recently when I Adobe asked me to speak at that event and I was like, I don't even know what to talk about anymore. Like, well, I could do this presentation that I've done before, but that was 2 years ago. It might not be true. And then I had a couple people look at it and they're like, no, this is all still true. It feels like things change so fast, but in a certain sense no.

They don't. It's like the same problem. It's just a different Right. We're just using different words to describe it.

And like I'm like, is this making like we're bad at our jobs? Like why can't we fix these problems?

not us. It's got to be someone else. Well, I mean, not me and you or Amy personally.

Personally. I mean, like the industry. Yeah. And I think like that's something that we've talked about before is like AI is lowering the AI is lowering the bar technically and so you do still kind of need to know like business processes etc. to be like really good at your job because otherwise like you just be like oh I'll just like talk about whatever you want, you know, like So I think in that sense the problems are the same because the industry and the processes haven't changed since whatever B2B sales was invented.

is more people have been laid off. 1970 More technical debt. Right. More debt. Right. Right. Okay, so there's four things um that came up on this like analysis as a flag. Number one on 54% of calls in the past two years. It's a lot. is And I think I I wish I had more data. I should make this into my official report. I'm an author. Um I'm a thought leader. New York Times best seller. Um

is I think it was like 250 calls or something. So it was like I don't know. I don't I don't know if that's statistically significant but it's a lot of people saying this. That they their number one problem is lead flow and life cycle. That leads are still not getting to the for follow up. Like that's like number one.

Again or still? Someone Someone specifically said 70 of 120 web leads didn't sync to Salesforce for months and nobody knew. Um and then also of note is that it's not really ever like oh this was a tech problem and we fixed it. They weren't like It's always like embarrassing for someone to be like And literally the one thing we need to get right.

The one most important things not happening. I mean, unfortunately, I think this is more and more common because the marketing ops teams are getting smaller and smaller and smaller. Like we're just losing head count everywhere. There's There's more and more and more do more with less.

So, you think this is more of like it's not the tools, obviously. We all know that there are tools that can like do this. I mean, even at like

Yeah, but it's still like It's a tool is still not a magic wand to just make this problem never happen. Like there are always going to be integration errors and sync issues and data got uploaded wrong somewhere, some Like that's the job, right? Is managing all of that, but uh now that AI is on the scene, I think the people up here are all like, "We don't need teams to run all this anymore. We don't need like technical experts." Because what they are seeing is that this person is good at this because they're incredibly technical and now AI can do that. But what you just said, it's not a about being incredibly technical. We're lowering the bar and how technical you have to be because AI can do that. But you have to be able to gather the requirements and use your soft skills brain thinking to make AI do the right thing in the first place. So, now you have like what was a 10-person MOPS team becoming like

a three-person team or a two-person team or a one-person team and maybe a consultant, and they're likely just in meetings all the time and not doing stuff like monitoring the sync backlog or MQL volume.

Especially strange like if some of them are coming through, you know, you have like a false sense of security and like

When MQLs drop to zero, you hear about it fast. But if it just seems like they're a little low, you don't hear about that for a while.

Yeah, you're like, "Yeah, well, this one seems to they could be a little low. Mostly layoffs, bad leadership, budgets.

Marketing problem. White men. Just kidding. I was talking to some friends recently that I will also allow to remain anonymous that both went through reorgs recently. And we were talking about that all these companies are doing reorgs and all the reorgs are ending up looking kind of the same. Like MOPs keeps getting moved back under RevOps or like decentralizing Like product marketing isn't in marketing anymore, it's under product. Like all this stuff. You've seen this happen like a lot of times.

cycle. Yeah. We've seen it happen a lot of times recently. And we're like, you know, I think it's just that it's like the same five dudes on all these different boards. It's like the same five dudes stacked in different orders in a trench coat going around to every company being like, "I think it's time for a reorg. And what we've seen be successful at some of our other portfolio companies is blah blah blah blah blah blah blah."

Sad. And you it may be an overkill, but don't worry, we can correct that by We can always hire more later.

Hire them again later. Just hire them again later. So poor. Yeah. Short-sighted.

Such a Such a shitty world we live in. Yeah. [clears throat] Yeah. Ugh. All right, number two. Nobody trusts numbers. Um this again feels like such a trope. Like I'm like, "Are we sure we're still talking about this?" Looking at the reports, I don't know if I believe them. 46% of people said we don't trust our reports. Uh Uh when companies Salesforce and Looker disagreed on SQL count 50 to 220 during the same time period. Now, that's a problem.

Yeah. the ones that I The ones that I get annoyed with are the ones that are like, "Well, Google Analytics says this and Instagram said that and our UTMs like I think honestly, there's like you have to keep in mind how technology actually works. Like

Right. The like unknown user data, the like web traffic kind of data, like that's you're not going to get to 100% parity across platforms like

remember all the time people being like How do cookies work? How does Bluetooth work? How does Wi-Fi work? You got to two browsers, there's an incognito, you got a got a NFT over here.

Like how do I know? You know, that's that's the most vibes-based reporting we get the web analytics.

And you it's fine. But stuff coming out of like your CRM versus your marketing automation platform versus your data warehouse it should be pretty close.

It should be pretty close. same. Yeah. And they're not, call me. And I can tell you

They're not for a lot of people, unfortunately. I can tell you if you don't have a one-to-one sync you're just going to have problems here.

It's going to be a problem. So, call us. 54% of you listening are having this problem.

54% of you, if the statistics can be believed. There's at least one person listening who's having a hard time.

listeners Uh all right, here's my favorite one. Actually, this one is tied for 46% people uh saying that they're You know, we tried to rebrand this. Someone tried to rebrand this, marketers uh tried to call this the composable tech stack.

Oh, yeah. But most people are calling it uh Frankenstack or spaghetti. Yeah. It's a composable stack while the person who built it is still there, but as soon as they're gone and no one else understands how it works, it's a Frankenstack or spaghetti.

or spaghetti. And my hottest take on this one is that these names that people use feel vaguely gendered to me.

If we can go back to the literature, if we can return ourselves to 11th grade English, Frankenstein is not the name of the monster. Frankenstein is the name of the doctor. And that's you, [ __ ]

You're Frankenstack. You're Frankenstack. You got a Frankenstack. You built that, baby.

You built that. FRANKENSTEIN, THE MONSTER, COULD have been so lucky to have been named. You know, it didn't even have a name.

The monster. That's what we should be calling it. Modular automation platform. Composable little monster.

AI. So, I feel like spaghetti feels feminine to me. I don't know how else to say it. But, I was discussing this with someone who said that there was a book in which it says like men are

from Mars and women are spaghetti. Yeah, something like that. Men are ravioli and women are spaghetti. It's not that, but it is women It is women are spaghetti. I was like, maybe that maybe is a subconsciously I have that.

Yeah, baby. But, I just want to say Mary Shelley, fabulous author. Never gets old.

Female. Um I don't I don't really I don't really think that there's any other names I've heard people call their monster stacks. Garbage is dumpster fire.

Yeah, of course. Trash can. Um I don't know what I've heard. often refers to the situation more than the technology. But, Frankenstack is definitely describing the technology itself.

Yeah. Yeah. Um and so, the question is like do we think this is a buying problem? Or do we think this is a people problem? Or tool-less dose, I guess.

I was going to say, I I have seen a lot of shiny object syndrome as of late. It feels like there's a lot of smaller tools that are popping up that are like five coded and it's an AI startup and our mandate is to use AI, so we need to buy all these AI tools. It's just It's just the same thing that we've always been dealing with, right? It's like, "Oh, we have to use We have to do ABM, so we got to buy all these ABM tools. We have to do AI, so we got to buy all these AI tools." People are buying all of this technology and on the other side, like, maybe it doesn't work exactly the way it was promised in the demo and maybe it's not really solving the problem that you thought it was going to solve and now you just have it and you signed a one-year contract or two-year contract and you're just kind of trapped.

And halfway through that, your team gets laid off. So, that's how Frankenstein's monster is made.

I guess I've just never really worked somewhere where I had like unlimited budget to spend. You know?

You know, I I have managed a a marketing technology budget before. Um and it's never unlimited budget. It is unlimited budget if it is attached to a specific important keyword. It's unlimited budget for ABM or for sales or for AI.

Yeah. Marketing never has an unlimited budget, but there is an unlimited budget for whatever the board's most important thing is at that time and there's always money in that banana stand.

I think I just like lived through the wrong part of digital transformation for us to

working at a way too big company during that time. I've only been working with small ones that are like forming.

Yes, absolutely. We can buy a gifting platform for no discernible reason. Let's do it.

Duh. Duh. The last main problem that people come to us about is the people problem. Usually it's like the week someone is leaving.

Oh, yeah. This is a repeatable. I would love You know what I would like Claude to look at is the um uh average days to close for those opportunities versus the rest of them because they close faster. They're like, "We would like to sign contracts so that we have several days of overlap with the person whose last day is Friday."

Yeah. Like I would like to say that the best use of using a consultant is when you have a full team and you have capacity and you have a need to go faster and better and and

of like a strategic partner to up level what your team is doing and get them out of just the day-to-day grinding and put together a road map and there's a lot that you can really unlock a very powerful team in that setup.

And we do have several clients that do that. But those are not ever as urgent as my only MOPS person quit well, my my only MOPS person who used to be part of a team of 10 then everyone got laid off but them and now they quit. And we need someone to take this over for them.

Yeah. Yeah. And I think maybe they like the reason that this happens is because leadership doesn't quite understand still exactly what marketing ops is doing. And so they're like it's almost like their skip level bosses who ends up calling. Like, "Hey, uh so it seems to me like everything's not going to start working. Like everything's going to stop working on Monday if we don't have a person in here. So, yeah."

Yeah. Don't let it get that bad, friends. Yeah. In that case, who's the monster and who's the Frankenstein?

Is the board Dr. Frankenstein? I think the person that's leaving is the monster. They're taking all their baggage and knowledge with them and they're saying, "I have been created and now I am free."

The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. The problem for me in this analogy is I actually don't know how Frankenstein ends.

I don't [snorts] either. I didn't finish the book. Sorry, Ms. Klein. I don't think I read it. I think I was too busy reading things like Scarlet Letter and Sweet Valley High.

your tobacco cessation commercials. Yeah. Yeah. Um does it die? To be continued.

cuz I didn't read the book. Does it leave? Does it die? Well, there's a bride of Frankenstein. Was that a spin-off?

that part two? That was the HBO special. Mhm. Do you think we should sell t-shirts that say no one listens to this podcast?

Yes. Yes. Now, let me get to work. All right. Good luck out there, little podcast.

Bye.

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "A Stranger Complimented My Forehead on LinkedIn (We Have Questions)"?

Sydney Mulligan (Host), Lauren Aquilino (Host), Emmy (Guest).

What is "A Stranger Complimented My Forehead on LinkedIn (We Have Questions)" about?

Two hosts discuss dealing with online “haters,” sharing personal anecdotes about authenticity, self-acceptance, and the ways negative comments can affect how they present themselves, while balancing candid personal chatter with business topics.

What is mentioned in this Pretty Funny Business episode?

21 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Pretty Funny Business, Lauren Aquilino, Marketing Ops, Sydney Mulligan, Frankenstack, LinkedIn. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "A Stranger Complimented My Forehead on LinkedIn (We Have Questions)"?

The episode runs 40 min; the transcript is about 7,019 words in 184 timestamped sections.

More from Pretty Funny Business

About this transcript: the episode's spoken words as captioned on YouTube, split into timestamped sections. Reclip.Me locates every person, work and idea in the text, keeps the time it is first named, and quotes the words around it verbatim. Last updated November 2, 2026.