The Hidden Reason Marketing Campaigns Fail: Broken Operations | Kasandra Murray

In this episode of Inside Marketing with MarketSurge, Reed Hansen sits down with Kasandra Murray, founder of Unlucky Umbrella Studio, to uncover the uncomfortable truth most businesses ignore: marketing success doesn’t matter if your operations can’t deliver.

Too many companies pour money into marketing campaigns only to watch leads slip through the cracks because of broken systems, poor processes, and weak internal training. Kasandra explains how aligning marketing with operations is the real key to sustainable growth, stronger customer experiences, and higher revenue.

If you’ve ever wondered why your marketing generates interest but doesn’t always turn into lasting customers, this conversation will change the way you look at growth.

💡 What You’ll Learn:
 • Why marketing campaigns fail after leads start coming in
 • The operational gaps that silently kill revenue
 • The importance of documenting processes inside growing companies
 • How training can become a growth strategy, not just an HR task
 • The “Operations Improvement Funnel” framework for diagnosing business problems
 • Why most business failures are actually process or training failures

👉 Key Highlights:
 • Businesses sometimes miss up to 50% of inbound calls, destroying marketing ROI
 • Employees spend roughly 20% of their time trying to figure out how to do their job
 • Most operational problems stem from missing processes or poor training
 • Improving systems can increase revenue without increasing marketing spend

Kasandra shares real-world examples from consulting with companies ranging from early-stage businesses to organizations generating over $100M in revenue. From chaotic pricing systems to missing documentation, she explains how operational clarity can dramatically improve both customer experience and employee satisfaction.

Whether you're running a startup, scaling a service company, or managing a marketing team, this episode will help you understand the operational foundations that make marketing actually work.

Connect with Kasandra Murray:
 Website: https://www.unluckyumbrella.com/
Operations Improvement Funnel: https://www.unluckyumbrella.com/news-and-info/operations-improvement-funnel

📈 At MarketSurge, we help you turn tools into systems — and systems into growth.

If you want automation that feels personal and performs like a team of 10, you’re in the right place.

🧠 Want to talk strategy or see it in action?
 🎯 Book your 15-minute Value or Free Coffee Call:
 https://link.marketsurge.io/widget/bookings/15minutevalueorfreecoffee

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💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/marketsurgeio
🐦 X / Twitter: https://x.com/marketsurging
🎙️ Podcast: https://marketsurge.transistor.fm/

Inside Marketing with MarketSurge is hosted by Reed Hansen, Chief Growth Officer at MarketSurge, where he helps businesses scale using smarter digital marketing systems and automation. 

Creators and Guests

Host

Reed Hansen

Reed Hansen is a seasoned digital marketing executive with a proven track record of driving business growth through innovative strategies. As the Chief Growth Officer at MarketSurge, he focuses on leveraging AI-powered marketing tools to help businesses scale efficiently. Reed's expertise spans from leading startups to Fortune 500 companies, making him a recognized authority in the digital marketing space. His unique ability to combine data-driven insights with creative solutions has been instrumental in achieving remarkable sales growth for his clients. ​

What is Inside Marketing with MarketSurge?

Welcome to Inside Marketing with MarketSurge — your front-row seat to the boldest business insights, marketing breakthroughs, and entrepreneurial real talk.

Hosted by Reed Hansen, Chief Growth Officer at MarketSurge and a digital marketing veteran who's helped scale everything from scrappy startups to Fortune 500 giants, this podcast dives deep into what’s really moving the needle in today’s marketing world. Find us at Marketsurge.io

Each week, we’ll break down the latest marketing and business news (minus the fluff), explore tech trends you actually need to know, and feature unfiltered conversations with the most interesting minds in entrepreneurship and marketing.

Whether you're a founder, a marketer, or just a curious hustler looking to level up, this is where growth happens—loudly, smartly, and with just the right amount of sass.

Subscribe, tune in, and let’s scale something legendary. 🚀

Speaker: Welcome to Inside
Marketing With Market Surge.

Your front row seat to the
boldest ideas and smartest

strategies in the marketing game.

Your host is Reed Hansen, chief
Growth Officer at Market Surge.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: And welcome back
to Inside Marketing with Market Surge.

I'm your host Reed Hansen, and today
we're diving into something that almost

nobody talks about enough in marketing.

What happens after the lead comes in?

Because there's a lot of uncomfortable
truths that people just are having a hard

time accepting businesses, pour money
into marketing, they generate leads.

And even get a flood of interest.

And then the experience behind
the scenes completely breaks down.

Great marketing promises,
something amazing, but operations

are what actually deliver it.

Our guest today lives
right at that intersection.

Cassandra Murray is a marketing and
operations consultant and founder

of Unlucky Umbrella Studio, where
she helps businesses align their

marketing with the systems and
processes that actually sustain growth.

Her work focuses on building frameworks
that don't just generate leads.

They help teams deliver
better experiences.

And turn one-time customers
into loyal repeat clients.

Today we're gonna talk about why great
campaigns fail once leads start coming in.

The systems businesses need, if they
actually want sustainable growth

and the metrics that leaders should
really be paying attention to.

Cassandra, welcome to the show.

Kasandra Murray: Thanks for the intro.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Yeah.

Well, really glad to have you.

Now, as I mentioned, you,
you comprise your work covers

both marketing and operations.

Now, you know, when, when you mis smashed
anything, you know, it, it could be you

know, a, a variety of things, but why did
you think that that was such a critical

intersection and the, you saw it being
so disconnected in many businesses?

Kasandra Murray: So a lot of
that came from my experience

at my previous workplace.

So like I was originally higher.

As like a designer.

But I fell in love with the
operation side of the business.

So it was a startup.

I was like the first employee.

And we really got heavy
into processes, right?

Like, how do you solve problems?

And once we turned into this oiled
machine that we were, producing jobs

that even competitors that were, 10
or even 40 times our size couldn't do.

We got into the marketing side of
the business and we realized that

foundation that we had built on the
operations and the training and processes

lent us, created this reputation.

That.

people coming back to us because
every time they left because they

were like this competitor's cheaper.

They would come back, say a month
later and be like, they were cheaper.

But now we know why they were cheaper.

And we started to dabble into helping
like consult other businesses.

One of my favorite stories is
I had a business that came in

and they're like, we're ready to
like double our marketing spend.

They were spending like around
$40,000 in magazine advertisements.

And I was like before we do that
let me see like what the stats

are, like what are the numbers?

And for them, they weren't
picking up 50% of their calls.

So I, I sat the owners down and
I was like, Hey, like we can

double your marketing spend and.

Spend your money till
you're blue in the face.

I'm like, but if you're not
gonna pick up the phone it's

not gonna make a difference.

And what we did is we, we worked on
setting up a call center for them.

I vetted a bunch of different
call centers for them.

I helped set up the script and
trained people on how this process

would be, and that one change.

a fraction, right?

Like instead of spending another
$40,000, I think the investment was

about like $600 a month on average.

That increased their revenue by 40%.

I think you, there, there's a lot of
flashy stuff out there about marketing and

like dropping a ton of money on marketing
and trying to keep up with competitors.

But I often try to teach people that
the goal is to stand out, and if

your competitors don't have a good
process or a good system or good

customer experience, you can very
easily stand out that way versus just

dumping a ton of money into marketing.

I.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Yeah, no,
that, that makes a a lot of sense.

So, you know, you do
this on an ongoing basis.

You know, you come into a company
and you know, you try to assess

problems or potential inefficiencies.

Are there certain operational red
flags that you see over and over that

might signal that marketing is going
to be a struggle or even vice versa?

You know, marketing.

Red flags that signal
the operations are gonna.

Kasandra Murray: Yeah and actually
the one thing I see in a majority

of businesses, and I even work with
businesses that are like, are a hundred

million dollars or more in sales.

Is processes and
documenting the processes.

There is so much gap between knowledge
of say like your leads or your leadership

and the people that you're onboarding
or the people you're trying to train

to become individual contributors.

That knowledge gap is so bad
and there's a stat out there

that I recently found it was.

20% of an employee's day is spent
just trying to find out how to do

something within their job title.

And that can be, looking for
documentation or asking coworkers,

which now you're using that coworker's
time to try to solve that problem.

That's a huge chunk of time.

It's five hours in a 40 hour work week.

So in a full week people are
spending almost an entire day.

Just trying to figure out
how to do their job properly.

And I will say that is the most common
like issue that I'm running into

with every business that I consult
with is getting that documented.

And a lot of times it's, they feel they
don't have time to do the documentation.

But when you look at that 20% number
you do, you just don't realize,

you just need to reallocate some of
that time to documentation instead

of trying to find documentation.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Okay, so
I, I'm gonna veer a little off topic.

I, you know, we talked about some things
I wanted to cover, but you know, when

you talk about large organizations, you
know, a hundred million in revenue and

above, and, you know, you point out a
problem, you know, that the employees

don't nec necessarily know all the.

Things they need to do
to complete their job.

I've run into that before.

I've worked for some large organizations.

As an employee, experienced that as well.

How do you find somebody at those
organizations that wants to fix it?

Because I've also experienced that
there's so enough, like corporate inertia

that they don't actually wanna fix it.

Like, what are the characteristics
of a, a buyer or a advocate

inside those organizations that
wants to fix it, doesn't just

Kasandra Murray: I

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: wanna live.

Kasandra Murray: champions and one
thing that I think some businesses

get wrong when it comes to processes
is they try to make it like top down.

So leadership just tells everybody like,
we need processes and we need to do it.

and at the end of the day, like
some people just in general, people

are resistant to having somebody
tell you what to do, right?

And we need to focus more on
how humans behave and like

the psychology behind that.

And one thing I really recommend
is, leadership obviously should be

backing in supporting the initiative
of building processes, but they

need to find somebody that is not
necessarily in leadership position.

To champion creating
processes and stuff like that.

And the reason why I highly recommend
going that route is because if you're

working and you see your coworkers
day has gotten so much easier, right?

Because they're fa they have
these processes and these

documents that they reference.

You are more likely to shift towards what
they're doing than if leadership says You

need to start following processes, and
here's this binder of information that

you need to read through, but we're not
gonna give you time to read through it.

So it's, should be the foundational
support and should encourage.

Specifically like one person trying
to find one person who really loves

processes and can engage their
coworkers to follow processes.

It's, EI work with really
small organizations too, and

it is the toughest thing to do.

That's that change management.

And it is so hard to get humans to break
old habits and build new ones, but one

way to do it is from within, right?

You plant a seed in that.

Creates roots and it infects everybody.

'cause everybody wants to be a
part of that success and they

wanna be good at their jobs.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Right.

Okay.

That, no, I think that
makes a ton of sense.

Do you observe any particular lines
of business that, or, or business

functions where they have these brain.

Downs more often.

So, you know, a few examples might
be like the sales process, the

onboarding or ongoing support or even
communication between the, the support

team itself internally do, are, are
there any key areas where you see

this breakdown happen more often?

Kasandra Murray: I don't know if I
would say there's any place, like

more often than not that you see the
issue and it, and I think it is also

like industry to industry, right?

Or like the specific, point
of which a business is in.

I have some businesses that,
they've been running for 20 years.

And the problem really isn't that they
aren't getting new customers or customers

aren't coming back for repeat business.

The problem is more on the
employees quality of life, right?

Where, employees are stressed every day.

Leadership's stressed every day
because they're, it feels like

they're putting out fires every day.

And a lot of that stems.

From inconsistency on
how everything is done.

When you don't have a process, you're
reinventing the wheel every day.

I have some businesses that approach
me because that's the problem, right?

And that creates high turnover

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Okay.

Kasandra Murray: that is.

Very expensive in any business.

But I also have other businesses that
are, say, like more in what I would

say like their early stages and they
have a breakdown between, booking

the meeting with the client and then
turning them into a lead, right?

Like they don't have a process built
there and they're losing revenue that way.

For example, that, that
call system, right?

So it really.

It's, there's never like one point
where I see oh, everybody struggles in

this one point of the customer journey.

It is definitely very dependent on
the business and my focus is, not only

like improving that customer journey,
but improving employees experience.

There's this big counterculture going
on about people just don't like working

and they don't like where they work.

what I have found is a lot of that
stems from lack of processes, lack

of leadership, having clear direction
and these things it sounds like such a

simple solution to solve turnover, but
I've seen it firsthand that processes

completely can change employee turnover.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: That's, I
guess concerning and maybe encouraging

for those that do something about it.

So,

Kasandra Murray: Yeah.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: No,
that's really good to know.

So you've you know, as we were prepping
for this in your material and your

writing, you have an approach you called
the Operations Improvement Funnel.

Can you describe that and maybe walk
us through what that looks like?

Kasandra Murray: Yeah, so the
funnel has four main stages.

The very top stage is processes,
which you're probably gonna get

tired of hearing me say that

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Great.

Kasandra Murray: is processes.

The second stage of
the funnel is training.

The third stage is situational, and
then the last stage is individual.

So how this works is whenever you
have e even success in your business

or failure, you should be running
through this like funnel, right?

And I normally, it happens
like we call 'em postmortems.

So like in my previous company,
if something went wrong, the team

would sit down it, we would run
through this funnel, and the first

questions we're always asking is like.

What's the process, right?

Is there a process?

Is the process easy to find?

Is it easy to follow?

Is the process over-engineered to
where nobody wants to read it and

that's why nobody's following it?

if we, we go through all of that,
then we would go to the next

stage, which would be training.

So the process is good, there's
no issue with processes.

Let's look at training.

How many times have we shown
people how to do this process?

Do they need a refresher?

Do we need to tweak the way that
we trained doing that process?

If process and training both have
succeeded we passed the test on

process and training during a failure.

Then we look at
situational and individual.

But what I will say before I go into
those two is we found that about 95%

of our problems fall under the process
or training parts of the funnel.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Okay.

Kasandra Murray: And you do have
to do a lot of inward, look,

search, soul searching, right?

Because that it does require leadership to
admit that they have failed in some way.

I didn't train somebody enough.

The processes that we
build aren't good enough.

We need to fix those.

But if process and training really check
out, then there's situations that just

are outside of your control, right?

I come from manufacturing.

Really good example is
the power went out, right?

If the power goes out and you can't
get orders out because the power went.

That there's nobody at fault there, right?

There's still things you could
implement if you wanted to.

So you're like, let's get a backup
generator to solve that problem.

But that's where situation goes.

And then individuals, the very
last stage, and I will say majority

of the time, we never got to
that stage when we were reviewing

failures and individual is really.

This is when you should be having a
conversation with the person and going,

why aren't you following the process?

We've trained you multiple times.

What's not sticking?

You're, at this point people
are pro, are actively choosing

not to follow the process.

And it's not really.

It is the individual, right?

But it, like I said, like very
rare that we ever got to that point

of an individual was the problem,
and it wasn't anything else.

And what I've noticed how most
people, most businesses run is

they focus on the individual first.

So they're having the conversation with
the individual about what they did wrong.

What are they doing?

Why did they do it this way?

it just creates this environment
of very defensive people and people

who are more likely to blame or
hide issues if something goes wrong.

Just hurts your business
in the long run too.

So it's one of the things that I'm trying
to flip how leadership thinks about

tackling problems and not looking at the
person, but looking at the processes and

training that come before the person.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Okay.

All right.

So you know, one of the, just following
along with that, I, I wanted to go

touch on training just a little bit.

You, you said that training can
actually be a growth strategy, not

just busy work or an HR function.

How, how is that typically optimized?

You know, training is I
mean, you've explained.

Importantly why it is so important,
and I, I don't have any objections

to that, but how do you how do
you make it a growth strategy?

How do you make it exciting?

Kasandra Murray: Yeah.

If we talk numbers first, right?

When we talk about like cost savings.

So there's a stat out there
that it's either three or.

Or four times, companies spend three
or four times more money hiring

somebody than they do training them.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Hmm.

Kasandra Murray: the average, like
cost to onboard somebody is around

like four or $5,000, training.

what the problem is if you don't
train people and you create this.

Environment where there's no
processes, everybody's stressed.

You have high turnover, you're
spending more money hiring

people that are going to quit.

And there's a huge cost
savings in investing more into

training than into kind of.

Trying to manage turnover.

A really good example is
I come from manufacturing.

Manufacturing has a turnover of
about six months is pretty typical

in manufacturing warehouse work.

We extended that to two and a half years
after implementing processes and training.

And normally when people leave us,
they left us because, the business

just didn't grow fast enough for them.

For management positions.

They didn't move laterally, they
moved up in the whole process.

So a lot of things we can't,
that's what we want to do, right?

When people leave us.

So just in a revenue, we
talk about revenue alone.

There is cost savings and.

Spending more time and energy taking
that $4,000 and putting it towards,

creating a trainer creating a training
program paying somebody to do the

training for stuff for people.

There's savings there.

But when we talk about growth
strategy too, when you don't have

that high turnover, you create
a better customer experience.

Because you're not having to spend all
that time making sure people aren't

making mistakes during the process.

And that better customer experience turns
into a better reputation, more referrals,

because I think the stat is what, like
70% of most businesses is referral based.

I, if a majority of businesses,
revenue is coming from referral based

business, creating that reputation
is, so important, and one way to

do that is creating reliable people
that are really good at their jobs.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Yeah.

Well, absolutely.

So I, I've got two remaining questions.

First, can you do.

Any situations come to mind when
I ask you what is the most chaotic

operational system you've encountered?

And if

None, or they're protected by NDA,
that's fine too, but I'd be curious

if you have any great anecdotes.

Kasandra Murray: seen
I've seen a lot of stuff.

I think have certain customers
that I work with that we're working

on right now, but their pricing
system is like the Wild West.

and it's based off of people's
feelings and not, like a, a

system that backs it up for them.

And sometimes in some industries,
it's very hard to tell people

like, you're not charging enough.

You need to charge more.

You're leaving money on the table.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Right.

Kasandra Murray: So that, I see
that, especially in manufacturing,

that a lot in manufacturing.

The Wild West like pricing system

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: yes.

Kasandra Murray: is pretty crazy for me.

So I'm sure there's like others,
but I can't think of any other

that come to mind at the moment.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge:
Well, no, that's all right.

I'm sure you've seen a lot and
you know, I'm glad that there are

people, I am definitely more of
the chaotic mindset, and so I.

I have employees.

I have a spouse that are much more
organized and process focused.

So grateful for people
like that in my life.

And great, you know, grateful
for experts like you as well.

This is just total wild card question
'cause, and it came to me mid podcast.

Do you watch Love Is Blind.

Have you ever seen that show?

Kasandra Murray: I see a
lot of social media posts

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Okay.

Kasandra Murray: but

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Yes.

Kasandra Murray: Sat down and watched
it because I've seen enough crazy social

media that I'm like, I can't do it.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Well, you
know, the funny thing is I, they

just did the reunion episode for this
recent season, which was all people

from Ohio, and you mentioned that.

Kasandra Murray: yes.

I did see.

So that's why I was like, this is crazy.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: And I, I
was like, I was, my mind was spinning

because your intonation, you know, you,
you do have a a lovely Ohio accent.

Not that I could have really put a finger
on that before watching a whole season

of Ohio people dating and talking and,
and but like, I, you know, I hear it

and it's, you know, it's a lovely warm.

Very friendly accent.

And so anyway, if, if that's of interest
you know, you, you're, you're, I

Kasandra Murray: it

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge:
need to check it out.

Kasandra Murray: the Ohio episodes.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Yeah.

It's like season 10 and all.

It's all Columbus and Cleveland
people and anyway, lovely.

And but Cassandra, it's, it's
delightful to talk to you.

I would really encourage
people to reach out to you.

I think there's a lot of businesses that
could use this kind of help on process

training, you know, troubleshooting
and making sure that their marketing

operations are, are up to snuff.

Where can they find you if
they'd like to work with you?

Kasandra Murray: Yeah, one of the
best ways to reach me is through.

The website, which is literally
just unlucky umbrella.com,

or you can connect with me on LinkedIn.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Awesome.

Well, thanks so much for coming on.

Kasandra Murray: Yeah.

Thank you so much for having me.

Speaker 2: Want to stay ahead of what's
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