The Iron Pillar of 2021

Shelby Cutright

SYSTEMS CONFIGURATION MANAGER

Shelby’s career has largely been centered around working with startups and lean companies. She cut her teeth early on as an outbound sales representative, making cold calls and learning to position a company’s value quickly and effectively in emails. Her affinity for process improvement made it possible to hit goals consistently by working smarter.

It’s no wonder that Shelby now thrives at AK Operations. She specializes in taking her clients’ messages and values and then operationalizing them in some of the more complex systems and unique environments. Shelby notoriously fixes historically-tolerated CRM problems and aligns otherwise conflicting technologies, which gives her clients complete visibility and accurate measurement. Dubbed with the nickname “Duct Tape,” Shelby is also an expert at solving many of today’s common outbound challenges, like email sending domain management and sending time strategies.

Shelby lives with her partner and two children in St. Peters and, contrary to the fast pace and competitiveness of her day job, she enjoys slower weekends outside with her family and friends. 

Shelby Cutright
team2-1-Oct-17-2022-05-06-00-32-AM

From Amy:

“Shelby embodies equal parts smarts, hustle and goodness. Her servant’s heart has made her one of the biggest blessings to my mission with this company. She’ll generate million dollar deals for her clients and then, after a team-wide celebration, is the first to help any teammate or client with the little stuff, too. Shelby is a force to her clients because she offers them reassurance, confidence, strong direction, and complete execution. We joke that Shelby has clients ‘prepaying’ all the time, but if you sit in on one of her client calls, you’ll understand why.”

These are my faves

LOUD MUSIC

LOUD MUSIC

COFFEE

COFFEE

float trips

float trips

positive attitudes

positive attitudes

MY BEAUTIFUL FAMILY

MY BEAUTIFUL FAMILY

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THESE ARE NOT MY FAVES

NEGATIVE NANCYS

NEGATIVE NANCYS

cold weather

cold weather

candy

candy

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SHELBY’S CLIENTS ROCK!

BuildingLink

Over the last 7 weeks, the team at AK Operations has come onboard and I am thoroughly impressed. Tina was able to quickly ramp up and start delivering well-thought-out and strong content. Shelby is a dynamo. She has been able to develop and implement a thoughtful and deliberate process which started yielding immediate results. She is constantly iterating with a focus on KPIs which, as a CRO, makes me feel like we are speaking the same language. Amy's vision and direction made me feel immediately comfortable as within minutes of meeting her, you know that she will both direct traffic and get in the trenches in order to hit OUR targets. In short, AK Operations does not feel like a vendor but an extension of BuildingLink.

Brian Bressack,
Chief Revenue Officer of BuildingLink

Tenna

This is my second time working with AK Operations - first as an onboarding partner for a completely new installation of HubSpot (moving from Pardot) and this time to help us clean up, reorganize, and re-energize an existing installation and email marketing program. Each time I am grateful for their insight into how to tie together Marketing and Sales efforts, handoffs, and recycling. Each time I have seen a measurable increase in return on our email marketing efforts—both in increased engagement and increased value of the contacts responding. AK Operations' staff (shout out Krista and Shelby especially!) and program are a fantastic way to jump start or revive an email marketing program and their feedback also helps inform content strategy and sales journey experience.

Colleen Lyerla,
Director of Marketing Communications

The National Lacrosse League

The National Lacrosse League contracted AK Operations to manage its migration from SalesForce to Hubspot.  With massive amounts of data and little organization or value driving campaigns, AK Operations took the reigns and reinvented the CRM database and consumer experience.   They managed the technical migration from one platform to another and also built out a compelling, and revenue generating workflow for each target audience. The accountability to launch was extremely high and the account management leading up to and during that moment has been beyond stellar. Shelby is extremely diligent, precise, and communicative. She always reached out and provided updates and information that we needed at every step of our project. She went above and beyond, is a true problem solver, and probably over delivered.

Katie Lavin,
Vice President of Marketing, The National Lacrosse League

Medi Leadership

AK Operations has accelerated our speed to implement a robust marketing and sales process within MEDI Leadership. They have taken the time to get to know our services and people to get us to the right people for marketing and sales conversations.  I know that I can connect with anyone at AK Operations to help me problem solve our marketing and sales pipeline issues. This is one of my favorite partnerships and love working with this team. Anna has been an amazing addition to our team. She is understanding what issues we are facing and quick to help address those needs. She is helping to pull us up to a new level in marketing and sales. I value our time working through issues as it always gets me thinking on a higher level.

Deena Fischer,
Medi Leadership

LS Networks

Amy and her team are amazing.  I knew within minutes of meeting her that she knew what she is doing and she could / would take LS Networks to the next level with our marketing initiatives. There are few vendors partnerships that are special and this is one! Now, about Shelby… Shelby is very professional and extremely knowledgeable. She is passionate about her job and marketing and it shows with every engagement we have with her. We consider Shelby an extend our team and are excited to continue our journey with our automation.

Strider Denison,
Vice President Of Commercial Sales and Marketing, LS Networks

MEDI Leadership

At MEDI Leadership, we have valued our partnership with AKOperations and Shelby feels like a natural extension of our marketing team. She is someone who helps keep us organized to keep us on target and makes wonderful suggestions for areas where we need to pivot. She is someone that you can count on for leadership, ideas, getting things completed and showing the results. The team is quite impressive and I appreciate the authenticity and transparency we receive from Shelby and the team at AKOperations. I know that Shelby always has our back and will keep us moving forward. She is always coming up with innovative approaches to marketing automation and her skills are quite impressive. 

Deena M. Fischer, MA, AC
Business Development and Operations | Executive Coach, MEDI Leadership

TDC Life

Shelby is a warm and genuine person, an absolute delight that I look forward to working with every week. She is a consistent and steadfast partner who always delivers, I am so grateful to have her in my corner!

Erynne Lopez,
TDC Life

Security Advisor

AK Ops has been amazing! They quickly enhanced our HubSpot and created a top of funnel lead machine. Amy and Shelby put together marketing and sales sequences that immediately generated hundreds of MQLs and several meetings. I’m very impressed with the team and am not hesitating to continue working with AK Ops.

Marya Munir
VP of Marketing, Security Advisor

UBC

Shelby is a fantastic partner and an essential member of the UBC team. When she joined, she quickly learned our systems and processes, and was able to significantly improve our lead generation function. Not only are our prospects now hearing from us on a regular basis, receiving content that is specific to their interests, but we also have the ability to generate quality leads for the Sales Team. Using a data driven approach, Shelby has done a great job providing key insights that allow us to improve our content/messaging where appropriate, so we are no longer flying blind.

Michael Montagnon
VP of Sales, UBC

We ♥ Serving Sales Teams

Contact Amy!

OUR CLIENTS ROCK

K1x

AK Operations has provided our lean startup with scalable process automation, sales enablement, subject matter expertise and most importantly - results! Amy’s small team of elite performers are smart and tireless. They love what they do and so will you.

Carmen Malatino,
Vice President of Revenue Operations

BuildingLink

Over the last 7 weeks, the team at AK Operations has come onboard and I am thoroughly impressed. Tina was able to quickly ramp up and start delivering well-thought-out and strong content. Shelby is a dynamo. She has been able to develop and implement a thoughtful and deliberate process which started yielding immediate results. She is constantly iterating with a focus on KPIs which, as a CRO, makes me feel like we are speaking the same language. Amy's vision and direction made me feel immediately comfortable as within minutes of meeting her, you know that she will both direct traffic and get in the trenches in order to hit OUR targets. In short, AK Operations does not feel like a vendor but an extension of BuildingLink.

Brian Bressack,
Chief Revenue Officer of BuildingLink

Starr Commonwealth

Since partnering with AK Operations, we have a 166% increase in new sales meetings booked thanks to their demand gen and lead gen campaigns. This program has not only helped our momentum at the top of the funnel but also strengthened our sales process and enabled our reps. Not to mention the collaboration with Anna and Sara has been incredibly beneficial.

Alex Newmann,
Founder & CEO of Newmann Consulting Group

Botable

AK Operations is a game-changing revenue operations company that consistently delivers on their data-driven promises. We work directly with Anna and her exceptional work ethic and expertise have led to outstanding results for our company. Looking back, our only regret is not discovering AK Operations sooner!

Greg Waldstreicher,
Founder & CEO of Botable

Tenna

This is my second time working with AK Operations - first as an onboarding partner for a completely new installation of HubSpot (moving from Pardot) and this time to help us clean up, reorganize, and re-energize an existing installation and email marketing program. Each time I am grateful for their insight into how to tie together Marketing and Sales efforts, handoffs, and recycling. Each time I have seen a measurable increase in return on our email marketing efforts—both in increased engagement and increased value of the contacts responding. AK Operations' staff (shout out Krista and Shelby especially!) and program are a fantastic way to jump start or revive an email marketing program and their feedback also helps inform content strategy and sales journey experience.

Colleen Lyerla,
Director of Marketing Communications

StageConnect

Amy Kohl and AK Ops have completely blown us away. After kicking off mid-June, they hit their 45-day goal in 20 days by booking us 20 meetings. The speed at which they make things happen is shocking—they have violence of action! Every time we’re looking at a new goal or objective, we’re used to a report taking a week or two to build. With the AK Ops team, it’s either the same or next day. Every expectation has been met or exceeded. Our two closers now feel like they have the horsepower of a fully-staffed, well-tuned sales org behind them. We’re incredibly happy and plan to work with AK Ops for as long as possible.

Cole Morgan,
CEO & Founder of StageConnect

Crowdsmart

As a small startup, we were challenged to develop new qualified leads and a robust pipeline quickly. Instead of hiring an army of SDRs, training them, and managing them going forward, we chose a modern sales approach with AK Ops. AK Ops are experts in digital marketing and lead development techniques. They developed a dynamic process to drive quality outbound communication and lead generation. They complemented this approach with weekly analytics to manage our progress. This allowed us to focus on the most important work of turning these leads into customers.

Sam Rapp,
VP of Partnerships at Crowdsmart

VertifyData

I believe the most important factor that can make or break a startup is having the right people in place on your team as you work to execute your strategy. More than anything else, this is why we have been thrilled with AK Operations – and not just AK herself… this especially includes Mallory first, and now Christy and Sara!

In 90 days, Amy and team have been instrumental in most of the areas I would consider critical to our go-to-market success, including:

  • Contributing greatly with ongoing thought leadership and solid, foundational planning
  • Assisting us in identifying the right data points and patterns as we look to measure results.
  • Providing us with the ability (and agility) to iterate quickly as we continue to look for ways to accelerate our progress.
  • They balance a wealth of experience and know-how with creativity and collaboration.   
  • They are aligned with our goals with a passionate commitment towards achieving results.

If you are a revenue leader and your priority this year is to build a successful, scalable, and predictable revenue machine in the ever-chaotic world of startup sales, AK Operations should be your first call!

Cortney Smith,
VP of Sales at VertifyData

Streamloan

AK operates as a true part of our team – especially Anna and Sara. They are analytical, thoughtful, data driven, and fun to work with on sales & marketing – and their technical ability to manage our CRM/Hubs platform is strong. AK rolls up their sleeves to be a true team player, jumping into whatever is needed to make the business successful. They are creative and agile in nature, which is important as we learn to scale our GTM efforts.

Stephen Bulfer,
CEO / Co-founder, Streamloan

BotDoc

Imagine waking up every day with an average of 3-4 emails a day from warm leads that are being forwarded over to you. Sound too good to be true? That’s what I thought before working with AK Ops and Danielle Matthews. They are “difference makers” inside and outside of the workplace. They truly go above and beyond for their clients. Danielle is a rockstar. She is encouraging, disciplined, and equally determined as I am. I am glad to have her as my account manager.

Gavin DeWitt,
Sales at BotDoc

Worklete

Amy and team have been a phenomenal addition to our marketing efforts, becoming an integral piece of our go to market team. Lead by the amazing Sara Bray, AK has driven significant top of funnel growth through multiple channels. The amount of time and dedication to our account is second to none, allowing us to hone in on what is working, making macro and micro adjustments to achieve a broad spectrum of specific KPIs. Thank you!

Ben Kanner
CEO, Worklete