RevOps (Revenue Operations): A Roadmap
A brief history of RevOps
According to predictions by Gartner, “75% of the highest growth companies in the world will deploy a RevOps model by 2025.”
While searches for revenue operations have picked up speed in the last few years, it seems like a job function that’s here to stay.
How B2B sees the customer has changed over the years. For a while, most demand funnels focused heavily on customer attraction but left current customers wanting more. RevOps understands that companies must combine marketing, sales, customer success and finance to build a revenue-driven company.
Since more companies have found value in getting and retaining customers, revenue-driven job titles like Chief Revenue Officers and Revenue Operations Managers have become more common.
RevOps has a place in several areas of a company’s strategy. Revenue leaders find ways to maximize money coming into the company, so they often have a place in go-to-market strategy, customer acquisition and customer retention. It’s important to realize that revenue leaders are strategic people. Revenue leaders need room for big-picture thinking, auditing and roadblock removal. They are vital forces in helping all departments thrive—and stay aligned.
Getting started with RevOps: Auditing strategies to grow revenue
When companies begin investing in revenue operations, the first step is an in-depth audit of current processes and procedures. RevOps is typically charged with accelerating what’s already there. Companies tend to invest in Chief Revenue Officers or Revenue Operations Managers after having a solid marketing and sales foundation.
As you enter your role as a CRO or RevOps Manager, one of your first tasks will likely be an audit to see what you have to work with. RevOps depends on people, processes and technology to work effectively. Give yourself some slack here. Your work can be eye-opening, especially if you are a new employee with an outsider’s perspective.
People
First, get to know the people you have on your team. You should meet one-on-one with everyone handling GTM, marketing and sales. And because customer retention directly impacts revenue, RevOps leaders should also meet with customer success team members.
From this audit, determine:
Where there may be unnecessary siloes or breakdowns between different teams
What dynamics look like within teams and how things can be mended
Employee strengths and weaknesses and how to maximize individual performance
After you understand these different dynamics, you’ll be able to recommend specific tweaks an organization can make to improve team dynamics and company performance.
Processes
Companies need strict processes to increase revenue. If your organization is stuck reinventing the wheel every time you need to submit an RFP or onboard a new client, you’ll create more work for everyone. So, audit current strategies to determine where:
Great processes exist
Processes need to be updated
Processes are nonexistent
After this audit, you’ll have a clear plan for how your team can save time and money by implementing templates or step-by-step instructions.
Technology
Spending on information and business technology in the United States is expected to reach $2 billion in 2022. As businesses grow, there can be many redundancies and gaps in how money is spent on technology. These challenges can make companies fall behind their competitors or waste hours of employee productivity. As a RevOps leader, you’re there to:
Audit where technology spending is going
Look into what different technologies offer to identify overlap across teams
Identify technology gaps based on what competitors are using by examining sites like BuiltWith and G2
Find new and existing technologies to create the perfect tech stack
Help negotiate contracts with these technology companies to maximize revenue
RevOps doesn’t have to be the most tech-savvy person in the room to do this work. You can (and should) partner with your organization’s IT department and respective teams to determine what the organization needs to move forward.
Building the perfect plan: Activating and operationalizing RevOps
Once you’ve completed the audit, it’s time to move to the next phase of the RevOps process. Your company must do the work to make the most of revenue operations. Activities like setting goals, reporting, holding employees accountable and building pipelines can all be great ways to activate and operationalize RevOps. The title of Chief Revenue Officer is more than a fun title. RevOps is tasked with producing more revenue for a business.
Goals
One of the first things you’ll want to do as a RevOps leader is set goals for your position.
Some goals will be harder to define, like ones related to breaking down departmental silos. For these goals, it’s essential to recognize the qualitative nature of these objectives. You might need to rely on pulse surveys, one-on-one conversations or team feedback to understand if silos are breaking down.
Other goals are directly tied to numbers. For example, you might be charged with growing the company’s pipeline by $X or accounts. You should be able to easily use your company’s CRM to track when you’ve hit a revenue goal.
No matter what goals RevOps is given, you must ensure they are relevant and achievable. Revenue operations isn’t a fixer coming in to create short-term change. Growing revenue can take months or years. Companies have to be willing to invest in future growth and be patient.
Reporting
If you’re dealing with departmental silos, you’re likely having to navigate different reporting mechanisms. While teams need to have their own language, companies need to be able to bring data together to succeed. If there are multiple reporting mechanisms, a company has numerous sources of “truth.” Organizations that want to grow revenue need a streamlined reporting process.
First, it’s important to designate one place as the go-to place for company truths. Most companies use their CRM is typically where things get updated and tracked for reporting purposes. Next, think about how you integrate tools that departments use. Integrations can ensure people still use their loved tools while making reporting and cross-departmental knowledge easy.
Accountability
Next, it’s vital to clarify accountability. As a RevOps leader, you are responsible for a lot of the work driving revenue, but you aren’t the only accountable partner. Departments across the organization have a role to play in increasing revenue. If RevOps is the only one championing these changes, nothing will happen.
RevOps leaders need to create a pact with other departments. In this accountability pact, it’s crucial to outline:
What RevOps will do or experiment with to increase revenue.
How RevOps leaders will share duties or responsibilities with other departments.
The level of action RevOps leaders expect from department managers and individual contributors.
Clearly defining duties and responsibilities will keep everyone on the same page. As a RevOps leader, clarity will make your job easier.
Pipeline growth
Above all else, RevOps leaders need to increase revenue. One effective way to do this is pipeline growth. You need to help bring new, high-quality leads into the funnel. Unfortunately, companies can grow without creating consistent processes for pipeline growth. Some teams might be relying too heavily on inbound or outbound leads. Some teams may be going through transitions and a lack of knowledge transfer. RevOps comes into these situations to operationalize pipeline growth and make it more consistent.
Territory and pipeline management
Last, you must focus on territory and pipeline management. As a RevOps leader, you are responsible for thinking outside the box to create larger opportunities for your organization. This work can be challenging, but you don’t have to do it alone. With Rev’s Sales Development Platform, you know you’ll be able to manage pipelines and territories effectively.
One of the biggest challenges for RevOps leaders is identifying new market opportunities. It’s easy to be swayed by a new industry’s TAM when you’re researching a new market. When you use our Sales Development Platform, you can dig deeper to see which accounts in that market make sense for your organization. This strategy allows you to spend time, energy and resources on markets that will produce results. (No more hoping it all just works out.)
Once you are ready to move forward with a new segment, we also make it easy for you to route targets to the right internal teams. First, we determine bullseye targets that are perfect matches and ready to hear your sales pitch. You can route these targets directly to sales and make their jobs simple. We can also find matches that might need a bit more convincing. You can route those to marketing for more nurturing until they are ready to move to sales.
Build a promising RevOps foundation
Revenue operations is a strategic function poised to help companies create more consistency. Getting started in RevOps often starts with auditing the business as it stands. After laying the foundation, you can start creating and addressing business goals and growing the company. Building revenue takes time, but it will be easier now that you have the roadmap to success.
Looking for ways to predictively grow your pipeline? Schedule now!
