Advice for a new VP of RevOps
In the beginning . . .
I was chatting with the CFO of a fast-growing B2B SaaS company last week. I learned they were creating their first RevOps organization (they already had essential sales and marketing operations teams but no customer success operations). They were hiring a new VP of RevOps to lead the organization, and she asked me what advice I would give that person coming in if I were chatting with them. I thought it was worth a post – so here are my thoughts.
As a newly appointed VP of RevOps, you have a unique opportunity to significantly impact your organization's bottom line. RevOps is a strategic function that aligns sales, marketing, and customer success teams to optimize the entire revenue cycle. Focusing on the right priorities from day one allows you to set the stage for consistent, efficient revenue growth. Here is the initial list of things I would suggest they do (obviously if there's a burning platform at the company this could be very different).
Build Relationships Across Teams
Your first priority should be to establish strong relationships with the leaders of sales, marketing, customer success, finance, HR, and other revenue-driving teams. Schedule one-on-one meetings to deeply understand each team's priorities, processes, and pain points. Identify any disconnects between departments that may be impacting conversion rates and retention, hiring, training, data sharing, and more.
Focus on building trust and credibility by actively listening, maintaining transparency, and demonstrating your commitment to helping each team achieve their goals. By fostering collaboration and alignment across revenue-driving teams, you lay the foundation for RevOps success.
Analyze the Revenue Cycle
Conduct a thorough analysis of each customer journey stage to identify revenue leakage and opportunities for optimization. Examine each department's metrics to measure success and how they tie into overall revenue generation and lifecycle.
Prioritize fixing any broken parts of the funnel, such as lead handoff between marketing and sales or onboarding processes that impact time-to-value. Implement updated service level agreements (SLAs), services tracking, and reporting to stay on top of revenue health. By comprehensively understanding the revenue cycle, you can pinpoint areas for improvement and make data-driven decisions.
Create a RevOps Transformation Roadmap
Armed with insights from your team conversations and revenue cycle analysis, it's time to craft a strategic plan for RevOps transformation. Gather input from revenue-driving leaders on their top challenges and goals for RevOps.
Develop a 12 to 18-month roadmap that outlines the processes to fix, technology to implement, and objectives to achieve each quarter. Secure executive buy-in and budget for your proposed transformations by clearly communicating the expected impact on revenue growth. Your roadmap serves as a clear, actionable plan for optimizing RevOps and driving results.
Pick Initial RevOps Projects
To build momentum and demonstrate the value of RevOps, start by selecting one or two high-ROI projects that can deliver quick wins. These initial projects might include implementing new lead routing rules, optimizing contract workflows, or automating churn analysis.
Use these pilots to showcase the potential of RevOps and justify any additional needed headcount and resources. By starting small and focusing on impactful initiatives, you can build trust and secure support for larger-scale transformations down the line.
Define RevOps Metrics and Reporting
Finally, establish a clear set of metrics and reporting practices to track the performance of your RevOps initiatives. Identify key performance indicators (KPIs) that cover conversion rates, expansion revenue, churn, and other critical metrics.
Build dashboards and reports that provide a single source of truth on revenue health and distribute them to all revenue teams. Set up quarterly business reviews to discuss trends, address issues, and align on growth priorities. By defining clear metrics and maintaining transparency through reporting, you can keep everyone accountable and focused on driving results.
There will be challenges – there are always challenges
As a new VP of RevOps, you'll likely face several challenges as you work to align teams, optimize processes, and drive revenue growth. By understanding these common obstacles and implementing effective strategies to overcome them, you can set your organization up for long-term success. Let's dive into five prevalent RevOps challenges and explore how to tackle them head-on.
Siloed Data and Systems
One of the most significant barriers to RevOps success is the presence of siloed data and systems across departments. When sales, marketing, and customer success teams use disparate tools that lack integration, it becomes difficult to gain a holistic view of the customer journey and make data-driven decisions.
To overcome this challenge, start by auditing your existing technology stack to identify integration opportunities. Implement a centralized revenue operations platform that can serve as a single source of truth for all revenue-driving teams. Establish clear data governance policies and procedures to ensure data accuracy, consistency, and security.
Resistance to Change
Implementing RevOps initiatives often requires significant changes to processes, technology, and team structures. Resistance to change is a natural response, particularly when teams are accustomed to entrenched ways of working.
To mitigate resistance
Clearly communicate the benefits of RevOps initiatives and involve key stakeholders in the planning process.
Provide adequate training and support during transitions to help teams adapt to new systems and processes.
Celebrate early wins and share success stories to build momentum and foster a culture of continuous improvement.
Lack of Alignment on Goals and Metrics
RevOps success hinges on the alignment of sales, marketing, and customer success teams around shared goals and metrics. However, each department often has differing priorities and KPIs, leading to a lack of cohesion and suboptimal results.
To foster alignment:
Facilitate cross-functional workshops where leaders from each team can come together to define shared objectives and success metrics.
Develop a unified dashboard that displays key metrics for all teams, providing a clear picture of revenue health and progress towards goals.
Regularly communicate updates and adjust strategies as needed to ensure everyone remains aligned and accountable.
Insufficient Resources and Budget
Securing sufficient resources and budget is a common challenge for RevOps leaders, particularly when the impact of RevOps initiatives is underestimated or competing priorities exist.
To overcome this hurdle:
Build a strong business case that clearly articulates the value of RevOps investments.
Prioritize high-impact initiatives with demonstrable ROI and explore phased implementations or pilot programs to prove value before scaling.
Continuously measure and report on the impact of RevOps efforts to justify ongoing investment and secure executive buy-in.
Talent Gaps and Skill Shortages
As a relatively new field, RevOps teams often face a shortage of experienced professionals, making it challenging to build and scale a high-performing team.
To address talent gaps, clearly define roles and responsibilities for each RevOps team member and invest in training and development programs to upskill existing staff. Partner with HR to develop targeted recruitment strategies that attract top RevOps talent. Foster a culture of continuous learning and innovation within the team to encourage skill-sharing and professional growth.
Navigating the challenges of RevOps is an ongoing process that requires strategic thinking, adaptability, and a commitment to continuous improvement. By proactively addressing issues like siloed data, resistance to change, misaligned goals, insufficient resources, and talent gaps, new VPs of RevOps can set their organizations on the path to sustainable revenue growth.
Wrapping up
Remember, success in RevOps is not achieved overnight – it requires patience, perseverance, and a willingness to learn from both successes and failures. By staying focused on your goals and consistently working to overcome obstacles, you can unlock the full potential of RevOps and drive lasting results for your organization.
Stepping into a new role as VP of RevOps is an exciting opportunity to drive meaningful growth for your organization. By focusing on building relationships, analyzing the revenue cycle, creating a transformation roadmap, picking initial projects, and defining metrics and reporting, you set yourself up for success.
With the proper strategic focus and execution, you can optimize the entire revenue cycle, align teams around common goals, and ultimately drive consistent, efficient revenue growth.
As always, ending with a shot of Ollie. Here he is patiently waiting for first breakfast.
As always, reach out with any questions or topics.
Best,
Steve
steve@revopz.net