The term RevOps, or revenue operations, has been around for a while, but it’s only recently been getting the attention it deserves. When we were first starting out here at Sapper Consulting we could’ve greatly benefitted from having a RevOps team in place. At times our different departments felt like they were each living on their own islands — our departments were not aligned or communicating efficiently, we lacked a full understanding of other teams’ processes, and we were experiencing inconsistencies in our data. Until we discovered the power of RevOps…
What is RevOps?
RevOps refers to a cross-functional strategy that is implemented within various operations of a business with the overall goal of maximizing revenue potential and driving growth within a company. The whole idea behind RevOps is to better align the teams that are responsible for driving revenue — sales, marketing, customer success, and account management — in order to reach true revenue optimization and success.
Since implementing our RevOps strategy, we have continued to surpass revenue goals, learned to identify when we need to make pivots in our marketing efforts, and saw a drastic increase in our customer satisfaction surveys.
Top 10 Benefits of RevOps:
- Shared operational objectives and priorities
- Aligned key performance indicators (KPIs) and metrics
- Improved measurement, tracking and forecasting of your sales pipeline
- A single source of truth for all KPIs, metrics, and reporting
- Unified management of key processes
- More tightly aligned technology stack
- More strategic utilization of technology
- Increased responsiveness
- Reduction in costs through the elimination of redundancies
- Decreased errors in deliverables and processes
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When Sapper first came together to implement our RevOps strategy, we quickly realized the organizational silos we had been operating under. As a result, there were often data gaps and redundancies that occurred throughout our sales funnel, which is not ideal when you’re a start-up company trying to make it in a competitive market. One example that comes to mind is when we failed to remove one of the prospects from a company that had just signed on with us, so they were continuously receiving our prospecting emails. Eventually, the prospect politely brought this to our attention and asked to be opted out since they were already working with us. We were lucky that they were understanding and didn’t view our oversight as incompetence.
These are exactly the kinds of mistakes that our RevOps strategy has helped to eliminate because we now have all of our data records living in one, single place that is easily accessible to everyone in the organization.
How to Determine if You Need a RevOps Strategy
If you want to be a successful company, then you must always be evolving. When deciding whether or not to implement a RevOps team, ask yourself a few questions: Could more visibility into customer engagement help us improve the buying process? Would establishing a predictable pipeline help increase our seller effectiveness?
If you answered yes to either of these questions, then it might be time to consider developing a revenue op strategy. Still not convinced? Keep reading.
According to research by the Boston Consulting Group, B2B companies that depended on a RevOps team to accelerate their growth achieved the following results:
- 10% to 20% increase in sales productivity
- 100% to 200% increases in digital marketing ROI
- 10% increases in lead acceptance
- 15% to 20% increases in internal customer satisfaction
- 30% reductions in expenses
The stats speak for themselves – the companies that had a RevOps team in place saw increases across the board – in sales productivity, ROI, lead acceptance, and internal customer satisfaction! Not to mention the 30% reduction in expenses.
7 Tips to Align Sales and Marketing For Increased Revenue
Components of a Successful RevOp Strategy
Revenue operations start with enhanced communication between departments, as well as clean and accurate customer data. This data can help you pinpoint exactly why revenue is up or down and where your marketing efforts fell short. Not only will you be more on top of what is currently happening during a customer’s buying journey, but you will also be able to predict your sales pipeline and know where to direct your attention.
Revenue Data Visibility and Insights
Recent advances in technology have changed the game for how we do business today. In the past, each department operated using different tech stacks and systems, inadvertently causing major disconnects in their data.
However, that’s no longer the case given the countless software solutions designed specifically to help streamline data across companies. Customer Relationship Management platforms (CRMs) such as Hubspot and Salesforce act as the “single source of truth” by providing employees across every department with accurate, up-to-date data for each prospect in the pipeline. The organization and record-keeping that comes along with implementing a CRM are essential to achieving a successful RevOp strategy. After all, it’s no secret that having more organized prospect records makes all of our lives easier. CRMs enable you to easily identify disconnected and outdated revenue data that may have previously been causing inefficiencies across your organization. Implementing a CRM provides you with trustworthy reporting, analytics, and dashboards based on your data. You can also use the automation feature within your CRM to improve your messaging and overall efficiency.
Once your data is all in one place, collaboration is much easier and you can review every interaction a customer has had with your brand, which should help you establish your ideal customer profile and improve your overall targeting.
Who Should Make Up Your RevOps Team?
When an organization is developing a RevOps team, it’s also important for the leader to ensure that everyone is on the same page and understands that the process involves reconfiguring existing departments to better integrate their interactions.
By constantly working to optimize your company’s processes, you’re acknowledging that as an organization you can never settle too long in your ways. You must always be adapting according to the data. With the right combination of individuals, your company can boost strategic success through high-quality planning and execution, as well as identify any bottlenecks before they form during the buying process.
Your RevOps team should include:
- C-suite level executive (i.e. Chief Operating Officer, Chief Revenue Officer): responsible for leading the charge and overseeing the team
- Sales team member: can provide insights on lead quality and appropriate targeting
- Marketing team member: can optimize outreach efforts by implementing feedback from the sales team
- Customer service team member: can provide insights into which existing customers benefit the most from your service vs. which customers are more difficult to perform for (i.e. industry, company size, revenue)
- IT team member: can assist with any necessary tech implementation and help streamline cross-departmental data across different platforms
- Business analysts: can provide a more in-depth understanding of internal processes and underlying data
Key Takeaways
With multiple sales reps, marketing initiatives, and buyer journeys, having a pulse on who is converting and through which channel can feel impossible. And isolating the reasons why a prospect is or is not converting can prove even more challenging if you are not utilizing a systematic approach to your sales funneI. The implementation of a RevOps strategy will help you streamline your data and help you achieve your revenue goals by accurately predicting your sales pipeline.
So if you’ve been spending too much time prospecting and need to shift focus to growing your revenue, then we can help. To learn more about outsourcing your lead generation, click here.
