Revenue Operations, or RevOps as it’s commonly known, is a relatively up and coming strategy for businesses aiming to harmonize their core operational functions—sales, marketing, and customer success—into a singular, cohesive framework.
This approach, designed to break down traditional silos and unite teams and goals, promises a more integrated and efficient pathway to driving growth and enhancing the customer experience. A good example of a company doing this well is Salesforce.
Salesforce has been paving the way for this for many years, with the Customer 360. They have designed Salesforce to work seamlessly across marketing, sales and customer service/success to ensure customers are not only happy, but so happy that they buy even more Salesforce products and stay customers for years or decades even.
As RevOps gains prominence, it also generates a wide array of questions and uncertainties among business leaders unfamiliar with its scope and potential impact. As with any new concept, there are always misconceptions about its application and benefits, underscoring the need for a deeper exploration of RevOps principles.
What exactly is RevOps?
RevOps goes beyond being a trendy buzzword. It represents an intentional strategy to align key revenue-generating functions—sales, marketing, and customer service/success—within an organization. This does not mean only uniting the teams through common goals and aligned objectives, but through systems and most importantly, good quality data.
This alignment is pivotal, encouraging a collaborative environment that removes traditional departmental barriers.
When customers have a seamless experience, they are more likely to purchase from your company again and again. Think about how the best brands in the world cultivate their clientele. They ensure a seamless experience from start to finish. This can be from something as simple as the brand of tea you buy at the grocery store, to purchasing a luxury car, like a Ferrari.
While the execution is different, the underlying process is the same. Ensure the customer is happy with their purchase, and do everything you can to ensure they purchase from you again and again.
RevOps is most commonly thought of as being used by B2B tech companies, but it can be employed by any company that sells something, which is the vast majority of companies. The implementation may be slightly different across industries, but the objective is clear: streamline processes across the board to not only accelerate growth but also to create a customer experience that is fluid and consistent, reflecting the collective efforts of every department involved.
2. How does RevOps differ from traditional practices?
Traditional operations often segment sales, marketing, and customer success into separate groups, each pursuing its own objectives and metrics.
This division can create inefficiencies, miscommunication, and a disjointed experience for customers.
By contrast, RevOps integrates these key areas, creating a unified strategy that enhances operational efficiency and ensures a consistent customer journey. By aligning goals and facilitating seamless data sharing across departments, RevOps addresses the pitfalls of a compartmentalized approach, promising a more cohesive operational framework.
A traditional approach might look something like this:
Marketing has their own set of goals - they invest in and attend events which may or may not have the ideal customer profile in attendance, but they get a lot of “leads” to fulfill their goals.
Sales are expected to hit an ever increasing number each quarter and to do so, they do whatever they have to to close deals, even if that means making promises they can’t keep. They’re only interested in the new business number, churn is customer successes problem!
Customer success are so beaten down by unhappy customers that the team is constantly leaving and being replaced, leading to further unhappy customers and unhappy team members too. Morale is low and churn is high - both internally and externally.
You can see how traditional ways of working can lead to revenue loss and unhappy customers.
Now, let’s look at an approach designed by a RevOps team:
Marketing reviews the pipeline in depth with Sales leaders to understand where there are gaps in coverage. Perhaps webinars have been really successful in one region but not another, so the team invests in some in-person events in that region to bolster the pipeline.
Sales can more easily convert the leads that come from marketing as they are targeting the ideal customer profile and they are getting better use from the product, reducing risk of churn.
Since the customer success team are working with customers who love the product, they’re able to actually cross-sell/up-sell customers, rather than constantly worry about churn.
This holistic approach ensures that strategies are not only aligned but also executed with a comprehensive understanding of the entire customer lifecycle. As a result, businesses can achieve greater operational teamwork, leading to improved customer satisfaction, increased revenue, and enhanced overall business growth.
3. Isn't RevOps just another term for Sales Ops?
The misconception that RevOps is merely an extension of sales operations overlooks the holistic nature of this strategic approach.
While sales operations are crucial, they focus on streamlining sales processes and enhancing team performance, rather than RevOps which broadens this scope significantly. It integrates marketing and customer success, ensuring a unified strategy across all revenue-generating activities.
Sales operations teams are often responsible for the data within sales systems like the CRM, but they’re also usually the back end team that processes sales orders once deals are closed. This is crucial for customer happiness and for revenue growth!
This shift from optimizing individual segments to harmonizing the entire operational spectrum marks the core difference between the two. Sales Operations still provide immense value to organizations, and usually sit under the larger umbrella of Revenue Operations.
RevOps is about crafting a seamless experience for the customer at every touchpoint, from initial engagement through to post-sale support, thereby driving growth and operational efficiency in a way that sales operations alone cannot achieve.
4. Will implementing RevOps be disruptive to my current operations?
Implementing RevOps will introduce change, there is no getting around that fact. While these changes may initially seem disruptive to established operations, the end result will be worth the minor discomfort during the initial implementation phase.
The biggest disruption will be if you are implementing a new, or migrating from an existing CRM system. CRM projects typically involve multiple stakeholders, numerous requirements based on business needs, and what may seem like endless email threads. The improvements gained by implementing a CRM for the first time, or by migrating from a legacy system to a more modern solution like Salesforce or Hubspot, far outweigh the discomfort associated with doing a CRM project.
Other disruptions could include the reorganization of internal teams, the addition or removal of some job roles, changes to compensation plans for sales reps to drive growth, and with all of these changes, implementing systems that support these new internal processes.
Despite these possible disruptions to the organization, implementing a RevOps strategy doesn’t have to be painful. Start by getting your leaders on board with the strategy before disseminating the information across the wider organization. This will ensure leadership is bought in and will support the strategy within each of their teams. It also ensures they will assign resources when required to various projects that will support the RevOps strategy.
5. How can I get started with RevOps?
So we now know what RevOps is, how it differs from traditional practices and sales operations, as well as the challenges you may face. Finally, we can learn how to implement RevOps effectively.
Firstly, a commitment to transformative change is required. You must be prepared to adopt a culture rooted in collaboration.
The initial step is a comprehensive review of your existing operations to pinpoint inefficiencies and areas where tighter alignment can catalyze growth. This audit sets the stage for the creation of unified objectives and key performance indicators that encapsulate the shared vision of sales, marketing, and customer success teams. Oftentimes it’s useful to engage a third party in this process, not only for their expertise, but also for fresh eyes on your processes. Organizations tend to use the same process for decades, not realizing there are other ways of working being adopted with great success in other organizations.
The next step is to select and implement a tech stack designed to streamline communication and enable the seamless exchange of data between departments. Such tools, such as CRM, Marketing Automation, and other tools, are pivotal in building a framework where information flows freely, supporting data-driven decision-making.
Lastly, investing in the development and continuous education of your teams is essential. Providing them with the necessary training and resources prepares them to excel within a RevOps framework, ensuring they have the skills and knowledge to leverage new tools and methodologies effectively.
By following these steps you can start to benefit from a cohesive RevOps strategy that will fuel revenue growth and your organization for years to come.
Your Journey with Think RevOps
Starting your RevOps journey is a significant step, but with ThinkRevOps, you have a partner every step of the way.
Our team specializes in guiding businesses through the intricacies of adopting RevOps, from aligning your teams to integrating the right technologies and fostering a culture of collaboration.
We provide personalized strategies that address your unique challenges, making the shift towards a more integrated, efficient operation smooth and effective.
With ThinkRevOps, transitioning to a system that emphasizes unity and customer focus becomes less daunting and more a path to transformative success.
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