What is Revenue Operations?
Do you ever wonder what your company would look like if every employee lived in harmony with one another? Friction-less communication and zero ego to get in the way?Though it likely won’t look like rainbows and butterflies and daisy-chain crowns, there is a groundbreaking strategy out there that’s designed solely to help your teams coexist and work towards one unified goal.
Revenue operations (RevOps) is a function within B2B organizations that integrates the marketing, sales, and service departments to provide a clearer, overarching view of your business to administration and management.
In other words, it’s a strategy designed to increase revenue by bringing different departments together with a unified approach: revenue targets.
Day-to-day tasks still remain within each individual department, yes. But by combining the creativity of the marketing team, the passion and persistence of your sales team, and the support and strategy of your customer service team, you optimize your ability to generate revenue and enhance the customer journey along the way.
So what does it take to make sure your RevOps team is set up for success? It may mean sharing tools—and even people—across multiple teams. Below, we’ve shared our starter-kit on how to equip your RevOps team for success, and boost revenue.
1. Understand your why.
Businesses everywhere are becoming more complex as we navigate the constant shifts in customers’ needs at any given time. It’s hard to keep up with!
One of the primary reasons companies utilize a RevOps team is to lean into the already present dependencies that exist between the sales, marketing, and services teams.
Why not focus on collaboration when these teams already share business data and (increasingly) software? It means easier internal communication. Plus, when new tools are implemented, the shifts will be smoother.
Understanding and reinforcing your why to the teams involved will make for better buy-in all around.
2. Educate everyone on the end-goal.
So, what is the end goal here? When your revenue-generating teams exist independently, they set their own goals. But now that RevOps has them feeling like one big happy family, there are three primary goals:
- Price for better conversion
- Reduce revenue leakage
- Identify new revenue opportunities by using customer data
Overall, this means driving predictable revenue. Teach your team to stop the finger pointing, the “lone-wolfing,” the wasted time and the disconnect from the data.
RevOps' goal is to unify all teams through transparency, leading to predictable sales growth and faster sales cycles.
3. Establish the structure of your team.
This setup will depend largely on the size and needs of your business. But no need to get your arts and crafts scissors out for this one… stick to a formula that looks something like this:
- Head of RevOps—reports directly to the CRO
- Sales Operations Manager—oversees ops for the sales team
- Marketing Operations Manager—oversees ops for the marketing team
- Customer Success Operations Manager—oversees ops for the customer service team
- Systems Operating Manager—oversees data and technology
Below each manager, you’ll benefit from having analysts in each area to spot and solve problems as they arise. An analyst's job is an important one, as they review vast amounts of data in partnership with their department.
4. Develop a wide range of skills.
You want to be top-notch? In order to be successful in the world of RevOps, spice up your skill set to include the following:
- Teamwork: RevOps simply cannot be a silo. It requires close communication with internal departments, and the best of them work closely beside managers in order to bring change.
- Problem-solving: A key component of RevOps is spotting problems in the revenue-generating system and forming a solution.
- Technically-equipped: There is complex software and systems in place that stretch across all departments that often require coding.
- Customer-focused: Even if individuals on your team don’t interact with customers directly, they should always have the customer’s needs in their mind. Without a customer, there is no revenue.
- Communication: The ability to clearly communicate to internal stakeholders that the changes your team is making will benefit the company in the long run.
5. Recognize the benefits of a strong RevOps team.
To put it simply: companies who align their go-to-market (GTM) functions outperform those who don’t. The top B2B companies relying on revenue ops to increase growth are experiencing some serious benefits. Businesses who incorporated RevOps more than doubled their digital marketing ROI. Further research proved that implementing revenue operations lead to:
- 10% to 20% increase in sales activity
- 10% increase in lead acceptance
- 15% to 20% increase in internal customer satisfaction
- 30% reduction in GTM expenses.
Tighter alignment between departments means more profit, and exponentially faster growth. Win, win.
6. Establish your RevOps’ responsibilities.
Think of it as a chores list, except hopefully a bit more exciting. Have your team focus on delivering the following checklist:
- Enablement: Remove any obstacles or setbacks keeping sales, marketing, or customer service from generating revenue.
Operation management: Seek ways to improve the current policies and business processes, always assessing the current operations.
Insights: Draw up reports that offer a wide spectrum of data sources and present insight into improving overall engagement across departments. - Tech: Maintain software across all revenue-generating departments.
- Training & Development: Provide regular training to all employees on how to use new systems and processes.
- Regulation: Ensure that every policy and procedure meets national and international standards.
Set your revenue operations team up for success.
Statistics prove that a company that incorporates revenue operations has 19% faster growth, and 15% more profits.
Want to take advantage of these incredible numbers? Ensure that when you implement RevOps into your business plan, you do it the right way.
Not sure where to start? When you need a unified marketing approach, Vye Agency can help.
