Getting Good at RevOps

RevOps as a Differentiator

How do you thrive during a recession?  A recession, or any contraction in the economy, is an opportunity to outperform your competitors.  You are forced to do more with less.  The best earn more market share.  The worst go bankrupt. 

To do this, you have to answer questions such as, “How will I become more efficient in terms of time, volume, and conversion?”  “How do I pivot better and iterate faster than my competitors?” “How will I exit this stronger?”  The answer:  RevOps.  But, more importantly, RevOps done right.  It won't happen overnight, and there will be failures along the way, but RevOps done right will set your products, services, and brands apart from your competitors.  You will thrive, not just survive.

A Good RevOps Definition

Most RevOps definitions are too heady, too theoretical, and/or too conceptual.  Here’s what RevOps is, and is not:  RevOps is not a methodology or a centralized department.  RevOps is, very simply, the science of sustainable revenue growth.  It is the collection, synthesization, and dissemination of revenue data information. 

Broken down further, driving revenue is a product of connected events that work in tandem across several departments.  Your ability to track conversions and time between key events dictates your ability to test, pivot, and iterate.  Silos greatly hinder this process and affect your ability to track, measure, and manage.  What you don’t track, you can’t measure.  What you can’t measure, you can’t manage.  What you don’t manage…fails.  

How to do RevOps: Collection

If RevOps is the collection, synthesization, and dissemination of revenue data (and it is), then it stands to reason that the collection stage is perhaps the most important one.  Without proper collection there can be no proper synthesization, and, subsequently, no proper dissemination.  Determining, and properly implementing RevOps collection mechanisms are key.

You Should 

Track all marketing operations activity in a CRM (your single source of truth)

Why? 

You can manage interactions and relationships with customers by organizing data in a centralized, easily accessible database. This makes it easy for sales reps to find the information they need to keep every interaction with a customer meaningful and personalized. Maintaining data quality is crucial here to ensure you are working with high-quality data.

You Should  

Track all sales ops activity in a CRM and/or sales operations platform 

Why? 

You can predict future revenue based on the stage and likelihood-to-close deals in your pipeline and make effective use of your sales team’s time by automating workflows with personalized outreach based on custom lead-scoring data. Additionally, you can keep track of the health of each prospect as they move through the sales process, and identify bottlenecks in your sales funnel. Implementing duplicate management strategies helps in avoiding duplicate records which can lead to data quality issues.

You Should  

Track all customer success activity in a CRM

Why? 

You can measure the following customer success team metrics: customer health score, net promoter score, qualitative customer feedback, customer churn rate, monthly recurring revenue, customer lifetime value, customer retention cost, first contact resolution rate, customer satisfaction score, and renewal rate. Ensuring good data quality by addressing data validation through validation rules for fields such as email address and phone number helps in maintaining accurate metrics.

How to do RevOps:  Synthesization

Now you have your data, but what do you do with it?  You need to put it together and make it mean something.  Collecting data without properly synthesizing it is like ordering an expensive steak from a steakhouse and then throwing it on the floor.  Great execution in step 1 can be canceled out by poor execution in step 2. 

You Should 

Use automation to combine your data

Why? 

It will reduce human error and make the entirety of the process much more efficient. Lead scoring, deal scoring, customer health score, and deal velocity are all examples of areas which benefit from an automated process. Automation helps in addressing poor data quality by ensuring consistent and high-quality data across processes.

You Should  

Create unified data warehouses across all customer databases

Why? 

Salespeople can utilize the data warehouse to compare their store’s performance based on consolidated data across the company. A unified data warehouse has the ability to refine data, eliminating redundant information, while increasing overall data quality. Data manipulation is kept to a minimum. This ongoing process of consolidating and refining data is part of effective data management.

How to do RevOps: Dissemination

When you are able to identify the outcomes of sharing your data, you gain a much clearer picture of the overall health of your company.  In this stage, you can take notice of areas of weakness and determine the best course to correct them.

You Should  

Identify revenue leakage

Why? 

You need to be aware of any unintended or unnoticed loss of revenue. This can help you decide if you are underbilling or relying too heavily on manual processing. Addressing data governance and regular data driven audits can help identify and rectify instances of bad data contributing to revenue leakage.

You Should 

Report on company health metrics

Why? 

You can calculate the total cost of sales and marketing operations needed to convince a customer to buy a product or service, predict the net profit attributed to an ongoing relationship between customer and product, and determine the portion of a company's revenue that is expected to continue in the future. This process relies heavily on data management practices to ensure reports are based on high-quality data.

You Should 

Visualize your data performance

Why?  

So that you can see patterns and trends, distill your data, emphasize your points to your stakeholders, and guide your strategy. Effective visualization helps highlight areas where business process improvements can be made and aids in maintaining data quality throughout the organization.

RevOps done right, with a focus on data quality, can set your products, services, and brands apart from your competitors. You will thrive, not just survive, as you enhance the customer journey, improve customer experience, and grow revenue.