What are the benefits of RevOps, or Revenue Operations to your business?  It is essentially an evolution of sales, be we think of it as a more holistic approach. It’s about aligning your commercial teams to reduce duplication across the business. Everyone pulls in the same direction while having transparency over decisive aspects like metrics, data and targets. Running a successful business takes a collaborative effort, and RevOps helps unite everyone to build an effective strategy. Here, we look at how RevOps works and what it can do for startups. 

What is RevOps?

RevOps is how B2B businesses use their commercial teams. It’s designed to break down the silos between critical departments, such as sales, marketing, customer success and even finance, to create a unified commercial engine. RevOps is responsible for software, systems, processes and data. 

All of this means you can make pricing decisions for better conversions and margins while reducing gaps in revenue. It also allows you to implement customer data to identify new revenue opportunities for the business.

What are the benefits of RevOps?

Implementing a RevOps strategy in your startup has both internal and external benefits. Internally, you can use data more efficiently to make smarter business decisions as there is less friction between the teams involved. Everything is coordinated and collaborative for smarter alignment. 

Externally, your client base experiences a more fluid and seamless customer journey. There is a consistent message in your marketing and sales, which removes confusion. This leads to a better outcome with your target audience and increases the chance of ramping up sales volumes. 

Is RevOps just another buzzword?

It’s easy to be cynical about new methods, especially when they sound like a marketing buzzword. However, RevOps is no fad, and it’s emerged because businesses have access to much higher volumes of data than they did previously. 

It’s now possible for teams to understand what works and what doesn’t across marketing and sales. The fundamentals of how businesses attract customers haven’t changed, per se. But there’s now more clarity, and everything is measurable. That leads to a more transparent approach. 

How is a RevOps team structured?

RevOps ultimately sits alongside the Chief Revenue Officer or Chief Financial Officer rather than replacing them outright. It requires visibility, meaning the person tasked with leading the role should be across many departments, such as marketing, sales, customer success, talent and finance. 

There’s also a need for the right tools, which help with data analysis and data-led decision-making. A successful RevOps setup will rely on recruitment, retention and the empowerment of top-level talent, meaning there’s a strong focus on people. 

What is the top RevOps skillset?

As well as having a strong focus on people, anyone operating in RevOps will need to display a varied set of skills. These include being a strategic thinker and having the ability to formulate plans and proposals designed to deliver the company’s targets. 

You’ll also need to be a data person, with everything driven by data and metrics. High-performing RevOps people are keen problem solvers and can spot and solve obstacles that stop teams from generating revenue. 

Beyond that, you can expect someone who is an excellent communicator, a true believer in teamwork and collaboration, technically-minded and customer-focused. Again, many aspects go into delivering RevOps successfully. It’s a case of having your hands across the business. 

What tools are required for RevOps

We’ve already talked about the tools needed for RevOps, but what does that look like in real life? It starts with a CRM, which must provide all the capabilities required to succeed in a revenue operations strategy. The key requirements of your CRM include:

• Contact and activity tracking allows you to know where each prospect and customer sits in the buyer journey
• Revenue analytics so you can harness current and historical data and make future predictions
• Revenue forecasting collects information by observing workflows and reporting on their strengths and weaknesses
• Individual account dashboards, so every lead and customer has its own section within the CRM
• AI-powered analytics and insights to manage and manipulate large data sets
• Third-party integration with marketing automation and sales enablement platforms

With these tools in place, you stand the best chance of success with RevOps and can focus on increasing your bottom lines and improving every aspect of your startup for a leaner, tighter and winning setup. 

The RevOps way

So, should you move to a revenue operations model? Absolutely, and it doesn’t need to look the same across every business. Having a single revenue strategy across sales, marketing and customer success underpins the foundation of your startup and will help you scale faster.