Deploying an Integrated RevOps Strategy (for startups)

What is RevOps, and what does a RevOps program actually do for growing startups?

RevOps professionals are typically both tactical & strategic contributors to any process, GTM effort, or other revenue related activities.

Sounds pretty broad right? Well that’s the point. The mandate of RevOps is similar to that of an executive who is hired to dramatically turn a business around. The objectives are the same. Identify roadblocks and bottlenecks in revenue generating processes. Typically, this includes everything that is NOT focused on product development and why things can get messy if RevOps is not working in tandem with other GTM teams.

Examples of initiatives RevOps may support or lead:

·      Sales/Marketing automation across broader customer segments as well as specific ICPs

·      Measure, review, and project performance of sales teams by ICP, segment, geo, etc.

·      Development of custom sales enablement for critical segments and accounts

·      Custom, cross-channel retargeting of prospects that have expressed interest in your company

·      Introduce scalable automation to an Account-Based marketing strategy

Depending on who else is at the company to contribute to these intiatives, sometimes revops simply supports the process. Other times, they need to do a lot of the legwork as well. That’s why they are typically both strategic and tactical.

RevOps can help:

·      Optimize conversion rates

·      Retain long-term customers

·      Win competitive prospects

·      Identity opportunities to improve underperforming GTM & Ops teams processes

By leveraging high quality customer and prospect data, revops teams deliver highly targeted content, communications, and research to a key set of accounts. While the scale and degree of targeting can vary, in general it deploying an effective RevOps program involves the following steps:

Step 1: Identify Your GTM KPIs and Current Performance

There is no way you can determine what to do without knowing what is already happening. The first step is to determine what your current growth objectives are, for both sales and marketing, and how the business is performing in relation to these objectives. What is your current overall lead to SQO ratio for all channels? What is your winrate against your top 5 competitors? Which are your highest performing, and lowest performing segments? Once you have a lay of the land, you can then determine where you want to focus your revenue optimization efforts.

Step 2: Define Relationships + Ownership of Programs and KPIs with Key Collaborators like Sales, Marketing, and CS

Often, tension can develop between newer revops teams and existing, more established sales, marketing, and CS teams. Often, the mandate of revops can involve ripping and replacing processes these teams have built, so it can feel like people are working against each other at times. To ensure this doesn’t happens. It’s critical to align early with leaders in each GTM organization and treat them as a partner rather than adversary. Success with revops usually comes with shared effort from multiple teams so finding common ground and shared business objectives is essential.

Step 3: Determine If Your Current Technology & Systems Are Sufficient to Support RevOps

This is pretty self-explanatory but can be a roadblock if your company refuses to invest in technology that you need. Things like marketing/sales automation platform, analytics tools, and anything else you might need to be highly data-driven in your efforts.

Step 4: Devise and Deploy a Multichannel Targeting Strategy For Each Segment/ICP

The hardest part of revops when it comes to the tactical work is actually deploying a scalable, multichannel targeting strategy. For each segment, ICP, and market, how are you going to send the right content, at the right time, and personalized to that account? That’s where the technology I mentioned above comes in to play. Every implementation will look different, and this step is primary reason you hire a revops professional to help your business.

Step 5: Review KPIs and Determine if Programs Are Having Their Intended Affect

Look at the initial goals you set for your program and determine if you have made measurable progress towards them. If not, reevaluate your strategy. If you have a bit, but not to the extent you’re looking for then maybe look into the execution and see if it can be improved. Revenue optimization is not something that happens overnight. It comes from strict dedication to building high quality GTM systems, data, and tools and making decisions solely based on that information rather than unverifiable opinions.

Step 6: Rinse and Repeat Steps 4/5

Personalization and targeting is an ongoing process that should constantly be revised for continued success.

And I will note that while you could get way more complicated and nuanced with revops, this framework captures the key first steps to building a revops program.

Concluding Thoughts

RevOps can mean and look like a lot of things. While this article did not intend identifying an end-all-be-all definition for the term, I hope it gave you some insight into how you can start to think about deploying a RevOps program or some of its principles at your startup. Happy startuping!