How to Implement RevOps

What Is a RevOps Strategy?

RevOps, short for “revenue operations,” is an organizational strategy designed to operationalize revenue. It aligns all of your customer-facing departments (marketing, sales, customer service, even finance) around one common revenue goal. 

It’s similar to Sales Ops, Marketing Ops, and most of the other “Ops” you’ve heard about — but there’s one key differentiating factor that makes a RevOps strategy especially powerful: all the “Ops” are in one place, which means they’re aligned for growth.

Need a little more clarity from that definition? Check out this previous post, What is RevOps?,  where our team dives more into specifics.

What Are the Key Components of a RevOps Strategy?

Believe it or not, there are only three fundamental components of a RevOps strategy: process, platform, and people – otherwise known as the three P’s. Let's take a look at each in more depth.

 #1. Process

For your business to achieve the strategic growth you want, you need to have the right processes in place. A good place to start is with your company’s goals. Then try to break those goals into smaller processes with simple, actionable, and clearly outlined steps.

Repeatable processes help your customers know what to expect, but they're also crucial for your team. With transparent processes in place, your team can quickly tell when they are doing well and where they might be off track. Your processes act as a control against which you can measure your data. 

Here’s an example:

Service-level agreements (SLAs) between sales and marketing teams should specify what they would want from the other department to assist them meet their goals. Marketing, for example, may want weekly pipeline status updates from Sales so that marketers can alter their lead-generation initiatives accordingly.

The more comfortable your team is with your processes, the more benefits you'll see. Better customer retention, a shorter sales cycle, and more upsells are all great signs that RevOps is working for you.

#2. Platform

RevOps strategy, like most other successful business strategies, is based on data. For RevOps to work, you need to have a single source of truth that can help you collect your data and figure out precisely what that data means. This is usually a CRM, like HubSpot or Salesforce, for most companies.

Whether you choose one of these options or something else, your solution should be able to track all of your company's marketing, sales, customer service, and financial data, as well as display it in a way that’s easy for your team to understand. Any member of your team should be able to sign in and see how their work affects your business’ pipeline, performance, and growth.

#3. People

Your team is the most important part of your RevOps strategy.

Every single team member is vital in implementing and maintaining a successful RevOps strategy. However, having people on your team who are focused solely on RevOps is also essential. If you work for a larger organization, that might be a RevOps team. If you have a small business, having a few people who can divide RevOps tasks among the rest of the team is a good idea.

4 Steps to RevOps Implementation

Now that you understand what RevOps entails, it’s time to actually do the work. 

Let’s break RevOps implementation down into four steps: alignment, goal-setting, communication cadence, and continuous improvement.

Step #1: Alignment

As mentioned above, RevOps is all about alignment. Your marketing, sales, service, and operations teams should be aligned around business goals. 

• Sales will be successful if they can identify the right customers for your products.
• Marketing needs to ensure that customers are aware of the product or service and keep it top of mind.
• Service must focus on providing excellent customer service so customers feel happy about choosing your product or service.
• Operations need to ensure you have the tools, systems, and resources required to make the above happen.

By developing alignment and feedback loops between sales, marketing, service, and operations teams, you have the potential to propel revenue generation for your company.

Step #2: Goal Setting

Performance metrics can help keep your RevOps team and organization on target, but creating and tracking them is a lot of work. This is why it's more important than ever to use the right metrics and the right approach to defining and measuring success.

Service-level agreements are a good way to get your sales and marketing goals to work together. These SLAs are great tools for laying out your company's goals and reaching an agreement between the marketing and sales teams. It specifies the metric used to assess the quality of service delivered to clients.

Setting goals is crucial for a successful RevOps implementation, not just at the start but throughout your company's lifespan. RevOps is a key part of a complex puzzle that, when functioning well, distinguishes high-performing organizations from average ones.

In addition to using RevOps to measure past performance, setting goals also enhances future outcomes by guiding employees to set realistic objectives and motivating them to achieve those expectations.

Step #3: Communication Cadence

Opportunities will be lost and business growth will be stifled unless an internal RevOps team communicates and meets on a regular basis. RevOps meetings not only guarantee that transparency and visibility flow easily across all departments, but also that each team understands how they can assist each other in achieving the revenue growth everyone desires.

However, time wasted in unnecessary or unproductive meetings adds up, resulting in lower productivity and hindered corporate growth. That’s why it’s vital to find a happy medium. Design a meeting cadence that maximizes your team’s limited time by keeping everyone focused on information and activities that drive revenue.

Step #4: Continuous Improvement

When it comes to a RevOps strategy, there are key performance indicators (KPIs) to consider. You should have established which are most important to your business in Step #2: Goal Setting. Now it’s time to analyze tracked data and see where there’s room for improvement.

• Is the pipeline's pace too slow? You may need to eliminate friction in your quote send and approval process.
• Is your renewal rate low? Upsell data may need to be shared with Sales earlier in the process.
• Is your NPS score not where it needs to be? Perhaps there should be more emphasis on client satisfaction at the beginning of the sales process.

These are only a few examples but they illustrate how data points are more than cold, hard numbers. Instead, they provide insights into how a company may enhance the customer experience by adjusting the way it interacts with a customer.

RevOps isn’t a “set it and forget it” strategy. It’s an ongoing cycle of tracking, analyzing, and problem solving. This makes RevOps a powerful tactic for your organization.

3 Tips for Successful RevOps Implementation

Implementing RevOps can be challenging, but with the right approach, it can drive significant growth and efficiency for your organization. Here are three additional tips to overcome challenges you might encounter: 

• Establish Clear Documentation: Ensure every process, metric, and strategy is well-documented to maintain consistency and transparency across departments. Assign someone on your team to manage the documentation. 
• Leverage the Right Tools: Invest in robust RevOps platforms that integrate seamlessly with your existing CRM, marketing automation, and analytics tools. We recommend HubSpot, but there are plenty of options out there. 
• Focus on Data Quality: Implement strict data governance practices to maintain accurate and up-to-date information, which is crucial for making informed decisions and driving strategy.

Addressing these areas will put you well on your way to a successful RevOps implementation that can streamline operations and boost revenue growth.

What If Your RevOps Strategy Doesn't Work as Expected?

When implementing a new process, it can be difficult to predict what will happen, and it can be easy to abandon your efforts if you don’t see results right away. 

Don’t get discouraged! It’s important to understand that strategies like RevOps take a while to settle in and gain traction. Your team isn’t going to be experts on this right away. You’ll need to invest in the necessary time and tools. 

On average, it can take 6 to 12 months to start seeing the results you’re after. Even after that, there will always be changes to the industry or your company that require you to take a step back and realign.

What’s important is that you remain patient and focused on the goals in front of you. It’s paid off for many organizations already and could for you, too.

Need Help RevOps Implementation? Let's Talk!

If you're looking to get started with a RevOps implementation, we recommend beginning with a solid strategy—and Evenbound is here to help. If your business doesn’t have a sales or marketing plan in place, we’ll create one that aligns with your goals. That’s one key step in the RevOps process we can handle for you!