What's the Difference Between RevOps and SalesOps?
When we talk about "operations" in the business world, most of us know we're talking about how teams within a company function. From the processes and procedures that drive daily work to what goals a team focuses on, the operations person (or team) is focused on making everything more efficient.
But, as the business world gets a bit savvier to operations, it's started creating some acronyms and methodologies around the initial idea.
This is what brought most of us to this article. We know what operations are, but maybe we're not as familiar with newer terms like "RevOps" (revenue operations) and "SalesOps" (sales operations).
In this blog, we're going to break both of them down, make it very clear what each is and can do for your company, and ultimately help you decide which — if either — is best for your company. Let's start with what you want to know first:
What's the Difference Between RevOps and SalesOps?
The biggest difference between RevOps and SalesOps is that RevOps is focused on aligning teams across the entire company, while SalesOps is focused specifically on improving how the sales team operates.
Most companies are more familiar with SalesOps because it's been around longer. It's the process of taking your sales team's current functions, and streamlining them around better processes, sales enablement training, shared revenue or sales goals, and more. RevOps functions similarly but on a much grander scale.
Rather than just optimizing how the sales team functions, RevOps works to bring traditionally siloed parts of a company — sales, marketing, customer service, and finance — together, streamlining the customer experience across the entire company and bringing all teams to work towards a few shared goals.
RevOps — The Basics
RevOps, or revenue operations, works to break down silos between departments so that all teams can come together to remove barriers to profitability. Revenue operations exist to drive revenue growth by improving a company's operational efficiency.
In English, that means that RevOps works to help your teams work together more efficiently and in a way that provides a better, more profitable service to your clients.
How does Revenue Operations work? Well, like most business strategies, it works a little differently for each company. In general, RevOps typically starts by:
- Setting shared goals for all customer-facing departments
- Getting all of those departments' data into one shared tech stack
- Identifying the areas that are blocking profitability and success
- Working together to optimize processes and procedures that remove those roadblocks
Teams Involved: Marketing, sales, finance, customer service (and more!)
Goals:
- Bringing traditionally siloed teams together under one umbrella
- Create shared KPI and revenue goals
- Connect data across all teams
- Identify revenue-driving opportunities across all areas of business function
- Identify roadblocks to those opportunities, prioritize and remove them according to the team's goals and greatest needs
Benefits:
- Breaks down silos across teams
- Creates a healthier stream of revenue that is shared across the entire company rather than by the department
- Develops a positive customer experience
The biggest benefit of RevOps? Your team is on the same page, shares data, and collaborates to find the biggest impact items that can improve customer experience and drive revenue.
The result of a healthy RevOps strategy is a more profitable company with clear processes and procedures. Not only does this deliver more revenue, but it provides a stable foundation for continued growth over time.
SalesOps — The Basics
Where RevOps focuses on streamlining operations across many teams, SalesOps is — as you might expect — centered specifically around the sales department. On a large scale, SalesOps is responsible for high-level support of the sales team.
Things like territory mapping, tech stack support, and reporting all fall under the purview of SalesOps, but it's bigger than just sales management or sales enablement. The goal of SalesOps is to create a clear, overarching vision for the direction of the sales team, so they can do what they do best: close.
How does SalesOps Work? In general, SalesOps focuses on using data analysis and sales forecasting to establish a sales strategy that removes friction for prospects and delivers higher close rates by removing roadblocks for sales reps.
- Identifying KPIs that point to the success of the sales team as a whole
- Implementing sales enablement and sales training that make it easier for reps to close more of the right deals, faster
- Optimizing the sales tech stack
- Integrating automation that allow sales reps to spend more time selling, and less time on administrative work
Teams Involved: Sales
Goals:
- Create a clear vision for the sales team
- Define a standardized sales process that supports all reps
- Set up, streamline, and optimize the sales tech stack
- Support sales enablement with training and tools for the sales team
- Eliminate customer pain points by developing a frictionless sales process
Benefits:
- Prospects experience a frictionless sales experience
- Sales reps optimize their time selling, and minimize time spent on admin work
- Sales data is streamlined and clear, offering detailed insight into wins and losses
- Sales process is easy to optimize because all reps are following the same process, and it's easy to adjust based on information received from analytics
Functional SalesOps makes the entire sales team better, and it in turn means that sales are delivering better new customers to the customer service team.
Great SalesOps means that the sales team is focusing on the best prospects, the sales process is streamlined and frictionless (for reps & prospects alike), and clear data is pointing to successes and failures as SalesOps continues to optimize the process.
Does My Company Need RevOps or SalesOps?
Both RevOps and SalesOps perform important functions for the growth of your business.
Most companies tend to start with SalesOps, as it's just one piece of the larger RevOps puzzle. With SalesOps in hand and functioning the way it's supposed to, it's easier to roll those efforts up into a larger RevOps program.
If your company is new to the idea of RevOps, SalesOps might be an easier place to start because it's smaller, more manageable, and there's a lot more tangible information out there about how to optimize one department vs. all client-facing departments.
That said, even if you opt to start with SalesOps now, RevOps should be on your radar for the company's future. In the end, it the companies that win wil be the companies that can deliver the most streamlined (and profitable) processes across all departments.
If you have more questions about RevOps or SalesOps, get in touch with the Evenbound team. We're experienced in RevOps (we're actively implementing it for our team, as well as for our clients!) and we know how to help.
