We've spoken a lot about what RevOps is and what implementing a RevOps structure could do for your business. From growth acceleration and increased profitability to an overall improved and more effective customer experience, we know that revenue operations can fuel growth for your business and influence your revenue.
But, how do you actually get started implementing RevOps?
We've pulled together the six key principles of revenue operations so you can get started making positive changes for your business.
Data is at the core of all your business activities and practices. Sales need good, healthy data to sell to the right people at the right time; marketing need visibility over the volume and quality of leads they're bringing in; and customer success need to have up-to-date data in order to spot potential upsell opportunities and stay on track with client journeys.
If you want your teams to be aligned, you need to start with your data. Each function needs to be able to see the same data, in the same way, to truly understand and respond to the needs of the customer.
RevOps allows you to focus on your data by connecting your tech stacks and aligning your platforms for a more consistent and unified view across your business.
Your customer isn't thinking about who it is that's looking after them. They aren't thinking about whether it's sales, marketing or customer success that should be giving them a seamless experience. They're just thinking about the journey they're going on and the experience they're getting from your brand.
So, if your customer isn't thinking about your business in siloed functions, then why are you?
Customers now have more choice than ever before making a seamless experience an important differentiating factor. The key to creating an excellent customer experience is to utilise all of your resources across marketing, sales, customer success and operations to ensure that every touchpoint is human and effortless.
Revenue operations naturally bring all these elements together making it easier to deliver that all-important customer experience.
Whatever part of the business you're in, measuring effectiveness with key performance indicators and reporting on your progress is integral in encouraging growth. When it comes to RevOps, there are three main KPIs that you should be paying attention to:
1. Customer churnThis metric can be a scary one that no one wants to talk about but having open, honest conversations across teams is the only way to improve it.
2. Revenue per employeeHow much revenue does your business bring in per employee? Being aware of this number and talking about it regularly can help you set better goals and plan for business growth.
3. Account relationship scoreStrong relationships drive revenue. It's important to understand each customer relationship on an individual level so your go-to-market teams can approach and deal with them in the right way.
Keeping on top of these KPIs with regular check-ins and clear goals means you'll be able to reduce your churn rate, increase your revenue and improve your account retention.
To be truly successful with RevOps, it's important to invest in a tool kit that connects your current tools, analyses and cleans customer data, and automates all major business processes.
If you have a bunch of different tools for different departments that don't work well together, your data, processes and people are never going to be aligned. And, as we know, if your business isn't aligned, it's your customer's experience that will suffer.
One way to ensure your tech stack is setting you up to be successful is to invest in an all-in-one CRM platform such as HubSpot. Their complete toolkit incorporates marketing, sales, service and operations bringing together all customer data in one place resulting in a business that's more efficient, agile and aligned making you better able to deliver a frictionless customer experience.
Integrations are also key. Connectivity is a core part of implementing a RevOps structure and integrations give you the ability to connect and align your data across all of your tech stack helping you discover and connect the tools you need to be able to grow your business.
Being successful as a business and continuing to grow all comes down to one thing. The people. The people that make up your team are responsible for the experience the customer receives at every touch-point from marketing to sales to service. They're responsible for delivering value and, in-turn, building the company's reputation.
At its core, RevOps focuses on your people by aligning your teams around single goals and targets.
So if it's the people that are so important in the growth of your business, you should be taking the time to make sure they have everything they need to be the best and most efficient versions of themselves. Focus on personal development, training and coaching to consistently upskill your team - the impact it will have on your business growth will not disappoint.
Everyone knows it's important to plan. You need to set goals to work towards that everyone understands and is invested in. Having a RevOps function gives you the opportunity to align all of your goals and objectives so that each of your go-to-market teams has visibility over what they are trying to achieve and understands how their responsibilities feed into them.
More efficient planning and forecasting means you better prepare for business growth and set realistic targets in line with your growth goals. This groundwork means you're better equipped to seek out new revenue opportunities. Understanding the forecast and capacity of your business helps you differentiate between deals to find the best deals and analyse the market in a more structured way, fueling revenue growth.
Use these six pillars as a starting point and you'll be well on your way to implementing a successful RevOps structure for your business enabling you to make better decisions faster, get the right data in hand to make those decisions and build a predictable pipeline.