Have you heard about RevOps?
It’s a trending term for an approach of maximising an organisation’s revenue.
Specifically, RevOps brings various business units (marketing, sales, operations, finance and more) together around one shared principle: growing revenue.
We’re not sure why we need yet another piece of business jargon for something we’ve been doing since before RevOps was a twinkle in a Gartner intern’s eye. You see maximising revenue and making your team more efficient and effective is what we do. BuddyCRM connects the various functions of your business together so everyone has the same information.
But let’s work through what RevOps is in a bit more detail.
RevOps provides a method to describe all the functions of your company (sales, marketing, and service) working in alignment and having full accountability for the success of your business.
When properly implemented in your business, RevOps helps develop new internal processes, improve client acquisition, empower client satisfaction, and unite a company culture focused on driving revenue.
The aim is that revenue isn’t an outcome of a great product or service but instead is the result of your Marketing, Sales, and Service departments acting as one united growth team. The goal of this team is to drive revenue to grow your business.
Why was the term RevOps developed?
With the increase in the use of technology in business and the adoption of software to assist in the various functions and departments of our working lives, there has initially been a silo’ed approach to success in each department. As new pieces of software and technology were developed to address tasks, analytics in each department have also become disconnected.
We’ve seen the rise of marketing technology (websites, digital advertising, email marketing, etc.) become increasingly important as traditional media and marketing tactics have declined. In tandem, a desire for efficiency as processes have become more complex is an important factor behind the RevOps approach. Lastly, customer experience has been a major pull as customers demand more connectivity and greater personalisation from their products.
Three key attributes of the RevOps model
Three attributes identify the RevOps model:
Process
The design of your Process needs to support the entire customer life cycle, from prospecting, targeting, presentation, quotes, sales, retention, customer service, and on.
Once the correct processes are in place you can begin to create a new culture in your workplace, a culture of collaboration. RevOps activates uniform processes to foster accountability and trust within your organisation. As your teams work together to convert prospects into fans, you will begin to see additional benefits such as shorter sales cycles, improved retention, and a higher volume of upsells.
Platform
Having the correct internal Platform to connect all your functions and departments is crucial. This platform will be driven by workflows that connect seamlessly across integrated systems, data and functions.
Accurate information for every department will drive your future success. This platform will provide a single source of truth within your organisation so that every team member is working with the same information from the accounts department, sales, customer service, marketing and management. Once team members know the full facts about a customer, they can identify how they can impact the sales and revenue pipeline.
You can consider BuddyCRM to be a platform that can connect all your departments together and provide a single source of truth for each customer.
People
The last attribute is People. The are responsible for developing and manager your processes and platform. You may assign a specific RevOps team here or task specific members within departments for revenue operations.
6 organising elements of the RevOps model
The RevOps model (based on Gartner’s original document) is organised into the following elements:
- Strategy. A plan that aligns with revenue objectives to organise and mobilise the revenue organisation
- Process. Design, management and tracking of end-to-end revenue processes
- Workflow. Manual and automated processes required to create an interconnected revenue process
- Data. Data needed to manage and optimise end-to-end revenue processes
- Analysis. Agreed-upon activities to monitor and measure across the revenue life cycle
- Technology. Technology stack required for RevOps execution
Key metrics to use in RevOps
The primary goal for Revenue Operations is to drive predictable revenue—that means closed deals for sales, pipeline growth for marketing and margin retention for post-sales. Here are a few key metrics and KPIs that RevOps is accountable for:
- sales cycle time – the time it takes from the first touch with a prospect to closing the deal.
- win rates – the proportion of sales opportunities that are converted into customers.
- cost of customer acquisition – the total cost of winning a new customer (this metric can include lead generation costs, salaries, equipment and more).
- annual recurring revenue – the revenue coming into your business from subscriptions or contracts, calculated over the course of a year.
- renewals and upsells – the amount of revenue you make from selling new products to existing customers, or getting them to commit to a new contract or subscription.
- customer churn – the proportion of customers you lose across a specific time period.
- customer lifetime value – the amount of revenue you can expect from a customer during the entirety of your relationship with them.
- forecast accuracy – a calculation of how predictable your revenue is, usually expressed as a percentage.
- pipeline velocity – the speed that leads move through each stage of your revenue pipeline.
You can measure all of these within your chosen platform. ie. BuddyCRM.
How the CRM fits into RevOps
The number one tool in RevOps is your company’s CRM. You need to make sure that your CRM provides all the capabilities you need to make your revenue operations strategy a success, including:
- Contact and activity tracking – so you know where each prospect and customer is in their buyer’s journey.
- Revenue forecasting – the ability to harness current and historical data to estimate what will happen in the future.
- Revenue analytics – gathering information by observing workflows, then reporting on their strengths and weaknesses.
- Automated workflows – use automation to ensure that leads and follow-ups are never missed, reports are scheduled, emails are sent out at specific times, tasks and events are calendarised and much more.
- Individual account dashboards – every lead and customer must have their own section within your CRM, with full visibility for all revenue-generating departments.
- Data aggregation from third-parties – your CRM can transfer data from other sales platforms, ensuring your reps can have all the essential information they need at their fingertips.
What next?
At BuddyCRM, we’ve developed an approach we use with all our customers to help maximise revenue in their business. The hundreds of conversations we’ve had with businesses around the UK and beyond have enabled us to develop a system that will work for all.
Recently, we’ve gathered these conversations together and produced The Profit Plan, an ebook you can download today and begin to implement its approach in your business. Specifically, it contains five tactics that will begin your start to a full RevOps approach in your business.
