top of page
Writer's pictureDimitris Adamidis

Revenue Operations: What is it?

Updated: Mar 17


Revenue Operations: What is it?
Revenue Operations: What is it?

A Revenue Operations approach to business involves a symbiotic relationship between three parts of your business: 1) sales, 2) marketing, and 3) customer relations. These three components function to approach business with the customer’s life cycle in mind. A successful revenue operation system focuses on key metrics that show the ability to attract and retain customers. Some metrics critical to the success of a revenue operations model include the length of a sales life cycle, the cost of customer conversion, and the lifetime value of customers, among other factors.

If Revenue Operation systems aim to be successful, those responsible for it must have a different view of business and values, creating a positive customer experience. By focusing on the customer experience, the lifecycle of a client is extended, and the conversion cost decreases. This yields better overall returns. Creating a customer experience starts by cultivating a community of employees invested in your business's success. Any team that aims to achieve goals must communicate effectively and collaborate on achieving goals. Basing those goals on information collected from staff and customers helps shape and continuously improve that experience.

Tapping into the staff as a resource and valuing data-driven teamwork extends the life cycle of each customer as positive experiences impact our decision-making. Revenue operations rely on a business’s biggest asset, its staff. This framework works because it fosters the kind of staff aligned and invested in achieving shared business and revenue goals. As such, the staff becomes engaged and motivated to work collaboratively to accomplish these milestones.

Teams and individuals cannot be successful if you cannot translate that into financial terms. EVERY small company planning its exit strategy has to go through investor scrutiny that goes beyond the standard, institutional verification (e.g., SEC). This is a traditional way to follow the segregation of duties between teams. Yes, it's more difficult to find the right people for those roles (both finance that embraces this idea and RevOps that can see beyond operational activities, and understand finance), but it pays off. Everything sales or marketing does ends in financial statements. It's the sensitivity that companies must develop in order to accelerate their exit strategy, be financially literate, and avoid overspending.

Aligning teams can be achieved by developing and encouraging a workforce that has collaboration as a central value in how work is valued and measured. Part of developing this kind of work environment is partially a sociocultural exercise. Your role starts by cultivating a working environment with collaboration as a founding principle. By valuing your team, you can provide them with the support needed to succeed, arming your team with tools, resources, and reliable data will shape their experience and, thus, the experience they provide.

Valuing your team also means developing a quality team by finding people with the right skills and putting them in a position to succeed. The main idea is to focus on understanding the dependencies, impact, and priorities between those experiences candidates bring to RevOps. Thinking about their experiences and how they uniquely contribute to the operations model is imperative to determine that your company and your team run optimally and to the best of their abilities and skills.

While collaboration helps the revenue operations model, it is not the only thing that matters. Having data-driven decision-making in place, focusing on practical and relevant marketing strategies, and emphasizing customer operations. Many other models for business operations may work for your business, but a revenue operations model ensures a longer customer life cycle. This is achieved by focusing on using strategy, technology, process optimization initiatives, and the use of data for goal development and achievement.


Why Revenue Operations?

It is a growth sector. As of 2018, reports show a 33 percent growth in hiring in the realm of revenue operations. Why? Millennials and the Gen-Z population and the digital world. These populations, which are often a source of mystery, couldn't be more transparent about their consumer behavior. There is a clear relationship between digital media, advertising, and sales. Companies are shifting from classic print or commercial advertising toward different types of advertising on social media platforms and even event/experience-based marketing using events or influencers.

This shift is why revenue operations is a growth area. Capturing the generation's buying power requires a preoccupation with the user experience, from first impressions to sales. Revenue operations afford business owners an approach with built support for this target population. Moreover, collaborative environments tend to attract those with similar values, thus reinforcing that your staff is your most significant resource. Overall, the point of revenue operations as a business model is to build a system that combines sales, marketing, and customer experience to optimize and hack your business for success.

20 views0 comments

Comments


bottom of page