RevOps are Revenue Architects
RevOps can be a strategic architect of revenue growth.
As a RevOps leader and investor in start-up and growth stage companies I live and breathe revenue. My job is to ensure the predictable and scalable growth of our organization. While marketing plays a crucial role, I've learned that relying solely on their efforts is like praying for rain in a drought. If I want to consistently hit (and exceed) our ambitious sales targets, we need to take control of our own destiny.
This year, one of our portfolio companies is aiming to beat our 2025 plan by $10M in Annual Recurring Revenue. Sounds daunting? It doesn't have to be. Let's break down the math with some realistic assumptions. With an average deal size of $50,000 and a historical win rate of 25%, we need:
200 more closed-won deals: ($10M ARR / $50k ACV)
800 new opportunities: (200 deals / 25% win rate)
40 more opportunities per rep: (800 opportunities / 20 reps)
~3.3 more opportunity per month per rep: (40 opportunities / 12 months)
That's it. Just 3 more qualified opps per rep per month. Achievable, right? Absolutely. But it requires a strategic and proactive approach. Here's how we're going to make it happen:
1. We Own The Battlefield
Forget generic lead lists and vague ICPs. We're going granular. My team will laser-focus on identifying prospects that mirror our current most successful customers. This means analyzing firmographics (industry, size, location), technographics (technology stack, software usage), and even behavioral data (website visits, content downloads).
We'll leverage our CRM, sales intelligence platforms like ZoomInfo and LinkedIn Sales Navigator, and potentially even AI-powered tools to pinpoint these lookalikes. The key is not just to identify them, but to tag them with the specific successful customer they resemble.
We need richer data to pinpoint the best lookalikes. This means going beyond basic firmographics and technographics. We use tools to analyze buying signals, intent data, and even social media activity.
This provides valuable context for our sales team and paves the way for personalized outreach.
2. We Prepare Savagely
Once we've identified our high-potential prospects, we need to equip our sales team with the ammunition to engage them effectively. This means crafting compelling narratives around our existing customer successes.
I'll work closely with product marketing and customer success to distill the essence of our most impactful customer stories. For each "champion" customer with multiple lookalikes, we'll develop a concise one-paragraph summary highlighting the use case, the solution, and the quantifiable outcome.
Think of it as creating a "battle card" for each customer segment.
We are working toward a diverse library of customer stories, case studies, and testimonials, categorized by industry, use case, and buyer persona — but it all starts with one great story that ties to quantifiable business outcomes.
These stories will provide our reps with concrete examples and proven results to leverage in their conversations, making their outreach far more relevant and persuasive.
3. We Prioritize Ruthlessly
With a treasure trove of qualified prospects and compelling customer stories, the next step is prioritization. We can't afford to have our reps chasing low-hanging fruit while high-value opportunities languish.
This might involve adjusting territory assignments within our CRM to surface these high-priority accounts at the top. Or, we might adopt a more dynamic approach, creating focused "books" of accounts specifically curated for certain reps based on their skills and experience.
The goal is to ensure that our team is always working the most promising leads, maximizing our chances of success.
4. We Care About Swimming, Not Splashing
Traditional sales metrics like calls made and emails sent can be misleading. They measure effort, not effectiveness. To drive real results, we need to shift our focus to account coverage.
How broad and deep is our engagement?
This means tracking how many of our prioritized accounts are being actively engaged, the depth and quality of that engagement, and the overall penetration within those accounts. Are we reaching the right decision-makers? Are we tailoring our messaging to their specific needs and pain points? Are we leveraging the relevant customer stories to demonstrate value?
I'll use every opportunity – 1:1 meetings, team dashboards, pipeline reviews – to reinforce this focus on account coverage. If a rep isn't consistently and effectively working these high-priority accounts, we must understand why.
RevOps often owns enablement… this is a key component of improving the power and efficiency of your revenue engine.
Closely monitor the velocity of deals through the pipeline. Identify any bottlenecks or roadblocks and take corrective action to ensure deals are progressing smoothly.
The RevOps Advantage: Orchestrating Success
This approach goes beyond traditional sales management. It's about leveraging the power of RevOps to align our processes, data, and technology to drive predictable revenue growth.
Data-Driven Decision Making: We're not relying on gut feelings or anecdotal evidence. We're using data to identify our ideal prospects, craft targeted messaging, and track our progress.
Process Optimization: We're streamlining our sales process to ensure that our reps are focused on the right activities and equipped with the right tools and resources.
Technology Enablement: We're leveraging technology to automate tasks, improve efficiency, and gain valuable insights into our sales performance.
Cross-Functional Alignment: We're breaking down silos between sales, marketing, and customer success to ensure a cohesive customer journey and a unified focus on revenue growth.
By embracing this RevOps mindset and executing this strategic plan, we're not just hoping for success – we're engineering it.
I even built a software platform called RevSystems to visualize and optimize the revenue engine, making this entire process clear and easy to navigate for revenue leaders, company executives, and revenue team members.
Check out RevSystems.
We're taking control of our pipeline, maximizing our resources, and positioning ourselves for consistent and predictable revenue growth.
And that's a much better strategy than praying for a marketing miracle.
👋 Thank you for reading Mastering Revenue Operations.
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I started this in November 2023 because revenue technology and revenue operations methodologies started evolving so rapidly I needed a focal point to coalesce ideas, outline revenue system blueprints, discuss go-to-market strategy amplified by operational alignment and logistical support, and all topics related to revenue operations.
Mastering Revenue Operations is a central hub for the intersection of strategy, technology and revenue operations. Our audience includes Fortune 500 Executives, RevOps Leaders, Venture Capitalists and Entrepreneurs.