Are GTM (Go-To-Market) teams clashing over who gets credit for sales? Finding it tough to make informed, strategic decisions because your Salesforce data feels more like a maze than a goldmine? Want to dial up the personalization for your customers but feel held back by data that’s as messy as a teenager’s bedroom?

If you’re nodding along to any of these questions, it’s time to think about putting a Revenue Operations (RevOps) function in place. But where do you even start? It might seem like there’s no clear guidebook on how to build out this crucial function. But that’s where you’re in luck.

Sonar is the result of RevOps experts putting their heads together. Our team has been in the trenches with Ops teams of every shape and size, across a spectrum of industries. And while it’s true that no two RevOps setups are exactly alike, we’ve distilled our experiences into a solid framework that will set your team up for success. Keep reading to find out how.

What Is Revenue Operations?

Revenue Operations, or RevOps for short, is essentially a team that aims to align and optimize the efforts of all go-to-market functions within a company—like sales, marketing, and customer service—to pursue a singular goal of driving revenue growth. 

The core idea behind RevOps is to eliminate the traditional barriers that have historically separated these departments— encouraging a more collaborative environment. By leveraging data-driven insights, RevOps seeks to streamline processes, boost efficiency, and ultimately, enhance the customer experience.

The Evolution of RevOps

Over time, the role of RevOps has expanded significantly. Now the fastest growing role in the US, the job encompasses a broad range of responsibilities, from managing the customer lifecycle and enhancing the buyer’s journey to optimizing the tech stack used by go-to-market teams.

A critical aspect of RevOps today is its role in managing and safeguarding Salesforce data. As businesses increasingly rely on Salesforce as their customer relationship management (CRM) platform, the integration of various tools and technologies with Salesforce has introduced complex security and compliance challenges. RevOps has stepped into a pivotal role, working alongside IT leadership to ensure that data within Salesforce and its connected ecosystems is secure, compliant with regulations, and not exposing the organization to unnecessary risks.

Objectives of a RevOps Team

The overarching mission of RevOps is to act as the single source of truth for GTM counterparts. Since sales, marketing, and customer success teams have traditionally operated in isolation, RevOps was introduced to dismantle these silos and promote a culture of collaboration.

By adopting a holistic view of the customer lifecycle, RevOps identifies opportunities to enhance the effectiveness of each team:

• How can sales connect with customers earlier in their lifecycle? 
• How can marketing be more involved throughout that lifecycle?
• How can customer success meet expectations and better understand buying decisions?

An effective RevOps team provides solutions to these challenges and creates a more consistent customer experience. At its core, RevOps involves:

1. Integrating processes

It ensures that the tools, systems, and processes used by sales, marketing, and customer service are not only compatible but are also optimized to work together seamlessly. This integration facilitates a smoother customer journey from first contact through to post-sale support.

2. Empowering data driven decision making

RevOps relies heavily on data to make informed decisions. By centralizing data from various departments, RevOps can provide a comprehensive view of the customer journey, identify bottlenecks in the sales process, and uncover opportunities for growth.

3. Fostering efficiency and productivity

By streamlining processes and tools across departments, RevOps reduces redundancy and waste. This optimization of workflows not only boosts productivity but also contributes to cost savings and higher profitability.

4. Ensuring strategic GTM alignment 

RevOps aligns goals and metrics across sales, marketing, and customer service, ensuring that all departments are working towards the same revenue targets. This alignment includes setting shared KPIs and fostering a culture of collaboration.

5. Enhancing customer experience

A key goal of RevOps is to create a smooth, integrated customer journey from first contact through post-sale support. This focus on the customer experience can lead to higher satisfaction, loyalty, and lifetime value.

6. Enforcing and maintaining security and compliance 

In a time where data breaches are costly and damaging to a company’s reputation, RevOps plays a crucial role in safeguarding sensitive customer information. Its involvement in managing the tech stack ensures that security and compliance are top priorities, protecting the organization from potential vulnerabilities.

Ideal RevOps Team Structure

The RevOps org chat can come in a variety of forms and has transformed year over year as RevOps takes on more critical roles within the broader organization. When it comes to building the RevOps team for your organization, the types of hires you make really depend on the unique goals you have and resources you require to achieve them. 

To help provide the overall structure of a robust RevOps team, here are the types of hires you might consider:

• RevOps Director: The strategic leader who oversees the integration of sales, marketing, and customer success strategies, guiding the RevOps team towards achieving the overall business objectives and driving revenue growth.
• Operations Manager: Specializes in optimizing go-to-market operations and processes across all departments, focusing on improving operational efficiency and effectiveness.
• Salesforce Administrator / CRM Specialist: Ensures the CRM platform, like Salesforce, is optimally managed and customized to support the activities of sales and marketing, while maintaining data integrity.
• Data Analyst: Plays a key role in providing insights through comprehensive data analysis, enabling the team to make informed decisions, identify growth opportunities, and evaluate the success of RevOps initiatives.
  
• Integration User / Technology Manager: An integration user or technology manager is essential to oversee the tech stack, ensuring all tools and technologies used by sales, marketing, and customer success are seamlessly integrated and aligned with the team’s goals.
  
• Enablement Specialist: Equips sales and marketing teams with necessary training and resources, focusing on skill development and enabling them to effectively meet their objectives.
• Project Manager: Leads specific RevOps projects from start to finish, ensuring strategic alignment, timely execution, and the achievement of targeted outcomes.
• Marketing Operations (Marketing Ops) Specialist: Manages marketing campaigns and processes to ensure alignment with sales objectives, oversees the marketing technology stack for optimal integration, and leverages marketing data to inform strategies and measure campaign effectiveness.
  
• Sales Operations (SalesOps) Specialist: Enhances sales team efficiency through streamlined processes and workflows, manages sales technology integration with marketing systems, and supports strategic sales planning with accurate data analysis and forecasting.
• Security Operations (SecOps) Specialist: Bridges the crucial gap between security and operations, enhancing the organization’s defense against cyber threats. By fostering a seamless collaboration between security and operations teams, the SecOps role aims to bolster the company’s cybersecurity posture. This involves dismantling traditional silos to enable more effective prevention, detection, and response to cyber incidents, ensuring that operations are not only efficient but also secure from potential threats.

Start Here: Considerations Before Building Your RevOps Team

Before hiring a RevOps function for your organization it’s important to ask specific questions to understand the overarching “why” behind its addition. 

1. Defining clear goals and objectives for RevOps

Before diving into the hiring process, it’s crucial for organizations to articulate what they aim to achieve with their RevOps team. Understanding and defining these goals will guide the structuring of the team, the roles needed, and the skills to prioritize.

• What specific challenges are we aiming to address with a RevOps function? (e.g., siloed departments, inconsistent data, inefficient processes)
• How does RevOps align with our business’s overall strategy and revenue goals?
• Are we looking to enhance collaboration across sales, marketing, and customer success teams, streamline our tech stack, improve data governance, or all of the above?

2. Establishing metrics for RevOps performance

Identifying the right metrics to measure the performance of the RevOps team is essential for monitoring its impact on the organization’s revenue growth and operational efficiency.

• What KPIs will effectively measure the success of our RevOps initiatives? (e.g., sales cycle length, lead conversion rates, customer retention rates)
• How will we track improvements in cross-departmental collaboration and process efficiencies?
• In what ways will we measure the ROI of our RevOps technology stack?

3. Determining organizational alignment and reporting structure

Deciding who RevOps should report to is pivotal, as it reflects the function’s role and influence within the organization. This decision impacts how RevOps initiatives are prioritized and integrated across departments.

• Should RevOps fall under the purview of operations, given its broad impact on operational efficiencies, or IT, due to its heavy reliance on technology and data governance?
• How can we ensure that the RevOps team has visibility and influence across all go-to-market functions?
• What structure will facilitate the best collaboration and communication between RevOps and other departments?
• Will RevOps have its own dedicated budget for tools that can enhance performance? If not, is there an added budget under their direct report’s team to support these initiatives? How much is that budget?

4. Evaluating organizational readiness and culture

The success of RevOps hinges not just on the structure and skills of the team but also on the organization’s readiness to embrace change and integrate RevOps into its culture.

• How prepared is our organization to break down silos and adopt a more collaborative approach to achieving revenue goals?
• Does our current culture support data-driven decision-making and continuous process improvement?
• What steps do we need to take to ensure the organization understands and supports the RevOps function?

5. Assessing technology and data capabilities

Given that RevOps relies heavily on data and technology to drive alignment and efficiency, assessing the current state of these assets is critical.

• Do we have the necessary technology stack to support RevOps initiatives, or are there gaps that need to be filled?
• How will we ensure data integrity and compliance across systems?
• What is our strategy for integrating and leveraging data from various sources to drive insights and decision-making?

6. Understanding skill sets and resource gaps

Identifying the current capabilities within the organization and the gaps in skills or resources is essential to building a RevOps team that complements and enhances existing strengths.

• What skills and expertise do we currently possess in-house that can support RevOps functions?
• Where are our biggest skill gaps, and how will hiring for RevOps address these?
• How will the roles within the RevOps team evolve as the organization grows and our needs change?

Implementation: Steps to Establish a RevOps Function

Now that you’ve laid out the groundwork, you and your RevOps leadership can get started laying out the framework for a high performing team. Not sure where to get started? We’ve got you covered. Follow these core steps to build out the foundation of a successful RevOps function:

1. Map out processes

Understanding your current processes is crucial. You can’t improve what you don’t fully grasp. Map out all your sales, marketing, and customer success processes. Identify where there are overlaps, gaps, or bottlenecks that RevOps can help streamline.

• Conduct a process audit: Take a deep dive into your existing workflows. Where are things getting stuck? What processes cause frustration or inefficiencies?
• Identify improvement areas: Highlight areas where RevOps can bring immediate impact, such as reducing silos between departments or automating manual tasks.

2. Assess their tech stack

RevOps thrives on data and technology. Evaluate your current tech stack to see if it meets your needs or if there are tools that could help you better achieve your goals. Remember, it’s not about having the most tools, but the right ones.

• Audit existing tools: Which tools are being used, and are they effective? Are there any redundancies or gaps in your tech stack?
• Select integrations wisely: Choose tools that integrate well with each other and with Salesforce, ensuring data flows seamlessly across platforms.

Pro tip: Tools like Sonar not only help RevOps teams see how changes made in Salesforce will impact the CRM, but it also shows impact on its integrated tech stack. Check it out free here.

3. Build the team

With a clear understanding of processes and technology needs, RevOps leadership can assemble your dream team. Identify the roles you need to fill based on your organization’s priorities and objectives. 

• Hire strategically: Look for individuals who bring a mix of technical, analytical, and cross-functional expertise to the table.
• Emphasize collaboration: Your RevOps team should be built on the principle of collaboration, breaking down silos and fostering communication across departments.

4. Implement and optimize

With your team in place, start implementing your RevOps strategies. Remember, RevOps is a journey, not a destination. Be prepared to iterate and optimize as you go.

• Start small and scale: Begin with pilot projects or specific areas of focus. Measure the impact and scale successful strategies across the organization.
• Continuous improvement: Encourage feedback and be ready to adjust your strategies. The goal is to keep refining your processes, technology, and team dynamics for better alignment and efficiency.

 5. Measure and celebrate success

Define KPIs that align with your RevOps objectives. Regularly track these metrics to gauge your progress and demonstrate the value of RevOps to your organization.

• Set up dashboards: Use analytics tools to create dashboards that track your key metrics in real-time.
• Celebrate wins: Recognize and celebrate the improvements and successes along the way. This not only boosts morale but also reinforces the value of the RevOps initiative.

Conclusion: Supply Your RevOps Team With the Tools They Require to Succeed 

While there is no one-size-fits-all approach to staffing a RevOps department, looking at your team’s structure in terms of the four areas ensures that you cover all of your bases. Even though the titles and job responsibilities may vary from company to company, all RevOps teams cover operations, enablement, insights, and tools. Use that as your North Star as you evaluate which roles to hire for next.