Annual planning season is upon us. In the B2B world, this process can be contentious, especially when sales targets and budgets are being negotiated. Often, a sales target is set by the executive team or board of directors based on a desired growth trajectory without metrics-based evidence that the number can be achieved. When companies don’t have required performance metrics, CROs struggle to validate the number, negotiate alternatives, and sell the number to their team. CROs, along with marketing leaders, also have a hard time justifying additional resources that may be required to hit a stretch target.
Fortunately, RevOps Automation fundamentally changes the annual planning process. With a RevOps discipline, clear metrics and models are used to transform the discussions from opinion to fact, and the result is a completely aligned growth function set up to succeed.
What are the steps to Annual Planning based on RevOps?
Let’s take a look at how annual growth planning happens in B2B SaaS companies where a RevOps discipline has been established.
Step 1: Create your Go-to-Market (GTM) Plan: What markets are you targeting, with what products, and what is your value proposition?
Step 2: Define Your Revenue Streams: What are the paths to revenue?
Step 3: Create your Initial Bookings Plan: How much will you book for each revenue stream?
Step 4: Create RevOps Models for your Revenue Streams: What do your marketing, sales and account management teams need to produce to close those bookings?
Step 5: Validate your Bookings Plan against Resources and Budget: Are the goals calculated in the RevOps model achievable given your sales capacity and marketing budget?
Step 6: Operationalize your Plan with Aligned Goals: Disseminate your plan to each team, along with their goals, budgets, and staffing plans.
Now every team clearly understands their objectives which, if achieved, will result in success in the coming year.
Of course, each of these steps has a best-practice approach for completion. When followed, you will have the foundation for a successful year. This type of RevOps-based planning is a critical step in shifting to a RevOps-oriented culture, where teams are aligned, there is complete visibility to performance, and resources are constantly optimized to achieve maximum growth.
Best-practice resources to guide you through the planning process
Find out how to follow a RevOps-based approach to annual planning. Here are 3 assets that will set you up for success:
Download ayeQ’s Annual Planning Guide, which details each step.
Attend ayeQ’s Annual Planning webinar, where we go through the process using the ayeQ Annual Plan Builder.
View ayeQ’s Annual Planning Video to see each step of the process.
