I’ve been doing “RevOps” for over 20 years. It was an interesting path that led me from engineering to marketing and sales, but that’s a story for another day. Suffice it to say that when I landed in an executive position running marketing for a B2B analytics company back in 2001, I had to implement RevOps. We didn’t call it RevOps at the time – I liked the term “Revenue Engineering,” for obvious reasons (nerdy engineer). But I could not run a function without process, metrics, and optimization – it is the way all other functions of an enterprise run. But the growth function somehow didn’t get the memo.
To me, RevOps is simply applying engineering principles to the growth function. Design what you want to do (go-to-market plan and revenue targets), model how the design should be executed to produce the desired result (end-to-end pipeline modeling), measure your results (compare model to actual), optimize performance (use analytics to identify areas for improvement, and invest in areas providing better results).
This approach accelerates revenue growth – every time (if it is executed properly). Many see that as the “why” in and of itself – it helps us grow and create more value for our clients and owners.
For me, having seen this cycle unfold so many times, the “why” of RevOps is much more profound. Ironically, the “why” of RevOps reveals the “why” of the company – for everyone who participates in the growth process. You can’t have a well-defined go-to-market plan unless you identify your company’s “why.” A RevOps growth platform must explain the “why,” or it cannot bubble up the “because…”.
A RevOps growth platform that optimizes resources must evaluate the characteristics of markets and opportunities that are causing accelerated growth. From the types of people and companies we are targeting to what we are saying and doing – these characteristics must be articulated and tracked. And when those characteristics are clear, your entire growth function knows “why.” And when the entire function knows “why,” we achieve the elusive alignment that creates team-oriented culture, job satisfaction, and loyalty.
There are many tools and tricks to create “alignment,” but I have never seen anything more fundamental to cohesive teams than a common understanding of the objective and how each individual contributes to its achievement. To me, this is the real power of RevOps – creating powerful teams that unite around a deliberate objective, with transparency on how they reinforce each other’s work to achieve that objective.
As our friend Peter Drucker famously said, “culture eats strategy for breakfast.” RevOps, at least the way we approach RevOps at ayeQ, teaches an organization how to create a culture of growth. Revenue growth is the byproduct of a RevOps culture working its magic.
