A revenue operations approach is central to a company's long-term growth because it aligns its entire customer life cycle and makes it more efficient.
RevOps aims to achieve sustainable growth by prioritizing inter-departmental collaboration and ensuring every customer-facing department, including sales, marketing, and customer success teams, works toward specific objectives that complement other departments' goals.
The importance of data to deliver on this promise is central to revenue operations. Without specific and quantifiable information, businesses cannot determine which areas their current operations is successful in, and which require improvements.
Many organizations that have yet to adopt a RevOps approach may notice various deficiencies in their processes. These could range from observing their teams spend more time on manual tasks, departmental productivity is stagnated, the data shared between departments is unreliable or fragmented, or that their perceived revenue is inconsistent.
RevOps can drive an overall better value by ensuring your organization uses its resources to the best of its ability, and leadership can spend more time strategically mapping out its organizational functionality, connecting data, and accelerating its revenue.
An organization that unites its sales, marketing, and customer success functions is more likely to reach sustainable business growth than one that does not take the time to do so. This is especially true for companies in fast-paced industries that require constant iterations and tweaks to their customer-facing processes.
Once an organization's leadership has decided that its siloed approach to business must lead to an aligned and cohesive business approach, RevOps is the logical next step. To ensure this shift is cohesive and runs smoothly, there are three options to choose from.
Leadership can choose to:
Depending on the type of business in question and its current internal structure, introducing revenue operations responsibilities to an already busy team may not be sustainable.
Team members who are already focused on their marketing, sales, or customer support tasks are likely to find it challenging to efficiently tackle additional RevOps responsibilities. However, this approach may prove detrimental in the long run and not have positive effects.
For organizations with the resources to start building an internal revenue operations team, their leadership must understand that finding the right team members can be difficult, time-consuming, and often expensive.
Hiring an in-house team will require the coordination and aligning of principles from those in leadership positions and other team members who will collaborate with the new positions.
Considering the alignment of strategies and objectives across an organization is a focal point in the RevOps approach, all stakeholders will have to be on board for the new hiring process to be successful.
For small to mid-sized organizations, hiring one person to fulfill multiple roles could be possible. For example, the Sales Ops professional could also take over sales enablement and insights capabilities, and the Demand Gen professional can manage the marketing ops responsibilities.
Either way, your HR team will need to invest time and resources in hiring capable individuals and training them to get the job done according to your company's standards and expectations.
If your company is considering hiring an in-house revenue operations team, then it will do well to assume the fundamental responsibilities these individuals will have to fulfill.
The four primary areas of responsibility include:
For an in-house RevOps team to be successful, these four pillars should be considered before deciding to hire. Leadership and Human Resources will need to determine which starting position to hire for.
Before making the final decision, consider the following: is your organization prepared to hire, train, and provide the necessary tools to competent professionals for them to successfully carry out their RevOps duties?
A RevOps Director, also known as a Chief Revenue Officer (CRO), is at the forefront of any in-house RevOps team and is responsible for leading the RevOps, Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success efforts within an organization.
The average annual salary for a RevOps Director is $93,984. When considering the average salary standards, hiring for this position may not be the best financial decision for many small to mid-sized organizations.
Any business considering hiring its own RevOps team will need to consider the options available and its plans for future expansion.
For this reason, choosing to hire for RevOps is a decision best taken when the positive and negative aspects are evaluated.
Pros:
Cons:
Every organization is structured differently and may weigh in on these pros and cons differently.
A RevOps agency is usually a marketing agency specializing in the revenue operations approach. Such agencies have trained team members to evaluate a company's' customer life cycle holistically, focusing on aligning departmental goals for faster and more efficient business growth.
An agency that can provide your organization with operations-based strategies for your marketing, sales, and services departments can help your business grow smarter.
Ishita Kaul, Founder of Best Gift Ideas, shared her experience working with a RevOps agency. "To improve my RevOps, I work with a marketing agency that helps to promote my business and promises me a better growth than what I [initially] expected. RevOps are critical to the market, and any rise or fall would indeed affect your business in one or the other. Marketing agencies promise a somewhat steady cash flow into your business, except for unforeseen situations like the current pandemic.
My company's relation with the marketing agency has been ever so good, and we look forward to continuing this collaboration for years ahead. The reason behind this is the significant growth that I have received in my RevOps, including the reliable cashflow during these challenging times that other business would die for."
With that in mind, we will outline the top advantages a RevOps agency can provide to its partnering organizations that an in-house team cannot.
By hiring a revenue operations agency, your business will get an external expert team committed to running your RevOps strategies.
Partnering with the right RevOps agency can substantially increase your organization's overall productivity and efficiency.
Technology is central to revenue operations as it facilitates the communication and transfer of data within departments that work together to meet common goals.
Upgrading your technology stack to include new tools or upgrade your organization's ones will need to be a top priority.
For organizations that are new to the RevOps approach and the technology required to make it work, hiring an agency with the technical experience is highly recommended.
A prospective RevOps agency partner that is not acquainted with your business model or long-term growth goals can provide you with an objective, third-party outlook on what is currently working and not working.
Devising a booming revenue centric game plan is more manageable when an expert RevOps team can objectively evaluate a company's current strategies and tactics.
Partnering with a RevOps agency to lead your organization's revenue operations efforts can lead to various advantages.
Every RevOps agency is different in its approach and in the service packages they offer. To partner with this agency to work for your business, it is important to determine if it is a good fit for you and your long-term business goals.
At Theia Marketing, we take your revenue operations and business growth seriously. By focusing on building sustainable development, we can help your organization increase revenue and scale.
If your business wants to adopt a revenue operations approach and is undecided to hire an in-house RevOps team or partner with an established RevOps agency, consider this: would you instead start from scratch or gain steady momentum certified professionals guiding you along?
Hiring a RevOps agency is the easier choice.