Is RevOps a strategic role?
This question, or its sibling “How do I make my RevOps role more strategic?” is one of the most common that I see in RevOps communities.
The short answer - yes.
The longer answer - it depends on your perspective which is heavily influenced by where you have come from.
Revenue development is a strategic as your product development
This is my simplified view of a company.
On one side we need to develop a product or service. If we don’t do that we don’t have anything to sell to our customers.
On the other side we need to develop revenue. If we can’t build a system that allows customers to pay us for our product or service we are dead on arrival.
And below the line we have functions that enable each of these strategic goals.
We need to have the right capital structure, the right legal entities and contracts, and the right people when and where we need them.
Companies may add on some other functions - but these five cover most requirements.
What is the purpose of a company?
One of the most famous definitions of a business’ purpose comes from management consultant Peter Drucker,
“The purpose of business is to create and keep a customer”
This phrase is developed further into an entire methodology in Steve Blank’s start-up bible - The Four Steps to the Epiphany, in which he describes that being unable to develop great products isn’t what kills most start-ups, it is being unable to develop customers.
He defines a customer development model that puts the customer’s needs at the heart of the product development process.
Steve Blank’s four step customer development model
The nuance here is that we don’t just need customers - we need paying customers.
We need customers that consistently, predictably and repeatedly pay us, ideally in increasing quantities as we expand our target market and each existing customer increases their spend with us.
You could call this Revenue Development as I have on the graphic - the strategic top level goal of developing revenue from our customers through the products or services we have developed.
Within this circle sits everything we use to drive revenue.
Marketing (including brand, analyst relations, PR, demand gen….)
Sales (including SDRs, AEs, AMs, SEs, SAs, enablement)
Customer Success (including onboarding, CSMs and technical support)
Elements of Product (via Product Led Growth)
Elements of Finance and Legal related to customer pricing and contracts
Revenue Operations or Revenue Development
What’s in a name?
Whether you call it revenue development or revenue operations is up to you. RevOps is the term that has been assigned to the model of aligning marketing, sales and customer success into one revenue engine - so it seems sensible to use that phrase.
You can however have a very different lens to look at the same term.
I come from a sales background, so I think from the perspective of how we can develop revenue from our customers by building a system that improves the customer’s ability to buy from us.
Many RevOps professionals come from a SalesOps, MarketingOps or CustomerOps background, and have more of an inside out perspective - focused on the systems, data and processes that allow the revenue engine to function.
Two sides of the same coin.
The Revenue Acceleration Flywheel
I use this flywheel to help differentiate between the external "revenue development” tasks that are more strategic, and the internal “revops” systems, data and processes that are more tactical.
Both of these are essential - you can’t have one without the other to drive strategic revenue development.
When I speak with RevOps professionals that are trying to be more strategic, its clear there is a heavy weighting, or even total focus, on below the line.
If you are a founder and wondering why your RevOps team isn’t strategic or you are in a RevOps role and wondering how to become more strategic, consider asking these questions related to your customers:
What do our customers think about our value proposition?
How do customers find out about this problem and solutions to solving it?
Which partners or analysts do our customers trust?
Which parts of the buying experience with us do our customers find most challenging?
Get out of the office and spend time with your potential customers, sit in on sales calls, ask buyers, customers and partners about their perspective - it will inform your thinking as you iterate and improve on these buyer-centric topics.
It is Revenue Operations’ responsibility to deliver increasing levels of predictable revenue to the company - and if you can do that - there is nothing more strategic to the future health and success of your business.
Get started
Whenever you are ready, there are three ways that I can help you accelerate your revenue.
Buyer Experience Audit - I’ll impersonate a buyer researching your segment and company and let you know what I find. Ideal for planning your Revenue Operations strategy.
Business Model Design Workshops - I’ll work with you and your team to design or refine a business model for a new or existing product.
RevOps Impact Playbooks - I’ll help you implement one or more tactical processes across your revenue teams - content, referrals, testimonials, adoption and more.