AMA: DigitalOcean Director of Revenue Operations / Customer Care, Saad Farooq on Scaling a Revenue Ops Team

P0: it starts with how Performance Evaluation or Yearly Performance review is done at the org. I'd prioritize based on whatever goal I am going to be rated against in my annual review. P1: What my Line Manager expects from this role and team? "Making my boss successful" is everyone's primary job. If every person in the organization works towards making their boss/line manager successful, the entire organization thrives. It is a simple yet effective way to align for success.   P2: Northstar metri ...Read More

The Growth Team: responsible for the expansion and bringing second-order revenue. Includes Sales & Business Development.  The Success team: responsible for managing customer lifecycle, relationships, and Churn. Includes CSMs, TAMs, and Onboarding Managers.  The Support teams: provide support for customers and internal tooling and operational support to the entire org. Includes Tech Support, Customer Service, Operations & Data Analysts, and PMs.  These are the three pillars under the broa ...Read More

With the economic downturn, we can anticipate a ton of teams reducing or limiting headcount this year, which is going to make a lot of the teams panic and try to solve everyone’s concerns with the same level of urgency. This is a recipe for disaster. If you are supporting another function, product, or team - you should prioritize what they want to prioritize. However, a very important principle to remember for any team that is shorthanded or has limited bandwidth is that 'Not all Problems are cr ...Read More

Understanding the importance of Churn, topped with the ability to manage Churn. Churn is the greatest destruction of value for most SaaS companies…and people significantly underestimate it.  We are experiencing the first significant economic headwinds since SaaS became mainstream. Companies that can efficiently retain their customers during significant economic headwinds will be the ones that survive (and hopefully thrive).  To be able to do that, you need people who understand Churn as well as ...Read More

Identifying preventable churn from the non-preventable churn and focusing on second-order revenue.  Everyone is going to see churn trend up this year while things normalize, which is going to make a lot of Rev Ops teams panic and try to solve everyone’s concerns with the same level of urgency. Rev Ops teams and specifically Customer success teams need to go into triage mode and determine which customers are really worth trying to save. Not every customer is worth saving and that will be a hard p ...Read More

Scaling a revenue operations team beyond the first revenue operations manager can be a complex process, as it involves balancing the needs of the team with the goals and constraints of the business. Here are a few tips that may be helpful as you scale your revenue operations team: Define clear roles and responsibilities: As you bring on additional team members, it's important to define clear roles and responsibilities for each team member to ensure that everyone understands their scope of work a ...Read More

As a company scales and grows, the skills and expertise needed in the team may evolve and change. When looking to hire additional team members, it can be helpful to consider a variety of skills and experiences that complement and differ from those of your current team. Some skills and experiences that may be helpful to consider as you scale your team could include: Specialized expertise: As your company grows and takes on new projects, you may need team members with specialized expertise in spec ...Read More

There are a variety of ways that revenue operations teams can communicate updates and activities to the rest of the company. Some potential options could include: Regular meetings: Scheduling regular meetings with relevant teams and stakeholders can be an effective way to share updates and discuss ongoing projects and initiatives. These meetings could be held in person or remotely, depending on the needs of the team. Company-wide updates: Sharing updates with the entire company through channels ...Read More

For me, at any organization and in any role, the most important alignment is the one with the overall Organization's goals.  The strategy should be dynamic and it should continue to evolve. The tasks your team performs on day to day will change as your strategy evolves. However, it is important that all you are doing is serving those org-level goals. In my previous life, we had YoY growth as a north star metric. Lately, I have seen mature orgs putting Net Revenue Retention (NRR) on top of their ...Read More

When expanding a revenue operations team from one to multiple people, it can be helpful to establish a set of key processes to ensure that the team is able to operate efficiently and effectively. Some potential processes to consider could include: Task management: Setting up a system for managing and tracking tasks can help ensure that team members are aware of their responsibilities and can work effectively towards common goals. Communication and collaboration: Establishing clear channels for c ...Read More

My preference is to hire internally from Support roles. It can be Customer Service, Analysts in Operations, Data teams or coordinators, and ICs and Proj / Program office. Cross-functional collaboration is a very important skill required in any RevOps role, and if you have served one or more parts of the organization, institutional knowledge is a valuable asset.  This allows a very short ramp-up time and a ton of valuable insight that only an insider can have.  This also provides a career path fo ...Read More

I have seen it done the other way around even in my own case. I started with Content & marketing before I went to Business Development and eventually landed in Support and Success. Now as a RevOps leader, I understand each of these functions enough to support operations in each of these teams. So at a Leadership level, I'd prefer someone who has done some of it, if not all, and then is able to oversee all of this.  If I were to start from RevOps and then specialize in one of the fields, I'd ...Read More