AMA: Intercom VP, Sales Operations, Tyler Will on RevOps Reporting

We use three tools for data and reporting: CRM (Salesforce), Clari, and Tableau. We also have Snowflake for the data warehouse but that's run by the Data Eng team in service of many teams beyond my Sales Ops team. Each of these serves a distinct purpose for us: 1. CRM(Salesforce): We do foundational reporting and dashboards here. The primary audience for these is the Sales team (reps and front line managers) to let them track their in-quarter performance, see KPIs, manage their team and opportunities, etc. We also manage our CRM hygiene tracking this way which is helpful because it lets each Manager stay on top of their team status. What I like about in-CRM reporting is that (1) it's real-time, (2) in a tool that everyone is using day after day (i.e., in the flow of work), and (3) it's straightforward to build and customize so everyone from Analyst to VP can do it. 2. Clari: We use Clari for forecasting which has significantly improved the quality and rigor of our forecasting process compared to the spreadsheet-based approach that preceded it. The Sales teams like Clari because it's easy to track and edit their opportunities and it highlights risks and opportunities clearly. I like it in my role because it brings together all the information I need to understand the global business, I can drill-down into individual opportunities, and use the predictive modeling to get an alternative view of the outlook for the quarter. It's also pretty intuitive for looking up past results which can be faster than a CRM-based report, depending on what I need to look at. 3. Tableau: More complicated data analysis is typically done using Tableau. I generally like this tool, both for the use case of summary dashboards (e.g., trends over time) and reporting that pulls together data sources beyond the CRM (e.g., product usage data). The downside is that it is more complex and requires investment to build. I have a team of three people focused on Sales Analytics that does most of the work here, but if you didn't have dedicated resources I can see Tableau being less useful.

For internally generated data, I work with my team and the sales leaders to (1) set clear expectations, (2) reinforce the expectations, and (3) make it as easy as possible to meet the expectation. For external data sources, we work closely with other teams (Marketing Ops, Finance) to optimize our subscriptions and evaluate different data sources each year. Internal data At Intercom, we defined a set of rules around opportunity management that every rep and manager understands. We're always revisiting this depending on the priorities of the business and changes to the sales process, but we try to be clear with everyone what is required. Of course not everyone follows it perfectly, but this gives us a target to work toward. To reinforce this expectation, we have done two formal things. First, my team sends our a weekly hygiene report that shows the number of "errors" across approximately 10 fields we care most about and believe drive rigor in the deal process. This gives everyone in the org a view of data quality. Second, we recently started a weekly pipeline hygiene meeting, led by each manager with their team, as a Friday afternoon "let's clean everything up". That has shown marked improvements in hygiene on essentials like close date, expected ARR, stage, next meeting date, etc. that can get lost if this is left to reps on their own with a suggestion to "do your hygiene". For the third part, we continually review the CRM fields we care most about and deprecate obsolete ones and seek ways to streamline them. For example, we recently changed our competitor tracking fields to have a clearer picture. Throughout that update, we sought ways to make it easier for reps to complete the fields (e.g., pick lists, reminders, auto-populated answers) and put in barriers to move to the next stage to reinforce the most important information. We also allow reps to edit CRM fields directly through Clari and are evaluating Rattle at the moment which has similar functionality. Hygiene will improve when it's easy to do where the reps are already working vs. making it a separate activity to be done. External data We also use external data sources to provide insights such as ZoomInfo, D&B, and 6Sense. It's important to understand the strengths and weaknesses of these various external sources, use them appropriately, and set up the right data governance. Sales Ops, Marketing Ops, and Finance at Intercom all collaborate to find the most cost-effective way to get quality 3rd party data into our systems and then make sure it is up-to-date, accurate, and not over-written by users.

We are still in the early days of this at Intercom but there are a few things we have introduced recently that I think all companies would benefit from. 1. Forecasting / opportunity management: Nearly every sales tool we use (Salesforce, Gong, Clari, Outreach) includes some predictive analytics elements. I'd encourage everyone to start here and explore what you have already paid for and probably are not using to its full extent. These tools can help identify opportunities at risk, forecast trends, next best actions and so on which is probably 80-90% of the value before trying much more complex things. 2. Account scores: At LinkedIn, our Data Science teams built propensity models for new business account which were hugely helpful in identifying which accounts to assign, how AEs and SDRs should prioritize them, and even which ones should get routed to and SDR vs. nurture campaigns when they MQL. At Intercom, we have a robust health score that is very predictive of churn or contraction risks. That allows our CSMs to proactively engage these customers before renewal to try to improve the outcome. Both of these require more sophisticated in-house analytics, but are hugely valuable in helping reps prioritize their activities to drive better revenue performance/efficiency. 3. Upsell/expansion opportunities: Most PLG/PLS motions include usage-based notifications for when to upsell or expand a customer. If you're trying to sell this way but don't have the ability to identify when a customer may be ready for more from you, it's a large gap likely leaving revenue on the table. It's also important here to have the right "play" ready for the sales team if they receive one of these notifications. That way they have a talk track, quick visibility into the data that is driving the notification, and we can track the performance of the notification and play to understand the effectiveness and adjust as needed.

Maybe this is too simplistic of an answer, but the more you can standardize the output and keep it consistent from week to week or month to month, the easier it is to automate. My team works on a number of recurring reporting activities and we (and our partners on other teams) have really pushed to produce the same content as much as possible. That has allowed us to build dashboards, reports, scripts, and slide templates that we can quickly populate. Then, we invest our time in the insights (i.e., the "so what") of the material or doing a deep-dive in a few interesting places. That creates a lot more value for the business than everyone working really hard to produce the basic facts each cycle.

We track 10-15 metrics closely at any time, but the ones that I think are most interesting to see the health of the business and identify where we should take action (either fix a problem or drive more growth) are below: 1. ARR/Revenue - how much revenue is the business as a whole generating. We look at this both in sum and what's happened in the quarter. The primary shortcoming of this metric is that it is the outcome of numerous other processes rather than something we can directly influence, so it's lagging and not directly actionable. 2. Stage 2 pipeline - indication of our ability to hit new business targets in the coming weeks/months/quarter. I like this because it's more actionable - we can ask SDRs/BDRs/AEs to do more prospecting or talk to marketing about how to drive more MQLs. It also is indicative of risks or opportunities in the near future for the new business teams. 3. New logos - shows how much volume we are putting through the AE/SDR system. Like ARR we can't directly influence it, but can take action to drive more pipeline-building activities. It also helps us understand if we're hitting targets through volume or high ACVs. 4. Win rate - primarily a new business metrics but something we can also look at for renewals and expansion/upsell/cross-sell opportunities. Most helpful as a trended metric to see if we are winning or losing more frequently than in the past. 5. Existing business net expansion (NRR) - this is the simplest indicator of the health of the installed customer base. Like several others here, it's not something we can directly influence but it's the place I start before digging into what is going right or wrong with our existing customers.

Being able to point to initiatives driven by RevOps insights, in my opinion, is a good indicator of a healthy and productive team. If you don't have examples of this, you're probably entirely reactive and primarily producing reporting on questions other people asked of you. Here are a few in different categories: * Investing in new technologies - RevOps or Sales Ops is well-positioned to identify when a process is inefficient or a data source inadequate or several tools could be consolidated to save money. Teams I have worked on over the years built use cases for SalesLoft, Outreach, Clari, Gong, ZoomInfo, Apollo.io, Rattle, Quip, Sales Navigator, and others. * Shifting resources from unproductive to productive activities - Finding pockets of the business that are unproductive or could be dis-invested from and places that need more investment is a great role for RevOps to play. I have led multiple projects over the years that identified under-performing teams and areas for investment that we were able to pitch to leadership teams, develop change management plans, and implement. * Investing in support resources (e.g., CSM, Onboarding) - I have found that support organizations are often under-invested in. RevOps analysis can show the benefit of such functions and build investment cases to right-size teams. A recent example is looking at CSM headcount, comparing our coverage to industry benchmarks, and working with Sales leadership to find headcount to invest in needed coverage. * Re-segmenting accounts to improve margin - Sales leaders often view segmentation as an immutable setup, but RevOps can often show the value to be unlocked by re-segmenting accounts. This might include creating new verticals that will make teams more productive (e.g., public sector team) or moving the "line" between SMB and Mid-market accounts to cover them more efficiently without harming revenue. * Account prioritization - RevOps teams can look for ways to prioritize accounts and guide sales teams on where to spend their time. Whether simple scoring / prioritization rules or complex propensity models, this is a really good way for RevOps teams to support the sales organization in a very visible way. * Creating new roles or org design - RevOps can also bring in outside perspectives about how to set up the sales team. This can include suggesting new organizational structures (I worked on a massive re-org at LinkedIn) or proposing new roles that will address a significant problem in the business (we're looking at this now to improve our renewals business). There are plenty of other areas where RevOps can lead initiatives based on insights such as pricing, new market entry, competitive plays, sales process design, or enablement/training programs.

I assume the balance you are asking about is the need for responsive/urgent reporting or other work with longer-term strategic thinking vs. just how do you get the reporting work done in ~50 hours per week. If you're struggling to get the urgent work done in ~50 hours, then you are some combination of under-resourced, inefficient (could be skills gaps or tools/data/process gap), and poorly prioritized and should work with your stakeholders to find some solutions. If this is about the balance of urgent vs. strategic, I think my answer to another question addresses is. Providing strategic insights is a critical role of RevOps or Sales Ops teams but can be very challenging given the constant nature of any business and the questions/requests you get on a daily basis. Perhaps the most important way to do this is develop the ability (and the right) to say "no." You also need the right people on the team who have the skills and experience to be strategic, so think about what you're hiring for in each role. Finally, as a RevOps or Sales Ops leader, you need to have an open dialog with the CRO and Sales leadership team so they understand how you want to balance tactical work with strategic work. Without an articulated POV on what you want your team to do, it's hard to get anyone you work with to support it. Some ways that can help you say "no" to create the space and time to * Earn the right to say "no" by building a great relationship with your stakeholders. The Trust Equation (https://trustedadvisor.com/why-trust-matters/understanding-trust/understanding-the-trust-equation) is a helpful framework for this. The more you act as an advisor to them with the business's interest at heart, the easier it is to find ways to contribute to strategy. * Align with your Sales partners on OKRs or quarterly goals. You can use that "contract" to allocate your team's time and push back when there are requests for new work. You'll always need to reprioritize, but this can make you less reactive. * Automate the basics so Sales and other cross-functional partners can self-serve data questions. If you don't have to answer recurring, daily questions for them, it can open up a lot more time to be strategic. * Be clear on what the tradeoffs are. If your team is only doing reporting work, your won't be able to drive material changes in the business. Very few senior leaders will say "that's the way I want it to be." You should also be realistic with your team about the balance of daily run-the-business work and long-term strategy work. For more junior roles, they are likely spending 80-90% of their time on the reporting/RTB activities. At the Director+ level, that should decrease to 50% or less.

We talk - a lot. I think RevOps/Sales Ops teams get into trouble when they build things in a bubble and don't spend time working with the consumers of the information. As a leader in RevOps or Sales Ops, you are probably already having 1:1 meetings with the leaders in these other functions. Sometimes reporting or analytics needs will come up organically but other times you'll have to dig to find out what is and is not working for them. Either way, by engaging you get a better understanding of the business needs and then can form a perspective on what you can and should build in terms of reporting. The second key is to come with a strong hypothesis of what to create, where to create it (e.g., Salesforce dashboard vs. Tableau), and how the team will use it. If you just ask "what reports do you wish you had?" you'll either get nothing back or so many ideas that it's overwhelming. Having a POV and sharing that with these audiences can really help shape your work and let you prioritize and say no to things (an essential RevOps skill). Once you start building reporting, you can iterate and work to enable users to self-serve. We have probably all experienced the reporting request > build report > still get asked basic analytical questions that the dashboard answers flow. By iterating and creating the right enablement, you empower these audiences to answer questions themselves, free up your own time to work on insights and actions rather than reactive question answering.

I think there are three main areas - data hygiene, forecasting, and exec readouts - we focus on to create transparency and accountability with my Sales Ops team at Intercom. 1. Establish standards and enforce them for data hygiene - as I have described elsewhere in the AMA, we have expectations, a series of reports on hygiene compliance, and a weekly "cleanup" process that creates visibility into data quality and a means for sales teams to fix it. 2. Drive good process for forecasting - also described elsewhere in the AMA, we have a forecasting cadence that requires everyone on the team to know their business and provide a weekly forecast. We also look-back each quarter at the forecast accuracy to encourage improvement from the entire team. 3. Contribute to key executive readouts - my team is involved in four major recurring exec-focused reports that create transparency and accountability. First, we have a monthly Sales attainment and productivity report that shows how we are doing vs. quota and productivity targets. Second, we have a monthly Sales Analytics review that selects a few "hot topics" to deep-dive into with the Sales leadership team to highlight successes and work out fixes for underperforming areas. Third, we have a bi-weekly end-to-end funnel review with Marketing, Web, Sales Development, and Sales leaders to ensure we know how our new business funnel is performing. Finally, we have a monthly exec readout that covers critical business metrics and drives transparency for the entire leadership team.

This is a critical role of RevOps or Sales Ops teams but can be very challenging given the constant nature of any business and the questions/requests you get on a daily basis. Perhaps the most important way to do this is develop the ability (and the right) to say "no." You also need the right people on the team who have the skills and experience to be strategic, so think about what you're hiring for in each role. Finally, as a RevOps or Sales Ops leader, you need to have an open dialog with the CRO and Sales leadership team so they understand how you want to balance tactical work with strategic work. Without an articulated POV on what you want your team to do, it's hard to get anyone you work with to support it. Some ways that can help you say "no" to create the space and time to * Earn the right to say "no" by building a great relationship with your stakeholders. The Trust Equation (https://trustedadvisor.com/why-trust-matters/understanding-trust/understanding-the-trust-equation) is a helpful framework for this. The more you act as an advisor to them with the business's interest at heart, the easier it is to find ways to contribute to strategy. * Align with your Sales partners on OKRs or quarterly goals. You can use that "contract" to allocate your team's time and push back when there are requests for new work. You'll always need to reprioritize, but this can make you less reactive. * Automate the basics so Sales and other cross-functional partners can self-serve data questions. If you don't have to answer recurring, daily questions for them, it can open up a lot more time to be strategic. * Be clear on what the tradeoffs are. If your team is only doing reporting work, your won't be able to drive material changes in the business. Very few senior leaders will say "that's the way I want it to be." You should also be realistic with your team about the balance of daily run-the-business work and long-term strategy work. For more junior roles, they are likely spending 80-90% of their time on the reporting/RTB activities. At the Director+ level, that should decrease to 50% or less.

[Copied answer from another similar question] We talk - a lot. I think RevOps/Sales Ops teams get into trouble when they build things in a bubble and don't spend time working with the consumers of the information. As a leader in RevOps or Sales Ops, you are probably already having 1:1 meetings with the leaders in these other functions. Sometimes reporting or analytics needs will come up organically but other times you'll have to dig to find out what is and is not working for them. Either way, by engaging you get a better understanding of the business needs and then can form a perspective on what you can and should build in terms of reporting. The second key is to come with a strong hypothesis of what to create, where to create it (e.g., Salesforce dashboard vs. Tableau), and how the team will use it. If you just ask "what reports do you wish you had?" you'll either get nothing back or so many ideas (good and bad) that it's overwhelming. Having a POV and sharing that with these audiences can really help shape your work and let you prioritize and say no to things (an essential RevOps skill). Once you start building reporting, you can iterate and work to enable users to self-serve. We have probably all experienced the reporting request > build report > still get asked basic analytical questions that the dashboard answers flow. By iterating and creating the right enablement, you empower these audiences to answer questions themselves, free up your own time to work on insights and actions rather than reactive question answering.

I think about forecasting and making it effective in three large areas: (1) process, (2) tools/models, and (3) data. Without getting each of those right, no "perfect model" will make forecasting great. My experience forecasting at Intercom is different from what we did at LinkedIn so it's important to think about your specific context and needs before replicating any one forecasting approach. 1. Process: At LinkedIn and Intercom, we run a forecasting cadence that met the needs of the business. This typically started on Tuesday with a sales team level forecasting meeting. I believe it's important to have a team meeting so reps can discuss their commit/outlook, identify large deals, and discuss this as a team. It's a great way to learn from each other and bring newer reps up to speed. On Wednesday, the Managers would gather with their 2nd line leader for a meeting (again best to meet in person if possible). Then Thursday the 2nd line leaders would come together for a session (or two depending on global time zones) that leads to the Sales VP/CRO weekly call. That last meeting was a chance for the leaders to pressure test the forecasts, understand any emerging trends, risks, or opportunities. From there, things differ considerably between Intercom and LinkedIn. At LinkedIn, we produced a lengthy write-up of the bi-weekly forecast with qualitative and quantitative commentary and submitted an official forecast through the Anaplan tool. That was taken into a global review meeting for the CEO and CFO across multiple business lines to ultimately provide information to Microsoft. At Intercom, we don't have the same needs so the process doesn't involve a formal write-up (we do a summary for ourselves and Finance partners). Once a month, we have a executive level business review and the forecast helps prepare us for that but is not the primary input. So the generalized "rule" is to really think through the end-use of your forecast and build a process that supports that. 2. Tools/Models: We use Clari at Intercom and had Dynamics and Anaplan at LinkedIn. Any tool is fine for your forecasting if it gets you the essentials and is easy to use. I think having two modeling approaches is helpful. First, have a bottom-up driven by the CRM opportunities and rolling up from the reps through the Sales hierarchy. This can get you the color you need from the people closest to the deals and customers. The second, a top-down model driven by Sales Ops (and perhaps in collaborating with FP&A partners), can help spot trends or anticipate a known change in the business that the Sales teams might not be able to factor in. For example, if we knew a pricing change were coming in one month, the Sales team might struggle to understand the implications whereas SOps and FP&A would be able to model it. These two models can then be used to pressure-test each other and provide better accuracy and confidence in the forecast. Once you move beyond two models, you are a probably getting rapidly diminishing utility and could use that time better elsewhere. That said, getting forecast inputs from other teams like Marketing (e.g., MQL expectations and top of funnel performance) and Sales Development will help hone any forecasting process, but I wouldn't run those within my team. 3. Data: We also think through the various data sources we use in forecasting and ensure they are available to all participants and as accurate as possible. We recently started a weekly pipeline hygiene meeting, led by each manager with their team, as a Friday afternoon "let's clean everything up". That has shown marked improvements in hygiene on essentials like close date, expected ARR, stage, next meeting date, etc. that can get lost if this is left to reps on their own with a suggestion to "do your hygiene".