AMA: LinkedIn Director of Sales Strategy and Operations (EMEA & LATAM), Eduardo Moreira on Establishing the Revenue Ops Function

Two pillars: reward good work and promote talent growth. Reward good work by fighting for competitive compensation (aligned with industry but also in a relative basis within the company), offer visibility opportunities such as executive-level presentations for high performers, and implement a robust recognition program. To promote talent growth, assign mentors for career advocacy, offer tailored coaching, and facilitate mentorship to foster skill development and thinking beyond the current role.

My organization is called EMEA & LATAM LTS Sales Strategy and Operations and is part of our broader GTM Ops team. My teams partner with a large sales workforce spanning the entire region, to promote the growth of our talent SaaS business in EMEA & LATAM. To accomplish that, I lead around 25 people, most of which engaged in market coverage (being mapped to sub-regional sales leaders and closely collaborating to provide optimal territories for them to grow our footprint) and a small subset (~15%) in a “growth and transformation” capacity, acting as a solutions squad. They conceive and optimize data assets uniquely relevant to the region, recommend enhancements to our workflows, and promote global operational integration. We also partner with regional cross-functional partners (e.g. Business Operations, Marketing) to provide the organization with a regional lens of the state of the business and its growth opportunities.

The RevOps function is crucial to align sales, marketing, and customer success efforts but where it differs most based on company size is in its roles and responsibilities, and its associated needed skillset. In small companies, RevOps often wear multiple hats, managing a broad array of Go-To-Market (GTM) activities. This includes defining field roles and scopes, setting targets, leading territory assignments, enabling the field, handling deal execution, and identifying customer-facing best practices. This requires agile and generalist problem solvers, capable of adapting quickly to evolving business needs. They also need to be great at prioritization, given they typically operate in a bootstrapped environment. In large companies, RevOps functions are more segmented. Dedicated teams focus on individual functions and partner with individual field counterparts (sales / marketing / CS). This requires more in-depth expertise in each area, and more at-scale problem solving, often using automation tools integrated into the tech stack, allowing for more leverage (i.e. a higher field/RevOps resource ratio). Also, well-established internal and field-facing engagement models are essential to keep the RevOps strategy aligned. In short, small companies offer a more entrepreneurial set-up and the ability to shape roles as the business evolves, large companies leverage technical skills and specialized expertise to operate at scale efficiently.

In my view, this involves orchestrating a process of 4 steps: (1) understanding the purchase funnel, (2) align on a common taxonomy, (3) define key metrics and CRM activities and (4) create a funnel view reporting. First, work closely with customer-facing teams to gain deep insights into the purchase funnel and the entire acquisition cycle across all channels. This understanding lays the groundwork for developing meaningful and relevant KPIs that reflect the entire customer journey (and potentially making demand-gen reallocation decisions). Second, collaborate early with Marketing, Demand Generation, and Sales Development to establish a common language and definition of success at each stage of every channel. This ensures consistent standards and facilitates a shared baseline for performance assessment. Third, identify key metrics that impact business outcomes and align with organizational goals. Map these to corresponding CRM activities to promote data accountability and ensure data hygiene across teams. This alignment also fosters a culture of data-driven decision-making. Lastly, develop a comprehensive reporting wireframe along the funnel that visualizes the customer journey from initial engagement to conversion. Collaborate with acquisition teams to set realistic and measurable targets for KPIs at critical funnel stages. This approach encourages cross-functional collaboration and accountability towards shared objectives.

30 days: Focus on setting a clear vision and establishing priorities for the function, even if initially it's just you. Define what good looks like in the touchpoints between RevOps and other teams (e.g. sales, CS, marketing). Assess your tech stack against the ideal state and pinpoint critical gaps that need immediate attention or workarounds. Dive into the CRM and evaluate the existing reporting framework to understand data accuracy and usability. Align your goals with the short-term priorities of the founders and investors while also crafting a vision for where the focus should shift to ensure long-term success. 60 days: By this point, aim to have a minimum viable product (MVP) of your reporting framework ready. Identify and recommend quick wins based on data insights to showcase tangible results to establish credibility. Building trust and positive relationships early on is crucial for gaining buy-in for future RevOps investment and garnering support for further changes. 90 days: Plan and conduct alignment workshops with key leaders to define must-have, good-to-have, and nice-to-have RevOps initiatives. Collaboratively create a roadmap that aligns with overall business objectives. This roadmap should outline strategic initiatives such as optimizing processes, implementing necessary tools or integrations, and developing standardized reporting to drive efficiency and revenue growth across the organization. Caveat: The above is based on my consulting, GTM and investor experience, as well as cases that I'm familiar with in the SaaS space. I have not been in the situation of starting as the Head of RevOps in a startup.

In my opinion, the best RevOps professionals have in common 3 skill peaks (communication, data-fluent problem-solving and system thinking) and one personal trait: curiosity. Communication: Effective communication is key, including the ability to tailor messages that speak to different audiences and levels while remaining objective and focusing on the "so what" of insights. Data-Fluent Problem-Solving: Proficiency in data preparation, analysis, visualization, and deriving actionable insights to test hypotheses is key. RevOps professionals must interpret complex data, identify patterns, and use data to guide the business to make the right decisions. Systems Thinking: The ability to connect the operations to the big picture and tie an efficient day to day to business outcomes. The best RevOps folks avoid tailored and niche solutions, prioritizing at scale articulation. This means embracing automation and solutions that travel well across markets, products, customers and segments. Curiosity: in my experience, the most curious RevOps professionals explore the data, look for causal links, collaborate cross-functionally without agendas and unlock opportunities hidden in the data. Their curiosity sparks creativity and innovation and inspires themselves and others to drive the business forward.