AMA: LinkedIn Director, Sales Operations & Strategy, Alexa D'Sa on Developing Your Revenue Ops Career

This is a two part answer for me as I like to test for the 'what' someone can achieve (these should test for potential impact in the role) and 'how' they will show up everyday (no brilliant jerks, among other things). To test for the 'what' there's no better interview than a case interview. Within HubSpot's sales strategy teams, we provide a gsheet with market and internal data and ask how the candidate would allocate sales headcount. There is no right answer, but demonstrating structure and con ...Read More

I think rev ops skills are transferable regardless of industry, so it's more about building the connections and marketing yourself. Make a list of companies to target, follow their pages on LinkedIn, and message current rev ops folks that work there to ask for a coffee chat. Response rate will probably be 1/4 so manage it like a funnel :) Ask them what skills are important to the roles, what interview processes look like, everything you can to learn. Then when roles open at these companies, don' ...Read More

There are few different ways I see: from configuring/maintaining to building from reactive to proactive. The first is that the tools landscape has empowered revops to build toward solutions (eg Clay-esque GTM engineering) vs simply configuring or being dependent on engineers. This expands the potential impact of technically minded systems rev ops archetypes materially. The second would be more for the analytical / strategy archetype. Where before a sales VP might ask their analyst a data questio ...Read More

The biggest one in my career has been a lack of proactivity. I shouldn't have to spot a problem that someone on my team is experiencing - it's much better for everyone and the business if that person raises their hand to say 'Here's a problem or risk, here's how I'm thinking about solving it, here's where I'm getting stuck, can you help?' Sometimes I spot something before someone is aware to it, but can't do that 100% of the time, so folks taking ownership of their scope and bringing me into pro ...Read More

There are few different ways I see: from configuring/maintaining to building from reactive to proactive. The first is that the tools landscape has empowered revops to build toward solutions (eg Clay-esque GTM engineering) vs simply configuring or being dependent on engineers. This expands the potential impact of technically minded systems rev ops archetypes materially. The second would be more for the analytical / strategy archetype. Where before a sales VP might ask their analyst a data questio ...Read More

The strongest way to earn the next job up (and especially at the director level) is to do that job while in your current one. The main differentiator on impact at a director level vs manager is defining strategy to lead complex objectives and seeing them through to execution, vs just being accountable to prioritizing and delivering the objectives. In order to be able to level up and spend more time defining and influencing strategy, you will first need to build a great team which you can coach a ...Read More

I think there's a lot of ways to demonstrate you're ready for a manager role before one is available or earning it. While a senior associate, I took on responsibilities from my manager - project management & prioritization, and I also dotted line managed an intern, doing weekly 1-1s and serving as the first line of defense to help her be successful. I learned a lot from those experiences and then had plenty of material to draw on for interviews, and internally was considered to already be de ...Read More

This is a good question and the real answer is that it depends. My most common is the Eisenhower matrix that's urgent vs important, which is great for a short term horizon to do list daily or weekly. I have an 'icebox' category for something that's important but not urgent and I check it every Friday before planning my next week to make sure I block time to chip away at it. A layer I also like to think about as a leader is my unique value vs someone else's. Is a deliverable I'm working on applic ...Read More