AMA: Podium Sr. Director, Revenue Operations, Alok Kolekar on Revenue Ops 30 / 60 / 90 Day Plan

Within the first few weeks I will meet with my immediate and extended stakeholders to understand: * Top of mind concerns/pain points * Existing processes, current state, and potential gaps in resources, tools etc This will then drive my list of: - Quick Wins/Goals (30 Days) - Mid-Term Wins/Goals (60/90 Days) & - Long-Term Wins/Goals (>90 Days) * Quick wins/goals ideally would be something that is top of mind for my stakeholders, visible and attainable within the 30-day timeframe. As an example, in one of my prior roles a pain point I kept hearing during early conversations was around lack access to actionable data. In that instance I was able to work with my team to create a Tableau dashboard that provided visibility to the relevant stakeholders. Although the solution was pretty straightforward in this case the impact was fairly visible and notched a quick win for me as well as my team. * For mid-term wins/goals I like to think of efficiencies in terms of team structure and alignment, tools that are underutilized and/or could be consolidated. * Finally, for the long-term I like to think of what my northstar should be to align with the overall company strategy. As an example if the company plans to go upmarket in the next 1-2 years I would want to think about the systems, processes and tools from that lense and make certain that the short and mid-term plans are not a bandaid fix but more of a longer term solution.

In the first month I would aim to meet with my key stakeholders, understand some of their recurring pain points and try to address 1-2 of those pain points right-away (<30 days) to develop trust. This is likely to be a balancing act since you want to be careful about unintended consequences and not committing to a short-term fix that could create potential issues in the long run. From there on out, I would focus on meeting with extended (cross-functional) stakeholders and understand the political landscape within the organization i.e. where does the decision making lie, who can help/support your priorities, who do people trust, where are the potential landmines and start to develop those long-term relationships.

The optimum way to scale a team I believe is to take a step back and assess the current status of the team and conduct a gap analysis. This entails: * Understanding clear roles and responsibilities and establishing swim lanes if they are not obvious. This should provide a good framework for understanding the current gaps. * Bumping this framework against the feedback you've heard from your stakeholders during initial conversations is where the rubber meets the road and you start to get a good sense of where to invest in resources. This could also surface some pockets of opportunities to move resources around to parts of the business where the gaps are critical. * Once you have this understanding, resourcing boils down to alignment with the strategic direction of the org. This could mean beefing up in areas of strategic importance for the business. Alternatively, especially in the current environment, this could also mean leveraging platforms such as Upwork for ad-hoc resourcing or leveraging AI and/or Robotic Process Automation (RPA) for manual and repetitive tasks.

Generally I like to ask people their their top 2-3 priorities and/or pain points which forces people to think about their most pressing issues and helps me formulate my 30/60 day plan around those responses. Having said that, here are some specific questions I would consider: * How do you interact with RevOps and where do you see opportunity for improvement? * What is working for you and what is not in these interactions? * What are some of the things I can do to reduce friction in your role? * Do you have any recommendations/suggestions for me in terms of what my focus areas should be?

My framework for prioritizing is a bit qualitative in that it is something I have gotten a feel for over time. In general I will try to allocate: * 25%-30% of my time on long-term strategic priorities (eg: Optimizing territories for improved rep performance, improving attach rates for future products, future org design for RevOps and Sales, tech stack consolidation etc). This includes meetings to understand current state, discuss potential ideas as well as time to simply sit and think. * ~40% - 50% of my time on short to mid-term tactical priorities i.e. keep the business running type of things (eg: building SFDC and Tableau dashboards, providing tactical insights on business performance, ROE maintenance, automation to reduce friction etc) and * ~10%-20% of my time for urgent/unplanned fire drill type of activities that tend to pop over time. What I have also come to realize is that anytime these percentages are out of sync with the above guidelines it is a good indicator of potential issues that need addressing. As an example, spending more than 20% of your time on fire drills is an indicator of issues within your systems, tools and/or processes. On the other hand, spending too little time on strategic priorities is a harbinger for significant issues down the line such as lower growth, higher attrition for both sales and RevOps, lower participation rate etc.

I would typically evaluate a list of questions that can be grouped as follows: Impact * Would this opportunity allow me to make a meaningful impact that could make the function/company significantly more efficient? Growth/Learning * Is the company on a high growth trajectory and/or poised to continue growing? * Would this opportunity provide a step-up in role and responsibility and/or provide a ramp towards achieving my ultimate career goals? * Would this role provide me with an opportunity to learn and grow professionally? Financial * Does this role meet my financial goals and expectations i.e. does it compensate me enough to rock the proverbial boat? Finally, I should also mention that although people/culture are quite important, thus far I have had mixed success in assessing this definitively before hand. Personally I have been in both situations - one where my initial impression of the hiring manager was not great but accepted the offer for the work and ended up having a fantastic rapport with the manager and the other where where I took everything that I was told at face value and ended up regretting the move.