AMA: Tegus Global Head of Revenue Strategy & Operations, Kayvan Dastgheib on Stakeholder Management

Cross-functional alignment, whether remote or in-office, boils down to ensuring that all key stakeholders responsible for driving a specific business outcome are marching in the same direction with a shared understanding of goals and priorities. The challenge in remote teams is maintaining the same level of communication and transparency that naturally occurs in office environments. To drive effective alignment remotely, I recommend implementing a structured weekly cadence for accountable leaders, using a Progress, Plans, and Problems (3Ps) format. For example, if you are running a pipeline generation sync with sales leadership, marketing leadership, and RevOps, each leader should come prepared with: * Progress: Updates on milestones, decisions, and reviews since the last meeting. * Plans: Priorities and goals for the upcoming period. * Problems: Blockers, issues, or risks that need to be addressed. The key to making this work is ensuring that participants prepare and share these updates ahead of time as a pre-read, keeping discussions focused, contextual, and customer centric. While this is not drastically different from in-person workflows, it becomes exponentially more important in a remote environment due to the limited opportunities for organic information diffusion. That said, I strongly discourage implementing broad, high-level 3Ps meetings across an entire GTM organization—it would be noisy, unfocused, and unlikely to generate meaningful discussions or solutions. Instead, apply this methodology to specific OKRs or strategic initiatives that require cross-functional input, such as weekly pipeline reviews, churn mitigation reviews, pricing and packaging discussions, or onboarding/retention program execution. This ensures that every function involved in achieving a shared objective remains tightly aligned and accountable.

This is a question I hear often, largely due to the historical friction between sales and marketing leadership. While RevOps may report to sales leadership in some organizations, it must act as connective tissue between sales, marketing, customer success, finance, and product. That means building strong relationships across all functions, rather than operating as “Team Sales”. Relationship-building is rooted in trust, and trust comes from consistent work and demonstrated alignment with shared goals. The best way to build a strong partnership with demand generation is to actively invest in understanding their world: * What are their core responsibilities and priorities? * What does their roadmap look like for the next quarter? * What are their biggest challenges and roadblocks? * How do they define success and how are they measured? This is not a one-time exercise—it is a continuous process. As a RevOps leader, your goal is to become an expert in the demand gen funnel. Understand how pipeline is built, how content is distributed, how market sentiment is measured, and how feedback loops exist (or do not exist) between sales, finance, and marketing. Start by working with marketing leadership and marketing operations to: * Define a qualified lead and assess pipeline health. * Understand what data is available and how it is leveraged. * Identify existing challenges in sales-marketing alignment. Once you deeply understand demand gen’s world, you can proactively add value—whether through pipeline insights, operational efficiencies, or improved reporting structures. Strong relationships are built through consistent, demonstrated partnership, and investing in demand gen’s success will organically lead to greater collaboration.

Managing stakeholder relationships across different communication styles is a learned skill—and one that applies to any function, not just RevOps. In an ideal world, every leader would communicate in the same style, with the same level of detail and clarity, but that is simply not reality. Some leaders are highly visual thinkers, while others prefer detailed written documentation before a conversation. Some need the ability to double-click and ask secondary questions, while others want concise, high-level summaries with no extraneous detail. You will also encounter a mix of direct communicators, recalcitrant decision-makers, and individuals who are either highly collaborative or ego-driven. Rather than expecting stakeholders to adapt to your preferred style, the most effective approach is to flex and adjust your communication method to match your audience. The easiest way to do this? Ask them directly. When working with new stakeholders, take the time to ask: * Do they prefer Slack or email? * Do they like having written agendas before meetings? * What are their communication pet peeves? * What do they appreciate most in an effective collaboration? Keep notes on these preferences and review them before each interaction. Over time, this practice will become second nature, allowing you to instinctively tailor your approach to maximize engagement. Importantly, communication is a two-way street—it is not just about getting your ideas across, but also about understanding how others convey their own ideas. By investing in learning how someone processes and shares information, you will not only build stronger relationships but also prevent misalignment before it happens.

Stakeholders engage best when they are presented with options. Instead of asking open-ended questions like, “What should we do?”, frame discussions around three structured options: 1. Recommended solution – The best option based on available data. 2. Lower-effort alternative – Trades off scope or impact for faster execution. 3. More ambitious approach – Requires greater investment but offers higher potential upside. This forces discussion around trade-offs and allows stakeholders to compare paths forward, rather than reacting in an abstract vacuum. The best approach for gathering feedback is a two-phase process: 1. Early-stage input gathering – Focused on raw insights, without solutioning. This helps avoid anchoring bias and ensures you fully understand the problem space. 2. Solution iteration with structured feedback – Present 2-3 options and collect targeted feedback on what works, what does not, and what gaps still exist. How people respond to your proposals will reveal their engagement level. If they offer thoughtful, constructive feedback, they are a valuable contributor. If they only nitpick minutiae, set expectations early that the focus is on big-picture decisions, not minor details. Finally, ensure that feedback mechanisms allow all voices to be heard—not just the loudest in the room. Written input collection (e.g., Google Docs, Slack threads, structured surveys) helps surface valuable insights from quieter contributors who might otherwise be overshadowed in live discussions. By structuring stakeholder engagement in a way that fosters productive, solution-driven discussions, you will drive better decision-making and execution across the organization.

RevOps does not "carry a bag"—meaning it is not directly responsible for a revenue quota, unlike sales, customer success, or marketing. Instead, RevOps success should be measured by its impact on key business outcomes. A common mistake is focusing on process rather than outcome. The best way to ensure your work is driving real value is to align your team’s priorities to tangible business metrics that you can influence. However, these must be specific and measurable—you cannot simply say, "RevOps is accountable for bookings," because bookings are the output of many different underlying processes. Instead, focus on specific initiatives that drive impact. For example: * Increasing conversion rates: If RevOps is implementing a new trials playbook, measure success by targeting a 15% increase in trial-to-close conversion over two quarters. * Reducing sales cycle friction: If quoting and provisioning delays are slowing down bookings, RevOps should target a reduction in contract processing time to accelerate sales velocity and improve billing cycles. * Optimizing pipeline generation: If marketing-to-sales handoff issues exist, work on improving MQL-to-SQL conversion rates by adjusting qualification criteria or automating follow-ups. The key is to tie RevOps initiatives to measurable business impact, ensuring that stakeholders understand how your work supports their success.