How would you recommend dividing workload in the short-term if your revenue operations team has only one or two people responsible for covering multiple products with complex features, so as best to support long-term growth and expansion of the team?

Question

Won Choi · Accepted Answer

When there are only one or two team members, I would have the team focus on mission-critical projects only. The three main areas would be 1: Sales process & forecasting, 2. Define and measure KPIs, 3. Sales Compensation design. Initially, individuals will cover broader responsibilities but will not have the capacity to go very deep in each area. All of these can evolve throughout the business, but I would clearly define and set the structure by working closely with your sales leader.

* Sales Process & Forecasting: You can be simple with the process. In the beginning, set 2 - 3 action items and 1 - 2 exit criteria for each stage. Don't worry too much about getting the fields or validation rules right. The key is to train the sales team so that it becomes easy to remember and follow. In one of my roles, we used to print and laminate a 1-pager, and all reps had it on their desks. Also, investing in solid forecasting tools (Aviso, Clari) will be foundational. Making sure there is visibility and enforcement on forecast categories (pipeline/upside/commit) goes a long way.
 * Define and Measure KPIs: For SaaS businesses, there are ~10 metrics you should care about. (ARR (by region, business type, segment), Average Deal Size, # of Deals, Cycle Time, Conversion Rates, Win Rates, # of Customers, Retention Rate, Rep Productivity, Rep Attainment). You should define these metrics and build your SFDC data structure so that anyone can easily pull these numbers. It will save you time to focus more on strategy and insights if you get the fundamentals in place.
 * Sales Compensation Design: Again, comp plans can be simple. There are many standard comp plans out there. I would stick to those and not do anything crazy. As the business evolves and business goals change, you would want to add components, but in general, I will keep it to the basics.

Saad Farooq · Answer

With the economic downturn, we can anticipate a ton of teams reducing or limiting headcount this year, which is going to make a lot of the teams panic and try to solve everyone’s concerns with the same level of urgency. This is a recipe for disaster. If you are supporting another function, product, or team - you should prioritize what they want to prioritize. However, a very important principle to remember for any team that is shorthanded or has limited bandwidth is that 'Not all Problems are created equal'. If you are helping your stakeholders and partners meet their most important goal or finish the most important project, whatever was not done or completed becomes a lot less of a concern.

Separately, I talked about prioritizing deliverables in a response to another question. I am posting it below for reference.

P0: it starts with how Performance Evaluation or Yearly Performance review is done at the org. I'd prioritize based on whatever goal I am going to be rated against in my annual review.

P1: What my Line Manager expects from this role and team? "Making my boss successful" is everyone's primary job. If every person in the organization works towards making their boss/line manager successful, the entire organization thrives. It is a simple yet effective way to align for success.

P2: Northstar metrics for the Org. That is one main business goals that execs speak about in their board meetings. I'd definitely want to contribute to that goal in every way possible.

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