Lindsay Rothlisberger

To set yourself up for success when establishing a Revenue Operations function, I recommend starting with an exercise to map out and benchmark the revenue process. You can use this to create a roadmap and then prioritize tasks using a framework such as the Value vs Effort Matrix. When RevOps is new at a company, a good way to determine the value of different tasks is to map out the revenue process and begin to benchmark conversion rates at different stages. This is a good way to familiarize yourself with the customer journey and how it maps to internal processes for your sales, marketing and customer success teams. For example, you may notice that the conversion rate from lead to opportunity is low, which might mean you need to improve product-market fit. If your sales team is taking too long to close deals, you should probably focus on sales process efficiency. And if your win rate is low, you may want to prioritize sales enablement. As I mentioned in a previous question, having a roadmap tied to business outcomes is extremely important, and I like to group roadmap items by both value and effort. The prioritization framework that I've found works well for RevOps teams is the Value vs Effort Matrix: This matrix helps you prioritize work based on the value it delivers and the effort required to complete it. Work that delivers high value with low effort is given the highest priority, while work that delivers low value with high effort is given the lowest priority.

Zapier has always been a remote workplace, so I appreciate how intentional teams are about building culture, relationships and trust. Some of the strategies I’ve found most successful in maintaining cross-functional alignment: 1. Call out misalignment promptly: it’s important to be vocal when you notice folks aren’t on the same page. In RevOps, we are sometimes the first to notice this because we have line of sight across multiple functions. 2. Open communication: We use shared channels like slack and google docs versus keeping correspondence private. This brings greater visibility and allows others to follow along. 3. Regular check-ins and cross-functional meetings to review priorities and goals. We have regular Sales, Marketing and RevOps syncs as well as check-ins for specific projects or initiatives. 4. Shared goals: Our RevOps team aligns to metrics that ladder up into the Demand Generation and Sales goals (e.g. increase qualified opportunities). 5. Operating model: Our RevOps team has an intake process for new projects as well as project phases that include: Strategy phase, defining roles, scoping stage, feedback stage and execution. This has admittedly been tricky to get right – we’re often revising the best ways to stay aligned from strategic ideation to execution. 6. Share / publish your team’s top priorities: This has helped us make sure our cross-functional stakeholders are aware of what we’re working on and how they can support or collaborate with us. 7. Iterative processes: We try to keep our solutions flexible so we can iterate and improve based on feedback from Sales, Marketing, Customer Success and Customers.

At Zapier, Marketing and Sales collaboration is structured across various forums and levels within the organization, all with different levels of altitude, but all to report on, align and improve performance: 1. Weekly Business Reviews: Held every week, these meetings focus on reviewing top-line metrics such as conversion rates for different sales motions. We discuss significant strategic shifts, like whether to increase investment in high-velocity sales motions based on recent successes and the trade-offs involved. These sessions also provide an opportunity for Sales Leadership to share customer feedback directly with Product Leadership, which helps in refining our offerings based on real customer reactions. 2. Sales/Marketing Alignment Meetings: Also weekly, these meetings delve into the specifics of our strategic execution and how we can meet our revenue targets effectively. For instance, we might decide to concentrate our advertising efforts on a specific segment and assign a dedicated sales representative to validate this strategy. Additionally, we analyze the performance of various lead sources and hypothesize reasons behind any discrepancies in expected revenue outcomes. 3. Campaign-Specific Working Groups: These groups consist of team members who are directly involved in executing specific campaigns across Sales, Customer Success, and Marketing. They meet weekly or bi-weekly to discuss the tactical details, evaluate what’s working, and adjust strategies as necessary. This includes experimenting with new messaging or tweaking tactics to improve lead response rates. These structured interactions ensure that both Marketing and Sales are not only informed but also aligned on strategies, leading to more effective and cohesive campaign execution and lead management.

Here are some goals I’d consider for a new RevOps function: First 30 days: 1. Meet with key stakeholders in sales, marketing, customer success, and finance to understand the current processes, tools, and technology being used. 2. Use the information gathered to identify areas where revenue operations can make the most impact, such as improving the sales process, implementing new technology, or optimizing the revenue model. 3. Develop a roadmap for revenue operations. Based on the gaps and opportunities identified, develop a plan for the next 3 months that outlines the initiatives, goals, and expected outcomes. 60 days: 1. Begin implementing the initiatives outlined in the roadmap, starting with the highest-priority items. Focus on the things that provide impact quickly, versus large long-term investments -- this will help gain momentum while you ramp and develop a deeper understanding of the business. 2. Develop processes and standard operating procedures. Such as standing meetings with sales and marketing leaders, revenue reporting cadences, project management norms, etc. 3. Review and optimize the tech stack. Review the company's technology stack and identify opportunities to optimize or replace tools that are not meeting the needs of the revenue operations function. 90 days: 1. Align the org around common language and definitions, such as lead and deal stage definitions and important conversion metrics. 2. Plan for future growth. Develop a plan for scaling revenue operations as the company grows, including hiring additional staff, implementing new tools, and refining processes. It’s really important to understand the needs of the business versus assuming that the systems, processes and tools should look similar to what you’ve seen in previous roles. So make sure to invest time up front learning from other folks in the org.

The Revenue Operations team at Zapier consists of four sub-teams focused on making sure that Zapier prospects and customers receive a seamless experience across marketing, sales and customer success interactions. To be more specific, we work to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of go-to-market programs with technology (like our email platforms and CRM tools), data (like sales forecasting and reporting) and process (like lead and deal management). We identify, implement, and manage GTM tooling, we bridge data and system gaps, and we deliver insights to inform strategic decision-making for GTM leadership. We have four small teams: Operations: They are the automation heroes behind all GTM programs. Operations is the team that builds and maintains the Marketing, Sales and CS workflows and processes in our CRM tools. Tooling and Technology: The systems experts who develop technical solutions in partnership with data and engineering teams. They implement the underlying tools and system improvements that drive alignment between GTM stakeholders (marketing, sales, and success.) Planning and Analytics: This team enables GTM leaders to focus on the teams and tactics that need attention to hit revenue goals. This includes highlighting trends through analysis and feedback loops, areas of misalignment, and opportunities to explore. Sales and Success Enablement: They develop structured onboarding and coaching programs for customer-facing teams plus evaluate and optimize the sales process.

RevOps can play a pivotal role in bridging the gap between Marketing and Sales by implementing several actions: 1. Calling out Misalignment: RevOps is uniquely positioned to spot and address areas of misalignment as they have visibility across the entire funnel. For example, if Marketing is launching a new campaign, RevOps can ensure that Sales is not only aware but also prepared to leverage it effectively. 2. Participation in Leadership Meetings: By joining the operational rhythms of both Sales and Marketing leadership, RevOps can offer a neutral perspective that helps unify decisions and strategies. This involvement ensures that inconsistencies between the two departments are addressed quickly. 3. Creating Shared Performance Views: RevOps should facilitate the creation of unified dashboards or reports that highlight what’s working and what’s not. By providing commentary and insights on performance, they help both teams align their efforts with the overall go-to-market strategy. 4. Standardizing Tooling: Ensuring that both Sales and Marketing use the same tools and data sources is essential for consistency. RevOps should oversee the implementation and integration of these tools, promoting a common language and approach across all go-to-market activities. 5. Cross-Team Sharing of Resources: When RevOps introduces new tools or processes for one team, sharing these resources across departments can be beneficial. For instance, Marketing might gain new insights from Sales enablement tools and strategies 6. Feedback Loops: Establishing regular feedback loops where Sales and Marketing can provide input on each other’s initiatives can further enhance collaboration. At Zapier, we host a weekly Sales<>Marketing leadership alignment meeting. RevOps not only strengthens the partnership between Marketing and Sales but also ensures that both departments are more aligned and effective in their operations.

We recently started selling a new product and so our key challenges are: 1. Unified Narrative: One of the biggest hurdles is ensuring consistent messaging across all customer interactions, whether they're one-on-one or one-to-many. It's crucial that our teams convey a cohesive story that presents our solutions effectively and comprehensively. 2. Focus: Beyond just revenue numbers, it's essential to align on the specifics of our target customer profile and the problems we aim to solve for each (e.g. should we focus on one specific persona in one market, or should we experiment in a few areas). And what questions do we need to answer in order to know we made progress (e.g. what content is resonating with this customer profile)? This focus helps us better understand which segments to prioritize as we expand our go-to-market (GTM) strategy. 3. Compelling Offers: Aligning on what offers will effectively convert leads is critical. This might mean adapting our sales approaches to offer varied levels of engagement—whether high-touch or low-touch—based on the customer's needs and the scenario at hand. 4. Alignment on Strategic GTM Decisions: Deciding on the GTM approach involves numerous strategic decisions. These include targeting senior decision-makers while also engaging other influencers within the organization. It's about finding ways to nurture end-users and gradually develop them into sales-ready opportunities. By addressing these challenges, we aim to ensure that our sales and marketing efforts are not only aligned but also optimized to drive growth and penetrate new market segments effectively.

In our approach to lead management, we've redefined the traditional stages to better suit our sales velocity and product interaction. We combine Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs) and Product Qualified Leads (PQLs) into a single category of Qualified Leads (QLs). This integrated definition ensures that each lead not only fits the right customer profile but has also demonstrated intent through key interactions—whether that's submitting a form, engaging with our sales team via chat, or actively using our product in ways that indicate an interest in upgrading. Our Revenue Operations team plays a critical role in this process. We are responsible for classifying these Qualified Leads into priority buckets, which determine the type of sales experience each lead receives. This segmentation allows us to tailor our engagement strategies effectively, ensuring that higher-priority leads receive a more personalized and intensive sales approach. Our process goes directly from Qualified Lead to Opportunity, then to Qualified Opportunity, and finally to Closed Won. This reflects our quick sales cycles, which can vary dramatically in length—some leads close within a day, while others take more time. A lead is converted to an opportunity as soon as they schedule a meeting with our sales team. It only progresses to a Qualified Opportunity once our sales team confirms that the lead is a good match for our offerings. The main metrics we focus on are the transitions from QL to Qualified Opportunity (QO) and from QO to Closed Won. We analyze these metrics weekly, drilling down into different lead sources such as inbound, chat, and product interactions to refine our strategies continually. This process helps us maintain a tight, effective funnel that can accommodate different types of leads efficiently.

Marketing Ops teams are typically focused on executing and optimizing marketing campaigns. This includes marketing technology system management, data analysis, and campaign planning. Revenue Ops teams are focused on optimizing revenue generation and the customer experience across all go-to-market teams and channels – including sales, marketing, and customer success. Revenue Ops, without marketing housed within it, is more similar to a Sales Ops team than the concept of a RevOps team, which is meant to unify ops across the org. Whether to structure them into one team or separate teams depends on the organization and the needs of the business. I wrote a blog article about this recently: https://zapier.com/blog/revops-best-practices/ Marketing Ops and Revenue Ops professionals have similar skill sets, and in my experience, I’ve seen a lot of benefits of centralizing them onto one team. Here are some reasons why it’s worked well at Zapier: * Our RevOps team is able to facilitate alignment across marketing, sales and customer success. For example, we record “deal reviews” where we walk through the details of a deal and share them with marketing and product teams. * Having a centralized RevOps function allows us to pinpoint areas of opportunity across both acquisition and expansion as well as gaps in the customer experience. This helps leaders weigh investments on things ranging from lead performance to sales rep performance. * Operations professionals have a wide range of specializations—analytics, technology, automation, the list goes on. Having them in one function allows you to utilize the best of all those specializations to build a high-performing team. A RevOps structure fosters more opportunities to learn from each other and collaborate on solutions. If they are separate teams, the key to success is to ensure that both Marketing Ops and Rev Ops have a clear understanding of their roles and responsibilities, and are aligned with the broader goals of the organization.

To retain good RevOps talent: 1. Ensure that you support them in balancing foundational work, such as addressing tech debt, creating documentation, and building scalable infrastructure alongside reactive, execution-focused work. RevOps teams run the risk of spending most of their time completing one-off tasks, such as implementing new automation within the sales process or launching marketing campaigns. While these tasks are a big part of the job, if RevOps team members cannot dedicate some time to foundational, less visible areas, it can result in "fires" and issues that become frustrating distractions for them later on. 2. Trust RevOps professionals to help make tooling decisions. They excel at selecting and procuring tools that solve business needs. However, Marketing and Sales leaders sometimes prefer tools they have used in the past. Lean on RevOps to help make these key business decisions. 3. Involve them early in new program ideation. RevOps professionals are excellent partners in helping to shape new go-to-market programs and initiatives(like trying new marketing tactics or new sales campaigns), but can sometimes be left out of the process until it's time to execute. This makes it difficult for them to gather the context they need to build the best process or solution. These are some suggestions that will help your RevOps team be successful -- and feel both empowered and supported.