RevOps Framework: How to Align Sales, Marketing, and Customer Success Teams

Few business practices are one-size-fits-all. Because of this reality, our customer journey might be messier than we prefer to admit. Optimizing touchpoints requires a lot of trial and error, in-depth market research, tedious data cleanup, and interdepartmental cohesion. 

We know a certain level of synergy is necessary for your business to capture and convert your audience, but what does it mean to truly “align” our teams? Alignment, or cohesion, between teams means your sales, marketing, and customer success departments execute smooth handoffs, follow clear processes, and experience minimal friction.

Revenue operations (RevOps) is the integration of your separate teams’ individual goals for maximum revenue impact. A RevOps framework creates a fundamental focal point with a shared objective that complements your business model and, most importantly, optimizes the customer experience. In essence, this framework helps boost profitability by cultivating that crucial synergy all companies strive for.

The Crucial Purpose of a RevOps Framework

So what do we mean by “maximum revenue impact”? Put simply, the role of RevOps is to align a company’s sales, marketing, and customer success teams to optimize revenue generation. By breaking down the silos between departments and making revenue-generating activities more cohesive, the right approach to RevOps can effectively:

• Identify bottlenecks and areas of operational friction.
• Create a standardized data language amongst personnel.
• Establish a source of truth within the organization.
• Improve overall forecasting accuracy. 

Leading workflow management software Contractbook puts it this way: “While each department has its own objectives, they don't always align with what other teams are doing, which means you're not using all your resources effectively.” This statement helps illustrate why centralized RevOps is essential for reaching your business goals and minimizing waste.

Priorities of a Strong RevOps Framework

Ultimately, your RevOps framework should aim to answer the following question: How can we make the customer experience smoother and more profitable at the same time? Your RevOps strategy should be the uniting force between all departments that identifies and alleviates the obstacles that stand in the way of increased revenue. This can include:

• Locating and addressing redundancies in your business model
• Aligning and streamlining of internal processes
• Minimizing friction within and throughout the customer journey 

How to Develop Your RevOps Framework

The task of RevOps seems simple: Fix what’s broken and prevent future breakage. The reality of this responsibility, however, is incredibly nuanced and complex. After all, how do you decide whether to repair just the broken parts or to tear everything down and start from scratch? Hopefully, the following information can help clarify your next steps when developing a RevOps framework.

Important Elements to Consider

Naturally, every company’s approach to RevOps will look different depending on business structure and goals. However, a number of consistent elements exist that you should consider when determining the best approach for your brand, such as:

• Tech stack: Can the current software and legacy systems in your tech stack support your specific revenue operations goals?
• Data governance: What do your data management processes look like, and who has access to what data?
• Sales quotas and commission structure: What is your approach to SalesOps, including sales enablement, strategic planning, and team communication?
• Customer feedback acquisition: How is customer feedback collected, organized, and addressed?
• Training and onboarding: How can you standardize employee onboarding and optimize training procedures to maximize revenue and better serve clientele?
• Brand voice and tone: Do your RevOps objectives accurately reflect your established brand identity?
• Operating and meeting cadence: How often are you assessing performance, and how much time are you dedicating to reporting?

Creative Methods of Measuring Success

Unfortunately, the responsibility of RevOps is often misconstrued as little more than boring data cleanup. Few business leaders are overly excited to invest in their RevOps efforts. Moreover, the obvious measurement or indicator of RevOps success is a clear boost in revenue. However, it’ll take some time (typically at least a few months) before your efforts are reflected in terms of overall profitability. 

For these reasons, we must get creative about showing the value of a strong RevOps framework, especially to leadership teams and executives. For example, this framework has the potential to save huge chunks of time and free up bandwidth for your team, increasing efficiency. Although this metric may be slightly more complex to measure than profits, the positive impact of streamlining operations is undeniable. A solid RevOps framework can also prove measurably effective by improving efficiency in other ways:

• Discernable budget reallocations
• Cleanup of standard operating procedures (SOPs)
• Significant sales cycle restructuring
• Onboarding process optimization
• Better utilization of your tech stack
• Automated personalization initiatives

Tips for RevOps Teams

In general, RevOps professionals need to be adaptable, collaborative, and tech-savvy. These characteristics will undoubtedly prove useful in developing a reliable RevOps strategy, regardless of a person’s job title or obligations. But if you’re just getting started with your revenue operations, here are a few tips to find out what’s working and what isn’t in the context of your company:

1. Do your research by leveraging free resources. RevOps isn’t new. Numerous forums, social media groups, and online courses exist to help you familiarize yourself with the best approaches to RevOps and how to replicate those successes within your company. 
2. Encourage open communication and host regular internal discussions. Regularly consult your team members about areas of friction. Find where your staff experiences high levels of frustration and determine the best way to address those obstacles together.
3. Aim for operational improvement, not perfection. The bad news is that your RevOps framework is a constant work in progress. Thankfully, that means that the good news is you can guarantee steady advancement for your business, employees, and customers. 

Formulate Your Framework for Maximum Revenue Potential

The ultimate goal of establishing a RevOps framework is to get everyone on every team rowing the boat in the same direction. Although each member has their own focus and responsibility to their team, achieving certain business objectives (increased profitability, for example) relies on cohesive teamwork toward a shared objective. The mission of RevOps professionals is to identify how individual efforts are contributing to the bigger picture, and then improve the workflows in question so they’re as cohesive as possible.

To get started with optimizing your approach to RevOps, download our RevOps Playbook Template for guidance from SmartBug experts.