How do you become a strategic partner?
How do you become a strategic partner?
I (literally) wrote the book on it
Hey, Toni from Growblocks here! Welcome to another Revenue Letter!
This weekly email is my way to share knowledge and build a community of people who love to learn more about growing revenue in a data-driven and scientific way.
Anything in particular you want to hear my thoughts on? Drop me an email, and I might use it in my next article.
How do you define strategy in a revenue operations context?
It’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately.
Because I talk to a lot of RevOps folks at tech startups, and I keep hearing a similar story.
They want to be strategic in their org and drive revenue, but they’re usually just seen as system admins.
So how do they get back onto the strategic path?
To find out, my team and I got to interviewing.
We spoke to 5 RevOps professionals across major companies like Hubspot, Gong, Drift, Superside and Nylas.
We learned how they viewed strategy as well as what practical things they do to drive that at their organizations.
We put together their insights into a new ebook: This Is What Strategic RevOps Looks Like
If you want a copy, you can grab a free one here.
But before you get into the book, I wanted to share my take on strategy.
What’s keeping your boss up at night?
To me, being strategic is actually just code for aligning yourself to future financial goals.
Simply put, it’s about worrying about what keeps your boss up at night.
And your boss (who’s ideally the CRO, CEO, or CFO) does not care about systems.
They don’t care about validation rules.
And they probably don’t even care about MQLs.
What they care about is the next funding round.
They care about financial milestones.
And ultimately, they care about revenue or cost.
Two things that you, as RevOps, can help achieve.
Tying it into the bottom line
Now that’s not to say that it needs to be a math thing.
But you need to be able to clearly see the red thread from thing things you’re doing to impact revenue.
And that might be in the form of NRR.
Or CAC payback.
These metrics are important to your boss because they’re really just a different way of communicating financial goals.
So helping them with another validation rule won’t help them sleep better.
(It’s not going to help anyone sleep better, honestly)
But implementing tools to bring structure to the chaos?
Or improving handover processes between Sales and CS?
That’s the stuff where you can see a clear connection to revenue.
Maybe it’s hidden behind a productivity gain - but those are non-BS gains.
Even your CFO will agree to that.
But you have to earn it
As we talk about in the book, strategy is rarely just handed out to you.
It’s something you need to earn over and over again.
But if you start being proactive and thinking about revenue first…
You’ll find yourself starting to ask more intelligent questions.
You’ll start developing your own opinions.
And then in conversations you’ll find yourself adding your own (ideally data-driven) opinions and perspectives.
That’s how you start to become a strategic advisor to your boss.
Their partner in crime.
That’ll earn you not only trust but also a chance to do bigger projects.
But the only way to get there is to start thinking strategically now.
About the Ebook
For those of you who read the book, I hope you find a good idea of what to start on.
We had a great time writing it, and we tried to keep all of the advice as practical as possible.
At the end of the day, I want you to take this book and try to make the things these RevOps pros a reality for you.
And if you do implement anything from it, let me know!
Drop me an email. I would love to hear your reviews and maybe even thoughts on what to cover in our next edition.
P.S. For those of you who keep asking to see Growblocks in action, you’re in luck! I’m hosting a live demo on October 18 at 1 p.m. CET. Make sure you sign up for that here.