RevOps: 2023 is the year you need to deliver

Finding efficiencies and driving revenue matter more now than ever before

I recently shared that Head of Revenue Operations is the top growing job on LinkedIn.

And yes, there’s a bit of criticism about how it was calculated and all that.

But there’s no denying that the role is on the rise due to its focus on profitability, which will be especially important in an expected economic downturn like 2023.

The big problem as I see it:

For the last number of years, RevOps could talk about efficiencies, alignment, and process optimization. But it didn’t matter if they delivered or not.

Companies tended to just plug holes with cash to solve their problems.

But that’s not the situation anymore. CEOs believing and hiring RevOps now expect clear and tangible efficiency gains. 

I worry that a lot of new RevOps folks will struggle to find and, much more importantly, deliver on that efficiency promise.

Fluff thought-leadership section done. Now the hands-on how-to section starts:

The problem with finding efficiencies is 2-fold:

1. Ideation. You need to come up with things to do. And,

2. Execution. You need to implement them.

With more RevOps hands per company, the second point should be easier. But let’s start talking Efficiency Ideation. In this case, with Benchmarking - internally & externally.

1. External Benchmarking.

This means gathering data on key metrics across your Revenue Engine and comparing them to industry averages.

The pros? The data is great, in specific cases it can really work, and it has authority.

The cons? Operating benchmarks can be hard to compare to your engine because goalposts are different. And even if you know that you’re in the red somewhere compared to the industry average, the benchmark won’t actually tell you how you can improve.

2. Internal Benchmarking.

Internal benchmarking means comparing between regions, teams, quarters or years, and against your bottom-up plan.

This can give you insights and where you’re doing well and where you aren’t. But more valuably, by comparing one region to another, you can now get improvement ideas by seeing what’s working for one and not the other.

And by comparing actuals vs bottom-up plan you can have very clear discussions with your teams why you aren’t performing as planned.

Internal benchmarks are usually hyper-actionable. 

3. CAC Benchmarking.

And I am not talking about your CAC/New ARR and compare it to outside benchmarks. I am talking about overlaying your CAC on top of your revenue engine, see where you’re red or green (RevOps sometimes isn't interested in CAC, I think that's a big mistake).

Then you can have a conversation about moving your spend to regions and channels that are performing better.

Ok, folks. Time to deliver.