What are the best timeless books about revenue operations?

I have read over 500 books in the last 10 years, and the one lesson I learned is not to waste your time on a bad book. You will find many listicles that only show you the top 13, 20, or even 50 books. The truth is you will be fine with three revenue operations books on most subjects. Less is, as always, more.

It is more important that you apply what you read in the books. I made that mistake myself. At some point, I was just reading for the sake of reading. Consuming audiobooks while cycling, reading before and after work. What did I apply? Not much. It was still a good experience, and I learned a thing or two. But when it comes to applicable skills like communication, leadership, or revenue operations, you need to apply it. A book can give you directions. It's up to you to execute.

The three books we will look at are Revenue Architecture, The RevOps Pendulum, and Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion.

Revenue Architecture, Jacco van der Kooij

Jacco has been in the go-to-market domain for many decades. He and his team at Winning by Design have worked with hundreds of SaaS companies and taught thousands more through their trainings. Revenue Architecture is the result of all that work. It's no surprise the book is over 500 pages. Yet all the pages are worth it.

Revenue Architecture gives you the blueprints to build a revenue system. Having a revenue system is a necessity to deploy AI in your business. The definition of a system is that it is connected from front to end. In go-to-market teams, that means from the top of the funnel all the way down to invoicing and retaining customers. Revenue Architecture covers it all.

Yet the reality is that most businesses function with isolated departments, decision paralysis, and a playbook that may have worked in the 2010s. Sad.

Anyone who is serious about setting up a revenue system in their business should read Revenue Architecture.

The RevOps Pendulum: Finding Stability in Go-to-Market Chaos, Haris Odobasic

Yes, this is me shamelessly plugging my own book. Now, there is a reason for that. Namely, that I tried to write a really good book. By now you may have noticed that I love books. I read for pleasure, and for growth. A good book is powerful. It can change you, inspire you, and make you dream.

The RevOps Pendulum was my first book, and with it I wanted to create a common understanding of Revenue Operations. I know a few things about RevOps, but not all. Therefore, the book was supported by over 100 experts, the input of 100 coaching sessions, 30+ consulting projects, and four exclusive research studies conducted for the book. My education is in economics, so for me it was important to write something objective.

The book has so far passed the test of time. The principles and techniques you will read in it are still valid. They include:

• How to structure a Revenue Operations department

• A deep dive into the four RevOps pillars: Enablement, Process, Technology, and Data & Analytics

• The importance of a data foundation — especially to deploy AI

• Universal AI fundamentals and the role of RevOps

  
  

In short, the book helps you set up revenue operations from scratch, but it also helps you elevate your RevOps department to the next level.

Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini

Haris, why do you put a psychology book on a Revenue Operations book list? Because RevOps is all about change management. In our RevOps course, we dedicated one week to change management, as it is so important to the success of RevOps.

Revenue Operations is about building a revenue system across various departments, ranging from marketing operations and sales operations to product and everything in between. In some projects, I have to coordinate with over 100 stakeholders, and that is not an exception. That those stakeholders come from different departments makes it even more challenging. Not only do they have different priorities, but also different personalities. A lawyer behaves very differently from a marketer, and product management is different from a seller. Yet in Revenue Operations you have to tailor to each of those departments and personalities to have success in your line of work.

Influence by Cialdini is a timeless book about how to influence people (and protect yourself from influence). It helps you become a change agent in your business. It is one of those books I would recommend reading multiple times. Revenue Architecture and The RevOps Pendulum you can read one time and you will get it. But Influence requires you to change your own behaviour before you can change the behaviour of others. You are learning a new skill, and that is hard. Yet you are learning a life skill. It will benefit you in different areas of your life and serve you for a lifetime.

That is the list. My suggestion would be to get all three books in parallel. Skim through Revenue Architecture to the parts relevant to your business. The RevOps Pendulum you can read front to end, but feel free to jump around too. Influence you can read front to end one time before bed. Then re-read it chapter by chapter. After each chapter, spend one week applying what you learned, and only then move on. Good luck!