In the first Founders Guide to RevOps, we looked into the initial steps of Revenue Operations formation. This follow-up article shows which parts of RevOps to start with. We'll break it down into four main parts:
Strategy – The compass that directs our efforts.
Process – Making the strategy a reality.
Technology – The tools that make the process better.
Analytics – The lens that sharpens our understanding of the above.
By the end, you'll also understand why this order matters. In each section, I share also one pitfall to avoid.
Strategy
Strategy is the beacon for both the company and Revenue Operations. In early-stage startups, strategy will frequently change until a Product-Market-Fit is found.
Hence, at first, the focus on getting new business. For RevOps, this means working with marketing, sales, and product teams. Even if you're not a Product Led Strategy (PLG) company, it's good to stay close to the product teams. For instance, your pricing will be significantly influenced by the product roadmap.
One pitfall to avoid is focusing too early on customer success. With limited resources, you need to show you can make money with your product first before focusing on customer success. Prioritizing customer retention should follow after reaching product-market-fit.
Process
Vision without execution is hallucination by Thomas Edison. (Probably my most used quote)
Process is the core pillar of RevOps and here the benefits of revenue operations are made:
Creates clarity
Saves time & cost
Generates revenue
A well-designed process requires an overview of all the revenue generating activities. A good starting point for this is to have a customer journey mapping that starts from the moment a prospect realises a need and goes up until the customer churns or renews. Having this journey mapped out will help to implement processes that support holistic revenue growth.
One pitfall to avoid is to focus too much on a specific department. Cleary, there are some details that will require isolated work but major processes are always across departments. This means RevOps has to be able to work with everyone. See our blog Revenue Operations vs. Sales Operations.
Technology
We all like trying out new tools, and they can make our processes better. But, timing is key. We need basic tools like a CRM, Communications tools or Marketing tools. Additionals tools should fit with your strategy and processes.
One tip is to create a technology and automation roadmap. This roadmap should project when specific technologies will be implemented to refine a process. Benchmarks could be set based on prospects, paying clients, or partners. These milestones ensure proactive measures, don't waste resources or create distractions.
One pitfall to avoid is premature and unplanned automation. Unstructured automation can lead to technology debt that will be expensive and messy to clean up. I have seen organizations with over 300 Zapier workflows. They were working but everyone was scared to touch them. Nobody wanted to break something. In that regard, less is more.
Analytics
In the early stages, analytics can performed from build-in reports in your CRM and occasionally extend them with Excel spreadsheets. This can cover metrics like pipeline volume, win rate, and other revenue analytics. At this point, analytics is retrospective. It offers some insights to refine strategy and processes.
The pitfall to avoid is to focus to much on analytics. Do you remember your statistics 101 class? The first thing they teach you is that robust data analysis requires plenty of data points, consistent data, and ideally spans several years. Given the nature of early-stage startups, these prerequisites are by definition not there. It would be even a major risk attempting to predict the future based on this data.
Strategy & Processes First; Technology & Analytics Second
When you're starting out with RevOps then the focus should be on strategy and processes. Technology can follow with analytics to assure repetitive success.
