Product qualified account framework

Growth Matters – Sales Leadership in the Product-Led Era by Asya Kotler, VP of Sales @ Komodor

by Revenue growthRevenue operations

The modern sales landscape is a labyrinth of Product-Led strategies, data-driven decisions, and interdepartmental synergies, making it a complex terrain to traverse. As our ‘Growth Matters’ series progresses, we aim to shed light on these complexities and chart a clear course through them.

For this expedition, we’ve enlisted the help of a veteran in this field who is adept at steering through these demanding dynamics. We’re pleased to introduce Asya Kotler, strategic advisor to early stage SaaS, B2B companies and VP of Sales at Komodor, whose broad experience and proficiency will enable us to explore these challenges in depth and equip us with the knowledge to navigate them proficiently. Welcome aboard, Asya!

Navigating the Changing Role of Sales in Companies Embracing PL Strategies

Successful sales leadership relies on three fundamental pillars: Strategy, Process, and People. And like a timeless classic, strong foundations are as relevant today as they were 10 years ago when I started my sales career. 

However, a lot  has changed, mainly the method in which businesses are achieving growth. Growth strategies have undergone a dramatic shift, requiring sales leaders to rethink their approach to building these pillars. And I will explain.

Before: 

Strategy

Sales are orchestrating top-down processes such as product demonstrations and evaluations. Their efforts are concentrated on activities like defining the Ideal Customer Profile (ICP), executing sales-driven initiatives to boost customer acquisition (including cold calling, face-to-face engagements, and social selling), and ultimately closing deals.
Marketing aligning its efforts to support the sales team. This involves providing collateral, generating leads, and creating promotional materials to aid the sales process. And Product is responsible for fulfilling customer commitments (to help during or post sale) and balancing it with execution of the product roadmap. 

Process

Sales are receiving a consistent flow of marketing qualified leads (MQLs) from Marketing and build a Process that will ensure the highest conversion from MQLs defined as sales qualified (SQLs) to paying customers. 

Since the Sales team holds the sole ownership for driving revenue the Sales leader’s efforts will be invested into: 

  1. Defining and adjusting the ICP and qualification metrics for MQLs and SQLs
  2. Building a strong partnership between sales and marketing to optimize the top of the funnel
  3. Optimizing the sales cycle to achieve higher conversion rates
  4. Setting up reporting based on key metrics to identify gaps in the sales process and assessing the efficiency of individual contributors on the team

People

Defining the hiring capacity, hiring and training new sellers in a sales-led company is a notorious  overhead. The pitfall in this strategy when it comes to people is that the company’s growth is directly linked to each seller. Miss on the number of hires and you have a “floating” quota that is not directly covered, overhire and you have cost overhead which is never a pleasant conversation with the C-levels. This became even a greater challenge in 2022 when efficiency and cost of acquisition became top priority on any sales org as CFOs put a stop on the hiring rush we experienced in 2021. 

While traditional sales-led approach continues to prevail in the market, and most of us are buyers of products which fully execute this strategy, many of the organizations, especially B2B SaaS companies, have been adopting Product Led strategy in various versions. From freemium to free trial, the adoption of the Product Led strategy brings about a complete transformation in the sales process, the criteria for talent acquisition (as well as the timing of it), and requires alignment with more departments across the organization.

Now: 

Strategy

Product-led, user’s experience within the product takes precedence before any buyer interaction. It can vary from zero-touch models, directly leading to payment, to variations of low-touch, encompassing free trials transitioning to paid plans, and even high-touch scenarios with assisted onboarding leading to paid subscriptions.

Regardless of the specific approach, the sales team continues to play A HUGE ROLE in enabling revenue growth both through new customers but also through dedicated work with the CS team on existing customer expectations.

Marketing efforts in a product-led strategy revolve around increasing product awareness, driving user engagement, and enabling users to make informed decisions by providing educational content, tutorials, and resources.

Product efforts include qualified pipeline generation, building a zero-touch onboarding, driving adoption and stickiness through aha! moments and meaningful interactions between the user and the product. 

A common misconception about PL strategy is that companies who embrace this model do not require sales to drive revenue. In fact, all the biggest Product led companies such as Atlassian, Miro, Canva, Inrecom (you name it) drive more than 70% of revenue through a product lead sales (PLS) strategy where product is the primary driver of user acquisition, generating high quality sales pipeline.

By applying this strategy, the sales leader can build a highly efficient, data driven sales process and make more cost-effective hiring decisions. Let’s dive into it a bit to understand how. 

Process

For most of the companies undergoing a transformation from sales to product led, the most meaningful difference early in the process will be in the method of pipeline generation. Previously we mentioned how sales used to be the owner of a self-generated pipeline on one hand and worked with Marketing as a lead generation engine. 

Is the sales leader still own the top of the funnel – yes. 

Is the sales leader still responsible to verify the quality and quantity of the pipeline – yes. 

But the sales leader is no longer the sole revenue driver and this changes things! 

The prospects who sign into your platform are users, meaning end users, meaning they don’t pay or make organizational decisions (in most cases) which means the sales team is no longer looking at them as MQLs or hot-handedly approaches them. 

This is where Product takes ownership in creating aha! moments and driving adoption. 

The Product team has to make data-driven decisions through unique user behavior and cross-reference of multiple users from the same account, to qualify the value of the Account (PQA) prior to sales interaction. 

From this point, the PQA is handed over to Marketing for nurturing and targeting. Marketing generates MQLs, based on the ICP sales defines, and this is where sales takes over. 

The sales leader now invests most of their time on: 

  1. Build strong partnership between sales and product to optimize PQA definitions and hand over processes, including high-touch vs. low-touch criteria. 
  2. Build a strong partnership between sales and marketing to optimize the account based targeting, MQL definitions and multi-channel nurturing.
  3. Optimizing the sales cycle to achieve higher conversion rates between the stages in the sales process – Always true!
  4. Set reporting based on key metrics that will demonstrate the gaps in the sales process and the efficiency of individual contributors on the team  – Always true!

By generating a data-driven pipeline, building user journeys that help the sales effectively demonstrate user adoption and product value to the buyer, the Product team takes shared ownership of revenue generation and that is the most important change in the sales motion when it comes to product led sales. 

People

Since in PLS, the ownership over pipeline generation and qualification is shared between Product, Marketing and Sales, the required sales capacity for these activities decreases allowing the sales team to invest resources on strategic and focused subset of high intent accounts. 

Additionally, you will need less XDRs to generate and qualify pipeline, and less AEs to manage more accounts. Most importantly, you can scale the business faster without worrying about capacity gaps. Each individual can do more with less, making your cost efficiency higher and your CFO happier. 

Lastly, I wanted to lightly touch upon the pre-sales role. A lot can be said about the evaluation of this role over the years, but the most meaningful transformation when it comes to PLS is that users shouldn’t require support in installation or integration. Therefore, if in a traditional sales-led org you had pre-sales mostly responsible to lead the installation, nowadays, the solution engineers will help much earlier in the process. Oftentimes they will take ownership over in-app communication and help in bringing the buyer to a sales interaction through building a trusted relationship with the user. This is yet another great example for optimization opportunities PLS strategy carries. 

One can’t discuss the vast advantages PL models bring to sales efficiency without understanding the motivation and some of the key challenges organizations will need to be aware of prior to committing to this transformation. 

Redefining Sales in Today’s Tough Market

Anyone in a sales position today will tell you this: selling became 10x harder. According to Ebsta, 2023 B2B Sales Benchmarks Report, the main leading indicator to hitting the quota, pipeline velocity, dropped in Q1 2022 by 47% (QoQ) and from there the numbers are only getting worse: sales win rate dropped by 15% and the sales cycle lengthened by 32%. 

Whichever strategy you choose as your GTM, you need to make sure it is lightweight, efficient and highly adjustable. 

Being a Product-Led company puts you is a strategic position to move faster and scale, however, to maximize those advantages you need to address the following challenges: 

  • Resolve conflict between growth and sales teams 

For PLS to really work, sales, product, marketing, and customer success must form a unified revenue unit. The days of separate teams working individually towards a shared revenue target are over. The team needs Clarity and Structure. 

 There will be a lot of noise. There will be a lot of cooks in the kitchen. But it is the revenue leadership’s role (including Marketing, Sales, Product, and CS)  to establish clear boundaries and handover processes. This will guide team members on when to interact with leads and when not to, preventing negative user experiences. For instance, we want to avoid bombarding users with three emails, LinkedIn messages, and phone calls from different people in our company just because we’re eager. On the other hand, we don’t want to miss out on a highly relevant account because we’re unsure who the user is.

Decisions regarding outreach and follow-up methods should be data-driven and strategic, not driven by excitement or eagerness. To achieve that, you will need to: 

  1. Define your Ideal Customer Profile to identify the user, champion, and buyer. 
  2. Define the marketing responsibilities for low-touch automation and the sales responsibilities for high-touch and personalized outreach activities.
  3. Use data and AI-solutions to help define PQA and MQL criteria
  4. Over communicate, establish a handover process, hold weekly syncs, and define touchpoints for reviewing and adjusting as needed. 

Lastly, remember that PLS is a team sport, so ensure that all this data is clearly displayed on dashboards that the entire company can track and understand.

  • Optimize sales team efficiency and ensure the ability to handle increased pipeline

PLS strategy allows sellers to focus on high-impact activities. This may sound trivial, but for most sellers, reducing volume or changing the “more activity equals better results” mindset is hard not only from a business but also from a psychological perspective. 

Reaching real efficiency means you will have to let go of old habits and build towards the winning formula. 

For an early stage company taking first steps towards PLS, I recommend starting from a manual approach. Define a set of rules, mark the relevant account, define threshold for sales follow up vs. Marketing nurture. 

If the sales-touched volume decreases while outcome increases? You are on the right path. 

Most certainly, it won’t happen on the first iteration, this is why a weekly review and optimization are key. Once you create a repeatable process, it’s time to introduce automation: be it via sales automation for outreach, accurate and actionable CRM dashboards, and leveraging AI-powered tools for scoring and prioritization. Chat automation can go a long way to activating the user and help the sales team understand when is the right time to prioritize this account. 

  • Deal with complex enterprise sale that origin from self-serve

An average Enterprise process involves ~10 decision makers. Think about your seller trying to find all of them, connect, create personal relationships and all that, when the person actually using the product is way below in the food chain – making them almost a silent partner instead of the champion we need. 

This is a huge overhead and scaling your pipeline in this manner can lead to poor performance and seller burnout. 

If your company’s strategy is to sell to Enterprises through a PLS model – you better equipped Sales and Marketing with an ABM plan.  

Complementary to the user activation through the product experience, use ABM to multi-channel and actively push more users, with a higher rank in the company to join the account.
The marketing team will create highly personalized content and advertising to target individuals that were identified as potential champions. Distributing the effort can be done in the following way: product focus on users, marketing focus on champions, sales focus on buyers.

In any ENT deal, regardless of the user experience in the platform, you will be required to frame the pain, quantify it and build a business case that supports strong ROI. Meaning, even the most effective PLS motion will not replace a well curated plan aligned with the prospect needs and goals. 

Leveraging Product-Led Growth for ARR Success

Lastly, it is important to acknowledge that implementing a Product-Led approach is not a one-size-fits-all solution for every company, at every stage, or with any product or buyer. However, in today’s buyer landscape, it is crucial to harness the power of your users as a significant asset to achieve ARR goals, both from new customer acquisitions and existing partnerships, while simultaneously reducing reliance on expanding headcount across all revenue teams.

Product qualified account funnel

Crafting an Effective Account Prioritization Strategy in Sales

by Product-led salesRevenue operations

Strategic account prioritization is key to realizing the full potential of your sales efforts. Emphasizing this stance, Emerton postulates that “a winning account-centric strategy creates a system where all stakeholders work efficiently to grow share at the accounts, renewing their competitive advantage, fueling profitable growth, and generating overall better ROI on marketing and sales expenditures.”

Although account prioritization may be crucial to a business, not everyone recognizes its value. Any salesperson can utilize account prioritization to generate a strong pipeline if they do it well, but it isn’t given the attention it deserves despite its obvious worth. Salespeople can achieve rapid and significant improvements by focusing on high-potential customers and minimizing time spent on others. Here are steps to implement a powerful account prioritization system:

Exploring the Benefits of Account Prioritization

Well, here are three compelling reasons why account prioritization is worth implementing:

Time Savings

Prioritizing accounts saves time in the long run. By understanding which customers have the greatest potential impact on the company’s bottom line, salespeople can focus their efforts on high-value leads. Just like planning a trip, prioritization ensures you spend your time on the most important attractions and don’t waste it on less rewarding activities. With limited time and countless distractions, prioritization is crucial to maximizing productivity and results.

Acquiring the Trusted Advisor Status

Account prioritization transforms salespeople into trusted advisors for their most valuable customers. Salespeople can build credibility and trust by nurturing relationships and investing time in the right accounts. Customers who have already purchased are likely to buy again, and prioritization helps identify those key accounts and individuals within them. This strategic focus on long-term relationships fosters customer loyalty and positions the salesperson as the preferred provider.

Performance Tracking

Account prioritization enables salespeople to track their performance effectively. By calculating indices such as potential purchase, probability of transaction, urgency, and customer satisfaction, sales teams can estimate the value of their accounts. If sales numbers are disappointing, prioritization provides insights to adjust strategies and improve sales performance. It also facilitates better account and pipeline management, increasing sales productivity and meeting quarterly targets.

Focus on Your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) for Acquisition and Development

Your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) represents the sweet spot in your account base – clients with a low customer acquisition cost (CAC) and high spending potential. Your sales team must understand your ICP and target their efforts accordingly. By prioritizing ICP accounts, you ensure the best returns in the short term and set the stage for long-term success. 

  • Analyze your most valuable clients and identify firmographic similarities.
  • Develop targeted lists based on these factors for prospecting and account development.
  • Ensure your entire revenue team is aligned with the ICP and devotes time and resources to these accounts first.

Identify Propensity-to-Buy (PtB) for Timely Opportunities

Targeting organizations with an appetite for your offerings is a good start, but focusing on accounts that match your ICP accelerates results. However, ICP alone is not sufficient. To determine their purchasing potential, you must assess each account’s propensity to buy (PtB).

  • Analyze sales performance and identify statistically relevant factors for your business.
  • Seek input from sales leaders to rank the importance of each factor and assign weights for scoring accounts.
  • Validate your assumptions by reviewing a sample account list with sellers for feedback.
  • Optimize Account Prioritization and Seller Coverage.
  • Are your top performers handling your highest potential accounts? Ensure optimal account coverage and prioritize resources for maximum impact. To achieve this:
  • Identify vulnerable or high-potential accounts that require attention.
  • Align your best team members with these accounts to deliver maximum value.
  • Assess areas such as potential churn, open territories, and high-potential accounts needing strategic pursuit.

Account Size and Upselling Potential

Sales teams prioritize larger accounts since they often have higher revenue potential. Likewise, it’s beneficial to think about upselling opportunities inside an account. The most effective way for sales teams to improve their income is to focus on the accounts most likely to make further purchases.

Assess the Account’s Strategic Significance

Some clients may fit the firm well because they share similar goals, markets, or products. By assigning these accounts top priority, you may better deploy your resources to take advantage of strategic possibilities that can increase your market share and your client base or give you a leg up on the competition. Strategic alignment enables sales teams to use their knowledge and skills better while focusing on the demands and objectives of their most valuable accounts.

Evaluate the Strength of the Relationship

Customers who have developed a strong relationship with the business are likelier to remain loyal and expand their business with the firm. So, what can you gain from investing time and energy into these relationships and consistently exceeding expectations? Well, sales teams can earn their customers’ loyalty, open doors to cross-selling possibilities, and solidify long-term partnerships.

5 Steps for an Effective Account Prioritization Strategy in Sales

  • Define Prioritization Criteria – Establish clear definitions for A, B, and C accounts. Avoid basing decisions solely on past performance and instead focus on future potential. For example, consider an A account as one with the potential to buy $1,000,000 worth of products/services per year. Develop a method to determine this potential, such as calculating each account’s Quantified Purchasing Capacity (QPC).
  1. Assess Potential and Partnerability –  Evaluate each customer’s QPC (potential purchasing capacity) and their likelihood of becoming a committed customer in the future (partnerability). Collecting and analyzing these variables will help rank prospects and customers based on their potential.
  2. Train Sales Team – Educate the sales team on the established prioritization concepts and criteria. Set a deadline for them to analyze and rate their customers using the defined system. Provide forms or tools to facilitate the process and encourage a fresh perspective.
  3. Define Time Allocation Rules – Establish rules for time allocation with accounts. Emphasize spending 50% of the time on A accounts and the remaining 50% on other accounts. This ensures that salespeople dedicate their efforts to high-potential customers while still maintaining a balance with other accounts.
  4. Manage Implementation – Monitor and manage the implementation of the account prioritization system. Discuss the system during salesperson rides, incorporate it into sales meetings, and evaluate its effectiveness regularly. Encourage accountability and track evidence of adherence to the system. 

Account Prioritization vs. Lead Scoring

Both account prioritization and lead scoring for PLG revolve around prioritization processes, although they function on separate levels and apply different criteria. Larger accounts are given more priority in account prioritization based on criteria such as account size, upselling potential, strategic relevance, and relationship strength. 

Conversely, leveraging user behavior in a product-led growth (PLG) model is all about mining information about a lead’s interactions with a product for clues about how likely they are to convert. It is possible for businesses to better spend their sales resources by gaining a deeper comprehension of the connections between user behavior and conversion.

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Mastering the Growth Game: A Guide to Diverse Sales Strategies

by Product-led growthProduct-led salesRevenue operations

James Cash Penney, JCPenney’s founder, once said, “No company can afford not to move forward. It may be at the top of the heap today but at the bottom of the heap tomorrow if it doesn’t.”

To propel their expansion and drive revenue, companies employ various growth motions. From sales-led growth to product-led growth, founder-led growth, and marketing-led growth, each strategy offers unique advantages and challenges. Let’s delve into the particularities of these strategies alongside their benefits, challenges, and best use cases.

Sales-led Growth

Sales-led growth is a strategy emphasizing sales processes and people to increase revenue. In a sales-driven growth strategy, the sales staff takes center stage, and their efforts significantly influence the company’s overall success. Although the marketing department still has some say in how the brand is portrayed, the sales division ultimately determines the company’s success or failure. 

SFE Partners indicates that “With a sales-led go-to-market strategy, salespeople can target specific accounts or segments of leads to find change-makers in an organization.” In contrast to product or marketing-led approaches, salespeople may give high-value information to best fit prospective customers much sooner using this method.

Advantages of Sales-led Growth

Usually, businesses prioritize acquisition, transaction closure, and revenue development when sales teams are in charge. This approach empowers the sales force to steer company results and build lasting customer connections. According to Substack, “The sales team can help customers understand the product better and provide personalized solutions.”  Companies like Oracle and Microsoft have taken this strategy to heart by maximizing their sales force’s impact.

Challenges of Implementing Sales-led Growth

Most enterprises may have internal divisions if sales are the driving force behind expansion. Potentially neglected by this approach are customer service and customer success, both essential to expanding a firm. When departments work in silos, it may dilute the quality of leads and the sales funnel’s effectiveness and reduce the likelihood of deals being closed. There has to be harmony between the sales, marketing, and support departments.

Best Use Cases for Sales-led Growth

Sales-led growth is most efficient when the sales force is heavily involved in generating revenue and client acquisition. It works effectively for companies that depend on consultative selling strategies, complicated sales cycles, or a high volume of one-on-one customer encounters. Sales-driven expansion is generally successful in sectors where human relationships and networking are crucial, such as corporate software and high-value B2B products.

Product-led Growth

Gainsight found that a majority 58% of companies already embrace this innovative growth motion. It’s not just limited to a specific size or product type, as organizations of all scales have jumped on the PLG bandwagon, with 40% having an annual contract value (ACV) exceeding $25K. Besides,  91% of these companies plan to further invest in PLG, with an ambitious 47% aiming to double down on their existing investment. 

Product-led growth is all about making a great product people love using and spreading the word about using viral loops to expand your business. The focus is on the product rather than promotion or advertising, which may save costs. Products like Slack, Netflix, and Zoom have found success because of the way their users interact with the platform.

Advantages of Product-led Growth

It has been demonstrated that PLG companies grow 25% quicker than their competitors and are more likely to double their year-over-year revenue growth, as per the findings of Openview Partners. 

Companies can acquire users organically through viral loops, such as inviting users or being part of online communities. Once the viral coefficient takes effect, the product’s scalability and automation reduce reliance on traditional marketing and sales distribution channels. In addition, PLG offers lower customer acquisition costs (CAC) by leveraging the product’s inherent virality.

Challenges of Implementing Product-led Growth

Although PLG has great potential, it might still require some early marketing to find the right audience and boost visibility. Putting all of one’s faith in the product alone may be questionable to spur expansion since additional marketing and sales assistance may be required. In addition, it might be difficult to strike a balance between promoting product self-service and offering comprehensive assistance to business clients.

Best Use Cases of Product-Led Growth

SaaS businesses of all sizes, as well as collaborative or communicative software, may benefit greatly from PLG. It does well in markets where a superior customer experience significantly impacts new customer acquisition and business expansion. PLG works best for products that have the potential to become viral, in which consumers may spread the word about the product in an organic way and generate a network effect. Often, a PLG approach is useful for start-ups and enterprises who want to shorten sales cycles, expedite user onboarding, and emphasize product experience.

Founder-led Growth

Peculiar in its reliance on the personal brand and influence of the company’s founder or CEO, “founder-led growth” is a unique growth strategy. When a firm or product becomes successful due to the founder’s name recognition and reputation, the company or product is said to have experienced “founder-led growth.” Steve Jobs and Elon Musk are just two business leaders whose charm, vision, and hands-on approach helped their firms explode in success. 

Purdue’s Krannert School of Management’s research highlights that S&P 500 companies where the founder remains actively involved as notable public figures generate 31% more patents than their counterparts. Founder-led companies demonstrate a fearless attitude towards risk-taking by making bold investments to revitalize and adapt their business models, showcasing their commitment to shaping the future through inventive strategies. 

Advantages of Founder-led Growth

Founder-led growth capitalizes on the personal branding and reputation of the founder, which can attract attention, investments, and customer loyalty. The founder’s influence creates a unique selling proposition and can generate trust and excitement around the company and its products. The founder’s vision and leadership can inspire and align employees with the company’s goals.

Challenges of Founder-led Growth

As the name outrightly suggests, successful founder-led expansion is highly dependent on the founder’s persona, connections, and reputation. Thus, it may be quite difficult to duplicate this approach if the founder’s influence is diminished. Unforeseen risks may arise if the founder departs or suffers a reputational setback since the company’s success may become reliant on them. Besides, expanding a company beyond the founder’s capabilities is difficult and calls for good delegation and a solid leadership team.

Best Use Cases of Founder-led Growth

When a company’s founder has a substantial personal brand and influence in their field or niche, they are in a prime position to drive growth. Start-ups and technology-based businesses where customers share the founder’s vision and drive are common examples. This may be effective for companies dependent on the founder’s experience and reputation, such as consulting firms, coaching enterprises, and those that rely on the founder as a thought leader.

Marketing-led Growth

Marketing-led growth is driven by marketing efforts, where customers are acquired through various marketing channels and strategies. Examples include content marketing, videos, blogs, eBooks, and other forms of engaging content. In other words, the overarching focus is on attracting customers through valuable content and building a differentiated brand narrative.

Accenture indicates that the key to achieving marketing-led growth lies in the seamless collaboration and integration of diverse customer data. The foundation of this process is built upon four layers encompassing client experience, work orchestration, ecosystem connectivity, and data & applied intelligence. Organizations can optimize each layer to enhance customer experiences, streamline internal workflows, foster connections with external partners, and leverage data-driven intelligence to fuel their marketing-led growth initiatives.

Advantages of Marketing-led Growth

With marketing as the core engine of expansion, businesses can update their brand stories, set themselves apart from competitors, and provide customers with valuable content. Without a doubt, it arises as a great tool for being noticed by customers, increasing brand awareness, and bolstering your reputation. Upgrades, social shares, recommendations, and customer reviews may all improve with this tactic.

Challenge of Marketing-led Growth

There are two main problems with marketing-driven growth. First, for efficient lead nurturing and customer understanding, seamless lead sharing between the marketing and sales departments must be seamless. Second, there is the risk of putting too much emphasis on client acquisition and not enough on customer retention.

Best Use Cases of Marketing-led Growth

Marketing-led growth is well-suited for service brands aiming to establish themselves as market leaders through organic growth. It is particularly effective in businesses with sustainable models that prioritize customer retention. Marketing-led growth is beneficial for sectors where customers seek quick self-help solutions and where content-driven engagement can effectively showcase the product or service’s value.

Growth matters - Leore Spira

Growth Matters – Key B2B insights w/ Leore Spira, Head of RevOps @ Buildots

by Revenue growthRevenue operations

Today’s salespeople juggle an array of tools – from prospecting and CRM to outreach tools and meeting schedulers. Coupled with a comprehensive infrastructure for lead generation, lead-scoring systems, and sales-related data, it’s a challenging landscape to navigate.

As we continue our Growth Matters series, we’re focusing on demystifying this complexity. To guide us through these treacherous waters, we’ve invited a seasoned RevOps specialist, to guide us through these intricate waters.

Please join us in welcoming Leore Spira, Head of Revenue Operations at Buildots. Her extensive experience and expertise will help us delve deeper into these challenges and provide insights into navigating them successfully. Welcome, Leore!

Explore her insights on RevOps fundamentals, data’s role, essential tools, and future trends.

Let’s start with the basics – what is the purpose of RevOps, and what are some key components of a successful RevOps strategy?

RevOps (Revenue Operations) is a strategic approach to aligning sales, marketing, and customer success teams within an organization to optimize revenue generation and customer experience. The purpose of RevOps is to drive growth and increase revenue by streamlining holistic processes, improving collaboration, and leveraging data to make informed decisions.

The key components of a successful RevOps strategy include:

1. Alignment:

RevOps requires a strong alignment between GTM, e.g. sales, marketing, and customer success teams. This includes clear communication and collaboration to ensure that all teams are working towards the same goals.

2. Data-driven approach

RevOps relies heavily on data to make informed decisions. A successful RevOps strategy includes collecting and analyzing data from various sources to gain insights into customer behavior, sales performance, and marketing effectiveness.

3. Process optimization 

RevOps aims to streamline and optimize sales, marketing, and customer success processes. This includes identifying inefficiencies and implementing solutions to improve productivity, efficiency, and effectiveness.

4. Technology integration

RevOps requires the use of technology to support its processes and data-driven approach. A successful RevOps strategy includes integrating and leveraging technology and building the optimized tech stack such as CRM systems, marketing automation, and analytics tools.

5. Continuous improvement

RevOps is a continuous process of improvement. A successful RevOps strategy involves regularly monitoring performance metrics and adjusting processes and strategies to achieve better results over time.

How can RevOps help B2B companies better understand and serve their customers throughout the entire customer lifecycle?

RevOps can help B2B companies better understand and help their customers throughout their lifecycle by providing a holistic view of the customer journey.

Here are some ways RevOps can help:

1. Collect and analyze customer data

RevOps collect and analyze data from various sources, such as CRM systems, GTM tech stack, marketing automation tools, and customer feedback, to gain insights into customer behavior, relationship, and preferences. This data can be used to identify trends, anomalies, and patterns, as well as to personalize the customer experience journey and process.

2. Align sales, marketing, and customer success teams

RevOps align these teams to ensure that they are all working towards the same goals or KPIs and that there is a consistent approach to customer engagement throughout the customer lifecycle. This can help avoid gaps and inconsistencies in the customer experience.

3. Optimize processes

RevOps can optimize processes such as lead generation, lead nurturing, sales cycle, churn rate, or customer onboarding to ensure that they are efficient and effective. This can help minimize the time it takes to convert a prospect into a customer and reduce churn rates.

4. Provide insights and recommendations

RevOps provide insights and recommendations based on data analysis and performance metrics to help teams make informed decisions about better helping their customers. This can help teams identify areas for improvement and prioritize initiatives that will have the most impact on customer satisfaction and retention.

By leveraging RevOps strategies and tools, B2B companies can better understand and support their customers throughout their journey. This can lead to increased customer satisfaction, loyalty, a great relationship, and revenue growth.

What role does data play in driving RevOps success, and how do you ensure you gather and maintain quality data?  

Data plays a critical role in driving RevOps success, as it provides insights into the customer journey performance and effectiveness. To ensure that data is of high quality, B2B companies must have a robust data management strategy and infrastructure in place. 

Here are some key steps to gathering and maintaining quality data for RevOps success:

  1. Define your data management strategy: Establish a clear strategy for data management that outlines the processes and tools needed to collect, store, and analyze data. This strategy should also define data ownership and access rights.
  2. Standardize data collection: Define and standardize data collection processes to ensure that data is consistent and accurate across all systems and teams. This includes defining data fields, naming conventions, and data entry protocols.
  3. Implement data governance: Implement data governance policies and procedures to ensure data accuracy, completeness, and security. This includes establishing data quality standards, data privacy policies, and data access controls.
  4. Use technology to automate data processes: Utilize technology such as CRM or GTM systems, marketing automation tools, and analytics platforms to automate data processes and improve data accuracy and completeness.
  5. Continuously monitor and improve data quality: Regularly monitor data quality and implement processes for data cleansing and enrichment to ensure that data is accurate and up-to-date.

By following these steps, companies can ensure that they gather and maintain high-quality data hygiene in the systems that can be used to drive RevOps success. This includes providing insights to GTM leadership and management, which can help the company to optimize its revenue generation and customer experience and support its decision-making process with data.

What are some essential tools and technologies that B2B companies should consider when implementing a RevOps strategy?

B2B companies should consider a range of tools and technologies when implementing a RevOps strategy. 

Here are some essential tools and technologies to consider:

  1. CRM systems: A CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system is a critical tool for managing customer journey data and interactions across the customer lifecycle. It enables B2B companies to track customer interactions, manage accounts, contacts, leads, and opportunities, and analyze customer data to make data-driven decisions.
  2. Marketing automation tools: enable companies to automate repetitive marketing tasks, such as lead nurturing, email marketing, and social media management. They can help improve the efficiency and effectiveness of marketing campaigns and ensure that leads are properly nurtured throughout the funnel.
  3. Sales enablement tools: help sales teams to be more efficient and effective by providing them with the right content and information at the right time. They can include tools such as content management systems, sales training and coaching tools, and sales performance analytics platforms.
  4. Analytics tools: enable companies to collect and analyze data from various sources, such as website analytics, customer feedback, customer relationship, health and engagement score, and sales performance metrics. They can provide valuable insights to support scaling the processes and revenue. 
  5. Collaboration tools: such as project management software, communication platforms, and file-sharing tools, can help improve collaboration and communication across teams, which is essential for successful RevOps implementation.

 

Overall, companies should consider a range of tools and technologies to support their RevOps strategy, depending on their specific needs and goals. These tools and technologies can help improve efficiency, productivity, effectiveness, and collaboration across sales, marketing, and customer success teams, leading to better revenue generation and customer experience.

At what stage should companies start investing in RevOps?

RevOps can be beneficial for companies at any stage of their growth, whether they are startups, SMBs, or large enterprises. However, the exact timing of when to invest in RevOps may vary depending on the company’s specific circumstances and goals.

Here are some common scenarios:

  1. Rapid growth: If a company is experiencing rapid growth, it may need to optimize its revenue generation and customer experience processes to keep up with demand. Implementing a RevOps strategy early can help streamline processes, improve collaboration, and leverage data to make informed decisions.
  2. Sales and marketing misalignment: If sales and marketing teams are misaligned, a RevOps strategy can help align them and ensure that they are working towards the same goals. This can help avoid gaps and inconsistencies in the customer journey and improve overall revenue generation and funnel.
  3. Churn reduction: If a company is experiencing high churn rates, it may need to improve its customer experience processes. RevOps can help optimize customer onboarding, support, and success processes and leverage data to identify areas for improvement.
  4. Technology adoption: If a company is adopting new technologies such as CRM systems, marketing automation tools, or analytics platforms, a RevOps strategy can help ensure that these tools are integrated properly and used effectively to optimize revenue generation and customer experience.

You’ve been doing Rev/SalesOps for years! How has the role of this department evolved over the years, and what do you see as the future trends in this field?

Over the years, the role of Rev/SalesOps has evolved from being primarily focused on sales process optimization to a more holistic approach to revenue generation and customer experience (e.g. full funnel and customer journey). 

Here are some key trends that have shaped the evolution of Rev/SalesOps:

  1. Data-driven decision-making: Rev/SalesOps has become increasingly data-driven, with a focus on collecting and analyzing data to gain insights into customer behavior and relationship throughout the funnel, sales performance, and marketing effectiveness. This has enabled Rev/SalesOps teams to make informed decisions and optimize revenue processes.
  2. Collaboration and alignment: Rev/SalesOps has become more focused on collaboration and alignment across GTM teams, i.e., sales, marketing, and customer success teams. This has helped to avoid gaps and inconsistencies in the customer journey and improve the overall revenue generation funnel.
  3. Technology adoption: Rev/SalesOps has become more reliant on technology to support its processes and data-driven approach. This has led to the adoption of different tools to increase efficiency and data enrichment.
  4. Customer-centric approach: Rev/SalesOps has become more focused on a customer-centric approach, with a greater emphasis on optimizing the customer experience throughout the customer lifecycle. This has led to a greater focus on customer success and retention (land and expand methodology) in addition to revenue growth.
 

In terms of future trends, here are some areas that are likely to shape the evolution of Rev/SalesOps:

  1. Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning: The use of AI and machine learning is likely to become more prevalent in Rev/SalesOps, particularly in areas such as sales forecasting/prediction, lead/account scoring, and customer segmentation and health.
  2. Sales Enablement: Rev/SalesOps is likely to become more focused on sales enablement, providing sales teams with the tools and information they need to be more effective and efficient in their roles.
  3. Sales Process Automation: Rev/SalesOps is likely to continue to automate and streamline sales processes, making them more efficient and effective.
  4. Customer Experience Optimization: Rev/SalesOps is likely to become even more focused on optimizing the customer journey throughout the customer lifecycle, with a greater emphasis on customer success, growth playbooks, health, relationship, and retention.

What are some key performance indicators (KPIs) that companies should track to measure the success of their RevOps initiatives?

Tracking key performance indicators (KPIs) is essential to measure the success of RevOps initiatives. Here are some KPIs that companies should consider tracking:

  1. Revenue growth: Revenue growth is the ultimate goal of RevOps, and tracking this metric can help companies measure the productivity and efficiency of their RevOps strategy and GTM teams.
  2. Sales cycle length: The length of the sales cycle is a key indicator of the efficiency of the sales process. Tracking this metric can help companies identify bottlenecks and areas for improvement.
  3. Customer acquisition cost (CAC): CAC is the cost of acquiring a new customer and is an important metric for tracking the efficiency of marketing and sales efforts.
  4. Customer lifetime value (CLTV): CLTV is the total value of a customer over the course of their relationship with the company. Tracking this metric can help companies identify opportunities for upselling and cross-selling.
  5. Win rate: Win rate is the percentage of deals won versus the total number of deals pursued. Tracking this metric can help companies identify areas for improvement in the sales process and adjust their strategy accordingly.
  6. Customer satisfaction (CSAT) and Net Promoter Score (NPS): CSAT and NPS are metrics used to measure customer satisfaction and loyalty. Tracking these metrics can help companies identify areas for improvement in the customer experience, the relationship with the product, and address issues before they become major problems.
  7. Marketing/Sales attribution: Marketing/Sales attribution is the process of assigning credit for a sale or conversion to a specific marketing/Sales touchpoint or campaign. Tracking this metric can help companies identify which marketing efforts are most effective in driving revenue.

Can’t let you go before asking about AI. How do you see it impacting the RevOps world, and what possible impacts do you think it will have?

AI has the potential to significantly impact the RevOps world in a variety of ways. Here are some possible impacts on RevOps:

  1. Sales forecasting and prediction: AI can help improve the accuracy of sales forecasting and pipeline prediction by analyzing historical data and identifying patterns and trends.
  2. Lead or account scoring: AI can help automate lead scoring by analyzing customer data and behavior or type of relationship to determine which customers or prospects are most likely to convert or grow.
  3. Sales process automation: AI can automate repetitive tasks and processes, such as data entry and scheduling, freeing up sales reps to focus on more high-value tasks.
  4. Churn prediction: by analyzing customer behavior and engagement data, AI can help predict which customers are at risk of churning and enable RevOps teams to take proactive measures to retain those customers. AI can identify patterns in customer data that may indicate dissatisfaction, such as reduced engagement, decreased activity, or negative feedback. Based on these insights, RevOps teams can take targeted actions to improve the customer experience and address issues before they lead to churn. This can also help improve customer retention rates and ultimately drive revenue growth.
  5. Customer segmentation: AI can help segment customers based on various criteria, such as purchase history, behavior, and preferences, to personalize the customer journey and messaging.
  6. Chatbots: AI-powered chatbots can help automate customer support and provide instant answers to common customer queries or desires.
  7. Sales coaching: AI can provide insights and recommendations to sales reps, such as personalized coaching and training, to help them improve their performance and close more deals.
  8. Marketing personalization: AI can analyze customer data to provide personalized marketing messages and offers based on customer preferences and behavior.

Overall, AI has the potential to revolutionize the RevOps world by improving the accuracy of forecasting, automating tasks and processes, and providing personalized insights and recommendations. However, it is important for companies to ensure that they have the necessary infrastructure and data management strategies in place to effectively leverage AI for RevOps.

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Understanding the Key Differences and Synergies between RevOps vs SalesOps

by Product-led salesRevenue operations

Velocify maintains that high-performing companies are twice as likely as underperforming companies to describe their sales process as “closely monitored” or “strictly enforced or automated.” In fact, companies that align people, processes, and technology across their sales and marketing teams experience up to 36% more revenue growth and up to 28% more profitability, as concluded by Forrester. 

SalesOps and RevOps have emerged as critical business paradigms that achieve these aspects, but their benefits are usually hindered by the confusion surrounding their differences. Moving forward, we aim to address the most poignant differences between SalesOps and RevOps, exploring their objectives, responsibilities, and impact on the customer journey.

Exploring the Responsibilities of RevOps & SalesOps

According to Gartner, sales operations is a crucial strategic function that supports, enables, and drives effective sales objectives, strategies, and programs. 

BCG estimates that RevOps has enhanced the digital marketing ROI from 100% up to 200%. To achieve this, RevOps encompasses the following:

  • – Operations management (managing and optimizing resources, sales ops, marketing ops, customer success ops, and project management)
  • – Enablement (providing support to sales, marketing, and customer success teams through sales enablement, learning management, and performance management)
  • – Data analysis and insights (gathering data, providing insights for day-to-day operations and strategic planning)
  • – Tools (managing technology across sales, marketing, and customer success)
  • – Sales operations play an increasingly vital role in sales success, as Salesforce indicates that  89% of sales professionals emphasize its importance in growing their business. In this pursuit, SalesOps integrates:
  • – Data management (measuring and evaluating sales data)
  • – Forecasting (predicting future sales growth and needs)
  • – Sales tactics (using data analysis and forecasting to create sales strategies and objectives)
  • – Sales team support (providing support and training to sales representatives)
  • – Lead generation (attracting and converting prospects into leads)
  • – Sales incentives/commissions calculation (identifying and managing value for stakeholders)

Uncovering the Different Objectives of RevOps vs SalesOps

For businesses, efficiency is synonymous with success. RevOps and SalesOps share a primary goal: improving operational efficiency. However, their objectives differ based on their specialized areas. Adithya Krishnaswamy, Head of RevOps and Growth at Everstage, postulates, “RevOps was an evolution of Sales Ops when people realised it wasn’t just sales that needed operations anymore.”

SalesOps concentrates on enhancing sales operations, including customer relationship management, order processing, forecasting, and budgeting. It aims to drive efficiency within sales processes to maximize revenue. In other words, SalesOps ensures that the sales team is equipped with the necessary resources and tools to close deals, retain customers, and increase revenue. 

Conversely, RevenueOps takes a broader approach by including SalesOps and other related functions like finance and customer success operations. RevenueOps analyses the entire revenue generation process and seeks to optimize it. It aligns sales and marketing operations to drive revenue growth by identifying and fixing inefficiencies throughout the customer journey. 

RevOps vs SalesOps Impact on Customer Journey 

Well, the success of a business is contingent upon its capacity to establish and sustain favorable connections with its clientele. SalesOps and RevOps are both pivotal in improving the customer experience, albeit through distinct approaches.

The SalesOps department is dedicated to enhancing the quality of engagements between sales personnel and clients. The department is committed to removing any impediments that may impede the customer’s journey, guaranteeing that each sales funnel stage is optimized and effective. SalesOps teams are responsible for devising innovative strategies that enhance customer satisfaction and foster revenue generation.

RevOps endeavor to enhance customer conversion rates by furnishing a smooth and uninterrupted experience throughout all phases of the purchaser’s expedition. The comprehensive scope of this entails implementing inbound marketing strategies aimed at capturing the interest of prospective clients, as well as the execution of post-sale endeavors that foster brand loyalty and advocacy. RevOps strategies are formulated to maximize revenue generation by improving customer experience.

While SalesOps and RevOps may have distinct aims and objectives, forward-thinking businesses can integrate them. Sales Operations is commonly perceived as a sub-domain of the RevOps department in numerous organizations, facilitating seamless integration and data sharing between the two teams. Thus, the information gathered by Sales Operations can support Revenue Operations in their forecasting endeavors. In contrast, the data obtained by Revenue Operations can serve as a valuable resource for sales tactics and decision-making.

How to Know When to Deploy SalesOps vs RevOps

As businesses expand, it is crucial to consistently assess their operations and tactics to guarantee they are achieving their objectives. In this pursuit, it is advisable to determine the company’s needs and decide which is more beneficial for you: SalesOps or RevOps:

It might be time to deploy SalesOps if: 

  • – Your company needs someone dedicated to sales operations, especially if you’re a smaller or newer company looking to drive growth.
  • – Your sales team spends too much time organizing, planning, and strategizing instead of selling, which can be solved by a SalesOps team that simplifies the sales process.
  • – Your company is in the early stages, and you need to drive revenue before expanding your team further.
  • – Your sales reps need extra training to reach their full potential.

Conversely, it is advisable to integrate RevOps if:

  • – Your company is encountering hurdles when it comes to increasing revenue.
  • – You lack cross-departmental visibility and communication, which can be solved by implementing a RevOps framework.
  • – Your processes are outdated and need modernization, and RevOps can help automate and streamline your operations.
  • – You can’t tell what’s working and what’s not, and RevOps provides a bird’s eye view of the entire customer lifecycle to identify problems.
  • – You don’t have a long-term growth strategy; a RevOps team can help develop and implement one.
The Power of Analytics: Transforming B2B Sales and Revenue Generation Strategies

From Data to Dollars: Leveraging Analytics to Maximize B2B Sales and Revenue Growth

by Customer journeyRevenue growthRevenue operations

Caroly Fiona once said, “The goal is to turn data into information, and information into insight.” To complement this adage, these insights can be translated into your revenue. As per a recent publication by McKinsey, the implementation of data analytics is poised to offer numerous benefits. This innovative approach involves utilizing computer systems and processes to perform analytical tasks with minimal human intervention, improving quality, safety, speed, and output while reducing errors. 

Data analytics is paramount for B2B sales organizations as it furnishes valuable insights into the efficacy of various sales channels. The process of data analytics involves leveraging unstructured data to extract valuable insights that can inform business decisions and drive strategic outcomes. Algorithms are used for analysis and tailored to meet specific objectives, allowing sales teams to leverage historical performance data to pinpoint lucrative strategies and effectively target high-value customers.

Sigma Computing reports that although many businesses recognize the value of big data, over 63% of employees are concerned that they cannot get insights from their solutions in a timely manner. For many businesses, the greatest challenge is likely to obtain data insights before they become obsolete. In this vein, Forrester emphasizes that up to 73% of all data is never deployed for analytical purposes.

Exploring the Core Data Types

B2B enterprises are gaining access to an expanding data pool. Certain data sets can prove to be highly valuable in providing crucial insights into your enterprise. Alternative forms of data may not hold the same level of significance. In the realm of B2B enterprises, key categories of data contain significant value for generating data-driven insights: customer data and sales data.

  • Customer Data – Fundamental customer data includes details such as the organization’s name, physical address, geographical location, and scale, among others. Although rudimentary, this information can still be highly valuable, particularly when integrated with sales data. Customer engagement and behavior can provide valuable insights into how your customers engage with your brand and navigate your website or online store.
  • Sales Data – Sales data refers to the numerical information that tracks the performance of a company’s sales activities. This data is typically used to analyze trends, identify growth opportunities, and make informed business decisions. Sales data provides valuable insights into customer behavior, including purchasing patterns and timelines. In the context of business-to-business (B2B) sales, the sales data can provide valuable insights into the performance of your sales agents and other sales personnel.

Effective Market Segmentation

Without a doubt, the strategic development of market segmentation is a crucial determinant of the success of novel products or services, as it enables the effective targeting of products to diverse market segments. Data analytics-driven customer segmentation can aid businesses in crafting highly personalized and efficient marketing campaigns that directly cater to their customers’ unique needs and concerns. By leveraging real-world data insights, your enterprise can enhance its revenue generation capabilities across diverse segments by delivering innovative products and services.

Leveraging big data analytics to gain insights into consumer behaviour directly impacts an organization’s revenue. Organizations that leverage such data possess a competitive edge over their rivals as they can furnish appropriate offerings that cater to their clientele’s specific needs and preferences.

As per the study conducted by McKinsey Global Institute, organizations that rely on data-driven approaches are more likely to obtain customer acquisition, retention, and profitability. Specifically, such organizations are 23 times more likely to acquire customers, six times more likely to retain customers, and 19 times more likely to achieve profitability.

At a fundamental level, this enables employees to redirect their focus towards higher priority responsibilities. Implementing automation technology enables enterprises to effectively manage large volumes of data, encompassing critical aspects such as data acquisition, refinement, duplication, and repository upkeep.

Predictive Analytics & Forecasting 

Resource allocation, trend forecasting, and action identification are integral components of effective management. The processes of forecasting and budgeting are integral components of routine business operations that demand a substantial amount of time and effort. The process of forecasting entails the estimation of future trends by analyzing past data. Predictive analytics represents a distinct approach to data analysis. 

Furthermore, integrating various inputs in predictive analysis and forecasting enables the prediction of future trends with greater detail and nuance than conventional historical forecasting techniques. Predictive analysis offers valuable insights that would allow managers to enhance their agility and adaptability to dynamic market conditions, thereby reducing inefficiencies and maximizing revenue optimization.

Descriptive & Diagnostic Analytics

Any enterprise must comprehensively assess its operational efficacy to discern its strengths and areas of improvement for future growth. Descriptive analytics is a fundamental data analysis technique involving the systematic collation, organization, and presentation of various historical data types. By leveraging advanced techniques such as data aggregation and mining, descriptive analytics can effectively uncover patterns and trends within historical data. The resultant data sets can be effectively showcased through Business Intelligence (BI) incomprehensible visual aids such as graphs, diagrams, and charts.

After the initial evaluation, the diagnostic analysis represents the subsequent rational progression in this course of action. Descriptive analysis addresses the question of “what occurred?” while diagnostic analysis explains “why did this event occur?”. Various methodologies, including drill-down, data discovery, data mining, and correlations, are employed to extract the interrelationships among diverse datasets. The process of diagnostic analysis not only involves the identification of trends, but also strives to unveil the interrelationships among various parameters.

Bottom Line

B2B businesses can acquire a deeper understanding of their consumers and the sales funnel as a whole by evaluating data from channels as diverse as customer relationship management (CRM), web analytics, and marketing automation. With this knowledge, B2B organizations can better tailor their sales strategy and customer service to boost conversion rates and revenue. Businesses may better deploy their time, money, and other resources by identifying the most successful marketing efforts.

B2B enterprises may monitor their sales activity and see patterns in their income streams using analytics. This may help them generate data-driven choices and change tactics, including expanding into new areas or adjusting prices. Maintaining momentum and making necessary adjustments with the advent of data analytics may empower B2B teams to accomplish their revenue goals.

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RevOps: The Game-Changer for B2B Customer Acquisition and Retention

by Revenue growthRevenue operations

Considering escalating customer acquisition expenses and dwindling conversion rates, enterprises must devise effective strategies to acquire, retain and expand their customer portfolio. Well, the average cost merchants incur for acquiring a new customer has significantly increased over the last decade. SimplicityDX concluded that in 2013, merchants experienced a loss of $9 per new customer, whereas presently, the loss has surged to $29, indicating a substantial 222% rise. 

For those who want to enhance their customer acquisition process, RevOps arises as the most consistent and innovative solution.

Matching Customer Expectations with RevOps

The RevOps shift has garnered significant attention as a crucial strategy for fostering interdepartmental collaboration and delivering a seamless customer journey.  As per the findings of a research conducted by Salesforce, customers anticipate uniformity in their interactions with a company across various departments. Nevertheless, it frequently appears that individuals are confronted with disparate divisions instead of cohesive entities. 

Moving forward, the RevOps department is uniquely positioned to bridge the gap and deliver a cohesive customer journey that not only meets but surpasses customer demands. Gartner Inc. anticipates that a RevOps framework will be adopted by 75% of the most rapidly expanding enterprises worldwide by 2025. Enterprises comprehend that a proficiently executed RevOps approach can propel revenue expansion and augment customer contentment. 

In the same vein, recent research conducted by ActiveCampaign regarding the influence of customer experience automation has revealed that automation technology has the potential to enhance customer acquisition and retention rates substantially. The research findings indicate that enterprises that have incorporated automation technology into their operations have witnessed a significant increase of up to 110% in their lead generation and a remarkable 94% surge in their conversion rate.

Leveraging Key Metrics for Customer Acquisition

RevOps teams are uniquely positioned to craft a frictionless customer journey by identifying and addressing the gaps in your sales and marketing processes. By using data-driven insights to evaluate and optimize the customer journey, RevOps teams can help your business achieve better customer acquisition and retention rates, drive revenue growth, and stay competitive in today’s marketplace.

To streamline processes, RevOps teams need to understand how efficient and accurate the existing processes are. Key metrics like Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) and  Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) can be used to evaluate how much revenue your operations generate across departments throughout the customer journey. RevOps teams can identify and remove bottlenecks by analyzing these metrics to maximize value and profits.

  • Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) measures how much a customer is worth to your business from the moment they first start using your product or service until they stop. CLV isn’t based solely on the customer’s first purchase but on how effective upsells and renewals are. A low CLV limits how much you should spend to acquire new customers and should be a key consideration in your marketing and sales strategies.
  • Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) indicates how much you must invest in marketing and sales to acquire a new customer. A good CAC for your brand depends on the CLV and customer churn. A high CAC should alert your RevOps team that your branding is inconsistent, your ad placements are off, or you’re targeting the wrong clients. 

How Deploying RevOps Diminishes Customer Acquisition Costs

Companies who want to deploy an effective RevOps strategy should incorporate a customer acquisition cost goal into their comprehensive strategic plan to elevate their operations. However, the objective in question changes, contingent upon variables such as the industry, the value of the customer’s lifetime, and the expansion aspirations of the company. If the expenses associated with customer acquisition persistently surpass the desired threshold, it may be prudent to undertake a comprehensive reassessment of the RevOps approach.

One potential strategy is to comprehensively evaluate and refine the marketing and sales methodologies currently employed. When paid advertising fails to yield the intended outcomes, it may be judicious to investigate alternative marketing channels. RevOps teams can leverage data analytics to discern the most efficient channels and allocate resources accordingly.

In the event that the objective for customer acquisition cost proves to be persistently unachievable, it may become imperative to revise the target to a more pragmatic figure. RevOps teams must periodically assess their customer acquisition cost objective and make necessary modifications to ensure its congruence with the organization’s overarching objectives and available resources.

Effective team communication is critical in attaining the desired customer acquisition cost. RevOps teams must collaborate with sales, marketing, and customer success teams to foster a cohesive approach towards achieving organizational objectives. Effective inter-team communication and feedback mechanisms can facilitate the identification of potential areas for enhancement and streamline strategies to minimize customer acquisition expenses.