RevOps Co-op Weekly #56 - Marrying your Process to your Tech & Scaling a RevOps Org
We chatted with Nicole Smith, Dir. of RevOps at Greenlight Guru, about building better reporting, marrying tech to process, and growing your RevOps career.
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Marrying your Process to your Tech & Scaling a RevOps Org
We chatted with Nicole Smith, Director of Revenue Operations at Greenlight Guru about building better reporting, creating unique solutions to allow your tech to work based on your process, and growing in your revenue operations career.
Leading the interview is Robert Gammon, Senior Consultant at Cortado Group.
More about Nicole:
"As the Director of the Revenue Operations team at Greenlight Guru, I build alignment across the entire revenue organization, including Marketing, Sales and Customer Success. I have a background in technology and currently hold four Salesforce certifications.
I believe that marrying the technology with the process is key and having the ability to create scalable, repeatable processes is essential for long-term growth.
I love discussing how to build unique solutions to allow your tech to work based on your process and build better reporting, and I enjoy helping others continue to grow in their revenue operations career. If you have any questions, I’m here to help!"
Robert Gammon:
Howdy Nicole, super excited to have you on the AMA hot seat with us today!
Erin O'Neill (RevOps Co-op):
Thanks for Joining us, Nicole!
Nicole Smith
Great to be here!
Robert Gammon:
Let’s get started with a few intro points to get everyone introduced to you. You're the Director of Revenue Operations at Greenlight Guru. How did you get into this role and what has been the most eye opening thing you've experienced so far?
Nicole Smith:
During Covid, I actually decided to start consulting on the side. I was introduced to Greenlight Guru through that and have been working with them since around June of last year. One of the things we found is that they had good bones but a lot of manual processes. I built out a lot of automation last year to make it easier for the reps to do their job and I guess we wanted to keep the trend going so I became full time at the beginning of the year!
Since then we’ve been adding to the team building out sales and marketing ops functions along with enablement and technology.
Katrine Reddin:
Hi, Nicole, thank you for doing this AMA! My question for you is for all the smaller teams and startups present here. What RevOps roles, tools or processes would you suggest investing in first? Are there any classic mistakes you see a lot of new/young RevOps teams making?
Robert Gammon:
GREAT question, Katrine!
Nicole Smith:
What a great question. I think the sooner you can get a Salesforce admin (assuming you’re using Salesforce) in the seat the better. What tends to happen is they throw someone in it with very little experience and it creates a lot of extra work down the line. That would be the first thing.
The other thing I would recommend is getting a solid sales engagement tool in place. That sets the stage for efficiency down the line. You can go with the big players like Outreach or Salesloft but for more bootstrapped companies there are way more affordable options that can get the job done like Groove, MixMax, Outplay, etc.
And the third thing I would recommend is getting someone in there to build documentation. It could be a hybrid role for sure, but without documentation you’re setting the stage for silos.
That inherently builds into enablement.
Katrine Reddin:
Amazing, thank you!
Robert Gammon:
What are some key specialties or skills an admin in this startup or micro-environment needs that are different from an admin who works on a large team?
Nicole Smith:
So, I think they really need to understand what Salesforce can do. That’s a key in aligning the technology to the process. Using Trailhead is a great resource for that. What it also allows them to do is understand what their stakeholders are not only asking for, but what the best approach is. Usually with a big team, there comes a point where once you have a developer, they develop everything. No knock on those folks, because they’re extremely talented, but it’s a really easy way to over complicate things. Stick to the basics.
This also teaches them how to tactfully say no while explaining what a better option might be.
Matt Volm (Funnel IQ):
On that same note, Nicole - outside of Trailhead, any other resources out there for folks when it comes to SFDC?
Nicole Smith:
One of my favorite resources is salesforceben.com. Not only is it a great resource for training, but there are articles regularly released on different sales tools available, new Salesforce features, insights into sales ops/rev ops and how to transition from a more Salesforce admin type of role.
Robert Gammon:
I ❤️ Salesforce Ben!
Nicole Smith:
Also, find a mentor. There are tons of Salesforce admins and aficionados out there that are more than willing to help and share.
Robert Gammon:
Such an incredible resource. Trailhead has a Mentor program as well!
Erin O'Neill (RevOps Co-op):
Hey, we have a program for that too! Peer to peer and mentorship 1:1 meetings curated based on your profile and preferences. We use a platform called Meetsy for this.
Nicole Smith:
Mentorship is so great in this particular practice because you can bounce ideas off each other and Salesforce has been around for so long now that you may come across someone that’s already done what you’re trying to do. No sense in reinventing the wheel but maybe modify it to support your business.
Robert Gammon:
Ok so, Nicole, back to the basics. If I'm a RevOps pro and want to gain ground quickly with my organization, what do you think the FIRST step, document, or process should be?
Nicole Smith:
Meet with EVERYONE. One of the big keys to success is communication and building relationships.
Robert Gammon:
Like ... Everyone? Reps? Managers? Support Agents ?
Nicole Smith:
Learn what’s working and not working, but also help them understand how you can provide value.
Everyone. It’s good to understand from the 30,000 ft view but nobody knows better than those in the trenches. Issues that a support agent deals with are much different than those that a sales leader does because they’re naturally more in the weeds.
Chances are they may be more transparent with you than with their leaders. That’s not a bad thing. Be their confidant and ensure they understand that you’re there to make their lives easier.
You’re also likely get the detail you need to help them be more successful or streamline difficult processes they’re dealing with.
Robert Gammon:
One of my favorite activities as an Admin was sitting side by side in the "trenches" and just watching the team go through a process, LIVE on the phone with a customer. I would leave with 50 ideas and "oh heck, you really have to do all THAT".
How does RevOps get a handle on all the "ideas" and pair them up with goals?
Nicole Smith:
Well and on that note, a lot of times, they think that’s the best it gets. It’s really awesome to watch (and sometimes difficult to watch) what they’re doing because you see certain things where you’re like ‘why don’t you just do it this way?’ and a lot of times they don’t know what they don’t know.
It’s human nature to generally pay attention to the things that are more negative. That’s really more of what I look for. Start to understand where their struggles are and what the downstream effects are to pair them with goals. If they ask you for something, think about based on the ask, what are they going to ask for 6 months down the line once they have that, and build a plan to get that done before they even see it coming. Proactivity is key.
Robert Gammon:
#proactivity!
SK:
Nicole, what sort of advice/learnings would you share with someone who is looking to step into a Rev Ops leadership role for their first time? Specifically, around getting internal sign off on hiring their first direct report?
Nicole Smith:
Have a clear understanding of what the business needs and how your team is going to support it. A lot of times we hire because we’re already going through the issues so we just up and hire someone without a plan. Be intentional.
And secondly, balance the needs of the business with the order in which you hire.
Some folks in your organization may not agree and you need to tell a compelling story as to your why. Use data.
…There’s more! Read the full Slack AMA here 👉 Marrying your Process to your Tech & Scaling a RevOps Org
🗣 From the Community
#04_revops-questions
10/25/21: Anyone have particular success in helping sales pipeline become more accurate - ie, more accurate closing date estimates for deals? Read 13 Replies.
10/27/21: Curious to hear about compensation for Customer Success Managers for anyone who manages that. A core part of their responsibility is driving usage and value. We want to shift some of their variable compensation to be based on this. Do any of you comp based on usage/value rather than or in addition to renewal $? Curious to learn what people are doing. Read 5 Replies.
#08_tools-and-software
10/25/21: Does anyone have experience using out of the box Salesforce integration/plug-in for Gmail? we have 3 sales reps and there's been some push back on redundancy of Outreach since we already have LeanData, Hubspot, and Zoom. Would love to get the community's feedback on whether Gmail plug-in could replace Outreach as a sales productivity tool (e.g. email logging, task tracking, etc.). Read 5 Replies.
10/27/21: Does anybody here use Groove? We are currently thinking about migrating from Outreach and would like to connect to a current user. Read 11 Replies.
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Thank you, Sebastien Van Heyningen!
Funnel IQ is an operating system for your GTM team that provides end-to-end, full funnel analytics and insights that keep marketing, sales and customer success teams aligned and working seamlessly together to drive more revenue growth for your business.