RevOps Co-op Weekly #77 - Using RevOps to Unleash ROI in Your Organization
Jeff Ignacio joined us to talk about our Unleashing ROI RevOps course while providing insight on how to maximize your RevOps team’s impact.
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Using RevOps to Unleash ROI in Your Organization
We were getting a ton of questions about our Unleashing ROI RevOps Course so we decided to have an AMA all about it!
Jeff Ignacio had the answers for us and also went into detail about his approach to RevOps, how he became a RevOps Leader, and what he thinks separates the great RevOps teams from the ones just serving as admins.
Our moderator for this week was Robert Gammon, Senior Consultant at Cortado Group and a frequent Co-op contributor.
A little more about Jeff:
Passionate about driving revenue excellence working with sales, marketing, and customer success leaders. A results driven leader who believes in:
• A high sense of urgency to define and enable sales processes
• Stabilize and scale systems to work for you and not against you
• Collaborative, Team player (we may not always agree but we will work through all the angles)
• High integrity, Accountable
• Strategic Leadership, Hands on Approach
Erin O'Neill (RevOps Co-op)
Welcome to our LIVE Slack AMA with Jeff Ignacio - where you can get all of your questions answered on our newly launched Unleashing ROI RevOps Course.
Leading the charge is Robert Gammon!
Thanks for being here, you two! The interest in this course have been super high, so I bet people have a lot of questions.
Robert Gammon
Thanks Erin! Happy to be here!
With us today is the fabulous Jeff Ignacio who is leading what could be the coolest RevOps learning course ever created.
Jeff Ignacio
Morning everyone!
Robert Gammon
So to start us off... Jeff, why is revops so hot right now?
Jeff Ignacio
Besides Mugatu's poor processes and inability to provide insight to his fashion sales, RevOps has increased in intensity over the last two years. My personal belief is much of it comes from 1. the explosion of technology options, 2. increasing number of CRO hires, and lastly I think that collectively as a profession we 3. have given voice to our craft. In fact it's become a discipline that one can devote an entire career to now.
Robert Gammon
It really has become a career for most of us. What seemed like a trend is now becoming a must have set of skills!
So What is the biggest difference you see today between a well-oiled RevOps machine and maybe one that is behind the times?
Jeff Ignacio
In my mind, any business runs well when it can maximize opportunities and reduce risk effectively and repeatedly. To do that, operating cadences come to the center stage. Running the following effectively: 1. forecast calls, 2. deal reviews, 3. campaign management, 4. renewals, 5. annual planning
On top of that there is the systems and process design work that underlies all of the cadences above.
Robert Gammon
Alright that makes a ton of sense. So right now how do most people learn to get better at their RevOps practices?
Jeff Ignacio
I find organizations that under invest rely on tops down support for RevOps... these are recipes for strategic and process debt.
In all honesty, I think there is a real opportunity to broaden where professionals can learn the trade.
Robert Gammon
We’ve started to see that as a real gap .. knowledge sharing right ? So we form communities like this one!?
Jeff Ignacio
I learned the role the hard way: 1. Tons of Stack Overflow for the technical details, 2. Burning the midnight oil (working late into the night to problem solve), 3. joining communities and asking others, 4. getting in the role myself (calling prospects and figuring out what works and what doesn't)
Robert Gammon
SOOOO, we can learn some things from you! I heard we're kicking off a RevOps course here shortly right?
Jeff Ignacio
Ha! Yes indeed.
I've partnered with RevOps Co-Op to launch an educational experiment.
We’re calling it Unleashing ROI (RevOps Impact). We're tinkering w/ the format. I'm not an educator by training, so I've put down what I've learned at startups/scaleups in a GTM Ops role for others to learn.
It's not the ONLY way to do things, but I fundamentally believe the more mental models you have at your disposal the more you'll be able to think critically through whatever problem(s) you're solving.
Robert Gammon
How freakin’ cool!
Ok, so first question about the course is from Wendy:
“Curious to know if there is any flexibility with this, how many hours/week we would expect to have a hard time commitment to, and if we are able to miss any of the sessions?”
Jeff Ignacio
In terms of commitment we're locking in two hours. One hour for the open lecture and one hour for a peer led group discussion.
Wendy
Thank you! Would they be back-to-back hours? Or two hours per week?
Jeff Ignacio
Two hours per week. We will space it out. Personally I like the idea of launching the first cohort and learning from everyone what works, what doesn't.
Robert Gammon
^That’s RevOps right there.
Wendy
Love it! That is fantastic!
Robert Gammon
Nothing like a GREAT Acronym ROI (RevOps Impact) to help us explain it!
Jeff Ignacio
Any good process should feature: 1. Inputs, 2. Model, 3. Outputs, 4. Inspect, 5. Reinvent
Mark
Jeff -
"What are some of the most common misconceptions or things that are often misunderstood regarding RevOps?"
Jeff Ignacio
The number one thing that irks me is "Jeff.... you're the systems person, right?" "You're who I go to when my commission is wrong, right?"
I think the number one misconception is that RevOps doesn't have a seat at the decision making table, but feeds off the decision taking scraps.
Robert Gammon
We’ve got another question: Thanks Zach!
“Hi Jeff! I'd love to hear more about your plans for peer group sessions in the course. Will those mostly be centered around collective problem solving for member's projects/issues? Will there be broader discussions about differences in strategy and comparisons on company size etc.? Beyond that, will the cohorts be structured around a variety of company sizes/stages, or will they focus on companies at specific points in their growth?”
Jeff Ignacio
Zach - right now it's formatted as a second peer-led session that takes place the same week as the open lecture. Before each session each student will receive reading material. At the end of each reading are a series of questions tied to the material. They will serve as the questions for the peer group to discuss together.
In terms of contextualizing the course for varying stages of maturity, I like the idea. But honestly I think it'll be difficult to build out a "one size fits all" approach. There may be nuggets from the course that may be relevant to you and some that are not.
I'm open to feedback throughout the course so we can deepen or broaden topics as the student body sees fit.
Shim
Hi, Jeff. In an employee-heavy structure coming in as a newly formed RevOps team, it does get tricky to implement even the slightest change.
There is tons of enablement, leadership buy-ins and change management needed to do things properly.
Do you have any advice on how we can implement these changes as a RevOps team? What decision making frameworks could help? What's the ideal leadership / RevOps relationship to implement process change?
Jeff Ignacio
Shim - is the revops org new to the company? How was it assembled?
Shim
Currently a mix of internal and external humans.
We are going on a year. 5 people and growing. Servicing an account management, sales and CX team of about 50 strong. Org is currently 6 years old. Couple funding rounds. Total 150 peeps.
Jeff Ignacio
Shim - at 5 people covering a GTM org of 50 you have great coverage IMO. The very first thing I would do is establish a list of strategic project priorities across the business. Rank them somehow. You might use an Effort vs Impact 2x2 to stack rank. Then, gain alignment with executive stakeholders. From there, you should match bottoms up your team's capacity to handle these changes. Next, I'd establish a process for how you intake requests across the org, a process for communicating progress (i.e. sprints, SLAs), and a process for change management. Doing this will set expectations with your stakeholders.
Robert Gammon
So Jeff , Besides the folks IN this community right now... who else do you recommend take this course? Should we be sending referrals?
Jeff Ignacio
Robert - the course is for the new and experienced RevOps professional. I also think it's worthwhile for anyone looking to "cross over" into the trade from sales or marketing
Robert Gammon
Ooohh, CROSS OVER !
…There’s more! Read full AMA here 👉 Using RevOps to Unleash ROI in Your Organization
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In our next RevOps Hangout we will be discussing User Adoption. What are the best ways to ensure adoption? What do we do when we notice reps aren’t sticking to process? Do we have any favorite training techniques or accountability measures?
No matter how well thought out your processes are or how strong your tech stack happens to be, without user adoption, you’ll never have a clear picture of whats working and what’s not. Adoption is often overlooked at the Executive or Ops levels. We spend countless hours mapping our Buyer Journeys, documenting what we think is the ideal process, and selecting what we believe are the best tools to get things done. Join us and share your perspective!
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