Pathways to RevOps
EP3 | The RevOps Recruiters Podcast
RevOps is a relatively new function within many companies, so what background and experience do most RevOps leaders have? In this episode of The RevOps Recruiters podcast, we explore the career pathways into Revenue Operations. Whether you're looking for your next RevOps leaders, or you're looking to make a step into Revenue Operations, we believe you'll find this content to be helpful.
Entry Points to RevOps
The pathway to RevOps in non-linear. We’ve seen RevOps leaders come from a number of functions… sales, marketing, customer success, and finance just to name a few.
In fact, the experience of working in these other roles give many RevOps leaders empathy for the GTM (go-to-market) team they work closely with.
Pathways in RevOps
Ad-hoc Operational Role
Oftentimes, we see companies begin with ad-hoc operations, utilizing someone on the GTM team to help begin to bridge the operational gap. Typically, these individual already have natural skills that allow them to help with tasks like reporting and automation. These individuals are usually explorers with a strong sense of curiosity and always looking for a better way.Siloed Operational Role
The next progression we generally see if the siloed operational role, where one specific segment of GTM gains a dedicated operations team member (i.e. SalesOps, MarOps , CS Ops). Because this individual is dedicated to the ops function, they’re able to focus on the tech stack, ICPs, processes, playbooks, and KPIs. However, since they’re just dedicated to just one team, often SalesOps first, this isn’t true RevOps.True RevOps
Once companies reach this point in the journey, they’ve recognized the value of having an operational function that is focused full funnel, across the entire customer journey. The RevOps leader is now touching all the GTM functions and working with the teams across marketing, sales, customer success, as well as teams like finance and legal. Operations is now centralized.Full RevOps Team
The final step of the RevOps journey culminates with a strong RevOps team, made up of strategic leadership and key specialist roles. These specialist roles can be focused in a number of areas, from specific departments (i.e. sales or marketing) to specific skillsets (i.e. data analysis or CRM/tech stack).
Advantage: Sales Operations
Though we’ve seen great RevOps leaders come from a variety of backgrounds, the advantage goes to those with a background in Sales Ops. Here’s why.
Experience with Pipeline
In the middle of the Customer Journey, so already have some expose up (marketing) and down (customer success).
Sales is the closest function to revenue generation
But if you’re not in sales operations now, don’t see this as a limiter. The bottom line is cross functional exposure. We’ve heard CROs tell us over and over they are attracted to candidates with a wide variety of background roles and cross functional exposure.
Links to this Podcast Episode