The Rise of RevOps and The Data Driven CRO

The CRO Spotlight Podcast hi, I'm Warren Zenna, founder and CEO of the CRO Collective, and welcome to the CRO Spotlight Podcast. This podcast is for Chief revenue officers, aspiring CROs and CEOs who are looking to hire or support a CRO to succeed. So join me and my expert guests as we debate, discuss and tackle today's complex revenue growth challenges and provide practice practical insights to help CRO succeed in the role. We're really excited to have you with us. Now let's get to it. Hey everyone. I'm real excited today. I know it's been a bit of time since we've had an episode, but this is Wait. It's worth the wait because I have Rosalind Santa Elena with me today and everyone knows, I'm sure most people know who she is. You know, she's probably the foremost expert in the RevOps space. Probably certainly the biggest voice, you know, the leading voice. Every time I speak to anybody, I mention Rosalind as the person to speak to. And the Rev Ops space is just blown up, you know, it's huge. And so there's so much energy and gravity going towards it. And I think there's also a lot of confusion about it too. And I thought it'd be a really good opportunity to talk about some stuff. I was a guest on Rosalind's show. Man, how long ago was that? Long time ago, right? Because it feels like it was last year, 20 years ago. Salespeople often hate their CRM. Why? Because they are hard to use, difficult to customize, and expensive to maintain. This means leads and opportunities don't get updated, things get missed, and sales can suffer. Insightly is the modern CRM that teams love. Easy to use, flexible enough to support your unique needs and scales with you as you grow. This helps you sell smarter and grow faster and build lasting customer relationships. Insightly is trusted by more than a million users worldwide. For more information, visit insightly.com getinsightly Rosalind, welcome and thank you. I'm so glad. I know you're busy. So thanks for giving the time and I'm really looking forward to this conversation.

No, thank you for having me. I think this is a long time coming. I'm excited to be here and always, always a pleasure to chat with you, Warren.

Well, thanks. So a lot of new things going on in your world. I want to hear you share with everybody. So one thing I would say is you've just recently kind of like launched your own business, which I know we talked about prior and you also joined Created Your community, the Rev Ops Collective, which is great and I'm a member. I'm really happy about that too. So tell us a bit about that. Like, I know that, you know, you've been doing the consulting thing for a while and you're working for some companies. It'd be really interesting, I think, because a lot of people that are listening to this are entrepreneurs or they're thinking about being entrepreneurs. And you and I both have, you know, ventured out to do these things. What was that process like? And how did you arrive at the point that you decided, you know, I'm going to just do this finally, I'm not going to work for anybody anymore. What was the sort of motivation and what drove you to make the decision and how's it been going? What's, what's been happening with it?

Yeah, yeah. Thank you. So, yeah, as you were asking the question, I was thinking like, what drove me to this? Why am I doing this? Because honestly, I've never, Yeah, I mean, honestly I've never really envisioned myself as an entrepreneur. Entrepreneur kind of going out on my own. I've always saw myself as a practitioner working for, you know, working for a company, whether it's a small company or a really big company, but working for a different organization. But I think that over the last maybe four years or so, I've been spending a lot of time, you know, advising for companies kind of on the side in addition to kind of the day job and really helping, you know, organizations figure out their go to market strategy, thinking about product roadmap and messaging and, and you know, thinking about setting up revenue operations, you know, why do they need it? And sorry, my dog is very passionate about this topic too.

Yeah, well, we'll be interviewing your dog soon. We're going to get your dog in on this soon. So.

Yeah, so, but anyways. But I think. But I spent so much time advising companies really on the go to market strategy and a product roadmap and messaging as well as, you know, how to build, scale and grow revenue operations kind of on the side, in addition to doing sort of the day job and then also been doing a lot of coaching and mentoring of RevOps professionals. So recently decided, as you mentioned, to really go out on my own and do more of that because I felt like I wasn't having enough time to dedicate to being able to help all the organizations and all the people that I really wanted to help. And so by going kind of on my own and doing this full time, I'm able to, you know, have the bandwidth, really, and the time to meet with more organizations and really help more people. So, hey, if I can make a living off of it, great, but we'll see. That's still tbd, but I think that, you know, it's been really interesting to do that. And then as you mentioned, I just launched the community by the RevOps collective, and really, that's been sort of a passion project for me as well, because there's so many great communities out there, many of which I belong to. I've had, you know, a lot of, you know, effort put forth in terms of helping to build out the RevOps kind of kind of space. But I always felt like in a lot of these communities, RevOps is still sort of, you know, kind of the, the stepchild, right? Kind of in a smaller corner of the, Of a much bigger community, you know, primarily of revenue, right. Sales and marketing and cs. And it's almost like within the community, similar to being in organizations where we are also a subset of the revenue team in a much smaller, a smaller group or function. So really wanted to build out a community that's truly focused on revenue, operations, growth and really growth around those professionals, right? Helping people who are interested in operations or are pursuing or already in a RevOps career to really navigate and elevate themselves in terms of their career and helping them to hit their personal and professional goals while building sort of this network of trusted advisors that they, they can, they can lean on and, you know, help and share with others. So that's kind of the gist of the community. But in selfishly, it's a place, you know, as I've been telling people, it's a place for me to, you know, kind of dump, do a brain dump as well and really share just kind of my experience and some of my, my, my learnings over the last couple of decades in being in all of these different roles. Because right now I share a lot on LinkedIn, I do webinars and events and such, but having a place to really be almost like a repository to kind of share all of that content is, you know, hugely, I think, selfishly impactful for myself and hopefully it'll help some other people.

Yeah, I, I get it. You know, I do. I, I certainly can relate. I mean, I think, you know, I look at what you're doing and I think it makes perfect sense. I know it's, you know, running a business is tough. You know, there's a lot of bells and whistles and stuff associated with it. It's, it's not an easy thing. It's a love, you know, thing. You do it because you just really want to do it. You know, in my case, I think I've always been entrepreneurial, but I'm also unemployable, you know, so, you know, it's like, I got to do this, so that'll never happen. But, you know, I've always had a business of my own, always for, I don't know, it's got to be 20 years now. So even when I worked for other companies, I still had my own thing. So. But in any event, I. I'm curious about something around this. Right. So you mentioned a couple of things. One is a community, right? So, you know, there's a bit of, what do you think about community fatigue? Right. There's so many communities, right? I mean, how many communities can be a part of. And how many communities are people willing to pay for, too? Right? Particularly when there's some overlap. I mean, you look at, like, Rev, Genius and Pavilion, and these are all great platforms. I have nothing but, you know, positive things to say about them. But there's a point at which. And even, you know, the Growth Forum, which we're both part of, you know, there's a lot of communities and, you know, there's costs associated with them. What are your thoughts on how to navigate this issue and how do you mitigate that problem with, I think, people almost feeling like they can't give the time that you want them to give to the community, which doesn't get the value from either you or them. What's the. I don't know. I'm just curious what you're thinking about it, because I'm thinking about it, too, and I'm just curious what your thoughts are.

Yeah, no, I 100% agree. I think there's so many communities out there, and when folks ask me, like, oh, what's the best community for me to join? It's very similar to, you know, if you're looking for a new role or if you're thinking about, you know, changing, pivoting your career, it's all about, like, what is, you know, what are you looking to do and what are you hoping to gain? Right? And I think with all of these communities that at least the ones that I belong to, they all serve a different purpose. And the reason I join them is because it serves that particular purpose, right? Because, you know, there's some communities that are very, oh, very tactical, very technically focused around operations. There's ones that are more, you know, women in leadership focused, you Know, there's ones that are more kind of professional growth around overall revenue experience. And some are just networking, right? It's kind of like, hey, get together and chat with other people. But I think you have to be really intentional about what it is that you are hoping to gain from the community and then looking for a community that meets those needs. Because to your point, you need to invest. Sometimes it's money. A lot of these communities are free to join, but sometimes there's funds involved, you know, membership dues. But it's the time that you dedicate. Because I think that's it.

It's really the time. Because if I. If I'm paying 50 bucks a month or whatever month, if I'm in it a lot and I'm getting value out of it, I probably won't even see that money. But, you know, you make a good point. I want to say it, I think, is the way, way through this because I think there is community fatigue and I think the way to navigate. You said it so well. It's all about specificity and niche. Right? So, you know, if you have general communities, if I may say, a sales community, that's a big umbrella, that's a lot of things fit under that, you know, whereas if it was like, maybe it's just telephone sales, you know, or, you know, SDR group, you know, that's very specific. And, you know, I think that if I'm like you, advising people in the marketplace how to think about a community, it's fine. Communities that are as specific as possible so that you get the most value based on what you're looking for. And I think what you're doing, and you know, myself as well, we're lucky in that we've picked very specific things like rev ops is a disciplinary. It's a lot of specificity to it. And then it's also what I want to ask you about the approach you're taking. Right. So you mentioned things like technical or tactical. Like, how would you describe the way you're going to approach RevOps as opposed to like, let's say, any other option that might be out there. What do you think your vision is for how your particular platform is going to focus?

Yeah, yeah, that's a great question. And I think that because we are very. I'm very focused on up, leveling the revops professional. Right. And so that means very different things for different RevOps people. Right. Depending on where they're at in terms of their career, they could be a year or two in, they could have just pivoted into revenue operations. They could be, you know, a seasoned veteran who has, you know, 20 years experience, 10 years experience experience and maybe has done a lot more. And I think the ultimate goal is that wherever you are in kind of size and stage of, of your career and where you're at in terms of years of experience, you still want to learn, right. And you still want to grow. But how do you get there? Right? And I think that's where my primary focus is, around up leveling the people. And that means through content, through, you know, learning, through meetings and get togethers and you know, different types of events around learning. Right. So we'll have fireside chats and monthly meetups on different topics, but all relevant to a day in the life of a Revops professional, right? Because there's a lot of events that you can join around social selling, right. Or around different things around brand, you know, marketing and how to do your website. And there's just so no shortage of topics around the business, but very specific to operations like what is a Revops business person care about when it comes to sales? You know, like you mentioned SDRs, for example, you might be in an SDR community, but from a rev ops perspective, what do we care about? We care about enabling the sdr, right? The sales engagement platform. What is that messaging? How do we drive adoption? You know, all of these different questions. I think from an ops perspective. And again from a rev ops perspective, there's no shortage of topics to cover, right? The how broad our roles are and how deep across the funnel is, you know, lends itself to being very challenging in a very positive and not negative but very challenging way. Right. It can be very overwhelming. And so in this community we're really focused on things that are top of mind for ops professionals. You know, how to navigate their day to day challenges, but also how do they get to where they need to go, right. In terms of kind of short term and long term goals. And those goals are going to be different for everyone, which means that there's got to be different flavors of that learning so members can join different types of initiatives that make sense for them. And I think a lot of I'm also seeing a lot of more senior level folks who want to give back, right. And they want to be part of a community where they can share their learnings and be able to mentor others that are kind of up and coming as well as establish themselves as thought leaders. So there's a lot of different avenues I think for really helping to accelerate your career and Accelerate your kind of positioning in the market depending on what those ideal outcomes are going to be.

Yeah, got it. That's really great. So we, you know, very similar perspectives on things within our, within our own respective swim lanes. So, not surprisingly. So, so I. Let's switch gears. I want to ask you something you and I talked about and that is. So I'll just give you the anecdote. I'm very close with a bunch of Chief Revenue officers and other people who are sort of thought leaders in that space. And there was a article, I think it was in LinkedIn, it was a couple weeks ago, maybe a month ago, that was basically talking about how the rev ops role is now the number one role available, Head of Revenue operations. It's good news and it's all great, but I was happy to hear it because I think it makes sense to me. But I also thought about the way that the article was utilized by various organizations and the way it was repurposed. A lot of this happens if I'm a rev ops software developer, let's say, for example, and I see an article like that, it makes sense that I'm going to tout that article as being, you know, someone. Right. And a lot of the articles, not a lot, I won't say a lot, but a few of them in particular seem to sort of equate the rev ops role as being a Chief Revenue officer role. Right. And this is like a really interesting area where these two sort of disciplines, sort of, I wouldn't say they both exist together cooperatively and probably necessarily like almost like a yin and yangish sort of thing. There's also some degree of like, where do you see the role going? You know, like, because the. In my perspective, we've talked about this a lot, you and I, we continue to. Is, you know, I have a worldview of, of a, of a revenue operation being led by an executive leader, the chief revenue officer, who has oversight over the entire revenue function, which is sales, marketing, customer success, etc. And is it necessary for that person to have a really smart rev Ops professional within that organization to help keep the intelligence and the data and all the functions and systems working in a way that makes everything work together in a data driven and, you know, aligned manner? Right. So the question I ask my participants in my course all the time is if you're interviewing for a Chief Revenue officer role and you're interviewing a sales leader, a marketing leader, a customer success leader, or a rev Ops leader, which one would you think would you be more likely to Hire as a CRO. And it's sort of a trick question, but I'm curious what your thoughts are in terms of the way the role is evolving. What you see the future of the role, particularly as it pertains to running revenue teams and how that's being like played out right now in the world and what the perception is like.

Yeah, yeah, that's a great question. And I did see that article as well and I think, you know, it was a LinkedIn kind of the fastest growing roles, right. For 2023. And head of Revenue Operations was sort of that first title. And it was interesting because I said, oh, well that's great, that's no surprise. But when you read the is oh also often called Chief Revenue Officer or called, you know, some of these other titles and I'm like, that's right.

It was often called that kind of.

And I was like, it really kind of. Yeah, it took away a lot of that Credibility of Revenue Operations kind of that title being number one. Because now it led me to think about data quality. Right. Immediately my OPS brain goes to that says, are they actually counting this as number one? Because they're including all the Chief Revenue Officer titles, which has also hugely increased.

It's growing as well. There's no question about that for sure.

Exactly. And so then I'm thinking, okay, well that makes sense why it's number one then? Because they're including things that I probably you and I both would not include. Right. Because I certainly would never include a Chief Revenue Officer as a head of RevOps. I mean, those are two totally different roles. But then what was very positive in the article though? There were a number of other roles. I think there were five or six other roles that, that were actually roles that belong as part of a RevOps function. There was like a deals Desk Manager, I think there was an enablement function, you know, enablement manager and some type of Head of Enablement type of role. I see.

So they were like putting a bunch of other roles underneath the RevOps umbrella, so to speak, in a way, right?

No, so actually they were on that top 10 list. There were other roles that were also fastest growing, but I'm like, oh, these fit into the ops. So I was more focused a little bit more on that. But I did see a lot of similar to you, a lot of companies saying, oh, head of Rev Ops, you. And I think there was a lot of debate about that. And you know, my perspective is that a CRO is a very, very different role from the Head of Revenue operations. Or a VP of RevOps. Right. I look at the VP of RevOps as that right hand, you know, chief of staff person that helps partner with the Chief Revenue officer. If I think about even the skill set and sort of the mindset of an operations person around running, you know, processes, technology, data, insights, enablement. Right. And kind of the, and keeping those people, that people aspect as well. I really think about them as running that infrastructure the day to day, providing the partnership and thought leadership to the CRO. And then the CRO is then can go focus in on longer term strategy, working with the CEO on kind of what's, what's to come on the revenue side and out meeting customers. Right. Being in front of clients and customers and out there running the overall revenue engine. And so I think people start to confuse that thinking that oh, a head of RevOps, you know, can it be a path to a CRO? Sure. If they want to be in sales and in marketing and doing, you know, the client facing work and being able to carry a bag and close deals. Right. And be able to, you know, work with customers on retention and keeping them happy and driving that value. It's a different role. I think it's a different, sometimes a different skill set. But from a rev ops perspective, when folks ask me, you know, what's next? Right. Okay, I'm ahead of RevOps or VP of RevOps, what should I do next? And I think there's different paths, right. And again it's going back to even that community answer. It depends on what it is, what you're interested in, where you're strong and what's your ultimate goal. Because from a rev ops perspective you could move into a COO role, you maybe could move into a CRO role. Maybe you're really marketing focused and you want to be more of a head of marketing or customer success or even in a finance role. Right. I've seen folks move over there or maybe they're very system and technically focused so they move move over more into analytics or you know, it role or even business ops. Right. There's tons of different opportunities I think because there's you come in the entry point into revenue operations is going to be very different for everyone. And then so where you go from there can also be very different. But does it not. But does a CRO have to an OPS person? No. And that's probably why they're so good at being a CRO and they have a strong, you know, kind of second in command ops person by their side because process maybe not their Thing, you know, and some of the things that ops people think about.

I talk about it this way, you're 100% right. I, I don't look at it as, I mean I certainly think that, you know, there's the, let's call it like the, the, the brain type CRO, you know, who's more numbers driven and data driven and very process driven and you know they're going to bring a certain type of cultural nuance to that role that someone who's more leadership driven and more, you know, strategically driven to the role. And you know, I think that I've seen two types of really successful chief revenue officers, ones that are grounded in really amazing good data and business acumen and they analyze everything and they look at things like systems and you know, they, they're not necessarily these sort of like really, you know, let's say they didn't have like a lot of this sort of like strong leadership. They're not like these, what's the word? Like charismatic visionary types. You know, they're not like leading the charge and creating this big vision, but they're really good at getting the business done. And then they're the ones that are really good at being like the ralliers and they know how to build teams and create this big vision and they employ people that get the job done, you know, and I see, you know, it's not one or two, but I see that's on the, on the, on the outer end of the rim of the two types. That's where they are.

Right.

And that's why I think that as revenue operations in the B2B space becomes more complex marketing because more comes more complex and more software tools get added into the mix. The way we're seeing now more automation systems get into like you need to have a partner who understands how all these stuff connects together and naturally thinks that way because you're ultimately going to have everything plugging into some centralized CRM and all these other tools hanging off of it. And if you don't have somebody who can make sense of all of it for you on a day to day basis and run those things and keep everything running together, you're going to fight against the natural entropy of those teams all started to try and become individualized silos again. That's like almost like nat. It's like a gravitational force. They're trying to push all these teams to self, self manage before someone has to keep the thing together. And I think that's an interesting thing people understand is that this, this misalignment that these two functions that we're talking about fix. They do it because left their own devices, people run their own thing. You know, they don't cooperate. They just don't. It's not because they're not good people, just that we are more inclined to want to survive, you know, and run our own little ship than we are to cooperate. And so to that end, you know, the audience listening to this right there, they're CROs, they're aspiring CROs and then they're also CEOs who are maybe in the process of thinking about maturing their revenue engines. So to those three people who are listening to this and they're thinking about revops, what is this thing and you know, what's the right timing for me and, and, and, and if I'm in the process of thinking about maybe getting past my revenue stall or my revenue plateau or whatever area I'm trying to increase and start to add new disciplinary functions or strategic direction to my company. How does RevOps fit into that for them? Yeah, and what's a way in which they start to think about it so that they can make sense of it and pull it into their organizations in a way that makes it work?

Yeah, yeah, that's a great question. And I think that, you know, I always ask folks when they're thinking about revenue operations if they are at a point where, you know, obviously earlier the better, right. To start bringing in some type of operations.

Like how early? Like 1 million in revenue, 2 million. Like when's the point at what you think about.

Yeah, and a lot of people try to put either a dollar amount or a head number on it. But I think that, you know, as we both know, a million dollars in revenue could be one transaction, it could be a hundred transactions. Right. And so it really depends on your, your selling motion and who do, who are you selling to and the complexity in terms of how you sell. So kind of taking a step away from those numbers, I think about when you have product market fit right when you are starting to sell, when your CEO is no longer your only seller, it's probably time to start thinking about some of that infrast. Does it mean that you have to hire a full blown RevOps team? No, absolutely not. Does it mean that you have to hire an executive VP of RevOps? No, but it does mean that you need to start thinking about and start to build some of that foundation so that you're able to start creating a repeatable process. Right. When you start to have somewhat of a sales Process, you want to not only align that process to start to scale, but also look at the data, the information to be able to iterate. Because in a small company, your ability to move fast and to iterate and to lean in on the things that are working is critical to your survival. Right? And that's where I think ops steps in, right? It's where you're starting to get your systems in line and maybe just have a CRM, which is fine. And don't over. We can go into a whole section on, you know, whole whole session on, not over, engineering your tech stack. But if you just start to have some type of system, you start to have a repeatable process, you start to build, lay out the groundwork, right? It's almost like laying the cement of your foundation, of your, your revenue infrastructure. Then you can start to build from there. Because more often than not, you see companies not hiring ops. And so what happens is their seller, their CRO, right, Their VP of sales or their marketing leader, whoever, those folks that are already on board, they end up getting bogged down with the OPS type of work, or they struggle to get those insights and information that they need. In worst case, they build something that they think is, you know, that works for the company, that isn't going to work for the company. Right. It's not, maybe not best practices or the right way to build it, but they're kind of hobbling things together just to get, you know, through their day and get the information that they need. And so when you do hire operations at that point, a lot of times it's unwinding some of the things that have been built incorrectly and then start to rebuild the things that need to work. And then aside from them kind of working on things that may be building it incorrectly or maybe not in the best format for what you need longer term, but also it takes away from them doing the things that they're really good at. Right? So if I'm a sales leader, instead of going out and selling and meeting customers, I'm spending time figuring out my systems, right. Or just trying to get the data that I need. And so it may not be there. You know, if they're the more the business acumen type of leader, then yes, maybe they know how to do it. But do you really want them spending time on that? And if they're not that type of process or systems person, then chances are they're struggling and they're not building it correctly.

Yeah, this make up great points there. You know, I see a lot of my clients struggle with pulling themselves out of the technical quagmire, you know, because they. They'll add a Salesforce or a HubSpot system, and then there's a lot of admin associated with it or just getting it set up properly. We sort of turn all of our people into technicians unwittingly, and they become software engineers without realizing it because we give them these tools to work with, and then they're forced to. And then you get two types of people, right? So you get these certain people that are. They're. They're good at what they supposed to do. Like, you put them. Let's say. Let's use sales as an example. You hire someone who's a good salesperson, and they're really responsible, and they like getting on the phone and creating prospects and having conversations. And the more they complicate that process, the more they realize that they need to rely on the tools they've been given to make it work. And they become stuck in them and they're doing it too much, and they kind of want to get out of it, but they're. They're stuck in it. And then the other type of person is people who use technology as a distraction to keep them away from doing things they don't want to do because just, you know, they're fun. You know, software can be fun. You know, it's sort of like a neat little thing. I see. I'm seeing this a lot where you get a couple of these salespeople that are sort of like quasi engineer types, you know, and they like sitting inside of Salesforce and fiddling with it and making things better. And it's like, steve, listen, you know, that's not your job, dude. Like, get on the phone. Like, yeah, but I can make this better. It would be amazing. You know, I want to add this field. It's like, yeah, I get that. But they don't. And, you know, it's. I think a rev ops function is a good way to sort of keep people focused on their jobs by having somebody responsible for something that is where it's supposed to be. And it's putting people not only in the seats where they're supposed to be, but keeping them focused on the actions that they're supposed to be focused on. Because the reason why there's a lot of salespeople many times in companies is because a lot of them, half. They're only selling. Half the time. You're only getting half a person, you know, and you need to get them efficient. And I see that this is Part of the issue is that a rev Ops function, it not only drives intelligence and creates process, but it also frees people up to do the things that they're supposed to be doing and also gives them a focus. Like focus here, don't focus there. This data or this particular metric is more important than this one. And, you know, if you do this more often, you'll get this result as opposed to this other thing that you may occur. Like, it's a good idea, but it's actually a waste of time in terms of our bottom line. And I think that's a big part of it is Rev Ops is an intelligent layer. It makes people smarter about what they should and shouldn't do. And yeah, it might be. So much that you're saying is that in a way, the rev Ops function should follow any type of maturity around their technology. So when someone says, all right, we're getting HubSpot, you know, it's probably a good time to start thinking about bringing somebody in who not just knows how to set up HubSpot, but actually thinks about the organization from a data perspective. I'm just curious what your thoughts are in terms of the timing.

Yeah, definitely. I think you think about the data and then the processes and the governance. Right. As well as the adoption that needs to happen around any technology. And even before you get the technology right, what is that process look like? Is everybody clear on what that process is? Are they enabled to follow the process? Do they understand the why? Right. And building a lot of that to be able to then bring in technology to help drive efficiency. Right. And automation. I always tell folks that before you buy technology. I think a lot of times people will buy technology as a forcing kind of function to get their processes right and to kind of really think about how they want to do business.

Yeah, it's true. It forced these things to happen when you get tech, you know, because there's no. There's no interpretation left anymore. It's like, okay, we're trying to create facts. That's right, folks, you know.

That's right. That's right. And so I think if you. Yeah, and so a lot of times it's like, if you can. If you have a process and the process is working and you understand it, then if you bring in tech layer on technology on top of that, then you're getting the true benefit in the roi, Right? Because then you're starting to get the automation and getting better efficiency through the technology. Right. And then the technology, in a lot of cases, when there's really Deep analytics or insights is able to then provide the level of insights that maybe a human either can't do or it takes them hours to do. Right? Being able to pull all this data and be able to do that. The other thing I think to think about, you know, we talked about a lot of factors to think about whether or not you need ops, but I think another reason is, you know, when you don't have visibility, right. I think when you're not really sure what your forecast looks like, or you're not really sure where those leads are coming from, or you're not really sure, you know, what's working, what's not in any part of the end to end funnel, that's where your ops kind of that revenue operations around the intelligence piece that you were speaking to, that's where it's super powerful, right? Because yes, there's the kind of the, the practical side of building infrastructure, but it's about unlocking those insights to really share, you know, what's working and what's not. Because I think that's the blind spots that you hear a lot from companies. Yeah, they're selling, they have 12 customers, they're generating some revenue, but they don't really know why did these customers sign up? Why did these customers sign up and not these other hundred that they talk to? And really diving more deep into those insights and then feeding that back into the engine is really important. And it's not just when customers sign up. Right. I've been on my soapbox lately about when customers leave you, right. Really, there's so much learnings there. If a customer churns, there's so much learning there to understand. And why did they leave? Was it just because they went out of business and they didn't have funding? You know, was it because they didn't get the experience that they were expecting? Were they never a customer that should have bought in the first place? Right. But all of those things, whatever those learnings are, you can feed that back into your top of funnel marketing, into your messaging, into your sales cycle, you know, all along the journey. And there's so much to learn there. But I think there's a lot of insights there that we're not tapping into. But then if you have a revops function that is solely focused on a lot of this kind of holistic view of the business, that's where you're going to glean those insights, you know, those deeper insights and then also help you see kind of what's around the corner. And we always talk about the Blind spots.

Yeah, it's so important. It's intelligence. Again, you know, I think that aside from not knowing or not knowing how things happen or when they happen or, you know, what the events that occur that make things happen, a lot of times, too, the companies I work with, they don't even know the questions to ask. They don't know what they're looking for, you know, which is why we created a bunch of diagnostics that forced them to say things like, so what's the time to market that you take? How long does it take a customer to become a customer? How long does it take a customer to reach value? What's the time that it takes for you when a person first reaches out to you, that you close a deal? What's the cost? It costs you to get that customer? There's like a hundred questions you can ask. And, you know, I'm amazed that some of the CEOs I work with are eyes open, like, I don't know any of these pictures. Like, well, you know, you should. Right? And, you know, think about it. If you had all this information, how much smarter you'd be working every day, because the intent would be to identify two or three key trigger events that, you know, if we do these repeatedly and we can make them happen repeatedly, a lot of other ones cascade from those that will result in us getting business faster. Right. And when you can identify that, that's when that repeatable business engine comes into play. And I think the rev ops is such a key component of that, because without that intelligence, you never really. You're always going to be sort of guessing all the time, you know.

Yep, yep, yep. And especially in this market, right, when everyone's talking about doing better with less or doing more with less, it's. It's all about putting your money, your resource, you know, all of your resources, time, money, people, towards the right things that are going to drive the best, you know, most likely I. Outcomes. Right. The ones that you want. And I think we spend a lot of time and money on doing a lot of the things that people are like, don't really see the value in doing.

Yeah, I get it. So I'm going to ask you a question, be helpful in this framework is. So to the CROs that are listening to this conversation right now, what would you. What would your sort of perspective or advice, to lack of a better word, be in terms of how to best how a CRO should best work with a rev Ops person? Like, what's the right sort of cadence and the right way in which that particular role would benefit them and what's the structure of it, what's the cadence of it, what's the nature of the relationship? And so Maybe even some CROs who are maybe either a being challenged with the RevOps function right now, or CROs who are thinking about increasing or like augmenting the RevOps function they have. What kind of advice would you give them in terms of how to best utilize it?

Yeah, I think, you know, starting to, you know, at a very foundational, basic level, start thinking about your revenue operations as really that strategic business partner. Right. Stop thinking about them as just the data or just the tech or just the tactical folks and really think about that leader needs to be, you know, your business partner, your thought leader, the one that really executes upon the things that you want to accomplish. I think about me as a VP of RevOps, working with the CRO kind of in my past roles and the CRO, he or she may have a specific idea that, oh, I think we should go do this. And as an ops professional, that person, if you hire with the right expertise and knowledge, they're going to challenge you on a lot of this and either support you and say yes, this is right because the data proves it, or that's just, you know, that is not a good idea and it's not going to work. And they need to be able to be at that level where they can challenge you and help you make the best decisions for the overall business. And I think the sooner you think about the role as being more of a strategic business partner and thought leader than as a tactical, you know, order taker or administrator, then the, the faster you're going to get that true value from someone. And I think a rev op professional, because we are, it's a really unique personality I think, because we are folks who are, can be very strategic but aren't afraid of the tactical. Right. And we are very outwardly facing because one of the biggest, I think key traits of a successful rev ops leader is that they can drive consensus and be able to influence and align multiple stakeholders who have very different agendas and values and goals and be able to bring everybody along for that journey. That's a key trait that I think is number one over anything else. I think for RevOps leader is that ability to influence, drive consensus, that really strong communicator. But on top of that, we're also not afraid to go dig into the data, right. And be technical and not afraid of systems. So it's a really unique kind of balance of mindset for those folks. And it's hard to find. You know, I think it's harder to find that person. But at the same time, you can, you can complement that by having folks that are in that kind of more technical, tactical, and then have somebody who's more strategic as well. If you can't find kind of that one, we call it the Unicorn or the Purple Squirrel.

It's great you say this because the thing I tell my clients a lot is your Rev Ops person is going to be the person that will give you the evidence that you need to make decisions and sell the decisions into the company. Because, you know, what happens a lot at the executive level is it's a lot of opinions being bounced at each other and it's the one who's in charge most that wins when it's a battle of opinions. Right. I'm in charge of. My opinion's more important. You know, okay, fine. But if I have data and that data is monetized data, like for example, we're losing this much money or we'll make this much more money or we'll gain this many more customers, you can win any argument. And so you sort of need to have that Rev Ops person just to kind of almost put them in to a mission and say, all right, I need you to create a rationale for me at least first, first validate, validate my thesis. Right. And then once you've validated it, if I'm wrong, fine, tell me what's up. Then I need to put together the story using data to make my case so that I can get movement and I can get consensus and I can get resources and authority and permission to take actions. And, and it's so critically important. And I find a lot of my clients are coming to me saying, oh, my boss won't do X, my boss won't do Y. And it just, all it is is they're just arguing with each other.

That's right. That's right.

Like, did you do any data? Did you any research? Can you bring your boss, like a PowerPoint presentation that shows how much money they're losing that one way or how much money they're going to make the other way. And when they do that, it's, it's, you know, you really can be very persuasive. So I think your secret weapon, you know, is your Rev Ops person whom can first make sure you're not crazy and then second of all then help you tell your story better. Right. More persuasively. So I think it's important because so much of being a CRO is about trying to get stuff done and trying to break down walls and like get decisions made and get resource allocations and approvals. Oh God. And so, you know, if I had somebody who I knew can do that, then, you know, you got a great, a great partner. So any other things you wanted to like, emphasize about the Rev Ops role and you know, your own business? Before we end here, because we're coming up on time, I wanted to make sure that I have a chance for you to like, how do people reach you? What are you working on? What are some things that are happening? Maybe important things you'd like for people to listen to, know about Yourself or the RevOps role, whatever the case may be.

Yeah, no, no, thank you for just the opportunity. I'm super. You know, was very excited to kind of be on this podcast. I think it's been a long time coming so I'm happy to be here and you know, just share more. Anytime I get a platform to talk about revops, I'm going to take it. Right. I'm just so passionate about it and yeah, just definitely building. If anyone wants to reach out, LinkedIn is always the best way. You can also come to the RevOpsCollective.com website book book some time with me. That's probably a better way to get in front of me and to have just have a conversation because I think all of us are probably in this LinkedIn DM kind of madness where, you know, we can't find any messages in terms of there things get lost. But yeah, reach out anytime. I'm always happy to talk shop, always happy to Talk to any CEOs, founders, CROs who are maybe more interested in learning about RevOps and like, why do they need it and when do they need it and you know, if they are convinced that they need it, you know, what do they need? And also, I think, think we, I see a lot of. Also I think you mentioned earlier around they have RevOps but maybe they're not leveraging it properly or they're not seeing the value because it hasn't been, you know, maybe set up properly or enabled to be that strategic advisor that we're, you know, that we're talking about.

Yeah, it's like the Ferrari in the garage, you know, you gotta like unleash the power. Yeah, great. Well, so it's the RevOps collective and they can find you at the RevOpsCollective.com right?

Yeah, yep, yep, definitely. And yeah, and for anyone who's listening? They've got to go back and listen to our initial episode on the Revenue Engine when you were a guest.

We should totally, I, I haven't listened to it in a while. I want to hear what that was like. I probably sound like a little whippersnapper back there.

Oh, I know what the heck I was saying. I'd be surprised. I think I, I bet you we'd be pleasantly surprised if we were to listen to it, that a lot of the messaging is still consistent three years later or two and a half years later.

Right? I, I, I'll listen. I, I, I, I trust you. I, I'm a, my worst critic. So to that end, thank you. And, you know, just a little kind of a related plug, you know, Roslyn's going to be a guest speaker on the CRO Accelerator course, which is for aspiring Chief Revenue officers, and we're excited to have her actually add some more depth to some of the people who are participating. And for those interested on the podcast, if you're interested in becoming a Chief Revenue officer, the next CRO Collective Accelerator course is coming up in April. It's a great course. Everyone's getting a lot out of it, and I love doing it. And then for CEOs, we have the CRO Readiness Program. If you're thinking about hiring a Chief revenue officer, you should definitely talk to me because you make a lot of mistakes along the way. It can cost you like about a million dollars, literally about a million dollars in wasted money if you don't do it properly. Plus maybe a couple years of a stall in the way that you are operating your revenue operations. So give me a buzz about that. But anyway, this is always great, Roz. Thank you so much. I know you're busy, and I just love having your wisdom shared with the audience. And I'll see you in your community and I' in a couple of weeks on the course. Thanks.

Awesome. Thank you so much.

You got it. Bye. Bye.