First things first…

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What am I seeing this week: GTM needs a refresh!

Poorly aligned to Markets are rife and could mean the difference between Zero to one, as Peter Thiel says. Let’s dig a bit deeper into what I mean.

Unsuccessful companies are:
🧊 Randomly choose 'in vogue' accounts
🧊 Have marketing send a bunch of generic collateral with no clear CTA to those accounts
🧊 Get your SDRs to cold call with no plan
🧊 Sales will be PO'd when no meetings are booked
🧊 Scrap those accounts and start again

Successful companies are:
🔥 Aligning their accounts with data around the propensity to buy
🔥 Create focus: Have a set amount of named accounts for each AE
🔥 Align ABM efforts within those accounts
🔥 Field marketing is directing they're marketing $ to those specific business units and personas
🔥 SDRs are creating tailored sequencing for those prospects

Which Company creates more revenue, do you think? Yes, I know that’s a little tongue-in-cheek, but why do organisations still do the first? Is it because it's easier to work in silos rather than break down all those barriers to success.

I’d love your thoughts on why this still happens; drop your comments below!

Five questions of the week

This week, we are excited to speak with Tommy Taylor, whose unique journey has seen him move from Sales Development Rep to now being at the centre of everything sales operations at Fenegro, which enables financial institutions to transform the end-to-end client lifecycle experience. Tommy is also co-chapter head of Pavilion in Amsterdam!

What drew you to working in Rev ops in the first place?

I say I "stumbled" into this path. After graduating with a business degree, I found my way into a SaaS company as a Sales Development Rep. I quickly realised that the "art of persuasion" required in making sales was not for me. Still, I enjoyed the go-to-market functions and supporting from a process, systems, and extracting insights perspective. My skillset and interests were much more in combining business strategy with process and technology, which drew me into RevOps roles. I have also enjoyed being in the function to see the RevOps space evolve from being very position-specific "firefighters" to holistic GTM strategic thinkers. I enjoy being close to the business and objectively analysing our performance and where we can improve.

If you could magically change one perception of your role, what would it be?
I had a colleague jokingly compare RevOps to internet protocol, or even traditional post, where there is a destination for the information or requests (or mail and packages) that can't be delivered elsewhere. A "catch-all," if you will. DevOps teams can fall victim to this that when people have a request on a GTM function that doesn't quite fit in anywhere, it will be sent to RevOps. This is the perception I want to change. RevOps should be a function directly tied to the organisation's strategic objectives, and we should be deliberate in the initiatives we undertake to serve this specifically. The "catch-all" requests that are neither important nor urgent to the corporate objectives should not detract us from this focus.

AI is here to stay. How can AI have a positive impact on RevOps?
I'm not convinced that AI will ever entirely replace the sales function. No matter how smart the technology is, I am sceptical that we will ever want to replace human-to-human interaction. I see AI playing a more significant role in being able to analyse these interactions to 1. log every interaction that is taken, 2. understand the context and the sentiment of these interactions, and 3. then provide actionable insights on how the current course can be changed to provide a more desired outcome. RevOps will then have a seat at the table and a specific role in many meetings backed with solid insights—for example, a forecast call. RevOps will be able to question the likelihood of particular deals by uncovering risk or escalating other deals that have the potential to move.

If you could go back in time, what advice would you give your younger self before transitioning into Rev Ops?

Learn to say no and prioritise. RevOps is a problematic function where it can have many stakeholders, with some of them eager to give you work. Being young in RevOps, I found it difficult to say no, so my time would go towards balancing requests while trying to check off all the emails coming in. I was taking too much on my plate and wasn't providing visibility into my workload, so people were getting frustrated that I wasn't delivering in a timely fashion. Further, I wasn't showing on the strategic "rocks" either and solving the impactful challenges of the GTM team. Being enabled to say no and prioritise comes with setting a team purpose and vision and getting buy-in on those statements. This is the crucial learning I wish I had learned sooner in my career.

How will the RevOps function evolve over the next 24 months?
The most recent SaaS market "correction" has brought more attention to GTM strategies and execution. I am seeing investors today putting much more focus on this area of the business before they are willing to make investments and after throughout the ongoing board meeting cadence. This is driving additional accountabilities to the GTM leadership team, which in turn requires RevOps to lead the proper metric collection and deliver insights. Along this trend, I foresee that in the next 24 months, GTM leadership will be pressed to have more foresight in how we are setting the GTM strategy. This strategy is often formulated annually, comprised mainly of an exercise at year-end where we will begin the analysis for trying to set targets for the next four quarters. However, we will need to extend this to align more with corporate strategy practices, including developing a multi-year plan and incorporating various scenarios and risks. This would mean that RevOps will need to align more with finance teams than ever before while learning more about strategy formulation models.

Book of the week

And Finally!

Is there a particular topic you’d like me to focus in on? Send a message on Linkedin and let me know!