"The sales operations manager is now literally the strategic partner of the VP of Sales," says Craig Rosenberg, Co-Founder and Chief Analyst of TOPO. "The role is that important. The days of just fetching reports are gone."
In anticipation of EXCEED, LeadGenius sat down with Craig Rosenberg to discuss the future of sales operations. Rosenberg discussed identifying buyer signals, the hidden pitfalls of sales and marketing alignment, and why he's excited about EXCEED.
Craig Rosenberg's day-to-day at TOPO is helping businesses untangle their sales and marketing challenges. Ten out of ten times, sales operations is at the center of that knot.
For Rosenberg, the key to effective sales operations is to focus on the area that's going to provide the most lift first. However, that itself can be a challenge to identify when so much needs attention.
"A classic conversion rate issue is from first call to next step. The biggest drop-off point is when sales gets on that first call. Everything drops off from there," says Rosenberg.
According to Craig, you have to focus on specific trouble spots. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to identifying key performance indicators and the metrics that matter. You must begin with the squeaky wheel in your unique sales process.
"You can't just say 'I want more revenue.' Everyone wants more revenue. You have to say, 'I want more revenue, so let's go look at the steps that it takes to close business, and let's go figure out where the latency is.'"
For Craig, sales operations leaders have become integral to their teams as strategic leaders of the go-to-market. It is sales operations' responsibility to own not just the tech stack but the entire process of what it's going to take to operationalize and systematize closing deals.
Craig points out that when a VP of sales finds a strong sales ops person, they keep them. They're the first person to follow a VP into a new role. It's not the top AE or SDR team leader who gets asked to follow a VP into a new role first. More often than not, it's the sales operations manager. This speaks volumes about the rapidly growing importance of the operations function.
As other tools like sales forecasting and predictive analytics gather under the umbrella of sales operations, the importance of the role only continues to grow.
About the Author:
William Wickey leads content and media strategy at LeadGenius. Connect with William on LinkedIn and Twitter.