Your RevOps Questions Answered: How to Build a Modern Revenue Foundation

Revenue Operations (RevOps) is a huge topic.

We could probably spend all day talking about the ins and outs of RevOps. Especially when hosting a webinar on it. We always have more content than we can cover in the allotted time. Always.

The webinar (workshop) we recently hosted, RevOps Workshop: How to Build a Modern RevOps Foundation, with John Queally (Director, RevOps, Clari), and Sean Lane, (Founding Partner, BeaconGTM) was certainly no exception.

During the session, John and Sean shared actionable strategies to eliminate revenue-damaging inefficiencies and help you supercharge company growth.

It was such an engaging topic that we didn’t have enough time to answer all of the great questions that came in from our attendees. Good news, though! We captured all of the questions, and John and Sean answered them — some in real-time and most after the fact. And we’ve compiled them all for you below.

Weren’t on the live webinar? Feel free to watch it here first.

Your RevOps (and Revenue Cadence) Questions, Answered

Note: Some questions were modified slightly for grammar but not meaning. 

First, let’s discuss what is a Revenue Cadence? 

Revenue Cadences are the operating system for your entire revenue org that help your team execute every day, week, and month of the quarter. RevOps leaders use cadences to achieve Revenue Objectives, spot and stop Revenue Leak and reach their team's full potential.

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s dive in.

“How do you see calibrating these cadences around lengthy enterprise sales cycles to avoid repetitiveness and loss of stakeholder investment?”

John: If your cadence meeting has the same objectives every week, you have repetition. It's critical to have different focuses to impact different weekly goals. This helps maintain engagement and show progress against goals. 

Sean: This question illustrates the importance of both in-quarter and out-quarter cadences. There may not be a substantive update every week. Ask questions:

• What are some of the leading indicators we should consider? These should be topics of conversation on both the pipeline creation and pipeline advancement side.
• What is the most likely sticking point in your funnel? What is the most inefficient stage-to-stage conversion rate you have? 

Begin centering conversations around answers to these questions.

“How is marketing involved in this 13-week cadence?”

John: Marketing can be involved at each point, depending on how integrated they are with other revenue teams. Marketing is a critical partner, especially during those weeks when top-of-funnel and lead flow are on the agenda. It’s also essential to integrate ABM efforts throughout the lifecycle of a deal. Marketing cannot end after a lead moves to MQL; they must offer support throughout the entire funnel.

“How do you manage situations where sales leaders are not adhering to your 13-week cadence, especially in a global organization with sales leaders distributed across various regions? What — if any — tracking mechanisms do you use?”

John: The key is ensuring leadership and RevOps are fully bought in and supportive of Revenue Cadences. It must come from the top down to be managed effectively, especially globally.  

Tracking? Look for trends in how opportunities are updated and metrics are associated with the pipeline. There is a difference when Revenue Cadences get implemented properly.

“When building out a Revenue Cadence, who owns the scheduling of calls?”

John: From a Clari perspective, the onus is on the Sales Managers to schedule the calls. There is too much going on — especially in a large organization — to have one person take on this task. And if you want to ensure the cadence is being “done properly,” someone from the RevOps team has to be in the meeting. They have to be part of the process. And the meetings need to be recorded so we know what is working well, what is not working well, and what needs to be adjusted.

“How do you handle when sales leaders "self-service?” How do you knit together different lines of business silos? Is it even worth it?”

Sean: Breaking down silos is always worth it, in my opinion. You want leaders to focus on their own teams and care about what's best for them to make them succeed, but Ops needs to look at the whole picture and focus on what's best for the company. The senior-most sales leader can set expectations and hold people accountable to maintain higher levels of consistency across those business units.

“As a follow-up to the last question, do you recommend just putting cadences on people's calendars? Do you need an executive champion? Or just ‘wait to be asked?’ What have you seen work well?”

Sean: Propose the routine to the leaders involved, explain the purpose and benefit, get their buy-in, and then proceed. If you're worried about the sentiment of the meeting, set a goal for it. Measure people's satisfaction in the first meeting, then 30/60/90 days later.

“Cross-functional communication is crucial for making meaningful revenue alignment changes in quickly growing organizations. What are some of the most meaningful book(s) you have read to improve EQ to more effectively build consensus across teams that believe they have competing goals?”

Sean: Scaling People: Tactics for Management and Company Building by Claire Hughes Johnson, corporate officer and adviser at Stripe (previous COO from 2014 to 2021). The book does not need to be read “cover to cover,” but it is definitely full of tactical examples and templates around the people side of running a business.

Regarding prioritization, The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth About Extraordinary Results by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan is fabulous.

“What are some actionable ideas on how RevOps can drive alignment between different GTM functions?”

John: If you're just starting, the connections and communications between the teams are always the easiest place to start. RevOps will always want data, so lead with it. Data is unbiased. The most significant risk at the start is having meetings turn into finger-pointing sessions. Start with data around the “interlocks” and always approach things consultatively.  

If there are other operation teams in those departments, it's always a great place to start.

Sean: Revenue Cadences are a great place to start. I'd also add a specific alignment routine with the leader in question to ensure there is no daylight between your goals and theirs. This routine allows you to prioritize big rocks, team performance questions, and performance against company goals. 

“When building a RevOps organization from scratch, what are some first steps or top priorities?”

Sean: Talk to your internal customers first to understand what’s causing pain in their day to day. Learn what's hard. Find out what sucks. Then, you can start mapping out the customer journey for those internal customers and find inefficiencies to correct them.

John: What Sean said and … start with understanding where the pain is and begin addressing it. This will build support and trust. 

Make sure that whatever you start building is in the context of a broader foundation and plan. You can't approach every project as a separate item. The power of RevOps is compounding.

“I find getting my sales leader's backing on operation initiatives difficult. They push for changes to Operations, but reinforcing the initiatives with the sales teams does not happen. Any tips or advice?”

Sean: There is no question this is hard. Focus on "what's in it for me" for your end users. Are the initiatives about satisfying validation rules, or will they be used to better the business and the customer? If you can confidently say your team or the customer will benefit from the initiatives you have put in place, then you can stand behind them and get others to do so.

John: Start small with a pain point that’s already been identified. And I agree with Sean about the importance of aligning yourself with their goals. Build goodwill. No sales leader is getting excited about data quality unless you can drive a direct line to its impact on them. Get a few small wins to build trust. Then, move to the more transformative initiatives. 

“Assuming you will not go from 0 to 60 at once, what are the best steps to iterate from forecast-only call to fully built-out Revenue Cadence motion?”

John: Welcome to the dance. My advice is to get the buy-in of your most senior sales leadership. Once you have their support, things will change quickly.

Also, tie your goals (numbers) within the business context. When are leaders getting asked about out-quarter pipeline? For a Board meeting? Executive meeting? Use that information as the end goal and work backward. How long do you need to get a better understanding so your leaders are prepared? That will incentivize them to start moving.

“Do you have agenda templates for the different cadences that you can share?”

This seems like a fitting way to end this blog post … Sean Lane’s and Laura Adint’s new book, The Revenue Operations Manual: How to Build a High-Growth, Predictable and Scalable Business, has some great examples!

And check out Clari’s Revenue Cadence Playbook, with a complete step-by-step guide to identify major revenue moments, and everything you need to run revenue like a process.