Whether you're starting a new revenue operations team or are scaling your existing team, it can be useful to understand the best practices for structuring RevOps function for the long term.
This article breaks down how to structure your revenue operations org and build a scalable team.
We cover:
- Understanding the role of a revenue operations team
- When to implement a revenue operations function
- How to structure your RevOps org chart
- Building a scalable revenue operations team
Understanding the role of a revenue operations team
A revenue operations team should be a strategic partner within your organization, aiming to align revenue-generating functions, processes, and tools to create operational efficiency.
By working with your sales, marketing, and customer success teams, RevOps will keep your customer journey running smoothly and generating revenue. The team will focus on process optimization, data analytics, enablement, and tech stack management.
Want to learn more about the role of revenue operations? Check out the guide. 👇
Rebecca Stewart
When to implement a revenue operations function
Most revenue operations professionals suggest setting up a RevOps team as soon as possible within your organization. Usually, this is around the 50-employee mark, as by 100 employees it could be slightly too late.
The longer your business operates without a RevOps function looking after your systems, the messier they will get. In turn, this makes it much harder to adopt revenue operations down the line.
A messy CRM can prevent you from having accurate historical data, and an unaudited tech stack can lead to inefficiencies. These in-the-weeds concerns can be fixed by revenue operations, but can stop the function from taking a strategic approach.
Starting your RevOps journey early allows you to keep these concerns at bay, and allow your team to drive revenue growth.
“For those of you working in startups, that first RevOps hire is critical. You should do that sooner versus later.
“And you should empower them to be more strategic and think about the full customer journey.”
– Sandy Robinson, SVP Revenue Operations and Enablement at Patra.
Hiring a consultant
If you don’t want to commit to a full RevOps function yet you can opt to hire a part-time consultant instead. A consultant can help you to keep your systems in check without committing to a full-time hire.
This may be more cost-effective for small businesses looking to implement revenue operations early. You can then upgrade to an in-house team when your revenue teams grow.
Two ways to structure your RevOps organization
Depending on your organization, there are two main ways to structure your revenue operations team: based on stakeholders, and based on function.
Stakeholder approach
The stakeholder approach structures your RevOps team based on the stakeholders they work with, such as marketing operations, sales operations, and customer success operations.
This approach makes the most sense if you have existing sales, marketing, or customer success operations teams who’ll be transitioning into a revenue operations team.
Structuring your team like this allows a smooth transition from siloed operations to creating a RevOps function. This also reduces confusion for stakeholders who work closely with a particular ops team member.
Some job roles that might be associated with this structure include:
| VP Revenue Operations | ||
| Head of Marketing Operations | Head of Sales Operations |
Head of Customer Success Operations |
| Marketing Operations Manager | Sales Operations Manager |
Customer Success Operations Manager |
| Marketing Operations Specialist | Sales Operations Specialist |
Customer Success Operations Specialist |
| Marketing Operations Analyst | Sales Operations Analyst |
Customer Success Operations Analyst |
| CRM Administrator | ||
| Deal Desk Analyst | ||
The con of this method is that as your RevOps team grows, it may become siloed again as your marketing operations team stops talking to your sales ops team, for example. A key benefit of the revenue operations methodology is an aligned view of the customer journey – which may be lost with this org structure.
That’s where the function approach comes into play…
Function approach
This approach structures your revenue operations team by job role functionality. These functional divisions may vary company-to-company but it makes sense to keep these roughly aligned with the four pillars of RevOps.
So for example, you may split your revenue operations into smaller teams based on data, tech, enablement, and processes, with a few team members working within each sub-team to ensure best results.
This approach allows more alignment across the customer journey, as teams will work with each stakeholder group. This org structure also allows better scalability as each job function can scale as your company’s needs change.
Here’s an example of a revenue operations org chart divided by function:
| VP Revenue Operations | |||
|
RevOps Manager, Systems |
RevOps Manager, Insights |
Revenue Enablement Manager |
RevOps Manager, Processes |
| CRM Administrator | Data Analyst |
Sales Enablement Specialist |
Deal Desk Admin |
You can also structure your revenue operations org based on function and then further specialize your team by stakeholder. For example, within your enablement team, you may have a sales enablement manager, and a customer success enablement manager if your company requires it.
In a recent podcast episode, Jenn Glabicky, Director of Revenue Enablement at Dodge Construction Network, discussed how revenue operations is structured at her company:
“Our RevOps org is broken down into five pillars.
“So we start with our systems and tools group, who deal with our CRM. We also have our contracting group who make sure that we have everything up to snuff before we start sending things back and forth with customers.
“In the middle is revenue enablement. To me, being in the middle is making sure that I’m able to help with those pieces, helping with the contract management, helping with the systems and tools.
“On the other side, we have some data and analytics folks, that's the fourth pillar. And then the fifth pillar is our commissions group.”
Building a scalable revenue operations team
When building your revenue operations team there are a few key steps to ensure your team is scalable and built for the long-term.
Consider your needs
Before hiring, it’s important to consider what your organization needs at the moment (and what you’re likely to need in the near future).
There are normally a few key reasons for hiring revenue operations professionals early on, and each reason may mean you require a different specialist.
Reason one: Your CRM and data are a mess and you want someone to fix this.
In this case, you likely need a CRM administrator to help you manage your systems. But you may want to consider if you want to hire a RevOps leader or consultant first to set up best practices.
Reason two: You want to start your RevOps function and develop best practices.
When starting out your RevOps team it’s key to hire a senior revenue operations leader, who’s a generalist with experience in strategy.
This is crucial as they may be your only revenue operations hire for a period, and they need to be able to strategically approach building the function and put out any fires.
Reason three: You’re growing quickly and ad-hoc tasks are stacking up.
If your existing revenue operations team is swamped with ad-hoc tasks it might be time to increase their headcount. Think about which area is causing the most problems and try to hire a specialist for that area, or consider a couple of areas you may want your new hire to cover.
These needs will inform the roles and responsibilities listed in your job posting and what skills you’ll require in your next RevOps team member.
Joe Aurilia Jr.
Hire strategically
It’s important to think back to how you want your revenue operations team structured when hiring.
Your team may start out more as generalists and slowly transition to becoming specialists as the function grows. Understanding how your team will grow over time can allow you to put out the right job adverts when hiring.
An effective way to hire when starting your team is to consider gaps in your team's knowledge and skills, and hire to cover those areas. This will allow your team to succeed in the variety of tasks they’ll be responsible for.
It’s also important to understand the key skills your new hire will need to thrive in the role. Watch this video to discover the top seven skills for RevOps pros:
Watch to learn the must-have revenue operations skills.
Build a great culture
Building a team culture is key to retaining your top talent. Build a culture of clear expectations and learning to allow your team members to thrive. Setting clear expectations allows your team to understand the main priorities within their role and can help to avoid burnout.
RevOps is constantly evolving, so fostering a culture of learning can help your teams stay on top of new trends and best practices, and keep your revenue engine running smoothly.
Ideally, your culture will come from the top, such as from your Chief Revenue Officer, but it’s also important to maintain that exemplary culture as it trickles down to your team.
Connect with your peers
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From building a team, to managing your CRM, our community are there to help you along your RevOps journey. Join now! 👇
