Many startup founders, investors, and marketing leaders often wonder about the best ways to grow revenue. They might even secretly worry they’re missing out on some “secret sauce”. For software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies, efficient revenue operations SaaS are the center of a thriving business model.
SaaS is different. Traditional sales funnels don’t quite capture the ongoing relationship you need with your customers. That is where having refined revenue operations SaaS strategies come in.
Table Of Contents:
- What Exactly is Revenue Operations SaaS?
- When is it Time for a Dedicated RevOps Function?
- Core Responsibilities of a RevOps Manager
- Choosing Your Tech Tools For RevOps
- The Revenue Operations SaaS Blueprint: 4 Keys Steps
- Conclusion
What Exactly is Revenue Operations SaaS?
Revenue Operations (RevOps) is a business function to maximize revenue by getting the bottom-line teams on the same page. It is the link between sales, marketing, and customer success teams. RevOps acts as the maestro, coordinating these different departments into a seamless, revenue-generating symphony.
This alignment isn’t just about everyone getting along; it’s about driving profit and value. Good revenue operations handle the team’s strategy, giving insights into the other teams. The main mission is that all are heading in the same direction with their mission and vision.
Why RevOps Matters for SaaS Companies
SaaS businesses thrive on recurring revenue. You don’t just want a great start, you also need a long-lasting race that focuses on a loyal customer base.
This means keeping existing customers happy while attracting new customers. Traditional models put up walls between departments like sales, marketing, and customer success. For SaaS companies, this can cause these teams to view the customer journey very differently, not realizing that sharing key pieces of information is needed across other departments for true alignment.
Breaking Down Silos with Revenue Operations SaaS
SaaS businesses are set up very differently from traditional brick and mortar setups. Consider that customer happiness is not just the support team’s job; it is truly a team-wide objective.
With a traditional approach, the customer’s view shifts based on different departments. For instance, how sales hands the account to the operations team will ultimately affect the retention of those clients. RevOps improves the approach by removing many of these obstacles, streamlining this on-going cycle.
When is it Time for a Dedicated RevOps Function?
Even if you haven’t yet implemented a proper function, someone is likely filling some of the duties already. As soon as you onboard a sales team lead with a couple of reps, you should start evaluating RevOps. Most organizations move to a proper full-time position as they cross over that mark of more than 100 employees.
Here’s why RevOps becomes crucial as you grow. By the time you hit 100-150 employees, you already have different working processes in place. Those can easily become inefficient and costly for your company.
4 Signals That Show It’s Time to Refine Operations
Consider it is RevOps time if more than one situation below applies to you.
Here is when your team shows sign that its time to think of growth beyond old ways:
- Your company heavily depends on expanding headcount for profit.
- Your different teams get burdened with repetitive, boring manual work.
- The different teams in your business deliver inconsistent customer experiences.
- There are information and customer data silos, and teams are not knowing critical client information.
More Dependency On Headcount Than You Want
There is nothing wrong with growing your headcount as you increase revenue. The reality is that no one is running a profitable and established organization with small teams. But in growth mode, relying heavily on simply expanding headcount gets costly very quickly.
You will be heading to what can be thought of as “a scalability trap”. You will always be chasing more resources. It might even hit a ceiling to growth by doing that.
Teams Bogged Down with Repeat Tasks
Studies have shown more than half of knowledge workers spend time on mundane tasks, around 2 or more hours. Now picture what this does to the business profit margin over an extended amount of time, not just short-term. This inefficiency becomes quite costly to businesses as it adds up.
The Inconsistent Customer Journey
What goes on internally with teams affects customers too. As clients feel less supported due to things happening, they naturally get more frustrated. This increases the need to change and shift to other options.
All the client retention data is crucial to keep customer satisfaction high. As companies evolve, RevOps also grows with the trends in the business. The best marketing tools can change frequently, especially as artificial intelligence evolves quickly.
Information Locked Away From Other Teams
Companies average dozens of systems and apps used on a regular daily basis. When team members have projects that impact several teams and individuals, its very common for this silo mentality to pop-up. Communication is often impacted and becomes disjointed as team members lack important information in various tools.
Core Responsibilities of a RevOps Manager
A RevOps manager is not only looking into high level strategies. Much of their efforts are on managing tech like CRM and overseeing teams. CRM administration involves data tasks with procurement and user training.
Here’s a deeper look at what a RevOps manager tackles:
- CRM Administration: Setting up processes, workflows, and properly using CRM systems.
- Data Management: This part has automation, infrastructure setups, training users, managing centralized dashboards, and controlling them.
- Managing Tech Bloat: Figuring software expenses is key with audits, plans, and also analyzing rate use. A RevOps manager identifies redundant tech stacks.
- Process Optimization: Identifying things slowing down processes with better solutions and improved guidelines for better communication among teams.
- Training: Employees must properly understand all the new software implementations. RevOps can set up guide material and make things smoother for employee transition.
- Revenue Monitoring: Making dashboards while setting performance targets. The RevOps team focuses on maximizing existing revenue.
- Fixing Bottlenecks: Working to resolve anything that slows down the operational excellence of the revenue operations function.
Metrics To Effectively Track With Revenue Operations SaaS
The purpose of a SaaS company is growth. But revenue metrics on its own do not fully reflect the operations of the business.
Here are some metrics that RevOps pros are regularly evaluating:
- MRR Movements: This view gives details on components of the business to fully comprehend data that moves metrics and business shifts.
- Lead Conversion Rates: This measures how transitions are for moving leads into the sales side.
- Sales Cycle Length: Tracks the time needed to finalize sales deals. Shorter sales cycles improve sales efficiency.
- CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost): What it truly takes to bring a new customer into your business with both sales and marketing costs combined.
- Churn (Customer Churn): Reflects on lost business by clients that end relationships. RevOps focuses on reducing the customer churn rate.
- Customer Lifetime Value: How much each client brings revenue-wise into the company before they inevitably end that relationship. A focus is to improve the entire customer lifecycle.
- Forecast Accuracy: Forecasting the growth of the company by how accurate projections end up compared to predictions. The RevOps team works to improve revenue recognition.
Choosing Your Tech Tools For RevOps
Consolidating is key in the modern age. Think about which things help more than one business division. Also, consider tools that will be useful for different groups within a company.
By taking that approach, it makes sure teams agree on what helps each of their job duties. Modern systems for revenue operations get things aligned more effectively with team clarity. They also factor the needs and data use.
Data visibility among multiple departments enables decisions that impact various moving parts within a company. Finance teams benefit from insights for faster ways to improve sales and also competitive advantages. The best RevOps teams focus on increasing the average deal size.
| Team | Common Tools Used | How RevOps Uses This Data |
|---|---|---|
| Marketing | Marketing automation platforms (HubSpot, Marketo), Analytics tools (Google Analytics) | Tracks campaign performance, understands lead sources, refines targeting, and aids marketing operations. |
| Sales | CRMs (LeadFuze, Salesforce), Sales engagement platforms (Outreach, SalesLoft) | Monitors the sales process, sales cycle, identifies bottlenecks, improves conversion rates and helps sales reps. |
| Customer Success | Customer success platforms (Gainsight, ChurnZero), Helpdesk software (Zendesk) | Analyzes customer service and the entire customer lifecycle, predicts churn, and optimizes onboarding and support. |
| Finance | Accounting software (QuickBooks, Xero), Billing platforms (Stripe, Chargebee) | Tracks revenue streams, manages invoices, and operations management to ensure accurate financial reporting. |
The Revenue Operations SaaS Blueprint: 4 Keys Steps
Aligning teams helps to create real alignment around different departments such as marketing, operations, finance and customer support teams. It even aligns shared tools like a good CRM platform. You’ll want something that also analyzes performance history of all team insights combined.
Let’s explore some established guidelines and a proper revenue operations framework.
1. Audit Your Revenue Funnel
Properly using revenue operations strategy requires a clear picture of the start-to-end journeys. You’ll need an overview audit from teams touching the customer base as well as the internal processes that are taking place. The audit should also look at the tech stack and find areas of siloed tech stacks.
2. Structure Your RevOps
You will need the right folks handling things for implementation. Smaller companies are not like more established organizations. Team members may do multiple responsibilities, but it’s not the case when teams hit several dozens in size.
Larger orgs hire people that just manage RevOps, even a VP of Revenue Operations. A RevOps professional, or even a Chief Revenue Officer, is the overseeing agent and brings proper implementation across dozens or even hundreds of employees. They look for new revenue opportunities.
3. Align Workflows and Processes
You’ll have processes in place and perhaps not functioning ideally. Align a revenue strategy that will boost proper organizational efficiency for the customer lifetime cycle. Consider how teams work together.
4. Metrics Establishment For Proper Insights
Here are some key areas to improve on from the [Source Content](https://chartmogul.com/blog/saas-revenue-operations-101/):
- Craft GTM strategies to align company business models. This starts at the early stages of setting the revenue operations strategy.
- Follow through with customer revenue targets. Keep track of key revenue drivers.
- Make unified and aligned communication among all involved departments. Make sure the entire organization has a single source of truth.
- Share standardized and measured milestones as various goals are reached across the processes.
Conclusion
Many industries now realize revenue operations are important. By using better structures with key revenue processes, you enable SaaS companies to boost profits.
Growing teams see improvements by refining internal collaboration across the revenue stages. You get all these when there is more team vision shared by implementing the right type of tools. Using revenue operations SaaS provides SaaS founders real solutions that factor team growth with increased visibility, driving proper scaling decisions.
