The Dos and Don’ts of Sales Operations
In this article, we discuss:
Why the concept of Sales Operations differs from business to businesses
The value of Sales Operations for the sales team
The core principles of a Sales Operations function, regardless of variables
The importance of data for any Sales Operations initiative
“The devil is in the details.”
What do you think of this phrase? Do you agree? After all, details - like the fine print of a contract or business plan – are part and parcel of the business world, so getting them right is pretty crucial. And if they’re wrong, then yes, that presents a problem.
But what does “wrong” mean? Maybe just that someone wasn’t paying attention? (Something that often happens to fast-paced companies, with a thousand and one things happening every minute?) Which would mean that having someone explicitly focused on the nitty-gritty details of deals, contracts, plans etc. would eliminate this devilish source of frustration?
This – in a nutshell – is why we believe all businesses should have a sales operations function in one form or another (more on that later). Dedicated resources who delve into the details, draw conclusions from them, then help build entire sales strategies based on their gathered insights – all while letting your front-row salespeople do what they do best: meet clients and close deals.
And since “sales operations” has become a bit of an umbrella term in the past few years (in that it means increasingly different things to different businesses, depending on target markets, business scale, corporate culture etc.), we went ahead and collected those essential principles which, we believe, each sales operations team – or professional – should heed.
But first, here’s a quick overview of the foundation to this intriguing premise of ours, namely: what IS sales operations, and why do organisations need it?
Sales Operations – A Recap
Sales Operations Definition:
Sales operations drive sales teams to perform better by taking ownership of operational tasks such as managing the sales tech stack, providing administrative support, and gathering strategic insights based on aggregated data.
Imagine that you’re the manager of a long-haul trucking company based in Europe. It’s your responsibility to make sure your drivers get their cargo safely to each destination, be that Helsinki, Rome or Budapest. Now, what would happen if – before your drivers set out – they didn’t check their gas levels, wheel pressure, brakes or lights, but just got in and started driving? Maybe you also didn’t have time to check their schedules, how much they’d driven the day before, or if they’ve ever driven to this destination previously?
This is not dissimilar to how a fast-paced sales team functions without sales operations supporting them. We’re not saying it can’t work – after all, just because your imaginary truck drivers didn’t check their gas levels doesn’t mean they’ll definitely run empty before getting to Rome!
But the margin for failure increases exponentially, and general efficiency levels will be lower than optimal. Why? Because your salespeople’s raison d’etre is to sell. Not spending time worrying about their tech stack, keeping track of deadlines, or indeed, checking the pulse of the entire sales team as a whole.
Whereas the sales operations function (as such) exists so that they can:
Support your front line salespeople in doing what they do best by lifting the technical and analytical work off them, as well as
Provide strategic input to your sales leader(s) by using insights from the sales tech stack on your entire sales team’s performance.
On a practical level, one could say that sales operations professionals are part analysts, part strategists, and part project managers – they need to work both “below” and “above” your sales team, checking metrics, tracking deadlines, and identifying problem areas at the same time as evaluating them and drawing conclusions that will the define your overall sales strategy for the foreseeable future.
Sales Ops in a B2B Landscape
It’s easy to see the significance of such a function, especially in the B2B world. Here, customer journeys typically have multiple touchpoints and stakeholders, which lead to more complexities than in the (slightly) more straightforward, B2C environment.
This in turn increases the need for someone in your sales team to keep tracking these touchpoints and using the data to optimise Sales efforts. For instance, to enable your salespeople to better time and personalise outreach, as well as systematically inform upcoming strategic sales decisions – which, more or less, is what sales operations is all about!...
...Or is it? Like we said above, sales operations has become a bit of a wild card, terminologically speaking: it manifests differently from business to business, depending on the many different variables of each one.
However, the essence of its function stays the same: helping businesses by enabling sales teams to do their best work, whatever that may be.
To that end, we’ve compiled the following list of dos and dont’s: guidelines that apply to ALL sales operations teams, large or small! Let’s dig in, shall we?
DO: Establish team roles early on
Just like we said in our post about Marketing Operations, the first step towards building such a team is finding the necessary resources. And while there’s (still) no one-size-fits-all answer when thinking about the number of people you need to hire – or their specific skill set –, there’s still a baseline that might be useful to keep in mind.
Matt Cameron, managing partner of Sales Ops Central, put together this brilliant blueprint about the levels of sales ops support that different businesses need, depending on their maturity level (or, to be more specific, their annual recurring revenue):
As you can see, there’s a clear correlation between the number of sales ops hires and the amount of operational tasks your sales leader hands over to them.
In an ideal world, Heads of Sales and Sales Operations Directors would work very much in sync, a bit like the right and left halves of our brains. Sales ops leaders provide the strategic overview and operational support that sales heads need to properly accomplish their own duties, i.e. formulating sales strategies and providing direction to the sales team itself.
But regardless of choosing one, two or more Sales Operations professionals to flesh out your team, hammering out roles and responsibilities proactively will save you valuable time in the near future. The sooner it’s clear what tasks they’ll take off your sales reps’ plates, the sooner your sales reps can get back to, well, selling.
DO: Give your processes time
Rome wasn’t built in a day – and neither are sales ops teams! Since no two companies are alike, in a way, each Sales Operations team has to start from scratch and define new processes that will best support your particular business. In practice, this means choosing which (or all?) of these areas are most crucial to focus on, in order for your sales team to succeed.
Once your sales ops team has done this, it’s time to design and set up the processes stemming from these functions and, just as importantly, give them time to “set”. This might include, evaluating team training needs, or the how-tos of giong about sales recruitment, or even just optimizing your CRM, for example.
Early stages for Sales Operations teams (and, for that matter, just about any other team starting up!) are very much a trial-and-error time: no matter what your business is or how eager you are, leaving enough time to test these processes is essential to proving their validity and worth.
Not least because it will inform our next big DO...
DO: Let your hires determine your sales tech stack
Whether it’s your Sales Operations Director or someone slightly lower on the sales ops food chain, they’re the ones that will have full ownership of the technological solutions your sales team relies on. Not only does this mean becoming the superusers of each and every tool in your sales tech stack, but also that their opinion of that same tech stack matters.
If Sales Operations are the squire to your sales rep knight, then the sales tech stack is their arsenal of weapons: having the correct longsword can make all the difference when it comes to hand-to-hand combat!
Again, tech stacks are subjective, but it’s safe to say that sales ops teams in all different business types will need tools in the following areas:
Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
Data Analytics
Business Intelligence
Communication (internal and external)
Performance Management
And you know one of the hidden truths of all operational teams? You’re only as strong as your weakest technology – so if your Sales Operations team asks for something, please, heed their cry. Even if they ask for something new – say, a tool that maps the entire B2B customer journey *conspiratorial wink*
And now for the dont’s! Starting with...
DON’T: Forget your KPIs
Obviously, one of the main reasons for having a powerful, in-house sales ops function is their ability to assess and tangibly improve your sales team’s performance. In order to do this, their selected metrics need to
correspond to your immediate business needs – sales KPIs are a tricky beast, so choosing only those metrics that are relevant to your business (as opposed to all available ones) will simplify your sales ops team’s work significantly, and
be tracked religiously – because an unchecked KPI is like a signpost in the middle of a desert: it doesn’t tell you much, does it?
One more thing when it comes to KPIs: think of them not only as indicators of current (and past) performance, but also forecasts of what needs to be changed, improved and tweaked in your Sales Operations strategy. In other words, we’d say that the best KPIs are three-dimensional, yielding valuable insights about the past, present AND future – if we’re open to retrieving them, that is.
DON’T: Sleep on the data
Just like with KPIs, sales ops teams have an abundance of data to choose from: fresh data, rich data, but also stale data and (heavens forbid!) irrelevant data streams. So how to find those golden needles of insight hidden in these huge haystacks?
First things first: set a haystack size limit. You simply DON’T NEED to know everything your leads have had for breakfast before reading that blog post on your website, or booking that demo – so instead of all the data, focus on the right kinds of data: rich, yes, and extensive, but hyper-relevant to your business.
A powerful Sales Operations team will need data (and software to collect and clean that data) that pertains to salespeople’s performance and customer journeys at the bare minimum, but beyond that, it’s anyone’s call: data about pricing? Customer churn? The performance of the sales strategy as a whole? All these contribute valuable information on an abstract level, but probably not all are super relevant to your business. At least, not at the same time.
Those data streams that are relevant, on the other hand, should be monitored and managed consistently. Again, this is where your sales tech stack comes into play: choosing the right tools for data management and analytics can make or break your Sales Operations strategy, so make sure to do the research and find the right technology for you and your business specifically.
(We obviously have a preference, but won’t shove it down anyone’s throat.)
DON’T: Let prejudice about attribution blind you
Let’s face it: historically speaking, B2B marketing and sales teams have often clashed in the past – or, at the very least, worked in silos, with little to no collaboration on both sides. When it comes to the topic of attribution, this divide is more apparent than ever: for many salespeople, the first thing that comes to mind when someone says “revenue attribution” is little more than a glorified marketing gimmick.
Which is where sales operations teams can make a difference!
With the proper technology and data sources in place, it’s the natural next step to look past basic CRM insights and focus on the (admittedly complex) B2B customer journey as a whole – not as a marketing funnel, but rather as a succession of touchpoints our leads travel through to get to our sales teams.
Add to this ever-expanding number of attribution models popping up around the industry, and we get a resource that proves invaluable to not just sales ops professionals, but the entire sales function as well – so prejudice be damned!
Want to find out more about attribution? Check out these articles:
To Infinity and Beyond
Of course, what we’ve collected here are only the most fundamental principles for Sales Operations teams around the world – depending on the aforementioned criteria like business maturity, target markets etc., many other interesting points could just as well have come up (like how, for example, we should distinguish between Sales Operations and sales enablement, or how sales ops professionals should prioritise education and training within the sales team).
However, one thing is certain: Sales Operations is still evolving rapidly, and while as a function, it can certainly seem complex, the added value it brings to the table of any business, large or small, is undeniable. So, ultimately, the last question is this: what will we do with all that value? Thoughts? :)