Implementing a Revenue Operations Strategy

The data model that you use will heavily inform how you're able to see the information that you're looking for. Let's face it, there are many, many data models out there and each business must determine which model accurately represents their customers and their revenue journeys. For example, many companies still use the traditional sales funnel model. The sales funnel is a top -down linear approach to capturing the journey that a person takes.

Hi, I'm Nikki, revenue strategist with RevPartners, a HubSpot Elite partner agency. Today, I'm going to walk you through how to implement a revenue strategy of your very own. If you're here, you probably already know that your company needs a strategic approach that aligns marketing, and customer service in order to drive revenue growth efficiently and effectively. But knowing that and actually doing it are two very different things.

Let's take a step back and talk about the big question. What actually is RevOps? Revenue management and operations roles have been around since time immemorial. And candidly, every role touches revenue in some way. I mean, you're probably already doing RevOps. You just might not have realized it. We've had the role forever, but it's only recently that we've actually given it that title, revenue operations or RevOps. So really,

Everything is revenue operations in some way and that's part of why it's so hard for anyone to definitively define. So I know what you're wondering. What is it exactly? I mean, other than the buzzword of the century. Well, in the simplest terms, revops is the science of sustainable growth. That's it.

It's a scientific approach to discovering data collection methods and behaviors, implementing growth strategies across the full breadth of the sales cycle and optimizing processes throughout the organization to consistently replicate revenue. Here's what it's not. It's not just a buzzword or a LinkedIn hashtag, even if that is how it started. It's a clearly defined mindset and methodology to help you identify the tools and behaviors that show how you're collecting, synthesizing,

and disseminating revenue data so that you can measure, repeat, and improve growth strategies. Clean, reliable data forms the foundation for informed decision -making and accurate forecasting, both critical pieces of the revenue operations pie. At the end of the day, you can only act on the data you have in front of you. Remember, what matters gets measured, and what doesn't get measured will get overlooked.

So having a clearly defined data model is the first step in creating and implementing your own revenue operations strategy.

So let's talk about how we get that clean, clear data.

from prospect to customer. In this model, there is a clear end point. The final result is a customer. But that's not the only model out there. There's also the flywheel. Not necessarily a data model per se, but the flywheel model is a common visualization often used to help companies capture their teams combined goals. The flywheel model, which HubSpot adapted, is used to capture and visualize the shift to more customer -centric business practices.

The Flywheel model represents the momentum that you gain when you align your entire organization around delivering a remarkable customer experience. Unlike the sales funnel, which has a set endpoint, the Flywheel depicts customers as an active player in the growth of your business through referrals, upgrades, advocacy, and more. In this circular model, the more friction you reduce in the customer experience, the more momentum you gain in your business. Now, another data model

One most commonly associated with SaaS companies or software as a service companies is the Bowtie data model. The Bowtie model takes the traditional sales funnel, flips it on its side and replicates it to capture and visualize the impact that customer service and post -sale efforts have on your business growth. In contrast to the traditional sales funnel, which primarily focuses on acquiring new business, the Bowtie model excels in environments where recurring revenue is key.

It facilitates continuous customer engagement and satisfaction, and it drives growth through expansions, upsells, and cross -sells and renewals. Okay, so now you know that the first step is choosing a data model that will give you that clean, clear data so that you know which direction to move in. Next, you're going to need to determine how you're measuring. No matter which data model you choose to represent your business, you'll need to define the key performance indicators or KPIs

that will measure your effectiveness. After all, you have to know what success looks like before you can start measuring. Here at RevPartners, we do that by using an in -depth primary and secondary KPI discovery session. What we provide is a comprehensive survey that helps us determine how exactly you're getting your products, services, and goods to the customers that you're looking for, and more importantly, what measurements and criteria you're using.

to judge whether you're successful. What do you consider a win? How do you show whether you've grown quarter over quarter or year over year? Well, let's start by figuring that out together. We'll break down exactly what it is you want to measure and then we'll drill down even further. I've included a copy of the KPI discovery spreadsheet we use here at RevPartners so that you can go ahead and download it and fill it out along with me as I go through an example. Go ahead and download it now.

I'll wait.

Okay, now that you have your KPI discovery document, let's start filling it out together. Let's start with something easy, your North Star metric. This is going to be the most comprehensive metric that your whole company can rally behind. Revenue. At the end of the day, your revenue is what will show most clearly whether you're headed in the right direction, if you've hit friction, overall, if you're successful. Now, don't forget to record your company's definition of revenue and the formula that you'll use to reach it.

This may seem obvious, but this is the whole point of what we're doing. You have to know exactly not just what you're measuring, but how you measure it. It's incredibly important to document the definitions and formulas so that every person in your department, in your company, knows exactly how you reached the number you're reporting on. Okay, so that's your North Star. Everything else is the breakdown of that goal. How did you get there? What makes up that revenue? What increases or detracts from it?

To answer those questions, you'll create primary and secondary KPIs. Let's go back to the Bowtie data model for a minute. In order to track your revenue, you need to know exactly where it's coming from. How many sessions are you getting? What amount of those sessions became leads? How many leads are qualified? On and on, you need to capture the whole length of the customer's journey. Capturing the details at this level help you pinpoint exactly what makes up the revenue that is your North Star.

And all these details are your primary KPIs. Okay, back to the KPI discovery document. Think about how you bring customers in and how they interact with your business. Do you have an inbound and an outbound motion? Do you have both account executives and business development reps? You need to break down exactly how you want to segment out your measurements. Let's take an example. Say we own a company called Clowns2Go.

Now, don't worry, I won't be showing any actual clowns today. Just an example. So let's say Clowns to Go as a company is both a B2B and a B2C company, each of which would interact with the customers differently. Let's take them one at a time. Clowns to Go has been focusing on expanding their corporate events product and their enterprise level client base. So they've implemented a B2B business strategy and are pushing that as a priority right now. In this business segment, the sales cycle is longer, but

the sales are much larger. Clouds to Go uses a two -stage sales motion for this in which BDRs or business development representatives source leads via outbound methods and then AEs, account executives, work those deals. Sales takes the lead with marketing support, whereas for the B2C strategy, it's flipped. Marketing leads the way. In their B2B efforts, they define sessions in two ways.

A website visit is considered a session, but they also consider an accepted phone call a session to account for outbound efforts. Leans are most often created by list imports, and then MQLs are defined by a prospect filling out a meeting request form or a calendar request link. The AE formally booking or confirming the meeting signifies an SQL. And then when BANT criteria is met, the deal itself is created.

The cycle ends when the contract is one, that's their closed one criteria, and then they can start documenting the revenue. And we'll keep doing that all the way with the right side of the bow tie, the recurring revenue side. You can see that I have filled it out here, but we won't go over it today. Again, remember today we're just talking about net new, recurring comes later. All right, so going back to their second motion, the B2C. The B2C side has the most sales, but they tend to have lower deal amounts.

People tend to self -serve and traditionally smaller parties are the most popular seller. Because of this, all efforts are primarily centered around their website. It's the MVP for this side. So over here, a session is defined as a website visit, a lead is created by a soft conversion form fill, and MQL is defined as someone who has met lead score criteria.

They've attended a webinar or filled out a form or interacted with marketing emails multiple times, whatever to get their lead score to the defined number, say more than 10. Okay. So you get the idea. Essentially we're breaking down how we define each step along the bow tie, along the customer's journey. That way we know exactly what we're meant to be measuring. You can fill out the rest on your own. For the next step, we're going to go in and drill down further.

Clowns2Go has three product types, small parties, large parties, and corporate events. I'll use those product types as the priority breakouts for both B2C and B2B motions. That way we compare what products are working best in each scenario. Now that you've broken out your segments and have defined each step of the process, think about exactly what conversions you want to measure. And that's how you're going to break down your primary KPIs so that you have clean, clear data coming in.

Take a look at the KPI model we commonly use here at RevPartners. Now we've already defined our primary KPIs, the leads, the sessions, everything we've been defining. And we know how we're going to measure those. Next, we can look at the secondary drill downs to see what we want to hone in further. You'll see here a few of the most common secondary KPIs that we see often, geography, industry, source, et cetera. Your secondary KPIs will be the who, what, when,

and where metrics you see here. Choose the ones that are the most important to you and those are your secondary KPIs. Once you have those, you'll be able to actually start gathering data, surfacing it consistently and using it to identify the gaps. Now that you understand what you're looking for and how to track it, go forth and start measuring.