Article · 18 min read

The Company-Changing Magic of Sales Operations Done Right

Don Otvos · First Round Review Free Beginner

The best plain English description of what a sales ops function is for, written by someone who rebuilt one from scratch. Useful whether you are taking the job or hiring for it.

  • Benchmarks it sets: one booked meeting per rep per day, at least one demo a day per SDR, and 50 to 60 calls a day.
  • Tie compensation to activities you control (meetings set, demos given) rather than to revenue attainment.
  • Plot reps on engagement against close ratio: high engagement with a low close ratio is trainable, and those reps moved to the top quadrant in two to three months.
  • Gate free trials by rule (this size range, this industry) instead of offering them to everyone.
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It answers 9 questions

  1. What does a RevOps person actually do all day?
  2. I just joined as the first ops hire and the CRM is a total mess. Where do I start?
  3. I am a founder selling this myself. What GTM tools do I actually need right now?
  4. How do I break into RevOps when I have never had the title?
  5. Reps will not update the CRM. How do I get clean data without becoming the data police?
  6. How should inbound leads get routed, and how fast does it actually need to happen?
  7. When should we hire our first RevOps person, and what should they actually own?
  8. How do the best run companies keep sales, marketing, product and finance moving in step week to week?
  9. What actually separates a top decile RevOps function from an average one?

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