5 Skills Every RevOps Leader Needs

March 23, 2023

Nathan Ricks

Growth

With a continued focus on profitable growth at technology companies, Revenue Operations (RevOps) is an increasingly popular role with an ever-expanding list of responsibilities.

RevOps has moved beyond simple CRM management and forecasting to the optimization of the entire sales funnel - a function with much more strategic implications.

With this, RevOps professionals have needed to upskill themselves to live in this new world.

In this article, we will share our observations as to the skills you need to be a RevOps leader of the future, including:

Becoming “Data-Native”
Collaboration and Sources of Truth
Strategic Thinking
Ready to Solve Problems
Continuous Learning

Let’s dive in.

1. Becoming “Data-Native”

Data is at the core of RevOps, and RevOps leaders must become so comfortable with it that it feels like their native tongue. This is what we mean by becoming “data-native”.

Becoming data-native for a RevOps leader comes down to three main skills: data collection and cleaning, interpretation and analysis, and visualization.

Data collection and cleaning starts with being clear on what you need to track, why you need to track it, and how you will collect the data. Data collection may be done automatically within your various business systems (such as your CRM), but occasionally it requires creating new processes to be able to capture the data correctly. More often than not, this data is hard to access and does not come cleanly formatted. RevOps leaders must be comfortable using tools such as Excel, Google Sheets, and even SQL to manipulate and clean the data so it is ready to be analyzed.

Interpreting and analyzing the data involves understanding what the data means and how it relates to business objectives. This often entails looking at how certain data points have changed over time and creating testable theories as to what caused those changes. RevOps leaders must be able to interpret data accurately and communicate the insights effectively to stakeholders, often using data visualizations as an aid.

Finally, data visualization involves creating compelling visualizations that can help teams understand data quickly and easily. RevOps leaders should be skilled in creating charts, graphs, and other visualizations that can convey complex data in a clear and concise manner. At the end of the day, if you aren’t able to clearly display your findings to other stakeholders, then effective change cannot be made.

2. Collaboration and Sources of Truth

To effectively optimize the entire revenue process, a RevOps leader must be able to collaborate with various departments within the organization. RevOps is one of those interesting positions that requires you to be the glue between marketing, sales, and customer success.

RevOps leaders should have excellent communication skills, be able to build strong relationships, and have the ability to facilitate discussions and negotiations. You should be able to understand the needs and objectives of each department and create solutions that meet the needs of all stakeholders.

Understanding the needs and objectives of each department also requires understanding the various sources of truth within the company.

What do we mean by “sources of truth”?

What it really comes down to is “What software system(s) do these department heads live in each day? Where do they spend most of their time? Where do they go for data-driven answers?”

For marketing departments, the answer is often HubSpot or Marketo. For sales and customer support, likely Salesforce and/or Zendesk. For finance, likely NetSuite.

The sooner you understand the various sources of truth within your company and respect them, the sooner you will be able to get the right data to the right people in ways they are able to digest.

In addition to collaborating with internal teams, RevOps leaders should also be able to work with external partners and vendors. You should have the ability to negotiate contracts and manage relationships with third-party providers to ensure that the company is receiving the best value for its investments.

3. Strategic Thinking

Being the glue between many departments requires RevOps leaders to be strategic thinkers, capable of making decisions that align with the overall goals of the company.

This type of strategic thinking involves considering multiple perspectives and taking a long-term view of the company's goals. RevOps leaders should be able to assess the risks and benefits of different strategies and make informed decisions based on data and analysis.

Beyond squashing bugs and fixing department heads’ problems, RevOps leaders should also be able to identify areas of opportunity and develop initiatives that can drive revenue growth. This may involve optimizing the sales process, improving lead generation, or enhancing customer retention.

4. Ready to Solve Problems

As you likely already know, a lot of RevOps entails fixing problems for the various departments. RevOps leaders need to embrace the fact that problems will come, and be ready to face them head-on when they do.

And with RevOps becoming an increasingly complex game, you must be ready to try unique approaches to solve these problems. Answers might not be readily available on the internet as you could very well be the first person to come across the issue you are facing. Having a do-it-yourself attitude will help you from feeling hopeless when answers don’t present themselves.

Finally, this skill of problem-solving entails identifying problems that people haven’t even identified yet. It’s one thing to come up with a solution to someone else's problem; it’s another level to be able to spot the problem (the core problem) and propose an effective solution. This skill will really set you apart as a RevOps leader.

5. Continuous Learning

Finally, a RevOps leader must have a growth mindset and a commitment to continuous learning.

You must stay up-to-date with the latest industry trends, best practices, and tech to ensure you are maximizing revenue opportunities for the company.

Change is the only certainty, especially in RevOps, so you have to be willing to stay ahead of the curve and adapt.

How Polytomic Helps RevOps Leaders

The job of a modern RevOps leader is hard, so Polytomic is here to help you with what is likely your biggest challenge: data.

As you’ve likely experienced, data isn’t always where you want it or where the departments you support are capable of seeing it.

For example, customer usage data that’s stuck in your product backend.

In the past, you’d have to go to your engineering team, request the data, wait a few weeks, and then get back data that wasn’t even what you asked for!

But with Polytomic, you can easily connect all your systems together and seamlessly move the data you need without using code. This way you can show customer usage data in your sales CRM, your marketing platform, or within your support tools.

And this applies to any and all data you have. Wherever it is now and wherever you need it to go, you can use Polytomic to do it by pointing and clicking. That simple!