RevOps Implementation Checklist

From increasing visibility to driving more revenue, B2B businesses embrace RevOps for a variety of reasons. 

But regardless of your specific motivation, there are several core best practices every business should follow to realize the full benefits of the function.

In his blog, we’ll explain exactly how to get your Revenue Operations system up and running. 

However, let's first look at some core principles that should underscore the entire process.

1. Start Small

RevOps is a broad category, with many possible applications. There is no pressure to realize every possibility you’ve heard about on LinkedIn within the first month. Instead, think about this as a long-term investment and start small - so that you don’t get burned out.

2. Be Patient 

Don’t worry: the results will come. They may take time to appear, though, as it takes time for teams to adapt to new systems and for data to become the insight machine it will eventually be. So be patient, and focus on the process of implementation rather than the rewards.

3. Choose the Right People 

Building an effective RevOps team is about more than just understanding the goals and processes. You need to draft in people who understand both marketing and sales; are able to mediate between the two without creating conflict, playing favorites or antagonizing anyone; and are dedicated to building the system with an open mind toward new opportunities.

How to Implement RevOps in 5 Steps

1. Define Your Goals

RevOps is only as effective as the strategy that underpins it, and the best way to build a strategy is to work backward from your goals. 

What do you want to achieve by implementing RevOps? And what will it mean for your organization if you do?

Start by laying out your ideal funnel, based on your company’s specific buyer journey. This is not a job for a single individual: pool insights from sales, marketing and customer service. Ask individuals how they feel misalignment gets in their way, what they would like to achieve through realignment and what they believe would improve the results they produce. 

Throughout, it’s important to stress honesty about your current situation. We once produced 384% ROI on Google Ads in 2 months by implementing a RevOps strategy. But we were only able to do that by understanding that their existing processes weren’t following RevOps and marketing operations best practices - and were resulting in negative ROI. 

Key actions:

• Delineate clear RevOps goals (the more specific the better)
• Define what meeting those goals would mean (and define your metrics)
• Set a realistic timeline to create accountability in your team

2. Assess Your Current Data Operation

Data is an essential part of any RevOps system, which means you need to assess the current state of your systems to determine how much work is required. It’s important here to understand what an optimal data pipeline for RevOps looks like.

If you want RevOps to work, you need to:

• Make sure each lead that comes through the CRM has a source. (This should enable you to track online and offline leads through a single field or property in the CRM.)

• Track the evolution of your deals. (The most important factors here are which action and marketing channel created the contact and which led to a conversion.) 

• Ensure only relevant data is included in the system. (This will probably involve streamlining your tech stack and removing extra tools that aren’t useful.)

These are the bare minimum requirements for effective RevOps. If your existing system does not meet them, fixing those issues will be a key priority.

Key actions:

• Assess the accessibility and accuracy of your existing marketing and sales data
• Determine which processes are up to scratch (and which are not)

3. Optimize Your Processes

Now you can start optimizing your existing processes. This can be broken into four categories:

1. Tracking sources

Use Google Tag Manager to bring all of your tracking codes together. This should include (though is not limited to) Google Analytics, LinkedIn Conversions, Google Ads and Google Search Console. If you are missing any of these sources, set them up now. All of these should be connected to your CMS and CRM.

2. Plugging gaps

Locate areas where data is either not being generated, not being shared or simply not accurate enough - and fix them. A pair of simple examples are Lifecycle Stages and Deal Stages in HubSpot: many organizations run into problems when they realize their Stages are not clearly defined.

This means progress is being tracked or interpreted differently by different team members, leading not just to communication problems but lost opportunity. You can solve this by creating a centralized, authoritative set of definitions that all parties have access to.

3. Resolving ‘easy’ misalignments

Some misalignments between sales and marketing are the result of complex, structural problems. But many issues are simply the product of individuals doing things slightly differently - and never communicating about it. 

These are often low-value activities, but the impact on overall process efficiency is significant. Address these processes directly and standardize each one across all departments and teams.

4. Automation

A simple rule for RevOps is to automate any process that is either repetitive or unnecessarily manual. For example, any quality B2B marketing team should have automated nurture campaigns across the entire funnel, while sales should have automated outreach sequences, task reminders and follow-ups.

However, it’s also important to have a clear purpose when automating a process. Don’t just automate things for the sake of it; do so to free your people’s time, increase consistency and make things more efficient. 

4. Use Data to Fix Problems

The beauty of Revenue Operations is that at a certain point, the implementation process becomes self-improving. Once you’ve improved your funnel data, it will begin to produce insights that point you to new processes that can be optimized.

Use your data to determine: how and why leads are lost; what produces the most conversions; how long deals take to complete; and what processes lead to won or lost deals. These insights will allow you to zone in on specific problems and either a) optimize the existing system, or b) implement new systems to fix bottlenecks.

Key actions:

• Use data to pinpoint problems in your system
• Leverage that data to fix those problems

5. Build Collaboration Between Departments

RevOps is never ‘complete’; it is a process of continual improvement. That’s why it’s so important to ensure sales, marketing and customer service have aligned goals and are able to work together effectively. 

This is not just a matter of throwing an interdepartmental social; you need to access, analyze and resolve potential points of contention and conflicting incentives. 

Key actions:

• Map out the way each department collaborates and where activities overlap
• Design interventions to ensure each team is working towards the same goal
• Call attention to the positive results of collaboration to build consensus and boost morale

Partner with a RevOps Agency

Implementing RevOps is a major technical and strategic undertaking. No matter how prepared you are, there are always hurdles you struggle to jump alone. 

That’s why so many B2B businesses opt to work with a RevOps agency like ProperExpression. With in-house expertise in building, maintaining and optimizing RevOps systems, we make implementing RevOps seamless for ambitious brands - and help them produce exceptional results.