I love this question. The one tool that I can't live without right now is Clari. We run our entire business out of it at the executive level. Q4 is a critical one for any SaaS company at our scale and we rely on Clari to power our weekly forecast cadence, evaluate trends in the pipeline and click into the details of deal health for all of our opportunities, both new and expansion. I first got introduced to Clari in 2016 while at the TOPO conference in San Francisco and immediately saw the value. It wass 5 years later before I finally became a customer and now it's a tool that is always open on my MacBook and is typically the first thing I look at in the mornings.

Common traits are resilience, collaboration, and the ability to communicate effectively. I am sure these can apply to other roles as well. Also, I see all these as learnable skills that can come with practice and experience. * Resilience: Rev Ops is a job where there is never a dull day. Priorities will shift quickly, and fires will happen frequently. There will be times when you are dealing with emotional stakeholders and receiving complaints, or things did not turn out the way that was planned. A good trait is an ability to recover and bounce back from hard days, not take things personally, and move on to the next right thing. * Collaboration: Rev Ops is a cross-functional role where you cannot do everything independently. You will have to work with your operations team members but also outside of your team, including Sales, Finance, Business Systems, Marketing, Legal, etc. Team members who support cross-functional partners fully when they can but can set boundaries the right way to protect your team's energy will always be a delicate dance you need to do. * Communicating Effectively: Every role in Rev Ops will need to be understood well by your stakeholders, whether it's getting a decision made with the Sales team or submitting a requirement to the Business Systems team. When a team member can communicate well, it reduces misunderstanding and the need to run multiple cycles. Communicating includes everything from talking in a meeting to sending an email and slacking a message to someone. The more concise and clear the communication, the more influential the work can be.

There are four key foundational pillars to a RevOps strategy: 1/Talent, 2/Process, 3/Systems, 4/Data. I'd start with Talent and Process changes in the near-term, while starting to build your plans and roadmap for your Systems tech stack and Data architecture. In my experience, you need all these capabilities to operate a world-class RevOps function which can scale with your organization. However, each of these areas have different time horizons to impact. For example, Systems and Data investments are foundational capabilities that will take a longer time to yield a return (18 to 24 mos) whereas you can start to make Talent and Process changes that can have near-term impact to show near-term impact and drive sustained momentum for your strategy. One area which I've found to be high leverage is getting your organization entirely aligned around a single view of the customer journey with clear North Star success metrics and organizational owners who are accountable for driving success at each stage.

This can take many forms, but most paths will require you to demonstrate an analytical and strategic mindset and the ability to translate business questions and needs to technical work, and vice versa. A successful path I've seen is if you have experience in a certain function (Marketing, Sales, Services, etc.) and move into more of a data role - be the technical expert for your team and help answer questions with data. That was my career path as I started my career as a marketer, specialized in paid marketing, and then realized how much I loved Excel, SQL, etc., and pursued that. Another route is starting from the technical side with an analytics or data engineering role. The key to success here is obviously having strong technical skills, but more importantly, the ability and willingness to apply those technical skills in conjunction with a strategic mindset. Don't just focus on the technical work, rather, make sure you're always thinking about business context and cross-functional collaboration.

My recommendation to anyone trying to craft a good 30/60/90 day plan is to first read the book The First 90 Days (https://www.amazon.com/First-Days-Updated-Expanded-Strategies/dp/B00CH7FE1O/ref=sr_1_1?crid=332LCCJEJ62Z8&keywords=first+90+days&qid=1678744873&sprefix=first+90+day%2Caps%2C111&sr=8-1) It is an incredible guide to how you prioritize your time coming into and during your first 90 days in any new role. Revenue Operations specific tasks are not as relevant as understanding what actions anybody should be taking during this time and then fitting your role-specific needs within that framework.

Never underestimate the importance of building strong relationships at work. I honestly think all of this stems from building good relationships with the leadership across the teams and showing how RevOps can help CS improve, operate more efficiently, and achieve their goals. The fact of the matter is, both teams are working towards the same goals. When I’ve seen situations like this before, I think it’s best to focus on the following: * Focus on the shared goals across the two teams. * Create shared objectives and initiatives. * Pocket a few wins, and call attention to it. * Focus on your key stakeholders and invest the time in building the relationship. Specifically focus on ensuring you’re aligned with leadership. Remember, we’re all people - connecting on a personal level will make it more enjoyable and collaborative. * Be an internal advocate for the team where necessary.

Here are some goals I’d consider for a new RevOps function: First 30 days: 1. Meet with key stakeholders in sales, marketing, customer success, and finance to understand the current processes, tools, and technology being used. 2. Use the information gathered to identify areas where revenue operations can make the most impact, such as improving the sales process, implementing new technology, or optimizing the revenue model. 3. Develop a roadmap for revenue operations. Based on the gaps and opportunities identified, develop a plan for the next 3 months that outlines the initiatives, goals, and expected outcomes. 60 days: 1. Begin implementing the initiatives outlined in the roadmap, starting with the highest-priority items. Focus on the things that provide impact quickly, versus large long-term investments -- this will help gain momentum while you ramp and develop a deeper understanding of the business. 2. Develop processes and standard operating procedures. Such as standing meetings with sales and marketing leaders, revenue reporting cadences, project management norms, etc. 3. Review and optimize the tech stack. Review the company's technology stack and identify opportunities to optimize or replace tools that are not meeting the needs of the revenue operations function. 90 days: 1. Align the org around common language and definitions, such as lead and deal stage definitions and important conversion metrics. 2. Plan for future growth. Develop a plan for scaling revenue operations as the company grows, including hiring additional staff, implementing new tools, and refining processes. It’s really important to understand the needs of the business versus assuming that the systems, processes and tools should look similar to what you’ve seen in previous roles. So make sure to invest time up front learning from other folks in the org.

To justify a promotion you want to be able to show impact, followership and consistency. You want to be able to say 1. this is what I did 2. this is how I did it 3. I'm operating at this level consistently. 1. Impact: show with numbers the impact that your initiatives had on the business, and point to your leadership / actions that enabled it. Quantifying your impact to the business, and leading these types of initiatives is key. 2. Followership: Build a strong followership of teammates and cross functional partners who would pound the table for your promotion. Operate in a way that you are an effective collaborator, make room for other people's ideas, and people enjoy working with you. 3. Consistency: Show consistency (6-12 months) of operating at this high level, driving impact and building your followership. You must show that you have truly upleveled your skills across several initiatives vs. a one off big win.

I think it comes down to a few things and I don't think this is specific to revenue ops. I borrow this concept from one of my favorite Youtubers, Ali Abdaal, who notes in his upcoming book that meaningful work boils down to three P's - power, play, and people. And if you have a team or an organization that does all three well, you'll have a good chance of retaining people. * Power is about autonomy and progress, the feeling that people have control over the work that they do. It also encapsulates a feeling of progress, and having a destination to work towards. Do people feel like they have a path forward? Do they have autonomy? Being able to say "Yes" to both is necessary to retaining (and hiring) talent. * Play is simple - it's enjoyment. It's the idea that doing the thing, the work in and of itself, is joyful and fun. Do they enjoy the work? Are they being challenged enough? Are they bored? * People is many things, but fundamentally I think it's about teams. I picture this as an inner circle and an outer circle. The inner circle is the immediate team that someone is in, their manager, their direct coworkers, the people they interact with on a daily basis. Is there a sense of connection with the team? Do people feel like they have to compete with one another? How are ideas discussed? How are they criticized? It's often said that people leave managers (and teams), not companies, and that's what the inner circle is about. The outer circle is the broader organization and company. It's less relevant than the inner circle, but still important. A strong sense of connection the company's mission is a indicator of retention.

Alignment of internal stakeholders for a specific project/initiative is important to ensure that everyone is working towards the same objectives & goals. Here are a few ways I drive stakeholder alignment: * Define what are you solving for (ie. what are the goals & objectives of a specific initiative). Ensure that your stakeholders understand the goals & objectives, and what success looks like. * Identify the role of each stakeholder in the project/initiative, and align on the roles & responsibilities with each stakeholder. Explain how the contribution of each stakeholder ladders up to the overall project/initiative goals & objectives. This will help to remove confusion or friction. * Align with each stakeholder on timelines and deliverables. * Develop a clear project plan that outlines key deliverables, timelines, and scope. Conduct proactive & regular communication with all stakeholders to ensure everyone is on the same page about progress on key workstreams. * Regularly meet with each of the key stakeholders to understand their feedback, what blockers & challenges are they facing, and what actions you will take as the next steps based on the feedback shared. * Foster collaboration among stakeholders (for eg, using a shared project workspace). The above are steps that I take when aligning internal stakeholders. Please feel free to reach out to me directly via LinkedIn message if you would like to discuss this further.