AMA: Deel Global Revenue Operations, Strategy and Planning Leader, Mollie Bodensteiner on Revenue Ops 30 / 60 / 90 Day Plan

I believe the "typical" revenue operations career path varies based on the person. But I typically see team members breaking into Revenue Operations a few different ways: * Entry level: Coming into an organization at the start of their career in an analyst/system admin role and learning about the different roles in Revenue Operations and determining if want to generalize or specialize * Transitioning from Specialization: Moving from a speciality such a Marketing Operations into more of a generalized Revenue Operations strategic role where work cross functionally * Transitioning from Revenue Organization: Working as BDR, SDR, AE and enjoying the operationalize side of the business and making a transition into RevOps Generally, I think you are starting as a specialist (either in a function: sales, marketing, customer success) or by domain (systems, analytics, etc.) and working to build understanding of other functions and specialities through cross-functional alignment and coordination and moving from execution to strategic delivery.

My framework for prioritizing is pretty simple, I like to use a quadrant style prioritization framework and allocate requests into the following format and ensure that I have X% of time allocated to each quadrant: * Top Left: Do Now * High importance, High urgency (generally like to keep around 50% of time allocated to this category) * Bottom Left: Delegate * Low importance, High urgency (generally like to keep around 10% of time allocated to this category) - these are typically the distractions that comes up and delay strategic initiatives - sometimes they just need done, but really focus on how you streamline, reduce and delegate these items * Top Right: Do Next * High importance, low urgency (generally like to keep around 40% of time to this category) * These are the items that if you do not schedule and focus on getting these done, they will become high urgency and typically turn into fire drills, so trying to get ahead of scheduling these into workload * Bottom Right: Delete * Low importance, low urgency (0% allocation) * If the request does not align with strategy, needs deprioritized (these are your say no, or not right now)

The best way to scale your revenue operations team is to really assess where your largest gaps are and invest in resources to close those gaps. * Do you have a strong systems team, but poor processes - hire for operations * Strong operations, but poor execution in systems - hire for systems * Determine if you want to hire specialists or generalists (know that finding really strong experienced generalist can be a challenge) This really comes down to mapping out your roadmap and the assessment of what you need to deliver and making the right investments accordingly. It is also important to understand where you can augment full-time resources through leveraging consulting to help deliver on critical projects were it makes sense.

When meeting with cross-functional teams during our first month at a company as a RevOps leader, here are a few of the key questions I would consider asking: * How do you currently work with Revenue Operations? * What do you feel is working, what is not working? * What is the biggest challenge you have with meeting your goals? Why? * What do you feel is working really well? Why? * What are your expectations for me in this role? What should my expectations be for you? * How do you currently work with other cross-functional leaders? Cadence, prioritization, communication, etc. * How do you currently work with your team? Cadence, prioritization, communication, etc. * What do you feel is our biggest opportunity as a company? Why? Note: I typically recommend asking the same questions to all functional leaders and then pulling together into a matrix so you can see where there are trends in responses. Also use these meetings to listen and absorb verse starting to solve. Too often we start to solve, but take these meetings as an opportunity to learn and digest, then work to build your plan after you have the information needed.

Regarding quick wins in the first 90 days, I think you need to be mindful of what you are trying to deliver. If you come in and start building and delivering to “stop the bleeding” of top priority issues without understanding the business you might end up creating more of a mess in the future (forest and trees). Instead focus on the first 90 days, really understanding the business, how it operates, what the goals are, what is working well, what is not, etc. and building a realistic plan for delivery in the first 30/60 days and starting to deliver on that plan. The foundational items are going to be key, ensuring have lifecycle, clear KPI definitions, data infrastructure, standard operating procedures, seller processes, etc. are always P1s. If you are eager for quick wins, look at key business as usual processes that occur on a repeat cadence and tend to be manual and look at how to operationalize those. Anywhere that administrative time can be decreased for items that are stable and repeatable opens up additional bandwidth and are good quick wins for scale.

The best way to think about a 30/60/90 day plan when you have never done one before is to break it out as follows: * Define what Revenue Operations is, what is the vision, responsibilities, etc. getting this alignment is critical when this is a new role/function in an organization * Outline the resources on the team (who does what) * Outline the current technology stack (cannot figure out what you all have, ask finance, someone pays the bill ;-)) * Determine how the business should work with RevOps (what is the operating cadence, how will work be prioritized, what is the communication plan, etc.) * Summarize the current state (where is the business today, what is missing/needed) * This turns into your roadmap - outline what resources and collaboration will be needed to properly deliver (set these expectations upfront) Here is a sample RevOps roadmap template: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1RrROWL8uZYXJtobQi0FnvRP8oI7ifV9VE1aAmZsxY5g/edit?usp=sharing

When I go into an organization and establish a Revenue Operations practice for the first time, my typical 30, 60, 90 is as follows: * 30: Review Landscape, Define the Foundation * Define and align on what Revenue Operations means to the organization (ensure clear roles and responsibilities) * Identify the current state, gaps, and priorities (this includes existing processes, KPIs, tools/tech, resources, etc.) * Define how you will deliver (how should stakeholders work with revops, operating cadence, communication strategy) * Build plan for next 3 months (get alignment/buy-in on this) * 60: Build the Foundation * Focus on delivering the foundational items needed for the business: Lifecycle, Rules of Engagement, Standard Operating Procedures, etc. * This is critical, without having a stable foundation everything else will wobble * 90: Iterate and Operationalize * Identify the key deliverables and initiatives needed to move business forward through efficiency, performance improvements, etc. (this will be different for every business) I urge RevOps leaders to come in and ensure they have a strong framework across people, process, data, policy and technology before trying to immediately jump into “project” work as without this foundational framework building a strong operating cadence for prioritization, resource allocation and delivery becomes very challenging.