What are the top 3 things that will provide value to C-Suites as a revenue operations manager?

Revenue operations provides utility to the C-suite in various capacities, ranging from revenue forecasting, to process optimization to data and analytics. These are all core functions of rev ops that drive value to CXOs.

Regardless of core rev ops function, I've found these best practices to always hold true for my career:

1. Identify the problem statement - never jump head first into the next big project until you align with stakeholders and management on what exactly is the problem or challenge you're solving. Many execs are drawn by a shiny star project that is flashy, interesting, or just a cool thought exercise. But any cycles spent on a project means time taken away from another potentially higher value project. Just taking a few minutes to ask what exactly is the problem statement for a task or project you're asked to drive can literally save you months of work that becomes shelfware because it wasn't addressing a core problem.

2. Align on KPIs and stick to them - invest time upfront to define a concise and clear list of KPIs/ OKRs for your org. Once defined, make every effort to stick to them. I've been in many orgs where KPIs were created quickly in the interest of rapidly pushing out anchor metrics. However, insufficient time was invested in ensuring they were the right KPIs, were easily measurable, or had sufficient operational rigor to support their inspection. This in turn caused churn on the KPIs, which greatly impaired organizational focus by moving around the cheese for the KPIs. Do the right thing by taking time to define the right KPIs; it will save you and your org much time and expedite achievement of OKRs.

3. Vet your ideas with the field - ensure you socialize your Rev Ops' key strategies, ideas or workstreams with the field for feedback. In the interest of time, rev ops teams often inadvertently operate in any ivory tower by coming up with recommendations and ideas without running them by actual sales teams that are impacted. Doing so risks jeopardizing the idea's success by ignoring valuable field feedback from sales team and reducing trust in the solution from the field since their input was not solicited. Do the right thing by running Rev Ops' proposals against trusted members of the sales field, and you'll greatly increase the success of the solution within the field.