As a new RevOps leader at a growing organization, you’ll have the urge to hit the ground swinging and show your value on day one. But test the waters first, says Jon Krangel, Head of RevOps at Retool, and make sure to understand the maturity of your new company’s RevOps data stack before you make changes.
“In RevOps, you have to learn how to function in ambiguity. Be prepared for the unexpected and always be a little paranoid about how data is flowing through your systems.” - Jon Krangel
At most organizations, data stacks don’t evolve until you start asking more detailed questions of the business—and it’s ill prepared to answer those questions. It’s now clear that your GTM operations can’t supply the foundational, clean data structures needed to feed data models.
This is when you need to bring in new tools to uplevel your data stack. Polytomic has helped Jon get companies through this stage of evolution by gaining control over the shape and flow of data through the GTM stack, allowing him to move data around systems and understand his system limitations better.
“The RevOps team doesn’t run the other teams but they are the people who have to put together accurate reports.” Ghalib Suleiman
Keeping data clean and organized will always be complicated by the simple truth that data is entered by human beings. For a new Revops person, trying to figure out how to get GTM teams, especially sales, to enter the data you want can be very frustrating.
Jon recommends changing your perspective. You shouldn’t have to ask sales to enter data in the first place. Design a user experience in your GTM data stack that doesn’t need an instruction manual. Enablement should be tied into your systems’ UI and matched with each user role.
“It's RevOps job, as leaders, to have a data contract with the rest of org to make sure that data is clean, makes sense, and that you're using the right fields.” - Jon Krangel
This is the strongest relationship that RevOps should have in your organization. Data teams are typically several layers removed from business context and RevOps needs to protect and manage their interactions with the rest of the GTM org.
To start, RevOps should understand how data flows through your systems. This will help you understand what work you can handle yourself, like building out sales dashboards, so the data team can cut through the noise and focus on other projects.
Different organizational milestones will change how your RevOps function operates. At some point you’ll hire a head of sales who wants RevOps support. Or you might be ready for a CRO. Be prepared to make changes, whether you're 30 people and you’re building systems for the first time, or you're 300 people and need to rip and replace tools. At the end of the day, RevOps should act like the product management function for the GTM org at large.
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