Podcast
October 31, 2025
Episode 65: RevOps Consultant Red and Green Flags
Matt Volm and Camela Thompson break down red and green flags when hiring RevOps consultants—and why there's no "best CRM."
In this fiery episode of the RevOpsAF Podcast, co-host Matthew Volm, CEO and Founder of RevOps Co-op and Eventful, sits down with his co-host Camela Thompson, Head of Marketing at RevOps Co-op and longtime revenue operator, to dissect a topic that almost every revenue leader has strong opinions about—but few actually talk about in public: what separates a world-class RevOps consultant from a walking red flag.
Camela’s perspective comes from both sides of the table. She’s been a consultant for early-stage SaaS startups, a systems admin across Salesforce, Marketo, HubSpot, and Zendesk, and an internal operator responsible for hiring and managing consulting firms. That combination makes her uniquely qualified to call out the good, bad, and occasionally ugly behaviors that operators should watch for when engaging outside partners.
Together, Matt and Camela break down when to bring in a consultant, what warning signs to never ignore, how to set up engagements for success, and—because it wouldn’t be a RevOpsAF episode without one—Camela’s hot take that’s guaranteed to start a Slack debate.
For more on this topic, check out our blog post on Red and Green Flags for RevOps Consultants.
Hiring a RevOps consultant can be a game-changer—or a cash bonfire. According to Camela, the key variable is clarity: what you need, when you need it, and whether your internal team has the capacity or expertise to deliver.
Consultants tend to fall into two categories:
For more on hiring for Revenue Operations, check out this blog post Hiring for Revenue Operations? Ask These Interview Questions.
Startups often benefit from fractional experts who can build a foundation fast. Growth-stage and enterprise organizations, on the other hand, rely on agencies that can manage complexity, compliance, and scale.
Camela’s advice:
“Don’t hire a consultant because you’re panicking. Hire one because you’re planning.”
A consultant isn’t there to rescue you from chaos—they’re there to design systems so you don’t keep recreating chaos every quarter.
For more on this topic, also check out our blog post How to Hire a RevOps Consultant (Without Getting Stuck With the B-Team).
Bad consulting engagements almost always begin with good intentions—but poor discovery. Camela highlights several unmistakable red flags that signal a consultant might not be worth the retainer:
🚩 They only talk to one stakeholder.
If they skip interviews with Sales, CS, or Marketing leadership, they’re missing the cross-functional reality of RevOps.
🚩 They quote before seeing your data.
Without sandbox or system access, there’s no way to scope accurately. A fixed-price quote built on assumptions is a future change order waiting to happen.
🚩 They rely on a prebuilt playbook.
A good framework is helpful; a cookie-cutter solution is dangerous. “If they tell you they’ve seen this exact problem before and know exactly what to do, that’s your cue to run,” Camela warns.
🚩 They talk down to internal staff.
Whether it’s a CRM admin or ops analyst, those employees hold institutional knowledge that can make or break the project. Consultants who ignore or belittle them burn bridges before they even start.
🚩 They oversell future outcomes.
Anyone guaranteeing “system transformation” in 30 days either doesn’t understand your tech stack—or is hoping you won’t notice when the project derails.
Matt adds that red flags often surface before kickoff.
“You can usually spot them during the sales process,” he says. “The wrong partner will try to prove they’re the smartest person in the room. The right one will try to understand how your room actually works.”
Camela emphasizes that empathy is one of the most underrated consulting skills. Many consultants underestimate the emotional weight of operational change. When you rework a CRM, update validation rules, or restructure stages, you’re also changing someone’s workflow, their metrics, and their sense of control.
“I’ve had clients where leadership said, ‘We’ve never had real RevOps before,’ with the current admin still on the call,” she recalls. “That’s brutal. You have to assume good intent. Most people did what they thought was right at the time with the resources they had.”
A good consultant builds trust by listening first and diagnosing second—understanding how systems, people, and processes have evolved before deciding what to rebuild.
The best consultants operate like surgeons: deliberate, data-driven, and collaborative. According to Camela, here’s what to look for:
✅ They ask for references and share theirs freely.
Real professionals can show past success stories and will proactively connect you with happy clients.
✅ They admit what they don’t do.
Consultants who can’t say no are consultants who overpromise. “If you ask, ‘What don’t you do?’ and they say, ‘We can do it all,’—that’s a no for me,” says Matt.
✅ They set clear expectations around adoption.
The right consultant won’t just “build” a system—they’ll ensure your team knows how to use it. They’ll also warn you when you’re not ready for a major rollout.
✅ They balance strategic and tactical thinking.
Great consultants zoom out to see the business context before diving into the system changes. They know that a Salesforce validation rule without stakeholder buy-in is just a future ticket to roll back.
✅ They build internal champions.
Whether it’s a marketing ops manager or a revenue analyst, consultants who coach internal teams along the way leave behind capability, not dependency.
“The best consultants are the ones who make themselves obsolete,” Camela says. “If you’ve done your job right, your client doesn’t need you forever.”
A major green flag is knowing when to walk away. Camela says she’s turned down projects where leadership wasn’t aligned, scope was unrealistic, or there wasn’t a champion in-house to keep things running post-launch.
“You’re not doing anyone favors by taking on a project that can’t succeed,” she explains. “A consultant who politely declines because the client isn’t ready—that’s someone you should work with later.”
She also urges operators to seek multiple perspectives before making platform changes. For example, when considering a CRM migration, involve experts on both systems to weigh trade-offs.
“There’s always a cost to moving, and sometimes the better move is to fix what you have.”
To wrap the episode, Camela drops her signature mic-drop moment:
“People who say their CRM is the best are wrong. Every single one of them. The perfect solution doesn’t exist.”
Her point? Every CRM was built for a specific stages and motions. Salesforce was architected for new business acquisition; HubSpot’s sweet spot is marketing-led growth; Zendesk and Catalyst excel post-sale. Forcing one system to do everything usually means it does nothing particularly well.
Matt builds on that analogy:
“Picking a CRM is like picking the best player on a basketball team. You might have the best shooter, but if the rest of your lineup can’t rebound or pass, you’re still losing the game.”
The smarter move is to align your systems architecture to your business maturity—not to a vendor’s feature roadmap or your peer’s recommendation in Slack.
For more on selecting a new CRM, check out our blog post Looking for a new CRM? Start Here.
Check out our blog for frameworks, playbooks, and interviews with operators who’ve seen it all — or join our community of 18,000+ members to share your own RevOps horror stories and hero moments.
Our average member has more than 5 years of RevOps experience. That means you’ll have real-time access to seasoned professionals. All we ask is that you’re generous with your knowledge in return.
