Breaking Silos Through Building Collaboration: How RevOps Leaders can Maximize Their Impact

Sales, marketing, and customer success teams operate in their own data and process silos. It’s the job of RevOps to break down these silos by building collaboration. Join Mollie Bodensteiner, GTM Strategy & Operations Leader at Sound, Ido Gaver, CEO & Co-founder at Sweep.io, and Andy Mowat, CEO and cofounder at Gated, to learn how to collaborate with leadership, cross-functional teams, and within RevOps.

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“The level of alignment between RevOps and management can make or break a company.” - Ido Gaver

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RevOps is the most cross-functional department in any organization. They’re often the team in charge of breaking down silos of data and priorities in order to move revenue forward for the business. To start silo busting, use the Sweep Collaboration Framework that aligns leadership, cross-functional departments, and your RevOps team.

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Working with leadership

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“You need the right standard operating procedures, RACI documentation, and clear accountability. Without this upfront, it’s going to be a world of chaos.” - Mollie Bodensteiner

Collaboration with leadership is about managing up. Your CEO or CRO likely won’t understand the long list of RevOps priorities you have in front of you. To break down this silo, focus on overcommunication:

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• Confirm your shared goals so you can work together towards the same desired outcomes.
• Force trade-offs. If leadership wants you to focus on a specific priority, make them understand that other projects will NOT get done.
• Be clear on your timelines. It will take longer to complete projects if you’re juggling 3 or 4 at the same time. 
• Instead of obsessing over not having enough resources, use your forced trade-offs to secure more headcount.
• Try to communicate face to face, rather than over email. 
• Use a traffic light update. Projects fall into red, yellow, or green. Every week, show what’s on track, what’s complete, what’s at risk, and where you need leadership support.

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Collaborating cross-functionally

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“We need to think about the business, not a specific function.” - Andy Mowat

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When collaborating across marketing, sales, and customer success, create a steering committee. Everyone needs to work towards the same goals that are good for the business and have the biggest impact on revenue. It’s not just about their own department’s needs. 

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This drives better prioritization and collaboration towards the same desired outcome. As a RevOps leader, be willing to listen to what other people think about the goals and priorities and even change your mind based on their feedback.

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Working with your team

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“Have clarity of prioritization. Your team should not be working on 12 things.” - Andy Mowat

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Weekly meetings have a big benefit: you can understand the risk assessment around your priorities and their deadlines. This allows you to focus on tactical communication and problem solving as a team. To increase accountability, teach your team to manage up and allow them to make a case for the projects they feel are most important at the moment. 

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To help reinvigorate how your RevOps team tackles problems, consider bringing in RevOps teams from other companies to help break down the silos in your own way of thinking. The RevOps Co-op is another great way to talk to thousands of RevOps pros about how they would tackle a specific problem. 

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Break out of your silos with Sweep

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“You can learn and get better at prioritization and collaboration.” - Ido Gaver

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Sweep is helping to break down silos and extend access to revenue data for your Ops team, management team, and other stakeholders. Instead of complicated diagrams, Sweep provides a single visual that can increase collaboration in a compelling way. Get ready to have a common language across all revenue teams. 

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