The session explored why CPQ (Configure-Price-Quote) projects so often spiral into chaos, how to prevent RevOps teams from drowning in “implementation hell,” and what change-ready operators can do to bring agility, alignment, and sanity back into their revenue engine.
RevOps was once a strategic, behind-the-scenes function. Today, it’s the connective tissue holding GTM together—expected to architect systems, enforce governance, enable sales, and even support marketing execution. The result? Operators spend more time fighting fires than building scalable processes.
“There’s always going to be a dumpster fire you can go put out somewhere.” – Liz Barton
Barton and McArthur agreed that this operational chaos is unsustainable. The best operators are re-learning how to prioritize. McArthur shared his own simple yet powerful framework:
This system forces operators to zoom out and think strategically. As McArthur put it, “RevOps can’t just be the team that patches leaks; it needs to be the team that redesigns the plumbing.”
For more on aligning the tactical with the strategic, check out the RevOpsAF Podcast Episode 39: Aligning the Tactical with the Strategic.
Few projects test an organization’s patience like a CPQ implementation. McArthur described it bluntly: “The moment you start down that path, you’re in implementation hell until it’s done.”
A CPQ touches everything—pricing, finance, product operations, and CRM data—and becomes the epicenter of friction if not handled deliberately. Barton echoed that reality:
“CPQ implementations are the number one reason teams get stuck. They’re so all-encompassing, touching every department, that everything else grinds to a halt.” – Liz Barton
The pair identified three common ways operators over-engineer the Q2C process:
Their advice: embrace sufficiency. Build to the point right before it breaks—where your system supports your GTM motion, but doesn’t collapse under its own sophistication.
For more on managing SaaS pricing, check out Nue Price Tags: The Smarter Way to Manage SaaS Pricing.
McArthur likened CPQ design to game design: in early discovery, every team will throw hundreds of use cases on the table. The art is knowing what to remove. “You should keep pulling things out until you find the breaking point—then you know you’ve hit the right level of complexity,” he explained.
Barton added that expectation-setting is just as important as design discipline. Everyone will assume CPQ will solve their problem. It won’t.
“Don’t go into a CPQ implementation thinking you’ll keep your current process—it’s never going to happen.” – James McArthur
To stay grounded, McArthur suggests organizing stakeholder input into three tiers:
Anything outside the top category should wait for phase two.
For more on a project management framework for RevOps, check out the RevOps Co-op Video Series: Project Management in RevOps: the Why, What and How.
For Barton, simplicity has become a guiding philosophy. “Elegant solutions are simple on the surface but complex underneath,” she said. “But they have to feel easy to use.”
That simplicity starts with two key design principles:
Operators should prioritize platforms that balance configurability with accessibility. Modern tools—like Nue, Maxio, and others—are designed for agility, not rigidity. They empower RevOps teams to manage pricing and product catalogs directly without waiting for admin support.
For more on keeping things simple when it comes to automation, check out the RevOps Co-op Video Series: Keep It Simple, How to Use Automation the Right Way as You Scale.
McArthur’s non-negotiable? Bring finance into the conversation from day one.
“If your quotes can’t be billed, finance will end up manually re-entering everything—and you’ll be back at zero again in 18 months.” – James McArthur
From proration models to revenue schedules, financial accuracy must be baked in early. A CPQ that doesn’t mirror your billing engine (like NetSuite or Intacct) will create endless reconciliation issues. Barton agreed, adding that finance shouldn’t just review the final output—they should shape the design.
“This is their tool as much as it’s yours.” – Liz Barton
Operators who integrate finance early build trust, prevent billing nightmares, and dramatically improve cross-department alignment.
You should also check out RevOpsAF Podcast Episode 62: Payments: a RevOps Problem in Disguise to hear why payments are a RevOps problem, not just a finance one.
Every RevOps leader knows the pain: a customer changes their contract mid-term, and suddenly the deal desk has to rebuild quotes, regenerate approvals, and manually update billing.
McArthur’s solution? Map every workflow visually before implementing anything. “Build a Lucidchart that shows the end-to-end process—sales to billing to revenue recognition—and stress-test it,” he advised.
Automation can’t fix what you don’t understand. By diagramming dependencies, operators can identify gaps, automate manual steps, and design workflows that truly flow from quote to cash without ops stepping in every time something breaks.
For more in-depth guidance on navigating mid-term changes, check out One Subscription, Any Change: The Nue Guide to Mid-Term Changes.
Pricing and packaging changes expose another RevOps vulnerability: being looped in too late. Barton shared how product teams sometimes make roadmap decisions that imply new pricing motions—like usage-based billing—without consulting ops until days before launch.
“You don’t want pricing to be an afterthought. Your sales team will be ready to sell before the product is ready to quote.” – Liz Barton
Her advice: treat RevOps as a strategic stakeholder in product and pricing conversations, not a downstream executor.
McArthur added that agility must be intentional. The best CPQs make it easy to test, launch, and retire pricing models quickly—without a six-month dev cycle.
For more on the omnichannel revolution happening in SaaS, check out Killing the Silo: The Omnichannel Revolution in B2B SaaS.
As GTM systems multiply, so do data discrepancies. Hybrid revenue models—subscription, usage, one-time fees—make reconciliation across Salesforce, billing, and ERP systems notoriously difficult.
Barton emphasized the importance of language alignment before system alignment:
“You can’t design a system that speaks the same language if your teams don’t.” – Liz Barton
The pair outlined an evolution path for data governance:
McArthur warned against rushing to centralization too early: “Don’t lose your head trying to build a data warehouse before you’re ready—but once you are, it’s the only way to get real alignment.”
For more on the single source of truth between sales and marketing, check out the RevOps Co-op Blog: What CRM Admins Should Know About Marketing Automation.
With Salesforce officially sunsetting its legacy CPQ, operators everywhere are re-evaluating their tech stacks. McArthur doesn’t see this as a crisis—it’s an opportunity.
“It’s not end-of-life, but it’s a wake-up call. The world has moved on from heavy customization to configuration.” – James McArthur
Modern tools like Nue and Maxio exemplify this shift. They’re Salesforce-native, agile, and API-driven, enabling operators to model complex pricing without relying on Apex triggers or custom code. Barton’s advice: start planning your transition while you have the luxury of time—before your legacy CPQ becomes a bottleneck.
And one golden rule, repeated by both speakers:
“Lock your pricing before you implement CPQ. Changing it mid-project will blow up your architecture.”
For more on the complexity associated with AI, usage and consumption based pricing, check out the RevOps Co-op Video Series: AMA on AI, Consumption & Outcome-Based Pricing.
By the end of the discussion, McArthur distilled RevOps maturity into a simple loop: People → Process → Systems → Insights → back to People. Each phase feeds the next. Skip the early steps, and no system can save you.
Barton closed with the same message she began with: alignment above all else. “If you can build strong partnerships between finance, sales, and RevOps, you’ll not only survive your next CPQ implementation—you’ll actually enjoy it.”
“Do the process work before the system work. Get your ducks in a row, align your stakeholders, and maybe your CPQ won’t make you cry.” – James McArthur
For more on what it means to “be more strategic,”, check out the RevOps Co-op Blog: Be More Strategic: The Key to Growth in RevOps.
Looking to simplify your quote-to-cash process or re-evaluate your tech stack? Learn more about how you can manage your revenue lifecycle with Nue.
Explore the RevOps Co-op blog for more insights, upcoming events, and playbooks on all things RevOps. Join the RevOps Co-op community to connect with 18,000+ operators redefining what operational excellence looks like in modern GTM.
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