Breaking Out of the CRM Box: How to Grow Your Career in RevOps

RevOps is one of the most strategic - and fastest growing - functions in modern businesses. But it’s not always clear how to grow your career in the space, especially if you’re stuck doing tactical CRM updates. In this digital event, a panel of veteran RevOps leaders shares their personal career paths, their best advice for escaping the CRM trap, and how to level up your impact inside the business.

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Speakers include:

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Sandy Robinson, VP of RevOps at Quavo Fraud and Dispute

Steve Busby, Founder and Managing Partner at Revenue Operations Associates

Tracy Hernandez, Founder and CEO at Rev Harmony Group

John Bell, Director of GTM Systems at WP Engine

Camela Thompson, Head of Marketing at RevOps Co-op

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RevOps Isn’t Just CRM - It’s Strategy

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It’s easy to feel stuck in the CRM weeds, managing requests, fixing fields, and running reports. But as Steve Busby, Founder at Revenue Operations Associates, explains, “RevOps is the execution of a revenue strategy. You just might not realize it yet.”

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The key to breaking out? Shifting your mindset from task executor to change agent. Whether you're helping a CRO hit a revenue goal, enabling better handoffs between sales and customer success, or reducing cycle time—you're working on business strategy.

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“Execution of a go-to-market strategy is RevOps. That’s what makes it important.” – Steve Busby

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Learn to Manage Change

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RevOps is inherently a change function. So if you want to grow your career, get good at managing change.

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Whether you’re redesigning comp plans, rolling out a new system, or updating cross-functional handoffs, success depends on aligning stakeholders, anticipating friction, and communicating clearly.

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“Change is constant. And if you’re doing RevOps right, you’re in the seat of power because you see it all.” – Tracy Hernandez

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If you’re new to change management, consider getting certified (like John Bell did), or start by thinking critically about how your projects will affect people, processes and tech across the GTM org.

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Learn more about the Revenue Operations Certification (ROC) offered by RevOps Co-op here.

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And for practical frameworks, check out 9 Best Practices for Better Change Management - a blog post that outlines the steps to stack the deck in your favor.

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Set a Strategic North Star

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You can’t prioritize or measure impact if you don’t know what matters most. That’s why the panel emphasized the importance of anchoring your work to a strategic North Star - usually a company-wide financial or operational goal.

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“If you don’t know your North Star, go ask your CEO or CFO.” – Steve Busby

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Once you know what the business is driving toward - whether it's profitability, recurring revenue or reduced churn - you can identify projects that help get there. This gives your work strategic context and helps elevate RevOps from tactical support to essential execution engine.

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Our post Be More Strategic: The Key to Growth in RevOps breaks down the mindset and metrics that matter.

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Align With Finance and Sales Leadership

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Many RevOps professionals struggle to get budget, buy-in or headcount. One reason? They’re not speaking the language of finance.

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Panelists emphasized the need to partner closely with finance and sales leadership to align definitions, establish shared dashboards and agree on metrics like ARR, customer count and revenue realization.

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“You should be taking your list of RevOps priorities to finance and asking: what’s the ROI? Let’s model this out together.” – Steve Busby

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Start with definitions. Document them. Make sure your marketing, sales and customer success teams all agree. Then work together to identify KPIs that everyone can rally around.

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Our on-demand course Finance for RevOps could help you level up in this area.

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Know the Math of the Business

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If you want to grow your RevOps career, you need to understand how the business actually makes money.

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Know your CAC. Understand ACV. Be able to explain how changes in comp plans, funnel conversion or churn affect margins or growth targets. And learn to tell stories with your data.

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“If you understand the math of growth, and you understand the bow tie model, you’re ahead of 90% of people.” – Steve Busby

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Not sure where to start? Learn your company’s funnel, from lead to renewal. Map out the stages, key conversion rates and associated metrics. Then figure out where small improvements can drive big revenue impact.

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Our post on Questions to Ask When CAC is High is a great place to start.

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Master Communication and Education

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Don’t assume people know what RevOps is. Your job is to educate them - consistently and clearly.

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“Every project should include an enablement component. Don’t just build the thing—communicate why it matters.” – Sandy Robinson

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That means sharing updates in Slack, running office hours, presenting to leadership and tailoring your message to the audience. Speak business outcomes to execs, tactical workflows to ICs, and strategy to your peers.

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Final Thoughts: From Tactical to Transformational

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If you want to grow your career in Revenue Operations, the path is clear:

• Learn the business strategy.
• Manage change.
• Align with leadership.
• Communicate value.
• Move from tactical CRM work to transformational impact.

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RevOps is still young as a discipline - which means there's huge opportunity for those who are ready to step up and lead.

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“You’re in a position of power. It’s time to define your career, not let the system define it for you.” – Tracy Hernandez

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Looking for more great content? Check out our blog and join the RevOps Co-op community.

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