“I want to be the Head of Revenue Operations!” said no child ever when asked what they want to be when they grow up.
Not only is the Revenue Operations industry just beginning to really take off as an essential function of business, the job is a little more complicated to present to a group of kindergarteners than something like “doctor” or “teacher.”
You’re probably more familiar with Revenue Operations now that you’ve replaced recess with networking Happy Hours and work at a company where the alignment between revenue-contributing teams is paramount. You might even be thinking about pursuing it! Not sure if a career in Revenue Operations is right for you? Read on to find out.
What is RevOps?
A RevOps team’s purpose is to streamline operational procedures and offer alignment across the revenue path, which includes Sales, Marketing, and Customer Success and Support. RevOps empowers the organization to refocus on the customer experience and achieve more predictable business growth through this alignment.
B2B organizations with aligned revenue functions grow 12–15 times faster and are 34% more profitable than their competitors. Due to this advantage, the demand for RevOps professionals has surged by roughly 300% in the last couple of years.
But what exactly does someone who works in RevOps do?
Responsibilities
The role of RevOps varies by company: The stage of the company, the organizational structure, and other factors all influence what the day-to-day responsibilities of a RevOps professional looks like. In general, however, a person in Revenue Operations will likely play a role in the following:
- Identify revenue-generating opportunities, such as go-to-market strategies, customer lifecycle management tactics, and potential sales process improvements
- Share insights, centralize information, and collaborate cross-functionally with sales, marketing, customer success, business operations, finance, product, as well as other stakeholders, to strategize, operationalize, and assess the impact of business initiatives
- Make recommendations for tools to improve data quality, analysis, and reporting, and oversee systems and data administration
- Manage dashboards and create revenue forecasts so that teams can easily understand the state of the business and meet targets
- Develop processes to improve cross-functional collaboration among sales, marketing, and customer success, and help determine sales and marketing strategies to increase revenue
- Build a tech stack for each of the aforementioned teams while considering how customers and prospects would benefit most from specific software solutions at each stage of their journey
- Analyze data from multiple departments in order to make high-level decisions
Now that you know what they do, let’s look at some of the skills required to secure a job in RevOps.
Skills and experience
Even though the skills needed to be a rockstar Revenue Operations professional can vary depending on the specific roles and responsibilities (strategy, operations, accounting, data analyst), there are still basic skills that are helpful to have if your end goal is to master RevOps. Here are some of them:
- Knowledge of or background in revenue operations, sales/sales operations, marketing/marketing operations, or business operations
- Ability to track and analyze metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs), and use them as actionable insights to determine future strategies
- Proven experience building relationships and collaborating with different departments and stakeholders
- Ability to create, present, and communicate data/report in a polished, clear, and tactical way.
- Deep knowledge of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software (like Salesforce, HubSpot, SAP, and Oracle) and the administration of them
- Competency with sales enablement, Learning Management Systems (LMS), business intelligence, marketing automation, and other RevOps related tools
- Problem-solving skills in order to solve issues in a way that makes sense for the rest of the organization
- Ability to make data-driven decisions and use concrete information to make judgments and give business guidance
- Ability to think a few steps ahead of decisions and anticipate how those decisions will affect the organization in the future
If you have all or most of these skills, let’s look into some job titles to get you started on your search.
RevOps job titles
Do you have to have a background in sales, marketing, operations, or revenue management? While it isn’t necessary to come from one of these backgrounds, experience with building strategies that lead to revenue will give you a leg up and help you make a lateral transition. Here are some job titles and their progression to consider as you build out your career in Revenue Operations:
Entry level roles:
- Revenue Operations Specialist
- Revenue Operations Analyst
- Revenue Strategy and Operations Associate
- Revenue Accountant
Mid-Senior level roles:
- Revenue Operations Manager
- Revenue Strategy Manager
- Revenue Accounting Manager
- Revenue Cycle Manager
Director level roles:
- Director/Senior Director of Revenue Operations
- Director/Senior Director of Revenue Accounting
- Director/Senior Director of Revenue Strategy
- Director/Senior Director of Revenue Cycle
Executive level role:
- VP of Revenue Operations
- VP of Revenue Strategy
- VP of Revenue Accounting
- Chief Revenue Officer
So now that you know what to look for, where can you start applying for RevOps roles?
Apply for a RevOps job!
Now that you understand what someone in RevOps does, the different roles within RevOps, and the skills you need to land a RevOps role, let’s talk about where and how you can find RevOps jobs. Here are a few good resources you can use: The Systematic Community, Systematic Job Board, LinkedIn, Indeed, Glassdoor, CareerBuilder, and more. You can also leverage Google search, using terms like “RevOps jobs” or “Revenue Operations jobs.” If you have lots of connections on LinkedIn, lean into your network and kindly ask the people who work in RevOps to make some introductions for you!
Ready to start your career in Revenue Operations? Join the RevOps subgroup in Systematic to find job openings, build your network, and learn about trending topics in the RevOps world.
