The 5 Expert Tips to Grow in RevOps: The CLEAR Roadmap

Gartner estimates that 3 out of 4 highest-growth companies in the world will deploy a RevOps model by 2025. This is a true testament to the flourishing growth that RevOps is witnessing today.

However, with great opportunity comes great ambiguity. You might struggle to understand your career progression in RevOps, despite being adept in analytics or skilled with spreadsheets. While these technical skills are essential, they’re not enough. This leads to the question: how do you climb up the RevOps ladder?

RevOps leaders who have been successful say that the only way to boost your career growth is by consciously combining your technical expertise with essential soft skills, i.e., the ones you develop based on your everyday interactions with other teams.

We’ve compiled a list of 5 key capabilities, outlined on our flagship webinar “The Road to VP of RevOps” by veteran RevOps leaders who have spent decades in the industry: 

• Anil Somaney: SVP of Global Revenue Strategy & Operations, Chargebee, 25+ years of experience
• Nathan Carter: Head of RevOps, Chargebee, 20+ years of experience
• Julia Leong: VP of Global Revenue Strategy & Operations, UiPath, 20+ years of experience

Honing these capabilities can help you advance in your career and become a distinguished RevOps leader. Here’s a mnemonic for you to remember them: CLEAR.

Ready to unlock this CLEAR roadmap that’ll guide you to success? Let’s go! 🚀

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Connect the dots

RevOps is powerful for two reasons: i) it has a cross-functional expertise – teaming up with sales, marketing, product, customer success, & business development, and ii) it has access to data with the right business context.

When you are able to understand the various functions across these teams, tie them to the business perspective, and devise optimization strategies - you create a strong business impact. This ability to connect the dots at various stages of a deal is something that can fuel your career growth.

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Lead with inspiration

You’re supposed to lead your team as a “leader”, that’s quite obvious. What’s the differentiator here? Being inspirational.

One way to do this is by keeping up with the industry best practices and infusing them into your company’s existing approach. By doing this, you’re driving change at an organizational level, and in a meaningful way: that’s a significant soft skill.

Another aspect of inspiration is the ability to coach others. This shows that not only are you enabling your team to achieve company goals, you’re also helping them uplevel their individual careers.

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Excel at communication

You need to master the skill of communicating effectively, and you don’t have to be an extrovert to do so. Doing so will enable you to:

1. Articulate your thoughts in a clear and succinct manner. For instance, while making a presentation to other C-suite executives, your ability to summarize important insights in 3-4 bullet points will set you apart.
2. Build trust with others. The main ingredient behind successful relationships is the trust you develop, since as RevOps, you tend to be the glue that binds the other teams together.

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Ask (a lot of) questions

A great RevOps leader asks a lot of questions, and this stems from curiosity - of prioritizing doing the right things over doing things right.

Not all of these questions might be answered, but this can be considered a starting point. Asking questions about the data, about the insights gathered from the data can lead you to the starting point of finding that answer you’re looking for. It’s all about sparking conversations rather than seeking solutions right off the bat.

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Readily adapt to situations

Today’s world goes through disruptions at an alarming rate. To be a great RevOps leader, you should be able to roll along with the punches - whether it’s industry shifts or changes in consumer behavior.

You also need to nurture the mindset of thinking strategically while operating tactically - the ability to marry your long-term vision with the day-to-day execution of tasks.

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Summary and Conclusion

Being good at analyzing large volumes of data with tech tools is not enough to grow in RevOps. You need to combine your technical expertise with key soft skills to carve your path towards becoming a successful RevOps leader. Use the CLEAR roadmap to help you achieve this. Here’s a quick summary of the roadmap:

• Connect the dots: The ability to understand other business functions and devise optimization strategies
• Lead with inspiration: Coaching others to grow in their career along with enabling your team to achieve company goals
• Excel at communication: Bringing brevity in conversations and building trust with other teams
• Ask (a lot of) questions: Asking questions not just to seek answers, but to spark conversations
• Readily adapt to situations: Being able to combine strategic vision to tactical execution

We hope this roadmap takes you to the next level on your career journey. Good luck!