Why a Great Sales Ops Team Means Better Results
This is the first of three articles on how a strategic sales ops team helps drive elite results. Continue reading in articles two and three.
The overall goal of a sales operations team is to reduce or eliminate friction.
Building a sales ops team can be hard. Ask any sales leader how they built their team and you’ll hear a whole slew of stories. Some hire an internal person with a technical background while others find an external hire. There is no one right answer and usually depends on your situation.
The very nature of what sales ops tries to accomplish is actually pretty simple: reduce or eliminate friction.
Picture a roller coaster: the less friction, the smoother and faster the ride, right? The same goes for a sales team. If friction exists, the sales team slows down which hurts the business.
Sales operations is a set of very different but complementary roles. First, there is the need to be multifaceted and make decisions that span: team structure, compensation, incentives, automation, and support. Then there is the tactical support that keeps the sales team up and running, which includes things like data reviews or figuring out sales incentives to drive behavior. Finally, there is the strategy behind the sales team, which bleeds into your business goals and vision.
When it comes to building and managing your sales ops team, a team with diverse and specialized roles will develop greater results. An ops person who can handle day-to-day requests may not be the same person who can develop a big picture strategy. To decide which types of people your team needs, you must consider where you are in the development of your sales team, assess your current challenges and goals, and decide which types of people can best help you get where you want to be.
The nuts and bolts of your ops team
This team does a lot (and it’s not just all behind-the-scenes kinds of stuff either). They’re constantly focused on leveraging data, processes, and technologies to support overall business objectives. Whether it’s your GTM strategy or addressing new market conditions, the ops team provides the information and reasoning for your decisions. In addition, as you grow and scale, your ops team will act as a hub for coordinating activities across the broader organization.
A sales leader’s other best friend
Sales leaders are usually closely aligned with the CEO, but when it comes to key decisions and defining moments for the sales org a strong relationship with sales ops is a game changer. Before ‘sales operations’ was a thing, many sales leaders relied heavily on hiring senior sales reps that could carry the team (risky and hard to scale), implementing various selling tactics to get people to buy (inefficient), and using their gut instinct to make decisions (less strategic).
With a solid ops team your sales reps can keep their eye on opportunities while sales leaders can focus on the market. Your ops team should be centered on:
Strategizing and leveraging data to make and support key decisions
Ensuring systems and processes are aligned to remove friction
Recommending action when needed
Just as you would invest heavily in hiring top sales talent, you should do the same when creating your sales ops team. Don’t cut corners or costs and don’t let this team be understaffed—this team is too critical to a sales organization's success to be taken lightly.