A New Sales Ops Team Structure with Brian Chin, Director of Revenue Operations at Spring Health

In this episode of Sales Ops Demystified Podcast, Tom Hunt and Alex Freeman are joined by Brian Chin, Director of Strategy and Insights, Revenue Operations at Spring Health. They discuss the evolution of the sales ops velocity funnel, strategies to overcome sales and RevOps challenges, and tips to strategise descriptive and predictive analysis to scale RevOps. 

• Brian LinkedIn
• Spring Health Website

Brian’s journey of RevOps 

Brian holds a degree in Business Management from the NYU Stern School of Business. He started his professional journey in 2012 as Analyst, Sales Support, and Operations at Indeed. During his five years at Indeed, Brain progressed towards his ultimate goal and served in different roles in global operations, product analysis, and sales coverage operations.

In 2017, Brain moved up the ladder in his sales operations journey and worked with renowned organisations at key designations, such as a Director of Sales Operations at Monster and Progny, as well as a Global Director of Sales Enablement, Operations, and Lead Generation at Morningside Translation. 

With versatile learning and experience, Brain joined Spring Health as Director of Sales Operations in 2020. He soon made his way towards his ultimate legacy in revenue operations strategy and insights. 

Evolution of sales ops during the past decade

The chronology of sales ops drastically changed during the past few decades. Initially, the sales ops velocity funnel (the rate of change from a prospect to a lead or contact) mostly consisted of looking at reports, maintaining them, and selling them out. However, with time, the sales ops model has evolved, and now sales reps focus more on the top funnel metrics, which include diversity, creating solutions, and working on the post-sales cycles.

Sales ops teach us to be “nimble and fluid.” Adapting to the changing industry dynamics and keeping up with them is the only way to succeed, develop, and grow the sales infrastructure of a company.

Spring Health’s team structure 

Spring Health’s sales team consists of twenty-five to thirty reps, with a few dedicated personnel managing finances, HR, and marketing departments. 

Initially, Brian was the only one working on sales operations. However, with time, Spring Health’s sales operation has grown at its planned pace and, as of 2022, has four dedicated sales operations members. 

Spring Health’s sales ops work on a straightforward and integrated approach with no specified roles and rules. If one person focuses on the backend, the other works on the front-end and manages executions, which aids in sales force enablement. Meanwhile, remaining personnel work on financial analysis, strategies, and sales reps capacity building, especially the new hires. 

“Sales ops team members should try to learn from each other.” At Spring Health, this is done by rotating the roles and responsibilities of every individual every quarter.

Biggest sales ops challenge 

Spring Health’s tremendous and exponential growth rate recently attracted $190 million in funding with a valuation of two billion dollars. This provides the organisation with a challenge to focus on sales capacity enhancement and enablement more than ever. 

Sales ops should put more focus on; 

• The number of sales team and reps the company needs to hire 
• How to manage the exponentially increasing client service, especially those at the top of the sales funnel 
• New markets and opportunities to build sales velocity

Descriptive vs predictive analysis for scaling RevOps 

• Descriptive Analysis: It includes identifying and solving only the existing and identified business problems 
• Predictive Analysis: it works on creating a strategy for the future based on historical data 

Eighty percent of the organisations today only focus on descriptive analysis without considering the future pitfalls that can lead to failure. RevOps is an ever-evolving business process, and it is essential to create reactive and spontaneous teams, strategies, and infrastructure, to adapt to these changes without any setbacks.  

Key strategies to overcome sales ops challenges 

To overcome sales ops challenges, the team should “glue” the various departments in an organisation, linking each level to sales.

Here are five key strategies that use both descriptive and predictive analytics to overcome sales ops challenges:

• Integrate automation into the work frame
• Utilise the “DNA” (metaphorically speaking) of a great employee
• Conduct market intelligence for strategic planning 
• Forecast the scalability potential
• Repeat 

Qualities of sales ops personnel 

The ideal sales ops personnel hunt begins with the motto, “best fit, the best hire“. In this case, the best fit can be defined as an employee who carries a to-do, learning, and willing to grow attitude. Even with no experience, employees can be trained, but the attitude is a must. 

In addition, the best fit should be able to produce good strategies and work under pressure. 

Who in the Sales and RevOps world would Brian like to take to lunch? 

He would like to go out for lunch with two people he has learned the most about sales and RevOps from, David Kelly of Snowflakes, and Akira Mamzuka, VP of Global Sales Ops at LinkedIn.

Recommended episodes 

• Utilising Support Ops With Brian McTeague, VP of Revenue Operations at FastSpring
• Effective RevOps and Analyzing Lead Closing Time with Gilles Meiers, VP of Revenue Operations at LumApps
• Keeping It Simple for Sales Reps With Sandy Robinson, Vice President of Revenue Operations at Nymbus

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