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This Sales Ops Legend Was Acquired Three Times (SAP, Microsoft, Salesforce) with Don Otvos, VP Revenue Operations at LeanData
This week, we are talking to Don Otvos, VP Revenue Operations at LeanData. Reflecting upon his journey through sales operations, Don shares insights on different revenues and sales operations roles.
In conclusion, Don shares how LeanData converts leads into customers.
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An unexpected journey into sales ops
In 2008, while working at MuleSoft, the market went through an economic downturn, and Don got laid off in the process while being a quota-carrying sales rep.
The VP of sales at MuleSoft, Phil Bradley, advised pursuing sales operations. He connected Don with Mark Gentry, who is specialized in sales ops placement.
In 2010, Mark introduced Don to Yammer when it was a team of 30 people. The CEO of Yammer, David Sacks, took the risk of hiring people with passion instead of experience.
The years of quick success
It took a few weeks to set some basic functions and processes at Yammer while working with different teams such as product, engineering, marketing, sales enablement, etc.
“Sales ops and revenue ops is something that touches every team.”
Within two years of joining Yammer, Microsoft acquired Yammer for $1.2 billion. Don left Yammer at a time when the company had an 80 million annual revenue.
Finance, sales operations, and revenue operations sync helps in building a strong relationship with the customers.
Revenue operations help paint a picture, which is important to tell people why they need to make a purchase.
The data rev ops team gather growth demonstration, customers upselling stories, and different types of growth metrics, which the CEOs use for discussions and decision-making.
Empathy for sales reps
The majority of sales ops and revenue operations personnel have been a sales rep at some point.
Every organization system has a few people from the numbers background, such as accounting and finance.
Sales and revenue operations leaders should understand the pain sales reps go through and empathize and solve these “pain points”. This gives you an upper hand when planning sales functions.
LeanData hires resources in line with the set functions. Recently they hired a data analyst with a banking background but no tech experience. However, since he is an analytical man, he successfully plays with numbers to paint the picture that helps him stay on top of his game.
Sales ops conversion to rev ops
Evan Liang, founder/CEO LeanData, has a philosophy that “sales ops is a component of rev operations.”
The prime task of rev ops is to expand the customers’ journey. From that point, a lead enters into the system, how they get treated, and converts into a productive sale.
Sales ops deals with Salesforce, SalesLoft, CX Teams, upsells, and renewals. Whereas rev ops deal with customer success.
“Rev ops owns the customer journey, making it the most amazing experience for the customers.”
The revenue operations function is about having a breadth of knowledge about the different tools you have at your disposal to enrich the customer journey from the start till the end. This enhances the activity of marketing, sales, and customer success.
Integrated teams for accelerated growth
It takes well-connected technology and process to operate rev ops. If this isn’t the case the level of influence is less, and the ability to get things done is low.
Integration of rev ops, marketing, sales, and customer success is pivotal in identifying where things are getting stuck across the end-to-end customer journey. This integration helps teams figure out what to do, what tech stack to use, and what processes to put in place to tackle the problem as quickly as possible.
Convert sales leads into customers with LeanData
Target the pain points of the customers and resolve them. It helps in converting leads into customers.
LeadData has a drag and drop interface that assigns leads properly within the system to ensure they’re dealt with appropriately.
The beauty of LeanData is that it can route any object in Salesforce, either standard or custom. LeanData allows you to frequently change territories and do reassignments easily and elegantly.
Online sales ops forums
Peter Kazanjy has a forum called ModernSalesPros for founders who can’t do sales. It is an easy way to learn sales ops.
ModernSalesPros is a tightly moderated, mutual forum for revenue ops individuals.
Who in the sales ops world would Don like to take out for lunch?
- Peter Kazanjy – Cofounder at Atrium – Sales Performance Analysis