1.
Confessions of a Rev Ops Curmudgeon
How Sales Leaders can Get the Greenlight for
New Tech, New Reps, and New Projects

2.
List of past roles my CRO wants me to tell you about
...he says it makes me special
● SDR/BDR
● SDR/BDR Manager
● Inside/Outside hybrid sales rep
● Marketing Operations Manager
● Sales Operations Manager
● Revenue Operations “Skunkworks” Leader

3.
How I got myself FIRED
...and then promoted…
...the first time…

4.
It all started with bargaining
And some easy math...
I HATED cold calling

5.
It all started with bargaining
And some easy math...
How can I know
if what I’m doing today
will get me PAID next
quarter?

6.
It all started with bargaining
And some easy math...
How many deals
do I need to win to
hit accelerators?

7.
It all started with bargaining
And some easy math...
How many deals do I
need to qualify
to win that many?

8.
It all started with bargaining
And some easy math...
How many people
do I need to speak to
in order to qualify that
many?

9.
It all started with bargaining
And some easy math...
How many leads do I
need to process (calls I need to make)
to speak with that
many people?

10.
It all started with bargaining
And some easy math...
How much money,
is each milestone worth
in quota retirement?

11.
It all started with bargaining
And some easy math...
ACV $50,000
Someone told
me there were
thousands of
leads thrown
out every
quarter….
Close Rate 21.5%
Meeting-to-qualified
opportunity
conversion rate
53%
Lead-to-meeting
conversion ratio
15%
Value of attempting
to contact any given
lead
$871

12.
ACV $50,000
Close Rate 21.5%
Meeting-to-qualified
opportunity
conversion rate
53%
Lead-to-meeting
conversion ratio
15%
Value of attempting
to contact any given
lead
$871
It all started with bargaining
And some easy math...
What’s the value
of an “A” lead vs a
“D” lead?
How does time from
generation-to-contact
impact the dollar value
of that lead? How much
variance is there in
each segmentation
of this data?
Is there a
correlation
between the value
of a lead and the
duration of sales
cycle?
How does the marketing
program that drove the lead
impact the value of that
lead?
How wide is the standard
deviation of each of these
major characteristics?

13.
2X
PIPELINE
INCREASE

14.
6 months

15.
Within
1%SIX MONTH
FORECAST
ACCURACY
+100%
$27M
$54M
Closed-Won Bookings
INCREASE OVER 6 MO.
HEADCOUNT
DECREASE OVER 1 YR.
$1,300,000 SAVINGS
38
25
-34%
2XPIPELINE
INCREASE
He 󰈀d 󰇹 󰈢u 󰈞t Le 󰈀d 󰈐 󰈢󰈗u 󰈛 󰈩
PRODUCTIVITY
LIMITER
Self
included

16.
Why your ops
team might
seem like
curmudgeons

17.
Function within Company: Political Landscape:
● MUCH lower budget priority
● MUCH lower headcount
priority
Revenue
Expenses
Profit
Your job
Operations’ Job
Personality Traits:
● Risk Averse
● Skeptical
● Pragmatic
● Deliberate
● Autonomous
● Accommodating
Actual legal liability:
If this new tool/process
compromises sensitive data,
ops personnel are likely to
be fired, fined and/or jailed

18.
There are only 3 ways to persuade someone
Image credit: Backdrops by Charles A Stewart

19.
Getting the Greenlight for your
project/tech/team

20.
1. FIND AN EXECUTIVE
STAKEHOLDER

21.
2. Arm yourself (and your executive stakeholder)
with the right information,
formatted “correctly”
One could credibly argue this is step 1

22.
Know your frEnemy
At the highest level, Ops, Finance and senior executives care about 2 things:
● ROI - “How many dollars come out for every dollar I put in?”
● IRR - “How do I deploy limited capital most effectively against an ocean of
possible choices to increase shareholder value?”
This is an annoyingly hard math
problem (for humans)
(Total revenue - Total cost)
Total cost
100ROI

23.
Making the ROI case
Provide “upper & lower bound” estimates on….
-Cost if everything goes wrong (exposure)
-Gain if everything goes well
(and any associated increases in cost)
-Projected ROI range

24.
3. Show your ops counterpart
how easy it is FOR THEM to prove
the concept

25.
4. Put it all together

26.
Executive Summary
Problem Statement: The lack of accurate contact data in our CRM has become a major blocker in our ability to grow
market share in our velocity business segments - it is unlikely we’ll make our sales targets without improved
contactability.
Proposed Solution: [VENDOR NAME] offers the ability to import data directly from their databases into our CRM
and/or marketing automation systems as well as ensure existing contact data stays accurate via their integration into
Salesforce.
Justification: We do not currently use such a solution and access to such a tool could greatly boost the effectiveness
of the team’s prospecting efforts. Effort required to prove the concept in a pilot looks to be minimal. Additionally,
[VENDOR NAME’s] pricing model allows for minimal downside exposure while creating the opportunity for huge ROI.
Further analysis available in subsequent slides.
Additional Notes: [VENDOR NAME] has recently published a case study with our competitor, [COMPETITOR NAME],
and has expressed an openness to doing the same with us in exchange for significant discounts. [VENDOR NAME]
meets IT’s requirement of being NIST 800-171 compliant among other certifications.

27.
Contactability in Velocity Segments
Counts based on number of validated contacts
Segment
% of
accounts
with at least
1 contact
% of
accounts
with 2 or 3
contacts
% of
accounts
with more
than 3
contacts
% of
accounts
without any
contacts
# of
accounts
without any
contacts
State &
Local Gov’t
55% 14% 2% 45% 3735
Mid-Market 59% 12% 4% 39% 3967
Commercial 64% 15% 7% 36% 1819
Enterprise 91% 43% 21% 8% 240
Large
Enterprise
>99% 63% 31% <1% 8

28.
VENDOR NAME Key Capabilities
● Largest Government and SMB contact database in the industry
● Guarantee 90% data accuracy within 6 months
● One-click import into SFDC for reps
● Works with LinkedIn Sales Navigator
● Prevents reps from importing duplicate records

29.
Exposure & ROI projections
# of accounts without any contacts 9521
Unique, in-segment accounts with
at least 1 persona-matching
contact in VENDOR NAME data
160k
Segment ACV $15k
Vendor list price (annual) $24k
Minimum required to pilot $6k
Contact-to-Closed Deal Conversion
rate (broad avg)
1.1%
Projected ROI from reduced “0 contacts” Accounts
Reduced by 10% Reduced by 25%
Number of
contacts found at
target accounts
952 2380
Number of deals
won from new
contacts
10 25
Projected
bookings
$150,000 $375,000
Projected
Program ROI
6.25x 15.6x

30.
Milestone Client Personnel Wk1 Wk2 Wk3 Wk4
Kickoff
Sales Leader, SDR/BDR
Leader, Ops Leader
Rep List Finalized,
Accounts
Created
Sales & SDR Leader,
VENDOR CONTACT
OAuth Integration
& Field Mapping
Salesforce
Salesforce Admin
Sandbox Testing
Complete
Operations, SFDC Admin
Rep Training Reps, VENDOR CONTACT
QA & UAT Ops
Go Live
(Production)
Reps
Results “First Look” Sales Leader, SDR Leader
Milestones required to prove concept

31.
Thank you