The force is super strong with Luke Skywalker, agreed. He is the hero who saves the galaxy far, far away and all. But, tell me this: did he do it all by himself? Nope! He was always backed by loyal family and friends who had special roles to play.
Can you imagine the state of the planets if Chewbacca had not detonated the explosives at Starkiller base capable of destroying entire star systems across the galaxy?
Back to earth, your business also has people playing very specific roles critical to the smooth functioning of RevOps. With the fast growth of RevOps teams in every organisation and new RevOps roles spouting by the minute, it’s easy to lose focus, digress, and make classic Ops mistakes.
And like any other team, RevOps people can also leave for better career and growth opportunities. You shouldn’t be scratching your head when the inevitable happens.
I would like to propose a thought experiment. What happens if your RevOps person leaves for a week (EOQ, for dramatic effect) due to some emergency? Ask yourself:
- Will your sales numbers close and reflect as usual?
- Will someone be able to step in?
- Is there enough documentation for someone to go through?
If you’ve done some thinking about good ol’ Chewie leaving you stranded in the EOQ trenches, two things will become very, very obvious.
- RevOps is cross-functional and hence a lot of work is done based on contextual information. And, they don’t get documented as much.
- RevOps role involves a lot of real-time changes to business plans and processes.
By these two statements, I might have scared you or comforted you. But, one thing’s for sure. I’ve convinced you that you need to arrive at a strategy to de-risk as an Ops or Sales Leader.
Let us talk about one of the core RevOps dependencies: sales attainment and commission payouts at the end of the month or quarter.
Why Is It Important?
- All quota and sales mapping are managed and shared by RevOps.
- Attainment needs to be verified once by RevOps to avoid duplication of payouts.
- Communication and query resolution before payouts needs to happen on time.
The problem:
To understand the problem at hand in a more relatable way, here are 2 scenarios in which things can go wrong in commission payouts. Horribly, horribly wrong.
Scenario 1: Metrics definition of what accounts for expansion revenue and what doesn’t
Teams involved in this: RevOps, finance, BI, or Analytics
Where does this break?
Any CRM changes, migration, or policy changes will require the historical context that RevOps has. Without it, you end up spending a few weeks correcting the numbers. Payouts get affected and leadership escalations are very common in this case.
This applies to any business metric definition.
Scenario 2: Real-time changes during the quarter (deal-split exceptions, comp plan changes, sales attrition, quota reliefs, etc.)
Teams involved: RevOps and Sales Leaders
Where does this break?
If a RevOps person leaves midway, information on deals, compensation plans, quota etc., is lost and the lack of these details can create trust issues between sales and RevOps in the future.
The solution:
Get ahead of all of this instead of waiting for the worst to happen. Sure, your wagon is running smoothly now but what happens when one of the wheels comes off? It’s a sure-shot accident. So, be smart and tighten the wheel fasteners with automation.
A good automation tool completely eliminates the ‘what if they leave?’ thought bubble that’s constantly hovering over your head. Let’s see how a sales compensation automation tool like Everstage helps you de-risk payout cycle dependencies.
#1 You will frontload the metrics part and streamline them so that they flow into Everstage in real-time. Our system helps you standardize metrics as salespeople are given real-time access to commissions.
#2 Now for the documentation part, Everstage lets you manage deal splits, handle queries on quota management and make any payout exceptions audit-proof on the platform itself.
#3 Everstage streamlines query resolution with an inbuilt ticketing system that allows you to track everything in one place for future reference and communicate with reps about their payouts once they are frozen.
Interested in knowing more? Book a demo with us and we’ll show you how you can ditch the dependencies and build a stronger system, one that lets you sleep better at night.
To stay WAY ahead of the curve, I’ll leave you with two additional proactive ways to de-risk:
- Conduct proactive monthly KT sessions so that the concerned people stay in the loop about the processes
- Plan for succession by hiring for junior analyst roles and train them for various scenarios.
This blog is the first of the series we’re writing on RevOps-centric problems and their solutions. Subscribe to our blog to receive updates.
