In a world currently obsessed with AI technology and tools, it’s perhaps surprising to hear so many revenue professionals concentrating their time on people – the human element. But if you think about it, even the greatest tool is only an enabler, a way for people to do their jobs better.
Kathleen Hartigan, Group VP of International at Clari, caught the latest thinking at the Chief Revenue Officer Summit in London.
One stat from the event that stood out for me is that sellers spend around 19% of their time switching between tools. That’s an awful waste of a key (and expensive) human resource. It can lead to low morale and expose you to talent retention risks. No wonder, then, that most organisations are looking at consolidation – how to do more with less.
Actually, the human element is on people’s minds for a number of reasons.
“In sales, there is so much talk, it drives me insane,” Melanie Mills, Chief Revenue Officer at Caxton Payments tells us. “The most successful strategy to run revenue is to speak to the customers, to truly understand why they’re with us. It’s all about listening.”
We simply asked revenue pros to share their most successful strategies. So many revolved around the human element.
“It’s all about marginal gains,” according to Nick Felton, Chief Sales Officer for HR software company MHR Global. “That has to tie in with people – good people. Then you get to the process automation. The opportunity is compounded growth over a period of time. It’s difficult to grow from zero to 15% overnight. It’s an ongoing process to keep changing because people don’t change that rapidly.”
What is Revenue Operations and why do people matter?
Sometimes, the ‘people’ challenge in Revenue Operations (RevOps) starts with a definition.
“Not many people understand what revenue operations is – it’s quite a new function,” says Simon Gilks, VP of Revenue Operations at sustainability company Enhesa. “So, you spend quite a lot of time trying to bring people along on the journey. It’s about cross-functional alignment and working as one organisation.”
“At the end of the day,” he goes on, “I’m selling to a person; I’m buying from a person. My aim would be to increase the value-add time [my humans] have with customers.”
With the trend to move from siloed operations like sales, marketing, and customer service to a more integrated approach (RevOps), the emphasis is not only on people but on people working together.
“It’s one team,” says Mills. “I know we all have different attributes, but we should have one goal, and we should all be driving towards that. For me, it’s more collaboration, more one-team attitude.”
Tim Blunt, Chief Revenue Officer for financial monitoring systems company, ITRS, says, “You can get everybody together, help them prepare more. Help them through the challenges. And when you get that victory, it seems that much more earned as a team win. For me, that’s the fire… because you’ve put the preparation in.”
There is a need to change the culture of working
For many, that teamwork isn’t just an end in itself. It’s part of a culture change.
“The biggest opportunity for me, is to drive thought leadership in terms of stop being a sales function and start thinking more broadly,” says, Director for Global Sales Operations at supply-chain and retail software company Relex Solutions.
“Start thinking about revenue from the moment we touch a prospect in marketing, until they sign with us and then back into renewals. Getting that mindset into the company is the hardest thing for me.”
But there is a big upside, she explains, “You have the biggest impact on the company if you stop just thinking sales and you start thinking along the whole end-to-end revenue stream.”
Blunt also believes the way people think is critical to success, “Create a culture where the people on your team believe you’ll invest in them. Then, when you really start to grow, we’ll [all] be at the best possible company to do that.”
He goes on, “No matter what your role within the company, we’re all doing the same thing. Servicing our customers. They just want to be delighted and empowered and feel their own success. We have to be one team, specialised in our function, effective and efficient, and then, from the customer’s perspective, they just see it as ‘wow, this is a great company to work with’.”
It’s about Technology Enhanced by People
Even when the goal is to improve the technology behind the revenue process, the human element remains crucial.
“I’m a big believer in leveraging the fear of missing out,” says Sam Sutton-Reid, Revenue Operations Director at publishers Pearson. “When rolling out a new piece of technology or a new process, get a small group of people excited early, allowing them the autonomy and the trust to actually inform the setup or the process itself.”
Interestingly, he doesn’t believe technology will cost jobs, contrary to what some are saying.
“We expect to grow and increase job [numbers],” he says. “In sales, customer success and marketing, AI won’t remove jobs, but it will change them radically. We’ll see people with different skill sets: problem-solving, critical thinking, data analytics, programmatic learning, and things like that. I think we’ll see customer success roles becoming more automated but also becoming more strategically important.”
These revenue professionals are all focused on success, and to achieve that, they have many factors to juggle. But people will always be a key one.
“A combination of the work we’ve done with people and the technology has had huge impacts,” says Felton. “We’re running three or four weeks before the end of the year and we’re over plan. Have we done anything really clever? No.” The key, he says, is being able to forecast and plan. “The visibility [that has given us] has prevented those revenue challenges earlier in the process.”
The full interviews can be viewed on Clari’s YouTube channel.
Clari’s industry-leading, AI-powered Revenue Platform is purpose-built to help companies optimise the end-to-end revenue process. More than 1,500 organisations – including Okta, Adobe, Workday, Zoom, and Finastra – run revenue on Clari to improve win rates, prevent slipped deals, forecast with accuracy, and boost the productivity of all revenue-critical employees. Visit clari.com and follow us on LinkedIn.
