Revenue Operations vs Sales Operations: The Ultimate Showdown

With growing competition in different industries and new startups emerging at a higher rate, it’s getting harder for businesses to onboard and retain their customers.

But if they are facing problems in one or all of their departments, it’s also complex for them to choose which solution is best to help their business needs.

For that reason, I am here to share the difference between one such duo that business owners often think twice before investing.

Only because they are not clear about the role they play in resolving their challenges.

Revenue Operations (RevOps) and sales it is.

Table of Contents

Definition and Importance of RevOps (Revenue Operations)

RevOps can be defined as a holistic approach to revenue management that aims to optimize and streamline the end-to-end revenue generation process.

The primary objective of RevOps is to align the departments of marketing, sales, and customer service to improve operational efficiency and boost revenue growth.

Alignment between these three groups is especially important for B2B startups. Across all industries, consistent revenue growth is a challenge for 78% of B2B companies.

RevOps encompasses several key responsibilities which include:

• Revenue strategy development 
• Marketing and sales alignment 
• Data analysis and reporting 
• Technology implementation 
• Process optimization 

By implementing RevOps, startups can achieve objectives such as:

• Improved visibility into the revenue pipeline
• Enhanced collaboration across departments 
• Increased customer satisfaction

Definition and Importance of Sales

Sales, on the other hand, is a vital subset of RevOps.

It refers to the process of acquiring new customers, nurturing relationships, and closing deals.

The primary objective of the sales team is to generate revenue.

Sales teams are responsible for building customer relationships.

A strong sales strategy is crucial for a startup to achieve their revenue targets, increase their market share and build long-term customer loyalty.

Understanding the Key Difference between RevOps and Sales 

While both RevOps and sales aim to eliminate departmental silos and increase revenue, they differ in important ways.

And today, we will discuss the same, so you know which one is best suited for your business.

1. Focus and Scope

Firstly, sales is more focused on just one department as they are typically centered on closing deals and generating revenue.

The RevOps team, as defined above, takes a comprehensive approach and aligns marketing, sales, and customer success to create a seamless customer experience. 

Gartner, Inc predicts that by 2025, 75% of the highest growth companies in the world will deploy a revenue operations model.

2. Integration and Collaboration

The sales team works independently, while the RevOps team integrates and collaborates for better functionality of all the departments. 

RevOps team works closely with the marketing, sales, and customer support department to operationalize revenue.

3. Metrics and KPIs

Sales team focuses on metrics such as revenue, quotas, and win rates.

RevOps team on the other hand focuses on metrics such as customer acquisition cost (CAC), customer lifetime value (CLV), and customer retention. 

Both need to be able to measure their work to know where they stand. This includes defining clear metrics and tracking progress over a period of time.

4. Technology and Tools

Sales teams use tools such as CRM software and email marketing platforms.

RevOps uses a variety of technology and tools to streamline processes, such as HubSpot, Zoho, Salesforce etc.

Here is a blog on a list of tools that TCC swears by to help you simplify your day-to-day business tasks.

5. Organizational Structure

The division of your sales team into specialized groups is known as sales organizational structure.

This is decided by the number of products or services you offer, the size of your sales team, your target market, and the sales strategy you deploy.

A RevOps organizational structure on the other hand depends on the size and maturity of your company, you can start with an all rounder who takes care of all four key areas: operations, enablement, insights, and tools.

6. Successful Implementation

6.1 For Sales:

Implementation of sales is a series of steps that are undertaken to convert a lead into a customer.

The first step is to find and connect with your leads, which is time consuming but critical for a company’s sales.

Thanks to the digital world, which makes it easier.

56% of sales professionals use social media to find new prospects.

And here’s how you can too.

You can connect through email or direct message.

After connecting, you need to put in the research to bring in quality leads that are interested in your product or service.

Now, you can tailor your pitch for these prospects catering to their needs.

At this stage, you can either close the deal and make a sale or keep following up to convert them into one because 60% of customers say no four times before saying yes.

And after converting, the next steps need to be taken by the customer support department.

You can learn the sales follow-up tips and tricks from the follow-up Ninja.

6.2 For RevOps:

As I mentioned above, RevOps is all about alignment, so the first step to its implementation is aligning your marketing, sales, and service team around your business goals. 

And TCC has done this a number of times for their clients.

They start with optimizing marketing to make sure that your product or service is kept at the top of your customer’s minds. Sales are made successful by closing the prospects at the right time. Excellent service is delivered to the customer to retain them and increase their lifetime value.

Now all of this is on track by using tools, and other resources to keep the teams organized and informed.

After alignment comes metrics through which we measure progress, goal-setting helps improve performance by helping employees set realistic objectives along with motivating them to meet those goals.

The next step is regular meetings to communicate about the progress and promote transparency across all departments and help them keep focused towards the business goal.

RevOps is not a one time thing and neither a one-size fits all, it’s a continuous process that is improved and optimized over a long period of time to fit a company’s needs, and that makes it more powerful because not everyone can crack the code to it, but we did.

Here you can find reviews from our customers.

Impact of its Functions on B2B Businesses

Sales

Sales equip B2B startups with their target customers by introducing potential leads, building relationships and eventually converting them into customers.

This results in the growth of business by increasing their revenue.

It empowers sales teams to perform efficiently and effectively to achieve their objectives.

Revenue Operations

Revenue Operations is more focused on retaining customers and increasing their lifetime value.

By eliminating silos in different departments, RevOps helps in increasing customer satisfaction and favors B2B companies by enhancing their customer loyalty.

It helps all departments focus on one goal and work on achieving it by sharing data and common metrics.

FAQs

Conclusion

I hope now you’ll be able to clearly distinct the role that both of them play individually to improve your business.

And how sales is a part that is managed by RevOps when a business grows at a faster rate.

They both can work together but have their individual role to help your business thrive at different stages.