Here's another sneak peek of Revenue Operations: Building Your RevOps Function from Startup to Scale, and frankly my favorite section in the entire book.
This section comes from Chapter 35: Integrating across a global enterprise.
Leadership Excellence in Revenue Operations
My favorite example of phenomenal leadership in global revenue operations is Cody Guymon. Cody joined Qualtrics in 2017 as the Head of Global GTM Strategy, at a time when revenue operations was at its lowest point in the organization. Prior to Cody, Qualtrics had spent months implementing a new account scoring and territory management system based on a much larger SaaS organization’s process.
As new territories were rolled out, sales teams started voicing concerns with the data quality and scoring methodology. The existing operations team was confident in its decision and stayed the course. As territories transitioned and hundreds of sales reps had to start working their new accounts, it quickly became clear that something was wrong. The early sign was seeing new pipeline generation plummet from both historical norms and in quarter expectations based on revenue goals. Regardless of the incentives, competitions, and motivational speeches, the sales pipeline still wasn’t improving. One error in account scoring methodology snowballed into new business goals being missed two quarters in a row.
Coming into this mess, and a very frustrated sales organization, the first thing Cody did was focus on the data. He and his new team leveraged analytics to review what really constitutes a good account, then tested and tested that methodology again. With confidence in their new model, Cody met with every sales team in the organization, took ownership of the operations team’s mistakes, communicated how they planned to fix the issues using data-driven insights, and rebuilt trust with the sales organization. The subsequent rollout of territories was a massive success, with Qualtrics just a few years later being acquired by SAP for more than $8 Billion, reflecting a phenomenal revenue multiple.
By weaving together consistent frameworks, robust technology, cultural understanding, and visionary leadership, global enterprises can transform the complexity of operating in diverse markets into a powerful advantage. RevOps becomes not just a function but a strategy for turning global challenges into opportunities for growth.
I've been incredibly fortunate to have phenomenal RevOps partners at the organizations I've worked at like Cody Guymon, Brandon Bussey, Shawn Killpack, Benji Woahn, Austin Bankhead and more.
Who are your favorite RevOps partners?