Warren Zena: The CRO Spotlight Podcast.
Hi, I'm Warren Zena, founder and c e o of the CRO Collective, and
welcome to the CRO Spotlight Podcast.
This podcast is for Chief Revenue Officers, aspiring CROs and
CEOs who are looking to hire or support a CRO to succeed.
To join me and my expert guests as we debate, discuss and tackle today's
complex revenue growth challenges, and provide practical insights
to help CROs succeed in the role.
We're really excited to have you with us now.
Let's get to it.
Hey everyone.
I'm real excited today.
I know it's been a bit of time since, uh, we've had an episode.
This is wait, the, it's worth the wait because, uh, I have, uh,
Rosalyn Santa Elena with me today.
And, um, everyone knows, I'm sure most people know who she is.
Uh, you know, she's probably the foremost expert in the rev op space.
Probably the, certainly the, the biggest voice, you know, the leading voice.
Um, every time I speak to anybody, Mentioned rosalin
as the person to speak to.
Um, and the rev ops, uh, space is just blown up, you know, it's huge.
And so there's so much energy and gravity going towards it.
And I think there's also a lot of confusion about it too, and
I thought it'd be a really good opportunity to talk about some stuff.
I was a guest on Rosalyn's show, man.
How long ago was that?
It's a long time ago, right?
Feels like, feels like it was last year, 20 years ago.
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Warren Zena: Rosalyn, welcome and thank you.
I'm so glad.
I know you're busy, so thanks for giving the time and um, I'm really
looking forward to this conversation.
Rosalyn Santa Elena: No, thank you for having me.
I think this is a long time coming.
I'm excited to be here and always, always a pleasure to chat with you, Warren.
Oh,
Warren Zena: thanks.
So a lot of new things going on in your world.
I want to hear you share with everybody.
So one thing I would say is you've, uh, just recently kind of like
launched your own business, which I know we talked about prior, and you
also joined, created your community, the Rev Ops collective, which is.
And, um, I'm a member.
I'm really happy about that too.
So tell us a bit about that.
Like, I know that, you know, you've been doing the consulting thing for a while
and you're working for some companies.
Um, it'd be really interesting, I think, cuz a lot of people that are listening
to this are entrepreneurs or they're thinking about being entrepreneurs.
And you and I both have, you know, Ventured out to do these things.
What was that process like, and how did you arrive at the point that you decided,
you know, I'm gonna just do this finally, I'm not gonna work for anybody anymore.
What, what was the sort of motivation and what drove you to make the
decision and how's it been going?
What's, what's been happening with it?
Yeah.
Rosalyn Santa Elena: Thank you.
Um, so, Yeah, as you were asking the question, I was thinking
like, what drove me to this?
Why am I doing this?
Because honestly, why am I've never, yeah, I mean, honestly, I've never really
envisioned myself as an entrepreneur or kind of going out on my own.
I've always saw myself as a practitioner working for, you know, working for
a company, whether it's a small company or a really big company, but
working for a different organization.
But I think that over the last, um, maybe four years or so, I've
been spending a lot of time.
Um, you know, advising for companies kind of on the side in addition to
kind of the day job and really helping, you know, organizations figure out
their go-to-market strategy, thinking about product roadmap and messaging
and, and, you know, thinking about setting up revenue operations.
You know, why do they need it?
And, sorry, my dog is very passionate about this topic too.
Warren Zena: Yeah.
We'll, we be interviewing your dog.
We're gonna get the dog in on this soon.
So, yeah.
So, but
Rosalyn Santa Elena: anyways, but I think, but I spent so much time advising
companies really on the go-to-market strategy and on product roadmap and
messaging, as well as, you know, how to build scale and grow revenue
operations kind of on the side, in addition to doing sort of the day job.
And then also been doing a lot of coaching and mentoring of rev ops professionals.
So recently decided, as you mentioned, to really go out on my own and do more of
that because I felt like I wasn't having enough time to dedicate, to be able to
help all the organizations and all the people that I really wanted to help.
And so by going kind of.
On my own and doing this full-time, I'm able to, you know, have the bandwidth
really, and the time to meet with more organizations and really help more people.
So, hey, if I can make a living off of it, great.
But we'll see.
That's still T B D.
Yeah.
But I think that, you know, it's been really interesting to do that.
And then as you mentioned, I just launched the community by the Rev Op Collective,
and really that's been sort of a passion.
Project for me as well because there's so many great communities
out there, many of which I belong to.
I've had, you know, a lot of, um, You know, effort put forth in terms of helping
to build out the rev ops kind of space.
But I always felt like in a lot of these communities, rev ops is
still sort of, you know, kind of the, the, the stepchild, right?
Kind of in a smaller corner of this.
Of a much bigger community, you know, primarily of revenue, right?
Sales and marketing and cs, and it's almost like within the community,
similar to being in organizations where we are also a subset of the
revenue team in a much smaller, um, A smaller group or function.
So really wanted to build out a community that's truly focused on revenue,
operations, growth, um, and really growth around those professionals, right?
Helping people who are interested in operations or are pursuing, or
already in a rev ops career to really navigate and, um, elevate themselves.
In terms of their career and helping them to hit their personal and professional
goals while building sort of this network of trusted advisors that they,
they can, they can lean on and, you know, help and share with others.
So that's kind of the gist of the community.
Um, But in selfishly, it's a place, you know, as I've been telling people,
it's a place for me to, you know, kind of dump, do a brain dump as well, and
really share just kind of my experience and some of my ex my, my learnings over
the last, you know, couple of decades in being in all of these different roles.
Because right now I share a lot on LinkedIn.
I do webinars and events and such, but having a place to really be
almost like a repository to kind of share all of that content.
You know, hugely, I think selfishly impactful for myself, and hopefully
it'll help some other people.
Yeah,
Warren Zena: I, I get it.
You know, I do.
I I certainly can relate.
Um, I mean, I think.
You know, I look at what you're doing and I think it makes perfect sense.
I know it's, you know, running a business is tough, you know, there's a lot of bells
and whistles and stuff associated with it.
It's, it's not an easy thing.
Uh, it's a love, you know, thing.
You do it cuz you just really wanna do it.
You know?
In my case, I think I've always been entrepreneurial, but I'm
also unemployable, you know, so, you know, it's like I gotta be.
So that all still never happened for me.
But, you know, I've always had a business of my own always for, I
don't know, it's gotta be 20 years now, so, Even when I worked for other
companies, I still had my own thing.
So, but in any event, I, I'm curious about something around this, right?
So you mentioned a couple things.
One is a community, right?
So, you know, there's a bit of, what do you think about community fatigue, right?
There's so many communities, right?
I mean, how many communities can be a part of, and how many.
Communities are people willing to pay for too, right?
Particularly when there's some overlap.
I mean, you look at like Rev Genius and Pavilion and these
are all great platforms.
I have nothing but you know, positive things to say about them.
But there's a point at which, and even, you know, the growth forum, which
we're both part of, you know, there's a lot of communities and you know
there's costs associated with them.
What are your thoughts on how to navigate this issue and how do
you mitigate that problem with I think people almost feeling.
They can't give the time that you want them to give to the
community, which doesn't get the value from either you or them.
What's the, I dunno, I'm just curious what you're thinking about it, cuz
I'm thinking about it too, and, and I, and I'm, I'm just curious what
Rosalyn Santa Elena: your thoughts are.
Yeah, no, I 100% agree.
I think there's so many communities out there.
Um, and when folks ask me like, oh, what's the best community for me to join?
Um, it's very similar to, you know, if you're looking for a new role
or if you're thinking about a, you know, changing, pivoting your career.
It's all about like, You know, what are you looking to do and
what are you hoping to gain?
Right?
And I think with all of these communities, um, that at least the ones that I belong
to, they all serve a different purpose.
And the reason I join them is because it serves that particular purpose.
Right?
Because, you know, there's some communities that are very, oh,
very tactical, very technically focused around operations.
There's ones that are more, you know, women in.
Focused.
You know, there's ones that are more kind of professional growth
around overall revenue experience and some are just networking, right?
It's kind of like, hey, get together and chat with other people.
Um, But I think you have to be really intentional about what it is that
you are hoping to gain from the community, and then looking for a
community that meets those needs.
Because to your point, you need to invest.
Sometimes it's money.
A lot of these communities are free to join.
Um, but sometimes there's funds involved, you know, membership dues, but it's
the time that you dedicate because
Warren Zena: I, I think that.
It's, it's really the time.
Yeah.
Because if I, if I'm paying 50 bucks a month or whatever month, if I'm in it
a lot and I'm getting value out of it, I probably won't even see that money.
But, you know, you make a good point.
I, I wanna say it, I think is the way, way through this, cuz I think there is
community fatigue and I, I think the way to navigate, you said it so well, it's
all about specificity and niche, right?
So mm-hmm.
You know, if you have general communities, if I may say a sales c.
That's a big umbrella.
That's a lot of things fit under that, you know, whereas if it was like, maybe
it's just telephone sales, you know, or you know, s d r group, you know,
that's very specific and you know, I think that if I'm, like you advising
people in the marketplace how to think about a community, it's if fine
communities that are as specific as.
So that you get the most value based on what you're looking for.
And I think what you're doing, and you know myself as well, we're lucky in
that we've picked very specific things.
Like rev ops is a disciplinary, it's a lot of specificity to it.
And then it's also, which I want to ask you about the
approach you're taking, right?
So you mentioned things like technical or tactical, like how would you describe
the way you're gonna approach Rev op as opposed to like, let's say, any
other option that might be out there?
What, what do you think your vision is for how your particular
platform is gonna focus?
Rosalyn Santa Elena: Yeah.
Yeah.
That's a great question.
And I think that because we are very, I'm very focused on.
Up-leveling the rev ops professional, right?
And so that means very different things for different rev ops people, right?
Depending on where they're at in terms of their career.
They could be a year or two in, they could have just pivoted into revenue operations.
They could be, you know, a seasoned veteran who has, you know, 20 years
experience, 10 years experience, and maybe has done a lot more.
And I think the ultimate goal is that wherever you are in kind of size
and stage of co of your career and where you're at in terms of years of
experience, you still wanna learn, right?
Yeah.
And you still wanna grow, but how do you get there?
Right?
And I think that's where my primary focus is around up-leveling the people.
And that means through content, through, you know, learning, through meetings
and get togethers and, um, Uh, different types of events around learning, right?
So we'll have fireside chats and monthly meetups on different topics,
but all relevant to a day in the life of a rev ops professional, right?
Because there's a lot of events that you can join around social selling, right?
Or around different things around brand, you know, marketing
and how to do your website.
And there's just so no shortage of topics.
Around the business, but very specific to operations.
Like what does a Rev ops person care about when it comes to sales?
You know, like you mentioned SDRs, for example.
You might be in an SD R community.
Mm-hmm.
But from a rev op perspective, what do we care about?
We care about enabling the SD R, right?
The sales engagement platform.
What is that messaging?
How do we drive adoption?
You know, all of these different questions.
I think from an ops perspective, and again from a rev ops perspective, there's
no shortage of topics to cover, right?
The, the sure, the how broad our roles are and how deep across the funnel is,
you know, lends itself to being very challenging in a very positive and.
Not negative, but very challenging way.
Right?
It can be very overwhelming.
And so in this community, we're really focused on things that are
top of mind for ops professionals.
You know, how to navigate their day-to-day challenges, but also how do they
get to where they need to go, right?
In terms of kind of short-term and long term goals.
And those goals are gonna be different for everyone, which means that
there's got to be different flavors of that learning so members can join.
Um, different types of initiatives that make sense for them.
Um, and I think a lot of, I'm also seeing a lot of more senior level
folks who wanna give back, right.
And they wanna be part of a community where they can share their learnings
and be able to mentor others that are kind of up and coming as well as mm-hmm.
Establish themselves as thought leaders.
So there's a lot of different, um, avenues I think for, um, really helping to.
Um, accelerate your career and accelerate your kind of positioning in
the market, depending on what those, uh, ideal outcomes are going to be.
Yep.
Warren Zena: Got it.
That's really great.
So we have, you know, very similar perspectives on things within our,
with, within our own respective swim lanes, so, not surprisingly
so, so I, I, let's switch gears.
I wanna ask you something you and I talked about and that.
So, uh, I'll just give you the anecdote like I'm, I'm very close
with a bunch of chief revenue officers and other people whom are sort
of thought leaders in that space.
You know, there was a article, I think it was in LinkedIn, it was like a
couple weeks ago, maybe a month ago, that was basically talking about how
the Rev Ops role is now the number one like role available, the head of
Rosalyn Santa Elena: revenue operations.
Warren Zena: Great news.
It it, it's good news and it's all great and I, but I was so happy to hear
it cause I think it makes sense to me.
But I also thought about the way that the article was utilized
by various organizations and the way it was repurposed.
Like a lot of this happens, you know, like if.
If I'm a, a rev ops software developer, let's say for example,
and I see an article like that, it makes sense that I'm gonna tout that
article as being, you know, someone.
Right.
And a lot of the articles, not a lot, I won't say a lot, but a
few of them in particular seem to sort of equate the Rev ops role as
being a chief revenue officer role.
Mm-hmm.
Right.
And this is like a really interesting area where these two sort of disciplines
sort of, I wouldn't say they both exist together cooperatively and probably
necessarily like a, almost like a.
Ying and yang is sort of thing.
Mm-hmm.
There's also some degree of like, where do you see the role going?
You know, like, cause the, in my perspective, we've talked about this a
lot, you and I, we'd continue to, is, you know, I have a worldview of, of
a, of a revenue operation being led by a executive leader, the chief revenue
officer, who has oversight over the entire revenue function, which is sales,
marketing, customer success, et cetera.
And is it necessary for that person to have a really smart rev op.
Professional within that organization to help keep the intelligence and the
data and all the functions and systems working in a way that makes everything
work together in a data-driven and, you know, uh, uh, call aligned manner, right?
Mm-hmm.
So the question I ask my participants in my course all the time is if,
uh, you were interviewing for a Chief Revenue Officer role.
And you're interviewing a sales leader, a marketing leader, a customer
success leader, or a rev ops leader, which one would you think would you
be more likely to hire as a C R O?
And it's sort of a trick question, but I'm curious what your thoughts are in terms of
the way the role is evolving, what you see the future of the role, particularly as it
pertains to running revenue teams and how that's being like played out right now in
the world, or what the perception's like.
Rosalyn Santa Elena: Yeah.
Yeah.
That's a great question.
And I did see that article as well, and I think you.
It was a LinkedIn, kind of the fastest growing roles, right, for 2023.
That's right.
And head of Revenue Operations was sort of that first title.
Um, and it was interesting because I said, oh, well that's great.
That's no surprise.
But when you read the article it says, oh, also often called Chief
Revenue Officer or called, you know, some of these other titles.
And I'm like, that's right.
It was.
Warren Zena: Often call that kind.
Rosalyn Santa Elena: And I was like, exactly.
A little annoyed.
I was like, it, it really kind of, yeah.
It took away a lot of that credibility of revenue operations, kind of that
title being number one, because now it led me to think about data quality.
Right.
Immediately my Ops Brainin goes to that.
Sure.
And says, are they actually, um, counting this as number one because
they're including all the chief revenue officer titles, which has
also, you know, hugely, you know, increased in, it's growing as well.
Question about that For sure.
Exactly.
And so then I'm thinking, okay, well that makes sense why it's number one then
because they're including things that I probably you and I both would not include.
Right?
Because I certainly would never include a chief revenue
officer as a head of rev ops.
I mean, those are two totally different roles.
Um, yep.
But then what, what was, um, what was very positive in the article though?
There were a number of other roles.
I think there were five or six other roles that were actually roles that
belong as part of a rev op function.
There was like a deals desk manager, I think there was, um, you know,
an enablement function, you know, enablement manager and some type
of head of enablement type of role.
I see.
They
Warren Zena: were like putting a bunch of other roles underneath the rev ops
umbrella, so to speak, in a way, right?
Uh uh, no.
Rosalyn Santa Elena: So actually they were on.
10 list.
There were other roles that were also fastest growing.
Okay.
But I'm like, oh, these fit into the ops.
So I was more focused, a little bit more on that.
But I did see a lot of, similar to you, a lot of companies saying, oh, head
of rev ops, you know, and I, I think there was a lot of debate about that.
And you know, my perspective is that a cro, r o is a very, very
different role from the head of revenue operations or a VP of Rev ops.
Right.
I look at the VP of Rev Ops as that, right.
You know, chief of staff person that helps partner with the chief revenue officer.
If I think about, um, even the skillset and sort of the mindset of
an operations person around running, you know, processes, technology,
data, insights, enablement, right?
And kind of the, and keeping those people, that people aspect as well.
I really think about them as running that infrastructure the day-to-day.
Providing the partnership and thought leadership to the C R O.
Yep.
And then the C R O is then can go focus in on longer term strategy
working with the c e O on kind of what's, what's to come on the revenue
side and out meeting customers.
Right.
Being in front of clients and customers and out there running
the overall revenue engine and.
I think people start to confuse that thinking that, oh, uh,
head of rev ops, you know, can it be a path to a cro o Sure.
If they want to be in sales and in marketing and, and doing, you know, the,
the client facing work and being able to carry a bag and close deals, right.
And be able to, you know, work with customers on retention and keeping
them happy and driving that value.
It's a different role.
I think it's a different, um, sometimes a different skillset.
But from a rev ops perspective, when folks ask me, you know, what's next?
Right?
Okay, I'm a head of rev ops or a VP of Rev op, what should I do next?
And I think there's different paths, right?
And again, it, going back to even that community answer,
it depends on what it is.
What you're interested in, where you're strong and what's your ultimate goal?
Because from a rev ops perspective, you could move into a COO role.
You maybe could move into a CR role role.
Maybe you're really marketing focused and you wanna be more of ahead
of marketing or customer success, or even in a finance role, right?
I've seen folks move over there or maybe.
System and technically focused.
So they move, move over more into analytics or, you know, IT
role or even business ops, right?
There's tons of different opportunities, I think because there's, you come in,
the entry point into revenue operations is gonna be very different for everyone.
Yep.
And then so where you go from there can also be very different.
Um, agree.
But does it not?
I agree, but does a CRO have to be an ops person?
No.
And that's probably why they're so good at being a C R O and they have a.
You know, kind of second in command ops person by their side because process
maybe not their thing, you know, and some of the things that ops people think
Warren Zena: about, I talk about it this way, you're a hundred percent right.
I, I don't look at it as, I mean, I certainly think that, you know, there's
the, uh, let's call it like the, the, the brain type cro, you know, who's more
numbers driven and data driven and very.
Process driven and, you know, they're, they're, they're gonna bring a
certain type of cultural nuance to that role that someone who's more
leadership driven and more, you know, strategically driven to the role.
And, you know, I think that I've seen two types of really
successful chief revenue officers.
Ones that are grounded in really amazing good data and business acumen, and they
analyze everything and they look at things like systems and, you know, they,
they're not necessarily these sort of like really, uh, You know, uh, let's say.
They didn't have like, a lot of this sort of like, uh, strong leadership.
They're not like these, um, what's the word?
Like charismatic.
Mm-hmm.
Visionary types, you know, they're not like leading the charge and creating
this big vision, but they're really good at getting the business done.
And then they're the ones that are really good at being like the ralliers
and they know how to build teams and create this big vision and they
employ people that get the job done.
Mm-hmm.
You know, and I see, you know, it's not one or two, but I
see that's on the, on the.
Outer end of the rim of the two types.
That's where they are, right?
Yep.
And that's why I think that as revenue operations in the B2B space becomes
more complex, marketing becomes more, becomes more complex, and more
software tools get added into the mix.
The way we're seeing now, more automation systems get into effect.
You need to have.
A partner who understands how all this stuff connects together and
naturally thinks that way because you're ultimately gonna have everything
plugging into some centralized CRM and all these other tools hanging off of it.
And if you don't have somebody who can make sense of all of it for you
on a day-to-day basis and run those things and keep everything running
together, you're going to fight against the natural, uh, entropy of those
teams all started to try and become individualized silos again, that's like.
Nat, it's like a gravitational force of trying to push all these teams to
self net self-manage before someone has to keep the thing together.
Yeah, and I think that's an interesting thing people to understand is that
this, this misalignment that these.
Two functions that we're talking about fix, they do it
because left their own devices.
People run their own thing.
You know, they don't cooperate.
They just don't.
It's not because they're not good people, it's just that we are more inclined to
wanna survive, you know, and run our own little ship than we are to cooperate.
And so to that end, you know, our, my, the audience listening to this, right?
They're, they're CROs.
They're aspiring CROs, and then they're also CEOs who are maybe
in the process of thinking about maturing their revenue engines.
So to those three people who are listening to this and they're thinking
about, Hmm, rev ops, what is this thing?
And, you know, what's the right timing for me?
And, and, and, and if I'm in the process of thinking about maybe getting past my
revenue stall or my revenue, um, plateau or whatever area I'm trying to increase
and start to add, Disciplinary functions or strategic direction to my company.
How does Rev op fit into that for them?
Yeah.
And what's a way in which they start to think about it so that they can make
sense of it and, and pull it into their organizations in a way that makes it work?
Yeah.
Rosalyn Santa Elena: That's a great question.
And I think that, you know, I always ask folks when they're thinking
about revenue operations, if they are at a point where, um, you know,
obviously earlier, the better, right?
To start bringing in some type of operations.
Like, like how
Warren Zena: early like I I, 1 million in revenue, 2 million, like when's the
point at which you think about this?
Yeah, and
Rosalyn Santa Elena: I let people try to put either a dollar amount or a
headcount number on it, but I think that, you know, as we both know, a
million dollars in revenue could.
One transaction, it could be a hundred transactions, right?
And so it really depends on your, your selling motion and who do,
who are you selling to in the complexity in terms of how you sell.
So kind of taking a step away from those numbers, I think about.
When you have product market fit right, when you are starting to sell, when your
c e O is no longer your only seller, it's probably, it's time to start thinking
about some of that infrastructure.
Does it mean that you have to hire a full-blown rev op team?
No, absolutely not.
Does it mean that you have to hire an executive VP of rev ops?
No, but it does mean that you need to start thinking about and start to build
some of that foundation so that you're able to start creating a repeatable.
Right.
When you start to have somewhat of a sales process, you want to not only align that
process to start to scale, but also look at the information to be able to iterate.
Because in a small company, your ability to move fast and to iterate and to
lean in on the things that are working.
Is critical to your survival.
Right?
And that's where I think ops steps in, right?
It's where you're starting to get your systems in line and maybe you just have a
crm, which is fine, and don't over, we can go into whole section on, you know, whole,
whole session on, not over overengineering your tech stack, but if you just
start to have some type of system, you start to have a repeatable process.
You start to build, lay out the groundwork, right?
It's almost like.
Cement of your foundation, of your, your revenue, um, infrastructure, then
you can start to build from there.
Because more often than not, you see companies not hiring ops.
And so what happens is their seller, their C R O, right, their VP of sales or
their marketing leader, whoever, those folks that are already on board, they end
up getting bogged down with the ops type of work, or they struggle to get those
insights and information that they need.
In worst case, they build something.
Think is, you know, that works for the company that isn't going
to work for the company, right?
It's not, maybe not best practices or the right way to build it, but they're
kind of hobbling things together just to get, you know, through their day
and get the information that they need.
And so when you do hire operations, uh, at that point, a lot of times it's unwinding
some of the things that have been built incorrectly and then start to rebuild.
Mm-hmm.
The things that need to work.
Um, Aside from them kind of working on things that may be building it
incorrectly or maybe not in the best format for what you need longer term,
but also takes away from them doing the things that they're really good at.
Right.
So if I'm a sales leader, instead of going out and selling and meeting customers,
I'm spending time figuring out my systems.
Right?
Or just trying to get the data that I need.
Yeah.
And so it may not be there, you know, if they're, the more
the business acumen type of.
Then yes, maybe they know how to do it, but do you really
want them spending time on that?
And if they're not that type of process or systems person, then
chances are they're struggling and they're not building it correctly.
Warren Zena: Yeah.
This make up great points there.
You know, I see a lot of my clients struggle with pulling themselves out
of the technical quagmire, you know, because they, they'll add a sales force
or a HubSpot system, and then there's a lot of admin associated with it,
or just getting it set up properly.
We sort of turn all of our people into technicians unwittingly, and they become
software engineers without realizing it because we give them these tools to
work with and then they're forced to.
And then you get two types of people, right?
So you get these certain people that are, they're.
They're good at what they supposed to do.
Like you put them, let's say, let's use sales as an example.
You hire someone who's a good salesperson and they're really,
um, responsible and they like getting on the phone and creating
prospect and having conversations.
And the more they complicate that process, the more they realize
that they need to rely on the tools they've been given to make it work.
And they become stuck in them and they're doing it too much and they
kind of want to get out of it, you know, but they're, they're.
And then the other type of person is people who use technology as a
distraction to keep them away from doing things they don't want to
do because you know, they're fun.
You know, software can be fun.
You know, it's sort of like a neat little thing.
I see.
I've seen this a lot where you get a couple of these salespeople that are
sort of like quasi engineer types, you know, and they like sitting
inside of Salesforce and fiddling with it and making things better.
And it's like, Steve, listen, you know, that's not your job, dude.
Like, get on the phone.
Like, yeah, but I can make this better.
It would be amazing.
You know, I'm gonna add this field.
It's like, yeah, I get that.
But they don't.
And you know, it's, I think a rev ops function is a good way to sort of keep
people focused on their jobs by having somebody responsible for something
that is where it's supposed to be.
And it's putting people not only in the seats where they're supposed to be,
but keeping them focused on the actions that they're supposed to be focused on.
Because the reason why there's a lot of salespeople, um, many times
in companies because a lot of 'em half only selling half the time.
You're only only getting half a person, you know?
Yeah.
And you need to get them efficient.
And I see that this is part of the issue is that a rev ops function, it not only
drives intelligence and creates process, but it also frees people up to do the
things that they're supposed to be doing.
And also gives them a focus, like focus here.
Don't focus there.
Mm-hmm.
This data or this particular metric is more important than this one.
And, you know, if you do this more often, you'll get this result as opposed to
this other thing that you may occur.
Like it's a good idea, but it's actually a waste of time in terms of our bottom line.
And I think that's a big part of it is rev ops is an intelligence, uh, layer.
It, it makes people smarter about what they should and shouldn't do.
And, um, yeah.
It might be so much that you're saying is that in a way the rev ops
function should follow any type.
MA maturity around their technology.
So when someone says, all right, we're getting HubSpot, you know, it's probably a
good time to start thinking about bringing somebody in whom not just knows how to
set up HubSpot, but actually thinks about.
The organization from a data perspective.
I'm just curious what your thoughts are in terms of the timing.
Yeah, definitely.
Rosalyn Santa Elena: I think when you think about the data and then the
processes and the governance, right, as well as the adoption that needs
to happen around any technology and even before you get the technology
right, what is that process look like?
Does everybody, is everybody, you know, clear on what that process is?
Do they, are they enabled to follow the process?
Do they understand the why?
Right?
And building a lot of that, um, to be able to then bring in.
Um, technology to help drive efficiency.
Right.
And, and automation.
I always tell folks that before you buy technology, I think a lot of
times people will buy technology as a forcing kind of function to get their
processes right and to kind of really think about how they wanna do business.
Yeah, it's true.
It's,
Warren Zena: it's, it's, it does, it forced this things to happen when you
get tech, you know, cuz there's no way.
There's no interpretation left anymore.
It's like, okay, we're trying to create facts that's right here, folks.
You
Rosalyn Santa Elena: know?
That's right.
That's funny.
That's right.
And so I think if you, yeah, and so a lot of times it's like if you can, if
you have a process and the process is working and you understand it, then if
you bring in tech layer on technology on top of that, then you're getting
the true benefit and the roi, right?
Because then you're starting to get the automation and getting
better efficiency through the te.
Right.
And then the technology.
Mm-hmm.
In a lot of cases, when there's really deep analytics or insights,
is able to then provide the level of insights that maybe a human either
can't do or it takes them hours to do.
Right.
Being able to pull all this data and be able to do that.
Um, the other thing I think to think about, you know, we talked about
a lot of factors to think about.
Whether or not you need ops.
But yeah, I think another reason is you know when you
don't have visibility, right?
I think when you are not really sure what your forecast looks like or you're
not really sure where those leads are coming from, or you're not really sure
you know what's working and what's not in any part of the end-to-end
funnel, that's where your ops, kind of that revenue operations around the
intelligence piece that you were speaking.
That's where it's super powerful, right?
Because yes, there's the kind of the, the practical side of building
infrastructure, but it's about unlocking those insights to really share, you
know, what's working and what's not.
Because I think that's the blind spots that you hear a lot from companies.
Yeah.
They're selling, they have 12 customers, they're.
Generating some revenue, but they don't really know why they're,
why did these customers sign up?
Why did these customers sign up and not these other, you know,
a hundred that they talked to?
And really di diving more deep into those insights and then feeding that
back into the engine is really important.
Um, And it's not just when customers sign up, right?
I've been on my soapbox lately about when customers leave you.
Right?
Really, there's so much learnings there.
If a customer turns, there's so much learning there to
understand why did they leave?
Was it just because they went out of business and they didn't have funding?
You know, was it because they didn't get the experience that they were expecting?
Were they never a, a, a, a customer that should have bought
in the first place, right?
But all.
Things, whatever those learnings are, you can feed that back into your
top of funnel marketing, into your messaging, into your sales cycle,
you know, all along the journey.
And there's so much to learn there, but I think there's a lot of insights
there that we're not tapping into.
But then if you have a rev ops function that is solely focused on a lot of
this kind of holistic view of the business, that's where you're gonna
glean those insights, you know, those deeper insights, and then also help
you see kind of what's around the.
And we always talk about the blind
Warren Zena: spots.
Yeah.
It's so important.
I it's intelligence again.
You know, I think that aside from not knowing or not knowing how things
happen or when they happen, or you know, what the events that occur that
make things happen, A lot of times too, the companies I work with, they
don't even know the questions to ask.
Mm-hmm.
They don't know what they're looking for, you know?
Which is why we created a bunch of diagnostics that forced them
to say things like, so what's the time to market that you take?
How long does it take a customer to become a customer?
How long does take a customer to reach value?
What's the time that it takes for you?
When a person first reaches out to you that you close a deal, what's the cost
it costs you to get that customer?
There's like a hundred questions you can ask and you know, I'm amazed if some
of the CEOs I work with are eyes open.
Like, I don't know any of these interest.
Like, well, you know, you should, right?
And you know, think about it, if you had all this information.
How much smarter you'd be working every day.
Because the in intent would be to identify we two or three key trigger events that,
you know, if we do these repeatedly and we can make them happen repeatedly, a
lot of other ones cascade from those that will result in us getting business faster.
Right?
That's right.
And when you can identify that, that's when that repeatable
business engine comes into play.
I think the rev ops is such a key component of that, because without
that intelligence, you're never really gonna, you're always gonna be sort
of guessing all the time, you know?
Rosalyn Santa Elena: Yep.
Yep.
And especially in this market, right?
When everyone's talking about doing better with less or doing more with less, it's,
it's all about putting your money, your resource, you know, all of your resources,
time, money, people towards the right things that are going to drive the best,
you know, most likely I, uh, outcomes.
Right?
The ones that you want.
And I think we spend a lot of time and money on doing thi a lot of
the things that people are like, don't really see the value in doing.
Yeah.
Warren Zena: I.
So I'm gonna ask you a question.
Be helpful in this framework is so to the CROs that are listening
to this conversation right now.
What would your, what would your sort of perspective or advice to, to the
lack of a better word be in terms of how to best, how A C R O should
best work with a rev ops person?
Like what's the right sort of cadence in the right way in which that
particular role would benefit them?
And what's the, like, structure of it?
What's the cadence of it?
What's the nature of the relationship?
And so, uh, maybe even some ceros.
Maybe either a, being challenged with the rev ops function right
now, or CROs who are thinking about increasing or like augmenting the,
the, the rev op function they have.
What kind of advice would you give them in terms of how to
Rosalyn Santa Elena: best utilize it?
Yeah.
I think, you know, st starting to, you know, at a very
foundational basic, um, level.
Start thinking about your revenue operations as really that
strategic business partner, right?
Stop thinking about them as just the data or just the tech, or just
the tactical folks, and really think about that leader needs to be.
You know, your business partner, your thought leader, the one that
really executes upon the things that you want to accomplish, right?
I think about me as a VP of Rev ops, working with the C R O, kind
of in my past roles and the C R O.
He or she may have a specific like idea, right?
That, oh, I think we should go do this.
Right?
And as an ops professional, that person, if um, you know, if you hire for the
right, with the right expertise and knowledge, they're gonna challenge
you right on a lot of this and either support you and say, yes, this is right
because of the data, proves it, or, Th that's just, you know, that is not
a good idea and it's not gonna work.
And they need to be able to be at that level where they can challenge
you and help you make the best decisions for the overall business.
And I think the sooner you think about the role as being more of a strategic
business partner and thought leader than as a tactical, you know, order taker or
administrator, then the, the faster you're going to get that true value from someone.
And I think a.
Professional because we are, it's a really unique.
Uh, personality, I think because we are folks who are, can be very strategic,
but aren't afraid of the tactical.
Right.
And we are very outwardly facing because one of the biggest, I
think, key traits of a successful rev op leader is that they can.
Drive consensus and be able to influence and align multiple
stakeholders who have very different agendas and values and goals, right?
And be able to bring everybody along for that journey.
That's a key trait that I think is number one over anything
else, I think for a RevUps leader is that ability to influence.
Drive consensus, that really strong communicator.
Um, but on top of that, we're also not afraid to go dig into the data, right?
And be tech, be technical and not afraid of systems.
So it's a really unique kind of balance of mindset for those folks.
And, and it's hard to find, you know, I think it's harder to find that person.
Um, but at the same time, you can co, you can compliment that by.
Folks that are in that kind of more technical, tactical and then have
somebody who's more strategic as well.
If you can't find kind of that one, we call it the unicorn or the purple
Warren Zena: squirrel.
Yeah, it's great you say this cuz the thing I tell my clients
a lot is your rev ops person.
Is going to be the person that will give you the evidence that
you need to make decisions and sell the decisions into the company.
Mm-hmm.
Because you know what happens a lot at the executive level is it's a lot of
opinions being bounced at each other, and it's the one who's in charge most
that wins when it's a battle of opinions.
Right.
Yeah.
I'm in charge of my opinions more importantly, you know?
Okay.
But if I have.
And that data is monetized data.
Like for example, we're losing this much money, or we'll make this much more money,
or we'll gain this many more customers.
Mm-hmm.
You can win any argument.
And so you sort of need to have that rev op person to, to kind of almost put
them into a mission and say, all right, I need you to create a rationale for me.
If please first, first, Val, validate it, validate my claim, my thesis.
Right.
And then once you validated it, if I'm wrong, fine.
Tell me.
Then I need to put together the story using data to make my case so that I can
get movement and I can get consensus, and I can get resources and authority
and permission to take actions.
And it's so critically important and I find a lot of my clients are coming to
me and saying, oh, my boss won't do X.
My boss won't do Y.
And it's just all it is is they're just arguing with each other about this.
That's right.
Like, did you do any data?
Did you do any research?
That's right.
Can you bring your boss, like a PowerPoint presentation that shows how much money
they're losing that one way, or how much money they're gonna make the other way.
And when they do that, it's, it's, you know, you really can be very persuasive.
So I think your secret weapon, You know is your rev ops person whom can
first make sure you're not crazy.
And then second of all, then help you tell your story better.
Right?
Yeah.
More persuasively.
So I think it's important cuz so much of being a C R O is
about trying to get stuff done.
Yes.
And trying to break down walls and like get decisions made and get
resource allocations and approvals.
Oh God.
And so, you know, if I had somebody who I knew can do that, then you know,
you, you got a great, a great partner.
Um, any other things you wanted to like emphasize about the Rev ops role and.
You know, your own business.
Before we, we end here cuz we're coming up on time, I wanted to make
sure that I have a chance for you to, like, how do people reach you?
What are you working on?
What are some things that are happening?
Maybe important things you'd like for people to listen to know about yourself
or the rev ops role, whatever the case
Rosalyn Santa Elena: may be.
Yeah, no, no.
Thank you for just the opportunity.
I'm super, you know, was very excited to kind of be on this podcast.
I think it's been a long time coming, so I'm happy to be here and you
know, just share more anytime I.
A platform to talk about Rev op, I'm gonna take it.
Right.
I'm just so passionate about it.
Sure.
And yeah, just definitely building, if anyone wants to reach out,
LinkedIn is always the best way.
You can also come to the rev ops collective.com website,
book, book some time with me.
Um, that's probably a better way to get in front of me and to, to have,
just have a conversation because I think all of us are probably in this
LinkedIn, uh, DM kind of madness.
You know, we can't find any messages, um, in terms of their, things get lost.
But yeah, reach out anytime.
I'm always happy to talk shop, always happy to talk to any, you
know, CEOs, founders, CROs who are maybe more interested in learning
about rev ops and like, why do they need it and when do they need it?
And, you know, if they are convinced that they need it, you know, what do they need?
And also I think we, I see a lot of also.
I think you mentioned earlier around they have rev ops, but maybe
they're not leveraging it properly or they're not seeing the value.
Right.
Because it hasn't been, you know, maybe set up properly or enabled
to be that strategic advisor that we're, you know, that we're talking
Warren Zena: about.
Yeah.
It's like the, uh, Ferrari in the garage, you know?
Yeah.
You gotta like unleash the power.
Yeah.
Well, great.
Well, so it's the Rev Ops collective and uh, they can find
you at the rev ops collective.com.
Rosalyn Santa Elena: Right.
Yep.
Definitely.
And yeah, and for anyone who's listening, they've gotta go back
and listen to our initial episode on the revenue engine when you's Right.
Were a guest's,
Warren Zena: which is totally, I, I haven't listened to it at all.
Yeah, I wanna hear what that was like.
I probably sound like a little whipper snap.
Rosalyn Santa Elena: Heck, I was saying No, I'd be surprised.
I think I, I bet you we'd be pleasantly surprised if we were to listen to
it, that a lot of the messaging is still consistent three years later
or two and a half years later.
Right.
Warren Zena: I'll, I'll listen.
I, I, I, I trust you.
I, I'm a my worst critic.
Um, so to that end, um, thank you.
And, uh, you know, just a little kind of a related plug, you know, uh,
Rosalyn's gonna be a guest speaker on the C R O Accelerator course,
which is for aspiring Chief Revenue Officers, and we're excited to have her.
We actually add some more depth to some of the people who are participating.
And, uh, for those interested on the podcast, if you're interested
in becoming a Chief Revenue Officer, the next c r o collective Accelerator
course is coming up in April.
It's a great course.
Everyone's getting a lot out of it, and I love doing it.
And then for CEOs, uh, we have the, um, c o readiness program.
If you're thinking about hiring a Chief Revenue Officer, you should
definitely talk to me because you make a lot of mistakes along the way.
It can cost you like about a million dollars, literally about
a million dollars in wasted money if you don't do it properly.
Plus maybe a couple years of, of a, of a stall on the way that you are
operating in revenue operations.
So gimme a buzz about that.
But anyway, this is always great, Raj.
Thank you so much.
Um, I know you're.
And, um, uh, I just love, uh, having your, your, your wisdom
shared with all, with the audience.
And, um, I'll see you on your, in your community and I'll see you in a
couple weeks on the, uh, on the course.
Thanks.
Awesome.
Thank you so much.
You got it.
Bye-bye.