"Batman is nothing without Robin"

TL;DR This article covers my view of how you should think when setting up a Sales Operations function. All opinions are my own.

Chapter 2 - “Batman is nothing without Robin”. This is how I tried to explain how I envision the optimal setup of the Sales Operations function to a peer in the tech industry. But what does it actually mean and how should you think about the staffing of your Sales Ops team when you first decide to invest in the function?

During the past years I have been approached by different companies in search of advice on how to best set up a Sales Operations organization from scratch and it made me reflect about the times I have been the most successful in my role. I have been part of setting up a Sales Operations function from the start twice and the pattern is always the same: The Sales Director/C-level wants to “invest in a Sales Operations person” to "take away a bit of the buzz from sales" and make them focus on - sales.

“Batman is nothing without Robin”. This is how I tried to explain how I envision the optimal setup of the Sales Operations function

The question I always ask next is - So what do you expect from the person & function? The answer often focuses on the fact that he/she needs a business partner, someone who understands sales and can be a challenger of the business. The person should be able to build the 1-3 year strategy, drive CRM implementation & adoption, ensure the business tracks the right KPIs and that reporting is reliable. Preferably the person should be the ears on the ground, but also a challenger of leadership. He or she should also have a background in strategy consulting/same line of business, know SQL and be able to provide on demand deep-dive analysis.

“...and in your mind this is one person?”

Unless we are talking about a superhuman who I am yet to meet, I am pretty sure that this is more than one person given the breadth of the scope.

“Yes, but we can only afford to invest one HC into this area.”

Well - then you just decided to waste a perfectly talented person's time and ensured that a lot of people will be underwhelmed about what can actually be achieved by a Sales Operations function. Sometimes scarcity and “smart investments” can quickly undermine a full function and you will not get the intended ROI of the HC invested.

You just decided to waste a perfectly talented person's time.

So what is the Batman & Robin approach?

It basically means that you need at least two people to staff up your first Sales Ops function - You should have one senior Sales Operations Lead (Batman) and one - often slightly more junior - analytically focused Sales Operations Associate (Robin). This way you are both able to have a function that can act as a senior business partner to leadership and someone who can put a bit more time on the operations, reporting and insights to support the business in an adequate way.

It sounds super simple - but oh, how many have failed to make this fundamental investment at the start. But how should I then think about the profile of the candidates and scoping of these two roles?

The Sales Ops lead does most likely have 5-10 years of experience from a similar Sales Operations role or from any other closely related area (No - not everyone needs to come from Strategy consulting!). He or she has a proven track record of business partnering with senior sales leaders and driving a business forward (e.g. through a strong business plan, relevant KPI framework, strategic workstreams). The person hopefully also has experienced a set of reorgs and has been exposed to different go-to-market strategies. Depending on the maturity of your own company, you want to look for someone who has a background from either a hypergrowth or established business.

The Sales Operations Lead focuses on:

• Business partnering & acting as a challenger of the business
• Strategy / GTM development
• Supporting developing the 1-3 year business plan
• Supporting the overall business performance conversation

The Sales Ops Associate is a different beast - the candidate should have a good general understanding of how to turn data into insights and connect it to the needs of the business. There is nothing worse than a so-called “Sales Ops dashboard” - a data-point-buffet that only satisfied the wet dreams of a real data nerd but is too complex to use for a sales lead to answer the basic questions about their business. Depending on your company's infrastructure and reporting maturity, the person might need some experience in SQL/applicable scripting language. He or she should also be able to work very closely with sales and even actively enable them on different topics (e.g. CRM usage or pipeline management) when necessary.

For the Associate role - the how is also more important than the what. A junior talent with the right grit and attitude will make it much further than a candidate with the right track record, given that the Sales Operations role often is very broad and requires you to be opened minded about the scope and what you have to learn in order to be successful in the role.

The Sales Operations Associate focuses on:

• Supports the business performance conversation through data
• Provides the right analysis to support business decisions
• Develops/builds necessary reporting infrastructure
• Guides Sales through operational processes (e.g. territory planning, CRM usage)

For the Associate role - the how is also more important than the what.

The curse of Sales Ops

Going back to the perception of Sales Ops being an overhead cost (read more about it in my earlier article), this is not entirely untrue - especially in a hyper growth environment. This function will often be the last to be invested in, even from an overhead functions perspective (no one would argue against investing HC in Legal, HR, Finance, Marketing etc.). That said, once your first Sales Operations person is in place you often will hear “Why didn’t we do this earlier?” or “How did we solve this before you?”. 

“Why didn’t we do this earlier?”

Sales Operations still has a way to go to make to the same level of acceptance as any other non-quota/target bearing role - but given how many new Sales Operations roles have been introduced during the past 10+ years, I am more than confident that this is just the start of a very exciting journey ahead as a function.

So don't forget to find the Robin for your Batman!

Want to read more about Sales Operations? Read chapter 1 - "Dear Overhead Cost"