Paul Kiggen’s Post

It’s crazy to me that technical skills for RevOps roles are increasingly less focused on in several conversations I’ve had with leaders in the space. They’re 100% still considered but many senior executives want someone that has soft skills to properly navigate stakeholder resources. They need someone to inherently earn the working respect to drive multiple teams, across multiples disciplines forward. No one wants to hand hold these people if they lack the personal skills to execute in this way. Some leaders I’ve spoken with have even gone so far as to say that they had talent that had to exit because culturally they were creating friction/refused to adapt. On paper they could do the job but no one wanted to work with them or had buy in on their initiatives because their goals weren’t tied/positioned to winning with their stakeholders properly. They also failed to organically adjust to the feedback cycle of these stakeholders to base work around pain points and the capabilities of the org versus what was “technically” optimal. If you’ve never had to collaborate to sell an initiative with committees that speak various priority languages, you might not know what that looks like. If you’ve never had to assess someone’s capabilities and meet them where they are to win together with them, it might be hard to accurately know when to jump in/when to empower them. Maybe pulling RevOps/SalesOps people that have had direct sales experience should be a rule not the exception. Not sure if someone in RevOps has had direct sales experience? If they haven’t they’ll see quota carrying / variable comp teammates as either a resource to be mined or something to observe like you would zoo animals instead of the people they serve. It’s that distinct lack of humble respect to their stakeholders, and understanding the pressure they’re under that will rub the wrong way. #sales #operations #revops #gtm #marketing #saas

Leadership in SaaS: A Challenge for the Visionaries In the dynamic and competitive SaaS landscape, the ability to lead a cross-functional team effectively is what sets great leaders apart. Here’s a scenario for the strategists and innovators among us: You’re tasked with overseeing the onboarding of a new service provider or enterprise client. Success means not just a smooth transition but ensuring they become loyal, long-term users of the platform. How would you approach this challenge? 1.What specific steps would you take to ensure seamless onboarding? 2. How would you tackle unexpected obstacles and align diverse stakeholders with unique priorities? 3. How would you customize sales and marketing strategies for decision-makers vs. end users? 4.What metrics would you use to measure progress, and how would you adjust your strategy based on real-world feedback? Let’s exchange insights! Whether you’re a SaaS expert, a rising star in tech, or a professional with unique ideas, I’d love to hear your thoughts. Share your perspective in the comments and tag someone whose expertise in SaaS sales, marketing, or onboarding has inspired you. Let’s build a conversation that showcases how leadership, strategy, and innovation drive scalable success in SaaS. #LeadershipInSaaS #ScalingSuccess #SaaSStrategy #ProfessionalGrowth

The most expensive words in GTM Teams - “Let’s change our tech stack”… We’ve all seen this story play out… 🤦♂️ New CRO joins. Changes CRM. New CMO arrives. Switches marketing automation. Another leadership change. Different sales engagement platform. Each transition costs hundreds of thousands in: → Implementation fees → Lost productivity → Team retraining → Data migration → Process rebuilding But here's the reality: While C-suite executives may rotate every 18-24 months, your revenue infrastructure needs to remain rock solid. This is why RevOps isn't just another department – it's the backbone of modern GTM operations. Think of RevOps as the architect of your revenue engine. They: → Design scalable processes → Maintain system continuity → Protect institutional knowledge → Drive cross-functional efficiency For new GTM leaders, partner with your RevOps team first instead of immediately replacing tools. They have the historical context, usage data, and technical insight to guide smart evolution – not disruptive revolution. Bottom line: RevOps deserves more than just a seat at the table. They need to be co-architects of your GTM strategy from day one. The strongest GTM leaders I know don't ask "Which tools should we replace?" They ask: "How can we optimize what's working and carefully evolve what isn't?" What's your take on RevOps' role in GTM leadership? Have you experienced the high cost of constant tech stack changes? #RevOps #GTM #Leadership #SaaS

Alright. I cooled off from posting about RevOps for a few weeks, but...I'm back. Listen, and listen closely: RevOps can include Sales Ops, but Sales Ops is not RevOps. RevOps can include Marketing Ops, but Marketing Ops is not RevOps. RevOps is a hub-and-spoke model. RevOps sits at the center as the strategic guidepost of your GTM motion. RevOps leaders spend a lot of their time translating organizational metrics like Revenue Growth, Retention Goals, Onboarding efficiency, NPS results, etc, into tactical roadmaps for Sales, Marketing, CS, and Finance Ops teams to drive improvement/attainment. Two action items to take from this post: 1️⃣ Ensure your RevOps function is serving the strategic outcomes of your org 2️⃣ If you do not have a RevOps function, find a strategic partner to help you build the strategy and relationships between your teams. #revops

After working with hundreds of high performing SaaS leaders NOTHING IS WORSE than the kind of CEO who... "Read a book once" on marketing, sales etc., and finds themselves frequently explaining why they’re right or someone else is wrong to an audience that has spent their entire career honing the craft of that particular skill. CEOs - you should know that: 1. Most of the time in this scenario you’re ideas are wrong 2. You’re undermining the experts you hired on your team 3. It’s just a bad look generally (oh hi there, Napoleon) 4. If you really think you’re right and need to impose your rightness on the experts on your team, maybe YOU need to suck less at hiring... Blink twice if you’ve ever encountered a leader who did this. #BadCEOs #SaaS

The past few weeks have been incredibly exciting, filled with conversations with so many inspiring sales and RevOps leaders. I’ve learned so much just by listening to their stories, challenges, and the ingenious ways they’re overcoming them. One RevOps leader, in particular, stood out. Their team’s approach to leveraging tools, processes, and data has not only created a highly efficient operation but also enabled them to scale revenues without burning out their sales team or losing them to attrition. What sets their success apart isn’t just the flawless alignment of processes and tools with business outcomes. It’s empathy. The person leading RevOps has been a successful sales person. That helps in knowing what it takes to set up systems that truly empower sales teams to succeed. It helps prioritise. No amount of data or tools can replicate the kind of empathy that turns challenges into wins. #RevOps #Sales #GTM #DataAnalytics #BizOps #Empathy

Proactive vs Reactive It is quite the conundrum in the RevOps world. Ideally, we are proactive and strategically planning multiple quarters out. This requires a foundation to support those focused on the performance of the current and next quarters, such as data accurate dashboards and reports, SOPs and accountability to hold ICs to those processes, tools for forecasting and pipeline management, etc. However, we are often aligned with leadership who focuses on quarterly performance more than the long term. There was a great post from Toni Hohlbein the other day proposing the idea of a better alignment of RevOps with the CFO rather than a CRO because of the nature of their vision and strategy. I do not disagree, but I do believe that part of the problem is the typical mindset of a CRO. They tend to be sales or marketing leaders and therefore focus on the quarterly performance or they are put in that position with those expectations placed on them. However, I do know some CROs are truly strategic visionaries and their companies allow them to be. As a RevOps leader, I plan on finding companies that hire with that alignment in mind.

Hello #RevOps Leaders .... have you built a Revenue Forecast for 2025? Wait, what? Why should I do that? The CFO does that! Most 2025 Revenue Targets will be top down - handed down from the CEO/CFO and Board. Remember most CEO and CFO's sit on the Board. It goes something like this. In 2024 we achieved 20% growth over 2023 - with the increasing maturity of our sales team, plus a 10% increase in sales headcount, plus the successful adoption of our marketing demand gen machine, we feel confident we can grow revenue by 30% in 2025. And a stretch target of 35%. So the "number" grows from $50M in 2024 to a $65M target for 2025. (PS - the stretch is what the Board eventually decides - so $68M) Seems reasonable? Who knows? That's why it's super important that the RevOps Leader guides his or her CRO to develop a bottom-up plan. This could be Sales Headcount Capacity based - based in actual rep attainment with ramping for new hires or replacements, due to exits or promotions. It could be based on pipeline build (from sales, marketing, channel), plus expected net retention of renewals. It could be based on expansion programs such as upsell from a new product, geo-based expansion in new territories, etc. It probably should be based on all of the above. And more. BUT ... it is super important that RevOps provide a sanity check for what is possible or realistic. I am here to help if anyone needs some help on this topic. Don't be the CRO or RevOps Leader who just "accepts" the 2025 number. Be the trusted advisor to your boss. Hey the top down number might be the eventual target, but at least tire kick what is possible, with your own modeling. #sales #CRO #forecasting

RevOps is confusing, man. Its a function with disparate definitions. Ask 10 people to define RevOps and you get at least 8 different answers. Its cross functional so it touches multiple roles and teams. RevOps could directly affect Sales, Marketing, CS, Product, Finance, Leadership, the list goes on. And its growing: A Gartner report states that "75% of the highest growth companies in the world plan to deploy a RevOps model by 2025" You'd think the fact that its a trending topic would be helpful, but thats just led to a ton of NOISE. I get a lot of people asking me for advice on either how to transition into RevOps or what to do when you get your first ever RevOps job. Lucky for you, the folks at Everstage have put together an awesome 30-60-90 Day Guide. Shout out to Siva Subramanian for including me. I submitted a little blurb that you can see on this post. I'll post a link to the guide in my comments. Please download it if you need 🤗

Good morning everyone! Just a reminder here that #RevenueEnablement and #RevenueOperations should act as ONE team (whether they are one team in actuality or not). A way to for these teams to work together and build sustainable programs is to align on the following: 👉Methodology - align on your #SalesMethodology, focus on friction points, ensure the methodology flows across teams. For example, if your #Sales team uses #CommandoftheMessage - is your #CustomerSuccess team aware of this? Your project managers? How does that flow? Is there training and communication between teams? Will the #customer feel different when they flip from one team to the next? 👉Process - It's not all about the #SalesProcess, ensure that every stage of the #CustomerJourney is aligned. Is your methodology engrained within your process? If it's not, have a look! Start with the process, and align your methodology to each step. 👉Technology - Is your #TechStack working? Is your #Bowtie connected? Does your process align with your technology? For example, if using #MEDDPICC, is a champion required at some point? What's your entry criteria for creating an opportunity? Have you aligned your #RevTech to your process? Does all of your reporting tie to the priorities? 🔑The key to all of this is ensuring that #RevOps and #Enablement are working together, aligned on the same goals, and there's no internal friction there. Staying focused together on the methodology, process and technology keeps the teams focused on the same goals. The best way to do this is to align those teams under the #CRO, and truly create a #Revenue team focusing on the #Marketing, #Sales, #CustomerSuccess (and other essential revenue functions). 📺🎥Clip from the Revenue Operations Alliance and Sales Enablement Collective summits in NY earlier this year. #Speaker #SalesOps #SalesOperations #SalesEnablement #CSOps #MarketingOps Jack Debono Rebecca Stewart Will Burden Vivek Gulati Rose Johnstone