High performing sales teams are made up of many different professionals, with specific skillsets. Alongside sales reps and account managers, companies also rely on strategic team members, focused on enabling and empowering the business to reach its goals.
Sales operations professionals, otherwise known as “Sales Ops ”, team members, are a critical part of this ecosystem. They do a lot more than simply measure analytics and create reports.
Sales operations teams help to improve sales, and streamline processes, to keep companies one step ahead of the competition. When implemented alongside the right training and tools, sales operations initiatives can have a direct influence on both top and bottom-line performance.
Here’s everything you need to know about sales operations.
What is Sales Operations? The Basics
The terms “sales operations” refers to both a function and a department in the sales organization. Sales operations teams handle a variety of administrative tasks that would otherwise burden sales professionals, and derail sales strategies. They help with the analytical and planning work that ensures sales teams stay efficient, and effective.
Similar to how a supply chain operations team organizes how goods move from one point to another, sales operations management teams work behind the scenes to ensure the various parts of the sales team are all working smoothly.
The Difference Between Sales Operations and Sales Enablement
Sales operations and sales enablement teams frequently work closely together, and may have a number of overlapping responsibilities. However, there are some differences between the departments. Sales enablement focuses on preparing sales reps for buyer interactions, by assisting with sales training, onboarding, and creating sales content.
Sales operations teams, on the other hand, focus on technical and analytical strategies that help sales reps to move through the sales process more efficiently. They might analyze the growth of sales territories, develop pricing structures, and formulate compensation plans for teams.
They can also help with the analysis and evaluation of sales metrics, creating revenue strategies, and strategizing go-to-market plans.
Why do you Need Sales Operations?
From developing sales methodologies, to handling technical functions, sales operations teams help businesses to run as smoothly as possible. They allow sales professionals to focus their time on revenue-driving activities, and help managers make more data-driven decisions.
Building a sales operation function into your workplace can be expensive and time-consuming, but it delivers a host of beneficial results. Including:
- Improved efficiency: The sales operations department creates systems that ensure all employees have access to the information and resources they need. This reduces the amount of time sales reps waist on repetitive and unproductive tasks. It also helps to minimize miscommunication between teams, and improve collaboration.
- Better consistency: Sales operations teams create clear outlines for how different departments can work together. They offer businesses a blueprint for managing cross-departmental tracks, ensuring everyone stays on the right track.
- Enhanced clarity: Companies using sales operations techniques achieve a 28% higher revenue growth than their counterparts. One of the main reasons for this is greater clarity. When everyone has a distinct plan to follow, morale, productivity, and performance increases.
Building a Sales Operations Function: Roles and Responsibilities
Embedding sales operations strategies into your business means finding the team members to manage specific tasks and responsibilities. Sales operations roles often involve a lot of different tasks, from gathering data from previous sales and interactions, to analyzing trends and sales forecasting.
Sales operations professionals are often involved with demand and supply planning, creating standard operating procedures for teams to follow, and streamlining sales methodologies. Since there’s a lot to do in any sales operations function, many companies rely on multiple team members.
Some of the most common sales operations roles include:
- Sales operations manager: The head of the Sales operations strategy. Sales ops managers create sales plans, assign territories, analyze information, and create comprehensive plans for other sales managers and team members to follow.
- Sales operations analyst: SO analysts deal with data, using analytical insights to identify market trends, and guide marketing and accounting teams. They can also help to identify areas of the business that may benefit from automation or optimization.
- Sales effectiveness manager: These professionals are responsible for improving company practices, through onboarding, training, and other strategies. They also come up with consistent ideas to improve the processes within the company.
- Sales planning specialist: Planning specialists focus on coordinating and organizing the team. They aid reps by offering insights into pricing and contract information, handling schedules, and improving communication and collaboration between departments.
- Technical operations advisor: Technical operations advisor work on the tech side of business operations. They track key metrics with useful tools like CRM platforms, and focus on finding technical ways to improve efficiency.
Best Practices for Sales Operations
While there’s no one-size-fits-all way to run a sales operation function in your business, there are certain best practices every company should follow. Here are some quick tips companies can use to ensure they’re making the most of their sales operations strategy.
Define Mission Statements
Aligning everyone around the same sales goals and missions is crucial to success in any sales team. It helps to drive better training and coaching initiatives, keep staff members motivated, and boost collaboration throughout the workforce.
Creating a mission statement defining your key objectives and brand purpose can be extremely helpful here. Notably, a comprehensive mission statement shouldn’t just outline what your company aims to achieve. It should also determine how you expect to reach your goals.
For instance, your mission statement might be “To help companies save time and money by automating operational tasks”.
Invest in strong leadership
Excellent leadership is often crucial in the sales environment. The right leaders don’t just motivate and engage teams, they ensure everyone stays on the same page. Businesses building a sales operations function should ensure their teams are led by an informed vice president, director, or manager, who reports directly to the CEO or COO.
Notably, while sales operations leaders will work heavily with the marketing department, and other parts of the business, their main focus should be on the sales team.
Encourage Collaboration
While each part of the sales teams has its own functions and responsibilities to consider, exceptional collaboration is crucial to success. Sales operations teams should be encouraged to work hand-in-hand with sales enablement professionals, marketing, and reps on a regular basis.
Consistent collaboration helps to ensure sales operations professionals can effectively target and address the core roadblocks in the sales process. Hosting regular meetings between heads of demand generation, sales ops, marketing, and sales enablement can help to boost clarity.
Provide Sales Ops training
One of the best ways to make the most of any sales operations strategy, is to provide professionals with the right training. Sales operations has its own challenges and opportunities to consider, and proper training and coaching can significantly improve your team’s results.
You could even allow members of your sales ops team to shadow salespeople on a regular basis. This will give them a chance to witness the common challenges that salespeople face first-hand. Plus, it should ensure they have a better understanding of the impact their processes have.
Leverage Technology
Sales operations teams often work closely with technology, to help improve the efficiency and performance of the overall sales team. Introducing the right technology to your Sales ops function is an excellent way to ensure managers and analysts can access the information they need.
Plus, many modern tools can help professionals to automate repetitive tasks, which could otherwise harm productivity. Make sure your sales operations team have access to the right CRM software, email automation tools, and lead validation software. However, be careful about introducing too many tools too quickly.
Technology can improve your team’s efficiency, but their performance can quickly begin to diminish if they’re forced to regularly toggle between multiple different tools.
Learn, Optimize, and Innovate
The best sales teams are constantly innovating. They’re always looking for new ways to connect with customers, improve their brand voice, and enhance their processes. Similarly, your sales operations strategy should be able to evolve regularly too. The sales process should transform as you learn more about your prospects, customers, and even your employees.
Although it’s important not to make changes too rapidly, particularly if you want to maintain productivity, staying agile is helpful. Pay attention to the data that sales ops teams collect, and be ready to make informed changes whenever necessary.
Making the Most of Sales Operations
The right sales operations strategy can transform an average sales team into an incredible ecosystem of high-performance sellers. Sales ops professionals can empower reps to accomplish more in their roles, and push business leaders towards making intelligent decisions.
However, like any part of a sales landscape, sales operations functions need to be implemented with care and caution. If you want to learn more about the power of sales operations, and how you can make the most out of your team, join HSE today.
Discover how you can engage and elevate your team, with new training experiences and opportunities for consistent growth.
