7 Ways Inbound RevOps Helps CEOs to Design Organisation Growth

7 Ways Inbound RevOps Helps CEOs to Design Organisation Growth

The smartest organisations are motivated to thrive. They are ambitious to add value to the world around us.

They are clear about what they want. They understand there are opportunities out there. They know it’s important to be ready to take them when they turn up.

People look to the CEO as their sure-footed navigator. Someone who will guide everyone with confidence via clarity of vision, strategy and mission for success. 

Organisations not geared up for smarter growth may struggle against those who are - and miss the boat more often than not.

Significant challenges remain in place: Consumer confidence. Supply chain and distribution. Finding and holding on to the best talent. Health, safety and wellbeing. And more.

With all this on their mind, an increasing number of CEOs are turning to an Inbound approach with Revenue Operations, also known as RevOps or RO. RevOps has been described as building the tracks and keeping the trains running on time.

The Inbound methodology 

The Inbound business methodology covers three areas: Marketing, Sales and Customer Service. It is customer-centric, designed to build a trusted relationship with people.

Inbound marketing attracts customers by creating valuable content and experiences tailored to an organisation’s audience.

Inbound sales is a process of providing personalised help to guide people through three phases of the buyer's journey: awareness, consideration and decision. It’s a way to get more qualified leads and close more deals faster.

Inbound Customer Service is about delivering ‘Wow’ beyond the sale, to delight customers and turn them into fans, loyal advocates of the brand. It includes solving customers’ problems and helping them achieve success with your product
or service.

RevOps brings all three together to create a unified revenue-generation engine for growth. RevOps is both a framework and a process. At its core is the power of alignment: aligning Sales, Marketing and Customer Service to meet the bigger picture objectives.

The RevOps Framework

The approach is designed to achieve closer collaboration within your teams, more predictable growth and better performance. It is all about:

• Aligning sales, marketing and customer service operations for better performance 
• Ending ‘silo mentality’ - making all teams accountable to revenue, not just sales
• Increasing accountability, efficiency and forecasting accuracy
• Using holistic data and real time analytics to drive decision-making
• Creating a faster sales cycle, higher win rates and stronger customer satisfaction

The Numbers

One of the reasons CEOs are exploring RevOps as a way forward - apart from the logic of it - is the stats.

For example, HubSpot research says companies with aligned departments close 38 per cent more deals and post 208 per cent more marketing revenue. 

And, as reported by Forbes, a study by SiriusDecisions (now part of Forrester) found public companies using RevOps saw 71 per cent higher stock performance.

Here are 7 Ways the Inbound RevOps approach can help organisations to design smarter growth.

1. Clarity of Vision

Vision provides direction. It’s the big picture around which you build the details. It can be a powerful, empowering driver.

However, sometimes the vision, mission and values of an organisation get ‘lost’ along the way.

The vision might be tired and out of date. The vision may lack a compelling enough story to capture the hearts and minds of the workforce. The vision could be strong yet not visible enough at every level.

The inbound methodology is all about connection, relationships and building trust. It makes use of multiple channels and visual media, such as video or design
thinking resources. 

CEOs can use the approach to help get the message across - internally and externally. RevOps brings teams together, which makes communication and collaboration around the bigger picture easier.

Get clear on the vision. Share the vision.

2. Strategy First

Organisations strive to maintain a dynamic growth strategy. There’s always a balancing act between short-term and longer-term objectives.

Quick wins are great (and should be celebrated) but smarter eyes look beyond to future performance.

The Inbound RevOps framework is designed to help CEOs deliver growth. It puts strategy first.

The framework can be used across the board. 

To build strong brand reputation and loyalty. Share thought leadership. Find better clients with lower acquisition costs. Experience more predictable sales forecasting. Improve customer satisfaction and retention. Build revenue and margin from all units of the business

Taking an inbound approach with RevOps, organisations can create a content strategy to position themselves where they want to be in the marketplace.

Customer-focused activity tracking, data sharing and support helps deliver better leads, conversions and churn rates.

Aligning Marketing, Sales and Customer Service through RevOps brings people, processes and platforms together in a lean, agile and collaborative way. Customer focused; performance driven.

Even making small improvements across the organisation will have a positive compound effect.

3. The Power of Alignment

Imagine a car with one good round wheel, one deflated tyre, one wheel out of whack and one with worn out tread.

Would you want to jump in and drive that thing? 

Now picture those wheels as teams in an organisation. How well do you think they’re going to perform together?

Exactly.

It’s why the Inbound RevOps approach is all about alignment. It ditches silos to achieve smarter growth. It is designed to make remote and hybrid working work.

It gets people in Marketing and Sales working together towards a single revenue objective. Both teams accountable to revenue - cemented through a designed SLA. No more finger pointing, just all hands on deck.

It also brings Sales and Customer together, for a smooth handover and to keep customers loyal.

4. Designing a Success Culture

Having a clear vision and strategy provides a strong foundation for smarter growth. 

The next challenge is how to create, nurture and support a culture of success. Not just to deliver performance but also to attract and retain top talent.

It will most likely involve change - and managing that change with care.

A RevOps approach can help in several ways.

It is designed to get Sales, Marketing and Customer Service working on change - working as one rather than separate teams with different agendas.

RevOps makes intelligent use of technology solutions, to streamline processes and give employees the tools they need to do their best work.

It can also, when twinned with a multi-channel communications platform like HubSpot Growth Suite, support the change journey.

• Present the vision
• Set out the reasons for change
• Engage with your people and listen to their response
• Organise different ways to encourage feedback
• Bring the whole organisation into the discussion
• Provide presentations, videos and documents to share the message
• Enable team leaders to get employee ‘buy-in’
• Set milestones and celebrate wins along the way

Whatever your rationale for change, RevOps can support the process.

5. Customer First

Part of the culture change is getting the organisation to understand that ‘success culture’ means putting the customer first.

In inbound RevOps terms, it’s called customer advocacy.

With this approach, the organisation is not the ‘hero’ of the story. Their customers are. To understand their customers, they are going to need a form of ‘radar system’.

RevOps provides the tools and structure to build that radar.

It aligns Marketing, Sales and Service teams - with a focus on delivering value to the customer at every stage of the sales cycle.

It deepens understanding of the customer. It allows teams to respond and
adapt accordingly.

It helps organisations to identify how to help happy customers become their biggest fans and spread the word, effectively becoming voluntary ‘brand ambassadors’.

Every leader understands the power of word-of-mouth recommendation.

6. Embracing Digital Transformation and Data for Better Decision-Making

Digital transformation is about being able to deliver more, and better, online.

Inbound RevOps for Marketing, Sales and Customer Service is geared for making it easy: Helping people find the brand. Giving them information about products and services. Answering all their questions to help them make a buying decision. 

That’s one side of the equation. The other is around having data to track, analyse and support decision-making.

There’s a saying ‘what can’t be measured can’t be improved’. Having access to holistic, accurate and real-time data:

• Allows leaders to make decisions based on data rather than guesswork
• Helps Marketing, Sales and Customer Service teams to improve results
• Supports scenario planning and change management
• Provides insights, to spot gaps and identify quick wins
• Helps teams deliver margin gains and revenue growth
• Assists the monitoring of progress against the strategy

It’s more difficult to get a clear picture, or ‘one truth’, if the organisation is making do with a mish mash of platforms and tools. A RevOps solution with an integrated ‘all in one’ system cuts through the fog for clarity.

It’s why, for example, 6teen30 Digital recommends its clients use HubSpot Growth Suite and Databox. It gets tech working smarter for people.

7. Increasing Agility and Minimising Risk

Ambitious leaders understand that going for growth requires strategy, investment and change. All three carry a degree of risk. 

Heads could be on the block if things fail to pan out as planned. And there are numerous challenges to overcome.

Is more localised production an option? Can any parts of the operations or processes be streamlined? How does the organisation become more lean, more agile?

How does the organisation keep its people communicating, collaborating and performing in the new hybrid working world? 

How can leaders encourage fresh thinking, new ideas and innovation? 

How could the organisation use technology, systems and digital tools to improve productivity, efficiency and performance?

An Inbound RevOps approach offers some answers to all those questions.

Solutions from 6teen30 Digital, for example, allow an organisation to be ultra-responsive. Like a game of chess, if the prospect or customer makes a move, Marketing, Sales or Customer Service can respond with tailored and
activity-tracked precision.

This approach typically reduces friction in the sales process, speeds up the pipeline velocity, pushes up win rates, lowers acquisition costs and churn, and boosts the customer lifetime value. Picture a flywheel spinning freer and faster.

That’s good news for margins and the bottom line.

The smart CEO assesses the risk factors but also knows there are times to take a calculated risk.

Another beauty of the RevOps way is it helps to forecast sales, understand what’s required to make a sale and have a more predictable performance. That all helps to minimise the risk.

Smarter Growth by Design

Today’s growth-hungry CEO is under more pressure than ever.

The everyday challenges are stacked with those created by global events and their impact on the economy. Balancing pace of change and risk has become a high-stake juggling act. 

Key challenges revolve around strategic direction for growth, creating a strong organisational culture for success, enabling people, ending silo mentality and getting teams working better together. 

The focus is turning to customer-centric activity, gaining a deeper understanding of customers, improving collaborative systems, and finding accurate and reliable data to drive decisions for performance and growth.

Inbound RevOps strategies are built around helping organisations to grow smarter.