Kelley explained that as data became more central to the success of software companies, so did the role of sales ops. In this exclusive conversation with InsightSquared, Kelley shared her insights into the growing role of sales ops today, and how you can organize and operate your own SaaS team most effectively.
1. What is OPEXEngine, and how does it specifically benefit SaaS companies?
OPEXEngine is member-based benchmarking community for software and SaaS companies. We develop benchmarks by SaaS revenues and by business model. More and more, we’re seeing sales ops organizations using this benchmarking data to identify areas of underperformance, and also areas of over-performance. If you see that your company is under-performing in a certain area, whether it’s sales cycle or bookings per rep or quota attainment, it helps focus on an area where you can dig into the data that you have at hand in sales ops, and try to identify where the problem is coming from and improve it.
And conversely, if you see that your company is more efficient at turning marketing-qualified leads into bookings than the best in breed companies, it might be an area you could highlight to management. You can say, “This is an area where we’re really good and we should be investing more. We’re getting good return from the dollars that we’re investing here.”
Benchmarks are an incredibly important tool for sales ops – not only for looking at your own data, but also for comparing to outside data to see what other companies are doing, and get a sense of where you can find both deficiencies and greater performance.
Benchmarks also help you plan for how you are going to have to evolve as you grow by looking at benchmarks for larger companies or different business models.
2. How did you first start to focus on the role of sales ops? Why are you so passionate about this aspect of business specifically?
Sales ops should be the hub for driving consistency.
Lauren Kelley
CEO of OPEXEngine
3. Sales ops has become more prestigious in the past few years within growing companies. Why do you think this role is becoming more respected today?
4. Though sales ops has gained in prominence, there is still a lot of disagreement over where sales ops should live within an organization. Who do you believe sales ops should report to specifically? Why do you believe this is so important?
Traditionally, sales ops has always sat in sales.
Lauren Kelley
CEO of OPEXEngine
5. How does the focus or function of the role change if sales ops reports to VP of Sales vs. Finance? Why do you think there is so much disagreement over this within the business world today?
6. Does the sales ops role change drastically depending on the company’s industry or size? Why or why not?
Sales ops becomes more complicated as you get bigger.
Lauren Kelley
CEO of OPEXEngine
7. In terms of hiring a sales ops professional, when should a company hire one? For example, should a smaller startup hire a sales ops role once they hit X people?
8. What is your best advice for a new sales ops professional starting at a new company? How can an individual push for their role to be organized effectively within the business?
9. How can a sales ops professional prioritize their tasks and avoid overload and data burnout? Does having a clearly defined role help mitigate this risk?
A good sales ops person should prioritize efficiency.
Lauren Kelley
CEO of OPEXEngine