You’re developing a Sales Operations strategy. What are the most important ways to make it successful?

Sales Operations is a vital function that supports and enables the sales team to perform at its best. It involves planning, organizing, executing, and evaluating the sales processes, systems, and resources. A Sales Operations strategy is a roadmap that aligns the goals, activities, and metrics of Sales Operations with the overall sales strategy and business objectives. How can you develop a successful Sales Operations strategy that delivers value and results? Here are some key tips to consider.

1 Define your scope and objectives

Before you start developing your Sales Operations strategy, you need to have a clear understanding of what you want to achieve and how you will measure it. What are the main pain points and challenges that you want to address? What are the key opportunities and priorities that you want to pursue? What are the specific and measurable outcomes that you want to deliver? How will you align your Sales Operations strategy with the sales strategy and the business strategy? By defining your scope and objectives, you will have a clear direction and focus for your Sales Operations strategy.

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Marat Delman

Senior Key Account Manager - Managing Defense & Public Sector and Energy segments in Israel at Nokia Enterprise
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By focusing on these areas, you can develop a Sales Operations strategy that sets your team up for success. Remember, this is an ongoing process. Regularly evaluate your strategy, adapt to changing market conditions, and be sure to communicate your goals and progress clearly to your sales team.

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2 Assess your current state and gaps

Once you have defined your scope and objectives, you need to assess your current state and gaps. How well are your sales processes, systems, and resources working? What are the strengths and weaknesses of your Sales Operations function? What are the best practices and benchmarks that you can learn from? What are the gaps and areas for improvement that you need to address? By assessing your current state and gaps, you will have a realistic baseline and a gap analysis for your Sales Operations strategy.

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Troy Muise

CEO & Co-Founder @ Salesboom.com | CRM + AI
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The goal more face time with customers, leads, partners. Put yourself in your customers' shoes. Build people, process, & technology using Sales Force Automation (SFA) integrated with CRM to implement. Build a team to fill gaps with software, AI, & people. Bring continuous improvement in customer experience throughout the customer lifecycle. Analyze dashboards, reports, & KPIs to make data-driven decisions. Create content to educate at each step of the buying process. Track Leads to Closed Sales & Quote to Cash processes, track success & failure. Iteratively improve Lead/Account qualification, & scoring. Collaborate on Sales Opportunity pipelines integrated with CRM, ERP, AI, other apps to augment the customer journey.

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Marat Delman

Senior Key Account Manager - Managing Defense & Public Sector and Energy segments in Israel at Nokia Enterprise
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You have the right tools (CRM, sales automation, email marketing, etc.) to support your sales reps and automate tasks. You have a set of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to track sales activity and results, allowing for continuous improvement.

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3 Design your future state and solutions

After you have assessed your current state and gaps, you need to design your future state and solutions. How do you want your sales processes, systems, and resources to look like in the future? What are the changes and initiatives that you need to implement to achieve your objectives? What are the benefits and risks of each option? How will you prioritize and sequence your actions? How will you allocate your resources and budget? By designing your future state and solutions, you will have a clear vision and a roadmap for your Sales Operations strategy.

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Marat Delman

Senior Key Account Manager - Managing Defense & Public Sector and Energy segments in Israel at Nokia Enterprise
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By implementing these solutions and focusing on the future state, you can build a Sales Operations strategy that drives sustainable sales growth and empowers your sales team to excel.

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4 Communicate and collaborate with stakeholders

As you develop your Sales Operations strategy, you need to communicate and collaborate with stakeholders. Who are the key stakeholders that you need to engage and involve in your Sales Operations strategy? How will you communicate your vision, goals, and plans to them? How will you solicit their feedback and input? How will you align their expectations and interests? How will you foster a culture of collaboration and trust among them? By communicating and collaborating with stakeholders, you will have a strong buy-in and support for your Sales Operations strategy.

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Marat Delman

Senior Key Account Manager - Managing Defense & Public Sector and Energy segments in Israel at Nokia Enterprise
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Identify key stakeholders across sales, marketing, and leadership. Understand their goals and challenges. Tailor your Sales Ops strategy to address those needs and demonstrate its value proposition to each stakeholder group. By effectively communicating and collaborating, you can build consensus around your Sales Ops strategy, ensure stakeholder buy-in, and drive successful implementation.

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5 Execute and monitor your strategy

Once you have developed your Sales Operations strategy, you need to execute and monitor it. How will you implement your actions and initiatives? What are the roles and responsibilities of each team member? How will you track and measure your progress and performance? How will you report and communicate your results and achievements? How will you identify and resolve any issues or challenges that arise? How will you adapt and adjust your strategy as needed? By executing and monitoring your strategy, you will have a smooth execution and a continuous improvement for your Sales Operations strategy.

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6 Evaluate and optimize your strategy

Finally, you need to evaluate and optimize your strategy. How will you assess the impact and value of your Sales Operations strategy? What are the key metrics and indicators that you will use to evaluate your success? How will you collect and analyze the data and feedback? How will you celebrate and recognize your wins and learnings? How will you identify and implement the best practices and lessons learned? How will you update and refine your strategy for the future? By evaluating and optimizing your strategy, you will have a clear evaluation and a constant optimization for your Sales Operations strategy.

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7 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?

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Austin Myers

VP, Revenue @ Certificial | Advisory CRO / COO
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Build around metrics that matter and shine a light on what "Excellent" looks like for the organization. Sales Ops is responsible for systematically enabling the entire function to run better and attain "Excellence"- define it clearly, both in Quantitative metrics ($, Pipe, Forecast, etc) and Qualitative metrics (Call quality score, discovery quality score, etc) - by implementing both you can help drive the right activity behaviors, as well as the right insights to coach and develop the team to perform at a consistently high level.

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You’re developing a Sales Operations strategy. What are the most important ways to make it successful?

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

1 Define your scope and objectives

2 Assess your current state and gaps

3 Design your future state and solutions

4 Communicate and collaborate with stakeholders

5 Execute and monitor your strategy

6 Evaluate and optimize your strategy

7 Here’s what else to consider

Sales Operations

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You’re developing a Sales Operations strategy. What are the most important ways to make it successful?

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

1 Define your scope and objectives

2 Assess your current state and gaps

3 Design your future state and solutions

4 Communicate and collaborate with stakeholders

5 Execute and monitor your strategy

6 Evaluate and optimize your strategy

7 Here’s what else to consider

Sales Operations

Rate this article

Thanks for your feedback

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