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Inside RevOps: Rethinking RevOps for the Modern Buyer

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This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Jamie Miller: So, Rosalyn, you've been in the industry for several years. We’ve been seeing that the modern buying process has really put the buyer in the driver’s seat much more than it ever has before. This has impacted RevOps, of course. How have you seen this shift change how we work with our sales teams?

Rosalyn Santa Elena: Yeah, definitely. RevOps is front and center right now. I think on the technology side for all of go-to-market, selling into the RevOps persona is probably top of mind for so many B2B SaaS companies. As RevOps leaders, we need to be informed about what’s happening in the industry, and we’re now in control of a lot of buying decisions.

A lot of times, RevOps leaders – I'm sure you're similar – own the budget. We need to manage the tech stack and make sure it’s working for our teams. We’re now the buyer for a lot of different products. I’m sure you’ve probably received a not-so-great email from a vendor, and you look at it and think, “Oh, they need better RevOps.” You immediately start thinking about how they can improve data enrichment or personalize their messaging. Or sometimes you see a great email – I've done this many times – where I’ll share it with my sales team and say, “Hey, take a look at this. It was personal, and it worked for me.”

You’ve probably seen those statistics that once a buyer actually engages a selling team, they’ve already made a decision, right? There’s just so much information available. We can go to different websites for demos, take a PLG approach by trying a product before contacting anyone, or ask our networks and peers in the community, “I have this challenge – what’s everybody using?” Have you done that too?

Jamie Miller: Oh, absolutely. The figure I’ve heard is that 70% of buying is done before you even contact a salesperson. There are so many tools now and networks of RevOps folks where you can ask what they're using. I have my own Slack channels, and there’s G2 for those crowdsourced reviews. By the time you talk to a salesperson, you probably know as much about the product as they do.

That’s changed how we support our sales and CS teams. We need to give them insight into how buyers are interacting and engaging with us – whether on our website or somewhere else. We want to push those signals into a workflow so our teams know when and where the buyers are looking at us, what they’re looking at, and if they’re also researching a competitor. It’s more nuanced now, but that’s how we’ve shifted our approach.

Rosalyn Santa Elena: Yeah, it’s interesting. I used to work at a company that sold into the RevOps persona, and I did more demos than ever before. I’d jump on calls with the sales rep, then speak with prospects to show them how we used our product internally as “customer zero.”

I also sat with the team to help them understand what people care about right now – how they want to be engaged, what resonates with them – and helped craft their messaging as well.

Jamie Miller: Yeah. I’d say RevOps as a group is probably more skeptical than your average buyer, so it’s often a matter of, “Show me how you're really using it.” That can be trickier sometimes.

Rosalyn Santa Elena: For sure. Another thing I’ve noticed from a buying perspective is the technology out there that helps you see where your buyers actually are. Meeting us where we want to be met is so important. We feel that way as buyers, then we turn around and tell our teams, “Hey, you’ve got to engage here.”

One of the things you mentioned about G2 and communities is crucial for sales and marketing teams to understand. They need to be present in those spaces, listening to what's being discussed – not necessarily to pitch but to get a real-time sense of what people are saying.

Jamie Miller: Absolutely. It’s no longer just a single funnel – it’s everywhere. You’ve got to be everywhere, eyes and ears everywhere.