Managing (not just the people kind) is core to Success in Revenue Operations

We had the pleasure of meeting Mariya Post right after her college graduation, where she embarked on her path as an Account Manager in the localization industry. Her star quality was evident from the start, and we've been tracking her inspiring career journey ever since. Later, we placed Mariya in an Account Director role at eMarketer (now Insider Intelligence), which became the launching pad for her leadership roles. 

With a strong foundation in Sales and Account Management spanning eight years, Mariya's pivot into Sales Operations and then Business Operations aligned with her passion for process refinement, scalability, and innovation. Her sales background uniquely positions her to support revenue teams, armed with a comprehensive business perspective and a sharp focus on the bottom line. Today, Mariya is the Head of Business Operations at PebblePost, the leading marketing technology platform for the Programmatic Direct Mail channel. We asked her to share some of her thoughts on what makes someone a successful Revenue Operations leader, a role that is increasingly in demand. 

When you think about Revenue Operations, what probably comes to mind are the systems that you need to streamline, the processes that need to be developed to drive efficiencies or the data that needs to be crunched to drive insights.

While those are all key components of Revenue Operations, there is an even more important driving force that is a common thread across all of these. I’m speaking about management - and not just the people kind. At the heart of this lies communication and relationships.

A Revenue Operations (RevOps) professional can’t just operate in a silo if you want to be effective, drive real impact and launch successful initiatives.

I find it’s quite comparable to my personal life as I’m currently planning for a move. There are all the logistics - from movers, to packing, to figuring out timelines, finding a new home and even minor things like ensuring internet access is set up correctly in the new place. And I’ve got a number of “stakeholders”, i.e. family members. If all those pieces don’t come together, we may be camping out in a tent for a few weeks!

In the Revenue Operations roles I’ve held, I’ve had to continue to gain and develop not just analytical expertise, but also essential management skills. You could group these into a few buckets:

Managing Projects

Starting with an obvious one, we all know that project management is a key part of seamlessly getting an initiative off the ground. RevOps is typically involved in complex, cross-functional initiatives, staying abreast of all the moving pieces and ensuring things are continuing to move forward.

Managing Change

Often overlooked, the Revenue Operations leader plays a critical management role when something new is rolled out (e.g. leading with the why, driving adoption, developing a clear plan to introduce new concepts and planning for iteration as new information and/or challenges arise). Failure to engage on this front can result in roll-outs not succeeding or taking a long time to yield the intended results.

Managing Up

If your company has a RevOps team, it’s already clear that the organization values the function. Yet, it’s the responsibility of the RevOps leader to continue to surface the impact, as well as identify the most needle-moving work. That means effectively managing up and consistently aligning with organizational goals.

Managing Stakeholders

This often involves that skill around Managing Up to the leadership team, something that’s challenging but also an important reminder of the importance of your work. It’s theRevOp leader’s responsibility to ensure all stakeholders are on the same page and aligned on the goals.

Managing Expectations

While RevOps is a key player on the organizational team, the function is often operating behind the scenes and in turn, not as well understood. This means that what may sound ‘simple’ or ‘easy,’ to say a Sales or Marketing leader, may actually be a complicated and time-intensive ask. For this reason, it is critical to manage expectations and to do so upfront (e.g. what’s required to complete the task, timeline to complete it, dependencies).

Managing Buy-In

Synonymous with alignment, this has some heavy overlap with managing up and managing stakeholders. As an initiative, especially a large one, progresses, other factors (especially ones outside it) can evolve. This means that it is important to ensure that everyone is bought in not only at the onset of the project (before any work is done), but also throughout - either as things change or at major milestones.

Managing People

As RevOps continues to grow and become a more critical function within the business, the team will likely grow. This means that not only should a RevOps professional manage and develop their people, but they need to teach them many of the above skills to drive their success.

At the heart of all of this lie two key factors – communication and relationships. Effective communication ensures that ideas are understood, expectations are clear, and everyone is on the same page. Strong relationships foster trust, collaboration, and a shared sense of purpose. Mastering these key management skills enables RevOps professionals to navigate challenges, drive meaningful results and, ultimately, contribute to the success of the organization.