The Value of Sales Ops w/ Matt Bertuzzi [Episode 477]

Sales operations is often an unsung role with massive potential for the organization.

Matt Bertuzzi, who runs sales and marketing ops at The Bridge Group, and who is author of the new book, Lightning Sales Ops, joins me on this episode.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

 Lightning Sales Ops is about Salesforce’s new release, the Lightning Experience, and for sales managers, for doing things quickly for yourselves, and making Salesforce fast and easy for your reps.

Matt defines sales operations. It’s about reducing drag on the operational machine between sales teams, sales management, and executives. The task is to facilitate rep reporting and management access to data.

Sales Ops builds most of what the reps need to manage their day and territory, and see their activity level, and their position on the leaderboard.

Sales Ops concerns data entry, what tools are used, quote production, configuration tools, tracking deals the whole way through Salesforce, and how the business knows who’s on top, without executives needing to invest time in research.

Sales Ops has to understand the process components chosen by leadership, and use tools that align with each component. Matt explains the data flow of a simple example.

If sales management are spending a significant portion of their time not managing, and skilled reps are evaluating stack apps, they are performing sales ops functions. Then it would be time for a company sales ops director.

When a company has 20 or more sales reps, with repeatable business, a director of sales ops is a good fit. They would often report to a biz ops, that reports to the COO.

Any company that incorporates Salesforce has someone running admin, as de facto sales ops. Get a consultant, at minimum.

Before buying a tool, evaluate its financial footing, especially with a long-term commitment. Try a random cross-section of your team on it for six months, as a test of its effectiveness.

Some reps find their own apps to add to the stack, which makes testing less reliable, since the playing field is not level. Search for causation, not correlation.

Apps without outcome are counterproductive. SaaS companies are spending on average $500 per rep per month for the three to six tools in the stack, above the CRM license. How can you determine which is helping or dragging down?

Companies on the verge of tracking email opens are really confused by CRM and stacks. Matt’s secret tip on taking vendor calls: ask what professional services customers or solopreneurs they have. Because those are careful spenders.

The Sales Enablement Podcast with Andy Paul was formerly Accelerate! with Andy Paul.