Revenue Operations
Revenue Operations (RevOps) is the function that aligns people, process, and technology across the revenue cycle to maximise predictable growth. Where sales focuses on winning deals, RevOps focuses on the system that makes winning repeatable.
Quota Design
Quota Setting Principles
- Quota should be achievable by 60–70% of the team in a normal year. If fewer than 50% attain quota, it is set too high. If more than 80% attain, it is too low.
- Build quota bottom-up from realistic capacity, not top-down from a board target
- Account for ramp time: new reps should have ramped quotas for their first 3–6 months
Quota Components
New business quota: Net new ARR or revenue from new logos. Primary quota for most sales roles.
Expansion quota: Upsell and cross-sell from existing accounts. Typically held by account managers or CSMs.
Activity quotas: Pipeline generation (meetings booked, opportunities created). Leading indicator quotas for SDRs / BDRs.
Bottom-Up Quota Build
Rep capacity: 40 qualified discovery calls/month
× 30% conversion to opportunity: 12 opportunities/month
× 25% win rate: 3 deals/month
× £X ACV: £Y/month = £Z/quarter quota
Model with conservative assumptions. Optimistic quota models produce chronic underattainment.
Compensation Plans
Commission Structure
Standard SaaS / B2B services structure:
- Base salary: 50–60% of OTE (On-Target Earnings)
- Variable (commission): 40–50% of OTE
- OTE achieved at 100% quota attainment
Accelerators: Commission rate increases above a threshold
- 0–100% quota: 100% commission rate (standard)
- 100–120% quota: 125% commission rate
- 120%+ quota: 150% commission rate
Accelerators incentivise over-achievement and reward top performers disproportionately.
Cliff: Commission only pays if a minimum threshold is met (typically 50–70% of quota). Prevents paying commission on chronically underperforming reps.
SPIFs (Sales Performance Incentive Funds): Short-term cash bonuses for specific behaviours — closing a particular product, winning in a target vertical, hitting a monthly milestone.
Comp Plan Design Rules
- Simple enough to calculate in your head
- Pays commission on bookings (not collections) for sales; adjust clawback terms in contract
- Align incentives with company objectives: if you want multi-year deals, pay more for them
- New plan effective from day 1 of new period — never retroactive changes
Territory Design
Principles:
- Equal opportunity, not equal accounts. Territories should have similar revenue potential, not the same number of accounts.
- Specialise by: geography, industry vertical, company size (SMB / mid-market / enterprise), or product line — not all at once
Territory sizing:
- Each rep needs enough accounts to prospect actively (Tier 1+2+3 combined: 150–300 accounts)
- Too many accounts = shallow coverage; too few = pipeline ceiling
Named accounts: Strategic accounts identified by leadership. Protected from territorial dispute. Reviewed quarterly.
CRM Governance
The CRM is the system of record. Its integrity determines forecast accuracy, pipeline visibility, and management insight.
CRM Hygiene Standards
- All deals logged within 24 hours of first qualified conversation
- Contact record requires: name, title, email, phone, company
- Opportunity record requires: stage, close date, ARR, next step, next step date
- Close dates must be realistic: updated when slippage occurs, not left as aspirational
- Every opportunity needs a next step date in the future
CRM Audit Cadence
- Weekly: Deals with no activity in 14 days flagged for review
- Monthly: Opportunities with close dates in the past — close or remove
- Quarterly: Win/loss analysis run against all closed opportunities
Sales Tech Stack
Core (required):
- CRM: Salesforce, HubSpot, or Pipedrive (scaled to team size and complexity)
- Email/Calendar integration: full sync to CRM
Outbound (for proactive prospecting):
- Sequencing: Outreach, Salesloft, Apollo, or HubSpot Sequences
- Contact data: Apollo, ZoomInfo, Lusha, or LinkedIn Sales Navigator
Intelligence (for scaling teams):
- Call recording/intelligence: Gong, Chorus, or Fireflies
- Intent data: Bombora, G2 Buyer Intent
- Proposal: Proposify, PandaDoc
RevOps rule: Add tooling only when the process it supports is working manually. Automating a broken process scales the problem.
Key RevOps Metrics
| Metric | Definition | Target |
|---|
| Win rate | Closed won ÷ total closed | 20–30% (varies by segment) |
| Sales cycle length | Days from opp created to close | Benchmark by segment |
| ACV / ARR | Average contract value | Track trend, not absolute |
| Pipeline coverage | Total pipeline ÷ quota | 3–4× |
| Quota attainment | % of reps at ≥100% quota | 60–70% |
| Ramp time | Months to full productivity | 3–6 months |
| CAC | Cost to acquire a customer | < 1× ACV for healthy unit economics |
| CAC payback | Months to recover CAC | <12 months (SaaS standard) |