Learn about Sales Ops and how to implement it in your business

If you still don’t know what Sales Ops is, you might be missing an opportunity to make your business even more complete and optimized!

When structuring an enterprise, it’s important to think about the key areas that work on the front line and generate results, such as the sales department.

However, many entrepreneurs don’t pay enough attention to the teams that work behind the scenes, providing support and direction to the operations.

This might compromise the performance of those departments that contribute directly to income, preventing them from reaching their full potential.

For this reason, before starting your business, it’s worth knowing some of the departments responsible for driving your processes in an organized and professional manner, such as Sales Ops.

To help you, we’ve prepared a full guide on what this department is, its importance to a business, and how you can structure your team accordingly.

What is Sales Ops?

Sales Ops is short for Sales Operations, the team responsible for guiding and assisting the sales department.

The sales operations experts are in charge of aligning the sales team with business strategies, as well as tracking the results achieved, and working on new approaches to increase the team’s productivity.

Although the position is still little known, Sales Ops is already present in numerous companies, especially B2B companies.

Furthermore, depending on the size of the company and its sales demand, the Sales Operations department may consist of a single professional or an entire team.

What is the main goal of a Sales Ops team?

Although Sales Ops doesn’t act directly on the frontline of sales, its main goal is to optimize business results and increase salespeople’s productivity.

To do so, these professionals seek to achieve several goals aimed at optimizing business processes, from the initial steps to closing the sale.

In addition, the sales operation department also aims at making the sales steps more productive and streamlined.

During the sale, the salesperson must be prepared to close the deal, have all the information about the customer, and access the best strategies for each situation. These orientations and directions are the responsibility of Sales Ops.

Basically, the department must always seek the best solutions for the company, support the sales team, and propose assertive campaigns to increase productivity and, consequently, profits.

How is a Sales Operations team structured?

At first, a Sales Ops team must be structured based on the business’ needs and demands.

Thus, it’s important to analyze the business’ different gaps, which will be filled with a suitable team of specialists.

Next, the team must look for qualified professionals who fit the profile determined by the entrepreneur.

As standard, many entrepreneurs compose their team with a technical specialist, a specialist with market knowledge, such as marketing, and a relationship specialist, to properly guide the salespeople.

In addition, it’s important that the business provide the proper structure in order for the Sales Operations to work. 

Preferably, it’s recommended to reserve a place such as the BackOffice, with all the necessary equipment for data collection and analysis.

Why do I need a Sales Ops team?

Even after learning more about the Sales Ops department, certain entrepreneurs still have doubts about implementing this system in their business.

Therefore, we have listed some of the main reasons why you should create a Sales Operations team and invest in a sales team:

It allows you to gather information in a strategic manner

One of the duties of Sales Ops is to gather and analyze information in order to develop the most assertive strategies for the business.

In many cases, the other professionals are busy with their own duties, and cannot contribute meaningful data to the business.

However, by setting up a team solely for this purpose, it’s possible to gather this data in a more meaningful manner, and to analyze it with greater dedication.

It optimizes the sales department’s time

Having a Sales Ops team in your business can optimize your sales department’s time and production.

This is because salespeople won’t waste time searching for information about customers or devising strategies to approach them, for example.

All these guidelines will be provided by the sales operation, which will streamline the process and make it more efficient.

It improves existing processes

In addition to creating new strategies, Sales Ops is also responsible for improving existing processes.

This is possible by means of tests, analyzing results, and finally, proposing solutions that make operations even more optimized, without having to replace them completely.

It increases cash flow predictability

Sales Ops also allows the business to have concrete predictability in terms of cash flow.

This is because these plans are made based on actual data and results proposed by the operations team.

By working on sales dynamics and developing assertive strategies, Sales Ops identifies processes that need improvement, and thus, generates positive gains.

Thus, the business can expand its cash predictions and track these variations more efficiently.

It facilitates the business’ scalability

Your business’ scalability is a determining factor for the measuring of your results and profits.

Plus, with a Sales Ops, you have a better chance of increasing this factor in a positive manner, adding more value to your business, without increasing your costs.

With the broad and strategic view that Sales Operations provides, it will be possible to boost sales, win over new customers, and optimize processes, while maintaining scalable growth.

It helps to seize opportunities

Finally, developing a Sales Ops department can help you and your sales team make better use of the business opportunities that arise.

A team of specialists finds the best gaps, the areas with the greatest potential, and the least explored territories.

Thus, your business will be able to expand its growth, conquer more space in the market, and attract more clients, taking advantage of the chances that appear at the right moment.

How do I structure a Sales Operations team?

After learning more about the duties and the importance of a Sales Ops, it’s time to structure your team.

To do so, there are a few basic steps to help you in this process. Check them out:

1. Have a specialized team

As we mentioned earlier, having a specialized team is key to achieving all of the business’ goals.

Therefore, look for qualified professionals who have experience in this area, and that can contribute positively to operations.

2. Define the metrics

It’s important that Sales Operations be in line with the rest of the business. And, to do so, it’s advisable that you define the key metrics that will guide the team in its services.

For example, the following are a few initial metrics that can help in this direction:

• The business’ goals
• Sales strategies
• Buyer personas
• KPIs
• Sales pitches
• And others!

In addition to using these metrics to align processes, Sales Ops will also use them to monitor results and propose new effective campaigns.

3. Adopt practices in common

Without a standard, Sales Ops won’t be able to identify which points need to be worked on within the team, or analyze the data strategically, for example.

Thus, it’s essential to adopt practices in common that allow for comparisons and reporting.

This will help the team to check the metrics and work assertively to optimize the business.

4. Automate processes

In Sales Ops, process automation is essential to make the entire team’s work easier.

Therefore, it’s important to adopt as many tools as possible. This way, it will be possible to:

• Eliminate complex steps
• Facilitate data analysis
• Optimize time
• And, increase the entire business’ productivity

5. Track your metrics

Structuring a Sales Operations team also means keeping track of the defined metrics and standards.

This periodic management helps make a concrete analysis of the long-term results, and allows the team to operate more efficiently.

6. Make adjustments and run tests

Finally, in order to structure a good Sales Ops team in your business, it’s essential to perform tests and adjust the operation.

In this manner, the specialists can identify the processes that work, or don’t work, and find assertive solutions for the business’ operations.

It’s only by experimenting that the team will be able to find the best methods for the business and thus, actually increase productivity.

Is implementing Sales Ops worth it?

Although the number of companies that are adopting this job position is still small, Sales Ops might be a key department for optimizing your operations.

This team is focused on data analysis and the development of strategies to help the sales department obtain productive results.

With this, it also influences other departments in a positive way, allowing the scalability of the business, and a more assertive performance in negotiations.

In short, it’s worth learning more about everything that Sales Ops can offer your business. Consider implementing this department as soon as possible, and have an efficient structure for your activities, besides having an interesting unique feature for your sales process.

To further optimize the work of the Sales Ops team, it’s critical that you define the main indicators. To learn more about this topic, visit our article and learn all about sales metrics.