It can be challenging for sales teams to predict what processes and solutions they’ll need to meet future customer demands and grow revenue in an ever-shifting marketplace. Building a sales operations team helps businesses gain the data analysis and insights required to make these forecasts, develop best practices, and put strategic plans into action.
In this guide, we’ll cover what sales operations is, the key benefits, and the right roles and team structure to build for better business outcomes. We’ll also discuss how to develop an effective sales operations planning strategy and measure its success.
What are sales operations?
Benefits of sales operations
1. Boost sales efficiency
Sales operations teams use data analysis to forecast future revenue growth, report on sales team performance, and develop sales rep compensation plans. To boost sales efficiency, they also source and manage technology systems and solutions, such as a customer relationship management (CRM) platform, to streamline the sales prospecting and lead generation process.
2. Improve team collaboration
Sales operations teams also identify best practices for hiring and onboarding new employees. Additionally, they develop processes to improve sales team collaboration and knowledge or document sharing (e.g., workflow docs or sales presentations) to set the business up for long-term growth and success.
3. Enhance customer support and engagement
Finally, these teams can identify bottlenecks or gaps in customer support and provide operational solutions to ensure better client relationships and satisfaction. These solutions include justifying budgets for new hires, adopting and owning new technologies and communications platforms, and developing training and certification programs.
How to implement a sales operations strategy
1. Assess the current business state
Start by working with marketing and finance to assess the current product-market fit and potential using existing business strategies, pricing models, sales revenue targets, and competitive analysis as data points.
Be sure to work with the most accurate and timely data and insights to get a clear picture of any challenges or bottlenecks that are slowing sales growth potential or churning customers due to lack of support or services, gaps in sales training, or product limitations.
2. Establish goals and objectives
Next, create and use revenue projections and forecasting models to establish long-term goals and sales team objectives to help account reps meet targets faster and more efficiently.
Some sales ops goals and strategic objectives can be to:
Establish new sales team and customer support processes and workflows
Host quarterly and annual sales planning sessions to stay aligned and on target
Present weekly sales forecasting, insights, and quota reports to account teams and reps
Build a technology stack to streamline and automate the sales process
Develop better sales team communication and knowledge-sharing strategies
Invest in new sales team training and certification opportunities
Create new hire and new customer onboarding plans and best practices
Re-align account team responsibilities and territories based on shifting market needs
Reassess sales comp plans and set higher (or more accurate) sales quotas and targets
3. Find appropriate software
LinkedIn Sales Navigator leverages AI-powered insights to transform sales operations.
Its seamless CRM integration provides reliable, real-time data to enhance sales planning, forecasting, and lead generation. With AI-driven lead recommendations, account insights, and alerts on key changes like decision-maker updates, Sales Navigator empowers your team to focus on the most impactful opportunities.
These features, combined with CRM sync and advanced search capabilities, ensure your team stays ahead at every stage of the sales process.
4. Train sales employees
Sales ops teams must regularly train employees on their company’s latest product acquisitions, updates or features, partner programs, sales tools, and customer support processes or workflows.
Try to schedule training sessions weekly, monthly, or quarterly and make it mandatory to attend. Businesses can also record these sessions to ensure busy sales reps can access and attend these sessions on demand.
Many technology businesses even create certification programs to make sure their sales reps maintain a high level of product knowledge to serve customers better.
5. Measure success with key sales ops metrics
Finally, sales operations teams must hold themselves and sales teams accountable by establishing key metrics to measure success. These sales ops metrics might include key performance indicators (KPIs), such as regularly analyzing and reporting on:
Average monthly, quarterly, and annual revenue: Per account team or rep, depending on how teams are organized. Divide the total revenue by the total number of sales reps for a set period.
Average win rates: The percentage of closed and won deals versus the total opportunities in the sales pipeline over a certain period.
Average deal size: Average size (in dollar amounts) of current deals being managed by reps over a certain period.
Average sales cycle length: The average amount of time it takes to close and manage deals (end-to-end) over a set period.
Weighted pipeline value: Total value of potential deals in the pipeline in any given period, which sales operations can use to forecast future sales revenue.
Teams can calculate these metrics via Excel reports and/or create a dashboard in their CRM to monitor and report on sales KPIs regularly. It’s important to incentivize account teams to keep their sales data up-to-date in the CRM. Sales operations teams can assist by meeting with reps to do this as a team regularly.
How to overcome sales operations challenges
1. Complex software
New sales operations teams may inherit the responsibilities for old, complex software systems. Working with sales reps, they can identify challenges with existing tools and research new solutions.
For example, suppose sales reps find it hard to get a warm introduction to new leads and prospects. In that case, they can find social selling tools like LinkedIn Sales Navigator to integrate with their existing CRM to make the lead prospecting, planning, and outreach process less frustrating.
2. High costs
When teams identify new software solutions to streamline and accelerate sales workflows, they must secure buy-in and budgets from finance and the C-suite.
To win them over, sales operations leaders can highlight the opportunities for better workflows, knowledge-sharing, and sales team collaboration. These efforts will inevitably help businesses close more deals and better support their prospects and customers.
3. Limited resources
In a smaller company, sales operations teams must do more with fewer team members and limited budgets. Junior and mid-level sales operations employees can take on many of the roles and responsibilities outlined earlier.
However, expectations must be set around how much teams can accomplish in a set period while investing in the most valuable short-term solutions with the most significant long-term impact.
For example, investing in a robust CRM solution that integrates with social selling tools should be a high priority to help sales reps quickly generate, track, and close more deals with highly targeted leads. Team collaboration and knowledge-sharing tools can be an investment later, as can sales training and new hire onboarding strategies.
4. Confusing or outdated sales territories
Re-organizing sales teams to maximize opportunities can be a challenge when reps fight over who gets to work with specific clients and territories (e.g., geographic proximity to a client).
Many organizations now define sales territories according to social proximity, meaning they assign salespeople to prospects based on how well they are connected or how closely their social networks are aligned.
LinkedIn Sales Navigator helps businesses filter by location allowing local reps to connect with local accounts . It also lets sales teams view connections and degrees of familiarity for any professional contact. Finally, teams can use LinkedIn Sales Navigator to easily plan and manage relationships with new prospects.
Sales Operations Vice President or Director
In a large organization, the team is led by a Sales Operations Vice President or Director who is responsible for executive team leadership. They typically report to the Sales Vice President or the CEO, and own or oversee all sales operations team responsibilities, including:
Presenting sales forecasts and growth strategies to other company executives
Recommending sales team productivity and product-market fit strategies and plans
Sales team performance monitoring and compensation plan development
Designing sales territories and processes
Sales training architecture, implementation, and employee onboarding
Sales team technology and automation solution sourcing and implementation
Supporting and/or approving client deals and bids (e.g., for RFP responses)
Approving sales operations team and employee growth plans
Sales Operations Team Manager or Director
Team Managers report to the Vice President of Sales Operations. Their responsibilities include:
Managing the day-to-day work and key performance indicators (KPIs) for sales operations specialists, analysts, and representatives
Developing sales team growth and hiring strategies or plans
Preparing and presenting all sales forecasts, reports, insights, and strategies created by their team to the Sales Operations Vice President
Input into company sales growth strategies
CRM and technology solution implementation and management
Overseeing sales performance monitoring and compensation calculations
Sales Operations Specialist or Analyst
This role is for mid-level sales operations employees, who usually have three to five years of relevant work experience. They will work with team managers and junior employees (e.g., specialists or coordinators) to complete all the work for the Sales Operations Vice President. They’ll also assist sales reps in streamlining their efforts and meeting sales targets. This work includes:
Sales data modeling, forecasting, and insights using Excel, CRM, and business intelligence software
Researching and recommending sales technology solutions and best practices
Calculating and monitoring sales performance and compensation plans
Supporting sales proposal development and CRM data management
Providing input into sales processes, training, and certification plans
Several analysts may report to a more senior analyst within a large organization, who would then report to a Senior Manager or Director of Sales Operations.
Sales Operations Representative or Coordinator
In this entry-level position, most representatives or coordinators have less than two years of relevant job experience. Their roles are to:
Support analysts and senior analysts to complete data reports and insights to share with senior-level sales operations team staff
Support sales reps and analysts with proposal development and updating CRM data
Coordinate and complete sales operations team administrative tasks
In smaller organizations, some of these roles and responsibilities will be combined to account for fewer team employees.
Sales operations org chart example
Below is a sample org chart that illustrates the team and reporting structure of each of the sales ops roles described above.
Use the right tools to build a winning sales operations team
