Enterprise

Use RevOps to develop a customer-led approach to B2B sales

Comment

Conceptual image of a gold piggy bank and stethoscope isolated on pure white, selective focus on the piggy bank
Image Credits: malamus-UK (opens in a new window) / Getty Images

Erol Toker

Contributor

Erol Toker is the CEO and founder of Truly.co, an AI-driven sales platform that helps companies get perfect CRM data without their reps having to do a thing.

More posts from Erol Toker

The media is abuzz with articles telling us how to improve B2B sales, but at the same time, we also see headlines like “The end of B2B sales.” Who’s right?

What’s clear is that there’s no more room for traditional B2B sales. In a recent survey, 43% of B2B buyers said they would prefer a buying experience that had no reps involved at all. Yet, sales reps are stubbornly advised to “present your product better,” “ask open ended questions,” and “sweeten the deal.”

You’re trying to make the customer fit your product’s mold rather than making your business and services fit the customer’s mold. In a world with countless competitors, the customer no longer needs to adhere to your process. The tables have turned, and sales teams are realizing they need to get the customer exactly what they need, when they need it and in a way that fits their buying process.

In this sense, B2B is actually becoming a lot more like B2C. We can’t continue using cookie-cutter solutions that hardly change whether you’re selling enterprise software for health tech or retail solutions. Each business should figure out what is best for their clients and trust the direction that leads them in.

For a financial services company, the solution might be putting all their products on a virtual marketplace and minimizing customer contact with reps. For a retail solution, it may be getting on the phone with a shop owner and customizing the tools to their particular model.

So what is the common factor here? Optimizing your unique path to better connect with customers requires having a cross-discipline team that’s focused solely on that objective and sees the client as their guiding star. We call that RevOps.

How tunnel vision in sales ops left the client behind

Back around 2010, the thinking was, generally: “Let’s bring tech into our business and make it more efficient.” The problem was, many companies used that tech to improve their existing processes, rather than craft better ones.

Image Credits: Truly.co

That looked something like this: If a sales team’s data showed that only 1% of people answered their calls, the response was to bring in robocallers to ramp up numbers, which came at a cost to the customer. A better alternative would be to understand why people aren’t picking up the phone in the first place. Do those potential clients prefer being reached via their work email? Should you be trying to educate them on existing solutions so that they come to you? Basically, can you reach people in a way that works for them?

Many companies made made the mistake of integrating technology in a way that would help the sales rep, rather than the customer.

That’s why after 2018, we saw those weak foundations collapse. Tech companies like Zuora, Cloudera and New Relic faded into the background while more customer-centric companies — think Twilio, Zoom, Datadog — lurched into the limelight.

These two groups of companies had identical sales tech stacks but a very different approach to using them. In the first group were “sales-led” companies that focused on using sales tech for ruthless optimization: improving their sales process and getting numbers up: “sales ops.” The second group used tech to improve the customer experience — that’s what RevOps does.

Customers no longer want to deal with the old framework, and that’s why they’re becoming increasingly alienated by B2B sales reps. And investors are no longer interested in its shortsighted results.

B2B should better emulate B2C

Putting the customer first was always the domain of B2C. But why? The person on the other end of a B2B call is a human, too. When we were forced to go digital during the pandemic, B2C was more ready to meet customer needs, while B2B had to play catch-up when it came to digitizing their process for clients.

RevOps puts the customer at the heart of its process by leveraging technology to facilitate the journey of the customer first and foremost, which will in turn make employees’ lives far easier.

For example, a RevOps team will seek to understand where a prospective customer needs to be headed on their journey, and tailor their solution to fit. That’s why it requires collaboration between different elements of the business, from marketing and sales to product development. It’s a similar concept to product-led growth, rather than pushing to sell a static product that is less useful to the market.

Everything becomes more streamlined with the customer’s needs for customized solutions, education, integrated channels and fewer barriers to the finish line. That requires bringing roles that were traditionally siloed into the same team.

How to do RevOps the right way

In its ideal form, RevOps is agile. It moves flexibly between: capturing and analyzing data on customer engagement (too often that involves reps manually updating the CRM); calculating funnel statistics (such as conversion rate at each stage of the funnel); and automating any repetitive tasks to reduce waste and improve quality. Agile RevOps jumps back and forth between stages whenever necessary.

Automation is key. Many of our clients are shocked to hear just how much of the sales process can be automated and how accurate it all can be. More importantly, automating time-draining tasks frees up employees to assess customer needs, and if needed, interact directly with them.

For agile RevOps to work, you need to treat (and fund) it like an engineering function. Empower the team to source the latest tech themselves. Give them a horizon that’s longer than one year. And don’t have them report to sales, marketing or customer success.

Ideally, RevOps will merge all of those functions rather than add another layer to the company. Their natural coordinator would be the enablement team, and its goals will look a lot like product goals: customer impact and metrics, not internal metrics.

To start heading in the right direction, ask yourself this: Who, and what, are you “enabling” as we progress into 2022? The rep or the customer?

More TechCrunch

Avendus, the top investment bank for venture deals in India, confirmed on Wednesday it is looking to raise up to $350 million for its new private equity fund.  The new…

Avendus, India’s top venture advisor, confirms it’s looking to raise a $350 million fund

China has closed a third state-backed investment fund to bolster its semiconductor industry and reduce reliance on other nations, both for using and for manufacturing wafers — prioritizing what is…

China’s $47B semiconductor fund puts chip sovereignty front and center

Apple’s annual list of what it considers the best and most innovative software available on its platform is turning its attention to the little guy.

Apple’s Design Awards nominees highlight indies and startups, largely ignore AI (except for Arc)

The spyware maker’s founder, Bryan Fleming, said pcTattletale is “out of business and completely done,” following a data breach.

Spyware maker pcTattletale says it’s ‘out of business’ and shuts down after data breach

AI models are always surprising us, not just in what they can do, but what they can’t, and why. An interesting new behavior is both superficial and revealing about these…

AI models have favorite numbers, because they think they’re people

On Friday, Pal Kovacs was listening to the long-awaited new album from rock and metal giants Bring Me The Horizon when he noticed a strange sound at the end of…

Rock band’s hidden hacking-themed website gets hacked

Jan Leike, a leading AI researcher who earlier this month resigned from OpenAI before publicly criticizing the company’s approach to AI safety, has joined OpenAI rival Anthropic to lead a…

Anthropic hires former OpenAI safety lead to head up new team

Welcome to TechCrunch Fintech! This week, we’re looking at the long-term implications of Synapse’s bankruptcy on the fintech sector, Majority’s impressive ARR milestone, and more!  To get a roundup of…

The demise of BaaS fintech Synapse could derail the funding prospects for other startups in the space

YouTube’s free Playables don’t directly challenge the app store model or break Apple’s rules. However, they do compete with the App Store’s free games.

YouTube’s free games catalog ‘Playables’ rolls out to all users

Featured Article

A comprehensive list of 2024 tech layoffs

The tech layoff wave is still going strong in 2024. Following significant workforce reductions in 2022 and 2023, this year has already seen 60,000 job cuts across 254 companies, according to independent layoffs tracker Layoffs.fyi. Companies like Tesla, Amazon, Google, TikTok, Snap and Microsoft have conducted sizable layoffs in the first months of 2024. Smaller-sized…

13 hours ago
A comprehensive list of 2024 tech layoffs

OpenAI has formed a new committee to oversee “critical” safety and security decisions related to the company’s projects and operations. But, in a move that’s sure to raise the ire…

OpenAI’s new safety committee is made up of all insiders

Time is running out for tech enthusiasts and entrepreneurs to secure their early-bird tickets for TechCrunch Disrupt 2024! With only four days left until the May 31 deadline, now is…

Early bird gets the savings — 4 days left for Disrupt sale

AI may not be up to the task of replacing Google Search just yet, but it can be useful in more specific contexts — including handling the drudgery that comes…

Skej’s AI meeting scheduling assistant works like adding an EA to your email

Faircado has built a browser extension that suggests pre-owned alternatives for ecommerce listings.

Faircado raises $3M to nudge people to buy pre-owned goods

Tumblr, the blogging site acquired twice, is launching its “Communities” feature in open beta, the Tumblr Labs division has announced. The feature offers a dedicated space for users to connect…

Tumblr launches its semi-private Communities in open beta

Remittances from workers in the U.S. to their families and friends in Latin America amounted to $155 billion in 2023. With such a huge opportunity, banks, money transfer companies, retailers,…

Félix Pago raises $15.5 million to help Latino workers send money home via WhatsApp

Google said today it’s adding new AI-powered features such as a writing assistant and a wallpaper creator and providing easy access to Gemini chatbot to its Chromebook Plus line of…

Google adds AI-powered features to Chromebook

The dynamic duo behind the Grammy Award–winning music group the Chainsmokers, Alex Pall and Drew Taggart, are set to bring their entrepreneurial expertise to TechCrunch Disrupt 2024. Known for their…

The Chainsmokers light up Disrupt 2024

The deal will give LumApps a big nest egg to make acquisitions and scale its business.

LumApps, the French ‘intranet super app,’ sells majority stake to Bridgepoint in a $650M deal

Featured Article

More neobanks are becoming mobile networks — and Nubank wants a piece of the action

Nubank is taking its first tentative steps into the mobile network realm, as the NYSE-traded Brazilian neobank rolls out an eSIM (embedded SIM) service for travelers. The service will give customers access to 10GB of free roaming internet in more than 40 countries without having to switch out their own existing physical SIM card or…

21 hours ago
More neobanks are becoming mobile networks — and Nubank wants a piece of the action

Infra.Market, an Indian startup that helps construction and real estate firms procure materials, has raised $50M from MARS Unicorn Fund.

MARS doubles down on India’s Infra.Market with new $50M investment

Small operations can lose customers by not offering financing, something the Berlin-based startup wants to change.

Cloover wants to speed solar adoption by helping installers finance new sales

India’s Adani Group is in discussions to venture into digital payments and e-commerce, according to a report.

Adani looks to battle Reliance, Walmart in India’s e-commerce, payments race, report says

Ledger, a French startup mostly known for its secure crypto hardware wallets, has started shipping new wallets nearly 18 months after announcing the latest Ledger Stax devices. The updated wallet…

Ledger starts shipping its high-end hardware crypto wallet

A data protection taskforce that’s spent over a year considering how the European Union’s data protection rulebook applies to OpenAI’s viral chatbot, ChatGPT, reported preliminary conclusions Friday. The top-line takeaway…

EU’s ChatGPT taskforce offers first look at detangling the AI chatbot’s privacy compliance

Here’s a shoutout to LatAm early-stage startup founders! We want YOU to apply for the Startup Battlefield 200 at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024. But you’d better hurry — time is running…

LatAm startups: Apply to Startup Battlefield 200

The countdown to early-bird savings for TechCrunch Disrupt, taking place October 28–30 in San Francisco, continues. You have just five days left to save up to $800 on the price…

5 days left to get your early-bird Disrupt passes

Venture investment into Spanish startups also held up quite well, with €2.2 billion raised across some 850 funding rounds.

Spanish startups reached €100 billion in aggregate value last year

Featured Article

Onyx Motorbikes was in trouble — and then its 37-year-old owner died

James Khatiblou, the owner and CEO of Onyx Motorbikes, was watching his e-bike startup fall apart.  Onyx was being evicted from its warehouse in El Segundo, near Los Angeles. The company’s unpaid bills were stacking up. Its chief operating officer had abruptly resigned. A shipment of around 100 CTY2 dirt bikes from Chinese supplier Suzhou…

2 days ago
Onyx Motorbikes was in trouble — and then its 37-year-old owner died

Featured Article

Iyo thinks its GenAI earbuds can succeed where Humane and Rabbit stumbled

Iyo represents a third form factor in the push to deliver standalone generative AI devices: Bluetooth earbuds.

2 days ago
Iyo thinks its GenAI earbuds can succeed where Humane and Rabbit stumbled