Building a Revenue Operating System w/ Ben Stroup

#62: Listen as Ben Stroup, President of Velocity Strategy Solutions, discusses building a revenue operating system for your business. He offers insight into how revenue operating systems drive revenue, how they play into common scorecards, and what roles managers have in overall success. Full show notes & more: https://thesaleslift.com/62-building-a-revenue-operating-system-w-ben-stroup/ Read the Episode Cliff Notes instead below: Revenue Operating Systems (0:33) Everyone must agree on a framework, measures and dimensions, and different processes, workflows, and permission systems. Those are all core tenants that gum up the revenue process. We all have to share the same scorecard, and we all have to be moving in the same direction. Revenue operations are certainly the fundamental technical aspect of how you enable an organization to drive revenue. But sometimes, what happens is it doesn’t do a good job. Each aspect of an organization (marketing, sales, service, management, etc.) plugs into revenue operations to be able to extract the value from it. Building Revenue Operating Systems (3:58) Ben starts with a three-step process of frame focusing and growth. First, you have to understand the current reality, and the truth is everybody defines their reality based on their perspective of the situation. The second part focuses on what success is for each part, which is part of the cascading reality. Once you decide on that, you have the two pivot points: where you are and where you want to be in the current reality vs. preferred future. Spend the time to capture existing business processes, permission systems, and workflows. Building and Using Scorecards (6:51) We have to define a common scorecard by how it influences decisions and behavior at every level. So revenue, customer acquisition, MRR, ARR, growth- all of those kinds of things are lagging indicators that need accounting for. The scorecard needs to have a combination of leading indicators to give everyone clarity around what was successful that day. As a manager, you should know where your people are moving. The earlier you can intervene when a variable or variance is observed, the sooner you can resolve it before it becomes a real impediment to growth. Role of Management (13:26) The purpose of Revenue Operating Systems is to enable everyone to be more successful. For that to be true, the manager must believe that their fundamental goal is to enable other people to succeed. What often happens on the revenue side is we promote substantial individual contributors into management roles because if you’re a great revenue leader, you’re a great revenue generator. But it doesn’t often work that way. You, as a manager, can do what you knew best, which is resolving that friction. And they, as a contributor, can do what they do best, which is develop relationships and drive that revenue. Ben's Bio: Ben Stroup is Chief Growth Architect and President at Velocity Strategy Solutions, a next-generation business strategy, and management consulting firm focused on helping ambitious leaders align teams, reduce complexity, eliminate friction, and drive revenue. He is a futurist, disruptor, and data champion having served organizations from $5MM to more than $500MM in revenue for more than 18 years. Ben's written and edited dozens of books on leadership and growth and is a frequent speaker, podcaster, and guest for business and industry groups. His most recent book, Master the Pivot, was released in 2020. Ben and his wife and two boys live in the Nashville, Tennessee area.