September 29th marked the end of my decade-long journey at SalesScreen which I've decided to leave to start on a new project.
I have joined the company as part of the founding team back in April 2013 and helped to grow it from a small bootstrapped consultancy shop to a funded SaaS product company with 40+ employees and over $7M+ ARR. This has been hands down, the most rewarding experience in my professional life to date. In an attempt to process what closing such a rich chapter means, I have decided to put in writing some of the learnings this adventure taught me. Following Part 1: Hiring and Part 2: Tech Stack, I’ll focus on Operations in this third article.
These opinions are my own.
Keep Revenue Operations outside of Revenue
I have joined the company as part of the founding team back in April 2013 and helped to grow it from a small bootstrapped consultancy shop to a funded SaaS product company with 40+ employees and over $7M+ ARR. This has been hands down, the most rewarding experience in my professional life to date. In an attempt to process what closing such a rich chapter means, I have decided to put in writing some of the learnings this adventure taught me. Following Part 1: Hiring and Part 2: Tech Stack, I’ll focus on Operations in this third article.
These opinions are my own.
Keep Revenue Operations outside of Revenue
Revenue Operations is often a function under the purview of the CRO. At SalesScreen, we deliberately kept that function within the Operations department with great success. Here are some of the reasons that led us to this decision:
- Revenue Operations should be fundamentally analytical and its subject (Revenue) is not some niche topic that only affects the revenue team. It is the blood of the company and, as such, has massive implications for the business as a whole. Having this function within Operations (led by the CFO at SalesScreen) was only natural
- Revenue Operations should be an independent & objective party. Having that person report to the CRO can lead to situations where surfacing negative insights reflecting poorly on the revenue management team could lead to silencing or unfavourable evaluation by its direct manager. We wanted to prevent these situations from ever arising.
- Revenue Operations should be owning key components of our tech stack. These components (e.g. CRM, …) are part of a larger ecosystem where, in concert with one another, they form mission critical data sources (used e.g. for reporting purposes by the CFO to the board or to investors). Revenue teams aren’t intrinsically technical and tend to make change requests for short term time gain (”give me a button there so I can save one click”). Succumbing repeatedly to these demands without understanding their impact on the big picture can quickly trickle down into massive data gaps that may require months to revert.
Consider doing without bonus & commissions
Even if some companies are moving away from it, commission models for revenue teams remain the norm. One major drawback in my opinion is that they can quickly lead to “If isn’t commissioned, I ain’t doing it” attitude. They are also extremely sensitive subjects that often are an underlying reason for frustration and attrition. Last but not least, they can quick become a massive operational time drain though certain platforms like Palette has helped SalesScreen’s operation team tremendously.
Bonus on the other hand can be a nice reward to stretch after but needs to be available to anyone in your business which requires both budget and transparency on the evaluation process.
All this being said, I want to believe there is a world where financial rewards aren’t necessary to get individuals motivated to do their job and even go beyond. There are so many levers to do that:
- Crafting an enticing company vision that goes beyond financial growth for people to rally behind.
- Giving recognition and praise when individuals are performing.
- Providing a clear path to career advancement
- Allowing for initiative, risk taking and yes, mistakes too, insofar as they are learnt from and not repeated
- Building a culture of accountability where not giving your very best effort is seen as a collective let down.
Food for thoughts.
Only start local entities as the last resort
With the emergence of Employer of Record services like Deel or Remote, opening subsidiary companies abroad is not longer a requirement to hire talents globally. While there are plenty of other justifications to start foreign entities, refraining from doing so for as long as you can is a huge operational benefit. I am seen first hand how multiple organizations can make any financial, people or legal process exponentially more complex to manage.
Overdocument
One of SalesScreen's early board member used to ask a recurring question: “How would the company move forward if you were to be hit by a bus?”. As grim as it may sound, it is a scenario you need to contemplate and account for. The best starting point is to document as close to everything as you can: your processes, your best practices & FAQs, your product (both internally and externally), your meetings, your projects and decisions, … One pitfall we fell into repeatedly was to document something and think the work was over. It never is: as you business grows and evolves so should your documentation. My three recommendations would be:
- Document in writing, only use pictures and videos as supporting content: updating text is a whole lot easier than a picture or video.
- Spread documentation’s ownership wide: there is no better way to master something than trying to explain it to someone else.
- Engrain documentation as an integral part of everything you do
You’ll soon discover how easier it gets to hire new team members.
Cherish meetings, Have less of them
Meetings… So much has been written about them. Having worked remotely for the past 7 years, I have had my fair share of them and they are valuable… when properly run. But not all meetings are created equal and to me, the useful ones fall under three categories:
- One-on-ones: Typically with your manager or your direct reports. I strongly believe that these are essential to maintain the human connection, hash out some loose ends or spend time having deeper conversations (the good ones and the bad ones). Key traits: One hour top weekly or bi-weekly, bullet list of topics prepared in advance.
- Team Meetings: To be used with caution. Up to four or five participants is manageable and can lead to great conversations. Anything larger than that get expensive and can quickly turn into either chaos or unidirectional monologue (which could have easily be replaced by a written document). Key traits: One hour top monthly, detailed agenda prepared in advance, decisions documented.
- Workshops: From time to time, you want to set aside longer stretches of time for creative work or strategic conversations. At SalesScreen for example, the management team would meet once a quarter for a day or two to discuss strategic topics. While these meetings are insanely expensive (2 full days with 5 people = 2 workweeks for an FTE), they can also be extremely inspiring and bonding. Key trails: 2 days top quarterly, detailed agenda with well documented preparation sent a week in advance for reading, detailed minutes sent afterwards.
Lastly, there are two more key ingredients to productive meetings: a decision maker and a meeting lead. It can be the same person but these roles must be present to end lengthy circular discussions and keep meetings on track.
To be continued…
To be continued…