A question that has come up a lot since working in my new role is ‘What is it that Revenue Operations do?’ I have genuinely struggled to answer that with a straight answer. Not because I don't know how to do my job or don't understand what Rev Ops do, but because it's pretty hard to explain in a few meaningful words, to sum up, what I do. Usually, I often just say dismissively, ‘Nothing really, just to help sales and marketing hit their targets’ or ‘A little bit of everything' or my personal favourite, ‘Lots of talking and numbers and then lots of talking about numbers’.
I guess these are technically true for the most part, I have never really taken stock of what I do daily, and I thought I would journal a day and see what I do.
So here goes, a day in the life (my life) of a Revenue Operations Manager…
05:30 - 08:30 - Wake-up time
I make sure my children are fed, clean and ready for the day. I spend some time playing with them, planning what is happening in the evening with my wife and making sure we know what appointments or clubs my two daughters have. Then finally get myself a coffee ready for the morning ahead.
9:00 - 09:15 - Start work Log in and check any new Slack Messages, emails, Jiras or carrier pigeons that have been sent in the time between me checking when I inevitably (and unhealthily) checked my phone before bed and now.
09:15 - 09:30 - Admin Things and Prep Check the new Leads that have come in overnight, and check the queues and dashboards on any meetings I can use to celebrate in the stand-up with the team.
09:30 - 10:00 - Team standup This typically consists of myself, my team and other people we have adopted into our team. We all go around and share something we are doing, and if they have any issues at all, I have some minor issues with lead routing to investigate and hand to someone in the US. Then, as usual, it descends into chaos. We chat about anything from the Italian school system, Pokemon and Music on Anime. These meetings can overrun quite a bit, but today it's unusually bang on time.
I honestly look forward to this meeting more than almost any other. We have a diverse team, and whilst we always get our work in there, and I always learn something new, we also get that team feeling even if we are all in different countries or just at home. I honestly could say I know my team better than some of my family at this point.
10:00 - 10:15 - Second/Third Coffee! I waltz downstairs at this point and make coffee for myself and tea for my wife. I will check in on the children to ensure they are happy and no doubt interrupting something my wife has worked hard on.
10:15 - 11:00 - Deep Work (Oh, how I cringe at this term still)
This is the most common time for me not to have meetings, so I get down to some work after finding the perfect work music for the day (almost always will include Radiohead, Incubus or, more recently, Sam Fender). This will consist of an analysis of the last quarter's sales numbers and what the learnings and successes are, gathering data for the upcoming QBR and approving Commissions for my team.
11:00 - 12:00 - New Sales Project
Often I am brought into new projects; today, I have a new one to review for the sales team on data and account prioritisation. This is attended by the sales leadership, with some excellent outcomes that also tie well to the recent territory release for the year's second half. All in all, a good meeting!
12:00 - 12:15 - Daily Catch-up
A quick check-in with my newest starter. I cover any further issues or learnings and go into detail on more tasks, expectations, and numbers compared to the earlier stand-up. Chat some more music, and then time for Lunch! 12:15 - 13:00 - Lunch
I hear you saying, ‘Rudy, you get an hour for lunch; why don't you take that?' I don't often have this, so this is a blessing! I grab some food, play with my children and give my wife a ‘break’ (I probably wind them up more, so I am not sure how much of a break it is). I grab a coffee and wander back upstairs to my desk.
13:00 - 14:00 - Afternoon Prep and more Salesforce & Project Admin The New York Team are awake! I use this as my last chance to catch up on messages from the Account Executives, Business Development Team or anyone else that's asked any questions from the morning. I recheck the leads, get some new Jiras raised for a bug in a dashboard I have found, and start to write the project plan for a further vendor evaluation I am helping with.
14:00 - 14:30 - Project Catch Up
I meet with a team member from the US team and help them through some planning issues and get them to a point where they are happy with what to do next. I enjoy this kind of meeting the most; being able to help where perhaps I had to go and learn myself or where I have been helped in the past is always time well spent.
14:30 - 15:00 - !!EMERGENCY!! I bet you weren't expecting jeopardy as part of the job, eh?
I have an unexpected influx of Slack messages around account misassignments and management, so I quickly figure out if it's something I can do now or if I have to delegate. I raise the Jiras for it to be done for tracking and to establish the impact of the issue. I get the reports and data ready for a more thorough look tomorrow. The most important thing now is correcting it; we can analyse the root cause later. We always leave a reasonable amount of time in our sprints for random work like this that we don't know about ahead of time but know it has to be done straight away.
15:00 - 15:30 - Global Rev Ops Stand-Up
In our weekly Jira review, it's always good to hear what's happening around the team and to see/question approaches and learn about new problems arising in other regions. In this case, we discuss some Sales Rules of Engagement and then decide we need to take further collaborative action.
15:30 - 16:00 - Lead Routing
Meetings are coming thick and fast this afternoon; here we are discussing the lead routing changes needed for the new territories created. We have that mapped and agreed, so all in all, a good meeting with a couple of loose ends I need to go chase up.
16:00 - 16:30 - Vendor Onboarding
Another meeting, this time with a vendor we have been working with to procure a new product. We are discussing budgets, go-live expectations and timelines. We are a bit stuck with the agreements on all of these things, so we will meet again later in the week to see what progress we have both made.
16:30 - 17:30 - More Admin and End of Day Review
My time here is reviewing the new leads again, sending some responses to missed emails and slacks; I have a new request on some data, so I find the information in salesforce and share it before sending my goodbye messages to my team, then shut down.
17:30 - 23:00 - Free Time
Family time, bedtime (which I make a big point of not missing where I can help), dinner etc., you know, all the usual life things.
I then make one final, unhealthy check of my slack messages and email to see if I have any inspiration to start writing my blog or reading something new. Otherwise, I’ll play some games and then head to bed.
My day varies significantly from day to day, so I can be back to back in meetings some days (Thursdays, I’m looking at you!!). Or I will have more time to project things and build data models and analyses. I enjoy what I do; I work with the most impressive teams and learn something new daily. I am privileged to be trusted to do this role, and I hope to show value in what I do.
I hope this has helped shape what it's like to work as a Manager in Revenue Operations; I look forward to seeing your experiences in the comments!