New Year, New Job? How to Find Success in 90 Days

Starting a new RevOps role with a plan in place for your first 90 days can set you up for long-term success. But what are the most important things to focus on in your first three months? And what should you do if your company doesn’t have resources or training to help?

WATCH NOW

On this webinar, RevOps leaders are weighing in, sharing everything they wish they had known when starting a new job in ops. The conversation includes Brad Smith, CEO & Co-founder at Sonar, Asia Corbett, Head of Revenue & Community Operations at RevGenius, Jonathan Morgan, Director of Sales & Marketing Ops, Head of Marketing at AchieveIt, and Nic Swider, Revenue Operations Manager at Briq.

What you’ll learn:

– What to focus on in your first 90 days to set yourself up for success
– The biggest ops pitfalls to watch out for and how you can avoid them
– How to get up to speed quickly on your new tech stack and processes

Transcript

Speaker 1: And here we are <laugh>. So, uh, it’s always so anti-climactic. So start, start webinar 

Speaker 2: <laugh>. 

Speaker 1: Oh, too good. Well, welcome everyone, uh, jumping in right now. We’ll give everybody a few minutes to get situated, but, uh, excited for this one, Asia, I promise. We’ll, uh, we’ll see, we’ll see if we can keep solving our, our lead routing issue maybe throughout the, uh, <laugh> throughout the conversation. <laugh>. 

Speaker 2: Yeah. That’s why there are tools for this, because what Salesforce [00:00:30] has native leads is, 

Speaker 1: I know. I love it. Talk <laugh>. <laugh>. I love it. I love that we’ve had, uh, yeah, so many folks, like as we’re just sitting here like, well, we got an extra time. Can we solve a Salesforce problem in the making? Like of course we can 

Speaker 2: <laugh>. Yeah, right. I figured I’d ask <laugh>. 

Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely. Well, I’m, uh, I’m excited for, for this one. We still have some folks, uh, sort of trickling in, so we’ll give it another, uh, minute or two. But, um, excited for [00:01:00] Shops Talk episode number two, especially for this, uh, cast of characters. Nick, uh, if I can do it in time, I’ll see if I can find my, my wig, my, my neck wig from the last episode that we had you on, but it’s flying around his office somewhere. Yeah, somebody legitimately in our office was wearing it the other day and I was like sitting in a conference room and I see somebody walk by with the, the nick from Brick, uh, hat on. I was like, okay. That’s, that’s what we’re doing these days. 

Speaker 2: So <laugh>, 

Speaker 1: Oh, well we’ve, uh, we’ve [00:01:30] got folks on. We’ll go ahead and kick everything off. I know we, uh, we have a jam packed agenda, so, uh, for anybody joining a little bit late, we’ll obviously record this and everybody can watch it from the jump. But excited for Shops Talk episode number two of this year. Uh, it’s crazy to think that we’re already in the February and already moving this quick, but we have a, uh, a rockstar set of guests today to talk about how do we find success in the first 90 days. Uh, but first and foremost, we always like to give a big shout out to our sponsors. We love working with the Salesforce team for their continued support and success, for, uh, doing [00:02:00] all things Wills ops and all things shops talk. We wouldn’t be here without them and be able to have this platform, uh, to have a great conversation about. 

Speaker 1: So as always, we appreciate that. Uh, and without further ado, man, we’ll jump right in. Cause like I said, we have a lot to talk about. Uh, I think the coolest thing about this topic is the timing in which we’re having it. Everybody is starting to a certain degree and some new roles, new responsibilities. So whether you’re in rev ops and you’re changing a little bit of your narrative for, uh, your roles and responsibilities, or you’re starting a brand new company, super [00:02:30] important to find success early. What do those first 90 days look like? Uh, and we’re gonna unpack all of that. But, uh, before we do that, love to have, love to have all of our, uh, our guests introduce themselves. So Asia, I’ll turn it over to you and then we’ll go to, uh, Nick and let Jonathan bring us home. But Asia, tell us a little bit about yourself. 

Speaker 2: Hi, um, I’m Asia Corbett. I am the head of Revenue and Community operations for Rev Genius, which is a, another community. It’s a revenue community of sales, marketing, [00:03:00] customer success, and rev ops, uh, folks across the globe. Um, I think it’s at 20,000 members maybe now, uh, which is really cool. And so, um, I’ve been in operations for the last six, seven years. Um, a combination of bis ops and rev ops, and I’m really excited to, you know, continue to be an advocate for all the rev ops people out there, whether you’ve been in in ops for a long time or you are just getting into it. 

Speaker 1: I love it. I [00:03:30] love it. Uh, Nick, you’ve been on before, but we’re gonna let you reintroduce yourself just for, uh, everybody who hasn’t met you yet. 

Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I think, I don’t know, is this shop stock or is this a sonar webinar? 

Speaker 1: It’s shop stock, but you’ve been on, you’ve been on webinars with me. We kinda meld ’em all 

Speaker 3: Together. <laugh>. Hey guys, I’m Nick. Um, I run Rev ops at Brick, which is a construction tech company outta California. Um, two and a half years ago I was an sdr and then I moved into ops and [00:04:00] I wish I’d had any sort of guideline at that time. Um, so I’m happy to be part of this conversation and hopefully we can help some people out. 

Speaker 1: I love it. Nick’s also, uh, rocking his was ops, uh, sweatshirt, which I could peek 

Speaker 3: One anniversary, 

Speaker 2: <laugh>. 

Speaker 1: I love it. I love it. Uh, last but, so not least, Jonathan, tell us a little bit about yourself. 

Speaker 4: Yeah, great to meet everybody. My name’s Jonathan Morgan. Uh, I head up Revenue Operations and also marketing at Achieve It, which [00:04:30] we’re a primarily b2b, uh, SaaS company and more of the planning and execution space. So I’ve had a extremely winding career to get me into the position ops. I am now, you know, doing anything from sales to consulting to customer engagement. Um, in my experience in the OP into opt is just the first ops position and trying to figure it out on my own. So, looking back, which I had this sort of conversation back then, um, hopefully we can help some people out that maybe in [00:05:00] the same position that we were previously. 

Speaker 1: I love it. I think the one thing that I know the four of us can, uh, can agree on a lot of folks that are on the call too. Uh, the ops journey certainly isn’t linear. Uh, a lot of folks start a lot of different backgrounds and a lot of different places, uh, and it continues to evolve. I think that’s what we also enjoy about it. Uh, it’s a little bit of the, uh, unknown of what’s around the next corner. And, you know, I think we’re all comfortable being uncomfortable in that regard. But, uh, excited to unpack this today. Like I said, there’s a lot of people that are starting new jobs right [00:05:30] now and they’re in these first 90 days, or are at least potentially interviewing for a new job they’re about to jump into. And I think we all agree that it’s so important to set yourself up for success as well as how you track that success. 

Speaker 1: So we’re gonna unpack that, uh, through a couple of different questions today. As always, for folks that have joined, uh, please don’t be a stranger jump into the chat. I’ve gotta pull up on my computer right here. So if there’s any questions that come up along the way, we would love to answer them. But, uh, we’ll take this step by step. We’ll take the first 30 days and then we’ll go from 31 to 60 [00:06:00] and 60 to 90 and a little bit beyond. But, uh, starting that first month, we know it’s important. Um, you know, what should you really focus on in that first month of a new rev op role to set yourself up for success? Uh, Asia, we’re gonna let you take the mic first and, uh, kick us off. 

Speaker 2: Yeah, so really this is, uh, kind of standard anywhere when you start a new job. And I think it also applies even if you’re going into rev ops, is learning the business and the company and meeting people, um, [00:06:30] general like hr, onboarding things, making, uh, relationships with your go-to-market teams and, and learning everyone’s name and learning their, you know, what their day-to-day looks like. Um, cuz 30 days is a short period of time, so you wanna get like that base foundation of knowledge of just like, what is the company doing, uh, before anything else. 

Speaker 1: Absolutely. I think the, the biggest thing is kind of knowing your landscape and being aware of who the key players are. Uh, [00:07:00] I hope that nobody goes too fast in the paint and, uh, starts pulling out, uh, different automations or different sort of integrations in the first 30 days, but, we’ll, uh, we’ll, we’ll get to when that’s appropriate. But Nick, uh, you know, would love to hear on the first 30 days, what’s your focus and what, what, what was going through your mind during that journey? 

Speaker 3: Um, I, I kind of have to piggyback off of Asia here, but I think a big thing, a big part of those conversations and those meeting people is, um, to build trust and like, make sure that you are a person that the rest of the go-to-market leaders can [00:07:30] trust with issues that they and their teams are running into. Um, and I’d say like if you, if they’re not throwing massive projects at you, like try to do one thing for everybody so that they can, you can start having that conversation that back and forth and understand how you work together. 

Speaker 1: I completely agree. Yeah. Building that trust and rapport is gonna be there. And, uh, in case some of those quick wins for everybody’s important. Jonathan, what, uh, same question. What are your thoughts? 

Speaker 4: Yeah, I’ll give one similar answer and one [00:08:00] different answer. Answer. The similar one is, uh, as Nick said, when you’re meeting with those leaders, try to identify like one easy to solve pain point that you can implement right away to help build that trust. Um, but outside of that, I think, you know, one of the, probably the missed numbers of Rev is, you know, it’s all about aligning your go-to-market teams. That’s true. But at the end of the day, you’re trying to align around the customer journey and the customer experience. And so you can’t really do effective job of that unless you really do understand the customers and the prospects that you’re working with. So, as much as [00:08:30] possible in that first month, join sales calls, join customer calls, figure out what the day-to-day issues are that your product and your company is solving for, because that’s just gonna help accelerate your learnings and you actually go into the process and the system side. I think personally that’s something that made my transition easier because I was coming immediately out of a role where I spent two years with our customers every single day. So I had that down cold, and it was now just picking up the op skillset 

Speaker 1: [00:09:00] For sure. I, I think it’s important and honestly, sometimes it goes, uh, unnoticed or, or I dunno, if it’s attention paid to us, understand your business while the skillset that we all have of yes, we’re Salesforce experts, yes, we know how to orchestrate data and move things around from system to system. That’s great. If you don’t take enough time in that first 30 days to understand what your business is doing, you’re really not gonna be able to optimize those outcomes, outcomes for those outcomes later on because you don’t even know all the [00:09:30] key moving parts to what’s happening. The, uh, the one thing I’ve thought about is I’ve told folks who either customers of ours or folks in the community, uh, as they’re starting, it’s really easy in those first 30 days to say a lot of yeses, you nick, to your point, uh, you want everybody to get a lot of quick wins. 

Speaker 1: Like you want a win all the way across the leadership team, like go scratch their back or get them that, uh, you know, that hit. But it’s also very important to not over-index on. Yes. Because one of the biggest skills that every rev op person [00:10:00] has to do is be able to say no and say it eloquently, but, uh, firmly sometimes. So it’s a balancing act for sure, because you wanna build the rapport and trust and get some wins for folks, but you also wanna set expectations for the long haul. So, um, moving out of day zero through 30 and into 31 through 60, you know, hoping everybody’s a little more grounded and again, hopefully know the key players, uh, Asia, to your point of who does what and where, uh, and how we really understand everything. But I think day 31 through 60 is a lot [00:10:30] different. Jonathan, what do you think your focus points are there in the, uh, in the second 30 days? 

Speaker 4: Yeah, after you understand the business, you probably don’t understand what you’re up against. So there’s undoubtedly a better way to say this, but figure out what skeletons are in that closet and how, how deep that things goes. You know, you go to find the documentation and realize there’s no documentation. So, you know, you figure out where to even start. Um, you know, really beginning to un uncover the whole customer experience [00:11:00] and all the processes that touch it to figure out, you know, as I even think about building a plan to take this on, where should I even start? What are the things that are immediate issues versus longer term issues, quick fixes, longer fixes, and just understanding what you’re up against from the get go. 

Speaker 1: Agree. Yeah. If you don’t, if you’re not able to index on all of that and find it, um, it’s gonna rear its ugly head at some point, whether it be in those first 60 days or you know, the back, uh, back two or three years of, of being there. So [00:11:30] finding it quickly is, uh, super important. Nick, what are your thoughts? 

Speaker 3: Um, so my, my big thing for month two is kind of to start working more with your end users and discovering those pain points on the people who are actually using Salesforce Outreach, sales, loft, gong, whatever tools that you’re using at the time, um, see what their pain points are and start addressing those. If there’s not a system for making requests, get that going, whether it’s just a Google form going into Slack [00:12:00] or a spreadsheet or whatever, um, up to, you know, JIRA, if you’re at a huge company that wants to pay for you to have Jira just to take requests, <laugh>, um, any, anything to start collecting those points of feedback, um, and solving those I think is a good time to get going on that. 

Speaker 1: Yeah, I completely agree. I think that mantra will also continue through, you know, the next couple of months too. Not even the first 90 days, but just always being highly connected with those end users. Look at the end of the day, that’s who we’re building these solutions for just to make their jobs easier. So [00:12:30] having that connection there is, is, uh, is key. Asia, same, uh, same question, month two, what would your, uh, your focus be? 

Speaker 2: Yeah, so I have two things. One is, di I agree a hundred percent with Nick. You have to have a system take in requests because <laugh>, what I’ve found is every place I go, they’re like, Asia, can you do this? Can you do this? Can you do this? Can you do this? And I get slacks and I get emails, and when we were in the office, people would come by my desk. Um, so you wanna have a place to collect all that and centralize [00:13:00] it so you don’t go crazy <laugh>. And you can also use that to show later, like, look at how much, like, look at all of these requests I’m getting. And then the second thing is, um, what I like to call a process audit. And I also wished it was something that I had formalized for myself more early on in my career. But basically this is a deeper dive into all of your go-to-market processes, everything that supports your customer’s journey. So like lead scoring or redoing lead scoring, pop [00:13:30] it on the Google sheet, um, lead routing, what does that look like? Pop it on the Google sheet. And I like to segment it by, um, functional groups. So sales, marketing, customer success, and you can start to see where there are gaps, um, and then you can use that later to build documentation. If there is none to Jonathan’s point, because that has happened as well, <laugh>. 

Speaker 1: Oh yeah. Well, it is so key, like having that process documentation in line. I think the, the thing that we know it’s a challenge [00:14:00] in the first 60 days, but I think the thing that we’ve all probably agreed on, I know in different, uh, aspects is that it continues to be a challenge. So setting that expectation up first in the first couple of months of, yes, we’re gonna document this process one, so we know what it looks like as I’ve just started, but two, we’re gonna constantly be going back to that. Um, we very much suggest that to a ton of our customers. Like, make sure as you’re making changes, update that previous documentation. Whatever system you’re using, go for it. But you have to keep that as a live living, uh, entity. [00:14:30] The, uh, the thing that I reflect on a lot for month two, and again to rewind month one, was, you know, you wanna say yes, a good mix of yes and no. 

Speaker 1: Uh, I’ve always told folks on month two, start asking why at that point, you, you’ve built hopefully enough trust and rapport that people know that you can get these things done. But that second month is a really great place for you to start inserting yourself as to, hey, why, why are you requesting that change? Why do you need that new pick list value? Or why do you need that checkbox? Or why do we need to automate that process? What [00:15:00] business outcome? The fact that you can, uh, really start to ask why is gonna be a, a big indicator to the rest of the business as to your critical thinking for taking that request in and not just saying yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. And inundating yourself on a long list of updates you gotta make. So, um, you know, when you, when you think about this, uh, back third, I guess the third month or the last, uh, 90 days of this journey, um, you know, we hope that by that point you’re grounded, you’ve met everybody, you’ve got some documentation in place, uh, you figured that piece out. What, [00:15:30] uh, what would you say is one of the biggest priorities in that, that last, uh, 30 days? Nick, we’ll start with you. 

Speaker 3: So I’d say it’s, and, and this could vary when, when it starts, all of these really could. Um, but I’d say it’s time to try to start being prescriptive, even if it’s with little things. Um, I find a lot that I’ll get asked for dashboards or to track a certain metric that’s important to the sales leaders. And every time I get those, I just start adding them to my own dashboard. The like key things that, [00:16:00] that I look at every day and start bringing those things up. Cuz sometimes, even though that you were asked for ’em, nobody will actually ever look at that dashboard again. But obviously it’s important cuz they ask for it. So I start bringing those up and start kind of trying to move the business from an operational perspective. Um, that’s where a lot of value from the role is gonna come. 

Speaker 1: I agree. I think the, the thing that I’ve taken reflect there is, um, you’re getting a lot of those requests and I think at that point you’ve got a good enough hold of what’s going on in the business. You [00:16:30] can probably start to predict or, or prescribe why they’re asking that question. And so if, if they’re asking something easy, you can go ahead and start thinking one or two or three steps ahead and say, my guess is you’re asking for that dashboard cuz you’re trying to track this. Here’s another way to look at that and here’s my 2 cents on what I think, you know, that process looks like or how that data’s being perceived. That’s ultimately like answering that bigger why for a lot of folks is a, a big piece to it. So, uh, Jonathan, on the last 30 days as you’re, you’re getting, uh, squared away, what comes to mind that you’re, uh, focusing [00:17:00] on? 

Speaker 4: Yeah, this is, uh, heavy. It depends. Um, but it mostly depends on what happened in month one or two for your situation. And the biggest thing comes down to, you know, before you pass, go and collect your $200 and, and start executing things. Take make sure you work out a foundation and a plan for what are all the things that you need to think about and need to be implemented. Not just short term but long term. Because as both Nick and a just said in in month two, if you don’t set that plan and [00:17:30] communicate that plan, you’re just gonna become that yes person or the the ticket request person, then the slack person. And that’s all your job’s gonna be boiled down to. So build that foundation and figure out what are those key things that you do immediately. Whether it’s, you know, fixing a process, creating some missing insights or whatever 

Speaker 1: That that first thing may be completely agree. Uh, yeah, it’s, it’s ing it’s so foundational in those first 90 days, but that last, you know, that last 30 days of it really sets you up [00:18:00] for the success on the, the rest of the way. Uh, Asia, on that third month, what, uh, what comes to mind and what’s your focus area? 

Speaker 2: Yeah, so I actually wanna go back to something that you said really quickly about asking why and why that is so important, especially, um, in rev ops. Um, because, you know, the way that I think about rev ops is a is a person or function or team that is really stewarding these processes across the entire customer journey. So when someone asks you, Hey, can you add this field [00:18:30] to my page layout, right? And when you’re in rev ops and you’re asking why you’re thinking about all of the upstream and downstream impacts that has versus being, you know, just in sales ops where you’re kind of just thinking, um, usually about sales processes and sales things and not necessarily, hey, how is it gonna affect support? Is it gonna affect support? Um, under really really getting down to the core of like why that’s important. Um, and so I just wanted to touch on that cuz it’s also [00:19:00] has happened to me in my career. 

Speaker 2: A lot of these things have happened, so I’m like, oh, I wish, you know, <laugh>, it’s a good, it is a good time to share this with everyone. Um, but in, in month three, I think, you know, really taking a look at the existing dashboards and reports that the teams are using, understanding the definitions of what they’re, uh, reporting on so that you can like Ned start to be more prescriptive. Um, and then the other thing in month three that you can start doing, uh, [00:19:30] but you won’t have fully fledged out is, uh, to Jonathan’s point, building out your plan and what I like to call a roadmap. A very simple one, again you can do in Google Sheets, but it’s like, alright, what kinds of things am I seeing that’s gonna come up in the next quarter, in the next quarter and the next quarter, similar to the way a product team runs, right? They have their, their projects and, and a backlog. And that way it keeps you again organized and it’s something you can show also to the teams, like, Hey, this is kind of the plan, here’s [00:20:00] what I’m working on. 

Speaker 1: Absolutely. I think so much of that kind of boils down the expectation setting. And I remember even on the Shops Talk episode last year where we had, uh, our, our good friend Err took her big, big, uh, w ops guy, uh, talking about some of the methodologies and plays that we can take from product and engineering and bake them into the red ops world, I think too often, and we talked about saying no before, right? Um, I don’t even have the luxury or authority to go to our sonar [00:20:30] engineering team and say, Hey team, I need you to fix this one thing next 30 minutes, right? They’re like, no, we’re all, that’s the next sprint and we’ll get that out in the next couple of weeks probably. But we have to backlog that. We have to groom it, plan it, you know, get it into the development. 

Speaker 1: I think the one thing a a lot of folks forget on the rev off side is not everything happens overnight. Yes, there’s a lot of interpretation sometimes that says, oh, hey, you’re just the, the rev offs person. Um, click the button a few times and, and build my solution, right? Like, no, it’s a little more intense than [00:21:00] that. Uh, a little more detailed. So sign up that, that, uh, roadmap and framework for them to be able to see like, yes, here’s the long list of things I’m working on, here’s what the priority list, here’s the expected time it takes to build it. Again, it’s just more awareness than anything else. So, um, those first 90 days go by quickly, obviously, and uh, the way that we even just talked about it, we covered a lot of it, uh, pretty fast. One thing that we worked on with this group, um, and a couple folks already on the call have it, but Sarah will share it in the chat now, um, is a lot of this content that we’ve [00:21:30] already put together in a 30, 60, 90 day plan. 

Speaker 1: So be sure to check that out. Uh, we’ll also be able to send that out as a follow up, uh, to the meeting. So, um, any questions again, please pop them into the chat. We are very happy to, uh, to start answering them. We do have one more question and I think it’s, uh, pretty important for everybody to, uh, to notice and understand what some pitfalls might be, uh, as you’re going through those first 90 days. Um, it’s not always rainbows and butterflies. There are pitfalls, there’s things that we stub our toe on. So, uh, Asia, we’ll start with you. When you think of, you know, going through that journey, what are [00:22:00] some of those pitfalls to watch out for that we can help our listeners, uh, avoid? 

Speaker 2: Yeah, for me, when I, a role I went into, I started doing work right away because I knew Salesforce and I was like, I know how easy it is to add a field to page layout or I need to track something. Let me just create this new field. Um, and, uh, I couldn’t do anything else because I was bogged down with all of those, Hey Asia, can you just fix this for me? Hey Asia, can you just see this? Why can’t I move my opportunity stage? And [00:22:30] then I’m like up to my neck. And, um, not to say that they’re like useless things, but <laugh> yeah, I wasn’t able to do my process audit or my systems audits because I wanted to be helpful and we want to be helpful. But I started working like literally the second week. I’m like, oh yeah, I’ll just, we’ll just fix that really quickly. 

Speaker 2: Um, so it’s a balance, but I, I would say like, use that time. I’m learning, I’m new, I’m trying to understand how our things [00:23:00] are working in that first couple of months. Cuz you can, you can use that and, um, say I, I’ll get to that, I’ll get to you <laugh>, um, that and start creating your documentation right away. Like a couple have said, um, because it’s going to help you. I, uh, went into a system, this was like after I started and I, I made my, some of my thoughts and I put together a data dictionary, [00:23:30] again, another Google sheet manual thing, but I almost overwrote some field mappings because I’m like, oh yeah, I, I, when I started this, I knew the fields that were mapped, but somebody had changed them. And I went back to my data dictionary and I’m like, oh, these are the ones that are mapped. Um, and so, you know what can happen when you overwrite stuff and you’ve changed field mappings, it causes errors in all other systems. So start your documentation early, the earlier the better. 

Speaker 1: [00:24:00] So I feel like that emoji right now, like write it down. Yeah, but it’s so true. Like we, I tell everybody on our team, no matter what role it is, everybody wants to run fast. Everybody wants to go run a hundred miles an hour. I will perfectly accept 90 miles an hour and I’d rather you sacrifice that last 10% or the last 10 miles of speed. Write it down, pay it forward to the next person on your team. So, uh, completely agree, Jonathan. Um, you know, any major pitfalls that stick out in the journey of this first 90 [00:24:30] days? 

Speaker 4: Yeah, it’s, it’s, you know, not thinking too short term, you know, make sure you think about what you’re gonna need in the future as well. And, and of course that’s big in planning and make sure you’re planning out those priorities, but it’s also thinking about what information are you gonna need in the future? What does your scaling look like so that you’re not, you know, patching something with a bandaid when really you should go ahead and spend that extra time up front to fix it. Or, you know, a year and a half from now, you’re gonna want to understand [00:25:00] the stage, stage conversion rate, but if you wait till then to implement that process, you’re not gonna have that data. So, you know, figure out what are those things early on that you’re gonna need 6, 12, 18 months from now. And make sure you, you make some space for that early on. 

Speaker 1: Completely agree. Uh, tech debt’s real and it’s real in the rev ops world. And by hook or crook, if you don’t pay your debt off, uh, early, you’re gonna, you’re pay probably a lot more in a premium on it later on. So fix along the way. Don’t let things build up and fester [00:25:30] that way. Uh, I totally agree. Nick, bring us home. What are some of the, uh, the pitfalls that you’ve seen in that first, uh, 90 day journey? 

Speaker 3: I, I feel so called out by all the documentation comments cause it’s like my thing to do. Um, 

Speaker 2: Fun. 

Speaker 3: Yeah, it’s, yeah, it’s, it’s not fun. It’s not newly as fun as automating something to document what you did, um, and how it works. But it is super, super important. It’s something I’m working on all the time, getting better at. Um, but another [00:26:00] kind of comment that’s a little bit in line with what, um, both Jonathan and Deja have mentioned is, um, especially as you’re getting little requests, Hey, we just need this field. Hey, I just need a report on this little things that you’re like, oh, I could do this in 30 seconds. Like, yeah, let’s just do it real quick. Sometimes they’re already solved. Um, so just like take 30 seconds to check first, um, and see we might already have a field for tracking the contract start date and you forgot to put it on the page [00:26:30] layout or something, right? Just, just take the time to make sure you’re not doubling up, work for yourself now and tracking data in two different places. And, um, just losing track of what you’ve already worked on or what somebody who came, came before you may have already worked on. Um, it’s really easy to just like do tickets, especially if you’re taking tickets, but, uh, oh yeah, sometimes you don’t even have to do the work, so, 

Speaker 1: Oh, yeah. Yeah. I think so much of that comes down to the intentionality. Um, it’s very easy in our roles to [00:27:00] get reactive and to just get into ticket overload and, oh man, here’s this request, here’s this request, here’s this request. It’s so important to take a step back. Am I actually proactively working on the goals that we were set for in, uh, in our team by my leaders? Um, if we’re not, you know, tickets are important and fixing things obviously is a very important piece, but just make sure you’re always north stard to what the goals are that you have for your group. So, um, we do have a couple of questions come in, so we’re gonna try to run through ’em very fast. Uh, first and very easy one. [00:27:30] Um, I’m focused on growing my ops team. How can I help guide new team members through their first 90 days? Uh, I think the, the easy one there is, uh, listen to the content, uh, a lot of what we’ve all written down, but as a managerial perspective, um, setting somebody up for success, uh, on their first 90 days, I’ll, uh, I won’t call anybody out, I’ll let somebody speak up on what they think is, uh, a good way from a manager’s perspective. 

Speaker 3: I, I actually think especially our month one advice of like getting to know stakeholders is [00:28:00] really almost extra important. Um, this is something that I’ve struggled with as my team as we’ve grown, is that for the first year, um, it was just me, right? And so now when I bring people on, I have to make sure that everybody who’s used to coming to me for everything knows that there’s somebody el a there’s somebody else doing a lot of work, um, and what, like, what things they should go to them for. Um, and so just [00:28:30] introducing your new hires to those stakeholders and saying like, Hey, this is what this person’s gonna be responsible for. Um, if you ask me to do anything, I’m gonna ask you to ask them like, to, to make sure that they’re known and they’re not just somebody in the background. Like plugging away doing tickets I think is really, really important. Um, absolutely, really, it’s really easy if you’re the only person to just stay the only person. 

Speaker 1: Oh, yeah. Well, I think this actually aligns very, uh, very well to one other question and we’ll answer this and then we will, I [00:29:00] know we’re at the top of time, we’re getting really close, so we’ll get one last rapid fire in and the call today. But inside of those key people, Nick, that you’re talking about, somebody asked, uh, it would be interesting to hear if any of the individuals are included, uh, folks from billing teams or from finance as those key players you need to learn. I think I, I, I see three nodding heads of yes, absolutely. Um, yes, absolutely. <laugh>, I was gonna say, yes, you, uh, if there are any, if there’s anybody in a company you wanna be best friends with, finance is a really good one to, uh, to make sure [00:29:30] you’re in good graces with them. Obviously you want money to come into the, into the business the right way, and Rev Ops has a lot to control on that. So I think that was a, a unanimous, uh, yes, please bring billing in and finance in <laugh>. Go ahead, John. Yeah, 

Speaker 4: And I’ll, and I’ll add, I wasn’t as close to finance and billing early on in my ops role because all the attention was coming from sales and marketing. And so it was like, all right, let me just like handle all this, like the, the more urgent things. Um, but ended up having to do a lot [00:30:00] more work later on with finance than had I known earlier. I probably could simplified a lot of the process and streamline them together versus like patching things and working backwards through that process. So yes, now, yes, back then, no <laugh>, <laugh>. 

Speaker 1: Well, I think important. It’s super important. I think that’s part of the learning journey. That’s why we’d like to have folks on to help, uh, again, hopefully mitigate some of those pitfalls I might run into. So, um, I know we’re about a minute over, so we’ll, we’ll get to the, uh, the one and only rapid fire that I always love to ask. Y’all [00:30:30] probably already all know it, uh, and know to expect it, but we have so many folks from our community on here for the first time where they’re starting their journey, right? During that first 90 days as a reflection point, uh, on your ops career, what advice would you give somebody, uh, as they’re now tackling this journey? Just overall, what’s one thing that you would like them to, uh, to take into consideration? Asia, I’ll, I’ll start with you and then, uh, go Nick and then Jonathan to wrap us up. 

Speaker 2: Um, <laugh>, I would say invest in your [00:31:00] process and project management skills. That has been the thing that has helped me in my career more than knowing Salesforce, more than knowing any systems, um, is that because when you have to juggle multiple stakeholders, multiple priorities, deadlines, projects, thinking about processes and to end, like those things have, those things have helped me much more than knowing Salesforce has. Salesforce is important, your tools are important, but that is a foundation. The process is [00:31:30] a foundation. So I mean, YouTube, Google, cla like courses, if you can take them, people you can learn from. That’s, I I would say like learn and invest in those things. 

Speaker 1: Uh, couldn’t agree more and continue to learn. I think so many people have to realize like, this is a learning environment. Yes. You don’t get to take everything you’ve learned from the past and just start using it now. You have to keep learning it into the future. So I completely agree. Uh, Nick, what, uh, what sage advice would you give for folks that are, uh, starting their, their rev [00:32:00] ops career? 

Speaker 3: Ask more questions. Um, ask lots of questions. There’s no such thing as too many, um, especially if you’re starting working from home, like a lot of people are right now. It’s really easy to miscommunicate things with, um, stakeholders where they’ll say, Hey, I need X, Y, Z and you interpreted it as Y X Z, and it’s just a little bit different, but it’s enough differently. You have to like restart everything when you realize that you messed [00:32:30] up the first time. So, um, my, my favorite thing to do when people ask me for something is to ask like 15 clarifying questions. 

Speaker 1: <laugh>. Yep. Good. Ask. Why take that? Yeah. Take that out of the old product playbook for sure. Uh, Jonathan, bring us home. What advice do you have for, uh, for folks early in their career, starting their journey? 

Speaker 4: Yeah, I’d say just embrace the fact that there’s a ton of stuff you’re not gonna know and, and you have to accept that and, and be okay with that, [00:33:00] uh, especially if you’re early on your career. But even as you continue, I can’t even tell you the amount of things I’ve done 30 times and I still go to Google when I have to do it again cuz I don’t necessarily remember exactly how to do it. And I think that that’s, you know, the, the importance of community and having other people to bounce problems and, and questions off of. Um, but alongside that, you know, keep an open mind because I think one trap of like being an op for a while as you go company to company, thinking the same playbook would work when it probably won’t. Uh, there’s elements of it, but [00:33:30] I think the best ops peoples are, are good problem solvers and know that they don’t know the answer, but they know how to find the answer. So just accepting that early on is key. 

Speaker 1: It’s, it’s so important. I, I’ll tell you this, one of my personal like hiring strategies is we’re hiring across any position is anybody that can embrace the ability to say the words. I don’t know. Cuz the reality is, we, we, we all don’t know everything. That’s why we’re here doing the jobs that we have. We’re solving problems that nobody else has probably solved before. And it’s perfectly fine to [00:34:00] embrace the fact that you don’t know as long as you also know how to go find the solution to it. And I think that goes down to, uh, asking a ton of questions, Nick. Uh, of course you always wanna make sure that, uh, you can ask why a lot. And of course, Asia, we, we think about process documentation, write it down. There’s no way we’re gonna be able to remember it all. So get it written down some format in some fashion. 

Speaker 1: Uh, as we go, we’re already five minutes over and that just shows you how much, uh, fun we have and, and time flies when we’re having fun. Uh, we will let everybody get back today. [00:34:30] I know a couple folks probably already had a drop to get to their next meeting, but, uh, as always, Asia, Nick, Jonathan, thank you guys enough for jumping in. Share your thoughts, uh, for everybody that joined, uh, you’ll get a copy of the, the ebook that we have, the 30 69, uh, roadmap for you. And Ken, thank y’all for, uh, putting all the content together and Sarah for helping us, uh, orchestrate all of it as we continue. But pardoning words, Asia. Nick, Jonathan, thank you so much. I really appreciate it. And hope everybody has a, uh, a great rest of their day. Hi everyone. 

Speaker 4: Bye. Thanks everyone. 

Speaker 1: [00:35:00] See you.

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