To build out your RevOps tech stack, you have to be a savant who understands the business inside and out, a juggler who can handily manage competing priorities, a politician who can navigate personalities and conflict, and a psychic who can see and plan into the future. In other words, it’s a challenging — and often frustrating — job. Fortunately, it’s also a much-appreciated role where the ROI is clear. 

As complicated as the process can be (and as complicated as your tech architecture may look!), it all boils down to 3 things: does your tech help you make revenue, protect revenue, and/or save revenue? 

To build a RevOps tech stack that will best serve the business, you need to operate on the foundation of those three priorities, know what you need to know, and build credibility throughout the extended GTM function (and beyond). 

Admittedly, RevOps is about more than just tech. In order to successfully scale, sometimes what you need is a new process or new/more people, in addition to new tech. But your tech stack is the beating heart of your RevOps function. So, to help you find the beat, I’ve pulled together this simple guide, focusing on the 9 things to take into consideration in order to scale your RevOps tech stack:

1. Corporate Goals

You need to be at the hub of your business, aware of where the business is and where it wants to go — and then able to think beyond that. Depending on your org, your corporate goals may be short- or long-term. But in either case, you need to build for the stated goals with a look toward the future. If your company has a goal to grow X% this year, you need to consider what will hold you if the company grows 100%. Find yourself a seat at the big table so that everything you’re doing ladders up to the business priorities. 

2. Functional Goals

From CX to sales and marketing, each group within your GTM org will have smaller goals. The challenge is that these teams often function within silos so these functional goals may not always be complementary — they could even potentially be at odds with one another. It’s your responsibility to try to be a support to help all these functions accomplish their own goals, but not at the expense of the big picture. 

3. Management Goals 

Management goals are similar to functional goals in that they are smaller and more specific, for example, growing a team or improving team efficiency. But in this case, they are attached to an individual, and this is where personalities and politics can collide. In other words … it gets tricky! Building relationships is really important when it comes to helping managers clarify their goals so you can help them succeed — but again, you’ll need to balance team and manager needs with the overall goals of the organization. 

4. Capacity Plan

When you think of capacity, you’re looking at growing your internal teams to keep up with customer growth. Your tech needs to support both more employees and more customers. With a large customer base, it’s essential to be more efficient with support, which is where tech can become super important. 

5. Projections

Every SaaS business has a projection of growth. What you need to consider is how you’re going to grow, at what scale, and what tech will set you up for success along the way. 

‍Each category of growth for your business will have new business requirements, new “gotchas” (i.e., things to look out for), and new important pieces of tech. Are you on the path from $1-10M? If so, the focus is on acquisition and your focus should be on foundational pieces that will be flexible enough to grow with you. On the path to $50M+? Your focus might shift to retention and growing your customer base — and tools that will support those projections. 

Note that if you make the choice of spend/cost over scale, at some point you’ll be facing a transition — and there’s never a good time for a big tech change. Transitions are timely and costly in terms of dollars as well as human effort. 

6. Current Tech Stack

Your tech stack grows in concert with your projections throughout the different stages of your company. So what your current tech tack looks like is going to be very different as your business matures. 

With the foundational pieces that get set in the earlier stages, there aren’t that many solutions — and this isn’t where you’re going to differentiate your stack. The value foundational tech adds isn’t revenue; it’s consistency, efficiency, reporting, security, and a solid base on which to grow.  

These foundational tools need to be reliable, easy to use, and do essential jobs. For example when my deal desk person left, I did the math: we had 1,200 customers, he reviews each twice a year with 2-3 approval cycles. That meant he had been touching 7,000 quotes a year. The obvious solution, adding a CPQ to my tech stack as a piece of foundational tech. 

Differentiating is understanding all the pieces of tech that you have through the lens of how these solutions will help you make, protect, and/or save revenue. For example, I just purchased and implemented a power dialer. This isn’t a foundational piece of tech; it’s incremental. And it will potentially add revenue. 

And if it doesn’t? Then I can rip it out. Scaling down to consolidate and optimize is just as important as growing your tech stack. 

7. Tech Stack Ecosystem

If you open a tech stack list or map from 10 years ago, there were only a few options, essentially CRM, MAP, and sales enablement/enrichment. With so few options, your choice was fairly simple. Now with so many options, how do you find the best tools? And how do you find out what you don’t know? Honestly, this is what keeps me up at night. With solutions coming to market so fast, you can’t just rely on past knowledge. 

Build a community, join a community (I highly recommend RevOps Coop). Attend meetups and events. Read up on LinkedIn. Take demos for products you may not even be sure you need just yet. Share your knowledge generously and allow yourself to be vulnerable to ask questions and learn about things that are new to you, because what got you here may not get you there. 

8. Buying Process

When you’re purchasing tech, you aren’t just a buyer; you’re also a seller trying to sell internally, making a convincing case as to why you need a particular tool. And then you need to think through all the variables (even when you don’t hold all the cards): How are you going to get legal approval? How are you going to implement? What’s the enablement plan? 

The buying process takes up a lot of time. Multiply that by the number of tools you purchase and the number of renewals you have to manage every year and it all adds up to a good chunk of your time. So try to streamline and standardize your buying process to save yourself some time and headaches. 

‍9. Budgets

I’ve saved the best for last … budgets! Some RevOps teams view budget as the impassable roadblock. But in my experience, there are two main things to know about budget. First, you need to know what it is! This might sound obvious, but when someone asks you what the budget is, you have to have a ready answer. And secondly, if you need budget to buy something truly essential, you will find it. I really believe that. 

If you’re working collaboratively within the organization — supporting corporate goals, supporting manager goals, supporting capacity, and all the other considerations I’ve mentioned in this guide — you’ll have the confidence and credibility to make a convincing case to get the budget you need. 

‍Conclusion

RevOps is always about making, protecting, and saving revenue. But other than that constant, RevOps really doesn’t repeat itself. Things are changing too fast. That’s why it’s so important that you remain open to constantly learning how new ideas, new processes, and new tech can help you scale. 

Want more RevOps support? Watch our on-demand webinar on championing the RevOps tools you want and need.