Ask a Sales Operations Manager: Growing a Sales Ops Team

We asked Tom Andrews, Revenue Operations Manager at PassFort, recent questions from the OppGen community about growing a sales operations team. Read on to see what we found out –

When is the best time to grow your sales operations team?

When you’re anticipating growth, especially if it’s going to be inorganic – like as a result of investment or funding.

What is the department should a sales operations manager report to?

Sales ops should report into its own function or into the CRO. It should be aside from sales and marketing, so they can truly hold the team they’re managing accountable.

It should definitely not be aligned to Finance. Rev ops needs to be an objective in third-party disputes – especially over commission!

How do you make your decision when buying a new tech tool?

1. Work out my needs and specifications.
2. Research the market.
3. Check out the vendors.
4. Book an afternoon of demos and go from there!

Speaking of… found any new tools that are game-changers?

Quip! It’s a handy (and relatively lightweight and cheap) Salesforce add-on. It makes it very easy to Close Plan and Account Plan.

Any other words of wisdom?

The rate of change and improvement of technology seems to be accelerating once again. So, make sure you’ve got your systems in order and don’t just band-aid issues or you’ll end up with a Frankenstein tech stack.

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