For a lot of Sales Ops groups, the planning conversation seems to start off from a highly logical and pragmatic place…
How many people do we have? How much time can we dedicate? What do we think the leadership team will approve? How much useable data do we have? How much pushback are we prepared to deal with? What do we think we can get done without starting an internal war, blowing up the field operation, or asking for a bunch more resources we’re not going to get anyway?
None of these questions are bad questions. In fact, these questions are perfectly reasonable and sensible. That said, however, these types of questions are not nearly so sensible when they’re the first questions being asked.
When Sales Ops groups start planning from their constraints, they risk defining their entire agenda around what seems doable rather than what actually matters. They look at their human resource constraints, their lack of available budget, and their already-overloaded punch list and then ask, “Ok, given all of that, what do we think we can realistically tackle next?”
That just sounds responsible, right? It seems to be quite professional and mature, in fact. And it even has the veneer of realism.
But here’s the thing…it often leads to “majoring in the minors.”
Instead of asking what Sales Ops needs to do to accelerate onboarding, boost “meaty middle” performance, reduce customer churn, strengthen sales process discipline, or improve the efficacy of the overall sales machine, the team asks what it might be able to squeeze into the calendar without needing any additional resources or causing too much organizational angst or disruption.
Rather than identifying the biggest and most valuable Sales Ops initiatives for the business, the group ends up prioritizing the most affordable and least objectionable improvement activities. Instead of crafting their forward-looking plan around “strategic importance,” the team builds a plan around “tactical doability.”
Then later on, everyone acts really surprised when the plan barely moves the needle or fails make much of a difference at all.
The point I’m making here is that the planning sequence matters…a lot.
First and foremost, the company’s most valuable strategic sales needs and opportunities should be defining the “what” and the “why” behind our planned initiatives. And then the tactical and operational realities we’ll have to contend with can help inform and define the “when” and the “how” around executing those initiatives.
Now…our resource-constrained Sales Ops function may not be able to tackle a major strategic initiative all at once. Well…guess what? These days, there aren’t many Sales Operations functions who can.
So we’ll have to break the bigger initiative down into a series of much smaller steps over time. Well…guess what? In commercial environments, smaller steps are much easier for the rest of the organization to accept and absorb anyway!
Along the way, we can be sure that every smaller move is pointed in the right direction. We can be sure that our smaller steps are part of a larger path, rather than just being a collection of disconnected activities that sound good in a status meeting, but don’t change the outcomes much.
By leveraging the proper planning sequence…strategy first, tactics second…we can be constrained in our tactical execution without being constrained in our strategic ambition. We can acknowledge our limitations without being governed or defined by them. And we can develop realistic, stepwise plans toward much more valuable, meaningful, and impactful purposes.
Again, as tempting as it may be…and as pragmatic, mature, and professional as it may seem…don’t get the planning sequence backwards.
Because when a Sales Ops team defines their future plans according to their current limitations and constraints, they can’t be surprised when the future ends up looking like just a slightly more polished version of the present.
Developing a Winning Sales Ops Roadmap
For transforming Sales Ops, good intentions aren't enough. You need a plan. In this on-demand webinar, learn about creating an effective roadmap for making Sales Ops a more strategic function.
Aligning Sales Ops to Business Strategy
How do you ensure that your sales operation and the overall business strategy are properly aligned? And what do you do when there's a disconnect?
Successful Sales Ops Pilot Programs
How do you get your company to accept new sales tools and approaches, while maximizing your odd of success? In this session, learn how to leverage pilot programs and in-market trials to accelerate your progress.
