Get some great insights from this Revcast customer in the premiere episode of the RevOps Revolution podcast, hosted by Revcast's Chief RevOps Officer Jeff Serlin.

Kareem Agha, head of sales for Haus (and a Revcast customer) joined us for the premier episode of RevOps Revolution. Kareem’s been in software sales for more than a decade, with a career that spanned everything from being a BDR to an AE, then a frontline sales leader and now heading up the entire sales operations for Haus and the fast-growing company’s marketing data science tools.

He notes that he’s “also continuously learning every single day as well, because you know the things that worked 10 years ago certainly don't work today.”

When it comes to the RevOps-related work that must support his role, he feels that when done well at a high level, it becomes the guiding compass for the go-to-market motion – spanning everything from sales, marketing, informing financial and quota models, and hiring. “It really becomes the compass of, are we going down the right path for our business to continue towards whatever the goal might be, profitability, revenue growth, whatever the growth the company is focused on.”

Kareem feels RevOps should be a true partner (one of Jeff’s favorite descriptors!) in the business and empower organizations to course-correct a lot faster by getting ahead of metrics that you might be falling short on, whether it's hiring, quota capacity, pipeline generation, or other key input areas.

Kareem: “There’s so much when you're building a company and scaling a company that falls on a sales leader, beyond just hitting a number. Delivering a number is really important, but what's more important to a CEO or to an investor or to the funding community is that you can deliver that number repeatably.... One thing that VCs love to talk about is pattern recognition. So they want to understand, what are the patterns in your business, and how do we actually drive towards those patterns? That's what RevOps is there to help you with." 

Further to his point about sales leadership being about more than just hitting a number – you want to understand what formula is working and where (and when) it makes sense to scale up, or pull back. “Hitting your number isn't enough anymore. You need to be able to explain why you did it.... Just because you're crushing your numbers is not enough to have a successful business. You need to explain the tools and the levers, the inputs and the outputs of exactly how you got there and what gas you can throw on a fire to continue to expand on the success that you've had.”

Like all sales leaders, he is presented with a lot of data and has to make decisions – sometimes unpopular decisions, based on his experience and situational awareness, but he needs that data to assess the risks of different options based on potential outcomes.

Jeff notes that there are usually multiple good paths that can be followed, not necessarily one, and that the bad choices should be made clear. RevOps should be providing the data, insights, and models to show what could happen based on different scenarios that can be considered.

When discussing the attributes he looks for in a RevOps leader, Kareem likes someone who has “seen the dance” that is similar to your business and also has seen other go-to-market motions for comparison.

He also feels you should strive to remove emotion from the decision. The insights that come from RevOps and related solutions should help make the best possible decision, and it should be a highly valued collaboration with the sales leader. 

Jeff agreed and noted that with his experience working with CEOs, it’s also about developing that trusted, supportive relationship. Jeff gives the example of when “I can very clearly say I think you're wrong here, and here's why, and that CRO would listen to me and they might not agree, but at least there was enough trust where we can have those kind of real conversations and hopefully collectively or jointly get to a better aligned answer.”

Kareem expressed his view that RevOps should be ultimately seen as an extension of Finance, even if it reports into the Sales or Revenue team. That’s because he believes RevOps should “ensure that the revenue team is operating in a financially responsible way.”

But Marketing is crucial too, and while it’s often felt less connected to RevOps, that needs to change. Kareem: “I think CMOS right now are under more fire than they've been in quite a long time. Every single company you talk to talks about top-of-funnel issues and struggling to generate pipeline and more often than not, companies rely on marketing to help with pipeline generation activities. I think the modern CMO will embrace RevOps to help them build a plan to generate pipeline.” 

That all fits into the overall revenue plan model that is built and must be executed on and adapted. Kareem stresses the importance for a sales or revenue leader to have a very good grasp of their model, which means they understand the inputs, outputs, and predictability of the plan. This is important for the future of the company and its strategic goals, whether that includes a future fundraise or a potential M&A event or just aiming for steady, strong growth.

Jeff and Kareem wrap up with some banter about the Minions vs. Simpsons, but we’ll leave it to you to listen to the full podcast to catch that exchange. 😊

We thank Kareem for his RevOps Revolution podcast appearance and for this relationship with us at Revcast!

Listen to the Episode on Apple Podcasts (24 minutes)

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