Spreadsheets to RevOps - Big Steps Forward For Your Young Company

When your business is young, it's easy to default to spreadsheets for managing all the sales and marketing pieces - after all, it’s a small team, working a manageable number of customers and deals. The whole business is fresh, processes are still being figured out, and spreadsheets are flexible enough to make quick changes on the fly.  But, as the company grows and the sales team expands, it’s not long before things start to get complicated.

The Spreadsheet Problem

At first, spreadsheets seem like a perfect solution. Excel is universal, enhancements are quick, and they’re easy to share. However, as more team members get involved, everyone creates their own version, and chaos begins. Soon enough, the sales manager, in an effort to bring order, decides it’s time to “get organized.”

After Excel, the next (brief) stop is usually Google Sheets.  That fixes the challenges with version control, but not much else.  Changes are rampant, hard to manage.  How many hours are spent counting the left- and right-parentheses in formulas, and trying to remember the correct equation to calculate “percent change”?

Next Stop:  Real CRM software!  (Buckle up.)

Enter Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tools like Salesforce or Hubspot. These platforms offer more structure, advanced features, and integrations that allow your business to scale. 

Typically, a sales manager gets tired of clicking cells in a spreadsheet, and declares, “Enough!” and starts a subscription to one of these tools.  They’ll roll up their (sales person) sleeves, and begin to configure it to suit the company’s most basic sales processes: Account records, Leads, Lead Status, Opportunity Stage, Close Date.  Still using spreadsheets for products and prices - but things are definitely happening.

At first, it’s a noticeable improvement. Things are better organized, and there’s a sense of progress. But the initial configuration — the “1.0” version — is usually pretty clunky. Sales leadership wants features they’ve used at previous companies, better visibility into performance, and more control over the process. Meanwhile, the poor manager who volunteered to lead the charge quickly realizes this is no longer just a small task, but a full-time effort. Things got complicated, and he is no longer having fun.

The (half-configured) tool is now in use by the entire sales team, but things have gotten messy. Data is inconsistent, incomplete, and reporting is pretty rough. Executives can't get the insights they need to make informed decisions (“Dammit.  At my last company, this just worked.”), and the business still feels unmanaged.

"Let's fix this thing."

The Decision: Hire or Bring in a Consultant?

So, what’s the next move? Do you hire someone internally to fix the systems and tools, or bring in a consultant? Both options have their merits, but there are some important pros-and-cons to think through.

"RevOps"?

Previously, you might have seen titles like MarTech or Business Technology, but "RevOps Analyst" or "RevOps Manager" are now much more common job titles. These professionals are experts at managing the technology and processes that fuel your sales operations.

Biggest Challenge: Finding the Right RevOps Talent

Finding the right person to handle your RevOps systems can be more difficult than you think. Experts in RevOps are pretty rare and fairly expensive, but they’re especially important if you want to do it right.  A key differentiator:  Good RevOps professionals have the expertise not only in the tools themselves but also in understanding the business processes behind them.  That alone is a huge difference between the really good RevOps experts and the rest of the field.

Once the foundation is built and things are running well, the need for change slows down — but it never stops. As your business grows, you’ll continue to introduce new marketing strategies, expand sales roles, add products, and form channel partnerships. Each of these changes will require ongoing refinement of your systems.

The key here is that a good RevOps expert is not just a tech wizard — they’re a collaborator.  They should work alongside Sales, Marketing, Product, and Operations teams to ensure that your sales processes are continually optimized and aligned with your business goals.

Two options for locating strong RevOps skills:  Hire a full-time employee, or utilize a short-duration Consultant.  (Or both.)

The In-House RevOps Resource

While hiring a full-time RevOps expert might seem wrong at the outset, due to their fairly high salary requirements, it is often the best approach for managing your sales and marketing systems in the long term. In-house resources are more integrated into your company culture and can adapt your systems in real-time to meet evolving needs.

However, there’s a catch — well-skilled RevOps experts can command hefty salaries, which could strain the budget of a young, lean startup. This is where a strategic approach comes into play.

The RevOps Hired Gun

Hiring a strong RevOps consultant makes a lot of sense - pay for the deep experience for the timeframe you need them, then let them wrap up and leave.  

However, many companies make the mistake of finding a great RevOps consultant, but not hiring an in-house resource to learn and take ownership of these systems.  A RevOps consultant is happy to stay engaged for long durations - but the reality is, you’re probably over-spending to have them do basic administrative chores that could be handled by someone else, at a far lesser cost.

The Hybrid Approach: Employee and Consultant

Instead of hiring a fully-fledged RevOps expert right away, consider this two-pronged approach:

1. Hire a junior in-house resource: Look for someone with solid basic skills who’s a fast learner and a good cultural fit for your organization. While they may not have deep expertise at first, they can grow into the role and manage day-to-day operations.

2. Bring in a consultant: Hire an experienced RevOps consultant to help design and implement the foundational systems. This consultant can help lay the groundwork, ensuring that your systems are set up right from the start. This gives your in-house resource the opportunity to learn while working on critical implementations. 

But!  Don’t forget to get (a) nurture/train your in-house RevOps resource, and (b) wrap up the Consultant’s project.  For this “hybrid” approach to work well, you must remember to grow your RevOps employee, ensure great cross-collaboration between Employee and Consultant, and transition the Consultant away when the time is right.  

This approach minimizes the long-term reliance on external consultants while ensuring that your company gets the expertise it needs during the initial stages.

There are two main downsides to this approach - the increased expense of having 2 resources, and the reduced speed due to knowledge transfer.  Believe it or not, it’s often faster to have one person design and build the solution, versus having a 2-person team tasked with both design/build and knowledge transfer.

Sidebar: Sales or Marketing?

Ideally, this person should report to either Sales or Marketing - largely dependent on the technical/operational experience of those two leaders.  

(This position does not belong in Engineering or Product or IT.  Don't do it.)

Either way, this RevOps person is going to shine a light on the tight collaboration between the Sales and Marketing teams - or lack thereof.  I’ve seen businesses stall because Sales and Marketing teams do not work together to fully develop the seamless processes needed to successfully capture leads, and work them into successful deals generating ARR.

Wrap it up, Mark:

As your business grows, managing your Sales and Marketing operations will only become more complex. It’s tempting to stick with the ease and familiarity of spreadsheets, or to configure a CRM tool without expert help, or even build your own custom app (do not do this!) - but that can quickly lead to confusion, and runaway costs, and missed deals. 

A hybrid combination of in-house resources and external expertise can set your company up for long-term success, ensuring that your sales processes are streamlined, scalable, and aligned with your business objectives.

In the end, picking the right RevOps approach and finding strong talent will pay off many times over — not only in terms of closing deals better and faster, but also in the ability to give your Leaders the information and tools they need to run the business better than ever before.

About This Blog:

Jaguars have the strongest bite of any big cat, capable of crushing the skulls of their prey with ease. Talk about a powerful jaw! 

This blog was written by a team of people, not AI.