Setting up your Operating Cadences

Nov 27, 2023

∙ Paid

I hope everyone (in the US at least) had a fantastic Thanksgiving break. I’m just coming back from a 10 day trip to Miami and Turcs and Caicos. So excuse me if I’m still a bit sluggish from being unplugged for so long. This time of year always reminds me to to focus on what really matters in life. For me, it’s my family. It’s the reason I work so hard.In my 20s I focused on living MY life. In my 30s I focused on CLIMBING the ladder. In my 40s I’m working on making sure I take care of the family. If you’re open to it, I’d love to hear from you what your ‘WHY’ is.

Going into GTM Operations you should know you’re not walking into a “easy job”. There’s no coasting in this profession.

If you’re new to this newsletter then welcome! Thank you to the 2,000+ revenue operations professionals who continue to subscribe to this newsletter. You’re the reason I continue to write each and every week on a Go To Market related topic. When I have a template to share paid subscribers will get access. I don’t have all the answers in revenue operations. That’s impossible because RevOps can be uniquely situated for each unique situation. But what I hope you can take away a few guiding principles or tactical snippets which you can use in your day to day. Before jumping into the newsletter, let’s hear from our sponsors that keep most of this newsletter free to readers.

RevOps aren’t system admins. Growblocks is building the 1st RevOps platform, giving you full funnel analytics, continuous monitoring and revenue planning tools - so you can become strategic. Check it out here.

Most forecasts suck. It’s not just an accountability problem. It’s also an alignment and an insights problem. And those problems affect ALL REVENUE WORKFLOWS including pipeline management. Wouldn’t it be nice to align teams and to hold them accountable with trusted data insights? That’s how you start to boost sales performance with better pipeline management and forecast accuracy of over 95%. Talk to BoostUp

It’s the night before the board meeting. The questions are flying at you left and right. How do you make sure everyone has the data they need? Enter SetSail AI – a direct line to your sales data. Ask any question about deals, teams, accounts, and opportunities. Get answers instantly.

Let’s talk about Operating Cadences

In a previous post we talked about the different types of developing operating cadences. Today I’d like to put on my Head of Sales and Head of Sales Operations hat on. We’re going to design a sample operating rhythm which you can use with your business.

I’m a huge fan of Systems Thinking. One critical piece of Systems Thinking is the Feedback Loop. Systems often involve feedback loops, where the output of a process becomes input for the same or another process. Positive feedback amplifies changes, while negative feedback tends to stabilize and regulate a system. Understanding these loops is crucial in predicting and managing system behavior.

An operating rhythm is critical to setting properly setting up a feedback loop. Some may mistake an operating rhythm for just another meeting. If so, that would be a missed opportunity. Take for example the Pipeline Review.

One could run a Pipeline Review by having all of the sales reps and using one of the following formats:

Sequentially through each rep
Descending order by deal size
Committed forecast category then moving down a category

Another method is to bake the pipeline review into the 1 hour long 1-on-1. Here, the manager uses an Ops template to go through each rep’s pipeline in detail. Thoroughly going through the review would enable a higher level of pipeline hygiene and thus a better prepared Forecast Call (yet another operating rhythm).

The full suite of operating rhythms

As the Ops leader we have an obligation to ensure that we’re helping our stakeholders receive feedback, identify threats/opportunities, and drive action. My recommendation is to start small and progressively build up the operating cadences to reduce blind spots around the edges.

For example you might consider building out three cadences to start:

Forecast (at least weekly for SMB, at least bi-weekly for Mid Market and Enterprise selling motions)
Pipeline Review (focus on size, shape, generation, and velocity)
Monthly Business Review (focus on team outputs, wins, learnings, application of lessons learned for new period)

Here’s a list of some cadences you might consider.

Each of the rhythms need the ‘why’ behind them. Let’s break these out in detail.

Manager 1:1

Why: This is where the feedback and coaching takes place. AEs grow here first and foremost among all the rhythms listed.