In this episode of the DevReady Podcast, our hosts, Andrew Romeo and Anthony Sapountzis are joined by Chris Ellis, Founder of Ellivate Consulting. From simplifying commission schemes to mastering CRMCRM stands for Client Relationship Management. A CRM system is a digitised process of keeping your customer interactions and details... for scalability, Chris shares invaluable insights into revenue operations, helping businesses navigate growth challenges and unlock their full potential. Tune in for expert guidance on enhancing performance, aligning teams, and building a high-impact sales organization.
Chris shares his extensive experience in the corporate world and highlights his consultancy’s role in helping scale-up organizations enhance their systems and processes for improved performance and revenue retention. He discusses the various services his firm offers, including consulting, training, coaching, and the unique “virtual rev-up” process, aimed at resolving revenue cycle pain points.
Chris emphasizes the significance of early adoption of revenue operations within organizations and provides insights into his consultancy’s framework for optimizing revenue operations and revenue enablement. He underlines the importance of strategy in this framework, which consists of 12 steps focusing on critical aspects such as performance, sales processes, data measurement, and aligning sales and marketing teams.
Additionally, the episode explores the challenges faced during the scaling process, with Chris highlighting the need for organizations to shift their focus from the “what” to the “why” and effectively equipping teams with the necessary tools and strategies to achieve desired outcomes. The role of reporting and analytics, particularly within CRMCRM stands for Client Relationship Management. A CRM system is a digitised process of keeping your customer interactions and details... systems, is emphasized as a crucial factor in achieving scalability and informed decision-making.
Chris concludes the conversation by emphasizing the essential role of revenue operations within organizations, particularly during the scaling phase. He encourages businesses to invest in strong individuals for revenue operations to drive success, underlining the importance of a well-defined operating model and a carefully selected technology stack to support growth and efficiency.
Topics Covered
- Chris Ellis’ Career Journey
- The Birth of Ellivate Consulting
- Challenges Faced by Growing Organizations
- Services Offered by Ellivate Consulting
- Addressing Skill Gaps
- The Concept of Revenue Operations
- Optimizing Revenue Operations and Enablement
- Designing Effective Commission Schemes
- The Role of Reporting and Analytics
- Scaling Systems Within an Organization
Key Quotes (Time Stamps)
- “We’re a boutique consulting business working with scale-ups—looking to provide systems, frameworks, and processes in place because it seems to help them drive consistent performance and ultimately drive revenue retention.” (2:04 – 2:18)
- “More often than not, every organization has the same challenges but a different scale, slightly different pivot on the way it’s happening. But ultimately, the core problems are very similar across organizations.” (2:55 – 3:09)
- “More and more businesses are identifying the need, and we will go into that business and actually help them either build that function or act in a role in that business for a period of time or, more often not, do deep dive on the organization to help bring to life the pain points that they’ve currently got and identify where the problems are in their revenue cycle and look at ways in which we can help them going forward.” (4:49 – 5:12)
- “So, where revenue operations come in as slightly different is the fact that it’s looking at the complete revenue cycle, driving alignment across marketing, sales, and customer success. So, rather than just the sales operations, which tend to focus just on the sales process for when the sales team is involved, we’re looking at completely everything—from lead to revenue being driven and, more importantly, that recurring revenue churn and managing the ongoing relationships with the customers as well. So, they’re all about driving the efficiency in the business and the effectiveness of the marketing team.” (8:14 – 8:53)
- “I would probably say perhaps this (revenue ops) should be one of the first hires that you have to go to market because they can embed the financial foundational capability for every other hire coming into the business to have a clear process to follow, to have some great data and analytics, etc. in place to understand what actions could be taking the business to improve performance.” (10:43 – 11:05)
- “Revenue operation is all about the general efficiency of the business—so, making sure business processes are in place. Whereas revenue enablement is more about the effectiveness of the go-to-market teams and getting that alignment across the go-to-market teams.” (12:37 – 12:54)
- “I always think, simple is best, and sometimes you can overcomplicate schemes when a company is motivating people or they drive the wrong behaviors. So, I think the first thing is to always look at what are the behaviors that we want to drive across the business when designing a scheme, and how do we drive collaboration as well.” (17:11 – 17:32)
- “That is the central part is having more reporting and analytics. Back to the ‘how’—if I can measure everything, I can understand the how’s’ and the challenges that are there in the business and help the organization make some changes.” (21:04 – 21:19)
- “I think the complexity now is just the sheer volume of platforms out there in the marketplace. It can be very overwhelming for organizations to build that tech stack and understand exactly what is going to work for them as a business. And that’s where other organizations like ours can help: we can help organizations to understand what they need as foundational and what perhaps do they need to invest in longer term that they don’t need from day one” (25:24 – 25:56)
- “If you have documented a great sales process and you’ve clearly identified the ways in which you’re going to measure people and you’ve got everyone consistently following that framework and you get great data coming out of the platform as well, is going to give you much better reporting and improve the decision making that you’re making as a business.” (28:08 – 28:26)
Important Time Stamps
- Shared Challenges, Unique Solutions: How Ellivate Consulting Boosts Revenue Retention (1:00 – 3:09)
- The Virtual Rev Up: Reviving Revenue Cycles with Ellivate Consulting (3:41 – 9:54)
- Chris Ellis on the Strategic Timing of Revenue Ops Hiring (10:01 – 11:45)
- Chris Ellis’ 12-Step Framework for Revenue Growth (11:59 – 16:30)
- Simplifying Success with Behavior-Driven Commissions (16:33 – 18:25)
- From ‘What’ to ‘Why’ & ‘How’: Chris Ellis’ Guide to Aligning and Supporting Teams (18:38 – 19:38)
- Mastering Reporting and Analytics: Chris Ellis’ Insights (20:05 – 28:26)
- Who Should Lead Revenue Operations? (29:01 – 31:30)
- Choosing the Right Tech Stack, Operating Models and Tools (31:44 – 36:16)
- Alignment is Key: Chris Ellis on Messaging for Growth (36:25 – 40:24)
- From Pain Points to Prosperity: The Power of a Scale-Up Assessment (40:57 – 42:52)
