Job Seeker Series Part 2: Understanding Careers in Revenue
Did you miss Part One? Read it here
If you’ve been working in a corporate setting for more than 5 years, you may have seen a set of titles becoming increasingly prominent across businesses of all sizes.
Revenue.
Chief Revenue Officer. Revenue Operations Analyst. Head of Revenue.
The third largest business unit at Stripe, a fast growing fintech business, according to this publicly available org chart… reports to their CRO. Most businesses with a B2B focus have a CRO, and many others with diverse focuses do as well.
What is the revenue function?
The revenue function can vary from company to company so it’s really important to ask a lot of questions if you’re interviewing for this kind of role. Oftentimes, this function covers everything that directly drives revenue. Typically this covers sales and account management, and occasionally this also covers partnerships and marketing. The tone of revenue strategy varies greatly depending on which of these business units are included.
Who might be a good fit for a revenue role?
This will vary depending on the specific role, but here are some things to consider:
If you have a background in business analysis, finance, technical project management, or quantitative research, you may be a good fit to transition into a Revenue Operations Analyst role or similar.
If you have a background in sales or account management, you may be a good fit to join Revenue Operations (RO, or RevOps) as a strategist or project manager. You’ll be able to use your sales experience and process management skills to help improve existing processes, create new ones, and make selling and account management run more smoothly and effectively.
If you have a background in technical account management or as a sales engineer (titles we should talk more about in a future post for this series), you may be a great fit in RevOps in a role such as project manager. You know how internal systems work together, and how they impact clients. You can apply that knowledge and your existing technical skills to make big things happen in RevOps.
If you have a background in sales leadership, moving into a more strategic revenue role as a CRO or Head of Revenue could be a great way to advance your career. While these leaders aren’t typically involved in day to day selling or retaining of business (depending on many factors such as team size, of course), they are strategic thinkers and planners with a keen commercial awareness. Make sure you understand what other business units beyond sales/account management will fall under your purview.
If you’re a marketer with a keen understanding of B2B lead generation and the many technical aspects of generating, nurturing, and preparing leads to be handed off, those technical skills and processes will serve you well if you want to pursue a role in RevOps, and potentially move into a wider Revenue role in the future
How to Break Into Revenue
You’re interested in revenue titles but aren’t sure how to get there. Here are some key tips and ideas for how to better prepare yourself to work in Revenue in the future.
Take time to really understand your company’s financial performance, and particularly how sales and retained/upsold business impacted financial outcomes. Look for weak spots where revenue projections are behind and try to understand why. If you’re not naturally curious about these aspects of a business’s performance, a career in Revenue may not be right for you.
Learn about the existing systems and technologies that exist to support revenue functions today at your current job, or at companies you’d like to be a part of. What is the entire sales cycle like? What are the sticking points? What internal systems make selling and account management difficult? How is marketing understood and prioritized? What kinds of tasks are outsourced versus accomplished in-house?
Get comfortable with a wide range of client-related technology. If you know Salesforce well, be sure to learn Hubspot, and spend some time on Apollo. There are countless revtech solutions out there, and you don’t need to know every one, but it’s important to be versatile and able to work with a range of technologies, not simply stuck on the same tech stack you’ve used and are comfortable with.
Work on getting a mentor in Revenue. Since this function has drastically changed over the last 5-10 years, mentorship from a current leader is particularly important. Be sure you look for a mentor who has climbed the ladder on their own; even if they are a leader and thinker today, they should have been in the doer roles that keep the revenue function moving so that they can speak to specifics of the work.
Maybe I’m biased from my background in sales, but I would suggest befriending some sales people. Ask the sales and account management folks in your life what makes their jobs hard. Ask them to walk you through every step of their process, and what they think is working, or not.
Staying agile in a changing working world is key. That’s why we think it’s so important to look for emerging functions and titles that you may not otherwise have considered. Revenue is one of many functions that has emerged or changed substantially in recent years. Expect to hear more from me in the coming weeks about other areas to explore and consider as you look at options for your future.
#jobseekers #ChiefRevenueOfficer #RevenueOperationsAnalyst #Head of Revenue #jobtitling
About Liz Miller: She lives in Chicago and has over ten years of experience in business development, partnership, client strategy, go to market, and sales leadership. She has extensive experience across consumer goods, luxury goods, and all things retail and ecommerce. Liz holds a MA in Public Policy from the University of Chicago and is passionate about policy and business practices that move us towards safe and sustainable consumption.
