RevOps vs. Sales Ops: An Interview with Christian Freese

Revenue Operations has become one of the fastest-growing functions in B2B SaaS. Despite that, there is still real confusion about what RevOps actually does — and how it differs from the Sales Ops function many companies already have.

Sales Ops optimizes the sales process and supports the sales team on lead generation, qualification, and opportunity management. RevOps takes a holistic view of revenue generation across marketing, sales, and customer success. But the difference shows up most clearly in the day-to-day: who you report to, who you build trust with, and what you are accountable for.

To unpack that, here is a Q&A with RevPal founder Christian Freese, who spent seven years in Sales Ops before moving into RevOps in 2021 and founding RevPal in 2022.

I started in sales operations at the beginning of my career. I was hired as a sales admin at the first tech company I worked for while attending college, and I saw an opportunity for improvement from the start.

As a sales admin, I checked boxes — we shipped the PO, made sure it went to the right address, and moved it over to CS. As I did this, I noticed many inefficiencies between the go-to-market handoffs across marketing, sales, customer success, and partnerships. So I jumped in and started interfacing with the GTM leaders and fixing the systems.

I found a passion for it. After about two and a half years I got laid off, then became an analyst on the deal desk side for Aerohive Networks. Technically a Sales Operations analyst, I sat on the deal desk and reported into the senior director who reported to the CRO. That visibility is where I started to see the benefits of not having siloed Sales Ops.

That is how I ended up in RevOps at Contentful. After Contentful I was ready to head my first RevOps team, so I jumped over to Tapcart as their first RevOps hire and Director of Revenue Operations. It was a Series A company fresh off funding, and I built the team from one to four people before my departure.

I was ready to contribute to the bigger picture. Things tend to get lost in transition when you have so many people across different GTM teams handling them, and I wanted to get better across the entire funnel — not just the top.

I wanted to work with a VP of Marketing on campaigns and messaging, a Customer Success leader on retention and customer satisfaction, and a Sales leader on strategic outbound plays. But I also wanted to drive revenue.

In Sales Operations, you are more top-of-funnel focused. You typically sit under the VP of Sales and that is your focus. When you have a Sales Ops org, that usually means you also have other siloed GTM teams like Marketing Operations or Customer Success Operations, each holding a piece of the pie.

By contrast, RevOps oversees everything that drives revenue — customer success, marketing, sales, and partnerships.

When you move from Sales Ops to RevOps you go from worrying about one department to the organization as a whole. Your level of responsibility is much greater with RevOps because of its holistic overview of the company, not just a singular focus.

In Sales Ops, I only had to get close to the VP of Sales. That was my job. I needed to gain his trust, build the metrics, and alert him if the pipeline was down. In RevOps, you need to do that for four, five, or six individuals — plus the board.

You are also dealing with a lot of different personalities. You might have an amazing VP of Customer Success who is open, while the VP of Sales is more standoffish. You need the maturity to know how to approach those situations and gain their trust. If you do not have one GTM leader's trust, everything you are doing is for nothing.

There is also a common misconception that RevOps is just someone who should be Salesforce certified and take orders. That can be true of RevOps managers while they are still learning the ropes to become leaders, but a RevOps leader should look two miles ahead and surface what is coming.

The challenge is making sure leaders understand I am not just some back-office person building your Salesforce instance. I am here to alert you when pipeline is dangerously low. I am looking at the bank account and understanding that we have one or two years of runway. I overcame this by developing the organization and communication skills to stay on top of the details and build trusted relationships.

RevOps sometimes morphs, at least in the B2B startup world, into business operations. I am checking in with the CEO every week, going over runway, talking spend, and looking at where we can cut costs to avoid layoffs.

It would be very odd to have a Revenue Operations team, a Sales Ops team, and a Marketing Ops team all at once. You might see this at a business in transition, with a siloed Sales Ops team bringing in a well-established revenue leader to bring operations together. Otherwise it is not common.

The downplay of the importance of the role. It is common to hear RevOps professionals say they feel left out and do not get a seat at the table, even when they are providing real guidance to the company.

It goes back to building trust, the relationships, the communication, and making sure you do not fall into the system-admin trap. I was surprised at having to do that. Someone hired me and paid me a generous salary with shares and perks — and then the question becomes, 'What do you RevOps people actually do?'

At first I thought it was me. So I started networking with other RevOps pros with three times the experience I had, and it was the same story across the board. The key is bringing alignment across the different organizations. The problem is that many companies hire someone as Director or Head of RevOps who does not have leadership experience, which sets them up to fail unless they are naturally good at figuring out how to earn a seat at the table.

Spend the time you are in Sales Ops to learn and build relationships internally. If you are not currently working, join RevOps Slack groups and find mentors.

Start understanding the full funnel view of a company — from lead inception to opportunity, to deal, to the handover to CS, and through to upsell or cross-sell. Understand the responsibilities of every GTM function. You do not have to be an expert in each one, because a good RevOps person is a generalist. Anyone who learns each role will be one of the best in this business. That is the secret sauce.

They know a little bit about everything and have the leadership ability to build a team that can really build out what you are planning. Also get familiar with OKRs and how companies plan them, then learn how to align all the teams to drive the one OKR metric that moves the company forward.

The RevOps space is one of the best communities I could have ever asked to be a part of. RevGenius, RevOps Co-Op, Remote POC — they are filled with people willing to help. If you are exploring the move, reach out. They are all great communities.