Sales Operations: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Like any other role, sales operations has its best and worst parts. And what gets each sales ops leader out of bed in the morning is highly subjective. Some might daydream about technology on their way to work, while the mere mention of a sales tech stack might make others wish they were back in bed. We spoke to our community of sales ops experts to find out what their favourite and least favourite parts of sales operations are.

Matt Magee,Director of Global Sales Operations, Smarsh

Inter-departmental relationships and cooperative problem solving really energise me. I’m a problem solver by nature. Working together to create greater good for the business and make a better business tends to make us a better sales team as well. 

The part I don’t enjoy... This is going to sound a little altruistic, but this a whole lot better than what I could be doing...  So, if I’m starting to get down on myself, or starting to feel like this is a drag - it could be a whole heck of a lot worse. I’m fortunate that the business and my job is presenting me with this problem.  Some days I must remind myself.

Read our interview with Matt.

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NoamHaberfeld, Sales Strategy & Operations, Amplitude

My favourite is feeling part of that team, knowing that I’m helping them be better and stronger; enabling them.

My least favourite would probably be fire drills, which is something we didn’t think of – a huge error that becomes our sole focus. And being a sales ops person you always have that.

Read our interview with Noam.

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JonathanBunford, Director of Sales Operations, Ada

I love thetechnology, the automation, knowing how the domino effect works. I could eatthat up all day. I absolutely love it.

My least favourite would be some of the expectations, especially being a new person in an organization, and managing the CRM.  There are times when people assume you must know everything that is in Salesforce because you own Salesforce.

Read our interview with Jonathan.

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TylerHolmes, Director of Sales and Revenue Operations, Beamery

Myfavourite part is the challenge. I love solving problems.

The tricky part is dealing with all of that while also dealing with all the various personalities and needs. At the end of the day, I work for my team so I have to put their needs first and make sure they are taken care of. When you have a big team that can be a big challenge.

Read our interview with Tyler.

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MarkFeldman, Head of Revenue Operations, Localytics

My leastfavourite part is just turning a crank repeatedly. I like to do new things. Forour ‘crank turning’ I either want to automate it, outsource it, or hiresomebody who likes turning dials. 

My favourite part is seeing the impact. You can make an impact really quickly. I added some account data and we already have a $400k opportunity with one of the new accounts. You can find things that are really small things that can make a big impact on the business.

Read our interview with Mark.

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PhilipMinasian, Sales Operations & Inside Sales Manager, Gigster

My favourite aspect of my role is the onboarding and training. Often that sits with sales enablement as a dedicated role. But in smaller companies it can be picked up by sales ops.

Read our interview with Philip.