Leore Spira’s learnings from building revenue operations in 4+ startups

Self-proclaimed “revops geek” and “Optimizer” Leore Spira has more than 10 years of experience working in the world of sales and revenue operations. Having helped numerous companies scale up their revops from scratch, she’s a believer in building sustainable business growth and putting revenue operations on everyone’s go-to-market map.

Leore is frequently listed as a top revops leaders on LinkedIn where she shares her insightful “#revopsconfessions”. We sat down to talk to her about the perception of revops, how the field has evolved since COVID, and how she helps businesses strategize smarter from day one.

Go follow Leore on LinkedIn and check out her community, The OptimiZers!

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So I saw you have previous experience in marketing and sales operations - what led to you specializing in revenue operations?

I originally studied law but then started as marketing. At some point, it was so obvious for me to move to the sales operations and sales and marketing operations because I do love processes. 

I love metrics and connecting one team with the other one and breaking down the silos to make sure that we're creating visibility and collaboration between the teams. I remember that back then, you only heard mostly about sales operations, but I was actually trying to connect all our internal operations between marketing, sales, and customer success. 

And actually at that time, we didn't have customer success, we had support. But even based on that, I was interested in building holistic processes and methodologies to better serve the customer journey. I was doing revenue operations before it was even called revenue operations!

Revenue operations has become a crucial and key function in any company, and not just within go-to-market teams, but also for the business as a whole. It's not just about process. We're actually reducing friction and trying to optimize the handshakes from one team to another. And that’s how we can measure success, understand what that success is, and replicate it.

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How have you seen business strategy evolve since COVID and what role has revenue operations played in this?

I think before COVID, everyone just wanted to grow, and to grow fast. That was how company and startup success was generally measured. But post-COVID and even during COVID, companies - especially B2B and SaaS startups - started to speak more about efficiency and optimization. 

The problem was that companies didn’t really know how to address these issues. Even if they brought an operation function, (whether it was revops, sales ops, marketing ops, or whatever) they still treated it as if it was fulfilling a technical tactical function, rather than a strategic one.

Revops evolved into something more strategic when people realized we’re not just responsible for building a tech stack or managing the CRM. 

What happened was that businesses started thinking a little bit earlier about how to build a scalable process from scratch: you need to plan it, you need to design it, you need to understand exactly the need, you need to define the metrics and KPIs you want to generate or measure. With all that in place, revops can react fast and influence the decision-making process in a way that helps teams succeed instead of fail

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What’s a common misconception you think people have about revops?

I think the market is not yet fully educated on what revenue operations is. Many companies think they’re incorporating revenue operations when in reality it’s just sales operations with a different title or even just an administrator for their CRM.

Obviously the role of revops depends on whether you’re more process- or product-oriented in your go-to-market strategy, but not all companies realize it’s strategic, not just technical.

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You've helped four SaaS startups build revops operations from scratch. Can you share some of your learnings from that? What it's like explaining revops to founders and getting processes set up?

I really believe that revenue operations should join a company at a very early stage, whether that means building an internal revops function or leveraging a fractional revops advisor instead of hiring (because sometimes it's too early). 

The example that I always give is super simple: when you build a building, you start with the infrastructure, you start from the beginning, and you need to build it correctly, or at least in a lean way that allows for growth. So if you make a mistake along the way, you can act super fast to fix it. Otherwise you just have constant friction and you’re just trying to tackle that friction; that’s not optimization. And that’s not efficient.

A lot of the time businesses will bring someone from sales, from marketing, or even customer success to build a revops strategy because they think, “how hard can it be to build an internal process?” But it can be very hard.

If you do things properly from the beginning, it allows you to scale; it doesn’t have to be complex and you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. I’m noticing more startups being open to bringing in a fractional advisor who can give non-biased advice and not necessarily “fix” things, but provide the missing pieces or insights that they don’t yet have internally.

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What are your thoughts on the emergence of AI and how do you see it affecting revops going forward?

I think AI will not just be a supportive tool for revops, but also be a superpower. And when I say that, it means you won’t need BI (business intelligence) anymore, for example, at least at the first stage.

The other thing is that when you introduce tools to the go-to-market teams, you also need to maintain the system. You need to clean the data all the time. I think AI will support us in keeping things optimized and will not just give us better visibility, but also help us become more proactive in being able to forecast things in advance.

I expect AI is going to replace some of the functions in go-to market teams, which is a bit sad, but I think this is how optimization and efficiency works. For SDRs (sales development reps), for example, you’ll help them shift from entry positions into to a junior AE (account executive) much faster. 

AI isn’t going to replace reps, but it will give them a superpower in the same way it will make revops even more strategic. It will support our personalization and alerting to make sure we’re never losing momentum with any prospects or customers.

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You’re active in a number of revops communities - are there any you particularly recommend for revops content or news on the latest trends?

I founded a local community here in Israel called The OptimiZers; that came about because when I started I felt like a lone wolf, a one woman show, so I built my own space to share best practices and for revops people to learn from each other.

I'm also a Pavilion executive, I'm part of RevGenius and RevOps and the Revenue Operations Alliance, and all the Revenue Operations communities! I think I'm learning a lot from everyone and I'm here to educate the market, which is why I also have a blog. People are starting to talk about revenue operations and go-to-market things, and LinkedIn is still one of the best places to learn about the industry.

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Finally, how would you explain revenue operations to a five-year-old?

I told my manager, the co-founder a few days ago that we're (also as women) warriors like Mulan, because I see the three principles that we follow are bravery, truth, and loyalty. 

We’re loyal to the company and to our managers - who may or may not be within the go-to-market teams.

We’re brave because we are bringing innovation and creativity to processes to make sure that we connect the dots in a way that will support the team. We are also brave enough to say no when it doesn't make sense, even to management!

And we tell the truth because we love the data. You can assume or you can say whatever you want, but if the data is not backing your fact, it's not a fact!

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Make sure you follow Leore on LinkedIn for more expert revops tips!

‍If you're looking for more revops inspiration, check out our list of 20 must-follow revops leaders.