From Marketing to Rev Ops with Evan Luke, Director of Revenue Operations at VanillaSoft

This week, we are talking to Evan Luke, Director of Revenue Operations at VanillaSoft. Evan shares how his marketing acumen helps him deliver on his rev ops KPIs. 

 Evan shares how to transform a broken process into a seamless customer experience.

• Evan’s LinkedIn
• VanillaSoft’s website

From marketing to rev ops 

Evan started his marketing journey in 2016 as a marketing specialist at Expertfile, where he worked for almost two years and later moved to VanillaSoft as a manager for marketing campaigns and revenue operations. 

With four years of well-rounded experience as a marketing specialist, Evan believes that  the three fundamentals of marketing are; 

• Creative – Strategy
• Technical – Execution
• Analytics – Analyzing the results

Evan’s dual role as a manager of marketing campaigns and revenue operations at VanillaSoft helped him explore the versatile side of revenue operations. 

Evan found rev ops to be more appealing as he could use the analytics not only for marketing but across the organizational operations and processes. Another factor that inspired Evan’s move into rev ops is its direct strategic impact on sales, whereas marketing is more like an indirect sales tool. 

Moving on, Evan talks about his interest in the technical and analytic side of the business.  He already experimented the analytical aspect in marketing but was eager to see its implication in rev ops.

Breaking down commercial teams for efficiency and accountability 

VanillaSoft’s commercial team grew from fifty to around 100 personnel. 

As the team grows, the operations get complicated; therefore, Evan shared the breakdown of his commercial operations structure at VanillaSoft that helps in catering to different sales and revenues ops deliverables;  

• Sales Team: comprising of ten experienced individuals that look after the sales delivery
• Revenue Ops Team: comprising Evan himself and the other two full-time members
• Contractors: consisting of third parties

How marketing acumen compliments rev ops deliverables 

Marketing exposure provides rev ops personnel with an edge on pricing, analytics, and other variables to deliver sales. 

“Marketing and branding do not only make you money, but it also saves you money!”

Usually, people fail to connect marketing and rev ops. 

To make successful sales; you need to master both domains. Evan shares an example to explain this further considering branding and positioning, which saves money for companies and allows them to negotiate for a deal as they want. 

Evan states that a vendor came to him for a renewal, directly jumping onto the deal; Evan first analyzed the price, if it’s worth it. He concluded that the particular deal did not derive the desired revenues.  Based on the analytical inference, he did not agree on the deal and declined it. This made the customers’ CEO agree to Evan’s terms and conditions. Although the deal was fruitful for the company in terms of association and visibility, but the commercials had to be considered, as in the end, business is all about profit maximization. 

Combining marketing acumen with revenue ops helps you in making successful deals. 

VanillaSoft’s rev ops tech stack

Cost analysis and future projection of revenue generation and sales outcome is the key for any organization to grow. And to achieve this, VanillaSoft uses the following tools: 

• VanillaSoft
• HubSpot
• SalesIntel 
• Sales Navigator

VanillaSoft is currently experimenting with Clearbit (B2B lead data enrichment software).

Transform broken processes into seamless customer experience

Organizations should know how to interpret the observations derived from rev ops data analytics and use them to define the best in class customer experience. 

When Evan first joined the team, the job was to look at the marketing and content requirements for generating leads. 

Combine tools like HubSpot and VanillaSoft, with stakeholders like producers and contractors for better efficiency and communication. 

Bringing different people and tech stack together makes a company stronger and helps it understand the data-driven operations. 

Not every department in an organization can understand other departments’ language. For example, human resources might not be able to comprehend the data from operations; hence inter-departmental communication is a must to bring the desired efficiency in the system, which further impacts on customers’ and stakeholders’ experience.  

Top tip for rev ops personnel

Understand the background and expectations of employees and customers, what they want from you, and the best way to convey your message to them. 

Offer transparency amongst all stakeholders as it helps to build trust. 

Who in the sales operation world would Evan Luke like to take out for lunch?

• Aaron Ross, CEO at Predictable Revenue

Key resources

• Engagement software for inside sales 
• HubSpot
• SalesIntel 
• Sales Navigator

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