Speaking & Workshops
A RevOps workshop that aligns your marketing and sales pipeline.
Revenue operations is the discipline that connects marketing output to sales revenue. Without it, marketing counts MQLs and sales counts closed deals, and neither team can explain the gap between them. The revenue operations workshop is a structured session that builds the shared pipeline model, the CRM architecture, and the handoff process that make marketing and sales work as a single revenue function rather than two departments with separate metrics.
The revenue operations problems that create the marketing-sales gap.
The gap between marketing and sales is almost never a personality conflict. It is almost always a process and data problem.
Marketing and sales are measuring different things and neither number adds up.
Marketing reports 400 MQLs this quarter. Sales reports 22 SQLs. Nobody has defined what converts an MQL to an SQL, who is responsible for the conversion, or how long it should take. The 400 is a vanity metric and the 22 is a mystery. Without a shared pipeline definition, agreed conversion criteria, and ownership at each stage, the two functions are literally counting different things and then arguing about whose number is more meaningful.
The CRM does not reflect how deals actually move through the funnel.
The CRM has five stages: Lead, Qualified, Proposal, Negotiation, and Closed. In practice, deals skip stages, go backward, and stall in stages for months without any activity. The pipeline is fiction because it reflects the CRM architecture rather than the actual customer decision journey. A CRM that does not model the real sales motion produces forecasts that are wrong every quarter, which erodes leadership trust in the data.
Leads fall through the gap between marketing hand-off and sales follow-up.
Marketing sends a qualified lead to sales. The lead is marked as "to be contacted" in the CRM. Three weeks later the lead has gone cold and no one has followed up. There is no SLA on lead response time, no process for reassigning leads when a rep does not follow up, and no alert when a lead has been dormant for more than five business days. Lead leakage is one of the most expensive and most preventable sources of revenue loss in growth-stage companies.
There is no forecast that the leadership team believes.
The VP of Sales produces a monthly forecast. The CEO applies a haircut of 40% because the forecast has been wrong for six consecutive quarters. The haircut percentage is itself a guess. This is not a forecasting methodology problem; it is a pipeline quality problem. When deals are in the wrong stages, amounts are estimates, and close dates are aspirational, no forecasting model will produce an accurate number.
Attribution is broken and marketing cannot prove its contribution to revenue.
Marketing runs five channels. Sales closes deals. Nobody can tell which channel produced which closed deal. The CRM shows lead source as the first touchpoint, which means direct traffic gets credit for every deal that involved multiple touchpoints before conversion. Marketing cannot defend its budget in a board meeting because it cannot prove its contribution. Attribution is not a reporting problem; it is a CRM architecture problem that requires fixing before any reporting tool can produce meaningful data.
How revenue operations workshops are structured here.
Pipeline model design first. CRM architecture second. Process and SLA definition third. Measurement framework fourth.
Understand the current state of your pipeline and your data
- Current pipeline audit: stage definitions, conversion rates, and average time in each stage
- CRM data quality review: completeness, accuracy, and consistency of the most critical fields
- Attribution model review: how leads are currently sourced, tracked, and credited to channels
- Handoff process map: the exact current process when marketing passes a lead to sales
- Forecast process review: how the current forecast is built and why it is or is not accurate
- Stakeholder interviews: one-on-one conversations with marketing lead, sales lead, and one sales rep to identify the friction points
Build the shared pipeline definition that both teams will use
- Customer journey mapping: the actual decision stages from first awareness to signed contract
- Stage definition: specific, observable criteria for each pipeline stage agreed by both marketing and sales
- MQL and SQL definition: explicit criteria for what qualifies a marketing lead and what qualifies a sales opportunity
- Conversion rate targets: the expected conversion rate at each stage based on historical data or informed estimates
- Velocity targets: the maximum acceptable time a deal should spend in each stage before intervention
- Pipeline hygiene rules: what triggers a deal to be marked as lost or stalled, and who is responsible for doing it
Translate the pipeline model into CRM design and handoff process
- CRM field architecture: the fields required to track each stage, source, and conversion event accurately
- Handoff SLA: the maximum acceptable time from MQL creation to first sales contact, and the escalation path if breached
- Lead routing rules: how leads are assigned to reps based on territory, segment, or round-robin logic
- Automation triggers: the CRM automations that enforce the process without requiring manual compliance
- Attribution model selection: first-touch, last-touch, or multi-touch, with the CRM configuration required for each
- Reporting dashboard design: the three to five metrics the leadership team reviews weekly to manage pipeline health
Sequence the CRM changes and process changes for minimum disruption
- Prioritised change list: the three most important changes ranked by impact on pipeline visibility and revenue
- CRM implementation brief: specific configuration instructions for your CRM admin or implementation partner
- 30-day implementation plan: a week-by-week rollout of process changes with owner and acceptance criteria
- Team training outline: what each team needs to learn about the new process and when that training happens
What a revenue operations workshop includes.
Diagnostic
- Pipeline audit
- CRM data quality review
- Attribution model assessment
- Handoff process map
- Forecast accuracy analysis
- Stakeholder interviews
Pipeline Design
- Customer journey map
- Stage definitions and criteria
- MQL and SQL definitions
- Conversion rate targets
- Velocity benchmarks
- Pipeline hygiene rules
CRM Architecture
- CRM field design
- Handoff SLA definition
- Lead routing rules
- Automation trigger design
- Attribution model selection
- Reporting dashboard brief
Implementation
- Prioritised change list
- CRM implementation brief
- 30-day rollout plan
- Team training outline
- Process documentation
- 60-day review session
This is right for you if:
- Growth-stage companies where marketing and sales are running separate pipelines with separate metrics and no shared accountability for revenue
- Companies that have a CRM but whose data is incomplete or inconsistent enough that the forecast is never accurate
- Sales teams of three or more people where lead routing, follow-up SLAs, and pipeline hygiene are not standardised
- Marketing leaders who cannot prove their contribution to revenue in a board meeting because the attribution model is broken
- Founders preparing to hire a VP of Sales or Head of Marketing who need the RevOps infrastructure in place before the hire
Not the right fit if:
- Teams that have not agreed that pipeline alignment is a priority, revenue operations only works when both marketing and sales leaders are committed to a shared model and willing to change their current processes
- Organisations that have fewer than 10 leads per month, at very low lead volume the overhead of a formal RevOps structure exceeds the benefit; a simpler process is more appropriate
- Companies that need technical CRM development or integration work, the workshop produces the architecture and the brief, but the technical implementation requires a CRM developer or administrator
Frequently asked questions.
What CRM platforms does this workshop cover?
The pipeline model and process design are CRM-agnostic. The frameworks apply to HubSpot, Salesforce, Zoho, Freshsales, Pipedrive, and any other pipeline-based CRM. The session produces a design document and a configuration brief that your CRM administrator or implementation partner can execute. Where specific CRM capabilities are relevant to a design decision, those are flagged in the output document. If your team is evaluating CRM platforms, the workshop can also include a platform selection session based on your pipeline model requirements.
How long does it take to see results after a RevOps workshop?
The first measurable result is usually pipeline visibility: within two weeks of implementing the new stage definitions and CRM fields, the forecast becomes meaningfully more accurate because the data reflects real deal status rather than optimistic projections. Lead leakage reduction is visible within 30 days of implementing the handoff SLA and the automation triggers. Full attribution accuracy takes 60 to 90 days as historical data accumulates in the new model. The biggest variable is how quickly the CRM changes are implemented after the workshop.
Do both the marketing and sales teams need to attend?
Yes, and this is not negotiable. A revenue operations model built without the sales team in the room will not be adopted by the sales team. The MQL-to-SQL definition, the handoff SLA, and the pipeline stage criteria must be agreed in the room by the people who will use them daily. The most common failure mode for RevOps initiatives is a process designed by marketing or operations without sales input, which produces a process that makes sense on a slide deck and fails in practice on the first day.
What is the difference between this and a CRM implementation project?
The workshop is the strategy layer: what the pipeline should look like, what the process should be, and what the CRM needs to do. A CRM implementation project is the execution layer: configuring the fields, building the automations, and migrating the data. The workshop should come first because CRM implementation projects that start without a clear pipeline model and process design typically need to be redone within 12 months. The workshop produces the brief that makes the implementation project faster, cheaper, and correct the first time.
Ready to build a pipeline that both marketing and sales will actually trust?
Send a workshop inquiry with your team size, your CRM platform, and the primary pipeline problem you are trying to solve. A brief call will follow within 48 hours.
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