Janis Zech: Hey, Janis. Hey, Filip. How are you doing? I know you had your bachelor party last weekend, so what's up for this podcast today?

Philipp Stelzer: Yeah. That's true. I'm still, like, a little bit tipsy, I guess, but I'll power through this episode, and I think it'll be worth it because, yeah, today, we're talking with Haris Odobasic about reporting structures for revenue operations, different compensation schemes, and also why the European Union is still lacking behind on the RevOps role versus the US. So, yeah, I think it's it's worth powering through, and it's a great show, so we hope you enjoyed.

Janis Zech: Haris, great to have you here.

Haris Odobasic: Thanks, Philipp and Janis. Thanks for the invite.

Janis Zech: Yeah. I think our paths first crossed in the Slack community of RevOps Co-op, which, by the way, we're also now a community partner of and sponsoring. And I was really intrigued by the content you put out there and, like, all the comments you did. I think it's a great community, very helpful, really. And one thing that I thought was particularly interesting is on LinkedIn, at one point, you did a sort of like a survey, and you asked where should revenue operations report into. And, like, to me at least, the surprises were a bit interesting. And I just wanna ask you to get started. If you could choose, who would you let revenue operations report into?

Haris Odobasic: Yeah. It's a very interesting question as everyone asks it. And to put it short, spoiler, I would always say the CEO, but it depends. Like, it depends on so many factors. It depends what is the starting point. Right? Did you start from scratch with RevOps? You have a lot more choice where to report. And also, like, if you are a more mature organisation and you're just thinking of implementing RevOps, then it will really depend what is your composition of your existing team, right? And most common, we see RevOps reporting to the Chief Revenue Officer, and it makes a lot of sense. Think, like, around sixty six percent in that survey, so the one hundred and twenty people said so. And it's often seen as like the very opposite right hand of the Chief Revenue Officer, and it can make a lot of sense if sales, marketing, and customer success is reporting to the Chief Revenue Officer, so really having this wide oversight of all the revenue teams, then it makes sense. I think one pitfall to avoid, because it's a separate discussion, but often the Chief Revenue Officer is actually the VP of sales, where he neglects a little bit or even doesn't have customer success with him. So then it creates a little bit, yeah, a bias. And I think we want to avoid a bias, like even taking one step back, what is revenue operations? It's like a strategic business partner to the revenue teams. And if it has like this bias, then you will always neglect one function. And so that's a little bit the tricky part of the Chief Revenue Officer. So not sure if you've seen something like that similar before or made similar experiences?

Janis Zech: No. I I think it makes perfect sense. Like, if you if you include that sort of, like, prerequisite that if reporting into the CRO, then CRO should also oversee basically the functions that revenue operations also tries to align. Right? So marketing, customer success, sales. And if not, then it's sort of, like, becoming more like a sales operations role. That's, of course, not the goal. That does sound a bit problematic. But I wanted to just quickly go back to so you said, like, in the beginning to cut it short. Right? Ideally, reporting into the CEO. And one thing I'm wondering with that setup is, like, how do you then make sure that so if you have the revenue operations team reporting into the CEO, how do you make sure that this is then not, like, competing or, like, creating issues with the CRO role? Right? Because, like, they are both then reporting into the CEO, and that can lead to tension, I think.

Haris Odobasic: Yeah. I think I always like the analogy to the business partner. Right? In HR, you have a HR business partner, which are often quite independent and very often also directly report to the CEO, even not to the head of people or HR. And it makes sense to have this really objective view. And the same principle can apply to, like, revenue operations. Right? It becomes it's still a partner, the Chief Revenue Officer, but the objectives of the Chief Revenue Officer and the Head of Revenue Operations are, I think, slightly different, right? So I think there's still a focus on sales and revenue, which is more of the Chief Revenue Officer. And with the RevOps, I think it really gives this additional layer of autonomy and less bias as well. So but, yeah, it's a good question. Like, it really depends also how, like, the job definition of the Chief Revenue Officer is defined. I think that's the difference.

Janis Zech: So if I understand you correct, if you had a real Chief Revenue Officer basically owning the end to end customer experience pre, mid, and post sale, like, that would then be the preferred partner for RevOps, or would you still say, well, you know, still report to the CEO because there's, again, more autonomy, and maybe you're closer to, you know, topics that the CEO deems of strategic importance?

Haris Odobasic: Yeah. I think that point can be made. Right? I think it is, like, basically just mentioned, and it's a very good discussion point. And I will probably always go to CEO, but I can definitely see how the RevOps Chief Revenue Officer also makes sense.

Janis Zech: Yeah. Super interesting. I mean, I think it's you know, I I think we are obviously talking to a lot of revenue operations leaders, and I think the question is always how do you get out of your day to day into a more strategic role. Right? I think I'm also strongly believing that all the iterative improvements you're doing on a day to day ideally are part of the core strategy. Right? They should align towards, you know, efficiency, being more effective, you know, or having deeper insights. But, obviously, yeah, I think really having that end to end view and being very close also to the board and the board metrics can can be extremely beneficial. I'm I'm curious how you see the CFO. Right? I think I mean, there's a notion of CFOs becoming more go to market CFOs. Obviously, especially in software, they are very close to, you know, also KPIs that apply to all things revenue, but maybe more top down than bottom up. What's your view on, you know, reporting to the CFO or maybe even in the SaaS company COO?

Haris Odobasic: Yeah. I think you already gave a little bit the answer to it.

Janis Zech: Sorry. No. No. It's perfect. But it's great because you hinted to it, and the hint was like, if the CFO or Chief Operating Officer, how close are they to the commercial teams?

Haris Odobasic: Mhmm. Mhmm. And if they are having a commercial background or commercial experience and working close to the sales team, I think it can make sense. I also used to report to a Chief Finance Officer, also to a Chief Operating Officer. And they also understood very well the sales motion. And also the level of risk taking, I think, really is important, right? That you are not too rigid and too limiting. And that can become a problem because in sales, we do need to, well, in new business generally, we do need to take risks as well, right? And this risk taking appetite is important, else many companies will not make it. Right? So we cannot I wish we could always calculate the perfect path, but sometimes you need to take a leap of faith. And I think if you are a CFO with a very strong finance officer background, your risk taking level is a little bit reduced, at least from my experience. So it can work if in the right setup, and especially if you don't have a Chief Revenue Officer or you have, like, fairly siloed departments, sales and marketing and success, or even a matrix organization, then it really can make sense. And with the caveat or the pitfall you would like to avoid that they have a commercial background.

Janis Zech: So I know Philipp wants to ask a question, but I jump in here first. So, you know, when you face risk taking, I always think of Super Bowl ads. You know? Like, how do you calculate the ROI of a Super Bowl before you actually run it? And, yeah, I'm not sure if many CFOs would basically go for it. Right? So, yeah. But, Philipp, please, over to you.

Philipp Stelzer: No. That's fine. Let let's keep it flexible. I like it. And, yeah, I've just just one question I have is, like, is there, like, a role where you think, okay, this is something that revenue operations should never report into? Because I think all of the c-level roles, they can make sense. Like, the CFO role can make sense if they have, like, a super strong commercial background, but if they are, like, only busy with, like, how they structure, like, the financials for, like, I don't know, maximizing shareholder returns and focus on M&As and things like this. And, obviously, like, probably revenue operations is not great. So I think there's always, like, a good reason, like, for some of these roles why it should not be the chosen one to be reported into, but is there one that just should never be used?

Haris Odobasic: Yeah. I think, taking a step down, maybe even like a Chief Marketing Officer, VP of marketing, VP of sales, VP of customer success, which is very uncommon. But one of these specific departments, because then in the end, you have like a rebranded MarketingOps, rebranded SalesOps, or CustomerSuccessOps. And that will, like, by definition, create, like, a bias in the execution, in both projects to prioritize, even if people feign it, they wanna be objective. But, yeah, my boss is the Chief Marketing Officer, and I have two projects, and one is marketing related. Which one am I gonna pick? Like, it's like, by definition, you're setting, like, the wrong trajectory for the team. Even with the best intention, it's just like conflict is like guaranteed. Right? And it still exists. I see many orgs where it actually exists. More common probably that this reports to sales, which probably originated with sales ops, and then it got like a rebranding to revenue operations. But I think the risk is there that people don't see the success they wish to. Right? And, really, if you want to do RevOps, I always say it starts at the board level. So your board needs to sit together and align. We are doing revenue operations. We have that as a strategic function now to support and align our revenue teams. The leadership team is behind, and then you're setting the right condition for that. And that's why org structure is so important.

Janis Zech: You know, before this, I found a company called Fiverr and, you know, I think org structure is something very abstract until you live in it, and you realize how big of an impact it has on your day to day. I think you just gave a great example of, you know, bias. And, I mean, you know, usually, if you report to somebody and you don't only do projects for other teams, that doesn't last very long. So, yeah, can very much relate to that.

Philipp Stelzer: Yeah. And also, I mean, like, I I think I've also seen a lot of setups where, really, revenue operations is more like, and, like, they're pairing up with, like, a VP of sales or, like, a director of sales. And then, like, revenue operations, very sales operations focused, is trying to really, like, improve the whole sales motion. And that, I mean, for sure, this can create value, but it is sort of, like, just a rebranding of the the sales operations role. Maybe it sounds a bit cooler at that point, but it just leaves out this whole, hey, what is revenue operations all about? And I think you you said it in the beginning, right, it's it's about alignment, marketing, customer success, sales. So you're leaving out, like, two very important parts, particularly nowadays, like, where you think, like, customer retention is so important, and that plays a huge role. So customer success can have a huge impact on your metrics, can be very relevant for the board, and your next funding rounds and things like this. So, yeah, I think it's it's wise not to leave it out. But with such a diverse role that revenue operations has, I think one thing that is also very interesting is sort of, like, compensation structures. Yeah. So it is sort of like this supporting team. It has an impact on direct revenue generation. Right? At least that is the goal, increasing revenue. But then at the same time, like, the impact is not so measurable. So so how do you create, like, a good compensation scheme? Like, should it be base? Should it be base plus bonus? Should there be a variable pay component? Do you have a specific take on that?

Haris Odobasic: Yeah. I think the first caveat to point out, it's like really hard to measure, and I'm not the biggest fan of having one certain KPI for it. Right? Like, I never made a good experience with a KPI, and by definition, like you mentioned, as a support function, it is difficult. And I think what does help is thinking, like, what do we have available? Well, we have a base available, we have a variable part, and there is a bonus. Let's start with the bonus, right? Base, everybody has the base, and I think the bonus, I think it's the easiest, and I think a bonus makes sense for almost every company in every role based on performance. Right? So based on company overall performance or specific team performance, did we reach a certain goal? And I'm a big fan of really fair compensation, part of it is a bonus. And if the team reached a certain goal, if the revenue goes well, and then paying a bonus out, great start. I think that's on a base level. And the variable part is a little bit more trickier because of the aspect of how to measure it. Right? And I usually like to see it on two matrices. Right? So, what is the impact you might have on revenue, on reducing go to market expense, or like profit, and at the same level, like responsibility. Some people might call responsibility seniority, but I would say closely aligned, right? The more responsibility you have, you probably have a more senior role. And most of the time, right, when somebody really starts in a RevOps function in a very junior role, there's probably no variable part of it. The person has a very junior role and probably has limited impact. Like, if you think of a system admin for CRM, like, the impact you could technically have on revenues is very limited. At the same time, the seniority, it's like, it's an individual contributor level, right, and really a contributor level, but also, like, with a kind of limit. Right? But on the other side, when you have, like, roles like, I think, sales enablement, right, I think this impact, good training, I think it's so underestimated. And I've seen so many great sales enablement professionals with actually a compensation part based on the team performance of how good the team is performing. And you can measure that, right, with the training impact. I think there you can have a variable part. And as well, the more the head of growth, the bigger the organization, having, like, an overall performance on, I would say, high level revenue numbers and growth numbers, and I think there you can add a variable part to it in addition to the bonus. That's how I would approach it, but thinking specifically of what the specific KPI is very hard.

Philipp Stelzer: Yeah. Would would you say that variable always means it's based on one KPI, or could it be just quarterly OKRs or goals for you individually or as a team? I'm just curious to understand this a bit better.

Haris Odobasic: Yeah. I think OKRs are good. OKRs are usually a very good indication. I'm usually a big fan that the whole company organization has OKRs, and RevOps is all part of that. Right? And, yeah, it could be linked to these OKRs. I think the link to the OKRs is very good. But also, I think with the variable part, it really has also to be linked to the overall company performance. But even if the OKRs are reached, but there's a decline in revenue, like, I don't think a variable part is where we justify it to be paid out. Same for bonus. There needs always to be this link to growth figures, or cost reduction, or profits in a way. If you have profits, it probably helps also revenue growth. So I think that link is very important. And then because, yeah, if you pay a bonus or variable part where the all higher level numbers are not right, then you have a risk that you're compensating in a way but it didn't actually lead to growth for something. So an example might be like implementing new processes or implementing a new deal desk, right? But at the same time there was no revenue growth, because yes, you increased your accomplishment, right, implementing this new function, but at the same time, there was no growth in revenue. It's like, you can send the wrong signal. Probably there was a whole wrong prioritization to start with.

Janis Zech: Yeah. Yeah. I think that's so interesting. I mean, at Fiverr, we did quarterly goals. And I think part of that exercise is to actually think about what you wanna do. And then a specific percentage was based on company metrics, which was a very little one actually, like, you know, ten, fifteen percent, twenty percent. And then the rest was something that was actually measurable and could be owned by the person or the team that is actually executing against it. I'm I'm curious, like, you know, what's your view on splits? So, you know, if if you have a variable component, you know, base variable splits, what's typical in RevOps? What do you see? And splits in what sense, like, I don't know, mean, seventy percent base, thirty percent variable outcome.

Haris Odobasic: Yeah. I think that's where, like, the aspect of responsibility or seniority can come into place, right? How big the impact is, right, if you start. If you're very junior, you probably have a one hundred percent base. Right? And if you maybe increase with, let's say, a RevOps manager or similar, then you maybe have a ninety ten, and maybe the head of RevOps might have a ninety twenty on one scale. And then in other areas, but like on the same side, you can also then look at, like, the impact on revenue, and again, it will depend on how you measure it, what the splits might be. But, yeah, splits make sense for sure, but, yeah, this is really a whole art, and I think it's also in part closely linked to HR, right? The people team, like the compensation structure there, but it also makes sense with the rest of the company. And yeah. So definitely with this exercise, I would highly recommend also teaming up with the HR and people team to get to something that makes sense, because often compensation is also done on the company wide level, right, and then applied to the different teams. It needs to make sense and be fair for everyone as well.

Janis Zech: Yeah. I I fully subscribe to that. I think compensation is something that often a lot of startups don't think a lot about, and then you grow larger, and then you do an exception here and an exception there, and it bites you. Right? So having clear salary bands, having clear understanding of, you know, the different org structure and, you know, also progression path, you know, how do you promote, how do you give responsibilities to also ICs. Right? Like, I'm a big fan of specialist career paths. So I think engineering, principal engineers, that's a very typical thing. Often in go to market functions, it's less typical. I think the enterprise AE is a great example of this actually probably being the people who sometimes make the most money in the company even more than some of the executives. I think it's a great thing actually and something that I because just having a hierarchy and then everybody fighting for the manager positions is not really healthy. And if somebody's amazing at what they do and they just do a great job, I mean, give them more responsibility, give them better comp. And I think that is a really a, like, strategic company wide, you know, thing, the HR team together with with the executive team. And then ideally also finance and RevOps should should work on, yeah, and consistency around these topics. But I know we wanted to also talk a bit about, you know, one more topic because you you are in Europe, you're in Amsterdam. In Europe, RevOps has been quite lagging, I'd say, compared to the US. I think in the US, it's been something that, you know, has really driven a lot of competitiveness for the go to market teams over over the years, and it's slowly starting to have a, you know, big big focus in Europe. How would you, you know, compare those two continents and, you know, why do you think it matters now?

Haris Odobasic: Yeah. I think definitely, RevOps is a little bit behind in Europe, but in many things, Europe is behind. So I've been looking at the tech space, so no surprise there. And, yeah, I think the origin, why it's different. I think it's just like, yeah, the scale of tech companies in the US is just more, you know, the level of innovation was always more. Right? And, but the good thing is for Europe, catching up is easier. Right? So if there's always somebody leading, they already did some mistakes. Right? So we can learn from them. Right? We can learn what not to do and then apply more the right methods. I think there's a big opportunity, like we talked about the org structure topic before. I think a lot of trial and error happened before in the US as well, where they probably tried out different functions and probably also the Chief Revenue Officer was born at the same time, and now it's, like, easier to evaluate. Right? I think that's a good advantage that we are having here in Europe as well. And I think it's also like a general world skepticism. Right? So if you know something that is working, and then it's like, oh, what is this new thing? Like, if we see, if we talk about RevOps, like, some see it as a trend. I had it a few years ago. I think now it's a little bit less. Or it was something, yeah, our VC told us to do RevOps. That's also a comment they often hear. And the VC is obviously, they know the US stuff more, they know the success more, and so there's this, not negative, but, like, a little bit resistance to it. I think it's getting definitely less, and I think always, like, every three months, I always check, like, how many job openings are there on LinkedIn for revenue operations. That is increasing. Right? It's definitely an upward trend, and people are talking more about it. So that's good. But at the same time, like, I was recently in a conference, and then I was like, hey, how many people know what RevOps is? Not that many hands went up. So it's still a new function. Right? And it's definitely more popular in the US. But, yeah, it's gonna take a few more years till it's mainstream.

Janis Zech: Yeah. What I find super fascinating is that even in the US, I think in general, right, I'd say, yes, there has been a lot achieved and a lot is a lot clearer, but at the same time, it still feels that for most of the revenue teams, there's a clear playbook, and those are changing. I'm not sure if we've achieved that already for revenue operations in general. Right? Like, what's best practices, you know, like, what's the best comp structure? What's the best org structure for RevOps teams? Where should they report into? I think that is something that is probably even on a global level, great things to explore. And I mean, you're doing a fantastic job with all the content you're putting out. And, you know, I think also research, really quantitative research you're doing. I think it's the biggest, right, when, like, some people are always skeptical. They always say, like, you always should take advice from people who done it. But at the same time, universities have a place, and RevOps has not been studied that much really. Like, there are not many RevOps studies. Like, business studies and economic studies, they make sense. Like, else there wouldn't be that many. You can learn, you can observe, you can analyze stuff. And a lot of stuff is happening for marketing and for sales. Customer success less, it's more probably the support. And for RevOps, close to nothing. Right? So there's nothing really a formally accepted definition. And I think that's gonna take some time, and I think people are gonna do more research in that space. But more on the business side, yeah, it's also in the US, when I talk to US colleagues, it's like, they also have still to educate people what is RevOps. Right? It's like, the bubble is bigger in the US. Right? It's two bubbles, but the US bubble is bigger. And but they also live in a bubble, and then you still need to do a lot of education work, and it's okay. It's like normal. So and there are also different camps as well. Right? So some see RevOps differently, and I'm more at a strategic camp, there's more the operator camp, different camps, who's right, who's wrong. Who knows? Maybe everybody's right. And so that needs to be established over time. But I think the whole difficulty is because it's like so much. Right? It's a support function for sales, for marketing, customer success. In some companies, it touches product, especially if it's PLG. Then it can touch finance, it can touch legal, if you're thinking of deal desk and procurement, especially when talking of enterprise sales companies, and then the legal and the procurement aspect becomes more important. Right? And so, yeah, there are these differences, and it's a little bit of wild, wild west.

Philipp Stelzer: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think that's great. I think that's great, and I hope we're doing our part here with the RevOps Lab to preach the gospel and, yeah, share good, well thought through definitions. Also with your support, of course, Haris. So thank you very much for that. Yeah. We always ask everybody who comes to the show, like, one closing question, always the same question. And it's, what advice would you give yourself when starting your career all over again, looking back at all the experience you've gained so far?

Haris Odobasic: Oh, very good question. It's so funny. Like, I think I even wrote, like, a little blog about that. I interviewed different people and put it in there and getting the views. I think for me, the number one skill I would recommend to everyone investing and starting with RevOps is communications. Like, get really good communication skills. Also, when they hire somebody for RevOps, I would really test them on their communication skills and stakeholder management skills, because you have to work with so many people and so many different business units and everybody's different. And often, the solution is very often very obvious, but to get everybody on board, I think that's the biggest challenge and creates the biggest delays. So if you can communicate well and align your stakeholders, because RevOps is all about alignment. And if you can do that well, then you can succeed and have a very good career in RevOps.

Philipp Stelzer: Love it. Yeah. Great. Thank you so much, Haris, for joining. I really enjoyed our conversation.

Haris Odobasic: Thank you. I appreciate it. And, yeah, hopefully, talk to you soon.

Philipp Stelzer: Talk to you soon. Thank you so much.

Haris Odobasic: Thanks for having me. Bye.

Philipp Stelzer: Bye. Goodbye.