Pewaukee, Wisconsin, March 7, 2024 — Melanie R. Varin, Owner & Chief Operating Officer at TopLine Results Corporation, was privileged to participate as a speaker at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee's School of Continuing Education Women Leaders Conference on March 1, 2024.

The conference themed – Embrace Today, Shape Tomorrow – brought together more than 450 women leaders from diverse industries and backgrounds, fostering collaboration, empowerment and professional development.

If you know anything about Lean manufacturing, you are probably aware of the seven types of waste (or “7 Muda”).

Waiting
Defects
Motion
Transportation
Inventory
Overproduction
Overprocessing

Sales processes often have their own versions of waste, and I submit there’s a LOT of it! If you have ever been on a sales team, I bet you know what I mean.

The global revenue operations (RevOps) platform market size in 2023 is over $3.5 billion. By the end of 2033, that same market is expected to exceed $18B, according to a recent study by Future Market Insights. The current market represents only about 5% of the customer relationship management (CRM) market.

Getting marketing and sales on the same page is often no small feat! Regular dialog and mutual respect go a long way toward ensuring a collaborative relationship between these two teams. But that is not enough. One essential element is a clear understanding of each role – where they add unique value and how one team hands-off work to the other.

Spring has sprung – even in Wisconsin! At this time of year, we often think of spring cleaning – in closets, drawers, the garage, or in the basement. This is a great time to do some spring cleaning at work, specifically in your CRM (customer relationship management) database.

At TopLine Results, we never stop learning. Our vendors, like Microsoft, HubSpot, Zoho, ClickDimensions, Constant Contact, MailChimp, SyncApps, and others, are constantly updating their software, so we need to keep up. In addition, we continuously “sharpen our saw” by examining and improving the way we work.

“Okay, but how do you qualify your leads? I get a lot of leads,
but most of them don’t go anywhere.” Danté shook his head. 

“Same here,” echoed Kim and Ryan, almost in unison.

TopLine Results Corporation is a small, family-owned business that recently won the Waukesha County Small Business of the Year award at their 2022 annual meeting. We are a technology consulting company that helps our clients identify and implement the tools they need to build valuable relationships à that is, CRM systems and digital marketing automation platforms.

Your customer relationship management (CRM) system is your #1 tool for Revenue Operations. RevOps is the alignment of all revenue-generating teams (sales, marketing, and customer service). I describe RevOps in my previous blog – Revenue Operations: A Growth Driver.

Alignment of GTM or revenue-generating teams seems like a no-brainer, right? It simply means everyone in Sales, Marketing, and Customer Service is “rowing in the same direction”. Unfortunately, some challenges make this harder than it should be. More often than not, these hurdles are the result of organizational barriers.