Strategic planning can be a fickle exercise. In any fast-moving industry or rapidly evolving market, it’s natural to suspect your goals and measures will be outdated or off-target by the time it comes to assess your performance.
But the sooner you start — and the more aligned your plans are with high-level company priorities — the easier it will be to spot changes, reorient yourself and your team, and push for progress and support where you need it most.
To find out more about how GTM teams can get the most out of their strategic planning process, we connected with two of our top experts: ZoomInfo VP of RevOps Tessa Whittaker and Theisen Chang, our senior RevOps manager.
Here are their actionable takeaways that can equip RevOps leaders with tools to streamline operations, foster collaboration, and unlock growth in 2025:
- Proactive Planning: Start early, align with top priorities, and establish a clear workback plan.
- Set Achievable Goals: Include RevOps while setting goals to align on plans.
- Break Down Silos: Foster cross-functional collaboration from the start.
- Data-Driven Insights: Combine first-party and third-party data for comprehensive market analysis.
- Tech Stack Mastery: Continuously assess tools for functionality and adoption.
- Empower Sellers: Simplify processes to ensure workflows support every team member effectively.
1. Kick-Start Planning with a Strong Workback Strategy
Proactive planning is essential for Revenue Operations success, and according to Whitaker, it should begin as early as Q3. Whitaker’s team identifies high-level business goals and works across departments to ensure that all necessary changes are in place well before the new fiscal year.The most important step? Align your team’s efforts with the company’s top priorities. “Think top-down about the most strategic ones — those three to five things — and work backward to January 1st,” she advises.
2. Set Achievable Goals with Input from RevOps
Chang believes that Revenue Operations should be included in goal-setting discussions from the outset. “You don’t want to set goals that we may not deliver on, or are super dependent on RevOps but without our perspective,” he says.
When planning at ZoomInfo, Chang’s team works towards building an effective RevOps function that ensures its goals account for external market conditions, such as seller inefficiencies or broader economic headwinds, aligning strategies to either overcome challenges or leverage tailwinds.
3. Align Teams Across Silos
Effective RevOps planning requires breaking down silos to achieve seamless collaboration. “Getting the right people in the room from the beginning drives alignment and eliminates barriers,” Whittaker says.
This approach ensures a unified strategy across sales, marketing, and customer success teams. Chang reinforces this by advocating for adaptability within the planning process.
“What you start planning in July might shift by the end of the year,” he says. The solution: RevOps leaders must remain flexible and responsive to changes in the business environment.
4. Build a Comprehensive Data Strategy
The foundation of a successful RevOps strategy lies in effective data management.
“Your CRM alone won’t cut it,” Whittaker says. “You need to combine first-party and third-party data to create a robust data strategy.”
This integrated approach helps identify key insights, such as high-performing customer profiles and total addressable markets. Chang also notes the importance of enriching CRM data with external insights to identify opportunities and optimize decision-making.
5. Maximize Technology to Drive Efficiency
Continuously evaluating the technology stack is a key part of any effective strategy — and it’s not an annual task, but an ongoing process. “We look at our tech stack monthly, ensuring it meets our current and future needs,” Whittaker says.
Chang stresses the importance of maximizing tool adoption and functionality.
“Are you using the full functionality of your tools, or have you just scratched the surface?” he asks. By understanding the complete capabilities of existing tools, teams can optimize their performance and save costs.
6. Simplify Processes to Empower Sellers
Streamlining workflows is a central theme in planning for 2025. And a key part of that is meeting sellers where they are, rather than trying to force a new framework onto a sales motion that is working.
“You don’t want to disrupt your best seller while trying to address the bottom performer,” Chang says. After all, the goal is to create intuitive processes that enable all sellers to succeed while maintaining flexibility.
Future-Proof Your RevOps Strategy: Expect the Unexpected
By building resilience and flexibility into their processes, RevOps leaders can prepare their teams for the unexpected.
“Plan for things to break,” Whittaker says — and be prepared with a fix that keeps everyone aligned and moving forward together.