In the traditional English Christmas carol “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” a slightly overgenerous suitor bestows on their true love a series of increasingly lavish gifts to mark the yuletide season. The twelve days of Christmas themselves actually refer to the period between Christmas day and Epiphany, when the Magi are understood to have arrived at the mangerside of a certain recently born infant. Rather than waiting until then to post this blog, though, as today marks twelve sleeps until Christmas Day, I thought I would take the opportunity to suggest what a revenue operations-minded true love might consider as suitable stocking fillers.
- First day: a RevOps operating model. The right operating model avoids overreliance on job titles and reporting lines to configure a high-performing framework wrapped (naturally) in a set of operating principles.
- Second day: a revenue process transformation. Buyers are changing, and so must businesses to ensure that they continue growing, which requires changing their focus, work and culture.
- Third day: a campaign-aligned budget plan. Key to effective budgeting is building a campaign strategy that clearly connects goals, spending, and outcomes rather than treating the funding part as an afterthought.
- Fourth day: better marketing measurement. Relying on marketing-sourced revenue as a KPI, we like to quip, is the fastest way for a CMO to get fired, so ditch the sourcing metrics.
- Fifth day: a data quality strategy. At this time of year, it’s timely to remember that data quality is for life, not just for the holidays, which necessitates a suitable marketing and sales data strategy.
- Sixth day: operational excellence. Although frequently overlooked, streamlined and optimized processes are the bedrock to achieving successful B2B outcomes.
- Seventh day: AI tools for RevOps. Generative AI is widely deployed across B2B marketing, and RevOps teams have plenty of options to maximize their own efficiency and performance with AI, too.
- Eighth day: omnichannel-empowered buyers. The right technology enables B2B revenue leaders to win, retain, and grow customers by enabling buyers to buy how they want to buy.
- Ninth day: buying group-enabled martech. High-consideration B2B purchases are today made by groups of between four and nine people, likely requiring a revenue marketing platform that is suitably enabled.
- Tenth day: genAI-driven personalization. Among the top use cases for AI in B2B marketing, there are plenty of opportunities to leverage it throughout the buyer journey.
- Eleventh day: a ticket to B2B Summit North America. Taking place in 2025 on a new date (March 31–April 3) and in a new location (Phoenix, Arizona), B2B Summit North America will deliver solutions to the challenges facing B2B right now.
- Twelfth day: advice for the year ahead. Ranging from the rise of AI coworkers in B2B organizations to quitting trying to scale chaos, there is plenty of insight and guidance to be had.
The observant will have noticed that, unlike the gifts in the song, these are all in the singular. Putting aside what use anyone would have for ten leaping lords, for instance, certainly nobody needs more than one operating model or revenue process. As such, you’ll allow a little creative license, I’m sure! And so, whether that special person in your life will place some or all of these items under the tree for you, I’m sure even a few of them will result in a small epiphany of your own. Happy Holidays!