At their core, Service Level Agreements (or SLAs as they are fondly referred to) are an agreement that outlines the deliverables required of each party with an accountability mechanism to keep the parties of the agreement on track. These agreements can be used for client and company relationships or internal team dynamics to build a better team and client dynamics by setting clear expectations.
When it comes to Revenue Operations (RevOps), an SLA can be one of your greatest tools as a business.
RevOps is an approach that brings all teams in your business together, orienting them towards one goal: Revenue.
Sales and marketing teams often have very different goals and approaches to their work. While your sales team might have a goal of gathering a certain number of Sales Qualified Leads (SLQ) your marketing team may have SEO-related goals to boost conversion rate.
Ultimately, your teams all have goals that serve your business (that is why you hired them, after all!), but each section of your operations has methods and objectives that don’t align with each other.
The first step in creating your SLA is to start a discussion between your sales and marketing teams. The idea is to set measurable goals that both departments can get on board with and are oriented toward revenue generation.
What will your departments be looking for?
Marketing departments need a numerical goal to determine how a project will be run. Sales departments need to get quality leads from those stats and goals.
The second step for creating a solid service level agreement is to distribute, or rather segment, your goals across the year. Rather than setting annual goals, you can set monthly or quarterly goals for each interval:
The goals can be focused on:
The figures achieved for the stats above will determine how good or bad a specific interval was. These metrics can include both quantity and quality to ensure that you are delivering quality services to a high number of clients.
Once you have set the goals for both marketing and sales departments, it is time that you track their performance and find out just how these departments are performing over time.
You need to set SLA reports that measure the progress of each department with time. Tracking and measuring results can improve output.
Finally, remember these SLA best practices for success:
With these steps and a little help from Flawless you’ll be well on your way to getting your business on the Revenue Operations track. Ready to start? Contact us today.