Continuous learning is crucial in maintaining a competitive advantage in revenue operations. In this ever-changing landscape, it can be easy to fall behind on critical RevOps knowledge.
This is why we’ve put together a short list of must-read books for RevOps leaders.
From conventional wisdom and RevOps guides to GTM structures and Navy SEALs leadership advice, we cover a wide range of topics to help you gain a new perspective on your revenue leadership.
Want to skip through to a certain book? Here’s our full list:
- Leaders eat last
- Outside in
- From impossible to inevitable
- Revenue operations: A new way to align sales and marketing, monetize data, and ignite growth
- Measure what matters
- Good to great
- Hiring, onboarding, and ramping salespeople
- MOVE: The 4-question go-to-market framework
- Extreme ownership
Leaders Eat Last by Simon Sinek
If you want to connect your revenue teams into an aligned function - you need to understand how to lead these teams effectively, or they’ll eventually fragment again.
Simon’s bestselling book offers a look into how thoughtful leaders can connect teams by putting themselves last.
Including various leadership case studies and practical advice, this is a great read for revenue leaders looking to inspire action and align their sales, marketing, and customer success teams through effective management.
➡️ Find out more here.
Key takeaways
- Be a leader who looks after their people.
- See your employees as human beings.
- Understand your biological chemicals and adapt to them.
- Create a healthy and safe environment within your organization.
Patrick Reynolds
Outside In by Harley Manning and Kerry Bodine
Customer experience (CX) can set your business apart from the crowd, and increase your recurring revenue. This book, subtitled ‘The power of putting customers at the center of your business’, discusses how to make use of CX in your organization.
Harley and Kerry flip the script and implore you to restructure your business to introduce CX as a business strategy. To do this, look from the outside in as this will reflect what your customers see.
“When you treat it as a business discipline, customer experience leads to profits.”
This book outlines the six principles for creating a winning CX: strategy, customer understanding, design, measurement, governance, and culture.
➡️ Find out more here.
Key takeaways
- Excellent customer experience drives revenue.
- CX is affected by every aspect of your business - not just customer-facing teams.
- Customer experience is a strategic business discipline.
Leore Spira
From Impossible to Inevitable by Aaron Ross and Jason Lemkin
If revenue operations could be summed up in one word, we’d argue it’d be growth, which is why our next pick, subtitled ‘How SaaS and other hyper-growth companies create predictable revenue’, focuses on fueling your revenue growth.
The book contains case studies of extreme growth from companies such as Twilio, HubSpot, Marketo, Salesforce, and EchoSign.
Aaron and Jason break down the seven steps to hypergrowth and the specific strategies you can use to implement them at your organization.
“This book is good for people newer to the RevOps world. It gives some foundational tips and tricks with applicable case studies.
“I like this one because it's written in a "been there, done that" voice by both of the authors.” - Karli Brophy, Senior Manager of RevOps Processes at HST Pathways.
➡️ Find out more here.
Key takeaways
- You’re not ready to grow until you nail a niche.
- You need sustainable systems that create a predictable pipeline.
- Develop a culture of initiative, not adequacy by embracing employee ownership.
Rebecca Stewart
Revenue Operations: A new way to align sales and marketing, monetize data, and ignite growth by Stephen Diorio and Chris Hummel
This book is a great starting point for diving into the world of RevOps. Part-practical and part-academic, Stephen and Chris laid out their definition of revenue operations.
Defining revenue operations as a strategic function that is critical to the maintained success of a business, the authors outline frameworks to help you structure your job architecture and your RevOps strategy.
This book is great for CEOs looking to understand what RevOps can bring to your business or for revenue operations professionals to use as a reference point for implementing strategic revenue operations tactics.
➡️ Find out more here.
Key takeaways
- Revenue operations is a strategic business function.
- A framework for structuring your revenue operations team.
- A step-by-step operating system for strategic RevOps.
Rebecca Stewart
Measure What Matters by John Doerr
RevOps professionals love metrics - but often there can be so many KPIs that your progress gets turned around, or pulled in the wrong direction. This book shares the power of OKRs (objectives and key results) in achieving goals.
John inspires you to reach for the stars when goal setting - and then strategically execute on those ambitious targets.
Learn from business leaders who have changed the world and understand what affects team culture and productivity.
➡️ Find out more here.
Key takeaways
- Unlock firsthand accounts from leaders who have achieved wildly ambitious goals.
- At the heart of effective goal setting are four distinct superpowers.
- Discover the practices that take goal-setting to the next level.
Ella Harrison
Good to Great by Jim Collins
As a RevOps professional, you deal with change regularly but Jim wants you to forget everything you know about change.
This book debunks myths about how changes were made to move businesses from good to great. Everyone is looking for that magic moment of transformation. The reality? There wasn’t one - the organization has been working hard consistently behind the scenes to achieve greatness.
Dive into case studies and comparisons of the surprising top growth businesses, and learn how change really happens in top-performing companies to achieve consistent growth.
➡️ Find out more here.
Key takeaways
- Bust the myths around change in organizations.
- Keeping on track over the long term beats a quick change.
- Learn to utilize the flywheel effect.
Karli Brophy
Hiring, Onboarding, and Ramping Salespeople by Cory Bray and Hilmon Sorey
If you’re looking to hire new sales reps, onboard them effectively, and enable them to perform their best - check out this book by Cory and Hilmon.
A great read for sales and revenue leaders alike, the book dives into the key components of a successful sales team, including practical advice on everything from recruitment to boosting your reps’ performance.
Talk about building the perfect sales team!
Key takeaways
- Recruit the right salespeople for the job.
- Learn how to apply the T.E.A.M. framework to your sales function.
- Drive repeatable growth and professional development across your sales team.
Rebecca Stewart
MOVE: The 4-question go-to-market framework by Sangram Vajre and Bryan Brown
MOVE provides you with four questions to ask when you’re stuck running in circles trying to hit your revenue targets. Use the strategic framework outlined in this book to transform your business model and remain successful.
Sangram and Bryan help you to understand the GTM principles, how to hire, and how to find your organization’s place in the GTM strategy. They explore key truths of go-to-market and the GTM maturity curve: ideation, transition, and execution.
Overall, this book takes a wide view of the GTM system and places appropriate weight on the importance of revenue operations.
Key takeaways
- Revenue teams have a new roommate – customer success.
- RevOps is the new growth lever.
- Retention is the new acquisition.
Gaurav Nemade
Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin
While not your typical revenue operations book, ‘Extreme Ownership’ is all about staying high-performing in a group environment.
The book focuses on the key leadership principles that allow the Navy SEALs to complete difficult combat missions to a high standard. These principles are shown to apply to groups outside of combat and can be applied to businesses to achieve great success.
It also comes highly recommended by Jenn Glabicky, Head of Revenue Enablement at Dodge Construction Network, who mentions the book in her recent talk in San Francisco.
“There are a lot of lessons learned here from Jocko. It’s a fantastic book, take a look at it. It’s all about staying high-performing.
“How can you stay as a high-performing group? It's our responsibility to our team. Just like the Navy SEALs, it's your team’s responsibility to each other and themselves to make sure they stay high-performing.”
➡️ Find out more here.
Key takeaways
- Apply SEAL leadership strategies to business teams.
- Stay high-performing in challenging circumstances.
- The mindset and principles that lead to results.
Not done learning?
If you’re looking for more insightful revenue operations reads, check out our RevOps Metrics Playbook. It’s a key resource for determining your team’s ROI, with sections on KPIs, data hygiene, and more…
We’re a tad biased, but it might be worth a read! 👇
