Hello everyone. My name is Ben Austen and I'm a fraud.

Feels pretty good to say out loud.

Why am I a fraud? Well, I'm here to talk to you about securing a seat at the top table. But I don't have a C in front of my name. I don't have a fancy job title. I've never had any financial background. I post sporadically at best on LinkedIn. I haven't started my own company. And I ignore other socials.

So that's not a great start, hence the fraud. But I do think that I've had quite a lot of experience in trying to drive impact, which I think is what everyone here wants to be able to do. And I think by driving that impact, you can get that strategic seat.

I'm here to talk to you about what I think works, and what doesn't. And I want to share with you the single most powerful and often overlooked strategy that I found to claim that spot. And that is forging that unlikely alliance – and it's not with the CRO.

The dysfunctional reality of revenue operations

Before we jump into it, I'm just going to quickly frame how I see RevOps. In a slightly hyperbolic way, because let's keep things light. This is my explainer for muggles of what we do.

Why does RevOps exist?

Because revenue's historically been managed in three dysfunctional silos.

The Belfort mentality: Sales

First, we've got sales. The Wolf of Wall Street, right? The mantra of greed is good. Growth at any cost.

And what does that look like? Sales hate marketing. Sales hate marketing because they scream there's not enough leads. Your leads are awful. They're not very good. Have you tried doing my job? I've got lots of admin to do.

Their incentive is pure volume and speed.

The Draper mentality: Marketing

Next bucket, we've got marketing. Massive budget. Great creative but a deep resentment for accountability.

Marketing hates sales because they hear: you don't understand our customers. Your campaigns are too expensive. We've never seen an ROI.

Their incentive is attention, spend, and the art of the campaign.

The forgotten heroes: Customer success

Then we've got customer success. Now I couldn't actually think of any sort of cinematic villain to show customer success. I had a pretty good experience with Garmin the other day, I put them up. But I also thought that was a perfect representation of customer success. Because there isn't really an embodiment of customer success.

Ultimately they're sort of the churn fighting heroes. And they don't just hate marketing, and they don't just hate sales. They hate sales and marketing. They hate everyone regardless. And the reason they hate everyone regardless is because they're just trying to clear up all the mess. What's been oversold, over promised, or doesn't meet what they can actually do.

So what's the result of this mess? It's data that doesn't talk. Metrics that conflict. And a P&L statement that's impossible to predict.

I see RevOps as breaking down the silos.

But solving that internal fight isn't enough. To get that seat to the top table, we've got to stop arguing amongst ourselves and start speaking to the only person who can usher us in.