Women in Revenue conducts an annual report on the challenges facing women in business today. For 2023 we’ve identified improvements that employers can make to improve on a “successful but not equal” system.
In our report, “Bridging the Salary Gap: The Paradox of Successful but Unequal,” three key themes emerged: (1) compensation challenges, (2) a demand for workplace flexibility, and (3) the need for mentorship. These challenges have led to dissatisfaction for many women. Nearly half of respondents in this year’s survey said they considered quitting their job in 2022, and 20 percent actually did. That translates into a big price tag for companies who now have to hire in a competitive job market.
Pay Inequality
Compensation challenges among this group of successful women with seemingly well-paying careers shows a lack of progress. More than 25% said they made less than their male counterparts, and even more alarmingly, 52% said they had no idea! Pay transparency laws have been enacted across the country to address this issue, but they clearly have a long way to go.
Flexibility is Queen
Workplace flexibility was ranked the number one benefit by a landslide. More than 80 percent of women named working from home as the must-have perk in job offers, and it’s easy to see why. This is a group of high-functioning multitaskers who have emerged from a pandemic with a keen ability to thrive in a modern, flexible workplace.
This group values this benefit most when considering a job offer or whether to stay at their current job. And the number is up 30 percent from previous years. The number two ranked benefit? Flexible work hours.
Need for Mentorship
Along with the desire for a flexible workplace, women also cited the need for mentorship as a key challenge that can be exacerbated by the more virtual nature of work from home settings. Nearly 30 percent of women reported lack of training/coaching, lack of mentorship, and equal seat at the table as challenges in their organizations.
Employers need to take these gaps seriously as they can be nearly insurmountable blockers in harassment situations.
We love supporting our community with the same statistical and fact-based reasoning that makes us all successful sales and marketing leaders. Identifying the top career blockers and most valued workplace benefits is the type of knowledge that companies need to build strong, productive teams.
As a professional association dedicated to supporting all women in revenue, we understand the challenges of transitioning in the job market. While a job search can be a complex and daunting process, we’ve curated a list of tools that our members swear by to help automate and professionalize their job searches. Once you identify your aspirations and develop your professional pitch, these tools can streamline, organize, and automate your job search process.
Text Blaze is a powerful tool that allows you to create text templates and easily paste them anywhere, including Gmail, LinkedIn, and other platforms. This tool saves hours messaging people for networking, replying to emails/InMails, commenting on posts, and more.
Another great tool on our list is ChatGPT by OpenAI. With this tool, you can create resumes, cover letters, thank you notes, and even answers to popular interview questions in seconds. However, it’s important to review the content carefully and add personalization and tweaks where necessary.
Teal is another tool we highly recommend. It acts like your own personal ATS or CRM for the job search, allowing you to organize and manage your job search in one place.
Grammarly is a must-have tool for anyone looking for a job. It scans your text and corrects any grammatical errors, making it great for resumes, emails, cover letters, and even LinkedIn posts and comments.
Mixmax is a tool we love for automating emails and follow-ups, saving hours and allowing you to personalize messaging at scale. Plus, it even sends reminders on when to follow up.
For those who struggle with public speaking, Speeko – A.I. Speech Coach is a fantastic tool. It allows you to practice interviewing with an AI speech coach and helps you get better at public speaking in the process.
If you’re struggling to match your resume with a job description, ResyMatch by Cultivated Culture is the tool for you. This resume scanner and optimizer, courtesy of Austin Belcak, matches your resume with any job description to increase your chances of landing an interview.
Hunter is another great tool that allows you to find anyone’s email for outreach. It tells you a company’s email alias so you can make an educated guess, making it easier to get in touch with the right people.
The List is a central layoff list used by thousands of companies to hire. If you’ve been impacted by layoffs, you can add your name, and companies will reach out directly if you’re a fit for any open roles. On our resource center, you’ll also find several other links with companies who are actively hiring.
And, be sure and become a Women in Revenue member to (1) gain access to our active #jobopportunities Slack channel and (2) join our Mentorship Program to find a mentor (or mentee) that can be a sounding board and thought-partner as you navigate important steps in your career.
Amidst a recession and mass tech layoffs, many of us are being asked to make organizations leaner than they have ever been. We hear things like “get more efficient,” “run more with less,” “cut back on systems” and “we have to cut back on headcount but not lose any revenue.” If you have not had to do this before, keep reading. If you have, you are wearing a Revenue Operations (RevOps) hat already, and this will hopefully be a nudge to get ahead on this, that is, if you are not already being asked.
Just know it’s OK to show gaps. We all have them! Identifying and addressing them is always better than doing nothing.
Let’s level set by starting from the beginning. RevOps means orchestrating people, processes, technology, data and enablement to achieve business revenue targets. Most organizations with a RevOps department started with sales operations and marketing operations and have evolved to other functional areas over time and growth. RevOps is chartered to align departmental goals, people and teams to build and maintain systems and tools, while providing reporting and analysis to drive more effective business decisions.
RevOps is to a business as the spinal cord, brain and synapses are to our bodies. The functional areas included in RevOps are dependent upon the company size, trajectory and organizational structure. Typically, sales, marketing, customer success, channel and enablement will be involved with dotted lines to and/or working relationships with accounting, finance, HR, IT and legal.
RevOps is the infrastructure to support the end-to-end revenue process across the customer lifecycle. This includes people, process, technology, data and insights, but also strategy and enablement. RevOps helps with alignment, visibility and predictability across the entire go-to-market organization to driverepeatable and scalable revenue. It’s not just about marketing or about sales, or even post-sales; RevOps supports the entire organization from top-of-funnel marketing to prospect to customer and through retention and expansion.
The Rise of RevOps
The last few years have shown how critical a strong RevOps engine is. With current market volatility, having a solid operational infrastructure has allowed companies to quickly assess their current state, determine the next best actions and put into play changes to their GTM strategy. The companies that were able to pivot quickly were the ones that had the right data and the insights to understand what and how the business needed to change to accommodate the changes in the market. In turn, they could operationalize those decisions throughout the entire organization.
In addition to market volatility, several factors have given rise to RevOps. One is the SaaS model of recurring revenue where the customer’s journey begins (vs. ends) with the first contract signed. Retention and expansion within the customer base is more critical than ever before. In addition to the recurring revenue model, selling motions and routes to market are more complex. Think about product-led growth, self-serve models, channel offerings, partner-led selling and more.
Buyers are more informed and more demanding than ever before, which has led to these creative ways of doing business where companies need to meet the buyer where they want to be met. Technology and data have exploded in both usage and innovation, which has changed the landscape as well. There is specific tech for every part of the funnel.
Selecting the right technology, then configuring, administering and maintaining that tech by ensuring tech is integrated and working together is a massive job in itself. It often falls on the RevOps team. Training, enabling and driving the adoption of this technology is also a significant part of the RevOps team’s responsibility.
RevOps plays a big role in gleaning comprehensive, meaningful insights from data as well. The availability and significance of data have also escalated. Delivering the right data at the right time to the right people is more critical than ever before. Comprehensive, meaningful insights from the data are a “must-have” for businesses to be able to achieve their revenue goals.
Your Five-Step Plan for Optimization
As companies work to do more with less by tightening budgets and resources, they need to be more efficient and effective across every customer journey touchpoint. This is where RevOps comes in through the collective lens of people, process, tech, data, insights, enablement and strategy to ensure that these are optimized to ensure the best revenue outcomes. RevOps takes a holistic view across all functions and groups that touch the buyer and customer to look for opportunities to improve.
So, what can you do now to take action to make things lean? Here are our top five tips.
1. Run a gap analysis across people, processes, technology and enablement
Making RevOps leaner starts with reviewing your current state. You will need to audit the people, process, technologies and enablement as they are, define the gaps and then game plan where to make the moves. Think of a SWOT analysis where you identify the following:
Strengths, or what works well
Weaknesses, which could be skills-related or tech that’s not fully implemented
Opportunities, such as low-hanging fruit
Threats, including risks like technical debt, not having enough skills and headcount
This is not a fast or easy process. Incremental improvements will help prove what works quickly and set you up for future buy-in from your stakeholders, finance and internal business partners.
Make a slide deck with your gap analysis that you can present across teams, plus an up-leveled version for executives
Build out, update and make a plan to manage your RevOps playbook while you’re in the process of reviewing and documenting
Focus on business capabilities, and assess the current state by rating your business capabilities against the business impact, the current state and the level of effort. Tackle items with the worst current state that have the biggest impact to the business with the lowest amount of effort.
2. Build out a measurable roles-and-responsibilities model for your RevOps and Go-To-Market teams
Clearly spell out who is responsible for what and what each person has access to in what system. Review rules of engagement across the entire GTM team from marketing to SDR/BDR, sales, post-sales, customer success, services, implementation, support, etc.
Look for poor handoffs, unclear processes, unclear R&R or lack of clear expectations, and start to put better policy, process and governance in place to avoid dropping the ball, wasting time or delivering poor customer experience.
Tips:
Use a model like RACI (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted and Informed) to review who is responsible for what and where you have gaps
Review systems and process ownership and systems permissions
Determine if your operating model makes sense for where the business is at today (e.g. centralized vs. decentralized vs. hybrid)
Set up a ticketing system for your team in Asana, Wrike, Monday or a custom object in SFDC, and identify opportunities for ongoing training to close skills gaps
3. Implement a process for roadmaps, project briefs and/or project charters
If you don’t have a RevOps roadmap, you will need one to clearly spell out RevOps initiatives and how they are tied to overall company goals. If you already have one, reassess the roadmap to ensure it still makes sense. The roadmap should show strategic initiatives, as well as tactical projects, that tie back to the overall GTM and Revenue goals. Each initiative should show standard project criteria such as the objective, key stakeholders, active participants, the expected timeline, targeted completion dates, RACI, next steps, level of effort, prioritization, etc.
A project charter turns into your communication tool to walk around for feedback and input, share across teams, build momentum, show transparency and obtain buy-in and sign-off throughout the entire project or program lifecycle. It is by far the most important communication tool for strategic projects, but not all projects are that grand and require this.
Tips:
A project charter will include your roadmap, roles and responsibilities, project/program goals tied to overall company goals, impacts within and across departments.
A project brief is usually used for smaller-scaled, less strategic projects, with the same purpose as the project charter—to build buy-in and ensure effective communications
4. Optimize the Tech Stack
When looking for ways to be more efficient and effective, leveraging technology makes sense to reduce manual work, minimize the potential for errors and automate or integrate where possible. But oftentimes, we have systems and tools that are not being used in the most optimized manner or not used at all.
Now is the time to evaluate the tech stack to assess:
What technology is actually used and how it is being used
Where you can better leverage the technology that you have to unlock more use cases, solve more challenges, drive better productivity and eliminate manual steps
What technology is redundant or not being utilized at all for and could be consolidated or eliminated
Where additional training or enablement needs to happen to improve adoption, provide more value and better serve the GTM team
Where better integration can be configured or designed to allow better visibility and a more seamless experience
5. The Metrics that Matter
Many organizations have too many metrics, not enough metrics or the wrong metrics. Now is the time to be abundantly clear on GTM goals and objectives, and then make sure you are looking at the right metrics to assess how the organization is tracking toward and performing against those key goals and objectives.
Cut out the noise, and focus on the top metrics that provide deep insights into how the organization is performing. This will provide leading indicators of where to pivot, change direction or lean in.
Don’t measure everything; instead, measure the things that matter.
Conclusion
The value of RevOps is simple. You cannot significantly accelerate revenue growth and scale a business for future growth without it. And what is interesting is that RevOps is still significantly understaffed. Even more interesting is that in a downturn, RevOps professionals are being cut because they are often misunderstood and undervalued. A lot of this has to do with leadership skill gaps in RevOps; areas such as knowing how to up-level communications, obtain executive buy-in and allies and showing constitution to the revenue goals.
Women in Revenue’s roots come from the B2B tech industry. That means that our community has been hit hard in recent months by layoffs and change. When turmoil hits our ranks, we gather our resources to help. Today we’re launching the Career Progression Support Center, a place for our members to go to get advice on imminent career transition.
Whether you’ve been laid off, are considering a new career or job, or find yourself navigating a new work environment post layoffs, this center has resources to help you plan and cope. We spend one-third of our life working. Managing and planning for what comes next is important for your financial future, overall career success, and your mental health. We hope this page helps.
The Career Progression Support Center is a living site that will be updated regularly with resources to help with career transition and progression. It includes helpful resources from experts around the web including articles, blogs, videos, podcasts, infographics, webinars, and more.
To give you a sample of what you can find in the center, here are a few highlights and tips from the resources we’ve gathered:
Don’t forget your worth. As this Harvard Business Review article says, “Being laid off is not a reflection of your skill set — it’s a reflection of your former company’s lack of proper planning during a turbulent economy or of its change in business strategy.”
Not laid off yet, but worried you might be? This Resource Center includes a number of resources with advice on what to do when you’re laid off, including a layoff playbook which includes insight on how to handle the rumors, the actual layoff meeting, and steps on what to do after. For example:
Before: Gather documentation and information (such as employment agreements, contracts, contacts, and examples of your work). DO NOT take proprietary information.
During: Know that you can negotiate your severance. Understand what to expect and how to negotiate.
Immediately after a layoff: Hydrate. Sleep. Process.
After: Compute your runway–How long do until you have to work. Apply for unemployment. Set up health insurance.
Take care of your mental health. Pandemic followed by career transition is a lot. The resource center includes a pair of podcasts from Brene Brown and Melissa Froehlich on how to handle the exhaustion and how to shift your success mindset, respectively.
Ask a mentor for help. Mentorship doesn’t have to be a lifetime commitment. As Women in Revenue board member Jill Melchionda discusses in a WIR TV episode on the resource page, you can even have “spot mentorships…where people get matched on a particular challenge or topic.”
Check out the resource center and if you need help with any of the steps, help is available in a flash! Taking a page from that last highlight, Women in Revenue’s Flash Mentorship Program allows you to set up a one-time call with a qualified mentor to discuss a specific skill and/or topic, for example, how to beef up your resume, how to set up an informational interview, or how to leverage your network to find or get the inside scoop on job opportunities. Sign up here and be sure to select the “Mentorship” box to get started.
WIR’s Executive Director, Deanna Ransom, moderated the conversation, addressing how the world is now driven by authentic relationships which are nurtured whether business or personal. For business, and especially women in business, community matters and can make a tremendous difference in terms of growth both personally and for the business.
This is why forging the right relationships and creating a virtuous circle of caring, connectedness and compassion through community and giving is a tremendous growth driver for business and individuals.
Listen to the recording of this session HERE and learn about: – Why community and giving matter now more than ever – Why community and giving means even more for women in business – Ways to create personal engagements in a digital world – Why businesses should focus on community partnership, giving and empowering women in revenue roles for growth
Many professionals across a range of industries consider mentoring a critical part of their career success. Yet, studies have shown that historically, a surprisingly small amount of women have taken advantage of the many benefits of mentorship.
Fortunately, we’re seeing that change — especially after the challenges and changes that have happened across the globe over the last few years.
Those interested in seeking out the guidance of a mentor may still be wondering how to approach someone about it. Others may not realize they themselves can become mentors — and this relationship can be beneficial to their own success.
Each year comes with its own challenges, but 2022 might be one of the most tumultuous in recent memory. The events in years prior preceding were rare, as our world was impacted by a global pandemic and sociopolitical unrest. The aftershock affected many in their careers and family life, saying nothing of the mental and emotional toll taken.
Our Women in Revenue Q4 event allowed our members to come together with a panel of experts to weigh in on our shared challenges over the past year. Burnout was a common theme, particularly for women balancing their professional goals with keeping up with family responsibilities. Concerns around inflation and a potential recession were top of mind as well, considering 66 percent of Americans feel a major recession could be coming within the next year.
Employees and customers alike are being asked to do more with less. This has increased the importance of agility, as staffing challenges and layoffs impact a range of industries. From economic concerns to daily stresses, there’s no doubt that the past 12 months or so have been a struggle for many.
At the same time, we’re poised to see positive changes in the year ahead: more women are entering leadership positions and inflation is expected to cool down. The number of women holding leadership roles in Fortune 500 companies has reached an all-time high, and our event speakers predict greater recognition of and investment in professionals holding customer-centric positions that have become more closely tied to revenue than ever.
‘Gaslighting’ was the word of the year for 2022, according to Merriam-Webster. The term refers to the subtle psychological manipulation of an individual in an attempt to make that person feel confused or doubt themselves.
In work settings, gaslighting can be used to diminish an employee’s accomplishments by redirecting credit for their work or excluding them from important and relevant meetings and conversations.
One poll shows 58% of workers have experienced this type of gaslighting at work, which can easily drive stellar employees to quit their jobs.
Watch our WIR TV episode, ‘How Gaslighting Is Hurting Women, Equity and Belonging At Work,’ to hear from Dr. Beth Kaplan, Belonging Researcher and Champion, and Claudia Gonzalez, Business Development & Digital Marketing Manager at CoinCloud, who dig into the harmful effects of this manipulation tactic on people and corporate cultures — particularly women and women of color.
Key points in this episode include:
How to identify gaslighting behaviors in the workplace
What to do when you are being gaslit
Where to seek support outside of your organization
If there is one thing the COVID-19 pandemic showed the world, it’s that while solitude may be enjoyable — and sometimes even necessary — we still need to connect with others. And it’s about a lot more than simply having people to interact with.
Having a good community means being around like-minded individuals who get you. A place where you can bring your genuine self to the table. No need to scale back for fear of being labeled as too much, or too loud, or too outspoken. The point is to feel free to be yourself. While this may sound a bit idealistic, once you find it, it’s pretty empowering. How so? Let’s count the ways.
Benefits of Being Part of a Community
There are several reasons why being a part of a community is beneficial. While individual needs may vary, there are some common denominators across the board:
Sense of Belonging Feeling like you belong within a group of people is essential for good mental health. This is because having a support network can help you feel motivated when things are going well, and less alone when undergoing difficult times. As a result, you feel connected and are better able to manage stress.
Mentorship While some individuals may seem like they’re infinite sources of wisdom, the truth is that everything they’ve learned has been a product of their life experiences — including their relationships with others. These experiences make them invaluable resources for advice, constructive criticism, and sharing of knowledge; all of which is crucial to help them — and you — grow as individuals and as professionals.
Support There are many ways to support one another. This can be done through encouragement to pursue a goal, guidance as we go through new experiences, and maybe even financial — especially at a time of sudden layoffs. As much as we all strive to be independent and self-sufficient, life comes with many surprises. Having a reliable support system is essential to navigate them successfully. For example, you could connect people on LinkedIn to help someone find a new job, or be part of a group that pitches in to assist a friend facing a hardship. Members of a community can also serve as each other’s allies, whether they hear of an opportunity, or to link arms in the quest for social justice.
Access to Resources One of the biggest benefits of having a community is that everyone is good at something. Let’s say you all work in tech. Someone may be well-versed on database management, while someone else’s strong suit may be network security. When people work together, all bases are covered, and everyone benefits.
Professional Growth Having a professional network also helps you extend your reach for your business, as you refer contacts and business to each other. And since these referrals are done by people who know you, the likelihood of prospects being a good fit is greater. At the end of the day, word of mouth is one of the most effective forms of marketing.
How To Find a Community That’s Right For You
While all of these benefits sound ideal, you may be stumped as to how to find the right group of people. It seems simple to look for, say, people within your industry, but it’s imperative to dig deeper. What are non-negotiables for you? Some factors to consider include:
Integrity
True authentic commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion
Experience with innovation
Giving back to the community
Leadership
Accountability
The next step is to narrow down your options by exploring your interests. Are you looking to forge a community around one of your hobbies? Find people with whom you can discuss work woes and accomplishments? If it’s the former, look for groups with common interests, such as running groups or book clubs. If it’s the latter, opt for networking events — whether it’s ones created to amplify women’s voices, offer mentorship, and/or foster diversity.
At Women in Revenue, we recognize the value and power of community, and we proudly support women in revenue-generating roles. Read about what we offer, and browse through our resources and events. You may just have found the kinship you’ve been looking for.
During Dreamforce 2022, Women in Revenue joined forces with Demandbase for a fun and enlightening evening event at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Hundreds of people converged on this iconic location to meet with like-minded revenue leaders and delight in contemporary art galleries, craft cocktails and insightful conversations.
In addition to the networking, Women in Revenue pulled together a panel session with top executives and allies to discuss the importance of mentorship and allyship to power forward with a stronger sense of confidence and support…
A Dynamic Due of Two Ships: Mentorship and Allyship
Whether you think the glass ceiling is broken or not, one thing remains certain – women supporting women and allies supporting women makes all the difference to our individual and collective success. In a world where the right relationships can determine your access, inclusion, belonging and promotion the “ships” of Mentorship and Allyship are the vessels that will carry you over the life of your career and are even more vital for women and other underrepresented groups.
The person in your ear and corner along with the power of an ally in the room using their power for you when you aren’t even present is key to every woman navigating the ladder! Just knowing she’s not alone as she works her way up is rocket fuel for forward momentum.
Hear from from WIR’s Executive Director, Deanna Ransom as well as Lydia Flocchini – CMO @ SurePoint Technologies, James Gilbert – CMO @ Flip, Deb Rapson – SVP of Sales @ Leadspace, and Edward Avila – Vice President, Talent Acquisition @ Alation as they discuss:
Understanding and unlocking the power of a mentor
The role and responsibilities of an ally
The difference between a sponsor and an ally
Why the right mentor and ally really matter
How mentorship and allyship work together for greater success
Top insights for recognizing and selecting the right mentor and ally
Here’s a link to watch a video of the panel. Here’s a link to see the storyboard of the session that was created live onsite
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Check out our 5th annual State of Women in Revenue Report! Bridging the Salary Gap: The Paradox of Successful but Unequal (June 2023)
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