The revenue black box defined
Let’s say you want to go from Copenhagen to Paris.
Option 1: You just start walking. You roughly know the direction. You can kind of read the signs.
Option 2: You use a paper map. Maybe it’s a bit old.
Option 3: You use Google Maps. It knows where you are. It knows all the streets, all the construction sites, the traffic… hell, even which route is most eco-friendly.
Now, which of those options will get you to Paris with the least second-guessing, the fewest doubts, and only some headaches.
The most up-to-date, granular, and data-driven option – of course.
The same applies to your revenue engine.
You can probably run a “simple” revenue engine in your head. At some point, you will need a spreadsheet. But eventually, you’ll need a tool (I guess we are the Google Maps here?).
In order to find the most efficient route, you need to increase the granularity of your model to catch up with the ever-increasing complexity of your revenue engine.
I think of it like this:
White Box (left): You know what is wrong, and you “only” need to execute. Executing is comfy RevOps territory. And more resources will help you to execute on this faster.
Black Box (right): The black box is everything you can’t see or can’t explain in your revenue engine. This is where a ton of efficiency gains can be found – once it’s uncovered.
Moving from your paper map to Google Maps helps you to shrink the revenue black box.
As you keep building out your model, you will find more and more ways to improve the engine.
I strongly believe that not doing this will over time diminish the value of RevOps.
Want more? This post was originally written as part of Toni’s regular Revenue Letter. If you want to be one of the first to receive content like this straight in your inbox, sign up here.