A friend of mine, Stan Lemon, is a rock-star developer and distinguished architect at a global tech company. Like most great builders, he still writes code in his free time.
One day his son asked him, “Has Uncle Jonny ever written an app?”
Stan laughed and said, “No, Uncle Jonny isn’t a coder.”
His son thought for a second and asked, “Then what does he do?”
Stan replied, “Jon makes people successful.”
That line stuck with me. Because that’s exactly what I do. My work isn’t about writing code or closing deals. It’s about helping people, teams, and systems work together so everyone can do their best work and customers actually feel the difference.
That’s the heart of Revenue Operations.
What Revenue Operations Really Is
When most people hear “RevOps,” they picture dashboards, data, and automations. They imagine someone buried in HubSpot wiring things together. Those tools matter, but they’re not the point.
Revenue Operations exists to help sales, marketing, and service operate as one system instead of three departments. It’s about creating alignment so growth feels intentional rather than chaotic.
I once read that the modern RevOps leader must “make the people, process, and technology of growth work together toward a common purpose.” That’s the blueprint. But in practice, it rarely starts that clean.
Early on, RevOps can look like a series of quick fixes. Someone needs a form, a report, a new workflow. Each request helps in the moment, but taken together they can reinforce the silos you’re trying to break down. That isn’t failure. It’s how trust is built. You earn the right to change the system by keeping it running long enough to prove what’s possible.
Eventually, the focus shifts from fixing things to connecting them. That’s when RevOps starts doing its real job: helping the business operate like a single, coherent system.
The Craft Behind It
Craftsmanship isn’t just for artists or builders. It shows up in how you design a process, structure data, or write a clean automation. It’s the quiet care that makes something not only work but feel right.
When everything flows, people don’t notice the effort behind it. They just trust that it works. But when the seams show, everyone feels the friction. A dashboard confuses. A workflow spirals. A handoff breaks.
That’s when you realize something counterintuitive.
Simple is hard. Complex is easy.
The real craft of RevOps is stripping away what isn’t needed until what’s left works beautifully. It’s creating order out of noise so teams can focus on what matters most. When that happens, collaboration improves, decisions get clearer, and momentum builds.
The best part is that nobody outside your team ever has to think about it. They just know things work better than they used to.
More Than Software
It’s tempting to think craftsmanship lives in the tools. For a while, I did too.
I’ve spent a lot of my career working inside HubSpot. It’s a platform I love, and I know it inside out. Early on, that made me “the HubSpot guy.”
It was flattering at first. People would come to me for every little fix, and I could make things happen quickly. But over time I realized something: being the person who “does things in HubSpot” limits your impact. You become a utility instead of a strategist.
I didn’t want to be known for what buttons I could click. I wanted to be known for helping the business grow. For connecting dots others didn’t see. For showing how technology, process, and story come together to create clarity.
Tools are important, but they only amplify what’s already there. Software cannot fix a broken process or a confused mission. The real work happens when you use data to tell the truth, when you simplify how information flows, and when you help people see the whole system working together.
That’s the point where RevOps stops being about software and starts being about leadership.
The Power of Listening
That kind of leadership starts with listening.
Listen to your coworkers. Ask them what’s working well and what’s slowing them down. Listen to how they describe customers, where they find joy in their work, and where they hit friction.
When you listen long enough, patterns appear. You start to see how the company truly operates, not just how it looks in reports. That’s when you begin to notice misalignment.
Because most RevOps challenges don’t come from data or software. They come from teams losing sight of a shared purpose. Sales chases activity. Marketing chases attention. Service gets caught in the middle.
The role of RevOps is to bring those conversations back together. To remind everyone why the company exists and how their efforts connect to the customer’s progress. When that alignment clicks, even small improvements ripple outward. The business starts to feel like one team again.
Leadership and Humility
The best leaders I’ve known share a few traits. They care about the mission and the people who carry it out. They tell the truth even when it’s uncomfortable. They admit when they get it wrong.
Those qualities matter more in RevOps than in almost any other role because you’re constantly working across boundaries and trying to build trust. People will only follow your lead if they believe you care about something bigger than the system itself.
A former manager once gave me advice that I still think about often: You’re not as important as you think you are.
At the time, I was convinced the company would fall apart if I walked away. It didn’t. Things carried on just fine. That realization changed how I approach my work.
Healthy systems and healthy teams don’t rely on one person to hold everything together. They keep growing even when things change. That’s what makes alignment sustainable. When no single person becomes the system itself.
My job in RevOps isn’t to be the hero who fixes everything. It’s to build the conditions where people can succeed long after I’m gone.
RevOps as a Craft of Clarity
When people ask what I do, I usually say something simple like, “I help people work better together.” That’s closer to the truth.
Most of my days are spent connecting dots across teams that don’t always see how their work overlaps. It might look like fixing a broken report, mapping how a lead becomes a customer, or untangling a process that no one fully owns anymore. But the work underneath all of that is about alignment.
I help people see the whole system. I clear out friction so that sales, marketing, and service can move in the same direction. I build structure that lets good ideas flow instead of getting stuck in the gaps between departments.
It’s quiet work that doesn’t draw attention to itself, but you can feel when it’s working. The noise goes down. Communication improves. Customers notice the difference even if they can’t name why.
That’s what I love about RevOps. It’s not about dashboards or workflows. It’s about creating the conditions for people to do their best work and for customers to have a better experience because of it.
It’s the same satisfaction a craftsman feels when the fit is perfect or a musician feels when everything finally locks into rhythm.
It’s the quiet craft of making people successful.
TL;DR Summary
- Revenue Operations helps teams operate as one system, not separate departments.
- The craft is in the unseen details that make complex things feel simple.
- Tools amplify good processes, but alignment and listening make them powerful.
- The best RevOps pros build clarity, trust, and success for others.