There are two RevOps hires. Most companies hire the wrong one.

Most companies hire RevOps for the visible work - dashboards, CRM hygiene, Board packs - and assume they will also provide commercial insight. But it doesn't happen, because those are two different people.

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These practical things matter. A business with poor data, messy systems and no clear reporting is much harder to run. But that’s not the big value of RevOps.

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The key value of RevOps is to help the commercial team see what’s really happening. Where pipeline actually comes from. Where deals really get stuck. Which segments expand, and which churn. Reporting tells you what happened. RevOps should identify where you need to act.

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Those are two different hires.

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1️⃣ Technologist

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This is systems and data. They make the GTM tech stack work: the CRM, the integrations, the data quality, the reporting layer, GRR and NRR calculations. Minimising manual work for the team.

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This is hugely valuable and every company needs it sorted.

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For most companies this starts as a part-time internal techie long before it justifies a dedicated hire.

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2️⃣ Commercial analyst

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This is about providing commercial visibility. This person understands the motion, not just the system - outbound, inbound, demand generation, pipeline management, retention, expansion.

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Their value is the insights they bring to a leadership meeting.

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• This channel produces meetings but no opportunities. I think it may be because…

• We win in this segment and lose in the adjacent one. The difference could be…

• Expansion is strong in one cohort and flat in another. We could test that by…

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They will not always be right. Nobody is. But they will be looking in the right places, and they will start the discussions worth having.

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Which do you need?

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Look at your last three leadership meetings. Were the arguments about whether the numbers were right (perhaps you were not even looking at them), or about what to do about them?

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If your team spent the meeting disputing the data, you need a technologist.

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If your team has the numbers but is not acting on what they’re telling them, you need the analyst.

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This is typically two job specs, not one

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If you try to get two for one, you may hire an excellent technical RevOps person, and a few months later you are frustrated that they are not bringing commercial insight.

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Or you hire a sharp commercial operator, and you are disappointed that they are not excited about stitching together APIs and cleaning the CRM.

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In both cases, you expected something you weren’t hiring for.

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So be clear on what you need and spec that role correctly. Be explicit about what you need - both among the hiring team and with the candidates.

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If you are about to make this hire and are not sure which one you need, I am happy to talk it through, or share how I would structure the two specs - just let me know.