Behind every great sales organisation is a Master of Sales Operations.

They go by many names, but they’ll usually have Sales Operations or Sales Enablement mentioned in the title. They put the elements in place that a sales organisation will leverage when they are ready to scale. 

Initial wins, and proof of concepts will often go swimmingly with the CEO pitching the solution to strategically selected potential clients. With the support of the product and marketing teams behind them, they will prove that their solution is ready for market. But the CEO has to run the business, and now it is time to hire salespeople and get this out to as many prospects as possible, right? 

As I meet more and more of these great and promising Israeli startups, I am constantly amazed by their innovations in building a better mousetrap. Just as impressive are the investors that back these great ideas, and how they keep coming back to Israel. Somehow, more and more of these amazing inventions or technical hacks to long-standing problems are being challenged in refreshing and exciting ways right here in what many call Silicon Wadi.

Still, I find it surprising that so many are overlooking the critical elements that go into building an efficient sales model. At first, it may be that the role can be filled part time by a consultant or by someone in sales leadership that is able wear both hats, while they get the ball rolling, but all too often, it is an afterthought, if it gains any mind-share at all. 

Why is that? How can it be that these brilliant minds launch startups that are so good at building solutions that are on the bleeding edge of their field, but then overlook some key elements in the delivery of these solutions into the hands of those that will readily pay for it? 

My theory? Well, I’m glad you asked… 

Consider the incubation and production of so many of the leaders of tech startups in Israel. They quite often hail from the Israeli military in one form or another. They’ll often be streamed into officer training even before they are twenty. Indeed, many have learned to be leaders even before they have ever ventured out into the sphere of work outside the military. With the brain and brawn power of a team, and countless challenges presented before them, they learn at a young age to look closely at their challenges, and to find creative and effective ways to solve them. That is all good, and we can see that it does produce great thinkers and doers. 

What is missing from this equation are the salespeople. Without taking into consideration the fact that the sales executives will be the ones to deal with buyers’ wants, desires, fears, expectations, aspirations and their budgets (or lack thereof). That is why so many of these great solutions fail to take the world by storm. Imagine how much more successful these startups will be when they apply their critical thinking to the sales operation too. A thoughtful review of the sales tools, methodology, and processes can go a long way to igniting more of these young startups to sell at scale, when they are ready. The article referenced here is a nice summary of the role of sales operations. 

Have you seen this play out in other startups? Which startups would you cite as having taken sales operations seriously enough from an early stage? How did that impact their ability to win in their field? 

Finally, I would like to provide a shoutout to some Israeli startups that come to mind that provide tools to the sales operations space: @Gong.io, @DealHub.io, @DeskForce, @Exceed.ai and @Docomotion. There are more, I am sure, but I will leave it to you to add them in the comments here below.