Sales Ops & RevOps Strategy

Inherited a $180K/year sales tech stack. 12 tools. 7 were completely unused. Here's how I cut costs 60% while improving efficiency: The Mess I Found: Tool Category 1: CRM - Salesforce Enterprise: $78K/year - Used by: Everyone (95+ licenses) - Utilization: 40% of features - Status: Keeping (but downgrading) Tool Category 2: Sales Engagement - Outreach: $36K/year - Used by: SDR team (12 people) - Utilization: 80% of features - Status: Keeping Tool Category 3: Data Enrichment - ZoomInfo: $24K/year - Clearbit: $18K/year - Apollo: $12K/year - Used by: SDRs pulling same data from 3 places - Status: Consolidating Tool Category 4: Sales Intelligence - LinkedIn Sales Navigator: $15K/year - Used by: 2 of 8 AEs - Status: Cutting (not driving ROI) Tool Category 5: Conversation Intelligence - Gong: $32K/year - Used by: Nobody (setup incomplete) - Status: Pausing Tool Category 6: Proposal Software - PandaDoc: $8K/year - Used by: 3 AEs - Status: Migrating to Salesforce CPQ Tool Category 7: Analytics - Tableau: $12K/year - Used by: Me, occasionally - Status: Cutting (moving to built-in reporting) Total Waste: $97K/year on redundant or unused tools The Optimization Plan: Phase 1: Data Tools (Saved $42K) - Kept: ZoomInfo (most complete) - Cut: Clearbit + Apollo - Result: One source of truth, cleaner data Phase 2: Salesforce (Saved $18K) - Downgraded: Enterprise → Professional - Why: Not using Enterprise features (territories, forecasting) - Result: Same functionality for team's actual usage Phase 3: Conversation Intel (Saved $32K) - Paused: Gong implementation - Why: Team wasn't ready, wasn't using it - Plan: Revisit in 6 months after process maturity Phase 4: Reporting (Saved $12K) - Cut: Tableau - Built: Salesforce dashboards + Google Data Studio - Result: Better adoption (in workflow), $0 cost Phase 5: Proposals (Saved $8K) - Cut: PandaDoc - Migrated: Salesforce CPQ (already had license) - Result: Tighter integration, no extra cost New Stack ($72K/year, down from $180K): ✅ Salesforce Professional: $60K ✅ Outreach: $36K ✅ ZoomInfo: $24K ❌ Everything else: Cut or consolidated Total Savings: $108K/year (60% reduction) The Impact: Not just cost savings: ✅ Adoption improved: Fewer tools = better utilization ✅ Data quality improved: One enrichment source = consistency ✅ Training easier: Less to teach new hires ✅ Integration simpler: Fewer systems to connect ✅ Support burden reduced: 3 vendors vs 7 The Lesson: Most companies have "tech stack bloat": - Sales person requests tool - Manager approves (small monthly cost) - Repeat 20 times over 3 years - Nobody tracks actual usage My Tech Stack Audit Process: Every 6 months: 1. Pull login data (who's actually using each tool?) 2. Survey users (what value are you getting?) 3. Check overlap (are 2+ tools doing same thing?) 4. Calculate cost per active user 5. Cut or consolidate ruthlessly Rule of thumb: If less than 60% of licenses are used weekly, investigate. The Hard Conversation: "But we just bought Gong!" Yes, and nobody's using it. Pausing is smarter than continuing to waste money hoping adoption happens. RevOps isn't about having every tool. It's about having the right tools, used consistently.