Overview
You run day-to-day operations for Dialpad's upmarket sales team (likely targeting $50K+ ACV deals into mid-market and enterprise accounts). You ensure pipeline is accurate, forecasts are clean, deals move through approval workflows, and Salesforce reflects reality. You split time between tactical execution (fixing data, approving contracts) and strategic projects (improving conversion rates, optimizing territory coverage).
Role Snapshot
| Aspect | Details |
|---|---|
| Role Type | Sales Operations / Revenue Operations Manager |
| Segment Focus | Upmarket/Enterprise (likely $50K+ ACV deals) |
| Scope | Pipeline management, forecasting, deal support, Salesforce admin |
| Team Support | Supporting 15-30 AEs and SEs in upmarket segment |
| Reporting | To Director of Business Operations or VP of RevOps |
| Systems | Salesforce (primary), likely Clari/Gong, Outreach/Salesloft |
Company Context
Stage: Late-stage, well-funded (1,448 employees)
Size: 1,448 employees across product, engineering, GTM
Growth: Scaling upmarket into enterprise accounts while maintaining mid-market base
Market Position: Challenger brand in UCaaS/CCaaS (competing with RingCentral, 8x8, Five9, Zoom). Differentiation is AI-powered features, but market is crowded and buyers are comparison-shopping.
What You'll Actually Do
Time Breakdown
Pipeline/Forecast Management (30%) | Deal Support (25%) | Salesforce Admin (20%) | Analysis/Reporting (15%) | Cross-functional Projects (10%)
Key Activities
- Weekly Forecast Calls: Run forecast reviews with upmarket sales managers. Grill them on commit vs. pipeline coverage. Push back when deal close dates don't make sense. Update leadership with clean commits.
- Pipeline Hygiene: Audit deals weekly. Flag opportunities with no activity, stale stages, missing required fields, or unrealistic close dates. Chase AEs to update Salesforce so your reports are accurate.
- Deal Desk Support: Review non-standard contract requests. Work with Legal and Finance to approve custom terms, payment plans, or multi-year structures. You're the bottleneck that keeps revenue recognition clean.
- Salesforce Configuration: Build custom reports, update dashboards, modify opportunity stages, create validation rules. When AEs complain "Salesforce is broken," you're the one who fixes or explains it.
- Territory & Quota Analysis: Model territory assignments, track quota attainment, identify coverage gaps. Answer questions like "should we split the Northeast territory?" with data.
- Cross-functional Projects: Work with Marketing on upmarket campaign performance, with Product on feature adoption in large accounts, with CS on expansion plays. You connect the operational dots.
The Honest Reality
What's Hard
- Herding Cats: AEs don't log activity in Salesforce consistently. You spend hours chasing updates so your pipeline reports aren't garbage. It's repetitive and frustrating.
- Deal Delays You Can't Control: Deals slip because procurement is slow, champions leave, budget freezes happen. You forecast them as "commit" and then have to explain why they didn't close. Gets old.
- Reactive Firefighting: You plan to work on strategic projects, but then three AEs need urgent contract approvals, Salesforce breaks, and a VP wants custom analysis by EOD. Strategic work gets pushed to nights/weekends.
- Misaligned Incentives: Sales wants looser pipeline hygiene ("just let me manage my deals"), Finance wants stricter controls ("why is this forecasted if there's no budget confirmed?"). You're stuck in the middle enforcing policy.
- System Limitations: Dialpad likely uses Salesforce + integrations (Clari, Gong, Outreach). Things break, syncs fail, data gets duplicated. You troubleshoot constantly.
What Success Looks Like
- Forecast Accuracy: Your upmarket segment lands within 10% of forecast consistently
- Deal Velocity: You reduce approval bottlenecksâcontracts reviewed within 24 hours, not 5 days
- Clean Data: Sales leadership trusts your pipeline reports without questioning every number
- Operational Efficiency: AEs spend less time on admin and more time selling because you've streamlined workflows
Who You Support
Primary Stakeholders:
- Upmarket/Enterprise AEs (15-30 reps) - your main "customers," constantly needing help with deals and Salesforce
- Sales Directors/VPs - depend on you for accurate forecasts and pipeline analysis
- Deal Desk / Legal / Finance - you route non-standard deals and ensure compliance
- Marketing - you track how upmarket campaigns convert to pipeline
What They Care About:
- AEs: "Can you approve this contract today? Why is my pipeline report showing the wrong number?"
- Sales Leadership: "Give me accurate commit, not hopeful pipeline. What's our coverage ratio?"
- Finance: "Will these deals book this quarter? Are the terms clean?"
- Marketing: "Which campaigns are generating upmarket pipeline? What's the ROI?"
Requirements
- 4-6 years in Sales Operations, Revenue Operations, or similar role at a B2B SaaS company
- Experience supporting upmarket or enterprise sales teams (deals $50K+ ACV)
- Deep Salesforce expertiseâadmin-level skills with reports, dashboards, workflows, and validation rules
- You've owned forecasting and pipeline management for a sales team
- Comfortable with Excel/Sheets for analysis (pivot tables, VLOOKUPs, basic modeling)
- Experience with deal desk processes and contract approvals
- Worked in a fast-paced, high-growth environment where priorities shift constantly
- Ability to say "no" diplomatically when AEs ask for exceptions that break process
- Strong communication skillsâyou translate between Sales, Finance, and Legal regularly