Searching for “revenue operations best practices” is a common starting point for leaders, but it often leads to generic solutions that fail to fit a unique business. In a recent discussion, Amy Osmond Cook, Ph.D., Co-Founder and Chief Marketing Officer at Fullcast, explored this paradox with Joe Nicholls Jr., Revenue Systems Manager at Monte Carlo.
Joe’s journey from the restaurant industry to RevOps gave him a customer-first viewpoint that challenges rigid playbooks. As he puts it, “It’s probably my least favorite thing… ‘I’ve done it this way before’ or ‘this is best practice.’ Past experiences are overrated.”
Instead of blindly applying old formulas, a context-first approach delivers better results. This article provides a practical framework for making smarter, situation-specific decisions across your people, processes, and technology to drive real business growth.
Why Past Success Can Be Your Biggest Obstacle
The conventional wisdom around best practices is seductive. It offers a playbook, a seemingly proven path to success. But in today’s rapidly changing business environment, depending on past success can become a significant liability.
This is where a customer-focused perspective becomes essential.
From Proven Methods to Outdated Tactics
The business world operates differently now. As Joe Nicholls Jr. notes, what worked 10, or even 5, years ago, is unlikely to succeed today.
“Businesses today are not what they were 25 years ago,” he explains. “How to solve problems the way that people did 25 years ago is kind of silly.” This creates a significant risk for leaders who claim, “I’ve done this 10 times,” without considering new market factors.
Market conditions, buyer behaviors, and technology are in constant flux. Sticking to an old playbook while the rules are changing leads to a widening gap between planning and execution. Data from the 2025 Benchmarks Report reveals that even after companies lowered quotas, nearly 77% of sellers still missed their targets. This highlights a critical disconnect and demands a more dynamic approach to planning.
The Strategic Advantage of a Non-Traditional Background
Unconventional career paths often cultivate the exact skills needed for modern RevOps. Joe’s background in the restaurant industry and Amy’s experience returning to the workforce as a former stay-at-home mom fostered a unique adaptability. Joe draws a direct parallel between his past and present roles.
“The restaurant industry is such a ripe ground for professionals where they’re solving problems for customers every day,” he says. “And that’s what we do, is we solve problems for our stakeholders.”
This customer-first mindset, honed by daily problem-solving, is often more valuable than years of rigid process experience. It provides a strategic advantage by prioritizing the stakeholder’s actual needs over a preconceived solution.
Shifting Your Mindset from “What Worked Before” to “What’s Needed Now”
Effective RevOps is not about memorizing plays; it is about diagnosing the current situation. To move from tactical reactions to strategic impact, leaders must shift their focus from “what worked before” to “what’s needed now.”
Joe operates from a set of fundamental principles that guide his decision-making. Instead of a static list of best practices, he focuses on three core goals:
- Increasing Visibility: Improving data quality to provide a clearer picture of the business.
- Driving Efficiency: Making reps better and more effective at their jobs.
- Sharpening Focus: Ensuring teams are concentrated on the right activities.
These pillars provide a flexible framework for problem-solving. They create a foundation for making SalesOps strategic rather than merely functional.
The Breakfast Framework: A Practical Model for Context-Driven Revops
To make this context-driven approach tangible, Joe offers a memorable analogy: cooking breakfast. You cannot simply assume that “over-easy eggs with lightly toasted bread is best practice.” You must first understand the variables. This “Breakfast Framework” provides a practical model for assessing your Go-to-Market strategy.
Know Your Ingredients
Before you can cook, you need to check your pantry. In RevOps, your ingredients are your people, processes, and technology. You cannot make avocado toast with an egg on top if you are missing a key component.
- People (The Eggs): When building a team, prioritize adaptability over rigid experience. Joe emphasizes the need for a team that can pivot when needed, people he can depend on in a crisis.
- Processes & Tech (The Bread & Avocado): When selecting technology, Joe advises looking for true partners, not just vendors. “The technology is only as good as the people that support it and build it,” he states. The quality of the team behind a tool is as important as the tool itself. This partnership mindset is essential as you look to automate GTM operations and streamline your processes.
Understand the “Customer’s” Order
The core of the framework is understanding what your internal “customer” actually wants. You cannot assume over-easy eggs are the right solution until you ask. This requires a thorough diagnosis of several variables:
- Business Objectives: What is important to the company right now?
- Stakeholder Pain Points: What problems are they actually trying to solve?
- Customer Experience: What are external customers experiencing?
- Available Resources: Do you have the right tools and skills? Or as Joe puts it, “Do I have the right pan to do that?”
This approach fosters collaboration and buy-in by solving the actual problem, not imposing a standardized solution. By aligning your strategy with stakeholder needs, you can build a more effective end-to-end GTM framework.
Unifying the GTM Motion Without Forcing a Tech Takeover
The debate over whether Marketing Ops should live within RevOps is a perfect example of context over dogma. While some might call for full consolidation, Joe’s approach is far more practical. He notes that trying to force his limited HubSpot knowledge on a knowledgeable marketing ops team would be counterproductive for everyone.
True GTM alignment comes from collaboration and respecting domain expertise, not from a rigid organizational chart. This pragmatic approach allows for a more flexible and effective structure. It also supports the need for continuous GTM planning that can adapt to the business’s evolving needs.
Building Your Revops Toolkit for a Changing Market
Thriving in a world without a fixed playbook requires practical skills and sharp, analytical thinking. The goal is not just to find answers but to build reliable systems for navigating any challenge.
Develop a Process-Oriented, Not Solution-Oriented, Mindset
Inspired by thinkers like James Clear (Atomic Habits) and Tim Ferriss, Joe champions a process-oriented mindset. The objective is not to collect a library of pre-made solutions but to build reliable systems for finding the right answer in any situation. This shift is crucial for RevOps leaders tasked with designing scalable, repeatable processes that can evolve with the company.
By focusing on the “how” instead of the “what,” leaders can create frameworks that deliver consistent results. This is how companies have transformed their GTM planning processes with better systems, including stories of how Collibra is slashing planning time and how Udemy is slashing GTM planning time.
Stay Sharp with Continuous Learning and Personal Well-Being
Maintaining a high level of performance requires a holistic commitment to professional and personal development. Joe outlines three pillars that keep him sharp:
- Consume Industry Content: Listen to podcasts like The Go-to-Market Podcast to hear diverse perspectives and stay current on emerging trends.
- Master Your Tools: Deep expertise in core platforms like Salesforce and HubSpot is critical for identifying creative solutions and understanding system limitations.
- Prioritize Physical Fitness: Joe connects his daily run directly to his mental acuity. “Move your body a little bit,” he advises. “That really does translate to mental sharpness.”
Final Thoughts
The relentless search for revenue operations best practices often misses the most critical point: true excellence is not about imitation, it is about adaptation.
As Joe Nicholls Jr. illustrates, the most effective RevOps leaders do not rely on a static playbook. Instead, they build a flexible framework based on a deep understanding of their unique business context, stakeholder needs, and available resources.
This is the new standard for strategic operations. Adaptability, customer-centricity, and a process-driven mindset are the core competencies that separate functional teams from transformative ones. They empower leaders to move beyond rigid annual plans and build solutions that deliver real, sustainable results in an ever-changing market.
Ready to build a GTM plan that adapts with your business? See how Fullcast helps RevOps leaders at companies like Collibra replace spreadsheets with an AI-driven platform for continuous planning.
