Imagine the Octopus
In the depths of the ocean lives one of nature's most remarkable creatures—the octopus. This highly intelligent mollusk possesses a neurological architecture unlike any other animal on Earth. While the octopus has a central brain located in its head, approximately two-thirds of its neurons reside in its eight arms.
Each arm operates with remarkable autonomy, capable of independent decision-making, problem-solving, and even learning—all while remaining coordinated by the central brain's overarching intelligence.
This is not merely biological trivia. It is the fundamental blueprint for understanding how modern revenue operations must function.
When I first learned about the octopus's neurological structure, I immediately recognized the parallel to a challenge I had been wrestling with throughout my twenty-five-year career in enterprise software operations.
The Coordination Crisis
In company after company across enterprise software operations, I observed the same pattern:
Sales Operations
Optimized for pipeline velocity and win rates. Close more deals faster.
Marketing Operations
Optimized for lead generation and campaign ROI. Generate more qualified leads.
Customer Success
Optimized for retention and expansion. Keep customers and grow accounts.
These goals sound aligned. They all serve revenue growth. But in practice, they often conflicted:
- Marketing generated high volumes of leads to hit their MQL targets. Sales rejected them as unqualified, creating finger-pointing and broken handoffs.
- Sales focused on closing deals by quarter-end, promising implementation timelines that Professional Services could not deliver, creating customer dissatisfaction.
- Customer Success identified expansion opportunities but lacked a systematic way to hand them back to Sales, leaving revenue on the table.
Each operational arm performed its function competently. But collectively, they created dysfunction. Revenue was leaking through the gaps.
The RevOps Octopus Methodology™
After 25 years of watching Revenue Operations initiatives succeed and fail, I developed a systematic framework based on the octopus's biological architecture.
Sales Operations
Pipeline management, forecasting, and sales effectiveness
Marketing Operations
Lead generation, campaign effectiveness, and attribution
Customer Success
Retention, expansion, and customer health
Order-to-Cash
Quote-to-cash cycle and billing efficiency
Pricing & Finance
Pricing strategy and financial coordination
Professional Services
Implementation, onboarding, and services delivery
Technical Operations
Systems integration, data flow, and infrastructure
Data & Reporting
Analytics, dashboards, and insights delivery
The Coordination Brain
The central intelligence that coordinates all eight arms, ensures aligned incentives, and identifies revenue leakage between operational boundaries.
Learn About Coordination Intelligence →Assess Your Revenue Operations
The RevOps Octopus assessment evaluates both operational effectiveness AND coordination quality—identifying where revenue actually leaks.
Traditional consulting available for specific projects or ongoing retainer work:
CRM implementation & optimization
International expansion operations
Fractional RevOps executive