When I first started implementing revenue operations (RevOps) in small teams, I made the classic mistake of trying to mirror enterprise playbooks: lengthy RACI matrices, multi-day workshops and three different tools for tracking the same metric. That approach crushed momentum. Over the past decade I’ve learned that for small teams the priority is clarity and repeatability — not complexity. In this post I’ll walk through a pragmatic RevOps playbook you can implement in weeks using HubSpot and a handful of simple SLAs. I’ll share the exact SLAs I use, the HubSpot objects and automations to set up, and the reporting that actually helps teams move faster.
Why RevOps matters for small teams
RevOps isn’t a buzzword — it’s a way to make sure marketing, sales and customer success aren’t pulling in different directions. In small teams, misalignment looks like dropped leads, slow follow-ups and inconsistent handoffs that cost you revenue. A lightweight RevOps approach reduces friction by formalising who does what, when, and how we measure it.
For small teams, RevOps should achieve three things:
- Reduce lead leakage: ensure every qualified lead is assigned and followed up promptly.
- Create predictable handoffs: standardise when a lead becomes an opportunity and when a customer becomes a success responsibility.
- Provide actionable reporting: metrics that highlight bottlenecks, not vanity.
The simple SLA framework I use
SLAs (Service Level Agreements) don’t need to be legal documents — they’re behavior contracts. For a small revenue org I recommend three SLAs: Response SLA, Qualification SLA, and Handoff SLA.
- Response SLA: Acknowledge all new inbound leads within 60 minutes during business hours (or within 8 hours if you can’t commit to 60 minutes). The goal is to set expectation and capture intent.
- Qualification SLA: Complete initial qualification (BANT, MEDDIC-lite, or your simple checklist) within 24–48 hours of first contact. Decide Assign / Nurture / Discard.
- Handoff SLA: When a lead is qualified as Sales Accepted Lead (SAL), the lead owner must create a meeting or task for the AE within 2 business days and update lead stage to “Sales Handoff”.
These three SLAs are intentionally tight and easy to measure. If you’re running with SDRs and AEs, add a Deal Response SLA (AE must contact within 24 hours of SAL acceptance).
Mapping the SLAs to HubSpot objects and fields
HubSpot is ideal for small teams because you can centralise contacts, companies, deals, and tasks without a heavy implementation. Here’s how I map the SLAs to HubSpot constructs.
| Business Concept | HubSpot Object / Field | Automation / Trigger |
|---|---|---|
| New inbound lead | Contact record, Original Source, Lifecycle Stage = Lead | Workflow to assign owner and send acknowledgment email + create task |
| Qualification | Contact property: Qualification Status / Custom property: SAL flag | Workflow to change lifecycle stage to Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL) or mark as Nurture |
| Handoff to Sales | Deal created, Deal Stage = Sales Handoff | Automation to notify AE, create calendar invite task, set SLA timers |
Key custom properties I add in HubSpot:
- Qualification Status (Unqualified / Contacted / Qualified / Nurture)
- SLA Response Start (date/time)
- SLA Response Met (yes/no)
- Source Confidence (High/Medium/Low) — optional but helpful for reporting
Practical HubSpot automations to set up in day one
Set up these four automations and you’ll cover 80% of the day-to-day flow.
- Auto-assign leads: Workflow that assigns new inbound contacts to a rotation of owners (round robin) based on territory or product. Create an initial task "Acknowledge lead" with a due date 60 minutes from creation.
- Response SLA timer: Workflow that sets SLA Response Start to contact create time and then waits 60 minutes. If owner hasn't marked SLA Response Met = yes, send escalation to manager and ping owner.
- Qualification checklist automation: When a contact has a first call logged or an email reply, set Qualification Status to Contacted and send a short qualification form to the rep with checklist items. When checklist completed, update Qualification Status.
- Sales handoff: On Qualification Status = Qualified, create a deal, set lifecycle stage to SQL, create AE task "Book discovery", and notify AE via Slack/email.
These automations create a visible trail: every lead has timestamps and statuses you can report on. You’ll quickly see where SLA breaches happen — and why.
Reporting that helps you fix bottlenecks
Report on a few metrics weekly. Don’t drown your team in dashboards — pick signals that correlate with conversion.
- SLA adherence: Percentage of leads meeting Response SLA and Qualification SLA (use SLA Response Met and Qualification Status timestamps).
- Time to first contact: median and 90th percentile (this highlights outliers).
- Conversion by source: MQL to SQL and SQL to Close by original source (paid, organic, partner).
- Pipeline aging: deals stuck in Sales Handoff > 7 days.
Build a simple HubSpot dashboard with these widgets. I run a weekly 15-minute ops review with the team where we focus on SLA breaches and stalled deals. The aim is to unblock, not to micromanage.
Common pitfalls and how to avoid them
Here are the mistakes I see most often and the pragmatic fixes I recommend:
- Too many lifecycle stages: Keep stages minimal (Lead → MQL → SQL → Opportunity → Customer). Extra stages create ambiguity.
- No ownership: Automate assignment early; without an owner, a lead rings a bell but no one answers.
- SLAs with no consequences: SLAs must trigger a visible escalation (task, manager email, Slack). People respond to nudges.
- Complex qualification frameworks: Use a 3–5 question qualification checklist that a rep can complete in one call.
How to roll this out in 4 weeks
Rollout doesn’t need to be perfect. Here’s a simple timeline I’ve used to get buy-in and show quick wins:
- Week 1 — Align: Workshop with reps, marketing and CS to agree on the 3 SLAs and the minimal lifecycle stages. Decide owner rotations and escalation paths.
- Week 2 — Build: Implement HubSpot properties, basic workflows and initial dashboards. Create templates for acknowledgment emails and qualification checklists.
- Week 3 — Pilot: Put 1-2 reps on the process, monitor SLAs, collect feedback. Fix gaps (ownership issues, email copy, task timings).
- Week 4 — Roll: Scale to the whole team. Run the first ops review and insist on the SLA metrics for that meeting.
Within a month you’ll have predictable handoffs and a clean dataset to iterate from. The goal is not perfection — it’s a repeatable process that creates reliable behavior and visibility.
If you want, I can share a HubSpot property list and example workflows I use, or a one-page SLA template you can copy into your ops playbook. Tell me which you prefer and I’ll send it over.
