The Best Automation Strategy in RevOps? Do Less: A Practical Guide to Deleting, Streamlining, and Then Automating

We’ve all been there: your task list is overflowing, your calendar is a Tetris board of meetings, and your productivity apps are sending you more notifications than you can read. You’re busy—but are you effective?

In modern revenue organizations, especially in RevOps, SalesOps, and MarketingOps, the temptation is to throw automation at every operational headache. Got too many manual tasks? Automate. Data entry? Automate. CRM updates? Automate.

But what if I told you that’s not the best first step?

Ask: “Should This Exist?”

The most powerful automation strategy isn’t Zapier or HubSpot workflows. It’s subtraction.

We’ve been trained to believe that productivity means squeezing more out of the day through efficiency. But real operational excellence begins with aggressive prioritization. That starts by asking a brutally honest question:

Does this task need to exist at all?

Automating a bad process doesn’t make it better. It just makes it junk faster. That weekly report no one reads? It is just wasting computing power. That 12-step lead qualification workflow? Automating it won’t make sales trust it any more than they do now.

So before you build another automation, let’s walk through a practical three-step framework to radically reduce the clutter in your GTM engine.

Step 1: The Necessity Audit – Can We Delete It?

This is the easiest win and the most underutilized lever in B2B operations.

Key Question: What would happen if we just stopped doing this?

Here’s how this plays out across RevOps, SalesOps, and MarketingOps:

🔹 RevOps

• Weekly Pipeline Reviews: If your CRM dashboards are accurate and visible, does the full team meeting need to happen every week?
• Quarterly Forecast Reports: Are stakeholders actively using each tab of that 30-slide deck? Cut the fluff, automate only what’s essential.

🔹 SalesOps

• Manual Lead Routing: Before you automate it, consider if your territory model or rules are overly complex to begin with.
• Activity Logging: Challenge whether your reps need to log every interaction. Use integrations to auto-log calls and emails, and ditch redundant steps.

🔹 MarketingOps

• Campaign Attribution Reports: Are they driving actionable decisions, or just vanity metrics for slide decks?
• Content Performance Tracking: If no one’s optimizing based on that giant spreadsheet, it’s not worth updating weekly.

Tactic: Announce you’re pausing a task or report for two weeks. If no one notices, you’ve got a candidate for permanent deletion.

Step 2: The Simplification Pass – Can We Streamline It?

If the task survives the delete test, it’s time to clean it up.

Key Question: What’s the simplest version of this task that still gets the job done?

Think like a systems designer. Remove unnecessary handoffs, approvals, and ambiguity. Standardize inputs. Use templates. Cut the decision-making fatigue.

Examples of Simplification Wins

• RevOps:
  • Replace Excel-based forecasts with dynamic dashboards in tools like Looker or Tableau.
  • Use standardized pipeline stages across sales teams to reduce confusion and retraining.
• SalesOps:
  • Create CRM input shortcuts using tools like Scratchpad or Dooly.
  • Build “just enough” sales playbooks instead of encyclopedic guides that no one reads.
• MarketingOps:
  • Use shared campaign brief templates across teams.
  • Consolidate martech tools—do you really need five platforms to manage one email campaign?

Tactic: Visualize the process in a simple flowchart. Every time you see a detour, ask: What’s the 80/20 here?

Step 3: The Should We Automate It Test?

Now—and only now—is it time to automate.

Key Question: Is this task worth the time, cost, and effort to automate?

Use this practical scoring model:

High-ROI Automation Targets by Function

• RevOps:
  • Lead-to-Account Matching: Tools like LeanData or Clearbit can automate matching without constant cleanup.
  • Quota Attainment Alerts: Trigger Slack or email nudges when reps hit milestones.
• SalesOps:
  • Auto-logging calls/emails: Use integrations like Gong or Salesforce Inbox.
  • Follow-up workflows: Automate cadences based on lead activity or stage changes.
• MarketingOps:
  • UTM Parameter Standardization: Automate tagging via Google Tag Manager or spreadsheet templates.
  • Campaign launch checklists: Use tools like Asana or Airtable to trigger predefined steps.

Tactic: Start small. Choose one recurring task this week. Audit it, simplify it, and then automate the cleaned-up version.

Easy-Win Automation Ideas (That Actually Save Time)

To get you started, here’s a list of “low-lift, high-impact” automations you can implement this quarter:

Automation Is Not the Strategy. It’s the Reward.

If you take one thing from this article, let it be this:

The goal is not to automate more. The goal is to do less—on purpose.

Automation should feel like a finishing move, not the opening act. By curating and simplifying first, your automations become smarter, lighter, and far more impactful. You build trust across teams, reduce operational drag, and focus your time on the things that actually move the needle.

So next time you catch yourself reaching for another automation tool, pause.

Ask: Should I even be doing this in the first place?

That’s where the real leverage lives.

Final Takeaway

Every automation strategy should start with subtraction. In RevOps, SalesOps, and MarketingOps, the most strategic work isn’t automating noise—it’s eliminating it.

Need help auditing your workflows or building smart automations that actually save time? Reach out to the team at Nochfirst. We’ll help you identify where to delete, simplify, and automate for real results.