Jordan Blake
Revenue Operations Lead
Recruiter ViewChicago, IL · Hybrid
Problems I'm Built to Solve
- •Pipeline definitions that drift — where "commit" means something different to every rep, and the forecast conversation becomes a negotiation.
- •GTM teams running separate dashboards and blaming each other for misses they're both measuring differently.
- •Leaders who need earlier risk signals but are getting them at 30 days out, when the only move left is discounting.
- •RevOps that got built reactively and now has 11 Salesforce fields nobody touches and a process nobody owns.
Decision Filters
Hire Me If
- •You want someone who will push back on a bullish forecast if the stage data doesn't support it — and can have that conversation without it becoming adversarial.
- •You'd rather have a smaller, trusted dashboard than a comprehensive one everyone has stopped trusting.
- •You want RevOps as a real partner to sales leadership, not a reporting function that shows up after the quarter closes.
- •You value calm under deadline pressure. I do not escalate loudly. I surface risk early and bring options.
Do Not Hire Me If
- •CRM hygiene is treated as optional — something reps will get to eventually.
- •Each team defines their own funnel stages and the RevOps role is to reconcile them after the fact.
- •The forecast process rewards confidence. If a rep says it'll close, it goes in.
How I Operate
Decision-making
- •I start by asking whose number this is and what data we're using to defend it. Most RevOps problems turn out to be ownership problems in disguise.
- •I time-box ambiguity. If we're still debating the definition of an MQL after two meetings, I write a proposal and ask for a decision.
- •I make the smallest process change that improves forecast trust. I've seen too many RevOps overhauls fail because they tried to fix everything at once.
Collaboration & conflict
- •When sales and marketing are fighting about pipeline quality, I find the stage where their definitions diverged. The fight is almost never about the thing they're fighting about.
- •I document decisions in writing after the meeting. Not minutes — just: we decided X, the owner is Y, we'll revisit on Z date. That one habit has saved more re-litigation than anything else I do.
- •I will tell a VP their forecast is wrong if I have stage data that says so. I've learned to do it in writing first, not in front of the room.
Management preferences
- •Tell me the outcome and the constraints. I'll handle execution and flag when something changes.
- •Weekly decision reviews beat ad hoc escalations. I'd rather have 30 structured minutes than six Slack threads that go nowhere.
- •Direct feedback is welcome. I would rather know I missed something than be managed around it.
How I Connect
Communication style
- •Written-first. Sends short, structured updates after every meeting — decisions, owners, and revisit dates.
- •Prefers async for status; reserves synchronous time for alignment and conflict resolution.
Feedback approach
- •Welcomes direct feedback and prefers it in writing first. Will surface disagreements calmly but won't avoid them.
- •Gives feedback tied to specific data, not impressions. Focuses on the system gap, not the person.
Trust building
- •Earns trust by being consistent and transparent with data. The VP stopped keeping a shadow spreadsheet — that was the signal.
- •Follows through on commitments without reminders. If something changes, communicates the change before the deadline.
What I bring to a team
- •Finds the definition gap causing downstream confusion and fixes it before it becomes a larger process problem.
- •Builds processes that run without him in every meeting — the real test of whether something was built or just held together.
Proof Stories (CARL)
THESIS: Forecast variance went from roughly ±18% to within 6% of actual over two quarters — not by improving the model, but by stabilizing what the stages actually meant.
Challenge
Forecast calls were long, emotional, and changed materially week to week. The VP of Sales had stopped trusting the number entirely and was running her own shadow forecast in a spreadsheet. That was the tell.
Action
- •Sat down with sales leadership and rebuilt stage criteria from scratch. Got explicit sign-off on what "commit" required in the CRM before any rep could move a deal there.
- •Launched a weekly forecast review with required inputs — not a discussion, a structured review where each stage had an owner and a risk flag.
- •Went through the pipeline manually for the first two cycles and rejected entries that didn't meet stage criteria. That was uncomfortable. It was also the only way to make the discipline real.
Result
Variance narrowed from ±18% to within 6% over two quarters. The VP stopped keeping her shadow spreadsheet — I only found out later that was her personal signal the process was working. Mid-year, leadership made a headcount call based on the forecast they'd been avoiding for months.
Learning
The tooling was never the problem. The problem was that "commit" didn't mean anything. I now treat definition drift as the first thing to fix, before any process or tooling work starts.
THESIS: Cut planning cycle time by about 40% — not by adding a new tool, but by getting sales, marketing, and CS to agree on what a conversion actually was.
Challenge
Sales, marketing, and CS were tracking the same funnel with different logic and blaming each other for misses. A three-hour monthly alignment meeting that routinely ended without resolution.
Action
- •Mapped where handoff definitions diverged — turned out there were three different interpretations of what qualified as a CS handoff depending on who you asked.
- •Killed the duplicate conversion stages. Introduced one dashboard with role-specific views but a single source-of-truth underneath.
- •Set a monthly cadence to close loop on recurring handoff leak points. Not to review everything — just the top two or three spots where the seams kept tearing.
Result
Planning meetings that used to run three hours and end unresolved were consistently under 90 minutes within two months. The reduction came from not relitigating definitions every time.
Learning
Shared language is usually the most impactful fix before any tooling upgrade. I've started assuming teams will find the same disagreements in a new tool if definitions aren't settled first.
THESIS: I signed off on a forecast that missed by 18% because I trusted rep confidence over stage data. Avoidable. My call.
Challenge
Late Q3. I had CRM data that showed two deals in "commit" with adoption signals that were weak. The reps were confident. Their managers were confident. I wrote it up as a moderate risk and let the number stand. It missed badly.
Action
- •Owned the gap in the post-mortem without attribution to rep behavior. The reps called it right given what they knew — I had the data layer they didn't, and I didn't use it.
- •Audited every input I'd used for that forecast and identified the exact stage that masked the risk.
- •Built a pre-call validation checklist that required stage-level evidence before I'd finalize any number with my name on it.
Result
Next quarter's forecast landed within 6% of actual. The checklist caught two underreported risks that would have been another miss. I still think about the Q3 call more than I should — it was close enough to preventable that it bothers me.
Learning
Rep confidence is not a data point. I knew that. I let social pressure override the data anyway. Now I require stage-level evidence before finalizing any number I own, and I say out loud when I'm doing it so there's no ambiguity about what the forecast is based on.
Motivation & Drive
What energizes me
- •The moment a VP stops keeping a shadow spreadsheet because they finally trust the number coming out of the process.
- •Turning noisy revenue data into a weekly decision that's actually usable — not a 40-slide deck.
- •Building something that runs without me having to be in every meeting to hold it together.
How I handle ambiguity
- •I find the definition gap that's causing the most downstream confusion and fix that first.
- •I run small operating pilots before rolling anything company-wide. One bad rollout of a broken process is worse than no process.
- •I pick one primary health signal per initiative and track that. Dashboard sprawl is how you end up with five dashboards and no decisions.
Growth direction (2-3 years)
- •Own RevOps strategy across a multi-segment GTM motion — not just the mechanics of one segment.
- •Build stronger planning partnerships with finance. I've been downstream of their models; I want to be in the room when they're built.
What Changes in 12 Months If You Hire Me
- •Forecast variance below 8% — not because the model got smarter, but because the definitions stopped moving.
- •GTM handoff disputes resolved in the cadence, not in escalation threads. Planning meetings that end with a decision.
- •One agreed-upon interpretation per metric across teams. Not parallel versions that require a RevOps person to translate.
- •A process that runs without me in every meeting. That's the real test — if it only works when I'm watching, I haven't built anything.
Constraints & Non-Negotiables
Known friction points
- •I underperform when decision rights are unclear across commercial teams. I can work through ambiguity, but not when the ambiguity is about who actually owns the outcome.
- •I lose ground when data governance changes without documentation. I've been burned by undocumented field changes in Salesforce before. I now ask about governance before I agree to anything that depends on it.
- •I am less effective when forecast rituals get skipped until late-quarter pressure. The process only works if it runs every week, not when someone decides it's urgent.
Practical constraints
- •Chicago-based. Hybrid is preferred — I do my best systems thinking away from an office, but alignment work needs face time.
- •Open to periodic travel for quarterly GTM reviews or team offsites.
Non-negotiables
- •CRM accountability that applies to leadership and frontline equally. If senior reps can bypass stage criteria, the forecast is fiction.
- •A defined forecast cadence with clear owners. I won't build a process that has to be re-sold every quarter.
- •The ability to surface risk early without political penalty. I've been in environments where the messenger got managed out. I won't stay in one.