No matter how strong your team is or how slick your marketing looks, most go-to-market (GTM) strategies run into invisible friction. A lead slips through the cracks. Sales aren’t sure which campaign drove a meeting. Customer success doesn’t know what promises were made on the pitch. Sound familiar?

The truth is, GTM bottlenecks often hide in plain sight, draining revenue slowly and quietly. That’s where Revenue Operations (RevOps) comes in. RevOps don’t just plug holes. It builds alignment between marketing, sales, and customer success by introducing clear processes, shared KPIs, and unified data. According to BCG, companies that implement a strong RevOps model see 10–20% higher productivity and up to 30% lower GTM costs.

Let’s break down five of the most common GTM bottlenecks — and how RevOps solve them instantly.

1. Lead Leakage

• What it looks like:

You’ve got demand. Website form fills are coming in. SDRs are booked up. But somehow, leads fall off the map. They go unassigned. Or worse — they’re assigned but never followed up. By the time someone notices, the prospect has already moved on.

This isn’t rare. LeanData reports that 10–30% of leads leak due to poor routing or broken handoffs.

• Why it happens:

Teams often rely on manual assignments, inconsistent lead scoring, or outdated routing logic. There’s no clear SLA for when or how to follow up. As a result, no one truly “owns” the lead.

• How RevOps solves it:

RevOps creates a closed-loop pipeline with clear lead stages (MQL, SQL, Opportunity) and automated lead routing. When a lead enters the system, it’s immediately evaluated based on scoring logic and assigned to a rep. SLAs are enforced — if an MQL isn’t touched within 24 hours, RevOps triggers a reminder or escalation.

Some teams even implement “lead safety nets” — if a lead hasn’t progressed after a certain time, it gets reassigned or flagged for re-nurturing.

2. Attribution Errors

• What it looks like:

The marketing team claims the webinar generated $200K in pipeline. Sales says those deals came from outbound. Leadership has no way to verify either story — and everyone’s flying blind on where to invest next.

• Why it happens:

When marketing and sales platforms aren’t properly integrated, attribution becomes murky. Teams often rely on “first-touch” or “last-touch” models by default — which oversimplifies the customer journey and ignores key touchpoints in between.

• How RevOps solves it:

RevOps establishes a unified attribution model. It connects tools across the funnel — marketing automation, CRM, and analytics — to capture every interaction. From a Google Ad click to a sales call to a renewal email, each touch is tracked.

Then, RevOps defines how credit is assigned — whether that’s a weighted multi-touch model or custom logic based on your buyer’s journey.

This allows revenue teams to align on which activities drive revenue, so spend and effort can follow the data — not gut instinct.

3. Overlapping Tools

• What it looks like:

Your SDR team uses Outreach. Your marketing team uses HubSpot. Your CS team is in Gainsight, and you’ve got three different dashboards reporting on pipeline health — none of which match.

And somehow, you’re paying for two CRMs.

• Why it happens:

As teams scale, each department picks their own tools. But without a centralized tech strategy, this leads to data fragmentation, rising costs, and operational chaos.

Gartner reports that 80% of organizations struggle with SaaS tool sprawl and duplicate platforms.

• How RevOps solves it:

RevOps runs a tech stack audit. They assess which tools are mission-critical, which are redundant, and which can be consolidated. Then they build an integration strategy so data flows between systems seamlessly — ideally back to one “source of truth” (usually the CRM).

A well-executed RevOps audit often eliminates multiple unnecessary licenses, saving thousands annually while reducing team confusion.

4. Inconsistent Handoffs

• What it looks like:

Marketing pushes MQLs to sales… but sales don’t follow up. Or they do — but they don’t understand the lead’s context. Once the deal closes, customer success isn’t sure what the customer was promised. It’s a game of telephone — and your customer notices.

• Why it happens:

Each team is working off different definitions and disconnected workflows. There’s no clear process for when handoffs happen, who owns what, or what qualifies as “ready.”

• How RevOps solves it:

RevOps also introduces “handoff hygiene”: a checklist or CRM template that ensures all necessary context (campaign source, pain points, deal notes) moves with the prospect across teams.

Some teams even set up shared dashboards — a single queue showing the status of every MQL, opportunity, and onboarding stage.

5. Reporting Blind Spots

• What it looks like:

You sit down to review pipeline metrics. Sales are $1.2M. Marketing says $1.6M. CS has their own dashboard. Leadership’s asking, “Which one is right?” — and no one’s sure.

• Why it happens:

Each department tracks metrics differently. The CRM might show one thing, the BI tool another. Without standard definitions and data governance, reporting becomes inconsistent and unreliable.

• How RevOps solves it:

RevOps builds centralized dashboards that pull from trusted data sources. Everyone operates from the same definitions — for pipeline stages, attribution rules, and KPIs.

RevOps also creates processes for data cleanliness: validating fields, removing duplicates, enforcing naming conventions, and setting up alerts for anomalies (like deals stuck too long in one stage).

This gives leadership one true view of pipeline, performance, and forecast — so they can make strategic decisions based on facts, not conflicting spreadsheets.

Ready to Find and Fix Your Bottlenecks?

GTM bottlenecks aren’t always obvious — but they’re always expensive. Whether you’re losing leads, misreporting results, or spending too much on tools that don’t talk to each other, RevOps can help.

By aligning your revenue teams around shared processes, data, and outcomes, RevOps turns friction into flow.

I want to know which of these bottlenecks is costing you the most?

Book a free GTM Bottleneck Analysis Session and get a custom RevOps plan to increase your team’s growth.

Let’s eliminate the blockers — and rebuild your revenue engine for scale.