Taking Over Ops in Unfamiliar Territory

What to do when the market and the industry are both new

A friend recently reached out. They have just taken a SalesOps role in a completely new industry, in a market they didn’t know well. Smart person. Good instincts. But they were honest: “What should I focus on first?”

I’ve been there. More than once and it has been hard every single time

I’ve worked across West, East, and Southern Africa, and now in the UK. I’ve moved between edtech, fintech, and HR tech. In each case, I stepped into roles where I wasn’t the expert on the product, the market, or the customer — yet I was expected to build the systems that drove revenue.

This piece isn’t a how-to manual. There’s no universal playbook that works across industries and cultures. But I’ve picked up some lessons that have helped me survive and sometimes even thrive in unfamiliar territory.

1. Don’t Pretend You Know

When you’re new, the worst thing you can do is bluff your way through.

There’s often pressure to establish credibility quickly — to “add value from day one.” But in Ops, value doesn’t come from sounding smart. It comes from asking the right questions, seeing patterns, and fixing problems others have learned to live with.

So start by listening.

Ask what a healthy pipeline feels like here. Ask reps what slows them down. Ask marketing how they define lead quality. You’ll hear different versions of the truth — that’s good. The truth lives in the friction.

2. Learn the Language

Every industry has a dialect. So does every region.

When I worked in edtech, sales calls were full of academic jargon. In HR tech, it was compliance acronyms. In the UK, I am learning to adjust how I talk about pricing, partnerships, and even performance reviews.

You don’t need to become a domain expert overnight. But you do need to speak the language well enough to ask better questions and hold better conversations.

That starts with listening — to customer calls, onboarding sessions, marketing content, and sales huddles. Take notes. Google the stuff you don’t get. Make flashcards if you need to. Just don’t tune it out.

3. Find the Locals

Whether it’s a new industry or a new region, the people closest to the customer know things you don’t.

Spend time with your top reps. Sit with your CSMs. Ask marketing who they think really understands the audience. These are your translators. They’ll help you spot the unspoken rules.

When I first moved into HR tech, I leaned heavily on one Sales Manager who had worked in the space for years. He’d tell me things like, “This objection always comes up when you’re selling to CFOs in East Africa,” or “Ignore that lead score — they’re just a competitor fishing.”

Those aren’t things you’ll find in a CRM or onboarding deck. But they’re critical to building systems that actually work.

4. Map the Buyer Journey, Not Just the Funnel

Funnel stages are a company’s version of reality. Buyer journeys are reality.

When you’re new to a space, map how people actually buy. Talk to sales. Sit in on demos. Read onboarding surveys. Find out where prospects drop off, where they stall, what makes them say yes.

Do they consult external advisors before making a decision? Do they prefer WhatsApp to email? Does procurement always kick in late?

You’ll start to see patterns and bottlenecks. Once you understand those, then you can think about changing process or tooling. Not the other way around.

5. Fix the Plumbing Before You Renovate

It’s tempting to redesign the whole system. But don’t start with strategy. Start with systems.

Check that lead routing works. That the dashboards are accurate. That reps can find what they need in the CRM. That commissions are getting calculated correctly.

A leaky system will kill any strategy, no matter how good.

In my first 30 days at one company, I thought we needed to rework the forecast model. But it turned out reps were duplicating deals to game the leaderboard. So we fixed that first. Forecasting came later.

6. Earn Trust Through Small Wins

You don’t need a “big win” in month one. You need momentum.

That could mean shortening a form. Cleaning up a dashboard. Speeding up onboarding by one day.

These things seem minor, but they’re trust builders. They show the team that you listen, that you understand the pain, and that you act fast.

7. Stay Humble, Stay Analytical

When you're new, you’ll often get conflicting advice. The VP wants faster ramp times. The Head of CS says churn is the problem. The reps want better tooling.

It’s okay to say “I don’t know.” Just make sure you’re collecting the data to eventually find out.

Test assumptions. Run small experiments. Say things like, “Here’s my working theory,” not “Here’s the answer.” That keeps people open and gives you room to iterate.

Final Thought

Taking over Revenue or Sales Ops in a market you don’t know, for a product you’ve never bought, can feel like trying to fix a plane while learning to fly. But that’s also what makes it interesting.

If you bring curiosity, pattern recognition, empathy for the frontline, and discipline around systems, you’ll earn your way in.

You won’t get everything right. I never do.

But the goal isn’t perfection. It’s forward motion, with eyes open, ears sharp, and systems that learn faster than you do.

— Tayo