In the fast-paced Australian business landscape, executives don’t have time to dig through messy spreadsheets. A well-designed Revenue Operations (RevOps) dashboard acts as a single source of truth, aligning your sales, marketing, and customer success teams to ensure everyone is pulling in the same direction toward your revenue goals.
By following this guide, you will learn how to translate complex data into a visual narrative that helps your leadership team make informed, confident decisions about the future of the business.
Prerequisites
Before you start building, ensure you have the following:- Access to your CRM: (e.g., HubSpot, Salesforce, or Pipedrive) with Admin permissions.
- Clean Data: Your team must be consistently logging leads, deals, and customer churn.
- A Reporting Tool: This could be the built-in dashboarding tool in your CRM, or an external tool like Google Looker Studio or Power BI.
- Agreed KPIs: A list of the 5-8 most important metrics your executive team cares about.
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Step 1: Define Your Executive Personas
Not every executive wants to see the same data. A CEO is looking at overall growth and market share, while a CFO is focused on Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) and Lifetime Value (LTV). What you should see: Sit down with your leadership team and ask: "What keeps you up at night?" and "What is the one metric that tells you we had a successful month?" Use these answers to categorise your dashboard views.Step 2: Select Your "North Star" Metric
Every dashboard needs a focal point. This is usually your Total Recurring Revenue (TRR) or Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) for SaaS businesses, or Total Monthly Revenue for service-based businesses. Pro Tip: Place this metric in the top-left corner. We read from left to right, and this is the first place an executive’s eye will land.Step 3: Map the Full Revenue Funnel
An executive RevOps dashboard must show the flow from Marketing to Sales to Success. What you should see: Create a funnel visualisation. It should show:- Top of Funnel: Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs).
- Middle of Funnel: Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs) and Opportunities.
- Bottom of Funnel: Closed-Won Deals.
- Retention: Renewals or Churn rates.
Step 4: Include Leading and Lagging Indicators
Lagging indicators (like revenue) tell you what happened in the past. Leading indicators (like pipeline velocity or new meetings booked) tell you what will happen in the future. Warning: A dashboard with only lagging indicators is a "rear-view mirror" dashboard. Executives need a "windscreen" view to predict upcoming revenue shortfalls before they happen.Step 5: Visualise the "Big Three" Efficiency Metrics
Revenue is vanity if it isn't profitable. For Australian SMEs, managing margins is critical. Include these three ratios:- CAC Payback Period: How many months does it take to earn back the cost of acquiring a customer?
- LTV:CAC Ratio: Ideally, this should be 3:1 or higher.
- Win Rate: The percentage of opportunities that turn into customers.
Step 6: Create Time-Period Comparisons
Data lacks context without comparison. An executive needs to know if $100k in revenue is good or bad compared to last month. What you should see: Use "comparison indicators" (usually small green or red percentages) next to your main numbers showing performance vs. the previous period (MoM) or the same period last year (YoY).Step 7: Design for "The 5-Second Rule"
An executive should be able to understand the health of the business within five seconds of looking at the screen. Design Layout:- Top Row: High-level totals (Revenue, Net Growth, Churn).
- Middle Row: Trend lines (Revenue over time, Pipeline growth).
- Bottom Row: Operational breakdowns (Revenue by product line or region).
Step 8: Standardise Your Currency and Fiscal Year
In Australia, many businesses operate on a July-June fiscal year. Ensure your dashboard settings reflect this, rather than the standard US calendar year (Jan-Dec), to align with your accountant’s reports and BAS requirements.Step 9: Set Up Automated Data Refreshes
Nothing kills executive confidence faster than seeing "Data last updated 24 days ago." What you should see: In your tool settings, look for "Data Refresh" or "Scheduled Updates." Set this to refresh at least once every 24 hours. If using a CRM, this is usually automatic, but if using Google Sheets or Looker Studio, you may need a connector like Supermetrics or a native integration.Step 10: Add a "Insights & Commentary" Section
Data doesn't always speak for itself. Sometimes a dip in revenue is due to a seasonal holiday (like the Australian Christmas/New Year shutdown) rather than poor performance. Pro Tip: Include a small text box at the top or side of the dashboard where the RevOps manager can type a 2-sentence summary of the monthly highlights and any anomalies in the data.Step 11: Filter by Segment or Region
If your business operates across different Australian states or offers various service tiers, add a global filter at the top. This allows an executive to toggle between "All Australia" and specifically "Queensland" or "New South Wales" to see regional performance.Step 12: Review and Iterate
Your first dashboard won't be perfect. Schedule a 15-minute feedback session with your leadership team after they have used it for one full month. Common Mistake: Adding too many charts. If your dashboard requires scrolling down three times, it’s no longer a dashboard; it’s a report. Keep it to one screen.---
Troubleshooting Common Issues
- The numbers don't match the bank account: This usually happens when the CRM "Close Date" doesn't align with when the invoice was actually paid. Ensure your team understands the difference between "Booked Revenue" and "Collected Revenue."
- Data is missing for certain months: Check your filters. Often, a "Date Range" filter is accidentally set to a fixed period rather than a "Rolling" period (e.g., "This Quarter").
- The dashboard is too slow to load: This happens when you have too many complex calculations or are pulling data from too many sources. Try to aggregate data at the source before sending it to the dashboard tool.
Pro Tips for Success
- Use Colour Strategically: Use grey for neutral data, green for "on track," and red for "needs attention." Avoid using a rainbow of colours that distracts from the message.
- Mobile Optimisation: Most executives check their data on the go. Ensure your chosen platform has a mobile app or a responsive web layout that looks good on an iPhone or iPad.
- ABN/Legal Accuracy: If you are reporting on multiple entities under one group, ensure you are filtering by the correct ABN or legal entity name to avoid tax-time confusion.
Next Steps
Once your executive dashboard is live, the next step is to build "Tactical Dashboards" for your individual teams (Sales, Marketing, and Support) that feed into this high-level view.Need help connecting your CRM data to a professional dashboard? Our team at Local Marketing Group specialises in RevOps for Australian businesses. Contact us today to streamline your reporting.