How RevOps Can Optimize Deal Flow with Faster Contracts

Revenue Operations (RevOps) is all about efficiency. It exists to remove friction, streamline processes, and help businesses grow revenue faster. But one of the biggest bottlenecks in the sales cycle has nothing to do with lead generation, pricing, or product fit. It comes down to contracts.

A deal can move smoothly through every stage of the pipeline, but when it reaches the contract phase, things often slow to a crawl. Legal teams get involved, redlines start flying, and what seemed like a done deal suddenly becomes a weeks-long negotiation. For RevOps leaders, this unpredictability is a major challenge. It makes forecasting difficult, delays revenue recognition, and frustrates both sales teams and customers.

The problem is not just the time it takes to finalize a contract—it’s the uncertainty surrounding the process. Some deals close in days, while others stall for weeks with no clear reason why. Without a way to control and streamline contracts, RevOps teams are left trying to optimize an inefficient system.

Too often, revenue operations contracts are treated as an afterthought rather than a lever for growth, leaving RevOps leaders with friction they can’t control.

Why Contracts Are a Bottleneck in RevOps Deal Flow

In many companies, contracts are treated as a necessary evil rather than a strategic part of the sales process. They often follow a predictable pattern:

• A salesperson sends over a vendor-drafted agreement.
• The customer’s legal team assumes the terms are skewed in the vendor’s favor.
• Redlines and revisions go back and forth for days or weeks.
• Sales pushes for faster approvals, while legal works to mitigate risk.
• The contract is eventually signed—but not before draining time and resources.

The problem isn’t just slow negotiations—it’s the lack of transparency and trust in the agreement itself. Buyers’ legal teams don’t know if a contract is fair, so they default to caution. That caution leads to more redlining, more contract bottlenecks, and more frustration for everyone involved.

RevOps teams trying to optimize deal flow often focus on CRM automation, data analysis, and pipeline visibility. But if contract friction isn’t addressed, even the best sales process will run into sales cycle delays.

The Cost of Deal Cycle Time Delays

For RevOps, contracts are the single biggest blind spot in pipeline health. A contract that slips can cascade across the business:

• Delayed revenue recognition: A deal pushed into the next quarter can derail finance forecasts and strain cash flow.
• Sales efficiency loss: Reps stuck in stalled deals spend less time prospecting and more time managing redlines. See how sales teams are impacted. By eliminating contract bottlenecks, RevOps sales performance becomes more predictable and scalable across the pipeline.
• Forecasting gaps: Without predictable contracts, RevOps leaders can’t confidently model deal velocity or pipeline health.
• Jeopardized deals: Long cycles kill momentum. Buyers shift priorities, or worse, walk away.

Even small deal cycle time delays ripple into missed quotas, lower win rates, and unpredictable revenue.

See how Certify™ transforms RevOps deal flow. Get a demo.

How Contract Certification Enables Faster Contracts

Contract certification solves this bottleneck by introducing independent, market-validated benchmarks for fairness. Instead of every contract being treated as a potential risk, certification proves upfront that an agreement has been benchmarked against thousands of real-world contracts.

For RevOps, this unlocks measurable improvements:

• Faster contracts: Buyers see proof of fairness, which reduces skepticism and accelerates approvals.
• Faster contract approvals: Legal teams skip low-risk redlines and focus only on critical issues.
• Contract predictability: Fewer surprises mean more accurate forecasting.
• Deal cycle time reduction: Stalled contracts move forward with confidence.

Paired with Predict™, RevOps leaders gain clause-level signals that forecast which deals might slip—before they actually do.

Want faster, fairer contracts? Request a demo today.

Aligning Sales, Legal, and Finance for Smoother Deal Flow

One of the biggest challenges for RevOps is aligning departments around contracts:

• Sales wants speed.
• Legal wants risk management.
• Finance wants predictable revenue.

Certification bridges those priorities.

• Legal teams approve contracts faster when fairness is validated.
• Sales teams present agreements with confidence, avoiding buyer pushback.
• Finance leaders forecast revenue more accurately because deals no longer stall unpredictably.
• Procurement teams see transparency from the start, reducing friction.

Instead of contracts being a source of conflict, certification turns them into a point of alignment.

A Better Experience for Customers

Customers don’t want weeks of negotiations. A complicated contract process creates hesitation, frustration, and in some cases, deal abandonment.

Certified contracts improve the buyer experience:

• They show fairness upfront.
• They reduce negotiation cycles.
• They build trust from day one.

The result: stronger partnerships and smoother onboarding.

The Future of RevOps: Faster, More Predictable Deals

Optimizing deal flow requires more than better CRM dashboards—it requires eliminating the roadblocks that slow deals down. Contracts have traditionally been one of the biggest friction points, but they don’t have to be.

By integrating certification into the sales process, RevOps leaders can:

• Reduce deal cycle time.
• Improve forecast accuracy.
• Drive faster, more predictable revenue growth.

Contracts become a competitive advantage—not a liability.

FAQs

How RevOps can improve deal flow?

By addressing contract bottlenecks with certification, RevOps ensures deals move faster and more predictably through the pipeline.

How do contracts impact RevOps forecasting?

Unpredictable contracts disrupt revenue projections. Certification creates contract predictability, improving forecasting accuracy.

How to speed up contract approvals in RevOps?

Using certified contracts reduces legal skepticism and redlines, leading to faster approvals and shorter cycle times.

Spencer Lasley

VP of Client Experience

Spencer helps enterprise teams accelerate revenue and customer success through strategic, data-driven solutions—backed by 10+ years of experience.