Why is CS so neglected?

Why is CS so neglected? Customers are the easiest prospects And yet we don’t have a process for growth Why is that? When funding was flooding in, the focus in so many companies was all on new business. This funding flowed into SDR hires, sequencing tools, marketing budgets and lead generation programs. As this happened, we saw CAC reach often unsustainable levels and it left little budget for Customer Success. More importantly, it wasn’t a top priority for leadership. The process to identify unhealthy accounts and get them healthy and to retain and grow healthy accounts was often missing. Customer Success still rarely falls under the CRO, as if to say that retaining and growing existing customers isn’t part of the revenue engine. I’m seeing it more and more but we still have a long way to go. We’re in desperate need of a reset. There is no better opportunity than to retain and grow an existing customer and it deserves the same investment, resources, strategy, process, data and tools that new customer acquisition has been getting the last 10-20 years. Why do you think so many companies are still dragging their feet here? 🤔

It's astonishing how often CS gets overlooked, much like in the post below, which is one of the best I've seen in a while. While net-new sales are appealing and there's immense pressure on the revenue organization to meet targets, this often results in a prioritization of quick wins over fostering long-term success through outstanding customer experiences. Ironically, it's those long-term victories that genuinely sustain success. Customer service/account management is more than just a support function and can bring so much to an organization!

It's a fantastic question, Eddie Reynolds! Couldn't agree more that baby step one for those trying to capture white space is to reframe the CS org as part of the revenue engine (i.e. under the CRO). Once that's happened, these businesses have to transition from "The Big Four" to "The Big Five" by way of a customer journey map. What do I mean by that? Most RevOps teams focus their systems, process, and commission frameworks on the the Big Four: Lead Gen, Sales, Onboarding, Renewals Here's the problem: Lead Gen to Sales = avg. avg. 60 days Sales to Onboarding = avg. 7 days Onboarding to Renewal: avg. 11 months!!!! By not building out key customer journey milestones between Onboarding and Renewal in our sales systems / processes, we miss a huge opportunity to keep rep attention span on these low-hanging dollars. Certainly much more nuance to be fleshed out, but when the Big Four becomes the THE BIG FIVE, companies will begin filling white space more effectively.

For years, sales-led growth (SLG) was the go-to strategy for B2B businesses: hire more reps, push harder on demos, and close deals through relentless outreach. But let’s talk about the downsides of this approach—because let’s be honest, it’s not all sunshine and rainbows. Here are some challenges I’ve seen with SLG: 1️⃣ High customer acquisition costs: Scaling your sales team is expensive, and the ROI isn’t always clear when deals take months to close. 2️⃣ Slower growth: Sales cycles can drag on forever, and growth often hinges on the performance of individual reps. 3️⃣ Customer dependency: With sales in the driver’s seat, the focus shifts to closing deals rather than nurturing long-term customer relationships. This can lead to higher churn rates down the road. 4️⃣ Limited scalability: A purely sales-led approach doesn’t leverage the power of product or marketing-led growth. It’s hard to scale when growth depends on manual outreach and human effort. 5️⃣ Pressure cooker for reps: The relentless push for quotas can burn out even the best salespeople, leading to high turnover and a constant hiring scramble. 🚨 So what’s the alternative? Hybrid approaches. Companies are now blending sales-led growth with product-led or ecosystem-led strategies, putting the focus back on delivering value while still empowering sales teams to shine. What’s your take? Are you seeing the cracks in sales-led growth models, or does it still work for your business? #SalesLedGrowth #SaaS #BusinessGrowth #RealTalk #SalesStrategy

Why do so many SDRs struggle to book calls? Spoiler: it’s not because they suck at it. And sorry to break it But if you’ve been feeding yourself this narrative, your sales won’t increase this Q4. The truth is sales drastically changed last 3 years. Automation, AI, buyer’s cycles, C-levels attention’s direction… So instead of blaming your SDRs stop: 1. Being inflexible about their tech stack 2. Telling them they shouldn’t post on LinkedIn 3. Using KPIs that don’t make sense anymore 4. Having super short onboarding timelines There’s 1 thing however that you can do. You can help them build a predictable and exponential acquisition funnel. A funnel that: 1/ Uses content to build awareness, familiarity, trust, and exponential opportunities. 2/ Uses contextual and intention-based outreach to get volume. But for that, you first need to adopt a long-term mindset. The SDR job is changing, and so should companies' KPIs. PS: Do you think sales became harder?

𝗦𝗮𝗹𝗲𝘀 𝗧𝗿𝘂𝗶𝘀𝗺: 𝘞𝘦 𝘢𝘭𝘸𝘢𝘺𝘴 𝘱𝘢𝘺 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘣𝘶𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘴 𝘦𝘯𝘨𝘢𝘨𝘦𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘸𝘦 𝘥𝘰𝘯'𝘵 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 (𝘰𝘳 𝘳𝘦𝘲𝘶𝘪𝘳𝘦) 𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘣𝘦𝘨𝘪𝘯𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘰𝘧 𝘢𝘯 𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘱𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘦 𝘉2𝘉 𝘴𝘢𝘭𝘦𝘴 𝘤𝘺𝘤𝘭𝘦, 𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘺 𝘰𝘳 𝘢𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳... ► Longer cycles ► Smaller contract value ► Closed-lost: Tech win/business loss (revenue that might have been) ► Pushed to Q5 😒 ► Closed-lost: Column fodder (revenue that never was) ► Closed-lost: No decision (see tech win/business loss...it was a business decision in most cases) This is the time of year that we feel it the most. For Sales, this is directly correlated to quota underperformance or failure to hit/optimize accelerators. For our company, this is directly correlated to Revenue growth/SG&A margin/EBITDA margin erosion. The thing is, we all KNOW this if we have any meaningful sales experience and we all WANT to engage the business first. It is not for a lack of wanting. It is typically due to two fixable things. 1. The 𝗹𝗮𝗰𝗸 of executive-centric selling assets (start up/scale up companies, typically) or 𝗳𝗮𝗶𝗹𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗼𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘇𝗲 executive-centric selling assets (established technology vendors, typically) in the sales/GTM motion 2. Underdeveloped skills in the use of these assets to effectively engage the C-suite, and guide their thinking and strategic investment decisions. You must have both. The latter without the former means that 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙘𝙖𝙣𝙣𝙤𝙩 𝙛𝙞𝙣𝙞𝙨𝙝. The former without the latter means that 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙘𝙖𝙣𝙣𝙤𝙩 𝙨𝙩𝙖𝙧𝙩. #b2bsales

Where are the Leads, MQLs, and SQLs? That’s the question I’ve heard on every client call at Spear Growth over the past 3 years. It’s not a wrong expectation—revenue is, after all, what matters most. But many CEOs, Marketing & Sales Leaders miss the point: revenue is the outcome of the value you provide to prospects. At Spear Growth, I’ve had the privilege of working with over 30 SaaS companies spanning industries and stages—from pre-PMF to Series D. Not all of them found success. But the ones that did share two key traits: 1. Buyer-Centric Strategy: Companies that prioritize understanding the buyer’s journey, pain points, and motivations—and create content that helps prospects make informed decisions—are far more likely to succeed. This buyer-centric approach builds trust and enables meaningful engagement long before the sales conversation begins. 2. Marketing and Sales Alignment: Successful companies know that marketing and sales complement each other. Marketing nurtures prospects and creates awareness, while Sales builds relationships and drives conversions. Sales teams at successful companies understand building relationships with 'engaged accounts' from Marketing's initiatives can ensure smoother deal closures when prospects are ready to buy. Align with these two key traits—otherwise, even the most well-thought-out strategy is bound to fail. The picture below was just to capture your attention 😉

Buying shouldn't be hard. Here are things you might be doing that is making your sales tank 📉 If you are forcing people to go through a BDR to learn about your product and your BDR isn't a product/solution selling expert....you've made buying hard. If your website is vague marketing speak and never explicitly says WHAT you do for WHO and HOW in less than three scrolls and on the first page....you've made buying hard. If your sellers are always relying on the customer to decide next steps in a deal (agenda, purpose of call, etc)...you've made buying hard. If your sellers can't differentiate your product from others in the space ON THE FIRST CALL IN THE FIRST 10 MINUTES - even though you claim there "aren't any actual competitors" in the space - guess what?...you've made buying hard. If you withhold ballpark pricing (not specifics) when asked...you've made buying hard. If your quote is more than 5 lines of explanation that requires more than a glance to understand...you've made buying hard. If you can't provide a single page business case to your customer at all stages of the buying cycle (from an early stage chat "V1 WIP" to late stage decision making "The Final Case"), and instead just hope your customer can or will make one (that is GOOD)...you've made buying hard. This list can go on and on. What else would YOU add? ------ Relate to this? If so, let's talk. I audit sales performance of B2B SaaS StartUps and ScaleUps to figure out what each companies WIN PATH actually looks like so that they can create predictable high performance and avoid these types of broken processes and behaviors. Ultimately, I'll diagnose, prescribe and build custom-fit-for-YOU enablement and sales strategy solutions that get YOU on track to goal. Learn more at www.GTMEnabler.com Reach out info 👉 DM me! Comment here! or [email protected]

Can Product be a profit center in a sales-driven organization? Let’s say “increasing ARR to $1M” is our primary business goal. If it’s 100% on Sales to bring in new customers, how can Product help drive this goal? 𝗢𝗽𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝟭: 𝗨𝗻𝗯𝗹𝗼𝗰𝗸 𝘄𝗶𝗻𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗡𝗘𝗪 𝗖𝗨𝗦𝗧𝗢𝗠𝗘𝗥𝗦 This does not mean “Implement whichever feature the Sales team says they need to seal the new deal”. It means building a trusted, fruitful way of collaborating with Sales to handle incoming prospect requests: ❓ Does the Prospect/customer fit our ICP ❓ How high is the probability of the prospect becoming a customer (did we talk to a decision-maker? Is there a signed LOI?) ❓ Is the underlying opportunity clear? Do we understand what this feature will ‘unlock’ for the prospect? ❓Can the solution-idea be standardized and resold to others? This is where the shift from cost-center to profit-center most likely happens, and this is what distinguishes a software development agency from a startup. 𝗢𝗽𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝟮: 𝗶𝗻𝗰𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘀𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗰𝘁 𝘃𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗲/𝗟𝗧𝗩 𝗼𝗳 𝗘𝗫𝗜𝗦𝗧𝗜𝗡𝗚 𝗖𝗨𝗦𝗧𝗢𝗠𝗘𝗥𝗦 🔷 Reduce active churn (MRR cancellation). Can we identify what passive churn looks like, so that we can pick up on passive churn signals early, to prevent active churn (cancellation) from happening? Can we mitigate common churn reasons? 🔷 Upsell. How can we get more value from our existing customers by offering expansive value? --------------------- Step 1 is identifying the different ways in which the Product team can generate profits. Step 2 is identifying our biggest levers. E.g. should 80% of the focus go to unblocking Sales with closing new deals, or should we focus on retaining & expanding our existing user base? Each is a viable option, the key is leadership alignment.

The key to shortening your sales cycle... Is knowing when to ask for their business. When an SMB salesperson is tackling their first enterprise deal. They often close the deal faster than a traditional enterprise seller. This is because they're accustomed to moving things along faster. It doesn't mean all deals can move fast. But it does mean as sellers we often get accustomed to sales cycles that may be unnecessarily long. Speed-to-close is a metric every sales org should be focused on today. As we implement AI and efficiency tools, don't lose sight of what may be the greatest inefficiency; your actual sales process. If you're unsure, try testing a shorter process with fewer stages. You may be surprised how quickly things can move if you set that expectation from the start. Mid-market tends to be the sweet spot where we most often find the best of both worlds. But you'll be surprised how fast a well qualified enterprise deal can close if the process is staged correctly. Set shorter expectations on your first call. If you can shave just one stage out of your sales process... It can compound to 10-20% gains YoY. Doing more with less time is the sales playbook of 2024.