Mike DeDomenic

Your best CSM just burned out. They were good at their job. But the problem was they were REALLY good at saying yes. - Every off-scope request? Yes. - Customer wants to extend the call by 45 minutes? Sure. - One client eating 60% of their calendar? They'll make it work. And now they're gone. Because people-pleasers make incredible CSMs until they completely fucking implode. This keeps happening. CSM thinks their job is making every customer happy all the time. Customer asks for extra time, extra support, extra everything. CSM delivers. Book grows. Time doesn't. Something breaks. Usually it's the CSM. You're not serving customers well when you're overdelivering to three accounts and under-serving the other 47. You're just choosing which customers get screwed. Here's how you enforce boundaries without sounding like a robot: - Use the pilot move. Customer wants to extend calls indefinitely? Say this: "Happy to extend the next call by 30 minutes. After that, let's stick to our regular cadence so I can stay consistent across all the teams I support." You're not saying no. You're saying "I'll flex once, then we're back to structure." Most customers don't push back because they get it. They just needed someone to set the boundary. - Name your support model early. Week one, say this: "You'll have 30-minute check-ins every eight weeks. For anything in between, here are your best resources and contacts." If you don't define the model upfront, they'll define it for you. And their version will involve you on Slack at 9pm answering questions about password resets. - Train your internal stakeholders. Exec wants white-glove service for their pet account? Coolio. Ask: "If I shift time here, what would you like me to deprioritize?" Make them choose. Because you shifting 10 hours to one account means 10 other accounts aren't getting what they need. Force the trade-off conversation early or you'll be the one making impossible choices later. - Always get the agenda 24 hours in advance. Customers love extra time until you run out of things to talk about. Email them: "Can you send over your top 3-4 topics by EOD tomorrow? That way we can make sure we cover everything in our scheduled time." If they can't send an agenda, they don't need the meeting. Or they need a different kind of meeting. Either way, you just saved yourself from 30 minutes of "So... anything else?" If you're a CSM reading this, you might think boundaries make you look difficult. You'd be wrong. :) Boundaries make you sustainable. And sustainable CSMs deliver better outcomes because they're not constantly buried under one client's bullshit. You're not difficult for having a boundary. You're protecting every other customer in your book from getting half your attention because one account took all of it. Say yes when it matters. But say no when it doesn't. Burning out doesn't help anyone.

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Your AE closed the deal Friday at 4pm. Your CSM found out about it Tuesday morning via Slack notification. By the time the CSM reaches out, the customer's already confused. The AE promised them a "white glove onboarding experience." The CSM is scrambling to figure out what that even means. Twelve months later, they churn. And everyone acts surprised. Churn happens for a bunch of reasons, but a big one is because the post-sale experience straight up betrayed the pre-sale promises. The handoff from AE to CSM determines whether that customer renews. And most companies treat it like an afterthought. Here's what actually happens: - AE over-promises to close the deal. - CSM inherits those promises with zero documentation. - Customer realizes they were sold a vision, not a roadmap. - CSM spends 6 months firefighting instead of driving value. - Renewal comes up. Customer ghosts. The mistake is thinking the handoff is a "moment." It's not. It's a PROCESS that should start the second the deal hits Stage 4. Here's how to fix it: 1. Make AEs document the buying committee before close. Not just "VP of Sales signed the contract." You need: - Who was in the buying committee? - What role did each person play? - Who's going to be using the product day-to-day? - Who's going to judge success 90 days from now? If the AE can't name at least 3 people in the account, all they probably did was sold to one person who might not even be the user. 2. Require a documented handoff meeting within 48 hours. Not "I'll intro you via email." An actual meeting where: - AE walks through what was promised. - Customer shares what they expect in first 90 days. - CSM confirms the success plan. This meeting should happen BEFORE the contract is fully executed if possible. Get everyone aligned while the AE still has leverage. 3. Map renewal risk factors during the sale. AEs should be documenting renewal risk factors during the sales process: - Budget constraints that might impact Year 2. - Internal politics that could derail adoption. - Competing priorities that might take focus away from implementation. CSM should inherit a deal with a risk profile, not just a revenue number. 4. Tie AE comp to post-sale outcomes. If AEs get paid 100% at close and never think about that customer again, they'll over-promise every time. Try this: - 80% commission at close. - 20% commission when customer hits first success milestone (defined during handoff). 5. CSMs should ghost-write the close plan. In the final stages of the deal, the CSM should be helping the AE build the close plan. Why the CSM? Because they know what successful onboarding actually looks like. The AE-to-CSM handoff is the most important moment in the customer lifecycle. Because that 48-hour window determines the next 12 months. Get it wrong, and no amount of CSM hustle will save the renewal. Get it right, and you just turned a one-time deal into a long-term customer.

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Your CSM has no analyst, no assistant, no prep team. And nobody thinks that’s insane. What if I told you I’d give you 5 people tomorrow morning. One to prep you before every customer call. One to build your QBR decks and exec summaries. One to research every stakeholder before a meeting. One to summarize every call with action items and owners. One to flag which accounts need your attention right now. Free. Starting now. The only catch? If you don’t use them, I take them away. 99.9% of CSMs would use all five every single day just to make sure they don’t lose them. You already have all 5. It’s called Claude (or ChatGPT, or Gemini, pick your weapon). Before you think I jumped on this early. I didn’t. I ignored AI for months. Then I forced myself to use it for one meeting prep. One. That was 7 months ago. I haven’t stopped since. Here’s what my morning looked like today: 6 back to back customer meetings prepped in 11 minutes. Stakeholder backgrounds, open tickets, health scores, talking points. All ready before my first coffee (Done with Cowork) A 22 page customer review turned into a 3 slide exec summary for a country manager. Took 4 minutes. A 47 minute Gong recording summarized into 12 bullet points with next steps and owners. 90 seconds. That’s not a productivity hack. That’s a different operating system for Customer Success. AI doesn’t replace what CSMs do. It gives you the prep time you never had, the follow through that used to slip, and the ability to go deeper on every customer without working longer. The gap between CSMs who use AI daily and those who don’t is already visible in their numbers. In 12 months it won’t be a gap. It will be a canyon. The leaders who equip their teams with this now won’t just have better CSMs. They’ll have fewer fires, tighter renewals, and customers that actually feel managed. The CSMs who figure this out will manage twice the book at half the stress. The ones who keep waiting will still be prepping for tomorrow’s QBR at midnight. Your call.

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Stop obsessing over SDR *experience*. It's killing your hiring plans. Why? 1️⃣ Most top SDRs are promoted within 12-18 months 📈 2️⃣ More experience = Higher comp expectations 💰 3️⃣ Our best have 6-12 months CS/hospitality experience 🎯 4️⃣ Motivation > Experience, every time. I've seen skilled but unmotivated SDRs wash out time and again. 🤔 But here's the thing: Your differentiator is your enablement and leadership capability. If you can coach, develop, and motivate? You should prioritise: ↳ Raw motivation ↳ Learning agility ↳ Basic sales acumen ↳ Willingness to work Experienced SDRs can, of course, be valuable hires. But the risk is filtering out coachable, hungry individuals when you optimise for experience. Would love to hear from my network: ↳ What unexpected background led to your best SDR hire? ♻️ Repost to help hiring managers make better SDR hiring decisions. ⛳️ follow Mitchell Forbes for advice on how to hire GTM talent.

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If your AEs are being asked to self-source opportunities, don't pull a list of accounts and go outbound cold. Instead have your reps focus on targets where you have already done account profiling. This makes a ton of sense! AEs get paid a lot more than SDRs. AEs also tend to be rusty at cold calling or other outbound prospecting methods. AEs say, "Isn't that the job of the SDRs?" Why would you have an expensive resource like this doing something that they are not generally as good at? Yes AEs need to self-source 33% of their deals. It's just a question of how they do it. One entrepreneur mantra is to put people in roles that play to their strengths. Once you've had one or more first scheduled conversations with an account, you probably know if it's a good fit or a waste of your time. All too often those initial discovery calls don't go anywhere. No opportunity comes from them. The people you talk to are friends that give you information, but don't have influence over any other members of a potential buying group. Conventional wisdom is to recycle these accounts to marketing to nurture. I'll argue something entirely different. If you know that the account profile is good because they have the right underlying organizational structure, potential use cases, technologies they use, or other firmographic information, it's time to DOUBLE DOWN. These accounts are where your AEs should focus all of their prospecting energy. If they do and figure out there is no ability to create consensus amongst the stakeholders for what they fix, accomplish, or avoid, then pull the plug and go to the next account. I'd way rather have my AEs going after fish that they know are good vs. ones they might have to throw back. Thank you to Roger Zacapa for this gem. #selfsourcingopportunities #salesprospecting #aeprospecting #salespipeline #saleshunting #sales

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A truth for every CSM: Build things no job can take from you I call it... Building your “Customer Capital.” You see, metrics, dashboards, and titles are great... They unlock bonuses. They create recognition. But they can also vanish overnight. Churn spikes. Budgets tighten. Leadership shifts. What stays... is you. The capital you’ve built internally as a CSM: 👉🏾 The ability to stay calm in critical moments and lead 👉🏾 The discipline to follow up even when you’re tired 👉🏾 The resilience to rebuild a relationship after it breaks 👉🏾 The curiosity to keep asking “why?” until you find the root cause 👉🏾 The confidence to advocate for customers when no one else will It’s not loud. It’s not glamorous. But it’s what keeps you valuable when everything else changes... product, process, or company. Because here’s the truth: CS isn’t just about customer retention. It’s about personal retention... building skills and traits that no job can take from you. These are the assets that compound quietly over time. And they’ll pay dividends no matter where you go next. So yes, build your customer portfolio. But invest in your inner one, too. Because the most valuable capital you’ll ever own… is the kind no one can measure.

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The coverage model is a churn machine dressed up as a CS strategy. Nobody says this out loud because the metrics make it look like it’s working. You know this CSM. Owns 80 accounts. Knows every client’s first name, their kids’ names, their renewal dates. Responsive to everything. QBR completion rate: perfect. Health scores: green across the board. (Health scores are always green right up until they aren’t.) Then Q4 comes and three of those accounts are offboarding. The thing the coverage model can’t produce isn’t effort. It’s access. The client who tells you the relationship is cooling before it becomes a decision. That conversation only happens with the CSM they trust enough to have it with — and that trust requires depth, not volume. Maile Collmer — a referral networking coach who rearranged how I think about this — said something I’ve been applying to CS ever since: stop thinking about what you want from the room and start thinking about what the room needs from you. The wide-net CSM is optimizing for the room. The deep CSM is doing something the coverage model has no metric for: becoming a genuine business partner. On Thursday’s episode, Anika Zubair said the CSMs driving 120% NRR aren’t managing the most accounts. After 14 years scaling CS teams at hypergrowth SaaS companies, her read is clean: the ones hitting those numbers are the ones their clients treat as actual partners in growing the business, not just contacts at the vendor. AI can write the QBR deck. It cannot be the person your client calls when something is going wrong before it’s officially going wrong. That’s the deep CSM’s job. You can’t do it across 80 accounts. Your coverage model didn’t create this problem. Your metrics did. #KarlTheBridge P.S. The wide-net CSM gets recognized at the SKO. The deep one gets the call at 4pm on a Thursday before the client talks to anyone else.

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Every AE I know copies the same prompt into Claude before every call. Company research Buyer background Discovery questions Competitive intel Same steps. Same prompt. Same 20 minutes of setup. Every. Single. Time. Then they close the chat and start over tomorrow. The prompt works fine. The workflow around it is broken. You're doing manual labor just to reach the starting line. Pasting in your methodology. Re-explaining your ICP. Feeding Claude the same context it had yesterday, because it forgot everything overnight. What if you wired it in once? One set of instructions. Your discovery framework. Your vertical. Your competitive landscape. Your follow-up style. Bolted on permanently. Claude has a feature called Skills. It's a simple file that stores your instructions so every conversation starts where the last one left off. No more copy-paste rituals before each call. No more "act as a sales coach who specializes in..." I used to spend 20 minutes prepping Claude before a first call. Now it takes under 4. Same quality. Same depth. Zero re-explaining. The sellers pulling ahead with AI are building systems that remember. I'll break down how to build your first one tomorrow. What's the one workflow you re-explain to AI every single week?

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Your CSM manages more revenue than your best AE. Nobody talks about this. The average AE carries a $1-2M quota. The average CSM is sitting on a $5-10M book. That's 3-5x the revenue impact. Every single day. And how does the org treat that? The AE closes a $500K deal. Gong. President's Club. Accelerators on every dollar. The CSM saves a $1.2M renewal that was walking out the door, expands it by $300K, and gets a Slack emoji. Same revenue. Completely different value signal. And we let this happen. CS leaders accepted the lesser comp structure because we were told "retention is its own reward." We stopped making the revenue case. We let finance call us a cost center and we adjusted to it instead of fighting it. We built the cage. Then we complained about being in it. You want to fix CS turnover? Fix the math. Comp on GRR and NRR impact. Celebrate saves like closed-won. Build a career path from CSM to GM — not from CSM to "be grateful." Because when your best CSM leaves, they don't just take their title. They take the relationships that keep your biggest accounts from picking up a competitor's call. 𝗖𝗦 𝗱𝗼𝗲𝘀𝗻'𝘁 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗮 𝗿𝗲𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗯𝗹𝗲𝗺. 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗻𝘆 𝗵𝗮𝘀 𝗮 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗽𝗲𝗰𝘁 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗯𝗹𝗲𝗺. 𝗔𝗻𝗱 𝗖𝗦 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀 — 𝘄𝗲 𝗵𝗲𝗹𝗽𝗲𝗱 𝗯𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱 𝗶𝘁 𝗯𝘆 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗱𝗲𝗺𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗯𝗲𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿. ⁉️ What's the total book value your CS team manages vs. your sales team's combined quota? Run the number. Then ask yourself why comp doesn't reflect it. #customersuccess #csleadership #saas #revenuegrowth #therevenueratio

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"How can CS be a revenue-driver when I can fire half my team and NRR stays the same?" Until Customer Success can find quantifiable evidence that they have a higher ROI than another AE hire, they'll always be a cost center. That's what happens when you solve for churn. You start playing not to lose. You meet with every account regardless of tier. You fret over each escalation, not by the amount of ARR at stake, but by how angry the account seems. Fear of conflict drives your decision-making. You have every customer insight at your fingertips. You have 360-degree customer intelligence. You reach out proactively at the first sign of trouble. But it doesn't make a difference. And it won't. Because the people who make CS tools are ALSO solving for churn. And CS can't be accretive with tools made for support and risk reduction. Just listen to the man himself: "Customer Success has gotten worse over the years. Much worse…We're seeing a fundamental shift where CSMs are expected to be revenue generators, but they're using systems designed for customer support." - Jason M. Lemkin If I'm honest, I'm kinda over Customer Intelligence. And I'm not even 100% sure what Commercial Intelligence is. We need Expansion Intelligence. #customerexpansion #nrr #customersuccess

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This post is really about more than compensation. It’s about org design. If you’re serious about a D3C transformation, and Commit is a major motion, then Customer Success cannot sit downstream of the sale as the team that inherits whatever was promised and tries to manage the fallout. Success has to be part of the revenue system itself. Most companies are still organized around functional silos even though the buyer journey never was. Sales owns the moment of conversion, Success inherits adoption and renewal, Product stays one step removed, and the customer feels every seam in the model. Then leadership acts surprised when retention is fragile, expansion is inconsistent, and top CSMs leave for AE roles because that is still where the money, status, and career path live. AI is what makes a different model actually possible now. AI does not need to live inside one function, so it can carry context across the full journey—from first signal to closed-won to onboarding, value realization, renewal, and expansion. That gives companies a real opportunity to organize around the buyer journey instead of around internal departments that were built for managerial convenience, not customer outcomes. That is the deeper implication here. The issue is not only that Success is underpaid relative to the revenue it protects; it is that most companies still treat post-sale value creation as secondary, when in a subscription business it is the business. Any company that still treats Success like support is not running a modern revenue model. It is running an acquisition engine with a churn tax and calling it growth. The gong should ring when the customer signs, but it should ring just as loudly when the company proves it deserved to keep them.

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Every AE knows this feeling. You've got a deal that should've closed months ago. Champion left. Procurement keeps asking for changes. You're wondering if this thing will ever close. Then you get the DocuSign notification. One of my reps went through this last quarter. Deal got pushed 4 times. He kept following up, kept adjusting the proposal, kept finding new ways to show value. When it finally closed, I could tell it wasn't just about hitting his number. It was validation that all the work he put in actually mattered. He solved a real problem for real people. If you're working a tough deal right now, I get it. The back and forth is exhausting. But when you know you're actually helping someone's business get better, it's worth the grind. Don't quit. Get curious about what's really holding it up.

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More headcount won’t fix a broken Customer Success engine. I have seen CS teams double in size And still miss renewal targets. Still scramble through onboarding. Still fight fires daily. Why? Because growth without structure is just expensive chaos. After working with dozens of B2B CS orgs across every stage, here is what separates the teams that scale from the ones that stall: 1. Precision in Roles When everyone owns everything, nothing gets done right. Great teams draw clear lines between onboarding, support, and success so the customer never feels the confusion. 2. Smart Segmentation Stop treating every customer the same. The best orgs create distinct experiences for high touch, low touch, and tech touch and they know where to invest time. 3. Real Enablement Training is not a one time event. Your team should evolve as your product and customers do. Great CS orgs coach continuously not just at kickoff. 4. Tech That Works You do not need more tools. You need fewer tools that actually talk to each other. Automation should scale impact, not clutter your workflows. Want to know where most onboarding teams slip? They think onboarding ends when setup is done. But the best teams know onboarding is where expansion starts. ✨ Align early. ✨ Deliver value fast. ✨ Watch the right signals from Day 1. ✨ Build toward what’s next not just what’s now. When you structure CS the right way, everything changes: Churn drops. Adoption grows. And your customers start selling for you. What part of your CS engine needs the biggest upgrade right now? #csstrategy #growthops #onboarding #teamstructure #retention

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Caught up with a CSM who just landed a new role after 7 months of applying. 300+ applications. 5 final rounds. Dozens of take-homes. A $45K comp jump. (𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘢𝘭𝘮𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘨𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘶𝘱. 𝘉𝘶𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘤𝘭𝘪𝘤𝘬𝘦𝘥.) When I asked what finally pushed them over the edge, they said: “𝘐 𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘱𝘱𝘦𝘥 𝘸𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘵. 𝘐 𝘩𝘢𝘥 𝘢 𝘚𝘛𝘈𝘙 𝘢𝘯𝘴𝘸𝘦𝘳 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺 𝘲𝘶𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯. 𝘈𝘯𝘥 𝘐 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘷𝘪𝘦𝘸𝘴 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘱𝘴, 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘢𝘶𝘥𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴.�� That mindset shift changed everything. But here’s the part most candidates miss: → They prep content, not delivery → They obsess over bullet points, not storytelling → They build a perfect Google Doc but forget how to recall under pressure And when the interview actually starts? → “Tell me about a tricky client” turns into a 7-minute ramble → “What’s your greatest strength?” comes out vague and forgettable → “Why this company?” sounds like it could be said to any company That doesn’t mean you’re not qualified. It just means your story isn’t surfacing when it matters most. I’ve seen this happen in 1:1s, mocks, coaching calls, and hiring panels: 𝗚𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁 𝗖𝗦𝗠𝘀 𝗯𝗹𝗮𝗻𝗸 𝗼𝗻 𝗴𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁 𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗮𝗹. Because they’ve practiced answers but not access. That’s exactly why we built CueBoard. Not to help you memorize your pitch. But to help you remember what’s already yours: → Your client wins → Your process → Your voice Structured. Searchable. On cue. If you’re stuck in the loop and keep thinking, “I forgot to say the one thing that actually mattered…” Join the waitlist in comments. We’re sharing sandbox access starting December 29th.

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𝗪𝗼𝘂𝗹𝗱 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗽𝗮𝘆 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗖𝗦𝗠 $𝟱𝟬𝟬 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗿𝗼𝗮𝗱𝗺𝗮𝗽 𝘀𝗹𝗶𝗱𝗲𝘀? What if every CSM tracked every single “quick favor” they did outside their actual job? • $200 for pulling adoption numbers for sales. • $500 for handling a support escalation. • $300 for chasing down a feature ETA for product. • $400 for babysitting a renewal the AM dropped. And then at the next leadership meeting, they presented: “This quarter, I delivered $148,200 in cross-functional support work and $0 in actual success planning. Should I keep doing both?” Here’s the thing: Too many CSMs are silently carrying the weight of broken org design. They’re acting as glue between teams instead of driving outcomes. And no one’s tracking the cost.   • Every hour spent firefighting is an hour not spent on churn prevention or expansion.   • Every task outside their lane delays value for customers who are already restless. So what should you do?   • Stop treating CSMs like the dumping ground for everything that doesn’t fit elsewhere.   • Give them clear swim lanes. Empower them to say no.   • And if you can’t? Track the “invoice you’ll never send.” Because nothing exposes the problem faster than a price tag. Would your CSMs still be doing that work if you had to pay them $500/hour for it?

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AE+ SE Ground Rules: 1. Do your job, but put the team first. 2. AEs - don't tell your SE how to demo. 3. SEs - don't tell your AE how to sell. 4. Have a prep call before every meeting. 5. Have a debrief after every meeting. Lastly, say the thing that you're thinking but are afraid to say. Because if you actually take the debrief seriously, it will be the most valuable 10 minutes of your day. You're a team. Win as a team. Lose as a team. Get better as a team. What'd I miss?

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Most $300k Strategic AE roles stay open for 4-6 months. Not from lack of candidates. From inability to verify execution before hire. Companies paying $300k-$485k need six capabilities that take 18-24 months to develop. Here's what separates $140k AEs from $350k AEs: 1/ Forecast Precision Maintaining <10% variance on commits. Not just hitting quota. Bad resume line: "Consistently exceeded quota by 120%" Strategic AE line: "Maintained 8% forecast variance across 6 quarters ($8.4M total commits). Built a 3-stage pipeline health model that identified risk 45 days before close." This signals predictable revenue. Not just big numbers. 2/ 10-K, 10-Q, 8-K Literacy Mapping solutions to board-level strategic initiatives. Not selling product features. Bad resume line: "Sold to Fortune 500 executives" Strategic AE line: "Analyzed 10-K filings for 8 target accounts. Identified margin expansion and digital transformation priorities. Closed $3.2M across 3 deals." This proves you speak executive strategy. Not product specs. 3/ Multi-Threading Simultaneous orchestration across C-suite, technical, and finance. Not sequential stakeholder engagement. Bad resume line: "Managed complex enterprise sales cycles" Strategic AE line: "Built buying committees across 3 functions per deal: CFO (cost model), CTO (technical architecture), GC (compliance requirements). Closed 6 enterprise deals averaging 4.2 stakeholders each. 78-day avg cycle." This shows orchestration capability. Not just executive access. 4/ Consensus Building Resolving competing stakeholder agendas. Not just managing deal complexity. Bad resume line: "Navigated multi-stakeholder environments" Strategic AE line: "Aligned competing priorities across security (compliance timeline), finance (budget cycle), operations (implementation bandwidth). Drove consensus in 9 accounts with conflicting priorities. $2.8M closed." This proves conflict resolution skill. Not coordination ability. 5/ Hypothesis-Driven Outbound Creating urgency before buyers search. Not reacting to inbound interest. Bad resume line: "Generated $3M pipeline through outbound prospecting" Strategic AE line: "Built hypothesis-driven narratives using earnings calls and competitive moves. Created urgency in 11 accounts pre-intent. 6 converted to opportunities. $2.4M pipeline in 4 months." This shows you shape buyer timing. Not respond to it. 6/ Command of the Message Execution Proving methodology fluency. Not claiming familiarity. Bad resume line: "Experienced with MEDDPICC and Command of the Message" Strategic AE line: "Mapped 12 enterprise deals to strategic initiatives using Command of the Message framework and 10-K analysis. Built value hypotheses before discovery. Avg deal size: $890k." This signals business acumen. Not sales training attendance. These aren't resume improvements. These are execution patterns that are critical to shortlist folks for interviews. The gap between JD requirements and actual capability showcase is massive.

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Love the message here! I’ve had the privilege to work with some truly world class teams in my career, and most, if not all, had this same problem. My favourite line here and one that cannot be be overstated enough : “Because when your best CSM leaves, they don't just take their title. They take the relationships that keep your biggest accounts from picking up a competitor's call.”

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There is so much truth in this post, it's saintly! Thank you Julia Ormond The problem is she is soooo right. Most Revenue Operators are ex-Sales Operators in disguise. But it's not their fault. For the most part. The problem is Executive Leadership. The Board. And the Executive Team - CEO, CFO, CRO ... For 2 reasons. 1️⃣ New Logo fixation - the preso decks, compensation, conversation is ALWAYS around new logo's. Marketing spends 90% of their budget on New Logo's. Net Retention - aka growing the revenue from your installed base is talked about, but never a #1 priority in the company. 2️⃣ Too many Sales CRO's - the truth is that probably 80% plus of current CRO's have a sales resume. For many, leading Marketing and CS, it might be their first time. They focus on sales coz. that's what they are good at. So my challenge in the comments 👇 👇 is this... Any CEO or Exec Leader - please tell me that growing the installed customer base is a priority as high, if not higher, than new logo's. AND tell me that company-wide you are investing as much into existing customers as you are new customers. Truth moment??? #sales #revops #newlogo #upsell

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