Essays on strategic customer success, retention, and running post-sale like a system — the thinking behind the book.
Or start with the basics: What Is Strategic Customer Success? and What Is a Customer Retention Strategy?
Activity tells us what the team did. Evidence of progression tells us what changed for the customer, and gives us a better signal of where revenue is headed.
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Predictable revenue doesn’t start with the forecast. It starts with visibility, customer progression, execution, and the capacity to deliver the work.
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Before the sale, revenue is visible. After it, the picture blurs. The problem isn't that existing-customer revenue is invisible, it's that the progression producing it is.
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Pull your last few churned accounts and work backward. The problem usually started long before usage dropped or the health score turned red. Proactive means managing what has to go right.
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You ask for another CSM and the conversation turns to benchmarks built for somebody else's business. But a ratio tells you how the work was distributed, not how much work exists.
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Every major purchase has a champion's name attached to it. Renewal doesn't create the evidence that they chose right. It reveals how much you've built.
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A QBR with nothing new to say. A health score stuck on green while an account quietly stalls. Different problems, or symptoms of the same missing system?
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Years ago I joined a bootstrapped company with months of runway left. Results arrived in month eight. Customers left in month seven. So I mapped everything.
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I once sat on the buying side of an $18 million implementation. It was our third attempt. The proposal won the deal, but the first 90 days decided everything.
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Customers rarely decide to renew or leave because of one moment at the end. These are the eight critical moments that shape the decision much earlier.
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Trust isn't built by relationship-building alone. It's accumulated evidence that the customer made the right decision and is progressing toward what they bought.
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Relevance tells us what matters to the customer. Value Achievement demonstrates that we're helping them accomplish it. Trust develops as the customer accumulates evidence that they can count on us.
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Being strategic isn't better QBRs or more executive meetings. It's the deliberate management of customer progression toward the outcomes that justified the purchase. Here's the framework.
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I have spent time in the startup world as a leader and consultant. The reality is that many companies tap out before they get an opportunity to scale, and entrepreneurs well unders
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We design the process that creates new customers. Why wouldn't we design the process that keeps them? Retention is a designed outcome.
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Tracking churn and health scores isn't a retention strategy. Retention is designed throughout the relationship, so renewal becomes the logical next decision. Here's the framework.
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