These are the concepts this book introduces or uses in a specific way. Each entry gives a short definition and links to every chapter where the term appears. Selecting a chapter takes you to the first place the term is used there and highlights it; the number shows how many times it appears in that chapter.
The third stage, where internal champions have the evidence and language to carry the value story inside their own organization, even when you are not in the room.
The second stage, where the customer's goals, progress, and the opportunity are connected clearly enough that the next step serves the customer's own outcomes.
The three phases of the customer lifecycle. Align happens once (Purchase & Welcome through First Value). Engage is a repeating loop of Value Blocks, Sharing Insights, and Alignment Meetings. Achieve is renewal and growth, after which the customer returns to the Engage loop.
The recurring meeting that brings the relationship back to the reason it began, checks what has changed, and sets the next objective. It replaces the QBR's backward-looking report with forward-looking alignment.
The most recent kickoff or Alignment Meeting, used as the reference point for measuring progress and change.
Launching the full product, all capabilities, and all users at once. The book recommends an iterative approach instead, with First Value as the first cycle.
The standard, designed version of a play that every team member runs, so the customer experience depends on the system rather than on who owns the account.
The three stages post-sale organizations move through. Reactive teams fight fires and are surprised by churn. Proactive teams anticipate risk. Strategic teams govern the post-sale motion with the same rigor as the sales pipeline.
The capacity required to deliver the designed service moments consistently. It is the bridge from journey design to capacity planning.
Every completed play does two things at once: it moves the customer closer to the outcome they care about, and, once logged, it moves the pipeline through a stage change and a forecasting signal.
How a team's time actually splits: proactive direct effort (designed work), reactive direct effort (unplanned customer requests), indirect effort (internal work), and unplanned effort (when the system breaks).
The living record of value created across the relationship, from the reason for purchase through First Value, Value Blocks, insights, and Alignment Meetings, including what has not worked.
AI's role in the operating system: helping the team execute the designed plays consistently, rather than serving as a content generator. AI can produce the output; humans own the outcome.
The moment the customer starts using the solution on their own. It is the first step toward First Value, not the end of onboarding support.
The first moment the customer feels they have achieved something meaningful from their purchase, ideally within a few weeks of kickoff. It belongs to the customer, not to your implementation plan.
The diagnostic layer behind Value Blocks: skill set, knowledge, cost (time, effort, money), competing demands, and the key contact's ability to drive change.
The kickoff questions that define success with the customer: what one thing must go right, how they define success, what your role is, what could put the effort at risk, and what would exceed their wildest dreams. The answers become the baseline for every Alignment Meeting.
The structure for writing an insight: a one-line gist, the background, the results and how they could be different, the action to take, and a closing reinforcement.
The renewal: guaranteed to exist from day one, with a fixed close date at contract end and a value equal to current ARR. The lifecycle plays are its commercial motion.
Keeping the process moving after a meeting by doing what you committed to and confirming what the customer committed to. Distinct from follow-up, which only checks in.
The company's milestone that the solution is ready. The book separates it from First Value and encourages companies to define Go Live so it does not delay the customer's first win.
Expansion opportunities. They enter the pipeline at Identify whenever they surface and advance through the same stages alongside the renewal.
The two dimensions of First Value. Heart is the customer's feeling of accomplishment. Smart is the adoption logic underneath it that makes future use more likely.
The first pipeline stage. The renewal enters here on day one, and expansion opportunities enter here whenever they surface. Opportunities advance out of Identify when the customer reaches First Value.
A moment in time when you have an opportunity to either build or block loyalty. Many happen when you are not in the room, and recognizing them is your responsibility, not the customer's.
The fourth stage, where enough internal belief has formed that the customer is moving toward a buying decision, with the right stakeholders engaged.
A designed motion for a specific inflection point in the customer journey, with a trigger, a sequence of actions, supporting assets, an intended outcome, and a way to measure whether it worked. The book covers eight lifecycle plays, from Purchase & Welcome to Renew & Grow.
A barrier between your offering and the value the customer wants. Occasionally a deal breaker, but far more often a small annoyance that adds up over time.
Either a best practice someone on your team already uses, or a response you design to counter a specific loyalty blocker.
A ritual that makes the accumulation of customer wins visible inside the company, whether a literal jar, a win report, or a shared story, so retention and expansion are celebrated rather than invisible.
The long stretch between First Value and renewal, where most post-sale relationships lose momentum. It is navigated by three plays working together: Value Blocks, Sharing Insights, and Alignment Meetings.
A deliberate renewal-readiness moment around the midpoint of the contract to re-anchor value, surface risk and timing, and spot growth signals while there is still time to act.
The smallest meaningful win that proves progress against the customer's reason for buying. Not all the marbles; the first important marble.
The final stage, when the customer confirms a buying path with committed terms and the renewal or expansion closes.
AI that recommends what to do about a signal: which play to run, which contact to reach, and what message fits the moment. The CSM still decides.
The six motions every onboarding moves through: Align, Configure, Connect, Verify, Transform, and First Use. The form varies by company; the logic does not.
The single, trusted customer record the whole operating system runs on, built by centralizing the data, democratizing access, and eliminating local copies.
A designed system of customer progression that governs everything after the sale. It treats retention and growth as outcomes that can be designed, operationalized, inspected, and improved, rather than the result of individual heroics.
The pipeline that begins at Closed-Won and tracks renewal and expansion opportunities through five stages: Identify, Align, Advocate, Intent, and Net Revenue Close. Stages advance when plays are completed and logged, not when time passes.
Running the post-sale motion as one system across every team that touches the customer, instead of a collection of functions. Customers experience one journey, not your org chart, and every seam between teams either builds confidence or creates friction.
A health score that asks whether the customer is progressing through the system the way a healthy customer should, rather than only whether they are at risk.
A separate kind of meeting for a relationship that has become unhealthy or where terms need to be redefined. Alignment keeps a healthy relationship moving; a reset is needed when it has already broken rhythm.
Matching the level and type of engagement to what each customer actually needs, somewhere between high-touch for everyone and fully digital. AI and automation make it attainable at scale when they sit inside a coherent operating model.
Fixed probability percentages assigned to each pipeline stage. They apply at the stage level, so every opportunity in a stage carries the same weight regardless of segment. What varies by customer is the play sequence needed to advance.
Plays that protect the lifecycle when the relationship changes shape: Key Contact Change, when a champion or sponsor leaves, and Offboarding, when a customer decides to leave.
A small, purposeful step toward a larger customer objective, sized to be completed by the next Alignment Meeting. Originally called Goal Blocks.
The reusable collection of common Value Blocks, each tied to a customer need, with its resources and completion criteria.
The structure for the Key Contact Change meeting: start with the new contact's goals (You), then the shared work (We), and only then your company (Me).
Ask me directly, or tell me what happened when you tried it. The best questions get answered in the open, and results from the field shape the next edition.