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On Monday, when talking with Michele Calhoun, one of the top heads of sales in the media business, this topic of customer success as a growth engine came up.
Michele has led revenue efforts and more for GoodRx, Everyday Health, Flipboard, WebMD, CBS, and more.
Which means Michele’s viewpoint is grounded in reality with heavy doses of smarts to beat numbers, quarter after quarter after quarter.
Michele posed a question: What if customer success teams had a better compensation plan?
We both thought about it and quickly realized that revenue would grow, probably dramatically. We also spoke about having sales view client service teams and members as true partners in the process, vs. just assisting in the sales process.
And, you know this too. But… Can you name the last account your customer success team grew? What did they do that the seller could not?
Your existing customers are the largest untapped revenue source in your company. Gartner reports that increasing customer retention by 5 percent can lift profits by 25 to 95 percent (Gartner, 2023).
Yet most media companies still treat customer success as a cost center. The team that talks to clients every single day - the team that knows what is working, what is breaking, and what the buyer needs next - sits outside the revenue conversation.
That is where the growth is hiding.
FOR SELLERS | Your CS counterpart hears the buyer say things you never will. Make them your most valuable source for renewal, expansion, and referral. |
FOR MANAGERS | Pipeline coverage from existing accounts is cheaper than new ones. Build the joint operating rhythm between sales and customer success that surfaces those deals every week. |
FOR OWNERS | Customer success is a revenue function or it is a margin drain. Decide which one you are running and align the comp, the structure, and the reporting accordingly. |
The revenue impact is direct. Existing customers buy 60 to 70 percent more often than new prospects (Marketing Metrics, 2023). Selling to a current customer costs 5 to 25 times less than acquiring a new one. The team closest to those customers is your customer success team - and if they are not on your revenue org chart, you are leaving the easiest dollars in the building unclaimed. |
Key Terms
KEY TERM | WHY IT MATTERS |
Net Revenue Retention | The single number that tells you whether your customer base is growing on its own - before any new brands land. |
Expansion Motion | The repeatable play your CS team runs to surface upsell, cross-sell, and renewal expansion inside existing accounts. |
Account Handoff | The moment a closed deal moves from sales to customer success - and the moment most expansion revenue gets quietly killed. |
Do's and Don'ts
DO | DO NOT |
Bring your CS counterpart into the deal before the renewal conversation starts. | Treat CS as the team that catches the ball after sales drops it. |
Comp customer success on revenue outcomes the buyer would recognize. | Pay CS on activity metrics like response time and ticket volume. |
This Week's Challenge
Schedule one 30-minute working session with the customer success rep covering your largest account before the end of next week. One agenda item: what is the next revenue move on this account?
The Workshop
MODULE 01 - FOR SELLERS Your CS Counterpart Is Your Best Source Turn the customer success rep on your account into a revenue partner, not a handoff destination. |
You closed the deal six months ago. You moved on to the next logo. Meanwhile your customer success counterpart has been on weekly calls with the buyer - hearing every complaint, every win, and every offhand mention of what the buyer wishes they could also do. That intel is sitting in someone else's head while you are cold-calling strangers.
When was the last time you sat in on one of your CS counterpart's client calls? |
EXAMPLE A seller at a CTV ad network has not spoken to her largest account since the contract signed eight months ago. Her CS counterpart, meanwhile, has heard the buyer mention three times that they are launching a podcast vertical next quarter and need someone to help them measure attribution. The seller's company sells exactly that product. Nobody connected the dots because nobody asked. |
STEP 1 Expansion revenue does not announce itself in your CRM. It surfaces in the rooms you are not in - the QBR, the support call, the casual check-in your CS counterpart runs every week. The seller who treats customer success as an information source, not a department to hand off to, builds a pipeline twice as deep as the seller who only chases new logos. |
STEP 2 The seller in the CTV example does not need a new lead source. She needs to put a standing 30-minute weekly call on her CS counterpart's calendar and ask three questions every time: what is the buyer asking for that we do not sell yet, what are they complaining about, and who else at the account have you met. The podcast attribution opportunity surfaces in week two. |
DO THIS TODAY Put a recurring 30-minute call on the calendar with the customer success rep covering your top three accounts. The first agenda item: what is the buyer asking for that we do not sell yet. SHARE IT Forward this section to the CS rep covering your largest account with one sentence: I want to be a better partner to you. Here is what I am going to start doing. Q: What does your CS counterpart know about your largest account that you do not? A: Probably everything that matters most for your next deal. Find out by Friday. |
MODULE 02 - FOR MANAGERS Build the Joint Operating Rhythm Create the weekly cadence that surfaces expansion pipeline from your existing book of business. |
Your pipeline review on Monday is a sales-only meeting. Your customer success team has their own meeting on Tuesday that you do not attend. Two teams talking to the same accounts and never comparing notes. Then on Friday you ask your VP of Sales why expansion revenue is flat and you tell her the team needs more leads.
How many times in the last quarter did your sales team and your CS team review the same account together? |
EXAMPLE A sales manager at a regional broadcast group runs his pipeline review every Monday at 9 a.m. The CS team runs their own client review on Tuesday at 10 a.m. Both meetings cover overlapping accounts. Neither team sees the other's notes. The CS team flagged three at-risk renewals last month - the sales manager found out about two of them in the exit interviews after the buyers churned. |
STEP 1 Sales pipeline and customer success pipeline are the same pipeline. The manager who runs them as separate meetings is running two halves of the same picture and wondering why the math never adds up. The fix is not a longer meeting - it is a weekly 30-minute joint cadence where one CS rep and one seller review the top 10 accounts together with a single question driving every line: what is the next revenue move on this account. |
STEP 2 The broadcast manager does not need a new system. He needs to add 30 minutes to Monday morning, invite his CS counterpart, and walk the top 10 accounts with two columns on the screen - what sales sees and what CS sees. The three at-risk renewals would have surfaced in week one. The expansion opportunities would surface in week three. |
DO THIS TODAY Add a 30-minute joint sales and customer success account review to this Monday's calendar. Top 10 accounts. One question per account: what is the next revenue move on this account? SHARE IT Send a one-paragraph note to your CS counterpart on the leadership team proposing the joint cadence. Frame it as a pipeline-builder, not a process change. Q: Where would you find another 5 percent of pipeline coverage by Friday without a single new prospecting call? A: Inside your existing book. Your CS team already knows where it is. Bring them into the room. |
MODULE 03 - FOR OWNERS Decide What Customer Success Is Make customer success a revenue function or accept that it is a margin drain - then build the org to match the answer. |
You hired a head of customer success two years ago to handle retention. They report to operations. Their team is comped on response time and ticket volume.
Meanwhile, your renewal rate is flat, and your sales team is grinding for new prospects to hit a number that the existing base could carry with the right structure. The structure does not match the outcome you say you want.
If you read your customer success team's compensation plan out loud in a board meeting, would it sound like a revenue function or a cost center? |
EXAMPLE The GM of a $40M digital publisher tells the board every quarter that customer success is core to the growth strategy. Her CS team reports to the COO. Their bonus structure is tied to non-revenue goals. Net revenue retention has been flat at 98 percent for three years. The sales team's quota carry just went up another 15 percent. Nobody on the executive team has noticed the contradiction. |
STEP 1 What you comp is what you get. Companies that treat customer success as a revenue function move it under the CRO, give it a quota tied to net revenue retention and expansion, and seat it in the same operating cadence as sales. Companies that treat it as a cost center keep it under operations, comp it on activity metrics, and wonder why their existing base never grows on its own. There is no third option. |
STEP 2 The publisher does not need a new CS leader. She needs to make a single decision: move the team under the CRO, rewrite the comp plan to include net revenue retention and expansion revenue, and report those numbers in the same monthly review as new logo bookings. Within two quarters the team starts behaving like a revenue function because they are paid like one. |
DO THIS TODAY Pull your customer success comp plan and your sales comp plan together this week. Mark every line in the CS plan that is tied to a revenue outcome. If the number is zero, you have your answer. SHARE IT Bring the comparison to your next executive team meeting. Ask one question: are we running customer success as a revenue function or a cost center, and does our structure match the answer. Q: What is the single org change that would unlock 10 points of net revenue retention in the next 12 months? A: Move customer success under the CRO and tie 50 percent of the team's variable comp to expansion and retention. The rest follows. |
Recommended Reading
The Effortless Experience Matthew Dixon, Nick Toman, Rick DeLisi - 2013 - Portfolio The customer service playbook that destroyed the myth that delight drives loyalty. Reducing customer effort - not exceeding expectations - is what keeps customers and grows them. https://www.amazon.com/dp/1591845815 |
Customer Success Nick Mehta, Dan Steinman, Lincoln Murphy - 2016 - Wiley The book that built the modern customer success function. Lays out how subscription businesses turn retention into the primary engine of growth. https://www.amazon.com/dp/1119167965 |
Revenue vs. Sales Mort Greenberg - 2023 The operator's frame for stopping the obsession with sales activity and starting to run an actual revenue system - one that pulls customer success, marketing, and product into the same conversation as sales. https://www.amazon.com/dp/1961059223 |