Markus Rentsch’s Post

High paid CSMs don't dodge commercial responsibility. They embrace it. Because they have understood how "the game" works. They understand that 1️⃣ Selling as a CSM has nothing to do with being "pushy" or "sleazy" 2️⃣ Renewals, expansions, up- and cross-sells are the reward for delivering value 3️⃣ Customers are always looking to grow their value once they got a clear ROI on their initial investment 4️⃣ Growing customer revenue is about identifying and showcasing growth opportunities for them 5️⃣ The connection with additional resources and features is only made at the end 6️⃣ Following this value-first approach will not hurt customer relationships 7️⃣ This is the way to prove their value to the leadership and 8️⃣ The more revenue they create the better they will be paid no matter the incentive system Customer Success Management has changed. If you don’t change with it you'll be left behind. PS: Here's how I can help --> https://lnkd.in/dN2DUtDh #saas #customersuccess #customervalueledgrowth

THIS! So many CSM’s are great at the functional or being empathetic or the voice of the customer but feel off purpose when the discussion of commercial responsibility comes up. I would argue that there is no one better suited to identify growth (sales) opportunities for our customers than CSM’s. We will probably bear the brunt of the issues if there is a bad implementation or poor utilization so it’s in our best interest to only suggest new products that we know will benefit our customers. Let’s build strong strategic relationships with our Account Managers and lean in to the commercial “responsibility”.

Growth at many SaaS companies is decelerating, even stagnating. How are they trying to solve their problems? Spending another fortune on sales training, of course. They still don’t get that ➡️ New customers are more reluctant to buy no matter your efforts ➡️ You can acquire a customer only once but growth them 5-10x their initial size ➡️ The best SaaS companies make 90% of customer revenue after the initial sale The most powerful growth engines available to SaaS companies are their Customer Success Managers. They are the driving force behind 🔥 renewals 🔥 expansions, up- and cross-sells 🔥 referrals 🔥 winning customers for life 🔥 successful price increases and yet they receive the least amount of education and training. While the role of a CSM is the most demanding one in the company because none else needs to have such a broad set of skills and knowledge. We are talking about ✅ Decoding Customer Value ✅ Operationalizing Customer Value ✅ Delivering Customer Value ✅ Measuring Customer Value ✅ Demonstrating Customer Value ✅ Monetizing Customer Value and complementary abilities like ✅ Identifying why customers really churn ✅ Reverse-engineering accurate ICPs ✅ Determining additional customer needs (roadmap) Stop acting like you are selling legacy software locking in customers forever. It has never been easier to switch to a competitor. Start investing in the people keeping and growing your customers. PS: Here's how I can help --> https://remark-able.at #saas #customersuccess #customervalueledgrowth

“The more customers we got, the more our gross margin dropped.” A problem a CEO of a Sales-led SaaS Scaleup in Field Services shared with me. Analyzing the issue, it became the root cause of the problem was this: Unclarity of their Ideal Customer Profile (ICP). If it’s unclear, 🅇 product-market fit will be much harder to maintain, 🅇 Implementation will be unnecessarily hard, 🅇 Onboarding will be frustrating and costly. And the list continues.   It’s logical, right? Your ICP experiences the pain you solve best in a different way than others. It’s just more valuable & critical to them. What this means is that, unlike others, they: ⦿ Happily pay a premium to have that pain solved. ⦿ Showcase the best ‘as-is’ fit for your solution. ⦿ Hence, they implement like a breeze. ⦿ Realize their aspired value fast, and ⦿ Don't moan about missing features. So, in reality, the following is happening in your company: → A % of customers will grow your profitability (ICP) → A % of customers will drain your profitability (so-so-fit)   Clarify what defines the first category, and gross margin will go up, the more customers you get.

We from easy_CSM recommend companies to clearly differ between new-sales 🆕 and growth 📈 / renewal 🔁 activities by #accountmanagement and/ or the #customersuccess team. 💡 Tipp: Especially for customer success managers using Zendesk we offer a tool helping the CS team raising the MRR 📈 with their customers and a possibility to provide further recommended actions to improve the #healthscore 🏥 of their customers. #customersuccesstool

In my 30+ years in SaaS, I keep hearing ‘access to C-level is blocked.’ (And heard it 3x more times this week) So what's so hard about it? Let's share a story. "We could very well position our solution to the IT director but not necessarily to the owner of the business." "He didn't care less about efficiency and total cost of ownership;  he wanted to have business growth and revenue growth." "We weren't able to connect." "We lost deals,  deals got postponed. Because we didn't get the sense of urgency." A story from Michiel Schipperus, CEO of Sana Commerce. A mature company. with solid differentiation. and 100s of happy customers. Still, this was a challenge. So how did we solve it? 1 - Clarified what defined the customers that became their biggest fans. 2 - Interviewed them to get the real story on what kept them up nights. 3 - Stack ranked the problems based on value and criticality  4 - Zoomed in on the problems they could solve like no one else. 5 - Clarified how solving these problems influenced the C-level agenda. 6 - Turned that into a story everyone could tell. Here’s what happened: 👉 Ghosting ended. 👉 Sales confidence grew 👉 Win rates went up significantly. 👉 Average deal size rose 20% YOY. Remarkable software companies surprise and hit the right nerve. That starts by articulating the pain better than your customers can themselves. Now that Anti-Consultant in me can promise you: You can achieve this too. It takes a little zooming in for your SaaS company to be remarkable. If you bring the energy, I’ll bring the zoom-in ingredients. Shoot me a message, and we’ll chat things through today.

I have changed my mind. 🤡 I know many of my previous amazing CSM employees will probably disagree, but customer success needs to own upsells, renewals, and resells!💰 For years I have believed that CS should only focus on successful onboarding, delivering recurring impact, and limiting churn. Become a trusted advisor. Drive automatic renewals. Letting Account Managers handle expansions. ⛔ The problem… I rarely get the math to work out for the revenue model if the CSMs do not own a significant portion of the expansion and renewals.  Recently, I was helping a CEO, who is still suffering from a bit bloated legacy 2021 GTM organization, do a detailed growth design, as they look to build a capital-efficient revenue machine for a +$7 million ARR business without sacrificing growth.    But even with incremental improvements across the Bowtie and an expected compounding effect, ROI fell short due to over-specialization.  Part of the solution we came to: CSMs will own upsells, renewals, and resells. The AEs will focus only on new business generation. Almost. Because cross-selling (defined as selling the products into new areas of the customer's business) also needed an owner. As it resembles new business that part went to the AEs. How does the change make ROI work? Either by cutting AM roles or boosting AE productivity for new business acquisitions. Now, the easy part is math and scenario sketching. ➕ ➗ The hard part is of course the actual transformation and execution. Free up time for CS to own expansion as well (or maybe Agency AI solves that soon 🙌). However, I would rather buy something from my trusted advisor than anyone else. Even if I know they own a quota.    🚨 Caveats! Enterprise motions differ.  Also, if CSMs own support as well (as they do at Risika) you might get the math to work without adding expansion responsibilities. What do you think? Should CS own expansion? NB! Thanks to Jacco van der Kooij for providing the frameworks to make it much easier to dig deep into the revenue factory.    

The number 1 reason why SaaS companies fail to scale their growth: They focus on acquiring customers, not keeping and growing them. ⛔️ they spend big on ads ⛔️ invest fortunes in sales training ⛔️ try to sign everyone with a pulse The result? Painfully high churn rates and CAC while leaving 90% of revenue on the table. Here’s what the best in class do instead ✅ Acquire according to their ICP ✅ Deliver quick wins at the customer onboarding ✅ Invest in high-quality customer education and training ✅ Lead their customers to the promised land without compromise ✅ Turn customer success into demand for renewals, expansions, and upsells and get a massive amount of referrals on top. Stop pouring all your resources into new customer acquisition.  Start distributing them according to ROI. Unlocking growth from multiple angles is how you get ahead of 99% of your competitors. Are you in the 1% of SaaS companies playing the winning game? #saas #customersuccess #customervalueledgrowth

Growth at many SaaS companies is decelerating, even stagnating. Because they still don't understand growth. They still don’t get that ➡️ New customers are more reluctant to buy no matter your efforts ➡️ You can acquire a customer only once but growth them 5-10x their initial size ➡️ The best SaaS companies make 90% of customer revenue after the initial sale The most powerful growth engines available to SaaS companies are their Customer Success Managers. They are the driving force behind 🔥 long-term loyalty 🔥 expansions, up- and cross-sells 🔥 new acquisitions from referrals 🔥 winning repeat customers 🔥 successful price increases and yet they receive the least amount of education and training. While the role of a CSM is the most demanding one in the company because none else needs to have such a broad set of skills and knowledge. We are talking about ✅ Decoding Customer Value ✅ Operationalizing Customer Value ✅ Delivering Customer Value ✅ Measuring Customer Value ✅ Demonstrating Customer Value ✅ Monetizing Customer Value and complementary abilities like ✅ Identifying why customers really churn ✅ Reverse-engineering accurate ICPs ✅ Determining additional customer needs (roadmap) Customer Success is the only growth lever that pays compound interests. Start investing in the people that make it happen. PS: Here's how I can help --> https://lnkd.in/d3Mk-wt3 #saas #customersuccess #customervalueledgrowth

Sealing the Deal: Opportunity to Customer 🎉 We’ve made it to Day 5 of the SaaS Funnel Fix-It Series! So, your lead is almost there. They’ve made it to the Opportunity stage, but deals keep dragging or falling apart. What’s going wrong? Common culprits: ❌ Competitive objections aren’t addressed. ❌ Your pricing doesn’t match perceived value. ❌ There’s no urgency to act now. 💡 Example Fix: A SaaS analytics platform created a “fast-track onboarding” offer for deals closed within 30 days. This simple tactic sped up decision-making and increased close rates by 20%. 🛠 How to Fix It: ✅ Equip your sales team with objection-handling scripts. ✅ Emphasize ROI and time-to-value during the sales process. ✅ Use limited-time offers to create urgency. That’s a wrap for our series! What was your biggest takeaway? Let me know in the comments. And if you’d like help diagnosing your funnel, let’s connect! Sign up for my newsletter: https://buff.ly/3Bf0caa #SaaSGrowth #SalesFunnel #ConversionOptimization