You Don’t Have to Be A Seller to Drive Revenue

Managing a customer success pipeline doesn't necessarily make you a salesperson, but it does place you in a vital role where you bridge value creation and revenue generation. My journey to this understanding unfolded over a decade of service in a major corporation, where I led a team focused on customer success and contributed significantly to various sales achievements.

On my final day of work, the general manager acknowledged my significant contribution to achieving the revenue goals of our division. However, he expressed surprise that he had only recently become aware of my impact. This led to a moment of reflection and a subsequent action point for me: to ensure that my achievements and contributions were recognized and acknowledged within the organization.

“Be proud of your achievements; next time, make sure everyone around you acknowledges your wins.”

To address this, I dedicated time to developing a structured methodology to create more business opportunities, increase revenue, and establish myself as a leading influencer within the company.

This methodology is founded on two main pillars: developing a robust customer success pipeline and fostering a strong partnership with the sales team.

Core strengths of a CSM

CSMs are experts in their field. They thoroughly understand the product they represent and its impact on the customer's business. Their role involves onboarding clients, encouraging product use, advocating for best practices, and drawing on successful case studies.

Secondly, CSMs deeply understand their customers' needs and expectations. This understanding is crucial for recognizing new requirements and opportunities for further business growth.

Lastly, CSMs excel at building and nurturing relationships with key stakeholders within the customer's organization. By effectively supporting these stakeholders, CSMs ensure that customers continue to see value in the product, leading to sustained engagement and integration into the customer's essential operations and strategy.

Building the Foundation for Revenue Growth: The Customer Success Pipeline

The path to making more money and growing the business begins with a strong customer success pipeline. Think of this pipeline as the foundation for all the sales that will come later. It’s not just about getting ready for sales; it’s about the whole team—from those meeting customers for the first time to the marketing team—working together to ensure satisfaction and success. This teamwork helps CSMs spot and grab hold of great opportunities to make more sales.

Why do CSMs need this pipeline? It’s pretty straightforward. Having a pipeline makes everything less chaotic and more organized, letting CSMs zoom in on the best opportunities. This makes the customer success role more critical in the company and helps CSMs and salespeople work better together, using a process that sales are already good at.

To keep this pipeline running well, there are three main things to do: Identification, Estimation, and Qualification. These steps are different from each other, but they don’t just happen one after the other; they often overlap and work together to find and win new business.

Identification: Spotting business opportunities

The first step for a Customer Success Manager (CSM) in finding new business opportunities is Identification. This starts with the regular talks and check-ins they have with customers. During these interactions, CSMs look closely at what the customer needs and how the product is helping or could help them more. They use their good relationships with the customer’s key people to dig deep and find opportunities that might not be obvious at first glance.

This process of spotting opportunities can take some time. It often means looking at new areas of the customer's business where the product hasn’t been used before. This is like starting a whole new sales conversation. Having someone within the customer’s company who believes in the product can really help. This internal advocate can show how valuable the product is, making it easier to start talking about expanding its use.

Estimation: Seeing how deep the well goes

When Customer Success Managers (CSMs) come across new business opportunities, they need to figure out how big and valuable these could be. Sometimes, it’s pretty straightforward. Let’s look at some examples where CSMs can quickly see the opportunity:

• 💰 Adding more users or subscribers means the business makes more money.
• 💰 An increase in things like API usage or event participation shows that customers are using the product more, which could lead to selling them more services.
• 💰 Moving a customer to a higher service plan means they’re getting more out of the product and paying more for it.
• 💰 When a customer starts using an additional feature or module, it’s clear they’re getting deeper into the product.

In these cases, CSMs need to translate what’s happening into dollars and cents, making sure both the sales team and the customer understand the value.

But sometimes, estimating gets tricky, especially with more complex situations like:

• 📌 Figuring out how to make the product fit a new need, which might require extra work from the engineering team.
• 📌 Working with big customers who need special or complex additions to the product.
• 📌 Closing the gap when the product doesn’t quite do what the customer needs, which might mean more engagement and possibly more sales.
• 📌 Dealing with big projects where a lot of support and services are needed to get everything up and running.

In these more complicated cases, CSMs often need to team up with product managers, pre-sales folks, or engineers to nail down the details and understand how ample the opportunity really is.

To get a good handle on these opportunities, CSMs can use different methods like “Top-Down,” “Bottom-up,” or “Three-Point Estimation.” These are ways to think and eventually convert effort to potential business, helping CSMs make sense of it all and effectively communicate the value to others in the company.

Qualification: How CSMs qualify opportunities

Qualification is about checking if an opportunity is solid and likely to turn into a real sale. It’s like giving the potential deal a health check. The sales team does this by looking at what the customer needs, what problem they’re trying to fix, how fast they need it sorted, who’s backing the project, and whether there’s money set aside for it.

Customer Success (CS) folks can use the same kind of checklist to figure out if an opportunity is worth pursuing. By working with the sales team, they get better at spotting the good opportunities and knowing which ones might work out.

I’ve come up with a simpler way for CSMs to do this early on, which can save everyone time and effort later. This approach is based on four key points:

• Matching the product to the need: CSMS must see if the product can do what the customer needs and lead to a successful result. This is an essential part of the job for those who know their stuff.
• Getting the right people on board: No deal happens in a vacuum. You need someone in the customer’s company who likes the product and has the clout to push things forward. It’s important to check that these key players are truly on board and can help raise the needed funds.
• Figuring out the budget: Often, it’s hard to tell if the money’s there for the project. But if you know there’s a budget ready, things usually move faster. If it’s unclear, asking questions like “Is there a budget for this?” or “Can you get the budget approved?” can help clarify things.
• Timing is everything: Even if everything else lines up, the deal might stall if the customer isn’t in a hurry. CSMs need to gauge how quickly the customer wants to move. Sometimes, bigger companies take longer to approve budgets, which can delay things.

Besides the money, there are other things to consider, like the company’s plans, project timelines, resource constraints, and other limitations that could slow down the deal. A hot opportunity can cool off if it takes too long to close. Here, a CSM can be like a guide, helping to figure out the best timing for everyone.

With this streamlined approach, CSMs can play a bigger role in shaping opportunities without getting tangled up in pricing talks or contract details. Sales teams will definitely appreciate having CSMs who can neatly line up opportunities, making it easier to close the deal later on. Next, we’ll look into how CSMs and sales teams can work together effectively.

How Customer Success and Sales Work Together

Working with the sales team, Customer Success (CS) plays a big part in growing business through what’s called a “reverse handover.” This means CS hands over opportunities for upselling or expanding to the sales team, which helps finish the sales cycle smoothly.

There’s not just one moment when CSMs hand things over to sales. It’s more of a gradual process. Opportunities need to grow and develop before they’re ready for sales to take over. Keeping open lines of communication and making sure everyone’s on the same page is really important for this to work well.

Here’s what works best for getting CS and sales to work together:

• Keep talking: When the CS pipeline is in good shape, it’s easier to keep the sales team updated on what’s happening and what comes next. Salespeople are great at spotting potential problems and coming up with creative ways to make deals better, like offering special deals to close the sale.
• Stay clear and visible: Keeping all the information in one place makes everything clearer and builds trust with the sales team. They need to feel sure about what they know and what they’re working with.
• Co-lead the process: It’s like a relay race where sales is the last runner to cross the finish line. But winning is about the team, not just one person shining. Depending on the situation, like how big the deal is or how complex the customer’s needs are, sometimes CS and sales both need to lead.
• Learn and grow together: CSMs should be curious and ready to learn from their sales buddies. The better CS is at finding and developing opportunities, the more sales will want to work and learn together. This could be about understanding what customers love about the product, identifying key selling points, or figuring out how CS can support sales even better.

By working closely and learning from each other, CSMs and sales teams can drive more business and achieve great results.

Quick Tips for Leaders

• 💡 Assessing and picking out the right opportunities can be tricky for some CSMs. It's all about changing their mindset and helping them work closely with the sales team. Leaders in customer success should help make this teamwork happen.
• 💡 It's a good idea for you to join in on the sales meetings to share updates and plan what to do next. This helps everyone stay on the same page.
• 💡 Think about including the customer success pipeline in the CRM system. This way, everything is in one place, making it easier to follow a set process for figuring out which sales opportunities to go after. Once that’s sorted, the sales team can take over.

Customer success usually focuses on providing value, which is within their comfort zone and makes it seem like they’re just a cost to the company. But really, when CSMs actively look for and qualify new sales chances, they're helping themselves grow professionally. Plus, they're building a stronger bond with the sales team and boosting the chances of selling more. Keeping a well-managed pipeline also means that the important role of customer success in making money for the company gets more recognition.