The CSM Field Guide for B2B SaaS

If you're a CSM, you're probably familiar with the ever-growing pressure to deliver results that directly impact revenue. It’s no longer enough to simply reduce churn or improve NPS. Today, CSMs are at the forefront of driving expansion revenue. Upselling, cross-selling, and identifying new opportunities within the customer base are now absolutely integral to the role.

But here’s the problem, most CSMs are given ambiguous goals with few actionable resources. That’s why I created the Expansion Revenue Workbook.

This isn’t just another document, it’s a step-by-step framework designed to help you identify opportunities, prioritize efforts, and deliver results that both your customers and leadership will value.

In this article, I’ll walk you through how to use this resource effectively and show you why it’s a game-changer for anyone in CS. Whether you’re new to the role or looking to level up your performance, this guide will equip you with practical strategies and tools to drive measurable growth.

Why Expansion Revenue Should Be Your Top Priority

If retention is the foundation of customer success, then expansion revenue is the fuel for SaaS growth. Expanding within your existing customer base is not only more cost-effective than acquiring new customers but also provides significant opportunities to strengthen relationships and create lasting partnerships.

The Benefits of Focusing on Expansion Revenue

1. Boost Net Revenue Retention (NRR): Expansion revenue ensures you’re not just covering losses from churn but actively growing your ARR.
2. Strengthen Relationships: When customers see the value in additional features or products, they’re more likely to view your solution as essential to their success.
3. Lower Cost of Revenue Growth: It’s significantly cheaper to expand an existing account than to land a new one. For SaaS companies, this can dramatically improve efficiency metrics.

Yet, while the opportunity is clear, execution is where most teams stumble. Without a clear framework, expansion efforts often feel scattered or overly reliant on intuition. The Expansion Revenue Workbook solves this by giving you structure and actionable insights.

What is the Expansion Revenue Workbook?

The Expansion Revenue Workbook is a comprehensive resource designed specifically for CSMs in B2B SaaS. It combines segmentation tools, prioritization frameworks, and actionable templates to help you uncover opportunities, drive results, and communicate your impact.

Here’s What’s Included

1. Customer Segmentation Sheet: Organize and prioritize accounts based on key metrics like ARR, engagement, and satisfaction.
2. Prioritization Framework: Rank accounts with a weighted scoring system to focus your efforts where they’ll have the most impact.
3. Discovery Questions: A bank of 25 targeted questions to guide your conversations with customers at every stage of their journey.
4. Scripts and Pitches: Ready-to-use language for upsell, cross-sell, and renewal conversations, tailored to different scenarios.
5. Expansion Signals: Behavioral and operational triggers that indicate when a customer is ready for an expansion conversation.
6. Pricing Strategies: Dynamic models to align pricing with customer value and maximize ARR.
7. Tracking Metrics: Key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure the success of your expansion efforts.
8. Templates and Tools: Practical resources like revenue calculators, customer expansion plans, and proposal templates.

How to Use the Expansion Revenue Workbook

Let’s dive into how you can use each component of the workbook to level up your approach to expansion revenue.

1. Segment Your Customer Base

Customer segmentation is the foundation of successful expansion strategies. The workbook includes a Customer Segmentation Sheet where you can organize your accounts based on metrics like ARR, engagement, satisfaction, and growth potential.

Steps to Get Started

1. Input Data: Add metrics such as ARR, NPS, and usage percentages into the segmentation sheet.
2. Calculate Health Scores: Use the pre-built formulas to calculate a health score for each account.
3. Categorize Accounts: Segment customers into priority tiers.

• Tier 1: High-value accounts with high engagement and growth potential.
• Tier 2: Accounts needing additional engagement or satisfaction improvements.
• Tier 3: Low-priority accounts that require nurturing.

Why This Matters

Segmentation ensures you’re focusing your time and resources on accounts with the highest likelihood of expansion success. It also provides clarity when working cross-functionally with sales and leadership teams.

2. Prioritize Accounts Strategically

Once your customers are segmented, the Prioritization Framework helps you go deeper by assigning weighted scores to each account. This ensures your efforts are aligned with business objectives.

Steps to Use It

1. Define Criteria: Common criteria include ARR, engagement, satisfaction, and growth potential.
2. Assign Weights: For example, you might assign 30% to ARR, 20% to engagement, 20% to satisfaction, and 30% to growth potential.
3. Score Accounts: Evaluate each account against these criteria and calculate a total score.
4. Rank Accounts: Focus your expansion efforts on the highest-scoring accounts.

Why This Matters

The prioritization framework eliminates guesswork and ensures you’re focusing on accounts that deliver the most significant revenue impact. It also provides a clear rationale for your decisions, which can be invaluable when working with leadership or sales.

3. Conduct Discovery with a Purpose

The Discovery Questions sheet is designed to guide your conversations with customers at every stage of their journey. Organized into five phases—Problem Identification, Solution Exploration, Validation, Onboarding, and Ongoing Engagement—it ensures you’re uncovering opportunities systematically.

Examples of Key Questions

• During Problem Identification: “What are your growth goals for the next quarter?”
• During Solution Exploration: “Are there workflows that could benefit from automation?”
• During Ongoing Engagement: “What additional features would make your team more efficient?”

Why This Matters

Effective discovery not only uncovers expansion opportunities but also builds trust and strengthens the relationship. The structured approach ensures you’re asking the right questions at the right time.

4. Use Scripts and Signals to Drive Action

The workbook includes 40+ Scripts and Pitches tailored for upsell, cross-sell, and renewal scenarios, as well as a dedicated Expansion Signals sheet to help you identify the right moment to engage.

Examples of Signals

• High feature adoption rates (>85% usage).
• NPS scores of 9 or higher.
• Usage spikes or team growth trends.

Sample Script for an Upsell

“You’re currently utilizing 90% of your plan’s capacity. Upgrading to Enterprise will provide additional resources to support your growth and prevent bottlenecks.”

Why This Matters

Knowing when to act—and having the language to act effectively—can make or break an expansion opportunity.

5. Track Metrics and Measure Success

The Tracking Metrics sheet includes KPIs like Net Revenue Retention (NRR), Expansion Rate, and Feature Adoption Rate to help you measure the impact of your efforts.

Key Metrics to Track

• NRR: Measures the revenue retained and expanded within your customer base.
• Feature Adoption Rate: Tracks how effectively customers are using the product’s key features.
• Upsell Conversion Rate: Measures the success of upsell efforts.

Why This Matters

Tracking ensures accountability and provides hard evidence of your impact. It also helps you refine your strategy over time.

6. Leverage Templates to Save Time

From the Customer Expansion Plan to the Revenue Impact Calculator, the workbook’s templates streamline your workflows and ensure consistency.

Why This Matters

These resources free you up to focus on what matters most—building relationships and delivering value to your customers.

The Big Picture

At its core, the Expansion Revenue Workbook empowers CSMs to move from reactive problem solvers to proactive revenue drivers. By combining segmentation, prioritization, discovery, and execution into one cohesive resource, it equips you to deliver measurable value for both your customers and your company.

Why This Workbook Is a Must-Have

1. For CSMs: It provides clarity, efficiency, and confidence in expansion efforts.
2. For SaaS Companies: It drives ARR growth and aligns cross-functional teams on shared goals.

Expansion revenue isn’t just about hitting quotas; it’s about delivering more value to your customers. When done right, it’s a win-win for everyone involved.

Ready to transform how you approach expansion revenue?

Start using the Expansion Revenue Workbook today and experience the difference it can make for your organization.