IT’S TIME TO STOP DOUBLING UP NEW BUSINESS & CUSTOMER SUCCESS

Without a doubt during 2020, many companies saw the opportunity of doubling up, getting their ‘New Business’ salespeople to do the work across the ‘Customer Success’ piece as well. It Is not ideal but for many it was a case of ‘Needs Must’ to reduce costs and headcount during 2020, and the pandemic.

It was a great strategy during 2020 getting experienced salespeople to ensure that they got the renewal revenue that the company needed; especially as New Business revenue was hard won, and it ensured those existing clients were looked after by experienced and knowledgeable staff.

However, in 2021, these companies need to bring back those experienced ‘Customer Success Managers’, pass the baton back to them to get a full stack ‘Customer Success’ role delivered to those clients. If we don’t, we run the risk of losing the very people that you wish to keep, so make sure you spread the load, stop doubling up, get the right person in the right role.

‘New Business’ salespeople don’t have the time or focus to do everything, that ‘Customer Success Managers’ should be doing, everything beyond the renewal, the client account management, liaising with product development and co-ordinating new product releases and making sure that clients are happy, stable, and getting the best out of the products. It is all about those extra things that have real value, getting the testimonials and showing ‘user cases’ from clients that can be fed back into the sales collateral for all salespeople to utilise.

As many SaaS companies grow year on year, increasing and adding multi millions in new subscriptions, it is the ‘Customer Success Managers’ who inevitably end up owning the ‘Lions share’ of the annual revenues. Therefore, it becomes imperative to engage and create a fully functioning ‘Customer Success Management Practice’.

The rules of engagement as well as the commission and bonus structures are very different for the ‘Customer Success Management Practice’ to those of the ‘New Business Sales Team’. It is always cheaper to keep a sale or gain a renewal, than it is to find and secure a piece of ‘New Business’ and get the client on board in the first place. Commissions and bonuses for the ‘Customer Success Management Practice’ are based more around KPI’s than the revenue or the renewal value.

Engagement with an existing client and creating a set of KPI’s is essential to the success of this team, rewarding them for the renewal but also for growing out the accounts that they look after, to upsell and cross sell. Clients often respond better to a ‘Customer Success Managers’ for these things than having a ‘New Business Salesperson’ coming in to sell more.

‘New Business Sales’ are regarded as the life blood of any organisation and they show the growth in the company beyond the existing subscriptions. Therefore, it is important to allow the ‘New Business Sales Team’ to focus on finding and securing those new sales each year. But it is important to remember that both the ‘Customer Success Management Practice’ and the ‘New Business Sales Team’ is all part of the same corporate team. The benefits that the ‘Customer Success Management Practice’ deliver can not be ignored as they are the ones providing the ongoing collateral for the ‘New Business Sales Team’ and keeping clients happy and on board.

Every organisation has a slightly different view as to what they want the ‘Customer Success Managers’ to do and this is largely governed by the product or service and size of clients, so there is never a ‘One Size Fits All’ approach. ‘Customer Success Managers’ working with hundreds of individual clients in let us say a ‘Social Media’ application company will need a very different skillset, and experience to those working for an ‘Enterprise Software Company’ with a suite of products. The same can be said for different industry sectors that demand someone with the taxonomy or language skills associated with the client base.

In some instances, ‘Customer Success Managers’ will need to be part techy, part support, part training and some need to have the ‘Account Management’ skills that are demanded of some roles. All typically need the underlying empathy, to help and support the clients that they look after, ensuring that they feel they are being looked after and supported for.

The skill set, experience and behaviours needed for the ‘Customer Success Managers’ and ‘New Business Salespeople’ are hugely different, although often have similar attributes. It is, as much about focus ensuring that you have the right person in the right role, looking after the clients needs at any given time ensuring they gain the support to make things successful.

William Howard Associates Limited builds leadership and sales teams for clients and this includes finding and building teams across the ‘Customer Success Management Practice’ and the ‘New Business Sales Team’.

About the Author

Howard Longstaff has over 25 years of experience delivering people within the talent acquisition arena. He has worked extensively across the UK, Europe, USA, Canada as well as in South America, Australia, and New Zealand.

Over the last 20 years he has specialised in two fundamental areas, although he often covers a wider remit due to his thirst and understanding of technology. The first area which he has a real passion for, building ‘Sales Teams’, pulling together the very best ‘A Players’ and creating something incredibly special for his clients.

To do that, he needs to have a clear understanding of what his client wants, so establishing clear communication with the client is paramount, understanding the nuances of what they are looking for and documenting this. Understanding the technology, the opportunity, and the growth potential all help to find the ‘right fit, first time’. He is one of the few head-hunters that is willing to guarantee his work, offering 12 months free replacement.

The second area he loves getting involved in, is the leadership team, the C-Suite, helping to get the balance right, cover the gaps in knowledge, skills and experience, working on the assumption that ‘No one is perfect, but a team can be’?

Howard is someone who thinks outside the box, has an eye for detail, but is perceptive, looking beyond the surface of just skills and experience. He wants to know and understand the candidate behaviour as well as the emotional intelligence, the motives that drive the candidates he interviews. He is looking for the best fit for his client but also looking to ensure it is a fit for the candidate as well.

In the last 25 years he has also built his own companies and opened offices in New Zealand, Los Angeles, New York and most recently several companies in London. Specialising in technology companies, he has delivered permanent resources across practically every department. This has predominantly been for technology start-ups (Enterprise Software Co’s) but also for many leading management consulting and enterprise clients.

Howard is someone that uses technology to enhance the hiring process, to save time, money and effort and take the pain out of the process, but to find those ‘Exceptional People, who are so hard to find’. He operates a ‘Private Client Video Portal’ keeping everything together, the video, as well as psychometric behavioural assessments on candidates and interviewing on an emotional intelligence level. He has repeatedly built teams across three continents, so has a good breadth of knowledge across the talent acquisition arena.