customer journey
Beyond the Hunt: Fueling Sustainable Enterprise Sales Growth
The software start-up world is obsessed with “Hunters” – salespeople laser-focused on landing new customers. Job boards are overflowing with companies in “growth phases,” desperate for new logos. Understandably, the revenue from each new customer can mean a 10-20x multiple in company valuation in the VC-fueled race toward an exit. What happens after the deal closes ultimately determines a company’s success. Sustainable growth requires a systematic approach for ongoing customer success and satisfaction.
The Long Game: Profitability and Sustainability
My experience leading a large business unit and running my own company has taught me that sustainable growth requires more than just a flood of new logos. Here’s why:
- Cash flow is King: Lines of credit can vanish overnight (remember Silicon Valley Bank?). Relying solely on external funding is risky.
- Not All New Business is Good Business: Unprofitable accounts, high-churn risks, and customers with limited growth potential can drain your resources faster than you can acquire them. Efficiency matters for scalability.
- Profits Drive Long-Term Growth: Organic, profit-fueled growth, especially when driven by innovation, creates a much more resilient and valuable business.
- The effort and costs associated with closing new customers can be high in many industries. Your install base business helps fund new growth.
- Churn negatively offsets growth (think net revenue retention, or NRR) and limits profits that fund growth.
The Power of the Hybrid Sales Model
To achieve sustainable growth, you need either an extensive, fully integrated organization that seamlessly transitions from sales to implementation (few companies can do this) or a hybrid sales team that excels at both hunting (50-70%) and farming (30-50%). Landing a new customer is hard work, but retaining and growing them is just as challenging and crucial. Customer acquisition costs are often too high to justify losing a customer only a year or two after the initial win. Treating new customers as assets (not commodities) is essential to long-term success.
Mastering Strategic Accounts: Turnarounds and Growth
Large, strategic accounts—Tier 1 companies with strong brand recognition and significant revenue potential—present unique challenges. In my experience, these accounts often fall into two categories: those I initially closed and then grew (ideal, as you have already laid the foundation for success), and those I inherited in a neglected state and had to turn around.
Turnarounds require a unique skill set. They demand as much time and sometimes even more effort than landing a new logo, blending aspects of both hunting and farming. It takes commitment, skill, patience, and effort to understand an organization and find new ways to deliver value. Relationships and trust take time to develop, and in this situation they are in question (or worse).
The lesson learned is that it is better to take a proactive approach to keep adding value for those accounts, rather than neglect them and spend a lot of time, money, and effort rebuilding trust and earning their business again.
Case Study: From Churn Risk to Multi-Million Dollar Expansion
Take, for example, a large Financial Services company I inherited when their Strategic Account Manager left. The account had been neglected for two years and was riddled with problems. We lacked executive relationships and higher-level visibility within the organization. They were evaluating competitors, and we knew nothing about it! Even though they were an existing customer, we were the underdog.
I started by organizing a day-long on-site meeting to understand their pain points and needs. We identified several immediate issues, shared our vision for the future, began building trust, and demonstrated our commitment to their success. Following this, we spent a few hours getting to know the team over dinner. It was an eye-opener for me, as they shared more about their needs, how best to approach them, and their disappointment with our company’s past efforts.
The result? First and foremost, we saved the account. Within three months, I closed a $500K expansion deal, followed by a $500K consulting engagement and then a $3.25M two-year cloud expansion and upgrade prepay deal. My team and I rebuilt the relationship, solved critical problems (even going beyond our product scope), and provided a clear path forward with our AI-powered platform. I became a trusted advisor who was valued by their executive team. It was a true win-win.
The Bottom Line: Building a Sustainable Sales Engine
Install base growth and customer retention are critical for long-term success, especially with larger customers. The approach has to be multi-dimensional. It is a team effort, and the Account Executive is the quarterback. Relationship management, customer success teams, support, and services all play a role. Effective communication is bi-directional, with the customer having insight into what is coming down the road and input into the direction of the products they rely on. This becomes a true partnership that adds significant value to both organizations.
Does this hybrid approach apply to every company? If you’re IBM or Oracle, your offerings are broad and deep, and your customers are largely locked-in. “Land and expand” is part of their DNA. And if you’re selling end-of-life products, your focus might shift towards maximizing the “long tail” through customer success and services to minimize costs and maximize profitability.
However, for most growth-stage Cloud and SaaS companies, the hybrid sales model is more essential to their success than they probably realize.
Call to Action:
- Evaluate your sales team structure and compensation plans. Do they incentivize both new customer acquisition and ongoing account growth?
- Invest in training and development for your sales team. Equip them with the skills needed to excel at both hunting and farming. It can be a difficult transition, but it is worth it in the long run.
- Need help building a high-performing hybrid sales team or turning around strategic accounts? Let’s connect!
What are you doing to improve CX today?
In challenging times, minor frustrations can lead to harmful, long-term negative sentiment. Your approach to Customer Experience (CX) matters more than ever during this pandemic crisis. Your business needs to protect relationship capital and see this as an opportunity to appeal to your next generation of loyal customers.
Recently, I sold a few gold coins on an auction website. The transactions were great and concluded quickly. However, the payment arm of this organization appears to have a bug in its tracking system for USPS Registered Mail. The transaction status displayed “shipped,” but when you clicked the “Tracking” button, it was clear the package had been delivered a few weeks earlier. Still, they were holding a significant amount of money without a clear release date.
While that was a little frustrating, what happened next changed my feelings about this company. I sent several emails to Support and received canned responses. I used their chat option and spoke to a couple of “people” who were either chatbots or should be replaced by chatbots, because no matter what information I provided, the response was always the same and not helpful.
Now, think about tens, hundreds, or even thousands of customers or prospects having problems getting information about your products and services, getting assistance with questions or support for problems, and working with your company in general. In times of increased stress, uncertainty, or competition, the customer experience for each anticipated archetype must be as ideal as possible to increase engagement and loyalty.
Consistently positive interactions, from interactions with branding and marketing, to the customer journey, to onboarding new customers, to successful implementations and support, increase lifetime customer value, repeat business, and overall business growth. Every touchpoint should increase your emotional connection with that customer.
I’ve always told my teams that “People buy easy,” so, as a group or organization, we aim to make it as efficient and frictionless as possible to conduct business with us. By doing that, being fair, and acting with integrity, we earn loyal customers who support our business’s growth.
Relationships develop over time, and each interaction helps determine the eventual outcome. Understanding what differentiates your company and products in your customers’ and prospects’ eyes can help you create more meaningful, consistent, and valuable interactions. People appreciate a positive customer experience, so those efforts may ultimately lead to developing Customers for Life.
Now is the time to evaluate your end-to-end processes, procedures, guidelines, and interfaces. Be extremely critical as you ask yourself, “Is this how I would like to be treated as a customer?” By making CX a strategic priority, your business or organization will eliminate friction and ensure customers are treated well and feel valued. Moreover, as you increase install base loyalty and engagement, you will be rewarded with renewals, expansion, references, referrals, and suggestions to improve your products. Everyone wins.
Investments in CX today can deliver an immediate payback and increase long-term growth.
Where Ideas, Experiences, and Lessons Learned Intersect 