The Customer Success Economy

11Sales: Customer Success Is Your Differentiator

If we had a company genie, one of the things we'd wish for is an extra month between the end of our current fiscal year and the start of the next. It feels like every year we go from the stress of closing strong to the new stress of starting from zero again. Many of us stare at the $0 bookings amount on the first day of the new fiscal year and say, “How the heck are we going to make our numbers?”

It's easy to feel nostalgic for the “old days” before SaaS. Making the number was still hard then (and dramatic) but the playbook was pretty simple:

• Hire reps.
• Ramp reps.
• Push reps.
• If things fail, blame Marketing!

All jokes aside, as bizarre as the licensed software world was in some respects, the model was well-understood and translated from company to company. Even though we're now 20 years into the SaaS/cloud transition, most companies still run sales with an on-premises/license software mindset. Every bookings goal is about more “rep capacity.” But companies will miss their sales targets if they only use the old playbook.

The new playbook for sales is in fact Customer Success, in the sense that the SaaS/cloud businesses that grow quickly do so on the back of a business process that drives consistent and strong outcomes for clients. The four principal reasons for this are as follows:

1. Focused Markets Mean Rep Capacity Models Alone Don't Work

Remember when you could start a company that sold to everyone? Build a database. Sell ...