Anett M. Diaz

⁉️ Are your CSMs closer to the Boardroom or the Help Desk? Let’s stop pretending CSMs are here to hold hands and host check-ins. That chapter is over. 📕❌ The future of CSMs as a core role and component of customer success is not soft. It’s not reactive. It’s strategic, commercial, and accountable to growth. 💰📈 If you’re a CSM reading this, you are not “post-sale.” You are core-impact and "next-sale." If you’re a CS leader, your job isn’t to shield your team from change. It’s to equip them to lead it. Onboarding managers, Support analysts, and Implementation/Services specialists are all embracing new technologies and ways of working. 🚀 But what does the future CSM look like? It's more than just discovering new ways of working. There are fundamental shifts in the role definition that are available to create a powerful future. 1️⃣ Business Acumen > Product Knowledge They speak in customer outcomes, not platform features. They understand how their customers make money and how they lose it. 💡💸 2️⃣ Revenue Ownership They don’t just renew. They expand. They create opportunities by delivering real, measurable value. 3️⃣ Executive Presence They can sit across from a C-suite buyer and talk growth, risk, and ROI. No slide decks. No fluff. Just clarity and confidence. 🧠🎯 4️⃣ Customer-Led Innovation They bring the frontlines to the strategy table. The best CSMs don’t just listen to feedback, they shape roadmaps. 🛠️🚀 5️⃣ Courage They don’t wait to be told what to do. They challenge their customers (and their company) to move faster, smarter, better. 💥🔥 💡 Here’s the hard truth: If you’re still treating CSMs like support reps and retention managers, you’re already behind. Some parts of CS will always be counted towards COGs. It's a simple reality of proper financial reality and financial modeling. But CSMs? Why shouldn't they be part of SG&A, given they are often the most under-leveraged growth engine in the company? This isn’t about retention anymore. It’s about expansion, innovation, and category leadership, powered by customer value. 👊 Let’s build the future of CS by developing the kind of CSMs who will own it. #CustomerSuccess #NextGenCSM #CustomerGrowth #RetentionIsRevenue #CSLeadership #GrowthMindset #CustomerLedGrowth #ExecutivePerspective #FutureOfWork #CSRevolution #CreatetheFuture

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Your customer just got their auto-renewal notice. They haven't heard from you in 4 months. Congrats - you just lost a deal before the negotiation even started! 🕺 The thing that a lot of CSMs miss is that they focus on the renewal date instead of the auto-renewal date. By the time that contract hits procurement's desk, the decision is already made. The customer basically has 90 days to decide if they dislike the cut of your jib enough to cancel. Best thing to do is work backward from the auto-renewal trigger: - 6 months before: Usage audit and health check. - 4 months before: Executive business review. - 2 months before: Roadmap alignment session. - Auto-renewal hits: Customer is already planning expansion. We work with an org here at Sales Assembly that tracked this religiously: - CSMs who engaged 60+ days before auto-renewal: 89% retention. - CSMs who engaged after auto-renewal notice: 23% retention. Holy moly, right? But also, kinda predictable when you think about it. Your renewal isn't won in the final quarter. It's won in the months when nobody's thinking about contracts. By the time that fun auto-renewal email lands in their inbox, they've already gone beyond evaluating your product, and instead they're evaluating their relationship with you. And 4 months of radio silence isn’t a great foundation for negotiation.

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❌ Too many teams treat qualification as a tick-box. ✅ The best treat it as a discipline—and the numbers are brutal. A recent research piece from RevOps Co-op analysed 655k opportunities worth $48B. The punchline? Well-qualified deals win 6.3× more often and close 21.6% faster, and they’re 1.9× less likely to slip 90+ days. Qualification isn’t a form to fill; it’s the operating system for revenue. Where teams fall down (and quietly tax ARR & margin): 1. “We did Discovery.” Great—then nothing gets updated. Only 36% of opps that pass Discovery have both a qualification score and supporting notes. That’s not rigour; that’s roulette. 2. MEDDPICC theatre: “Champion” gets a name, but Economic Buyer, Decision Criteria, Paper Process, Compelling Event are MIA—so forecasts wobble and deals slip. (Yes, the high-rigour cohorts close faster and slip less.) 3. Service-firm classic: pricing lives in email, rate cards live in Excel, and renewal risk appears… at renewal. Qualification didn’t fail in Close—it failed months earlier. ⭐ What top performers actually do: • Treat qualification as continuous—rigour compounds from Discovery → Evaluation → Negotiation; nothing is left undocumented by Close. • Disqualify early to protect capacity and fee margin; focus coaching on deals with verified EB/DP/DC (not vibes). • Align Sales + Delivery + Finance around the same deal reality (terms, rate, margin, paper). How to operationalise (HubSpot, service-business edition): • Stage gates with teeth - no stage progression without them. • Playbooks → structured notes: bind MEDDPICC answers to properties (no free-text sprawl). • Quotes & Line Items: embed rate cards/pricing calculators (ACV/ARR/TCV + margin), with approval workflows for discounts. • Renewal pipeline: auto-create 120–180 days out; qualification continues into success/expansion. • Dashboards: pipeline coverage in £ ARR/CARR, proposal→close %, discount impact on contribution margin, slippage by stage. Takeaway: Qualification isn’t optional—it’s survival. If your forecast still runs on “best guesses,” you don’t have a system—you have a spreadsheet full of hope. The Avidity Build Bibles now come with this as standard - not nice to have. #revops #revenueoperations #professionalservices #hubspotpartner #salesoperations #MEDDPICC #forecastaccuracy #ARR #CARRaa

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🎥 𝗖𝗮𝘁𝗰𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗨𝗽 𝗪𝗶𝘁𝗵… 𝗡𝗶𝗰𝗸 𝗧𝗶𝗱𝗱 | 𝗚𝗹𝗼𝗯𝗮𝗹 𝗛𝗲𝗮𝗱 𝗼𝗳 𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗲𝗹, 𝗭𝗼𝗼𝗺. What happens when a seasoned channel exec joins a company known for innovation and velocity? You get a channel strategy that’s less about tiers and more about trust. More importantly, Zoom isn’t just talking about channel transformation; they’re doing it. Over the past 11 months, Nick and his team have put a practical, partner-first strategy in motion. And they’re checking the boxes: ✅ 𝗖𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗿 𝗳𝗼𝗰𝘂𝘀 𝗼𝗻 𝗼𝘂𝘁𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗲𝘀, 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗻𝘀𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀. Zoom has embraced five distinct routes to market - resale, agency, service provider, marketplace, and online - to meet customers and partners where they are.  ✅ 𝗘𝘅𝗲𝗰𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗺𝗶𝘀𝗲𝘀.In just seven months, they transformed core partner systems like quote-to-cash and provisioning, bringing turnaround times down to under a minute. ✅ 𝗧𝗼𝗼𝗹𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸 𝗮𝘁 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗲𝗹 𝘃𝗲𝗹𝗼𝗰𝗶𝘁𝘆. The Zoom partner portal is getting a UX refresh, and new demand-gen tools offer campaign-in-a-box options tailored for Zoom’s rapid product release cycles.  ✅ 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗴𝗿𝗮𝗺 𝘀𝘁𝗿𝘂𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗰𝗵𝗲𝘀 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆.The Zoom Up Partner Program is being overhauled to reflect different partner types, geographies, and go-to-market models with a clear foundation for growth.  ✅ 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗼𝗳 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗻𝘂𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿𝘀.Even before the new program officially launches, Zoom is seeing a consistent rise in indirect transacting partners. BOTTOM LINE: Zoom isn’t just saying the right things to partners. They’re delivering tangible improvements in systems, tools, and program design that partners can see and feel. I’m bullish on Zoom’s channel strategy. After watching this episode of Catching Up With…, I think you will be, too. ▶️ Watch the full conversation and let me know your thoughts. #Zoom #ChannelLeadership #UnifiedCommunications #UCaaS #Zoomtopia Graeme Geddes, Chris Moss, Chris Morrissey, Leo Boulton Kelly Gilhooly

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“How do we continue to prove the value of Customer Success?” In the 10+ years I have been in CS it has changed rapidly: From relationship to revenue. From soft to substantial. From engage to expand. But how do we ensure we achieve success when our systems are ? Retention tells part of the story. Customer feedback helps a bit. Health scores are a lagging metric. But the real goal? It’s in how Customer Success drives business value. That means: 👉🏽Tying CS activities to revenue expansion 👉🏽Quantifying impact on product adoption and stickiness 👉🏽Enabling Sales with insights that close deals faster 👉🏽Reducing churn through proactive playbooks This is why, I am partnering with Nigel Hammond from Foresight and TeamWorking by TechNexus to bring a unique event to Chicago about Operationalizing Customer Value. 🗓️Want to join us on July 29, 4:30-6:30pm? Drop me a DM.

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What do you think of this trumpet 🎺 brand-new Buyer Enablement Report is out… and one stat really stood out to me: 👉 60% of deals are lost to no decision. Not competitors. Not pricing. Just buyers unable to move forward. Why? Because sellers make it too complex. Too many steps. Too many slides. Not enough clarity. The job isn’t just to pitch anymore. It’s to make it easy for your champion to sell FOR YOU internally. Their free report has a tonne of other stats and data around buyer enablement. Well worth a read >https://lnkd.in/g_2Qp-6k

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