Anika Zubair (00:00.31)
What if I told you that the reason your customers aren't expanding even when they say they're happy isn't because of a budget issue, timing, or even product gaps? The real issue is that you're bringing up expansion at the wrong moment. And today I am going to reveal the number one mistake that Ciaz Pros make when it comes to driving growth and how to fix it. Hello everyone.

I'm your host, Anika Zuber, and welcome back to the next episode of the Customer Success Pro podcast. I'm a Customer Success Executive Leader, award-winning CS strategist, CS coach, and Customer Success fanatic. I help CS leaders and CSMs build and scale world-class CS processes and teams. I'm a strong believer that Customer Success is not a destination, but a journey. And it can be a tough journey, but don't worry, I'm here to help.

This podcast was created to help make your CS journey a little bit easier to navigate. Join me every month on this podcast where we will dive into the hottest topics in CS, the newest strategies, and the best practices in customer success so you can make your CS journey a little bit easier. Make sure you subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your podcasts so that you can continue to learn on this CS journey that we are on together.

Anika Zubair (01:24.248)
Welcome back to the Customer Success Pro Podcast. I'm your host, Anika Zuber, and this is an episode for every CS Pro who has ever asked themselves the question, why aren't my customers growing? Or maybe you've asked yourself the question, why do my expansion conversations always seem to fall flat? And you're probably wondering, what am I missing when it comes to driving revenue from my accounts?

So most CS pros believe that expansion is something that you bring up during either a QBR or an EBR or a renewal call, or maybe it's a scheduled event. You think that if your customers are happy and if the product usage is strong and you have a slide in a deck where expansion will come up, it'll happen naturally. I'm sorry to say that is the wrong assumption. But here's the truth. By the time you get to a QBR or a renewal call, the expansion decision has already been made without you.

That's the biggest myth. The biggest myth is that expansion is a moment. And it's not. Expansion is a process, one that starts well before any formal review call. And if you're only bringing it up in your QBRs, I'm sorry to say you're a little too late. The number one mistake CS pros make when trying to drive expansion is waiting until a QBR to talk about it. And I get it. It feels like the right time.

Everyone is in the room and you've got the deck ready and you've saved that final growth slide for last. But what happens? Crickets. Or worse, your customer says, we'll need to talk internally and get back to you. That's not an expansion conversation. That's a missed opportunity. So let me give you two real life examples of this. Example number one is I've had a CSM that I've coached that was managing a top tier account.

They had a strong relationship with the customer. They had good product usage, but every QBR ended with a comment from the customer saying, we'll revisit growth next quarter, or we'll talk about this next time. And why was that? It's because the decision maker had already committed to a budget two weeks before the QBR, but my CSM wasn't part of that internal conversation. Another example is I have a CSM that I've worked with and they had a customer that was

Anika Zubair (03:39.916)
eager to scale, sounds like a really good thing. They were super engaged. The customer champion is something that everybody wanted. And this customer was adding users organically, exploring new features, but she never proactively showed them how to expand. There was no roadmap, no clear next steps, just vague references to when you're ready to use the product, I'll be there. And that's really not a guide or a good way to actually CSM.

Your customer is looking to you to be a guide. You need to guide them into an expansion. If you don't, your customer will just end up expanding with a competitor because their CSM wasn't their guide to expansion. So how do you know if you're making this mistake? Here are a few signs. If you feel like expansion is forced or awkward to bring up, or maybe you feel like you're constantly hearing, it's not the right time from your customers, or maybe you're hearing, we don't have the budget.

Or maybe you're relying purely on QBR decks to make your pitch. Or maybe you don't have a repeatable framework for when or how to talk about growth. Does any of this sound familiar? Because believe me, I have been in that position before. And these are symptoms of a reactive expansion strategy. And it's not your fault. Let me just make it super clear. This is not your fault. Most customer success playbooks don't teach this. But now that you're aware,

you can now shift your mindset and start being a little bit more proactive with your upsell and renewal strategy. So what's the actual real problem here? The problem is, is that you're treating an expansion as an event. And that's not a strategy. An expansion, like a renewal, should always be a non-event. It should happen at every interaction you have with your customer. If you're waiting for the customer to be ready instead of guiding them there,

Don't worry, you're not alone. I too was doing the same thing before and I learned to be proactive with frameworks that helped me. This mistake actually usually comes from fear. And if you're feeling maybe the fear of sounding too salesy or maybe you're fearing the sense of rejection or maybe you have a fear of overstepping in your role, but here is the honest truth. Great CS pros lead customers towards value.

Anika Zubair (06:06.359)
And sometimes that value requires growing their investment. So please do not shy away or feel scared about that investment. Expansion is not about selling. It's about solving bigger problems. And here's what most CS pros try when they realize expansion isn't happening. They start adding that growth slide or bullet point into a QBR agenda. Or maybe they start nudging their AE to partner it up.

so that the AE can bring it up on customer calls. Or maybe they're hoping that usage data alone will justify an expansion. Or maybe they start dropping hints instead of having real conversations with their customers. But here's the thing, all of these strategies are super passive. And maybe they've worked for you in the past, but I'm here to let you know that passive expansion opportunities are not always gonna play in your favor. You've got to be proactive.

Your customers need clarity and they're gonna look for clarity from you as their CS Pro. They need to feel confident in the decision that they're making with expanding with your product or service. And they need you to feel confident in that decision as well. And most of all, they're gonna need a clear path to growth. And that clear path is needing to be decided by yourself as their CS Pro.

So here is what you're gonna do and here is what's gonna work for your clear path to growth. First of all, you wanna spot expansion triggers early. So look for moments like new hires within the team, or maybe there's a cross-departmental usage change. Or maybe your customer is giving you tons of product feedback and asking for more functionality or more things to be added to the roadmap. Any mention of any sort of

big upcoming goal or big initiative for your customer is another clear sign of growth. Once you understand and find these clear signs of growth, what you're gonna do next is you are going to plant the seed for the conversation continuously. Like I said, having an expansion or upsell conversation as an event in a QBR or in a deck, that's just not gonna work. You're gonna wanna plant the seed early.

Anika Zubair (08:26.947)
and the conversation is gonna have to be continuous. It's not gonna be one conversation and done. So instead of pitching during a QBR, I want you to weave growth into every regular conversation that you're having with your customer. Maybe on your next call, you mention to your customer, say, hey customer, I have other customers at your stage that are often exploring feature X. Should I send you a quick resource on how that works?

you'd be really surprised that your customers, don't know what your other customers are doing. And again, you are there to serve as their guide and really show them what other resources and other features that they can be utilizing. And that's usually a very clear and easy way to plant that seed early for growth. The next thing you wanna do is you're gonna want to build an expansion pathway. Remember what I mentioned about being a guide?

Well, you want to show them. You need to show them where they are right now, how they're using your product or service right now, and then where they could go. Really map it out for them. You know how product has a roadmap and they really map out step by step what they're gonna release next? Your customers are gonna need something similar from you of what their growth path looks like. Now, this might be a success plan. This might be account mapping.

It could be a number of different things, and I'm not saying there's a one size fit all, but you do need to show them where they need to go next and what the path looks like to get there. Remember, highlight things like value, give them a timeline, give them success metrics, map it all out for them, because if you're not really guiding them towards growth, they're not gonna grow. I'm sorry, it's just not gonna happen, and you're gonna have to be realistic and map it out for them. Now, the fourth step.

in my framework is all about reframing expansion around outcomes. Now you've heard this time and time again, and I've said it multiple times on this podcast, but your customers are not here for a feature functionality or for your product at the end of the day. They're really not. They are here to achieve some sort of outcome with your product or service. So when you start to reframe expansions around outcomes, that is when your customer is going to start to lean in.

Anika Zubair (10:43.385)
to an upsell conversation. You are always gonna wanna tie back outcomes to a business case. So maybe your customer actually purchased your product or service to save time. Or maybe they're using your product or service to be more operationally efficient in their business. Either way, you are going to want to tie an expansion opportunity back to the business case. Why did your customer actually buy a product and service?

And if your product and service is actually serving them and there's a chance to even grow even further, I want you to tie it back to that business case. Now, I don't want you to say something like more seats or faster onboarding will reduce risk and save time. I really want you to tie it back to their business goal. If faster onboarding results in them being more operationally efficient, make sure you make that super clear. CSMs who master this approach

don't just hit revenue targets, they're gonna build those stronger executive relationships and become more proactive and become those trusted advisors that we're all working to become. If you position yourself as someone who really understands business outcomes for your customers, they are going to really lean into any sort of growth conversation that you bring up with them. And the best part is, is when you start practicing this, it is going to position yourself

for promotions and leadership roles because you're able to be truly strategic and have those growth conversation with your customers. Just want to quickly dive in before we get back to the podcast. And I want to let you know that if you are ready to stop firefighting and start showing real value to your customers, then you need to join me on April 23rd for a totally free masterclass. And it's the CSM Rev Up Masterclass and it's all around the CS revenue framework.

which is the three steps that show value to your customers. In just one hour, I will be walking you through the exact formula on how to close every renewal with an upsell, build a commercial mindset, and drive measurable revenue for your company. And finally, of course, I will talk about how you can overcome imposter syndrome and become that strategic CS Pro that your customers need.

Anika Zubair (13:04.983)
And if you've been nodding along with the strategies in this episode and wondering how to apply them to your own accounts, then this masterclass is where it all comes together. It's happening on April 23rd at 10 a.m. Pacific, 1 p.m. Eastern and 6 p.m. UK time. And trust me, you're not going to want to miss it. If you want to sign up, go ahead and head over to thecustomersuccesspro.com forward slash masterclass to save your seat.

Spots are limited and they always go fast, so make sure you sign up quickly. The link is in the show notes and I hope to see you there. Now back to the episode. Revenue influence is something that is no longer optional in customer success. If you're listening to this podcast and you're thinking, well, I don't really have to focus on expansion or growth, or that's not really my KPI at this moment in time, reality check, I'm gonna let you know that in 2025,

If you don't have revenue influence in customer success, your role is at risk, okay? So please make sure you know how you are influencing revenue in your role. Because when you treat expansion as a natural next step in your customer success strategy, not just a surprise proposal that you do at a QBR or maybe in a renewal conversation, you will see your numbers and your confidence grow. The thing is,

Expansion and growth is something that is natural. A customer that is truly using your product and service and seeing the value and outcomes of your product and service will grow with you at some point or another. And you have to feel confident enough as a CS pro to have that conversation. And if you follow my frameworks that I mentioned in this podcast, trust me, you will feel confident in having those conversations with your customers. It's just a matter of making sure that you weed in

any sort of expansion opportunity into every conversation that you have with your customer. Please, please, please do not rely on a QBR or a slide deck to be your pitch. Know that you are pitching your customers every single day. Every email, every conversation, every single time you are interacting with your customer, whether it's automated, whether it's a one-to-one call, a one-to-many call, I don't care.

Anika Zubair (15:30.507)
All I'm saying is that every opportunity that you have to interact with your customer is an opportunity for growth and expansion. And you need to start treating all your customer conversations like this in order to hit truly stellar NRR or growth goals this year. Right. So in my solo podcast episodes, I always like to challenge my listeners because I'm a tactical and practical coach and I love to give you a challenge. So here is your listener challenge.

for today. This week, I want you to choose one account and try this. First of all, I want you to identify a trigger. So identify something that is going to show you that this customer or this account is ready for a upsell conversation. Then I want you to go to that customer and plant a value-based seed. Remember, this doesn't have to be in a QBR or in some sort of scheduled event.

I just want you to plant a value-based seed, an email, a quick call, heck, a text or a Slack will work too, but I want you to start planting those early value-based seeds. And then I want you to map out a very simple expansion pathway slide. Don't over-engineer this or overthink this. I want you to just map out where your customer is right now, what they plan on doing next, and how you're gonna get them to an outcome.

Make sure you outline some timelines too, because it's really important to put some times against this. And then once you've done all this and you've tried this with your customer and it's gone well and your customer is leaning into a conversation and actually wanting to have a growth conversation with you, can you please message me on LinkedIn and tell me how it went? I want to hear all of your wins and or your lessons or what you maybe changed or took away from this podcast.

Or better yet, if you want to text me, you can actually text me now. So if you go down to the show notes of this podcast, you can click the link, send me a text and the show notes, and you can then tell me how exactly you manage this week's challenge. So let's recap today's episode. First of all, I don't want you to wait until a quarterly business review to talk about expansion. Remember what I said?

Anika Zubair (17:45.345)
An expansion opportunity is not an event. It should actually be a non-event for you. So make sure that you are not treating your QBR or a pitch deck as the only opportunity for you to actually have a growth or expansion conversation with your customer. But what I want you to actually do after this podcast is I want you to spot growth triggers early. Now this is different at every company. Listen, I have made growth triggers

at multiple startups and the thing is, I want you to go and identify what means growth for your customers. Spot it early and identify a few customers that are definitely ready for growth and have those conversations early with them. And remember, an expansion is a continuous conversation. I don't want you to just go away from this podcast and go and have one conversation with your customer. You need to have five, 10,

50, 100 different touch points with your customers that all talk about growth. If you aren't having multiple conversations with your customers about continuous expansion and growth, I'm sorry to say expansion is always gonna feel icky, it's always gonna feel tough, and you're always gonna get a no. Because if you're just having one conversation with your customer, it's not enough. Did you know that as humans, we need to be reminded of something seven times?

before we actually remember it. So if you aren't talking about growth or expansion with your customer at least seven times in a customer renewal cycle, it's not enough. So go and make those expansion conversation pathways that I was talking about earlier and make sure you revisit it time and time again. and don't forget to tie it to outcomes, not features. I've said it time and time again, an expansion isn't more seats.

It's not more usage. It's not a new feature. It's not. You have to tie it to an outcome. You have to tie it back to a business outcome that your customer is hoping to achieve or has achieved with your product and service. And if you don't know what your outcomes are, go and ask your salespeople because I guarantee that those customers that signed and bought your product and service, they came and bought for an outcome. Use that outcome.

Anika Zubair (20:09.729)
Make sure you're tying every expansion conversation back to that outcome. And finally, when you are having those conversations with your customers and you are guiding them towards expansion, be their guide. Do exactly that. Give them a roadmap. Give them a step-by-step expansion guide. Let them know where they are today. Let them know how your other customers are expanding and using your product and showcase it to them.

Maybe give them a slide, give them a visual, give them an email, give them a table with timelines. I don't care what you give, just make sure there is some clear clarity around a guide so that your customers can really understand what to do next when it comes to expanding and using your product in different ways. So if this episode resonated with you, be sure to subscribe or leave a review or share it with a fellow CS Pro.

Did you know that we have over 1,500 listeners per episode, but only 250 of you guys are actually subscribed or follow this podcast. So please go ahead and follow this podcast so you are notified immediately of when I drop my next episode. Oh, and don't forget, if you wanna dive deeper into anything that we talked about in this podcast, make sure you go ahead and check out CSM Rev Up Academy. It's my signature coaching program that's designed

to help you master revenue generating strategies and be more strategic. There is a VIP waitlist for when I next open my doors for enrollment. So if you want to dive deeper into any of the strategies that I discuss in these podcast episodes, or maybe you want to get my step-by-step playbook on how to be commercially minded and strategic, then go ahead and go to thecustomersuccesspro.com forward slash rev up to sign up for the waitlist.

If you want any of the links that I discussed in this podcast, I'll be sure to link everything down in the show notes below. Until next time, keep driving value, stay curious, and I'll see you in the next episode.

Anika Zubair (22:14.979)
Thank you for listening to the Customer Success Pro podcast today. I hope you learned something new to take back to your team and your company. If you enjoyed today's episode, please can you take one minute to give me a positive review on Apple Podcasts? It takes a lot of time and energy to create an episode and I want to continue to create more for you. But it would be great to know that you are enjoying these episodes. Also, do not forget to subscribe to this podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you listen to your podcasts as I release a new podcast every month.

And if you have any topics that you would like me to discuss in the future, or you would like to be a guest on this podcast, please feel free to reach out. All my contact details are in the show notes. And if you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to share it because sharing is caring. Thanks again for listening and tune in next time for more on customer success. Cheers to your CS journey and catch you next time.