Hey! I've a quick poll for B2B SaaS folks on here:

We’re at this interesting juncture at my company where we’re focused on helping the teams that own Expansion identify and surface expansion opportunities in an automated way.

To be more effective, we want to know who in your company owns revenue expansion?

Attached poll
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☁️ Software Tech
📊 Metrics
🔥 Revenue
17
ZVRK
Politicker
5
Enterprise Account Executive
This falls under AEs with us.
SaaSsy
Politicker
4
AE
Same, it should stay this way until upselling or cross-selling becomes too complex and there’s a need to have AMs/CS/Inside sales handle.
shroots
Contributor
1
Founding Designer
Hi thanks for sharing, at what point would you consider things becoming too complex? I guess what would be the signals you'd look out for to find external support?
CuriousFox
WR Officer
2
🦊
Agreed
SaaSsy
Politicker
3
AE
Lots of factors can depend but some things I would ask:
1. Are your AEs getting swamped w/ net new calls/demos?
2. Do you sell lots of different products with different dept. DMs?
3. Is the relationship more important in what you're upselling, or is a complex solution sale?
As you think through these, keep in mind the strengths of an AE vs. AM and ensure those comp plans are aligned with the overall company goal.
shroots
Contributor
0
Founding Designer
Hey @ZVRK! Thanks for sharing, are the AE's handling this on their own or with some other teams support?
punishedlad
Tycoon
3
🧙‍♂️
We leave CSMs to CSM duties. Don't want to poison the well by having our customers get pitched by someone they're supposed to trust for support. We basically reprospect all of our upsells with our SDR teams and have our AEs sell.
shroots
Contributor
-2
Founding Designer
punishedlad
Tycoon
3
🧙‍♂️
Hey @shrootsseems like you didn't really think my perspective was interesting, or you'd understand that sort of software doesn't apply to my org's situation.

As @TennisandSalessaid, you're not allowed to self-promote on this platform. We're salespeople, yes. But we're not selling to each other.

@Gastyred flag post
TennisandSales
Politicker
1
Head Of Sales
AEs. with help from CS. but it would be up to the AE to act on it.
shroots
Contributor
1
Founding Designer
Hey @TennisandSalesThis is definitely a noob question, but is the hand-off ever a problem for you folks? What kind of support do the AE's expect from the CS team?
TennisandSales
Politicker
0
Head Of Sales
its been a problem at every company ive worked at.

What i have found to really help is talk with the CSMs (or leadership if you are able too) about what their experience has been with AEs in the past, what issues have come up, and what information they need to know.

Do not assume YOU know what THEY need to know. when you show that you care about what they have to do, ppl are always easier to work with.

have you had specific questions/problems come up?
shroots
Contributor
1
Founding Designer
What we’ve found is that opportunities seem to get lost in translation between CSMs and AMs/AEs in the partnership model (CSMs in constant contact with clients, AMs/AEs mainly for expansion (and sometimes renewals)).
CSMs have all these back to back calls, so since they don't own the number, logging the opportunity is the last thing on their mind - but AMs/AEs have so many accounts, they can't be in every call with every account, so they rely on CS to volley them up.
Does that resonate for you?
TennisandSales
Politicker
0
Head Of Sales
so the CSMs are not providing good enough (or any) notes for the AEs/AMs to use to understand how to expand the account?

this is a hard problem to fix if it doesnt come from leadership.
i feel like there needs to be alignment on what key pieces of information CSMs need to be on the look out for.

Then leadership needs to help make sure that it becomes part of the CSMs duty to report out on those items.

if you had a call recording software (like gong or something) all calls could be recorded and a link shared so you could review after the fact.

but unless you know what your looking for you will be wasting alot of time
shroots
Contributor
1
Founding Designer
I think what we're learning is the handoff process is a bit of a grey zone and different across companies. Some companies tend to have google documents and spreadsheets but there will always be a loss of valuable context, nuance and knowledge that these documents cannot capture.
Yeah, call recording could be valuable if you know what to search for, otherwise its a black hole!

I really appreciate you sharing so candidly, thank you so much for your time! @TennisandSales
TennisandSales
Politicker
0
Head Of Sales
yep. I would recommend having a "hand off sheet" that has a number of important questions that CS wants to know.

But then have a call set up with the CSM to make sure you can answer any questions and elaborate on anything that is needed.
shroots
Contributor
-2
Founding Designer
TennisandSales
Politicker
0
Head Of Sales
Hey so you are not allowed to self promote on this platform. I feel like this is really close to that. And nah idk if I’m open to that. It’s really not a big deal for me
shroots
Contributor
0
Founding Designer
Hey, thanks for calling that out! This is my first post on this platform. Anyway, i appreciate the participation! :)
shroots
Contributor
1
Founding Designer
Heyyy everyone! Thank you so much for upvoting and in general being so quick to respond and share your thoughts! 🥳
Sunbunny31
Politicker
1
Sr Sales Executive 🐰
Assuming Account Managers = Sales Executives, then SEs all the way for net-new revenue of any kind.

That said, once a deal has been sold, we work in tandem with the CSMs to make sure we're working the account together strategically.
notdavemoss
Valued Contributor
1
CCBW
The fact that so many of us work in orgs where CS has NO revenue expansion responsibility is LITERALLY the problem most orgs have with churn. Thanks for coming to my TED talk.
shroots
Contributor
0
Founding Designer
haha love this share! Can you tell me a bit more of the why behind this? Or rather, what do you feel CSMs bring to the table owning expansion that say AMs or AEs don't / cannot bring?
braintank
Politicker
0
Enterprise Account Executive
AEs
Diablo
Politicker
0
Sr. AE
We have AMs
shroots
Contributor
0
Founding Designer
Thanks @DiabloNoted ✍🏽 Do they work in partnership with CSMs, or do they handle everything themselves?
Diablo
Politicker
0
Sr. AE
CSMs come into picture if the clients need any product related assistance but yeah they all are dependent on each other example during a CSM call customers show intent to buy more volume and AMs are tagged
shroots
Contributor
0
Founding Designer
Neat, thanks for explaining that. How does this transfer of knowledge/context take place? Also, do you folks use a specific CS tool for that?
Kosta_Konfucius
Politicker
0
Sales Rep
CSMs pretty much just handles any issues and dont get any commish
Justatitle
Big Shot
0
Account Executive
CSMs used to own it then it changed to AMs
shroots
Contributor
1
Founding Designer
Oh that's interesting @justatitle heard this from another team too; why the change in your case? And did you'll notice any marked improvements?
Justatitle
Big Shot
0
Account Executive
CSMs aren’t sales people and don’t want to be either(most times) AMs are there to upsell and it’s an expected conversation.
TheQueenofDiamonds
Politicker
0
Account Executive
Client sales team. Super cringe process imo
Maximas
Tycoon
0
Senior Sales Executive
AEs.
FlyingHellfish
Good Citizen
0
Director of Business Development
This is a hard question because each org treats the roles a little differently and you have to understand the culture of the roles.

For example, I have worked at orgs that CSMs want nothing to do with quotas, upselling, etc. and the company makes them a highly trained support team. Leadership knows this is the team they have so they hire accordingly. In other orgs I have seen the opposite and CSMs are basically AEs in training.

The short of it is, do what makes sense for your org but don’t take a team of support people and try and make them talk deals with clients because they will do it poorly or avoid it like the plague.
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