Account Management Secrets

How to lead a customer success team gets complicated when nobody agrees on what the team is responsible for. Sales has a clear job. Post-sale teams are often expected to handle whatever comes their way, yet customer success still takes the blame when a customer churns. Host Alex Raymond talks with Beth Laplante, SVP of Customer Success at Adara, about what strong customer success leadership looks like inside a messy post-sale organization. Beth shares how she approaches her first 90 days as a leader, what she listens for before making changes, and why clarity around the team’s mandate matters more than many organizations realize. Beth also gets into customer success segmentation and the problems that show up when every account gets treated the same. A question about why one of her strongest account managers was working two dramatically different accounts opens up a bigger conversation about where senior talent belongs and what customers at different levels actually need. Alex then lays out his theory on why weak customer success forecasting costs leaders the trust of the CEO and CFO. Beth also takes a position on customer success reporting structure, and her answer starts with one question about renewals. Alex adds his own view on the chief customer officer role. Listen if you want to think more critically about how to lead a customer success team, bring more structure to post-sale, and build credibility with your CEO and CFO. Episode Breakdown: 00:00 What Senior Leaders See in Messy Post-Sale Teams 02:02 Why Customer Success Teams Tolerate So Much Chaos 06:09 Defining Service Tiers and Customer Expectations 09:18 Getting the Company to Respect Your Mandate 11:45 Segmentation and RACI Lessons From Two Turnarounds 16:00 Should Customers Know Their Tier? 20:33 Non-Negotiables That Replace Chaos With Structure 22:47 The JV Versus Varsity Forecast Trust Theory 29:25 CS Reporting Line and the CCO Debate 32:27 Earning CFO Trust and Managing Up 39:10 How to Lead a Customer Success Team Through Change Connect with Beth Laplante: Connect with Beth on LinkedIn Connect with Alex Raymond: Connect with Alex on LinkedIn Visit the AMplify website Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

Most account managers wonder what it takes to move from managing a book of business to leading one. George Siter has made that climb, going from director to VP and then into two different SVP roles at Mastercard, and he has real answers for anyone mapping their own account management career path. In this episode of Account Management Secrets, host Alex Raymond talks with George Siter, Senior Vice President, Regional Financial Institutions at Mastercard, about what he had to learn and unlearn at each step up. George explains why the jump from director to VP is often the hardest one, since you still need to know the details while learning to manage your team, communicate up, and make the case in 30 to 120 seconds. George also breaks down how his team runs growth reviews instead of traditional QBRs, always asking the client to speak first. He shares how his team starts the annual account planning process right after Thanksgiving, and the mentor who once told him he had too many singles on his list and needed home runs instead. For anyone building account management leadership skills or trying to figure out how to sell without feeling like a salesperson, the conversation about protecting your energy, along with George's advice to never wear your targets on your face, is worth hearing in full. Press play to hear what it takes to move from account management into senior leadership without losing sight of the client. Episode Breakdown: 00:00 George Siter's Role Leading Regional Financial Institutions 07:49 Why Partners Don't Ask for Money First 09:22 Running Growth Reviews Instead of Traditional QBRs 11:37 Building the Annual Account Planning Process 15:41 Sizing Account Plans to Match Portfolio Value 17:14 Becoming a Generalist and Industry Thought Leader 20:58 Turning a Million Dollar Account Into Ten 23:34 Rubber Balls, Crystal Balls, and Protecting Your Energy 26:52 Mapping the Account Management Career Path to SVP 37:53 Standards, Accountability, and What Gets Someone Fired 42:56 Building Internal Relationships and Making the Business Case Connect with George Siter: Connect with George Siter Visit the Mastercard website Connect with Alex Raymond: Connect with Alex on LinkedIn Visit the AMplify website Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

Most account managers know they're supposed to "know their customer." Few have an actual system for what that means or how to prove it. Dan Horowitz, Head of US Sales & Account Management at Taboola, joins Alex Raymond to break down how to build a customer relationship map that protects revenue instead of just decorating a slide. Dan explains that strong account management starts with the fundamentals, including a red-yellow-green heat map of the relationships across an account, not just the one champion who takes your calls. He uses the example of "Susie," where an entire relationship depends on a single person who could leave the company tomorrow. Dan also walks through creative account management strategies his teams have used to move relationships from transactional to strategic customer relationships, including a Yahoo Mail partnership with Walmart that lets users order groceries with one click, and a digital Super Bowl squares game built for Pizza Hut. Both started with an account manager who knew the customer well enough to spot an opportunity nobody else saw. He also gets specific on how to know your customer in account management, right down to the language your customer's industry uses, and why hospitality in account management (borrowed straight from restaurateurs Danny Meyer and Will Guidara) might matter more than another QBR deck. If you want a real framework for how to build a customer relationship map instead of another vague reminder to "know your customer," this episode gives you one. Press play and steal it for your next account plan. Episode Breakdown: 00:00 Dan Horowitz's Mandate to Grow Revenue 02:30 The Art of Account Management Versus the Science 09:03 Inside Taboola's Account Management Structure and Focus 12:41 Small Steps Versus Big Leaps in Customer Growth 17:41 The Walmart and Yahoo Mail Grocery Partnership Story 19:05 How to Know Your Customer and Map Relationships 33:14 The Pizza Hut Super Bowl Squares Innovation 38:08 Hospitality and Moving From Transactional to Strategic 41:05 Risk Registers, Psychological Safety, and Celebrating Wins 49:35 Advice for Account Managers Ready to Leap Connect with Dan Horowitz: Connect with Dan on LinkedIn Connect with Alex Raymond: Connect with Alex on LinkedIn Visit the AMplify website Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

Your happiest customers might be the first ones to leave. That is the uncomfortable finding behind why customer satisfaction doesn't predict retention, and new data makes it even stronger. Some of the most demanding, hardest to please customers turn out to be the ones who never walk away. Greg Daines, founder and CEO of ChurnRx, returns to Account Management Secrets for his second appearance with host Alex Raymond. Their first conversation ran back in episode five, and the pattern they found then has only gotten stronger since. Daines now calls the strongest version of it customer bonding, the point where a customer becomes nearly impossible to lose. His customer bonding and retention research explains exactly why. Daines explains why does NPS predict retention is the wrong question to ask, and why your loudest, most demanding accounts are often your safest ones. He unpacks measurable results customer retention data showing how one tangible win can move a customer into a category that almost never churns. The talk turns to customer satisfaction vs retention through a story from inside a major enterprise account, one that forced Daines to rethink how account managers earn trust. Raymond and Daines also revisit quarterly business reviews and what separates a real account management retention strategy from one that just fills time on a calendar. Press play to hear why customer satisfaction doesn't predict retention, and what actually keeps your best accounts from walking away. Episode Breakdown: 00:00 Welcome Back Greg Daines to the Show 02:23 Does the No Correlation Finding Still Hold 08:34 NPS as a Misleading North Star Metric 09:21 Is Customer Loyalty Even a Real Thing 15:07 Exogenous Churn and the Noise Floor 16:31 Customer Bonding Is a Real Phenomenon 21:58 The Reverse Correlation Between Happiness and Bonding 26:34 The Intel Story and Pushing Back on Clients 34:08 Segmenting Your Portfolio by Real Risk 47:18 Rethinking QBRs Around Value Not Updates Connect with Greg Daines: Connect with Greg on LInkedIn Visit the ChurnRX website Connect with Alex Raymond: Connect with Alex on LinkedIn Visit the AMplify website Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

Most account teams don't lose customers overnight. They lose them slowly, through signals nobody caught in time. Knowing how to identify at-risk customers before they churn is the difference between a controlled loss and a surprise that blindsides the whole business. On Account Management Secrets, host Alex Raymond talks with Daniel Santiago, Senior Vice President of Customer Success at OrthoFi, about the net revenue retention strategy that took his team from 85% to 108% net revenue retention. Daniel explains the watch list system he built to catch what he calls "green-to-gone" accounts before they slip away. Daniel walks through how OrthoFi worked to reduce customer churn in the first six months of a relationship, and how his team aims to keep churn forecasts within a plus-or-minus-five-percent tolerance. He also breaks down how quarterly business review best practices changed at OrthoFi, shifting QBRs from tactical fixes to conversations built on real data. Along the way, he unpacks net revenue retention vs gross revenue retention and what that fifteen-point spread reveals about a customer base. Listen to hear how Daniel built a culture where flagging risk early gets rewarded instead of punished, and what it takes to run a customer success team on outcomes instead of instinct. Episode Breakdown: 00:00 Welcome and Daniel Santiago's Path to OrthoFi 06:45 Splitting Customer Success From the Sales Org 11:48 Fixing the First Six Months to Cut Early Churn 18:35 How to Identify At-Risk Customers Before They Churn 21:00 The “Green-to-Gone” Problem and Building Psychological Safety 24:52 Minimizing Forecast Variance for Accurate Renewals 29:01 Turning QBRs Into Real Business Conversations 36:17 What Private Equity Expects From Customer Success 40:00 Net Revenue Retention Targets and Staying Power at OrthoFi Connect with Daniel Santiago: Connect with Daniel on LinkedIn Visit the OrthoFi website Connect with Alex Raymond: Connect with Alex on LinkedIn Visit the AMplify website Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm