5 Powerful Retention Strategies Pre-Sale

“Make the hero of the story usage versus closed contracts. Everyone can rally around that, not just sales.”

One of the biggest issues I see with sales organizations is a misalignment between incentives for closing a new business deal and incentivizing someone to use the product.

There’s one part of the organization that is typically the biggest, makes the most money, and has the biggest bat to swing in certain meetings, but their only focus and KPI is closing more deals – I’m talking about Sales. Then we have the other half who need people to use the product and want to continue using the product – that’s Customer Success.

That’s the starting friction point as I dig more into retention and growth strategies over the next month.

How can we change our pre-sale processes to fix this misalignment?

First, we need to remember that, ultimately, an organization’s goal is not to sign contracts. We want to sign contracts with people who are using the product and create power users. 

Because if they use the product, they don’t churn. So today, I’m covering five ways Sales can align to this goal and help to create users:

1. 1. Align everyone in the organization to one goal
   2. Adjust compensation to include renewals
   3. Talk about post-sale touchpoints pre-sale
   4. Make sure you have measurable goal alignment
   5. Bring in CS and put customers into the story

Recap: Powerful Retention Strategies Before You Close the Deal

The important bits

• :20 – The biggest issue with sales organizations right now is a misalignment between closing new business deals and incentivizing someone to use the product.
• 1:30 – A company’s job should be to create power users.
• 3:28 – Our job is to do one thing. When we close a deal, make sure our customers are set up for success. 
• 4:29 -If your sales organization does not have some part of their comp tied to renewals, you will have a more difficult time aligning sales and customer success.
• 5:14 – If you only incentivize your sales team to close the first deal, you are dramatically hurting your revenue. 
• 8:00 – During the pre-sales process, talk about how you’ll proactively add value (implementation and ongoing support), so you don’t lose to “no decision.”
• 10:00 – If I can’t measure it, and I can’t define it clearly, it can’t be a goal.
• 11:34 – Goal alignment is understanding their needs and what they’re trying to accomplish and then making it measurable.
• 12:32 – When you get close to the finish line, customers need to talk to the person who will make them successful. 
• 16:35 – Make the hero of the story usage versus closed contracts. Everyone can rally around that, not just sales.
• 18:15 – Use data to influence retention over time. 

Strategy #1: Align everyone in the organization to one goal

Imagine sitting your sales team down and saying, “I still want you guys to get signed contracts. We can’t keep the lights on without them. But… I also want you to tee up these people for success as users.” 

We’ve all seen the stats. It costs much more to generate a new customer than it costs to keep a current one. Yet, we’ve incentivized salespeople to bring in new customers but not to retain them.

It starts at the top, and the first step here is to sit down with your entire revenue organization, it doesn’t matter if you have a thousand sellers or ten sellers, and get them all on the same page.

The page is this: When you close a deal, you must ensure your customers are set up for success. 

Marketing, Sales, and Account Management/Customer Success all have one goal: to create power users.

Strategy #2: Adjust compensation to include renewals

A percentage of your sales comp plan should be tied to renewals… I talk about this a lot.

If you want to grow retention, you have to adjust the comp plan to reflect that. Otherwise, you’re disincentivizing Sales to care about retention. Your reps are in sales to make money. We want to believe they care more about the business and adding value to customers, but at the end of the day, they have bills.

If your sales organization does not have some part of their comp tied to renewals, you will have difficulty aligning sales with the goal of creating power users. So even if that rep doesn’t keep the account, they’re incentivized to help with the growth and expansion. 

You are dramatically hurting your revenue if you only incentivize your sales team to close the first deal. 

I know this from experience. This year I realigned Skaled’s new business sales comp to 50/50. Reps get paid 50% on net new, and 50% on the total number, which is basically a mix of net new plus expansion. Why? I want my new business team to focus on bringing the right people in so we can take care of customers on the back end. 

You can’t expect people to be aligned with organizational strategy if you then reward them for doing the opposite.

Related Content: Best Sales Compensation Plan for SaaS & Professional Services

Strategy #3: Talk about post-sale touchpoints pre-sale

Now, for this one. You’re going to want to strategically tier your customers first. It will help you prioritize people who are going to spend more or have the propensity to spend more. 

This is important because not everyone will have the same post-sale experience, and for each tier, you’ll want to build proactive touchpoints from account management or customer success – but sales needs to be able to talk about them.

You don’t have to tell customers they’re a tier-two customer, obviously, but during the pre-sales process, tell them something very simple about these post-sale touchpoints, like, “The beautiful part about how we work together is we’ll have weekly meetings throughout the first month, where we check in on implementation, troubleshooting, etc.” 

Then your rep can outline touchpoints for month two, month three, and so on. 

The bonus to this strategy is not only is it good for retention, but it also ensures reps don’t lose to “no decision.”

How many times have your reps lost a sale to no decision because the customer wondered, “Wait, what’s going to happen next?” They get nervous.

There’s this new book out by Matt Dixon, who wrote Challenger Sale, called The Jolt Effect. The Jolt Effect, by the way, is not a sales methodology; it’s a really clever way to describe what’s called “A Fear of Messing Up” or FOMU. The book is really about how people need to know the implementation plan to feel comfortable.

So again, create those tiers, and then during the pre-sales process, talk about how you will proactively add value. Put them in the story of what will happen next, making it crystal clear, so your buyer is confident and not left wondering.

Related Content: 5 Habits of Successful Salespeople

Strategy #4: Make sure you have measurable goal alignment

The next step is understanding goal alignment. This is important. 

I’ll give you an example. I recently had a conversation with one of our consultants, and he said, “Jake, our job on this project is to increase adoption of XYZ technology.” 

That’s not a goal. Because how do you define adoption? How do you define success? 

And we can’t help someone achieve something if we can’t define what they are trying to achieve. 

For those of you who are familiar, this is where SMART goals come into play. The OG, and still one of the best ways to set goals. SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant/Realistic, and Time-bound. 

Making sure you’re aligned on goals is important to retention because if you set a goal that isn’t realistic or achievable, that customer will not renew. The #1 rule I’d give to AEs is to ensure it’s measurable.

This is the most important part for two reasons. (1) from the customer’s perspective, Sales isn’t really understanding what they’re trying to achieve if they can’t put a metric to it. And (2), from the sales perspective, if you don’t make it measurable, how can you prove that you achieved it at the end of the contract? How can you say it was even realistic before they signed?

Strategy #5: Bring in CS and put customers into the story

Last but certainly not least is to bring in customer success or account management earlier in the conversation.

My sales teams were doing this more than a decade ago. Once a deal gets to the finish line, and you know you’re about to potentially hand the deal off signed with a bow, you must get the next person or team involved so they can start to build rapport with the customer. 

Customers need to talk to the person who’s actually going to make them successful. 

This goes back to #3 and helps ease their fear of messing up.

Zig Zeigler is a sales training legend guru who talks about putting customers into the story. Say you’re selling a house. You would say something like, “Imagine having breakfast every day where you could look out those sliding glass doors and see that cherry tree blooming.”

Can you picture it? It’s that visual that Zig Zeigler is talking about that makes all the difference.

So when you talk about onboarding, what happens next, and the ongoing partnership, you’re putting people in the story. They start to see themselves and their organization moving forward with you. And the CS person, the person who’s actually going to work with them to meet those goals is the person who’s going to be in the picture with them.

Recapping the Recap

1. To reiterate, the top thing organizations need to do to retain customers is to align everyone in the organization to one goal: creating power users. It’s so powerful when you make the hero of the story usage versus closed contracts. Everyone can rally around that, not just sales. 
2. Number two is changing the comp structure. If you think about the behaviors you want from your customer, incentivizing that behavior in Sales will help drive them into customers. 
3. Number three is to create customer tiers and then create proactive touchpoints for each tier. Talk about these touchpoints with respect to going live. And then create this beautiful story that customers can put themselves into. 
4. That leads to number four, goal alignment or defining measurable goals. Getting AEs to use a piece of technology is not a goal. It’s a hope and a wish. A goal is specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. Every single one of your customers, every single person that you sign up at an organization, should have a SMART goal attached to their account.
5. Finally, number five is to bring in CS before you close the deal. Make sure you’re bringing them in so your customers can see their CS rep and hear them talk about making them successful. 

Here’s a bonus tip. Use data to influence retention over time. You will have to work with people, adjust their tiers, and adjust their goals. So make sure you have a way to measure these things internally, so you can ensure the customer experience keeps getting better and better.

And don’t just do this for the bigger companies but also based on a company’s propensity to spend. It’s not just the big guys you should plan to retain; it’s also those who could spend a lot of money with you over time.

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