Shadowing Practice: Why Renewals Are Won or Lost Before the Renewal Call - Learn English Speaking with Video
Creating lesson...
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Have you ever walked into a renewal call feeling super nervous,
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like thinking that maybe this renewal conversation is about to make or break your annual renewal targets?
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Like everything depends on how well you present pricing, defend value, and handle objections.
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And then you end up hanging up the call and thinking that could have gone better.
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And honestly, that might sting a little,
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but renewals are almost never won or lost on the actual renewal call.
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They are won or lost months before it actually happens.
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And if you are waiting until like 60 days out to save an account, you're already too late.
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And in today's episode, we are breaking down why renewals are decided long,
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long, long before pricing is ever discussed.
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And what most customer success teams get wrong about renewal strategy
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and exactly what to do differently if you want a predictable retention and expansion plan for this year.
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So if you care about net revenue retention, if you want to stop firefighting churn, and
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if you want to become the kind of customer success professional who drives commercial outcomes well this episode is for you
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hello everyone i'm your host anika zubair
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and welcome to the customer success pro podcast your go -to space for real talk expert advice
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and actionable insights in the world of customer success i'm a cs executive leader award -winning strategist cs coach
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and customer success fanatic I help CSMs and CS leaders build the skills
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and the confidence to become revenue -driving pros and scale world -class CS teams.
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So whether you're brand new to CS or a seasoned leader, this podcast is here to support your growth.
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Because customer success isn't a destination, it's a journey.
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And I'm here to be your guide and navigate every step of your journey.
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So join me every Wednesday where you'll get fresh CS tips, tricks, and strategies you can actually use.
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Some weeks, I'll share my own insights and best practices from working in CS over the last 13 years.
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And once a month, I'll bring on expert guests to dive into the most relevant and pressing topics in customer success today.
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So if you're ready to level up, hit subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you tune in,
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and let's make your CS journey a little bit easier together.
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All right, let's be real and honest, because that's all I do on this podcast, honestly.
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Right now, every SaaS board deck is obsessed with one metric, okay?
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It's always been the case, by the way, but I think now more than ever,
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every board, every executive team is looking at net revenue retention,
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not just growth, retention, because in this market, capital is super hard to come by and is tighter than ever,
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and budgets are being scrutinized, and CFOs are asking one question, which is where are we actually seeing the return on investment, right?
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We have seen companies like Salesforce and Zoom publicly talk about efficiency,
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profitability, and expansion from existing customers being more important than pure new logo acquisition.
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And why is that?
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Well, because it is so much cheaper to retain and grow existing customers than to acquire a new one.
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This isn't new news, but I think boards and executives
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and investors are waking up to the fact
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that it is time to actually act on net revenue retention
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and retain existing customers more than try to grow or chase new logos.
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But the thing no one is talking about, enough at least in my opinion, is retention doesn't just happen at renewal.
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It is not like your typical sales cycle, right?
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You do not just decide in one
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or two calls towards the end of a sales cycle
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if you're going to sign the renewal contract or not right a renewal and retention actually happens through
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value realization and value realization
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that happens way way way before the renewal ever hits your
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crm playbook where it says 60 days out time to have a renewal conversation and
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that is what we're going to be talking about in more
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detail is like how to actually make sure value realization is happening
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because let me describe a scenario that might feel a little bit too familiar
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if you are a customer success professional actively having renewal conversations
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you end up opening up your crm or your customer success tool or customer success program or whatever you're using, right?
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And you end up seeing an account that is about 90 days from renewal, maybe a little bit more, but 90 days is pretty average, by the way.
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That's a very typical renewal playbook.
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And I'm saying renewal playbook in quotes if you are watching this video because it is typical to say, oh, 90 days out, we need to start what we need to do to prepare for a renewal.
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Usage looks okay.
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No major escalations.
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No outstanding support tickets.
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So you decide to schedule a renewal prep call.
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You send a slide deck over to your executive team with product metrics, with upcoming roadmap, with everything that you guys have worked on.
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And you talk about all the features delivered and all the features used, et cetera, et cetera.
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And then you remind them of all the support tickets that you guys have sold, all the custom work you've built.
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And then the customer says, we're evaluating our budget and we are not sure
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if we're getting enough value from your product and service and we might be reducing licenses.
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Or maybe they might even say something even riskier or spicier where they might say, we are actually looking at alternatives.
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And then you are suddenly blindsided.
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And it's like, oh my gosh, what happened?
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I thought everything was on track.
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My renewal playbook is saying I checked all the boxes and did all the right things, right?
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And from your perspective, nothing really was wrong.
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And even inside your CSP or CRM, it was telling you that it looked good right?
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But here is the problem.
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Renewals are emotional decisions wrapped up in financial language.
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Let me say that again so you hear it clearly.
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Renewals are emotional decisions that are wrapped up in financial language.
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And if your customer has not felt consistent, measurable progress towards their goals,
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the renewal call is simply a moment where they can finally say it out loud, by the way.
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Because we're all polite, right?
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As customers, we kind of wait to see what the value or ROI is.
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We're like, okay, maybe the next month or the next call, we'll end up seeing how this product is going to serve us, right?
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And then eventually it comes to the renewal call.
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They're not seeing value, ROI, or anything delivered that they've expected when it comes to their business outcomes.
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And then they air it all out on a renewal call, right?
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The renewal call does not create churn, by the way.
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It reveals churn that has already been kind of building
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and brewing in the background right this is churn that has been ongoing for months
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but it suddenly came up to boil and it came to the top
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and your customers actually exposing it right
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and the reason this happens is there are a few things
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that we tend to do wrong along the customer journey
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and i see this over and over again
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and i've been guilty of some of these things too
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but we end up doing certain things with our customers throughout the entire customer journey
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that ends up costing us value rather than creating value
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and creating roi for our customers and one of the things
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that is so so common is that we end up treating onboarding as implementation
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and not as a transformation by the way the first 90 days are about training
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and feature walkthrough and all of these like integrations and things
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that you do with a product which yes that does have a time
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and place and yes you need to make sure you're doing
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that with your product because you do need to get your customer up and running.
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But you cannot forget that there are business outcomes, right?
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You are setting yourself up for a fragile renewal if you do not actually talk about the transformation that's going to happen.
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Because just as a reminder, 90 days ago, your customer did not have your product or they had something different, right?
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90 days ago, they were functioning as a business that had a serious problem, a serious gap, a serious issue that they were trying to solve for
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and your product was supposed to fill that gap, right?
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They wanted to have a big transformation.
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And if you are only focusing in onboarding about what was done
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or what was implemented or what sort of integration they were able to accomplish, you are literally leaving your renewal to chance.
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And customers do not renew software, by the way.
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They renew progress.
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They renew that gap that they had, that problem that they had before, they are renewing on the fact that you fill that gap
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and you're continuing to progress and filling that problem that they had without your product in the first place.
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Quick pause from today's episode because if you are listening to this episode and thinking, my team needs this, well,
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this is for you because let's be super real and honest
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and let's just call this out most customer success teams are
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busy busy busy calendars are double triple quadruple booked calls are happening back to back to back
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and emails are flying everywhere but renewals still feel super stressful upsells feel super random
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and proving Comparing ROI and value feels harder than it honestly should.
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And your team might know the theory of being strategic, but in the moment.
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on a live customer call, they end up defaulting back to updates, features, and check -ins.
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Now imagine something different.
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Your customer success managers walk into renewal conversations already aligned on outcomes,
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confidently identifying expansion opportunities through white space analysis,
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and telling clear ROI stories that connect product usage to real business impact.
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Forecasting renewals and upsells with clarity instead of that guesswork that we all do every day.
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That is exactly why we at the Customer Success Pro team have built out team workshops.
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These are hands -on tactical and practical sessions where your team brings real accounts, real agendas, real renewal scenarios,
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and we work through them together.
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From value -led conversations, to strategic discovery, to ROI storytelling, and upsell identification,
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your team will leave these workshops with practical frameworks that they can apply immediately.
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And if you're ready to turn your customer success team into a revenue engine,
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then go ahead and head over to the customersuccesspro .com forward slash team hyphen event.
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And let's talk about designing a workshop for your team.
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All right, let's get back into the episode.
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All right.
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Another thing that we tend to do to ourself is we tend not to document things.
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And I say this with all the love in the world, but we tend to create success plans, right?
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I think we all do this or to some sort, we do create some sort of success plans.
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And if you've never created a success plan, I've done a whole other podcast episode on this.
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So go check that out.
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But what we end up doing is we end up creating
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a success plan in the first 30 days with a customer
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and then we tend to forget to document all the success
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that that plan even outlined right and what we even forget
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which is even worse by the way is we end up forgetting to tie every single thing on
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that success plan to a commercial metric that matters to our customer now
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if you cannot clearly articulate what the customer is trying to achieve with your product, how you are measuring it,
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what success looks like in dollar terms at their company, then you got to start asking some tougher questions of your customer, right?
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Because then the renewal just becomes a vibe.
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It just becomes a feeling.
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And let's just be honest, we don't want a vibe.
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We don't want a feeling.
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We want the renewal to become something that is subjective and direct.
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And subjective value, it ends up being dangerous because it's interpreted, it's kind of misunderstood.
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You want it to be as clear and articulated as possible and as connected to as many metrics, especially if it's dollar or money metrics.
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That is the most important, right?
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And another thing that we keep doing throughout the customer journey is we only talk to our day -to -day champion.
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And multi -threading is super important, by the way.
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We need to do it more often, okay?
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When you had your kickoff call or your handover call from your sales team,
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I'm guessing there's probably at least three to five people that your sales manager or sales associate introduced, right?
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They said, okay, this is the executive buyer.
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Here are the three implementation managers.
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Here's the technical contact.
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Here's the financial contact.
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They give it all to you, right?
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And it's usually probably in your CRM somewhere, all right but what ends up happening is as we get more
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and more comfortable with our customers we end up talking to our main champion the main person
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that uses our product every single day and that is just detriment
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that we're just adding more problems to our plate already
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if you're not actually multi -threading and if you're not speaking to budget owners
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if you're not aligning to executive priorities then your renewal is sitting in the hands of someone without the decision power.
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And that is so, so, so risky.
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Okay.
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Like, please do not give that power away.
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Make sure you have the right people in the conversation.
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And the final thing that I will say
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that honestly ends up costing renewals and end up making us really question
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if the renewal is actually going to happen is we end up saving value conversations for quarterly business reviews.
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If you are only sharing value on a quarterly basis, you might as well just mark that customer is churned.
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And I know that sounds harsh, but if the only time you are actually talking about ROI is once a quarter in a formal slide deck,
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then value feels very perceived and very systematic and very much not something in an everyday use of your product.
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Value needs to feel continuous.
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It needs to feel like the natural next step.
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It needs to feel like they're having a transformation every single time they're using your product and honestly
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I think the reason why we have this problem overall in customer success is in general,
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in CS, we tend to confuse activity with impact.
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And this has a lot to do with the fact that back in the day in older customer success,
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back in the 2010s of customer success or even the 2000s of customer success, We used to really say if you had a call with a customer, if a customer logged in,
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if a customer actually integrated, that was enough.
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That level of activity showed us that a customer was actively engaged
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and that level of activity kind of gave us a clear indicator that a renewal was going to happen.
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But unfortunately, in 2026 and beyond, activity is an impact, right?
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Just because you've had monthly calls, it doesn't mean that the account is healthy just
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because usage exists doesn't mean value is actually realized by your stakeholders and your budget holders.
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Renewals are not protected by how busy you are with that client.
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They are protected by the business outcomes your client is able to actually achieve.
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And I know I've talked a lot about what we've been doing wrong
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and what we maybe have been doing too often
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when it comes to renewals but instead of all of this instead of just measuring activity
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and trying to really talk about impact
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and value i want you to start to anchor everything like
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really really anchor it in into a revenue success plan from day one right build
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that a beautiful success plan with your customer but make sure
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that you have revenue metrics attached to it right
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and make sure you're tracking it and really visualizing it
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and showing it to your customer day after day after day not a checklist, by the way, because a lot of people think success plans are a checklist.
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They are not a checklist.
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It is a living, breathing document.
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And it really should include like the customer strategic business goals, right?
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Not what they're trying to do with your product.
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What are their business goals?
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And then you need to connect your product back to those business goals.
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And then you need to ask them, how are you going to measure outcomes tied to these goals?
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Like what are your measurable outcomes?
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What are the ROI metrics?
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What are the actual metrics that we're going to track, right?
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Create a timeline, make sure that the executive stakeholders have access to the success plan and that risk and expansion opportunities,
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it's all very clear and easy to understand in this plan.
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And you should be using this plan, by the way, in every major conversation.
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I loved using success plans at the start of every customer call I had.
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The reason being is it kept us on track
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and it kept a very real pulse on the situation of what was happening within that customer's business.
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And if you aren't using success plans, please do.
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I do have an entire podcast all around this, but they are truly the unlock of what's reactive versus strategic in customer success.
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All right.
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Another thing that we need to start changing is we need to start tracking leading indicators of renewal risk, right?
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Not just NPS, not just CSAT, not just logins.
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We need to really look at things like executive alignment or executive engagement, adoption depth across multiple teams,
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alignment to the current company priorities.
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Like, do you actually have company goals outlined from your customers?
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And then you need to also know two really, really important things at your customer level.
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You need to know the budget cycle timing.
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When do they make budgetary decisions as a business?
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Because when they make budgetary decisions and when the actual renewal is might be two totally different times.
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So you need to know what is their budget cycle internally or as close to possible knowing that.
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And you also need to know who is the budget holder, meaning who has, if a contract was put in front of the customer today,
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who has signing authority and who has the right to use that budget to pay for your software, right?
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And if your champion changes roles and you do not rebuild alignment immediately, your renewal clock just started ticking, right?
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so make sure you have all of this alignment clearly understood within the account
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and the final thing i'm gonna say is you've really really
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got to start practicing on making every single call email interaction
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with your customer a true value conversation even the check -ins you have on a weekly
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or monthly basis right every conversation should really answer the question what progress have we made since the last time we spoke?
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What measurable impact can we start to point to?
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What is the next milestone that we are working with, right?
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These commercial conversations should start early and often.
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And yes, they should be at least 120 days out from a renewal conversation, and it should not be about pricing, right?
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We need to start to talk about impact, right?
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We need to really talk about value.
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And if you just wait until 60 days, before renewal to start mentioning a renewal, it's going to feel transactional and your customer is going to treat it as such, right?
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If you start at 120 days starting to review outcomes and future strategy, renewals start to feel like a conversation.
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They start feeling like a continuation of what's next
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and not like a hard negotiation that I know a lot of us dread, right?
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And I personally used to dread them early, early in my career.
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I had accounts that looked so perfect and healthy on paper and honestly had a green health score in our CSP.
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The usage was great, honestly.
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And even my champions, super, super engaged, no open tickets, no open escalations, great, great relationship with my main contact.
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But when the renewal actually came up, they ended up churning, completely churned, right?
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I was in shock.
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Like truly, I was like, what did I do wrong?
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And when I asked for honest feedback, here's what they actually told me.
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They said, you were great, but you never tied this into a bigger business priority for us.
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So when our budgets got super, super tight this quarter, it was easy for us to cut the tool
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because we weren't sure how this actually tied into our bigger business goals.
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And that moment was such a huge learning moment for me.
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Like that one conversation with a customer really pivoted how I decided to show up and show value to customers.
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That one set has honestly changed how I saw customer success forever.
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It made me realize something so, so important.
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Like if your product is not connected to a strategic initiative, it truly becomes optional.
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Okay.
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And I know a lot of you are sitting there
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and thinking you want to have a product and a service that your customers have to have, that it's a must have in their product tech stack and not something that's a nice to have.
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But the only way that's going to happen is
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if you are able to connect your product and service to a strategic initiative at your customer's company, right?
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Optional tools are always the first to go.
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And a lot of times, even though tools might seem like they're a must have and not a nice to have,
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if they're not tied to a business outcome or to a customer's business outcome, then they're going to be the first out.
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And honestly, since that conversation, I have been obsessed with one thing, especially when it comes to renewals.
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I have been truly obsessed with executive alignment.
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And if I personally cannot explain in CFO language why this investment drives revenue, reduces costs, or mitigates risks,
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then I'm honestly not doing my job when it comes to renewals.
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Like renewals are not defended with charm.
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They are defended with strategic relevance, right?
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And that's what you've got to really practice.
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So as per every weekly solo episode, here is your weekly challenge.
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I want you to pick an account that is renewing in the next six months.
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And I want to ask yourself three questions.
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You need to ask yourself, one, can I clearly articulate the customer's top three business goals for this year?
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Question two, do I have quantified evidence of progress that's tied to those goals that they've shared with me?
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And question three, have I validated this value with an executive level stakeholder in the last 90 days at this customer's account?
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If the answer to any of those questions is no, that renewal is at risk.
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Do not wait.
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Start to roll out these questions and these steps
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that I've highlighted in this podcast schedule a value alignment conversation this week with that account.
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All right.
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Do not frame it as a renewal prep.
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Okay.
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Frame it as something like a strategy alignment conversation or a value realization conversation, because that is what it actually is.
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All right.
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Okay.
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We talked a lot about renewals on this episode.
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So let's quickly recap.
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And I really want you to hopefully take this away from this podcast episode is
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that renewals are not one on a renewal call.
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They are one in onboarding.
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They are a one in success planning.
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They are one in multi -threading with executives.
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They are one when you have executive alignment.
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They are one when you show consistent value storytelling throughout the entire customer journey.
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And if you are scrambling 30 days before renewal.
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The real issue started months ago.
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And the best customer says pros I know don't just save renewals.
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They truly design them.
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They build renewal confidence quarter by quarter with their customers.
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And if this episode hit a little close to home, that's not a bad thing.
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That means you are ready to level up on how you approach retention and expansion.
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And if you want deeper frameworks plug -and -play templates, and real coaching on how to build revenue success plans and lead executive -level value conversations,
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then that is exactly what we do inside of RevUp Academy.
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So make sure you are on our VIP wait list if you want early access to the next cohort.
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I will link it down in the show notes.
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And if this episode helped you rethink renewals, I would love it if you subscribe to the Customer Success Pro podcast,
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leave a review or a nice comment and go ahead and share this with your CS Bestie because sharing is caring.
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And who really wants to be in that last minute renewal panic?
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Go and help your CS Bestie out and share this podcast episode with them.
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All right.
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Until next week, remember this, renewals are not events.
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They are outcomes. And
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if you start building them today you are going to be
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on the path to success with your customers i hope you enjoyed this episode
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and thank you
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so much for tuning in to another episode of the customer
336
success pro podcast i will catch you next week thanks for
337
tuning in to the customer success pro podcast i hope you
338
picked up something valuable to take back to your team
339
if you enjoyed this episode it would mean the world to me
340
if you took just 10 seconds to leave a review on Apple or Spotify.
341
It helps more CS pros like yourself discover the show.
342
And creating new episodes takes a lot of work.
343
So leaving a nice review keeps me motivated to keep creating.
344
And don't forget to hit subscribe on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you listen to podcast episodes.
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I drop a new episode every Wednesday packed with practical tips.
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And if you've got a topic you'd love for me to cover or want to be a guest on my show, send me a message.
347
All the details are in the show notes.
348
I'd love to hear from you.
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And hey, if this episode helped you, share it with a fellow CSM or CS leader.
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Remember, sharing is caring.
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Cheers to your CS journey, and I'll catch you next week for our next episode.
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Thank you.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This B2 speaking lesson is built on the video “Why Renewals Are Won or Lost Before the Renewal Call”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: customer, renewal, success, value, episode. This video has 352 sentences and 4513 words to shadow. The speech runs for 27:27. The speaker talks at a natural 164 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. 85% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start.
Key vocabulary in this video
The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| renewal noun | The act of renewing. | |
| podcast noun | /ˈpɑdˌkæst/ | A program, especially an audio program, produced on a regular basis, delivered over the Internet in a compressed digital format and designed for playback on… |
| alignment noun | /əˈlaɪn.mənt/ | An arrangement of items in a line. |
| retention noun | /ɹɪˈtɛnʃən/ | The act of retaining or something retained. |
| metric adjective | /ˈmɛt.ɹɪk/ | Of or relating to the metric system of measurement. |
| churn verb | /t͡ʃɝn/ | To agitate rapidly and repetitively, or to stir with a rowing or rocking motion; generally applies to liquids, notably cream. |
| renew verb | /ɹɪˈnjuː/ | To make (something) new again; to restore to freshness or original condition. |
| playbook noun | /ˈpleɪ.bʊk/ | A book containing the text of a play or plays. |
| realization noun | /ˌɹɪə.laɪˈzeɪ.ʃən/ | An act of figuring out or becoming aware. |
| checklist noun | /ˈt͡ʃɛklɪst/ | A list of tasks to be completed, names to be consulted, conditions to be verified and similar. |
| measurable adjective | /ˈmɛʒəɹəbəl/ | Able to be measured. |
| obsess verb | /əbˈsɛs/ | To be preoccupied with a single topic or emotion. |
| onboard adjective | /ɒnˈbɔːd/ | Carried or used on or in a vehicle or vessel. |
| subscribe verb | /səbˈskɹaɪb/ | To write (one’s name) at the bottom of a document; to sign (one's name). |
| workshop noun | /ˈwɝk.ʃɑp/ | A room, especially one which is not particularly large, used for manufacturing or other light industrial work. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| end up verb | To bring to a conclusion. | |
| go ahead verb | /ˌɡoʊ əˈhɛd/ | To proceed with; to begin. |
| break down verb | To stop functioning. | |
| build out verb | To develop or expand (a system, structure, project, etc.). | |
| come up verb | To emerge or become known, especially unexpectedly. | |
| come up to verb | To approach. | |
| hang up verb | To put up to hang. | |
| open up verb | To open. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- And it's like, oh my gosh, what happened?
- Because we're all polite, right?
- All right, let's get back into the episode.
- We don't want a feeling.
- What measurable impact can we start to point to?
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Present perfect continuous have/has been + -ing — an action that started earlier and is still going on | has been ongoing · we've been doing · have been doing |
| Conditional sentences if + clause, will/would + verb — a condition and its result | if you enjoyed this episode it would mean · if you've got a topic you'd love |
| “Used to” used to + verb — a past habit or state that is no longer true | used to really say · used to dread |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | have seen · have worked · have sold |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 65 contractions and reduced forms, such as you're, I'm, they're. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: retention /ɹɪˈtɛnʃən/, realization /ˌɹɪə.laɪˈzeɪ.ʃən/, measurable /ˈmɛʒəɹəbəl/, workshop /ˈwɝk.ʃɑp/, escalation /ˌɛs.kəˈleɪ.ʃən/
- Long words — get the stress right: realization /ˌɹɪə.laɪˈzeɪ.ʃən/, measurable /ˈmɛʒəɹəbəl/, budgetary /ˈbʌd͡ʒ.əˌtɛɹ.i/, escalation /ˌɛs.kəˈleɪ.ʃən/, preposition /ˌpɹɛpəˈzɪʃən/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like renewal, podcast, alignment.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.