Why Sales Handoffs Matter More Than You Think | TFOS E16

When a deal closes, the real work begins—but only if sales and client success are aligned. In this episode of The Future of Selling, host Rick Smith sits down with award-winning client success leader Erica Newell to explore the underestimated power of a well-executed sales handoff.

Erica brings wisdom from years of customer success leadership, sharing why bad handoffs lead to churn, how “turf anxiety” kills collaboration, and what great teams do to build trust across the client lifecycle. You'll learn:

• The top 3 pitfalls of poor sales-CS transitions
• How to create a frictionless baton pass
• Why early involvement of CS (especially in enterprise deals) is essential
• Which metrics matter—and which don’t
• How to build client relationships that endure beyond contracts

Whether you're a CRO, CSM, or sales leader, this episode is packed with practical strategies to create smoother handoffs, happier clients, and healthier revenue.

Connect with Erica Newell: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericajnewell/

Connect with Rick Smith: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rick-smith-094b29b/

Check out Conquer: https://conquer.io/

Creators and Guests

Host

Rick Smith

Chief Customer Officer at Conquer, Host of The Future of Selling Podcast, Eternal Student

What is The Future of Selling?

The Future of Selling is the go-to podcast for sales professionals looking to sharpen their skills and stay ahead in the competitive world of B2B sales. Each episode features expert interviews, real-world case studies, and actionable tips to help you navigate the complex B2B buyer's journey. Whether you're dealing with long sales cycles, multiple decision-makers, or rapidly changing technologies, we’ve got you covered. Tune in to discover the latest trends, best practices, and proven strategies for closing more deals and building lasting relationships in the B2B space. Perfect for sales leaders, account managers, and anyone aiming to master the art of B2B selling.

Hey, welcome everybody to the Future of Selling podcast. We dive into challenges, trends, innovations, man, anything that's impacting the future of sales or the sales landscape. I'm your host, Rick Smith, and I'm really appreciative that you're here today to spend a little bit of time with us. so I want to talk about our guest, right? Our guest today is Erica Newell. Now, Erica is a seasoned client success executive, and she currently serves as the VP of client success here at Conquer.

working specifically with Full Circle Insights and our Full Circle Insights product. Erica just recently came on to the team, so so glad to have her not just on the team, but also on the podcast today. So, give you a little bit about her, right? Erica was named one of the top 100 customer success leaders in 2018, and I find that to be pretty impressive because I've never cracked the top 100.

So that's pretty cool we're going to talk a lot about that today. She has also been featured in some prominent publications right so pretty serious stuff the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post so you know a lot of credibility there her thought leadership extends to speaking you know in engagements and events like the customer success festival and matter of fact she did that just not very long ago and typically you know sharing insights on customer success.

talks a lot about AI and really how you integrate those things so anyway so glad to have her here Erica welcome to the podcast and I can't tell you how much I appreciate your time today.

Erica Newell (01:35.138)
Thank you so much, Rick. I'm excited to be here and share some practices we'll learn together and have a healthy discussion. Thanks.

Future Of Selling (01:42.034)
Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. Well, hey, before we jump in, right to the key topic, I want to talk a little bit about a couple of fun facts. I always like to start with those, know, people listen to podcasts, they see, you know, they hear about professional Erica, but what about Erica as a whole, right? What does she, you know, what does she look like? So kept picked up a couple of fun facts. One, you're an artist. I didn't know that until I until we collected this fun fact, you're an artist and you're interested in photography.

watercolors. Okay, that kind of makes sense, right? But also in welding that was that was really unexpected. I took welding class in like junior high and I hated it. know you're a welding buff. Pretty cool. So maybe that would come up at some point today. then also you're known as the Blazer Queen. So in 15 seconds, how did you become known as the Blazer Queen?

Erica Newell (02:27.918)
you

Erica Newell (02:39.766)
I love this so much. I think just over time, I mean, I love to thrift. I love to find like unique clothing pieces and all of that. And I think just over time I collected a bunch of these blazers and I would, I have been wearing them frequently enough for long enough that I was speaking at a big, we had a all company event in Mexico, like hundreds of people. I was on stage and they did this whole montage of me in blazers and.

Future Of Selling (02:51.952)
Right.

Future Of Selling (03:06.758)
Yeah, like it. We don't have one on the day though. So I mean, I feel like we should have pulled that one back. We should have found another fun fact or let you know ahead of time. But I have seen you in many Blazers and they're all sharp. So nicely done. Keep up the good work. I guess I'm the long sleeve golf shirt king or something. Anyway, good deal. Well, good.

Erica Newell (03:16.942)
Erica Newell (03:20.887)
It's...

Erica Newell (03:29.102)
Yeah.

Future Of Selling (03:32.466)
Couple of good fun facts about you and we'll learn more about you as we go through today. again, appreciate you being here. Let's jump in right into the topic. you know, really what we want to talk about today is how do we maintain a strong relationship or strong partnership even between sales and customer success? Because, you know, depending on the company, right? I've worked in companies where that was a really tight integration, the partnership was really good. I've also worked in companies where it wasn't so strong, right? So,

That's what we'd really like to talk about today, dive into your experience. Maybe we start right there. Let's start with defining and describing what good looks like when it comes to a healthy partnership or relationship between sales and customer success. Define it. Tell us what good looks like. I'll hand it off to you.

Erica Newell (04:22.466)
Yeah, this is a great place to start. I would say, intuitively, whether you're in sales or CS, we have the same mission long-term, right? Working with a business is solving problems for money, and we're just at different parts of that equation. And so to me, a healthy relationship between sales and CS is really this perfect, well-executed baton pass, right? How do we work together to bring our clients across the finish line to have mutual success?

It doesn't help either us or the business if we sell the wrong customers. It doesn't help our customers certainly. And so the better that relationship can be, the more sales we can make and the right sales can be made and the better long-term results we can have for our clients as well.

Future Of Selling (05:08.914)
Yeah, it makes perfect sense. So I'll just kind of repeat that a little bit, at least part of it. So just knowing that...

what does good look like it good looks like we're all focused and understand we're all focused on the same thing we're trying to work on the behalf of the client to provide them value at the end of the day and get them across whatever their finish line is right you know whatever their business objective is so that makes that makes good sense what what are some of the like the common pitfalls that you have seen you know when this when this partnership isn't working well and then and then I guess how do you address those.

Erica Newell (05:45.14)
Yeah, yeah, I would say that there's really three, I would say there's three common buckets that I see this breakdown happens. One is misaligned expectations. The second would be incomplete context. And then the third one is turf anxiety. talking about those three things. So misaligned expectations is first and foremost, are we making the right promises to customers? Are we?

you know, are we saying what needs to be said to get the deal across the finish line? And how are we teeing each other up for success? In complete context, we'll talk, maybe we should have a conversation that's deeper about handoff and what that can look like.

Future Of Selling (06:25.638)
Yeah, I want to get to that for sure.

Erica Newell (06:27.864)
Definitely, but I think that's a big, these all could be their own conversation topics, but incomplete context is really, we have on the customer success side, do we have what we need and do sales have what they need, right? Both sides need kind of different information, but similar. So we need that strong collaboration and communication. And then finally, I think the hardest one can be turf anxiety. So especially in environments where upsells or

Like who gets credit for what or who owns what part of the process, getting clarity there and understanding. if you're in CS, understanding how sales is compensated and helping them achieve that. And the other, the other way around too, sales understanding, Hey, how can I help my partners in CS win? So I think that that helps resolve some of that turf anxiety so that you can work together. Turf anxiety. Yeah.

Future Of Selling (07:20.05)
So what do you call that? What kind of anxiety do you call that? Turf anxiety. Turf. T-U-R-F. Turf anxiety. Okay, I've never heard that. That's right. So. Get off my lawn.

Erica Newell (07:26.286)
you got it, like get off my turf. Yeah, exactly. Exactly, exactly. And I think it really comes down to, like most things, comes down to communication and mutual respect. And those two things really can help drive everything in the right direction. And there's a few different practices that I would suggest to help with that, but we can dive in as we go today.

Future Of Selling (07:51.728)
Yeah, but like give me give me and we'll probably get into more but maybe give me one as long as we're kind of on this question. What's it you know if you've got got the pitfalls right turf anxiety clear expectations and then I think I think you called it context. What was that? How did you phrase that?

Erica Newell (08:07.96)
You got it. Yeah, in complete context. You got it.

Future Of Selling (08:10.066)
incomplete context. what's one of the, so what's, you know, give me one strategy to fix that. I mean, how do you address those pitfalls?

Erica Newell (08:17.486)
Yeah, I think one of the most key ones is often we find, so I talked about this baton pass really at the beginning of a relationship, sales is bringing in the customer, ideally they close, then customer success kind of takes it from there. And obviously it can continue and how you work together long-term varies by business and organization and all of that. But I will say that one of the biggest challenges and it's for a customer as well, for a customer...

to succeed, we want this baton pass to be really seamless. And so one of the core things is having a kind of a, I'll often do this within your CRM or something like that, but even just a Google Sheetworks, what information do you need to know for an ideal handoff? And I think that there's common things like what's been sold or what was shown to a client.

Future Of Selling (08:49.745)
Yeah.

Future Of Selling (09:02.994)
Yeah.

Erica Newell (09:12.92)
But there's other things that are deeper. What's the pain they're experiencing or trying to solve? Really, are the, something that sometimes we forget about in the handoff is who was involved in the sale and what was their involvement? Do we have champions or detractors? And if you can understand that, then you can hopefully convert those detractors, right? You can help them see the wins and establish confidence with those people and then only continue to grow the people who are excited about it.

Future Of Selling (09:28.688)
Yeah, I love those.

Erica Newell (09:41.56)
from the beginning. So that way everybody's excited about the solution and right from the get-go you're working together.

Future Of Selling (09:41.852)
Yeah. Yeah.

Future Of Selling (09:46.057)
Yeah, yeah, gotcha, gotcha. I agree. I want me we may come back to that just to get a little more detail but completely agree on the importance of that that sales handoff. Sometimes I work for with somebody one time who didn't really like that word because they're like oh we're not handing off my book kind of are you know it's okay so whatever you want to call that meaning a transition meaning a partner you know partnering me whatever it is at some point

Erica Newell (10:03.852)
Yeah, right.

Future Of Selling (10:11.896)
sales is going to come in and they're going to say okay here's the partnership that I've built and the expectations around that right and if they're not clearly communicating that to the customer or the client side then you start off at a deficit and you kind of start off in the ditch right and from there you know it's a little bit hard to move forward so yeah so yeah good good fix for the pitfalls.

know thinking about that right the sales handoff how early in the sales process do you think the client success should be involved i mean is it is it kind of based on situations is it just you know you got you know it's it's always this i mean how do you think about the involvement of customer success or client success prior to contract signature and involvement sales process

Erica Newell (11:01.31)
Yeah, would say so equipping CS with the most information possible is only going to help. Their goal is to be a partner to the client, right? Not just a upsell machine or whatever. Like really to be successful, we have to have the client's trust and be a partner. So certainly the more information, the better. Now, something that many CS leaders struggle with is depending on your customer success model,

That can be hard to be scalable. For example, if you sell a lot of SMBs or if you have large book sizes, you may not be able to be on every discovery call. You may not be able to join the last calls with your clients, right, as they're closing. So I would say figuring out that model for your organization is going to be really important. And again, that almost a form or a conversation, and I would always pair a form with a follow-up conversation where you can dive into the deeper nuances.

And that's going to be really important in the SMB world. If you are signing a lot of enterprise accounts or you're a newer business, so you really need to understand what's your value fit and that kind of a thing. I would suggest getting customer success involved as soon as possible. So the earlier we understand what are the pain points, again, what is our customer trying to solve for? How do they expect that? Are they coming from other solutions?

Future Of Selling (12:18.437)
Okay.

Erica Newell (12:28.514)
All of those things can really help our long-term and it just builds that trust earlier with a client. So it makes it more seamless for a client as well.

Future Of Selling (12:34.61)
Gotcha, gotcha. So if we think about it in a linear fashion, which I often do, right, we've got a prospective customer that's in the sales process.

you're saying hey SMB maybe it's maybe they're not involved in that process so much but you know there's plenty of transition information but an enterprise deal then you want them involved as early as possible even if they're involved early though I think you still want to I think you still want to have a robust sales handoff I mean would you would you agree to that

Erica Newell (13:09.066)
I would definitely agree to that. Yes. If we don't know what we're building towards, we're going to fail. We're going to miss. And we might even use the wrong language with a customer that makes them feel unseen, or we're not working towards that goal. the more exactly, the more the better.

Future Of Selling (13:10.768)
Right, got it.

Future Of Selling (13:25.714)
think that's such an important critical piece of the onboarding and really the entire client life cycle. I know we talked about this a second ago little bit, but kind of dig in. Tell us maybe what the top five items that, if somebody's listening to this and they're like, oh, sales handoff, maybe we really need to get better at that. What do you think the top five are? They got to know the champion, they got to know this, that, and the other. What do you think? What needs to be there?

Erica Newell (13:54.21)
Yeah, would say first, the strategic objectives really that consists of again, goals, pain points, what are they, are they coming from a competitor, like really understanding the strategy and like why they made the decision that they did, because that may not be the reason long-term they keep renewing, but it will be their marker of success. And we'll talk maybe about metrics later, but time to value the earlier we can hit that milestone the better.

First, it's what is the strategic objectives? And then I would also say the internal org structure. So understanding the who's who is gonna be really important. So again, who's involved in the sale, but also we want to build relationships that are high and wide across an organization. If we wanna keep a customer long-term, we need buy-in from multiple groups. That helps you when you have turnover, when there's changes within an organization.

But also, even when you're sitting with budget and your CFO is running through your list of spends, you don't just want to be a line item. Everyone wants to say, we need that tool. We need that, whatever that is. So making sure that you have their buy-in in multiple worlds within the organization is really paramount. So understanding the internal work structure.

Then I would also say decision criteria, which ties into the strategic objectives, different milestones, and any known risks. So if there are things that are going to be complex about their organization, if there are sometimes that looks like people, maybe another person was really fighting for another product, right? If we can identify those early, it helps us guide a journey and a path.

to help alleviate any of those concerns for customers early on.

Future Of Selling (15:48.946)
Yeah, and I've always thought you know when you talk about who's who right you basically understand in the org chart I think even to kind of dig down on that a little bit I've always thought that it's important not just to know who they are but to know about them right I mean who who is your champion who's on your team so to speak?

Erica Newell (16:04.908)
Yeah.

Future Of Selling (16:07.026)
Do you have any adversaries? I mean, it happens, right? mean, sometimes you'll create a partnership, you bring a new client in, and you look at the org chart, and you got five, six, seven people on the org chart. And this one person over here was an adversary during the entire process, the sales process, but they still purchased, right? So.

Erica Newell (16:11.453)
Yes!

Future Of Selling (16:28.818)
important to know kind of who's playing which role so that you know kind of from a strategy standpoint how do I build that bridge with them because you know it doesn't help any of us to have an adversary sometimes it happens but it but it doesn't help us so I think that's a key piece of it as well and then the other one that I've looked at a lot is just competing initiatives you know what else is going on in the organization that could derail our implementation that's always always something we try to you know tease out as well any others from your perspective.

Erica Newell (16:56.984)
Yeah. Something that is a little, it's maybe subtext on something you said is, and we've had a lot of conversations about this, Rick, but one thing I also think that we can forget about, we get so busy or we get like, okay, have I filled out the checklist? Do I know what the org structure looks like? That's a win. Like the first, yourself on the back, good. We understand that. But a layer deeper, you alluded to this, but is knowing everybody on an

Future Of Selling (17:19.406)
Absolutely.

Erica Newell (17:26.53)
individual level. to your point adversaries, but also even understanding how are they compensated? What are, you know, your key champions? What does, what do their leadership teams care about? What's happening at the business overall? What is the board talking about? And then even a layer deeper is I would say, if sales has established a personal relationship and there's something that's important to a contact,

Future Of Selling (17:41.871)
I love it.

Erica Newell (17:55.212)
Maybe it's about family. Maybe if it's like, it's kind of that personal professional, you want to set some careful boundaries. But, but I think the more that we can understand the individuals that we're working with and develop and foster genuine connections, the more we're seen as humans. Hey, we're trying to help you win. and the more we can, you know, you know, often like friendships are not the primary reason that people will sign contracts, but

Future Of Selling (18:13.276)
Agreed.

Erica Newell (18:21.494)
when something goes wrong, it's almost like that trust bank account where if you have enough deposits in the bank and you have a lot of safety and trust, if we have a bug or something happens and something kind of takes out of that, you've still got balance there.

Future Of Selling (18:36.048)
Yeah, it goes a long way, right, toward covering a gap that could happen, right? And I think you talk about trust and talk about those connections. It's really the intimacy piece. I mean, if you look at the trust equation, it's reliability, credibility and intimacy.

Right? You know, and then of course divided by kind of low self-interest. But that intimacy piece and that, know, kind of a weird word, I guess, but it's just, do I know you beyond just your Eric O'Neill, the VP of client success at a customer that I'm working with, you know? I mean, you do know some of the, a little bit of the, interests them and things like that. So anyway, I think that's a big piece of that sales handoff as well. couldn't agree more.

who should be involved in you know from so if we're doing a sales handoff what internal resources should be involved in that typically

Erica Newell (19:29.034)
recommend, so certainly sales and definitely CS in your owner that way. And sometimes that looks like an account manager as well, or maybe there's a transition in your org, you may have an outbound and an inbound sales team. So you want to involve anybody who's going to be involved in the client relationship long term. But I would also advocate if you have a team of implementation managers, for example. So we have a pretty technical product, and so we have implementation managers that help the technical setup as we

as we go for our customers. And those people are going to be paramount. They're going to need to know how to set it up, what are some key things. Again, they can help identify maybe some challenges that could take place for customers early so we can set proper expectations. And that can happen before the contract is signed, of course. In fact, that's an ideal world. Because sometimes you may find on the topic of technical things,

Future Of Selling (20:11.718)
Yeah. Yeah.

Erica Newell (20:24.386)
they may take a lot more work and maybe your organization needs to bill for that or something. doing that early is key. But once that contract signature takes place, that's definitely, definitely important. Re-clarifying what they're, you all of those things are the strategic objectives. What are they expecting technically? What are they solving for?

Future Of Selling (20:45.574)
Yeah, yeah, gotcha, gotcha. Okay, yeah, I think and so it sounds to me like when we think about a sales handoff meeting, we're not just talking about, let's get the CSM and the AE together, the account executive who sold it and those two just go off in a corner and talk about it. It's everyone who needs to know, it may be people that are in that thing, but that's what we're doing, so, okay.

How do you think that benefits the client? us, for sales and CS to have this tight partnership, tight kind of connected at the hip and have this trusting relationship between them, how does that benefit the client?

Erica Newell (21:25.994)
Yeah, when that transition, well, we can call it transition or partnership is really strong, a client can feel it. And so it can be jarring anytime there's change, especially if you've built a lot of trust and you have a relationship with your sales team. so just that confidence, hey, so-and-so updated me, here's the context they gave me. Just even re-emphasizing some of those things.

for a customer puts them at ease right away. It makes them feel like they don't have to repeat themselves or start over. I would also say just one thing I would maybe add to this, which is a little side note, but another best practice that I would definitely add is during a kickoff call, making sure the executive and the decision maker is on that kickoff call is paramount. I found, oh, go ahead, yeah.

Future Of Selling (22:17.072)
Yes. Completely agree. No, completely agree. Sorry, I'm gonna cut off. Cut you off. I'm like, yes, yes, please.

Erica Newell (22:23.582)
Yeah, no, you're great. Yes. Yeah, it's something that I know that a lot of the time, once the contract is signed, hey, we want this implemented as soon as possible. We want to get moving. Maybe we don't want to wait on this executive. But it is so paramount. And just like the internal handoff between sales and CS, this functions as a kickoff call really should be an alignment call.

let's define what we're building towards. in some organizations, you can get into the product and do the implementation right there on the call. Some, you may need to review the implementation process. Here's what it will look like. But regardless, at the beginning of that call, when you think about sales process, you may have shown various stakeholders different parts of the product. You may have pointed at different functionalities, et cetera. And in the CS world, I think we've all seen it where some of our customers, maybe they were

weren't involved in all the sales conversations and they didn't realize that a certain part of the product wasn't purchased or, you know, so then they get midway through and they're like, we thought we could do this. so defining those outcomes, what was purchased, what are the outcomes we're trying to achieve and hearing it from the executive sponsor on the client side really sets everybody up for success because it is them kind of pulling everybody together and saying, okay, overall, here's the vision. Here's what we're building towards.

There's going to be tactical steps within that. But making sure that we have those guide posts. then later, CS can also more clearly go back and say, hey, executive sponsor, this is what we were solving for. And we did this. And here's how. So it helps us establish early wins.

Future Of Selling (24:02.332)
Yeah, completely agree. And I've seen organizations, especially that are the more technically leaning organizations, right? Who they're like, no, let's just get this thing implemented. You know, it's just, it's, you know, it's project plan, you know, let's get it. And though I completely agree with the importance of having a documented project plan, you know, timelines, all that stuff. I agree. It begins with the.

client stakeholder. And I always think about this question, I want the client stakeholder in a, in that initial kind of kickoff meeting, right, to answer this question, you know, and you can, you know, somebody can insert the name of their company if they want, but why Conquer? Why now? Because

There's going to be people in there that going, what are we doing? Why are we doing this? know, mean, they're to your point, they've been, they got a part of the sales process. Maybe they weren't in all of it, or maybe they weren't involved at all. They just got pulled into the meeting and said, Hey, we're going to roll out this new, this new product. And so they're wondering why and why now? So that executive stakeholder has to be able to articulate that clearly and set the path forward.

Erica Newell (25:06.358)
love that ad, Rick. think about, so for any leaders out there who are familiar with ad car, it's a change management philosophy. And it's one of my favorites. It talks about, and this reminds me of this, it talks about one of the key things to helping people adopt change. And that could be a tool or a system or a product is why and why now, right? And so defining that early.

I love that. I hadn't really connected it with that change management principle, but I totally agree. That's a great call out.

Future Of Selling (25:40.518)
Yeah, yeah, we're gonna have more fun talking about this as we go. Well, tell me about this, you know, what's one way that you've seen like sales teams unintentionally, not intentionally, but unintentionally create friction for the client success team in your experience?

Erica Newell (25:44.512)
Yes, yes, yes, I love that.

Erica Newell (26:01.998)
I will say overselling is the silent killer. And so what I mean by that is sales sometimes gets excited about maybe some features that are not on the roadmap or it's not completely defined and we haven't set to a customer, we haven't told them, this is roadmap versus this is something that's live today. And so really how we can bat this is first,

Future Of Selling (26:06.962)
Okay. Okay.

Erica Newell (26:30.262)
a strong product and sales relationship is important. So how I've done this in the past is a voice of the customer meeting and involving sales counterparts as well. So they can give input. But that also helps us as leaders define, hey, where should we invest when we're looking at product functions and features and investment that way. But then I also think that the ability to recalibrate expectations. So

Really empowering CS to veto during the handoff is really helpful here because again, if something technical isn't possible, if maybe they use the system and they want to connect the, like there could be various forms of this, but really making sure that that communication is strong before we're doing it in front of the client. Because if we're doing it in front of the client and having to figure it out, it's, it's going to create some distrust or maybe some worry from a client perspective.

So again, those handoff points and the more communication the better is why I lean on that so hard.

Future Of Selling (27:29.318)
Yeah. So overselling, in which it happens from time to time, right? Nobody wants to do that, but it can happen somehow. We just didn't get on the same page, right? But all the more importance for that sales handoff, if it did happen, that's where you want to find out about it, and that's where you want to mitigate that risk as soon as possible. So, okay, gotcha.

Erica Newell (27:52.044)
Yes.

Future Of Selling (27:54.618)
So talk about kind of metrics, right? What are the metrics that matter? You know, when we're measuring collaboration between sales and client success, or maybe just measuring success overall, right? What are the key metrics that come to mind for you?

Erica Newell (28:10.764)
Yeah, know, particularly there's a lot of metrics I could talk about from a customer success standpoint. I will say as pertaining to this conversation, one of, so a few of the biggest ones are first time to value. How quickly can we establish wins with this client? Sooner the better. Let's keep momentum going. And the sooner we establish that value, the easier it is to do. And so then of course, retention and expansion.

Future Of Selling (28:28.434)
Yeah. Yeah.

Erica Newell (28:39.59)
And I think those are kind of two parts to the same coin, but we can talk more about those. And then I would also say things like handoff satisfaction, or you'll see this in MPS scores, CSAT scores, but really measuring that. Now, I would also say that I'm always careful with CSAT or MPS because satisfaction and the way you phrase your CSAT surveys, you need to be careful with it because...

Future Of Selling (28:53.202)
Yeah.

Erica Newell (29:06.156)
something important that we forget sometimes is satisfied customers don't necessarily retain. So satisfaction and retention are not necessarily correlated. There is a correlation, but I will say it's not indicative. They need to get value, that deeper milestone delivery, what you were talking about, Rick, hey, why and why now are we achieving that? And then that may progress over time.

Future Of Selling (29:13.307)
Okay.

Erica Newell (29:34.476)
And that creates loyalty, not just satisfaction, not just, love your team. You know, we like you guys, we're okay. Because I'll tell you what, your competitors are always poaching your customers. So, you all, we have to actively work to retain our customers, just like our competitors are working to poach them. So some of those metrics, I think are just beginning ones, time to value retention and expansion, and then handoff, handoff satisfaction or satisfaction. But they're all parts of, parts of that picture.

Future Of Selling (29:51.73)
Yeah, thank you.

Future Of Selling (30:00.754)
Yeah, yeah, I and I agree with you on the different metrics right that you got to be careful because just because you have a good CSAT score doesn't mean you're delivering value

you because often those measurements come, mean why does an organization decide to spend you know whatever the number is, $100,000 a year with your company right? Why are they going to write that check? Well it's not just going to be that the end users had a good experience though they need to have good experience right? So you've got this group of people that you're serving but also if you're not demonstrating value to the kind of the executive level right? And then you're not making the mid-levels job easier, their life easier, but you can be taking

Erica Newell (30:39.758)
What?

Future Of Selling (30:41.344)
So it goes back to your kind of comment about the org chart. You're trying to work up and across that org chart so you know people because you can be taken out at any one of those levels, right, from a retention standpoint. So yeah, I agree with you. I think you've got to look at all of those things. And those are great metrics. That's awesome. Okay, cool.

Erica Newell (30:56.792)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Future Of Selling (31:02.962)
You any rituals, things that I know you mentioned voice of the customer and so maybe talk about that a little bit but just overall the kind of questions, what are the rituals, recurring meetings, whatever you want to call them that keep both sales team and the client success team aligned.

Erica Newell (31:20.994)
The biggest thing is this figuring out the balance to have enough communication that's helping both teams. Like every interaction, every meeting we have, we want to walk out of it with value on both sides. And so being conscious of that and so how I've done that in the past are and how I do it today is there's a few things. So first, I would highly recommend CS customer success teams.

And their sales counterparts, especially if there's kind of a upsell expansion, if sales is helping own some of that, or if there's opportunity gap analysis for growth with a client. Say they have multiple clients underneath their umbrella. Really making sure that that's solid. So I would recommend having a sink where you run through accounts. If you're a CSM and sales team, weekly or bi-weekly, you can set up the cadence with what works for you. But what's happening?

What movement, what cues and clues are we picking up on? What upcoming meetings are there that could help us identify opportunities? One of the keys here is long-term. If we can upsell a client, it's not what we're looking for is yes, as a business, we're looking for an upsell, but really we're actually helping a customer stick with us longer to find more solutions. It's a genuine thing. This is part of why I love customer success and the sales relationship here.

So making sure that you both have clues, like what are we looking for that could help make this stickier for a customer will not only help create loyal customers, but also help them grow and retain. And then I would say besides that, having a, so the one-on-one is important to go through account by account. I would also say that having just a 10 minute standup, like we do this really well in our organization where we do kind of pipeline highlights, upcoming handoffs, red flags.

And, you know, kind of a, here's what's coming down the pipe. Here's what's happening so that your implementation and customer success teams are prepared for the workload and what's, what's going on. And then also you can, that really enables sales. It's top of mind to say, yeah, let me invite you to this next call. It's close enough to close. And I will also say from a customer success standpoint, you know, I think that a,

Erica Newell (33:46.418)
Sometimes we goof and we like laugh about sales like us, know, sales is just trying to close the deal. The more you're talking about what helps your customers succeed and get value long term, like the more customer stories you can give sales, the better they're going to be at closing and they're going to be better at closing the right customers who are aligned with that. that communication and sharing those stories from both sides is really going to help each other. So making sure you set up

Future Of Selling (34:04.668)
through that.

Erica Newell (34:14.838)
frequent touch points at different levels where you're collaborating and sharing things that will help enable each other.

Future Of Selling (34:20.786)
Yeah, really, really good examples. Yeah, really good examples. As a leader, mean, you're VP of client success, you've been in leadership role, other leadership roles as well. How do you promote that one, guess, empathy between the two where they actually care about each other's worlds, right? And also understand and realize they're integrated, but then also promote accountability. How do you approach that?

Erica Newell (34:48.824)
Yeah, I think from a executive level, you can do this by aligning compensation metrics to it. sometimes I've done that in the past where our sales teams have been, maybe they get that if it's a monthly subscription, for example, maybe they have to.

sell so many months to get their comp or something. Or maybe it's aligned with like renewal or something like that, depending on how large the contracts are. So I think there's some things that you can do from a compensation perspective that naturally create this. But I would say there are other things that you can do that don't affect a paycheck as well. So I would say that a few of those things are co-owning the scorecard and then

Future Of Selling (35:21.703)
Yeah.

Erica Newell (35:35.242)
making sure that when this, you I'm going to call it the baton pass or you mentioned the handoff is maybe not the best phrase, but when sales really hands that customer to customer success, making sure that that doesn't the salesperson doesn't just completely go away. I would say a great practice is just touch base, like touch base a few weeks in touch ways after implementation and then come to the.

quarterly business reviews or your executive briefings after them. The more, you don't have to be a persistent face, but the more that they see that, you are bought into their long-term success as a salesperson, still make sure that they're going to their customer success person. And that's the person who leads the relationships, because you don't want to get involved in the support stuff you want to sell. But if you can create that long-term, customers are going to feel it.

Future Of Selling (36:23.9)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Erica Newell (36:30.156)
you'll be able to pick up again on more of those stories and you'll become a better seller as well.

Future Of Selling (36:34.376)
Yeah, yeah, that's a point. I do agree with you. There's a level of energy that comes when there is a strong relationship between CS and sales that the client can experience, right? It doesn't feel out of sync. doesn't feel like the kind of siloed. It feels like from the client standpoint that they've got a team that they can trust and depend on. It's just such a critical piece of it as well.

Erica Newell (37:00.696)
Yeah.

Future Of Selling (37:01.212)
Cool, cool, cool, cool. Hey, well, I, if you don't mind me transitioning just a little bit, I know we're getting a little shorter on time, but I always like to take a few minutes at the end, just find out a little bit more about you for the audience, right? So kind of rapid fire if you don't mind, I've got just a few questions to run by you. That sound good? Cool, cool. All right, so, and you can think about this from a personal standpoint or just from a leadership standpoint, mean, however the question hits you, right?

Erica Newell (37:18.082)
Yeah, I'd love it. Yeah, let's go. Woo!

Future Of Selling (37:30.45)
What makes you come alive? What do you get excited about?

Erica Newell (37:35.438)
I like this question. I mean, I'm a pretty passionate person. I will say that much, but I'll take this from a work standpoint, but I think it applies personally as well. Is really for me, I think if we're going to be spending so much of our working lives doing something, let's make sure it matters and let's make sure we're doing something that we believe in. And I would say for me, that ties into the people.

Future Of Selling (37:48.498)
Yeah.

Erica Newell (38:04.962)
side of things. That is what matters most. I'm all about people. So even like customer success, that is about people and helping them win. I love what I do because I get to help balance my business, helping my business succeed, helping a customer's business succeed. And then it's the people at that business. It's the people on my team, helping them grow and promote and develop professionally. you know, we were constantly building relationships and the better we can make each other and help each other grow and

Future Of Selling (38:19.399)
Yeah.

Erica Newell (38:34.186)
support each other. I mean, it just elevates us all and lifts us all up. think we've all had stories. Well, hopefully that we've worked for a great boss that really cares about us. And it helps us be better and not just not just our work life, but our home lives and outside of it.

Future Of Selling (38:42.704)
Yeah.

Future Of Selling (38:49.446)
Yeah, I think it's that experience in the arena, right? Together that is irreplaceable. know, the tough times, the difficult times, but you're in there striving together. And then you look back and you go, golly, that was so good. know, so, okay. So who's been the biggest influence on your life?

Erica Newell (39:02.616)
Yes.

Erica Newell (39:09.258)
Ooh, ooh, this is a good one. I would say, I mean, it sounds pretty close to home. We're just off Father's Day, but I will say my dad. I grew up, I mean, we didn't have a lot of wealth growing up, but I remember my dad had me pretty young, but he got his, he pursued his degree, his master's, all with me as a little kid.

And he worked his way up in finance and like he's he's now in the C-suite at Zions Bank. And more than that, though, yeah. So I've definitely seen his work ethic and that's so admirable. But more than anything else, this relationship standpoint that we were talking about, he cares about people and he's someone who asks questions and cares about the answer. Right. It's never a how are you just hoping that you're going to say fine. And then he moves it on to what he wants to talk about.

Future Of Selling (39:42.534)
Nice. Bootstrapper.

Erica Newell (40:04.903)
He really listens and I think that that's really influenced me.

Future Of Selling (40:09.042)
That's awesome. Yeah. Hope we get to meeting one day. That sounds like a good man. Let me ask you this. How do you get through the kind of challenging and hard time? I everybody has them, whether it's work or whatever it may be. mean, what's your go-to to keep moving if it's a little bit challenging, a little bit harder?

Erica Newell (40:30.594)
Yeah, think that, you know, often when you're confronting a challenge, it takes looking at it from a different perspective. Like a lot of the time, you know, and we can do this retrospectively, but looking back, it's like there's a reason for everything or maybe everything makes sense. We can't always see it when we're in it. So for me, one of the strategies that I employ, mean, there's a bunch of things that I'll do for unique situations, but one of the biggest things actually is a mind map. So it's

Future Of Selling (40:47.462)
Right. Yeah.

Erica Newell (40:57.934)
It's visually like I've got whiteboards galore or notebooks and you know, I've got notebooks right next to me here. And, um, frankly, I'll break it down into smaller chunks. Like what is this challenge that we're grappling with? What are the parts of this? And that helps me really figure out, okay, what are the things that I can do? What are the things that I can't control? And where's there, there a bit of influence and how can I make an influence and an impact that way? So.

Future Of Selling (41:10.405)
Okay.

Future Of Selling (41:21.105)
Yeah.

Erica Newell (41:27.618)
I think that just breaking things down in a way that makes it more digestible really helps me.

Future Of Selling (41:32.754)
Yeah, now that makes perfect sense. Yeah, good strategy. What are you reading right now or watching or listening to that's really not just that you're enjoying but that's stretching you. know, something that you would say, hey, I want to recommend this to somebody else as well.

Erica Newell (41:49.642)
Ooh, my goodness. So I am constantly learning. I try to spend at least an hour a day learning in some way. So frequently that looks like podcasts or books or even taking courses or having a coach. And I will say that right now I'm spending a lot of time, the podcast I'm listening most to is acquired. I really love that one. It talks about where businesses came from and how they grew. It's kind of like how I built this on steroids.

Future Of Selling (42:17.583)
Yeah. Yeah.

Erica Newell (42:19.322)
Really really love that and that for me will often have little tidbits of wisdom that I'm like I'm grab this and employ this in my business or my day. So I love that I'm also reading I mean, I'm I'm reading a few really phenomenal books right now, but one of the ones that I am very close to the end of is dopamine nation. We talked about this a little bit, but it is

Future Of Selling (42:43.472)
That's right, yeah, I remember you talking about that.

Erica Newell (42:45.694)
Yeah, I'm really interested in, you I love leadership books and all of that. I'm reading a few of those as well. But this book specifically is talking about like kind of pain and pleasure and the reward systems. So you could look at it through a frame of maybe addiction or something like that. I mean, I look at it sometimes by distractibles, like how much time am I spending on social media or, you know, whatever your crutches, eating sugar, whatever that is, and just being conscious of that. So that's been really interesting to tee up.

dopamine and it also gets into things like behavior and it touches on things like that you could read in Atomic Habits about habit building and just intentionally forging the life that you want to live.

Future Of Selling (43:28.402)
Love that. it. So acquired the podcast and dopamine nation the book. I got to get that so very good

Awesome. Well, cool. Well, I know we do need to wrap up, but I always like to kind of tease out a few key takeaways. So let's say that I'm a VP of sales or I'm a CRO, right? I'm running the sales team, chief sales officer, maybe. mean, what are three recommendations? If they're struggling with this relationship, this partnership between sales and client success, we've covered a lot of ground, but from your perspective, what are two or three key takeaways

that that person should be thinking about over the next week, couple of weeks, something like that.

Erica Newell (44:12.642)
Yeah, I would say maybe three takeaways that you could take today are first, nailing the baton pass, making sure that we have the right context and that we have the right expectations. So that will help enable us, of course, to make it seamless for our customer. Then I would say besides that, there's making sure that we have frequent

enough touch points, this ties into handoff, but longer term, making sure that CS and sales are still working together and sharing stories, sharing product pains, sharing a lot of the time we're fighting for the same things with product. So making sure that we have that collaboration and enough touch points for communication where we can do that effectively. And then finally, I would say metrics and alignment. So we talked about how do we

How do we make sure that both teams are aligned? And again, this could be aligned with comp structure. Maybe they're tied together, similar to sales maybe being tied to retention. CS can be tied to expansion or growth. But besides that, there can be other things as well. We talked about surveys after implementation, not relying too much on satisfaction, but having that as a marker to understand what that relationship looks like.

Future Of Selling (45:31.974)
Right.

Erica Newell (45:36.839)
And I think those three things together are some of the simplest, but they're the most effective.

Future Of Selling (45:44.486)
Gotcha, so make sure you nail the sales handoff. Make sure that that's probably the first thing, right? Make sure that's in place. I like the frequent touch points between client success and sales. And probably product as well, sharing stories. And then just making sure that you're aligned through whatever the metrics are, right? Whether it's comp metric or some other metric, make sure you've got a good alignment there as well. So yeah, good stuff, good stuff.

Okay, well hey, thank you for your time today. Thanks so much for being on. Really appreciate it. And we'll talk again soon, but it's been a great conversation today. So have a good one.

Erica Newell (46:19.692)
Yeah. Thank you, Rick. Thanks, everybody, for listening. Thanks.

Future Of Selling (46:22.45)
All right, thanks, bye bye.