The Customer Success Playbook · 2025-06-04 · 9 min
Key moments - from our scoring
Substance score
35 / 100
Five dimensions, 20 points each
John Huber, who has held leadership positions managing customer success teams at enterprise-focused companies, tackles the organizational question of expansion ownership. Rather than picking one department, Huber advocates for a hybrid model where CSMs and account executives work as partners - a structure he implemented at his most recent company where the two roles jointly managed customer growth. For highly complex enterprise selling motions (such as selling to new divisions at large pharmaceutical companies), the account executive takes the lead while the CSM maintains the relationship and handles simpler cross-sell and renewal opportunities. This partnership approach requires clear documentation of who owns which selling motion and compensation structures that incentivize collaboration. Huber recommends a 60/40 base-to-variable split in total comp, with the variable portion structured 70% quota-oriented and 30% non-quota (customer health, NPS). He also emphasizes forecasting churn and renewal revenue with the same rigor sales uses for new business, starting renewal conversations 12 months in advance to mitigate risk.
It depends on the company and the complexity of the opportunity; a hybrid model works well where account executives own large, complex expansion deals while CSMs handle straightforward upsells and renewals.
Use a 60/40 base-to-variable split, with the variable portion structured 70% quota-oriented (renewals, upsells, expansions) and 30% non-quota elements like NPS and customer experience, and give CSMs partial credit on large deals to forge partnership.
Start about 12 months in advance to give yourself sufficient time to identify at-risk accounts, understand why they're at risk, and mitigate churn before the renewal date.
Forecast your churn and renewal business like sales forecasts new logos; work with your finance team 4-5 months before the fiscal year to identify at-risk accounts and track them in Salesforce renewal opportunities.
Our reviewer’s read on each dimension, with quotes from the episode.
A 9-minute episode burns nearly half its runtime on icebreakers about music, golf, and flat-top grills, leaving only a few minutes for substance. The actual CS content - 'it depends' on ownership, start renewals early, forecast churn - is basic playbook material with minimal novel claims per minute.
I found myself just loving to cook on the flat top. Fajitas, you know, chicken veggies, smash burgers.
you never have as much time as you'd like. And so it's giving yourself more time. And if you can renew it early, that's a good thing, too.
Every substantive point - CS/Sales co-ownership, incentivising collaboration, early renewal conversations, churn forecasting in Salesforce - is well-worn standard CS orthodoxy. There are no contrarian takes, no first-principles reasoning, and no frameworks a CS practitioner wouldn't already know.
Yeah, that's a great debate and I would tell you it depends.
you don't want to over rotate too much on the sales component, but you also don't want to, you know, over rotate on the uh, on the non commercial aspects as well
John Huber appears to be a genuine enterprise CS operator who has built teams, partnered with CFOs on churn forecasting, and navigated complex pharmaceutical sales cycles - real practitioner experience. However, his seniority level and company scale are never clearly established, limiting how much weight his frameworks carry.
we were selling highly complex, typically very long enterprise type sales motions. And so, you know, when we're selling a new division to a large pharmaceutical company in Europe
I got into a motion with my last CFO where we would sit down about four or five months before the start of the new fiscal year
The episode earns points for a handful of concrete numbers - 70/30 variable split, 60/40 total comp, 4 - 5 months pre-fiscal-year for churn planning, 12 months advance for renewal conversations - but there are no named companies, no revenue figures, and no case study outcomes to anchor the claims.
I've often found kind of a 70, 30 split has seemed to work really well. 70% being the commercial quota related items and then 30% being the non commercial items.
total comp too is usually 60, 40, 60% base, 40% variable up to, you know, 70, 30.
The host catches and clarifies a genuine ambiguity in the 70/30 framing - a useful intervention - and follows up on comp structure and churn signals. However, no claim is challenged, the questions are mostly short and open-ended, and the episode ends before any topic reaches meaningful depth.
In that scenario you're going with a 30% base and 70% based off of sales. Just making sure I understood it the way you meant it.
You're definitely concerned when you've got churn. How are you kind of monitoring for, hey, these are churn risks versus hey, I'm expecting renewals to come.
Computed from the transcript - who did the talking, and the words that came up most.
Send us Fan Mail Wednesday brings the burning question that divides CS and sales teams everywhere: who should own expansion revenue? John Huber tackles this contentious topic with nuanced insights drawn from his experience managing both dedicated CS-led expansion models and hybrid partnership approaches. Rather than offering a one-size-fits-all answer, John presents a thoughtful framework for determining the optimal structure based on deal complexity, sales cycle length, and organizational maturity. He shares specific examples of successful implementations, including a sophisticated model where CSMs handled straightforward upsells and renewals while account executives managed complex expansion opportunities. The discussion dives deep into compensation structures, forecasting methodologies, and the critical importance of clearly defining roles to avoid territorial conflicts. This customer success playbook episode provides practical guidance for leaders struggling to optimize their expansion strategy without sacrificing customer relationships. Detailed Analysis This episode addresses one of the most politically charged topics in revenue operations: expansion ownership.
Transcribed and scored by The B2B Podcast Index.
Speaker A: The energy woman. They got the game.
Speaker B: Customer success is their claim to fame. Welcome back to the Customer Success Playbook podcast. I'm Kevin Metzger. Roman unfortunately is unable to join us this week, but we are here again with John Huber. It's Wednesday, which means it's time for one big question. But before we get into it, we're gonna loosen up with a few icebreakers. John, what's one song that always kind of fires you up before, like, a big presentation or going into to really close on something?
Speaker A: That's a great question. I'm a big music fan. I'd say my go to is a, uh, song called Disco by Widespread Panic, which is, uh, it's an instrumental song. Just puts a smile on my face. The very upbeat, uh, and kind of get you in that right mindset.
Speaker B: Otherwise, it's road panic. They're. Yeah.
Speaker A: You're an Atlanta guy.
Speaker B: What's that?
Speaker A: I said you're an Atlanta guy. They're from, uh, from your area.
Speaker B: That's what I was gonna say.
Speaker A: They're.
Speaker B: They're big down here. If you weren't in customer Success, what career would you pursue for fun?
Speaker A: It's a great question. Fun being the optic, uh, optimal word. Would, uh, love to be a professional golfer? My golf game is nowhere near, uh, suited to be a professional golfer, but, man, I think it would be a ton of fun, uh, you know, to have that. That time and, uh, that passion. So, I don't know.
Speaker B: I get so frustrated every time I get out on the course. I don't think I can. I don't have the, uh, tolerance for it, but, uh, it does seem like quite the life. What's your favorite thing to either cook or eat? And are you a cook or.
Speaker A: I do, I do love to grill. You know, I think my wife and I both cook. Uh, I've got three girls at home. I did get a new grill last summer, and it came with a flat top insert. I found myself just loving to cook on the flat top. Fajitas, you know, chicken veggies, smash burgers. Um, you know, I didn't think I would use it at all. And I mean, we use it probably three or four nights a week. I absolutely love it.
Speaker B: I got my Blackstone back before right around Covid. I don't know if it was 2020 or whether it was 2019 that I got it. I know I was using it a ton during COVID but, uh, I still still use it a ton to this day. I actually, I probably need to replace it at this point. But uh, it's fantastic. Can do just about anything you can.
Speaker A: I haven't done breakfast yet, but I see a lot of people doing breakfast. So that's, that's my next, uh, my next challenge.
Speaker B: Yeah, breakfast is good. I guess we should get into it. It's one Wednesday is one big question. Who should own expansion and upsell? Should it be in CS or should it be in sales hybrid? What's your thought?
Speaker A: Yeah, that's a great debate and I would tell you it depends. Um, and I'll share a couple of examples because I've lived in both worlds. I've worked at a couple of companies where 12 months after the original deal was signed, the CSM would own, um, you know, the expansion, the upsell opportunities, the renewal opportunities. Like my most recent company as an example, we made a pretty important decision early on as we were building out the teams to have an account executive partner with a CSM and both sell back to the customer. And the reason we did that was, you know, we were selling highly complex, typically very long enterprise type sales motions. And so, you know, when we're selling a new division to a large pharmaceutical company in Europe, oftentimes that takes on a life of itself and you still want to have the CSM dedicated towards, uh, all of the things that they do. So we would align the account executive to handle kind of the larger complex selling motions. The CSM would still manage the, I would say more straightforward upsell, uh, cross sell opportunities, but then also manage a renewal. And it created a really tight partnership between the two where we were able to really grow with our customers. So I think it really depends on what's needed at that point in time for the company.
Speaker B: Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense and I've seen a lot of similar, um, designs where a lot of the renewals. It does make sense in my opinion to run through the CSM because they're the one engaged on the day to day, but definitely for expansion. Depending on where the expansion's occurring. That's a partnership you want to be able to have, uh, the sales guy in working, especially if it's somewhere uh, outside of the initial environment. But looking for the opportunity is such a, having the CSM help look for the opportunity because a lot of time that's where, that's where it does come from. If you do have that structure right where the CSM's helping with the renewal, but expansions coming from the A, what do you see? Do you look, what kind of compensation structure do you like to see? In that scenario.
Speaker A: Yeah, it's a great. So I'll kind of share a couple of examples. So I think first it starts with clearly defining who owns what right across those two roles. And um, you know, we created an internal document to align our team so they knew which selling motion, you know, they were responsible for, but we also incented them to support each other. And, and so when you add that element of you may get partial credit for a large expansion opportunity as a csm, that also helps kind of forge a pretty strong bond and partnership there. But when I look at a CSM comp plan, things that I look for is balancing some of the commercial responsibilities such as those quota bearing elements, cross sell, upsell, but then also the renewal motion and balancing that with the non commercial aspects such as, you know, driving, you know, a positive customer experience, high net promoters, things of that nature, and aligning the elements within the comp plan to incentivize the right behaviors. You don't want to over rotate too much on the sales component, but you also don't want to, you know, over rotate on the uh, on the non commercial aspects as well. So I've often found kind of a 70, 30 split has seemed to work really well. 70% being the commercial quota related items and then 30% being the non commercial items.
Speaker B: In that scenario you're going with a 30% base and 70% based off of sales. Just making sure I understood it the way you meant it.
Speaker A: I'm m sorry. So within the variable component itself.
Speaker B: Within the variable component, yeah, within the
Speaker A: variable it's typically 70, 30, 70% being kind of quota oriented and 30% being uh, non quota oriented.
Speaker B: And how do you like to structure it from a uh, total comp?
Speaker A: Yeah, total comp too is usually 60, 40, 60% base, 40% variable up to, you know, 70, 30.
Speaker B: You're definitely concerned when you've got churn. How are you kind of monitoring for, hey, these are churn risks versus hey, I'm expecting renewals to come. This and this is what are the key indicators?
Speaker A: You're a great question. I'm a firm believer in forecasting your churn business and your renewal business. Just as sales forecast their new logo business. I got into a motion with my last CFO where we would sit down about four or five months before the start of the new fiscal year and we would plan out what anybody that we thought was at risk as a possible revenue churn or customer churn. And we would manage to that with the goal of beating our churn plan coming in under the dollar amount that we set forth, and we'd manage it all in Salesforce, and then we'd manage all of that data would be captured in the renewal opportunity. So as you're having a renewal discussions, you're also aware of what's at risk. Why are they at risk? And then how do we mitigate that risk? Um, in order to prevent as much
Speaker B: churn as we can, really, from m an engagement standpoint, I'm guessing that tends to drive engagement for the renewal discussion.
Speaker A: Much earlier, I used to, uh, tell my team, we've got to start about a year in advance. And that doesn't mean you've got to put a proposal in front of your customer 12 months in advance, but you've got to start to have those conversations. And you never have as much time as you'd like. And so it's giving yourself more time. And if you can renew it early, that's a good thing, too.
Speaker B: Awesome. Well, we appreciate those insights, John. On Friday, we'll wrap up by exploring how AI can help you scale a CS team without losing the human touch. Don't miss it. Like, subscribe, comment, and until then, keep on playing.
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