Why CSMs are underpaid and how to fix it

If your CSMs think like Account Managers, you’ll retain revenue. If they think like CEOs, you’ll multiply it. Let me explain Most CSMs are trained to serve customers. Few are empowered to lead outcomes. Account Managers ask, “How can I help?” CEO minded CSMs ask, “What is blocking your growth this quarter?” The difference? One reacts to problems. The other shapes strategy. When your team starts thinking like CEOs  • They stop chasing renewals and start owning business impact.  • They connect customer goals to product investments.  • They turn every QBR into a boardroom conversation. That’s when Customer Success shifts from being a cost center to a growth multiplier. I once worked with a CSM who turned a renewal conversation into a co-innovation deal not by upselling but by reframing the value her customer was missing. That single move added $1.2M in expansion ARR. That’s what happens when your CSMs stop managing accounts and start running portfolios. The future belongs to commercially confident, product fluent, growth focused CSMs; the ones who lead with business acumen, not activity reports. If you are building your next gen CS org Are your CSMs being trained to think like operators or like CEOs?

This is 100% a shift CSMs can take from being support to consultative. I’ve been focusing the last six months on figuring out how our product which is structured data, can support our customers to use other tools to drive additional efficiencies like being used with AI tools, data visualization dashboards etc.

Most companies don’t fail at selling. They fail at delivering what was sold. The real test of resilience isn’t the close, it’s the handoff between sales and operations. That’s where trust is either reinforced or destroyed. Here’s how to fix it: 1. Align incentives early. Sales and ops can’t act like two separate teams. If sales wins but ops loses, the company loses. Reward successful delivery, not just closed deals. 2. Standardize the flow. No more scattered notes and mystery emails. Use intake forms and playbooks that force clarity on requirements, SLAs, and commitments. 3. Automate the handoff. Platforms like Krista AI create workflows that pull deal data from CRM, tag commitments, push tasks to ops, and track accountability. It’s not just automation — it’s context transfer. 4. Build feedback loops. Handoffs aren’t “set it and forget it.” Create structured reviews and root-cause analyses so both teams learn and adapt. 5. Lead from the top. The Paradigm Venture Group LLC COO’s role is to make it clear: We don’t just win business, we deliver it. When handoffs work, clients don’t notice them. They just notice consistent service. When they don’t, margins, reputation, and trust all take the hit. The solution isn’t duct tape fixes. It’s resilient systems, powered by technology, reinforced by standardized playbooks, and led by leaders who refuse to let handoffs become fault lines. Question for you: What’s the biggest breakdown you’ve seen in a sales-to-ops handoff — and how did your team fix it?

🤝 Sales vs. Success - Running Different Races (CSM Growth Insights - Post 4/6) One of the recurring themes from my MBA dissertation interviews was the quiet tension between Sales and Customer Success. Both want growth. Both work with the same customers. But often… they’re running different races. Sales teams chase quarterly targets. Success teams focus on multi-year adoption. And when incentives don’t align, customers feel it first. I still remember one quote from a CSM that summed it up perfectly: “Sales promised everything. We had to manage the fallout.” Across 25 interviews, I saw this pattern again and again - early overpromising leads to broken trust, rushed onboarding, and difficult renewals. Here’s what top-performing SaaS leaders are doing differently: 1. Shared accountability. Both teams own Net Revenue Retention, not just bookings. 2. Aligned narratives. Sales sells value; Success proves it. 3. Seamless handovers. Customer goals flow across, not just contracts. 💡 My takeaway: Customer Success can’t fix misalignment, it can only expose it. Growth happens when Sales and Success speak the same language. Have you seen this tension play out in your teams? What’s worked (or failed) in bringing the two functions closer?

Had a few reviews this week and thought I'd close things out with a few thoughts. Most importantly, renewals fail long before the renewal date. Too often, we treat renewals as contract events instead of transformation checkpoints. If you lead a sales organization, ask yourself three questions before your next renewal: 1. Can your team clearly articulate the business outcomes your platform has delivered? 2. Are your leaders aligned on what “good” looks like for the next phase of growth? 3. Do you know which competencies are improving—and which are slipping? Renewal isn’t about software. It’s about whether your teams are building the skills and focus that sustain predictable revenue. The best leaders treat renewal as a mirror, not a milestone.

One of the fastest ways to lose growth is through misaligned revenue operations. I’ve seen marketing generate leads that sales ignores, and sales push deals that operations can’t support. The result is wasted spend and frustrated teams. Revenue operations is not a back-office function. It’s the engine that ensures the customer journey is consistent, efficient, and scalable. When marketing, sales, and customer success share data and goals, growth compounds. When they don’t, it stalls. The real question for leaders is: do you treat RevOps as a strategic driver, or just an administrative cost center?

𝗠𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝘁𝗲𝗮𝗺𝘀 ‘𝗼𝗽𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗶𝘇𝗲’ 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗶𝗿 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗰𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗯𝗲𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗼𝗻 𝗶𝘁’𝘀 𝗳𝗼𝗿. 𝗦𝘁𝗲𝗽 𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗶𝘀𝗻’𝘁 𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗿𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁. 𝗜𝘁’𝘀 𝗲𝗺𝗽𝗮𝘁𝗵𝘆. Let me tell you what that looks like in real life. A major consumer goods client had just restructured to focus on one of their biggest retail partners. High-stakes account. Massive growth opportunity. They assigned their best sales executive to lead the charge. The problem? Every time that exec tried to make a change, update packaging, adjust pricing, respond to the market, he ran face-first into a wall of red tape. Fifteen approvals. Multiple departments. Lots of turf protection. Weeks of delay. Momentum disappeared. Trust eroded. The customer relationship was in jeopardy. So they brought us in. And we didn’t start with a workflow diagram. We didn’t run a process audit. We didn’t throw software at the problem. We started by asking one simple question: “𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗶𝘀 𝗶𝘁 𝗹𝗶𝗸𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗯𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝘀𝘆𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗺?” Not just the sales exec. We spoke to the brand team. Operations. Logistics. Packaging. Legal. Everyone who touched that value chain. Because a process map can tell you what’s 𝘀𝘂𝗽𝗽𝗼𝘀𝗲𝗱 to happen. But only people can tell you what 𝗮𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 happens. Here’s what we found: The process wasn’t broken because it lacked efficiency. It was broken because it lacked empathy. No one designed it with the real humans in mind. The ones who need to move fast. Make smart calls. Win for the customer. So we ran our Flow Accelerator™ Workshop. Short, sharp, half-day session. The team identified where things bogged down, why approvals were stacked, and how the fear of mistakes was clogging innovation. Together, they redesigned it. From fifteen approvals to five. From weeks to days. From push to pull. And that sales exec? He got his momentum back. The customer got their promos on time. And the organization unlocked capacity it didn’t even know it had. 𝗛𝗲𝗿𝗲’𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗳𝘁: 𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝗰𝗮𝗻’𝘁 𝗼𝗽𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗶𝘇𝗲 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗱𝗼𝗻’𝘁 𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗻𝗱. And you can’t understand people through spreadsheets. Before you map a process, 𝘄𝗮𝗹𝗸 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗶𝗿 𝘀𝗵𝗼𝗲𝘀. Before you improve a workflow, 𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗶𝗿 𝘁𝗿𝘂𝘀𝘁. Before you design the system, l𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗻 𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗼𝗻𝗲𝘀 𝗹𝗶𝘃𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗶𝗻 𝗶𝘁. Every process problem is a people problem in disguise. Which means: The root cause of “broken” is almost always a lack of empathy upstream. Want velocity? Start with humanity. When’s the last time you asked someone, “What is it like to be you in this system?” What did you learn? P.S - If your team is stuck firefighting and second-guessing, a 90-minute Flow Accelerator can reveal what’s really going on beneath the surface. DM me “Flow” and I’ll send you the details. #ProcessImprovement #EmpathyInBusiness #OrganizationalCulture #LeadershipDevelopment #WorkflowOptimization

CSMs: Don’t miss out on expansion revenue. You know when customers need to expand. You see the opportunity gaps. You understand their business challenges better than anyone. But you're afraid bringing up expansion will make you sound pushy or damage the trust you've worked so hard to build. You're ALREADY driving revenue every time you guide customers to better outcomes. You just need the framework to make it intentional and natural. NEW: The Value-Based Selling Certification Program is a flexible, on-demand program that shows you how to tap into what you're already doing as a trusted advisor. You'll learn how to: → Connect customer goals to business expansion opportunities → Present growth as the natural next step in their success journey → Navigate expansion conversations with customer-first approaches → Demonstrate measurable revenue impact from your strategic work This isn't about becoming a salesperson; it's about leveraging the strategic value you already possess. Get started with Value-Based Selling today. Link in the comments below ⬇️ #successcoaching #customersuccess #customersuccessmanager #professionaldevelopment

Curiosity ranks amongs the most important soft skills of any successful Customer Success Manager or Leader. And the same applies to Sales Reps. You want CSMs and Sales Reps who: - Are truly interested in your clients and prospects - Who listen, think, dig, ask questions to understand And this curiosity applies to your own business too. You want CSMs and Sales Reps who really understand what your product can do to provide value. This is on top of any other soft skills and on top of process, playbook or system. It outranks other skills that you can learn. Do you agree? #customersuccess #sales #credibility #curiosity #success