Account Management Secrets

Most account teams don't lose customers overnight. They lose them slowly, through signals nobody caught in time. Knowing how to identify at-risk customers before they churn is the difference between a controlled loss and a surprise that blindsides the whole business.
 
On Account Management Secrets, host Alex Raymond talks with Daniel Santiago, Senior Vice President of Customer Success at OrthoFi, about the net revenue retention strategy that took his team from 85% to 108% net revenue retention. Daniel explains the watch list system he built to catch what he calls "green-to-gone" accounts before they slip away.
 
Daniel walks through how OrthoFi worked to reduce customer churn in the first six months of a relationship, and how his team aims to keep churn forecasts within a plus-or-minus-five-percent tolerance. He also breaks down how quarterly business review best practices changed at OrthoFi, shifting QBRs from tactical fixes to conversations built on real data. Along the way, he unpacks net revenue retention vs gross revenue retention and what that fifteen-point spread reveals about a customer base.
 
Listen to hear how Daniel built a culture where flagging risk early gets rewarded instead of punished, and what it takes to run a customer success team on outcomes instead of instinct.
 
Episode Breakdown:
00:00 Welcome and Daniel Santiago's Path to OrthoFi
06:45 Splitting Customer Success From the Sales Org
11:48 Fixing the First Six Months to Cut Early Churn
18:35 How to Identify At-Risk Customers Before They Churn
21:00 The “Green-to-Gone” Problem and Building Psychological Safety
24:52 Minimizing Forecast Variance for Accurate Renewals
29:01 Turning QBRs Into Real Business Conversations
36:17 What Private Equity Expects From Customer Success
40:00 Net Revenue Retention Targets and Staying Power at OrthoFi
 
Connect with Daniel Santiago:
Connect with Daniel on LinkedIn
Visit the OrthoFi website
Connect with Alex Raymond:
Connect with Alex on LinkedIn
Visit the AMplify website
Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

Most account managers can quote the theory on building relationships with executives, but the real test starts after the deal closes. That's when the senior sponsor hands you off to someone three levels down. Jamal Reimer has lived that handoff from both sides. He spent 26 years in enterprise software sales, including a $53 million deal while at Oracle, and he learned exactly how to build executive relationships in account management once the introductions end.
 
On this episode of Account Management Secrets, host Alex Raymond talks with Jamal Reimer about strategic selling vs transactional selling, and how that distinction shapes an enterprise sales strategy for account managers who inherit a client relationship instead of starting one from scratch. He shares the nine-month renewal sales cycle that grew a $10 million run rate to $53 million, and the single meeting that changed how he read a room for the rest of his career.
 
Jamal also shares his two-part method for staying connected to a senior sponsor after the handoff, something he calls micro commitments. It is a practical way to think through how to get access to decision makers before the relationship goes cold, and he explains why so few companies run functioning executive sponsor programs.
 
If you want to know how to talk to executives in sales without sounding like every other vendor, this episode breaks down exactly how to build executive relationships in account management and keep them. Press play to hear Jamal's approach in his own words.
Episode Breakdown:
00:00 Why $50 Million Deals Aren't the Real Story
02:55 Jamal's First Ten Years Struggling With Transactional Selling
05:15 Getting Fired Twice and Finding Strategic Selling
08:00 The Meeting That Changed How Jamal Read a Room
11:00 How to Build Executive Relationships in Account Management
12:37 Leading With Knowledge Instead of Generic Questions
14:32 Turning a $10 Million Renewal Into $53 Million
16:27 New Logos vs Existing Accounts and Building a Brand
18:45 Crossing the Chasm From Sponsor to Operator
24:17 Why Micro Commitments Keep Relationships From Going Cold
25:15 Why So Few Companies Run Executive Sponsor Programs
27:41 Reading the Mountain: Bottom, Middle, and Executive Priorities
31:58 Pitching the Right Insight to the Wrong Level
34:22 Why Being a Little Wrong Opens the Conversation
38:02 The Lost Art of Whiteboarding With Customers
 
Connect with Jamal Reimer:
Connect with Jamal on LinkedIn
Visit Jamal's website
 
Connect with Alex Raymond:
Connect with Alex on LinkedIn
Visit the AMplify website
Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

Private equity firms don't care about your health scores or QBRs. They care about one question: what makes this business worth more tomorrow than it is today.
 
Carlos Granda spent 30 years running post-sales at Google Cloud, Salesforce, SAP, and Oracle before he started advising the private equity firms buying up software companies. That vantage point gave him a name for a problem most executives never see coming: the GRR time bomb. A healthy net revenue retention number can hide real churn underneath it, and by the time anyone notices, the damage is already baked into the company's valuation.
 
Why do so many leaders celebrate 103% NRR without asking what they lost to get there? Carlos breaks down the math and makes the case that gross revenue retention, not NRR, is the number that actually tells the truth.
 
He also pushes back on a phrase every account manager has heard a hundred times: "it's too expensive." That's rarely the real reason a customer leaves, and Carlos explains what's usually hiding underneath it. His bigger argument is that post-sales professionals are underappreciated because most of them have never learned to translate their work into the language of enterprise value. What would change on your team if a support ticket and a churn risk were understood as the same conversation PE firms are already having about your company's worth?
 
Episode Breakdown:
00:00 Why Private Equity Cares About Enterprise Value, Not Health Scores
06:48 Connecting Account Management to Enterprise Value Creation
16:04 What Private Equity Firms Actually Evaluate in Post-Sales Teams
20:02 NRR vs GRR: The Metric That Tells the Truth
27:04 Building a GRR Get Well Plan
34:43 How to Pitch the Same Initiative to a CEO vs a PE Firm
44:11 The Future of Post-Sales: AI and the Disappearing Line Between Sales and Support
Connect with Carlos Granda:
Connect with Carlos on LinkedIn 
Connect with Alex Raymond:
Connect with Alex on LinkedIn
Visit the AMplify website
Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

Account manager vs project manager isn't just a title swap. Smash the two roles together, and you get the worst of both worlds, with no time to do either job well.
 
On Account Management Secrets, Alex Raymond talks with Stephan Schroeder, Vice President of Global Sales and Client Services for the Automotive and Mobility Practice at Escalent. Escalent works with almost all major global automotive manufacturers, from Ford and GM to Toyota and Honda, as well as global suppliers like Lear and Magna. It is account management inside a concentrated industry, where the traditional pool of potential clients is finite and every relationship needs to generate business for years, not just months.
 
Stephan lays out the account manager career path as a fork in the road. One track leans into client relationship management and sales, eventually taking responsibility for larger books of business. The other builds solutions, project delivery, and subject-matter expertise. He walks through the triangle every account manager has to manage at once: the client, the team, and the boss above them. Get that balance wrong, and the pressure quickly compounds.
 
Stephan also explains why account managers are often the first to recognize emerging client needs. He describes account management as the canary in the coal mine when it comes to identifying what customers may need next. He also shares a tiered system he used earlier in his career to move new account managers onto larger clients without setting them up to fail. Listen to the whole episode to hear why separating account management from project management can create clearer career paths, stronger client relationships, and better results
 
Episode Breakdown:
00:00 Meet Stephan Schroeder and Escalent's Automotive Practice
02:44 Working With Global Automakers and Major Suppliers
05:15 Revenue Goals, Retention, and Client Satisfaction Scores
11:41 Account Management Inside a Concentrated Industry
14:41 Growing the Business Through Innovation and New Markets
18:38 How Account Managers Surface New Product Ideas
25:51 Choosing a Sales Track or a Delivery Track
31:58 Account Manager vs Project Manager: Why the Roles Get Confused
41:16 The Client, Team, and Boss Triangle
47:49 Advice for Breaking Into Account Management
 
Connect with Stephan Schroeder:Connect with Stephan on LinkedIn
Visit the Escalent website 
 
Connect with Alex Raymond:
Connect with Alex on LinkedIn
Visit the AMplify website
Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

Most account managers can’t clearly explain what their job is, and that gap costs them money, energy, and career momentum. This episode of Account Management Secrets delivers the account management career advice Alex Raymond has collected across 100 episodes and two years of conversations with account managers and customer success leaders around the world.
 
Alex breaks down the five lessons that mattered most. He explains why post-sales work still lacks a shared definition and how that gap leaves teams recreating systems and processes that should already exist. He also tackles the account management vs. sales mindset head-on. By reframing selling as delivering value before revenue is earned, Alex offers a different perspective on how to grow in account management without losing the trust customers depend on.
 
Alex makes the case for net revenue as the single metric worth rallying an account management team around instead of chasing a dozen scattered KPIs. He shares why no one is coming to save your career and what that means for anyone serious about post-sales career growth. The episode also includes the story of one account manager who grew a single account from $50,000 to $10 million, proof that the growth department account management movement is real and already changing how the role gets measured.
 
Press play and walk away with account management career advice you can use this week, not someday.
Episode Breakdown:
00:00 Celebrating 100 Episodes and Two Years of Lessons
02:25 Guests Spanning Every Industry and Account Size
04:51 Why Post-Sales Still Has No Standard Definition
09:43 Reframing Selling as Value Before Revenue
19:29 Making Net Revenue Retention the North Star
24:15 No One Is Coming to Save Your Career
29:00 The Growth Department and Joanna's 200x Account
33:54 Closing Thoughts and Thanks to the Community
Connect with Alex Raymond:
Connect with Alex on LinkedIn
Visit the AMplify website
Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

Keeping customers happy no longer protects your job. Buyers want measurable business outcomes, and the customer success competencies you leaned on in the last decade will not carry you forward.
 
Host Alex Raymond sits down with Bradley Lawrence, former Global Head of Customer Experience at Coursera, who has led customer teams for more than fifteen years. Bradley names the five customer success competencies every CSM needs now, from a revenue-aligned commercial mindset to executive influence. He also draws a hard line on AI in customer success and identifies the three parts of the job humans should never hand over.
 
Alex shares a stat you will remember. Bring the C-suite to your QBRs, and you create significantly more expansion opportunities. Leave the meeting to junior contacts, and churn risk climbs. Bradley turns this into QBR best practices and a coaching move for reaching decision-makers you have never met. He rolled out an AI layer built for a thirty percent productivity lift, then explained why the win goes to your team, not your headcount. You will also hear why the relationship-only CSM is running out of road, and which customer success manager skills matter more than pure rapport.
 
Bradley also examines customer success leadership, why humility beats seniority, and how leaders can replace the customer happiness myth with a focus on business outcomes. Press play to learn the five competencies your career needs as AI reshapes post-sales work.
 
Episode Breakdown:
00:00 Alex Raymond Opens Account Management Secrets
02:20 The Biggest Misconception About Customer Success
03:46 Building Customer Success Competencies Through Strategic Priorities
06:37 Why Most QBR Training Falls Short
08:05 The Relationship-Only CSM Is Becoming Obsolete
11:14 What It Really Means to Be Strategic
15:14 Coaching CSMs to Reach the C-Suite
17:53 The Data Behind C-Suite Engagement and Churn
20:09 Evaluating and Investing in AI Tools for Customer Success
22:38 What Humans Should Never Outsource to AI
25:55 Rolling Out Cora.ai and Measuring Productivity Gains
31:25 The Five Competencies Shaping Customer Success
34:56 Leading with Humility in Customer Experience
36:58 Replacing Customer Happiness with Business Outcomes
 
Connect with Bradley Lawrence:
Connect with Bradley on LinkedIn 
 
Connect with Alex Raymond:
Connect with Alex on LinkedIn
Visit the AMplify website
Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

Private equity due diligence rarely accounts for the customer base itself, even though it may be the asset most likely to drive an acquisition’s success.
 
On this episode of Account Management Secrets, host Alex Raymond sits down with James Lawson, a veteran of PE-backed software companies, to unpack why so many deals underperform after the ink dries. James has spent over two decades cleaning up the aftermath of buyouts where customer churn after acquisition quietly erodes the numbers everyone celebrated at close.
 
James explains how a single missing relationship, often the person who quietly held a whole account together, can trigger a wave of churn that private equity operating partners never see coming until the damage surfaces. He and Alex dig into why retention gets deprioritized in favor of fast new business wins, and how teams sacrifice post-acquisition customer retention for a quick logo count.
 
The conversation turns to what separates firms building a real portfolio company growth strategy from those chasing an 8x to 12x  multiple with no plan for the people running the business. James shares the audit process he uses to find blind spots before churn quietly hits the growth number by 20% or more, and why private equity due diligence needs curiosity as much as spreadsheets.
 
If you work anywhere near the post-sale side of a PE-backed business, this conversation will change how you read a data room.
 
Episode Breakdown:
00:00 Meet James Lawson, Fractional Operating Partner to SaaS Firms
02:33 Why Acquired Companies Rarely Match Their Cover Story
06:13 Private Equity Due Diligence and the Hidden Cost of Acquisition
09:59 How Churn Quietly Hits the Number by 20 to 25 Percent
12:12 Setting Growth Goals Before You Buy a Company
13:19 What PE Firms Want From an 8 to 12X Exit
14:53 Why Some Portfolio Companies Struggle to Exit on Time
17:12 The Risk of Chasing Top Line Growth Over Retention
20:16 Building an Audit Process for Newly Acquired Companies
22:38 The Weight Loss Metaphor for Running a Company Audit
24:28 Org Design and Account Manager Workload
26:30 Running Risk and Opportunity Meetings Across Departments
29:06 Aligning ICP Between Sales and Post-Sales Teams
30:24 Should Customer Success Report to the CRO
34:01 Why Revenue Should Never Feel Icky to Post-Sale Teams
37:00 Making the Case for Investment as a CS Leader
40:25 Pitching a Capital Allocation Plan Like an Entrepreneur
43:23 What the Best PE Firms Understand About Growth
45:33 One Thing PE Operating Partners Should Do Differently
47:27 Final Advice: Stay Curious and Keep Asking Questions
 
Connect with James Lawson:
Connect with James on LinkedIn 
Visit the River Consultancy Group website 
 
Connect with Alex Raymond:
Connect with Alex on LinkedIn
Visit the AMplify website
Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

Running one global enterprise account is nothing like running 120 small ones, and the enterprise customer success manager career path proves it.
 
Josh Chapman is a Principal Customer Success Manager for Global Strategic Enterprise at Adobe, where he runs one of the company’s largest accounts. On this episode of Account Management Secrets, host Alex Raymond traces Josh's career from Ticketmaster to Salesforce to Adobe, and what the evolution of his portfolio reveals about the CSM career progression most people never plan for.
 
Josh's portfolio shrank with every move he made. He went from managing a large book of roughly 120 accounts to a smaller set of higher-value Salesforce accounts, then to four enterprise accounts, and now to one global strategic account at Adobe. Fewer accounts, higher revenue, and a completely different set of demands.What started as time prioritization and reactive firefighting evolved into executive relationship building, cross-functional orchestration in customer success, and owning ROI at the enterprise level. For Josh, running 120 accounts is small business franchise work. Running one is CEO work.
 
The conversation gets specific about managing large enterprise accounts across multiple business units with competing goals. Josh walks through building internal champions, rallying cross-functional teams, and showing up as the one person every stakeholder knows they can call. He also talks about why early career CSMs need to be the megaphone for their own work, and why the emerging AI Engagement Manager role is the next natural landing spot for strategic CSMs.
 
If you are building your strategic account management skills and trying to map out what comes next, this episode lays out the full career arc from reactive portfolio management to enterprise-level ownership.
 
Episode Breakdown:
00:00 The Enterprise Customer Success Manager Career Path Explained
02:23 Why the CSM Job Title Means Something Different at Every Level
06:25 From 120 Accounts to One: Josh Chapman's Career Progression
13:30 How to Scale a Large Portfolio Without Losing Client Value
18:33 The Portfolio Numbers Behind Each Career Move
20:31 Why CSMs Must Be the Megaphone for Their Own Work
26:00 Building Executive Relationships That Actually Stick
29:23 Driving Product Adoption and ROI at the Enterprise Level
33:27 Cross-Functional Orchestration as a Core CSM Skill
39:26 Where the Best Career Opportunities Are for CSMs Today
42:54 The AI Engagement Manager Role Every Strategic CSM Should Watch
 
Connect with Josh Chapman:
Connect with Josh on LinkedIn 
 
Connect with Alex Raymond:
Connect with Alex on LinkedIn
Visit the AMplify website
Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

Most QBRs are slow, forgettable, and quietly kill your client relationships.
 
That's the uncomfortable truth Jason Scott sat with after watching a major enterprise account stagnate for over 12 months. As a seasoned account manager with experience managing portfolios worth more than $100 million across healthcare, insurance, and technology, Jason realized the problem wasn't the account. It was the meeting.
 
On this episode of Account Management Secrets, host Alex Raymond and Jason Scott dig into how to run a better QBR by throwing out the old playbook entirely. Jason shares how ditching the slide deck, calling an executive listening session, and reframing the entire meeting as a growth roundtable helped him take one account from $3 million to $7 million in a single year.
 
The conversation gets into the real mechanics of quarterly business review strategy, including how to show up as a peer rather than a vendor, how to earn C-suite attendance and keep it, and what it actually means to lead a meeting instead of just reporting in one. Jason and Alex walk through the three things executives actually want from these conversations, and why most account managers never deliver any of them.
 
If you've been looking for practical account manager tips that go beyond surface-level advice, this episode is it. The shift from vendor to strategic partner doesn't happen by accident. It happens when you stop treating QBRs as status updates and start treating them as strategic account management tools built around client retention and growth.
 
Jason's story is proof that one meeting, run differently, can change everything.
 
Episode Breakdown:
 
00:00 Why Most QBRs Are Quietly Killing Client Relationships
02:15 Meet Jason Scott: Enterprise Account Manager and QBR Strategist
02:33 When a QBR Becomes a Status Meeting and Accounts Go Stagnant
04:08 How to Run a Better QBR by Starting with an Executive Listening Session
09:23 Building the Growth Roundtable to Replace Outdated QBR Formats
13:50 Shifting from Reporting to Leading in Client Meetings
16:00 What Happened When Jason Renamed and Restructured His QBRs
18:23 Why Executives Ghost QBRs and How to Get Decision Makers to Show Up
21:12 The Data on C-Suite Attendance and Account Growth Opportunities
22:21 The QBR with No Slides That Doubled Account Revenue
25:39 How to Lead a High-Stakes Meeting When You Have Nothing to Lose
28:00 From $3 Million to $7 Million in 12 Months
30:27 What a QBR Should Actually Accomplish for Both Sides
32:01 How to Co-Author a Joint Success and Innovation Roadmap
34:07 Keeping Clients Accountable Without Losing the Relationship
36:47 How Jason Brought His New QBR Framework Back to His Team
39:56 Jason Scott's Advice for Account Managers Ready to Make a Change
 
Connect with Jason Scott:
Connect with Jason on LinkedIn
 
Connect with Alex Raymond:
Connect with Alex on LinkedIn
Visit the AMplify website
Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

Most account managers at PE-backed companies are playing by the wrong rules and don't even know it.
 
Alex Raymond and guest Alan Gonsenhauser, an 11-time CMO and private equity advisor who calls himself a "customer capitalist," reframe what account management in private equity means and why the way most post-sale leaders talk about their work is costing them credibility in the boardroom.
 
Alan breaks down how PE sponsors think about the customer base as an asset with a five- to seven-year window to grow its value before a sale or IPO. Retention isn't a customer success problem. It's a business issue that belongs at the C-suite level, on every board agenda, and in every strategic planning conversation.
 
They cover why gross revenue retention benchmarks and net revenue retention strategy are the real signals investors watch, what cross-functional alignment actually looks like in practice, and why the CFO is the most important relationship most post-sale leaders aren't building.
 
For anyone leading post-sale leadership B2B inside a PE-owned company, Alan offers a mindset shift that changes how you show up internally. Stop asking for budget. Start speaking the language of capital allocation for customer success and frame your work as an investment with a measurable return.
 
Account management in private equity isn't just about keeping clients happy. It's about proving that the asset is growing.
 
Episode Breakdown:
00:00 The Customer Base as the Most Valuable Asset in a PE-Backed Company
02:13 Meet Alan Gonsenhauser, the Customer Capitalist
03:18 Why Retention Drives Long-Term Financial Results
07:58 Gross Revenue Retention Benchmarks and What Best-In-Class NRR Looks Like
10:58 Cross-Functional Alignment and the ICP Governance Framework
13:41 Acquiring Bad-Fit Customers Is Acquiring Debt, Not Growth
19:29 How Private Equity Sponsors Think About the Five to Seven Year Value Creation Window
21:33 How Account Management in Private Equity Directly Impacts MOIC and EBITDA
26:06 Customer Centricity Inside PE-Owned Companies
28:20 Earned Growth, NPS 3.0, and Closing the Feedback Loop
30:26 Framing Post-Sale Work as Capital Allocation
32:50 Why the CFO Is the Most Important Relationship Post-Sale Leaders Are Ignoring
34:46 Who Really Owns Retention and Why It Belongs at the CEO Level
 
Connect with Alan Gonsenhauser:
Connect with Alan on LinkedIn
Visit the Demand Revenue website
Subscribe to Alan's YouTube channel
Connect with Alex Raymond:
Connect with Alex on LinkedIn
Visit the AMplify website
Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm