Explore every episode of the podcast After the Close: The Customer Revenue Podcast

Your CEO wants growth from the customer base, so somebody hands customer success a number and wishes them luck. I tell the story of a cross-sell that made it all the way into the forecast before one call showed us the customer we already had was at risk, why fixing it cut our pipeline by more than half, and the comp change that made it honest again. If you're deciding who owns growth from your existing customers, you'll walk away with the one question that tells you whether it's even a CS deal, and what to check before anyone gets a number.

Get After the Close, the newsletter, every other Tuesday: kristifaltorusso.com

00:00 Your forecast is full of deals that aren't real
00:22 The cross-sell that made it to the CEO
02:53 "We're not going to make an introduction"
03:11 I paid them to open opportunities
04:55 Real sales training for CS
06:03 The pipeline dropped by more than half
06:58 Happy ears
08:00 The comp change: 30% qualified, 70% closed
09:47 It set us back a full quarter
11:06 The upsell sales already gave away
14:10 Not even one size fits most
16:20 It was never a CS deal
16:54 "Own is a very extreme word"
18:20 Do the math first
19:58 Give them real training
21:25 The CFO who handed down impossible numbers
24:09 The question for your leadership team
24:43 Happy ears don't renew

Your sales team will take your answers and your talking points, then ask you to wait in the hallway until the contract is signed. I break down the five reasons sales keeps Customer Success out of deals, the two that are completely fair, and the pilot that got my team into the right deals, where we closed 7% more of them and sales stopped discounting to get them signed. If you lead a post-sale team and keep inheriting promises you never heard, you'll walk away with the exact questions to take to your sales leader this week.

Get After the Close, the newsletter, every other Tuesday: kristifaltorusso.com

00:00 Sales wants your answers, not you
00:24 The deal I got kept out of
03:39 Five reasons sales says no
04:07 "Stop selling once you've sold"
04:49 Sales sells the vision, we live the reality
06:15 How one call slips the forecast
08:13 I don't scale either
09:48 How the sausage is made
11:18 Two of the five are fair
11:36 The pilot I pitched as a new VP
16:25 7% more deals closed
17:05 Fewer discounts, less product given away
18:52 What's fair: capacity and timing
22:52 Two questions before you ask for a seat
23:13 How to run the pilot
26:02 Measure what happens after the close
26:33 Every deal you're kept out of

Not all churn is a crisis. Some of it? It's a gift.

In this episode of After the Close, I'm joined by Dannah Vaughan, Director of Customer Success at Silverline Solutions, and we're flipping the script on one of CS's most loaded words. Churn doesn't always mean you failed. Sometimes it means you got smarter about who you're actually building for.

We're breaking down the concept of good churn -- what it is, how to spot it, and why holding on to the wrong customers is costing you more than letting them go ever would. Bad fit customers, legacy accounts on outdated plans, customers who've outgrown you (or you've outgrown them) -- they all have something in common. They're draining your team, distorting your metrics, and quietly holding your business back.

Dannah brings the real operator perspective on what it actually looks like to make these calls in the field -- and how to have the internal conversations that make good churn a strategy, not a failure.

This one is for every CS leader who's been told "just save the account" without anyone stopping to ask if that account was worth saving in the first place.

Churn so good, baby.

You're managing a book of business worth millions. You're driving retention, expansion, and customer outcomes. And yet, somehow, you're still begging for budget like you're asking your parents for an allowance.

Sound familiar?

In this episode, Kristi Faltorusso sits down with Raffaella Fontes to get real about why CS leaders are so bad at asking for resources -- and why the system makes it almost impossible to win even when you try. From being kept in the dark on budgets to having zero influence over how money actually gets allocated, they dig into the structural dysfunction that keeps CS teams underfunded and underestimated.

This isn't a pep talk. It's a reality check, a rant, and a roadmap -- all in one.

You'll walk away knowing exactly why CS keeps losing the budget conversation, and what it actually takes to start winning it.

Most companies spend months recruiting top CS talent and then hand them a laptop, a Salesforce login, and absolutely zero plan. The result? Burned out CSMs, frustrated customers, and churn that nobody wants to trace back to a broken onboarding process.

In this episode, I'm joined by Sarah Walton, Customer Success Enablement Specialist at Trimble, who has made it her mission to fix exactly that. Sarah is in the trenches every day building the systems, training programs, and support structures that turn new hires into confident, effective CSMs. She knows what good looks like and she is not afraid to call out what lazy looks like either.

We get into the real cost of skipping a structured ramp, why experienced hires still need onboarding (yes, all of them), and what a 30/60/90 day plan should actually include beyond product demos and good vibes.

If you lead a CS team, are building out an enablement function, or just started a new role and immediately thought "what is happening here," this one is for you.

🎧 What we cover:

• Why most CSM onboarding sets people up to fail from day one
• The difference between product training and real readiness
• How to build a ramp program with actual milestones and accountability
• What good looks like at 30, 60, and 90 days
• The metrics that tell you if your onboarding is actually working

Your executives are skipping your business reviews. And I'm going to tell you something that might sting: it's not them. It's you.

In this solo episode, I'm breaking down exactly why the traditional QBR is broken and what to do before your next one.

QBRs were never a SaaS motion. They were borrowed from consulting and nobody questioned it. Somewhere along the way they turned into useless status updates that waste everyone's time. The review and the reflection? Leave that to AI. Humans should be in the room doing what AI can't: planning, challenging, advising, and partnering around what comes next.

If you're going to run business reviews, here's what has to change:

1. Rename it. Call it a Goal Planning Session.

2. Flip the agenda. Look forward, not back.

3. Lead with the exec summary. Slide one, not slide nine.

4. Drop the spin. Own the bad quarter.

5. Come with a POV and proof.

6. Ask better questions and actually follow the thread.

The teams getting the most out of their business reviews aren't the ones with the best decks. They're the ones who show up with a plan, a point of view, and real curiosity.

Save this one before your next business review.

Find me on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/kristifaltorusso

More at kristifaltorusso.com

Most companies treat customer education like an onboarding task.

A few videos.A help center.Maybe a webinar if the team has time.

But the best companies treat education as a growth strategy.

In this episode of After the Close, Kristi sits down with Daniele Evans, Director of Customer Education at Sendoso, to talk about how modern customer education programs drive adoption, retention, and expansion long after the deal is signed.

At Sendoso, education isn’t just about helping customers get started. It’s about creating scalable learning experiences that empower customers to get value from the platform whenever and however they need it.

And the results speak for themselves.

Accounts with certified admins spend 71% more annually.

In this episode we unpack:

• Why customer education is one of the most underutilized growth levers in SaaS
• How on-demand learning empowers customers to move faster and get value sooner
• The role certification programs play in driving deeper adoption
• How to design learning paths for different roles within your customer’s organization
• Why education shouldn’t stop after onboarding

Because when customers truly understand how to use your product…

Adoption grows.
Confidence grows.
And so does revenue.

www.kristifaltorusso.com 

Account transitions are one of the most common and most underestimated moments in the customer journey.

A deal closes. High fives all around. And then someone says:

“Great… now let’s hand this off to Customer Success.”

Sounds simple. But anyone who’s been in Customer Success long enough knows this is where things can start to unravel.

In this episode of After the Close, Kristi is joined by Eleni Vorvis, Fractional VP of Customer Success, and we’re talking about the messy reality of account transitions. The good ones that build trust immediately… and the painful ones where the new CSM walks into a meeting thinking one thing while the customer expects something completely different.

We’ll break down:

• Why account transitions are such a critical moment in the customer experience • The biggest mistakes companies make when handing off customers • What great sales-to-CS transitions actually look like in practice • How to preserve trust, context, and momentum during team changes • Simple frameworks and communication tactics to make transitions smoother

Because here’s the truth:

Most customer problems don’t start six months into the relationship. They start on day one, when the handoff goes sideways.

If you’re in Sales, Customer Success, or leadership, this episode will help you rethink how your organization approaches account transitions so customers feel confident, supported, and excited about what comes next.

And ideally… your CSM doesn’t start the relationship by saying:

“Wait… what did we promise them?” 😅

Every Customer Success team has good people, strong intentions, and a lot of activity. What many don’t have is governance. And when governance is missing, everything feels harder than it needs to be.

In this episode of After the Close, Kristi sits down with Tanya Stauss to unpack one of the most overlooked drivers of CS performance: governance. Not red tape. Not bureaucracy. Real clarity around ownership, decision rights, standards, and escalation paths.

They dig into why so many CS orgs are accountable for outcomes without the authority or structure to drive them, and what happens when every CSM is left to improvise. From last-minute renewal panic to inconsistent customer experiences, most “people problems” in CS are actually governance problems.

You’ll hear what strong governance looks like in practice, how it creates leverage instead of limits, and where leaders can start if their current model feels messy or unclear.

If your team is working hard but still reacting instead of operating with intention, this conversation will hit home.

In this episode of After the Close, host Kristi Faltorusso sits down with Jess Szivos, VP of Customer Success at Invisory, to talk about one of the biggest friction points in SaaS: the relationship between Sales and Customer Success. 

Spoiler alert: Sales isn’t the problem. Misalignment is.

Together, they unpack why these teams often operate on different wavelengths, how competing incentives create tension, and why the handoff is only a tiny part of the bigger partnership that needs to exist. This is a candid, real-world conversation about what’s actually happening inside organizations and what it takes to fix it.

Kristi and Jess dig into:

• Why CS vs. Sales is the wrong narrative
• How misaligned goals and compensation structures create downstream chaos
• What shared responsibility really looks like across the customer lifecycle
• The role leadership plays in setting the tone for collaboration
• Practical ways teams can improve communication and work as one revenue engine

If you’ve ever inherited a “surprise” customer, struggled with unrealistic expectations set during the sales process, or felt the tension between growth and retention goals, this episode is for you.

The takeaway: we don’t need better handoffs—we need better partnerships. When Sales and Customer Success are aligned, customers win, teams win, and the business grows.

Last year, the AI mandate in SaaS was simple: Everyone start testing.

So teams did exactly that.
They grabbed tools. Built workflows. Automated everything in sight.

What they didn’t get?
Governance. Clarity. Direction. Support.

The result wasn’t innovation.
It was chaos.

In this episode of After the Close, I unpack why AI feels so messy in SaaS right now and why it’s not a tooling problem. It’s a leadership one.

We talk about:

• How “go experiment” turned into disconnected efforts and duplicate work
• Why AI made teams busier, not more effective
• The hidden cost of solving different problems in different ways
• What leaders missed and what should have happened instead
• How to reset AI strategy around outcomes, prioritization, and judgment

This isn’t an episode about which AI tools to use.
It’s about how to lead when the technology moves faster than your organization.

If AI feels chaotic in your company, this conversation will help you understand why and what to do next.

Season 1, Episode 1 – This Customer Was Definitely in the ICP… Right?

We’ve all said it.
We’ve all believed it.
And we’ve all paid for it later.

In this episode, I’m kicking off Season 1 by unpacking a customer that looked perfect on paper… and turned into a slow-motion trainwreck in reality.

We talk about:

• What ICP actually means vs how it’s used in SaaS
• The red flags that get ignored in the name of growth
• How bad-fit customers quietly drain CS teams
• Why churn isn’t always the failure — sometimes the deal is
• And the uncomfortable truth: Customer Success can’t outwork bad fit

If you’ve ever inherited an account and thought, “How did we ever think this was a good idea?” — this episode is for you.

Welcome to After the Close.

This is After the Close. The podcast about what actually happens after the deal is signed. The wins, the messes, the missteps, and the moments no one puts on a slide. If you work in Customer Success, revenue, or leadership and you’ve ever thought, “Why does no one talk about this part?”—this podcast is for you. Welcome to the real work.