This post will discuss the unique skills of Sales Executives and CSMs and how we can hire each others’ talents for success with our customers.
Let’s review.
The Talents of Sales Executives for CSMs
First, let’s look at the talents Sales skills provide to a customer partnership.
These skills are a sampling of what makes a successful salesperson from the book “New Sales Simplified” by Mike Weinberg. These traits best apply to the CSM and Sales partnership.
- Ability to push past resistance: handle conflict, risk, rejection and tension
- Fast to Action: go after opportunities proactively
- Tell the Story: create a tailored story that connects with our customer
- Positive Outlook and Attitude: optimism for the future
- Conduct an Effective Sales Call: skilled at planning, solving problems and capturing opportunities for our customers
The Talents of CSMs for Sales Executives
Now, let’s review the traits of a CSM in a customer partnership.
These traits are based on the 3 Core Competencies of a CSM from “The Customer Success Professionals Handbook” by Ashvin Vaidyanathan and Ruben Rabago.
- Knowledge Mastery
- Expertise in our product to answer questions and concerns
- Experience with our category to empathize with customers and share best practices
2. Problem-Solving Ability
- Understanding of our customer’s unique business challenges
- Take action to show our customer how our product solves the customer’s challenges
3. Building Relationships with Customers
- Creating a trusted partnership
- Ability to put ourselves in our customer’s shoes
When we combine these CSM and Sales talents we receive benefits to our ourselves and our customer.
The Benefits of a Sales and CSM Partnership to our Ourselves
When Sales and CSM colleagues partner together, we receive:
- Appreciation for each other’s talents
- Mutual respect for our professions
- Understanding of each others’ roles and how we can combine skills together
- Collaboration benefits in supporting each other, debating solutions and bouncing ideas off each other
- Enjoyment from working toward a common goal as a team
The Benefits of a Sales and CSM Partnership for Our Customer
Our customer receives benefits of a Sales and CSM partnership:
- Synergy: a team that brainstorms ideas, develops strategy and looks out for your business
- Multiple perspectives: partners focused on your current business while also thinking about your future
- Relationship depth: building a strong relationship with the ability to have challenging conversations to push the partnership forward
Sales and CSMs partners may find their collaboration invaluable in achieving success for our clients, our ourselves and our company.