This week on Revenue Rehab, Brandi Starr is joined by Steve Nolan, a high-energy executive with a knack for scaling businesses and driving strategic revenue growth, who believes focusing solely on new client acquisition is a costly mistake—and he’s ready to prove it. In this episode, they challenge the obsession with acquiring new logos, arguing that prioritizing customer success and retention strategies is the true pathway to sustainable growth. From debunking myths to sharing actionable insights, Steve Nolan makes the case for why revenue leaders need to realign their focus towards leveraging existing customer relationships before it's too late. Do they have it right, or will you change their mind? 

Episode Type: Problem Solving 

Industry analysts, consultants, and founders take a bold stance on critical revenue challenges, offering insights you won’t hear anywhere else. These episodes explore common industry challenges and potential solutions through expert insights and varied perspectives. 

Bullet Points of Key Topics + Chapter Markers: 

Topic #1: The Overlooked Potential of Customer Success [05:58] 

Steve Nolan argues that focusing predominantly on new customer acquisition at the expense of supporting and expanding current customer relationships is detrimental to revenue growth. He emphasizes that companies often ignore the value of the customer success team, which he describes as "maintaining, retaining, and growing your existing customer base," and suggests greater integration among marketing, sales, and customer success. Brandi Starr concurs, highlighting the importance of customer knowledge in understanding market needs. 

Topic #2: The Real Cost of Customer Churn [08:54] 

Nolan challenges the conventional practice of sales teams chasing new deals while ignoring existing client relationships, which results in hidden reputational damage and revenue loss. He stresses that companies fail to recognize that "the cost of a lost customer" is more than just lost revenue—it's also about reputation. Brandi adds that negative experiences can seriously hamper new business acquisition when negative customer experiences circulate in professional networks. 

Topic #3: Misaligned Sales Compensation Structures [24:10] 

Nolan points out that traditional sales compensation structures often encourage behavior that undermines company stability. He argues that aligning compensation more with customer-centric practices can motivate sales teams to cultivate longer-term client relationships rather than chasing quick wins. Brandi acknowledges that changing comp structures is challenging but necessary to ensure cohesive strategies that benefit the entire organization. 

The Wrong Approach vs. Smarter Alternative 

The Wrong Approach: “Hiring a lot of salespeople and buying more leads.” – Steve Nolan 

Why It Fails: Simply increasing headcount and lead volume doesn’t guarantee stable and scalable revenue growth. This approach overlooks internal factors inhibiting success, such as misalignment among sales, marketing, and customer success teams, and can result in high churn rates when leads are not effectively managed or converted into lasting relationships. 

The Smarter Alternative: Companies should focus on aligning their sales, marketing, and customer success teams to work strategically together. By understanding and optimizing the customer journey, training teams, and utilizing data to drive decisions, businesses can enhance customer retention and upsell opportunities, ensuring sustainable growth. 

The Most Damaging Myth 

The Myth: “Companies automatically go to head count. Well, we need to grow by 20%, so let's just hire more people instead of looking at what's keeping those existing people from being more successful and." – Steve Nolan 

Why It’s Wrong: Many companies misunderstand that simply hiring more salespeople and increasing marketing leads can grow revenue. This approach overlooks the inefficiencies within the current sales force and marketing strategies that could be optimized to improve performance without additional headcount. It fails to address the root causes of underperformance and misalignment between sales and customer success teams, ultimately leading to wasted resources and missed opportunities. 

What Companies Should Do Instead: Companies should focus on enhancing the effectiveness and training of their existing teams, especially in aligning marketing, sales, and customer success. By improving processes and finding friction points in the revenue flow, businesses can achieve meaningful growth without merely expanding headcount. Emphasizing cross-functional collaboration and strategic customer engagement can unleash the potential of the existing workforce and resources. 

Rapid Fire Round 

1. Finish this sentence: If your company has this problem, the first thing you should do is _ 

“Get the leaders of each of the revenue teams in a room and diagnose this and set a policy around it.”  

1. What’s one red flag that signals a company has this problem—but might not realize it yet? 

“A consistently growing pipeline, but declining revenue.”  

1. What’s the most common mistake people make when trying to fix this? 

“Hiring more salespeople and buying more leads.”  

1. What’s the fastest action someone can take today to make progress? 

“Map your revenue flow from lead to renewal and find the biggest friction points.” 

Buzzword Banishment

Steve’s buzzword to banish is "time boxing." He dislikes this term because he feels the English language already provides simpler ways to convey the concept, such as sticking to an agenda or ensuring discussions don't go too deep. Steve is frustrated by its overuse in meetings and hopes for its quick disappearance. 

Links: 

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nolansteven 

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