For years, revenue growth was fueled by net-new logo acquisitions. Fast-forward to the post-ZIRP (zero interest-rate policy) era, and that model is less sustainable. As Nick Mehta, CEO, Gainsight, said during Revenue Unplugged: “You can’t out-hunt the leaky bucket anymore. It’s about keeping and growing your existing customers.”
Buyers are cautious, especially in B2B. Sales cycles are slower. Buying committees are growing. Budgets are shrinking. Combined, that not only makes landing new customers harder, but also ups the ante on keeping them. If customers aren’t sticking around and growing, then you’re in trouble.
It’s no surprise, then, that Chief Revenue Officers (CROs) are expanding their scope to focus not only on landing logos but also everything after the contract is signed, including retention and expansion.
And that’s exactly what we explored during Revenue Unplugged, our biggest and most engaging virtual event yet. Here are six takeaways from leaders building modern revenue engines that include strategies after the sale, not before it.
1. Alignment Doesn’t Come From Org Charts
Many companies are changing their org structure to create better alignment—putting Sales, Customer Success (CS), and Account Management (AM) on the same team. But even the best-designed org chart won’t mean much if teams aren’t actually working in tandem.
That disconnect came through loud and clear during the session. We heard dozens of questions about where functions like Professional Services, Support, and others should sit—proof that teams are still wrestling with what “alignment” really looks like.
Questions like:
- Should Professional Services be part of the Revenue team, or sit separately?
- Is Support considered part of Revenue?
- Where do CS and AM responsibilities start and stop?
These kinds of questions point to a deeper truth—one that Marilee Bear, Gainsight’s CRO, captured perfectly during the keynote. Reflecting on her early days at Gainsight, she emphasized that real alignment doesn’t come from reporting lines. It comes from clearly defined roles, shared workflows, and consistent expectations across the entire customer journey.
At Gainsight, that meant mapping every stage of that journey, assigning clear ownership, and operationalizing how teams collaborate and hand off work. The result? Less friction, more momentum, and actual alignment between Sales and CS.
2. Expansion Depends on Outcomes, Not Vibes
Hoping your customer is happy enough to renew isn’t a strategy. That’s why leading Revenue teams are proving value early and often with success plans that track shared goals and verified outcomes, like increased product adoption or reduced time spent on manual processes.
For Victoria Griffin, Vice President of Account and Customer Success Management, Acquia, this value process starts from day one. “As soon as we onboard a customer, we host what we call a ‘Welcome to Acquia’ call,” she shared. “We talk about what we refer to as a desired customer outcome—what they’re hoping to achieve with us. From there, we help them create a mutual success plan that we use throughout their entire lifecycle.”
And this plan isn’t a one-time doc, either. It lives and breathes. Whether a customer is meeting with CS or Account Management, that success plan comes up again and again to track progress, course-correct when needed, and keep everyone aligned on what matters most: reaching the customer’s goals.
Sarah Jennings, CRO, Swoogo, takes a similarly proactive approach. “I strongly believe—along with many others—that a client makes their decision to renew within the first 90 days of engaging with your company. That’s why doubling down during that time and giving them the support they need is the most important thing we can do. And that’s exactly what we focused on.”
3. AI Is Helping Revenue Teams Focus
AI is often hyped for its speed, but for Revenue teams, its real value is focus. Instead of chasing dashboards or relying on gut feel to make decisions, teams are using AI to surface the signals that matter most, like which accounts are at risk, who’s ready for expansion, and when to step in with support.
As Brent Krempges, Chief Customer Officer (CCO), Gainsight, shared: “It really comes down to where we’re seeing positive impact in the business—higher renewal, higher expansion—and understanding that at a granular level. Staircase AI gives us that visibility without needing data entry from the team. I can see where they’re stretched too thin, what’s working, and where we may need to make changes.”
In other words, AI isn’t about automating everything; it’s about freeing up time to focus on the right accounts and conversations—the ones that drive revenue.
4. Success Comes From North Star Metrics
For too long, teams worked in silos with their own Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)—Sales with pipeline, CS with adoption, and Execs with efficiency. But when revenue depends on retention and expansion, that fragmented model falls apart.
Today, high-performing teams align on a shared set of metrics that matter across the business. Think of it as your “North Star” for post-sale growth. Teams review account health, product usage, risk indicators, and cost-to-serve data—together. The goal? A full-picture view that fuels smarter decisions and tighter execution.
As Cuyler explained, “Our adoption strategy was across nine different activities that we needed to take on, and they didn’t necessarily correlate with renewal and expansion very well. So we tore everything down and went through a customer journey mapping, which was really powerful for us to walk through the moments that matter and nail down what was most important for us to achieve as a team. And then we did exactly that.” He added, “Now we’ve got moments that matter that we all pitch in on. And specifically, executive engagement and escalations and things like that are completely formulaic now.”
5. Customer Success Is Becoming a Pipeline Powerhouse
Customer Success has long been seen as a post-sale support function. But that narrative is changing.
Today, CS teams aren’t just influencing pipeline. They’re generating it. With Customer Success Qualified Leads (CSQLs) now tracked, bonused, and prioritized, CS has become one of the most effective channels for driving expansion.
At TrustRadius, this shift is already paying off. “CSQL is our highest-converting lead—and it’s a number I put in front of the board every time we meet,” shared Cuyler Owens, CRO, TrustRadius.
But that kind of visibility didn’t happen by accident. “We spiff our CS team and give them a bonus every time that they create a CSQL,” he explained. “We’ve set quarterly targets, and the team has been blowing them out for the last four quarters. They were hesitant at first, but now they’re jumping in—asking about deals, following up—because they want those leads to convert.”
6. Shared Language Drives Real Change
Shifting from siloed teams to a unified Revenue org doesn’t happen through strategy decks. It happens in the everyday words teams use to describe their work.
At Gainsight, one of the most impactful changes in our transition to a unified revenue model was language. Our Sales Kickoff became a Revenue Kickoff. Slack channels were renamed to reflect shared ownership. Even team labels were rethought to reinforce that we were one org with one mission.
“We said, we’re not Sales. We’re not CS versus Account Management anymore,” said Bear. “We’re creating one team. We’re calling it the Revenue team.”
That kind of internal unification is only half the equation. It also has to show up in how teams engage with customers. Amanda Georgoff, CRO, RadarFirst, echoed the importance of front-facing coordination: “Everyone’s very eager to talk to the customers, and I want to make sure we’re doing it in a really streamlined way.”
The New Standard for Revenue Growth
Retention and expansion aren’t support motions anymore. They’re the strategy. And what worked five years ago—relying on net-new to cover churn—just doesn’t cut it now.
What we heard at Revenue Unplugged was clear: The companies growing in 2025 and beyond will be the ones that treat the post-sale experience not as an afterthought, but as the engine of their revenue model. That means clear ownership, shared signals, and the discipline to make growth repeatable.
The winners won’t be the ones who say they’re aligned.
They’ll be the ones who operate like it—every day, after the sale.
Want to see what had the room buzzing? Watch the recordings now.
