The Customer Strategy

Method Blueprint

By
Nils Vinje of
Glide Consulting
 What's Your #1 Customer
Retention Killer

Congratulations and Thank You!

With the information contained in this blueprint, you are on your way to understanding
the areas where you and your company must focus to build a world-class customer
strategy and ultimately grow customer revenue.

Hi - I’m Nils Vinje, founder and CEO of Glide Consulting and creator of this blueprint.

I have been able to achieve results like these after implementing the strategies contained
in this blueprint:

I took an organization from $0 in expansion revenue to 14% of the Annual Recurring

Revenue in less than 12 months!
Another organization I ran covered a $400k sales miss in a quarter with expansion
revenue to meet the company target!

I did all of this without a fleet of salespeople mining my customers.

Instead, I built and delivered a comprehensive customer strategy where the outcome was
growth in customer revenue.

Since 2015, I have consulted with everyone from early stage startups to Fortune 500
companies and look forward to sharing my insights and experiences with you!

Now, let's get to the blueprint!

Nils Vinje
Founder and CEO, Glide Consulting

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 What's Your #1 Customer
Retention Killer

The Secret Sauce

The real “Secret Sauce” of this blueprint is for you to be PRESCRIPTIVE at every step of your
customer’s experience.

Prescriptive = Powerful
Think about this situation: You need a contract drawn up by a lawyer for a business
arrangement you are going to enter with another party.

Through your research, you line up calls with two qualified lawyers. After explaining your
situation, here’s how each one responds...

Lawyer 1 Lawyer 2
“I have deep experience with contracts
“I have a lot of experience with all
for business arrangements exactly like
kinds of contracts, what do you
you just described.
want covered in the contract?”
Here are the 5 critical things that you
absolutely need to cover and then there
are a few other possibilities which I’ll walk
you through and give you my perspective
on what’s most important.”

Which Lawyer Would You Hire?

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 What's Your #1 Customer
Retention Killer

I hope you said Lawyer 2!

Both lawyers have good experience and have created contracts for this situation but
the fundamental difference is that lawyer 1 asked what the customer wanted and
lawyer 2 was prescriptive. Prescriptive will almost always win.

Most organizations today act like lawyer 1 - they have a lot of experience with their
product and are experts in their industry, but they still wait to be directed by the
customer.

They do this because they believe the customer knows where to go, how to get
there, and they want to “serve” the customer’s needs.

The reality is the opposite.

The customer hired the company to tell it what to do to get value out of its product.

The customer is literally waiting and expecting to be told what to do.

The company is the expert. They are the ones who spend every day thinking about
the problems their solution solves.

The company has an obligation to be prescriptive... but few actually are.

How do you become more prescriptive with your customers?

It takes strategy, more specifically...

The Customer Strategy Method

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 What's Your #1 Customer
Retention Killer

The Customer
Strategy Method

There are four main areas of the Customer Strategy Method which you will find on this
page. On the next page, you'll see a detailed mind-map for each area.

Transformation
Everything starts with a solid understanding of the Transformation your product or
service is going to provide. Nobody buys a product or service without the feeling that
they can achieve the transformation they want.

Fresh Start
When customers decide to make a purchase, whether it's a few hundred dollars or a
few hundred thousand dollars, there is a feeling of excitement and optimism. The Fresh
Start is where you need to capture this excitement and demonstrate that you are going
to deliver the transformation they signed up for.

You have one chance to capture the enthusiasm and set expectations not only for
what's going to happen right away, but also what's going to happen in 3/6/12 months
from now.

Engaging Middle
This is where most companies struggle. They get their customers off to a good start and
then they don't know how to engage with them to continuously drive value while
moving them closer to the next milestone. Careful planning and designing of this phase
will ensure you are going to move your customer closer to the next milestone.

Crush The Milestones

Milestones come in a lot of different shapes and sizes, however, nothing says forward
progress like setting goals and crushing milestones. Architect the right milestones for
your customer strategy and build the stepping stones to get there.

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 What's Your #1 Customer
Retention Killer

Customer Based Why do your best customers succeed?

Expertise Based What should your customers do?

Onboarding Repeatability 
Must Haves Validate reasons for buying
tion

Set expectations for the future

forma

Able to be measured
Focus on the customer, not you
Trans

ccess
Set up Start 

Define success criteria first

Trial / Proof
for su

Focus on the success criteria

of Concept
Fresh

Don't offer a "blank slate"

Sales stays engaged
Sales closes

The Customer Business reviews

Partnership reviews
Strategy Method Surveys
Customer advisory board
Demand generation for cross-sells
Specialized training and education
Engaging Middle Executive visit / connection
Stay top of mind by adding value
Advocacy
through meaningful interactions
Product roadmap

Renewals - Customer continues to buy

Up-sell / Expansion - Customer buys more
Cross-sell - Customer buys a second product or service

Value realization milestones

Crush the Milestones Advocacy milestones - testimonials, reference calls, referrals
Product engagement / usage milestone
Net retention milestones

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 What's Your #1 Customer
Retention Killer

This is the same blueprint that has helped people like...

“The investment I’ve made “[Nils’] guidance has “Every [CSM] now 'runs their
by working with Glide better positioned our CX own business', by having
Consulting has already paid team to thrive in our next proactive and strategic
for itself many times over.” stage of growth. “ conversations instead of just
'fighting fires'.”
- Catherine Blackmore, GVP - Patrick Davidson, COO at
Customer Success at Oracle G5 - Mike Lyons, VP of Customer
Success at Kollective

“After working with Nils, our customer success role and goals of that
team are the most well-defined of any role in the company! I'm a
convert to Nils' way of doing things and believe this will be
transformational for our business.”

- Colin Nederkoorn, Founder and CEO of Customer.io

Nils helped us identify the biggest gaps in our strategy and come up
with solutions to those gaps.

Having Nils' neutral, outside, industry expertise, along with the fact that
he's an amazing facilitator, was extremely valuable for us.

- Alan Ginsberg, CCO at Conductor

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 What's Your #1 Customer
Retention Killer

Questions & Next Steps

It’s great that I know what I should focus on, but how do I tackle each
part of the Customer Strategy Method?
It's really important to prioritize. You won't be able to do everything at once, but you will
be able to focus on a few key areas at a time.

What do I do if my company does not believe in a customer strategy?

Pick an area from this blueprint that you control and develop that area. When you have a
"win" from your work, use that to tell the story of what's possible to get others onboard.

I'm not in a leadership position, can I still apply the Customer Strategy
Method?
Absolutely! Focus on the things you control with your customers and build your own
Customer Strategy for them.

Does the Customer Strategy Method apply to non-software businesses?

Yes! The principles of the Customer Strategy method were developed in the most
advanced and intense environment by working with high-growth technology firms in the
San Francisco Bay Area. It represents the leading edge and these principles can be
applied to any business. If your business works with customers, you need the Customer
Strategy Method.

How do I get more help?

Click below to find out more about Customer Strategy Method Coaching.

Coaching Program Details

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