Hi Reader,

I’ll tell you something I see over and over again when I walk into B2B companies.

Their pipeline is anemic and they’re out hunting for new logos through cold outreach while sitting on a goldmine of existing customers they’ve barely touched.

It baffles me every time. And it has to stop.

Last week I joined Andy Cunningham and Adam Miller, well, kind of joined Adam 😂, for Episode 2 of the Sell More Stuff webinar. (Adam had serious tech issues and kept dropping in and out on his third device by the end. Adam, we missed you. Your ideas still landed.)

Despite the gremlins, we had a real conversation about the account growth barrier that lives inside almost every B2B business. Here’s what we covered and what you can do about it starting right now.

The Hard Truth. Account Growth Is a Team Sport

Everyone is pointing the finger at someone else. Is it the AE’s job? Customer success? Account managers? Marketing?

Here’s the answer. It’s everybody’s.

And marketing? Marketing is the thread that holds it all together, not just websites and logos. It’s the communication that runs from the very first hello all the way through to the moment your customer is shouting about you from the rooftops. It never stops.

Andy shared something that stuck with me. She’s worked with companies where marketing isn’t even allowed to talk to customers. Not even allowed. That is a problem.

One of my clients had never marketed (communicated) to their existing customers. Not once. We sent a single email about a new AI feature. On day one, just day one, they booked nine demos. All nine converted to opportunities.

5 Takeaways for CEOs and Founders

• Fix the compensation structure. If your salespeople aren’t paid to grow existing accounts, they won’t. Full stop. This isn’t a motivation problem, it’s a system problem. Design the incentives that drive the right behavior.

• Rate, rank, and review your customer base. Not every account is equal. Pull your team together, sales, customer success, marketing, senior leaders, and work through the list. Who can grow? Who needs protecting? Who could be introducing you to their network right now? Do a white space analysis. There’s almost always more opportunity than you think.

• Know the difference between hunters and farmers. Customer success people are not account managers. Account managers are not hunters. These are different skills, different personalities, different jobs. A lot of companies replaced account managers with customer success and thought they were set. Yep, that didn’t work out.

• Build a tribe, not just a client list. Your goal is customer obsession, a culture where every touchpoint deepens the relationship. Think Salesforce. Cisco. HubSpot. They built ecosystems where being a customer feels like a badge of honor. When customers feel that way, they evangelize. They make introductions. They get on your stage. That’s your best sales team, and it costs you nothing but genuine care.

• The close is just the beginning. Retention starts from hello. Andy shared the story of John Chambers, who called at least one customer every single day and then followed up internally on everything he heard. One of my clients hired one account manager, had her call the top 30 accounts (actual phone calls), and generated $1,200,000 in opportunities in three months from a customer base they told me had no growth left in it.

Where to Start Right Now

You don’t need a six-month plan. You need to start. Pick one of these and do it this week.

• Send value to your existing customers today. A short email about a new feature, a use case, a trend in their industry. Something they actually need to know. Not fluff.

• Schedule the interlock meeting. Get sales, marketing, customer success, and a senior leader in the same room to review your top accounts together. Set agenda. Consistent cadence.

• Write a handwritten thank-you note. I’m serious. One note per customer. Thank them for their business. Write something personal if you know it. (And you should know something.) Stamp it. Mail it. If you have 100 customers, give 10 people 10 notes each, done in a week. In a world drowning in automated emails and AI-generated outreach, a handwritten note is remarkable.

The AI can do a lot of marvelous things. But that human to human connection, getting to know someone, helping make their life better, feeling like you contributed to their business outcomes, AI cannot do that. We do that.

​Watch the full webinar here. ​

But wait, there is more. Our next episode is going to dig into something I hear from CEOs all the time. You have done the work, you have built the relationship, the deal is real, and then it just... stalls. No one tells you why. No one pulls the plug. It just sits there. We are going to talk about what is really going on inside enterprise deals when they stop moving and, more importantly, what you can do to break the cycle.

Keep your eye on my LinkedIn for the registration link for our next episode of Sell More Stuff. It drops in the next week or two and I do not want you to miss it.

To your sales success,

Alice

P.S. Right now, one of your existing customers is ready to introduce you to someone who could buy from you. They just need you to ask. When’s the last time you actually had a real conversation with them? Not a check-in. A real conversation. If you can’t remember, that’s your answer. Contact me and let’s figure out where your biggest growth opportunities are hiding.