Your Head of Client Success makes $150K because "it's more operational."
They both manage the same $50M revenue pipeline:
Guess which department loses clients faster?
Imagine this scenario:
Sales just closed $8M in new enterprise deals.
Champagne. Bonuses. Victory laps.
Client Success mentioned $3M in churn risk.
"Let's circle back on that next quarter."
Acquiring $1M ARR costs $200K in sales and marketing.
Losing $1M ARR costs you $200K in sales and marketing to replace it.
Plus the $800K in lifetime value walking out the door.
Yet most companies hire client success
like they're hiring customer support.
"Find someone good with people."
"Previous experience nice but not required."
"Cultural fit is most important."
Meanwhile, enterprise clients are asking:
- How do we integrate with our existing tech stack?
- What's your roadmap for compliance requirements?
- Can you customize workflows for our 10,000-person team?
And your "people person" is scheduling the next check-in call.
The companies winning client success
treat it like what it actually is.
Post-sales revenue engineering.
Their client success leaders have:
- Built enterprise products from scratch
- Managed P&Ls bigger than most startups
- Led technical implementations at scale
- Driven strategic partnerships worth millions
Because they understand the real job description:
Turn a $400K software purchase
into a $2M strategic partnership.
Not "make sure they're happy."
Customer Success owns 80% of revenue after year one.
Sales owns 20%.
So why does your sales leader make twice as much as your success leader?
Because you're still thinking about success
as "account management".
Instead of as "revenue expansion."
Your biggest enterprise client pays you $500K annually.
They're considering expanding to $1.5M next year.
Who's in that room making the case?
Someone who "gets along well with clients"?
Or someone who built the business case that convinced three other Fortune 500 companies to expand?
The market doesn't care about your org chart hierarchy.
Your client success team is your growth engine.
Staff it like one.
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