02-02 | Mastering the Growth Cycle: SEED 2 Sustain (And Back Again)

Mar 3

Series: Rising Through the STARS

The Preview Installment of this series, published on the 10th, introduced the STARS model, originally designed to describe the stages of business evolution to help executive leaders navigate organizational change. I reimagined those phases to provide a model for the dynamics of how customer relationships evolve at an account level in order to help us more effectively assess what type of leadership style will maximize our effectiveness at any particular point in time. By having the language to clearly understand and articulate where account relationships stand, we can engage with greater strategic intent, cultivate deeper trust, and more effectively align internal resources for long-term success. Unlike sales qualification and monetization frameworks, which focus on a command of an deal control and execution, the STARS mindset emphasizes relational awareness and professional adaptability. It provides a lens through which we can assess not just where an account relationship is but the implications of where we success and failure will take us. The emphasis was on outlining the patterns of change, movement, and evolution of customer interaction over time (thats how we defined “dynamics”).

In this installment I will narrow my attention to Growth Cycles which are the least complex type of relationship state to manage. Most of us know what good looks like when it comes to initiating a positive relationship with an account and running with that over time. The spirit of this installment will remain aligned with the 5 objectives of the overall series:

Deepening Our Understanding – Gain a clearer perspective on how B2B relationships evolve over time, recognizing the dynamics that shape customer engagement, loyalty, and growth.
Developing a Shared Language – Equip ourselves with the terminology needed to effectively identify, articulate, and discuss these account relationship dynamics.
Enhancing Strategic Thinking – Leverage this precise language to refine our approach to account planning, strategy, and long-term customer management.
Strengthening Client Relationships – Use this clarity to engage with customers more effectively, fostering trust, alignment, and stronger long-term partnerships.
Improving Internal Influence – Communicate challenges and successes clearly and in a structured way – both within individual accounts and across a portfolio—to drive greater organizational support and appreciation.

Introduction to Growth Cycles

Many of our companies are public, and performance is driven by quarterly and annual results. The pressure to drive revenue growth in spite of customers’ self-prescribed buying timelines poses one of our beloved professions most challenging acts.

Growth cycling reflects a healthy state of customer engagement. It’s where we all ideally want to start and stay with our customers.

Let’s start by defining what I mean by "Growth Cycle"?

Instead of using Watkin’s organizationally focused definition, I propose that it refers to a state of sustained or prolonged engagement defined by repeated and iterative investment in our company’s product portfolio and service offerings. And as a byproduct, this iterative investment empowers us to more easily satisfy our individual performance goals.

Understanding how and why growth occurs, along with its related challenges, is crucial for determining how we can effectively manage accounts in a way that develops demand and accelerates deals over short time frames while not jeopordizing a customer's lifetime value (loyalty).

Strategic Drivers of Customer Investment (ie Growth)

There are 3 ways to grow a business: Increase sales, Increase margins, and/or decrease costs.

That is it. Those 3 ways.These are important is because strategic initiatives can typically be tied to one of these core business objectives.

Beyond adapting the STARS model to relationship management, the STARS model helps provide language for describing where our executive buyers are at any particular point in time and help discern what will resonate with them from a value narrative perspective. Any strategic initiative that we are going to align to, and accelerate with our technology, needs to align with one of these 3 goals at their most fundamental level. Growth Cycling is about aligning to specific initiatives yes but if we take a step back, what we are really doing, is thoughtfully and strategically targeting one or more of these 3 ways to strengthen (expand) our customer’s business.

We fluidly move between selling something, in which we land, deploy, integrate, and validate (starting early engagement & development - SEED) original investment outcomes (value) are realized and then sustaining that value realization (sustaining success) before we leverage that success (and trust) to drive new investment (expansion) and return to SEED. Ideally, as an organization, we keep our account here, between these two discrete states of engagement forever and never lose influence, alignment, or trust.

Increasing sales or margins and decreasing costs do not happen in isolation—it is the result of multiple forces working together to change how an organization functions and operates. These forces can be categorized into internal and external factors, each playing a crucial role in shaping investment priorities which in theory, should shape our selling strategy.

Innovation and Adaptation: One of the most powerful drivers of investment cycles is the need or desire to innovate—whether through new products, services, business models, or technologies.
Changes to Leadership and Strategic Vision: New leadership teams set new visions, make strategic decisions, and realign teams and resources to based on needed changes to a company’s execution strategy.
Technology and Digital Transformation: In today's world, digitalization and automation are accelerating investment like never before. The ability to integrate technology strategically to drive adaptation is key in sustaining long-term success.
Economic and Industry Conditions: External factors such as economic cycles, regulatory environments, and industry trends heavily influence investment decisions.

The above should not be unfamiliar if your technology company takes a value-based approach to selling. Value selling in any form is designed to begin with discovery of a customer's initiatives and the outcomes they are interested in producing, aligning our technologies with them, and then commanding an investment in exchange for accelerating the realization of those outcomes.

The Stages of Growth Cycles

We can see a series of patterns and stages that dictate how healthy B2B relationships unfold and mature. In our previous installment I broke down the growth cycle into 2 discrete stages or phases (illustrated below).

Starting Early Engagement and Development (SEED) - Start up in Watkins Original Model
- Naturally, this aligns with sort of a LAND motion in the LAER framework if your organization uses that venacular
Accelerating Success for Customer Expansion and New Demand (ASCEND) - Sustaining Success in Watkins Original Model
- This label isn’t really captured in the LAER framework. It is reflected, at least in spirit, in Customer Success Frameworks and TSIA (the organization that is responsible for LAER) also advocates for this type of thinking through their approaches that involve aligning CSMs and other Cx-oriented roles to ensure customers realize the value that underpinned their initial investment and then are positioned for future revenue growth. UEM is an example.

While our account engagements and relationships follow this general pattern, real-world growth cycles often exhibit unique characteristics based on industry dynamics, leadership decisions, organizational changes, and other variables (like account ownership changes on our side) which influence the pace and direction of movement. Driving growth is rarely a linear process; I had a mentor years ago tell me “you loose every great deal at least 3 times before it’s won”. That was true wisdom. But by understanding this general pattern, we are better able to understand where challenges will take us if they remain unaddressed, tailor our leadership style and apply the right strategies at the right time and recognize when value or relationship drift is surfacing so we can adapt or pivot is needed.

Nothing up to this point is uniquely new. We all likely appreciate strategic initiatives are driven by business executives and that we want to align our technology to their key outcomes and metrics.

Similar to Watkins original model, our focus is most thoughtfully directed at the implications for how these 2 stages and investment drivers influence how we should be showing up in these stages from an account leadership standpoint to best position our companies for expansion.

The Roles of Builder and Trusted Advisor in Shaping and Developing the Relationship

Leading accounts effectively in early engagement to drive iterative investment cycles requires a mindset of building and advising. This means we are actively shaping and co-creating value with the customer rather than simply reacting to their stated needs. By acting as a builder with an advisory or consultative style, we create deeper collaborative engagement where we are staging the value realization journey.

Customers see through sales people with transactional mindsets. At some point in the future I will talk about this. But I refer to people with transactional mindsets as having a mercenary mindset. And people with relational mindsets as Missionaries. Technology vendors tend to think about “winning deals” - sort of a mercenary mindset. Customers tend to think about “selecting partners” reflecting a desire for a missionary. Is the language we use as vendors really aligned with customer’s expectations from the outset? That’s a good debate for another day. For now, suffice to say that we need to be sensitive as to where we are and what customer’s expectations are.

As we lead through growth cycles, we must dynamically tailor our approach accordingly. The 2 primary stages should be even recognized by their substages below which better reflect the pattern of evolution:

1. Early SEED → We are acting as an educator and enabler, helping the customer lay the necessary groundwork for successful adoption.

2. Late SEED Phase (Engagement Slows > a transitional phase) → We are acting as a strategic enabler, guiding the customer on best practices for scaling adoption and maximizing value realization.

3. Sustaining Success Phase → We are acting as a trusted advisor, ensuring continued innovation and value optimization.

4. Renewal/Upgrade/Expansion Phase → We are acting as a change agent or challenger, helping our customer once again adapt or tailor their execution strategy in a way that justifies new investment.

Aligning our behavior to these roles helps us develop trust, drive expansion, and differentiates us from competitors who take a more passive, transactional approach.

The Risks and Challenges of Growth Cycles

As far as risks to sustaining growth, we should recognize that every relationship we manage and every investment a customer makes has the seeds of future stagnation and relationship decline sown into the fabric of it. That is normal. Life is cyclical. Nothing exists in a state of perpetual unchecked growth. Our role is to recognize these states or periods where engagement is likely to slow and manage them with intention, adaptability, and foresight to avoid a loss of influence (which is the key different between stagnation in sustaining success and full blown realignment).

If our partnership relevance, value realization or customer engagement declines and/or turns negative due to things like our competitors outmaneuvering us, lack of product innovation, or economic conditions, we also run the risk of transitioning down a path toward realignment which requires a strategic pivot to breathe new life into the cycle. We’ll cover this in our next installment.

Outside of the external factors I mentioned above, the number one challenge I have found in extending Growth Cycles at publicly traded software company’s are changes in Account Ownership. Accounts tend to be passed around like peace pipes, undermining a long-term orientation to relationship management. The pressure to hit our quotas mount and that pressure brings out the self-interested, self-preservation behavior in us (the transactional behavior of a mercenary). Annual Territory Realignments disrupt relationship continuity and present the most common challenge for us at an individual level when sustaining success. Unfortunately, there is not much we can do about that. The best thing we can do to mitigate this risk is proactively manage up in a way that allows executive leadership to understand the benefit the of allowing us to retain control of accounts that we are running successfully.

The Importance of Internal Communication for Driving Growth Cycles

In the previous post I mentioned leveraging these concepts to create a shared language. This is important because keeping customer accounts in a steady state of iterative growth requires strong internal alignment and communication to ensure the entire organization is positioned to support an account relationship effectively.

In a Growth Cycle, we can challenge customers a bit more directly than other stages like realignments or turnarounds where we have to earn that right back after falling out of favor. For that reason, everyone internally should be coached appropriately on the privileged position we are in during growth phases and work play their part to support the customer.

In my view, the perspective of this series is can help us engage with our leadership team but even more importantly help motivate cross-functional teams—including customer success, marketing, product, and technical support—to show up professionally, proactively, and with enthusiasm to drive aligned outcomes and sustain long-term customer trust.

When sales leadership is well-informed and understand the relationship, they can advocate for the account at higher levels, helping unlock budget or strategic events, more effectively exert influence during customer peering engagement, and provide additional support when necessary. Motivating cross-functional teams to show up and facilitate great execution is also key. Whether it’s customer success driving adoption, executive peering, or product teams addressing feature gaps, cross-functional alignment is critical. Customers can sense when our extended team is not fully committed to the partnership. The energy, professionalism, and responsiveness of cross-functional teams can make or break the perception of our commitment. It’s usually on us to provide the internal leadership required to motivate our teams to show up and that starts with them understanding the relationship potential, realized and unrealized.

An enterprise account is only as strong as the internal team supporting it. By effectively using some of this vernacular to capture and communicate where our account relationships are, we empower ourselves and instill a culture of confidence, enthusiasm and professionalism within our extended internal teams. This ensures that every direct and indirect interaction reinforces a strong, strategic partnership—ultimately driving customer retention, growth, and long-term success.

Purposeful Adaptation of our Role in Growth Cycles

So I’ve talked about the roles that we need to play in the various stages of business relationship development. Naturally, this means we need to purposefully toggle or shift between roles by phase (in practice, its situational but it makes sense to start with phases for the purpose of illustrating the concept)- builder, enabler, trusted advisor and change agent. So the important question becomes how do we do this in an authentic way? How do we shift between enablement and challenger to potentially build additional pipeline and also be authentic and thoughtful so as not to compromise the trust we have built?

This is important because ultimately, this is the entire benefit that this perspective that I am offering provides. How can we show up more effectively based on where our relationships with accounts are?

Key Strategy: Self-Narration is Key to Purposeful Role Shifting

If you take one thing away from this article. This is the section.

Self-Narration refers to verbally labeling our own behavior as we act in a certain way—this is a powerful tool in interpersonal communication that demonstrates self-awareness, promotes transparency, and improves relationship and communication outcomes.

When we explicitly name our behavior while exhibiting it, we show that our actions are intentional rather than reactive. For example, saying, "I'm taking a step back here to make sure I fully understand your priorities," signals to the customer that we are conscious of our approach. This kind of verbal labeling reinforces that we are acting with purpose, not just following a script; creates an opportunity for self-correction if the approach isn’t landing well; and encourages reflection, allowing us to refine and adjust our style in real time.

Transparency fosters trust, and one of the best ways to build trust is to eliminate ambiguity in communication. When we verbally acknowledge our behavior, it provides clarity about our intentions and helps customers understand the rationale behind our actions. For example, saying, "Right now, I’m playing the role of an advisor rather than a salesperson, because I want to ensure we’re aligned on your goals before we move on," reassures the customer that the interaction is about collaboration, not just closing a deal. This approach aligns expectations by making our motives explicit, reduces skepticism, as customers are less likely to perceive hidden agendas and invites feedback, allowing the customer to confirm whether they are comfortable with the direction of the conversation.

In B2B sales and account management, customer relationships thrive on transparency and mutually aligned intention. When we narrate our approach, we help customers understand how and why we are engaging in a particular way, which makes it easier for them to reciprocate effectively. For example:

If a customer is hesitant, saying, "I’m shifting into problem-solving mode now because I think we need to address a key challenge before moving forward," signals that we are actively adjusting to their needs.
If we’re taking a more assertive or contra-consensus position (challenging your stakeholders by taking a contrarian stance), acknowledging it by saying, "I’m challenging the consensus viewpoint here because I believe this decision will set you up for long-term success," shows that our enthusiasm is rooted in their best interests, not just in making a sale. The key to successful challenger selling is trust (rooted in empathy) + respect (rooted in competency) because being right in going against the grain when others are wrong is high risk.

Self-narration also bridges the gap between perception and reality. Sometimes, what we think we are conveying is different from what a customer perceives. By verbalizing our behavior, we create an opportunity for them to challenge us in return and reduces the likelihood of misinterpretation.

Verbally labeling our own behavior as we act is a simple but impactful way to demonstrate self-awareness, build trust through transparency, and enhance customer engagement ensuring our behavior is in service of a long term productive relationship. It creates an open dialogue where both parties can adjust, align, and engage more effectively. When used thoughtfully, this tactic strengthens relationships, making interactions feel more authentic, consultative, and customer-centric.

Summary

Our goal is to keep accounts in a prolonged state of iterative growth, avoiding stagnation, misalignment, or a loss of influence. In this installment I attempted to illustrate that successful Growth Cycling, is about more than just aligning to initiatives; it is about intentionally oscilating between adoption (ie Starting Early Engagement and Development) and value realization (Accelerating Success for Customer Expansion and New Demand). I also suggested that by understanding growth cycles, customer motivations, and the forces shaping investment decisions, we can better position ourselves as trusted partners rather than technology vendors. Another central theme of this post is the need for adaptability in our account leadership style, particularly in navigating the transition between roles—from consultant and builder to trusted advisor and partner.

I proposed self-narration as a key tactic, wherein we should be verbally labeling our own behavior in real-time to enhance transparency, trust, and alignment with customer expectations. By explicitly labeling our behavior we help customers understand the rationale behind our intentions, reduce skepticism and foster more authentic relationships. By mastering self-awareness, internal alignment, and fluid adaptability, we can drive iterative expansion, maintain long-term customer engagement, and maximize the lifetime value of our accounts.

In the next installment, I will explore Realignment or Recovery Cycles, focusing on the critical phase where customer relationships begin to plateau or show early signs of disengagement. This stage is pivotal because, if left unaddressed, stagnation can quickly escalate into a deeper Turnaround stage, where rebuilding trust and reversing negative momentum becomes significantly more challenging. I will examine the key indicators of relationship drift, the forces that contribute to misalignment, and the strategic interventions necessary to re-engage customers before decline sets in. Additionally, I will discuss how to proactively reposition value, reignite executive sponsorship, and adapt engagement strategies to ensure customers see continued growth opportunities—ultimately preserving long-term account health and preventing churn.

Disclosures:

This content is intended in the spirit of experiential knowledge sharing. I do my best to accurately describe strategies and techniques I use in the field for creating great customer interactions but I am not responsible for their use or misuse nor the outcomes that result from either.
I use GrammerlyAI to: 1) proofread for spelling & correctness 2) make changes/updates to grammar, sentence structure, etc. to improve clarity and readability and 3) ensure my writing is absent of any plagiarism

Chris Peres