Do you close or open a deal ?

Are Your New Customers Sticking Around or dropping like flies? What about your sales forecasts…pipeline or more like a pipedream?

Picture this: You’ve just landed a big new client. Champagne corks are popping. The sales team is patting themselves on the back. But fast forward 12 months, and that same client is heading for the exit.

If you’re nodding, you’re not alone. Many subscription businesses are facing a hidden crisis: first-year churn.

And here’s the rub: your shiny new business might be setting you up for failure if it’s not tied to first-year retention.

It’s a bold claim, I know. But stick with me.

Think about it. What’s the point of bringing in loads of new customers if they’re all going to scarper before you’ve even got to know them properly? It’s like throwing a party and having all your guests leave before the cake is cut.

“But wait,” I hear you cry, “we can’t expect our sales team to worry about what happens a year down the line! They need to focus on bringing in the numbers now.”

Standard objection. Sounds like a fair point. Argue it in a room, and you’ll get a “well you don’t understand how to motivate sales.”

But what if we’re looking at this all wrong?

Imagine if your sales team became detectives, investigating your most successful first-year customers. What makes these clients tick? Why do they stick around? What problems are you solving for them?

By cracking this code, your team could focus on bringing in more golden customers. The ones who’ll still be celebrating with you a year from now.

This isn’t just a job for sales, though. It’s about getting everyone on the same page:

• Product teams designing features these star customers will love
• Marketing crafting messages that resonate with similar prospects
• Customer success replicating the onboarding that works for your best clients

Sounds great, doesn’t it? But how do you know if you’re on the right track? Keep an eye out for these warning signs:

1. Your first-year customers are dropping like flies
2. Your sales forecasts look more like wishful thinking
3. New customers using your product about as often as that gym membership they bought in January
4. Your long-term contracts are getting shorter and shorter

If this is ringing alarm bells, it’s time to dig deeper.

Are your teams incentivised to bring in any customer, or the right customers?

Is your product actually solving the problems you think it is?

Are you learning from your success stories, or just firefighting the failures?

Changing this isn’t about a few tweaks here and there. It’s about shifting your entire culture. It’s about everyone – from the CEO to the newest hire – understanding that their job isn’t just about getting customers through the door, but keeping them happy and successful once they’re in.

So, here’s my challenge to you: Take a hard look at your first-year customers. Who are the ones still with you, still happy, still seeing value? Now, how can you find more like them?

Who are the customers who rate you as must have or at least close to it? What would you do differently if you knew?

If everyone in a subscription team across the organisation faces in the same direction, with incentives that drive recurring revenues, what might be possible?

There’s more to subscriptions than coin operated people.