Who should own Renewals?

I often get asked, “Who should own Renewals?”

But I wonder whether that is even the right question?

How about this one instead: “What DRIVES Renewals?”

Let’s put on our ‘customer’ hats and do a little reverse engineering.

What would make me sign that renewal?

I wouldn’t hesitate to renew a product that is consistently supporting one of my business priorities.

But how do you know if that’s happening? And more importantly, how does a vendor know whether I PERCEIVE that you are helping my business priorities?

First, you need to make sure you know what my business priorities are, and keeping track of whether there are any changes to them.

To do that, you would have had to show me some kind of proof point after signature to show me that my money was well spent. Before you can deliver ongoing impact, you need to deliver some sort of “first impact”.

To achieve that critical early proof point right after contract signature, you need to make sure the right information made it from the sales cycle to the teams managing the engagement after close. Confidence comes when I see a strong kickoff call where these new team members I’m introduced to show me they already know about my business & my priorities. Those early conversations are more focused on validating details with me, filling in additional color, and defining what that first impact moment will be.

And before all of that, you need to first make sure that I am a customer that has challenges that you can truly solve or business priorities you can really support. And you need to properly set expectations with me on what you can and can’t do, and how quickly.

If you can do all those things well, I’ll happily sign that Renewal form.

At the end of the day it’s not about who owns renewals within your organization.

It’s about whether your company knows what kind of business priorities you can support and what kind of problems you can solve, and has a strong handle on the activities, skills & time it takes to:
✅ Find prospects who match that profile
✅ Convince those prospects that you can impact their business in a way that is worth the money you’re asking them to spend
✅ Identify & deliver on that first proof point
✅ Ensure you are providing that impact ongoing
✅ Know if a customers’ business priorities have changed in a way that affects what you do for them

If you do that, and you do it in a way that is financially responsible in terms of unit economics, you’ll be on a great path.