Rachel Provan

I spent 15 years leading Customer Success teams, and I learned this the hard way: being great at CS doesn't prepare you to lead a revenue-generating department.

Most CS leaders are stuck proving their value to executives who expect them to generate revenue the way sales does, without understanding what post-sale revenue actually requires. You're told to drive expansion, reduce churn, and prove ROI - but no one taught you how to do that without morphing into Account Management or BDRs.

That's where I come in.

I HELP CS LEADERS DO THREE THINGS:

Build revenue-generating CS departments | Get promoted | Land their next role

🔹 CS LEADERSHIP ACADEMY (CSLA)
For anyone leading (or about to lead) a Customer Success team - from founding CSMs and team leads to managers, directors, and VPs.

✔ Build a revenue-generating CS department without turning your team into "Sales 2.0"
✔ Get promoted - over one-third of clients get promoted within 6-12 months
✔ Prove your value to executives who don't understand Customer Success
✔ Get out of reactive mode, build scalable processes, and strengthen your executive presence

Built on behavioral psychology and neuroscience, not corporate management theory.

🔹 DREAM JOB PROGRAM
For CS leaders who need to land their next role.

✔ Access the 80% of roles never posted online - optimize your LinkedIn so hiring managers reach out to YOU
✔ Executive resume makeover that shows revenue impact (even without exact numbers)
✔ Figure out exactly what's holding you back in interviews
✔ Master final presentations and salary negotiation - clients average $10k-15k above initial offers

🔥 WHY I'M DIFFERENT:
I don't teach theory. I teach what works in the messy, real world - the psychology that lets you influence cross-functional leaders and the executive suite, the strategy that drives retention and expansion, and the systems that let you scale without burning out.

👉 LET'S WORK TOGETHER:
📧 Apply to CSLA or Dream Job (links in Featured section)
💡 Grab my free CS Leader Onboarding Checklist
🎯 Subscribe to The CS Psycho for weekly CS leadership insights - backed by psychology

Founder and CEO

1-on-1 Customer Success Leadership coaching, Customer Success Job Hunting and Career Counseling

A lot of CS leaders won’t say it out loud.
But they’re worried.

About layoffs. About budgets. About getting cut.

Not because they don’t know how to lead... but because they’re stuck cleaning up after everyone else.

Sales overpromises. Product doesn’t listen to feedback.  And CS is expected to quietly clean it all up AND drive revenue.

(Because that works...)

If your team is stuck in reactive mode, buried in escalations, and constantly justifying your value... this is for you.

I’m running a free training that walks through the 4 stages every CS department goes through.

You’ll learn how to figure out:
 
- what stage you’re in 
- what’s holding you back; and 
- what to focus on if you want your org to start taking CS seriously.

Jan 14 @  1PM EST: https://lnkd.in/eECchnsD
Jan 15 @ 1pm EST: https://lnkd.in/eimJweBU

Two time slots. Zero fluff. 

Walk away with a plan you can use immediately.

Rachel Provan 🧠

I help CS Leaders kick ass at their job & get promoted - using Psychology | 15 years leading CS teams | Creator of The CS Leadership Academy & Psychology of Customer Success Podcast | Speaker

Ever tried looking up how to build a CS dept? 🤦‍♀️

Talk to your customers
Build a team
Use data (reminds me of recipes on The Great British Baking Show… “Make the cake”)
Create onboarding materials
Scale
Iterate

Ummm… thanks?

It’s explanations like this that make people think building a CS department should be relatively easy.

That should take what -- six months?

Sure, you can get a CS department STARTED in that time. But if you think you’re going to create the results of a mature, revenue-generating CS department in six months…

Honey. You’re in for a rude awakening.

🏆 What you need are the REAL steps. In the right order.

Not just a mish-mash of CS initiatives you’ve read about.

✅ Yes you need a customer journey.
✅ Yes you need segmentation.
✅ Yes you need a CS tool.
✅ Yes you want a Customer Advisory Board.

But do you know WHEN to do those things so you don’t make a huge mess?

That’s exactly what I’ll teach inside my FREE masterclass: The CS Leadership Formula.

📅 Wednesday, January 14th or Thursday, January 15th

Register here: https://lnkd.in/eXPevgD6

🚧 The exact steps — in the right order — to build and scale a durable growth engine.

Moving up means saying “No” ❌

A lot. Even to your boss.😬

Scary, right? It doesn’t have to be.  It's actually part of your job now!

Here’s how to say no to your boss without burning bridge:

When you’re feeling overloaded, make a list with three columns:

⭐️   Project    |   Outcome   |  Priority   ⭐️

Put a 1 next to everything you think is a top priority right now. (Note - guess how many things can be priority #1...)

Then schedule a meeting with your boss to confirm some priorities. Show them the list you’ve made, and then say:

“As you can see I’ve got a lot on my plate. I want to make sure I’m effective and focusing on the right things. As I understand it, my top priorities are these outcomes (e.g. driving Adoption/GRR/NRR) - here's what I think will move the needle the most."

They will either highlight something you may be missing or (most likely) agree with your assessment. 

👉 Then you can confirm that you will be putting the other projects on the back burner to focus on these.

As a leader, you are trusted to prioritize.

You know what you need to achieve, and it’s up to you to manage your time.

No one is monitoring how much is on your plate.🍛

And you can’t achieve big goals by saying yes to everything.

PS - Still too much to do?

Get the cheat sheet hundreds of CS leaders have used to make insane progress every quarter here:  https://lnkd.in/eECchnsD

Gemma Cipriani-Espineira

CS Angel 😇, Former CCO at Chili Piper

I believe that Customer Success is a way of doing business and is the fastest path to sustainable growth.

I’m passionate about getting Customer teams a seat at the table and Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) in the workplace.

I'm grateful to have nurtured teams and serviced customers around the world, predominantly for SaaS companies.

I am a lifelong learner who enjoys teaching others. If I can help you out, I will. Don't hesitate to connect.

Founder

Created the world’s first angel syndicate of Customer Success and Customer Experience experts ready to invest in and advise startups providing tech that improves Net Revenue Retention (NRR).

Some founders have a way of turning a vision into a movement.

Bethany Stachenfeld is one of them.

In 2024, me and a group of 22 CS operators at CS Angel invested in Sendspark. They led innovation that has since become embedded as expectation: AI personalized video at scale for customer facing teams. Now Bethany is handing over the baton to Xenon Partners who just acquired Sendspark!

Bethany had an instinct for how customer communication should feel. Personal, thoughtful, and human even as teams scale. With Sendspark, Bethany built an intuitive product, strong integrations, and a clear point of view grounded in how people actually work. 

What stands out most is Bethany’s commitment to customers. Inventive, intentional, and deeply committed to integrity. 

Bethany understands that trust, brand, and community matter just as much as what you ship.

Congratulations and thank you Bethany Stachenfeld! I can't wait to see what  you build next!

Digital Customer Success Leader @ Atlassian | Founder @ CS Angel | Finding new ways to boost retention via Digital and AI driven motions

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