top of page
Welcome to
After the Close
the Blog
Thoughtful insights and honest perspectives on Customer Success and leadership, focused on the work that happens after the deal is done.
After the Close is a space for reflection, insight, and the conversations that don’t always happen in the meeting or the deck. This blog is here to share real stories, practical lessons, and honest perspectives on Customer Success and leadership.
Whether you’re a CSM, a CS leader, or an executive, you’ll find insight on what happens after the deal is signed. From navigating adoption and retention to leading teams and driving impact, the goal is simple: help you think more clearly, act more intentionally, and build work that lasts.
Article
“Figure It Out” Is Not Leadership: Why founders accidentally set their first leaders up to fail
“Figure it out.” It’s a phrase that sounds empowering on the surface. But most of the time, it’s not empowerment. It’s leadership abandonment. And founders and CEOs need to hear this. I’ve seen this happen over and over again in early-stage companies. In fact, it happened to me more than once earlier in my Customer Success career. A founder or CEO pulls you aside and says something like: "Kristi, this is a big opportunity. You've never done this before, but I believe in you.
Kristi Faltorusso
1 day ago3 min read
You Promoted Your Best CSM to Head of CS. Now What?
Most Series A & B founders believe they’re “investing in Customer Success” when they promote a strong individual contributor into a leadership role. On paper, it makes sense. They know the product. They know the customers. They’ve proven themselves. They’re gritty. They execute. So you elevate them to Head of CS and tell them to build. And then you step back and say, “Go figure it out.” Here’s the problem. Building a Customer Success function is not the same as being great at
Kristi Faltorusso
4 days ago4 min read
Not All Money Is Good Money
I wish more founders and CEOs would remember that not all money is good money. Some revenue brings opportunity. Other revenue brings sacrifice. And if you’ve ever led Customer Success, you know exactly what I mean. For 14 years in CS leadership, I often had to live with business decisions that were made in the name of growth. My team and I were the ones who had to “make it work.” We were the ones told to “figure it out.” And when things went sideways, we were often the ones a
Kristi Faltorusso
7 days ago3 min read
When a New Executive Joins Your Customer’s Team: What Great CSMs Do First
Executive turnover inside your customer’s organization can feel like a threat. A new leader shows up, priorities shift, budgets get scrutinized, and suddenly the relationship you’ve spent months (or years) building feels less secure. But here’s the reality: new stakeholders enter accounts all the time. This isn’t a rare event. It’s part of doing business. What is rare is a Customer Success Manager who treats executive change as a strategic moment instead of a disruption. When
Kristi Faltorusso
Feb 253 min read
There’s No Hill to Die On in Customer Success
Do you ever just want to scream at someone, “Get off that hill, you’re gonna hurt yourself!” Or is that just me? That’s how I feel every time I hear someone say, “I’ll die on that hill.” Why? Because it’s embarrassing. Truly. The only hill I’d ever die on is the “there’s no hill to die on” hill. I’ve built Customer Success five different times at five different companies. Early stage, late stage, VC-backed, PE-backed, private. SMB focus. Enterprise focus. From $3M in ARR to n
Kristi Faltorusso
Feb 233 min read
If You’ve Never Experienced Your Own Customer Journey, It Shows
There’s something I say to leadership teams all the time, and it usually lands a little uncomfortably: Not enough companies go through their own customer processes. And it shows. You can see it in the messy onboarding. You can feel it in the clunky handoffs. You can hear it in the awkward renewal conversations. Most of the time, customers are polite about it. But they notice. They always notice. When I work with companies on Customer Success strategy and operations, one of th
Kristi Faltorusso
Feb 224 min read
Customer Success vs. Revenue Retention: Why They’re Not the Same Thing
Most Series A and B founders don’t actually want Customer Success. They want revenue retention. And those two things are not the same. That might sound provocative, but it’s a pattern I see constantly when I come into early- and growth-stage organizations. Early on, when you’re growing fast, closing new deals is the priority. Revenue now feels urgent. Retention later feels manageable. And for a while, it is. New logos are coming in, the pipeline is moving, and the focus is on
Kristi Faltorusso
Feb 183 min read
Customers Don’t Want More Meetings. They Want More Context.
Last week I was on a call with a customer and about ten minutes in she paused and said, “Kristi, can I be honest? You’re one of the only people we work with who doesn’t make us sit through slides.” I laughed. But I also noted it. Because that comment says a lot about where customers are right now and what they actually need from CS. They don’t want more meetings. They don’t want another deck. They don’t want another “just checking in.” They want help that is fast, relevant, a
Kristi Faltorusso
Feb 173 min read
Stop Counting Meetings. Start Measuring Impact.
How to actually track whether your EBRs and QBRs are working One of the things I hate most about EBRs and QBRs is how they’re tracked. I see teams all the time mark a completed meeting as a success. Maybe they go a step further and track who attended, but it usually stops there. A meeting happened. A box gets checked. Everyone moves on. But let’s be honest. A meeting is not an outcome. Recently I was on a call with my friend Berit Hoffmann, CEO and Co-Founder at Korl. If you’
Kristi Faltorusso
Feb 123 min read
Accept Feedback with Grace (Easier Said Than Done)
“Accept feedback with grace.” This was one of the best pieces of advice I’d ever been given. Also, one of the hardest for me to follow. I’m a Words of Affirmation girlie. I like knowing I’m doing a good job. I like hearing that things are working. So early in my career, feedback didn’t feel like guidance. It felt like a report card. If someone had feedback, my brain immediately translated that into: you’re not doing enough or your work isn’t great. It felt like failing a test
Kristi Faltorusso
Feb 83 min read
REPOST: More Than Capital: How Stage 2 LPs Help Portfolio Companies Win
Most founders know they need capital. Fewer realize how valuable the right investors can be once the check clears. This piece from Stage 2 Capital explores what it looks like when limited partners do more than fund companies. They actively help them win. The article breaks down how Stage 2’s network of experienced go-to-market leaders supports portfolio companies through real execution support, not just advice. Their LP community gets involved in everything from strategy and
Kristi Faltorusso
Feb 41 min read
How I Learned to Prioritize Risk (Without Treating Everything Like an Emergency)
Prioritizing risk took me a long time to figure out. Early in my career, I treated every issue like it was urgent. Every problem felt like the problem. I wanted to fix everything, immediately. On the surface, that sounds noble. Responsible, even. In reality, it was exhausting and ineffective. Not everything can be a priority. And when everything is a priority, nothing actually is. What finally changed things for me was getting far more disciplined about business impact. Inste
Kristi Faltorusso
Feb 22 min read
The Quiet Damage of Being Wrongly Accused at Work
“Hi Mary, resending the email I sent last Tuesday at 2:37pm EST in case you missed it.” There are very few moments at work that feel as satisfying as being able to send that message. It’s a small sentence, but it carries a lot of weight. Proof. Receipts. Vindication. And yet, the reason you need to send it in the first place usually feels awful. Being accused of something you didn’t do is one of those experiences that sticks with you. It’s frustrating, demoralizing, and surpr
Kristi Faltorusso
Feb 12 min read
Leadership Blind Spots in the Age of AI
The teams struggling most with AI don’t have a tooling problem.They have a leadership one. Many organizations adopted AI expecting faster execution, sharper thinking, and better outcomes. And on the surface, it looks like that’s exactly what’s happening. Decks are more polished. Emails are clearer. Processes feel tighter. Even task lists look more strategic. Objectively, the work looks better. But when you step back and look at the actual value being created for the business
Kristi Faltorusso
Jan 282 min read
If You Want to Grow Customers, Sales Has to Stop Giving Everything Away
If you want to grow your customers, tell your sales team to stop giving everything away. That sentence usually makes people uncomfortable. Especially when growth targets are aggressive and deals feel hard-won. But it’s a conversation that needs to happen and it usually lands squarely on Customer Success to clean up the mess when it doesn’t. Where Customer Growth Quietly Breaks Down I talk to Customer Success leaders all the time who are being tasked with growing their custome
Kristi Faltorusso
Jan 192 min read
Learning to Trust Your Own Timeline
I spent most of my career measuring my journey against everyone else’s. Their timelines. Their promotions. Their successes. Their failures. Even though I knew the phrase “comparison is the thief of joy,” I still compared. Constantly. It took me years to stop. Years of reminding myself that no two journeys are the same. No two people are the same. No two organizational conditions are the same. And that even when you want something badly, sometimes painfully badly, there are fa
Kristi Faltorusso
Jan 192 min read
There Is Such a Thing as Good Churn (And No, That’s Not as Horrible as It Sounds)
It will always sound wrong when I say it out loud, but there is such a thing as good churn. And no, this isn’t me saying that when a customer churns, it’s time to pop champagne or throw a party. Loss is still loss. But there comes a very specific moment in a company’s journey when leadership has to take a hard look at who their Ideal Customer Profile actually is… and whether the customers they currently have still align with it. That moment is uncomfortable. Necessary. And of
Kristi Faltorusso
Jan 193 min read
The future of CX Is contextual: AI is the new standard
Every year tons of brands rush to release their industry trend reports, and while I save most and read some, I do so with a mix of excitement and skepticism. Let’s face it, some feel completely out of touch. I literally sit there wondering who fills out these surveys. And then there are some who feel aspirational. Like yes, in some alternate universe with unlimited budget and resources that could possibly be a reality. And then there are the few that hit so painfully close to
Kristi Faltorusso
Dec 9, 20255 min read
Stop Asking More Questions. Start Asking Better Ones.
I was recently scrolling through LinkedIn and came across a post encouraging CSMs to ask more questions. At first, I barely paused. It felt harmless enough. But the more I sat with it, the more it bothered me. Do we actually need more questions? Or do we need better questions? Because if we just pile on more basic, surface level questions, we are not doing real discovery. We are filling the air with noise and still walking away without the insight we need to drive impact. Qua
Kristi Faltorusso
Dec 8, 20253 min read
The Coaching Mistake That Almost Broke Me and the Framework That Saved Me
Coaching is one of the hardest parts of leadership and I learned that the hard way. When I first moved from being an individual contributor to a leader, I thought coaching meant carrying my team. I believed my job was to have every answer, jump in at every sign of trouble, solve every problem, and of course, do it all faster and better. At least that was the story I was telling myself. In reality, all I did was exhaust myself and unintentionally signal to my team that I did n
Kristi Faltorusso
Dec 6, 20253 min read
Follow On Social
Stay inspired and connected. Follow along for insights, real talk, and behind-the-scenes moments from my work in Customer Success and leadership.
TikTok
YouTube
bottom of page