In this episode, we discuss Traffit’s story. They added 36% / year additional growth just by focusing on negative churn (excluding new business revenue).

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We discussed:

00:41 – Mick’s background & about Traffit

02:18 – Mick’s net negative churn story

06:05 – How did he ask for an upsell?

10:10 – How he incentivized the customer success team to upsell more?

14:15 – What are some metrics he moved?

16:06 – Who is his favorite growth marketer?

17:30 – What has he recently changed his mind about?

18:33 – What does he think about internal numbers and salary transparency?

Links:

• Mick’s LinkedIn Post on Net Negative Churn
• How to Achieve Net Negative Churn for SaaS (the article Mick Mentioned)
• Mick’s LinkedIn Profile
• Check out Traffit

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The Negative Churn Framework & Story

“Everyone is busy focusing on new customers. Nobody is focusing on upselling to existing customers. And, I wanted to do the opposite.“, said Mick Griffin.

So, how did he focus on getting customers to pay more?

Step 1 – Reduce barriers to entry by reducing the price to try the product (so counter-intuitive. In software, you try to increase price normally as you go more upmarket).

He wanted to make sure everyone could afford and start a plan and then upgrade later.

Step 2 – Lead with the “Aha! moment” and get users activated.

The “Aha moment” is just a mental state when your users perceive the value you are offering and think, “Wow, this is amazing. I think I’m starting to like this tool!”.

User activation is actually the moment when your users got a value. It’s a phase where a user fully engages or activates the initial set of persona-relevant key features in the product.

Step 3 – Find the right time to upgrade.

Mick said,

“Like when’s the perfect point to say to someone like, oh, you’ve done all the things you were supposed to do. Definitely time for upgrade. We started looking for those aha moments inside the actual clients’ dashboard. So, you know, when a client clicks, adds a user and he/she does not have any capacity left or a client clicks on a part of the functionality that isn’t in his/her plan, and setting up notifications, setting emails, pop-ups – those kinds of things.”

Step 4 – Make it SUPER easy to upgrade.

Mick shared,

“Like Pipedrive way of upselling, you know, I’m in the CRM. I want to buy one user. I think it was two clicks. I don’t even see my credit card. I don’t say anything. It just happens.”

Step 5 – Ask at the right time.

The most important line Mick said,

“Let’s look at the things that would mean the actions people take that would most benefit them, sort of an upgrade at the time.”

This means ask at the most meaningful place and the right time.

Step 6 – Incentivize the Customer Success team.

He said that you should be generous with the success team’s commission and invite them to taste the commission to upsell more.

The success team is responsible for upsells & cross-sells.

What I am telling you today is not rocket science. But MOST software and e-commerce companies forget to optimize for retention.