Hi, Markus here. Welcome to a new episode of the Customer-Value-Led-Growth Newsletter.
Most CSMs are still struggling to prove their impact because they have been taught the wrong version of the job.
That’s why I have built the CSM Operating System to help you grow from an invisible to an irreplaceable CSM in 2 minutes a day.
You got a 3% raise.
It feels like an insult after all the value you created over the past 12 months.
You saved six figures in revenue at risk.
You built an expansion pipeline worth twice as much.
You helped customers achieve the outcomes they bought your product for.
And all you got was a lousy 3%.
You walk out of the performance review wondering:
How can I create this much value and still be worth so little more?
The answer might be uncomfortable.
You have an attribution problem.
You think your impact is obvious
Most CSMs don't think they have a measurement problem because they measure a lot.
Customer interactions
Number of activities
Adoption
Health Scores
NPS and CSAT
Customer engagement
They believe that those metrics prove their impact.
After all, if your customers are highly engaged, satisfied, and actively using the product, surely leadership can see that you're doing a great job.
Except that's not how they see it.
Activity isn't attribution
Imagine you are directly talking to your CFO:
"I had 47 customer meetings this quarter."
What does that prove? It proves you had 47 meetings. It doesn't prove the meetings mattered.
Or you tell them:
"Product adoption increased by 22% across my portfolio."
That’s better because it’s an actual outcome. But what caused the increase? Was it your enablement efforts? A product change? A new customer champion?
Or you report:
"My customers have an average CSAT of 9.4."
Great. But does that prove your customers achieved their business goals?
Does it prove they will renew?
Does it prove they expanded?
Does it prove your work created economic value?
No.
The same problem exists with health scores. A customer can be green because they attend every meeting, respond quickly, and love their CSM.
But they can still be failing to achieve the outcome they bought your product for.
Your leadership does not connect the dots
This is the uncomfortable part. You experience your work differently because you are inside of it.
You know that the customer was about to leave
You know which stakeholder you convinced to stay
You know the workflow that wasn't being executed
You know the enablement session that changed behavior
You know the internal escalation you prevented
You know that the customer eventually achieved the result because of 6 months of work that nobody else saw.
So when you look at your activity, you see the entire story behind it.
Your leadership doesn't. All they see are the numbers.
And unless you've created a clear connection between what you did and what changed, they have no reason to interpret those numbers the way you do.
That's not necessarily because your executive leadership doesn't value their CSM team.
It's because the evidence you're giving them doesn't prove what you want them to believe.
Your company doesn't pay for effort
This is where many CSMs get stuck. They are working harder than ever. But companies don't ultimately pay people for effort. They pay for business impact. They pay for revenue retained and revenue created.
Measuring activity along the way matters. It matters whether it took 10 or 100 interactions to make a customer successful.
Product adoption matters. If customers are not executing their key workflows, they will not accomplish their goals.
But they are merely signals. The mistake is treating them as proof of impact.
A CSM can have a full calendar, excellent customer relationships, and outstanding adoption numbers while creating very little measurable business value.
Another CSM can have fewer meetings, fewer interactions, and lower activity levels while helping customers achieve significantly more.
This is why attribution matters
Attribution doesn't mean claiming that every renewal and expansion happened only because of you. That's not credible.
Customer outcomes have multiple causes. The product contributes. The customer contributes. The CSM contributes.
The question is: Can you show what your contribution was?
Can you connect the customer's goal to the baseline?
Can you show whether the outcome actually improved?
Can you show what changed along the way?
Can you connect those changes to the work you did?
Can you translate the result into revenue impact?
That's attribution.
Without it, you're counting on your leadership to fill in the gaps for you.
And if the last decade has taught us something, it’s that they don’t.
The 3% isn't the problem
Maybe you deserved a 10% pay raise. Maybe you deserved to go to the CSM equivalent of the President’s Club. Maybe you deserved a promotion.
But before blaming anyone else, ask yourself a harder question:
Can you prove why you deserve it?
The problem isn't that leadership doesn't care about your work.
They simply can't see the connection between what you do and what changes for the business.
And if you can't provide evidence of your impact, you'll always be fighting for recognition with a story leadership can't verify.
You'll be the CSM who knows they're creating value.
Your customers know it.
But your compensation won't reflect it.
*Founding Member Pricing ends on August 20th.