Article · 8 min read

8 Things I Learned from Dave Kellogg About Net Dollar Retention

Nick Mehta · Gainsight Free Intermediate

The Gainsight CEO on why CS should own an NDR number rather than just a churn number, including the idea of giving every CSM their own book of MRR to grow from 100 to 115.

  • Gross retention is ambiguous (which ARR is the denominator, is a product swap churn), while NDR folds churn and expansion into one number.
  • One cloud company cut NDR by acquisition channel (self-service, enterprise, channel) and found some sales motions were losing money.
  • Some accounts churn whatever a CSM does, so that time is better spent expanding healthy customers.
  • Break upsell into its parts: more of the same product, new products to the same buyer, new products to new buyers.
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It answers 8 questions

  1. What does land and expand mean, and does it apply to my company?
  2. How do I spot which accounts are actually ready to expand?
  3. How do I run an upsell conversation without sounding like I am shaking them down?
  4. How do I move net revenue retention from around 100 percent to 120 percent?
  5. Should my CSMs carry a quota?
  6. Who should own expansion: sales, customer success, or a dedicated team?
  7. What separates a best-in-class QBR from a status update?
  8. How do the best teams expand beyond the first team that bought?

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