Trusted advisor is the floor. Strategic advisor is the ceiling. McCulloch surgically separates the two concepts and proposes the KSE model (Knowledge × Skills × Experience) as the framework for the CSM elevated to real advisor.
Most companies have advocates and zero advocacy — because they don't capitalize on them. Advocacy is a deliberate program, with assets and a maturity flow, not a positive sentiment on NPS.
At scale, you can't offset churn by adding new logos. The math only closes through expansion in the base — and the only sustainable way is for the CSM to uptell, not sell. CSQLs convert at 60–70% vs 5–20% for MQLs.
The renewal is a milestone. Retention is the process. And the subtlety that changes everything: customers don't choose to stay because of the value you already delivered — they stay because of the future value you're promising.
Adoption is not license utilization. Adoption is operational dependence plus business value delivered through the right features. Teams that confuse them think they're healthy — until the customer tells them they're not renewing.
Onboarding is finite, has a clear start and end, and is the pillar with the biggest influence on whether the first renewal happens. Trip here and you spend the whole contract catching up — and sometimes you can't.
Wayne McCulloch calls Pillar 1 'the most important and least understood' pillar. It's the one new CS teams skip — and the reason most stall at 200 accounts per CSM and can't move past it.
Most CS teams operate reactively. Wayne McCulloch's seven-pillar framework gives a clear architecture — 5 sequential customer-journey stages and 2 cross-cutting capability layers — to move from firefighting to building CS as a company capability.
