--- name: expansion-playbook description: "Use when designing account-expansion mechanics — upsell vs cross-sell, expansion-trigger signals, NRR cognition. Triggers on 'lift NRR', 'when do we upsell vs cross-sell'." status: active tier: senior source: package domain: product context_spine: [product, customer-segment] --- # expansion-playbook ## When to use - Net Revenue Retention plateaued and the team cannot name *which* expansion lever drives it — upsell, cross-sell, and seat-expansion get conflated under *"NRR"* and the moves are uniform when they should be lever-specific. - An expansion play is firing on usage signals alone — accounts using more seats are treated as expansion targets without checking the upstream pain that earned the expansion. - A new pricing or packaging change is live and the team needs to re-key the expansion triggers to the new shape before the old triggers misfire. Do NOT use to save churning accounts (route to `churn-prevention`), design days 0–30 onboarding (route to `onboarding-design`), or build product-led seat-expansion loops unattended by a human play (route to `retention-loops`). ## Cognition cluster - **Mental model 18 — Pull vs. push.** Expansion that the buyer pulls (because pain or scope grew) compounds; expansion the vendor pushes (because the quarter needs the number) corrodes the relationship and inflates churn the next cycle. Pick the trigger that signals pull. See [`docs/contracts/mental-models.md`](../../../docs/contracts/mental-models.md) § 18. - **Mental model 9 — Hypothesis-driven thinking.** Each expansion trigger is a hypothesis: *"if signal X is true, the buyer will accept expansion Y at price Z."* Triggers without falsification evidence are wishes; if a trigger has misfired three times, the trigger is wrong, not the buyer. See `mental-models.md` § 9. - **Mental model 3 — Pareto (80/20).** ~20 % of accounts carry ~80 % of expansion potential. Uniform expansion outreach across the book is noise; weighted outreach by pull-signal strength is reasoning. See `mental-models.md` § 3. - **Context-spine — product + customer-segment.** Read the **product** slot for which capabilities the segment can absorb next (sequencing matters — a cross-sell into a feature the segment cannot use yet inflates churn), and the **customer-segment** slot for switch-event patterns that signal organic scope expansion. See [`context-spine`](../../../docs/contracts/context-spine.md). ## Procedure ### Step 0: Inspect — separate upsell, cross-sell, seat-expansion Inspect the trailing four quarters of expansion $ and decompose: 1. **Upsell** — same product family, higher tier (more seats at same SKU, premium tier of same SKU). 2. **Cross-sell** — different product family or SKU. 3. **Seat-expansion** — same SKU, more users, no tier change. Compute each lever's $ contribution and NRR contribution. A book treating these as one number cannot diagnose which lever is broken. ### Step 1: Define one expansion trigger per lever, pull-signalled Each trigger is a *buyer-side pull signal* with falsifiable evidence: 1. **Upsell trigger** — buyer crosses tier-defining usage ceiling (e.g. seats > X, or feature-X-usage > Y) sustained for ≥ 30 days. 2. **Cross-sell trigger** — buyer requests a capability that lives in an adjacent SKU **twice in 60 days**, by two different contacts, in writing. 3. **Seat-expansion trigger** — admin invites N new users in a rolling 30-day window AND health-score (from `churn-prevention`) is green. Triggers that misfire three times in a quarter become Step 0 diagnoses next quarter; do not patch them inside the quarter. ### Step 2: Map lever → play Each lever gets one default play and one disqualifier: - **Upsell** — quarterly business review surfacing the usage ceiling; tier-upgrade proposal with proof-of-value. Disqualifier: account on red health score (route to `churn-prevention`). - **Cross-sell** — capability-fit discovery call with sponsor + user; pilot before contract change. Disqualifier: cross-sell SKU not GA for the segment. - **Seat-expansion** — admin co-pilot session + group onboarding for new seats. Disqualifier: utilisation on existing seats < 40 % (you would be selling decay). ### Step 3: Sequence multi-lever opportunities If two triggers fire on the same account in the same quarter: sequence **upsell before cross-sell** (compound the contract the buyer already believes in) **before seat-expansion** (the most fragile lever — easiest to inflate, easiest to lose). Two plays fired in parallel signal vendor-push and corrode the relationship. ### Step 4: Compute NRR by lever and verify against the dilution check NRR = (start-ARR + expansion − churn − contraction) ÷ start-ARR, per cohort. Decompose expansion into the three levers. **Verify** each trigger's pull-signal is intact: confirm the buyer-side artefact (usage ceiling crossed, written request, admin invite) exists in instrumentation; a lever whose triggers cannot be verified against artefacts is push-expansion mislabelled as pull, and the next cycle's churn will return the revenue. A book hitting 115 % NRR via seat-expansion only is more fragile than a book hitting 110 % via upsell + cross-sell — fragility shows up in the next cycle's churn, not this one's revenue line. ### Step 5: Hand back Hand the lever decomposition, the three pull-signalled triggers, and the per-lever play to CS / AM operations and to [`forecast-accuracy`](../forecast-accuracy/SKILL.md) for the expansion side of the forecast call. NRR work without lever separation is spending in random directions. ## Related Skills **WHEN to use this** - Decomposing NRR into upsell · cross-sell · seat-expansion levers. - Defining pull-signalled triggers and per-lever plays. **WHEN NOT to use this** - Saving accounts likely to churn — route to [`churn-prevention`](../churn-prevention/SKILL.md). - Designing days 0–30 onboarding milestones — route to [`onboarding-design`](../onboarding-design/SKILL.md). - Product-led, vendor-unattended seat growth loops — route to [`retention-loops`](../retention-loops/SKILL.md). ## When the agent should load this - "Lift our NRR — which lever?" - "When do we cross-sell vs upsell account X?" - "Why does our expansion churn back inside the next cycle?" - "Welcher Expansion-Trigger ist eigentlich pull, nicht push?" ## Output 1. **`lever-decomposition.md`** — trailing-quarter expansion $ split into upsell · cross-sell · seat-expansion with NRR contribution per lever. 2. **`expansion-triggers.md`** — one pull-signalled trigger per lever · falsifiable evidence · misfire counter. 3. **`lever-play-map.md`** — per-lever default play · disqualifier · sequencing rule for multi-trigger accounts. ## Gotcha - A trigger that fires on usage alone, without separating *pain growth* from *consumption growth*, will push when it should pull. Push-expansion lifts this quarter and depresses the next. - Seat-expansion looks like the easiest lever and is the most fragile — easy to inflate by selling seats into accounts whose existing seats are under-utilised; the contraction lands one cycle later. - *"Strategic"* cross-sell into a capability the segment is not yet ready to use buys revenue and pays for it in churn — segment-readiness is the gate, not vendor-side ambition. ## Do NOT - Do NOT fire multiple expansion plays in parallel on one account; sequence per Step 3. - Do NOT count seat-expansion at < 40 % existing-seat utilisation as expansion; it is selling decay. - Do NOT chase NRR target without lever decomposition; the headline number can be hit by the most fragile lever. ## Runnable example Mid-market SaaS, NRR 112 % last quarter, churn ticked up this quarter. - Lever decomposition — upsell 35 %, cross-sell 18 %, seat-expansion 47 % of expansion $. Seat-expansion-led growth flagged as fragile. - Triggers — *(1)* upsell trigger: seats > 50 sustained 30+ days (band 28–42 % conversion). *(2)* cross-sell: capability request twice in 60 days from two contacts (band 41–61 % conversion). *(3)* seat-expansion: admin invites ≥ 10 new users in 30 days AND green health (band 52–68 % conversion); misfire count for the quarter: 4 — trigger flagged for Step 0 re-diagnosis next quarter. - Lever-play map — upsell QBR + tier proposal, disqualified for 3 red-health accounts; cross-sell pilot blocked for 2 accounts where SKU not yet GA-ready for mid-market. - Hand-off — decomposition + triggers → CS / AM ops; sequencing rule live; expansion side of `forecast-accuracy` rebuilt on lever-weighted historical close rates.