October 31, 2026 | Read online
Your customer hired a new leader. Now what?
by Kevin 'KD' Dorsey
The account changed. Has your plan?
Your customer just hired a new leader.
Who on your team knows?
Who owns the introduction?
And what will that person hear about your company before you ever speak?
A new executive can inherit a contract without inheriting the relationship behind it. The person who championed your solution may have moved. The priorities that justified the purchase may have changed.
Meanwhile, your team is still running the same account plan.
Y’all, “they’re already a customer” is a dangerous reason to stop getting curious.
Give your team a clear way to handle the change. Here’s a simple account review you can run this week.
1. Get the facts before you write the congratulations message.
Pick one customer with a recent leadership change.
Confirm who joined, what they’re responsible for, and whether your usual contact is still involved. Check the customer’s own announcement rather than making assumptions from a job title.
Then look at what your team actually knows:
- What did the customer originally want to accomplish?
- What progress can you demonstrate?
- What remains unresolved?
- Who can explain why the relationship matters?
If the answers live in somebody’s memory, write them down.
Keep facts and assumptions separate. “They’ll probably want to cut costs” is a hypothesis, not an account strategy.
2. Align internally before everyone reaches out.
Sales, customer success and leadership may all know different pieces of the story.
Put those pieces together before the new executive gets three introductions, two conflicting updates and a meeting request with no clear purpose.
Choose one person to coordinate the conversation.
Agree on what you want to learn, what you can help with, and who needs to participate. Give everyone access to the same short account summary.
You don’t need another giant deck. You need enough shared context to have a useful conversation.
3. Make the introduction worth accepting.
Skip the assumption that a new title means an immediate buying project.
Offer context they can use.
For example:
“Welcome to the team. We’ve been working with your colleagues on [verified priority]. I can share a short overview of the original goals, progress so far and open questions. What would be most useful as you get settled?”
That gives them a reason to engage without asking them to sit through your entire product story.
When you do talk, ask what has changed. Listen for priorities you didn’t know about. Leave room for them to tell you the old plan no longer fits.
4. Turn the conversation into an updated plan.
Afterward, record what you learned.
Which goals still matter? Which assumptions were wrong? Who should be involved now? What did each side actually agree to do?
Give every agreed action an owner. Add a date when you’ve agreed on one.
Then make sure your next account review reflects those answers. Otherwise, you’ve had a nice introduction and changed nothing.
Your move this week
Choose one existing customer whose leadership has changed.
Spend fifteen minutes with the account owner answering this question:
“If we met their new leader tomorrow, could we clearly explain the relationship and ask useful questions about what comes next?”
Find the gaps. Assign the introduction. Update the plan.
You worked hard to earn that customer. Keep doing the work to understand them.
KD
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