Turning a 23-person CS team into commercial owners
The Situation
After a strategic shift, Teamleader handed its Customer Success team ownership of upsell and renewal targets overnight. Strong product knowledge, zero background in commercial conversations. The sudden responsibility created real anxiety about holding discovery calls or raising upsell with existing customers.
What I Did
- Built a custom commercial CS training program around Teamleader's own customer conversations, not a generic upsell script
- Ran embedding sessions alongside the training so new skills got used in real calls, not just discussed in a workshop
- Designed repeatable structures for onboarding, nurture, and upsell so the approach outlasted the training itself
- Worked deliberately on the mindset shift from support function to proactive commercial owner
The Result
- NPS of 78 (9.05/10) from the CSMs who went through the program
- Team tracking 20% above its upsell targets post-training
- New onboarding, nurture, and upsell structures implemented and running
- Stronger, more collaborative relationships with customers reported across the team
"Nils listened to our struggles, designed a custom program with a direct impact on our approach to customer communication, and helped us make a mindset switch that led to a much closer partnership with our customers."
Building Trengo's sales organization from the ground up, on the way to a €36M Series A
The Situation
Fresh off a €2M seed round from Peak Capital, Trengo needed to professionalize its go-to-market fast. No structured sales process. No consistent KPIs. No defined sales organization. The young sales team had real potential, but no framework, management structure, or shared best practices to build on.
What I Did
- Analyzed the current situation and streamlined the core sales process
- Implemented a CRM structure, set KPIs, and built a sales management framework from scratch
- Hired 3 Account Executives and, later, a new CCO alongside Trengo's leadership
- Trained and coached the team on best practices to create a shared foundation for skill development
- Restructured the sales org into SDRs, Account Executives, and an Account Manager function
- Worked closely with product to sharpen product-market fit and align go-to-market efforts
The Result
- Built a scalable sales organization and culture that supported consistent growth in a competitive market
- Hired a seasoned CCO aligned with the sales vision, enabling a seamless handover
- Trengo closed a Series A round of €36M, led by Insight Partners, up from a €2M seed round when the engagement started
- Collaboration extended beyond sales into training and coaching for the Customer Success and Business Development teams
Monthly deal volume in Trengo's CRM, 2020: the pipeline the new sales structure was built to carry
"Nils trained and coached our young Sales team professionally in under four months, helping them grow into true Sales professionals by establishing best practices, supporting recruitment of new team members and a CCO, and laying the foundation for long-term growth."
Turning around a Dutch sales team that was 50% below target, six months running
The Situation
Honeypot, a Berlin-based recruitment marketplace also active in the Netherlands and Austria, had a Dutch sales team stuck 50% below target for six consecutive months. Morale was sliding. Pipeline quality was sliding. The team's position in the market was genuinely at risk.
What I Did
- Ran a full performance review, auditing sales rules, workflows, and CRM usage to find where things actually broke down
- Introduced new discovery frameworks and tailored training to raise sales effectiveness where the review pointed
- Stepped into interim management, leading the team hands-on to ensure consistent execution and accountability
The Result
- The NL team reached and sustained its targets within months, even through the difficult post-COVID period
- When the company restructured internationally, the NL team was the only international team that remained, a direct result of its turned-around performance