New Executive, New Rules Playbook 2026
A new executive who owns your budget line is a chance at a second sponsor. Your best accounts make their value easy to see from the top. This play checks each account with a new exec against that benchmark and puts one move on the account in your CRM: a briefing in the exec's terms, a refreshed value summary – or no move, with the reason noted.
A new CFO, CIO or CTO may review the tools they inherited. Check whether the buying priorities or decision-makers have changed. At your best accounts, that review goes well – the value is easy to see from the top: several teams using the product, senior people logging in, leaders reading reports that come out of it. An exec who reviews you and keeps you has done the evaluation themselves. That makes them a strong second sponsor.
This play compares each account with a new budget owner against those accounts, while the exec's view is still forming. It checks the records, then puts one move on the account record, or a written reason for no move. A champion who left is the champion-departure play; layoff news is the quiet-cuts play.
Measure it on days from the exec's start to a first meeting, the share of accounts at the benchmark for visible value, and the renewal rate after a budget-owner change.
How it works9 steps
01SignalPick up each new exec, and build the benchmark
The trigger is a new hire who owns your budget line: CFO, CIO, CTO, or the VP your contract rolls up to. UserGems adds the new exec to the account as a contact when it spots the hire. A HubSpot workflow copies their name and title into New exec, and the account owner sets New exec start date. This play reads those fields each week, as does the weekly check, and picks up each account whose exec started in the last 90 days (a default to tune).
Build the benchmark once, refresh it quarterly (the benchmark play has more):
- Comparison customers: same segment (plan tier, size band), 12+ months as customers, renewed at the same or higher revenue. Aim for 20; with fewer, label it low confidence.
- What visible means, three measures, as defaults: teams active (three or more users active in three of the last four weeks); a senior user (manager or above, from CRM job titles) active in the last 30 days; and a report, export or shared view a senior user opened in the last 30 days. If your product has no reports, use whatever leaders see from it, such as scheduled emails.
- The pattern: the median number of active teams, and whether most comparison customers have the senior user and the opened report. Your CS lead approves it.
Under about a hundred accounts, do it by hand.
02ScoreCompare the account, then check the records
Count the measures the account meets: teams at or above the median, a senior user active, a report a senior user opened. Say an account pays $30,000 and renews in four months; the new CFO started three weeks ago. Your best accounts that size run three teams, with a senior user and an opened report each month. This one runs one team, and no senior user has logged in for 60 days: one of three. (The numbers are illustrative.)
Then check the records:
- Value summary date: when the one-page summary on the record was last updated. One from two years ago reads as nobody watching.
- Old exec was champion? If so, run the champion-departure play alongside this one – a new exec isn't a replacement champion by default.
- Last job used a rival? Their last company, from their LinkedIn profile (or UserGems' Past Company field if they were once your contact), checked against your sales team's lost-deal notes. If it used a competitor, they arrive with a comparison in mind.
- Budget or org changes: 90 days of CRM notes and tickets, plus the renewal stage. Confirm the new exec really owns your line.
03DecisionDecide whether there's a move worth making now
Leave it alone if the account meets two of the three measures and the renewal is more than six months out (defaults to tune), if the new exec doesn't own your line after all, or if a move is still inside its review window. Everything else picks a move.
04ActionLeave it alone, and brief them only if they ask
Set Recommended move to No move, write the reason, and set Review date to 90 days after the exec's start. Refresh the value summary so it's ready, and send it only if the exec or their team asks. When the value is already visible, the exec can see it in their own reports; an unasked-for note in their first weeks can read as defending a line item. More in the leave-it-alone play.
05DecisionPick the move the evidence supports
- Under review: the renewal falls inside the exec's first six months, or their last company used a rival. Briefing.
- Further out: the renewal is later. Value summary.
06ActionDraft a briefing for the new exec, in their terms
Twenty minutes, set up as a briefing, never a pitch: what their team does with you, and what it would take to replace. Pick the frame from their role. A CFO thinks in cost per outcome; a CTO in build-or-buy and migration risk. Bring the value summary.
07ActionRefresh the value summary on the HubSpot record
Update the one-page summary with this quarter's numbers, then send it to the exec with the cover note.
08Human stepYour team decides and runs the move
The AM or CSM runs the move as drafted, changes it, or passes. They own every customer conversation. Before acting, record the success measure and review date: a meeting held, or a senior user active within four weeks, is progress; a renewal, flat or up, is the result.
09OutcomeReview what changed, then sharpen the benchmark
Eight weeks on, record in Review result whether the exec engaged, and what else played a part. If nothing moved, change the move, stop it, or give it time; the eight-week review covers how. The renewal deal records the result. Each quarter, compare renewals after a budget-owner change with the rest, and update the benchmark.
Setup and templates
Sources: new execs from UserGems (it scans your accounts monthly); teams, senior users and report views from a weekly saved query in PostHog, Amplitude or Mixpanel; titles, ARR and renewal date from the CRM. Account-level numbers need your analytics tool's account add-on (group analytics in PostHog, Accounts in Amplitude, Group Analytics in Mixpanel) and a group call in your app. Save the query, then subscribe to it (in Amplitude, add it to a dashboard and subscribe to that) so the result lands in your inbox or Slack on the schedule you set. By hand: a spreadsheet of active users per account, with titles, beside Sales Navigator's senior-hire alerts on your saved accounts, or a monthly LinkedIn check of each account's leaders.
Company properties in HubSpot (Starter or above; free HubSpot allows 10 custom properties in total), or your CRM's account object:
| Property | Type | Filled by |
|---|---|---|
| New exec | Single-line text (name, title) | HubSpot workflow from the UserGems contact |
| New exec start date | Date picker | Account owner, from LinkedIn |
| Teams active | Number | Weekly check |
| Benchmark teams | Number | Weekly check |
| Senior user active | Single checkbox | Weekly check |
| Senior user opened a report | Single checkbox | Weekly check |
| Value summary date | Date picker | Account owner |
| Recommended move | Dropdown select: Exec briefing · Value summary · No move | Weekly check |
| Move reason | Single-line text | Weekly check |
| Success measure | Single-line text | Account owner |
| Review date | Date picker | Weekly check, then account owner |
| Review result | Dropdown select: Engaged, renewed · Engaged, renewal pending · No reply · Stopped | Account owner |
The automation here uses HubSpot workflows (any Professional hub). On Free or Starter, run the same saved view and create the tasks by hand. The weekly list is a saved view: Recommended move is known and Review date is this week or overdue. In HubSpot that's two filter groups: Review date is This week, or Review date is before Today. Each move creates a task for the owner, "New exec: [move]", with the draft in the body.
Briefing invite (Under review):
Hi [name] – welcome to [company]. [Number] people across [teams] use [product] for [job]. Would twenty minutes help before your first review? I'll bring what they do with it, what it costs, and what it would take to replace.
Value summary (both moves): what [teams] do in [product] · usage this quarter against last · [your unit of value, such as reports run or hours saved] · cost per [outcome] · who to ask on their team · dated [this quarter].
Cover note (Further out):
Hi [name] – congratulations on the new role. Here's a one-page summary of how your team uses [product], dated this quarter. Happy to walk you through it whenever it's useful.
No move: "No move – [reason]. Summary ready; send if asked. Recheck [date]."
How Accoil fits
Accoil is a customer-success consultancy with our own tooling, and this is a play we run with you, not for you. We build the benchmark with your team, and you approve it. Every week we check every account in the agreed segment, and the recommended move and its evidence land on the account record in your CRM – we recommend HubSpot – at a pace your team can actually run. Your team makes every call. Nobody from Accoil contacts your customers. After the agreed window we review what changed together, and you keep the playbook, the benchmark and the analysis.
Running it yourself? Swap HubSpot for Salesforce or Pipedrive, and UserGems for Clay. On Pipedrive, use Clay for this play. The play stays the same. On Salesforce, the field writes need API access (Enterprise and up, or an add-on on Professional). On Pipedrive, automations and date triggers need the Growth plan.
Thirty minutes with Kate, Simon or Peter on one example segment: what a successful customer looks like, where the gaps are, and whether there's work worth doing this quarter.
Talk to a founder →Keep reading
Champion Departure Early-Warning Playbook 2026
Your best accounts rest on more than one person: several active users and a senior sponsor. Each week this play counts relationships for every account in a segment against that benchmark, with the champion's silence and job-change data as evidence, and puts one move on the account in your CRM: a second-contact ask, a sponsor intro, a successor welcome – or no move.
Monday-Morning Account Triage Playbook 2026
Your best customers show you what good looks like. Every Monday, this play compares each account in a segment with that benchmark, ranks what each gap is worth, caps the list at what your team can run, and puts the week's moves on the account records in your CRM: close a gap, grow the upside, or leave it alone with the reason noted.
Renewal-Risk Radar Playbook 2026
Renewals go best when the account already looks like your customers who renewed. From 90 days out, this play compares every renewing account with them each week – usage and revenue – checks the records, and puts one move on the account in your CRM: an expansion look, a value review, a save plan with the CSM – or no move, with the reason noted.
Every playbook, one download
All 32 workflows as print-ready playbooks — diagrams included. Plus every new workflow as we publish it.