The Journey: #013 Churn in Focus

When I became a VP of Customer Success for the second time, I was pumped.

I had a seat at the table.

I had a team to lead.

But ... I had a board deck to build.

As I prepped for that first board meeting, one thing became painfully clear:

I couldn’t talk about how we’d grow if I didn’t understand why customers were leaving.

So I started digging into churn.

My first pass was thorough -- color-coded spreadsheets, call notes, exit surveys. I mapped out all the reasons. It looked… robust. Detailed. Impressive.

But something didn’t sit right.

The more I stared at it, the more I realized I wasn’t uncovering the root cause. I was looking at symptoms, not the disease.

So I went back to the drawing board.

Then again.

And again.

And every time, I stripped things back a little more. I asked harder questions. I sat with the uncomfortable truth.

Eventually, a pattern emerged—and it looked nothing like my original list.

There weren’t 20+ unique reasons.

There were just a few. And they were much deeper than I thought.

That experience changed how I look at churn forever.

Here’s the hard truth:

You can’t fix what you don’t even know is broken.

And you definitely can’t grow what you can’t keep.

Most companies are sitting on a goldmine of churn insights—and doing nothing with it.

Why? Because no one taught them how to actually use it.

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The 4 Churn-Tracking Traps

Most teams fall into one of these:

No receipts:

You’re not capturing churn reasons at all. Customers leave and it’s crickets.

Messy receipts:

Anecdotal stories buried in free-form fields. Drama? Yes. Data? Not so much.

Fake receipts:

"Churned due to bad timing" or “internal changes.” Translation: you don’t really know.

Receipt goals:

You’re tracking the right reasons, the right way, and actually doing something with them.

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So how do you actually make churn insights actionable?

Start here:

Step 1: Controllable vs. Uncontrollable

Controllable:

Things you could’ve influenced—product gaps, onboarding failure, value misalignment.

Uncontrollable:

M&A, bankruptcy, massive budget cuts. (Still important to log—but don’t beat yourself up.)

Step 2: Nail the Real Churn Reasons

There aren’t dozens. There are just a few that matter:

Not an ICP fit

Product gaps or issues

Failure to launch

Lack of perceived value

Financial concerns

Poor customer experience

M&A or restructuring

Step 3: Add Situational Context

These are the details that deepen your understanding:

Competitor wins

Tool consolidation

Executive turnover

Misset expectations

Low or no engagement

When you do this right, you:

✅ Spot what’s truly fixable

✅ Prioritize where to invest your time

✅ Build programs that reduce churn before it happens

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Final Thought:

Most churn frameworks are over-engineered and underutilized.

Keep it simple.

Get to the truth.

And remember: churn isn’t just a metric—it’s a map.

A map that leads straight to stronger retention, better fit customers, and more predictable growth.

Don’t ignore it. Learn from it.