Expansion Opportunity Spotter

---
name: expansion-opportunity-spotter
description: Use when looking for expansion opportunities in a customer account and drafting the conversation. Triggers on "expansion opportunity", "expansion signals", "upsell conversation", "land and expand".
---

# Expansion Opportunity Spotter

Expansion done well grows revenue and deepens the relationship. Expansion done badly is the fastest way to break customer trust — they start to feel like a target. The discipline: only act on real signals, prioritize ruthlessly, and lead with the customer\'s problem, not your quota.

## Required inputs

1. **Customer + current ARR + tenure**
2. **Current health** — green only; if yellow / red, fix that first
3. **Recent signals** — usage changes, mentions in calls, ticket content, org changes (new hires, new exec, acquisitions, funding)
4. **Available expansion paths** — more seats, additional product modules, higher tier, services, new use case
5. **Champion / exec sponsor engagement** — last touch, sentiment

If health is yellow or red, push back: "Expansion conversations with at-risk customers signal you don\'t see them. Stabilize first."

## Signal taxonomy

Look for these signal types. Each is weighted differently:

### Strong signals (act this quarter)
- **New use case mentioned in calls** — they're describing a problem you also solve
- **New team requesting access** — pull-based, not push
- **New exec sponsor with appetite** — fresh budget, fresh mandate
- **Power user pattern** — top 10% usage indicates depth that justifies expansion to peer teams
- **Hit usage cap / contract limit** — concrete commercial conversation

### Medium signals (watch + nurture)
- **Org growth** — they hired 30%, your seat count didn't grow
- **Adjacent feature usage growing organically** — they're getting value from something they didn't buy
- **Champion promoted** — bigger scope, often bigger budget
- **Strategic announcement aligned with your offering** — they announced X initiative, you serve X

### Weak signals (don't act, monitor)
- **Generic "this is great" feedback** — not enough to base an expansion ask on
- **Champion mentioned a goal that you tangentially support** — too soft
- **Industry trend** — not specific to this customer

### Anti-signals (DO NOT pitch expansion)
- Recent escalation
- NPS detractor or recent negative pulse
- Champion or exec sponsor changed in last 90 days (re-establish first)
- Renewal-cycle commercial tension
- Late payment or procurement push

## Analysis framework

### Step 1: List all signals from the input
Strong / medium / weak / anti-signals. Cite source per signal (call, ticket, usage, news).

### Step 2: Assess relationship readiness
If any anti-signals are present, STOP. Recommend stabilization, not expansion.

### Step 3: Rank top 2-4 expansion plays
For each:
- **The play** (more seats / new module / higher tier / new use case)
- **The signal that justifies it** (specific, sourced)
- **Likely deal size and timeline** (rough, defensible)
- **Who needs to be in the conversation** (champion alone, or champion + new stakeholder)
- **Risk of pitching wrong** (will they feel pushed?)

### Step 4: Draft the opening conversation per play
NOT a pitch. The opening of a conversation that lets them tell you the problem.

Bad opening: "I noticed your usage is up — let me show you our enterprise tier."
Good opening: "When we talked last month, you mentioned your finance team was building forecasting in spreadsheets. I'd love 15 minutes with whoever owns that — we have an approach that's worked well at similar companies, and I want to understand if it fits what you\'re trying to do."

The opening should:
- Reference a SPECIFIC thing they said or a SPECIFIC signal
- Lead with their problem, not your product
- Ask for a discovery conversation, not propose a product
- Make it easy to say "not now" without breaking the relationship

## Output

### Signals identified
Strong / medium / weak / anti-signals with sources.

### Recommended plays (2-4)
Ranked by likelihood. Each with: signal, play, deal size, timeline, stakeholder, risk.

### Conversation openers
Verbatim opener per play, ready to use in email or call.

### What NOT to pitch right now
Anti-signals or premature plays. Why each is wrong RIGHT NOW.

## Anti-patterns

- Treating every customer as an expansion target every quarter
- Pitching expansion when health is yellow / red
- Generic "you should consider our enterprise tier" — no signal-grounded reason to believe it
- Expansion ask in the same call as a renewal negotiation — pick one
- Expansion conversation with the WRONG stakeholder — champion can't approve a $200k upsell, the VP can
- Pitching feature, not problem — customers don't expand because of features, they expand because they have a new problem you can solve

## Tone

Restrained. Customers can feel when you\'re hunting them. The expansion conversation that works is one where the customer feels HEARD, not targeted.

## Output format

Markdown. Signals first (with sources), then ranked plays, then conversation openers per play. End with the verbatim "what not to pitch right now" caveats — these are as important as the recommendations.