# Expansion Signal

> Work an expansion-ready account into an angle and a clean hand to sales — the second growth motion the funnel forgets. Trigger when account-health flags an EXPANSION-SIGNAL, when a healthy account asks for more unprompted, a second team wants access, or the user says "this account is ready to grow", "expansion play", "upsell", or "land and expand".

- Skill: `etrebels/expansion-signal` (Agent Skill)
- Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add etrebels/expansion-signal`
- Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/etrebels/expansion-signal/raw
- Safety review: pending
- Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex
- Category: Marketing & Growth
- Author: etrebels (https://skillmd.com/u/etrebels)
- Updated: 2026-09-17
- Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/etrebels/expansion-signal

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# Expansion Signal

The other act-skill on the right side. Two of the three ways a company grows happen after the first sale ([`docs/operating-model.md`](../../../docs/operating-model.md)), and this is one of them: `account-health` flags the `EXPANSION-SIGNAL`; this turns it into an angle and hands it to sales with the customer context attached — so it isn't a cold internal restart.

From the healthy account in `ops/customers.md` and the `EXPANSION-SIGNAL` line:

1. **Confirm the trigger is real.** Expansion rides on *adoption*, not the calendar. The signal is the core used well plus a named next pain — a second team asking unprompted, a new use case, more seats. A renewal date is not an expansion trigger; pushing growth on an account that isn't getting value yet is churn with extra steps.
2. **Name the angle.** Which way does it grow — an adjacent team, a new use case, deeper use of what they already have? Is it cross-sell (a new thing) or more of the same (more seats, more volume)? One angle, named.
3. **Build the case on realized value.** Start from what they've already gotten — the outcome the book can show — and extend it to the new area, in their words, not a feature list.
4. **Re-arm the champion.** Expansion is carried internally, not pitched in. Give the champion the one-page case they can forward, and the line that makes it their idea — not your quota.
5. **Hand to sales with the CS context.** The handoff is the account, the angle, the realized-value case, and the champion — so sales picks up a warm, qualified expansion, not a cold account. A real expansion is a new deal: it crosses back to `ops/pipeline.md`, the loop the bowtie closes.
6. **Log it and update the book.** Mark the account Expanding; note the angle and the handoff in `ops/customers.md`.

Don't run this on an unhealthy account — route that to `churn-save` first. Expansion is the reward for value landing, not a substitute for it.

## Depth
- quick: confirm the trigger + name the one angle.
- standard: the full play — trigger, angle, value-case, champion, hand to sales.
- deep: + the multi-thread map of who signs off on the larger spend, and the buyer-facing one-pager for the champion to forward.