Tell us something fun about yourself. In high school, I was a top 100 player for Warrior-based tanks on World of Warcraft. Man, I was such a nerd back then.
If you could go back in time, what would you tell yourself as a new CSM? Network more! I didn’t follow anyone in the CS community until 2019 and didn’t contribute to the CS community until 2020. Honestly, I don’t believe this either, but it’s true.
What book, podcast, or influencer do you recommend checking out? One book everyone should read: John Maxwell’s 21 irrefutable laws of leadership.
What is the one tech tool you can't live without? LinkedIn, but for real, UpdateAI is a top tool I’ll be looking to leverage in my next role.
How can those looking to break into CS get started? Learn how to make complex problems simple and easy to understand. The best CSMs I’ve worked with did two things exceptionally well:
- They took complicated, hard-to-understand matters and made them simple for the customer to understand in their terms.
- They deliver exceptional relationship-based experiences around helping the customer receive their desired outcome and ultimately make the customer look like the hero.
What's next for Customer Success? I won’t say this is “what’s next”; however, Customer Success has to start getting consistent with playbooks. Sales, marketing, engineering, and support - all have established playbooks that can fairly easily carry from one organization to the next. Customer Success does not yet have this level of stability.
What’s something you recently learned the hard way? I always learn the hard way. Ask my wife! My most recent learning has to be self-care. It took being laid off to realize I was burnt out, miserable, and trying to give out of an empty cup. Learn from me: take time every week to stop and reset.
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