A violent restructuring | Ep. 166

[Dillon] (0:04 - 0:18)

Well, what's up lifers and welcome to The Daily Standup with lifetime value where we're giving you fresh new customer success and perspectives every single day. I got my man JP with us. JP, you want to say hi?

[JP] (0:18 - 0:19)

What's going on?

[Dillon] (0:20 - 0:23)

And we've got Rob with us. Rob, can you say hi, please?

[Rob] (0:24 - 0:24)

How you doing?

[Dillon] (0:25 - 0:41)

How you doing? And I'm your host. My name is Dillon Young, and it's just the three of us.

And boys, it's so good to be home. Home on reddit.com slash customer success.

[JP] (0:41 - 0:42)

Oh lord, I should have known.

[Dillon] (0:43 - 0:46)

You should have known, but you don't have your glasses on, so you couldn't see it coming.

[JP] (0:47 - 0:48)

Mr. Magoo over here.

[Dillon] (0:51 - 0:52)

You guys ready for this one?

[Rob] (0:53 - 0:54)

Let's do it.

[Dillon] (0:55 - 1:12)

Advice for a CSM who's stretched thin and needs salary slash title level setting. Rob just walked away. He's gone.

Oh, but I think what's funny is I think the title is misleading. You ready?

[JP] (1:12 - 1:13)

Yeah, okay.

[Dillon] (1:14 - 2:34)

I've been at a mid-stage startup for two and a half years. I'm a customer success and support MGR manager and love the mission of my company. Our team was made up of 12 PPLs, that's people, with a VP and director at the helm when I joined.

Fast forward to a less than stellar year for the co, that's company, and I'm the only CSM dot, dot, dot, that's a pregnant pause, for the whole entire company. So from 12 to one. Managing all customers, ACCTS, that's accounts, rev ops, revenue operations, renewals, and a few national programs.

I don't even know what that means. Everyone else was let go in a restructuring. My pay has not, all capital letters, gone up.

I'm stretched to the breaking point. I can barely keep up, but somehow I do. And managed to grow ACCTS, have no churn through the violent restructuring and run customer success and support alone for over six months now.

I'm not in a position to quit if they don't up my salary, but I'm an idiot if I don't ask for more money. I'm fulfilling all the responsibilities that my VP was fulfilling, managing everything that a team of 12 was managing. I've never had a mentor and don't have other professionals in my life that can guide me through something like this.

[JP] (2:35 - 3:30)

This is a horror story on every level, because this is exactly what we don't want to happen. You went from 12 to one, right? So clearly this person was one that they felt like we got to keep them.

And then what I want to know about is how they came about that decision. I think that would be an interesting thing if we could peer into their minds. But just given the situation, you went from 12 to one, and so you're handling all this, and they didn't give you a raise in tax.

This is the nightmare scenario for CS. I'm looking for the scientific word for it, but is this proving the hypothesis maybe that you don't need these teams of people?

[Dillon] (3:31 - 4:04)

He says it himself. It's kind of a shame that he shows his own cards and says, I'm doing everything for the I do manage to grow accounts. I have no churn through the violent restructuring, and I run customer success and support alone for over six months.

Why though? It sounds like the company made the right decision. They just saved a bunch of money.

[JP] (4:04 - 4:14)

That's what I'm saying. From the company's perspective, this is a huge win, but from an individual perspective, this is horrible.

[Dillon] (4:17 - 4:42)

It's all through context, and I want to give Rob an opportunity here. It's all through context. Is this the right amount of work?

He doesn't say anything about working more than 40 hours. The only thing he says is, my previous role was X. They got rid of everybody, and now I do this other thing, but I'm still successful at it.

So I think it was just a misalignment of goals and expectations previously.

[Rob] (4:43 - 4:51)

If he's working 80 hours- What do the comments say? You ready? Truth in the comments.

[JP] (4:52 - 4:53)

Let's assume that this is a real story.

[Rob] (4:54 - 4:57)

I was going to say, I bet somebody in the comments was like, I don't believe you.

[Dillon] (4:57 - 5:03)

You're a liar. On a human level, I am so sorry. This sounds incredibly stressful.

[Rob] (5:04 - 5:07)

Professionally speaking- That's the CSM way to start a comment.

[Dillon] (5:08 - 5:59)

Yeah, it's- Sure. Right. Professionally speaking, you have all the leverage here to pull whoever you report to aside and respectfully let them know you cannot do this extra work without an adjustment in pay and title.

Ask if they can work something out. As for the workload, you'll have to get creative. I would also make a plan, which he didn't say the workload was too much.

Top CS jobs, which is like a website where you can go and look for CS jobs. Document your influence on revenue and cost savings to the company. This is real concrete data you can then use to negotiate.

Except again, that's in the context of a previous understanding of how account coverage worked when this person is doing it successfully by themselves for one-twelfth the cost. If this person doesn't want to do it, they'll probably go and find somebody else who can.

[JP] (6:00 - 6:06)

So that is- It's a fair- That's why he's saying that he doesn't have the leverage.

[Dillon] (6:07 - 6:09)

No, he thinks he does have leverage.

[JP] (6:09 - 6:26)

But you just said it, Dillon. You said, if there was a misalignment and then now it's been reset, what if in his mind he's like, oh, they could get somebody else to do this work and just repackage it. But I was here before the shift.

[Rob] (6:26 - 7:36)

I don't expect that. If they go out on the market, it's going to take them months to find someone. And then extraordinary risk that the person they bring on is the wrong fit.

And higher risk that the person they bring on wants more money because there's no more leverage you have as an employee than when you're walking in the door. That's when you have the most leverage on your salary. Now, this person, assuming all the facts are true, which honestly, look, I'm not going to lie, I'm skeptical because if that company hired 12 people to do the job of one person, that just sounds bizarre.

It just sounds fishy to me. I don't know. But look, if it's actually true, assuming all the details are true, then bravo for still being the last one standing.

The company obviously values and respects you. I am baffled by the fact that this person is not already taking advantage of the leverage they have on the company and going to leadership and asking for it. And they're spending time on Reddit instead.

The question should really be not, should I ask for more money? It's just, how do I make this case?

[Dillon] (7:37 - 7:38)

How much money should I ask for?

[Rob] (7:38 - 7:39)

More meaningful, conversational.

[Dillon] (7:39 - 8:33)

And that's what top CS jobs says. And a lot of people are saying there's just more to it. And I guess what I would encourage folks and why I picked this topic is because of how blindly it approaches this from just one perspective.

And it doesn't consider the way the company is thinking about this. I mean, look, the company isn't stupid. They fire 11 out of 12 people.

That is going to cause immense strife with the one remaining person. But they do it for a reason. JP, to your point, they left that person in place for a reason.

They probably think that that person is most capable of doing this job. And it turns out that person is. The last thing I will say is the last comment is don't be the last one off a sinking ship, dude.

What?

[Rob] (8:34 - 8:50)

Like leave? You're already the last one. Look, if whoever, if this person happens to be a listener, drop me a note.

Let's have a conversation. You got the company by the cordial right now. I don't know if we can say that.

I don't.

[Dillon] (8:50 - 9:22)

I mean, I wouldn't go so far as to say that because I think this person is then going to get overzealous and say, I want to be a VP and I want a VP salary when, in fact. That's most likely never going to happen. They might be able to go and get a 15, 20% pay increase, something like that.

But I think you just got to be careful. You got to create win-win scenarios. If you go in and ask for a VP title and a VP salary that everybody loses, I think in that case.

[Rob] (9:22 - 9:34)

Yeah. And you have to show the marginal value that the company gains by that. Now, it's not just a matter of saying, let's look back at the work we've done, but like you have to show that there is net new ROI to the company with a new title.

-: 10:12

Yeah. Just one more thing I just want to say. Assuming all this is true, I think what I'm disappointed in is the fact that the company didn't, from the story, you couldn't even give the person.

Even a 10% raise would be insulting, right? We just fired 11 people, but they didn't even. That's the part that I don't understand.

If I was somewhere and I worked with a team of, was this all at once or was it a slow fire? I think that there is some missing nuance in the story.

[Dillon] (: 10:12

It was called a violent restructuring.

[JP] (: 10:14

Okay. So that probably is all at once. So then, but why wouldn't you as a company even be like, oh, like we got to, unless the person that they're dealing with, they're like, he won't.

And that's what disappoints me. That's what disappoints me.

[Dillon] (: 10:33

Here's the point I want to make. I think it is a bit of a punk, sure, but it's not nearly as much of a punk as I think, JP, you mentioned, or they're positing in this Reddit, because there's, you're creating assumption about the value of the work or how much work there was to do. And there wasn't necessarily, just because they had 12 team members doesn't mean they needed 12 team members, right?

Doesn't mean they were working at their highest and best use. And that's obvious from the way the company reacted. And so you cannot get, you cannot conflate the two.

The amount of work you're doing, you should be paid what the market will bear, not what you think the company should pay you based on their previous behavior, because they could just say my previous behavior was wrong. And they're not going to pay you through the nose to maintain that or protect their ego. A company doesn't have ego.

That's their, that's just their financials, right? Good point.

[JP] (: 11:38

Anyway, good point. The key is the, who is this person? This is the key to all of this.

Hit us up. That's the key to all this. Hit us up in the chat.

[Dillon] (: 11:49

Come join us. Love to hear how, I just want to hear about the violent restructuring.

[JP] (: 11:54

Yeah. One of those voice things for you too, if you want to stay anonymous. We could.

I don't want to. I was part of the restructuring. The violent one.

[Dillon] (: 12:06

I saw it happen. Anyway, boys, that's our time. Until next time.

Come back soon. I think we will. Bye-bye.

[VO] (: 12:18

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