Default to action | Chris Pitman

[Chris] (0:00 - 0:20)

Taking those small actions, tackling challenges head on, and trying to remove your emotion, like staying calm under pressure and not avoiding those situations. Because, you know, we know, and I experienced in my previous role, it's taught me that the more you kick those things down the line, the worse they get and the bigger the issue becomes. So it's like...

[Dillon] (0:29 - 0:44)

What's up, Lifers, and welcome to The Daily Standup with Lifetime Value, where we're giving you fresh new customer success perspectives every single day. I got my man, Rob, with us. Rob, you want to say hi?

Rob, you're on mute, so you lose. JP, would you like to say hi?

[JP] (0:45 - 0:46)

How's it going, y'all?

[Dillon] (0:47 - 0:55)

Rob, do you want a second chance? Really? Okay.

Chris with us. Chris, can you say hi, please?

[Chris] (0:56 - 0:56)

Hello.

[Dillon] (0:57 - 1:08)

Look at that. Guy does it one time and he knows how to do it, Rob. And I am your host.

My name is Dillon. Chris, thank you so much for being here. Can you please introduce yourself?

[Chris] (1:09 - 1:46)

Hey, guys. Yeah, thank you so much for having me. Name's Chris.

I am an aspiring founder, entrepreneur, and just jumped into that space before that. Last couple of years, I spent as head of customer success at a startup, fintech startup called Tyna Technologies, and then before that, I spent a lot of years, probably can't count them on my hand, in the financial services sector and companies like Deutsche Bank, Citibank, and PwC. Really did a lot of project work and consulting and stuff like that there, but always dealing with customers, whether it's internal stakeholders or regulators or actual external customers as well.

So yeah.

[Dillon] (1:46 - 2:01)

So you got the trifecta of experience here. So I'm excited to hear what your topic is. So Chris, you know what we do here?

We ask one simple question of every single guest, and that is, what is on your mind when it comes to customer success? So please tell us what that is for you.

[Chris] (2:02 - 2:51)

Yeah, for me, in a nutshell, it's something that's quite personal to me, and I've been trying to improve on, especially over the last year or so, and that is around tackling difficult challenges and or conversations early and fast. And really, that allows you to achieve the best outcome for everyone involved. And it's like, so lately, I've been juggling the excitement of starting my own thing around.

It's a child nutrition startup idea, but also trying to be a great dad, a great husband, and finding time for myself. And it actually reminds me of the classic rock and a hard place for customer success, where you're trying to give the customer everything they want, but at the same time, the tech team can't realistically deliver it. So it's like, or negotiating dinner with toddlers.

[Dillon] (2:51 - 2:52)

I don't know what you're talking about.

[Chris] (2:52 - 5:52)

You know, so it's like, and this is where my idea as well comes in. It's like, you're trying to negotiate with a toddler what they want for dinner, and you know you can never give them every day what they want, right? So it takes a lot of transparency, a lot of explaining the reasoning, and also empathy.

You have to show that you understand the pain that's causing them, and it's exactly the same with customer success, both sides, internally and externally. And as a well, I hope it's a typical CS person, I love pleasing people, right? I'm a people pleaser, but we all know that leads to burnout, because you never really please everybody.

Now that I'm moving from the sort of corporate yes-man world to doing my own thing, I'm trying to do a lot of self-development, and something that's really helped me recently is one, I got a coach, and my coach introduced me to a book called The Daily Stoic, and I need to remember the author, Ryan Haldane, Stephen Hanselman. Oh, it's brilliant. Life changer for me, really, but it's just about short meditations, about 366 of those, so you can read it every day.

You can read it all in one go if you want, really, but it's actually, I use it daily, and from likes of Seneca and Marcus Aurelius, and it's like, but it's about taking action, it's about taking those small actions, tackling challenges head on, and trying to remove your emotion, like staying calm under pressure, and not avoiding those situations, because we know, and I experienced in my previous role, it's taught me that the more you kick those things down the line, the worse they get, and the bigger the issue becomes, so it's like, ultimately, it's making that choice to take action early, because that's within our control, that you can control that, to make that choice, and preferably, don't worry at all, but we know that's not always the case, right, it's very hard, you have to build that mental strength, and not worry so much about what's outside your control, i.e., what other people think, or how they react to your action, it's more about taking the choice, and making those actions that you feel are right, right up front, but like, sorry, I've rambled on a bit, but like, I'll leave you one thing, how I'm trying to put these stored principles into place at the moment, and it's like, I'm trying to stay like, keeping open the feedback from potential customers around my ideas, but I'm pivoting those ideas, as I get that feedback, and before I get too emotionally attached to them as well, of my own ideas, so that, because it's better me to adjust now, than actually build something that people don't even want, or need, so that's how I'm trying to use those principles at the moment, and tackle things head on, and really look, it's about continuous improvement, having honest conversations with people involved, and then embracing the metaphorical bumps on the path, even if that means admitting that I can't please everybody, but yeah, that's sort of my topic, and where I'm at today.

[Dillon] (5:52 - 6:07)

So we do have a resident philosopher and business owner ourselves, that I'd like to cede my time to, it's myself, no, I'm kidding, it's Rob. Rob, go ahead.

[Rob] (6:08 - 6:56)

You guys are more philosophical than me, so Chris, big fan of stoic philosophy myself, I don't know about you, but I personally have a very hard time incorporating it in my life, like, especially in customer success, and I'm curious if you could speak to this, like, I always tell people, customer success thrives on neurosis, you're neurotically panicking about who's going to churn, what's going to happen, and I kind of just have thought at times, like, what if I took these stoic meditations that I listen to or read in the morning, which I do regularly, actually, and I go into a forecast meeting, and they're like, what's Q3 going to look like?

And I'm like, let us not worry about the future. Like, I don't know if they'll be okay with that. So, but there's good deep wisdom, I want to hear your quick thoughts on that.

[Chris] (6:57 - 8:00)

No, I totally agree, and I think it's around repetition. I think, again, it's about building that mental strength. You have to just take the action, almost take the action to do that philosophy and just do what you say you're going to do.

So, you know, maybe not so much go in and say, no, let's not worry about the future, but, you know, be open and honest about what the future looks like. I think a lot, it takes preparation as well and planning, because you need to be able, you need to plan for, right, what's your CRO going to say about that, or what's your CE going to say about it, you know what I mean? If it's bad news, I mean, if it's great news, then you don't really need to worry too much about it, but they'll always want more.

That's the thing. So, it's about planning, I think. Again, that all comes back to the whole taking those small actions every single day and doing that planning, and then you'll be able to have more meaningful conversations, I think, and hopefully people will trust you more.

So, if you say something bad, that they know it is bad and maybe, you know, everyone chips in to try and help.

[Rob] (8:00 - 8:44)

Yeah. Well, you know, for me too, like I've noticed that for me, I gave like a deliberate example that is challenging in a group setting, but I think that the actual battle starts internally, right? If you are reconciled with yourself, that you're okay with the outcomes that the future can hold or, you know, that's just one of many of the, you know, stoic wisdoms that have influenced my thinking.

But if you could sort of win that battle internally, then it's not going to be so bad externally. In fact, you'll probably present better in the job. There's a quote, there's this like old African proverb I heard a long time ago.

It's, if there's no enemy within, the enemy outside can do us no harm. And I thought that was really cool. And it's kind of like it goes along with the same school of thought, but, you know, it's a battle that I'm constantly fighting myself.

[Dillon] (8:44 - 9:00)

A hundred percent. Let's pivot to another philosopher, a Buddhist philosopher. JP, why don't you tell us what, how, what this makes you think of, or maybe how you use these, these sort of philosophies in your daily work?

-: 11:29

Oh boy. Well, now we're getting, let me, let me, let me bring it back to another, let me, let me, let me bring it back to a more like a vague area here. So I love, I love the human element you bring to the table today, Chris.

I think that for me, this topic of, I guess, sort of like balance is one that I definitely wrestle with, especially in CS. I mean, it was interesting to hear Rob talk about CS thrives on neurosis. And like, I gotta tell you, like, I'm not down with neurosis.

Like I'm not down with the sickness. It's not me, man. It's not me, brother.

You know? And like, so sometimes for me, that balance is like, you know, thinking it's like, you know, is this right for me? If it does thrive on neurosis, right?

Like sometimes it goes to that. If we get philosophical, it's like, you know, how much am I shape-shifting for the sake of survival? Where are those areas that I cannot, where's the boundary I cannot afford to see?

What can I not afford to yield? Like, you know, you're trying to be this person with your family. Like, I think that there's, there's usually like, not such a well-defined area.

Like sure, you know, the safety of your child or your family, like there's a certain boundary there, but like, you know, how much time do you want to be present with your family? Right. People always talk about work-life balance.

And it's like, I think that has to be determined by you knowing your boundary. Like, Hey, like this is time I'm not willing to cede to my position because this supersedes that. This is something that's more important to me.

I think like throughout my entire career, this has been something that I've really thought about, you know, what I do for work, right? There's a certain level of fulfillment. There's a certain presence that I must sort of, that I must sort of bring to the table because I'm getting paid.

And I think like ethically or morally, like I want to do good work, right? I want to be present. And yet also by the same ethical token, right?

I'm like, okay, but where's the boundary in terms of like what I'm not willing to cede here in terms of that balance. And for me, that's been sort of like the, since we're zooming out, that's been like the guardrail in my time in CS, you know, like I'm willing to do X, I don't know, or maybe in, should I be willing, willing to be more neurotic? How neurotic should I be?

[Dillon] (: 11:29

You know, I want to jump in here to close it out. I think balance is one way to put it. I would call it values and not necessarily your own values of like, I want to be respected or I want to be seen as a hard worker.

Chris, you brought it up about family and you know, it could be child or it could be your, your immediate family, like your wife or even your parents. I think about the phrase, nobody will remember how much overtime you worked except for your child. And when I first heard that was like a dagger to my heart of like, oh, okay.

So we've got to find other ways to excel than just logging the hours because flip it, your boss isn't going to care in two years how much overtime you worked. If the results are no longer there, the only person that will care are the people that wanted your time, that craved your time. And the other phrase I always use is people don't care what you do.

They don't care what you say. They care how you make them feel. And they're kind of two sides of the same coin.

And those are largely the values that I follow. Stoicism be damned. I think sometimes it works.

Sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes you got to get stuff done. And, and I think you can shape shift depending on your values that changes over time.

But at the end of the day, you want to do what's right for the folks around you and the ones that you care about. This is a fantastic topic, not our usual fair, Chris. And I wish you the best of luck in this very difficult to navigate journey.

But it sounds like you're thinking about it the right way. That is our time. Would love to have you come back in a few months and tell us how things are going and how stoic you have become in the face of rough feedback on your business idea.

But for now, Chris, we do have to say goodbye. Thank you so much, guys. Take care.

[VO] (: 13:43

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