Productize yourself | Luke Bartram & James Lawson

(0:00 - 0:21)

That's the problem, you know, two sides not being honest enough. If there was more transparency, I think that's where the pain will soften. The house of pain will become like a little box of pain.

House of pleasure? Or is that something else? Is that something else? Bring it full circle. That could be the name of the episode, House of Pleasure. I don't think so.

(0:21 - 1:16)

A genuine pony just started playing, man. Are you ready for this? Are you ready? What's up, Lifers, and welcome to The Daily Standup, where we're giving you fresh new customer success ideas every single day. I got my man JP with us.

JP, do you want to say hi? It's raining men. And we have Rob with us. Rob, can you say hi? Hallelujah, it's raining men.

What's up? And we have James with us. James, can you say hi? Luke with us. Luke, can you please say hi? Hi, I'm going to be the add-on in the room today.

(1:16 - 2:38)

Thank you so much, Luke, especially because you're the star of the show. And I am your host. My name is Dillon Young.

James and Luke, thank you so much for being here. James, you know the deal, so you're going to go first. Can you please introduce yourself? Yeah, sure.

I'm James Lawson. I'm founder of the River Consulting Group, which is a consultancy for customer success and go-to-market, and also chief customer officer for Service Genie. Awesome.

Awesome. Thank you for being here. And this is our first ever, I don't know how this is possible, two guest show.

James, this was your idea to bring Luke on. I'm going to give Luke an opportunity to make you regret that. Luke, can you please introduce yourself? Absolutely.

Thanks for having me. First of all, my name is Luke Bartram. I'm the director and founder of a company called ABR, and we're a customer success first recruitment business, but we cover the GTM spectrum.

And I am a recovering internal recruiter turned agency, which is usually the inverse, but here we are. I like the hard stuff, so I went agency. And a sneaker head, I can see.

So are you at home, or do you just have boxes of sneakers in your office at work? This is how you prevent a divorce, basically. Yeah. You move all the cool out the house.

(2:39 - 3:38)

I got to grab my gold Shaqs. You really do not. You really do not.

Anyway, James, you so kindly invited Luke on here, and you also have seeded your time and your topic. So Luke, so James, I hope you gave Luke a rundown on how this works, but Luke, we ask one question and one question only here, and that is what is on your mind when it comes to customer success? If you want to expand that out, GTM, the GTM spectrum, as you refer to it, feel free, but why don't you tell us what is on your mind? So many things when it comes to recruitment. I guess the main thing on my mind at the moment when it comes to recruitment, let's stick to customer success, because that's our primary focus, but it's really around how candidates are positioning themselves in the current marketplace.

(3:38 - 6:00)

I'd love to discuss that and get thoughts and insight, but to preface the thoughts on my side, there's a lot that can be done to improve, and I want to understand from hiring managers' perspective as well, what are they seeing, what are they liking, what aren't they liking, and really hopefully give some tips for how people can improve their approach. So that's what's on my mind, really. I've spent a lot of my life in recruitment, so there we are.

I'm going to be selfish and hijack it with recruitment. That's totally fine. For the record, we have had Rohan, your colleague, one of our least watched shows ever.

No, I'm kidding, I'm kidding. He had a lot of stuff to say about just like, let's say like general enthusiasm for the role that you're applying for and you're interviewing for. So I think maybe like some ground rules I would set is let's avoid that sort of generic advice and maybe go a little bit deeper.

Now, what we should say is I don't think there's a hiring manager on. Well, maybe James, James. So let's give James an opportunity before we bring it back to the TDSU gang here to share his insights, which Luke, I'm sure will be no surprise because you guys are good friends and you were just eating ramen earlier today, right? So you're asking him the same question.

James shared a lot today. I mean, yeah, maybe too much. You need to see some of these photos that I've seen of James a few years ago.

Oh boy. Oh boy. We can use one as the video thumbnail.

Go ahead. Yeah. Yeah.

Who knows? Yeah. Feel free to use as whatever you need. And yeah, me and Luke talk a lot about this because mainly because we feel that and going into the depth of it and not being too generic is that if there is a lot of worry by anyone applying for a CS job, whether they're going to beat the competitors for the role.

And me and Luke spoke a lot today and in the past around the fact that opening dialogue that you have with a candidate is kind of an example of your showcase of what you should bring to the table. And I know someone like Luke hates getting messages like, can we have a chat? What he actually wants to know is show me your shop window. Tell me what value you can bring and do it in a way that's communicating value with impact.

(6:01 - 9:19)

And if you can grab me in that first 10 seconds, you're going to be amazing in front of a hiring manager. And so we talk quite a lot about what resonates with a recruiter and recruitment business is the same that would recruit with someone like myself, because it has grabbed Luke and it's excited him. And I know that I'm going to feel the same way.

And the worry is always around, do I have the tech expertise? Do I have the domain knowledge? What do I need? And if me and Luke both go back to this thing of domain expertise, we can talk about the stuff skills for all day long, but actually, you know, having something that a customer would effectively pay for every day as part of the subscription model is the game. And I think Luke sees that day in, day out. Do you? Yeah, no, no, yeah.

I switched off a domain experience. No, I totally agree. And one of the things that you talk about actually, not to kind of plug each other here, but is knowledge commerce, right? And you guys probably have covered this before, but if you truly understand the pain that your customer is going through, and that's through being the buyer at some point.

So we talked about ed tech earlier. Imagine being a teacher that's used some of the software that's helping you solve some problems with inside your business, and then transferring that knowledge and skill into becoming a CSM, but being able to say, like, I've walked in the shoes of my customer now, that's so much more relatable. And I know there's lots of skills around that.

But you can't underestimate the value of understanding what your customer has gone through. Same example, if you've got a marketing tech product, that says accelerating sales within the business, but you've actually been the user of that software, you've been a marketer, you've been a salesperson, you transitioned into, I think that'd be a good transition, actually, from sales to customer success using that software. Again, you know what problem that software is solving, so you can help add some serious value.

So I think that's a piece that that kind of domain expertise is huge, and how they translate that is really important. Now, I think, obviously, the follow up question here is, does that mean folks who do not have that background are out of luck in the current market? Or what's what's a good substitute for actually previously being a user of edtech, martech, mortgage technology, whatever it is, and you want to get into that space? Yeah, I think you have to, there's a jetblown, but sometimes you need to slow down to speed up in this whole application process. And so many people are just quickfire, throw my CV together, apply for as many jobs as I can, because there's so many applications out there.

It's like, if I sling enough, something's gonna stick, right? Hopefully, we can swear on this. If not, I'm sorry. JP wants more.

We've got more. Okay, I'll try and throw some more swear words in there, JP. Sounds bad with the English accent, doesn't it? It's charming, not offensive.

-: 10:55

So I think people sling a lot. And I think they need to slow down sometimes. And actually, I was speaking to someone the other day who was a leader within CS.

And we talked about how to almost productize yourself, right? How to package yourself up. And what are all the key components you need to lean on? And there's lots of areas. So there's kind of commercial expertise and capability.

There's domain experience. There's journey experience. So what have you taken a business through, right? You might have worked for Oracle, for example, that he worked for Oracle, James.

And if you'd only worked for Oracle, how can you know what it feels like to take a business from a pre-seed organization through to Series A, B, C? And what you need to be at different stages, because what you are at the beginning is not where you are at the end. So do you have the capability to adapt to that environment? Have you proven it? I think it's almost looking at your experience, slowing down before you do anything, and almost defining what you are as a product for someone to come and buy. And that's really important.

I don't think CSMs do that enough. I don't think they know what they offer often enough. Same with leaders as well.

ket. So if you rewind back to: 2022

There weren't enough people. There were tons of jobs. Very few applications, companies were going, oh my God, we need to build a CS team because what if we go through another challenging time? How do we retain our customers? We need to hire.

(: 10:56

So compromise was there. They compromised on everything and they overhired and they under-assessed who they were bringing on. And then we saw this massive fallout, lots of people hitting the market.

A product of companies not spending as much money, a product of hiring too quickly, not defining what success was going to be in the organization. So then loads of people hit the market who were so used to being harassed by people like me and companies pounding their inbox all the time with job opportunities, have stupid offers. Oh, I'm on 50K.

We'll give you 70. We'll give you 80. What's it going to take to get you in? To, well, we've got a hundred applicants here.

10 of them look great. And yeah, the salary is 60, but we've got people on 45. So you're going to have to compromise it.

(: 11:40

So it's a complete role reversal. And then the mindset's changed. The candidates haven't caught up with it.

So I think what they need to do is, again, assessed where they can really add value, package that up, and then make sure they're targeting the right organizations. Still applying for volume opportunities, but certainly not scattergunning and hoping they get something back. So a lot of words, but hopefully some value in that.

I think it's good. JP, I'm going to come to you second only because I know you've got a lot to say about this. And I know you vibe a lot with what Luke was just saying about quality over quantity, but before I come to you, I want to give Rob an opportunity to talk about his perspective in consulting and now being asked often to advise on the hiring process.

And I wonder if maybe your advice or what you hear from your clients, Rob, jives with what Luke is saying here. Yeah, lots and lots of thoughts, starting with the fact that you said, Luke, productize yourself. That's basically been the exercise that I've gone through for the early stage of my consulting practice.

And now I'm actually in the process of productizing, not myself, but my company in such a way that it can thrive without me even being there. As I think about scaling the business and offloading more to my colleague, Lauren, and that kind of thing. But it's interesting because it takes me all the way back to, when I was flunking out of so many interviews when I was in college.

(: 13:15

And I would lose people at the tell me about yourself question. That was just the first question that I thought I was so well prepared for. And they're like, tell me about yourself.

(: 13:23

And I start fumbling around with this whole narrative of my existence. I'm a hard worker. Yeah, exactly.

I'm a people person. And it becomes very apparent that I don't know what the hell I'm talking about or what value I can add. I had no understanding of something that I'm still trying to master now, which is a degree of pain discovery.

It's something that most salespeople learn and really helps us when it comes to positioning our identity relative to the business that we're applying for a position with. So that pain discovery process starts with, tell me about what success looks like when this role is hired and everything goes exceptionally well. Paint me a picture of six months.

Let's forecast this out. You hire me. I'm a perfect fit for this role.

What gets solved? How is that measured? And what exists today that's even bringing you to this conversation? Right? You're not having this conversation out of charity. You're doing it because you probably have a real problem and you think there's an outside chance that I can solve it. That's the sales discovery methodology that I use very consistently now in my consulting practice that I wish I had any semblance of when I was a younger person having massive identity crises and not finding my jobs, not finding a job.

I think it's helpful too to understand, especially in customer success, which the guys are going to roast me for this because I talk about this all the time, which persona of customer success you identify with. So for example, do you lead with something that says, look, I'm a seller. I'm a customer seller.

(: 15:01

I just happened to sell to existing clients instead of net new clients. Or do you identify with a persona that's like, I'm consultative with my clients. That's who I am.

That's the value that I'm able to drive. Or like, Hey, look, I'm a good reactive tactician. I'm good when it comes to handling escalations, support issues or whatever.

Those are all very different personas. And I think we owe it to ourselves to identify with a certain persona, a certain strategy, a certain methodology, a certain philosophy of our own customer success teams and present that as a product, right? And how does that product relate to the needs of the interviewer, client interviewer, in this case, they're kind of synonymous are asking for. I think that's great.

I think that's really cool. And it also flips it to the customer, the company looking to hire, but they need to define that persona. And I think a lot of the time what you find is they actually don't know what they're looking for.

They'll have exploratory interviews. And because of that, if you get like a seller persona, they're very good at coming in and convincing and almost nurturing the conversation. And if you've got like a product led CEO, for example, that isn't sales centric, they might be wowed by that charisma when actually that's not really what they need to solve the problem of their customers.

And remember this individual should be hiring people far more capable than they are to run a CS function. And I think sometimes that's where the disconnect can come in. And think if you get that wrong at the top, if you hire the wrong leader who has a certain persona or a certain way of building CS, and it's not aligned to how the business operates, you've got 12 months of pain, basically, and probably 18 months of customer pain at the same time.

It's a really interesting viewpoint. That's exactly what I was going to say, Luke. So thank you for jumping in there, because I think it is a two way street.

(: 16:58

The job description is everything. And I think so often it lacks the detail a job seeker needs to really understand whether they are actually a good fit, which I think also creates the symptom of throwing a bunch of against the wall and just seeing what sticks. JP, jump in, please.

(: 17:17

Yeah, you know, my mind was jumping around as everyone was talking. And now all I can think about is a house of pain. Because that's what we're dealing with.

We're dealing with customer pain job. We're dealing with candidate pain. We're dealing with company pain.

Where is the pain going to align so that we can all resolve our issue? I once heard someone say, like, for a lot of the candidates, it's hard for them to see, like, they're a product, but it's hard for them to see what's outside the label, like they can't see their own label. And that's part of the problem. They're trying to be everything to everyone, because they just want to get out the cooler and into the role, right? They want to be Sprite, because they think that's what you want.

And that company may really want Pepsi. Yeah, right. So yeah, I would be surprised, you know, I'd be surprised if I went, I was like, Oh, this is some good ass Sprite.

What is this Pepsi? You know, like, it would be off putting. And so like, all of this stuff resonates with things I've been telling people. So thank you for the validation.

Because I'm glad I'm not leading people down the wrong path. But then again, I'm only saying things because I've picked them up over the time I've been in CS. What I've tried to definitely tell people is really important is that jumping off point of doing the work of knowing yourself.

Because when you don't know yourself, you could go in and do all this work to put on all kinds of masks, get into a role. And you hate it. Yeah, y'all you did all that work to get a job that you hate.

And now the customer suffers because how many times have you been someplace where someone does not like their job, especially in a customer facing role. And you can tell you can tell even if you can't like you can tell by difference, right? It's really tough when you're looking for a job. Sometimes you're dealing with, you know, these very real expenses and deadlines.

But I think in today's market, you got to take more of a long term view. And I feel like that sounds weird saying it because a lot of I needed to take a long term view, really think about was Rob mentioned, what kind of persona are you naturally? And where would you fit in more and that will drive your mindset that will drive your confidence? Because when you're in an interview, and someone's you can ask those questions and you can write like you everyone's it's like everyone's trying to do it on the outside in the trying to like, you know, what looks good as a candidate and what's it's like, it should be really from like the inside out. And ironically, or I guess unironically, that's also the way we talk about doing good CS, right? It's trying to do things really from like, an inside out, what do we really need and like building out from there.

And so that's really like what comes to mind here is like there is definitely more internal work. I think that people need to do so that we can find where everything aligns. I had a manager once that said to me, be a Dickie Greenleaf rather than a talented Mr. Ripley.

Which makes a lot of sense. James, you may have to break that down for us. For across the pond.

Yeah, break it down. Oh, yeah, sorry. I forgot I was born when everything was in black and white.

(: 21:07

So basically, the talented Mr. Ripley is a film about Matt Damon. He basically pretended to be this character called Dickie Greenleaf. And he comes unstuck.

But the point is that the person he was impersonating, it was kind of not sticking, you know, eventually. And I think one of the things that you mentioned, JP, which I think is key is if you're a great CSM, and you know who you are, and you productize yourself, is the ability to have a conversation with the hiring manager when you're in an interview stage, to say, have you considered X, Y, and Z? So if you're not quite a perfect fit, and you're not quite a perfect product, the same way as we do if we're in the job as CSM, have you considered I'm in edtech, but actually, what you've got here is medical, but I can onboard them really well, because I've been in edtech. Do you see what I mean? And I think that's the dialogue that needs to come.

And if you're true to yourself about that, and you productize yourself and you've got three points, you're in a good spot. Here's a thought, goes again, back to JP, we're talking a lot about candidates. But we've also got to think about, and one thing you said, JP was like honesty, I'll be honest with your persona and what you can offer.

But I think companies are very guarded when it comes to what they put out there, like when they're advertising. So it's very hard to be honest to that part of the process. And this is not a plug, but it's why when we work with businesses, it's on a consultative basis, a lot of the time they don't know what they want when they go to market.

So it's kind of helping them figure that out. But businesses hiring directly, putting a job spec out there, that most of the time, incredibly vanilla. So you can't blame people for kind of scattergunning, because you've told me this.

So this is a typical job spec is we're looking for a customer first, voice of the customer, like all the kind of bullshit words that are thrown into chat GPT and then spun out. It doesn't say we're looking for someone with experience of taking a business that has 50 customers at present with a total ARR of 2.4 million and growing that to 7.5 million within the next two years. Because imagine then, JP, you're like, well, I've done that.

(: 23:23

My CV doesn't necessarily say it, but I definitely need to portray that now. So when you apply, you add that to your profile, then you find the decision maker because you're proactive, you're a CS professional, that's your persona, and you send them a voice note and you say, hey, I've just dropped my application to you. Appreciate you're incredibly busy.

I see you've currently got 50 customers, you kind of dissect it a little bit. And then you tell them a little bit about where you've taken them through that journey. So it's kind of layering on top of just sending a CV.

And I think that's the problem. Two sides not being honest enough. If there was more transparency, I think that's where the pain will soften.

The house of pain will become like a little box of pain. House of pleasure? Or is that something else? That could be the name of the episode, House of Pleasure. I don't think so.

Genuine pony just not a thing, man. I do not want our YouTube channel to be banned because of a single episode. Gentlemen, that is our time.

(: 24:28

It has been an absolute pleasure. Not a house of pleasure. Thank you so much for joining us.

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Our first ever two guest episode. It only took us 200 plus episodes to get here. Please come back soon.

But until then, we have to say goodbye. Thanks. See you guys.

Great to see you. You've been listening to The Daily Standout by Lifetime Value. Please note that the views expressed in these conversations are attributed only to those individuals on this recording and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of their respective employers.

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