SaaS spirit animals | Ep. 181

[Rob] (0:00 - 0:06)

Customer success vanishes tomorrow. What department do you work in? Isn't that an interesting way?

[JP] (0:06 - 0:08)

That's good. That's going to trip a lot of people up.

[Rob] (0:09 - 0:18)

Well, and what it does is it speaks to their values. That's stressful. It's a little stressful, but it could be fun and creative too.

That'd be a hell of a question I would get.

[JP] (0:19 - 0:22)

And JP's cool. I'm cute as a cucumber, baby.

[Dillon] (0:30 - 0:42)

What's up, lifers, and welcome to The Daily Standup with Lifetime Value, where we're giving you fresh new customer success ideas every single day. I got my man, JP here. JP, do you want to say hi?

[JP] (0:43 - 0:45)

Hey, we hate parties here. No fun.

[Dillon] (0:46 - 1:04)

I was getting my Michael Buffer going for you. And we have Rob with us. Rob, do you want to say hi?

Let's party. And I am your host. My name is Dillon Young.

Gentlemen, it is just the three of us, and I'm going back to the well. You ready?

[JP] (1:06 - 1:08)

You got to get a sponsorship with them.

[Dillon] (1:09 - 1:12)

Okay, underscore attempt: 3644

[JP] (1:15 - 1:16)

My gosh.

[Dillon] (1:17 - 1:23)

The post is titled, Career Pivot from Customer Success. Can you guess what this is going to be about?

[JP] (1:24 - 1:25)

Yeah.

[Dillon] (1:25 - 1:38)

This is an interesting one. I currently work as a CSM for a European tech company that was recently acquired by a larger US tech company. I'm worried I will be laid off once everything is rolled out.

You should be worried.

[JP] (1:39 - 1:42)

Valid. I keep reading in here. I'm sorry to laugh at that.

[Dillon] (1:43 - 2:03)

customer success will die in: 2025

Is there a role former CSMs pivot to? Especially with only two years of experience. Who wants to take it?

[JP] (2:03 - 2:10)

Yeah. Another CSM role. What are we talking about?

[Dillon] (2:10 - 2:14)

His point is he doesn't think that's enough at two different companies.

[JP] (2:15 - 2:20)

Because he thinks that: 2025

[Dillon] (2:20 - 2:24)

It does feel like there's two different, there's competing thoughts here.

[JP] (2:24 - 3:33)

Let me back up. First of all, I got into customer success partly because I thought it would be cool to work in an area that I knew touched so many different parts of the business. Even if you strictly didn't really talk to many other departments at your company, if you do customer success and you really like getting into customers, you have an incredible opportunity if you're curious in that way to really learn a lot about the way business works.

Because who does what? Unless you work in scale, then you don't have that much time to go deep. But I realized there was this opportunity for me.

Okay. If I don't like customer success, where could I go? I will say one of the areas you can pivot to, you may not want it, like it, but I know lots of people who have pivoted from CS to sales.

It's one of the things, right? Oh, the dark side. Right?

But you can take those same, a lot of the same- Do you mean sales or account management? Okay. I see the distinction you want to make here.

Rob, why don't you jump in?

[Rob] (3:33 - 3:42)

You're making me think about a question I've asked CSMs before as an icebreaker.

[Dillon] (3:42 - 3:45)

is okay, underscore, attempt: 3644

[Rob] (3:45 - 4:10)

istening, underscore, attempt: 3644

No, it's making me think of, so there's like an icebreaker question I used to like to ask people when we were newly working together, and I've thought about doing, I'm just thinking now about doing this as an interview question for the future, which is, customer success vanishes tomorrow. What department do you work in? Isn't that an interesting way?

[JP] (4:10 - 4:12)

That's good. That's going to trip a lot of people up.

[Rob] (4:13 - 4:19)

Well, and what it does is it speaks to their values. That's stressful. It's a little stressful, but it could be fun and creative too.

[JP] (4:20 - 4:26)

That'd be a hell of a question I would get. And JP's cool. I'm cool as a cucumber, baby.

[Dillon] (4:26 - 4:31)

I would be flustered if you asked me that. Okay. Well, JP, what would your answer be?

Where would you end up?

[JP] (4:39 - 4:43)

I... Jeez Louise. Yeah, I can't answer.

[Rob] (4:44 - 4:47)

I can rip off of it, but Dillon, let's hear your answer first.

[Dillon] (4:48 - 4:49)

Operations.

[Rob] (4:50 - 4:52)

Yeah, that's a given for you.

[Dillon] (4:52 - 5:19)

Or I like the idea of sales engineering. Like being way more technically minded, understanding what a prospect is trying to solve for and showing how a solution does that for them, but not being responsible for the sales aspect. I am interested in discovering and helping them solve for their problems.

See, that spoke so much to your values.

[JP] (5:21 - 5:22)

Yeah, I have no values.

[Rob] (5:24 - 5:41)

No, but it's interesting, right? What if I were on the other side of the interviewer table, Dillon and I was like, okay, so it sounds like you prefer more object level problems than account level problems. That would be a really interesting follow-up question.

And maybe- What does that mean?

[Dillon] (5:41 - 5:42)

That's my follow-up question.

[Rob] (5:43 - 5:45)

What's an object level problem?

[JP] (5:45 - 5:47)

We'll give you a call back.

[Rob] (5:48 - 6:28)

As in, if I was going to be a pain, then I could probably go down that rabbit hole. You might even leave that conversation feeling like anywhere from like- Questioning your existence? Bad to terrible.

Like this guy read me my rights. So if I just think out loud, I don't have an answer to my own question. Part of me is like, I would love to be in product because I love global systems thinking about the overall business strategy.

And then part of me is like- It's a CEO. Yeah, maybe. But like, you know, products- I get it, I get it.

You know, I like the investigation. You guys know I love talking to customers.

[JP] (6:28 - 6:38)

No, you do. I'm sorry. I can't go out like that.

He's like short-circuiting me. I don't know. I would be in marketing.

I'd be in marketing.

[Rob] (6:39 - 6:41)

You would be fantastic in marketing.

[JP] (6:41 - 6:45)

Yeah, I'd be in marketing. Gosh, that question sucks, man. I don't like that question.

[Rob] (6:46 - 6:49)

That would like- You don't feel better now that you found your answer?

[Dillon] (6:52 - 6:54)

I do. Except he still does CS today, so.

[JP] (6:55 - 6:59)

But I could see- This episode could never come out.

[Rob] (7:01 - 7:13)

Like, you as a customer marketing person, think about that. Like, you moved from scaled CS to customer marketing. And now you focus on things like testimonials- Well, customer marketing is different than marketing.

[JP] (7:14 - 7:18)

For sure. Well, that's a whole another- Customer marketing includes a lot.

[Rob] (7:18 - 7:27)

It includes advocacy. It includes digital CS motions. It includes a lot.

But I could- Like, those are all things that would be a very interesting career path.

[Dillon] (7:28 - 7:53)

I have always said I don't think I could do anything else. I don't have a lot of- I can't code. I don't like to sell.

Not bald-faced selling. I don't mind sales the way CS does it. But the really transactional nature of sales, I don't enjoy.

I certainly could not be in HR. They wouldn't let me within 500 feet of an HR department.

[JP] (7:54 - 7:57)

Bad place for all three of them. Imagine if we were the HR department.

[Dillon] (7:57 - 8:06)

They wouldn't allow that. So this is an interesting thought process. What do you guys think the answers were in Reddit?

[JP] (8:07 - 8:13)

I think what we just said. Customer marketing, sales, and probably product.

[Dillon] (8:13 - 8:53)

So much of what they said actually focused on something else, which was- They do that. They say account management, support, sales engineering, all those things. But what they focus on more is this notion that two years is not enough experience in customer success.

Just about every single person keyed in and said, no, that's absolutely enough time. That's absolutely enough experience. What I think is interesting about that is how that speaks to customer success.

And what seniority means within customer success. Or if it means anything.

[Rob] (8:54 - 8:59)

I think a lot of it depends on the quality of your education in customer success.

[JP] (9:00 - 9:16)

Oh, see now that's a whole other can of- I don't even know if I can say words. That's a whole- Because then we start getting into all this, you were good in this type of customer success. So you have this knowledge.

[Rob] (9:18 - 9:59)

Yeah. So one of the really cool experiences when I was at Qualia, in my time there, we hired 70 different people into the support function. And 40 of them got promoted by the time I left.

They got promoted to not just CSM roles. Our product team was made up of former support reps. Our QA engineering team was made up of former support reps.

We had some go to marketing. We had some go to finance. That was our feeder school.

It was our bench. It still continues to this day to serve that function within the company. Standard.

That's normal. Yeah. Well, but it's pretty cool.

I mean- It is to see it work. Six months after they got hired.

[Dillon] (: 10:00

Yeah. Qualia also happens to be a successful company. I think there's a ton of companies out there that if the product stunk, that would have never been a reality, right?

Because Qualia would have gone up in a ball of smoke. Anyways, I say that in the most positive way possible. In the most positive way possible.

Qualia, sponsor us. That is our time, guys. But interesting detour we took.

I love that question, Rob, but I hate it. Don't ever use it again. Clearly against me.

Interesting. More to chew on. And maybe we'll come back to that can of worms we talked about that I already forgot about.

But until then, see you boys.

[VO] (: 10:39

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