The participation award is not universal | Jason McLaurin

[Dillon] (0:00 - 0:30)

As a dyed-in-the-wool American came up to me and said, the bathroom is... I'd be like, right behind this door. 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've got my man Rob here. Rob, do you want to say hi?

[Rob] (0:31 - 0:31)

Quesadillas.

[Dillon] (0:32 - 0:35)

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

[JP] (0:36 - 0:37)

Quesadillas and quiche.

[Dillon] (0:37 - 0:42)

And we have Jason with us. Jason, can you please say hi?

[Jason] (0:42 - 0:44)

I'll say hi right away.

I'm not sure what they're saying, but I'll say hi.

[Dillon] (0:44 - 0:56)

Please. Thank you.

Appreciate it. And I'm your very appreciative host. My name is Dillon Young.

Jason, thank you so much for being here and for ignoring the chicanery of these two. Can you please introduce yourself?

[Jason] (0:56 - 1:12)

Hi, everyone. My name is Jason McLaurin, and I've been a long time in corporate America. A big company doing customer success and sales.

Recently left that world and starting to do some fractional work helping small companies get into customer success and learn how to bring value to the customers. So I'm here.

[Dillon] (1:13 - 1:25)

Perfect. Perfect. And thank you for being here.

Jason, 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? And so what is that for you?

[Jason] (1:25 - 1:44)

For me lately, it's been around culture. As I moved from a big company to a small company and been traveling around the world for work, lived around the world and now back in the U.S. and seeing different countries or cultures. So now look at culture from a company and a customer and a company background.

So that's my topic for the day.

[Dillon] (1:44 - 1:54)

And is it a general awareness, like never try to always keep your perspective broad, or is there something specifically about culture you want to push on?

[Jason] (1:54 - 3:09)

Yeah, let me give you an example. And you and I talked before, I've lived, worked with my companies around the world. And so I've seen customer success and interact with customers from different cultures.

And so culture from a country standpoint is like taking an NPS score. We all NPS, love it or hate it. We know what it is.

And I've been in countries where an average score is zero, and I'll get my NPS scores back and I have negative. I'm like, what is this? This is crazy.

And I talked to the leaders and I was like, yeah, this is average. And the reason is because in America, we're used to giving 10s and nines. And you get kind of participation awards for showing up and say, good job.

In some countries, you get a five for showing up. And an NPS score that kind of starts as negative. And so I'm getting used to that.

In some cultures, you get NPS scores and they're all 60s and 70s and they're very high. But that doesn't necessarily translate into actual customer value in retention renewals. So we're trying to unpack the culture of the country and the customer you're talking to.

And does that correlate and translate into value and return revenue? So that's what I mean from culture from a customer and a country standpoint and how that translates to customer success.

[Dillon] (3:09 - 3:22)

Rob, I know how much you love this topic. And so I want to give you an opportunity right off the bat to ask questions or offer perspective. And what you've seen, and I know you travel a good amount too.

So tell us what you're thinking.

[Rob] (3:22 - 3:29)

Yeah, Jason, I'm just curious. When you say culture, any particular ones jump to mind that have been part of your experience?

[Jason] (3:29 - 3:49)

Yeah, I lived in Japan the last three years just to move back to the US. So that's the one where, you know, your average score is a five or a three. Yeah.

That's the one. Or, you know, Latin America, where you get high scores, but doesn't translate in renewals. Yeah.

Lived in Europe, lived in Southeast Asia for a while. So those are the cultures I'm used to. So I chose my intro here deliberately.

[Rob] (3:49 - 5:11)

When I said quesadilles, it's an Italian American bastardization of Italian to say what's up. Which, you know, I'm just repping my culture here. So I love cross-cultural influences.

I love linguistic influences across cultures. I love how it manifests in our work. And it's so fascinating to me, especially because like in the past year, I had like a client in Singapore, had a lot of learnings to do there.

A client in Australia had a lot of learnings to do there. It's cool that you mentioned Japan, because I think, if I'm not mistaken, Dillon and JP and I were talking recently, that I learned recently that, and stop me if I'm wrong, I don't know, I don't speak Japanese, but I learned recently that apparently in Japan, conversations are quite different. They're often quite complementary, where somebody can start a sentence, and then the next person sort of finishes the sentence, and starts the next sentence, and then the next person finishes that sentence.

So like, if you're looking for the bathroom, you know, you could go up to somebody at a restaurant and say like, the bathroom is, and then the person finishes your sentences and says, right over here. And I like, it's such a cool, interesting way to think about like communalism in culture, and how it differs from like the very individualistic approach that we have in the U.S. And I think that that's a cool model that I'm keeping in the back of my head for like, you know, my relationship with my wife or my family, or even like, you know, my conversations on this show. But yeah, I've made a lot.

[Dillon] (5:11 - 5:11)

That would make me so mad.

[Rob] (5:11 - 5:12)

Yeah, would it?

[Dillon] (5:12 - 6:17)

As a dyed-in-the-wool American came up to me and said, the bathroom is, I'd be like, what the hell are you guys doing behind this door? You're number one. Which I think reinforces this idea of like, I would have a ton of work to do, and have to exercise a lot of patience, which I do not have naturally, in going to another culture, in understanding like, everything is on the table in terms of interpretation and interaction.

And I think, I mean, look, regardless of, I'm going to say this and then hand it over to Jason and JP. Regardless of whether it's a different country, I think it's even, you know, it could even be within the United States, how different regions speak, or the way in which they think, and even industries, the way in which they welcome change, or new pieces of software. I think it's really important to just like, almost come in with a clean slate when it's a new situation for you.

But Jason, anything to add before we toss it over to JP?

[Jason] (6:17 - 6:57)

I'll just maybe contrast the Japanese example with one in South Korea, where you know immediately where you stand. I was giving a presentation to a customer, and I got up, made instructions, kind of like you did here. And they said, you know what?

You sit down, literally, you sit down. I know this topic better than you do. I'm going to tell you what we're going to do.

And I'm like, okay. So I sat down, and immediately you know where you stand, and you have a very valuable conversation. It goes a different way, versus sitting for an hour in conversation in Japan, which you walk away, it's like, does that result in anything?

So that's just kind of contrasting those two cultures, and knowing where you stand. It's not comfortable, but you know where you stand immediately. So JP, any thoughts?

[JP] (6:57 - 9:33)

Yeah, so I've definitely had some exposure with different clients in other parts of the world, which I honestly do like about my job. I think, you know, primarily my first two roles, they were pretty much all people that were just in the US. So I definitely get this sort of, you know, different flavors of cultures where, yeah, some people are just way more direct.

They are like, they're direct. They don't want to hop on a call before they know like what the numbers are. Like they're just very, like, you know, I know one well-known example is like a lot of German customers.

They may not be like as maybe friendly up front. Not saying they're not friendly, but that may be in business relationships. It just may take them, you know, more before you can get started.

Whereas I think, you know, sometimes in the US, you know, it can sort of be this generalist approach of the way we do things. And I think that the idea of sort of like, we talk about currency, like money, but then it's also like cultural currency, right? Like the more you can learn about these different cultures, the more you can sort of convert your thinking into a valuable currency to working with this particular customer and their background.

And even to the point with, you know, in the US, the variants, like a good one is like down South. A lot of times down South, it's like, you know, people want to make sure, you know, hey, hello, good morning. You know, it's important to just to have that acknowledgement, you know, maybe off the top.

And then the conversations may be, yeah, a lot more frank. There's not a lot of like, you know, dibbling around like we're going to get to it. But I think like ultimately all these efforts that we can take from each of them, well, they like serve us.

They get on us almost like moss or something. I think that it enables us to go in those situations and learn like not to assume, you know, like that's a strong example, Jason. Like I felt that when somebody's like, no, actually you sit down.

Like, I'm going to tell you, like, I know better than you. I don't know how I'd like react in that situation. Like you're getting an education in this culture and you sort of got to put your ego to the side.

It sounds like that's what you did. You just put your ego to the side and was like, okay, well, we're here to do business. And I'm going to just learn from the scenario.

I am curious though, how did that like turn out? Was that a good thing in the end?

-: 10:33

Did you renew the account? Yeah, I did. And this is the tie back to your lead in Dillon is what's on mind is how this translates to customer success.

And we're in the business of bringing value to our customer and ultimately getting that renewal and providing nutrition. And if you don't know where you stand with the customer, it's hard to do that. I've been in customers that give you glowing reviews, but you don't get the renewal, right?

And this customer that I talked about in South Korea, you know exactly where you stand. It's like, okay, now I know what the issues are, what the hot ones are. Let's work through them over the next hour and we're stronger for it.

It's uncomfortable. I don't like being told to sit down. I'll tell you, it's not fun, but the business value is higher from that situation.

So that's how it translates back into this topic of customer success. And so I much prefer having that very frank upfront, maybe uncomfortable conversation and getting to the results quicker than a pleasant, abstract conversation where you walk away happy, but don't get the renewal.

[Dillon] (: 10:34

Fantastic topic, Jason. That is our time, but you are welcome anytime to tell us more stories about your world travels. But until then, we do have to say goodbye.

[Jason] (: 10:43

Great. Thanks, Dil. Thanks, JP.

Thanks, Rob. Everyone, been great to talk to you.

[VO] (: 10:53

You've been listening to The Daily Standup 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. For all inquiries, please reach out via email to Dillon at lifetimevaluemedia.com.

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