Active adaptation | Anastasia Mieshkova

[Anastasia] (0:00 - 0:18)

How can you be prepared for everything? Because anything might happen, right? But just go for the worst and for the best.

And then it's easier not to be surprised by something not that bad. Because you were prepared for something the worst could happen. But then, well, okay, then I can manage this.

It doesn't sound so scary.

[Dillon] (0:27 - 0:37)

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 with us.

JP, do you want to say hi?

[JP] (0:37 - 0:38)

Privyet.

[Dillon] (0:39 - 0:44)

Yes, yes, perfect.

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

[Anastasia] (0:44 - 0:45)

Hi.

[Dillon] (0:45 - 0:58)

Thank you. In English. Though, I mean, hey, look, you can say whatever you want.

I just wonder if everybody in the audience will understand. And I am your host. My name is Dillon Young.

Anastasia, thank you so much for being here. Can you please introduce yourself?

[Anastasia] (0:59 - 1:29)

Oh, sure. It's a pleasure, Dillon. Thank you for having me here.

Just briefly about myself and my background. I've been in software development for over 10 years already. I started as a project manager and then grew to head of delivery.

And eventually my path, my career path, brought me to customer success, where I took a leadership role. And I enjoyed it because actually I was able to combine my project management experience with the ability to bring more value to company revenue and retain customers.

[Dillon] (1:29 - 1:51)

It's so funny because we literally just had a conversation with somebody with a heavy project management background as well, though educationally not necessarily entitled. Anyway, Anastasia, 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 why don't you tell us what that is for you?

[Anastasia] (1:51 - 2:24)

I thought that one thing that I could bring from project management, and I know there are a lot of things, but if you think about what combines all of the ideas from project management, it's probably adaptability, which you can bring to customer success, apply it successfully, hopefully. And yeah, and I think you can grow as a professional if not only just have this in mind, but also develop this skill. So like this is your mindset, not just you thinking about it.

So I think this is exactly having it in a mindset actually can help you grow in customer success.

[Dillon] (2:24 - 2:44)

Tell me, so I can struggle with this on a bad day. How do you practice or strengthen the adaptability muscle? Make hay while the sun is shining, right?

So that when the issue arises that you need to be adaptable, you're not trying to learn it then. How do you practice adaptability?

[Anastasia] (2:44 - 3:37)

That's a good one. So you see, you have to understand that everything is changing quickly. And if you go to customer call and all of a sudden everything was great, but he's saying, well, you were so nice.

And I didn't want to tell you that we are turning. You were nice, right? But then being ready.

So you have to be ready. This is your adaptability comes in place. Just put it on a paper, how to practice it.

Put it on a paper right before the call. Everything might happen, whatever it is. Just if you're going to the call, no matter what you're discussing, they're planning to request a new feature.

And you know, it's not possible to deliver it for whatever reasons, right? Well, it might be too expensive or too time consuming. Just put it on a paper for yourself.

Practice it before the call, before the meeting, before inside session. So this is how would I approach it. You didn't have it before.

You didn't know, but you remember that things are changing.

[Dillon] (3:37 - 3:55)

Counterpoint. Is it appropriate to pretend that your Zoom malfunctioned and hang up and go and learn how to answer the question? If you were not adequately prepared for that curveball, asking for a friend.

[Anastasia] (3:55 - 3:57)

Well, what do you think then, Dillon?

[Dillon] (4:01 - 4:25)

I think it works one time. You don't make a habit of it, maybe. Well, so here's I like what you said about preparing.

Where I start to struggle is at what point do we draw the line, right? There's infinite scenarios that might occur. So where do you draw the line of like when it is no longer a potential scenario?

Oh, okay.

[Anastasia] (4:27 - 4:46)

You're absolutely right. How can you be prepared for everything? Because anything might happen, right?

But just go for the worst and for the best. And then it's easier not to be surprised by something not that bad. Because you were prepared for something, the worst could happen.

But then, well, okay, then I can manage this. It doesn't sound so scary.

[Dillon] (4:47 - 5:05)

Do you think this lives within the purview of the CS leader? Should they be creating artifacts or scripts or potential talk tracks and putting them in like a Google Drive somewhere or conducting trainings with their team on how to do this? Or do you think it's the responsibility of each individual CS professional to do it their way?

[Anastasia] (5:05 - 5:54)

Oh, that's a tough one. Because having a script for everything, right? How can you make it possible?

But there should be a training so that people know they have to have the skill, right? There is an APR, Performance Review. You need to train them.

You have to empower people to remember that there is a possibility for something. So empower them. So I would go with the way like train them that there is a skill and they have to develop it.

Don't put every word into their mouth. Because what if the customer doesn't structure the question the way you've structured the answer? What then?

So, I mean, it's too straightforward, but this is about that. The words and the scripts probably, I would think so, would be best to empower them with the skill rather than with the actual words.

[Dillon] (5:55 - 6:11)

JP, you're sitting in seat today. How do you practice adaptability and preparation for your calls? Do you, when you're brushing your teeth in the morning, do you stand in front of the mirror and think of ways to rebut a surprise turn conversation?

That's a wild sentence, my boy.

[JP] (6:11 - 6:12)

That's a wild sentence.

[Dillon] (6:14 - 6:15)

I tried to bring it home.

[JP] (6:15 - 8:46)

Yeah, let me, okay, let me just, let me bring it back. Let me bring it back. So one thing that I've learned that's really important is not to over-prepare, not to over-script.

And I find that the number one place this can happen is like when you have a slide deck. When you have a slide deck, sometimes the slide deck functions like, some people, when they go to a party, they, what do they do? They grab a drink, right?

And they use the drink sort of like psychologically, because like they're sort of, you know, scared to engage or whatever. So they're sort of carrying this thing around. So sometimes when there's a slide deck and you present this slide deck to your customers, it sort of says like, wow, like, look how prepared I am.

But if you have too many slides, and if you are so committed to your flow and your vision, how the conversation is going to go, which is something you mentioned, Anastasia, then you run several risks. One of them, which is you sort of end up, I think, looking more flustered when somebody does have something that's not up there. I think that it can come across to a customer as if they are not sort of included in the conversation.

When you're presenting something to someone, you don't have that. And I think also naturally, you see how we can see each other on camera and we can talk. It's more, it facilitates discussion.

Well, when you have a slide deck up on a screen, it can actually sort of hinder your ability to just have that communication, because we can't see our, you know, they could be camera off, but hopefully it's on. And so I see over-preparation as something that is antithetical to adaptability. Now, I do think that you should be prepared though.

I think that being able to look at an account and be prepared is what helps you to be adaptable. Because then when something comes up that you were aware of, you know, you're able to pivot, you're able to maybe ask the questions that are going to lead the way, as opposed to hearing something and then trying to sort of think on the fly. You know, so it's really taking like the, I think what you do have and using it, but not being so prepared.

And so like, we absolutely have to do this, that you're going to miss out on sort of like the richness of what a customer can give you in an interaction.

[Anastasia] (8:47 - 9:23)

You know what consulting firms do? And I read this recently that if they have something surprising coming up, they have this approach where they say, well, there are three things we can do to solve this. And this three things actually helps them to think about the answer.

So because one thing it's obviously on their head already in their mind, right? But then two other things, they can just come up with them while answering. And this is also like, if you have those techniques, you can apply them to help you to adapt to the situation.

Of course, it's not about the preparation, but it's about being, you know, having this skills and knowledge, I guess.

[JP] (9:24 - 9:36)

You sound like freestyle battlers. I mean, to be able to go on the fly. I got three things for you.

I'm gonna come up with two while I'm telling you about one. I may have a new career path. I don't know.

I may have to look at this.

[Anastasia] (9:36 - 9:39)

But they always use three actually, not more.

-: 11:53

Yeah. Anastasia, I know you have kids. And this is actually how I think about kids too of like, my wife and I talk a lot about developing values for raising kids because there is just no way for you to prepare for all of the ways in which your kid is just gonna like go off the rails.

So the only way to do it is to focus on like a handful of values. And I think of preparation and scenarios that work sort of the same way because JP, you started your part by saying you don't want to be overly prepared. And I remember younger in my career, I was like, cool.

So I'm gonna vamp every time. And that quickly blows up in your face. And you're like, oh, crap.

So I gotta... And then you... I usually overcorrect.

And I go to the other guardrail. And I'm like, cool. So I gotta have a script for if they tell me they want to downgrade, if they want to churn, if they want to add some...

But I gotta have all of this figured out. And then you've got... And I would...

I'm a builder. So I would spend hours creating a document, which probably now you don't need because AI can probably help you do it on the fly. And then you would never use it.

Or the scenario would be slightly different. Or your product would change to the point where all of those bullet points become invalid and you never got to use them. And so I think I try to go a level up.

And I try to think about values or specific things you want to try to figure out in a situation on the fly. And so I'm glad you kind of like circled it back. And you were like, you do want to be prepared.

You just don't want to be overly prepared. I know for me, I get insane anxiety if I think too much about, hey, I don't know if these guys are super happy. And I'm going to go in and I'm going to ask them if they want to renew.

And like, what if they say no? Do I got to over-prepare for that? And so like, it's easier for me if I have this sort of like security blanket, like that drink at the party you were talking about, JP.

But it's like, it's process. It's not this tangible thing that I slaved over to try and protect myself from every angle. Anastasia, that is our time.

I love this topic. Thank you so much for bringing it to our attention. Come back in the future and we can talk some more about it or let's get a whole new topic.

But for now we do have to say goodbye.

[Anastasia] (: 11:54

Yeah, thank you so much.