GSD - Getting Services Done

Building a thriving community takes more than just having an online presence. It requires a well-defined mission, vision, and customer journey. It also needs to have strategies that foster meaningful engagement with its customers. Fortunately, the GSD podcast is an excellent resource to help you get started. In this episode, Leslie and Jeff discuss essential topics such as understanding the competitive landscape and personas and gamification strategies that can drive engagement.

In this podcast, we'll be exploring Leslie's journey as a community builder. Leslie has been passionate about communities since before COVID and her experience in Pavilion only furthered her dedication to the cause. 

• Jeff talked to Leslie about how she established mission, vision, and values with startups, enabling them to create authentic and meaningful communities.

• Leslie discussed how she believes in customer journeys that lead to evangelists referring others in by micro wins throughout the journey.

• Jeff and Leslie also discussed Word-of-mouth marketing and how it is particularly relevant in the digital age, as well as understanding the competitive landscape and personas when rolling out a new one.

• They also had a fascinating discussion about the effectiveness of gamification in communities, and how internal intrinsic motivation leads to better engagement levels than external extrinsic rewards. 

If you are considering a community-building project or running an existing network, grab yourself a cup of coffee or tea, silence your phone, and listen to this informative episode – You won’t regret it!

You can connect with Michael here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaeldburton/

GSD podcast brought to you by https://infiniterenewals.com/

Connect with Jeff - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffkushmerek/

Away from work, Cheyanne enjoys snowboarding trips and relaxing in the outdoors. You can connect with her via LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cheyanne-lafrance/

In this podcast, Jay Nathan, EVP of Higher Logic, talks about how to use Community as a way of scaling customer success.

He also talks about :

- How Community increases NRR

- The community ROI story to the CFO

- Creating an Ecosystem customers feel great about

- Building Self service with Community

- Monitoring your communities will give you an effective product in behavior insights better than anything else

Video version here: https://youtube.com/@infiniterenewals

Jeff is joined by Carly Agar, who helps people land jobs in Customer Success. Carly spent many years as a high-performing CSM before starting her own practice. In this chat, Carly discusses:

• Her move from CSM to starting her own consulting practice vs going into a management role
• Career paths and making the right next step
• Transitioning from other careers into CSM
• Networking do's and dont's
• Startups vs big company
• Heavy stock paper resumes and the importance of zippered briefcases

This was a blast to record! Follow Carly at https://www.carlyagar.com/

Jeff is joined by Mike Molinet of Branch. Mike had written this article on how Branch uses Slack to Retain and Grow $100k+ accounts. This was such a different perspective that we needed to get Mike on the podcast to explain. Listen has Mike describes:

 - How Branch uses Channels to keep engagement high with Branch's power users and Champions

- Expectation management and guardrails needed to prevent CSM burnout with customers actively engaging with Slack

- Building organic communities with customers using Slack

- Sending Product updates and marketing to customers in Slack

- Tiering customers for level of slack engagement

- Using Slack engagement analytics to be leading indicators of churn and renewal. 

And a ton more! 

Jeff sits down with the legendary Bob London  to discuss Strategic Conversations. Bob has over 2600 customer conversations analyzed among sales and CS, and has put together a framework for talking to customers called the Five Customer Love languages. Jeff and Bob dive deep into the 5 love languages and talk about how to use the framework to get your customers to open up about what's important to them. We discuss how these interact with customer calls, 45 minute zombie QBR's, and also how to overcome imposter syndrome. 

Additional topics include: working with Covid, schadenfreude as a Red Sox fan, getting fired and finding your own path. 

You can find more about Bob here - https://www.strategiccustomerconvos.com/

This week we were joined by Bruce Daley of S&P Global 451 Research. Bruce is an industry analyst following revenue generation software companies with a particular interest in Customer Success vendors. He is a long-time student of the software industry and is considered minor nobility in it by some. We talked about how to make a buck in this business, spending a little time making jokes. Some of the questions we discussed were:

• Is customer success a good place to build a career?
• What is the overall market demand for customer success products?
• Who are some of the winners and losers?
• What is the hottest subcategory?
• How do you make a fortune in the space (or at least a living)?

Bruce also shared his billion-dollar business idea only 12 years too late.

Jeff is joined by Rachel Provan, a Top 50 Women Leaders In Customer Success 2022 and Top 100 CS Strategist 2022! Rachel and Jeff discuss:

- Time Management boundaries in CS and how to get people to respect them and stop the pattern of interruption

- Rachel's career advice about "Heads of CS" positions

- The problem with the "player coach" role

- The  Eisenhower matrix, the urgent important and how to use it to get your life back

- Strategies for getting that raise and promotion. 

There is a lot more as well. Listen in and also check out Rachel at https://provansuccess.com/

Jeff is joined by an ALL FIRED UP top 25 CS Influencer Kristi Faltorusso of Client Success  to go over a few items that were hot topics in the hallways and bars of Gainsight Pulse. Kristi wants CS leaders to uplevel their game and protect their team by being powerful executives. Key topics include:

- CS leaders playing the victim instead of leading from the front

- "Asking" for a seat at the executive table

- Owning revenue and renewals

- Budget wars

- USE THE DATA to win your battles - bring the right data insights to make informed decisions

- How to battle proof your org during this economic situation

- Is the QBR dead? Kristi gives her perspective and ideas

- NPS and your Board

and a ton more. This list does not do justice to all of the knowledge drops Kristi did! You can also get more Kristi knowledge here:
https://www.keepingcssimple.com/listen-to-kristi

Jeff talks with Jan Young every few months to go over Customer Success topics. for this time, we decided to tape it! We were inspired to catch up to discuss the differences in approach between Frank Slootman's new book (where he says CS is not needed) compared to a post from Jason Lemkin. We covered that, and  then in our usual style talked about everything on our minds that day! 

Topics include:

• Jan's background in the entertainment business and how it prepared her for SaaS
• Hiring specialists vs. generalists and when to use those strategies
• Analyzed Chris' post vs. Frank Slootman approach on initiatives and success depending on ownership
• Self-service onboarding vs. complex

Meg Lovell of Everbridge is a ninja when it comes to all things implementation. We chatted and had a fast paced conversation about everything you need to know about implementation, including 

- turning 9 month implementations into 3

- Customers not getting any value from your product and needing to renew

- Approaching implementations with a psychology standpoint and human behavior point of view

- Eliminating the status call

- Charging Professional Services for things the customer is asking you to do

- Using Project Managers to run Implementation Projects

Jeff is joined by longtime friend and former coworker Alex Medeiros to discuss Alex's new role as Head of Enablement at Limeade. 

Topics discussed are :

• What is CSM Enablement?
• Importance of Success Criteria and targeting the right customers
• Quick impacts 
• Build trust all along the onboarding journey
• Interaction with Product Marketing
• Handoff and Onboard Readiness

And many other nuggets that Alex has picked up along the way in building this new competency!

Customer Success Legend Maranda Dziekonski joins Jeff on the latest podcast. In a very open and honest conversation, Maranda talks about:

-  Her blue-collar work ethic and how she went from the factory to the office

- Customer Success and who owns the revenue, upsells, etc

- Leveraging new tech and approaches (Ops, AI)

- Roles in the new Customer Success organization

- Landing a role in CX as a college grad vs a career transition

- How to avoid burnout

Also lots of tangents on pantsuits, dog medications, and boutique cameras!

Jeff is joined by Top 100 Customer Success Strategist 2020 & 2021 Shari Srebnick, the Head of Customer Success at Searchmetrics. Shari educates Jeff on the best ways to listen to your customer to drive better enagement and customer relationships. Topcis include:

- Why NPS isn't the best or only way to track customer sentiment

- Properly segmenting your customer base to make sense of your data collection

- Surveying end-users AND stakeholders

- How to create your strategy around customer sentiment

- What NOT to talk about in the QBR

And a lot more- Shari drops nugget after nugget here, so listen with your notebook open!

In this podcast, Jeff does a deep dive into the world of CS Ops with David Epperly of Red Canary. David put together a great post about the basics of CS Ops (click here to read). Topics discussed were:

- Key metrics to track for CS Ops to prevent churn

- Do you need CS-specific tools like Gainsight or Churn Zero to use data for understanding churn risk?

- Using qualitative factors to understand churn risk

-  What level do you start relying on data science and more complex tools?

- David describes his current CS Ops Tech stack

- How does somebody break into CS ops? 

This week we are joined by Dana Soza, of customer everything.com. Dana is an OG in Customer Success, and was named a 2021 Top 100 Customer Success Strategist. We talked about doing CS before CS was even a thing. Some topics we went over were:

• Creating tech and templates out of thin air
• Streamlining the Onboarding Process with CRM Automation
• Increasing Adoption by 900% (!!!)
• Creating a process from scratch from presales through renewal
• Using data to retain and upsell customers, even if they were in danger of not renewing

We also talked about Dana’s passion for helping new CSM’s find jobs, and then coaching them through all aspects of their careers.

This week we are joined by Stephanie Kemp, of Get Bridge. Stephanie talks about her life of service, and how she took her non-CS jobs and parlayed them into her current position. Her story of how she got her current role is a great lesson in perseverance, and not taking no for an answer. Stephanie is a powerhouse and very driven, and I am sure you will enjoy her story! 

Jeff is joined by very special guest and keynote speaker Aaron Thompson of SuccessHacker. Covered lots of ground here, including:

• Customer Journey Mapping and Funnel Acquisition
• The Trough of Disillusionment and Buyers Remorse
• The 3 D's of Customer Success
• Retention Starts with Implementation
  
• Should CSM’s manage the implementation of the project?  
  
• What does an ideal implementation team look like for a SaaS B2b enterprise-focused company?
  

Also, check out Aaron's post here with some video explanations of the concepts - https://www.linkedin.com/posts/athomps_customersuccess-onboarding-podcast-activity-6825530250747891712-Sv9s

As part of a new focus with the podcast, we kicked off our first case study with Steve of GrowthLab Finance-as-a-Service. Steve dives in and talked about the move to use CSM's when their customers asked for a different engagement model. Steve talks about how having CSM's gets him closer to his goal of "making things boring again." Some good chat here around net retention, QBR's and implementation.  

Very happy to have James Stuart of Reed talk about how the Customer Success team is being used to help trial users get a high touch to increase success in the pre-sales phase. I love this concept! James and talk about using all the great Customer Success tools to get outcome-driven trials to convert prospects into successful and happy customers.

Very excited to bring Michael Zipursky of Consulting Success to the podcast. Michael has been helping people run their own consulting business for almost 15 years and has a huge track record of success. Michael came on the show and asked questions around:

• What is the overwhelming scenario of people wanting to start their own consulting business?
• What are the first steps?
• How to overcome Imposter Syndrome?
• the Consulting Mindset
• The biggest challenge most people run into
• How to scale your business and not burn out 

Jeff is joined by John Kirkman, who has years of experience from stints at Deloitte, Nike and now Convoy. We covered ALOT of ground in this one, with the first topic being how to use your consulting chops to the enterprise when large companies are forced to change. John has a ton of experience in Large scale logistics and Executable Strategy in Supply Chain, so it was great to chat with someone who was in the trenches on complex problems

Other topics are:

• Remote Teams and management
• New tools don't Fix old problems
• How to quickly navigate from ambiguity to clear details to solve complex problems
• Fast context switching when you have multiple clients

Jeff is joined by Pat Muirragui, Senior Director of Services at Mitek Systems. Jeff and Pat talk a ton of PS and Implementation shop, and go into the details on Org structures, tools, and best practices. Pat is passionate about making sure that the customers he oversees are set up correctly, and how he uses a diagnostic approach to understand current state and desired future state. Lots of TTV, Project Profitability talk as well as we try to cover a variety of topics, including Pat's COVID hobby. 

Jeff is joined by Bradley Jones, who is the VP of Implementation at Indeavor. Brad is the first person that I have met with this title, and we had a lot of ground to cover.  A list  of the topics discussed are:

- Applying the learnings of a Big 4 consulting background to startups

-  Implementing a Minimum Viable Process vs the over-processization that happens with large consulting companies

- Becoming a vital asset of the B2B and B2B2C presales process and helping to close enterprise deals

- Balancing flexibility and standard processes with large customer and customer demands

- Building Custom features in a SaaS world

- Timing the Onboarding Phase to make sure proper transitions between a prospect’s previous vendor

Jeff is joined by Cait Porte, who is leading Product and Global Services for Zmags, including Product Management, User Experience, Customer Onboarding, and Customer Support. This is a unique blend of responsibilities, and the topics discussed are:

- Building Product to enable Customer Success FAST in a SaaS world that is easy to do

- Getting consensus and alignment in presales and scoping to make sure that prospects and customers can get fully onboarded in less than 30 days

- Working with Customers to get consensus on success metrics during the onboarding phase

- Balancing UX and Design with what are the most usable features for customers

- Building Custom features in a SaaS world

- Timeboxing the Onboarding Phase to make sure the customer's time to value is maximized

- When to add Implementation fees, and why it works

Jeff and George have worked on projects for over 10 years. Recently George's company, Intevity, has been leading a discussion about Discovery and best practices. Jeff got a chance to sit down with George and go over all the best practices for not just a discovery session, but a discovery period. Topics covered include: - best length of time for. a discovery period - Trust, empathy and how not to "lead the witness" - Best tools to use - Building trust along the way instead of the BIG REVEAL in the end.  Music choice for the intro is George's- James Brown, Love, Power, Peace: Live at the Olympia, Paris, 1971 .

About Intevity 

"Intevity is a digital consultancy specializing in Customer Experience, Digital Product Development, and Modernization solutions for both commercial and public sector clients. We believe that technology should serve not set the vision and strategy of an organization. We see technology’s impact on business to be ineffective without alignment, relevance, and velocity. We use our Digital Triality model to discover root problems, drive organizational readiness, and effective digital transformation within the enterprise, accelerating efficiency, growth, and competitive advantage. The Intevity process includes deploying senior, cross-functional consulting teams and industry SME’s that work hip-to-hip in the trenches to enable client teams and support the journey of effective digital transformation through utilizing custom software development and proven platforms including Adobe, AWS, BigCommerce, and Salesforce. Example clients include Foundation Medicine, Under Armour, iRobot, LogMeIn, AWS, Sazerac, Drizly, NASA, Department of Defense, Department of Labor, and Department of State."