The language we learn | Lauren Berg | Ep. 79

[Lauren] (0:00 - 0:14)

There's just so much fun we can be having in CS, and usually the products and services we're selling aren't life and death products. Honestly, the less serious I am, usually the better I am on customer-facing calls.

[Dillon] (0:20 - 0:44)

Any last words? R. Ready?

R-M-A-T. All right, I got that on the recording. Perfect.

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

JP, do you want to say hi?

[JP] (0:45 - 0:46)

Avast ye mateys.

[Dillon] (0:47 - 0:50)

And I got my man Rob here. Rob, do you want to say hi?

[Rob] (0:51 - 0:53)

Shiver me timbers, lifers.

[Dillon] (0:53 - 0:57)

You needed to think about that. Were you Googling? Were you Googling right there?

[Rob] (0:57 - 1:00)

No, I'm just delayed. My internet slowed down.

[Dillon] (1:00 - 1:06)

Of course it did.

Classic Rob maneuver. And we've got Lauren here. Lauren, would you like to say hi?

[Lauren] (1:08 - 1:09)

Hello there. No pirate here.

[Dillon] (1:10 - 1:20)

Perfect. Perfect. Thank you for sparing us.

And I am your host, also not a pirate. My name is Dillon Young. Lauren, thank you so much for being here.

Would you introduce yourself, please?

[Lauren] (1:21 - 1:53)

Yeah, sure. I'm Lauren Berg. I live in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, but I grew up in upstate New York, where Rob is from, so we've known each other for a while.

I started out actually in journalism. I was a reporter, then an editor, and then a couple years ago made the shift, kind of fell into customer success in the SaaS startup world. And so I feel like I bring an interesting perspective coming in with fresh eyes.

So excited to join the conversation.

[Dillon] (1:54 - 2:11)

A South Central PA native myself. I'm from Middletown, right outside of Harrisburg. Thank you for being here.

Thank you for representing. I have to ask, first of all, what took you to Carlisle? Did you work for record?

[Lauren] (2:11 - 2:41)

Yeah, a lot of people ask that. My brother has lived here for the past 10 years and would always come back and visit and be like, what a quaint little town. Being able to walk to coffee shops without it being a big, bustling metro like Philly or DC.

And it's really accessible though to Philly and DC if you want to get some really good food. And so it just became this life choice where my partner and I want to buy a house. We just decided on Carlisle.

And we're still waking up and being like, do we live here?

[Dillon] (2:43 - 3:02)

Right on. That's cool. Love that we can do that in the modern world, right?

That you don't have to be tethered to a big metro just because that's where the good jobs are. Anyway, Lauren, you know why we're here. We ask one question of every one of our guests, which is what is on your mind when it comes to customer success?

So why don't you hit us with it?

[Lauren] (3:03 - 4:46)

Yeah, there's so much to choose from. It's quite a big ask. Honestly, really admire you all with this podcast, keeping it short.

But today, and something I've been thinking about a lot is just really ideas around word choice we use internally and with customers. I feel like my background in journalism makes me pay a little more attention to language and like really detail oriented things like that. And so one of the kind of like surprises I found entering this world was a lot of the hunting metaphors and language we use or militaristic, like even like boots on the ground, having battle cards, and it, I think it feels like it's making CS a life or death situation.

And that can cause a lot of stress for the team for any churn or renewal conversations. And I feel like there's just so much fun we can be having in CS. And usually the products and services we're selling aren't life and death products.

Hopefully it's not like an EKG system or something. But yeah, so I'm just really thinking about how can I have more fun. And honestly, the less serious I am, usually the better I am on customer facing calls when they're coming at me with maybe complaints or being upset.

I feel like that's been Rob and his mentorship of me has been like, like, why do we have to be so serious? Obviously, we have goals and KPIs. But yeah, just been really thinking about how can we have more fun and really pay attention to language we use to create this space of fun.

[Dillon] (4:46 - 5:17)

Super unique call out and a valuable one. I think it's similar to like self-talk. We need to be more aware of the way in which we talk about ourselves and even just in our own heads.

And sometimes like the self-deprecation is actually a detriment to our long-term thinking. But it's interesting that you would say Rob has been a mentor in your pursuit of having more fun because he's the wettest blanket we have in this trio. So I'd like to, I'd like Rob to have a chance to defend himself.

[Rob] (5:18 - 6:58)

Yeah. As the CFO of this organization, Chief Fun Officer, I will speak to that. I have to thank Lauren for bringing my awareness to this.

There's a lot of ridiculousness when it comes to how seriously we take our work and how much we like militarize it. Like Lauren is saying, like just saying things like go kill it and boots on the ground and we're going into battle and battle cards. Like Lauren was saying, it's honestly, you're right, Lauren, that it not only contributes to burnout, but I thought about this a lot.

I think it also trivializes actual conflict in the world. I think it also really does kill the vibes. And so I was actually looking into this even recently.

I was, English in particular, I found out it especially lends to this type of verbiage because English is a language that was developed as a largely seafaring culture that was going out and colonizing different areas of the world. And so that's why there are phrases, even as something as simple as tie up loose ends. Like that actually comes from a seafaring term where like people are actually tying knots.

Yeah. Chief nerd officer, man. But my point is to say, I do think that there's like this implicit awareness that we have of how these things are.

And it reminds me like when I used to work in food, I was working with this guy and I was so intensely focused on getting lunch out on time. And my friend Trevor was eventually like, Rob, we're selling lunch here. We're not saving lives.

And I contrasted it with my friend who works in an ER. And I was like, yeah, he's got a point. So I learned to not take myself too seriously.

Rule number six, as some of us know, practice. We're talking about practice.

[Dillon] (6:58 - 7:07)

Talking about practice. I knew that was... Come on.

Come on. JP, second wettest blanket with that attitude. Why don't you tell us what you think?

[JP] (7:09 - 9:14)

It's a duvet. So first of all, I've never really encountered that language in CS. The only places I've really encountered that language is sales and like competitive intelligence, things that are more centered on a little bit more of that sort of competitive space.

So that's just me. I don't know. I think that this speaks to like culture.

I think if people have a culture where they want to be like, hey, rock star, go kill it and all this kind of stuff, it's really just a symptom of the culture that particular organization has. So I think like when it comes to language, what's most important is understanding because language ultimately is how do we understand one another? And I think some of the concerns I have are more around some of those things that we assume in CS that people outside of our organization might not know.

So there's like internal lingo. Then there's also different types of CS words may have like different kinds of language. It really is about who am I trying to connect with?

And what is the message that I'm trying to get across? If we're talking about communicating with customers, then we should be taking all of the relevant things into account to make sure that the message we need to deliver is heard loud and clear. And I think if it's something that's more internal, sometimes the internal language is again, more of a system of culture.

So you call out beware, right? If everyone's comfortable using that language and then you come in, you can call it out, but then you may also stand out. And it may be that like everyone there is just comfortable.

Maybe everyone there really gravitate towards this type of thing. But I think in the end, as long as people can understand what we're saying to the best of our ability, I think that's what's like super important with language. I'm definitely not like a huge fan of that language.

[Dillon] (9:15 - 10:16)

I wonder if calling it out is the real purpose here. I think just being aware of the language you're using and how I saw a post that somebody had, they were sharing the language of a founder of a company. They were sharing it because they thought that it was powerful and that it was motivating, but the language was very oriented towards the United States.

And you saw a lot of people in the comments say, this is interesting, but it will alienate the majority of the world. If you use this language too much, or if this is the platform through which you send your message. So I think it's probably just really important for us to understand how it is we're communicating with others, like you said, JP, and being aware of it, not necessarily calling other people out.

That's not necessarily our place, particularly in a collaborative environment like work. Hey, I don't really resonate with what you said. I understand what you said, but I don't like it.

Could you please rephrase it? That's never going to work. And I agree with you on that, JP, but Lauren, any last words on what we had to say?

[JP] (10:17 - 10:18)

Last words.

[Lauren] (10:18 - 10:18)

Look at that.

[JP] (10:18 - 10:19)

That's so intense.

[Lauren] (10:20 - 10:36)

First of all, I love that the pirate theme got tied in with what Rob was sharing about being seafaring. I would just say personally, idioms, one personal idiom I've tried is switching two birds, killing two birds with one stone to feeding two birds with one scone.

[Dillon] (10:42 - 11:06)

Lauren, that's our time. Thank you so much for bringing this to our attention. I think this is an awesome topic.

I don't know that anybody is even thinking about this in the mainstream, so I think it's awesome that you brought this to us. Would love to have you back when you have more polished edge analogies or changes to phrases that we can use. We'll do a round two.

You can just give all the examples. But for now, we've got to say goodbye.

[Lauren] (11:07 - 11:08)

All right. Thank you so much for having me.

[Voiceover] (11:12 - 11:43)

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