Growing up sucks | Will Hance | Ep. 80

[Dillon] (0:00 - 0:02)

Any last words before we get started?

[Will] (0:03 - 0:06)

Take it easy on me? I don't know. First time?

[Dillon] (0:07 - 0:30)

That's up to you, buddy. JP made a woman cry earlier today, so...

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] (0:32 - 0:32)

Hello.

[Dillon] (0:32 - 0:37)

And we've got Will here. Will, do you want to say hi?

[Will] (0:37 - 0:39)

I do. What's up, guys?

[Dillon] (0:40 - 0:47)

And I am your host.

My name is Dillon Young. Will, thank you so much for being here, for taking time out of your day. Can you introduce yourself, please?

Of course.

[Will] (0:47 - 1:07)

So I'm Will Hance, guys. I work for a company called RevSetter. I lead our commercial side of the business, so handling sales and CS and revenue operations, and we provide a customer success platform.

So just constantly deep in the world of sales and CS, and that's why I'm talking to you guys today.

[Dillon] (1:08 - 1:40)

I think it's always interesting when you talk to... I've talked to a thousand plan hat and churn zero and catalyst reps are vitally... And it's always so interesting to have a conversation with somebody who is both selling a platform, but is likely doing the job, maybe using that platform.

That's not a good or a bad thing. I just think they got to live in two different worlds, an interesting place to be. But Will, you know what we do here?

We ask one question of every single guest. What is on your mind when it comes to customer success? And I bet you have a good one.

So why don't you tell us what it is? Sure. I think I do.

[Will] (1:40 - 4:20)

And yeah, it's the perfect segue. We'll let you know. Okay.

Yeah. Fair enough. You mentioned two different worlds, and that's essentially my whole topic for today.

My background is I started virtually the whole first half of my career in sales, always in software tech, and then moved into CS and worked for a company where the CS reps owned their entire book of business. So coming from sales, I really loved all of that. But it was striking moving into CS from sales.

It was like two things really stood out. One, there was always a disconnect. Unless you had a really good sales rep who was on the ball and truly understood the value.

And keep in mind, this is me talking through going this in 2016. 2017 handoffs and creating value. And of course, we were using at the time, like our own system.

But a lot of time, it would just be sales reps and CS reps in Salesforce. But now that's evolved a little bit with the emergence of CSPs. And so that collaboration has just become more intertwined.

And then we've really seen the emergence of revenue operations as well. And this three headed monster owning the whole commercial side of the business. And it's like, how do they really work together?

Fast forward to now and like them collaborating. Everybody talks about everyone we speak to in sales or CS, whether it's like a partner or potential prospect or a current client. They all talk about that single source of truth.

So like in sales, a lot of times that's Salesforce. But it doesn't exist. Everybody says that phrase.

But when you're talking about one organizationally, there's no one item in the tech stack that's going to solve things for everybody. Even when you take that down a level, at least in my experience right now, to sales, CS and revenue operations, you have this fight going on that sales always really wins out. So they choose Salesforce.

And then really the scraps are left to customer success, which I never appreciated at all. Because at my past organizations, customer success was handling upwards of 80% of the recurring revenue. Always.

Always. So now we encounter all of these working for reps that are now like it comes full circle, working for a customer success platform, but doing sales for this platform and also handling our small team to do both. So we're still managing our clients and CS reps as well.

It's like this layered world of CS and sales.

[Dillon] (4:20 - 4:46)

First question I have for you. Only half tongue in cheek. What's your conversion rate when you tell a prospect that a single source of truth is not possible?

How many deals do you close when you say that? Zero. Zero percent.

I think we can all agree. Yeah, that's probably pretty tough. And there's a level of collaboration that needs to occur.

But that's probably a tough pill to swallow if you're a buyer, right?

[Will] (4:46 - 4:53)

It's what everybody's looking for, but it's a tougher answer to give than I think everyone expects.

[Dillon] (4:53 - 5:14)

Yeah, you got to come around it, I guess. You got to build your case before you say that to them. I also want to know, is tech more exciting or less exciting from your perspective than it was back when you got started?

I know I have an answer. I think you and I have a decent, like our roadmap is similar probably. But what do you think?

[Will] (5:14 - 6:07)

I hate to sit on the fence here, but it depends on your perspective. If it's strictly about the tech and you're super interested in AI and how everything is evolving and coming together, I would say now. Personally, I valued the sales aspect of it more and the outbound relationship.

And that was just interacting with people pre-pandemic was just much easier. And CS as well, just speaking to your clients, I just enjoy being able to reach people at their direct line at their business. Yeah, pressing flesh, right?

Yeah, I guess it was more like the wild west back then. It was like the wild west in 2012 to 2016. I'm in Southern California, so I like the wild west days.

JP, jump in here.

[JP] (6:09 - 7:50)

I guess I'll just speak. There's a lot of good stuff, actually, that I was hearing. Something that I just heard, though, was like, yeah, do you find tech as exciting now as it did?

And I got into CS because of tech. That was part of it. I knew I wanted to be a part of the tech world because I was always interested in innovations, like where are we going next?

And that sort of excitement, I think, I don't want to say I fully relied on it, could be like a great driver for professional development, like when you're so interested in the latest tech and being ahead of the curve. But then you hit this point where you begin to see the politics of it all comes into place. And so it's not so pure.

The scientists, maybe other people, you realize they don't even get to live in a pure world because they are part of a bureaucracy as well. And so it's interesting because I'm continuing to learn at my job, and I love it. And man, I almost miss a job for a short time.

But I already miss those really super early months when I could really get into our product and what it's doing. But now it's like when you start getting into the business, I got to say a lot of that feels very familiar. And that does not feel like that sort of innovative space that maybe I thought of.

But I do think that part of it has something to do with saturation, even data itself. Just like how much data are we pumping out a day is just, things are just exponential. And so I think it can be really tough to filter out the noise.

[Dillon] (7:51 - 8:24)

I think the phrase for this episode is growing up sucks, right? And you can look at that in any way. Like you could look at that personally.

You could look at that professionally. You could look at it for the entire industry. Because you wake up and there's just a little bit more red tape every single day, JP.

And that's necessary in a lot of ways. You got to have guardrails. But man, it kind of blows at the same time.

Nobody wants the red tape, except like your risk guys. You're like general counsel. They love red tape.

[JP] (8:24 - 8:31)

People that make red tape like red tape. They have a product to sell. That's the general counsel, man.

That's risk.

[Will] (8:31 - 8:38)

They love red tape. Red tape, all the words that go around describing the red tape as well. They love that too.

[Dillon] (8:41 - 8:45)

And yeah, it's just not nearly as exciting. But I wonder how much of that is tied up in while we're getting older.

[JP] (8:47 - 8:50)

This is one we got to revisit for sure.

[Will] (8:50 - 9:23)

Yeah, I agree with JP about, yeah, just like you get a little bit jaded. It's funny that you say that too, JP. Because I was one of those kids that graduated and just had no idea what they were doing.

So I got into tech for the reasons you're talking about. I was like, oh, this is great. I'm learning a lot at the forefront of all this cool technology and relevant information that you need to know in life.

And yeah, now I've gone up to the VP level at a startup, I guess you could say, and grown up a bit. And yeah, that red tape and all the regulations and rules are a little bit more clear now.

[Dillon] (9:24 - 9:43)

Let's end this on a positive note. Were you guys all surprised when you realized that the companies you worked for could go out of business? Like it's not working for Sears, or I guess Sears did go out of business, but like GE.

And one day you're like, oh, yeah, we could run out of money. People might just not like what we're building. Oh.

[Will] (9:44 - 9:50)

That was a recent epiphany for me over the last couple of years.

[JP] (9:50 - 9:53)

That was his positive note to end on. Yeah, good.

[Dillon] (9:57 - 10:03)

And with that, we're out of time, guys. So let that sit with you until the next time.

[JP] (10:03 - 10:05)

Wait, what way are we out of time, man?

[Dillon] (10:06 - 10:19)

You gotta figure it out. You gotta get through the red tape. Red tape to figure out the answer.

Will, thank you so much. A pleasure. Loved having you on.

Would love to have you back to continue this. Let's do a sequel. Red tape sequel.

But for now, we've got to say goodbye.

[Will] (10:20 - 10:22)

Awesome. Thanks so much, guys. Thanks for having me.

[Voiceover] (10:26 - 10:57)

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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