Adaptive Communication | Corey "CJ" Joyner | Ep. 78

[Dillon] (0:00 - 0:03)

All right, anybody need anything before we get started?

[JP] (0:03 - 0:07)

Let me get a million dollars and a banana cognac, beeyotch.

[Rob] (0:08 - 0:09)

Banana cognac?

[Corey] (0:17 - 0:18)

Chapelle, Chapelle reference there.

[Rob] (0:19 - 0:19)

Is it?

[Rob] (0:19 - 0:21)

I thought I knew all my Chapelle references.

[JP] (0:22 - 0:23)

Yeah, you don't know.

[Dillon] (0:23 - 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 and Dave Chappelle references every time. I got my man, JP here. JP, do you want to say hi?

[JP] (0:38 - 0:42)

What the bleep is up, you MFers? That's Monday through Friday.

[Dillon] (0:44 - 0:47)

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

[Rob] (0:47 - 0:48)

What's going on, people?

[Dillon] (0:50 - 0:52)

And CJ's here. CJ, do you want to say hi?

[Corey] (0:53 - 0:56)

What's up? We are so un-serious that I love it. Let's go.

[Dillon] (0:56 - 1:02)

And I am your host.

My name is Dillon Young. CJ, thank you so much for being here. Can you please introduce yourself?

[Corey] (1:03 - 1:12)

Yeah, what's up, everyone? I'm CJ. I'm an onboarding specialist with 90.

So I talk to people all day, client-facing, throw you around a software and hope you join in.

[Dillon] (1:13 - 1:27)

Right on. CJ, you know what we're doing here, aside from making deep cut references to sitcoms from 25 years ago. We are also asking every single guest, what is on your mind when it comes to customer success?

So why don't you tell us what that is for you?

[Corey] (1:28 - 1:53)

I just thought about this. Couple minutes here to decide what the topic will be. But I want to say, because I do it all day, doing client-facing and speaking with people, and it's such an important thing.

And that is the art of communicating with people. Rather you're doing it for a demo or just actually networking to get to know someone. I think that's something a lot of people wish to add more help in that area.

And so let's talk about that today.

[Dillon] (1:54 - 2:35)

This comes up a ton. I do think it is a fantastic skill. But I think we can go about this from a couple of different angles.

I was just looking back on a conversation that we had where JP talked about making sure you use language that is inclusive. And not in the way we think of inclusive today, but more like that everybody understands. You're not using vocabulary or vernacular that is specific to your organization, acronyms and stuff like that.

Or is it more about the way you come to a conversation, your attitude and things like that? Or is it a level of curiosity that you try to have with everybody that you interact with? What does communication mean to you?

[Corey] (2:38 - 3:19)

Yeah, you're definitely saying there's different avenues we can take to steer this conversation. I would say when we're looking to jump into conversation with someone, it's that level of curiosity and how you're approaching it with your attitude. And we're talking about trying to network and get to know someone, or you're trying to network for getting a new role or networking into a promotion.

How you approach that individual will stand out. So are you approaching from, hey, can you just help me? Or are you approaching from, hey, first, let me get to know you.

Let me ask you some questions. And then this is the request. I'm hoping that you can fulfill that request I'm asking you.

[Dillon] (3:20 - 3:30)

Do you find that it ever works if you say, hey, can you just help me? Maybe at the grocery store.

[Corey] (3:30 - 3:51)

But you still took a swing with the bat. So it could work. It could work.

I typically find it's not as effective. I don't have any examples that that has been effective. It could work for you.

But if you have someone that's more trusting of and know you a little bit more, they're more willing to help you. So that will be the route I'll always suggest.

[Dillon] (3:52 - 3:58)

Rob looks like he's going to a baptism today with his hair all nicely done. Why don't you go first?

[JP] (3:59 - 4:02)

You got extra virgin olive oil in his hair today. Oil?

[Rob] (4:03 - 4:04)

Who said anything about oil?

[JP] (4:06 - 4:09)

He's trying to come back. He's trying to come back.

[Rob] (4:09 - 4:10)

That was an easy reference.

[Dillon] (4:11 - 4:44)

What's up, guys? It's Dillon here. And you know why I'm here.

Hat in hand. I got a favor to ask of you. If you like what we're doing, give us a like on whatever platform that you find us on.

And if you want to know when we're dropping new stuff, give us a follow. Give us a subscribe. And maybe best of all, if you want to give us some feedback, drop a comment.

And let us know what you like, what you don't like, or how we can get better. We want to make sure we're giving the best content we can to you and others within the community. Thanks so much, guys.

I'll let you get back to the show.

[Rob] (4:44 - 6:02)

No, I love that, Corey. I especially like it because you as an onboarding specialist, you probably see this from multiple angles. Because you're not only building rapport, but project managing, which is really hard.

Because I'm sure, and I've talked with other folks at 90. But anyway, my point is, I think you guys are doing pretty interesting stuff over there. Because first of all, you're trying to blend the human element with project management.

Where I think a lot of times, when it comes to project management, in my experience, it's like, it's not what you say, it's just what people hear that matters. And a lot of times, you might have an internal champion who's doing a really subpar job of getting the message out to their team, right? And so that's where communication is actually super multi-layered in the onboarding process.

Where you have to do things like champion development, which is very difficult. I've had to sometimes train my champions on how to pitch my product, which is interesting. I'll offer like, hey, do you want to come and watch a sales demo or something like that?

And then that gets extra hard when you start introducing digital emotions too. Because then you're no longer leaving it up to the smiling faces to get that point across. But specifically, it's got to be a lot of the automations.

So it's a challenging problem and an important topic that I feel like we just don't... We don't have it dialed down to a science yet, which is really remarkable. But we're getting there.

[Dillon] (6:03 - 6:05)

All right, JP. You're on the clock.

[JP] (6:08 - 8:19)

I'm trying to get my football all of a sudden again, like, what do we do? We already had the draft. Oh, I'm not going to go there.

I'm not going to go there. People talk about communication, there's a phrase they use, off the rails. We don't want this to go off the rails.

Like our show, we go off the rails a lot. But what are the rails? The rails are where we're heading.

And this is what's really important. Because we don't want conversations to meander. We want them to have momentum.

And so this is why we're doing research before a call. Because it's not just about understanding what we're going to say. It's about why we're going to say it.

And what is our audience prepared to hear? They may not be prepared for what we have to tell them. And so we have to make sure we're aligned in the right space that communication is happening.

Because what can happen a lot in CS, or really, I think, in any job, you have a process. And you say, this process is like the best way that we should do things. So you have this process.

But your customer, depending on where they are, they're going to be paying attention to where can they get value out of this. So with something like onboarding, for say, like onboarding is fun. I love onboarding.

The thing is, like, what does that customer really need? This is why I feel like onboarding has got some things that are really core that you do want to communicate about. But it's like the communication is going to follow the intention.

And so if I know that a customer, this customer is just having a problem getting this product stood up, they're not going to be able to listen to all this other stuff. They're concerned about getting things stood up. So I need to be communicating with that in mind.

I need to be communicating, even if I have to communicate other things, I need to be mindful of this is what they're really paying attention to. So to me, it all comes down to really like the engagement. That's what we want to do is engage people.

Everybody just communicate.

[Rob] (8:20 - 8:26)

CJ, quick question. Don't you guys at 90 on the onboarding team, you're responsible for the sale too, right?

[Corey] (8:27 - 8:52)

We're responsible for the pre-sale. So they go through a trial. Most folks go through the trial, right?

They're not just going to buy off top. So then our role is to get the touch points in and then assist with converting. So we're not necessarily a sales team, but their experience and how we treat them during that experience, that could determine whether or not they sign on to be an active user or not.

[Rob] (8:53 - 9:07)

And what I love about your model is that you really embrace the fact that onboarding is a matter of persuasion. And I think we forget that all too often in these other models where the CS team doesn't engage pre-sale, but it's so important.

[Dillon] (9:07 - 9:23)

I don't know that that's always the case. I don't know that onboarding is always the... Well, but you said it definitively as though other people don't understand it, but that would imply that they need to understand it in their situation.

And that's not necessarily true.

[Rob] (9:24 - 9:30)

I'm saying persuasion helps in onboarding. And we all too often underestimate that skill.

[Dillon] (9:31 - 9:39)

Yeah. CJ, why don't you tell us what you were going to say before I so rudely interrupted and told Rob that I thought he was wrong? What were you going to say?

[Corey] (9:40 - 10:14)

All I was going to say is what JP and what Rob said, is just when you're having these conversations, you're steering that conversation, right? You don't want to accidentally come to a conclusion or a result in that conversation. You want to have some level of control there to where that conversation is going to go.

So whether that is with a client and you're trying to get them from the trial to an active user or if that's with someone that you're just talking with, you're trying to make an acquaintance out of them or a friend or someone that's going to be in your corner that's going to help you.

[Dillon] (10:16 - 10:49)

Yeah, I think back to what JP was saying, it is deceptively, it feels simple when in fact there is layers of strategy about how you communicate, when you communicate, the medium through which you communicate to make sure you're getting what you need while still serving the customer in the best way. I think that's as good a place as any for us to wrap it up. That's our time.

CJ, thank you so much for joining us and for helping us look at communication from just a slightly different angle than we've heard it before. We'd love to have you back in the future, talk about it a little bit more, but for now, we've got to say goodbye. Thank y'all.

[Voiceover] (10:57 - 11:27)

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 Find us on YouTube at Lifetime Value and find us on the socials at lifetimevaluemedia.com Until next time.