CSMs NEED great skills | TDSU Ep. 33

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You want Rob to introduce? Yeah. I gotta find my... Paradigm Rob. He's wearing the glasses, might as well have him do it.

Are we recording? We are recording. You gonna go for it? Yeah, I can kick us off, why not? Do the typical Dillon thing. I'm Bobby Digital.

Digital Bob. That's not as cool cool as Bobby Digital. All right, let's go.

What's up, lifers, and welcome to The Daily Standup. I'm your host, Rob Zambito, and I've got my co-hosts with me. Oh, should I have announced the topic? Oh, damn it.

No, just you're doing fine. I'm so nervous. Oh my God, have you not been doing... What are you doing? Yes, I know, I know, I know.

Should I just pick... All right. Just do it. Oh my God, just do it.

I'm trying, asshole. All right. What's up, lifers, and welcome to The Daily Standup.

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Shit, I forgot the byline. You're overthinking it, just do it. I know, I can feel myself getting red.

Just do it. All right, ready? What's up, lifers, and welcome to The Daily Standup, where we're bringing you fresh ideas daily about the future and the present state of customer success. I've got my co-hosts with me.

Jean-Pierre, do you want to say hi? Hello. Dillon, do you want to say hi? What's up, guys? And I'm your host for the day, Rob Zambito, and today we've got a very exciting topic. We're going to be tearing up a draft skills rubric that we've got for CSMs to measure themselves against.

Obviously, it's a very diverse field, and there are many different skills that a CSM has or can have to be excellent in their roles. So, we're going to try to leave this session with a consolidated view of, like, what are the main things a CSM needs to have? The skills, the hard skills, soft skills that a CSM needs to have to excel in their role. So, I figure I'll read them off just to start things.

This is completely raw. The guys have never heard this before. Hope you like it raw.

Come on. Oh, boy. Rob, really quickly.

Raw Rob, can I ask a question? Is this specific to a type of CSM? Is it high touch, kind of like the standard? What I think is the default? Good question. Let's assume SMB, B2B, SAS. So, more like mid.

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I'm not mid in any way. Two to four years experience. Do not call my segment of CS mid, Dillon.

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Mid-ass JP. I am not mid. Two to four years experience, let's assume these are the skills that you should be excelling in.

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Thank you. Skill number one is communication and relationship skills. Yes.

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Skill number two, this is different, sales and persuasive skills. Skill number three is technical and problem-solving skills. Yes.

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Skill number four, data analysis skills or data analysis, depending. Number five is time management skills. Number six, organizational skills.

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Mr. Mid, you seem to be agreeing with me across the board, so I'm going to give it to Dillon. I love it. What a bleep hole.

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So, let's hear it. What would you add to the list? What would you remove from the list? What would you modify on the list? I think, so you guys know, I am the resident Eeyore, the resident pessimist. And I'll start off with where I think I struggle with a list like this.

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And it's not specific to the list. It's more like, it's part of why I asked, well, what sort of CSM are we talking about? I think what I would have liked to hear, but I didn't ask this question, so I get it, is what's the makeup of the company? Is this 20 employees? Is this the first CSM? Or is this a series D company that's kind of got it figured out and they're just adding folks to a well-engineered process? Because it sounds like many of the things you described are very generalist. They're very much the CSM that's responsible for everything.

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It's a long and a broad list. And so I think, yeah, it all makes sense. I think those just make for a good person in general.

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You could say the same thing about a salesperson. You could say the same thing about a product person. I think communication, I think problem-solving skills, I think persuasiveness is key for every part of your life.

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And so there's a part of me that's like, well, yeah, I don't think you said anything groundbreaking, but I guess what I'd love to hear maybe from you, but also from JP is were those in a stack ranked order, like communication is by far the number one thing? I didn't think of them that way. But actually that does raise a question as to which of these is most important relative to the others. And I think you're right about the different stages, right? If I think of data analysis skills, I work with a lot of CSMs at really early stage companies.

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They don't have the data and they don't need the data to be good at their jobs. What I mean by that is they don't have the data because they're so young of companies. The data is minimal at best.

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They may have never had a renewal. So good luck building a health score that predicts renewals, right? They may not need the data to be good at their jobs, right? They actually might be able to get by with all the other domains. But JP, what are your thoughts? Yeah, I think I'll look at it as what everyone's saying is right, which is why it's sometimes tough to have these CS conversations because it all applies.

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But I think to speak to... Communication came up first. And with Spurges, we were talking about something else I was going to do, first skill that I thought of, right, is what a CSM would need is communication. Now to just zero in on that, yes, Dillon, clearly communication, you need it in everything.

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You need it in your relationship. Am I right? And your wife, happy wife. Am I right? Am I right? I think what's important to understand is in the SMB, if we're talking about SMB and relative to that means small to medium business, that means you're generally going to have a pretty girthy book of accounts.

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Oh, yeah. So you're dealing with some girth there in your accounts. And so the ability to be able to communicate effectively is going to come down to, it's not just what you're saying, it's the purpose of what you're saying.

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Because what we have to think about is there's a limited amount of time. How many emails do you get a day? Which ones are going to get prioritized or go to the top of the stack? In essence, with our communication, a deeper level is we're training the customer to recognize the value of our communication so that in the future, those lines remain open. And when we talk about becoming a trusted advisor, that means, hey, I'm not just getting a BS email from you.

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This is what I think needs to be different from sales. Like, oh, I can trust that what I'm getting from you is not just a sales pitch, but that there's a strong what's in it for me in the way that you communicate. And the other side of that that I think may sometimes get overlooked is the listening aspect of communication.

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Because a lot of people like to talk, your boy included. I know I can talk, which of the roost is pro, baby. But the ability to listen and actually decipher what your customer is saying, because their language is incomplete.

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It's based upon their perception of your product and your company. The customer is talking to you, a lot of times they don't even know what customer success is. They just know you're their main point of contact.

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So when they come to you, they don't even have that in their mind. Whereas if they talk to a salesperson, they have a good idea about what they're talking to you about and what they're seeking. With you, they're coming to you with a whole lot of things.

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So you got to be able to sort of decipher what they're saying and sometimes get to the why behind what they're asking. I think that's like a deeper level of communication. You know what I value a lot, Rob? When I was hiring for folks and I didn't hear it in your list and I know it was before we hit record, you also mentioned how you're very tired of the mention of curiosity as a skill set in customer success.

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Curiosity might be the new empathy. What I didn't hear, and correct me if it was maybe couched in one of these, is business acumen. The ability to understand your customer's business, their business model, and how your individual users or contact points at the company fit into that, what they're responsible for, their KPIs.

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Was that in one of those or did you envision it being in one of those categories? You know, that's a good question. I envisioned it as being part of sales and persuasive skills, but that's not entirely true. Sales and persuasive skills are a subset and a derivative of business acumen.

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I think business acumen catches a lot of other things. For example, I realized that on this list, I didn't have delegation. Delegating to customers is, I think, a very underrated skill set.

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And colleagues. Delegating to colleagues, too. Exactly.

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Being able to diplomatically dispatch assignments to a product team, a support team, a sales team, or whatever. Even managing up, that's another big part of being really effective as a team. That's part two, baby.

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This is too juicy. This is too juicy. I got the juice running down my chin right now.

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You can see it. Oh my goodness. I do think there's more nuance there.

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If you think of business acumen, you might even think of things like being humble and not being a jerk to work with. No, I think that's the relationship piece. Is that communication and relationships? Probably the relationship piece.

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I'm just thinking of it within the organization as opposed to direct CSM to customer. But it goes both ways. It does.

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Anything to add, guys? We're going to have to have a part two, baby. This was too juicy, man. That was good.

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This was too juicy, baby. Let's do another one when you have the next draft. Let's go from there.

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I like this. Like a working session. Sounds good.

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Well, that's our time, guys. We appreciate you joining. We'll talk soon.

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Bye-bye. I got to hit stop, right? That's me. You've been listening to The Daily Standup by Lifetime Value.

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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 Lifetime Value Media. Until next time.

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Hey, folks. It's Dillon here. Thank you for tuning in as always.

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