Customer everything | Dana Soza

[Dana] (0:00 - 0:17)

We used to make exponential, ridiculous income, but because of automation, global competition and the shift to specialized roles, remote work, and it's a lot harder for customer success professionals to get paid what they're worth.

[Rob] (0:24 - 0:25)

Let's do it.

[Dillon] (0:27 - 0:40)

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 Rob here.

Rob, do you want to say hi?

[Rob] (0:41 - 0:42)

What's up lifers?

[Dillon] (0:43 - 0:48)

Perfect.

I feel like this is going to be a thing now. And we have Dana with us. Dana, do you want to say hi?

[Dana] (0:49 - 0:55)

Hi, happy to be here. I love your guys's energy. Let's just see the snaps loving it.

[Dillon] (0:55 - 1:01)

All right. And I am your host. My name is Dillon Young.

Dana, thank you so much for being here. Would you please introduce yourself?

[Dana] (1:02 - 1:44)

Sure. Wow. Okay.

Let's see. Great stuff about me globally recognized award-winning and customer success, lots of awards, all that cool stuff makes me feel important. Top women leaders and customer experience, top CS strategist, LinkedIn, top SAS voice.

I got it going on. I don't feel like it half the time, but anyway, so I've been in SAS for about 10 years, then customer success, the same, then actually started my own consulting practice for customer success and have expanded into customer everything. So I'm really focused on helping SAS companies create exponential growth by leveraging their customers.

[Dillon] (1:46 - 2:00)

Raise the roof. Love it. Dana, you know what we're doing here?

I think you're going to have a good topic in this regard, but we ask every single guest one simple question and that is what is on your mind when it comes to customer success or customer everything. So why don't you tell us what that is for you?

[Dana] (2:01 - 3:02)

Yeah, I'm actually, it was really great to be able to talk about this because I've noticed working with SAS companies and with talent. I have a lot of talent that reaches out to me and companies and there seems to be this big shift happening in customer success where we used to make exponential ridiculous income, but because of automation, global competition and the shift to specialized roles, remote work, it's really leveled the playing field. And it's a lot harder for customer success professionals to get paid what they're worth.

I thought that we could talk about how to adapt by focusing on revenue generation or getting certified in demand areas, positioning themselves as independent contractors, which can be more lucrative and how to upskill consistently so that they can beat out the competition and to make a great living working for SAS companies where all the money is at.

[Dillon] (3:03 - 3:30)

So Dana, what's interesting is you somehow took all of these different topics we talk about all the time, like automation and the job market and revenue and you put it in this nice little burrito of like how you're going to help or how you'd like to help folks like level up. You use that term.

[Dana] (3:30 - 3:31)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Dillon] (3:31 - 3:54)

There were so many pieces in there that I want to pull on and I don't know that we have enough time for all of it, but the two that were really interesting to me was the 1099 thing and how that can often be more lucrative. And the other piece was certified in in demand skill sets. So I'd love to double click on both of those and hear more about what you mean by both of those.

[Dana] (3:55 - 4:01)

Okay. Let's start with, you were talking about specifically in upskilling and what was the other one?

[Dillon] (4:02 - 4:07)

This idea of turning into a 1099 and in many cases being compensated better.

[Dana] (4:08 - 6:05)

That's right. That's right. Yeah.

Companies because of private equity firms and VC firms and investors, investing companies have to answer to a lot of people and they have to make a lot of revenue. So they're laying off people. They're not wanting to pay as much in benefits.

There's still those great jobs out there. Don't get me wrong, but there's less and less of them. A lot of those companies are going overseas for them.

Being able to adapt as a customer success professional where we used to make Buku dollars is great, but you're still working for the man and SAS is volatile. They're constantly changing strategies. New owners are coming in.

They're hiring and firing nonstop. And so why not for those customer success professionals that are stellar? Why not work for yourself, become a contractor, a consultant, leverage those skills.

And then you're going to make way, way more money when you level yourself up, which is that kind of upskilling part and specializing specifically and being able to market your skills in a way that focuses on helping SAS companies achieve exponential growth. That's like a big deal. They care about cutting costs, increasing revenue.

So positioning yourself that way, upskilling and then becoming a contractor consultant, you have full flexibility. You're the expert. You're not having to follow all the rules.

They bring you in and you get to work your magic and move on to the next thing. It's a, it's pretty great. I love it.

And you get to make real impact in a business in a really short amount of time without your company bossing you around nonstop and not letting you do what you know that you're really great at.

[Dillon] (6:05 - 6:13)

I wonder if Rob is gonna scold you for giving away the secret here.

[Rob] (6:14 - 6:19)

The secret. Hey, this, the water's warm. Everyone should jump in.

[Dana] (6:20 - 6:32)

Oh my gosh. So Rob, that's interesting. So you know this and I do too.

So I'm knee deep in it. I'm creating an agency around it and it is the secret. It is a secret, but I want everybody to know.

We should, we should.

[Rob] (6:33 - 7:01)

Yeah, no. So the interesting thing I've seen is, so I've been full time as a consultant for almost two years, started part time like four and a half years ago. And the interesting thing is I've never had to compete for a deal and that's what I mean.

Like the whole market has shifted to need more contracting type work for a lot of good reasons. Whether it's optimizing for flexibility, avoiding having to pay people benefits.

[Dana] (7:02 - 7:02)

Yes.

[Rob] (7:03 - 7:04)

That's always a good one.

[Dana] (7:05 - 7:05)

Big one.

[Rob] (7:06 - 8:05)

The thing is like most people are often hesitant to take that leap because they obviously prefer the stability. But I do think there's a lot of room to do like what you're saying Dana, where you like dabble with contracting in some capacity. Especially I know there's a lot of folks, there's more talent on the job market right now than I've ever seen before.

So for those folks who are on the job market, if you take some time to, and I know this, I hope this doesn't seem too unreasonable for people who have busy schedules and are applying for jobs and that kind of thing. But if there is a way to carve out the time to, for example, get Salesforce certified or Gainsight certified or something like that, that then you can create this like very niche skillset that you have, where you can work on certain projects for a defined period of time and actually sell yourself more to a company and even test the waters on working with the company. Because I know that a lot of people join companies and within three months they're like, Oh God, what did I get myself into?

But that doesn't happen quite as often if you've dabbled, if you've dated before you got married.

[Dana] (8:06 - 9:05)

I mean, that's right. That's right. And then you know what's best.

This brings up a really great topic also, which people need to find jobs based on their skillset. So like startup companies, they need generalists. So if you are a person that likes to get in there in the mix and you like to do a lot of different things, you want to work for a startup.

If you are a person who is incredibly specialized and you do one thing and you've worked for fortune 500 companies and it's your one skillset, you need to work for enterprise. If you're working for a growth stage, you need to be somebody that really thinks about revenue that is big on collaboration and growth and is totally fine with a lot of upheaval because in growth stage companies, that's where the mergers and acquisitions and buyouts and investments all happen and a lot of bosses come into the mix and you got to be able to roll with it.

[Dillon] (9:05 - 10:25)

I love it. I love it. And I think it is this interesting, it requires a lot more work up front.

I think it's probably fair to say to get into that space and it requires a lot more ownership in terms of like your own trajectory. I think for so long this has been the narrative for decades of I'm going to go work for Sears for 40 years. They have my best interest at heart.

It's a safe place. Like I get the benefits, blah, blah, blah. Versus now like I'm a big advocate or saying that we got to get more honest about the fact that the companies that employ you typically do not give a crap about you.

And I don't mean that from an empathy standpoint. I mean that of like, dude, at the end of the day, you're a widget. If the margins get out of whack, they got to cut you and there's nothing stopping them.

The majority of America is at will. So nobody is going to advocate for you the way you will. And there's no better way to do that than taking back a lot of the ownership via something like consulting.

And there's a reason that what is it, how much of America is self-employed? There's a reason that number is astronomical. I don't know what it is, but whatever you guess is probably higher than that.

And this is part of the reason why. Dana, that is our time. Do you have any parting words for the audience?

[Dana] (10:26 - 11:38)

I would say I'd like to be able to offer them a couple of like different courses that they could look into. So obviously success hackers, they have a great reputation, success coaching. They have really great customer success courses and certifications, but AI and data science are big.

So Coursera AI for everyone by Andrew NG and then EDX has data science. MicroMasters through UC San Diego Udacity has data analysts, nanodegrees and product development. There's a product school for product management certification, digital marketing, fundamentals of that HubSpot Academy, LinkedIn learning is free for customer intelligence, emotional intelligence.

Then you got agile development. Yeah. And then the final thing is I'm creating a customer everything agency.

So I'm not just customer success. So if there's any great talent out there that wants to explore being their own boss and wants to do it with a community of others that are coming together to help SaaS companies grow, where it's not so scary to start on their own, they should reach out. I want to be able to help.

[Rob] (11:39 - 11:58)

And Dillon, I was going to say the same thing too, before we part. Yeah, Dana, that was awesome. That's a hell of a list.

I was going to just say the same thing. If anybody wants to talk shop about what it's like to go down this route, there's a lot of nuance, even down to like, how do I do my taxes and stuff like that? I'm always happy to share best practices that I've learned along the way.

[Dillon] (11:58 - 12:14)

Just a couple of consultants, luring people to the dark side. I love it. I love it.

Dana, thank you so much. Would love to hear how things are going in a couple of months, because it's a really interesting and novel concept. So please come back.

But for now we do have to say goodbye.

[Dana] (12:14 - 12:21)

All right. Great. I'd love it.

Love the convo, man. I wish this was an hour long. I want to talk to you guys forever.

You guys are great.

[Dillon] (12:22 - 12:23)

That's against the rules.

[Voiceover] (12:27 - 12:58)

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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