Ghost in the machine | Ty Raia

[Rob] (0:00 - 0:20)

I was talking about the rabbits all the time, but there were no rabbits. Like we had no farm. We were not living off the fat of the land.

And we were just like constant reactive mode. But I hired somebody, having talked about the philosophy of customer success, and boy, did I make a huge mistake because she wasn't happy. She wasn't happy.

[Ty] (0:29 - 0:30)

Let's do it.

[Dillon] (0:32 - 0:48)

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? What's up people? And we have JP with us.

JP, do you want to say hi?

[JP] (0:49 - 0:51)

Vita Valor, baby. Yeah.

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

And we have Ty with us. Ty, can you say hi, please?

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

Yeah, hey everyone.

My name is Ty Raia. Do you want me to do a little intro?

[Dillon] (1:01 - 1:11)

Not yet. Thank you though. There's customer service right there, right?

And I am your host. My name is Dillon Young. Ty, thank you so much for being here.

Now, please do a little intro.

[Ty] (1:12 - 1:56)

Sure. So currently I work at Nizomi Networks, which is in the OT cybersecurity space. And I've been here for almost three years and loving it.

I mean, Nizomi's an awesome company. Prior to that, I worked at Jive for a really long time, even through Jive's acquisition. So anyone who's been through an acquisition, I can relate and feel you on that.

And prior to that, I was more in the technical space. So kind of how I started with CS, I'll make this quick, as I was working in the technical space, but mostly worked with partners doing like long-term strategy stuff. And I didn't know what that was, but I wanted to do that all day long.

So I found a company, which was Jive, who basically built a foundation of the company on the principles of customer success. And I said, okay, well, that's where I want to learn how to do it. And that was the beginning of my journey.

[Dillon] (1:57 - 2:16)

That's pretty cool. I want to hear more about that. And as I kick off this next part, let's try to find a way to talk more about that.

But Ty, you know what we do here? We ask one single question of every single guest, and that is what is on your mind when it comes to customer success? So why don't you tell us what that is for you?

[Ty] (2:17 - 2:54)

So I think the thing that's been on my mind recently is there's a lot of push around what CS should be and what CS actually is. And I think there's a lot of, this is what CS should look like, and a lot of demonization of these awesome things that customer success can do and often does, but we go, oh, we can't do that. Like, for example, with startups, a lot of times CS is a stopgap for like product or operational process.

And we go, no, CS should never be doing that. Well, someone's got to be doing that for the customer. And sometimes in that space where you're still growing and you're still developing, I think CS serves in that function, and I don't think that's a bad thing.

[Dillon] (2:56 - 2:57)

That's my- It's just not CS.

[Ty] (2:59 - 2:59)

It's something.

[JP] (3:01 - 3:03)

No, please, don't, it's not.

[Dillon] (3:05 - 3:12)

I think it's the development of CS. My pet project these days is to, CS is nothing and nothing is CS.

[Ty] (3:13 - 3:15)

We're a ghost in the machine, yeah.

[Dillon] (3:16 - 3:24)

Yes, yes, exactly. Rob, what do you think about that statement? What's it make you think with your varied and broad experiences?

[Rob] (3:26 - 3:32)

Yeah, I'm not going to rehash the same thing, the same five personas framework that I keep talking about.

[Dillon] (3:32 - 3:34)

Except you will mention it, right?

[Rob] (3:34 - 4:55)

But I will mention. Good book coming. I mean, I think there's some validity to it.

I'm actually thinking about an experience I had where I hired someone. I made a big mistake. I just completely, inadvertently misrepresented the job because I was talking about customer success as it should be, as it will be.

And I don't know if you guys ever read, what's that book with George and Lenny? What's that book? Of Mice and Men.

Of Mice and Men. You know, and it's like, we were like, tell me about the rabbits. You know, it's like, I mean, like I was talking about the rabbits all the time, but there were no rabbits.

Like we had no farm. We were not living off out of the land. And we were just like, we were in constant reactive mode.

But I hired somebody, having talked about the philosophy of customer success and boy, did I make a huge mistake because she wasn't happy. She wasn't happy. And she ended up being fine.

Obviously, I'm really happy that she and the others on the team were very adaptive, very successful at flexing based on the needs of the business, which changed a lot over time. That was at a time too, where we were making big shifts between growth at all costs to profitability and margins and back and forth. But yeah, I just, if I've misled anybody along the way, I apologize.

It's my public apology.

[Dillon] (4:56 - 5:18)

I just wonder, I wanna get back in here guys. And I wanna put the screws on this. No, I just wonder if we could all come to an agreement that at a certain age or early maturity of an organization, can we avoid calling it customer success and maybe instead we call it a client facing generalist or something like that?

[Rob] (5:19 - 5:21)

Or like customer operations or something like that.

[Ty] (5:21 - 5:55)

So I hear what you're saying, but in my experience, what I've seen of a lot of CS orgs is they start off with the, this is what it's gonna be. And then how do we get there? And part of getting there is running into these roadblocks of what's in our way.

So that team becomes the CS team. And a lot of times, maybe you have one or two unicorn accounts and you use those as the thing you do to build that CS org. But in the meantime, you have a lack of maturity across the company or across the install base.

And you kinda have to do this hodgepodge stuff before you get there.

[Dillon] (5:57 - 6:13)

Sure, and that is startup life, right? That is the feedback loop and tightening it as much as possible and iterating as you come across hurdles. I just think a lot of times when we talk about, and you know what, actually you go ahead, JP, you get in there.

I've said this a thousand times.

[JP] (6:13 - 8:21)

Yeah, I feel like, especially like in earlier episodes, this goes to something I feel like I was saying a lot more. It was this very like sort of mercenary mindset. Like in CS, you gotta get your hands dirty.

This is what you gotta do. I came in off of the LinkedIn streets of CS. Like, oh, CS is this, CS is that.

And then you get in and it's like, whoa, like there is a whole bunch going on here. And how much is my dissatisfaction due to the gap between my expectations of what it would be and what it is. Now, I think that it's a question of how dirty you wanna get your hands, because there's definitely been, I definitely remember one task in particular that like I didn't really enjoy.

And that was like literal, like calling customers. It wasn't per se like cold calling, but it was like, it was very far removed from what I imagined. But I've definitely had to do, take that sort of a hodgepodge approach, or I think the way that they make it sound nice is wear many hats.

And so I'm all for, and we actually have talked about this a bit, right? Where we say, who's doing pure CS? And like, what is pure CS?

It's been said, like, how do you flex to the needs of a business? I think that I saw some, whatever report, it was probably Forbes. I don't know, Forbes may be trash.

Dillon says that Forbes is trash. But like they had some article about like what's the number one skill people look for? And it was like adaptability.

If you're a CSM, you get a golden opportunity to practice being adaptable. So even if the exact skills that you learn, like maybe aren't as transferable because you don't wanna be doing those skills somewhere else, I think that you can still learn the art of adaptability. And you can even flex that at your next job interview, be like, hey baby, I was over here.

I was mopping and working the fryer at the same time, baby. And I ain't getting no dirt or fried grease out of the place. So I'll let you, boy, you know what I mean?

[Dillon] (8:21 - 8:42)

I can't make heads or tails of that. Todd, as a, with the time we have left as a leader, how do you manage the expectations of folks who are coming on board? How do you walk them through that conversation?

How do you manage the evolution of your roles as a company matures and your department has to mature with it?

[Ty] (8:44 - 9:27)

Well, I mean, I think Bobby Z there set us off in the right direction, which is you do have to have like game plan. You do have to have a, hey, here's our end goal of what it looks like. And you need to have trajectory to get there, right?

What are we doing today? What are we doing tomorrow? What are we doing next month?

So eventually hit that level of maturity. So I think without that big picture, yeah, you're just swimming in the water. You're never gonna get there.

So I think as a leader, that's the critical part is you set up what the vision is and you set up the clear steps to get there. In terms of people coming in, at least in the industry where I'm in now, they need to have really good industry expertise, right? So from there, we can kind of mold what we need, but you need to understand the customer, the environment they're working in and what that looks like.

Everything else is shiftable.

[Dillon] (9:28 - 10:31)

That's cool. That's cool. I like what you said there.

I like what you said there. We're out of time, but I'm glad. Throughout this conversation, I'm like, man, this is just the same old rigmarole that we go through of what are we all doing?

How do we explain this to our old aunt? So on and so forth. And I don't know that there's ever an answer to that because we think that there is a solution when in fact working in startups, that's just the way it goes, right?

Or you work at a company long enough, there's gonna be a reorg and stuff is gonna change and we're all lamenting the fact that is just our reality. But I love at the end, it's about vision. And as a leader, you're meant to in some ways protect your employees from the undulations.

And in other ways, you're just supposed to set them up to expect that is going to occur, right? Get them comfortable with that fact and then continue to support them. So Ty, thank you so much for coming on and sharing this with us.

Would love to have you back in the future, hear more about what's going on over at Nozomi. But for now, we've got to say goodbye.

[Ty] (10:32 - 10:34)

Yeah, and maybe next time I'll have a new t-shirt.

[Dillon] (10:35 - 10:36)

Hey, there's more out there.

[Ty] (10:36 - 10:40)

You can go buy it. Do it, do it, JP.

[Dillon] (10:42 - 10:45)

Anyways, thank you. Thanks everyone, cheers.

[Voiceover] (10:50 - 11:21)

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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