Net:work | Maryann Lazzeri

[Dillon] (0:00 - 0:18)

If you go into networking saying, oh, hey, Maryann, and immediately start calculating what can Maryann give me? What can she do for me? Then yeah, it's gonna suck, dude.

You're not listening to what Maryann's saying. You're trying to ask questions prematurely about what she can give you. It doesn't flow naturally.

[Maryann] (0:19 - 0:20)

It's transactional, yeah.

[Dillon] (0:27 - 0:42)

All right, you guys ready? 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've got my man, Rob here.

Rob, do you wanna say hi?

[Rob] (0:43 - 0:44)

What's up, Lifers?

[Dillon] (0:45 - 0:48)

And we've got JP here.

JP, do you wanna say hi?

[JP] (0:49 - 0:50)

Vita Valorem.

[Dillon] (0:52 - 0:59)

To the end of time, that's the only greeting we're gonna get from JP. And we have Maryann with us. Maryann, can you say hi, please?

[Maryann] (1:00 - 1:01)

Hi, guys, how's it going?

[Dillon] (1:02 - 1:12)

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

It is so good to see your smiling face. Tell us a little bit about yourself. Introduce yourself, please.

[Maryann] (1:13 - 1:36)

Absolutely, well, thank you so much for having me on. I'm honored to be a guest here, so thank you. You guys have a great podcast going.

You're so fun. I am currently a customer success manager at Salesforce. I started my career in education, opened my own company that I ran for 10 years, stumbled upon Salesforce, and the rest is history.

Here I am now.

[Dillon] (1:36 - 1:40)

Never heard of them. What do they do? Kidding.

[Maryann] (1:40 - 1:41)

How much time do you have?

[Dillon] (1:42 - 1:54)

Love you, Salesforce, be a sponsor. Maryann, you know what we do here? We ask one question, one question only of every single guest, and that is, what is on your mind when it comes to customer success?

So can you tell us what that is?

[Maryann] (1:55 - 2:12)

Absolutely. I think that networking is the most important thing when you are in the customer success field, building those relationships with your customers, with your coworkers, with your network, just people in the field that are there with you each day. So important.

[Dillon] (2:12 - 2:22)

All people, all day. Would you rank them? Is it with your customers first and foremost, or internally is that more important?

What do you think?

[Maryann] (2:23 - 2:52)

I think both. I think that there's a lot of opportunity for networking in any aspect, and I think that by joining different groups and joining different communities, that's your number one way to learn as much as you can. You get so much knowledge from other people, from your peers, you can get mentorship through that.

There's just, there's so many opportunities within your network, whether it's with your customers or in the field or at your company as well.

[Dillon] (2:52 - 3:40)

It took me forever to figure this out. And it is actually, the story I tell about the very first iteration of this podcast is I wanted to network with people, but I didn't feel like I brought enough to the table. So I created an entire podcast and was like, hey, come on.

And I'll amp up, like the most obtuse and like ridiculous way to get people to want to talk to me, it's turned into something else entirely. But I am joined by two co-hosts who I think do this exceptionally well, and that I have learned a ton from. I will say, I think JP does it better.

Sorry, Rob. So JP, why don't you go first and tell me how you think about networking, what your experience has been, and maybe when was the light bulb moment for you?

[JP] (3:41 - 3:53)

Yeah, I'd say one of the light bulb moments was actually me and Maryann met right through networking. And now we're both co-hosts of another show. No, not another show.

Sorry, not another show. Another event.

[Dillon] (3:53 - 3:53)

Better get out of here.

[JP] (3:54 - 5:03)

Another event, which is all about networking, right? The whole event is about networking. And I think that with this group, as Maryann mentioned, CS Insider, I was really able to make a lot of great connections there, both with the people who ran CS Insider and from fellow people like Maryann who came in.

And so I think sometimes the hesitation with networking is not just about the social element, right? Like introversion versus extroversion per se, but I think it's about how do you go about like building these relationships where they don't feel like solely transactional or quid pro quo, right? And like Dillon, I think that's masterful.

Yes, I may not recommend starting an entire podcast just for networking, but look what it turned into, right? I think that we all want a natural way for us to facilitate meeting people. And I think you can go to conferences if you wanna do things, but there's also a way to do something virtually and go to the CS Speedmixer, which is every third Thursday of the month from 5.30 to 6.30 Eastern. Small talk, small talk. Just a small little something if you're thinking about networking out there.

[Dillon] (5:03 - 5:05)

Give him an inch, the guy takes a mile.

[JP] (5:05 - 5:29)

Come join us. I think that that's a very important element because I think you wanna build these relationships over time, not just pop out whenever you need a job, whenever you need something. You wanna be able to like actually build things.

So I know that like me and Maryann, we can help each other. We just have a solid relationship. It's not like, yeah, I better network with Maryann if she's over at Salesforce.

[Voiceover] (5:30 - 5:30)

Exactly.

[JP] (5:31 - 5:47)

And so I know you may not get that with every relationship obviously, but I think if you think about it more in terms of joining a community, sort of building out a community through your network as opposed to like finding people that you're gonna leverage for something in the future, I think it makes it a bit easier.

[Maryann] (5:49 - 6:34)

100%, yes. And like you said, just having those relationships and building those friendships. I feel like I have so many friends that I call my closest friends now that I met through LinkedIn or through the customer success community.

And I never would have known them had I not joined these communities and gone to these mixers and gone to these different webinars and things. So I think that is a huge part of it. And going back to what you said, Dillon, with not feeling like you should attend these things because you can't offer value, I think every single person feels that way, but every single person can offer value in some way.

You have something to share, your heels are transferable no matter what you have done and people wanna hear about it. They wanna hear your take on things.

[Dillon] (6:35 - 7:34)

I would even say, and Rob, I do wanna give you an opportunity here, but I would even say if you are honest about the fact that you don't have a ton of experience in CS, there is value, I believe, in asking folks for their expertise. And that strokes the ego a little bit. People like to tell you how much they know or they really like helping people.

And so they get a kick out of helping you learn more. That's the thing I've had to become comfortable with because I'll ask questions and I'm like, man, I just hate that I have to waste this person's time because I don't know. And it's the complete wrong attitude.

The other thing you can bring to the table, I'll just say, is a good attitude. The ability to lift other people up, to gas other people up, that in and of itself, there's a ton of value in that. And I actually find, I did it at the beginning of this podcast by saying what I did about Rob and JP, which was totally true, but there's value in making other people feel good too.

Anyway, Rob, tell us what your experience has been.

[Rob] (7:35 - 8:13)

I love this. This is, you know what I'm thinking about? Well, for a couple of things.

First of all, I'm just saying, I'm happy to know that there's still hope for me to find friends. so actually what I'm thinking about, it's funny, I'm asking myself, personally, this relates to me because I just have always been someone who is obscenely fascinated with people. I love meeting people and I just love hearing their stories.

Obscenely? Is that the right word? Maybe that's a little weird, yeah.

[Maryann] (8:13 - 8:14)

Not weird.

[Rob] (8:14 - 9:13)

But it's funny though, because this is one of the main reasons I still stayed in customer success over the last 10 years or so. It's the same reason when I was 17, 18 years old, I was like, I want to be a waiter. There's nothing I want to do more than just be a waiter at a diner in my very peculiar hometown in upstate New York.

And I think this is really timely too, Maryann, because it's conference season right around the corner. So I don't know if it's going to get published before conferences come out or start rolling around. But conference season is a massive opportunity.

And I ask myself, why don't more people throw their hat in the ring? I think Dillon, you brought up a really good point. There's this imposter syndrome.

That's one blocker. There's bandwidth. That's another blocker.

I know people are like, I don't have time to log into LinkedIn. Because it falls in that important but not urgent quadrant. Yes, that's true.

But I think actually the main blocker, do you guys know where I'm going with this one? What do you think the main blocker that I hear is for why people don't like networking?

[JP] (9:13 - 9:15)

People? Something psychology related.

[Rob] (9:16 - 9:26)

Yeah. There's no scientific research I have around this. It's because they find it cringe.

They find it so cringeworthy. Like just the word networking.

[Dillon] (9:27 - 9:28)

Like I say that to my sister.

[Rob] (9:28 - 9:29)

Same thing as sales, right?

[Dillon] (9:29 - 9:30)

Yeah. But see, it's not.

[Rob] (9:31 - 9:50)

I used to feel this way. When I went to college, I'll keep this real quick. When I first went to school, I was like with the most pre-professional people that I ever met.

My college is notorious for that. I remember I exchanged numbers with this girl once. And she's like, I love networking.

And I was like, is that what we're doing?

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

Yeah.

[Dillon] (9:52 - 10:20)

Well, I think what people need to get past is this thing that JP called it out. And I said it too. If you go into networking saying, oh, hey, Maryann, and immediately start calculating what can Maryann give me?

What can she do for me? Then yeah, it's gonna suck, dude. Because you're not listening to what Maryann's saying.

You're trying to ask questions prematurely about what she can give you. And it just, it doesn't flow naturally.

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

It's transactional. Yeah.

[Dillon] (10:22 - 10:59)

And this goes to talking about customers and finding expansion opportunities. I find that if you do it right, it's gonna take two, three, maybe five times longer than you expect it to. Because you've got to take the time.

You've got to meet people. You've got to meander. And it's gonna be a while before you build the relationship, you build the trust that you can have the sort of conversation that is gonna drive value for both parties.

Anyway, Maryann, this is a fantastic topic. It is, I say this truly, not one we have had before. I encourage you to please come back and talk more about this.

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

[Maryann] (11:00 - 11:02)

Would love to. Thank you guys so much.

[Voiceover] (11:06 - 11:37)

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 Lifetime Value Media. Until next time.