Peering in | James Lawson

[James] (0:00 - 0:23)

They felt like it was marketed really badly. They don't necessarily teach it at schools. And then when it first arrives on LinkedIn, it's just, it's, it's a blender with a lid off.

There's all kinds of theories and accusations going around, right? Yeah.

[Dillon] (0:25 - 0:36)

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 with us. Rob, do you want to say hi?

[Rob] (0:37 - 0:38)

Cheerio lifers.

[Dillon] (0:39 - 0:45)

Of course he did. I hope you don't find that offensive.

And we have James with us. James, do you want to say hi?

[James] (0:46 - 0:46)

Hi.

[Dillon] (0:47 - 1:00)

I thought you were going to go like disgusting American. I didn't know what that was going to be. But anyway, we can get to it.

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

Can you please introduce yourself?

[James] (1:01 - 1:17)

Yeah, sure. I'm James Lawson. I'm the CEO of the River Consultancy Group.

And also a fractional CCO for a company called Key Computer Applications. And I've been in CS forever. I've never done another job, which is a really sad life, actually, isn't it?

[Dillon] (1:20 - 1:24)

Oh, jeez. I don't think so. Depends upon your perspective.

[James] (1:25 - 1:47)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've been in CS for nearly 26 years. I started my grassroots at Oracle, the big O, and various other HGM, HR companies.

Today, I run a consulting firm, but also to the CCO gig for Key Computer Applications. So I've always been doing this. I'm excited to be part of this podcast, being all the guests you have.

[Dillon] (1:49 - 2:00)

Excited to have you. You know what we do here? We ask every single guest one simple question.

And that is, what is on your mind when it comes to customer success? And given that you've been doing this for over two decades, did you say that?

[James] (2:01 - 2:01)

Yeah.

[Dillon] (2:01 - 2:04)

You probably have a good one. So why don't you tell us what it is?

[James] (2:05 - 3:47)

Yeah, sure. What's in my mind? It's something known as the CS bubble, the customer success bubble.

The reason why it's been on my mind, particularly over the last year, is just because it just baffles me that there is this kind of ecosystem of CS influencers and experts that are parading around. And yet, there is still an open door for customers of SaaS to go in and see the confusion and see the chaos. I did a piece of research when I first started my consulting firm that reached out to customer success, users of customer success with SaaS companies.

And when the research came back, one of the fundamental things that came back from it was that they felt like it was marketed really badly. They don't necessarily teach it at schools. And then when it first arrives on LinkedIn, it's a blender with a lid off.

There's all kinds of theories and accusations going around, right? So for a customer who has a CSM, they get that perception from their first CSM. They think that's the way things are.

And I've noticed that as things have gone on, everybody's relying on their tunnel vision what it should be or what it might be. I sit on a hill, perhaps with the likes of Dave Jackson and many others, where I do see it as a company capability rather than a department. But what's always been conscious to me is the fact that the audience, users of our SaaS products and our solutions, can see through that window.

Yet, there's a lot of people that are kind of verbal about it, if that makes sense.

[Dillon] (3:49 - 3:53)

So your theory is that they should not be able to see through that window?

[James] (3:54 - 4:43)

My theory is that it should be presented in a way that's clearer to the audience, in a way that it should start a bit earlier, I think, in business school. I think that sets the precedent. And then it'd be molded.

I don't think the education piece needs to start at LinkedIn, is my point, I think. So I do some lectures at universities on customer success. But most of the students that come out of that side, and even in the US, I know, just become very confused about the whole thing.

There's so many people that's trying to do different things. And I think they all mean well. But I think it can confuse the operation.

And sometimes I see customers follow advice and best practices and end up in serious doodoo as a result. So it's credible sources that has been playing on my mind.

[Dillon] (4:45 - 4:52)

Yeah, I don't think you're going to find any dissent from within these ranks. But Rob, what do you think about what James just said?

[Rob] (4:52 - 6:57)

We talk about it all the time. We talked about it yesterday, JP and Dillon and I were talking about, it's like an episode. It's like a show from Animal Planet, like the way we see people behave online.

And it's so interesting to look at the CS bubble. I read a quote yesterday. It was like, old fish swims by a young fish.

The old fish says to the young fish, how's the water? And the young fish says, what the hell is water? And so we're all in our bubbles.

And the funny realization that we had, the three of us, was that we might look at the bubble, thinking we're on the outside, we're actually on the inside, relative to people who are even further outside of the bubble. I'm trying to unpack the reasons. And I wonder if other fields that have gone through this maturation that our field has over the last couple of decades, it is pretty unique that we're in a field that has gone through such maturation in such a short period of time, not to mention such huge boom and bust cycles that we've seen.

I think it's cool that there are people who are now starting to study it more academically, like you said. I don't know if you know a guy. Do you know a guy named Vijay Mehrotra?

I think that's how you say his last name, at USF? He's one of the first people I met, five years ago I met him, and I was like, you're the first person I've ever met who's actually trying to take academic rigor and apply it to this field that is customer success. But the funny thing is, as you ask anyone who gets PhDs, as people get PhDs, as people get further down the academic route, they feel more and more like they're in this bubble.

So I don't know. I think it's funny because we've said it from day one on this show, it's not rocket science what we're doing. Exactly.

It doesn't mean that there shouldn't be this whole realm of possibility that we can study it in a more academic fashion. I do just want to make sure that the industry doesn't get to the point where we have in groups versus out groups, and really absolutist thinking about like, you have to be doing things this way. So I don't know.

Hopefully the three of us can help shepherd it in the right direction.

[Dillon] (6:57 - 7:25)

Can heal all the divisiveness. I think we are already seeing the in group versus the out group, and it's all around revenue. Right.

But I think that is myopic in that we've talked about this and I'm about to be absolutist. But if you think you don't have something to do with revenue when you're supposed to be the responsible party stewarding a customer through the use of your software, then you're an idiot.

[Rob] (7:25 - 7:26)

I'm just going to say it.

[Dillon] (7:26 - 7:45)

Whether you are actually the person putting the paper in front of them and having them sign, renewing or expanding, even if you're not, you are so integral to that process that if you think you're not, if you're trying to avoid it, if you pine for the good old days, I'm just going to say you're a dumb dumb.

[James] (7:48 - 9:10)

And ultimately what customers want, just like we as individuals want, it's not the thing that we want. It's what's the other side of it. Right.

So that's why they have to be part of that conversation around revenue. But that bit isn't spoken about so much. They speak more about having the skills and negotiation skills and involving the financials and that's all cool.

But what I'm more interested in now is, and then what? What's the other side of that that we're trying to achieve? What happens after that?

Is it the admiration? When you buy a sports car, you buy it for the admiration or do you buy it to have the car and drive it? What's the other side of the thing that you want?

We talk a lot about that to customers in the industry and it never really ends. And that's why, like you say, CS has to be involved in that discussion. What I am seeing as well, which is a really cool thing, it's more and more startup companies and doing something called building the task, which means building the customer account team.

And they do this completely without sales, which means CS are actually going in with the insights and enabling them to sell better. They have the insights. They know the industry better and they have the knowledge commerce to drive that through.

So it's interesting how everybody's responding to that. And then there is still an in and out ground, I feel like.

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

I've never heard that, Kat. Well, to the point that you made, Rob, about people approaching it academically and why CS behaves like this and other departments do not. I have had a number of conversations where people draw the line to marketing 25 years ago and how it was considered the new kid on the block at that time and had to fight and fight and fight for legitimacy.

And it's no surprise that much of it came through data and the ability to attribute their value, which I think is a lot of the same thrashing you see happening in customer success right now. Our ability to tie to solid metrics and value, whatever you want to call it, as opposed to just helping the customer, right? Checking in with the customer.

We're creating that rigor that you called it, Rob. And so I do see a light at the end of the tunnel, given that marketing seems to have come out the other side and is now legitimate. Nobody snickers when they hear the word marketing or think that they're a nice to have in a company.

And so I do. I see some reason for optimism in that regard.

[James] (10:29 - 10:45)

I agree. Especially the 50-50 thing, especially the 50-50 thing. You know how marketing used to be a thing of we spent the budget, but which 50 percent has contributed to revenue and which hasn't?

I think all of those anecdotes will come to the top for the CS as well.

[Dillon] (10:46 - 11:14)

Very cool. Well, James, that's our time. It's been a pleasure.

Thank you so much. Anytime we get an opportunity to identify the blind spots or to talk about expanding your perspective is always a bonus. I think we could talk about it every episode and it still wouldn't be enough.

I would love to have you back in the future. I'd actually love to hear more another time about when you're going into these academic institutions, what that conversation looks like. But for now, we've got to say goodbye.

[James] (11:15 - 11:17)

Thanks, guys. Take care.

[Voiceover] (11:44 - 11:48)

Bye.