The key ingredients in a CS sandwich | Ep. 111

[Dillon] (0:00 - 0:33)

In my interviews, I was way less interested in the actual meat of the sandwich, because I think that it changes so often. And it is so hard for you to answer that, particularly on the spot. I'm more interested in the way you think about the problem.

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 JP here. JP, do you want to say hi?

[JP] (0:33 - 0:36)

What's going on, baby? Hey, where's Rob?

[Dillon] (0:36 - 0:42)

A little loud, yeah. Rob, can you say hi? Oh, that's right.

[JP] (0:44 - 0:48)

Wait. Is that him? Is that the creaky framework I'm hearing?

[Dillon] (0:50 - 1:09)

It's a new framework where he doesn't show up. It's just me and JP today. I am your host.

My name is Dillon Young. JP, it's you and me. Rob's out working or something.

I don't know what that's about. You told me you had a question you wanted to pose on this episode, so why don't you take it away?

[JP] (1:10 - 1:37)

Yeah, yeah. I've been thinking about this, and I think we've probably done something similar to it before, but I think it's good to put out there. Yeah, actually, we did have a great episode about this, but let's dig back into it with a different perspective.

Let's do it again. So you've been Director of Customer Success, head honcho, all that. I've been a Customer Success Associate, Customer Success Manager, first of his name.

[Dillon] (1:37 - 1:37)

You've been a honchee.

[JP] (1:38 - 2:21)

A honchee. Yeah, I've been a honchee. I have been one of those first CSM hires, all that kind of stuff.

But I do wonder about what makes you hire someone? When you're in an interview with someone, we could look at this a couple of different ways. What's some of those moments in an interview, maybe in the past, where you saw someone interviewing and you were like, okay, this person, they get it, or I need to have them?

Because it's competitive out there. I know we have a lot of listeners who may be on the hunt, and I was one of those people not too long ago. I think that this would be interesting to talk about our two different perspectives on what I think that needs to be shown and what you, as someone who's hiring, looks for, if you were doing that today.

[Dillon] (2:22 - 5:56)

Yeah, so I do believe we have talked about this before, but I don't know that we did an episode on it. I think it was more just through the course of other discussions. But I have said a couple of times that the way I look for folks in CS, first of all, it's been a little while since I've hired.

I haven't been in seat for almost a year now. And even then, I hadn't hired probably in the last year of work. And I say that because I think the industry or the profession is evolving pretty rapidly.

I don't think there's much of a debate anymore about the value of having experience with revenue. I know that we've talked about the value and who should actually own it, but I think the experience of the revenue conversation and commercials and understanding those really well and your level of accountability to them, I don't think there's any question about that. And so what I like is folks who have previous experience in sales, ideally like account executives, but SDRs have been impressive to me, too, because they're not afraid to have that commercial conversation.

Even SDRs are not afraid to ask for the meeting, ask for the introduction. Those are things that I think the CSM this day and age must be comfortable with. They've got to have a grasp on the way the sales funnel works, even though the CS one is slightly different.

So that's number one. And I know Rob feels the same way. He has said like he doesn't care about CS experience.

He cares a lot more about sales experience. And I agree with that. And the reason is you can teach somebody how to do CS, how to do light project management, how to have a renewal conversation like CS.

Much of the skeleton of CS is like very process oriented. So I think that's pretty easy to do. Salespeople have a lot of the same attitude of they really like connecting with people and talking with people.

And so you could say that's not teachable. A lot of that is personality. But I think salespeople have that as much as CS.

OK, so sales background, not necessarily CS background. Second would be a heightened level of curiosity. The desire to want to understand things better, because I think that is paramount in dealing with customers in their various business models.

That is paramount in dealing with customers and understanding like, OK, where do you sit in the pecking order of using this software? And who else should I know? And what does value mean to them?

That level of curiosity and understanding, how does this system feed the overall desired outcomes for this business? Maybe not this department, but the business overall. How are we going to be able to tie back the value of our system to how the business makes money or how they get better?

And then the third for me has always been the ability to have difficult conversations. So to take difficult feedback, to push through uncomfortable conversations around asking for introductions, around telling a stakeholder that their users aren't using the system like, yo, you got to get their butts in gear. I think that separates truly, for me, a regular CSM from like a stellar CSM is the ability to have those uncomfortable conversations.

So that's it for me. Sales experience or the ability to have sales conversations, a general heightened level of curiosity and the ability to have difficult conversations. And I believe everything else can be taught.

What do you think about that?

[JP] (5:57 - 9:04)

I think that stuff is all really good. I took some sort of like mini notes on that, even though I already had some ideas about this, but speaking from experience, it's not the other side because we've done it too. Really, this thing about taking initiative, I can think about all three roles that I've had.

It comes in different forms. Sometimes they talk about your ability to drive an account. It's that motion, not to have things static because I think that bleeds into everything for lack of a better analogy.

But if you're driving an account, you're not going to accept things at a surface level. You're going to ask those deeper questions. And when I say drives, I'm not just talking about the motion, the initiative, but the ownership.

I heard you say accountability. And I know for me, one of the things that I've had to fight against when I've had roles is when you've been in sales, I feel like they appreciate customer acquisition. They appreciate what it takes for a customer to go from a prospect to a customer, I should say.

Therefore, there's already a certain level maybe of ownership there. But if you come in as CS, you're handed a book of business. A lot of times, you're just receiving these customers.

And so you're supposed to be taking that relationship and going somewhere with it. But where's your accountability to that revenue? And I feel like if someone's been in sales, if they have that idea, that experience, they're probably a little or a lot more comfortable with being tied to revenue.

And also, they're not scared of the number. Because in sales, you can't tap dance around the number. They have to talk about the number because they're negotiating on that with procurement and with other parties.

So I can see a lot of what you're saying as far as someone's disposition and their makeup and what they have. What I'm also thinking about really is in terms of how you show that really in an interview. Because I'm sure there's a lot of people out there that would make amazing CSMs and what have you, but how do you show that in an interview?

I'll say one of the things I think is really great, and I think this is really important for anything, is showing your awareness of a company. This is one of the hills that I die on. I'm not a person who applies to hundreds of jobs at a time.

I don't do that. The reason being because I really value my time, my experience, my career. I want to work someplace that is going to value me, where I'm going to be able to grow, where I can thrive.

I don't want to interview again in six months or eight months. I know that there's some things beyond my control, but I want to go someplace where we can build that relationship. Values are an important part of what I believe you need to show in an interview.

[Dillon] (9:05 - 10:16)

Well, to your original question, what I would say is, I think the incumbency starts with the interviewer and their ability to ask questions that surfaces the characteristics that they're looking for. For me, in a lot of cases, it would be like presenting a scenario and saying, how would you deal with this? But the scenario is designed in such a way that they don't have enough information to give a proper answer.

They have to ask for more. And that mirrors a lot of the scenarios that occur within customer success. You get a customer, they might give you some bad feedback.

Well, it's your job to dig a little deeper and understand, where's that feedback coming from? Why is that? And not ready, fire, aim sort of thing, where you try to give an answer right away without having done your due diligence.

And being able to practice that patience too, is a really big one. And then you can ask questions around, when have you had difficult conversations and why and how? How did you handle that?

That's another easy one to ask. So I think the incumbency or the responsibility starts with the interviewer and the interviewee should be prepared to answer those. I personally hate the job interview process.

I think it is flawed in a million different ways, but like- Sure, sure, sure.

[JP] (10:16 - 11:35)

Here we go. I know, I look, I know, I know. But for the sake of this, so one thing that I'm really aligning with you on in my mind is, if I'm in an interview, I try to basically treat that interview like a customer.

I try to treat that person like, what do you do? Are you prepared for the customer? That means that you come to your interview prepared.

What are you prepared on? And you brought up an interesting thing about asking questions. I think that sometimes it's very easy when someone gives you, you're supposed to answer with the STAR method or whatever, they give you a situation.

But like what you're saying, I think that there's a, to use a terrible word, a hack that is inherent there, but it's a hack that still needs to come from within you. And that is, if you're presented with the scenario and you don't have enough information, you need to be comfortable speaking up and asking for more information. But what so often happens is people say, Oh, I don't want to get this question wrong, or I don't want to do this wrong.

But that's exactly what you don't want to do. If you're in a situation as a CSM and you're talking to a customer and they're saying something, you're more concerned about not getting it wrong than getting it right. I know it sounds a bit like oxymoron, but...

[Dillon] (11:35 - 13:12)

The thing I would say to that is, I don't think everybody does it this way. And that's part of why I think interviewing is tough, but is tough by design because the idea is that you should mesh really well with the folks that you're interviewing with. And so if they interview in a different way and you just answer wrong, it's not necessarily that you're bad at interviewing.

It's that you don't think and communicate the same way as those people. So it's probably good that you're not going to work with them because that's... Particularly in CS, that's all we do all day is think and talk to people and collaborate.

But to your point, I think that's why in my interviews, I was way less interested in the actual meat of the sandwich because I think that it changes so often. And it is so hard for you to answer that, particularly on the spot, unless I'm asking you, what are your strengths or weaknesses? But I'm more interested in the way you think about the problem, which is why you can't just answer the question point blank.

You've got to typically get more color around it before you can provide an answer that makes any sort of sense. And so that's the way I think, but it's not necessarily the way other people think. And I've interviewed and people have said, no, I don't want to hear your thought process.

Tell me, who did you call and how long was it after the issue took place? What exactly did you say to them? I'm like, dude, that doesn't even matter for whatever situation you're thinking about.

It doesn't matter unless I tell you for 45 minutes how I got to that place, why I did that. What is this person like? What's my relationship with them like?

And that's not actually what they care about. Needless to say, I didn't get that job, JP.

[JP] (13:16 - 13:19)

That's our time, buddy. That's our time, baby.

[Dillon] (13:21 - 13:23)

Would love to have you back and talk about this again.

[JP] (13:23 - 13:27)

Please do. Yeah, have me on. I love this show, man.

Invite me back.

[Dillon] (13:28 - 13:30)

We've got to say goodbye.

[Voiceover] (13:50 - 14:05)

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.