When acquisitions strike | Adreon Morgan

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

I've even seen it where like a new executive, a new C-level person who comes in, they want to make a splash. They want to prove that they're doing good for this new identity of the company. And so they're like, I'm going to slash every expense that we don't really need or something like that.

And so you may not even know that you're on the chopping block when your customer gets acquired.

[Dillon] (0:34 - 0:52)

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, you want to say hi?

And we've got Adreon with us. Adreon, can you say hi, please?

[Adreon] (0:52 - 0:52)

Hello.

[Dillon] (0:53 - 1:00)

Hello, and I am your host. My name is Dillon Young. Adreon, thank you so much for being here.

Can you please introduce yourself?

[Adreon] (1:01 - 1:16)

Yeah, thanks for having me. My name is Adreon and I am the manager of customer success at Better You. And that is a startup company focusing on health and wellness, focusing mostly on building healthy habits for everyone.

[Dillon] (1:17 - 1:27)

Adreon, you know what we're doing here. We ask every single guest one simple question, and that is what is on your mind when it comes to customer success? So can you tell us what that is for you?

[Adreon] (1:28 - 1:56)

Yeah, I had a really very challenging discussion yesterday with a longtime customer. We have a great relationship and she is going through a very tough transition at her company of being acquired by a bigger company that doesn't quite have the same health and wellness initiatives in mind as she does. And she's really struggling with how can she keep Better You around, not only for her employees, but trying to expand it.

[Dillon] (1:58 - 2:14)

Interesting. So I recall having this discussion with you previously about how it is you guys sell. It is all enterprise customers, right?

So you basically go into a company and you help them promote health and wellness with like programs and you have software as well.

[Adreon] (2:14 - 2:43)

Yeah, they purchase a license to a certain amount of members that they want to have access to the app. And so in this case, they're a very small account with just 200 licenses. And so she is in charge of promoting the app and engaging with the member base.

But I also help support on the back end, think of ways to keep engagement up or think of ways to promote different wellness goals in the app so she can give back to her members that way.

[Dillon] (2:44 - 3:00)

A small account of 200 users. I have very rarely dealt with accounts that were that big. So that's interesting.

Rob, I want you to jump in here and talk about ways that you've navigated this issue before.

[Rob] (3:01 - 4:30)

Yeah, it's a huge pain. It's like when a customer of yours gets acquired, you've got to change personas almost entirely, right? Because the challenge at hand is very multifaceted.

But for your customers and the personas that are still around post-acquisition, you are the last thing they're probably thinking about. Like they're probably not thinking super heavily about Better You. In fact, to the contrary, the new stakeholders who are coming in are going to be asking, what's this Better You thing?

Why does it matter? Why are we paying for it? Sometimes I've even seen it where a new executive, a new C-level person who comes in, they want to make a splash.

They want to prove that they're doing good for this new identity of the company. And so they're like, I'm going to slash every expense that we don't really need, or something like that. And so you may not even know that you're on the chopping block when your customer gets acquired.

First thing you need to do is try to stay privy to it. And I think that's a combination of things like everything from asking customers during QBR is like, what's happening in your org outside of us, this relationship? Have there been any changes in stakeholders?

Even if it's just, it doesn't have to be a fallen acquisition. It could just be like, oh yeah, our CFO left and we're just getting a new CFO, something like that. Now I know some folks who serve a more enterprise clientele, they keep LinkedIn alerts and Google News alerts for their clients, which it's not foolproof, but it helps.

[Dillon] (4:31 - 4:32)

It's a lagging indicator though.

[Rob] (4:33 - 4:59)

But I think the central question is how do you sell, keyword sell, the new stakeholders that are part of the equation? And that's really hard because most of our days are not spent refining our sales skills. Sure, you can say we're selling all the time, we are, but we're not necessarily selling to net new people.

That involves a whole lot of pain discovery, scripting, cadences, follow-up cadences, that kind of thing.

[Dillon] (5:01 - 5:06)

Adreon, what have you done so far? When did you get this news and what have you done so far?

[Adreon] (5:07 - 6:44)

So I got this news at 9.30 yesterday morning. And so I was going in there thinking, I've been working for this customer since I started at Better You. So I've been working with them for two years.

And so I know how their typical December and January looks. I wanted to go get that all planned out. And then that's when this news came.

Breaching my plans to a halt. First things first, it was asking how they're feeling. Really, what is your stress level?

How can I be a soundboard for you? Just letting them vent a little bit about it. And I then reached out.

So my sales team has a lot of great resources for competing apps. So I tried to do a little bit of discovery as what wellness plan does this new company have? So I found out that they do have a competitor app, but that app just focuses on meditation versus our app is well-rounded on holistic wellness.

And there's more chances for engagement with buddies and community challenges in different features that a meditation app doesn't have. And so doing my due diligence on how can I set her up for success to be able to present this to her director. I've also asked to meet with the director if she can introduce me right away so we can begin a plan.

I see this for Better You and for the company as a way to expand the contract and expand our initiative. And so I'm really excited, but I need to make sure I have all my ducks in a row, present a very compact package for her.

[Dillon] (6:46 - 7:00)

More of a curious question. It's okay if the answer is no, but have you asked to see or better understand what the roadmap is for the integration of these two companies?

[Adreon] (7:01 - 7:30)

Yes. She told me up until, so right now they are working on everyone's benefits packages are changing too with this new company. Her path up until January 1st is getting all those benefits packages figured out and getting everyone transitioned from the former email to the new email.

So all the things that are required to that she needs to have done by January 1st of next year. So she's in the weeds trying to get that figured out. I asked what the plan was after that and she doesn't know.

[Rob] (7:31 - 8:30)

It's impressive though that you've got such a good relationship to even get that far, that much information. I think there's like other horror stories that we hear about in customer success where you fully lose the attention of your champion or you lose their buy-in and then you have to do things like try to find new stakeholders in the organization and sell them. And then that creates all sorts of confusion at times.

There was a time happened recently with a client of mine. I would recommend it. I was like, well, why don't we just go to this person, the person who's ghosting us?

Why don't we just go to his manager? And boy, did that rock the boat. It was for the best.

No, we went to his manager. His manager then said to him, main point of contact. I thought you had this handled.

And he's like, I do, I do, I do. So it wasn't pretty. It wasn't pleasant.

It did work in the long run. I felt the fight club quote, if you want to break an omelet, you got to break some eggs. No, make an omelet, not break an omelet.

You don't break omelet.

[Dillon] (8:31 - 8:58)

You know what I mean? Or as they say in succession, if you want to make a tomlet, you got to break some Greggs. Does anybody get that reference?

You're not serious, Dillon. Rob doesn't. Hey, you didn't expect to know that.

That's the most popular quote that you could have easily found on the internet. Because I know you don't watch TV. I bet you didn't watch succession.

I have another question, Adreon. What are your contract structures? Are they annual?

[Adreon] (8:59 - 9:14)

Yes. Right now they're annual. We're just looking into multi-year contracts.

And though that's one of those pieces that I definitely know as a company we want to get to, but structuring that is we're still figuring out some of those pieces.

[Dillon] (9:15 - 9:22)

Cool. And this, this contract, when does it renew?

[Adreon] (9:22 - 9:54)

It renews in April. And so she thinks right now her immediate, she had the kind of the fight or flight response, which was the flight. I'm not going to be able to get this done.

We're just going to have to cancel January 1. And so I told her that we have time. I don't want you to cancel.

We don't want that at all. And so how can we make this work? And so giving her a little bit of breathing room, she has, it's an opportunity for her just to sit back and know that I have her back, but she needs to, I think, let the dust settle a little bit.

[Dillon] (9:54 - 10:22)

I would usually agree with that, but you're going to come up against a timing issue of, if you don't start having the conversation, the renewal conversation or the anniversary conversation soon, do you miss the opportunity to gain traction before the renewal window closes? And they say, no, we're not going to do it. And I'm not saying you're wrong.

I'm saying that's a difficult thing, a balance to strike.

[Adreon] (10:22 - 10:55)

Yeah, it's, and I think we, I was tentatively able to get a date out of her. Like I'm going to get a package together to help you present. I want to be there for the intro meeting.

And she was able to give me a tentative date. I'll be following up. I'm planning to follow up with her today just to let her know I'm thinking about her and we're putting stuff together.

But I tried to get a date set to connect with her one more time and just make sure she knows that she's supported and we'll keep it in her parks.

[Dillon] (10:56 - 11:03)

One last question before we wrap it up. What do your success metrics look like? Do you have good data to work with?

[Adreon] (11:04 - 11:58)

That's a great question. So we have, I would say, decent data. We're always improving on what metrics can we show?

What's a unique data story? So we have the basics. We can see how our signup's looking, basic utilization.

So I usually will show what other goals do members have set. And then I'm always working with the data team to think of new metrics to show. We have something called a habit score now in the app.

If you look at it as like a credit score, it's way more positive than a credit score. How are you building your habit over time? They're very positive.

And so we're finding new ways to show metrics and be able to show that wellness story for the customer. If you have new ideas, I would love to hear any suggestions.

[Dillon] (11:59 - 12:39)

Unfortunately, we are out of time. What I will say is that I would love to continue to hear about the progression, particularly about the storyline, because I think it is something that we deal with constantly. Unpredictable churn and churn that you can't control and the playbooks you can enact afterwards to try and claw it back and how it relies on a level of proactivity ahead of time, typically as soon as you sign a customer that we don't really think about until this exact moment.

So I would love to have you back to hear your learnings as you go through this journey. What works, what doesn't work. But for now, Adreon, we do have to say goodbye.

[Adreon] (12:40 - 12:42)

Great. Thank you for having me. This was great.

[VO] (12:48 - 13:19)

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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