155: Megan Holsinger On Nailing Customer Success

What's poppin' everybody, thanks for joining us for another episode of Make It Happen Mondays, brought to you by our sponsors, Sales Loft, Vanilla Soft, Gong, Vidyard, Owler, and Proposify. We have a very special guest today because she is part of the JB Sales training family. Meg Hulsinger, a customer success director with over a decade of experience, has joined John to talk about how sales and customer success align. This is going to be a really educational episode for those of you that are looking to learn more about how customer success can be a stream of revenue that keeps giving. So we look forward to everything we have to learn. Let's welcome Megan to the show. Thanks for joining us. Let's make it happen.

Good afternoon, everybody. This is John Barrow's Make It Happen Monday. Hopefully you all had a fantastic weekend coming up here on the 4th. I can't wait for that to take some time off. Anyways, I am here with a very special guest of ours, mainly because she's actually on my team. And I couldn't be more excited to have her on board here at JB Sales. And today we're going to be talking about customer success. So Meg Hulsinger, you want to say hi to everybody? Give a little background on yourself? Yeah. Hey, what's up, everyone? Meg Hulsinger. I came on board with JB Sales back in December and have been loving life ever since. Prior to that, I actually have an interesting mix in both sales and CS, a variety of different experiences in running sales teams and CS teams, building them at the startup level, and then seeing them through growth and various developments.

So I'm really happy to be on board here, and I've gotten to talk to a lot of cool customers. Yeah, cool. And like I said, I couldn't be happier that you're here because you take a big burden off of my plate just as far as after I go in and do the trainings and taking care of them. But the premise here that I wanted to chat about is how similar sales and customer success are. And ultimately, my frustration about how sometimes I'll go in and I'll do a training, and it'll be mostly sales-oriented. And they're always like, hey, customer success. We got a few customer success. Might as well throw them in there, right? And no matter how hard I try throughout the day, or now remotely, I'll try to make it relevant.

I'll be like, okay, now from a CS standpoint. But they always walk out, and we never get really negative reviews. But usually, it's like, hey, it was good, but I just wish it was a little more customer success-oriented. But then I go and I do just a customer success session, and I take the word sales out of the equation. And I train the exact same content. And they walk out saying, oh, my God, that was the best thing ever. I totally needed that. So I want to start with, first of all, did you decide to get in? Let's start from, like, kind of, because I want to start with the mindset, too, because I think that's a big issue here. Because what we're trying to solve with this conversation is there's a lot of customer success that are now being asked to, quote-unquote, sell.

And I think a lot of them got into customer success because they didn't want to, quote-unquote, sell. They felt it was icky. So they wanted to disservice the customer. So let's back up for your background. Talk to me about kind of your career path and how you decided on, like, how did you get to customer success? And how did you decide you wanted to build your career in customer success? Yeah, it's a great story. And I think talking about the evolution of customer success is actually a great topic because it's changed so much. Oh, my God. At the essence, since I've been in it for 20 years. I mean, what I did 20 years ago versus what I do now, you know, foundationally, there's still some overlap.

But I mean, completely different. And it's a different creature that needs to do it. So I actually was in graduate school to get my master's degree in education. I thought I wanted to be a teacher. It turns out I have very little patience for small people, period, in discussion. I don't do well. And I was going to try to teach them Latin. So could you imagine trying to teach Latin to small children? So bad, bad idea. But I finished my master's. But I needed a part-time job when I was doing it. And I ended up finding in the local newspaper an admin position at a sales training company. And back then, it was called Global Sales Alliance. And the woman that ran in is a woman by the name of Nancy Martini.

She's my mentor and person that taught me how to sell back then. And I took a job as her administrative assistant. And very quickly, she figured out that I was personal on the phone. I didn't have a problem asking questions. I dug right into things. And she went, you know what? I think you should start managing some of my accounts. And I went, really? Really? Like, I'm kind of, what? Not sure. But sure enough, she said, no, I want you on the phone with these. And I want you, not only do I want you talking to them about what it was that they just did with me, I want you to talk to them about what they could do more of with us. And I went, oh, okay. And to be honest with you, at that time, I went, guys, that's sales?

Am I selling? Is that really happening? And I just did it. And honestly, it started with question asking. I have never been afraid to ask a question. I would get on the phone with these people. I would ask them how the training went, what happened, what they like. But then I would start asking questions about their business. And I would start asking questions about how they did things. And what I realized is I was developing my business acumen. And I was learning a lot about a lot of different businesses. So that sales training company ended up getting bought by a bigger company called the Predictive Index. And they bought me and Nancy as well. And they came, put me right into a bit of a hybrid role.

So I was part sales, part account management. This was early years. This was before we had a lot of technology. We were still, you know, faxing things. And it wasn't necessarily what we have now. But man, did I learn how to sell. I remember the first time I ever got put on quota. And I had a number. And I think I was equal parts scared to death and equal parts thrilled. And it was in that moment where I knew that I love sales. When I got that win. And quite frankly, when I got that paycheck, I got motivated in time to do it. And, you know, people don't like to hear, you know, money motivator. I call that out. Money can be a huge motivator. And for me, where I was in my life, I was young. I was out of grad school.

It really amped me up. So the evolution went after that in terms of me running teams, which I had no idea how to do. One day, I all of a sudden had three account managers working for me. And I was supposed to manage them. I barely knew how to do a, you know, a review, let alone how to manage a sales team. But I asked questions and I learned and I listened. Left PI after 15 years and ended up going to two startups in Boston over the course of about a year and a half to build their CF teams. They had no CF teams. They needed me to come in and basically build an entire process. Did that, realized the pressure of being VC backed and having that pressure of those numbers. It was fun, but it was taking a toll on me mentally.

I've got kids, I've got a family, and I wanted something a little different. And that's when JB Sales found me and the rest is history. So let's go back to that, like you got a quota and you were, like you realized you had to sell and you said you were horrified, like holy shit, but you were also excited. You've been exposed to a lot more customer success people than I have, right? Help me understand, because I think most of them are horrified, like when they actually have to sell. And I think you have a unique, I think you have kind of a little bit of the sales gene in you. You know, you're genuinely curious. You have no, you know, you're pretty, you know, forward with your approach and all that other stuff.

But what's the typical profile of customer success? And then let's lead to that horrified and then that decision that they need to make and they need to come to grips with, right? Because you're right, we are in a different world with customer success. They are being asked to sell. However you spin it, they are being asked to sell. Whether it's the renewal or it's the cross-sell, up-sell, whatever it is. So, you know, like for instance, with sales reps, I always say with sales, we're the default profession, right? Nobody goes to very, I mean, finally there's schools that you can go, but very few people go to school to go to be in sales. They just realize, they get out into the real world and they say, okay, whatever this is I decided I thought I wanted to do does not look good for me or I can't make any money.

So let me get into sales, right? And then they fumble the way through it. As I talk about this, I realize there's also no degree for customer success, right? You don't go to school to be, I want to be in customer success when I grow up, right? So what does that journey look, what does the typical journey look like for the typical CS? And then that, fuck, I got into this because I didn't want to sell. So talk to me about that a little bit. Yeah, absolutely. So I think your typical CS person is going to be a reactive, risk-averse person. So let me put it a different way. You want someone that's going to take good care of a customer, right? And you want someone that's going to be there for them and make sure that they're taken care of.

And at a very basic level, that's great, right? Like those are two things that you should have. Here's the issue. The issue is, is that you also need that exact same person to be able to sell within an existing account. And by sell, and you know, it's a scary word sometimes in CS. I mean, I've literally had people cringe when I say that word as it relates to CS. But the truth of the matter is, if you are responsible for growing a book of business that has been given to you, then you need to sell. And all of a sudden, you're now asking that same person who was more reactive and risk-averse to become proactive and risk-taking. And what it comes down to is your perception of risk and your level of comfort that you have in how to take risks.

Because it's very different when you get a base salary and maybe you get a little extra something on top if you close a couple of deals. That's pretty low risk, right? And so where's the skin in the game, right? Where's that motivation to want to actually go out and ask those questions and get in deeper and get the bigger deals? If that's someone who's risk-averse, that's their sign of a good time, right? That's great. But then you say to yourself, well, now I'm actually asking you to do something a little bit different, right? Now I'm actually asking you to ask questions that you may not even know the answers to yourself. Or I might ask you to dig into something and push back on a customer and ask them and put them in an uncomfortable position almost so that you can further along the opportunity to get that additional sell in or that renewal or whatever it is you're going for.

Now you have to be comfortable with taking risks, right? Now you have to be comfortable with going into that unknown, that kind of gray area. And with that also can come a compensation change, right? Because now all of a sudden, maybe you got a little bit of a base. But where you make your money is on your commissions. Sure. But it's not consistent, right? And it's hard and it's scary. And so it comes down to that risk factor. A lot of the technology that has evolved over the course of the years has helped with that. So back in the day, I mean, I didn't have things like CRMs and, you know, churn metrics and health metrics. I was on a pad of paper and an Excel spreadsheet and a fax machine. And, you know, we didn't have Slack.

We didn't have any of that. But we still got it done. We now have a lot in place that can help us even automate it. Yeah, because I think that's the thing I always... Because, look, I'm not a natural born sales rep. Like, you know, people don't believe me, but I'm not an extrovert. I am much more comfortable sitting in the corner with somebody I like, you know, as opposed to like going to a networking event and just saying hi to everybody or being out on stage. I understand I have to do that to succeed how I want to succeed, right? But the perception of sales is such a negative one that I think that overarching society thinks of it because of the movies and everything else. And yes, there are some bad eggs out there, right?

But I've always said that I don't sell you anything. I don't literally... I'm not trying to sell you anything. I either help you achieve your goals or solve your problems. And to me, if you take the actual word out of the equation, that's the exact same thing that customer success does. Yeah. Because I think the challenge that people look at and say, oh, I got to upsell. I got to cross sell. Well, that means I have to take what I have as a product and sell it to this client so that I can get commission. And if that's the mentality, it's the wrong mentality, right? Your job is to make sure that the customer is getting all the value they possibly can out of the account and fitting in what we have to offer to that.

And if it doesn't fit, it doesn't fit. And so I think the challenge is, I don't know, maybe I'm wrong, but maybe it's, is it more of a mental switch than it is an actual switch? Because it seems like they do the same thing. They just service too much in the sense that they say yes to everything and they get taken advantage of by the client. Yeah. And they have to turn, but then they say, okay, well, that's my job. Uh-oh, now I have to cross sell, upsell. Now I have to be the jerk. Look, I have to go get everything that I want and now I'm, but I've already put myself in a position where I'm being taken advantage of as it is. So what do you do about that? Yeah. So it's, it's, it's like being perceived as that whole old saying of like being a hunter versus a farmer, right?

So the hunter is the one that goes out and gets it and is aggressive and like you got a hunter mentality and then you got the farmer mentality. But what does that say to you? The farmer mentality is farmer Joe, who tends to his crops. And that is what puts the bad image and scares the bejesus out of the CS people is that type of stereotype right there. You, I'll steal your words. You've always said that sales is the transfer of enthusiasm, right? And I wholeheartedly believe that if you're in a CS role, if you're in some sort of a role that you have connection with a customer, um, you, your number one priority should be transferring the enthusiasm that you have about your products and your services to the person that is already using them.

Yeah. And showing them how they can get more out of it. And by the way, when you're having that conversation, asking them questions about how they do their business, what they do and where other opportunities can lie and not being afraid to say, Hey, you may think I'm farmer Joe, but guess what? I got a whole lot going on back here that I can ask about, and that changed the game right there. So I think it's, it's a confidence to kind of get to your, to your point. It's a confidence building. It's having that, that mindset of taking a risk of thinking outside the box of being comfortable with the unknown. And a lot of that comes back to behavior and personality, um, which, you know, I'm a big, big believer in, in terms of where I came from, but a lot of it does have to do with that.

What? So, cause, cause I think that taking that risk, we have to take baby steps there. Right. Um, what I've, and this is my lack of understanding, but it seems to me that every time I get in front of CS, um, to them and, and it seems like their managers are putting on this on them as well. The churn metrics, obviously are the biggest ones that they'd look at, but they treat every customer the same in the sense that a renewal for a million dollar account is, is just as important from a metric standpoint as a renewal for a $10,000 account. Right. Which first of all, I think that's insane, but first of all, is that accurate? Do, do, do they treat it that way? Yeah. In most organizations. Yes. Most organizations will say churn is churn and we can't have any of it.

Everyone stop, make sure we're not churning. Right. Oh my gosh. Everyone on, on deck. Stop. I've actually come into organizations where that has been a mentality and I have done everything in my power to stop that. And it, it, it sounds rough when I say that it sounds like, wait a minute, you don't care if clients turn. No, that's not the case at all. We absolutely need, you need to segment out the different levels of your clients and, and not necessarily who you care about, but what attention you're going to pay to them and what things you can put in place that will help you identify if they're set to churn. So that's the key here is you've got to put in metrics that actually alert you to CFM on when they're going to churn versus you having to go out there and look for them on your own.

So always, always putting in some sort of health metric, whether it's as simple as a red light, a green light, a yellow light. I don't care how you do it. Put them in an Excel spreadsheet and mark them. You can do it by ICP. You can do it by value. You can do it by ACV. You can do it by number of years they've been a client. You pick. Once you pick that, then you set a level of how, of what you're going to do to keep this account. I've always managed my CSMs to say, listen, you all are going to have some tier threes and that's okay. It doesn't mean you're mean to them. We're not talking to them, but I don't need you running down the hall screaming that they're going to churn. It's okay. It's okay.

And so just because this is again, sales and marketing or sales and CS, right? We do the same thing. Sales reps, unfortunately, when they get their territory, they get their list of a thousand accounts. They start at one and they rip through and it's like, okay, take a step back, tear these out. Who are your tier ones, tier twos and tier threes? And it's funny because I always used to throw away my tier threes. I was like, oh, you're bad customers, right? But I love them now for sales and CS. And for one very specific reason, you've heard me say it is practice. Those are the ones that you practice on. If you're uncomfortable asking the hard question, if you're uncomfortable pushing, if you're uncomfortable raising prices, I beg management to give their reps the authority and the ability to lose those accounts for the right reasons.

Don't be obnoxious about it. But I mean, like a quick example, like with Morgan, right? Like we've talked about this before, like when Morgan came on board with me, I mean, you know, Morgan, he's a super nice kid, right? He's down in Georgia. He's just a good little, you know, home cooking, like just good kid, right? And he's not the jackass Boston in your face asshole like I am, right? And so when he was so nice and like, and this was getting the power, like he just didn't get to power. And so what I said to him, you know, back we had 2,500 bucks. That's our lowest thing for the portal, right? You know, 10 licenses. When those were in his pipeline, I go, Morgan, I am giving you the authority to push as hard as you want on those.

If you lose those accounts, I do not care. But you need to get comfortable asking uncomfortable questions. So to me, that seems like such a logical bridge for a CS who's not really sales oriented to start giving them the authority to do that. But why don't custom, why is it just because the CS hasn't evolved enough to really understand that all clients aren't created? I mean, that sounds dumb in the sense that I'm not trying to demean anybody, but is it just like, oh, nope, churn is churn and that's how we look at it and they haven't evolved yet to tear things out or is it, what is it? I think they are evolving as we speak. I think we are seeing particularly right now in the age of COVID and us thinking about things differently.

I've talked to many, many, many customers on the phone who all of a sudden care very much about their existing client base and how they can get their CSM to sell more into it. It's amazing how much that topic is coming up. And the reason that the issue is you run into a square peg round the whole situation because I'll bring it back to the whole concept of who your traditional CSM is versus the CSM that's needed to sell. And you've got to go in there and find the folks that can do it and find the folks that are willing to ask questions they might not even know they needed to be, right? That's where managers come in. That's where coaching comes in. And I once gave a great example of a CS person, a CSM on my team, and I was brand new to the company.

And I sat down with these folks to try to get an understanding of where their skill sets were at. And I listened and this woman was asking questions and I went, more of that, more of that. And I showed her and I listened to her and I made her an example. And she became my number one CSM in terms of her metrics and her upsells. And she never knew that she even had it in her. Like that was never even in her mindset that she could be asking questions. But when you realize that they have that, it's like the start of it, right? It's the start of having that epiphany. So it's evolving. It's evolving. The other thing I will say, and this might be a bit controversial, is there's so many systems out there right now that claim to be able to do the job of a CSM.

And there's CRMs that employ all sorts of different technology and AI. And I mean, it's a lot of what we see with like cadences and sequences on the sales side, right? It's like, yeah, you press play and good luck, you know, like fingers crossed. I'm seeing a lot of that on the CS side where you're, they're putting technology in where it's, it's taking the human connection out of it. And I, I get scared about that because I truly feel in order to understand a customer and to better understand what you can help them with, you've got to have, there's got to be a human connection and may not be in person, but nowadays, but we can be on video and it shouldn't be replaced by a bot. Right. I mean, I think sales is similar, but like sales can, we can get away with, you know, people say, you know, people buy from people they like that, that, that is true, but it's more people they get value from.

Right. So I might not love you as a sales rep. I might not like you all that much, but if you help me through this process, you bring me to this process and I see value in it, then, okay, I'll buy, I'll buy this cause I need it. And, and okay, whatever, but customer success, that is real relationship. Like if I do not have a good relationship with the account, once I buy this, because there's also that buyer's remorse right afterwards, the customer has to pay the customer success has to immediately address if there's any doubt at all. So, so let's, let's peel back from a, from a process, cause I want to get tactical with like thinking about the life cycle of a CS and a customer, right? There's that initial transition.

First of all, there's the sales process and you know, I'm interested in your perspective on if, and when CS should be involved throughout the sales process. Then there's the transition meeting, then there's the QBRs, whatever. And then there's the renewal, right? So, so, and unfortunately, if I were to massively generalize, CS is never involved in the sales process. The transition is a horrible transition because the person who bought it is usually not even in on the transition. It gets kicked down to somebody who has no power and is just responsible and doesn't even remember, you know, realize why they bought. So then the CS does a little bit of, Hey, what's up? And then their QBRs are, here's a bunch of stupid metrics that nobody gives a shit about.

And what else are you doing? And then done, done, done. And then 90 days before the renewal, the email goes out. Hey, your renewal is coming up in 90 days. Hey, your renewal is coming up in 60 days. Hey, your renewal is coming up in 30 days. And at the end, three day, three 65, a huge discount goes out to hopefully get them locked in, right? That's the general like CS life cycle there. So let's, let's start with the sales process. How should, how should sales be leveraging customer success and what should customer success be doing to put themselves in a position to be valuable to sales or be engaged at a certain point? Let's start with that. Yeah. So it's a non-negotiable. If you, if you work in a company that I work at, CS and sales become best friends.

Um, it is, it is a non-negotiable, it has to happen. And for reasons that I will go into specifically, but, um, notoriously there is sales and there is CS and there is a giant wall that sits in between them. And one has no idea what the other is doing. And case in point, I cannot tell you how many bad deals would get thrown over to our side. And I would just sit there and go, I just got a massive pile of shit and I am now responsible for somehow making sure this pile of shit renews, right? It is just, it is, it is a nightmare. So, but there's so, it is such an easy, let me, let me put it this way. If not an easy fix, it takes a while to do it, but in theory it's easy. So taking that wall down is step number one, each, each role has to see the value that, that other brings.

How do you do that? Yeah. Phone calls, shadowing, uh, weekly standup meetings. Um, I immediately start attending forecasting pipeline meetings on a Monday morning with sales. And I immediately make a sales manager sit with my standup, um, to understand what's going on. Um, I also would always make, um, uh, sales folks and CS folks, uh, share, uh, a weekly win on a deal. So one that they partnered with together, we had a rotating list of CS folks, uh, that would sit and be a partner on the last sales call prior to close. Um, and the reason we rotated it because it was, it took up a lot of time for the CS person. So we couldn't have it happen altogether, but we created a list and they got in there and they did it.

Um, we did a lot of documentation. Now this, for this particular company I'm referring to, this was remedial. So we were starting at the ground level and building up, but they, a rep could not close a deal market in Salesforce could not market as closed until the CS had reviewed a four question form that the salesperson filled out that were four questions about what to expect and what have you checked off in order to give it to CS. So things like, um, is there, should we be aware of anyone else involved in the deal that it was not a part of the sales process? Did you tell them there was a particular clause that they needed to sign at this thing? Did you tell them this? Did you do that? Right.

Like, and then once that was finished, CS themselves had to sign off on it and say, yep. And now they could close the deal, which is huge. Yeah. Absolutely. What that, what that did is it not only brought the two teams together, right. But it also meant that we were weeding out bad deals. And I became very unpopular very quickly, uh, within, within sales. Um, although to be honest with you, the sales managers, there were two of them at the time. They, they still are from this last company, even the previous one, we're still good buds, um, because they saw what I was trying to do. And I was, I was being adamant that, that the deals that came over were at least in a structured enough way that we could do something with them.

Now I also, so not only did I require CF to go and sit in usually the meeting before the close, usually like the last one, but I also made the sales reps sit in the first meeting with CF and the reason I did that, I got a lot of pushback on that, but it worked. And the reason is, is because you know, this to be true. How many times have you gotten on the phone? You got a new customer and you pick up the phone. You said, great, we can't wait to work with you. I understand that you're going to be taking advantage of these three things. And the customer says, I don't know anything about what you just said, what, what three, what things I wanted this, right. Having that sales rep on that call brings a level of accountability.

To that, it'll be awkward. There are times where I have watched it just go down a path that you didn't want to go down. But you know what? The more that we did it, the less awkward it got because they knew better than to do it. And I don't mean to talk poorly about sales. That's not what I did. No, that's happens. Like we'll, we'll sell. I mean, I used to do that all the time to my engineers when I was a sales rep and I didn't know what the hell I was talking about. I would sell what the fuck ever when we would do it services and I would throw it over the fence to them and they'd be like, dude, what is this? And I'd be like, sorry, they paid me 50 grand. They paid us 50 grand. Figure it out.

Yeah. You know what I mean? And, and that's a disaster because then that sucks away resources. The other part that I think we should include, anybody should include in a transition meeting is not just the sales rep, but the champion who bought. Cause that's the, cause usually the reason that that, I don't know, you know what I mean? When you ask that question, okay, I'm really excited. Here's the three things. It's like, oh, what the hell is that? It's because that person wasn't even involved in the sales process. They were dumped on to say, okay, you're now the one managing this. But the, in our case, the VP of sales, the VP of enablement is the one who made the decision and the sales rep got in and developed the relationship with and got all fired up and all understood all that.

And then all of a sudden, to your point, that wall, it literally gets thrown over. And now you have a CS person with no context, a point of context now with no context of why the hell this is. And it's almost like you have to go through this whole discovery process again and resell it to this new person. And you're wasting time to value by doing precious moments, which is why one of the things that I always insisted upon was that I needed to know who the players were prior to close. So, you know, if there was going to be someone new introducing, it always depends. I mean, my areas have always been in SaaS. And so typically, you know, for the most part, you'd get somebody who was part of the sales cycle, you know, then is your champion.

Not always, though. A lot of times it got handed off. And you're right. And what the issue with that is, is it's not just annoying for the salesperson or for the CS person to have to resell it again. It is, it's annoying, but it actually, you're losing value. You're losing time to value. You're losing dollars. And if there is a roadmap that that customer needs to get to by X days, if you're having to sit there and restart from the beginning, you are actually digging, you are starting yourself digging out. Right. It's, it's, it's, it's going to be an uphill battle. And that's, and that's why I think like the, the alignment is it, to me, it's so obvious, but it, but it, I don't know why, whether it's a structural thing or an approach thing or a mentality thing of why it doesn't happen, because let's, let's back up into sales, right?

Sales should be asking stuff like, you know, like KPI stuff. Like, well, what, what, what, you know, why are you buying this? What KPIs are we trying to impact here? What's the results you're looking for? Those types of things. And then what happens is, so we talk a lot about gives and gets, right? And, and then, so we get that information now, all of a sudden that the sales rep can use all that information and push back on objections. Well, you said that, you know, dah, dah, dah, dah. But then when they saw, and then when they asked the discount, you know, cause everybody's always going to ask for the discount at the end, the give, get can be, okay, I'll give you a discount, uh, in return, can we get a case study?

Can we get a testimonial? Right. And then, okay, great. And then what's going to happen there is an easy transition to say, okay, well, look, once we sign, I'm going to bring my, if I, if our customer success hasn't already been in there, we're going to set up a meeting with customer success specifically and marketing, by the way, the baseline metrics we're going to use for success are what we talked about. Your current KPIs are this, your current conversion ratios of that, whatever that is, that's going to be the baseline. So now customer success now has a baseline to work from and, and to measure against, right? And then what happens is customer success drives towards those KPIs that sales sold.

And then when those KPIs increase, right? Well, now there's a story to tell there that then can go back to sales to talk to everybody. Hey, we just showed this one client to, you know, took them from X to Y and you have a similar profile. So let's talk about that. So that, that loop right there is an important loop that so many companies miss. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And I think that it's, it comes down to a simple word, but a really important one is documentation. And so a lot of times, and I, again, things that I would insist upon is sending an email ahead of time to any kickoff call that I had with documentation of what I knew to be true in terms of polls and KPIs and things that have been given to me from the sales rep as part of an internal handoff that we had, right?

Cause there was that process too, we got to a place and I mean, a couple of the companies I was at where we were documenting a lot of this in Salesforce. Um, but sometimes just a good old Slack conversation also is, is great to tell you, you know, what you should be looking at. We would, the CSM would create the email, send it out, say, we're looking forward to speaking with you. Here are the items that I know that we're going to be focused on. Feel free to add to whatever you'd like. But when you get on that phone call, that first phone call, the very first thing they're doing is they're stating that agenda. Again, they're stating the goals and they're making sure that those, that we are on a same playing field.

And the reason that is so important is that when you, particularly when you have like heavy measured products and services that, you know, have to hit certain goals, 30, 60, 90 days, if you have that documentation, if you have that, you have something you can go back against. And it actually is a confidence builder and booster for CSM to be able to use that because a lot of times kind of going back to our original topic of that confidence and that ability to kind of push back on a customer by having it in writing and having something that you feel at least as a bit of a safety net can help you bring up those difficult conversations. Yeah, I mean, documentation is everything, in my opinion, sales process, everything like just, and at the end of the day, I say this all the time, you know, I think life is about expectation setting.

You know what I mean? Like if anybody thinks of the last time they were pissed off about anything, it's, I almost guarantee it's because your expectations are misset. And I think that's the biggest problem between sales and CS is that sales missets expectations about what the product can do, what the relationship's going to look like, whatever it is. And now all of a sudden customer success is sitting there saying, oh, great. I'm super excited. And the client's like, uh, no, we were not like, we wanted this, not that. And now it's, now you're playing, oh shit. Right. And so that documentation through the sales process, so that it makes an easy transition for the CS to say, no, this is all the stuff you agreed to.

Right. Cool. Let's work. Now we're working on this. Right. And every conversation, that summary email, like great talking today. Here's what we talked about. Do me a favor. Email me back. Confirm this is accurate. Right. Yeah. You know, it's interesting about expectations too. Like part of something that I've always dealt with and I have such high expectations for people and for, for companies and for things that I often get let down really quickly, really easily when I get to the reality of what's actually taking place. Like, and it's something that I know it's a, it's a thing that I do. I need to realign my expectations with what the reality is, but it's actually a really good lesson for a CSM to take.

And the reason being is, is a lot of times I've watched over and over again, a CSM giveaway and I'll go use that farm metaphor again, give away the farm, right? They're giving away at all. They're giving away, um, you know, every single piece of information or discount or meeting or whatever. And it's because expectations were not set from the beginning about a mutual respect between the CSM and the customer. And that is one thing that is really important to set. If you get walked all over, you are never going to be able to get yourself back from that. And what ends up happening is, is your, the client ends up requesting a new CSM. Uh, I mean, that's a whole nother topic of conversation. What do you do when that happens?

Um, and you know, it's, it's tough, but it's that, it's that mutual understanding that mutual respect. I mean, we use it a lot in our scorecard, right? So with the give, get methodology, and it's something that I'm working with CF teams right now on, in terms of understanding that you giving away that extra meeting, you giving away that extra week long sneak peek into the new portal, you just gave something away. What do you, what did you ask for in return? Seriously, what did you ask for in return? Did you ask for a meeting with another person in a different, um, you know, department? Did you ask for a reference or referral? Did you ask for, what did you ask for? And I, I, somewhat shocking to me, I think, and this is part of how I think we can evolve customer success a lot is getting them again to ask those questions and that's, what's going to help.

Yeah. Just ask. That's why I think, you know, I, the reason, one of the main reasons I want to have this conversation, because I actually think that CS is, uh, I think a lot of sales reps are going to move to CS. I think a lot of SDRs, um, instead of going the AE route are going to go into CS. And I actually think that's a really good thing because if they get into like qualifying leads and those types of things and learn how to ask the questions and then, but then they just don't like the, the hyper like stress of, of, you know, quotas and, and, you know, forecast, you know, and all that other stuff, but a little bit softer version of that with CS, I think there's a huge opportunity there. So let's, with the, with the, you know, 10 minutes we have here, um, let's go down the line with some very tactical things of like, what do you do in this situation?

So you're in like, here's, let's start with the transition. Uh, the, how do you stay connected? How do you set the expectations that you want to stay connected with the, uh, buyer, like with the economic buyer, right? The person who went through the sales process and bought the champion of the sales rep. And again, with the scenario, they get, usually you get kicked down to somebody who's managing. How do you set the expectation that, and, and what do you do to get, to make sure that that person's still connected to you and you can reach out to them anytime for any reason without pissing off your main point of contact. And that's key, pissing off your main point of contact right there, because you gotta, you gotta be careful with that because that person, even though they're not the champion may hold a lot of power and you still need to keep them beside.

So first and foremost, um, non-negotiable is that the champion must attend the first call. I have actually been known to get on the phone and have the champion not show up. And I will ask to reschedule the call, um, until the champion can get on. And the reason being is if they're not on there, I'm actually just going to end up having to have the conversation again. And it's a waste of everyone's time. Um, but what it does is sets the precedence that here, this is a best practice and we need the champion down. We don't need champion maybe to be on for every single call. Certainly not, but this call is really important. So let's step back for a second and reschedule. So number one, gotta have the champion on the first call.

Number two, any subsequent calls, maybe not for the entire life cycle of, of the, uh, client, but certainly for the first, maybe month, uh, I would always provide weekly updates to the champion about how things are going. Um, not, it could be something as simple as, Hey, totally. I've loved working with Jim. Gosh, he's been great. Um, we've been, I've been able to meet so-and-so it's been awesome. Hey, just wanted to give you a heads up. I'm, I'm hitting a little bit of a road with this, not able. I know you mentioned that you wanted to make sure we had X, Y, and Z in place. So I want to make sure I gave you an update on how things were going. What you just did there is you saved your relationship with Jim because Jim's important, right?

But you've also connected and kept that champion involved because the second that you lose sight of that, the, the, the deal, you lose, you lose the stickiness factor, right? You lose a little bit of the stickiness. So do you literally say like in that meeting with that executive, with the champion, if you will, Hey, you know, moving forward here, I'm going to be updating you on a weekly basis of the progress that we're doing here. And I might reach out to you every once in a while. So it's like, you don't act because, because the fear is right. If you don't do that up front, if you don't say that up front with this, with the, your point of contact and the champion in the room, and then later on, you reach out to that point, the champion.

Now, all of a sudden your point of contact's pissed, right? Because you didn't set that expectation. So is that, is kind of that the talk track, like early on, Hey, super excited here. We're going to be working with Jim over here. He's fantastic. I do want to kind of keep you up to date, make sure that we're on the same track. And I might reach out to you every once in a while to get your feedback on that. Is that the right approach there? So setting the expectation, uh, it first and foremost is important. I like to, when I'm on that call, I like to make sure it's, it's, I like to make sure that I, I let them know who's, who's in charge, that the customer comes first, but that I have a plan and that's important.

And the plan is important that I have, we've been there, done that. We know what works and here's, what's going to happen. Um, oftentimes I ask, I, or I hear CSM say, you know, what works for you from a follow-up perspective, I challenge people to think differently about that. And I say, don't, no, no, no, no. They're looking to you to tell them what's going to happen. That's a huge point. You know, don't, don't. So instead of saying what works for you, I say, so here's what follow-up is going to look like. Um, Joe, my champion, um, you're going to get some weekly updates. Um, I'm going to check in with you just in progress, just to make sure that I know from a stakeholder perspective that you have what you need.

So we'll have that conversation, Jim, you and I were, the follow-up is going to look like this and, and it's going to come in these sequences. You're going to get an email. You'll also be getting probably some automated emails from our system to let you know that certain things have gone through production or whatever, but I put myself in charge and, and I'm telling you right now, that is a huge expectation setting standpoint that creates the rest of the relationship. The CSM has to know what they're doing. And even if you don't, you have to fake it till you make it. And you have to have like that. I think that, that holds true on the sales side. Like that is challenger sale one-on-one, right?

Like, so challenger sale ask is, look, you make this decision once a year. I help people make it every day. Let me show you where people do the right and the wrong thing, right? Customer success is, you know, I don't think that mentality is there. It's like, no, no, no. I'm here to service you. So what do you need from us? Like, how would you like to see this relationship go? And to your point, the client does not know. They don't know. They like, so you coming in and it's almost, it, what, what I don't think people realize is it's actually an extremely comforting thing as somebody who just purchased a product, somebody who just purchased a service to have somebody come in and say, okay, now that you bought this, here's how you get the most out of it.

We're going to do boom, boom, boom. It's literally like, oh shit, cool. All I have to do is follow what you tell me to do here, as opposed to, hey, so how do you, how do you usually manage relationships like this? Then it's like, I don't fucking know. Okay, fine. I'll call you every six months. I don't know. Like, you should know this. Like, that's your job, right? I was just on a phone call prior to this with a client of ours and I was talking and they had just gone through some training. And so I was kind of playing a CSM role and walking through like what they should be doing now. And I am very prescriptive and I do this, do that, follow this. And it's funny, they interrupted me. They were like, is this written down somewhere?

Like you just have like a step and it, it dawned on me yet again, it's like, they want to be told what to do. And I do not mean that in a condescending way. I mean that in a, they need help. That is why they have engaged with you. So you can be the expert and you can, you can set that stage and I'm, and that will help you if you get that confidence. If you kind of go and I, um, I always refer to it as my superpower pose. So when I, when I have to like really be like in charge, I think about being in my superpower, like superwoman pose, that's going to help that mentality. Yeah. But it, what it was, what I was thinking about is the, it's almost like you, you almost want to tell, just like in sales, you almost want to tell the story.

Hey, let me walk you through how the best relationships we have with our customers typically work. Right. So what you're doing there is like, you're saying, Hey, look, we have some great relationships with customers and this is how they work. So you can do that. Like you, you can be one of these great relationships or you can do it another way. And that other way is probably not going to be as great. So let's, let's aspire to like do this the right way. And then you get that comfort. So, so after that, so we've set the right expectations. Now I fucking can't stand QBRs, uh, in general. Um, but let's talk about like, how do you add value as a C outside of answering the customer's questions and dealing with their issues and that type of stuff?

How do you proactively add value to an account? Um, as a CSM throughout the relationship, right? Like what do you do early to understand what value is for that account? And then how do you go out there without always being like, Hey, I got something new to sell you. I got something new to sell you. You know what I mean? Like what's your kind of philosophy on adding value throughout the relationship? So that they see us as a value add, they see us as a relationship and it's not just the, okay, here comes a renewal. I need 20% off, but Hey shit, I'm dealing with Meg, man. And I've been gotten a lot of value out of Meg for this year. So I really want to make sure that we do this the right way. So how do you do that?

So I think to myself, like, what, what is it that I can give them that doesn't feel like I'm selling? So for instance, it could be, um, I, you know, Hey, I saw this article and made me think of you, or it could be something as simple as, you know, commenting on their LinkedIn posts. I mean, there's lots of ways in which you can engage and provide value at a very simple, doesn't take a lot of time effort. What you're doing though, is you're establishing contact with them. You're establishing and building that relationship. Um, a lot of times doing a favor for them. So we all, you know, that, that is huge. I'm a, I don't mind favors and I, I have no problem with it, but here's the difference in it instead of just saying, Oh, sure, sure, sure.

Yeah, absolutely. I'll do that. Instead. I sit back and say, so let me better understand just kind of where this is coming from so that I can kind of make sure I'm getting you what you need. Um, so help walk me through exactly what you need. And then I'll say, okay, so typically this isn't the route that we would really go, but I hear that this is what you need. So why don't we do this? Let's, let's do this for now, but I just want to make sure that we know that in the future we can't go down that road. And what that does right there is it sets you in charge. Again, it gives you, it validates you that you're helping, that you're there to do that, but that you're not necessarily always going to do that.

It sets you at a better negotiating point. And we'll put quotation marks around that. Cause that's another scary word in CS. Uh, when you do have to go in and talk about that renewal, because you can go backwards and say, I'm so glad I was able to make that happen for you. I'm so glad I was able to get you access to that feature. And I'm, I'm sounds like you've got a great value of it. We need to have a conversation about how we move forward at this price point and what that means. And what you've done there is saying, listen, I gave you something. You gotta help me out now. Right. I think that reciprocity is huge. And, and, and the value thing is like, you know, I do this in sales. Like I just add, it's, it's the same thing with me nurturing accounts.

Right. So somebody who says, you know what, John, we're not there, you know, we're, we're not ready yet. So call me back in six months. I'll say, cool. How do I stay top of mind without being annoying between now and then? Right. And I'll preface it with, Hey, look, we tend to curate content and information. We have access to a lot of resources here, not just Jay Barrow's associated, but you know, is there like, what kind of information could I share with you moving forward here? What are some of the main things you personally are being held accountable for or looking for insights around doesn't have to be us focused. Right. And then you track that in your CRM, like we have it, you know, check boxes about what people interested in and they're right.

And it's like, okay, they're interested in AI, they're interested in tips, they're interested in all those things. So now we, you know, as I'm learning, you know, gathering information, I see, Oh, that's something that some of my clients might get value out of. Now I'm going to run a report. Here you go. Hey, I was thinking about you the other day. We said, in that kickoff call, you said, this was something really important to you. Here you go. Not let's talk about it. Not let me sell you something, but just thought, you know, thought you might get some value out of it. Cause I know you're interested in these things, right? Yeah. And I think also it's how, it's not just that I know that you're interested in these things.

It's what, how, what types of things and how are you interested in receiving them? So that's another big thing. So you may have a customer that wants to talk on the phone with you all the time and that's fine. But you also have a customer that may only want to email with you. And it's very short and sweet. You need to, you need to make sure you honor how they receive information. If you are calling them up and you can tell it's making them uncomfortable, pay attention to that because that's going to actually end up hurting your relationship versus helping it. Right. So being paying attention to how your customer receives information. Not everyone's the same, right? People work differently. They respond, they think differently.

Learning styles are different. Right. And so that's a really important thing to think about. Yeah. I mean, I even ask, Hey, what's the best way to communicate with you moving forward here? You know what I mean? Like, like, is it email cell text? Is it, you know, your number? Like, what do you want? Yeah. Yeah. Are you going to pick up your phone? Like, what does that, what does that look like? We did Slack channels at two startups ago that I was at. I actually, one of the requirements on larger products was that they integrate in a Slack channel with us because that was actually one of the only ways that was, it was so much back and forth and getting some stuff started up that having that kind of immediate back and forth was a critical component.

Yeah, definitely. All right. So let's finish it up with like the renewal, right? The big, like, okay, the renewal is coming up here. How far in advance do you set the stage for the renewal? How, how, how do you set the expectation so that it doesn't get down to that last day and they, they reinforce like, cause, so let's say theoretically they're getting some value out of the relationship. You've been adding value throughout, right? Not just your QBRs and the data and, you know, solving their problems, but really engaging with them. It is now Q3 of the relationship, right? So we got three more months before that renewal hits. What do you do to make sure that that renewal happens and it doesn't come down to the last day and it doesn't come down to the last day with a big discount?

Yeah, cause that's, that's never happened before. Right. Never. So I actually started doing, this is a, this is something I learned, uh, back when I was at PI because PI was a renewal based business. And so it was a big topic of conversation and we didn't have a handle on it. Um, I would say in the very first meeting that I ever had with any customer, I actually said the word renewal in that conversation. And I would say something like, so as we work together and as we work towards progress, ideally what we want come renewal time is for you to have a, you know, this, this set of metrics done or this experience, or I'll drop it into a conversation and say, you know, that's something that, you know, as we get closer to your renewal, we can think about that.

And the reason I did that is you would be shocked how many customers did not understand that there was a renewal situation happening at the end of the year. And so you, you, they, they're so in their own heads about what they just bought that they aren't able to think 12 months, you know, out. So I would set the stage of, Hey, listen, we are fully expecting this relationship to continue. And so by dropping that concept of, Hey, there's renewal, it doesn't become all of a sudden like, you know, at, at 90 days, you know, there's an auto renewal clause or whatever. Um, and then you get, and then you get a discount. The other thing that I do and that I've always taught and managed my CSM to do, um, is do not think that you are going to get that renewal.

Um, I have watched many, many customers that I thought were brilliantly healthy and, and then they have not renewed. Now I've studied that data and gone back and forth. And a lot of times it's an anomaly. It's a, they lost funding. They didn't get around like the CEO left, right? Like there's things that you can't control. Um, but, uh, you should not be bracing for impact. Let's put it that way. Do not, if you are, if you are getting nervous and you're waking up in the middle of the night and thinking your biggest client is about to renew, you've done it all wrong. You need, you should know six months in that in six months they're going to renew or not barring any crazy COVID world, uh, that you should know that they're going to do it.

And the, and then you get down, then it just becomes formality. Then it just becomes forms and structure and negotiation, but it makes it 10 times easier if you'd set the stage. You know, this is where that, uh, Sandler comes in, right? Sandler upfront contract, right? It's like, Hey, you know, what do we need to do to get you to, you know, what do we need to do to make this renewal easy for you? Right? So it's almost like that last QBR. If you didn't do that upfront, I agree with you wholeheartedly. Like, Hey, like, you know, we want to make sure that this is smooth all the way through. We want to earn your business to a lifetime. You know, we value long-term relationships, blah, blah, blah.

But then that last, that last QBR, right? It's like, okay, you know, hopefully all the issues have been addressed. Now, what do we need to do to make sure that that renewal is smooth, right? And set in that stage. And what do we need to do between now and then to make sure that there's, there's no hiccups here, right? Um, because that way you understand what, to your point, the formality, it's like, okay, now I know what I need to do to make this easy. And then if they balk on you later, that goes, that goes back to documentation. Yeah. If you document after that to say, Hey, okay, you said that if, as long as these things are, we're going to be able to renew, I just want to let you know, we cannot renew it lower than this because this is our base price.

Uh, you know, we're either raising our prices. And I guess that's the last one I'll ask is how do you address raising prices? Yeah. Clear, transparent, and your fault. Well, what's so, so give me this one. Um, there's no added value that the company, like, this is the worst. The company just raised the prices just because they raised the prices because the, you know, cost of living, blah, blah, blah. We need more investment. So all of a sudden something I paid a hundred thousand dollars for is now $120,000 and a rep is sitting there and the client's like, why am I paying extra? And the rep's like, because our prices went up. Yep. Like that. I think that, first of all, I think that's a jackass move by the company to do that.

Um, and I think leadership needs to empower their team with just at least some perception reality stuff of why they raised the price. But do you just come right at it and be like, look, I got to be honest. This is where we are from a profitability standpoint. If we don't raise our prices, we're going to, we're actually going to be out of business. Like, how do you approach that? Yeah. I think it depends on who you're talking to. Uh, I mean, it, it depends on how, what level in the role of the organization that they're at. I mean, uh, certain people aren't going to, it's going to be mush to them. They don't, they don't care. Um, you know, I, I would go back to, if, if I had to raise prices, I've been in situation for, I've been told prices are going up and I got not much to offer you in terms of value.

Right. Um, in those cases, what I have done is be as transparent and empathetic as I possibly can and just simply honest. So I'll say something like, listen, you know, we're in, we're in business together, right? You have your needs. We have our needs. Um, we're evaluating our pricing strategy for the coming year. And we've made a decision that where you're standing right now, the price is going to be X. So I want to walk you through exactly what that means. I think there's some possibility for us to be able to get creative, maybe in the differences of how we split it out. Like there's gotta be some leverage there that you can be able to say, like, you're still going to pay it. Right. Maybe we could break it up or maybe we could, um, you know, it puts you into a longer term contract that would reduce the, the payment.

I mean, there's gotta be some leverage point. Um, but I just, I just am factual about it. That is one of the harder things I've broken up CF teams or broken off CF teams into just a renewal team before, um, which has been interesting. And I have, we, we can do a whole nother podcast on that if you like, but, um, it's a tough, it's a tough topic, especially if there's not a value add. Yeah. That's a, that's the one I'm, um, always like, again, it's almost like perception. Like, give me a, no, throw me a bone here, leadership. Like make it some, make it some sound good. Like whether it's a real thing or not, give me something to hold onto there. Uh, but I mean, I do think that there, I mean, we had to do that when I was a thrive and it was purely because we were, we weren't as profitable as we needed to be to keep making the investments that we needed to make in to, to get better.

Right. So, I mean, I had to go to a bunch of clients and be like, look, I'm sorry. Our prices went up by 20%. That is just so we can be a healthy business and we can be here for you. I totally understand if that sucks for you. Um, but if we don't do it, then next year we might not even be here to support you. Right. You know what else is another tricky one. I know we were at time, but is, uh, if you have a customer that is been super successful with your product and they've used so much of it to get them to where they are. And then you say, because you've been so successful and you've used so much of it, we're charging you more. And you're like, wait a minute. I used, I just did what you said.

Yeah, I just did. I get, yeah, exactly. You pay more for it. It's sad. And again, shame on leadership for, for that type of approach. But I've been through, you name it. Gosh, I've been through that. Yeah. Cool. Well, awesome. Well, I appreciate the conversation here. And again, I think it's an important one just based on the evolution of where CS is right now and also where sales is because, because I, you know, the, the shakeup that's happening right now with COVID and the questions that people are asking about their positions, their roles and reassessing, I think it's a good time for everybody to kind of reassess what they want to do, what they like to do and, and also what they're good at.

You know what I mean? And I think there's a lot of sales rep who, a lot of SDRs and BDRs right now, and even AEs who, who might look at it and say, you know what? I actually really do give a shit about customers. I really do enjoy working with them. Um, I think I could be pretty good at that. And that transition of being able to have those questioning skills and all that other stuff is actually a really powerful tool, right? Your comfortableness with risk. I bring it up again. You have to ask yourself, what is your, what is your comfortable level? What, what, what level do you feel okay at making a risk? And that is different for everybody. And you need to ask yourself that question going into any job that you take, but particularly when you think about taking a sales job or CSM job, both have risk, different levels of it.

Cool. Awesome. Well, thank you very much, Meg. I mean, I usually ask, how do you get in touch with everybody and that type of stuff, but that whatever it's us, right? So Meg, how do you spell your last name for people listening? H-O-L-S-I-N-G-E-R, right? Yeah. So, uh, mholsinger at jbarrow.com if you want to, I go by Meg, uh, my, my name is actually Megan, but I picked one for the team. Yeah. We have a small team here at seven and I got two Megans on the team. So I was like, God damn it. But, uh, yeah, so it's Meg, but, uh, I know I'm Meg, but I'll respond to anything, but yeah, yeah. Any, any CS questions I can talk about CS all day. So, um, hit me up, uh, getting some content out there soon that will be, um, uh, on our platform that it's going to be focused on CS and talking about all the things that John and I just talked about.

Love it. Awesome. Well, hopefully everybody got as much value out of this as I did and, uh, got you to think about a few things, whether you're on the CS side or the sales side of the house, we all got to get along here these days. So as always, uh, enjoy the day and everybody, no matter what, how bad your day goes, do me a favor, go out there and make somebody smile today, because even if you had the shittiest day ever, if you made somebody else smile, then you know, you had a decent day and we need way more of that in today's world right now. So thank you always, uh, for, for listening and all your support and, uh, have a great one. Thank you very much.