#TDSU Episode 135:

⏱️ Timestamps:

00:00:00 - Intro

00:01:00 - Meet Diana De Jesus, new GM at Stand the F Out

00:01:40 - Transitions in customer success roles

00:03:23 - Balancing priorities during transitions

00:05:35 - Embracing imperfection in role changes

00:06:15 - The CS mindset sneaking into real life

00:06:25 - Rob's take: mount stupid and the confidence curve

00:08:21 - Timeboxing and staying productive

00:10:25 - The epiphany: living for yourself, not others

00:12:55 - Defining values: fun, growth, and unpredictability

📺 Lifetime Value: Your Destination for GTM content Website: https://www.lifetimevalue.show Send the show a message via email or voicemail: https://www.lifetimevalue.show/contact/

🤝 Connect with the hosts:

Dillon's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dillonryoung

JP's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeanpierrefrost/

Rob's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rob-zambito/

👋 Connect with Diana DeJesus:

Diana's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dianadejesus/

[Rob] (0:00 - 0:13)

There's something that came up briefly once I'm gonna do it again. Sorry guys, but the the Dunning-Kruger effect, which I think I told you How to do it Which if you haven't heard of it, it basically says that every time you not heard of it.

[Dillon] (0:13 - 1:00)

He'd like to tell you 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?

Beautiful Lord, baby beautiful Of course, I got my own t-shirt on and we've got Rob with us Rob. Do you want to say hi? Ciao lifers of course Picked up on that and we have Diana with us Diana, can you say hi, please?

I'm so excited that you're here. I am your host. My name is Dillon young Diana Can you please introduce yourself as though you need one?

[Diana] (1:00 - 1:29)

Well, thank you for having me. First of all, and yes, I'm Diana De Jesus I am now a general manager at a company called stand the F out I want to curse on here just in case you cannot and Previously worked in customer success in adjacent roles to customer success left a customer success Company to start customer success centered business. So I have done a lot of CS stuff So yeah, now I'm here with y'all chatting it up So excited, you know what we do here.

[Dillon] (1:30 - 1:40)

We ask every single guest one simple question It's got something to do with customer success. It is what is on your mind when it comes to customer success? So why don't you tell us what that is for you Diana?

[Diana] (1:42 - 2:59)

So for me when it comes to customer success one thing that's been on my mind because I'm living it right now is around transitioning from one role to another and so I've been thinking about Transitioning from one book of business to another or managing one book of business to another or being in an IC role to a leadership role and Everything that happens in between so they for example the transition that I'm going through right now Which is a lot different from the first transition I had when I was a CSM joining a marketing team and in that time I think I was the most unproductive I've ever been in my life because I was trying to be a badass as a CSM but also a badass in this like new role that I was gonna get into and so all of that made me the Opposite of a badass. I don't know what it's not a good ass. That's for sure But it was terrible it was very unproductive I felt like I was just procrastinating the whole time no motivation to get things done and Yeah, those handoff notes were probably not the prettiest and then I got to the marketing side of things and I was like, alright I'm expected to deliver on all these things so quickly so fast and also that didn't happen because yet There's a ramp-up period that we all need to respect and we're transitioning from one role to the next

[Dillon] (3:02 - 3:22)

So, what did you learn is it a focus I Just use the word in the definition. Are you trying to highlight?

People focusing more or is it about prioritization? Is it about not taking on too much? I know that's been a little bit of your I guess the narration you've had about this transition You've recently made to what do you think?

It is that people need to be?

[Diana] (3:23 - 5:35)

like thinking about more during transitions That it takes time and that we don't need to rush into being perfect right away Like this whole leaving things in a good place. That should be the priority How can I leave this as best as I can and then how can I set proper? Expectations for myself because this is gonna be incredibly tricky I can't just be a hundred percent for both of these roles I have to balance so one thing that I've been doing is I'm very much like setting some time frames for when I work on One thing versus another so in the morning at really early like 5 a.m. To 11 a.m I'm working on the I know I'm a morning person. I love it. I thrive in the afternoon Yeah, you're not you're gonna find me on a couch you're gonna find me not doing any work and then I'll get up again in The evening. I know it's crazy.

But it's what I that's what I like to do is how I work best at that time That's when I will do my first job my general management job, which I'm also like, what is a general manager? Let's Google. Let's figure it out.

Let's see what other people are doing. That's my time frame for that And then in the afternoon, I'll come back and I'll do what I need to do for my business stuff Which I'm leaving in a good place and that's been the one thing The second thing is you know what? I'm not out here trying to impress anybody except for myself and that was something that I was trying to do the last time I'm like, oh my god I really want to I want the CSM's to see that I'm leaving them in a good spot I'm with the CS team to see that I'm like leaving gracefully I'm not leaving them with this mess I mean that I want the marketing team to feel like we're getting a superstar on our team and it's gonna be so exciting Then I want the company to feel like I'm gonna be this glue for you.

That's gonna do all this shit And then I was like, alright, what do you actually want to do? How do you want to feel in this transition? I didn't think about that I was just trying to Live for everyone else and and what they wanted to or maybe expect it from me And the last thing is just look like I said, it's probably not gonna be pretty the first couple of Months the first three months maybe there's a lot of shit that I'm not gonna know and I gotta figure it out and maybe some Things might fall through the cracks.

So that's when I have to just know that.

[Dillon] (5:35 - 6:15)

Hey, I'm a human and we'll work through it This is a big old pile of I feel like all of the main topics. We've been talking about lately around like Forgiving yourself giving yourself some grace. I love that you also talked about like this transition and Setting expectations of how it's funny how the CS stuff Like starts to wiggle its way into other parts of your life not as though it's unique to CS and you're like now reapplying it It's more of the opposite of CS is just like anything else Like you have to have a certain level of patience and grace and you have to set the proper Expectations and you got to keep the main thing the main thing.

[Rob] (6:15 - 8:21)

Anyway, Rob I want to make sure you have an opportunity to jump in here I was gonna say the same thing Dillon now This is the culmination of so many different episodes that we've had so far. So I love this as a topic I think about JP talking about dinner rolls and Buttered rolls. We talked about roll transitions.

I think about Kinsey's episode on imposter syndrome and conversations. We've had with Janelle Friday on it for forgiving yourself and emotional intelligence And I think about also there's something that came up briefly once I'm gonna do it again Sorry guys, but the the Dunning-Kruger effect, which I think I told you How to do it Which if you haven't heard of it, it basically it says that every time you not heard of it, he'd like to tell you But no basically like this it was one of the best things for me in terms of like practicing a certain degree of self-forgiveness In not knowing and having imposter syndrome when I would do roll transitions Now I get it all the time because I like switch between clients and every time I have new imposter syndrome But basically it suggests that the path to gaining sustainable knowledge and confidence in a domain is not linear your confidence starts really low and then it spikes up and that's what they might call like the peak of Mount stupid and then it Drops precipitously again where you're like, oh my god I realize I don't know anything because you suddenly realize all these things you don't know and then it slowly gradually creeps back up to a sustainable level where you're confident in what you know and Diana you brought some really helpful and practical tips like time boxing.

That was a really good one I don't know if you guys have ever seen that motivational speaker who talks about how he squeezes 21 days into a week It's a ridiculous video, but I'll send it after it's not it's more of a the parody videos of this guy are better than the actual Thing but regardless I think like the Thai boxing is a great exercise to just set aside that time to block off different activities Have milestones and checkpoints with yourself or to use some people use the pomodoro technique if you've heard of that one

[Diana] (8:21 - 8:40)

Oh, yeah, I do. I there's this app called brain FM years ago They have this lifetime subscription bought it best thing I ever did and that is my pomodoro plus music that's not with words because then we get a little out of control and we're singing and we're dancing and we don't JP sponsor won't you tell us won't you tell us?

[Dillon] (8:40 - 8:45)

Yeah brain FM hit us up JP Why don't you tell us what you're thinking about this?

[JP] (8:46 - 10:25)

Yeah, yeah, there's a lot there. Yeah. I'd first of all, I love waking up at 5 a.m Waking up at 5 a.m. Is I've even noticed a difference between waking up at that's why he's so grumpy I've even noticed a difference between waking up at 5 and 5 30. I remember playing around with 5 30 And I was like, no, I need that 5 a.m. I need that life and so I Think there's a connection because like we are the foundation of what we do They're not divorced. So our ability to do well, which is what we're striving for here, right? We expect a lot of ourselves.

We want to do well. I know for me. It's like I'm on LinkedIn.

Well, my face is on LinkedIn. You've got awards. You got different stuff.

You're like, oh God like what is expected of me? What am I supposed to do? There's these Perceptions that maybe you start to battle that are even like Extrinsic to you like they're not even just coming extra internally.

So I'm definitely a fan of Finding those things that really like set your foundation Because it's way too easy to get knocked off track whether we're talking about a transition new role Anything it's it's always a temptation to somehow come over the top come out of your zone come out of your Center and in some kind of effort to do something that you already know is born or off base, but It feels good to reach as a human being it feels good to try to stretch for something but the problem is doing that in a way that is in Fact a little bit more healthy for you or bounce.

[Dillon] (10:25 - 11:18)

Yeah, go I have a question for you Diana What I think is super important about this the main distinction a piece that stuck out at me is the difference between Doing stuff because what's what other people want or would flag you as being an overachiever as being super successful Versus what it is that you actually want and I think sometimes they are the same like sometimes That's what you want. And and sometimes they're not so I want to hear with the time we have left What was the epiphany for you about that distinction? How do you think about it today?

how do you continuously remind yourself of the difference between the two and and follow the path of of Making sure that you're satisfied first So this is a question that I think is more about a personal Kind of a stage that I'm at in my life.

[Diana] (11:18 - 12:55)

I think I've got I was talking to my friend yesterday And he's like, you know that meme with the Fox and they got like their hands between their legs and they're like trembling looking to the side I was like, yeah, he's that's been us for the last year and a half Absolutely. It's been a lot of trembling Chihuahua vibe and it hasn't been cute. So I don't know We got to a place where it's like whoa, maybe we're just doing a little too much and we need to slow down I've dropped into the slowdown phase.

I don't know how but we're here. Thank you for that But the second part was I need to go to my foundation and I don't think I'm clear on that So, let me get clear on my values I think JP mentioned something super important as someone that's like out there being miss all Influencer posting shit. I do think about what's my image now?

Because I've just gone from customer success to now I'm doing this and now I'm doing that now I'm this like general manager person. So what the hell does that mean? I took some time to think about what my values truly were Some of those things were funky like fun is a top value if I'm not having fun if what I'm writing is not fun I don't want to do it.

I'm done with being boring. I'm done with being basic The other one is around growth and like owning that growth in the sense of as a person I'm growing This is a personal journey that I'm going on and I'll take you on this growth journey with me instead of like I'm just this Very linear very bare niche Customer success person that you're always gonna know what to expect from me I want people to not know what the fuck I'm gonna talk about next and I like that or when you're gonna swear

[Dillon] (12:55 - 13:18)

Yeah, yeah, it's great That's great well Diana that is our time I love this story I would love to have you back in the future to hear because I know that you're working on some stuff with Steno We love you know friend of the show Family member of lifetime value media. So maybe the two you got to come back when the project you guys are working on I think it's strategic CS labs.

Is that right?

[Diana] (13:18 - 13:18)

Yep

[Dillon] (13:18 - 13:25)

Once that really takes off and you guys have some stuff to talk about I really would love to hear about that But for now, we've got to say goodbye

[Voiceover] (13:31 - 14:02)

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 lifetime value media comm Find us on youtube at lifetime value and find us on the socials at lifetime value media until next time

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