#TDSU Episode 149:

Episode 149: Rob's thinking of writing a book...

⏱️ Timestamps:

00:00:00 - Intro

00:01:33 - Brainstorming customer success book ideas

00:02:11 - Children's book meets customer success

00:04:05 - Complex analogies: rocketships and rentals

00:05:19 - "Playbooks": a minimalist coffee table staple

00:07:47 - Exploring AI’s potential in customer success

00:08:33 - Mapping CS evolution through business stages

00:10:19 - Wrapping up: optimism and untapped potential

📺 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/

(0:00 - 0:19)

This one is gonna be one that's like sits on the coffee table. It looks pristine It's just like all black cover very simple white Helvetica lettering and it's called playbooks and You open it up Like I said a playboy, but it's like playbooks. Well, no, but that's clever.

(0:19 - 0:54)

I like No, no You open it up and it's just this beautiful these beautiful minimalist playbooks everything minimalist very few words playbooks we don't use 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 with a mouthful of whatever. He just sipped out of that coffee cup, Rob Can you say hi whiskey? No coffee.

(0:54 - 1:12)

Good morning That only is funny if you recognize that we're doing this in like the early afternoon. Yes, and we have JP with us JP, can you say hi? What's up in Meffers? You're gonna qualify that at all. No, you know Monday through Friday.

(1:12 - 1:32)

Yeah Yeah, all right And I am your host. My name is Dillon young boys It's just the three of us and I think Rob you had something you wanted to bring to the table. Is that right? yeah, yeah, well, this is a Surfacing something that the three of us have been talking about lately.

(1:33 - 2:11)

Oh customer success customer success book ideas Because I don't know people still read these days, but regardless of the format There's definitely some big topics that we could cover in customer success The design of this show is always small topics bite-sized chunks, but it's just there is room in the industry I think for some epic pieces on a big chunk of the customer success world So I've got ideas that I've been thinking about for a while This show can be me claiming them calling dibs on them. Give me to rattle some off. Sure.

(2:11 - 3:00)

Why not? I like this one a Children's book about a children's book about customer success, so it's like Timmy rents a rocket ship. He doesn't know how to fly the rocket ship. So he calls on his friend Melissa Who is a customer success manager? Melissa teaches him how to Set up the rocket ship fly the rocket ship have fun on the rocket ship not crash the rocket ship, etc What do you guys think? It's like a good way to just build familiarity with customer success in the new generation for children Well, well customer success new generation That's the designed audiences children.

(3:00 - 3:29)

But the real audience is actually probably adults who don't know what the hell CS is Oh, so it's like all of my cheese so to move my cheese, but I don't know that success version what another reference It's new. I I haven't read it in a long time, but it's all about rolling with the punches Right, isn't it? I Read recently that it's actually a veiled Reference towards layoffs. Oh No, and like and like it was anyway, I've heard product lovers.

(3:30 - 4:04)

Yeah, let's trash it Trash it Well, I guess it could use some work is what I'll say I think there's a way For it to work. The rocket ship one is interesting because you picked What perhaps kids would be interested in but is a like notoriously complex and like a high-budget activity And specifically rentals rocket ship rentals Because it's a subscription business. Yeah.

(4:05 - 4:49)

Yeah Pick up on that Kids don't understand the concept of a rental either either they have it or they don't but you can't tell your dad You can't tell your kid to not spill Cheerios in your Lexus because it's a lease Timmy go spill milk all over that thing. Give me a better idea. What's a it has to be what's it? Yeah, I don't know that I have I feel like we could manufacture analogy after analogy is your report card your health score right Though I was just having a conversation today about how if your health score is all lagging indicators, then you're doing it wrong That's interesting.

(4:49 - 5:19)

Yeah, and it makes sense churn can't be Let's see Actually your health scores should have some lagging indicators Like I think if one one comes to mind if the customer has renewed before they're very likely to renew again So that's one lagging indicator that I could see being in a health score, but most of them don't make sense in health scores I don't think that's true though. This episode is gonna be so all over the place This is a shotgun blast of CS you want the other book idea. I have you're gonna go ahead This one is gonna be one that's like sits on the coffee table.

(5:19 - 6:20)

It looks pristine It's like all black cover very simple white Helvetica lettering and it's called playbooks and You open it up Like I said a playboy, but it's like playbooks. Well, no, but that's clever. I like You open it up and it's just this beautiful these beautiful minimalist playbooks everything minimalist very few words we don't use words That is your moist dream, I know you could hire the IKEA technical writer to just create the awnings of your visual representations of your frameworks That's the perfect coffee table because nobody wants to read it It's gonna be beautiful it's gonna be great people are saying they've never seen anything like it And that's because it was so boring.

(6:20 - 7:07)

They never opened it up Many credible people are saying it's the most beautiful thing they've ever seen but they're tearing it down They're taking it away, but we're gonna build it back. Oh Be careful You gotta live in that brother Give us one more one more is your you see two strikes hmm Well the problem I was looking for my third, but I had searched my phone for playbooks and that's just oh Every note in my phone. This guy needs a subscription of playbooks monthly Look who's on page 43.

(7:07 - 7:46)

Oh my gosh, it's this man. I think crushing it. Yeah I think when you say I think like these all feel a bit navel-gazing, I feel like there needs to be more of a Through line when we talk about customer success Like people are thinking about let's talk about AI What is it about AI? right It's because there's a potential for this thing to really change The way that we can do Business for the better the way that we can change things for the better.

(7:47 - 8:33)

So like the conversations of rounds Yes, I feel like tend to all revolve around is this it's that or like really do I hear CS talked about? This is how it can really make things Better. This is how this tool can be used to have a book where you can talk more about Okay, we'll just establish what the CS thing is you can do all that stuff about with it, but what we're really interested in is Here's how we think this function actually can make business better but why do you need to have a customer success as opposed to No, you got to have customer success. Like we need to exist.

(8:33 - 10:19)

Do we Have we got it under the vacuum like we need to be able to be like this is why We need it and go for it That gives me one I can close out on because there's another book idea You guys remember Diane Gordon who was on the show? She and I were chatting about Putting together some book that goes through the phases That a CS team goes through that like basically based on the stage various factors stage revenue Sass not sass b2b b2c whatever of various factors a bit but in general it like we try to Aggregate the phases that a company goes through and talk about what is customer success look like at each phase Because a lot like if someone who's new who's building out a customer success function for the first time goes on LinkedIn They're gonna get so thrown off by the fact that so much of this doesn't apply to them And they might even get put off from customer success in general So it goes through the phases right here you start with your generalist who does everything you move to a phase where you? Maybe you break onboarding and support versus account management Then maybe you move into breaking those into different functions like renewals and upsell and advocacy and all that other stuff We talked about maybe doing it as a fiction book so then you can hear the story But I think it would probably be nonfiction You're mentioning all this in the past tense. Did you table the idea? We just kind of it's on the back burner right now I'm gonna meet up with Diane for coffee soon. We'll talk about it again But if anybody's listening to this and thinks these ideas are slam dunks Any big publishing houses out there want to give them a massive advance? Yeah, we can fly to Tahiti and focus on writing this book Please reach out Anyway boys, that's our time Interesting interesting stuff.

(10:19 - 10:40)

I don't know that there was a ton of material here, but I think that what it does is it shows That We're thinking about it differently. I think it shows that there's a really big ecosystem here There's so much to think about and unpack and untangle. I find optimism at the end of this meandering Conversation.

(10:40 - 11:27)

Thank you. Thank you Rob for coming to the table with this We have got to say goodbye, but let's all come back and do it again soon. I do it for the kids Bye, bitch 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 calm Find us on youtube at lifetime value and find us on the socials at lifetime value media until next time

Do you have a story to tell, an opinion to share?

Join us on The Daily Standup.