#TDSU Episode 207:

⏱️ Timestamps:

00:00:00 - Intro

00:01:38 - Who holds the power in decision-making?

00:03:11 - Learning the hard way about executive influence

00:06:03 - The hidden value of below-the-line insights

00:07:13 - ATL shoutouts and empathy for BTLs

00:09:10 - Practical steps to map customer influence

00:10:45 - From CS strategy to military metaphors

00:11:31 - Closing thoughts

📺 Lifetime Value: Your Destination for GTM content

Website: https://www.lifetimevaluemedia.com

🤝 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 Sae Ro:

Sae's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/saero/

[Sae] (0:00 - 0:14)

As CX practitioners, CX professionals, you know, we build a lot of relationships. I think it's important for us to understand who's above the line, below the line. And what's that line?

It's the individuals who have an influence on our destiny.

[Dillon] (0:23 - 0:33)

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, with us. Rob, do you want to say hi?

[Rob] (0:34 - 0:35)

What's up, people?

[Dillon] (0:35 - 0:38)

And we have JP with us. JP, can you say hi?

[JP] (0:39 - 0:40)

Hey, what's going on?

[Dillon] (0:41 - 0:44)

And we have Sae with us. Sae, can you say hi, please?

[Sae] (0:44 - 0:45)

Hi, what's up, Dillon?

[Dillon] (0:45 - 0:51)

What's up? And I am your host. My name is Dillon Young.

Sae, thank you so much for being here. Can you please introduce yourself?

[Sae] (0:51 - 1:09)

My name is Sae Ro. I am the head of customer executive engagement at Moveworks. I oversee a lot of customer engagement activities as part of the CS org, the customer advisory board, our regional events, our global events.

I run some hackathons, executive roundtables, and AI strategy workshops.

[Dillon] (1:09 - 1:37)

I met Sae at the Customer Success Collective Summit in Washington, D.C., where he put on a talk, and it was phenomenal. I loved it. I approached him immediately after and said, you got to talk about this on the pod.

I hope that's what you're going to talk about, but maybe it's like a larger, more broader topic. So Sae, you know what we do here. We ask one simple question of every single guest, and that is, what is on your mind when it comes to customer success?

So can you tell us what that is for you?

[Sae] (1:38 - 2:32)

As CS practitioners, CS professionals, you know, we build a lot of relationships. I think it's important for us to understand who's above the line, below the line. And what's that line?

It's the individuals who have an influence on our destiny. Right? So those individuals who are above the line or ATL, not Atlanta, but above the line, they typically have perhaps like a signing authority, budget authority, internal influence.

You know, they ultimately have a decision-making power, and they can influence our destiny in terms of upsell, renewals, and so on. Whereas those below the line, they may be friendlies, but they ultimately do not have influence on our destiny. Right?

So they can provide insights. They're very helpful. But again, you know, they ultimately do not make the decisions on our future.

[Dillon] (2:32 - 3:10)

I love this. And it is so tempting to make the joke of who is worth your time. Sure.

But that is not our point. I do think, you know, I don't even know if I picked up on this during your original presentation, but there's value in investing in those folks below the line with the expectation that they may someday be above the line. So there's certainly value in investing in both relationships.

I think it's probably a short-term versus a long-term impact to your destiny, like you were talking about. I want to give Rob an opportunity to jump in here and share his thoughts and feelings about this concept. He smiled when you first said it.

[Rob] (3:11 - 6:02)

Yeah, I smiled because I remembered the first time I came across this concept. I was getting chewed out by this executive who was our first customer. And he was like, everything's broken.

This is all wrong. You guys got to fix this. And I'm like, fix what?

And he's like, fix it. You just got to fix it. And I was like, dude, you're not saying anything.

And what I really unpacked was he was just like, I don't know, but the people aren't happy. He's like, I don't know how any of this stuff is supposed to work, but the people aren't happy. And what he was saying, this executive at the business, he was saying that all he cared about, value to him is that these people were having a positive, productive experience in our software and our platform.

Turns out he didn't really know how the sausage was made and didn't care. And so I wasted a lot of time trying to train him on the nuance and show off. We got this feature and this function.

He's like, you're showing the wrong guy, man. Just show the people. Show my people.

If they're happy, I'm happy, right? And I thought it was really intriguing because actually, so I noticed something you said, say, you said that people below the line, the people below the line don't have influence on the buying decision. My experience is they have subtle influence.

And what I've learned is that we talk about stuff in customer success, like time to value. And that is massively different for different stakeholder personas within your organization, what those value outcomes are. And if you're not speaking the language of your customer, your persona of what their value outcomes are, then you're likely to preach to the wrong choir, I guess.

I don't know. You're likely to just be wrong and risk your deal. I've one last element to add to this.

And then I'll stop talking. But I've been coming across this recently. Two of my clients, they're building two-sided marketplaces.

And one side of the marketplace is the supply side. And they're just like, well, we don't really care about that side. That's not the side that's paying us.

It's the demand side that we care about. And so I think beyond just the above the line and below the line on the demand side that we care about, we also care about this lateral line that we haven't really thought through yet, which is like, how do we treat people who are on the supply side, who we normally would just kind of say, their experience doesn't really matter. There's a dime a dozen.

Churn doesn't really matter as much. They're not paying us. You can't really measure their experience all that well.

They influence the decision of the people who are above the line on the demand side who are ultimately paying for the renewal.

[Sae] (6:03 - 6:50)

Sure. I'm curious to get JP's thoughts. But before I flip it over to him, let me address one of Dillon's point, which is they're all important.

No doubt about it. To your point, Dillon, you know, some of these people who are below the line, they're going to get promoted. They're going to grow in their career and become ultimately decision makers.

So because of that, we have to secure that relationship. Also, they're going to give us insights. They're going to give us tidbits in terms of what's happening internally that we can use to engage those folks above the line.

So they are friendlies. And sometimes I get more insight from them. Their insight is more valuable than what I may glean from perhaps like, you know, searching on LinkedIn or on the web and so on.

[Dillon] (6:51 - 7:12)

Does that make sense? Yes. But I think the unsaid thing you're saying is that ultimately the buck stops with those folks.

ATL. While the insights may be what you need in order to execute, somebody above the line is actually the person executing on the customer side. You need both.

[JP] (7:13 - 9:10)

All right, JP, go ahead. First of all, shout out to ATL. We keep talking about ATL.

Shout out to Atlanta. Shout out to future outcasts, all them people down there in the dungeon family what's going on. Secondly, when I hear about this BTL, you know, Robby did mention the BLT.

And I think that for the, I think that for the BTLs we do need some BLT, which is a little lesser version of TLC. They're also from Atlanta. But BLT, I think is be a little tolerant, right?

You could be more tolerant with the people above the line, but with the BTLs, BLT, be a little tolerant with them. In other words, maybe not as much as you would with those other folks, but scale empathy appropriately, right? We always talk about empathy as a thing, but it can also be like the time and attention that you're giving to some people.

And so I think you can be figuring out how to maximize you know, how much tea to give to your BTLs. And to the last thing you said, Rob, which was what I thought about this conversation, which is, yeah, making sure that you're having the right conversations with the right people, because you don't want to be talking for an hour to someone who's, you know, who's the BTL only to discover, you know, around the end, it's like, oh my gosh, I should have been talking to someone else. And they maybe didn't even realize it themselves.

So I think, you know, understanding who you're talking to and what kind of conversations you're having, make sure those are in the right place. I think that that's a good, solid through line, you know, but I also think it's interesting to say, you know, using the wording of destiny, right? That's like so strong.

It's almost like a Jack Black movie. You know what I mean? Like there's just some destiny stuff going on.

But I think it's an interesting thing. And I think that what you do actually sounds really interesting. So appreciate you coming on the show.

[Dillon] (9:10 - 9:39)

Yeah, no, my pleasure. Yeah. Say, I have two questions for you.

Number one, do you have any musical artists you'd like to toss into the list as hailing from Atlanta? Do you know any off the top of your head? And if you do, that's bonus points.

But second, do you have any takeaways, simple, easy for the audience about how to implement this tomorrow or how to think about it or like any little things you can give to our audience around above the line, below the line?

[Sae] (9:39 - 9:44)

Yeah. I mean, Outkast, Ludacris. Do I get something for those?

Luda.

[Dillon] (9:45 - 9:59)

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. Jermaine? Jermaine Dupri, you mean?

Yeah. I said. Hell yeah.

Say knew his last name. I love this. All right.

Go ahead. Second part.

[Sae] (10:00 - 10:45)

The second one is a little tougher. You know, SES professionals, we need to understand the lay of the land. You know, if I have a great relationship with a customer, simply asking, you know, especially when it comes to renewal time.

Hey, ultimately, you know, what process do we have to go through? Are there certain signatures we need to secure? That's a great way.

You know, can you navigate an org chart and figure out based on titles? But that doesn't always work because I know a VP who is below the line. So, you know, simply asking goes a long way.

And if you have a friendly, they're willing to share a lot of insights and tidbits. I love this language.

[Dillon] (10:45 - 11:23)

So destiny is a bit of a strong one, but so is friendly. I feel like that has a military connotation, right? When you think about when you're in enemy territory, but you come across a friendly.

So we're going from one to music, to military. Okay. Say it's your first time, but you're going to learn.

This is the way we work here. Very disjointed. Say that is our time.

I love this concept. I would love for you to come back and talk about it again. Or if you come up with anything else brilliant, please come unveil it here.

Yeah, we have other topics. So say thank you so much. We'd love to have you back in the future.

But for now we do have to say goodbye.

[Sae] (11:24 - 11:25)

All right. Take care.

[VO] (11:31 - 12:01)

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 Find us on YouTube at Lifetime Value and find us on the socials at Lifetime Value Media. Until next time.

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