#TDSU Episode 215:

⏱️ Timestamps:

00:00:00 - Intro

00:02:31 - Promotions, layoffs & CS overthinking

00:03:27 - Turning weekly challenges into playbooks

00:04:50 - SDR vs. CSM: Easier to innovate?

00:05:56 - Career hygiene in uncertain times

00:08:40 - Don’t fear your resume or networking

00:09:21 - The messy truth behind promotions

00:12:53 - Play the long game

📺 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 Carly Agar:

Carly's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carly-agar/

[Carly] (0:00 - 0:23)

But in my humble opinion, being in customer success, making an impact is probably easier than it is in a lot of other jobs. Because when I think about making an impact, especially in CS, it's like, how do you scale things, right? Like, how do you find the best way to go about something and then teach other people how to do that thing efficiently?

[Dillon] (0:32 - 1:05)

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?

Where will you be in five years? Oh, yeah. And we've got exactly right, big sigh, big sigh.

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

Don't put so much pressure on the audience. And we have Carly with us. Carly, can you say hi, please?

[Carly] (1:05 - 1:06)

Greetings.

[Dillon] (1:07 - 1:17)

Greetings. Thank you for taking my suggestion. Hardly anybody ever does, but I know what I'm doing.

And I am your host. My name is Dillon Young. You're a rule follower.

[Carly] (1:17 - 1:18)

Actually, I'm not.

[Dillon] (1:20 - 1:29)

That's why you're doing your own thing. Carly, thank you so much for being here. Tell everybody about that thing you're doing that is on your own, solopreneur.

[Carly] (1:29 - 2:06)

Yeah, that thing I'm doing. Well, I can't really call it solopreneur, right? Because I have a team.

Really short version of a very long story is I worked in CS for 10, 11 years, got to a point where I was like, hey, you know what I really don't want to do? Manage a CS team. You know what I want to keep doing?

Growing my career. And so I decided to start my own business. So for the last three and a half, four years, I've been coaching customer success professionals, we'll say, on how to land jobs in the field.

[Dillon] (2:06 - 2:31)

Love it. Love it. Carly Agar, if you don't already know the name, go and learn about her.

She gives the most valuable free information on the internet about finding a career and growing your career in CS. Now, Carly, you know what we do here? We ask every single guest one simple question, and that is what is on your mind when it comes to customer success?

So can you please share that with us?

[Carly] (2:31 - 2:35)

There's so many things. I want to maybe keep this positive.

[Dillon] (2:35 - 2:37)

Oh, maybe.

[Carly] (2:37 - 2:41)

Let me just say, what's on your mind? Naturally, I think of negative things.

[Dillon] (2:41 - 2:43)

You're welcome.

[Carly] (2:44 - 3:13)

What's on my mind right now is promotions. I think a lot of people have been recently asking me, how do I make an impact? How do I get leadership to notice me?

How do I layoff proof myself? Which I'm a weary about that term because you know that you can't actually do that. But I think a lot of people in CS are maybe overcomplicating what it means to make an impact in your role.

So that's something that I'm thinking about right now.

[Dillon] (3:14 - 3:26)

Give me an example. Overcomplicating. What are they doing?

And what do you think they ought to just strip away and focus on this other thing or this one piece of the overcomplicated thing they're creating in their head?

[Carly] (3:27 - 4:26)

Yeah, I think overcomplicating it in the sense that they are stuck in this spot where they're overanalyzing, overanalyzing, not actually taking action. Maybe a little bit of perfectionism. But in my humble opinion, being in customer success, making an impact is probably easier than it is in a lot of other jobs.

Because when I think about making an impact, especially in CS, it's like, how do you scale things? How do you find the best way to go about something and then teach other people how to do that thing efficiently? And in customer success, there's so many things that you face.

Think about any given week with your book of business. There's so many unique scenarios that you face in that role. And every time you face a new, unique scenario is an opportunity for you to create a best practice, create a playbook, train someone else on how you went about that thing.

Is that making sense?

[Dillon] (4:26 - 4:49)

I think it is. And what I'll add to that is, I think it's easier in customer success because I think it is so unique to every organization that, particularly if the department hasn't been around for a long time in that company, or even if it has and things have changed, your product market fit has changed or things like that, you have an outsized opportunity to create an impact internally that way.

[Carly] (4:50 - 4:52)

Perfect. Love this. I just thought of a great analogy.

[Dillon] (4:54 - 4:59)

Oh, you're stepping on JP's toes, but I love it. Do it. Yeah, go ahead.

Go ahead.

[Carly] (5:00 - 5:41)

So what you just said about it being so unique at every company, think about being an SDR or BDR. It's actually very hard to be like, hey, I came up with this new way to send a cold email that gets a lot of responses, right? But as a CSM, even just using an email example, everyone you're reaching out to, there's all these different stakeholders, there's different pain points, there's different value, there's different parts of the life cycle that they're in. There's different data that you have available to you.

So it is so much easier to create a new best practice, a new thing that nobody's mastered yet and share that.

[Dillon] (5:41 - 5:55)

I already told you this before we started recording, but JP sings your praises all the time. He thinks you are so freaking smart. And I agree.

I agree. And so I'm going to let JP jump in here and add to your thoughts here and see if he's got a better analogy.

[JP] (5:56 - 8:02)

Oh no, I would never. I would never. I would never.

I love what you're bringing attention to. And I'm actually going to, instead of an analogy, I'm going to come at it at a slightly different angle, which is you mentioned something where it sounds like the root of it is that a lot of people in CS have maybe like some anxiety, right? How do I lay off proof?

How do I show an impact? Everything's sort of around, how do I keep my job? How do I not go back out there on the market?

And so I think wanting to get promoted, I think that's great. But I think there's so many people who are just like, how do I just keep my job? And I'll say for me personally, I think that this may sound pessimistic, but it's optimistic.

I've made peace with the fact that this is a very different world that we live in. I've made peace with the fact that in customer success, there's just going to be, maybe at the moment, there's going to be certain things that we have to deal with. And one of those things is going to be uncertainty.

That is beyond my control. What I like about your messaging so much, Carly, and what you provide is that I think that there's a certain level of hygiene that we need to have as professionals now. We need to, I think we can be conscious of what we're doing at a certain company, but you said that you got, you said, hey, I don't really want to manage a CS team anymore, but I do want to grow my career.

I think that having that career consciousness is really important. And I get a lot of that from your messaging. And I feel like, I really do try to do things like don't make an adversary of my resume, right?

Like make my resume a place where I'm recording my wins at work, which can help me at my job, as opposed to my resume being something I'm trying to scramble together at the last second when I'm looking for another job, right? I think even some small shifts like that can be very helpful to maybe becoming more of a nimble, more agile person career-wise, because I don't think we can count on having, you know, joining a company and just being there seven, eight years. Kudos to anyone who does, by the way, but I think that, you know, expectation-wise.

[Carly] (8:02 - 8:40)

Yeah, I think that's a really good point. So almost what you're saying is like, we have to accept that this is the new norm. And if you want to be in CS, you have to adapt to that.

Not that everyone's going to be as mature as you, JP, where they can say, I'm at peace with it. I'm at peace with the uncertainty, because I actually think that is really hard for a lot of people. But little things that we can do, like you said, like keeping your resume up to date is one way, without overcomplicating, where you can just say, you know what?

It is what it is. Like, that's the reality of CS right now. Let me adapt should the worst case thing happen.

[Dillon] (8:40 - 8:53)

I want to add in there, not making an adversary of your resume or thinking it's a necessary evil is a fantastic idea. I think the same thing about networking now, particularly with this market.

[Carly] (8:53 - 8:53)

Yep.

[Dillon] (8:53 - 9:19)

It's the fastest and easiest way to find new work. It also is super long term. So you're going to start doing it way earlier than you ever think you might need it.

But on top of that, I think it's also just a great way to build upon your chops. I want to make sure, Rob, you get an opportunity to jump in here and share your thoughts, because you also have scorned at W2 Love.

[Rob] (9:21 - 10:24)

Yeah. Well, yeah. And I've seen this now from, I was going to say both sides, but it's like multiple sides as an interviewee, getting my butt kicked in, you know, job application after job application, and then as like on the hiring side.

And then also like now this weird sort of third party role that I play as a consultant. It's kind of, it's different. I'll put it that way.

Like I just, and I just got off of a call with somebody. And what came up in the call was like, it's such an inefficient world to like get help with your thinking around interviews to do like interview role plays, for example. And a lot of times, like we end up just working off of so much guesswork.

I love what Carly and JP, like what you both are mentioning here is like stacking your wins. A lot of times it's hard to like know whether they're actually perceived as wins to the executive team that you might have to sell yourself to. So for starters, let me just first say, like if anybody listening to this has challenging interview questions that they're like take home assignments and they're allowed to, you know, seek out help, I'm happy to throw my hat in the ring as a hopefully helpful resource.

[Dillon] (10:26 - 10:27)

You'd be careful.

[Rob] (10:28 - 10:28)

Yeah.

[JP] (10:31 - 10:33)

Scale back. Carly said scale, scale back.

[Rob] (10:34 - 11:21)

Maybe we'll edit that out. I'm just here to be a resource for people preparing for interviews. I'll put it that way.

Like I don't have any sort of perfect, like proper mentorship program, but I'm happy to just talk shop because I think like, you know, the last time I got, now I'll look at like promotion. The last time I, or rather the first time I got a promotion at a SaaS company, it took me nine months negotiation with the CEO, like nine months, every month he would visit town and I would, I would make the case and he would say no. And I would make the case and he would say, we don't want to issue more titles.

Titles are bad. And then I would make the case and he'd say, well, we need to shop around for who else is on the market. And it turned out like I ended up getting that promotion.

It was really hard. And I really benefited from how difficult it was, but I also wish the process could be more.

[Carly] (11:23 - 11:37)

People think like I should ask for the promotion when I'm ready for it. You should be asking a year before you're ready for it or a year before you expect it. Usually it takes six to eight months.

[Rob] (11:37 - 11:45)

And you learn in that process. Like I learned to speak at the executive level by getting told no.

[Dillon] (11:46 - 12:05)

Can I clarify? So Rob, you explain that experience from a startup perspective, Carly, I wonder if, cause that almost, that sounds more like a larger company. We only have reviews twice a year sort of thing.

Is that sort of the way you're thinking about it, Carly? Or you think even at like a 50 person company, it could take that long?

[Carly] (12:05 - 12:09)

No, I've seen it at a 50 person company take that long.

[Dillon] (12:09 - 12:10)

Okay. No.

[Carly] (12:11 - 12:11)

Yeah.

[Dillon] (12:11 - 12:53)

We are out of time, but I feel like we could keep going. So Carly, I'd like to come back for a round two, but I love that piece at the end of like this. I think the theme I'm hearing is this long-term thinking.

And I just wrote a post recently on LinkedIn about job searching. And good friend of the show, Mickey Powell mentioned, the only time I think about job searching is when I need a job. And that hit me so hard as being the absolutely wrong way to think about it.

And I don't think he was speaking necessarily personally. I think he was just saying that's how most people think about it. And I thought that was so interesting and stark as compared to the way we should be thinking about it.

[Carly] (12:53 - 12:56)

Anyway. It used to be how we could think about it.

[Dillon] (12:56 - 12:56)

Yeah.

[Carly] (12:56 - 13:05)

I like your long-term thinking there, because we talked about promotions, networking, your resume. We touched on everything.

[Dillon] (13:06 - 13:12)

Yeah. Come back. We'll expound upon it.

Don't put it on your podcast either. That belongs to us and us.

[Carly] (13:15 - 13:19)

Today is my content day, so I do have to write two podcasts.

[Dillon] (13:20 - 13:24)

Carly, thank you so much. We are out of time. Until next time.

[Carly] (13:24 - 13:26)

Enjoy your weekend, y'all. Bye.

[VO] (13:32 - 14:03)

You've been listening to The Daily Standup by Lifetime Value. Please note that the views expressed in these conversations are attributed only to those individuals on this recording and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of their respective employers. For all inquiries, please reach out via email to Dillon at LifetimeValueMedia.com.

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.