Latest / Unstuck Pod / Customer Success Starts Early (Kristi Faltorusso and Jamie Schneiderman)
Transcript
- Jamie Schneiderman: Hi everyone, welcome to the Unstuck Pod. really excited today to have Christy Falterusso here with us. Christy, welcome. Kristi Faltorusso: Thank you, Jamie, so much for having me. I'm so excited for our conversation today. Jamie Schneiderman: Great. I'm really excited to have you here. So so so can you start off by telling everybody a little bit about your background, sort of the I say the I always like the journey. Where'd you come from? What were you doing and w where are we f where are you focused now? Kristi Faltorusso: Absolutely. So interestingly enough, I started my career in publishing and advertising and marketing. And that kind of dovetailed off of my education and public relations. Spent a decade of my career doing that. I worked in-house, I worked at agencies, I worked for some e-commerce stores. I ran my own agency for a little while. I was an adjunct professor. I had grand dreams of being a CMO one day. I thought that's where my career was gonna take me. And ironically, it took a hard pivot. After working with a company called Bright Edge in the SaaS space, so software as a service, I changed and pivoted my career into customer success. I had spent the past 14 years building, scaling, and transforming customer success teams in the B2B hyper-growth space, where I had led companies as small as 3 million in revenue all the way to 100 million in revenue, built out everything, transformed everything, had a ton of fun, learned a bunch, and then this past January, I decided that another pivot was in order. And decided to take all of my learnings and move out on my own as a consultant now, where I serve as an advisor, a coach, an educator, and a speaker in customer success. Jamie Schneiderman: Okay, wow. Like that was quick. That was wow. I love it. That was like, that was amazing and quick. and and the obviously there's a lot there. So, so let me let me jump to I actually want to jump to because customer success is clearly like your space. It's it's your it's where you where you operate. So let me talk first just a little bit about the transition. So so you have a ton of experience in the space, you've been working in the space. What what's it like to have jumped off from working, I say, for others, to working on your own, being on your own? What how has that felt? Kristi Faltorusso: So the good thing about the way that I approached this Jamie is I didn't decide one day to just like hit a switch and stop being an operator and jump into this world of consulting. in fact, I would strongly advise that nobody do that because not only is it super risky, it's just it's a hard shift. So I actually did this a little bit more unconventionally, where for the past three years, I actually had been doing some moonlighting. And so not that my Chief customer officer role didn't keep me quite busy, but I would spend nights and weekends starting to build my b my brand and my business and started to do some consulting on the side. And so started off understanding like what services do I really like and what do I want to be delivering. And so really spent the past couple of years doing some market research and designing what my offering could and would look like. And, you know, by the end of my second year, honestly, I had brought in so much revenue on the side. It became fiscally irresponsible for me to keep my day job. it just was very evident that this was the path I needed to take. So when I made this pivot, it wasn't a real like, I'm jumping off this cliff and I'm doing something inherently different than I'd done before. It was a reprioritization, right? Like I'm going to shift gears, I'm gonna go all in on this thing, but I had such a solid foundation. now, as far as the other elements of it, I will say something I I believed would be true, but Didn't really know until I did it. I really like not working for anyone and having nobody work for me. the past 25 years of my career have just been exhausting. managing people, managing up and managing down and managing wide. I just needed a break from that aspect of it. I'm an introvert, which nobody believes about me, but I promise you it's true. And as a result, I don't get energy from being around and with people, right? I get energy and I recharge independently. So being able to do this work allows me this duality of recharging as I'm doing the work and then also having this connectivity to my customers when I do meet and engage with them. So I just feel like this has been the career designed for me that I never knew. And I'm like loving every minute of it. Jamie Schneiderman: That's that's awesome. This is great. I love it. all right. So I want to so so when you talk about so you you you had time, you step back, you design this the way that you wanted to design it. and you also describe the fact that introvert, I was I'm surprised. So there you go. I'm surprised, but that's it's all good. and so and so but but the idea that you know you wanna set something up that's right for you. Doing it the way for you. So, so and and there's another piece that you mentioned to me earlier when you and I had spoken about wanting to be about insurance versus a firefighter, right? Like you want to be in the insurance business, not the firefighting business. And I'm sorry, I'm I'm paraphrasing, so maybe I'm butchering what you said, but kind of this idea of you don't want to come in when something's just exploding and and a disaster. You kind of want to come in. So so talk to me a little bit about how you designed what you've done, how like where you're focused, what that looks like, and so in a way that is both value add for your clients and also fits you and what you want. Kristi Faltorusso: Yeah. And listen, you didn't butcher it at all. That's exactly the idea here is that more often than not, CEOs and founders and executives often raise their hand when there's a problem, right? And so in the world of customer success, that problem might manifest as customer churn, right? They've got customers who are leaving, they're unsubscribing to their business, they're downselling their contracts, so they're spending less money. And when that starts to bubble up and people start to identify that as a theme. All of a sudden we're running around trying to figure out who can help us, how can we fix this? We want to stop the bleed. And I believe fundamentally that that doesn't need to be everyone's lived reality. I do believe that if you build the proper infrastructure and you get ahead of these things, you won't have that problem. And so this is where it's like I talk about it as like insurance, is like build the machine that is customer success foundationally into your business and across the organization early. So that you don't run into these issues. Now, that's not to say that no churn will ever happen, but you definitely won't be calling me when the house is burning down. Now, the cool thing about the work that I get to do now is who I sell to and how I position my services. And I very much talk about it through this lens: is like, do not call me when it's too late. Because undoing all of that is inherently difficult, right? And it's gonna take a lot longer, which means, as far as I'm concerned, right, you'll be paying me a lot more over time. Good for me, bad for you. So if you want to get this right, the best thing to do is think about designing it early. So my target audience has been focused on earlier stage companies where I can fundamentally come into the business and have an impact that will lay the foundation of what good or great customer success could be for them. So that way their teams can continue to scale and build and evolve off of that. Jamie Schneiderman: So, and and in your opinion, when you start to look at these early stage companies that may not have these pieces quite right, do you see them grow out of it or they have to actually do it, do it properly, think about it differently and then start to grow with it? So how where where does it how does it work? Because they tend to be growing very quickly. Kristi Faltorusso: Yeah, I mean the the interesting thing is, right, like this is a living, breathing kind of program that you're designing. It continuously evolves. This is not like a set it and forget it strategy. And I always say customer success is not a one-size-fits-all. It's not even a one-size-fits most. It is very much intentionally designed for the business specifically because there's so many nuances about every company that you need to design for. And that's the interesting thing about customer success. And I think both what makes it beautiful and also extremely difficult. There's no playbook. There's no, I did this, this last company, and we're gonna wash, rinse, repeat, do the same thing here. You cannot do that. This is not sales, this is not marketing. It is very fluid. So what I do is I lay the foundation, right? The principles of it. We make sure that we are aligned on the objectives. How you execute these things, that's where it evolves, right? If you decide you're moving up market and you had historically been a product-led growth strategy, now you're moving upmarket. You want to target enterprise level customers. The fundamentals of what you do are the same. How you deliver on those may be augmented. So it's thinking about all the principles that we design together in your business and then making sure that the right infrastructure is there and the right operation is behind it so that you go up market, you go down market, you stay where you are, it can all grow and move with you. It doesn't ever stop. It is an evolution. Jamie Schneiderman: Why do you think that companies sort of and and I'm I think founders, and that's obviously a lot of the places where you're focused, the like why do you think it takes them so long to take customer success serious and I don't know that all do, but I but it feels like more do than sh than they should. Like it's almost like, churn's happening. well now we should take customer success seriously. Why? Why are we there? Why aren't why isn't that where we're starting? Kristi Faltorusso: It's a black box for many, right? It's not sales, it's not marketing. It hasn't been foundational to business for decades, right? Like sales and marketing, everyone gets it, right? Like, yes, we need marketing. It helps us develop develop, design our brand in the market. It's how we bring people to us. Great. Sales, it's how you go and you close the revenue. It's those things are very obvious. Because customer success, like I said, is not a one size fits all. It's a bit of a black box because it is so nuanced that not everyone can wrap their head around it. When you don't get something, it's hard to know how to invest in it. And then listen, depending on what stage the company is, let's not kid ourselves, these founders, especially if they've got investors, they're taking their marching orders from a board who's telling them these are the bets that they need to make. And early on, it is always marketing and sales, right? Like you need to bring in the customers. We need to test that there is a a addressable market out there. There's product market fit. You got a product team, right? Like so you're obviously investing in that. And then you got to be able to sell it. But nobody really thinks about the what do you do once it's sold? Because for a lot of companies, even on a year-long contract, it's still a year's problem away, right? Like Jamie Schneiderman: Yeah. Kristi Faltorusso: I have a year before that needs to be my problem. But the reality is the decisions on that year are happening day one. People don't realize that. So I think a lot of it is just like the ambiguity that exists around it, the lack of historical context around customer success. And let's be honest, most of these founders. And and CEOs, they're product people, right? Or they came as a subject matter expert. They don't know customer success. They don't, they don't need to either. But it's not how they're bent, right? So it's I think there's a lot of things that play to it. what I try to do is just make sure that I'm beating that drum out there in the market and for as loud as I can be and as in many places as I can be, continue to just talk about it so that the right people hear it at the right time and that we can start to perpetuate this idea that customer success. is an early is an early business motion, not something that you think about later. Jamie Schneiderman: All right. So okay, this is great. the so you walk into a company and you're looking at the company w what are the what are the things that the I I can give you either a company or just in general, what are the things that you're seeing that these companies are doing poorly or that are giving you a sign if you're auditing them, taking a harder look that there are Deep potholes everywhere around on the customer success side. So so g give me a sense of of where this is breaking down. Kristi Faltorusso: Gosh, Jamie, my audit is like over 400 criterion long. So I'm not even gonna get into all this. So let's start at a high level. The Jamie Schneiderman: yeah. Kristi Faltorusso: number one thing that I see fundamentally wrong is that there's lack of alignment, right? If I asked every person on the EL team, what is customer success? Assuming I've got five people in the room, I'm gonna get five different answers. I have never walked into a business where every single person on the leadership team has said the exact same thing when asked that question. It starts at the top. When there is a fundamental disconnect between what this function does at its highest level and the purpose around it, when that is not clearly understood at the highest level, there is no way you can orchestrate an entire company around it. So that is thematically the first issue that I find is that. Cross-functionally, nobody knows what we do. Now, the the second issue that is a big one for folks: customer success has like an identity crisis. So we are, if you think about it, customer success is an outcome for your customer, customer success is a strategy for your business, and customer success is a function, it's a team. So because it means three different things inherently. How you treat it in the business is confusing. So when I talk about us having like an identity crisis, it's almost our fault because maybe we could have used some better naming here, but we use the same language to describe three fundamentally different things. And so depending on how the business internalizes that and how they prioritize working on these things, that's gonna create a whole nother mess of problems for the business. The third thing I see, random acts of customer success. It's the best way I can describe Jamie Schneiderman: Yeah. Kristi Faltorusso: it. There's no strategy. There is no clarity around a goal. There's no North Star. There's no mission. There's no vision. It's what I like to call random acts of customer success. What you will see this manifest as. Well, we have somebody who's helping with onboarding. We have support. We do EBRs or QBRs. We do check-ins with our customers. We have a renewal conversation. That is not a cohesive strategy. That is random acts of customer success. And that is typical for most organizations I walk into. I'll kind of do my diagnosis and I just find like, okay, you guys are doing a bunch of stuff and none of these things operate cohesively together to drive one specific outcome. And in fact, you're doing these activities. And I'm not even confident that you know what the outcome of these individual activities is that you should be seeking. So there's just a complete lack of knowledge, understanding, infrastructure, and like an operating rhythm that happens in most companies in their infancy. Jamie Schneiderman: Well, I love that. By the way, random acts of customer success is great. so so okay, so what's the what's the hardest conversation you've had to have with a founder about this? Cause it sounds like you're not shy. you're Kristi Faltorusso: My no. Jamie Schneiderman: not shy to share what you think. So I'm just curious and and you know, you talked about where these guys are coming or i individuals are coming from. So let's let's I want to hear what this is like. Kristi Faltorusso: More often than not, when I'm brought in, because the way I describe it is like, listen, I'm not a fractional leader. So like you don't hire me to be part or augment your leadership team. That's not how I, that's not the work that I do. There are plenty of people that do that. Not the work that I do. So what I always describe is like, I'm like, you have a leader in place. Your leader is the fire, I am gasoline, right? So I'm the accelerant to somebody who's already in seat. I help them move faster, smarter, more effectively, more efficiently. Great. The biggest challenge that Often comes from my engagements is that the leader isn't the right person in the seat. And so this is not an uncommon outcome. In fact, I would say the last three audits, and those all happened pretty recently, resulted in the termination of a leader. And not because they weren't good or smart, they probably lacked the skills, the experience, the expertise, the understanding. there were some fundamental gaps that were going to be prohibitive as the company kind of grew and matured in this function. So unfortunately, that's a byproduct of the work that I do is it exposes people. it exposes a lot of things, but I would say people is the most sensitive of all of the things that I expose. Jamie Schneiderman: And do and you think that I I I am how much of your time do you spend sort of coaching people up and trying to get them there? And then what are the chances that someone can get there? Cause no you know, a lot of times in startups someone started because they were good at something or they jumped in or whatever. So so how how does that look? Kristi Faltorusso: It depends on what the the leader's expectation is of that leader. So if I'm working with, and this is also not uncommon, I've got a CEO who says, We have this stellar individual contributor who I moved into the head of customer success role. Like they were phenomenal, but they've never led before. If the CEO is clear on what it is that they're working with, who they have in seat, and they say, Listen, this person has all these pieces, and I recognize that this is a gap for them, and they bring me in specifically to coach them. And to really up-level and upskill them, that Jamie Schneiderman: Yeah. Yeah. Kristi Faltorusso: person can be wildly successful with my partnership. The issue runs in when you have a leader that's been put in place where the expectation is that they have the experience and the expertise to deliver, and they are falling short of that expectation. So there is a universe where I definitely. Definitely thrive in up-leveling and upskilling people to make them a better version of themselves, a better and more effective leader. There are also situations where the alignment, because the expectations aren't there, it would result in maybe a termination. Or I've also been involved in conversations where it's just, you know, right, right seat, right bus type of thing. So it's like maybe that's not the role for them. Is there another place in this organization because they still bring immense value to the company? Jamie Schneiderman: So, okay, so if you were gonna okay, great. I I I I mean, once you're in, it's all good. Like you the right, you you're on it. so what's some advice you would give to a founder, CEO? So I'm so I'm starting a business. I'm I'm let's say I'm a little bit earlier even than the stage that you're jumping in at, like even you know, pre three million. So I've I've got a million bucks, we've got some traction, we've got some things going on. How should we be looking at customer success at that stage? What does it look like? And how do we set ourselves up to be way more successful as we scale? Kristi Faltorusso: The best thing you can do as a leader in an early stage organization is put yourself in the position of your customer. So once they become a customer, right? We we invest so many, so much time and cycles into the sales process, right? We are we are happy to inundate them with love and attention and engagement. But what I would ask is that everybody go through the process and say, okay, great. Once I'm a customer, what happens? What do I need to have happen? What does good look like? How are we gonna get them there? What are the expectations of our team and resources? What are the expectations of the customer? You don't need to design a team and a big over-engineered program. You need to just be intentional about how you're gonna orchestrate your customer to a place where they can be independently successful with your solution. If you're in software, right, they're buying technology, they're not buying your services, they're not buying your people. So inherently, like your technology should be good enough to get them there. But we know, unfortunately, customer success becomes an augment strategy for underdeveloped, under-designed, undersimplified products. And we are we are a bridge to that. We recognize that. But put yourself in the shoes of your customer, what needs to be their reality, what actually has to happen, and start there. I think once you just kind of walk the in the shoes of your customer, you can start to easily identify the things that you need to do. what they need to do and then just make sure that there's an open dialogue around how that will be orchestrated together with them. Jamie Schneiderman: So do people like I I'm curious because obviously what you're describing sound like is so logical, makes all the sense in the world, you know it. How frequently do you talk to guys and they're like, I know you're right, but it's just we don't have the resources, we can't do this. This feels overwhelming. I'm I g I'm asking the question around how where they're coming from, not whether it's right or wrong. Kristi Faltorusso: Yeah, I mean, listen, I always just say everything is a matter of priority. How important are your customers to you? And everyone will say, they're so important. Then act like it. If your customers are so important to you, then act like it. Then just do one thing a day that helps you make their experience better. Do one thing a week. Design one thing that makes their lives easier, makes your product more attainable, the value from your product more attainable. This isn't rocket science. Like, I don't have, I don't have some like fancy degree that made me an expert in customer success. It is common sense when you think about it. Maybe it's not as common, but it makes sense once you're in it. And when you can put yourself in the shoes of your customers and actually walk their journey, things become clear, right? It becomes very obvious that what they need and how they're gonna get there. So if it's a priority to you, act like it. Make the time. Time is everyone's excuse. We all have limited time. I get it, right? There's a There's a million things that I want to do that I don't do, but I had to prioritize my time. So I do the things that I can. Jamie Schneiderman: Yeah. I love it. That was great. I I it's a it's a it's an excellent answer and and a great way to kind of sum up what you've been saying, which is come on, are they important or not important? Let's go. Kristi Faltorusso: And the minute you ask that question, everyone would say yes, right? Nobody's gonna say no, my customers don't matter. Of course they do. That's your revenue, right? That's your retained revenue. When people ask you what your business is worth, it's the number that comes from your customers, not what's in your pipeline for sales. So if this is your business and the value of your business, what are you going to do to protect it? I don't know. Jamie Schneiderman: I mean okay. So so no, no, no. I listen, I think a lot of people need your help. So so okay, where how do people find you? How do they get hold of you? How can they reach you? Kristi Faltorusso: Great question, Jamie. Well, fortunately for me, I'm the only Christy Felterusso pretty much in the universe. I've looked. so if you can head over to LinkedIn, you can go find me there, Christy Felterusso. I should pop up there. You can go ahead and follow me. I share a ton of content every single day I post. I share a ton of resources out there. The other place would be my website, Christy Faltaruso.com. Again, tons of resources, ways to connect with me, but I'm constantly posting, sharing more information, templates, resources. ton of information. Your podcast will eventually be there as well. so I'd like to just make sure that I'm educating for free as much as I am enabling the these companies to really think thoughtfully about customer success. Jamie Schneiderman: Awesome. And we'll make sure that we add like links in the description and other ways to find you and all that stuff. Make it easy for people. So listen, this is great. So thank you so much for your time. We really appreciate it. And you know, glad you could contribute because I think a lot of people need to need to avoid their random acts of customer success, which is amazing. and yeah, so that was great. So thank you. And to everybody who's watching, listening, Thank you and until next time. Kristi Faltorusso: Thanks, Jamie.