Latest / Scrappy but Successful [Consultant's Personalities When No One's Watching] / 12. From the Mug Bug to CX Expert - The Scrappy Path of Ryen Salo

Transcript

12. From the Mug Bug to CX Expert - The Scrappy Path of Ryen Salo · Scrappy but Successful [Consultant's Personalities When No One's Watching]

• 0:03
  What's happening everybody? Welcome to Scrappy But Successful - the show where I sit down with your favorite consultants and take a comedic route
• 0:06
  through their life.
• 0:10
  Find out if they're successful today because they're sophisticated or because they're a little bit scrappy. I'm your host Jack Tompkins, CEO of
• 0:14
  Pineapple Consulting Firm, always helping small businesses become more data-driven.
• 0:20
  Fun fact of the day - a bell pepper with three bumps at the bottom means it's better for cooking. If it has four bumps at the bottom, it means it's
• 0:25
  sweeter and better to eat raw.
• 0:31
  Probably should have learned that in my chef experience, but I just learned it.
• 0:35
  Today I'm joined by my now confused friend Ryen. She's a client experience manager at CherryBecker. She's got a lot of success in the B2B SaaS world.
• 0:39
  She's a Finnish sauna enthusiast, a mom, and very involved in the Association for Accounting Marketing.
• 0:45
  So with all of that, Ryen - we know you're successful today, but do you think you fall more on the sophisticated side or more on the scrappy side?
• 0:55
  I would say more on the scrappy side, but I also feel like it's a little bit of both. I'm a little bit sophisticated - let's not get confused here.
• 1:05
  But I would say more on the scrappy side. If we go back through education and career and all the different paths I've taken, it's more scrappy, I
• 1:11
  would have to say.
• 1:37
  Okay, we'll see if the data agrees with you.
• 1:40
  Also the pepper thing - I did not know that. I am a red pepper lover and not a chef, but we love a red pepper in my family and I had no idea the
• 1:44
  bumps on the bottom meant anything.
• 1:50
  So I'm going to take that fun fact and implement it in my life.
• 1:54
  There we go, I love it. I had no idea there was a sweet versus not sweet and it all came down to the bumps. Genius.
• 2:09
  Who knew - and now you're never going to forget it. You're going to be shopping and looking at the red pepper and never forget that fact.
• 2:18
  And anyone out here listening, you will also never forget that fact. So you're welcome - basically that's what Jack says. You're welcome.
• 2:22
  Exactly. Take us back to the beginning. Where'd you grow up? Did you have any entrepreneurs in the family?
• 2:44
  I grew up in southern Oregon in a little town called Grants Pass. If anyone listening to this podcast is from Grants Pass - hey guys, what's up? Yeah,
• 2:49
  small town.
• 2:56
  No real entrepreneurs in my family to be honest. My dad is a retired physician. My mom stayed home with us until my brother and I almost
• 3:01
  graduated.
• 3:08
  And then she became an esthetician - she did that for several years. She's now a real estate agent. And before that she spent a lot of time at our
• 3:14
  school doing PTA.
• 3:30
  Do you remember the presidential physical education test?
• 3:45
  Oh yeah - that was like push-ups, sit-ups, run a mile.
• 3:49
  Yeah, yeah. So my mom - I went to a Title I school growing up, our elementary school. We didn't have a lot of funding, didn't have a PE
• 3:54
  program.
• 4:00
  And so my mom and another one of the moms at school decided they wanted to get their PE certification and implement the presidential fitness program.
• 4:12
  So I'm telling you all this and saying no one in my family was entrepreneurial, but yet I'm talking about my mother who apparently was
• 4:18
  very entrepreneurial. We got there eventually, Jack.
• 4:31
  This is what we uncover. I've had a lot of people totally forget things about their childhood on this podcast. I would say your mom's pretty
• 4:36
  scrappy entrepreneurial.
• 4:43
  She is pretty scrappy. That is definitely a word I would use about her.
• 4:49
  Okay nice. And do you get any of that? Are you selling candy in school? Do you have a lemonade stand or anything?
• 4:56
  I definitely sold candy in school. We lived out of the city so lemonade stand would have been tough. We did do a blackberry stand - my brother and
• 5:00
  I.
• 5:06
  I think we made seven dollars total. We were stoked. Definitely sold candy, definitely did a blackberry stand.
• 5:34
  Another entrepreneurial thing for my mom - she would sell popcorn at the school for like 25 cents, 50 cents. And I would help her do that.
• 5:46
  She was always fundraising for something at the school. Whether I wanted to be there or not, I was participating. And I think having those experiences
• 5:53
  as a kid helped shape the type of person that I am now.
• 6:13
  So when you said your mom's at school - it's your school. It's not the school district. It's literally just you all at the same place.
• 6:24
  Yeah, so the schools I went to were county schools, not city schools. We just had less money than the city schools did. We had to do a little bit
• 6:32
  more fundraising. We had to be a little bit scrappier.
• 7:07
  Okay.
• 7:08
  I'm really sitting here like - wow, we were really scrappy. No sophistication. I'm taking it back. I'm going all scrappy. That's where I'm
• 7:10
  headed.
• 7:14
  I am in the same boat. When I think about my childhood, I'm like, we just kind of made that work. Scrappy is the way to go. I know very successful
• 7:20
  people who are very, very scrappy.
• 7:28
  Exactly. And you have to be. In order to be successful, there's a big part of you that has to be scrappy.
• 7:46
  You just gotta figure it out. How big was your high school graduating class?
• 7:48
  About 100 people.
• 7:53
  Wow, okay, that's pretty small. Do you have good grades? Top of the class?
• 7:55
  I think there was about 100 people in my graduating class. Maybe a little bit more. Yeah.
• 8:10
  Okay, good student, good grades for you.
• 8:18
  I was a good student in the sense that I was a good listener. I listened to my teachers. I was kind to other people. I was inclusive. I made friends
• 8:23
  easily.
• 8:30
  Academically, I was - hmm - fine. I did fine. I graduated. I do have a college degree. We might get into how long it took me to do that.
• 8:44
  But I think I was scrappy in school too because I had to figure out how to do it. I had to figure out how to make it work for me.
• 9:07
  I didn't learn the way that everybody else learned. At least that's what it felt like at the time. It felt like everybody else was getting it and I
• 9:12
  wasn't getting it.
• 9:18
  As I got older, I learned more about the way that I learned. I had a few teachers who really saw me - one in elementary, one in middle school, one
• 9:27
  in high school - who really took it upon themselves to help me succeed.
• 9:38
  If I could do it all over again - and my mom has said this too - if there was an alternative school... we lived in a small town, it was the nineties,
• 9:44
  we didn't have charter schools, outdoor school, any of those things.
• 9:52
  She said if we could do it all over again, she would have put my brother and me into a different type of school situation. I made it, I graduated.
• 9:59
  But academically it was tough. Otherwise I loved school.
• 10:48
  Because that's kind of the fun part, honestly. I don't use anything I learned in high school or college. I learned how to learn along the way -
• 10:53
  and that was important.
• 11:00
  Most entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial-spirited people that I talk to didn't have great grades in high school. Not because they weren't smart -
• 11:06
  they just didn't find the value in it.
• 11:23
  As a mom now, for your kids - how do you see them in school? What's their learning style?
• 11:34
  My son just turned seven and he's in first grade. We are a one and fun family.
• 11:42
  He is in the public school system here in Oregon. We live just outside of Portland - about 20 minutes from downtown.
• 12:22
  Our community has its own school district with four schools. They separated kindergarten in 2013 to help the population that really needed additional
• 12:29
  support. My son went to that school. He thrived. He did great.
• 12:40
  His current school is a Title I school and all the teachers there are amazing. I absolutely love them. If you work in a Title I school, I think
• 12:48
  one of the requirements is that you have to be amazing.
• 13:10
  My son is similar to my husband and me in terms of learning style. My husband is dyslexic as well. So we're watching for that with my son and
• 13:16
  noticing a few things.
• 13:25
  In the nineties, if your brain worked differently than somebody else's, you were like - I have to keep that to myself. That is a secret. My brain can't
• 13:31
  be different.
• 14:17
  Right, that was a secret.
• 14:33
  But in this day and age, we're so much better at recognizing a child's differences - and not just recognizing, celebrating that.
• 14:44
  Just because you learn in a different way than somebody else, we're going to celebrate that. Your brain is awesome. Your brain works differently, but
• 14:50
  that's amazing because now you get to be scrappy.
• 15:03
  You get to think about it in a different way. You don't have to follow this prescription. You can carve your own path.
• 15:35
  These questions go accidentally deep really quick. I had somebody on a couple weeks ago who was the rapper of his high school - made all the
• 15:42
  jingles for school announcements. Talk about learning differently.
• 16:01
  So you're learning differently and college seems to take a little bit. Tell us about college.
• 16:08
  Again, how much time do you have? Yes, so I wanted to go to college. It was important to me. I can't really explain it.
• 16:18
  My husband is an entrepreneur who owns his own business. He knew he wasn't going to go to college. And plenty of people like him are some of the most
• 16:24
  successful people I know.
• 17:09
  For whatever reason, it was really important to me that I obtained a bachelor's degree. Nobody in my family was demanding that. My parents were
• 17:15
  extremely supportive of whatever I wanted to do.
• 17:25
  I graduated from high school, ended up in Eugene, Oregon for about six months, then decided I didn't want to do that anymore. So I moved to
• 17:32
  California - San Luis Obispo area - where my mom is from.
• 18:22
  I went to community college there, but California was just so expensive at 19. I couldn't hack it. So I moved back to Oregon and worked for Pepsi Cola
• 18:28
  company.
• 18:35
  Here's a fun fact - I drove the Mug Bug. So like Mug Root Beer - Pepsi Cola had a Mug Bug - a VW bug painted like Mug Root Beer.
• 19:01
  In the back they had all the soda streams in the trunk of the car. I would go to events and drive the Mug Bug, which only went 50 miles per hour.
• 19:12
  So it's just me on the freeway, bobbing along, and people are honking and waving, and I'm like, yeah, hello, hi. Then driving to events, sampling
• 19:18
  sodas. Really fun, actually.
• 19:34
  It sounds like the car ran on soda and sort of gasoline also.
• 19:38
  Yeah. And I ended up connecting with a friend and she said, do you want to move to Portland? I was like, hell yeah. So we moved to Portland.
• 19:50
  I enrolled at Portland State for a while. Then I dropped out. Then I re-enrolled. Then I dropped out. Then I went to community college. Then I
• 19:56
  dropped out. I kept doing that.
• 20:05
  And I eventually - when I was 25, when I got married - I decided I really needed to get my college degree. I ended up doing an adult degree
• 20:11
  completion program.
• 20:18
  I was able to do it in just under two years. I worked full time from 7:30 to 3:30 and then went to school from 6 to 9. And I did that for two years.
• 20:54
  I thought that was the hardest thing I had ever done in my life. And then I had a kid. So that definitely takes the cake. But at that point in my life,
• 21:01
  it was the hardest thing.
• 21:10
  I had to work. I had to make money. I was 25, just got married. We were trying to make it. We lived in the cheapest apartment we could find.
• 21:22
  We had food stamps at one point - which we loved. We were doing our best. Being scrappy. Being scrappy.
• 21:38
  When I graduated, I walked across the stage and my mom, dad, brother, and husband were all in the audience. They knew how big of a deal it was for
• 21:44
  me.
• 22:08
  My family stood up and cheered for me. I grabbed my diploma and held it up over my head like this - and I was like, I DID IT! I was so happy.
• 22:22
  And my husband asked afterwards - as a joke - so you getting your masters now? And I said, absolutely not. I accomplished my goal. I will never set
• 22:29
  foot in an educational institution ever again.
• 22:50
  Another one in the win column! I love it.
• 23:16
  I learned so much about being an adult learner during those two years. Having the work experience I did - I always worked in a customer-facing
• 23:22
  role - that helped me eventually graduate.
• 23:55
  What was the 7 to 3:30 job while you were doing classes at night?
• 24:09
  I worked for an online outdoor retailer called The Climb. I worked in the customer service department from 2012 to 2014.
• 24:23
  Answering phones, handling returns, doing traditional customer service in the world of online retail. We used Zendesk as a ticketing system.
• 24:53
  And what was funny is - I am not outdoorsy at all. So I worked for an outdoor retailer.
• 25:10
  People would come in on Monday and be like, I scaled Mount Hood this weekend! And they'd ask what I did - and I was like, I went to the movies
• 25:17
  twice. I laid on my couch.
• 25:25
  I was always like, is this where I should be right now? People are really getting out there and I am not getting out there in that way.
• 26:25
  Talk about being able to adapt though - you're a people person and these are not your people, but you gotta sell them something.
• 26:32
  Exactly. I had to learn the lingo. And the thing I was best at - the two years I worked there, every May we would do a Cinco de Mayo party and a
• 26:39
  guac off.
• 26:48
  Everybody would make guacamole and rate it. And I won it two years in a row. Both years I was there. I think it's one of my biggest accomplishments
• 26:56
  in my life - the guac off two years in a row.
• 27:18
  I didn't get a trophy or anything. I wish I had. I'd display it proudly.
• 27:21
  Kid, college degree, then guac off. I say.
• 27:26
  My biggest accomplishment. That is my Everest right there - the guac off.
• 27:33
  That's the peak. That's your Mount Hood. Alright, take me to today. The theme so far is you're good with people and you make it work. What is the
• 27:40
  ultimate goal of the client experience role?
• 28:09
  Client experience - the first thing people get wrong about it is they think it's going to be one size fits all. They think it's a set it and forget it
• 28:15
  situation.
• 28:22
  There are pieces of CX that are set it and forget it to make your life more efficient. But I think the thing that is a requirement any time you're
• 28:28
  doing CX is curiosity.
• 28:52
  I am a very curious person by nature and I always want to know why. I feel like a toddler sometimes on calls - why is it that way? Why do we do it
• 28:58
  that way? Why don't we do it another way?
• 29:05
  But it's because I really want to seek to understand.
• 29:31
  I worked in customer service up until I was about 26 years old. Then I took a job at Clearly Rated - a market research survey company. I worked there
• 29:37
  for 10 years.
• 29:44
  The people I had the opportunity to learn from at that job - that was invaluable. They saw that I was curious by nature and said this is going to
• 29:51
  be a good fit. She can do more than she thinks she can do.
• 30:00
  The saying from one of the mentors at Clearly Rated was: you don't know what you don't know.
• 30:07
  And I really had to take a step back and humble myself to that. You will get to the place where you know what you know, and then you'll be able to
• 30:15
  help usher in this next phase of CX at this company.
• 31:00
  I feel so lucky for the people there who saw the potential in me and helped grow me in that way.
• 31:08
  You can't really be in client experience unless you're curious about a client. It's about listening and asking questions.
• 31:18
  When you're talking to a client, you're creating rapport. You're validating their problem. Why did they come to you in the first place? Find out the
• 31:23
  answer to that question.
• 31:30
  Then say - I have some ideas, but you are the subject matter expert in your business. You came to me for advice, but I am not the subject matter expert
• 31:38
  in your business. I need to learn from you.
• 31:50
  That type of rapport goes a long way. When you give clients the floor and say you're actually the expert here - you see confidence appear that wasn't
• 31:57
  there when they first came to you.
• 32:05
  Because they were nervous, afraid, didn't know how to solve this problem. Then you kick it back to them. You keep drawing them out. We're going to
• 32:12
  throw spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks.
• 33:31
  I think the best way to go about client experience is that you become an extension of the client's team. It is a true partnership. And that's what
• 33:38
  people want - people want to be heard.
• 33:48
  If they have an issue and give you feedback, 98 percent of clients do not expect you to solve their problem right away. The expectation is just to be
• 33:54
  acknowledged.
• 34:02
  Say: thank you for telling me that, I'm so sorry this has been difficult, we're going to get to the bottom of this together. When people hear that,
• 34:08
  you watch their whole demeanor change.
• 34:18
  Because you have actually listened instead of putting a bandaid over something or getting defensive. And when I was first starting out in CX, I
• 34:23
  definitely would get defensive.
• 35:36
  In the world of client experience, the reminder is - it's not about you. It is about the client and what they need.
• 35:47
  In my business we work with data, we build dashboards. But the conversation starts in the exact same spot - what are your goals? What are you trying to
• 35:52
  do with this data?
• 35:58
  I'm a big fan of the five whys. Have you ever heard of the Jefferson Memorial example?
• 36:14
  I don't think so.
• 36:16
  Basically, they had to paint the Jefferson Memorial every two months because the birds kept pooping on it. They traced it back - birds were
• 36:23
  there because of spiders, spiders because of moss, moss attracted to the lights.
• 36:34
  They saved millions of dollars in painting just by shutting the lights off 30 minutes earlier.
• 36:52
  I love those people. The people who got to figure that out - those are the types of questions I love to ask. Why is this like this? What's the cause
• 36:57
  and effect?
• 37:04
  Man, you taught me so many things today. Red peppers. Jefferson Memorial. I have so many takeaways from this conversation.
• 37:22
  That's why we're here. Alright, before we get into lightning round - tell us about AAM, the Association for Accounting Marketing. What's it all
• 37:27
  about? What's coming up?
• 37:39
  I love AAM. Shout out to all my AAM-ers out there. I absolutely love it.
• 37:47
  I had my first opportunity with the Association of Accounting Marketing when I was at Clearly Rated - they were a sponsor for AAM during their
• 37:52
  annual summit.
• 37:58
  AAM puts on a summit every year in May. The location changes across the United States. This year it's going to be in Palm Springs, California. Jack
• 38:03
  is speaking there.
• 38:10
  As am I - with my friend and colleague Julia Jermier, director of marketing at PB Mayors. We're going to be talking about client experience survey data
• 38:17
  - what do you do with that data after the fact?
• 38:47
  AAM is really there to support professional service firms, specifically in the accounting space. It's a great group of people. They are an inclusive
• 38:54
  bunch. We're some of the funnest people you will ever meet.
• 39:05
  We have such great opportunities within that association. Everybody has so many good ideas. I think everybody should just go and check out the
• 39:10
  Association of Accounting Marketing.
• 39:30
  This will be my first time going. Even on the intro speaker's call, people were already talking about the pool party and happy hour - three months
• 39:36
  before the event. I can't wait.
• 39:49
  I know! It's going to be so fun. There are people from all experience levels - senior people, junior people who have maybe only been there one to
• 39:56
  two years, and people like me who are CX.
• 40:05
  Marketing and CX obviously have to work together. And the content available from AAM - not even at summit - webinars, white papers, research - is just
• 40:11
  so incredibly valuable.
• 40:51
  I was laughing when you said you're not even in marketing. I'm also realizing I'm not in marketing either, but I'm also speaking there.
• 40:57
  That's why - you can speak to marketers without being a marketer. You don't necessarily have to be a marketer to be there or to be speaking at the
• 41:03
  event.
• 41:19
  Exactly. Mine is all about - we do a lot of marketing stuff, let's prove that it's working. The title is: How to Make a Dashboard So Good That It
• 41:26
  Eliminates Meetings. Everybody wants less meetings.
• 41:35
  Everybody wants less meetings. I will be sitting in the front row with my notepad. Yes, please tell me how to make a dashboard so good that I do not
• 41:41
  have to have this meeting anymore. I love it.
• 41:49
  I will give you all the secrets that I have. I'm excited for your session too. Okay - lightning round, scrappy versus sophisticated. Give me your
• 41:54
  airport personality.
• 42:30
  I am either your worst nightmare at an airport or your favorite person, because I am chatty. I love people and I am curious.
• 42:40
  I do like to be the first on the plane. My husband travels all the time so he's really helped me understand I don't need to be at the airport four
• 42:45
  hours early.
• 42:52
  I get all the benefits of his travel - I can go to the lounge if I want, grab a coffee or glass of wine. I am not scared to fly. I love flying.
• 43:04
  I am the person you want to sit next to if you are afraid of flying. I am the person you want to sit next to if you have a baby. I love babies.
• 43:43
  If you put your headphones in, that signals to me that you do not want to talk and I will respect that. But I am chatty. I will play with your kid in
• 43:51
  the airport. I love an airport - great people watching.
• 44:14
  Okay, I like it. The airport can be so sad and lonely - you need a chatty, fun person.
• 44:52
  If you were trying to schedule a meeting - are you saying hey I'm free Thursday afternoon, or are you sending a calendar link?
• 45:04
  I am doing both. I'm free Thursday afternoon between 12:30 and 1:30 - here's the calendar link. But if it doesn't work out, let me know and I'll
• 45:05
  change it. I'm doing all of those things.
• 45:07
  Makes sense - customer experience, customer's always right. Take me inside the office. How many monitors on the desk?
• 45:47
  My laptop is Adele. So I have a laptop and then I have one monitor. Individual wires plugged into the laptop. No docking station.
• 46:22
  How many business cards are currently on the desk?
• 46:26
  Zero.
• 46:28
  Okay, this is a pretty tight ship. If you use earbuds, what year are they from?
• 46:31
  2024. They're JBL.
• 46:39
  That's not bad. This is a fairly sophisticated office setup. Alright, take me inside the inbox. How many unread emails is too many?
• 47:06
  I am meticulous about my inbox - both personal and work. I'm not working in the evenings, not working on the weekends. I've set a boundary.
• 47:18
  I don't read my email when I'm on vacation because I just don't want to. It took me a long time to get there. I would say more than 10 unread emails is
• 47:25
  too many.
• 47:48
  If you have more than 10 unread emails, I am stressed out on your behalf. I have a friend with over 60,000 unread emails and I can't even look at her
• 47:54
  phone.
• 48:17
  I just want to go in there and clean it up and put things in folders. See how frustrated I get - and the phone isn't even in my vicinity.
• 48:31
  Okay, last one. Have you ever had to Google somebody mid-meeting when you're on the call with them?
• 48:47
  I don't think I've ever been in a meeting with somebody who I felt I needed to Google. I've looked up people's LinkedIn before a meeting, but I don't
• 48:54
  think I've ever Googled anyone mid-call except for celebrities.
• 49:19
  Okay, alright - I'm gonna say 100 percent scrappy, but there's quite a bit of sophistication in the work life today.
• 49:27
  I'm organized. I don't like chaos in my space. I do well with chaos and organizing other people's chaos. But my space needs to be sophisticated in
• 49:34
  order for me to be scrappy. Does that make sense?
• 49:47
  Right - scrappy enablement! I love it. Ryen, thank you so much for coming on. Anything you want the folks out there to know, anything you want to
• 49:52
  promote?
• 50:00
  I want everybody to have a wonderful day and a wonderful weekend. Thank you so much for having me on. Jack, this was so fun. I love a podcast. I love
• 50:05
  to talk.
• 50:12
  I want people to go to AAM, sign up and become a member, attend summit, and listen to Jack's session.
• 50:22
  We all need less meetings in our life. And if you can teach us the way to do that, your presentation at AAM should just go out into the world. Have
• 50:30
  less meetings, have a lovely weekend. Thank you for having me.
• 50:48
  There we go. I couldn't have ended it better myself, Ryen. Thank you so much for coming on. 100 percent scrappy.
• 51:04
  Thank you.