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Customer onboarding in B2B SaaS is changing fast, but the resources for onboarding teams? Not so much. That's why we're kicking off Onboarding Therapy, a podcast that tackles the real challenges onboarding teams face every day.
Daphne: if you're in a company that is not
embracing AI right now and their culture,
they're like, we're not going to do this
as too early or we don't trust it, if I
was a CSM, I'd be getting out of there.
Welcome Tom burning therapy.
And this episode Sherrilyn
are absolutely thrilled to be
joined by Daphne Costa Lopez.
We dive into how customer success teams
can start thinking about leveraging AI.
And then later in the episode, we get
Daphne's tips for career development.
I think you're going to love this
conversation, so let's get into it.
Kim: Well, welcome to Onboarding Therapy.
Mishra and I are really excited to welcome
Daphne as a guest on the podcast today.
Daphne, I would love if you want
to get started with an intro
and kind of your background.
Daphne: Yeah.
It's such a pleasure to be here.
I feel like indirectly I'm like
part of Arrows at this point.
That's how much I talk to all of you guys.
So my name is Daphne.
I am the Global Director
for Strategic Accounts.
Uh, HubSpot taking care of our largest
customers globally outside of HubSpot.
I am a success nerd, so I have a
customer success podcast, newsletter.
I post daily on LinkedIn, sharing just
what I learned about customer success,
some of my thoughts, and I really,
really love being part of a community.
Uh, for me, that's a little bit of an act
of service as being able to, you know,
Pass on the lessons that I've had over
12 years working in customer success.
I've worked in product before
that, and I've been in startups,
scale ups, fortune 500 companies.
I've seen CS at basically every stage of
the life cycle and the maturity curve.
So I just enjoy talking about
all things customer success.
And you always find me in, in
those channels, uh, sharing.
Kim: Awesome.
I was going to say, if you're on
LinkedIn and you're in customer success,
There's no way you don't know Daphne.
All your posts are so great and great,
so much great conversation happening for.
And I think it's just really helpful
for customer success managers to see
a leader that is like caring about the
weeds of customer success and like the
day to day of customer success managers.
I think that's great.
Cool.
Okay.
So one of the topics that I know
you've been talking about a lot
Daphne lately, and it's just
kind of like generally a big.
Topic in tech right now is AI and
how it factors into customer success.
I think from my lens, it's
honestly customer success is the,
uh, function that it's the least
clear for me how it fits in.
So I think it's really interesting to
hear how you're seeing it, how you're
seeing actual customer success teams
use AI and like, what is the value?
How can CSMs actually.
Leverage AI for their roles.
Daphne: Yeah.
Promise of AI and customer
success is huge, right?
And I think a lot of people can
conceptualize what a AI agent for
customer success would look like.
Somebody that's always with your
customer that can brainstorm
and strategize with them.
Sometimes even do things
for them in your product.
I think all of those things are really
cool and they are hopefully in, in
the near future of customer success.
But the reality of, of the
situation today is that.
There is a gap on what it can be versus
what it actually is on the ground.
Customer success teams are not
seeing as much ROI back from AI as
teams like support, for example.
Support has, I mean, the use case is
just so straightforward and we're hearing
more and more of how support teams are
breaking linear growth of their headcount.
They're being able to solve 60, 70
percent of their tickets using AI.
By pushing customer success.
The problems that we have
are much more complex, right?
They are not a how to or
a simple troubleshoot.
They are brainstorming.
They are more complex situations
where there is, you know, a, a
context that a customer will share
that's unique to their organization.
I think customer success also
operates in In the intersection
of many systems, right?
So it's like the product
usage data is in one place.
The engagement data is in another place.
The support data is in another place.
So you have a lot of systems supporting
the customer journey and the customer
experience, which means that AI needs
to navigate all of those systems in
order to be able to get great insights.
We haven't even got to the
place where those systems are
integrated in most organizations.
Right.
Nevermind having a layer of
AI that can leverage all of
the insights that are there.
So I think the gap between the opportunity
and the possibility versus the reality
of where we're in, it's pretty big.
And I think it all starts with
unifying the database until your
data is all in the same place.
Your AI solutions will be point solutions.
So for example, I think many customer
success teams are using the Zoom AI
tool, for example, to summarize, to
summarize calls, or the Gong AI tool.
Uh, if you're using HubSpot as a CRM,
you can do your relationship summary.
So there is a lot of point to use
cases where AI is being helpful.
But when you think about like the
potential of AI enabling customer success
managers to have better conversations
with their customers that are richer
in insights and richer in strategy.
What should a customer be doing?
What should they be thinking about that?
That stuff is the, is
what's to in the horizon.
And personally, I have not seen anybody.
Doing this really well yet.
I've seen experiments
that are very exciting.
I've seen new businesses like agency come
along and like have a, a transformative
view and idea and vision for customer
success at businesses like hook that
does data AI insights for propensity
of cancellation and growth, et cetera.
So I've seen, I've been seeing a lot of.
Green shoots that indicates that we
are moving in that direction, but I
don't think anybody can say, you know,
we are AI experts in customer success.
Our team is AI powered and AI enabled.
I think those are all dreams for now.
Shareil: It's so true in that the data
is so important and the systems in
which that lives in is so important.
And.
I agree.
No one's doing it super well.
And what that tends to do, I think, is it
causes a little bit of hesitancy to from
CS teams and CS leaders to lean in further
because it kind of has this negative
connotation of like, it's only for support
or for scale or for managing impersonal,
you know, Conversations when actually,
if you really harness the power of what
AI tools can do with, to your point,
the proper data and the proper systems,
it can make our lives so much easier.
Like, I don't want to be doing some of
these manual bits in my day job every day.
And I don't want to go look at 10 pages
of notes and 20 records in HubSpot to
see what happened on that last call.
Just like feed that to me as
I'm going into my call somehow.
So I think there's both a little
resistance to lean into it.
Which then probably devalues the bigger
picture of the whole space of AI and CS.
And I strongly believe that's the
wrong mentality and wrong approach
to it because it can actually make
our lives very much more streamlined.
Like who wouldn't want more
time to focus on the strategic
conversations and the renewals.
I don't want to be doing all that how
to stuff all day long in my day to day.
So I'm, I mean, I say that too, but
then also in my actual day to day, I
find struggles and how do I use this?
How do I leverage this?
You, you press the magic button.
And it's not as magical as
you expected, and now it is.
You're kind of turned
off from this whole idea.
How do you think that gets broken down?
Like how, how do we get
through those barriers?
Daphne: I think, I think
the way to get into it is to
have low expectations, right?
Have low expectations and
understand that AI is going to
get better over time by learning.
How you work with it, right?
So you will train that AI model
to get better by confirming that
those are good answers by having
better data to train the model.
So you have to kind of see
it as like, think about AI as
your CS intern in your company.
It's somebody that doesn't
really know what they're doing.
They have potential, but you're
going to have to guide it.
You're going to have to invest in it
in order to get something out of it.
And I have the same experience as
Cheryl, then the new of like putting
something in front of the team where
it's like, here's like an AI tool.
Let's go leverage it.
Let's figure out how we can.
Make use of this and the insights
not being great coming out of it and
everybody losing faith and trust that
it's actually going to do anything.
And then the next time you roll out
an update, or the next time you bring
something else, like the team is a
little bit like, well, and, you know.
This is like a gimmicky thing and
it's not really going to help.
So I think it's like, how do you educate
the team on the mindset of what it's going
to take for us to be an AI driven team?
It's going to take investment.
It's going to take all of
us making this model better.
And I think the thing for leaders as well
is having patience with that investment.
Because as I said, it is an intern
initially, and if you're investing
data scientists, if you're investing in
tools and you want to see the outcomes
pretty quickly, this is probably
not going to be a place where you're
going to see the ROI in three months.
You're going to probably see the ROI in a
year's time and it's going to be a little
slower now where I do think places where
you're going to see quicker is like the
efficiency gains that you just mentioned,
Cheryl, like, can I get a summary of this
relationship in the, in the CRM record?
Yes, this is going to be pretty good
from day one, getting a transcription
from, from a call, you're going to get
that well, you know, really high quality.
Pretty much straight away, because
there are businesses investing on
this for years before it gets to you.
But if you're building something inside
your organization, or if you're starting
off with like a blank canvas, it's going
to take a little bit of time for you
to, to see some, some results from it.
Yeah.
Kim: I think a lot of the skepticism
from CSMs or CS teams in AI is
exactly what you're saying, Daphne.
It's, it's, it, there's, there's going to
be an investment and CSMs, Are so swamped
with customer calls and so much work.
Like, I feel like there's no CSM
that is not completely overwhelmed
with calls and those types of things.
So I feel like it's, it's hard
for them to say, I'm going to
take the time to develop this.
Even though I know maybe in a year or
in six months, my job is going to get
easier because I'm investing in training
this model or, or doing whatever.
But I think that's just such a big ask
for so many CST members, and it's just
like a lot of trust in the leader that
is bringing on this AI tool or suggesting
that this is like the new use case.
And I think that is just
what will require some time.
And I think, like you're saying,
there's just so few AI tools that
are building specifically for CS.
So there's also low trust there.
It's like, I think generally CS feels.
Under built for there's just not a lot
of tools, especially in the AI space
who are thinking solely about how
can we enable customer success teams.
So I think there's just like
low trust, low visibility into
what CS teams actually need.
And I think it's like a
whole hodgepodge of like.
Misalignment that needs to happen.
And I think there's such a big
opportunity, but it's just, it's just
kind of unclear exactly what could help.
Daphne: Yeah.
And I think some teams will have to
sit back and think about what are
some infrastructure or investments
that they need to make before they
bring AI into their organization.
So for the integrations piece, I
think is a, it's a very clear one.
I looked at a study
recently that showed that.
The customer success tech stack
is 14 tools, not obviously every
organization will have 14 tools,
but over 50 or 50 percent of
the organizations have 14 tools.
If you don't have that tech stack
well integrated, your first foray
into AI should probably not be
Building a insights bot, for example,
you should be really thinking
about where do we store this data?
Do we have a data warehouse?
Is it in a format that's going
to be readable by, by AI?
What does that look like?
Because Unless we have that
piece, the insights are never
going to be good, right?
Cause the insights of a siloed system
are missing 90 percent of the picture.
And I think that's the reality for
like product usage information.
The amount of times I sit with
people and their, their health
scores don't have usage data in them.
It's like.
It's, it's crazy to think that,
that, that people do the entire
health scores using engagement data.
Now, of course, engagement data is
important, but unless people are using
your product and getting value from it.
They're not going to renew no matter
how good your relationship is.
So if you try to build, let's say, a, a
AI driven health score model that only
takes data from your CRM, how good is
that AI model going to be at predicting
and helping CSMs mitigate risk for churn?
It's going to be a small slice, right?
Of like people that have bad
relationships or problems that
happen that the CRM can pick up.
So I think like the infrastructural
investment Should be the first thing
you shouldn't be, you shouldn't be
building stuff until you have the data
to train those models in a good way.
Doesn't mean you can't leverage the AI
that's built in different tools, right?
You could, you should definitely be
using the Gong AI summaries, right?
Or the HubSpot account summaries.
Like you, you, Definitely
should be using this stuff.
The problem is like getting from that one
use case into the transformative stuff.
The stuff that's really going to
change the way that we do customer
success and will break linear growth
for the customer success team.
I was chatting to a CSM that I mentor.
And he was giving me, he
came to me with a problem.
He was saying, look, um, my manager wants
me to do more calls and I don't feel
like I have the bandwidth to make more
calls because it takes me a long time
to prepare for each one of the calls.
So unless I don't prepare for
the calls, I can't do more calls.
So I said, let's get on a call.
Let's jump in.
Tell me how you're preparing.
Like, just walk me through
your preparation process
and let me see if I can.
Give you some advice on how
you can do this better, faster.
And he walked me through, um,
his entire process end to end.
And he took 47 minutes.
We were 40, I counted
because it was so long.
He walked through five tools, 47 minutes
of getting information from here and
putting in a document and getting
information from there, and it was like
product information, port information,
CRM information, project information.
And he was taking all of this stuff.
To build the picture of what the agenda
should look like for that customer.
This is a CSM who is very interested in
having a strategic conversation, right?
They don't just want to show
up and say, Hey, customer,
what do you want to talk about?
Like, what is any questions for me?
No, he wants to come in and have
a strategic perspective and an
opinionated point of view of what
they should be talking about.
So he's doing all this work, 47 minutes.
of work to prepare for one call,
one call, that's a 45 minutes call.
So it takes more time to prepare
than to actually deliver the call.
And when I looked at that, I felt
viscerally for him, that pain of, I
don't have an advice for you on how you
can get better unless your operations
team is going to invest the time.
To take this data points and integrate it
and put it in one system where you can see
this information, where you can leverage
AI to get a overview of all this stuff.
I don't, I actually
have no advice for you.
That was my answer to him.
So looking at, looking at the
picture of how, how he was preparing.
Like, I feel for what you said, Kim,
that people don't have time to do this.
So like my advice for leaders would be
invest on the infrastructure first, right?
To start there, because even if
you don't put any AI on top of it,
you're already helping your team.
You're already helping them
find the information faster.
Then secondly, one of the things that we
did at HubSpot that I think was really
well done, and um, I'm not going to take
any credit for it because it wasn't my
idea and I don't run this team, but it
was creation of an experimental team.
A team of CSMs who have accounts that they
work with, but a lower number of accounts,
and their sole role is to To test new ways
of delivering success to their customers.
So before all these innovations hit over
a thousand CSMs that we have a HubSpot,
before it goes wide, we first test it with
those experimental teams, give feedback.
They make it better,
but their bandwidth is.
Larger because they have less customers.
So I think that is a, that is a really
good way of getting the experiment
off the ground and then getting it to
a better quality before putting it in
front of the team that doesn't have
the time because they have hundreds of
accounts or they just, they're working
with a bigger, bigger book of business.
Shareil: One, I love
the experimental team.
Cause I also get to work with them
and they're using arrows to experiment
certain parts of their worlds, which
selfishly is obviously great, but I
love what you said in there in that.
And I agree.
CSMs, we're all swamped and in the same
breath, I, I get a lot of CSMs reaching
out and people I mentor to asking,
well, how do I accelerate my career?
How do I grow my CS?
How do I get to your
level of career growth?
And even if you're swamped at work,
like this is such an opportunity to
make some time outside of that, to
learn for yourself, how you can take
advantage of some of these tools.
Like, I agree if the data is desperate and
all over the place, it's going to be hard.
But, can you get a subscription to
ChatGPT or Claude and start teaching it
your own little things and little models
and doing your own mini experiments?
So, if you're out there trying
to, like, enhance your career,
lean into some of this stuff.
It is scary, it is, there's all these
notions that it's going to replace us as
humans, and I don't actually believe that.
I think, yes, it can replace certain
tasks and functionalities, but what
I Think about more as like, how do
I use my human time more efficiently
so that I can do more so that I can
reach more customers so that I can
help add more value across the board.
Um, and when you flip that mentality,
I think it makes it a little easier
to try and lean in and learn.
Daphne: Yeah.
And I think the, the, the point is
that I don't think AI is going to
necessarily replace CSMs, but AI enabled
CSMs would do 10 times better than
CSMs that don't use AI and therefore
they're going to be pretty obsolete.
So I think like what you said
about like using AI to come
up with better strategies.
Right.
If you are able to help your
customers with better strategies,
they're going to get better results.
If they get better results, they're
more likely to stay with you.
So these CSMs that are using AI are going
to have higher quality conversations, more
impactful conversations, and ultimately
get better results, which means.
That they are much more likely to
become the top performing CSMs, the
CSMs that get promoted, that get paid
more money, like all the good stuff that
we all want to want for our careers.
I think AI is going to help, but I think
that the fear that people have about AI,
I, I think people need to move on pretty
quickly from that fear because the world
is going to continue to accelerate.
Things are going to change
at an even faster rate.
And people that don't
adapt will be left behind.
I think we can all think about a
person in our, in our lives or our
family, like an, an older relative
that didn't really follow the evolution
of technology and now struggles
to use their mobile phone, right?
You don't want to be that person.
You want to be the person that like, as
soon as it comes out to you, play with it,
you experiment with it, you start learning
because things are going to keep moving
on and, and you don't want to be there.
20 years later.
And you actually can't do the job anymore.
You've become obsolete because you
now don't know any of the tools,
any of the processes anymore.
Um, and then you're going to become
bitter because you're going to feel
like there is no longer a place for
you in this world, in this career.
And.
You're going to be annoyed.
You're going to be left behind and nobody
wants to be, to be in that position.
Especially, you know, I think most people
listening to this probably have like many,
many years ahead of them in their careers.
And you, you want to keep growing.
You want to keep evolving.
Shareil: I love, I've been thinking
about it as like my assistant.
Cause I've always joked about,
I wish I had an assistant.
Like, I just wish I had an assistant.
I've said that in every job I've ever had.
Even like as a entry level support person,
20 years ago, when I started my career,
like I just wish I had an assistant, but I
like your framing of intern that you used
earlier better because interns also need
some guidance and need some handholding
and need some support to start.
Right.
And that is exactly how these things work.
Like you have to put in time, you
have to train it, like you physically
have to train it if you're using
AI models or learning language
models, like, so treating it like
an intern and having that mentality
that it's not going to be perfect.
But if I invest a little bit of my time.
What can I get out of this thing?
How do I get my own, how do I actually get
my own little personal assistant, which
is what all these things claim to be.
And I know that's marketing and you
know, it's the hype of today's AI world
and everyone wants to put an AI agent in
everything, but you actually can't have
your own little personal intern that
can help you with your day to day stuff.
And I love what you said, like.
It's not going to replace the CSM,
but someone leaning into it as a
CSM and leveraging that technology.
This is like the starting
point to your point.
It's going to accelerate
and compound very quickly.
You're going to get left so far
behind and so quickly far behind, and
then you're going to feel devalued.
And then in turn, your actual
performance is going to suffer.
So if you thought it was, uh, hard
to climb the ladder in CS today, it's
going to be 10 times harder when Your
teammates around you are actually leaning
into some of these technologies while
you're sitting there resisting it or
potentially, um, not understanding it as
harsh because it's a big thing and most
of us don't really understand it, but at
least not trying to trying to understand
parts of it and trying to understand
where it can help you in your day job
versus the resistance that at least I
tend to see from CS people around AI.
Daphne: Yeah, and I, I promised Kim,
I was going to give her a hot take.
So here's my hot take.
It's, I think it's, if you're in a
company that is not embracing AI right
now and their culture, they're like,
we're not going to do this as too early
or we don't trust it, like I, if I was
a CSM, I'd be getting out of there.
Because that company, unless they, they,
they change their tune very quickly
and they start experimenting and they
start thinking about how their business
and their product can get better
because of AI, they're going to be left
behind and then you are going to be
stuck in a place that was left behind.
And you never had the opportunity
to test some of these tools to
learn from some of these tools.
And CSMs that are working in AI
forward thinking companies, they
are going to get far ahead from you.
So if you are an AI optimist and
you want to start trying, but your
company doesn't favor that, they
don't support that, I'd be seriously
thinking about what is my next move.
Shareil: This is why we
brought you on the show.
That's the kind of stuff we want to hear.
I had a mentor once tell
me, don't fight the company.
And that has stuck in my soul ever
since then, because if you're trying
to have this uphill fight against an
executive team or a company, then that's
not to say, actually, that is to say
they're potentially wrong in this case.
Like you should be leaning
into this, but if they're not
get out, go do your own thing.
Like go, if that's truly, if you
believe that that's going to help
you, AI or anything, like I say this
a lot about teams that do onboarding.
If your executive team is not bought
into the concept of onboarding, then
Get out because that is so critical
to the whole motion of the life cycle.
So I am so glad you said that and
I'll take so much and I wish more
people and it's easy to say it's
harder obviously to go do and make
those changes and it's scary and
finances and life is all involved.
Totally.
But try like.
Yeah.
Daphne: Even if you can't move today.
What you can do today
is make a plan, right?
And that plan can be finding what are the
companies that are doing this following
to see if they have roles, preparing,
playing on your own time with these tools,
preparing for interviews, networking.
You can do all those things in
a financially feasible and not
very risky way so that you're
prepared to make that jump.
But I think just, you know, sitting back
and what you said, fighting the company.
This is something I'm with
customer success is the same.
I have.
Had to push water up the hill so many
times in my career, trying to convince
people that customer success was worth it.
And then one day I, it all flipped for
me and I said, I will no longer do this.
Because I am spending my time, my
energy, and my potential convincing
people instead of doing the work.
And the less I do the work, the less
developed I will be in this field.
And I care about this.
This is, for me, it's a
passion, it's a mission.
And I want to spend my time
and my energy solving problems.
That are to do with these things that
we want to do, helping customers succeed
and help them see value, help them grow.
I don't want to spend my time
fighting people to say customer
success is important or not.
So aligning your beliefs and your,
in your values and your mission to.
A company, when you do that, you 10X your
potential, you 10X your, your output.
And honestly, you're not as frustrated.
I used to be so frustrated
all the time because I just, I
didn't have a seat at the table.
I did, people didn't take me seriously.
They thought it was my little
project, you know, all those things.
And it really is demotivating to
work in an environment like that.
So I am like, I know it can sound.
Incendiary when I say like leave, but
you can do this in a very smart and
calculated way that you're not putting
your, your family, your earnings,
your, your life outside working risk.
So yeah, go and make a plan.
If you're in that situation, go take a
piece of paper and start making your plan.
Shareil: Yeah.
I mean, I, I have an extreme example
of that where I quit my job after six
months and I, it was what I've talked
to everyone I've ever managed out of
doing, which is exactly what you said.
Have a plan, have a strategy.
But I would, I had this job for six months
and they just weren't actually bought in
to solving this huge churn problem that
they hired me to think about and consider.
And I'm not saying I knew all
the solutions, but I would point
to things where they were clear
red flags and clear problems and
they just weren't getting solved.
And mostly was, the most, like, annoying
thing was I was just so frustrated.
I would come home and my wife would tell
me, I've never seen you this frustrated.
Like, it takes a lot to get me.
That wound up and, and I'm not naive.
Every company has problems.
Every manager has challenges.
Every CS team has struggles.
Like those are all true,
no matter where you end up.
But if the supporting cast around you,
isn't actually trying to help you or
solve for the things you're solving
for to your point, you're going to
be so frustrated and, and no matter
what, then performance will suffer.
I don't care how good you are,
how much, you know, AI, how many
years of a CS experience you have.
If that environment's gonna fail
you, you will eventually suffer
and then your performance suffers
and then your career suffers.
And then you start to get in
your head about, you know,
am I even good at this thing?
No, those are the thoughts I was having.
And I still made a plan, like, yes, I
quit my job and, and left with that one.
But I had a very clear plan of,
I'm going to spend six months
trying to find the next thing.
Here are the things that have
to be true at that next thing.
I'm going to treat it like a job and
get up and go and interview and, and
get a lot of rejections along the way,
but find something that makes sense.
So I am very much for that, like.
Take, take some of that into your own
hands and make some movements if you
have to, and I understand that's scary,
all those things we talked about are
true, but it will pay off if you have
a plan and actually believe in the
thing you're, you're trying to do.
And then I ended up at a job that I
loved, and we had the same problems,
and the same challenges, and the same
frustrations, but I actually enjoyed
doing it because we were trying to solve
the same pains and problems together.
And, to your point, I eventually
got a seat at the table, and got to.
Put my little, that was literally
a little project, got to put
my little project on the map.
And, you know, fast forward a year or two.
And again, it takes time.
I was presenting at the company, all
hands on the topic of onboarding,
which was like wild to me to even
say, like you get a slot in the
entire company's 30 minute spiel.
And you get 10 minutes of that to talk
about the topic of customer onboarding.
That's pretty crazy and pretty awesome.
So it is scary, but if you really are
navigating your career and looking
for the type of advice, Some of
those hard decisions have to be made.
And I'm sure you get a lot of
this, Daphne, just with your career
trajectory and profile online.
Everyone looks at that and says, well,
I want to be the global director of
CS at a huge customer focused company.
But they don't see all the little
paths you took to get there and all the
rejections and all the no's and all the
projects you have to give up on, right?
And that was you physically
navigating your career and making
choices to end up where you are.
Daphne: Yeah.
Shareil: Which I just love.
I love that story.
I love, I love the approach to it.
Daphne: I think people don't see
what they saw, what they don't
see in careers is what you said.
It's like all of the pain behind
the timeline, the timeline
always looks perfect, right?
Because everything makes
sense in hindsight.
So it's like, Oh yeah, of course she went
from this role to that role and to that
next thing and jump to that other company.
Like that all makes sense.
But it's now that I've figured
it out, it should make sense.
And now I can explain the trajectory.
But when I was in the middle
of it, not a lot made sense.
And I think that's why you
have to have very clear values.
And you have to have a very clear
picture of where you want to be.
I don't mean like, where are
you going to be in five years?
That's not what I mean.
I just mean, where do
you want to be right now?
Right, so get in touch with what
are the problems that you're
enjoying to solve right now.
They're hard problems.
They might be, like you said,
real things that are hairy and
problematic in every company, but.
Like, what is the environment where
you want to solve those problems?
What are the people that you need
around you to solve those problems?
Like, find out that answer and it can
be very much focused on the present.
It doesn't need to be focused on
the next role, the next five years.
It can be completely focused on
what do I want to do right now.
And doing this right now and doing
it really well, We'll open the door
to the next thing, because in two
years time, when you've solved those
problems, then there'll be new problems.
And you can ask yourself
the same question.
Is this a problem I'm passionate about?
Am I in the right place where other people
care about this problem that I care about?
Do I have the right resources?
You know, you're never going to have
infinite resources, but do you even
have the buy in to get enough resources
to make a dent in that problem?
You can ask yourself all
those questions as you go.
I think, you know, I have like a big
hairy audacious goal for my career
and I've, I've always had that,
but I managed hundreds of people.
And I think the, the more normal
thing is not to know exactly
where you want to get you.
And I think people that, that
feel that way sometimes feel
like, wish I wish I knew.
Right.
I wish, I wish I knew since I was
five that I wanted to be a doctor or
a vet or, but like the majority of
people don't, don't feel that way.
And it's so fine.
It's honestly so fine and so
normal and focusing on the present.
I know it sounds very, you know,
modern and, and meditation.
And it's like, I'm trying to be the
Andrew Huberman of customer success.
No, it's the really, it's like
focus on what's important.
Engaging and giving you energy right
now and lean into that, lean, lean into
it and you find, you find your path.
Shareil: Yeah, I have a story to share
on this because it's so powerful.
I had a, uh, this was probably like 10
years ago I had just gotten promoted
to senior manager at the company I was
at, so I was managing other managers
and their teams and I was stoked and
I was in a cab with one of my regional
managers and we were heading back to
the airport and he asked me, Sherelle,
what are you, what are you good at?
And I thought to myself,
Oh, this is great.
Like he's setting me up for my next
promotion, asking me what, uh, what
are my passions, what am I good at, you
know, and maybe shocking to you too.
But I rambled for like 30 minutes
and talked about all these things
I'm good at, um, and this guy just
listened, like he didn't say a word.
I talked and talked and
I said, I'm good at this.
I'm good at managing people.
I like tech.
I do this and X, Y, Z.
And I finished and I looked at him
and he said, so what are you good at?
And I was like, Oh, I said
like, that's when it hit me.
I was trying to be good at all these
different things, which was why I was
struggling with what is next in my career?
What are my next steps?
What should I be working towards or on?
So I went and he goes, spend some
time and come back when you're ready
to tell me what you're good at.
And so I went back and sat
down and wrote a lot of stuff
and reflected and journaled.
And one of the best tips I have for
folks is, I've always kept a list
of things I'm good at and things
I'm bad at, generally, in my career.
And I've always tried to
develop these things I'm bad at.
And in that moment, I created a third
column, which was things I'm bad
at that I don't need to be good at.
And I was shocked at how much I moved
from that second column to this, and
it was just like this weight lifted off
of my shoulders and off of my life that
I don't have to be good at building
spreadsheets for this job that I'm
trying to do, as an example, right?
But it helped me get so much more focused
on the things that I actually feel like
I'm good at, and it helped me really
understand the things I need to develop.
In my, in that moment in my mind of like
what I wanted to do in my career, which
was to be a regional manager at the
time and oversee like a CS department.
But it gave me so much clarity and
that's one bit of advice I give to
everyone, especially in today's world
where to your point, you're looking at
people's highlight reels on LinkedIn
and wondering how they got there.
And you assume that you have
to be good at a million things.
And the truth is like, you just
need to be really good at a handful
of things that are your craft.
For your day to day for your job for
your career, and it just is so freeing.
I still keep that list active.
I go to that things.
I'm not good at list
every once in a while.
One of them inspires me, but
for the most part, I look at
it and I'm like, why would I?
Why was I even trying to
be good at that thing?
Like, no wonder I wasn't.
Getting promoted in the path I was on
because I was focused on so many things.
But that moment was such like a pivotal
one in my career where that regional
manager just listened and says, okay,
so what are you actually good at?
But it was so enlightening.
So take some time for yourselves
as CSMs, especially as the year
winds down, like ask yourself and
go to your career conversations
with, with some of that knowledge.
This is what I'm trying to do.
This is what I'm doing today.
Don't worry about the five years from now.
Like you said, what do you want
to do today and build on that?
And then lean into resources
and tools and podcasts.
Like I listened to your podcast
and follow your newsletter.
And it's great because at 10 years
into CS, I'm still getting nuggets of
advice and things that I can go learn.
So.
Never think you know it
all because you don't.
The world is evolving around you quickly.
So the more you can learn, if you
look at someone like Daphne online
and say, I want to follow her
career, then go learn from her.
What is the, what are
the things she's doing?
What are the things she's talking about?
What are the topics she's leaning
into to actually follow the path?
Not always the like highlight reel
is some advice I have for CSMs.
Daphne: Yeah.
I love that.
Um, you know, um, my.
Previous boss, he had a very similar, uh,
I had a very similar aha moment with him.
And he had the analogy that he used
was think about yourself as a boat.
So if you're a boat, which one of the
holes that you have are above water.
and which ones are below water so the ones
that are above water don't worry about
them these are the things that you're not
good at but they make no difference in
your ability to achieve the things that
you want to there are things that you can
lean on other people etc but then there
are the holes that are underwater which if
you don't fix You're going to sink, right?
So, especially if you have a few of them.
So if you want to be a manager and
you're not good at cross functional
relationships, that is going to sink
you because you can't get anything
done if you're not good at that thing.
So the, I think that, that this
analogy is basically the two columns
that you talked about, right?
It's like the stuff that I'm
not good at, but that I'm so
willing and ready to work on.
And what is the stuff that I'm not
good at that I'm never going to
work on because it just doesn't
make any sense for me to do that.
So I had the same aha moment
with, with one of my managers.
And it's a really powerful one.
And now with my teams, one of the
things is it's so easy for people
to know what they're not good at.
Kim: People
Daphne: are very, most people are very
self critical and they will say, you
know, not very good at spreadsheets.
I'm not very good at this thing.
I'm not.
But then you ask them,
what are you good at?
And most people can't, can't answer you.
Right?
Like sure.
You had 30 minutes of
things you were good at.
Most people, that's great because
most people have a very few, and I
don't know if it's a mixture between
trying to come across as humble, right?
Just kind of weird to say, like,
I am a brilliant communicator.
It's not a, it's not a natural thing
for people to do, but what I do
for my teams is I do 360 reviews.
Often, so that other people can
tell them what they're good at.
And if you're in a CS role, you
can actually enroll a few customers
in, in that 360 review, where your
customers will tell you what they
appreciate about working with you.
And again, like that's a way for you
to say, Let me double down on the stuff
that I do that people really value.
Let me get, let me be the
best person at this thing.
Instead of investing all of my time
trying to get 5 percent better at
spreadsheets, let me invest that
time in, um, my presentation skills.
And let me become an amazing storyteller
because I already, I'm already good at it.
So I can become incredible.
So I think that 360 review as
well, the habit of creating that
is, is one that can help people
identify those, those strengths.
Shareil: Totally.
Part of my reflection was going and
asking my actual team, like, what,
what do you guys think I'm good at?
And for the record, that, those
30 minutes of talking, most of
those things I wasn't very good at.
I was just rambling and probably very
naive and just young in my career
and thinking, Oh, if I talk about all
this stuff, that's going to increase
my chances of getting, you know,
promoted and visibility and all that.
When in reality, that's
That's the opposite.
It's, it's doing certain things
in your world really well that
get you that visibility and
that career projection that.
Most of us are after and you're right to
some of that is just like, there is this.
I think I noticed this, especially in CS.
I don't know if this is a stereotype
or not, but that lack of advocating for
ourselves and that lack of like this,
this crossroad of, am I not being humble
enough or am I being too arrogant?
And there is a line there, obviously,
but you can be confident without
being arrogant or being cocky.
Like you, you should be confident and
lean into the things you're good at and
talk about them because the truth is.
In a sea of CS agents at your,
at your company, you are, and
this is going to sound bad, but
you're a number in that moment.
And if you can't stand out amongst that
number, then it is hard to accelerate.
And you are just feeling like
you're checking the boxes.
And it does feel like it's this
constant uphill grind of, Oh, I did
my work this year and I got a tiny
little bit of a raise and I got,
You know, uh, meets expectations.
But if you really want to go beyond that,
you have to advocate for yourself, you
have to highlight the things you're good
at, you have to understand the things
that you're bad at, and, and be willing
to really develop them if they make
sense for the thing you're trying to do.
So yeah, ramble for 30 minutes, and
then write some notes about what you're
actually good at, and that should help.
Kim: And I'll make a blanket
statement for CS people.
Most CS people don't need to worry about
being more humble and most CS people
should do a better job of advocating.
So if you are listening to this and
you're wondering, probably don't worry
about having more humility and actually
you need to probably say what you're
good at in front of other people.
I love that.
Daphne: I think there is definitely a,
um, there is a how to all of this, right?
Like you, you, you.
If saying you're good at something,
um, if you're, if it's the wrong
environment, if it's the wrong
attitude, the wrong tone, like it
can come across as not being humble.
But like you said, most people actually
suffer off the opposite problem, which
is, you know, much, um, uh, it means that
you're not going to come across as that.
But I think this humility can actually
come across not as humility, but as Lack
of confidence and lack of confidence,
I think, can be very detrimental.
Like, how do you build, um, expertise for
people to see you as an expert and respect
you as an expert and, um, want to come to
you for problems and solutions, et cetera,
if they don't believe you're an expert.
So, so I think that there's definitely,
there's definitely a line that you
can cross, but I think you're probably
so far from, from that line today.
Kim: Yeah, cool.
Well, we started with AI.
We ended with career development.
I think it's helpful on both ends.
Thank you so much for joining us, Daphne.
This was so awesome to talk to you.
I hope we can have you on again.
Any final thoughts or, or last kind of
tidbits you want to leave people with?
Daphne: I said, I was going to talk about
customer value and I didn't actually know
in this conversation
because that is my mantra.
Like if you go into any of my content
that that's what I talk about, but I
think I'll, I'll connect it all with.
AI, your career, how you work with
customers, make sure that you have a
value that you're delivering, that's
very clear and you can articulate.
So if you're going to bring AI to
your business, what is it going to do?
Like, what is the goal?
What is the objective?
If you're going to do
something with your customer.
What is the goal?
What's the objective?
If you're working on
your career, what is it?
What is that you're, you're delivering?
That's going to create the value
that you need in order to step up
into a next level, another role.
So think about value always.
I think when you were a giver
versus a taker, you actually
get more out of the word.
I know it sounds, uh, uh, not super
obvious, but it is the more you give.
The more you get, so if you can
cultivate that value mindset and
giving, I think in everything that
you do, you're going to do well.
Shareil: Love that.
Thanks for joining us and
everyone follow her newsletter.
It's, it's really good.
And if you're actually trying to develop
your career in CS, or if you're a
leader trying to better understand CS.
Daphne has just so much knowledge and
so many tangible like points in the
newsletter where you read it and don't
feel like you just got bombarded with
marketing, but it actually is valuable
and information that you can use to
better your career and your companies.