Chris Detzel: And we have Scott wilder we're going to live on the wilder side as our guest today and he's got some really cool news and we're going to dive right in Scott tell us a little bit about the cool news announcement and those things.
Scott K. Wilder: Well it's great to be back here, Chris you know, I was thinking that we talked last time I don't drink beer so.
Scott K. Wilder: So i'm going to when i'm on cars Okay, if I say it's appears with cares.
Chris Detzel: Sure sure, but you know, maybe, what are you drinking because I just had some coffee, because we are.
Scott K. Wilder: Already now.
Chris Detzel: Okay okay.
Chris Detzel: Well, and here's with coffee.
Scott K. Wilder: Coffee it's.
Chris Detzel: You know it's still a branding thing Scott, you know peers over beers is the important.
Scott K. Wilder: piece yeah you're right.
Chris Detzel: I was hanging out, you know with okay not beers but whenever we're drinking whatever we're doing you know.
Scott K. Wilder: here's what beers that we won't tell anybody it's coffee so anyway so it's great to see you again and excited to be here So yes, so I as folks know those who are close to me that other folks I took two months off and learned a lot about minecraft.
Scott K. Wilder: And learned a lot about roadblocks.
Chris Detzel: and basically way before you go there.
Chris Detzel: Did you start recording it because my son started recording.
Chris Detzel: Some of his video gameplay and within like five days 1011 or 12 followers so on his YouTube channel.
Scott K. Wilder: yeah my son how old is your son.
Chris Detzel: he's 11.
Scott K. Wilder: Oh man, unless you get together virtually.
Scott K. Wilder: Definitely, because my son is 12.
Chris Detzel: Oh, he loves my cat, by the way, so.
Scott K. Wilder: Okay yeah my son loves minecraft but he's got a YouTube channel on cars.
Chris Detzel: No Okay, so I think.
Scott K. Wilder: Maybe they can maybe they can do their own talk show.
Chris Detzel: I like it yeah after this you know let's talk about that.
Chris Detzel: anyways.
Scott K. Wilder: yeah so we're already so yeah so, you know as a week or so ago i've joined crowd advocate and.
Scott K. Wilder: You know, I think it was really the reason I was talking about the two months off is really thinking about what's important to me and.
Scott K. Wilder: i'm a builder whether it's organization related or whether it's product related i've worked with crowd forget when I was at hubspot and.
Scott K. Wilder: You know I don't know how much you're into the customer marketing space sphere, but they recently did a program for the top 100 and there was something unique about it like it is kind of community related in the sense that they looked at everybody.
Scott K. Wilder: For this top 100 not just their customers, not just their partners, and so I thought that was really kind of a nice nice way to approach things already ran that program so kind of that I agnostic view and.
Scott K. Wilder: So yeah so you know new experience it's been about 12 years since i've been a startup or early stage company and i'm looking forward to it.
Chris Detzel: yeah it's just going to go, you know not to plan your last name there but it's gonna be wilder than current you know crazy.
Chris Detzel: This the way startups ours so tell me a bit about the role your your title your what you're going to be doing, and the customer marketing Community realm and all those things i'm want to dive in because if you have any questions.
Scott K. Wilder: Okay well i'm ready I got my catcher's mitt so trying.
Scott K. Wilder: i'm very happy because baseball ended it strike yesterday.
Chris Detzel: Yes, me too.
Chris Detzel: And not not to get off again but.
Chris Detzel: Here at rel to our.
Chris Detzel: I guess you can call it customer marketing team is planning lots of really an hour already had plan it's really cool baseball games, so we were going to go to the opening day of the Boston.
Chris Detzel: Red SOx and we had a whole entire thing there and I invited some Community Members I was going to get to go, and you know, had to cancel it and I was like what the heck.
Chris Detzel: So i'm excited we're reschedule some of that stuff and you know now i've got to get more people there right but I don't think that'll be that hard so.
Chris Detzel: awesome.
Scott K. Wilder: So.
Scott K. Wilder: yeah so I wish I could go but yeah so really what i'm focused, so the title is VP of customer engagement and community.
Scott K. Wilder: And the customer engagement part is, you know how do we think about so a little bit background on crowd advocate mean they really focus on automating your customer lead experience customer lead experiences advocacy and customer references are part of that and.
Scott K. Wilder: and working with them you're taking kind of a page from what we did when I was at hubspot is at hubspot we basically integrated the crowd advocate experience into the Community, we could talk a little bit about that.
Chris Detzel: yeah if we.
Scott K. Wilder: Think about that theme.
Scott K. Wilder: How can we build these integrated experiences to help drive customer led growth right, so how can we, you know, for example, when people think about Community some of the trends that have accelerated the past year or so, are you start thinking about academy sorry advocacy community.
Scott K. Wilder: yeah start thinking about education.
Scott K. Wilder: So there's these experiences that and i'm really happy about this, because you know that since the days at marquette oh was you know.
Scott K. Wilder: Mark when I was at marquette Oh, we focused a lot on this, but really thinking of community is more than discussion threads or more, I use the acronym as sad as for siloed add a for add on and D for just discussion so you want to go beyond that sad experience and think about.
Scott K. Wilder: How can you integrate you know these other experiences and so when we say community and the title there that's just one aspect of it right.
Scott K. Wilder: We obviously have our own slack channel and it's a great place for any customer marketer to go in there and ask questions and get answers, but from a customer facing perspective, how do we create these integrated experiences and then.
Scott K. Wilder: You know I think we talked a little bit earlier about the last time that you know I look at community is one part of this whole customer engagement experience, and so you know how can.
Scott K. Wilder: How can I help in terms of helping elevate that kind of thinking that perspective and customer marketing a lot of customer marketers are managing Community so that's why that's why I signed up for what I signed up for.
Chris Detzel: yeah it sounds like a big opportunity now are you in the marketing team, I assume, or somewhere else or.
Scott K. Wilder: it's a great great question.
Scott K. Wilder: So what we've done is we've actually the way people historically think about customer marketing we've actually broken it up into a VP of customer marketing.
Scott K. Wilder: Who will be working on the brand will be working on product related stuff and then there's the VP of customer engagement and that's what i'm doing and.
Scott K. Wilder: When your skin, and so this is really unusual for I don't know any other startup that's done this for this kind of like this other person oh Delia she owns marketing.
Scott K. Wilder: yeah but but we've basically if you look at it from a traditional lens through traditional lens we've split it up in the sense that i'm going to be helping with.
Scott K. Wilder: Some of the things that like marketers sometimes you know feel challenged with like working with multiple parts of the organization thinking about the technical side of marketing.
Scott K. Wilder: Thinking about you know thought leadership, you know she's working on building this hot you know in crowd advocate is relatively new and young so she's working on a whole crowd if you get brad i'll be the first to tell you branding is not my superpower.
Chris Detzel: Well, I like it that's quite that's quite interesting and you talk about integrations and you know I hear a lot of people trying to do some of that you know, like if I look at today my community and.
Chris Detzel: When I think of integrations I think of you know, maybe you're thinking a little bit differently, but I want the customers to and even our partners to get.
Chris Detzel: Answers to questions answers to what they're looking for.
Chris Detzel: as quickly as possible, wherever they are, so they could be on our you know.
Chris Detzel: academy or community or docs.
Chris Detzel: Maybe even support portal, so today that our Community is more around in the support type stuff.
Chris Detzel: And you know will change some of that are not necessary changing always have it, but i'm also going to look into kind of more that thought leadership piece, because we need to dive more into that but I do think of.
Chris Detzel: Those integration type things you know, like enterprise search sso and and that kind of stuff or one place where they can you know if they were starting to to you know get it put a ticket together on support.
Chris Detzel: Then you know automatic search comes up or it populates and says, you know here's a potential answer it click on it.
Chris Detzel: And either go to Community academy or whatever, and then it logs in directly and so that that.
Chris Detzel: kind of let's just say customer experiences a lot better.
Chris Detzel: Which is hard to get to I.
Chris Detzel: think he might be talking a little bit differently, but someone on the same lines.
Scott K. Wilder: No, I think that's really echoes kind of you know how i'm thinking about it, so I think you know just threw out some good good ideas here i'm writing down but one is.
Scott K. Wilder: I think there's you know many of these, and again I you know I tell people that grew up on highway one to one where all these Silicon Valley tech companies are and most of them lean in first with from a product perspective.
Scott K. Wilder: But there's also a big opportunity when it comes to thought leadership so totally agree with you there, too, is there's the.
Scott K. Wilder: You know when somebody asks a question I love what you're saying.
Scott K. Wilder: And you know we I think we did a decent job at marquette Oh, and I did this is somebody has a question, you know, give them the option to pick what type of answer you know.
Scott K. Wilder: they're going to click on or what kind of you know discussion thread, or what type of information, like they might want to hear it from an expert.
Chris Detzel: Right yeah.
Scott K. Wilder: My want to hear from an advocate So those are different, you might want to hear from a support person they might want to hear from a partner, so let them, you know it's kind of a you know it's a Buffet of.
Chris Detzel: Information like.
Scott K. Wilder: and the last thing you just want my learning is like a lot of times.
Scott K. Wilder: You know the first solution you share with the customer, whether it's knowledge base or community to kind of latch on to it.
Scott K. Wilder: You know, and sometimes they forget or they they're not aware of these other guys great you know information, you know depots or places to get information so that's the right, so this is a theme there's the.
Scott K. Wilder: The type of information, and then the last thing that you hit on right on is the technical side, and so you know i'm a little bit of a technical product and earth and so like sso federated search, you know.
Scott K. Wilder: there's I, I can only think I can't even think of one company off the top my head that has what I call the common currency for advocacy and Community like Why are there two different leaderboards why you know.
Scott K. Wilder: Yes, and so that's so will you said, I mean I that's how you know I took a lot of notes, as I said, but that's how i'm thinking about is those kind of three.
Scott K. Wilder: different phases and it's tough like organizationally you know, we should talk a little bit i'm just writing an article right now on.
Scott K. Wilder: You know ecosystems, you know and it's hard, because you know the person who owns advocacy who owns.
Scott K. Wilder: These different advocacy Community Academy, you know they're there they all have their like badges and credentials, but the question is how do you get them in the same room a holistic Program.
Chris Detzel: I think that's right and something that i've seen and I always wondered myself is you know at academy is a completely different departments.
Chris Detzel: In most organizations, then Community than advocacy a lot of times right or sometimes i've seen marketing own community advocacy and you know.
Chris Detzel: Different parts of that customer marketing aspect of things right and but none of them are really combined The way I see.
Chris Detzel: But you know, at the end of the day, really is one is to get customers to adopt your product.
Chris Detzel: To just go deep in it, and if they know how to use it and they're doing all the things that they need they become advocates they become.
Chris Detzel: Smart in it, they want to talk about your brand they'll do want to do all of these things that are the exciting things, but you know the really.
Chris Detzel: Education is absolutely key you give them the right education and you're right like, how do you have that unified experience, and I think about this a lot is.
Chris Detzel: You know i'll talk to her our guy his name's matt he runs our academy to like dude.
Chris Detzel: you're giving badges away, you know i'm giving badges away there nothing's talking to each other, you know and we're about to hire you know.
Chris Detzel: Customer marketer that you know it's going to be thinking about advocacy programs now thinking oh Community people will fund should funnel into that advocacy program why don't we let's not do something separate here.
Chris Detzel: You know what I mean let's not necessarily buy another system if, for example, higher logic has an advocacy program is it the best advocacy.
Chris Detzel: I don't know, but we could probably start with that you know and then fun to help funnel the Community people that want to be advocates for us and.
Chris Detzel: reward and recognize them all in one place, instead of this other system over here that's not talking this system, and you know I think there's.
Chris Detzel: The system aspect of it, I think there's the organizational aspect of it, and if we're not thinking holistically about how those things talk to each other and how we can.
Chris Detzel: help each other, you know with with getting the customers, not just the right place the right time, but you know just making this a really cool experience and.
Chris Detzel: You know i'm not begging this person to do this they're not begging the same people to do this we're, all in all, and talking to customers all at the same time I don't know if you want to react that but.
Scott K. Wilder: it's kind of how I know I think that's.
Scott K. Wilder: that's magic I think that's exactly on and the I had no nothing I didn't do my homework on you today sorry but.
Scott K. Wilder: I don't know your company size but the smaller, you are the easier it is right, so.
Scott K. Wilder: you're at a big you know.
Scott K. Wilder: You know $10 billion company and everybody's got you know it's not only the big organization, but people already have this mental model that they've been conditioned to, and so you know in my new role right it's a smaller company, you know it's less than 50 people so.
yeah.
Scott K. Wilder: So it, we can start at the creation, you know and and really build start in the beginning and trying to figure out how all these pieces fit together, you know I throw not you know I think you said it, but you know the knowledge base guys invite them to the media.
Chris Detzel: Basically yep.
Scott K. Wilder: You know, and so I think this new person, you know you can ease their pain on board and say look let's like hit let's let's conquer this together, and you know hubspot used a really good term which you know i've stolen and use a lot is being customer first versus function out.
Scott K. Wilder: So many companies are function out, and you know you go to a website and you look at the global map and it's an org chart right it's the top of the numbers right it's like support.
Scott K. Wilder: services.
Scott K. Wilder: are today, and you know your customers.
Scott K. Wilder: Either you know I don't think they're thinking of you that way you know it's.
Scott K. Wilder: So I think it's a it's a great opportunity you have and I totally you know agree hubspot had their advocacy badges and Community badges you know, all in the same same profile page.
Chris Detzel: Oh, I love that my company we when I started just over a year ago we had 280 people or something like that now we have 400 and something so we're hyper growth and.
Chris Detzel: I know that.
Chris Detzel: it's good you know the challenges, is that you know.
Chris Detzel: Especially for me, being a one man team owning community and our Executive Council now.
Chris Detzel: You know it's it's a lot of work and so when somebody new comes on that you know is interesting to me that I know I need to get to I try, but it becomes a lot harder right, you know.
Chris Detzel: As I kind of grow the team hopefully that's going to happen very soon, but at the moment when you think of you know.
Chris Detzel: people get on to the to the Oregon I think you have to think about their jobs, and you know when they start their job and they have to start kind of pushing.
Chris Detzel: But you know Scott, while there's got to get in there quick or Chris Daniels got to get in there quick because it's like hey let's start thinking of this, you know.
Chris Detzel: Unification of getting customers for our systems so that customers get what they need quickly, because you want them to start thinking you want first you want to see what they're thinking right and then.
Chris Detzel: You want to make see if you can get on the same page now and i'll say this is the one thing that I really liked about one of our hires for our documentation.
Chris Detzel: funny enough, it was on our documentation side she's the leader of that team and and something I was preaching in the very beginning in.
Chris Detzel: front of the higher entire organization was you know.
Chris Detzel: Since we need to call it a one stop shop, if you will, so wherever the customer is getting the information that they need period, you know that.
Chris Detzel: that's really the goal at the end, the day and and I was like we have this system and I.
Chris Detzel: have this slide This is all the systems that we had that we're focused on the customer and nothing that is unified so Community dogs.
Chris Detzel: zendesk and named all the technologies ideation Aha and all these things, nothing talk to each other, nothing you just had blogging and different systems, yet.
Chris Detzel: So nothing was unified and so, so I kept preaching to people you're gay and I was like I gotta do this Community thing like I can't.
Chris Detzel: You know I can't do all this stuff because products have their stuff and so you probably right about.
Chris Detzel: hey you have 50 people and eventually you're probably going to grow to 200 300 people there's been this hyper growth at some point.
Chris Detzel: Which is good but it's also hard she came in so to finish this pieces.
Chris Detzel: And she, and this is probably I don't know if she's been here six months or so, and she was talking about this, not one stop shop, but this unification we've got.
Chris Detzel: You know, we got to be where the customers are, and I was like preaching sister and so she ran with it started doing is I was like okay i'm away.
Chris Detzel: So I became her advocate instead of her big one mine right, you know, because you can't do everything, and so I was so happy to hear about what you know that she was on board and she's the one started preaching it in a way, and I was like oh shit you know this is great let her do it.
Chris Detzel: And I will be right under pushing that as well you know what I mean.
Scott K. Wilder: What do you see like what are the other challenges that you've run into in terms of.
Scott K. Wilder: Getting to that vision.
Chris Detzel: yeah I think organizationally challenged right, so you know one thing that I think is the Holy Grail kind of what you guys kind of accomplished eventually.
Chris Detzel: turbo tax or into it, or whatever right, you know, like, how do you build Community directly into the product right so but I that's one challenge is that's that's a really hard challenge because they have other things, even if you say that I can save the company $5 million.
Chris Detzel: Interesting enough they're a little bit more interested interested in, you know these features and functions and things like that you know for the customers, right from the product makes sense, but.
Chris Detzel: biggest challenge, though, is one time is finding time to do it to his resources so, for example, you know we already have all these disparate systems that are really good for our customers, but that are that aren't talking, you know it's a massive undertaking to do sso to do.
Chris Detzel: You know enterprise search and all those things, even if you can find a company there's a company called search unified, for example, and search unified.
Chris Detzel: Because it is kind of the over arching company, and then they have this thing called in, and they can do a lot of the work right like they can do a lot of it, but you still need resources to do some of the work for enterprise search.
Chris Detzel: Now it's a little different when you think about ssl.
Chris Detzel: So you know the challenges is you might not have anybody organizationally like At first we didn't even have an IT department, we just bought our own computers and everything else so we're just ramping up it.
Chris Detzel: Now, just now, which makes sense, then you know, but now, so we don't have anybody that in it to help with this, so and all these things we have ssl for employee login but we don't have sso really for the customer and.
Chris Detzel: And then there's technology challenges like higher logic, you can only have one sso so if we use okta.
Chris Detzel: For for one ssl we can have a second sso the other pieces, since I have higher logic on a you know higher logic holds the the the information the customer information there right.
Scott K. Wilder: and
Chris Detzel: If I move to sso.
Chris Detzel: Then I have to change it all out to where rel to has to hold that information on like a salesforce or some other things so it's kind of like having a new tenant what is having a new tenant.
Scott K. Wilder: period.
Chris Detzel: And so that's just on the Community side, rightly so, no telling what other challenges, there are going to be with with these other things so.
Chris Detzel: So I know probably went a little too deep there but that's that's it's just a challenge right, you know didn't ever get everybody on the same page is is a really difficult thing you know and then time I don't know if I answer the question but it's a lot of different things, to be honest.
Scott K. Wilder: yeah I know that that was really, really helpful and, yes, you mentioned grows ED so yeah search unifies it is, it is a great product and can do a lot of things so.
yeah.
Scott K. Wilder: You know, I think, partly it goes back to you know you and I are in the trenches there and there's.
Scott K. Wilder: Yet people at the top of the pyramid are making decisions, and it really has to come from them in terms of how your setup organizationally and shared metrics and so two stories that come to mind well one is.
Scott K. Wilder: When I was at adobe.
Scott K. Wilder: You know, I was doing product marketing there and we were given the task of solving what they called the first mile and so for the product what I was working on is really like, how do you get people to engage right away.
Scott K. Wilder: And the first molly defined there was 31st 30 days and we quickly changed out of the first hour of the product.
Scott K. Wilder: Like but what I learned from there was they put together this cross functional team very small team.
Scott K. Wilder: And second and so there's somebody from product, there is, you know me there was a creative person, a probe and they basically said you guys have a share metric a shared metric and you guys have to figure this out and don't do anything else, like that's your job.
Scott K. Wilder: And so I think you know management has to get these people right, because we all want to do the right thing we all want to.
Scott K. Wilder: Make sure documentation person, but we all get pulled by these different metrics and so.
Scott K. Wilder: we're different directions, because we're being evaluated differently so somebody at the top of the corporate pyramid has to say, like Okay, this is the problem we're solving getting people answers fast.
Scott K. Wilder: Tell me, you group you're smart Chris you know laurie john Theresa you're smart figure it out.
Scott K. Wilder: And i'll get the distractions out of your way, and so I think that's.
Scott K. Wilder: You know that's one thing that's really important so it's having that leadership at the top and getting people aligned, and the second thing I think is you know don't boil it all, I mean we all have great idea so start simple right.
Scott K. Wilder: And then I think that the third thing is that that shared metric and.
Scott K. Wilder: You know, we look at engagement numbers like you know hey Chris what's this engagement number, you have, but the reality is is the documentation person is going to have an engagement number the the Academy person is going to have an engagement number and.
Scott K. Wilder: You know these engagement numbers are real, that the real I mean the truth in some ways, but the problem is, is that it's the same customer and a lot of cases.
Scott K. Wilder: And three engagement numbers.
Scott K. Wilder: Right, and so you can get to that holistic shared metric and figure out like okay we're going to look at.
Scott K. Wilder: That person interacting on our own properties because there's other properties out there, that your customers are interacting and learning on we can talk about that, like slack channels or whatever.
Scott K. Wilder: Totally I think it's getting that cross functional team I think it's the shared metric and then you know not trying to boil the whole ocean at once.
Chris Detzel: yeah I think you hit on a lot of really great points I loved all the things that you said, and one that was fun, it was about to say it is.
Chris Detzel: You can't boil the ocean, so you know, for us, we decided to tackle enterprise search first, because we have a company that we know we can do it, we have that can help us get most of the way there.
Chris Detzel: We think we still you know, not a percent know we but we can't and I think that ssl piece, for us, is going to be the harder piece so let's tackle that later, you know what I mean and so.
Chris Detzel: But I do like the idea of the shared metric and getting some smart people in the room, and having the executive, I mean we do have an executive that gets it it's our chief customer chief product does both officer and so he's kind of the champion for that you know.
Chris Detzel: But I really like what you said that was good, I was going to go back to this and put this as a you know, a clip or commercial.
Chris Detzel: Know it's a really good sky and it is really good and smart.
Chris Detzel: Where do you start So what do you when you go to this new job and you've got so many things to do you know what do you think is kind of the number one thing I think I know what you're gonna say but let's let's just see.
yeah.
Scott K. Wilder: So I started already.
Scott K. Wilder: yep so.
Scott K. Wilder: I think the number one thing you know, and this won't be a surprise is just talk to the customers i'm always a customer then there's for a long time, but you know I don't every customer has a kind of a different story different perspective.
Scott K. Wilder: And so you know figuring out like I mean it's not like we have you know.
Scott K. Wilder: You know, a zillion you know hundreds and hundreds of customers, so it should be fairly easy for me to sit down with these customers and.
Scott K. Wilder: and sit down with them, and I think it's also the decision you know, then it's thinking about like Is it the decision maker, is it the practitioner, you know it's kind of like the the ABM approach is.
Chris Detzel: identify.
Scott K. Wilder: You know, all those people and meet with them and then I think the next thing is based on those conversations is I mean you know I wanted to work on these integrations I want to work on thought leadership, but.
Scott K. Wilder: Really understanding, you know kind of the current status current state of affairs and where these customers want to go.
Scott K. Wilder: Right and.
Scott K. Wilder: You know, I think that, like it's just again the Community space.
Scott K. Wilder: You know there's a lot of courses pop it up on community, which you know, obviously tells us that people want to learn community, and I think you know there's an opportunity to.
Scott K. Wilder: To understand like what the you know understand like how that's been approached like a you know, in terms of how do people learn about Community and how.
Scott K. Wilder: How can people learn about customer marketing and things like that and and really build from there, so it's not like a concrete answer, but I think it starts with you know if we really want to lean into customer led growth.
Scott K. Wilder: Then I need to understand the customers and the last point i'll make is.
Scott K. Wilder: I read about this once in a while I was when I was at into it, you know.
Scott K. Wilder: And I know we both have a lot of intuit influence in our life.
Scott K. Wilder: And I would sit down and this was on a smaller company and sit down with the founder and I have my fancy you know, Google sheets were and say like this is how we're doing and he'd be like.
Scott K. Wilder: And he'd say like Tommy what they're saying, like in their words will give you a quote, and so I think that's really in terms of starting is, I want to be able to understand and hear from them about you know.
Scott K. Wilder: What their experiences and where they want to go and then my job is to share that with the team as well.
yeah.
Chris Detzel: How do you, you know with all these technologies kind of it's not going where you think it is, but when with all these technologies, you get on the phone with the customer.
Chris Detzel: Or you just writing this stuff down because i'd ask them hey do you mind if I record this conversation, as I ask you, some of these questions because i'm going to take this back to our leadership and kind of.
Chris Detzel: Make sure that we get this right, and you know those because I would be, I would even cut the clip and say you know just so you know, this is what the customer said, and just have a little clip on it, and now that I know how to do all that stuff but.
Chris Detzel: No seriously because it came right from the customer, you know, instead of writing it down well, they said something like this, you know, this is what they said, and you know this, some things.
Chris Detzel: And, and maybe you have five clips of different customers this person said this and i'm seeing a common theme and they said, but you know what I mean like just because that would be fun, but also right directly from their mouths and people like oh my God yes.
Chris Detzel: No.
Scott K. Wilder: I love that I think that's yeah that's awesome I definitely would you know steal a page now from your playbook and do and do the same thing, and you know, maybe also bring a customer into.
Scott K. Wilder: Yes, meeting right, I mean.
Chris Detzel: We do that, I have to tell you so something that we do and I love is we have we used to have every week now it's every other week is.
Chris Detzel: it's just basically a meeting of the entire organization and somebody presents something about what they're doing in their department.
Chris Detzel: But once a month now, I think they do it once a month now is to bring in a customer to talk about their experience you know with with the product and what they're doing and it's on the CSM to do that.
Chris Detzel: And it's initiative from our CEO says this is and now it's in Michigan from our chief customer officer product option, whatever his title is now but he's, I guess, because he owns it, so we have to do that CSM have to do it.
Chris Detzel: But it's so much insight on what they say we record it it's all internal you know but it's extremely helpful and you get kind of.
Chris Detzel: In the CSM kind of owns so they'll ask him, questions and things like that's just an interview and it's really, really helpful for the organization to hear you know, anyway, I think it's awesome.
Scott K. Wilder: yeah no that's great that you know you're capturing that you're what you're learning you're capturing you're sharing it internally.
Scott K. Wilder: You know, Chris you're right Chris Co.
Chris Detzel: Pilot ya.
Scott K. Wilder: know about this, as we had experimented it into it with adopted adopted a company right so Scott well there might be like a buddy system, but the buddy is not like you know the buddies your company your client your customer your client and.
Scott K. Wilder: You know, you should if you're there buddy.
Scott K. Wilder: Then you should really understand, like everything everybody their what their issues are where they want to go.
Scott K. Wilder: I mean customer success should be on top of it, but also, you know.
Scott K. Wilder: fitness guys are really busy.
Scott K. Wilder: And I think you know companies, I talked to they've done this, they tend to focus on the lighthouse accounts which kind of makes sense from a financial perspective but.
Scott K. Wilder: i'm always you know.
Scott K. Wilder: We talked about baseball and beginning now i'm going to mix my metaphors and we talked about hockey so you know anticipate who those future lighthouse accounts can be, and maybe they become the buddies right, you know.
Scott K. Wilder: I mean you know if you see like you know growth or a trend.
Scott K. Wilder: that's not a great analogy, but if you have a customer who's in the ev market, you know electric vehicles like.
Scott K. Wilder: You know that's growing market, so you know, maybe you say Okay, you know as a management team, we want to be there buddy help them be successful, so we can ride that wave and they're going to remember that.
Scott K. Wilder: Oh yeah yeah.
Chris Detzel: I think, at the end of the day it look your product has to work and do really the things that it says going to do.
Chris Detzel: You know and you've got always innovate on the product.
Chris Detzel: But it's also about maybe it's half and half or maybe, maybe even more I don't know but it's about relationships and I feel like.
Chris Detzel: You know if you can build those relationships and and become buddies like you kind of mentioned seriously like you know, I was at our Executive Council the other, the other day, so it was in Atlanta, and you know, we had a great Council meeting notes, our leaders of our.
Chris Detzel: Customers so you know it could be CEOs or.
Chris Detzel: ctos or somebody that's a VP of data, governance and those kinds of things and now there's one guy that actually lived here in Dallas guy from Google and as a really you live in Dallas I was like no way i'm in Dallas and we kind of started talking about you know.
Chris Detzel: places that we like in Dallas well you know you like Papa does let's go to pop those in next few weeks Okay, you know so we're just gonna.
Chris Detzel: i'm going to try to start building a relationship with him and just because it's close and we can have.
Chris Detzel: potatoes or breakfast or whatever you know what I mean, and you know something else we talked about, as we kind of started building this thing here in Dallas we now have like 11 people or 10 or something here in Dallas area.
Chris Detzel: As a so we get together once or twice already I thought, why don't we just have some of our customers join us for breakfast if they want you know they don't have to but.
Chris Detzel: You know let's just invite them, you know the ones here in Dallas you know yeah that's good again I told a sky about it and he's like yeah maybe I can come, you know and so.
Chris Detzel: I think it's those kinds of things is you know if you if you're close when I don't have a lunch or dinner or breakfast or whatever.
Chris Detzel: With those people that's now you know we can now get out more and we should you know not.
Chris Detzel: know I love to get off topic, but it's it's.
Scott K. Wilder: yeah no but it's it's really important, I mean I think it's um you know you're building community.
Chris Detzel: yeah yeah I mean that's an easy thing to do, you know you just buy them.
Chris Detzel: And you don't have to always talk about work, I mean they're gonna want to you know and it's fine it's good place to start I guess.
Chris Detzel: But now let's talk about he has a bunch of kids and he bought a ranch and all kinds of you know, to me like.
Chris Detzel: Some interesting things to talk about that person because they're people you know just like me, are you know they're not just.
Chris Detzel: You know customers and their people, their people, and we have to treat him as that you know, and you know because I don't have any agenda rather than just trying to.
Chris Detzel: get to know the guy and have a relationship and yeah I guess there is some agenda yeah I wanted to do some things, but I want to make sure he's taking care of you know that kind of stuff from a product standpoint but it's it's a cool relationship that you know.
Scott K. Wilder: Now that's awesome I love that that's great and yeah I mean that's at the end of the day, that's what it's all about, as you said, it's about relationships and you know.
it's just.
Scott K. Wilder: it's more important than the product.
Chris Detzel: yeah I mean you know, I think that piece comes right like you know you you start having those relationships, they start counting on you to help them if they have problems you make sure you help them.
Chris Detzel: And maybe there'll be a customer for life, you know I mean, as long as life could be you know for customer, whatever that is.
Chris Detzel: Maybe they have higher renewal rates, maybe they you know there's a or maybe they talk about your product to without you even have to do anything, or you know there's lots of things.
Chris Detzel: From a relationship base that you can do and super important you don't just have to have have this box office to a baseball game to go, I mean, which is helpful it's good it's a good way to kind of get in.
Chris Detzel: Because you know it's a high you know cost kind of thing, and people are want to it's easy to get people to go to what are you gonna do after that, after that baseball game and.
Chris Detzel: You know, can you talk to them, do you live close to them, I don't know I mean just figured out on the relationship, but I do think that's a huge key at the end of the day.
Scott K. Wilder: it's interesting because i'm so.
Scott K. Wilder: The person I worked for it into it hired me to go to Google and start a small business community start a adwords.
Scott K. Wilder: agent agency partner community.
Scott K. Wilder: And the adwords guys were they were agencies and they.
Scott K. Wilder: They were active in both communities, but.
Scott K. Wilder: You know when they came to mountain view.
Scott K. Wilder: It was great because we didn't talk about work at all and, to this day, you know so we're talking 10 years later, whatever and.
Scott K. Wilder: yeah you know they're good friends and I use them a lot they use them as a terrible word I will ask for their advice, a lot on you know industry stuff yeah I mean we definitely talk about other things besides work, but you know I really you know adwords is such a really complex.
Scott K. Wilder: it's more complex than you know, most people realize and so.
Scott K. Wilder: You know if I wanted to do an adwords campaign i'll reach out to them and ask for their advice or if they're in a certain segment say one is in the market, you know and they reach out to me to you know.
Scott K. Wilder: And you know one was thinking about building a knowledge base for his company and he's like you know can right, and you know there's no.
Scott K. Wilder: transaction agenda, so my book, I mentioned once i'm working on a book and it's from transaction to transformation and loving we moving beyond like this transaction relationship which is it's hard right because you're gonna we're all being evaluated on short term results.
Chris Detzel: that's right.
Chris Detzel: yeah I agree in, and I think that.
Chris Detzel: it's it's hard to I think what you have to do is, you have to put your mindset to.
Chris Detzel: yeah we have some transactions that we have to do, and we have to think about work and that stuff we have goals, but in your head, you know how do you throw in a question that's a little bit personal to get to that relationship based you know, like when I think of people that I work with.
Chris Detzel: I like building relationships long term with not everybody, because you can't you know, but one is because I like people I like to go to interesting places I like.
Chris Detzel: To have those long term relationships and and then you know, like you said you start building a network of people in different areas so that maybe they can help you later, you can help them later, but also, you know, culture, you know 20 year old kid when you knew them.
Chris Detzel: When they were 10 you know what I mean like.
Chris Detzel: how's that going now that in college now they're doing these things, and you know get a little bit personal personal because it makes it.
Chris Detzel: real life, you know, and I think you just have to have that as a strategy long term strategy in your head like always.
Chris Detzel: Try to think about how to be personable when you can that you know when you're on a call trying to get these things done with 20 people 10 people find you know this is kind of the next thing but.
Chris Detzel: When it's just you and somebody you and two or three people and working on a project, whether it's internally or with the customer, I always think about I mean.
Chris Detzel: When I was at Forrester research there's this guy his name's rick cash and cash flows in France i've been to his house literally four or five times and a beautiful place called antsy France in France right, you know and so it's on the border of Geneva and France and.
Scott K. Wilder: You know.
Chris Detzel: Beautiful place to get to go in the mountains, and you know now he lives in Paris and so i'm trying to push a trip out there, you know, to go see him again, you know but.
Chris Detzel: it's those kinds of things that you know that I love to do is hey how's work we'll talk about work a little bit, but other than that let's let's go have some.
Chris Detzel: Food with some French people let's go do that you know he's coming to my house that kind of stuff you know it's i'm not saying get that.
Chris Detzel: intimate you know, but every time, but how do you at least think of maybe just going a step further than i'm very passionate about relationship building and think it's it's huge you know.
Scott K. Wilder: yeah no I think that's I mean it's really amazing because you know you, you and rick cash are going to run you know.
Scott K. Wilder: yeah 10 years 20 years and not going to think about oh that Forrester article.
Scott K. Wilder: exactly right you're gonna think about why you remember that time we went out and.
Scott K. Wilder: had some bouillabaisse.
Chris Detzel: yeah I mean this is a Center that this guy is kind of crazy like we were in.
Chris Detzel: Las Vegas one time, and he was like let's go swimming in this fountain that's at the hotel and i'm like.
Chris Detzel: I don't think you should do that because you know so there's this whole story around him jumping in the fountain with this girl that also worked at Forrester and.
Chris Detzel: And then they got kicked out and i'm like dude I don't know why you would do that but hey but you remember that story is kind of funny or or whatever right and.
Chris Detzel: So anyways I just think that's kind of a key at the end of the day is yes transactional it's important but it's also relationship based yeah.
Scott K. Wilder: No that's that's great it's really admirable and a lot of ways, because I think that.
Scott K. Wilder: You know.
Scott K. Wilder: Taking it back to work, I mean you know when I talk to Community people and look for it, you know look who's successful they.
Scott K. Wilder: You know there's the passion for work there's the domain knowledge, but there is this other like thing about relationships and whether it's online or offline I mean obviously you know most Community managers are focusing, at least in our world on on.
Scott K. Wilder: yeah online, but there is this.
Scott K. Wilder: The importance of.
Scott K. Wilder: Being comfortable you know moving beyond you know moving be being able to talk about swimming you know, in a fountain.
Chris Detzel: In last thing.
Chris Detzel: it's kind of it's great well Scott, this has been such a fun conversation and wanted to say, congratulations on your new role that you've already started and.
Chris Detzel: You know I think really fun things to come up definitely love to have you on peers of her peers or she's over whatever you're drinking at the time.
Scott K. Wilder: Coffee coffee.
Chris Detzel: yeah I don't have my hair started he had like three cups and I don't need another one.
Scott K. Wilder: As you can tell the guy.
Chris Detzel: But it's been really great.
Scott K. Wilder: Well, Chris thanks for having me again, and you know this is the show is great I know i've listened.
Scott K. Wilder: To a number of shows over and over like the one you have to Danny and that just learn a lot from them so thanks.
Chris Detzel: yeah you're welcome alright well thanks everyone for another peers over beers i'm Chris dental and.
Scott K. Wilder: Scott wilder and you can find me on linkedin if you want to take a walk on the wild or side.
Chris Detzel: Alright, thanks everyone.