Customer success pipeline stages in vendor negotiations

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hey guys eric ezips here for csn practice today we're going to talk about how to transition from being an account manager to becoming a customer success manager now there's a difference between the two roles and i got you the perfect person to actually talk about it her name is kathleen schuback and she has been an account manager who transitioned into a customer success manager role and she's here to tell you all about it so stay tuned [Music] hey guys thanks for coming back everyone and as promised kathleen shubach is here to kind of showcase what is that journey look like and what are the main differences between her job as an account manager to now being a customer success manager so first of all kathleen thank you so much for joining us today and for sharing your experience well thank you yuri for inviting me to do this i'm very happy to be here and hopefully i can share some good content and experience in my career with anyone that's interested to learn so thank you oh yeah and you have by the way just such an interesting life tell everybody like where do you live what's your house like oh you're so sweet i live in rochester new york a suburb of rochester uh we live in a very old farmhouse it's 1865. so the transition of being remote in 2020 was really fun to juggle in this cute little farmhouse that we have we live in the finger lakes region which is a beautiful area of upstate new york if no one's ever been here you should definitely check it out there's wineries there's activities or sporting events like there's just so many wonderful things to do here tell me about your journey did you start out as an account manager my first real professional career position did start as what we call the client relationship manager and this was a long time ago before crm systems ever existed and i worked first software company at the time and then i got hungry for sales because i wasn't a salesperson but i really wanted that sales the commission the excitement and as time went on i've had roles with software with pharmaceuticals with insurance my love and joy is really being that person to support a customer and making them successful we transitioning back to customer success in the last five years now i just it's my home and it's it's where i truly shine and my strengths are and i just love it you started out as a client relationship type of role that has no sales skills whatsoever transition to sales for how many years probably 10 years 10 years where you were you know working with existing customers to expand revenues or were you you know hunting for new logos it was a little bit of both it depended on the organization i was with at the time so like pharmaceutical you're dealing with existing client base and territory but you're selling with some software areas hardware software phone system stuff that i did that was a combination of both but they really wanted you to focus on those new like you were truly hunting and pecking and building your own pipeline and that's a lot of energy and effort and you really have to think about where you focus your time and effort it's a challenge to get to the numbers yes your salary is highly dependent on achieving new revenue for the company from existing customers or from new ones exactly yep so in some organizations they had me focus on white space which was known or past customers but they didn't do a lot of business versus existing customers that you're expanding so the challenge is i guess you know when you're in the sales role or account management role you are driven by numbers quotas pipelines how quickly is your timeline going to come to fruition where as with customer success you do have objectives you're trying to achieve and metrics that you're responsible for but you really as a customer success person you're really focusing on your customers timeline because in order for them to feel like they are the priority and their business matters you really need to pay attention to their needs their drivers who they're answering to and what their timeline is it's not to say you dismiss your own organization's timeline but you really have to know how to balance that conversation because you don't want to be able in a china shop with customer success and i feel like with account management and sales organizations are expecting you to just get your number have that down and dirty conversation with budget numbers timing who's your champion who's your person to approve purchases and with customer success there's a lot more subtlety a lot more finesse listening skills understanding you really have to balance functional emotional and business iq and it takes time to hone that and really get comfortable with all of those and it's on your team side as well as your customers team side this is like kind of like the main difference just from a role definition standpoint do you find that your comp plan structure is different from when you were an account manager to now being a customer success manager if you liked what you've heard so far that's awesome more coming in a second here but in the meantime i want you to click that like button so that youtube knows that this is great content and you can start sharing it with others so typically when you're an account manager your base is going to be low and then you really make up your additional income based on the number of sales you hit the quotas you have if you exceed those quotas and that's really where the gravy is and and it's great to get that money in big chunks on a customer success side of the house the base in a customer success role has definitely become higher over the years and you still get a little bit of a bonus or commission structure but it's based on activity or metrics that your organization defines it's different for each industry but you know some of the differences include how granular as a customer success manager are your metrics and that will be different by each organization and i will say it tends to be more about the quality of your activity and not the quantity where with account management it's really about as they say dialing for dollars or you know making as many calls in a day as you can whether it's a physical face-to-face or phone call light of everybody working from home these days but with the customer success you know you are reaching out to people you're being proactive you're bringing information on a consistent basis how many solid conversations do i have planned for this week for the month for the quarter am i doing quarterly business reviews am i doing road map discussions you know partnering with our product team these are all metrics that probably any organization would be using toward your bonus so as an account manager did you have to report to your manager on a weekly monthly quarterly basis do you feel like the cadence of you reporting to your manager is a bit different now that you're a csm it's different but it's still act like often what's the differences so with account manager i've definitely been in organizations where you have to basically on a monthly basis present your pipeline and you present it to your entire team and your vp and your direct manager all in the room and it's really about showing them your activity what you expect to close when you expect to close it and you have to be accurate with those dates it's tends to be monthly with your pipeline but i would talk to my sales manager at least once a week to say hey these are the challenges or these are what's going well i need your input or i need your assistance or what else can we do to move this to meet our timeline to close the upsell opportunity or to meet that pipeline expectation so it's about pipeline upsells cross sales if we are talking about existing customers of course just for sake of you know comparison yeah and weekly updates with your manager and then maybe monthly or quarterly with the entire team or the management team what is the main thing that changed now that you're doing updates about your existing customers as a csm the main thing is really having your pulse on the customers health of the accounts what does it mean a healthy customer in your world so a lot of the systems that are out there will measure an account on a green red or yellow so if you've never been in customer success before really get used to that methodology and philosophy of green red or yellow so when i say the health of the account in my mind's eye i'm thinking are they a green a red or a yellow and if they're green then most likely they're in a good place they're happy they're in a prime position to upsell or expand whatever they're using in your current system so it is the health and well-being is the primary focus but the underlying objective it really is still to expand and grow the relationship whether that means selling more modules or getting them to be a speaker at an event for you or collaborating on a new project to improve your system that benefits both of you 100 because it sounds like your cadence calls to update about your current book of business is not too much about the numbers and how quickly are we going to hit the numbers it's more about are is my book of business healthy are they in a good place so then we can take a look at what would make sense in terms of potentially uphill or upsell that customer and get them more engaged and maximize value for us i think that's the main difference that you're sharing here is that we're as account managers we're driving towards upsell and expansion there's a timeline for that it's super aggressive with customer success we're driving value for our customers and making sure that they're happy so the satisfaction level is high they have a good experience and good outcomes so that we can maximize value for us yes spot on in your organization you have both account managers and customer success managers we do we call them bd business development is their role and ours is customer success director so that the difference in our in my current organization and we do work really close together to manage and maintain there's the bd sales opportunities and the customer success director's relationship opportunities who is perceived to be the owner of the account so it depends on the organization but i have found in my experience that customer success managers own the relationship bar none that is the best way to be successful and i firmly and wholeheartedly believe that the customer success team owns that relationship and it's their responsibility to communicate across all people internally where it stands how it's going as well as knowing your customers vendors and who impacts their interaction with your system before we continue don't forget subscribe to our youtube channel and smash that notification button so that you don't miss out on any new videos and in your organization customer success is reporting to sales as well as account managers or do you report to two different groups in my current organization we're part of the commercial team but we are two separate entities and i have a vp that i report directly to and then i have a senior vp that i indirectly report to but we are all really closely tied together so it's kind of like i report to both and then they'll take their concerns or positive feedback to the vp and senior vp of the commercial sales team so you kind of work in pods every account has a business development which is really account manager and yeah the success director which is really a csm are you assigned to the exact same accounts or how many customers do you manage so right now i have five accounts and i love it it's the first time in my life i've had the ability to really focus on five accounts prior to this i had almost 100 accounts and to your point i have a business development person or account manager can be different for every one of them but right now i have the same sales person on three of my accounts and then i have two others so i work with three different sales people based on the account that we share i work with three different project managers and then we have project managers and we have project coordinators and then we also have the product line team and that's broken up into different divisions based on the functionality that is being enhanced or worked on there's a lot of arms to how our pods are connected so it sounds like the account assignment criteria is different for customer success than it is for the account managers or the business developers in your case i would say that's true i would think that of most organizations that's definitely been you know it just depends on if an organization's sales team is based on geography or based on territory and you know different regions of the country or the world will have a higher sales quota based on maybe how many large cities are in that area but it's definitely sales is driven by their numbers csms are driven by the number of accounts they manage which allows us to be proactive like the fewer accounts you have the more proactive you can be from a history standpoint what made you after 10 years as an account manager to all of a sudden say hey wanna do customer success how did you hear about customer success what made you want to do that just what triggered you i transitioned most recently because i wasn't happy in the it world phone world it was exciting but it wasn't impacting lives in the long run i just know that i am all about the experience i can sell i'm good at selling i'm not like the gold star sales person but my strengths are really in relationship building listening understanding a customer's business their current state and what their challenges are and why what's holding them back and how to get them to their future goals and i just love that whole ownership of the relationship any regrets transitioning from account manager to a customer success manager no regrets at all anything you miss you don't miss doing forecasting i do not miss forecasting i have to tell you that was very stressful to me that was probably the one thing i would stay up late preparing the night before because i wanted to make sure i i would answer any question i knew that might come you know and you still have to do that with customer success but it's not in the same you know hard hit because i'll say with account management you're like as good as your last big sale and with customer success it's all about relationship and taking those hard situations and turning them around well if somebody's listening and watching this video and they think gosh i'm an account manager now i would love to be a customer success manager what would be your advice do they need to take any classes do they need to emphasize anything in the interview what would be the best way to transition is it from same industry to same industry like from your experience i mean there's no black and white just what's your favorite feeling so i put a few thoughts together on this you really want to learn what the day in life is you need to be someone that's naturally curious i will say that if you just take a request at face value and run with it that's fine you're serving your customer but it's really about being comfortable going that next level deeper and saying oh so help me understand why are you asking that question mrs smith you know is there a challenge that's happening with your team is there a process that's frustrating the team and that you know that you're losing money you want to be that natural curious person so like i said being excited about the industry you're in and being comfortable with change because let me tell you the customer's goals will change on a dime depending on what was delivered down from their vps so you have to be comfortable with things you know right when you think you've got it oh wait a minute there's a new change but i would recommend to people don't beat yourself up if you've never done it but you're interested and give yourself grace give yourself time to learn yes i would take classes there's a lot of online your broadcasts on your youtube channel like that's all awesome and there's a lot of resources out there you can find it on linkedin and you just have to look up customer success so i would take any watch any videos you can our team's doing an initiative to get some official certifications so we're all doing that do you recommend somebody that wants to move into a customer success manager role out and but used to be an account manager is it necessary for them to take a certification class it's not necessary i mean to be very candid and honest with you i've never had a certificate assigned to me it's just all about my past experience being able to paint the picture of overcoming challenges handling tough situations and that's one thing i would say be someone that can tell that story and do it in you know actionable chunks you are going to want to update your resume for the job i will say that because not every cs job is the same you really need to understand what they're seeking you want to hit those high points if you know you're good at reaching out to people and being a go-getter then you you talk about that in a constructive way if somebody right off of college no works experience whatsoever really want to be a customer success manager is it possible it's absolutely possible these are things you want to ask yourself if you like and are comfortable meeting new people and it doesn't intimidate you by all means you can do this job do you like helping others you know you don't want to be it's not about you and what you've done it's about how you've lifted other people up and gotten them to a place of success with your organization's services offerings whatever it is and you do need to be comfortable with those tough conversations and that takes time i wouldn't expect anyone to do all these things and be awesome at them at once it i mean i've been doing this like 20 years so it takes time and you learn from every interaction and you want to ask your peers what could i have done better did i do this well you know you want to learn from every interaction you have and and you can even ask your customers once you get comfortable enough are you okay with me approaching so and so in this department or will i be overstepping oh no you can let them know i suggested you talk to them so it's a lot about problem solving but also helping people grow but at the same time you're helping yourself grow so if you're fresh out of college you just need to be curious comfortable meeting new people wanting to be a natural problem solver a team effort like go to your team for help ask others you don't have to carry it all on your shoulders you can ask for help that's the whole point of being customer success but as long as you're curious excited want to help others truly i think who has those innate characteristics can do this job would you recommend anybody to start off as an account manager just to get those sales skills in case their customer success manager actually has a quota for yeah i will say my past lives of being in sales have totally made me a better customer success person it's really for the sheer understanding of the process what goes into the sales cycle how long a sales cycle takes what paperwork's needed so it doesn't hurt it's not required but if you had the opportunity i think it it will just make you a stronger customer success manager for sure all right guys if you have enjoyed this video please give it a like leave a comment for kathleen if you feel like she helped you in any way i know i've learned a lot so kathleen you're absolutely amazing thank you so much for your time today guys subscribe to our youtube channel it helps the channel a lot when you leave comments like love you a lot see you at the next video [Music] you