#TDSU Episode 263:

⏱️ Timestamps:

00:00:00 - Intro

00:02:20 - Revenue-driven mindset shift

00:02:50 - Misalignment and clear roles

00:04:12 - Building a hungry CS team

00:05:22 - Relationship selling mastery

00:06:07 - Goal-oriented CS approach

00:08:39 - Structuring for CS success

00:09:15 - Say no to spiffs

📺 Lifetime Value: Your Destination for GTM content

Website: https://www.lifetimevaluemedia.com

🤝 Connect with the hosts:

Dillon's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dillonryoung

JP's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeanpierrefrost/

Rob's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rob-zambito/

👋 Connect with Akash Sorathia:

Akash's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/akashsorathia/

[Akash] (0:00 - 0:27)

KPIs and incentives are the biggest part of that, right? Where NRR is its own number, but also that extra expansion number and tying in bonuses off of that is really going to drive everyone, right? Because then you're more incentivized to be out there and be more goal-oriented like Dillon said, right?

So that's just kind of where my head is at when I'm looking for that kind of role or looking for individuals for that role.

[Dillon] (0:36 - 0:46)

What's up lifers and welcome to The Daily Standup with lifetime value where we're giving you fresh new customer success ideas every single day. I got my man Rob with us. Rob, you want to say hi?

[Rob] (0:47 - 0:48)

Anything is possible.

[Dillon] (0:49 - 0:57)

So that was, yeah, yeah, I guess. And we have JP with us. JP, do you want to say hi?

[JP] (0:57 - 0:58)

What's up?

[Dillon] (0:58 - 1:28)

Wearing a Celtics hat. Wearing a Celtics hat, which is one half of why Rob made that reference. I'm actually impressed you even knew that Rob.

And we have Akash with us. Akash, can you say hi please? Hey everyone.

Hey, hey. And I'm your host. My name is Dillon Young.

Akash, thank you so much for being here. Please introduce yourself and maybe also explain that you're a diehard Celtics fan and that's the other half of why Rob did that obnoxious hello. Go ahead.

[Akash] (1:29 - 1:50)

Yeah, thanks for having me. My name is Akash Sarathia. I am a senior account manager here at Spin.ai. My main focus is really revenue retention and building out the team. So that's why Rob brought me on. And we're really just going to be focusing on kind of changing the mindset of CS teams into more revenue focused individuals.

[Dillon] (1:51 - 2:20)

All right, take it easy. Yeah, as soon as you said that, I got excited, right? You led with revenue.

This is, I don't know if it's 2.0 or 3.0, but this is the new breed, right? Where that's the very first thing we say is revenue, revenue, revenue. So Akash, you know what we do here?

We ask every single guest one simple question, and that is what is on your mind when it comes to customer success? Let me guess. Dollars.

Go ahead. Tell us.

[Akash] (2:20 - 2:46)

Yeah, I mean, really just how we can make teams change their mindset, right? Obviously, the focus is typically retention, adoption, satisfaction, but really leveraging those aspects and turning it into revenue down the line. I've seen teams that are unable to do that, and then I've seen teams like the team here at Spin.ai really thrive on being able to do that.

[Dillon] (2:47 - 2:49)

What's the difference? Why do you think some fail and others succeed?

[Akash] (2:50 - 3:24)

I mean, it really comes down to obviously misalignment and unclear roles and responsibility. When you're bringing on a CS team, their mindset previously was, hey, let's keep everyone happy, and that's it, right? Having those conversations of what can we do to help grow how much your spend is annually, I think becomes a tricky conversation.

It becomes kind of that blurry gray area for a lot of CS teams. So really being able to align themselves with what the organization wants to do as a whole.

[Dillon] (3:25 - 3:26)

JP, tell us what you think.

[JP] (3:27 - 4:11)

Yeah, Akash, when you were speaking, one of the things I was... You mentioned this, when I bring a CS team on, and then I, for some reason, started focusing on that team part. What do you think is important to be a...

Because we know CS, the individuals can be varied in terms of maybe what they offer, how they contribute, right? But what is, you think, from your perspective in leadership, is important as a common trait among your team that perhaps either makes them more of a team or that you see as something maybe that is your personal charge of what you want to see from them?

[Akash] (4:12 - 4:46)

Yeah. I mean, first and foremost, they got to be personable, but they also want to be hungry. I think that tying those two in really takes it to that next level where you go into CS because you want to be that frontline individual.

You want to build those relationships. But at the end of the day, relationships selling is the strongest way to get additional revenue, right? So seeing if they have that mindset of, hey, I love being in front of people.

I love working with people. But turning that into, hey, how can we get the most money out here?

[JP] (4:46 - 4:56)

So you're looking for those sort of... Those sound almost like sales-ish characteristics, right? Just to make it simple there.

Okay.

[Akash] (4:57 - 5:22)

Right. Yeah. And I guess the best example would be myself, right?

I used to be an account executive, and I realized that, hey, I'm more of a relationship-building individual, right? I like to be in front of people. I like to have conversations, those tough conversations, make sure they're happy at the end of the day.

But I also realized that that's the best way for me to bring in additional revenue, right? Instead of just hunting every single day, I guess we like to call it farming. But yeah.

[Dillon] (5:22 - 6:07)

I want to touch on one piece, which was, you said hungry. And then JP said sales-oriented. And I might modulate that just slightly to be goal-oriented.

So I think CS for a long time was meant to be like, hey, just come to me when you have a problem. And if you're not happy, just let me know and we'll fix it. And it's less that and more like, yeah, we're always driving towards something.

We're trying to get you to grow. We're trying to get you to renew. So yeah, often that is securing additional money.

But I think it's more about the goal and the achievement of something that I think for a really long time was too ambiguous for CS. Rob, tell me I'm wrong. No, no, no, no, no.

[Rob] (6:07 - 8:39)

I hate to agree with you as much as I do, but I do. So Akash and I spoke a few weeks ago and I asked Akash, how are things going? His answer was, good.

We had a good quarter. I had a good quarter. And do you know how many customer success people struggle just to say that?

Because if you ask them how their quarter was, they're like, oh, well, you know, this account, they seem happy. And this other one, oh yeah, they were a huge pain and they were keeping me after hours. But like, Akash, you and the folks at Spin, what I love that you guys have is a very clear charter and definition around revenue success for your organization.

And that's it. So Akash and I met, I had the opportunity to lead an onsite across a bunch of different companies that are within this certain portfolio. And the onsite was all focused on how do you build an expansion playbook?

So we went through everything soup to nuts from how do you define your expansion triggers? How do you define your expansion motions, your stages, your objection rebuttal documents, your metrics of success? What should your dashboards look like?

We went through everything that I've learned the hard way is that what it takes to drive a really efficient, proactive revenue function and customer success. And when you think about hunger, Akash, I think that there's many things that have to come into place for that hunger to even work. Like somebody being hungry can be great, but it also takes a whole organization to build around that hunger to make sure that that hunger finds its place in the revenue numbers.

So that includes, if I look at a lot of customer success orgs, I see a lot of incorrectly defined charters or inconsistent charters for the org. I see a lot of incorrect comp structures that don't incentivize the right behaviors. They're like, oh, maybe we'll achieve 120% NRR with a spiff here and there.

And I see a lack of investment in training as well. So I think that matters because it cascades down from the organizational level to the customer success or account manager level, where you find a lot of people may lack the skill, they may lack the time, they may lack the interest, but a lot of times they just lack the reps. And they would develop the skill and the time and the interest if the organization develops the mechanisms to develop that skill set around that person.

So anyway, I mean, I think it's an interesting and cool skill set to develop. I want to hear more about what that looks like for you, Akash.

[Akash] (8:39 - 9:14)

Yeah. And I think you kind of hit the mark, right? KPIs and incentives are the biggest part of that, right?

Where NRR is its own number, but also that extra expansion number and tying in bonuses off of that is really going to drive everyone, right? Because then you're more incentivized to be out there and be more goal oriented, like Dillon said, right? So that's just kind of where my head is at when I'm looking for that kind of role or looking for individuals for that role.

[Dillon] (9:15 - 10:50)

This is incredibly cathartic because I don't know how many conversations I've had where they want interviews I've had where it's heavy on expansion. And I'll say, well, what's the comp structure? And it's spiffs here and there.

I'm so tired of the word spiff. It just screams Amazon gift card to me for something that is worth tens of thousands of dollars to a company. And therefore hundreds of thousands of dollars in additional valuation.

And you want to give me a $25 Starbucks gift card, bro. Also, the last thing I'll say before we have to go here is, Rob, I think actually the reason it's so difficult for customer success people to say revenue related things like I had a good quarter is because I think they turn into stone when they do it. Actually, I think they are literally allergic to it.

Their throat swells up and they can't do it. And that is me taking an absolute shot at all of the CS people that are afraid to talk about sales stuff. They got into CS because they didn't want to be sales people.

And we're not going to belabor the point about how everybody's in sales, including me and my relationship with my wife and my child. But that's it. Akash, thank you so much.

It's a fantastic topic. And I love that you brought the heat with a nonchalant panache to it, brother. That was fantastic.

Come back anytime. But for now, we've got to say goodbye. Thanks, Akash.

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