#TDSU Episode 264:

⏱️ Timestamps:

00:00:00 - Intro

00:01:28 - Motivation behind Intelligent Success

00:02:40 - Building a CS career beyond leadership

00:03:44 - Navigating leadership possibilities

00:06:25 - Path to independence in CS roles

00:08:08 - Staying motivated amid change

00:10:33 - Solving big problems as an IC

00:12:34 - Mastering the art of saying no

📺 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 Karin Dgana:

Karin's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karin-dgana-a1a16033/

[Karin] (0:00 - 0:24)

Creating different segments in our CS org to even becoming part of now a CX organization, right? So there's just like so much change that has happened over the years and also the way we work which probably, you know resonates with a lot of people here where you're five days in the office to being fully remote, to being somewhat of a hybrid approach, right? Oh wow, okay, yeah.

That has really changed.

[Dillon] (0:33 - 0:44)

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 JP with us. JP, do you want to say hi?

[JP] (0:45 - 0:47)

Grab a bib. We got a juicy topic today, y'all.

[Dillon] (0:48 - 0:52)

And we have Karin with us. Karin, can you say hi, please?

[Karin] (0:53 - 0:53)

Hello.

[Dillon] (0:54 - 1:00)

Hello, hello. And I am your host. My name is Dillon Young.

Karin, thank you so much for being here. Can you please introduce yourself?

[Karin] (1:00 - 1:23)

Yeah, absolutely. Hi, everyone. My name is Karin.

I am a principal customer success manager at Braze. Been in customer success for about a decade at this point. And on the side recently, I also started Intelligent Success, which is a program designed to help build confidence in folks that are looking to transition, grow, and succeed in customer success as a career.

[Dillon] (1:24 - 1:28)

Very cool. Can I ask you really quickly, what motivated you to start that?

[Karin] (1:28 - 2:22)

Intelligent Success, mostly because I have met so many people across my time being in customer success that have wanted to transition into tech world or had like certain skills that translated well, and they wanted to create a more strategic path for themselves. And I think that part of like, how do I become strategic? How do I have confidence to be in front of customers?

That was always like a problem that folks wanting to transition or grow face. And I've noticed that in myself as well, starting about 10 years ago, where I didn't have the confidence and I didn't know whether I was being strategic and even what that meant. So this program is meant to build that confidence and ensure that you're going into every single meeting, feeling like you're bringing value and understand how to translate that value to every single customer conversation you're having.

[Dillon] (2:23 - 2:39)

The thing we talk about a lot. Okay. I love that.

Karin, 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? I have a feeling it's going to be related to everything you just talked about, but please tell us what it is for you.

[Karin] (2:40 - 3:40)

Yeah, for me, it's essentially how to build a customer success path for yourself. If you're not interested in moving into a leadership role. So how can you continue to build your career as an individual contributor and still stay motivated while you're at it?

Which I think is kind of hard because you're always thinking to yourself that, oh, if I start as customer success, then I'll become senior, then I'll become principal, and then I hit a wall, right? So how do I continue to stay motivated when I don't know if I want to manage teams? I don't know if that's how I want to spend the rest of my days at work.

So that's been the topic that's been on my mind. And what I wanted to share with folks, especially myself being a principal in an IC role, how do I stay motivated and also kind of like scratch that itch when it comes to, you know, feeling like you are taking a leadership position, but not necessarily having to do that in the more traditional way.

[Dillon] (3:40 - 3:44)

So have you decided that you don't want to manage people?

[Karin] (3:44 - 3:56)

I think we'll see what the future holds for us in the meantime. But I actually, okay, so I want to, like, I'm the type of person that I don't like to close doors.

[Karin] (3:57 - 4:00)

That's kind of like what I want to mention, right?

[Karin] (4:00 - 6:24)

So that's where my answer is coming from. At the same time, I've noticed that there's a lot of sort of like mysticism around principal role and what that looks like and how to contribute. So that's what's been on my mind.

I want to break that mysticism. And I want to make sure that when we are thinking about building our careers, what are we actually focusing on and what do we actually put value in? So for instance, and I'll get into this, is more about thinking about how you want to spend your day, right?

And understanding what motivates you, whether or not you have Title A or Title B. That doesn't really matter. At the end of the day, a leadership role isn't something that people need to give you.

You decide for yourself whether you're going to be a leader and then how, you know, figuring out how you can make that happen. So that's why a principal role in a way is really great, because you get to enjoy the things that you probably love, which is making an impact with your customers, being close to understanding and feeling the impact that you're having on your customers' business outcomes, but also your own business outcomes. So, you know, you're very close and tied to that, which is very motivating.

But at the same time, maybe you love to develop talent. Maybe you also really enjoy kind of like building processes that scale efficiency, something like that, right? So that's where you can still have the best of both worlds, where you're building yourself a world where you get to enjoy everything that motivates you and not simply choosing one path or another.

And over time, you'll just kind of figure out how you can continue to make that work for kind of like your own motivation. So it really starts with thinking about how do I want to spend my day? What do I want to go to work doing?

And then from there, if that means, like, if you are able to, you know, build a, you know, a day-to-day kind of like calendar, think about what you want to do and share that with your manager and make sure that that's heard and make sure that there's a path for you. Because I don't want anyone feeling like, hey, if I don't get a manager role, then like, that's it. I hit a dead end, right?

That's not how it should be. And yeah, that's pretty much my message, I guess.

[Dillon] (6:25 - 6:56)

And I think it really, it always comes back to independence, right? I mean, look, I'm going to give most of my time here to JP, but JP has been a manager before, not within CS, but he decided that people development wasn't enough to make up for the fact that he didn't want to be in the industry he was in. So he made a full-blown pivot over to CS, back to an IC role, and as far as I can tell, was a lot happier for it.

So JP, why don't you jump in here, either add to that, or if you've got other questions you want to dig into.

[JP] (6:56 - 8:07)

No, that was a great, sometimes it's cool for people to give you, like, an outside summary of something and be like, oh yeah, that is me. As long as, like, who is he talking about? It was like, yeah, no, he's talking about me.

Yeah, you know, first I'll start by saying that, like, I don't want to say that, like, I'm not trying to put it on anyone else, but I do feel like leadership is always seen as, like, you know, there's a ladder, right? Like, your career is supposed to escalate. You're supposed to pay your dues and work, you know, in this certain role, and when you are getting promoted, that means that your career is progressing.

Like, promotion by title and by money is supposed to mean that, like, your career is progressing, therefore your life is progressing. And so, you know, we've had this conversation, both, you know, in our episodes and with each other, sort of about this idea, because out of the three of us, I haven't really been in management in CS, but, you know, Dillon has and Rob definitely has. And so, you know, I really, first of all, one of the things I wanted to ask you before I forget, how long have you been in your current company?

I don't want to say names or if that's like, how long have you been in your current company?

[Karin] (8:08 - 8:09)

Seven years.

[JP] (8:09 - 8:55)

Okay, so that's a long time. That's a long time. That means that, especially in this change, it's what, 20, whatever the year it is.

But let's say that you started pre-pandemic. You started pre-pandemic. So you've seen a lot of change.

You've survived that change. And part of me is really curious about how much your role has changed since you've been there, because customer success, it's not immune to the changes. And so like, I wonder about like, you know, you mentioned staying motivated.

I wonder like how you stayed motivated when I'm going out on a limb here, but you may have seen your role change a few times in your time at your present company.

[Karin] (8:56 - 9:02)

Yeah, there's a lot of parts to it. And a lot of it might be also like a little bit existential, but just kind of like keeping it.

[JP] (9:03 - 9:05)

Go there, go there, be existential, we like it.

[Karin] (9:05 - 10:29)

Yes, definitely. I've seen a lot of change from creating different segments in our CS org to even becoming part of now a CX organization, right? So there's just like so much change that has happened over the years and also the way we work, which probably, you know, resonates with a lot of people here where you're five days in the office to being fully remote, to being somewhat of a hybrid approach, right?

So even that has really changed. But moreover, I would say that the way that I've kept myself motivated is aligning myself and fully understanding what is the, basically how can I make an impact and what do I enjoy doing? So for me, what I enjoy doing is helping folks develop their career, building confidence in folks.

This is something that I found a lot of people in CS need. And then what I've also enjoyed is finding a problem. And the problem isn't like a solution to like, you know, how do I build XYZ?

It's more of like a deeper problem. Like how do we scale our team? How do we ensure that folks on our team are happy and are staying here for a long time?

How do we ensure that we have the data we need to build, you know, a new process? And is this process even a good one? Measuring those outcomes, right?

So those are kind of like the bigger questions that I like to solve.

[JP] (10:29 - 10:32)

And you were able, I'm sorry, you were able to do those as an IC.

[Karin] (10:33 - 12:10)

Yeah. And my recommendation here, if you want to think about these things, there's so many ways you can do that. For example, something that everyone, every IC can get involved in is building culture, right?

When you have a good culture, people tend to stay at the company, right? And that's not something that like, you know, a people manager needs to do. That's something that you can do, right?

You can be part of like building a culture, being part of like a culture council or something like that, and create events that help unite and make you feel like you're a one team, right? So again, like I'm saying like these really big problems, but you really have to think about, okay, like what does that actually look like from an executional point of view? And then it becomes a lot simpler, right?

Like, so if you voice what you like to do and you show that you're really good at it, then, you know, you'll make time and your manager will help you make time to build these things. Another thing could be, hey, we all want to save a lot of time today, right? How can AI help us?

Something really easy you can do to show that you can help scale the team is write out some CS prompts and put it in a confluence page, right? So what are some good prompts that you can ask ChadGBT or whatever to make your day a lot smoother and more efficient and things like that. So it doesn't have to be insane things.

It's just, what is the problem? What are we trying to do? And then, okay, how can we save time?

How can we, you know, build a happiness in our team? Things like that.

[JP] (12:10 - 12:34)

So that is one last question. It's a quick one. How many times did you have to say no when you're building prompts and putting them in confluence and helping people develop and grow and do all this?

I'm thinking somebody must've saw Karin and said, wow, you're doing so great. Like, what do you think about this role or that role? Have you had to say no when people do suggest you for a leadership role?

[Karin] (12:34 - 13:43)

So I wouldn't say like necessarily for a leadership role, but more so for different projects that are being pulled in. Okay. That's when it goes back into something like knowing how you, like, what skills do you want to grow?

And from there thinking like, okay, if I sign myself up for this, is it actually gonna help me with XYZ skill? Or is it just like, you know, you do a great job. So, you know, why don't you just like, let's ask Karin to do it, you know?

Yeah. So you have to be very, like, if you do want to say no, right, my recommendation is always ask, how does this align to the growth opportunity that I want to achieve? And if it doesn't align, no need.

Also, how does this align to a business goal? Like let's say reducing churn or expansion or something like that. If it doesn't really fit into any of these buckets, then you have the power to say no and be like, I don't think this aligns with my, you know, growth areas.

And I don't think it aligns with like a business goal that I'd rather focus on, you know?

[Dillon] (13:44 - 14:20)

I dig it. I dig it. It's great stuff.

I think at the end of the day, it is about knowing yourself. It's about self-awareness and knowing the path you want to go down. And I fell into this trap.

I know a lot of people do. They don't, they take the path that has been prescribed, which is climbing the ladder. And they don't think enough about, and I've spent a lot of time recently thinking about, and I think you have too, JP, about what do I actually want?

So it's phenomenal advice. Would love for you to come back and maybe talk about some sort of exercise people can do to help discover that within themselves, Karin. But for now, we do have to say goodbye.

[Karin] (14:21 - 14:28)

Absolutely. I'll be happy to join again. It's a lot to cover in 15 minutes.

So thank you all so much. It was nice meeting y'all.

[VO] (14:40 - 15:09)

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