building skills in customer success leadership

Building Skills in Customer Success Leadership #CustomerSuccess @TSLCustomers @GetAmity

Building Skills in Customer

Success Leadership

Kristen HayerFounder & CEO, The Success

League

@KristenHayer


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Building Skills in Customer Success Leadership #CustomerSuccess @TSLCustomers @GetAmity10 Lessons For Your Startup Customer Success Game Plan - #CSwebinar @pphilp @GetAmity

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Kristen Hayer

Founder & CEO, The Success League

Building Skills In Customer Success Leadership


Agenda

• Why Listen to Kristen?

• Metrics & Goals

• Budget & Finance

• Hiring, Onboarding & Management

• Process Design & Project Management

• Internal Selling & PR

• Q&A


Why Listen to Kristen?• I’ve been a senior leader in sales and customer success,

progressing in my career over the past 20 years from front-line rep

through Director to VP.

• The Success League works with leaders at various stages in their

careers, from first-time managers to senior leaders.

• I love leadership, and read books on management for fun. Seriously,

for fun.

• About me…


Metrics & Goals

What you need to know:1. Key metrics in Customer Success and how to measure

them

2. How to build an annual metrics plan

3. How to translate metrics into team goals

4. Ways to track and measure results

5. How to analyze data and use the information to drive

improvement

Important Strengths:• Strategic

• Analytical

• Futuristic


Resources for Future Leaders

Book: Customer Success, Mehta, Steinman & Murphy, Chapter 12

Webinar: Amity, Define Your Key Customer Success Metrics And Goals

Class: Lynda.com, Excel classes on data analysis or business models

Exercise: Ask your boss about the key metrics they manage. Offer to

help run a report or two on a weekly or monthly basis. Alternately, offer to

help build a report that you manager wants, but doesn’t yet exist.


Resources for Current Leaders

Book: Lean Analytics, Croll & Yoskovitz

Article: HBR - Don’t be Tyrannized by Old Metrics, Wolcott

Podcast: SaaStr, Episode 113, Metrics at WalkMe

Exercise: Interview all of the other leaders in your company about the

metrics they think are important for customer success. See how well their

ideas align with the current metrics. If they don’t, consider changing or

adding to your key metrics. This is a good exercise to perform annually.


Budget & Finance

What you need to know:1. How to build a business model to project performance

2. How to design a staffing model to project hiring needs

3. How to develop a variable compensation plan

4. How to create and manage to an annual budget

5. How to get financial support for new initiatives

Important Strengths:• Analytical

• Arranger

• Deliberative



Class: Lynda.com, Managing Budgets

Book: HBR 20 Minute Manager Series: Finance Basics

eBook: HBR Guide To Building Your Business Case, Sheen & Gallo

Exercise: Ask to look at your company’s financial statements. If you work

for a private company, this may be a bigger ask. Let your finance team

know you’re trying to learn more about their field and they should be

more open to helping you. Review the statements and make sure you

understand them. Ask questions, and consider how the customer

success team drives different parts of the business.



Book: HBR, Finance Basics for Managers

Podcast: Strikedeck Radio, Mark Pecoraro interview

Article: Forbes, What Does A CFO Do When Everyone Knows The Numbers?,

Narayan

Exercise: Create a staffing model for your team. Start with top-down

analysis – the rule of thumb is $1-2 million in ARR per CSM. Then do a

bottom-up analysis. How much time will it take to do the activities you

want your CSMs to do? Use that to determine how many customers a

CSM can handle. Do the two match? If not, figure out where to make

changes.


Hiring, Onboarding & Management

What you need to know:1. How to build a candidate profile and job description

2. How to interview to engage top candidates and uncover

red flags

3. How to build an onboarding plan that gets new hires up

to speed quickly

4. People management basics

5. How to manage team members to goals

Important Strengths:• Activator

• Communication

• Learner



Book: 12 Elements of Great Managing, Wagner & Harter

Podcast: Manager Tools, 1000+ episodes

Article: The Success League, Goal-Based Management

Exercise: If you don’t already have goals, ask your boss if you can set

some goals for yourself. Choose 3-5 goals for the quarter, and talk about

them in your one-on-one meetings with your manager. Notice how talking about goals changes the focus and tone of your meetings.



Article: HBR, A Scorecard for Making Better Hiring Decisions, Dattner

Book: Multipliers, Wiseman

Podcast: HBR IdeaCast, 500+ episodes

Exercise: Create a CSM hiring scorecard. Plan out the interview

questions you want to ask each candidate, and create a template you

can use to compare candidates. Assign different questions to each

person involved in the interview process and have them complete the scorecard after each interview.


Process Design & Project Management

What you need to know:1. How to design processes that are efficient and scale

2. How to manage projects like building a playbook or

implementing technology

3. How to choose technology that meets your needs

4. How to engage other teams in your project or process

5. How to train your team on new processes and tools

Important Strengths:• Arranger

• Ideation

• Maximizer



Book: HBR, Teach Yourself: Project Management, book + templates

Article: The Success League, Building A Customer Success Playbook

Class: Lynda.com, Process Improvement Foundations

Exercise: Choose 2-3 processes you perform as a CSM, that haven’t

been documented, and lead a project with your team to define and document those processes. Look for areas to streamline and improve.



Article HBR, The Process Audit, article + worksheets

Podcast: PM for the Masses, around 100 episodes

Class: Project Management Institute, Essentials of Project Management

Exercise: Audit the processes across your customer success team. Map

current processes to the customer lifecycle. Are you missing important touch points? Build and document new processes to fill those gaps.


Internal Selling & PR

What you need to know:1. How to position ideas and initiatives to generate support

2. How to promote the importance of customer success as

a company approach

3. How to have a seat at the leadership table

4. How to promote top performers on your team

5. How to share customer success performance with the

rest of the organization

Important Strengths:• Communication

• WOO

• Futuristic



Book: HBR 20-Minute Manager Series, Managing Up

Article: The Success League, Creating a Customer Success Elevator Pitch

Class: Lynda.com, Negotiation

Exercise: Practice writing an elevator pitch for your customer success

team. Think about the most important things you do, and why CS is

important to your organization. Come up with a short pitch you can use

when people ask what you do.



Book: Difficult Conversations, Stone, Patton & Heen

Article: HBR, What Everyone Should Know About Managing Up, Rousemaniere

Podcast: The Art of Charm, 600+ episodes

Exercise: Create an internal communication plan for your success team.

Consider the reports you need to provide to your leadership, as well as

other ways to communicate your initiatives and results. Make sure you

are providing information to your leadership team that demonstrates the

value of customer success at least weekly.


Should you get an MBA?

1. Do you aspire to be a Vice President in a larger company

or C-level leader?

2. Is your undergraduate degree in something other than

business?

3. Do you suspect that the MBA credential might help you

break through career barriers?

4. Are you interested in finance or how business leaders

make decisions?

5. Will it be worth the time you will need to take away from

your career?

You don’t need an MBA, but if you go ahead then

choose the best school you can afford.


Q&A


Customer Success Leadership ProgramStarts August 22, 2017

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8 Weeks, 1 Hour/Week

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Interested in Consulting or Coaching Services?

Kristen Hayer

[email protected]

425.922.1637

Welcome to the League.

http://www.TheSuccessLeague.io/blog

mailto:[email protected]


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building skills in customer success leadership

Leadership & Management