Transcript
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Customer experience is about how a customer
feels about every touch point with your company.
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You know sometimes when you hear a
hot take er here, a provocative
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thought, and you think someone's just
saying that for the attention or just to
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be provocative. That's not the case
here with Chris Hicken, who says that
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product usage is a vanity metric.
I'll say it again, product usage is
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a vanity metric. My name is
Ethan Butte, chief evangelist at Bombomb,
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coauthor of Rehumanize Your Business and the
host of the CX series here on BTB
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growth. Chris Hicken is cofounder and
CEO of Nuff said, and prior to
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that he was the longtime president and
COO at user testing. He definitely knows
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product usage. He definitely knows data
and analytics, and whether you are in
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sales, marketing, customer success,
product or Dev executive leadership or any other
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position, you should be interested in
product usage power customers using your product or
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service. But that doesn't tell you
enough. Here's Chris Hicken with more product
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usage is a vanity metric. That's
right. I'll say it again. Product
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usage is a vanity metric. That's
an idea today's guest brings to the conversation
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here on the customer experience podcast,
and he's got the UIUX and behavior testing
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background to back it up. He
brings fifteen years of experience and B Tob
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Software as a leader, investor,
advisor and board member with companies like STUDYCOM,
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get prime and test rigger. Most
notably, he spent eight years as
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president and chief operating officer for user
testing, where he developed an expertise in
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creating great experiences for customers. Now
he's the CO founder and CEO of nuff
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said, a software company that's integrating
all those inbound messages you get across multiple
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channels into one smart, customizable and
AI driven view. Chris Hicken, welcome
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to the customer experience podcast. Thanks
Ethan. An honor to be invited.
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Appreciate it. Yeah, really excited
for this conversation. Obviously that that idea
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of product usage being a bit vanity, you know. I've heard vanity metrics
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applied widely, but not to that, and so I'm really interested in your
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take on it. But before we
get going, you studied engineering and computer
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science, but you say on your
linkedin profile that you were born and artist.
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Tell me a little bit about that
and like maybe how that set you
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up for success. Well, when
I was growing up as a kid,
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I was constantly drawing, charcoal painting
acrilics. I was mentoring with a guy
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from industrial lite and magic for a
couple of years and when it came time
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to apply for college it I had
to make a choice. Was I going
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to follow, you know, kind
of more of a creative art artest a
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career or what I build, more
of the Engineering Route? And I applied
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to about fifty. Half the colleges
I applied for an art major and half
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I apply for computer science, and
I just ended up loving cow polly so
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much I ended up making the decision
more on the school than on the program
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itself. So, funnily enough,
I only did computer science for about a
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year coming out of college, and
so I guess I'm I'm trained as an
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engineer, although I've I've worked mostly
as a business leader. Awesome, what
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an interesting combination of skills and strengths. Do you still you know, from
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I guess, a hobbyist view,
are you still active in creating art?
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I do, but the way it
my my I would say, the outlet
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that I use the most for art
is that I build and design websites for
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pro bono, generally for friends,
family or nonprofit organization. So that's that
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ends up being my main creative outlet. It's awesome. I look forward to
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becoming friends. So we're going to
start as we always start here on the
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show, which is your thoughts or
characteristics. Are Your definition when I say
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customer experience? What does that mean
to you? Chris? So, I
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might have a little bit of a
unique perspective on this because I was president
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of user testing, which was an
enterprise software company that helped generally large companies
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improve the quality of their customer experience
on their websites, mobile APPs. And
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towards the last few years that I
was there, more and more in store
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experiences and I did a lot of
reading and talk to a bunch of professionals
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in the space. And customer experience
has a lot of different angles. You
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know some people. Is Customer experience
the perception of your brand, or is
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it about making interactions easy and simple? Maybe is it about customer satisfaction?
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I think we're getting closer for me. For me, customer experience is about
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how a customer feels about every touch
point with your company. So it really
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is both pieces. It's emotions and
it's the actual experience itself. And so
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when I say touch point, I
really do mean every touch point with your
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company. So that means an advertisement
and newsletter, a customer support chat,
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it could be using the product,
it could be browsing the website trying to
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answer a question, it could be
a store visit. So that's what I
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mean by touch point. And the
reason why the emotions so important is that
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delighting customers is the quickest way to
earn advocacy and ultimately, loyalty from your
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customers. That's why I focus on
the feeling part and I think from that
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definition comes the tactics that you would
use to to delight your customers. So
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that's where you would talk about things
like communicating value or beautiful design or having
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a very simply user experience or one
touch, one touch customer support, and
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so you know, after working with
you know many fortune one hundreds on their
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their customer experience programs. I think
this does the best job of encapsulating what
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most companies are trying to do.
And, by the way, the companies
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that are leaders in the space are
the ones that are truly our customers obsessed.
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So, without going into the details, no surprise. Companies like Amazon,
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like Microsoft, I mean they have
very, very advanced customer research,
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customer experience programs and you see it
reflected in their products. Yeah, really
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well done there. I think the
reason her so many approaches and definitions to
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it is because what you captured the
essence of their that the way people feel
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across every single touch point or influenced
by every single touch point. Just the
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every single touch point alone creates so
much complication and variants in the way different
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people in different seats in the organization
view it in. So I love what
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you did there. And then these
thoughts and feelings are what turn into behavior.
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For starters, repeat purchasing or expanded
purchasing or positive online reviews or whatever.
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And it's the end, it's a
precursor to the stories that we tell
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other people in terms of, again, online reviews and testimonials and referrals and
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things. So really well done.
Before we go any farther, I would
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love to spend a little bit of
time talking about enough set. I think
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you all are tackling a really interesting
problem and and I think what you share
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here will give some context as we
get more into some of these themes around
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product usage. So what is enough
said and who are your customers? So
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I'm going to answer that question,
but let me give you a little bit
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of context first. So the problem
that I wanted to solve emerged as I
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was building user testing, and what
I found consistently over time was that as
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we went from a five person company
when I joined to a three four hundred
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person company when I left, people
went from being able to focus one hundred
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percent of their other daily worktime on
the work itself to by the time I
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left, it felt like we were
doing spending only a fraction of our time
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doing the actual work that mattered.
And it was because of information overload,
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communication overload. We have so many
APPS, we have to deal with,
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daily reports, newsletters, text best
just coming in, slack channels we have
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to follow. And so I thought, okay, how are we going to
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this problem is going to get worse
in the future. So how are we
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going to make it easier for a
knowledge worker to focus on work that matters?
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And so we looked at different ways
that you could use ai to solve
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this problem, to not only automate
the work of knowledge workers but also to
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help them focus. You know,
given fifty things, you could do it
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at once. What's the one thing
that you could do right now to move
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the needle in your job? And
so if you ever seen the movie iron
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man, he wears that suit.
That's like, you know, processing the
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world's information and synthesizing it and telling
the main character what he needs to focus
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on. He calls that Ai Jarvis. So how do you bring Jarvis to
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knowledge workers? So that's that's that's
the vision of where the company wants to
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go in the future and obviously,
you know we're relatively new company. We
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have to build baby steps to achieve
that vision. And so the first product
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that we just released two weeks ago, we just announced our funding, is
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a product that centralizes all of your
work communication. So pulls and anywhere we're
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communications happening, email, chat,
SMS, Linkedin sales force, all these
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different places communications happening. So it
allows you know, once we have all
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that communication in one place and once
we know who the important people are in
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your work life, we're able to
do a really good job of prioritizing the
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communication in your life that matters.
And so that's that's V one of our
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product which we just released, and
then later the summer were bolting an ai
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onto that product and we're bringing in
data from other parts of your work life,
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for example of maybe your your crm
could be from your for example,
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if your customer success manager. It'll
pull in your health score data, it'll
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pull and usage data. I'll pull
in all these different forms data and help
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you understand which customers are must at
risk and where you should be spending your
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time today to improve the health of
your overall portfolio. So that's what the
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company is trying to achieve and those
are first few steps to get there.
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I love two layers here in particular. The first one is the idea that
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you have a vision for using AI
to put humans in their best position to
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be of highest value, and then
to this idea of kind of persona based
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tweaks to this right. So when
you sign up, maybe a new I'm
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imagining here out loud. will feel
free to correct me, to redirect me.
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You know, as you bring on, say, a team of eight
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customer success managers, they're going to
be set up maybe with a default setting
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that is different than, say,
if you brought on some product folks or
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some marketing folks or some engineers as
a team of people in and obviously then
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the AI will not only tweak and
make that persona based default, better and
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better and better, but it also
probably get better and better and better by
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individual based on how they're interacting with
the different messages from the different sources the
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spot on. So each ai that
we develop be custom tailor to each functional
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role in the company and one by
doing that, will be able to understand
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not only what you do at work, but will know what your goals are,
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how you're measured in terms of success, and then we'll be able to
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prioritize work data and communication that helps
you focus on the work that actually matters,
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on moving the needle. I love
it. That's another layer that we've
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been talking about on the show.
I've had a couple guests where we've had
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themes of this conversation, which is
adopting your customers Kpis and success metrics and
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making them your own, and it
sounds like you're doing that, or aspire
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to do that through software. That's
exactly right. That's the vision of the
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company. It's cool. I'm excited
for you. It's good. In a
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conclusion to this section and I think
we can all say that slack is not
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the email killer. It's just more
messages that we need to put into one.
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Well, here's what I would say. I mean we adopted slack that
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user testing, and I think slack
solved a lot of problems that we had
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pre slack, including making it easier
for people to collaborate in groups, so
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you could create instant channels people could
collaborate around topics. I think the easy
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keyboard shortcuts and the emoticons. There's
a more emotional way to express yourself in
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writing. So I think slacked a
really good job of solving those problems.
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But again, the problem here that
we're going after is we don't want to
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help people send more messages or connect
more with each other. You've got lots
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of technologies to help you with that. For us it's about you got too
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much noise. So what are how
can we help you focus on work that
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matters? It's good, yeah,
same thing. It has a number of
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benefits, but again it creates some
noise and distraction, just like so channels.
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I'm starting to see this, at
least in in the initial launch phase,
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before you really make it Ai Laden, as really being the TAB killer.
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Enough said, being a tab killer
and that, you know, when
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I think about you know what you're
talking about. To think about the channels
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that I use, I think like
it's multiple tabs in slack that that are
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all open at the same time.
Let's get a little bit into product usage.
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Obviously you have a deep and unique
per view into the way people interact
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with software. Talk a little bit
about product usage and then maybe get into
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the vanity side of it, like
what is the vanity aspect of it?
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So product usage was typically absent from
custo under our previous understanding of customer health,
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and I'm going back probably six or
seven years. This is pre gain
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side or to Tang era customer success
and account management. So the introduction of
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usage data in understanding customer health was
really valuable. But I think as a
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as an industry, we've over indexed
on the value of usage data and what
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we've what we found, and from
talking to a bunch of success leaders,
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what we found is that usage data
is when it's binary. So when your
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customers are not using your product,
they are at risk and they're unlikely to
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renew. You're gonna have some marinial
challenges. If the customer is using the
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product a lot, it's impossible that
that day, that insight isn't enough to
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help you make any kind of prediction. So usage is only helpful to the
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extent that it's binary. No usage, bad, lots of usage, who
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knows? And I think that for
that reason it's very much of vanity,
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vanity metric, because so many health
scores are driven predominantly by usage. But
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usage is one of fifteen factors that
companies should be looking at to determine health
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and renewal risk. But that what
we've all over indexed on, on usage,
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and so for that reason I don't
I don't particularly well. It's not
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that I don't value usage data,
I just think of it as one of
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many elements that need to be considered
as part of a overall portfolio health assessment.
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I love it. It it.
As I knew that we're going to
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talk about product usage, I started
thinking about like, okay, what if
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usage correlates positively with lifetime value or
MP ass or some of these other factors?
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But what you offered here just kind
of unplugs that question, because the
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best follow up question now is you
know if it's one of do you know
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a dozen factors or fifteen factors?
What are some of the other factors that,
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if we were going to try to
build a model that says likely to
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renew, what are some of those
other factors that belong in the mix?
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Yeah, I won't share any any
of the secret sauce, because I think
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this is some of this is the
secret sauce of our company. But what
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I can do is talk about the
categories that I think are leading indicators of
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health. And so the first bucket, I'm going to break it actually into
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four buckets customer maturity, the product, the experience and the pricing. So
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those are the four being buckets I
would break it up into, and within
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each of those I've got a series
of questions that I think are important to
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answer in order to to determine whether
or not the account is at risk.
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For example, under maturity, I
would say one of the most important questions
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in that bucket is who advocates for
the product? What's their authority and has
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it changed? Every customer success manager
would love to have the answer that question.
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None of them do. But guess
what, if you're at the advocate
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for your product is an individual contributor
and there's only one of them. They
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could have all the usage in the
world, doesn't matter. They could be
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the happiest cups customer in the world, but as soon as that as soon
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as that champion leaves the company,
Boom that account has gone. So it's
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another example of how usage is not
a good indicator of risk, that the
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risk is actually quite high on a
high usage individual contributor account. And so
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part of what we're you know,
part of approaching solving this problem is looking
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at you know, I think I've
got fifteen or sixteen different elements that I'm
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looking at saying, okay, if
we can gather this information both in an
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automated way through your communication, through
surveys, through integrations with your crm,
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can we build a picture of different
aspects of the overall customer journey with your
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company and the customers overall engagement with
your company to give you a true risk
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profile of each account? And so
that's that's one of the I'll give you
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another example under the product. So
I was one of the four categories.
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One of the questions I want to
answer is does the product solve a severe,
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ongoing problem for the customer? Shame
on us that we can't answer that
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question for every one of our accounts. If one of our customers feels like
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the product, the problem that's being
solved is maybe ongoing but not severe,
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you potentially have some risk there because
that customer might not feel like they need
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your product in the future to solve
that problem. Maybe there are a good
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alternative workarounds or maybe it's a very
severe problem, but once they solve at
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once, the problem goes away and
you don't need it anymore. And so
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again that's another example of a problem
where if, if you can get if
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you can answer that question, you
will have a much better insight into the
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actual health of that customer. Health
is not a good word. The risk
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profile of that customer really really interesting. The severe thing. It just really
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rings true for me here at bombomb
you know, we make it easy to
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get facetoface in places. Some of
your typed out text, you know,
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because it doesn't communicate, is clearly
it doesn't connect with people. And and
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ultimately, whether it's a minor conversion
or a macro conversion, you know,
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the more personal you can get them, more yeses you're going to get,
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ultimately, which is ongoing every time
you click send there's an opportunity to be
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more effective and more personal human,
but it's not necessarily felt in a severe
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way. It's interesting for our customers. It's, you know, the ones
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who make it a habit are the
ones that are like I can't imagine my
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life without it. I don't even
they I don't know they would call it
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severe as really interesting, as a
challenge. What are a couple questions under
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the experience bucket? So, okay, there's I've got four major questions here.
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The one that I'm going to bring
up today is around expectations. So
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did the product and service match or
exceed the customers expectations? And this is
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really important because the customer, you
know, when the customers going through a
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sales process there they have a certain
expectation about the product will be able to
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deliver and the problem it'll be able
to solve. A lot of times the
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actual product itself does not match what
was promised or sold as part of the
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sales process. So it's really important
for you to understand really very early in
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the customers engagement with you, maybe
not during onboarding, but maybe within three
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months of the original contract signed date, for you to get a good understanding
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of that customer, how they expect, how the customers expectations match what they
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were sold during the sales process,
and that is a very early indicator of
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whether or not a come a customer
is likely to renew in the next nine
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months. I love it. That
also gets to a theme on the show,
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which is making sure that sales and
CS are on the same page with
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regard to what's being sold, how
it's being sold, how expectations are set
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and managed. And you know,
a disappointment is exclusively a function of expectation.
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So if you manage it well,
you know you're setting yourself up.
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It's Cliche or trite to say,
but you know under promise and overdeliver.
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I might have an unusual perspective on
this in that I believe that the success
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leader, Holly, is responsible for
driving those conversations. The success leader is
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the main conduit, the main lifeline
between company and customer and they need to
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be in a position. It doesn't
happen in as much today as it should,
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but I think in the future customer
success leaders need to be driving strategic
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and tact contactical conversations with their peers
on eastaff around which customers do we need
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to target? What type of offering, what type of sales offering, leads
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to the best overall engagement with the
customer? which products and features need to
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be developed based on what we're hearing
from the customer base? And I think
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today generally, success leaders don't have
the tools that they need to make to
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advocate for those positions, but I
do think it is their responsibility to drive
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those decisions in organizations really really interesting
and I think you're right. I feel
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like that is the leading view and
it's from the status quote to a better
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future, and I think it's probably
one of the reasons we're seeing a lot
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more titles in structures around revenue in
general that are responsible for the full customer
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life cycle, because you obviously,
in a traditional sense, cs just takes
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whatever happens and makes the best of
it. You know, yeah, we
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generated this revenues, so you can
do to keep it. Yeah, and
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I think actually I think the mistake, I think would be a mistake to
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put it in revenue also because revenue
leaders, well, I mean revenue later
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leaders generally have grown up within sales. So they're thinking, I've got a
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quota, I've got a number to
hit. I'm going to do what it
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takes to hit the number, and
they're less connected to the actual customer and
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revenue leader is more likely to make
compromises in the selling process in order to
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hit their number because ultimately they're fired
if they don't hit their numbers. That's
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all that matters. The customer success
leader has the benefit of actually caring about
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the customer of themselves. A lot
of times they don't have a number,
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or at least they're there co selling
with the sales team. So they have
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the benefit of drive that. You
could give them other metrics to drive towards
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that aren't about revenue. That allows
them to really focus on what would help
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a customer be successful really good.
So we've covered three of the four buckets.
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Might as well go for the fourth. What are what are one or
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two questions you really like around pricing? I've got three major questions that I
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ask within pricing. Probably the one
that's most interesting for today's conversation is alternatives.
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So do competitors offer more affordable alternatives? And the way that I think
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about answering this question, and probably
enough set is uniquely position to answer it.
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We're able to scan all communication between
the customer success manager, the Customer
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Support Team and the customer. So
we're able to track mentions of competitors.
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We don't have to. It's not
we're not we don't require the CSM to
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document anything. This is all tracked
automatically and so we can see. We
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can see when a customer is asking
a question like hey, I heard you
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know x company offers this feature or
x company is offering the same thing for
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x price. And so it's important
for for the Product Marketing Team within a
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company, but especially for the out
of csus to do the renewal, to
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know what the real competitive landscape looks
looks like, where the pressures are coming
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from, whether that's pricing or feature
based pressures, and then they can then
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the company can proactively react to that
rather than being caught off guard when they
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lose an account to a competitor that
they didn't even know that they were in
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competition with. As part of a
renewal conversation, it's good. I like
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this affordable alternatives because it really sets
features on the side a little bit.
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I mean parody of course, to
talk a little bit. I mean you've
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been you've been in this space for
years. Talk a little bit about product
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parity and maybe have you seen it
at my impression is that it is dramatically
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accelerated. Would you say that that's
true in your experience or observation? I'd
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say that's generally true. A lot
of companies now are not trying to differentiate
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on straight features. They're trying to
differentiate on quality of the experience that they
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did lover. So two companies might
have identical feature sets, but one is
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much easier to use than others.
Invite user testing was able to leverage that
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differentiator between itself and other competitors in
the space because we invested so much time
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and building a really great experience.
So even though competitors could offer the exact
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same thing at a much lower price, the user testing experience overall was so
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much easier to you. So I
think there is a general trend towards looking
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for other differentiators outside of features in
proddate spaces. It's good. So you
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are getting ready, even you're building
this company. We're chatting a little bit
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about this before we hit record.
I'd love to know your thoughts. As
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you're you know, you're in a
where I'm going here is this product led
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versus sales and Marketing and growth conversation. That seems to be pretty popular to
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have these days. And obviously,
if you're an established company with you know,
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let's just say, forty million R
and you've been going to market for
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years and you know it'd be difficult
to make a transition from one to the
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other. As an early stage and
as you're putting this together, how did
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you think about about those two options? Are you doing a hybrid approach?
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Like how do you think about product
led versus sales led? Yeah, I
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think a product les, sales let
and marketing leaps. I wouldn't forget that
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option to and I think different types
of companies are best suited for each of
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those three. The questions that I
would ask before determining which strategy to go
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with our questions like how quickly can
you deliver value and a self service customer
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experience? So if a customers trying
it for themselves, how quickly can you
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get to value? How senior is
the end user of your product? Are
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you selling into? This an obvious
one. Are you selling it to SMB,
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mid market or enterprise? How quickly? How much cash runway do you
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have? How quickly do you need
to grow? I think all of these
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questions factor into which decision you make, and so when I was thinking about
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enough said, I mean, ultimately
we plan on selling into, you know,
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we're selling an AI product for a
knowledge workers. Ultimately we're going to
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be selling into a senior executive of
each of each department. But the users
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will be predominantly individual contributors, and
so there's obviously a path for us to
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build a product life growth product,
which is the one that we just launched
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a couple weeks ago, the inflow
product. I don't like product led growth
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as the main driver of growth,
and the reason why is product led growth
364
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takes a really long time to spool
up. It can sometimes take three to
365
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five years before it's generating any meaningful
revenue. Sometimes it could take ten years
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plus before you see, you know, all of these overnight success companies develop,
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when when really they've been building a
product Lib growth engine for ten or
368
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more years. By the way,
I think a good example of that is
369
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qual tricks, who you know,
everyone knows the story. They exited for
370
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seven eight billion dollars, one of
the biggest tech exits ever, and but
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the reality is, you know,
Brian Smith and his dad started this company
372
00:27:22.289 --> 00:27:29.009
doing surveys for colleges twenty years ago, you know, and they've been stoking
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that product led growth engine for a
really long time. So where I'm going
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with this is what I think for
our company, and I would not advocate
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this for every other company, but
for our company we're going to start with
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a sales led growth engine in the
early days to kick start early market adoption,
377
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to get customer feedback, to grow
the company for maybe, you know,
378
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from its current revenue to let's just
say somewhere between thirty to fifty in
379
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AAR. And at that point,
I'm hoping we're five or six years in,
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the product led growth engine has had
enough time to Spool up and we
381
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can leverage the product Lib growth engine
to drive future and a press sales.
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And by the way, really when
we say a product like growth, all
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we're talking about is who generates the
leads. Are you paying product to generate
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the leads? Are you paying marketing
to generate the leads? Are repaying sales
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to generate the lead? So I'm
hoping that, you know, by the
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time we get to that level of
revenue, the product will be mature enough
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where it will be generating a substantial
portion of the dent leads and we'll be
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able to at that point produce,
or at least hold steady our investment in
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sales. It's good. Sounds healthy
and balanced. I like that. I
390
00:28:37.359 --> 00:28:41.359
like the way you describe the lead
growth scenario. There's a WHO generating the
391
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leads. I mean it goes straight
to the definition of it, but I
392
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never thought about it that clearly before. It's interesting. I mean to your
393
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to your idea of like time to
time to first value and can people realize
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it in a self serve way?
It's interesting. In our space there's a
395
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lot more free and freemium than there
was, say, you know, two,
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00:28:59.460 --> 00:29:02.539
three, four years ago. But
it's interesting as I talk with with
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executives that are thinking about implementing a
simple personal video strategy inside their organization.
398
00:29:07.500 --> 00:29:10.769
Like yeah, I got to tell
you we already tried video before. I
399
00:29:10.849 --> 00:29:12.650
was like that's interesting. Tell me
more. Well, we used X company.
400
00:29:14.089 --> 00:29:15.210
I was like, how did it
go? Well? Not Well,
401
00:29:15.210 --> 00:29:19.089
because we're having this conversation now and
it's okay. What kind of onboarding and
402
00:29:19.170 --> 00:29:22.170
training did you get? How we
didn't really get any. If you don't
403
00:29:22.170 --> 00:29:25.799
mind my asking what do you pay
for this and how long was the commitment?
404
00:29:25.839 --> 00:29:27.880
I was free. So this idea
of like, you know, just
405
00:29:29.039 --> 00:29:33.319
throwing it out there doesn't mean it's
going to stick, and that's part of
406
00:29:33.440 --> 00:29:37.240
probably, I mean for the for
where it sticks and where it doesn't stick.
407
00:29:37.279 --> 00:29:40.670
That's probably part of like the long
spool up that you describe. Is
408
00:29:40.789 --> 00:29:45.029
like getting that feedback, knowing what's
working, knowing why what's working is actually
409
00:29:45.109 --> 00:29:49.549
working, which is the most important
thing to know. It's it's probably a
410
00:29:51.349 --> 00:29:55.660
you get you get users faster signed
on, you get email address as faster
411
00:29:55.740 --> 00:29:59.380
as what I should say, maybe
in a freer fremium scenario, but it
412
00:29:59.420 --> 00:30:03.500
doesn't mean that it's going to stick. Ethan. I love that example.
413
00:30:03.099 --> 00:30:07.170
It's really at the crux or the
core of a successful product Lib Growth Strategy.
414
00:30:07.210 --> 00:30:12.930
Product live growth only works when you
can narrow your audience to someone who
415
00:30:12.930 --> 00:30:17.849
feels the pain, the pain that
you could solve. They feel the pain
416
00:30:18.049 --> 00:30:22.559
really intensely and the product does a
wonderful job of alleviating that pain. And
417
00:30:22.799 --> 00:30:26.599
the problem with Fremium, of course, is the exactly what you said,
418
00:30:26.720 --> 00:30:30.039
which is that anyone can try it. Most people have a terrible experience.
419
00:30:30.359 --> 00:30:33.839
They're going to go tell on social
media, they're going to go tell all
420
00:30:33.839 --> 00:30:37.589
other friends it's worthless. And now
suddenly video, which is a very powerful
421
00:30:37.630 --> 00:30:42.869
tool to a lot of people,
comes across as an ineffective tool when actually
422
00:30:42.910 --> 00:30:47.950
can be very effective. So I
agree with you and actually, for that
423
00:30:48.029 --> 00:30:51.220
reason I'm I think for a lot
of businesses, fremium does not make any
424
00:30:51.220 --> 00:30:56.420
sense, especially if they're using a
product Lib growth strategy can't interesting. I
425
00:30:56.299 --> 00:31:00.779
call it bring the field before anything's
been harvested. That's right, like that's
426
00:31:00.859 --> 00:31:07.210
it. Replay this whole thing,
man. So before we wrap up here,
427
00:31:07.210 --> 00:31:08.769
and I really appreciate your time and
your insights, I just want to
428
00:31:08.769 --> 00:31:11.609
hit one more thing, just based
on your experience, especially as a board
429
00:31:11.650 --> 00:31:17.049
member, advisor and investor, and
maybe even as you as you initiate this,
430
00:31:17.130 --> 00:31:19.559
this new effort. With enough said, talking about going from like down
431
00:31:19.599 --> 00:31:23.039
market to upmarket. I mean you
covered like smb made an enterprise. You've
432
00:31:23.079 --> 00:31:29.519
probably seen people make transitions or start
somewhere and wind up in another in another
433
00:31:29.559 --> 00:31:33.750
kind of go to market position from
a from a size of customer standpoint.
434
00:31:33.990 --> 00:31:40.230
What can you share with folks that
maybe want to transition well, first read
435
00:31:40.269 --> 00:31:44.910
the book crossing the Chasm, because
I think it's a it's a good framework
436
00:31:45.269 --> 00:31:48.740
for how to think about the transition
from, you know, smbs, who
437
00:31:48.779 --> 00:31:53.980
tend to be more entrepreneurial and their
adoption of products that can make decisions very
438
00:31:53.980 --> 00:32:00.180
quickly, to more mid market or
an enterprise buyer who makes decisions a very,
439
00:32:00.220 --> 00:32:02.769
very differently and the proof points that
they need to make a decision are
440
00:32:02.769 --> 00:32:07.289
also different. And so I'd say
first read the book crossing the Chasm,
441
00:32:07.329 --> 00:32:09.250
because that will give you a good
framework to think about how you're going to
442
00:32:09.289 --> 00:32:13.890
make this jump into more of an
upmarket buyer. The other thing to think
443
00:32:13.890 --> 00:32:21.279
about is enterprise. So SMB sales. If you're doing SMB sales, they
444
00:32:21.359 --> 00:32:23.440
tend to be very transactional. The
deal lengths, I bet you know,
445
00:32:23.519 --> 00:32:28.240
your deal cycles are probably thirty to
forty five days. You're probably selling a
446
00:32:28.319 --> 00:32:31.990
product that's five to fifteen k year. When you start talking about enterprise sales,
447
00:32:32.029 --> 00:32:37.150
it's a very different selling motion.
So it's, you know, ninety
448
00:32:37.349 --> 00:32:40.069
two, hundred, eighty dight deal
cycles. The deals are bigger. You've
449
00:32:40.069 --> 00:32:45.099
got three or four different key points
of contact that you have to be in
450
00:32:45.180 --> 00:32:47.180
touch with. In order to get
the deal done. So it really takes
451
00:32:47.259 --> 00:32:52.660
in a big investment in building a
team around enterprise selling and one of the
452
00:32:52.740 --> 00:32:57.500
hardest things for CEOS to do in
the early days is to make the financial
453
00:32:57.539 --> 00:33:01.089
commitment to build in the team that's
necessary because in order to do true enterprise
454
00:33:01.130 --> 00:33:07.529
sales you need to have account executives, you need to have probably some kinds
455
00:33:07.569 --> 00:33:10.930
of some kind of solutions architect or
sales engineer. You probably need need to
456
00:33:12.009 --> 00:33:16.000
have a legal team that's with a
really sharp legal really good contract negotiator.
457
00:33:16.480 --> 00:33:20.480
You're going to need to have a
security team that's dealing with security audits.
458
00:33:20.960 --> 00:33:24.359
And so the investment isn't twice as
big to do is to sell enterprise.
459
00:33:24.400 --> 00:33:29.230
It might be eight times or ten
times bigger. And so I think just
460
00:33:29.349 --> 00:33:31.630
in terms of, you know,
mentally preparing for enterprise sales, it's one
461
00:33:31.630 --> 00:33:35.789
of the pieces of advice that I
would give. And also you know,
462
00:33:35.910 --> 00:33:40.349
and this is another difficult thing for
a generally the CEO to stomach, is
463
00:33:40.390 --> 00:33:45.859
that the team that you built in
the early days to deliver well on SMB
464
00:33:45.980 --> 00:33:50.259
cells is very unlikely to be the
team that's going to take int enterprise and
465
00:33:51.059 --> 00:33:54.140
that's hard because you've probably have key
lieutenants, people that you really love at
466
00:33:54.180 --> 00:33:59.609
the company who have delivered great value
for you, but unless they have a
467
00:34:00.650 --> 00:34:04.730
world class mentor, it's very unlikely
that they're going to be able to learn
468
00:34:04.769 --> 00:34:10.000
about going from you know, for
example, SMB focuses. Let's let's talk
469
00:34:10.000 --> 00:34:15.760
about marketing for a second. SMB
marketing is all about content strategy and free
470
00:34:15.800 --> 00:34:21.639
trials and PR but when you start
moving into enterprise you do much less content
471
00:34:21.719 --> 00:34:27.309
marketing. It's more about success stories, case studies, sales enablement for the
472
00:34:27.389 --> 00:34:32.150
sales team, account based marketing.
It's a whole different set of skills that
473
00:34:32.230 --> 00:34:35.909
you need to on board into your
company in order to make that transition.
474
00:34:36.030 --> 00:34:38.820
So, anyway, those are some
some thoughts to you know, for for
475
00:34:38.900 --> 00:34:44.460
CEOS that are thinking of making the
transition to consider before they make that decision.
476
00:34:44.940 --> 00:34:49.539
Great recommendation and great caution there,
and I I'll just button that one
477
00:34:49.579 --> 00:34:52.530
up with what got you here might
not get you there. It might whether
478
00:34:52.610 --> 00:34:57.130
by God and it requires a lot
of a lot of training and adjustment really
479
00:34:57.170 --> 00:35:00.050
for everyone involved. This has been
great, Chris, I love I was
480
00:35:00.130 --> 00:35:04.369
excited about this, this conversation.
It did not disappoint in any way.
481
00:35:04.409 --> 00:35:07.039
You're just a wealth of knowledge and
I really really appreciate your time. But
482
00:35:07.079 --> 00:35:10.719
before I let you go, and
because relationships are our number one core value
483
00:35:10.760 --> 00:35:15.119
here at bombombing here on the PODCAST, I'd love to give you the chance
484
00:35:15.199 --> 00:35:17.320
to think or mention someone who's had
a positive impact on your life, for
485
00:35:17.480 --> 00:35:21.510
your career, and to give a
shout out to a company that you really
486
00:35:21.550 --> 00:35:24.869
respect for the way that they're delivering
for you as a customer. H that's
487
00:35:24.909 --> 00:35:30.429
a great question. Can I ask
first what the core value is? Yeah,
488
00:35:30.469 --> 00:35:35.309
it's relationships, just relationships. The
dessert. Is there like a bullet
489
00:35:35.349 --> 00:35:39.139
point of or a type of behavior
that that u a spouse or that you
490
00:35:39.619 --> 00:35:44.780
advocate for, you know, in
order to build relationships? Yes, I
491
00:35:44.820 --> 00:35:47.500
will read you a short snippet.
Relationships or the foundation of our business.
492
00:35:47.579 --> 00:35:52.530
Relationships are built about upon conversation,
active listening and honest feedback. Our business
493
00:35:52.570 --> 00:35:59.010
is all about people and helping people
reach their goals through building relationships. Well,
494
00:35:59.090 --> 00:36:01.650
thanks for sharing that. Our for
first core value as also we build
495
00:36:01.690 --> 00:36:06.480
thirty year relationships. So good overlap
there. So yeah, so let's let's
496
00:36:06.480 --> 00:36:08.480
talk about maybe I'll first talk about
companies that I want to give a shout
497
00:36:08.480 --> 00:36:12.519
out to. The first one while
we're doing a zoom call right now.
498
00:36:13.079 --> 00:36:15.800
So I want to give a shout
out to zoom for couple reasons. One
499
00:36:15.880 --> 00:36:20.230
is, as the company has scaled
rapidly on board of tons of new customers.
500
00:36:20.269 --> 00:36:23.349
They've gone IPO. The quality of
their core service has not diminished at
501
00:36:23.469 --> 00:36:28.630
all and I'm just so thankful for
that because we've seen other companies in the
502
00:36:28.670 --> 00:36:31.550
space go through similar transitions and it
has not gone well for them. So
503
00:36:32.019 --> 00:36:37.539
many thanks to zoom, largely,
I think, probably because of Eric Yuan's
504
00:36:37.019 --> 00:36:43.019
obsessive customer focus. I mean he
is one hundred percent all about his customers
505
00:36:43.059 --> 00:36:45.579
all day long. He wakes up
every morning and ask his senior staff to
506
00:36:45.619 --> 00:36:50.610
let him know what customers have said
about zoom yesterday. That's that's what he's
507
00:36:50.610 --> 00:36:52.650
all about. So I want to
say make a big, big shot out
508
00:36:52.690 --> 00:36:57.050
and thanks to zoom. That's the
bigger company. The smaller company I want
509
00:36:57.050 --> 00:37:00.289
to give a shout out to is
rippling. So we use them for whether
510
00:37:00.369 --> 00:37:07.119
I there. They are our HR
HRIS system. They I feel like they've
511
00:37:07.119 --> 00:37:12.320
built a product in a way that
has anticipated all of my needs as an
512
00:37:12.400 --> 00:37:17.190
early stage company. They you know, tax forms, insurance, asset tracking,
513
00:37:17.349 --> 00:37:21.989
payroll, all those things are built
in and easy to use and integrate.
514
00:37:22.150 --> 00:37:23.630
So I want to say a big
shot out and thanks to the team
515
00:37:23.670 --> 00:37:27.469
at replaying. Really appreciate what you're
doing over there. And, by the
516
00:37:27.510 --> 00:37:30.539
way, it's not just in the
product. They offer self help tutorials.
517
00:37:31.059 --> 00:37:37.219
Their website experiences very intuitive. So
that team is doing a really great job.
518
00:37:37.940 --> 00:37:40.019
Sounds incredibly valuable and probably, I
mean this gets to the other,
519
00:37:40.260 --> 00:37:43.940
the other key factor. They're,
in addition to product, party, and
520
00:37:44.099 --> 00:37:47.050
we've been talking a lot about hyper
competition and how much easier it is and
521
00:37:47.130 --> 00:37:52.210
how much faster companies can go starting
today. I just think about you know,
522
00:37:52.289 --> 00:37:54.809
you starting this company today, versus
our cofounders starting our company, you
523
00:37:54.889 --> 00:37:59.079
know, and in two thousand and
six and what it took just to organize
524
00:37:59.119 --> 00:38:01.400
some of that legal stuff, that
the TA tax documents and all that.
525
00:38:01.480 --> 00:38:06.400
It's like this idea that you can
build a company to solve a very specific
526
00:38:06.440 --> 00:38:09.519
and acute problem like that helps all
the other companies that sign on with them
527
00:38:09.880 --> 00:38:14.030
get to their market, get to
their customers, get to their value faster
528
00:38:15.190 --> 00:38:20.510
and and unlike your founders, I
probably have spent a grand total of forty
529
00:38:20.590 --> 00:38:24.030
five minutes dealing with all these tax
and other forms. So very thankful that
530
00:38:24.309 --> 00:38:28.579
rippling has solved all that for me. That's awesome. That's great, Chris.
531
00:38:28.619 --> 00:38:30.980
I'm going to let you go,
but before I do, if people
532
00:38:30.980 --> 00:38:32.739
enjoyed this conversation, they want to
follow up with you. They want to
533
00:38:32.780 --> 00:38:36.860
follow up with enough said, like
where would you direct people if they want
534
00:38:36.860 --> 00:38:38.860
to learn more about what you're up
to? The easiest thing is just too
535
00:38:38.860 --> 00:38:45.050
good enough. Saidcom and you ffsaidcom
tells you a little bit about the product.
536
00:38:45.289 --> 00:38:49.289
It's where you can go sign up
for our current rook early access list.
537
00:38:49.889 --> 00:38:53.449
If you sign up now, we're
basically committing to giving you a lifetime
538
00:38:53.730 --> 00:38:59.960
price point of ten bucks per person
per month. So when we launched it'll
539
00:38:59.960 --> 00:39:02.320
be a higher price point prior higher
price point than that, but you can
540
00:39:02.400 --> 00:39:06.880
lock it in at a lower price
for being an early and early a doctor
541
00:39:06.920 --> 00:39:09.909
of the product. And actually,
I feel like I feel like I should
542
00:39:09.909 --> 00:39:14.510
also you asked about someone who who
had an impact in my life. Do
543
00:39:14.949 --> 00:39:16.829
have time to yeah, it's I
feel like I need to give a shout
544
00:39:16.829 --> 00:39:22.030
out to Ken well Er. Ken
was the SVP of sales at best by,
545
00:39:22.989 --> 00:39:27.420
and especially during their big growth here. So that's when they went you
546
00:39:27.500 --> 00:39:30.019
know, they grew to twenty billion
plus and sales. He was also the
547
00:39:30.139 --> 00:39:34.219
CEO of a company called the good
guys. I don't know if you remember
548
00:39:34.260 --> 00:39:38.250
that business, but they were kind
of like a electronics retailer. He ended
549
00:39:38.289 --> 00:39:43.809
up selling that business to Carlos Slim. But when he would do what he
550
00:39:43.929 --> 00:39:47.170
would visit stores. You know,
you'd take this the head of sales would
551
00:39:47.170 --> 00:39:52.119
be one hundred percent focused on sales
and sales improvement. But when Ken walked
552
00:39:52.159 --> 00:39:57.159
into the stores he would judge the
quality of the store by the number of
553
00:39:57.239 --> 00:40:00.119
lights that are out on the ceiling. You Know Big Buye. Best buy
554
00:40:00.199 --> 00:40:06.480
has these big warehouse like offices with
no natural light, and so they took
555
00:40:06.519 --> 00:40:08.429
the time to invest in really a
really nice lighting system. So felt very
556
00:40:08.469 --> 00:40:13.110
bright inside the store. And so
when he walked into a store and saw
557
00:40:13.190 --> 00:40:15.469
that a light bubbles out, he
knew that the manager of that store was
558
00:40:15.550 --> 00:40:21.349
not obsessing about the quality of the
customers experience. And so, anyway,
559
00:40:21.389 --> 00:40:25.260
I always thought I was fascinating that
a guy like Ken was so focused on
560
00:40:25.340 --> 00:40:30.340
customer experience and so detail oriented that
he noticed lights being out, and I
561
00:40:30.380 --> 00:40:34.820
felt like that was a good lesson
for me about what true customer obsession actually
562
00:40:34.860 --> 00:40:37.289
looks like. So thank you again. I really really appreciate that. Yeah,
563
00:40:37.289 --> 00:40:39.610
it's really good. It's a great
story and it is. I mean
564
00:40:39.690 --> 00:40:44.969
it's like overlooking the blocking and tackling
I mean it's another thing we've had on
565
00:40:45.050 --> 00:40:49.329
the show is just being slightly better
than average almost all of the time.
566
00:40:50.199 --> 00:40:52.559
Is it gives you a great experience
and so when you start making exceptions,
567
00:40:52.679 --> 00:40:57.079
like I maybe will get to that
light sometime, you know, as soon
568
00:40:57.119 --> 00:41:00.320
as you start making exceptions, you're
immediately out of the running for being slightly
569
00:41:00.360 --> 00:41:04.829
above average almost all the time.
That's a great way to summarize it and
570
00:41:04.949 --> 00:41:08.429
a wholeheartedly agree. Cool, Chris
Hicken. Thank you so much for spending
571
00:41:08.469 --> 00:41:12.989
time on the podcast today. Folks
check out. Enough said. I assume
572
00:41:13.110 --> 00:41:16.949
that everyone listening to this faces some
version of the problem that they're tackling out
573
00:41:16.989 --> 00:41:21.340
of the gate. Ai will just
make it even smarter and better and I
574
00:41:21.659 --> 00:41:22.139
hope you have a great rest of
your day and I hope you have a
575
00:41:22.179 --> 00:41:24.980
great rest of your week. Many
thanks you than I appreciate the invite to
576
00:41:24.980 --> 00:41:30.619
join the show. Product usage.
It's binary. It isn't enough. I
577
00:41:30.699 --> 00:41:35.530
hope you enjoyed that conversation with Chris
Hicken. If you want to check out
578
00:41:35.610 --> 00:41:45.690
video clips of this episode or other
episodes, visit bombombcom podcast. Bomb Bombcom
579
00:41:45.969 --> 00:41:52.199
podcast. There you can see every
episode of the customer Experience Podcast, more
580
00:41:52.320 --> 00:41:58.320
conversations like this one, again with
video clips, Short write ups, embedded
581
00:41:58.400 --> 00:42:04.309
audio and links to listen and subscribe
in Apple podcasts, Google podcast, spotify
582
00:42:04.469 --> 00:42:09.349
and other podcast platforms. My name
is Ethan, but check out Bombombcom podcast
583
00:42:09.750 --> 00:42:16.460
and thanks for listening to betb growth. Gary v says it all the time
584
00:42:16.940 --> 00:42:22.940
and we agree. Every company should
think of themselves as a media company first,
585
00:42:22.940 --> 00:42:27.579
then whatever it is they actually do. If you know this is true,
586
00:42:27.659 --> 00:42:30.289
but your team is already maxed out
and you can't produce any more content
587
00:42:30.449 --> 00:42:34.929
in house, we can help.
We produce podcasts for some of the most
588
00:42:35.050 --> 00:42:38.130
innovative bb brands in the world and
we also help them turn the content from
589
00:42:38.130 --> 00:42:43.929
the podcast and the blog posts micro
videos and slide decks that work really well
590
00:42:43.969 --> 00:42:46.280
on Linkedin. If you want to
learn more, go to sweet fish Mediacom
591
00:42:46.840 --> 00:42:51.280
launch or email logan at sweet fish
Mediacom