GSD - Getting Services Done

This week we were joined by  Bruce Daley  of  S&P Global 451 Research . Bruce is an industry analyst following revenue generation software companies with a particular interest in Customer Success vendors. He is a long-time student of the software industry and is considered minor nobility in it by some. We talked about how to make a buck in this business, spending a little time m...

Jeff is joined by Rachel Provan , a Top 50 Women Leaders In Customer Success 2022 and Top 100 CS Strategist 2022! Rachel and Jeff discuss: - Time Management boundaries in CS and how to get people to respect them and stop the pattern of interruption - Rachel's career advice about "Heads of CS" positions - The problem with the "player coach" role - The  Eisenhower matrix, the urgent important a...

Jeff is joined by an ALL FIRED UP top 25 CS Influencer Kristi Faltorusso of Client Success  to go over a few items that were hot topics in the hallways and bars of Gainsight Pulse. Kristi wants CS leaders to uplevel their game and protect their team by being powerful executives. Key topics include: - CS leaders playing the victim instead of leading from the front - "Asking" for a seat at the...

Jeff talks with J an Young every few months to go over Customer Success topics. for this time, we decided to tape it! We were inspired to catch up to discuss the differences in approach between Frank Slootman's new book (where he says CS is not needed) compared to a post from Jason Lemkin. We covered that, and  then in our usual style talked about everything on our minds that day!  Topic...

Meg Lovell of Everbridge is a ninja when it comes to all things implementation. We chatted and had a fast paced conversation about everything you need to know about implementation, including  - turning 9 month implementations into 3 - Customers not getting any value from your product and needing to renew - Approaching implementations with a psychology standpoint and human behavior point of vi...

Jeff is joined by longtime friend and former coworker Alex Medeiros to discuss Alex's new role as Head of Enablement at Limeade .  Topics discussed are : What is CSM Enablement? Importance of Success Criteria and targeting the right customers Quick impacts  Build trust all along the onboarding journey Interaction with Product Marketing Handoff and Onboard Readiness And many other nuggets...

Customer Success Legend Maranda Dziekonski joins Jeff on the latest podcast. In a very open and honest conversation, Maranda talks about: -  Her blue-collar work ethic and how she went from the factory to the office - Customer Success and who owns the revenue, upsells, etc - Leveraging new tech and approaches (Ops, AI) - Roles in the new Customer Success organization - Landing a role in...

Jeff is joined by Top 100 Customer Success Strategist 2020 & 2021 Shari Srebnick , the Head of Customer Success at Searchmetrics. Shari educates Jeff on the best ways to listen to your customer to drive better enagement and customer relationships. Topcis include: - Why NPS isn't the best or only way to track customer sentiment - Properly segmenting your customer base to make sense of your data...

In this podcast, Jeff does a deep dive into the world of CS Ops with David Epperly of Red Canary. David put together a great post about the basics of CS Ops ( click here to read ). Topics discussed were: - Key metrics to track for CS Ops to prevent churn - Do you need CS-specific tools like Gainsight or Churn Zero to use data for understanding churn risk? - Using qualitative factors to understand...

This week we are joined by Dana Soza , of customer everything.com . Dana is an OG in Customer Success, and was named a 2021 Top 100 Customer Success Strategist. We talked about doing CS before CS was even a thing. Some topics we went over were: Creating tech and templates out of thin air Streamlining the Onboarding Process with CRM Automation Increasing Adoption by 900% (!!!) Creating a process fr...

This week we are joined by Stephanie Kemp , of Get Bridge . Stephanie talks about her life of service, and how she took her non-CS jobs and parlayed them into her current position. Her story of how she got her current role is a great lesson in perseverance, and not taking no for an answer. Stephanie is a powerhouse and very driven, and I am sure you will enjoy her story! 

Jeff is joined by very special guest and keynote speaker Aaron Thompson of SuccessHacker . Covered lots of ground here, including: Customer Journey Mapping and Funnel Acquisition The Trough of Disillusionment and Buyers Remorse The 3 D's of Customer Success Retention Starts with Implementation Should CSM’s manage the implementation of the project?   What does an ideal implementation team look...

As part of a new focus with the podcast, we kicked off our first case study with Steve of GrowthLab Finance-as-a-Service . Steve dives in and talked about the move to use CSM's when their customers asked for a different engagement model. Steve talks about how having CSM's gets him closer to his goal of "making things boring again." Some good chat here around net retention, QBR's and implementation...

Very happy to have James Stuart of Reed talk about how the Customer Success team is being used to help trial users get a high touch to increase success in the pre-sales phase. I love this concept! James and talk about using all the great Customer Success tools to get outcome-driven trials to convert prospects into successful and happy customers.

Very excited to bring Michael Zipursky of Consulting Success to the podcast. Michael has been helping people run their own consulting business for almost 15 years and has a huge track record of success. Michael came on the show and asked questions around: What is the overwhelming scenario of people wanting to start their own consulting business? What are the first steps? How to overcome Imposter S...

Jeff is joined by John Kirkman , who has years of experience from stints at Deloitte, Nike and now Convoy. We covered ALOT of ground in this one, with the first topic being how to use your consulting chops to the enterprise when large companies are forced to change. John has a ton of experience in Large scale logistics and Executable Strategy in Supply Chain, so it was great to chat with someone w...

Jeff is joined by Pat Muirragui , Senior Director of Services at Mitek Systems . Jeff and Pat talk a ton of PS and Implementation shop, and go into the details on Org structures, tools, and best practices. Pat is passionate about making sure that the customers he oversees are set up correctly, and how he uses a diagnostic approach to understand current state and desired future state. Lots of TTV,...

Michael Buccellato (https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-buccellato-15419737/) is at LawGeex, where he runs manages the highest ARR clients.   Michael starts talking about how he transitioned from Business development roles into post-sales success. Discussion ranges from:  Customer lifecycle Onboarding to renewal, and the differences from large company to startups.  Wearing mult...

Jeff is joined by Bradley Jones , who is the VP of Implementation at Indeavor. Brad is the first person that I have met with this title, and we had a lot of ground to cover.  A list  of the topics discussed are: - Applying the learnings of a Big 4 consulting background to startups -  Implementing a Minimum Viable Process vs the over-processization that happens with large consulting...

Jeff is joined by Cait Porte , who is leading Product and Global Services for Zmags, including Product Management, User Experience, Customer Onboarding, and Customer Support. This is a unique blend of responsibilities, and the topics discussed are: - Building Product to enable Customer Success FAST in a SaaS world that is easy to do - Getting consensus and alignment in presales and scoping to make...

Jeff and George have worked on projects for over 10 years. Recently George's company, Intevity, has been leading a discussion about Discovery and best practices. Jeff got a chance to sit down with George and go over all the best practices for not just a discovery session, but a discovery period. Topics covered include: - best length of time for. a discovery period - Trust, empathy and how not to "...

This is a Getting "Software" Done podcast, but we made sure to touch onboarding as it relates to the creation of products and workflows.  Today Jeff is joined by Shmuel Bollen, a UX practitioner, and teacher. Shmuel has been creating interfaces for over 20 years- from his time at Bose to his current teaching at Bentley and creating enterprise UX for ACI Worldwide, a billion-dollar payment company....

The GSD Podcast RETURNS after a few months off. Jeff is joined by Scott Roth, SVP Global Customer Success at Medallia to talk about building a great customer lifecycle. Topics covered are Hiring for great teams, Customers for life, presales, onboarding, and funneling feature requests back into the Product organization.  A quick note that the first 6 minutes are pretty free form and off-topic. This...

I am so excited to bring this podcast to you. Diane is one of the pioneers in Customer Success, and here we talk about early SaaS strategies, "services" DNA, who should own upsell and renewals, and lots of other great nuggets. 

Today Jeff was joined by Randy Syring. A deep dive into how to scope projects from a technical perspective ensued, but also how to map it back to the business needs. Topics covered: - Randy's transition from seminary to CEO - Agile v Waterfall.  - Randy's 100 hour guarantee.  - using Zenhub and "mockup driven development" - using MOSCOW to get priorities of deliverables - Fixed Fee vs. Team based...