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Jon Johnson:
Hey, guys. This is John Johnson, one of the lovely and effusive cohosts of the unchurned podcast, NCS and BS. I’m joined by the effervescent, Kristi Faltorusso, and our our new best friend, Mike Sasaki. Sasaki? Sasaki. Puff. Sasaki? Sasaki. Sasaki.

Jon Johnson:
Yes.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Sasaki. I just wanted him to butcher it.

Mike Sasaki:
Sorry. My side.

Jon Johnson:
I practiced.

Kristi Faltorusso:
See, Mike’s not a new friend

Mike Sasaki:
for me, Sean.

Kristi Faltorusso:
So Mike’s an old dear friend.

Jon Johnson:
Okay. So I shoulda had you do the intro. Well, because Josh, Schachter isn’t here, this is gonna be a more uplifting and positive, episodes. But he is, he is away, overseas in London on a vacation. And, we’ll catch up with him more next week. He did a pretty incredible, CS meetup in London, this last week and has posted some stuff on on LinkedIn about it if you wanna catch up with that. But we’ll we’ll get some more insight from, the topics that he had, next week on our pod. But today, I’m pretty excited, to have this wonderful conversation with Mike Sasaki.

Jon Johnson:
And, we got a pretty wide ranging set of topics. And and one of the places that we wanted to start, kind of in our normal CS and BS thing, is kinda the bullshit about kinda what we’re feeling in the industry and where we’re at today. One of the things that Mike and Christy and I chatted about before I hit record and played the wrong intro music, was a trend that we’re kinda seeing in the, LinkedIn echo chamber of, seems like there’s a lot of people calling the fire alarm on what customer success is and what it isn’t, what it should be, and where it’s going. I’ve got some opinions. I’ve got some thoughts, and I know Christy and Mike do as well. But I just kinda wanted to open it up. Like, what have we been hearing, Christy, with your leadership circles that you’re in and your other podcast that we’re happy to promote here? But, what are we feeling with when it comes to the industry in large as we’re transitioning into maybe growth in the economy or maybe a softer landing for software and services this year. What what you got?

Kristi Faltorusso:
Alright. I’m I’m gonna open it up, and

Jon Johnson:
then I’m gonna Go, Chris.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Pass it to Mike, and then we could take it back, John. So I I well, I’m gonna say I don’t think. What I am seeing and hearing is that there is a lot of, like, contradictions about what customer success

Mike Sasaki:
Yeah.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Should be or shouldn’t be or where we should be headed or where we shouldn’t be headed. But I think the challenge for me is where this is coming from. And I I guess not where, but who it’s coming from. So one of the things that I’ve been really keen on lately is checking my sources. And a lot of folks go and claim a lot

Mike Sasaki:
of things literacy.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Allows us to all say whatever you wanna go say on the Internet. But as I go into validate, one of the things that I’m seeing is that, like, a lot of this messaging is coming from folks who aren’t in practitioner roles. They’re not in these they’re not in the c level roles where they’re they’re not the ones driving this. The second observation I’m making is that they’re contradicting themselves. I’m seeing a lot of folks post one thing, then they read something else, and they go and post something else. So if you go and just read the stream of consciousness that is someone’s individual post, not an individual day, you’re gonna start to see folks are contradicting themselves. And then where is the data that is validating this? I don’t know. So I I’m all up in arms because I just feel like I’m calling bullshit on a lot of this.

Kristi Faltorusso:
And, honestly, what I’m saying tried and true to is doing what’s best for my business, And I’m ignoring what everybody else is saying because I’ve got my own set of challenges. I’ve got my own unique customers that need certain things from us. I’ve got a a product that’s in its own position. And I feel like if I start letting all of these distractions on LinkedIn take up space, I’m not gonna be doing what the business needs me to do. So those are my that’s that’s my and

Jon Johnson:
Mike, I’m gonna jump to you.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Mike, what what are your thoughts here?

Mike Sasaki:
I’m Yeah. I mean, I’m glad you said that. Go for it. Articulate all the ceilings and emotions that I know on LinkedIn. I’m reading. We need to be doing this or that, or we need to be under the CRO, or we need to be driving revenue, etcetera. And really not not being able to tie it back to the things that I do in my career, and emotions that that I’m used to. So I automatically go to not necessarily checking the your my sources, which was a good reminder that, you know, I will be doing that.

Mike Sasaki:
But, like, how can I simplify things and go back to basics, and what what are the k KPIs? Right? So, that’s kinda where I’m at trying to filter through all the advice, all the experts in customer success offering their advice and deciding, like, what do where’s the industry heading? And, you know, that kind of blends with what is the right role for me moving forward.

Jon Johnson:
Yeah. That’s good. I you know, echoing what you guys are saying, I I think that something that we talked about, I think when we started this podcast a couple years ago, Christy, was just this idea that, like, there’s a lot of people sharing opinions on LinkedIn that aren’t based in reality or based in fact. And and I think what I’m seeing is that a lot of people took what people have been saying on LinkedIn as, hey. This is a best practice or, hey. This is something that you should be doing if it fits your use case, as gold and as fact. It’s like, it everything has to be this. I talked to so many, new CSMs through CS insider, that are just like, this is not what I thought it would be.

Jon Johnson:
I thought that I was gonna have a clearly defined role. I thought I was gonna under. They were just gonna hand me a playbook, and I was gonna do the thing, and it was gonna succeed, and the customer’s gonna renew. And it’s like, oh, sweet summer child. Like, absolutely everything depends, and it depends on so many factors. It depends on your your stage your stage. I was talking on LinkedIn this week about, somebody asked, like, you know, do should we be generalists or should we be specialists? And I was like, well, it really depends on the stage that you’re in. And I don’t feel like there is enough opportunity in these conversations to delineate where those differences lie.

Jon Johnson:
And I think that’s actually what I love about customer success and why actually I’m not concerned about any of the people that are crying the house is on fire or, you know, whatever they wanna say that it’s over and it’s done and we need to rethink all of these things. It’s like, no. Actually, we’ve been rethinking these things every quarter. Because every single quarter, a a new challenge comes up and a new economic crisis comes up and a new platform competitor comes up. We have to rethink the way that we engage with our customers to your point, Mike. Getting back to what are those key KPIs, and they may change. One of our the main people that I work with is Amazon at user testing. And, one of the things that is constant within Amazon is that every 3 months, they come to us with a different goal.

Jon Johnson:
They’re such a big behemoth organization that you can’t say, here’s my health plan, and here’s my success plan, and we’re just gonna follow this for the next 3 years. It’s absolutely not true. And I think that there’s a lot of people that are coming to terms with that, and they’re saying, oh, shit. It’s broken. And you’re like, no. No. No. It’s actually working as intended.

Jon Johnson:
You’re just not being as flexible as you need to be. Thoughts? Opinions?

Mike Sasaki:
Thank you, man. So I I think one one thing that I always struggle with, and you see this in conferences, you see this in LinkedIn, is, okay. I can agree that these are the KPIs. Maybe do more be more focused. Like, how do we do that? Like, what’s that look like day to day? What’s that look like week to week? And I think that’s really the the area where I can be vulnerable here.

Jon Johnson:
So

Mike Sasaki:
I’ve been pretty weakened over the last few years, and I attended last year and and really being operationally sound. What I mean by that is if you look how sales ops works, right, sales runs things, what pipeline, what weekly meetings, what really investigating the the deals, and you can you can translate that into the customer success world, like with health and things like that, customer success leads, etcetera. I have not done a good job doing a weekly meeting, hosting a weekly meeting, really investigating and asking the question about why does this customer help this? What do we do in what is our red, green plan? Let’s get updates next week. Let’s elevate to the the management team. Right? I mean, I’m more regular cadence and having more rigor and discipline around that. That’s where I’ve been really weak, and that’s where I’m looking to get much stronger in how I would lead a customer success org. So those are just my thoughts. I don’t even know if I answered the question.

Mike Sasaki:
That’s a random one. Why not?

Jon Johnson:
Kristy, what do you think?

Kristi Faltorusso:
I think it’s valid. Questions. And I think it’s like listen. We’ve probably because Riverside likes to delay everybody. No? Am I still here?

Jon Johnson:
You’re good.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Am I still participating in the discussion? Yeah. Am I good? Okay.

Mike Sasaki:
Yep. You’re good.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Oh, wonderful. Okay. Welcome welcome back, Cutter. Okay. So my my thoughts on this, Mike, is that you’re not alone in that sentiment. Right? Like, every single person in a leadership role is having to flex different muscles than they’ve had to before to kind of adjust accordingly. So I don’t think that that is a a deficiency or a shortcoming of yours. I think we all have strengths in certain areas, and everyone is having to to really hone in on all of them because it’s just it’s requiring us to just operationalize as as a different type of leader than we’ve ever had to before and really sharpen the skills around all of these things.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Right? We’ve gotta be experts in driving value and having strategic conversations. We’ve gotta be experts in understanding, you know, product innovation and how to drive that forward in accordance with the business and with our customers. We’ve got to be experts in driving revenue. It’s you know, our roles have have so grossly evolved, and expanded in a way that I don’t think that any of us could have truly anticipated, you know, 5, 10 years ago. So I don’t I don’t see it as a shortcoming. I think it’s something we’re all having to be better at, and, I mean, I’m in the same boat. Right? There’s tons of things I think I do exceptionally well. But we have a small team, and I have so few resources at my disposal that I’m always challenged every single day with where what is my top priority right now? And it changes week to week.

Kristi Faltorusso:
I kid you not. So it means every week, it’s like what I need to prioritize and what I’m focusing on with the team looks different than what I did last week. My team must think I’m a crazy person. I’m pretty confident that they all agree. But it’s it’s hard. Right? Because I’ve gotta be an expert in all these areas, but we’ve gotta be driving the business. And it’s like, you know, with limited resources and just obviously the market changing, we’ve all have to adjust.

Jon Johnson:
Yeah. I agree. Awesome. Yeah. Good good points all around. Okay. So little bit of a change of topic, and then we’ll we’ll kinda jump into more conversations with you, Mike. I wanted to grab your opinion on something.

Jon Johnson:
Jeff Bruensbach posted something on LinkedIn this week. I don’t know if you guys saw it. I’m gonna put it so that our YouTube folks can read it. This is actually a pretty timely topic for me and and kind of the org that I’m in. But the the post starts out CSMs should not learn to talk to c level executives. Pretty big statement coming from mister JB. But, one of the points that he brought up, and and I won’t read the whole post. You guys can go.

Jon Johnson:
Link to it in the show notes, and and you can read it for yourself and especially the comments because there’s a pretty healthy conversation in there. But the likelihood of getting a c level into a meeting with you is low. On average, a SaaS business that has at least 36 SaaS tools that they use, and it’s probably closer to 70. And the reality is that the c level isn’t on the phone with with each of those negotiating every deal. Now, we’ve spent a lot of time in our industry pushing CSMs and ICs to build higher and wider relationships with executives. Now you both, have sat in executive roles either currently or in the past and potentially and hopefully in the future for everybody in this room. But, I I actually very much subscribe to this belief as somebody who has been in an IC role who spends a lot of time working with accounts, and having leadership that’s pushing me to, like, you gotta meet with the c level executives, and it’s saying, great. I totally understand why, but the work is done in the trenches.

Jon Johnson:
And if we’re not empowering our customers to speak on our behalf, then we’re losing. Right? And so there has been a shift over the last, I would say, 3 to 4 years where it’s like we gotta build that ground level relationship, and then we still have to be sitting on the executive level relationships. And the feedback that I get consistently from c level executives at Amazon and these other big companies is like, who who are you? What are you doing here? Right? Which is an indicator that we haven’t done a a good enough job sharing that value. I’d love to hear your thoughts on, maybe this part of adding so much onto a CSM’s job to Yeah. Set expectations. Go ahead, Mike.

Mike Sasaki:
I’m very, I’m glad you brought up.

Jon Johnson:
So me off as much as you’d like.

Mike Sasaki:
Yeah. I’m very passionate about this topic. So it’s great. So I I don’t know. It doesn’t have to be a c level person. Right? Because at Amazon, you’re not gonna get that. But at a smaller company, perhaps you can’t. We’re really trying to get to the executive sponsor or the decision maker, the one that’s gonna be signing the renewal or the expansion.

Mike Sasaki:
Right? And so this goes back for me, it goes back to earlier I’d mentioned trying to make things more simple, go back to basics. To me, the most important phase is customer onboarding. Customer onboarding starts when the customer signs the contract. It could start earlier. Right? And it goes past go live. It goes all the way to time to value in my opinion. That’s customer onboarding. It includes implementation.

Mike Sasaki:
There’s a lot of customer onboarding side of implementation like, you know, the change management, executive connections. So a lot of the symptoms we’re dealing with and talking about on LinkedIn are symptoms. They’re symptoms of a customer onboarding program that is not doing its job. And so, what I’d like to see with my teams is a mapping. And so I map to the executive. The CSM is mapped mapped to the project team, and that’s the mapping. I don’t expect the CSM to have a relationship with the VP. If they want to and if there’s an opportunity to, yes, go for it.

Mike Sasaki:
I’ve I’ve had that in my past as a CSM, but it wasn’t an expectation that I wouldn’t be talking to this the the c level as as well as the project team. Right? And so that’s the mapping I like. I will have an executive connection from the the time the contract sounds. I will use it to escalate. They will use it to escalate to me as well. And often during customer onboarding, project teams don’t show up. Yeah. Project teams are giving the wrong information to their executive, sponsor or no information.

Mike Sasaki:
And so I need to hold the customer accountable, and I don’t mind doing that. And this happened to have a customer of ours, when I was at my tech. It was a big bank, and, the the the project team was not following these practices. That happens all the time. They have a timeline. They cannot follow those practices. Fair enough. This executive, the customer know that.

Mike Sasaki:
She did not. And so we informed her. And now she’s informed that her team is not calling best practices due to the timeline. That’s fair. But when you go live, you’re not gonna see the the results that you think you’re gonna see. Okay. Now she’s educated. She understands.

Mike Sasaki:
Her expectations are set. They go live. They don’t see the results. It doesn’t turn into an escalation of it. So that’s a long wind up to saying that I believe someone in customer success needs that executive connection, and it doesn’t have to be the CSM, but it does have to be someone. And if you don’t do it during customer onboarding, good luck trying to get confirmed executive is the number.

Jon Johnson:
Yeah. I love it. Christy, thoughts? Anything to add?

Kristi Faltorusso:
Yeah. So I’m gonna give you an it depends. Right? So it depends on the size of the organizations you’re selling into. Right? You talked about Amazon as an example, John. No. You’re not gonna be meeting and hobnobbing with the the c suite at Amazon. And listen, if you do, I hope that you would invite me. But let’s just not make that the expectation

Mike Sasaki:
for our teams.

Kristi Faltorusso:
The reality of it is, thank you, the reality of it is in these smaller organizations, it could be that you’re working with the VPs in the c suite during onboarding. And, Mike, to your point, that’s the core team. That is your project team. There might not be a robust implementation. So I have to say it depends. I get what I get what Jeff is the point that Jeff is making because there are so many leaders who maybe they’re newer, they’re less experienced, less tenured, they’re they’re learning, they’re getting their footing, and they’ve heard everybody forever say high and wide. Get to the executive level. Build those relationships.

Kristi Faltorusso:
I do think it’s a false expectation to set because I do think it depends. Right? Structure the relationship mapping based on the customer, based on your organization. Right? For me at client success, me and Dave, our our Dave Blake, our CEO, we are the executive sponsors for our customers. Right? And not all of our customers have executive sponsors, but top of our segments absolutely do. And on the smaller end of our segments, the reason why they land there is that these are usually smaller organizations. And my CSMs are working with the directors and the VPs, and those are our stakeholders. So it it depends. Right? Don’t insert yourselves and try to build relationships that just aren’t aren’t organically driving value for your customers.

Kristi Faltorusso:
And this goes back to my whole premise around EBRs and QBRs. I’ll tell you, I spoke at a at a an investor a VC, organization. They did they ran an event last year. I had a room full of, cofounders and CEOs, and I asked them. I said, how many of you attend EBRs and QBRs for the products that you use in your company? And not one person raised their hand. So I, in turn, then said, then why would you expect any of your customers’ executives to attend these meetings? Like, can we just stop? It’s these silly things that we have put in place because they worked in consulting, and they do because the way consulting does, they drive value. So we stole this idea from an consulting framework, tried to put it in place. We fucked it up for a lack of better words.

Kristi Faltorusso:
And now we continue to drive these motions that don’t make sense for these businesses. So we’ve gotta get smarter about doing what is appropriate for our customers to get them to where they need to be.

Mike Sasaki:
Well, this is appropriate experience. It sounds like, our buddy

Kristi Faltorusso:
Nobody wants to talk about the appropriate experience.

Mike Sasaki:
Years ago.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Thank you.

Jon Johnson:
I mean, you we’re you I’m using this exact that exact talk track internally at my too where it’s like, you know, we use to tango and we use these other tools, Pendo. And it’s like talking to my CCO and our leaders saying, when’s the last time you showed up for QBR at for these tools that we use? And, like, I’ve never done that. And it’s the same thing. It’s like and you expect us to

Mike Sasaki:
pull this in now again.

Kristi Faltorusso:
What’s different?

Jon Johnson:
Right. I what I the pushback that I’m gonna give to both of you, and and then and then, you know, we can close the book on this and say that we’ve solved the biggest problem in customer success, is one of the one of the processes and as as leaders, you guys, I’m sure have seen this is if the only time that an executive is talking to another executive is at a point of escalation, which is what oftentimes happens, something isn’t working, something is bad, something isn’t meeting expectations, that’s that tends to lead to risk if I’m if you’re only engaging with these executives when there’s a problem. And I know that as the org like, as our industry shifted over the last, you know, 5 to 10 years, we started to say, oh, we actually should have some good conversations with that guy. Like, every time I call that guy, there’s a problem or he calls me, there’s a problem. Let’s do something better. And then it started to kinda evolve into this. Now we need to have these deep relationships on every single level. How do you guys take point of escalations? That’s what I’m used to.

Jon Johnson:
That’s kind of the going back to basics where it’s like, my CCO will call your boss. If they’re like, red flag, everything’s on fire, we can solve it at that level. But I’ve talked you through that.

Mike Sasaki:
I love escalations. I love customer escalations. Maybe that’s controversial. But I’ll tell you why. Often, I step into a role and I don’t get a customer from etcetera. I’m sorry to get executive connection. Customer escalation is a great opportunity, to do a lot of things. 1, you’re gonna get a lot of engagement from that executive.

Mike Sasaki:
Because it’s bad. So just they’re gonna be all over you. Fine. You know? The quiet ones. Quiet customers I’m worried about. The ones that are yelling at me, no problem. We have a playbook for that. So and it gives us an opportunity to theoretical thing that I put up there in the confluence page.

Mike Sasaki:
Now we gotta actually try and run it and see what works and what doesn’t, and we get to refine it. Now, eventually, you know, any CS leader or CSM that is good, can turn a customer from red to green. That is what we do. So that’s not a problem. So we will get that customer green. I will also use it as an opportunity to say, you know, hey. If we are able to fix this, will you be a reference? Will you come speak with us at a conference? Will you can we do this that I asked for a lot because it’s gonna take a lot of our time and expense and investment to get that customer green. And then can we have, you know, can we go yours, Christy? But can we have business reviews, where you attend? And you will attend them.

Mike Sasaki:
You know, it’ll be twice a year, but you will attend. Can you and they’ll eventually say, every single time, if you can fix this for me, I’ll give you all that, right? Great. Let’s document it. Let’s fix it. We fix it. We follow-up and we get some of those things sometimes, but all of those things as well. So escalations, I see them as opportunities. But I think your question was well, let me try to answer your question and and how I interpreted it.

Mike Sasaki:
If that’s the only time you’re talking to an executive, then that’s that’s not good, and you need to figure out a different point.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Alright. So I I gotta can I can I add something here, John? Is that okay?

Mike Sasaki:
Yes, please.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Okay. So, Mike, I I don’t disagree with how you described escalations, but the reality it is, not enough executives are proactively meeting with customers. That’s a fact. Nope. I spend 60% of my calendar time in proactive customer meetings. These are not escalated discussions. These are customer conversations that I either have regular recurring, monthly or quarterly meetings with customers, different segments. They get different cadences where I’m meeting with the leaders.

Kristi Faltorusso:
I’m not meeting with these core teams.

Mike Sasaki:
Yep.

Kristi Faltorusso:
And our conversations are platform agnostic. We are not talking about our solution. We are talking exclusively about Mhmm. What are the challenges that they’re facing today? How can I offer them some advice, some guidance, some expertise, a point of view from other customers that I’m I’m speaking to? We have proactive motions that are designed in our customer journey that come directly from me, come directly from Dave at all different points. I am meeting with customers all the time, and I will tell you those escalation conversations look and feel a lot different because I have a pre a preestablished relationship with them. And so I would say for executives that are not really dedicating time to that, I think you’re doing it wrong. I get it that there’s a ton to do, and there’s a ton of, like, the business to run, but I I feel like there is a ton more value that our business gets from the effort I put behind having these customer discussions at the appropriate times around relevant valuable topics that have nothing to do with just us. It strengthens things very sick like, I I think it changes the game for us in terms of our relationships.

Mike Sasaki:
Let me ask a couple questions there. And I totally agree with what you said. I think the how was interesting.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Oh, okay. Can I tell you?

Mike Sasaki:
Do you

Kristi Faltorusso:
wanna know?

Mike Sasaki:
Yeah. Well, let me ask 2 questions. So one is, how do you get these meetings? And the second is, take yourself out of this customer success, world because you are a, you’re a product that customer success sometimes shows use. And I would say then, you know, when working with Covey or it’s working with Gainsight, if they ask me to meet, I would say yes because I think customer success, and I just feel like we have this connection. So in your previous roles, you weren’t it wasn’t a customer success tool or product. So it has to have been a lot harder to get those meetings because you’re not dealing with customer success people as your contacts.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Okay. So yes and yes and yes. So alright. Let me give you some context. So

Mike Sasaki:
Okay.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Let me work backwards. So your second question there is, like, how do you do it when you are not the subject matter expert and you’re now asking for these conversations? Guess what? I guarantee you that there is a subject matter expert in your business. So for example, when I worked at BetterCloud, we sold it was a SaaS apps management solution, okay, so we sold to CTOs, CIOs, CSOs. That’s who I would bring to those calls, though. So I would I would proactively ask my customers. I’m like, hey. Listen. Our CIO is working on something really interesting.

Kristi Faltorusso:
I would love if we can get 15 minutes on your calendar to share and ideate and see if these are things that you’re working on, and I would be present. Mhmm. Maybe I’m not the one orchestrating it, but I was able to leverage their time strategically. Other times, it might be my CTO. It could be somebody else. So what what I’m saying here is that there’s probably a subject matter expert in your business that you should be bringing in. Now on the flip side of that, Mike, the reason I’m at client success is because I found out that as a leader, I provide value as a subject matter expert. So I will never actually go to an organization ever again where I can’t provide intrinsic value to my customers, not and not extrinsic value through a product.

Kristi Faltorusso:
I wanna be able to to know what it’s like to sit in the seat of my customers and be able to engage them thoughtfully about what they’re really going through. So I do think that this goes back to this original debate whether what do you hire CSMs or do you hire SMEs? Because I will tell you, my customers get a lot more value from somebody who’s sitting in their seat than they would otherwise. And my other most successful role in my career when I was when I was at BrightEdge. And why? Because I was a subject matter expert. I was a former customer of theirs. I’d used their solution and I can have strategic valuable conversations. So getting on calls with executives was a no brainer. People took calls with me all the time.

Mike Sasaki:
Okay. Let me ask one more one let me ask one more.

Jon Johnson:
Yeah. Go for it, Mike.

Mike Sasaki:
Let let me get in there, John, before you do. John will lose it. Lose the question. Okay. So I toyed with the idea when I was in identity. Identity verification was the domain. I’m calling our CSMs identity consultants.

Kristi Faltorusso:
But were they?

Mike Sasaki:
Because yes.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Okay.

Mike Sasaki:
And I had I had the the customers had trouble understanding what a CSM was. I mean Okay. You could say some companies understand what so that that’s I think I’m agreeing with you that the domain expertise and being able to consult it and an expert in SME, whatever you wanna call it, is super valuable. And so I don’t know. Would you is that what you would have? Would you look for SMEs in 2024?

Kristi Faltorusso:
Yes. Also in 2021 and 22 and 23 and 20 like, since I need this own It

Mike Sasaki:
limits your pool, though. It limits your pool.

Kristi Faltorusso:
It does. Sure. It’s sure. Of course, it does. But let’s be more thoughtful about then who we’re hiring. And it doesn’t mean everyone you hire needs to have that background, but this is where the diversification Yeah. The diversification of of thought that you grill that you build into your teams. Great.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Hire 5 people that have CS backgrounds. Right? And then hire 10 people who are SMEs and make sure there’s

Mike Sasaki:
this kind of

Kristi Faltorusso:
cross pollination of, like, learning and expertise to, like, up level the skills of the folks who aren’t the subject matter experts. Maybe be thoughtful about what accounts you’re putting them on. And then the folks that you are hiring that are that are SMEs, put them on different accounts. Right? Like, where is it gonna again, we’re just going back to the the the same thing, which is how do you add value to your customers? Right? Because that that’s all we’re trying to answer here, and then all we’re trying to do right now, the 3 of us is, like, let’s all wear glasses and a black t shirt and try to figure out how do we do exactly

Jon Johnson:
and, some of the things that we talked about with your career and where you’ve been and where you’re going. Just to give the listeners just a little bit of prep, you are currently looking for your next role, and you’re being very selective. One of the things that I wanted to spend the next 10 to 15 minutes talking about, is, you know, something that I have gone through personally. I know I’ve talked about it on this podcast before where I I took a job at PayPal, and it was a very great opportunity. And there’s a lot of wonderful, you know, vim and vigor behind it thinking that it was gonna be kind of the perfect role. And within a couple of months, I realized that I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. I was the wrong person to solve the problems in that space. And I got angry.

Jon Johnson:
I was pretty pissed. And I probably wasn’t the most healthy in how I posted about it on LinkedIn or wrote about it in my newsletter. But I think that there’s an intelligence that we can learn after the fact, after we go through a process where we we take a job with hope, and then we come out the other end. And I know this I’m kinda leading the witness here a little bit. You’re in one of these places right now. So I wanna give you a little bit of space to talk about the process that you’ve gone through coming, from ID and where you’re at right now, and maybe some of the lessons that you learned about, being true to yourself, being respectful of an employer and a business, you know, organization, and then kind of leading from the the place that you’ve come from, which I think is a very humanity driven, place from what we’ve talked about.

Mike Sasaki:
Yeah. I’ve I’ve learned a lot, about jobs and how they fit into your life. And so I mean, also natural conclusions to jobs and it’s it being okay. Yeah. Everything is okay. Right? All your feelings are okay. Job coming to a natural conclusion is okay. It doesn’t mean your bad.

Mike Sasaki:
It doesn’t mean their bad. It it really doesn’t mean any of it. Right? So let me give you some some context. So, yes, I’m looking for my next role, and I’m typing to know how I’m evaluating it. Hopefully, that’s helpful to some listeners and roles. I think one important thing is to know where you are in so that’s an important piece as well. When I was at My Tech, I was there for 5 and a half years, and then John came to a natural conclusion. And before them, and I thought, you know, if you leave a company or a company, you know, see you to leave, that’s another thing.

Mike Sasaki:
I have a different opinion of that now. We’re all good at certain size companies, and we’re all good at certain things. And what I realized about myself is that I’m good at a refresh. And so if a company wants to do a refresh at customer success, that’s where I’m probably the strongest. I have global experience as well, and so that’s something that I can leverage. But once you get the refresh going, the next person to make it, like, really, the operational rigor that I told you was a weakness that I’m trying to strengthen, that is the area where I I wasn’t very good. And so once the refresh gets going, it’s probably time for me to leave when I leave. Right.

Mike Sasaki:
I got very okay with it. It’s like, okay. That makes sense. No hard feelings. We’re good. I did what I was supposed to do. And so that was a learning about myself. Now as I’m looking for my next role, I was and I’ll just tell you, I was very motivated to get a title.

Mike Sasaki:
I think we can all experience that. You know? I really wanted to be a director. I really wanted to be a VP. I really wanted to be a chief. Actually, that part was interesting. I never wanted to be a chief customer officer. And

Jon Johnson:
so I’ll be to Christie. Right? And she told you

Kristi Faltorusso:
that it’s just you know what she’s doing. Daily to pivot their career strategy.

Mike Sasaki:
I mean, you know, I there’s nothing wrong with being a chief customer officer. However, you got to know yourself, and I didn’t wanna do board management. I don’t necessarily want to, hang out with just I wanted to be in the field. And so there are c suite roles that you can be in the field. Right? So it’s really important to me that I’m in the field, that I’m coaching, that I’m working with the CSMs, the individual contributors, that I’m mentoring, that I’m gonna advocate. All of that is super important. I get excited when I talk about it. Building a diverse team, like, Christine, you mentioned, is super important to me.

Mike Sasaki:
So where am I going with this? So, yes, I was chasing a title, and what I’ve learned is forget about the title. What do I wanna do in this role? Right? And then so that kind of opens you up to evaluating the company. What size are they? Are they PE backed? Are they public? How long has the leadership team been in place? Right? Is it a new team? Who am I reporting to? What is the org structure? What am I gonna be responsible for? I always thought I wanted services under me, which I still do. I I I believe in order to build a if I were able to build a a strong operationally efficient customer facing team, you need to show up as a team. And the customer shouldn’t have to know your org chart to figure things out. Right? They don’t care, like, services sits over here under one leader and sees they just are working with your company. And so, you know, I I over the last few months, I really understood what I’m the next role. So that those are the things that I’m looking at.

Mike Sasaki:
I want to also be able to, influence individuals’ career in a positive way. So being an advocate and just a mentor, what the difference is there. Also learn to trust looking at, as much data as you can about the company. Employers feel the way of the employees that they they they hire as well. They look at you know, they check references. They kinda they don’t do all of that. So we gotta do the same when we’re looking for James. And so that’s super important.

Mike Sasaki:
Pause there. See if there’s anything that I’d start out.

Jon Johnson:
Yeah. I mean, I I wanna ask you one question just because, you know, I know we’ve got a bunch of listeners that are, you know, kind of at the top end there in in your roles. But we also have some, like, folks that are entry level that are maybe thinking about those titles and thinking about, how to decide where to go in their career next. What is what is one thing that like, if you could if you could take what you just said, the advocacy and not just mentorship, how would you coach an individual that is saying, like, I’m in the wrong place. This isn’t fitting my goals. How do you start that communication with your boss so that it doesn’t come to a natural conclusion that isn’t a positive one? Right? Sometimes those natural conclusions could actually be damaging whether you’re getting fired or getting moved into a PIP or anything because you’re not showing up for your full self. Like, I do think that a lot of times in this remote world, it’s hard for people to advocate for themselves, and the grass is always greener. So they’re just gonna jump somewhere else.

Jon Johnson:
But those hard conversations oftentimes lead to a potential positive outcome, whether it’s leaving the company or moving into a new role. I’d love to hear your thoughts on how you would coach someone through that.

Mike Sasaki:
It’s tough. I mean, if you’re an individual contributor early on in your career, it’s scary to have a conversation with your manager or your leadership because it it could be it could turn out very negative. Right? Yeah. I would say that if you are uncomfortable having that conversation with a man, Vermaaten, just say that you’re not in the right place. Yeah. I’ll just pause there because I I think that says a lot. If you’re a manager when I when I lead, one thing I try to keep things simple. I was a 100% invested in everyone’s career.

Mike Sasaki:
Right. And I really wanted them to to do well and to feel like they can come to me for advice and felt like I didn’t. Mhmm. Experience, and so I can share some of that. It doesn’t mean they have to take my advice. I’ll just share my experiences, and they can do what they want with that information. Right? So, if you’re not comfortable having that conversation with your manager, maybe you’re at the wrong place. I would say that, oh, I don’t know.

Mike Sasaki:
Does that answer your question? Do you have

Jon Johnson:
a question? It does. Yeah. I guess, you know, we can even just kinda stop right there because I do think sometimes we’ll even go back to what we talked about at the beginning. Right? We see this suggestion on LinkedIn. It says make sure that you’re transparent and honest. Right? And show up with your full authentic self and all these, like, things that make you feel good when you read a a poster or a or a post on LinkedIn. But the reality is sometimes we have really shit bosses that are not mature enough to be able to take that type of conversation. Right? So, I love to hear maybe some experiences that you’ve had.

Jon Johnson:
You you talked about some of the lessons that you’ve learned about, like, how do you identify if you are able to have that? Like, if your boss is mature enough to, what are some things that you are proud of about yourself that allows someone to come to you? To say, look. I’m gonna have a hard conversation, and I need you to be mature about it and not be a little bitch like so many people can be. Right?

Mike Sasaki:
Yeah. I I think it’s up to the leadership. Right? So what you’d mentioned is that conversate or that that post or whatever it was that said you gotta be your authentic self. The leadership needs to create that environment so that you can show up, as yourself. Right? So that’s really important. I think, when I was an individual contributor, it was I would have conversations about my career. Right? And that is something we would have skip level meetings and would push for them. Yeah.

Mike Sasaki:
And so just and and in those meetings, you’ll understand whether this person is invested in your career or not. Are they multitasking? Are they pushing the meeting? Like, I’ve had that happen too. My my career, we’re gonna have 15 minutes. It gets pushed 5 times. Like, okay. Well, this probably isn’t something they’re interested in. So Yeah. That gives me the answer, but, no, I need it.

Mike Sasaki:
And all the information that I needed about this place and also can I go to this person? I probably can’t. So there are there are definitely signs. You just need to pay attention to them. But also advocating for yourself, and making sure that your career is a topic at least a couple of times a year with your manager, with your VP. But you also have to perform, right, as well. So make sure you’re doing that.

Jon Johnson:
Yeah. I love that. Thank you so much for that. We’ll wrap it up here. Chrissy, do you have any last questions that you wanna ask? I’ve got a couple one one or two more bullet points to cover from Mike, but I wanted to make sure you had an opportunity, you know, to to tie the knot on anything from your standpoint.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Mike, here’s a here’s a good one for you that I think will help folks who are listening in, who are in similar situations, or who are looking for their next roles. But what are what are give me give me, like, your one question you’re gonna ask a CEO that you feel like is the response to this might dictate whether or not you continue in the process or you would entertain an offer.

Mike Sasaki:
What is customer success? No.

Kristi Faltorusso:
I mean, that’s a valid one to ask a CEO and see how they respond.

Mike Sasaki:
Oh my god. They respond. Yeah. No. I mean, I would wanna know how we’re gonna be measured. Right? And how is that different? Mhmm. I think that tells me a lot. That’s kind of like a a a less insulting question than what is customer success.

Mike Sasaki:
But it gives me the same answer or it gives me the answer that I need. Right? Probably maybe mention on that. I’m in a retail channel today. Then I have some follow-up questions. Right? The customer base, how is the Enbridge, you know, the customer length, what’s the churn rate, etcetera, those things. But, I don’t know. Culture has become really big to me. And so let me turn that to both of you.

Mike Sasaki:
What questions would you ask to really get to the point of what your culture really is besides what you see on the website, right, when they talk about culture? Okay. Christine, go first.

Kristi Faltorusso:
So culture isn’t not that it’s not as important to me because everyone defines culture differently. I think the thing that’s more important to me is what is that CEO value? Like, what are their personal core values? Because as an individual at that level, their values will permeate the organization regardless of what this culture is. Right? Because, again, culture looks and feels different to everyone. Like, for me, I don’t want to play games. I don’t want to have chit chat and BS. Like, that’s not what makes a fulfilling culture for me in an organization. Podcast is for. Right.

Kristi Faltorusso:
I have actual CS friends for my culture stuff. So for me, I wanna understand, like, what do they personally value? And so for me, it might be even digging into things outside of work. Like, where does family rank in their core values? Right? Where does health and wellness rank in their core values? So if I’m asking a CEO, listen, this you spend majority of your time running this company, and I get that. When you’re not running this company, how are you spending your time? And I think their response to that and how they kind of elaborate will tell me a lot about who they are. Right? Is it their family? Is it work if you have somebody who’s like, nope. This is it. For me right now, at this stage in my life, like, it’s just this company, I don’t know that that’s gonna be an organization that I’m gonna thrive in at the level that I’d coming in at because their expectations for me are gonna be the same and to match their energy. And, honestly, I can’t give a company a 100% of me, not today or not ever.

Kristi Faltorusso:
So I want to know that somebody values family and balance and health and wellness and, like, these other things that are, though, that are really important to me. So I think for me, it’s gonna be less about culture and more about them. Like, let’s take a step back. I wanna get to know you on a on a deeper level. What are what is your life outside of this company look like?

Mike Sasaki:
Well, how do you dig into that? Because the 95% of individuals, when you ask them that, are gonna say, my family is the most important thing to do. Well, I

Kristi Faltorusso:
might ask them how do they spend their time. Right? Because yeah. Sure. Right? Like, my family is important to me, but, like, how I spend my time. Guess what? Like, I make sure that I have dinner with my my daughter every day. Every day. She comes home from school. She comes in my office.

Kristi Faltorusso:
She does her little wave and check-in and interrupts whatever thing I’m in the middle of. And then she knows at, like, 5:30, I can make myself available to cook her a meal 90% of the time. Mhmm. I have dinner with my kid. That’s gonna tell you about my my my cultural boundaries. Right? Like, my day is gonna end at 5:30, and I’m gonna go and I’m gonna step away, and I’m not gonna be available unless it’s urgent, right, or something pressing. I understand that. But, like, I’m prioritizing that.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Me and my husband, we value fitness. I’m gonna go for like, we exercise together. We go for runs together. Right? Like, so what I would talk about if someone was asking me that, I’m gonna give you specific examples of, like, how I’m spending time, how I’m showing up for my family, how I prioritize those things. And I think I would ask the line of questioning that would allow me to understand that. Like, great. You have kids. Do you go to their your kids play sports? Do you go to their

Mike Sasaki:
do you

Kristi Faltorusso:
go to their sporting events? Great. Your daughter dances. How did she do at her last thing? If you tell me you’ve missed her last three recitals because board meetings, okay. Well, then I I very clearly understand where your priorities lie. Not that board meetings aren’t important, but you know what I’m saying? So I think I would go down the line of questioning because if you’re coming in at an executive level, you should want to build a relationship with these people. These are gonna be who you spend all your time with. So I think when you’re at that level and that stage, asking those types of questions is organic, and it should just be part of the process because you have to connect with people.

Mike Sasaki:
Yeah. I love that answer. That that really gets to the forcing them to answer a question in a way that you can actually use that information.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Right. Or, like, tell me a time when you had a a work priority and a family priority. And how did you decide what what got your attention in that moment? Right? Like, even asking those types of behavioral style questions. Tell me a time when. Give me an example of. But challenge them to to to really show you where their priorities lie.

Mike Sasaki:
Yeah. I love it.

Jon Johnson:
I’ll the one thing that I’ll say because I completely agree with that. That is that is a huge part of it. One of the things that I, I I tend to ask often, especially if I’m in one of those skip level senior leadership, CCO level, when is the last time your perception or presumption was challenged by a low level employee in IC and it was changed? So what does it take for your opinion to be changed? If I’m coming in because I’m a high functioning strategic person, and again, we go back to the SME conversation. I have a ton of domain experience in what I’m doing. And if they’re unwilling to take the feedback from their team, it’s a huge red flag for me. It is absolutely imperative that not that every opinion is equal and that everybody has to have a say at the table, but if there is, like, a legitimate reason for us to have a conversation, and I’m bringing data to you and I’m bringing opinions to you and thoughts that are based on what our customers are saying, and you discard it because of my title

Mike Sasaki:
Mhmm.

Jon Johnson:
Then that’s not a company that I wanna work for. And I think that really feeds into culture. And when when it is shown across the board that, man, Melissa had a really great opinion and she’s a junior CSM. But I’m gonna take that data point, and I’m gonna I’m gonna sprinkle it in with the rest of whatever I need to get. And it’s actually gonna help inform thing. That that actually helps build that culture that we’re talking about, where you have the ability to have transparency and honesty.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Sean, can

Mike Sasaki:
I ask

Kristi Faltorusso:
you a question though on that on that specific frame that you want? No. Yes. That frame of question. So here’s what I’m gonna ask. So you might not change my mind, but we might change our process. So here’s the thing. Right? Like so I think also, like, I don’t think it should be about changing people’s minds or their perceptions of things.

Mike Sasaki:
Do we change

Kristi Faltorusso:
how we do things differently? So, for example, I had a CSM today send me an email about, like, how can we be better about setting communication expectations in Slack? Because everyone in our company hates Slack. We use it. We hate it. Everybody hates it. I know. So she brought some really great examples, and I said, awesome. Bring that to our team meeting tomorrow. You solicit everyone’s feedback.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Like, you run with it. I think it’s a great idea. I think it’s very valid, your point, your concern. I’m empowering you to now go and drive this forward, but that means you have to own this. Right? Like and that’s the other thing is, like so I’m gonna put it back on whoever brings something to me. That’s fine. I’m gonna empower you. I’m gonna enable you, but this is your thing.

Kristi Faltorusso:
And so if you don’t see it to its fruition and and bring it to the end, that’s not a shortcoming of mine. That’s a shortcoming of yours.

Mike Sasaki:
Yeah. I love that. And I think the best ideas come from the field. Right? They come from the field, and I’m all about experiments, and I’m all about ownership. So I like it when CSMs have their side thing that they’re working on to make our organization company better in addition to managing their book of business. Right? Those are the future leaders to me because they’re already thinking about, you know, how can I make things on a bigger scale, on a longer scale? And so, yeah, I love that.

Jon Johnson:
Yeah. And I think that that kinda wraps it up really nicely. Like, that’s that is, in my opinion, the job of the CCO, is to ensure that at every stage of your process, of your customer, of your organization, that not only the customers, but the people that are working directly with the customers, that their voices and their their thoughts and experiences are being shared with the rest of the executives. Because if something that the sales team or the product or the marketing team is doing that adversely affects the successful outcomes of your customers, and we don’t have a path to resolution behind that, then we’re all we’re all gonna lose. Awesome. Well, boy, howdy. I loved this conversation. Mike, is there anything where can people find you? Are you speaking anytime soon? Are you gonna be on-site anywhere? Are you gonna be speaking at Pulse this year?

Mike Sasaki:
You can find me on LinkedIn. Yep. Will be at Pulse, and I’m speaking at the customer success festival in Las Vegas. I think both of those will

Kristi Faltorusso:
May 22nd.

Mike Sasaki:
Both of those are in there.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Yep. May May 22nd for for the customer success festival in Vegas.

Jon Johnson:
Awesome. Well, we will be there.

Kristi Faltorusso:
I I was going to be. I’m not. I will be speaking at 2 events, though I’ve demo fest on 21st, and then I have Propel, Rocket Lanes event on 22nd. Oh, cool.

Jon Johnson:
Okay. And I’m on-site with customers during the the the Las Vegas one. And then I’m not gonna go to Pulse this year because I have budget approval to go to CS 100. So Yes. That that’s gonna be my focus this year.

Kristi Faltorusso:
You didn’t tell me.

Jon Johnson:
But I know. I just we just got it approved. So

Mike Sasaki:
We got a live reaction

Jon Johnson:
for free. I know. I’m excited. But, Mike, I would love to find a time if we’re ever kind of in in the in the world, together. I really appreciate this conversation. If anybody listening, wants to hire Mike and agrees with where he’s coming from And maybe I’ll get him up.

Mike Sasaki:
He also

Kristi Faltorusso:
wants to work at your company.

Jon Johnson:
That’s a better way to

Mike Sasaki:
say that.

Jon Johnson:
I would love to have you back on, Mike, when you when you do move into your next role and for us to have kind of a health update and or health check. I guess not a health update.

Mike Sasaki:
That’d be great. I could share what we’re working on and how it’s going, the the good Yeah. And the ugly. And if you’re ever in San Diego, hook me up.

Jon Johnson:
Awesome. I love it. Well, thank you guys so much. I’m gonna end. And if there’s a button, stop. How do you stop? Here we go.