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Kristi Faltorusso:
Oh, yeah. Yeah. We don’t do a whole big thing, Emily. Yeah.

Josh Schachter:
We don’t.

Kristi Faltorusso:
It’s a Yeah. Our our schtick is, like, we just jump in. Just jump in. Alright. We just jump in. Worry. We’ll is presented by UpdateAI. Oh, Christy.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Music and unchurned.

Josh Schachter:
What about straight to Emily instead of introducing ourselves?

Kristi Faltorusso:
Forced incredible relationships and stories you can use to advance your own career. Here’s your host, Josh Schechter.

Josh Schachter:
Hey, everybody. Welcome to this episode of CS and BS, unchurned. Christy, we should talk about that because I don’t

Kristi Faltorusso:
know if you noticed about that. I I did talk about I talked about it with John. I I did not talk about it with you, and we didn’t talk about it together. So

Josh Schachter:
Okay. Well, but but John’s not here today.

Kristi Faltorusso:
He is not here yet.

Josh Schachter:
Let’s but let’s let’s

Kristi Faltorusso:
take a look. Now?

Josh Schachter:
Yeah. And then we’ll introduce our guest. Yeah.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Okay. So we think that we wanna go under the unchurned umbrella with, like, kinda like a CS and BS byline, like a tagline, but, like, keep it under unchurned. And so we need to have that conversation, I think, is where we need to

Josh Schachter:
go this fast. Conversation that you didn’t want, like, my name popping up all the time. Right? I think that’s what John has said to me.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Listen. That’s John’s thing. I have my own listen. When you Google me, I have plenty of stuff. I’m okay. Oh, we are. Maybe maybe John wants to make sure that he’s getting some visibility for all of his hard work here.

Josh Schachter:
Yeah. Yeah. And he should. And he should.

Kristi Faltorusso:
He should.

Josh Schachter:
Yeah. And he’s already got his his music on Spotify, which is incredible.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Right. Right. So there’s

Josh Schachter:
that. So what is it? So hi. I’m Josh. This is Christie. This is Unchurned.

Kristi Faltorusso:
And that’s Emily?

Josh Schachter:
Well, we haven’t introduced her yet. We do that afterwards.

Kristi Faltorusso:
But people can see her.

Josh Schachter:
So this is this is Unchurned. Okay. This is Unchurned, and this is Emily. So, everybody, welcome. We’d love to welcome this week Emily Lockhart. Emily is the vice president of customer success at Percona. Emily, it’s such a pleasure to have you on the program, and I always botch the the companies, that of our guests and what they do and kind of everything. So I wanna give you the opportunity to introduce to the world to every all of our 5 listeners, a little bit about Percona.

Emily Lockhart:
Awesome. Thank you so much for having me. It’s so great to be here with you guys. So yeah. So Percona, we are an open source database software and services company. We provide solutions for our customers that are looking for top notch open source software, as well as the support and services to help them manage their database infrastructure. And, fun fact, we’re a globally remote company that was actually founded that way over 15 years ago.

Josh Schachter:
Awesome. Wow. 15 years ago. Wow. Yeah. They bucked the trend. Yeah. Yep.

Josh Schachter:
Yeah. So, so you’ve been with them for a little over 4 years now. Started as a manager of CS and director, now vice president of customer success. Tell us a little bit about what your org looks like. Not not literally what they look like, but, you know, composition wise.

Emily Lockhart:
All great looking people. Fortunate to carry the weight. So, yeah, so I’ve been there for, almost four and a half years in progressive roles like you said. It’s been an amazing journey, and have had the privilege of working with, just such a diverse group of people both within my team and across our customers. But I have 3 teams, under the customer success umbrella. So I’ve got customer success managers, which you you would expect. I also have service delivery managers, which focus, they’re kind of like a hybrid project management and account management role that focus on our managed services customers. And then I’ve got technical account managers, which are kind of, one of our most senior, technical resources that have kind of hung up there, like, hands on keyboard work with our customers and are focusing on, like, strategic account management, with some of our biggest and most complex customers.

Emily Lockhart:
So each a little different function, but all focused on creating great relationships with our customers that drive value and help them achieve their goals.

Josh Schachter:
There’s this trend. Christy, I know. We did it at the same time. Ladies first.

Kristi Faltorusso:
No. Talk about your trend.

Josh Schachter:
There’s a trend of, of CSAMs, customer success account managers, which is a ridiculous concatenation of titles altogether. You’ve got Microsoft. You’ve got DocuSign. You’ve got other companies that are doing this. It kinda makes sense. I get it. They just need a new kind of title around it. But is that something that’s kinda come the way of Percona? Have you guys had conversations about bringing do do you guys own renewals, first of all? And if so, does has that trend kind of passed through the boardroom table conversations?

Emily Lockhart:
Yeah. So, I can thankfully say we’ve been there, done that. We, yes. So we do own renewals. And last year, we, we went through a reorg, where we did kind of separate out those functions where we had customer account managers. We dropped the s. Just went cam. And, and then we had our customer success managers that, were focused on more on onboarding and separation of church and state and, separation of church and state and recombined that role.

Emily Lockhart:
So, our customer success managers are now kind of doing both of those things, as the the role was originally, imagined.

Josh Schachter:
It it broke up a little bit for me, Christy. Were you hearing Emily throughout?

Kristi Faltorusso:
No. It also broke up. So I didn’t want to interrupt because I didn’t know if it was getting the audio was getting recorded. So

Josh Schachter:
It may still probably Google still go through to our listeners. And, Manali, you can edit all this out, by the way. So so we’re not filming this right now. Do you what do you think about your Wi Fi, Emily? Do you, do you think we should be pretty decent right now?

Emily Lockhart:
Okay. Not a microphone issue. Can you hear me now?

Kristi Faltorusso:
Is that better?

Josh Schachter:
Well, that does sound better, but that wasn’t the issue. Yeah.

Emily Lockhart:
Right.

Josh Schachter:
It’s doing it now again.

Emily Lockhart:
Oh, it is? Oh, no.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Yeah. You’re frozen, and we can’t we can’t hear.

Emily Lockhart:
Alright. I’m looking. My Wi Fi settings. Looks okay. Am I still frozen?

Kristi Faltorusso:
No. Not anymore. Okay. Oh,

Josh Schachter:
I think a thing called low data mode. Are you guys there? Can you hear me?

Emily Lockhart:
What? No. Yeah. I lost

Josh Schachter:
You can’t see.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Yeah. But I can’t see either of you.

Josh Schachter:
Off everyone’s live video, high quality local video recording continues as normal. So you’ll basically have to I think when we end this call, you’re gonna have to just keep the tab open, and it’s gonna, like, upload from your local as it does it. I think that should help us out.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Okay.

Josh Schachter:
Cool.

Emily Lockhart:
Should I go off camera?

Josh Schachter:
No. No. You’re you are off camera. You’re only on camera to yourself. So stay as you are. Yeah. And then it’s gonna it’s gonna upload. Yeah.

Josh Schachter:
So we’re all still on camera, but, like, we don’t see each other live. But afterwards, it’ll upload the recording.

Emily Lockhart:
Okay.

Josh Schachter:
We’re fancy like that. Okay. Alright. So where do where should we start? Okay. So, Christy

Emily Lockhart:
You want me to read

Josh Schachter:
Well, Christy and I people. Christy and I stepped on each other’s toes, then I won that power struggle. I asked

Kristi Faltorusso:
her make sure that her point her point, got across, like, that that was recorded. I don’t wanna miss that.

Josh Schachter:
Yeah. So okay. So

Kristi Faltorusso:
her answering your question.

Josh Schachter:
So I was asking him so has this whole alright. So here we go. So so across DocuSign and and Microsoft, you got this whole trend of CSAM, customer success account managers, some concatenation of all the roles combined. Has that trend, you know, come over to you guys, yet?

Emily Lockhart:
Yeah. Yeah. So we, I was saying, like, been there been there, done that. So as part of, one of our reorgs last year, we did we actually separated the customer success manager role that was focused on onboarding and product adoption and, and customer health and things like that, and, separated the renewals and and developed a customer account manager role. So we removed the s, and it was just customer account manager. And that, role was focused on purely the commercials, with renewals and expansion. Since then, we’ve reverted back to, kind of merging those those roles under a single, customer success manager role, and I think our our team is happier. I think, you know, you you find that there’s no better way to build trust with your customers than being in the trenches with them, helping them through bugs and service delivery issues and, and things like that that all all seem to benefit, when renewal time hits.

Josh Schachter:
Awesome. Christy, you go ahead. Christy, we’re gonna we’ll see if we still keep

Kristi Faltorusso:
Is it my turn? Is it my turn? Yes. So, Emily, you you mentioned that your team your organization is made up of 3 teams. You had success, services, and then you said these technical AMs. Typically, when you hear a VP of customer success, they’ll usually talk about technical support, in their org, and so you didn’t mention that. I was curious. Is that part of your team, or where does that sit in the business?

Emily Lockhart:
Yeah. So our technical account managers are kind of that liaison with our support team our technical support team, but that is just such a different beast with the, with the technical nature of our business that, that sits under our global services team, and that’s under a separate VP.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Got it.

Josh Schachter:
How’d you get into customer success, Emily?

Emily Lockhart:
So I, actually have an interesting background or maybe not.

Josh Schachter:
Of course. It’s interesting.

Emily Lockhart:
Coming from my background is in, actually the health care and nonprofit sector, and I had, focused on communications and fundraising and some operations work, over the last, like, decade or so. And, you know, I knew or got the feeling that I was kind of looking for a change, and was looking for kind of different opportunities and career growth, but wanted to stick with the the feeling that I was making an impact. And so as I was looking into tech and different industries, to make that jump, I stumbled across, you know, both the open source world, as well as customer success, and, I really felt like, you know, the open source industry, or community, I guess, within within tech really is that bridge kind of from the nonprofit sector where, like, it really focuses on collaboration and authenticity and transparency and making the world a better place, that that really felt, like it bridged that that jump for me. And then customer success too, like, felt like kind of this beautiful way to transition work that I had been doing with fundraising, which is kinda like the sales world of the nonprofit sector, and communications and, and kind of, like, client focused work, on the on the corporate side.

Josh Schachter:
And what’s in what way like, what’s the biggest way that it’s been different from what you thought going into it?

Emily Lockhart:
I think well, my own expectation was, like, I needed to be super technical, and I was gonna have to kind of really onboard and and, have that steep learning curve quickly. But I think, you know, there’s so many that misconception that, I think that you have to be super technical to be in tech, is one that I have kind of overcome now. And then I think the other piece is, like, you know, I was thinking that in the nonprofit sector, you have, like, all this flexibility and collaboration, and that maybe wouldn’t be present in, in the corporate world, but, I found it to be the opposite and been really pleasantly surprised that way.

Josh Schachter:
So we, we have, the benefit of having somebody who knows a ton about CS and has been in it for years years years, on the show, as our co host. And then there’s also Christie.

Kristi Faltorusso:
I really I saw

Josh Schachter:
that coming. I saw

Kristi Faltorusso:
that coming.

Josh Schachter:
So sorry. You did. But, I I’m starting to ask our guests guests, what are, like, what is on their agenda right now? What are the top priorities, challenges that they’re faced with? Like, what’s what are what are you solving for? Like, what are your top 3 this year? It’s crazy to say we’re almost halfway through 2020 4. Isn’t that nuts? But what are your top three things that you’re solving for this year for your team at Percona?

Emily Lockhart:
Oh, I think I may have missed the first part of your question.

Kristi Faltorusso:
It kinda

Josh Schachter:
cut out. First part was really just was just kind of mocking Christie. But, what are the the what are the top three challenges or priorities that you’re solving for at Percona this year? And then I wanna open up a little dialogue with Christy and you and kinda talk through them together. I can’t be really of any help because I am not a practitioner that knows much about it, but but Christy’s here.

Emily Lockhart:
Great. I think that’s a great question. Like, so first and foremost, it’s always about delivering value and, I think meeting the changing needs of our customers and the market and what that looks like. And so we’re kind of, trying to continuously improve and iterate on what that value looks like with, in terms of what we can deliver both on the software side and the services side, and then, you know, see us as kind of that that go between, between our customers and and the delivery side. So that is definitely top, top of mind.

Josh Schachter:
So value delivery.

Kristi Faltorusso:
So making

Josh Schachter:
sure there’s clear value delivery to your customers.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Yep. Cool.

Josh Schachter:
I think that’s gonna be on the top of your list of your priority list for quite a long time. Maybe like the rest of your career.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Yeah. Forever. Forever.

Josh Schachter:
So how are you doing that? Like, what’s the problem within that? Or not problem. Like, what’s the, like, what what’s the what’s the area that you’re really focused on within value delivery this year?

Emily Lockhart:
This year, I think so having gone through a recent reorg, and total shakeup within our, account teams with their their customer base, and their book of business, really, it’s about building relationships and getting close to our customers and understanding their roadmaps and and their own needs so that we can map map what we have, to and and bring the most value quickly to them.

Josh Schachter:
So getting closer to the customer. Yeah. Christy, how do you how how are you guys going about this? Like, what are what are some best practices that that you’ve kinda seen in this realm?

Kristi Faltorusso:
Yeah. I think, you know so it would be interesting, Emily, to dig into there with you is just understanding, like, what the specific challenge is. So one of the things that we focused on at client success and something that it’s a model that I’ve deployed at a few different companies is just making sure that one, upfront we understand how we’re defining value for each of our customers. Now what we’ve found is that, and maybe this is something you’ve run into, most of our customers struggle significantly to articulate what that value is. Right? They thought they’re solving for something. There was some pain that brought them here, but when you ask them to quantify or, like, come up with a smart goal or metrics in which they’re using to measure the partnership, is like radio silence. And so what we’ve done is we’ve put together some frameworks that help our customers get there and then really focus on tracking them with that, kinda like a maniacal focus actually on that tracking mechanism. Because at the end of the day, I talk to CSMs all the time, and I ask them, you know, what is your what’s the primary objective of your job? Well, it’s to deliver value for our customers.

Kristi Faltorusso:
And I’m like, great. How are you tracking that? And it’s like, nobody knows because nobody knows what the value is. So I’m curious to see is, like, is that the problem that you’re solving for? Is there something deeper where there’s a gap in the ability based on the the previous org structure or product or your processes or something something more tangible that you think you’re diving into here?

Emily Lockhart:
Yeah. I think, so we have a lot of those metrics in place. You know, we’re looking at things like, utilization, engagement, CSAT, NPS, all the all the good stuff. Right? All the all the classic KPIs. But I think, yeah, at this point, it’s really around time that our team hasn’t had until recently because of the stability, to really focus on that. And another thing that we’re looking at so when we kind of went through this most recent shakeup, we, you know, we had to do more with less. And so we created this hybrid high touch tech touch account segmentation strategy from, a a defined team that we had of high touch CSMs and and tech touch. And so looking at kind of putting that segmentation back in place so they’re not having to do so much code switching and, you know, jumping back and forth and really have time to sit down and and put those pieces in place like you just mentioned.

Josh Schachter:
How how are you guys defining value delivered to the the customer, or how are they defining value?

Kristi Faltorusso:
That’s what I was just gonna ask because the metrics you listed off made sense as internal metrics, maybe to hold your CSMs accountable. But I was curious to understand is, like, how your customers are defining value for the partnership, because I’m assuming that would be the value delivery that you’re more focused on.

Emily Lockhart:
Right. Yeah. So within the database sector, like, I think we’re looking at reliability, scalability, high availability, things like that. Like, they don’t want any downtime

Josh Schachter:
of

Emily Lockhart:
their application or their databases because that all equates to money. Mhmm. So, like, looking at that, it’s kind of our key

Josh Schachter:
value for our customers. I mean, I’m gonna intentionally reduce this, Emily, and then you you tell me how I’m wrong. Right? Is it just as easy as, like, yeah, there was good uptime. The the the the the data’s flowing, you know, at a performant level. Like, you’re cheaper than the competitors. Like, we’re good here. What we’re gonna renew? Or, you know and it’s obviously I’m setting up a straw man. But, like, what else is it there as part of, like, the value delivery that you’re that you’re trying to demonstrate to them? That that stuff’s all table stakes, but, like, here’s why you know, here’s where we’re gonna get expansion from, and here’s why you should not, switch over to anybody else.

Emily Lockhart:
Yeah. Yeah. So I think our main value prop is really around, being both open sort. We we, build and package our own distributions of upstream and community, databases, and so that software is free and available for anyone to download. And so that combined with our services really provides this, holistic solution that is truly like, we’re talking 1,000,000 and 1,000,000 of dollars in savings from, from the enterprise vendors. Right? And so that is, like, our main value prop. And I think with the, with the other sorry. I just totally lost my train of thought.

Emily Lockhart:
No.

Josh Schachter:
Totally. I mean, what you’re what you’re talking about is is what we hear all the time right now. It’s like this is companies are are are being shaken up, rift, you know, kinda turned upside down. And, at the end of the day, leaders are are asked to do kind of the whole it’s a it’s a platitude, but more with less. And, and it’s it’s it’s tough. So you’re you’re kind of coming back to normalcy now or new normalcy and trying to figure out how to how to really scale scale your relationships with your customers in meaningful ways where you can make sure that you’re measuring their value and that they’re aware of all the value. And in this case, it sounds like performance and also cost savings. Sounds like kind of the program that you’re that you’re most focused on right now.

Josh Schachter:
Is that is that a fair analysis?

Emily Lockhart:
Yes. Yes. And I just remembered the where I was going with all of that. And so, yeah, the the customer’s ability to thank you. Customer’s ability to kind of inform what they wanna see in our software and and kinda drive those, feature requests and things like that, I think is another, big value prop.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Yeah. Yeah.

Josh Schachter:
What’s number 2 on your list of priorities for this year?

Emily Lockhart:
So, yeah, I think I already kind of scratched on the, the, bringing the Hightouch and TechTouch account segmentation model back together. I’d like to, I wanna start looking at, you know, really having putting that account segmentation back into place so that, the the teams can really focus and, you know, identify

Josh Schachter:
that value. That work, like like, map that out for us or help us visualize that bringing those the the high touch and the tech touch back together? What does it what does that mean exactly?

Emily Lockhart:
So I think what I’d like to do I mean, they’re very different models of account management. Right? And so looking at separating those back into, you know, having, a portion of the team be focused just on those high touch enterprise customers and then look at what we can do. I mean, we’ve come so far with, AI and, and technology in the just in even in the past 4 years since I’ve been here that, feel like we really have an opportunity to kind of reimagine what that that tech touch touchpoint looks like and and how we roll that out. So, excited to kinda dig into that.

Josh Schachter:
What interests you or, like, what’s out there for for AI for Tech Talk?

Emily Lockhart:
Well, we, we’re just scratching the surface with it, at Percona. We just got UpdateAI, as our

Josh Schachter:
That was not that that was actually not intended to be no. No. No. No. I wasn’t like, I actually almost did not ask the question for that reason. Because tech touch. Right? We’re a little bit more high touch with with you know, it’s based on meetings interactions. So but thank you, Emily.

Josh Schachter:
Yes. Okay.

Emily Lockhart:
Yes. Yeah. But we’re using it, yeah, as a CI tool. And, I mean, maybe we’re behind the curve. I mean, our our, sales team has been using a tool for ages and, but I think like it’s really really already kind of transforming our team’s ability to, be more efficient and kind of send quick responses and, and just have those insights into kind of what’s happening across their customer base so that they can quickly see, you know, like, this is happening here with this customer. Like, is this a a one off or a trend? So so looking at that, and then, yeah, like, just kind of automating playbooks and, and things like that. Did I lose you guys again?

Kristi Faltorusso:
A little.

Josh Schachter:
It it might recover, in in the the final output. So you were saying looking at that, and then you’re you’re going on to a different kind of aspect of things that you were looking at. Oh, we might have lost you again.

Emily Lockhart:
Oh, no.

Josh Schachter:
We can hear you.

Emily Lockhart:
Can you hear me now? Now I can. Can you? I’m here.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Okay. Yes.

Emily Lockhart:
Okay. Yeah. So yeah. So the other thing we’re looking at is, like, still in that same vein of customer value and and kinda getting closer to the customer, with revamping our executive sponsor program and, and launching a customer advisory board. So I’d love to hear your guys’ your experiences with, customer advisory boards and how those have have worked and and, you know, kind of been transformative because this is my first foray into that.

Josh Schachter:
Yeah. I mean, well, listen. We’re we’re as you know, we’re a growing startup. We’re a different different scale, but I love them. I I come from a product background, so speaking to the customer directly is the most important thing for us. And just your question now just comes off the the the heel of, my emailing our user base this morning, telling them that SendGrid lost our customer advisory board contacts and asking for new volunteers to join our board. And so, like, literally, I’m in my inbox right now. I’m getting responses now of folks.

Josh Schachter:
And so we we we utilize them, like, very much. We have surveys that that go out to people, and we have questions about, like, what are the different types of product experiences that they wanna see. We do group focus groups, and we have new products that are coming out or just came out. We wanna get feedback from them. We actually also, in this new go around, wanna create a WhatsApp group of all of our product advisory board users so they can all communicate with each other and help each other solve questions about what they’re up to in their careers. Because I’ve I’ve noticed we’ve done this a little bit now with, like, the CCO club, which is our our new, brand around all these, workshops that we do where you and I met, Emily. And, we’ve noticed that people are really active in those communities, really helping each other. So, you know, wanna give people a purpose more than just helping us, also for them to network, you know, within their own groups.

Josh Schachter:
Anyway, so at at a startup level, it’s, like, it’s done wonders for us. It’s a night and day for us. I don’t know, Christy. What what do you guys do for your cabs and and whatnot?

Kristi Faltorusso:
Well, so I would say first, I think it’s fine and fair to distinguish between you can have a CAB, which would be a customer advisory board, and you can have a PAB, a product advisory board. And those two things can be very different. And so Josh sounds like you’re leaning more into the product advisory board Yes. Motion, which makes a ton of sense because of the stage that you’re

Josh Schachter:
at.

Kristi Faltorusso:
So, Emily, I will say I’ve done I’ve done both, independently. I’ve done both of those at the same company. So they are very different, and so I think it depends on what your objectives are. Like, when we’ve done CAVs, the customer advisory boards, these are really formal, motions where we had created big programs around it where we were, like, orchestrating quarterly meetings with these, very senior executives. We weren’t talking about product. We were really talking about industry and vision and partnership. It was it was much different conversation, and there it required a lot of resourcing and and structure and funding, quite frankly. And then when we’ve done the product advisory boards, it does feel a little bit more casual in the sense that it is about soliciting feedback and getting folks into beta and working with them collaboratively on the innovation of your technology.

Kristi Faltorusso:
So I would say, well, I guess my first question to you is, are you which one of those sounds more like what you’re doing?

Emily Lockhart:
Yeah. So I think, yeah, the product side is probably more. We are currently with a goal of kind of getting to the customer advisory more strategic, high level, high level side.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Yeah. That makes sense. Most people, I think, do start with the product advisory board, and I think it that is a great place to start because the the customer advisory board is, like I said, it takes a lot of time. It takes a lot of resources, and it’s not something you wanna get wrong ever because of the caliber of people that you’re inviting to participate. And in fact, some one of the companies I worked for where we did the CAB, I mean, the people that we had part of that advisory board, there was compensation, some in equity, some in in revenue, and so, you know, it’s a it was a very strategic role. It wasn’t like, hey. Come volunteer and give us some time and, like, lean in here. Some of them weren’t even our customers.

Kristi Faltorusso:
They were industry professionals and and visionaries in the spaces in which we operated. So in that case, what I would say is, like, those programs had to be very well thought out, very well orchestrated, and it was a big investment from our executive leadership teams and, you know, financially, an investment. Whereas the product advisory board, I think often we just got immediate value from, and so it’s all I always tell people, like, start there because it’s it’s easier, and it could be a little bit more, it it requires less from the teams to orchestrate them. It can be a little bit more casual and more interactive, and I think that actually fuels more of a community. So, like, what Josh is doing, I think that parley is really well, and so, like, him creating a WhatsApp group makes perfect sense as, like, a next step to bring these folks together because the individuals that you’re usually pulling into that, they’re usually part of your your customer base or prospects. They are very interactive. They’re wanting to solution and help each other, and so that naturally should be happening. And then giving them a a place to do that more formally allows your brand to be at the center of that.

Kristi Faltorusso:
So if that’s what you’re doing, I think that you’re you’re definitely onto something. I think that’s the most fun one too.

Emily Lockhart:
Yeah. Yeah. Oh, thank you. That’s great.

Josh Schachter:
Thank you for educating me, Kristi, on the difference between product and customer advisory boards. Seriously. I,

Kristi Faltorusso:
Oh, Oh, we can go into it. There’s a lot more there, Josh.

Josh Schachter:
For me to thank you for. Yeah. I agree.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Yeah.

Josh Schachter:
Emily, you know, it’s a tough year for everybody. Lots of people we all speak to every week that are are out there looking for the next role. They’re they’re free agents right now. What what do you look for when you’re hiring? I don’t know if you guys are hiring now, but when you are in that hiring phase, what what are some of the skills that you’re looking for for folks across your team?

Emily Lockhart:
Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, taking my own experience into account, I know, like, you can have success with the right combination of interpersonal skills, excellent problem solving abilities, and and because, you know, we do own the renewal, you gotta have a strong sales acumen. But, I think everything else like product knowledge and industry specific skills, we can teach. So, you know, a few key things I look for when interviewing new team members, We don’t have any openings at the moment, but stay tuned. We might, in the near future. But what what I try to focus on, and build within our team are around, like, empathy, strong communication skills, like I said, problem solving skills, a lean toward proactivity. I want people that are, you know, continuous learners.

Emily Lockhart:
And at the end of the day, like, a positive attitude and and kind of resilience or thick skin are really important in customer success.

Josh Schachter:
So the perfect person, basically.

Emily Lockhart:
Yeah.

Josh Schachter:
Exactly. For me, it’d be productivity. Like, leaning in and ownership. That’s just for me, that’s always, the biggest sign. How how do you how do you look for some of those traits that are more important when during the interview process? Is it just kinda, like, gut intuition? I mean, you can tell somebody’s communication skills. You can kinda tell their their earnestness and those sorts of things when you’re talking to them. Are there any specific things that you do or look out for?

Emily Lockhart:
Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. A lot of it you can tell just with the how they communicate throughout the interview process, and following up and things like that. Yeah. Some of it is gut and intuition, and then we do some, like, you know, behavioral based interviewing questions, like, tell me about a time when you x y z, to to talk about, you know, their history, in working through different, different problems and situations. Wait.

Josh Schachter:
Let’s let’s interview Christy right now. What’s one question that you would have to enter what trait do we want to to evaluate Christy on? Just pick 1, Emily, out of all the ones that you listed.

Emily Lockhart:
Oh. Oh. Yeah. Let’s go with proactivity. Proactivity.

Josh Schachter:
Oh, well, Kristen, you’re gonna crush this. Right? Alright. So let I hope so.

Kristi Faltorusso:
So I haven’t interviewed in a long time.

Josh Schachter:
Yeah. Well, so, yeah, I’m I’m gonna step out of the way here. I’m the recruiter. I just, you know, brought Christy into your office, Emily, and you’re jumping straight to the productivity question. Ready, set, go. Oh my gosh. Christy Christy, I’m

Emily Lockhart:
the one that has

Kristi Faltorusso:
to answer it. I’m the one on the spot.

Emily Lockhart:
I’m alright. So proactivity. Tell me about how you approach, yeah, tell me about how you how you approach proactivity with your customers, from an account management perspective.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Okay. Not fair because the audio cut out, Emily. So I missed the whole question, which means however I answered is gonna be wrong. Can you repeat the question,

Josh Schachter:
please? Perfect.

Emily Lockhart:
Yes. So describe your yeah. So I guess I I probably wouldn’t even, give away that I, like, was trying to get a sense of their proactivity. So I would say something like, yeah, describe your account management philosophy or how you approach account account management with your customers.

Kristi Faltorusso:
So my approach would be first by starting to understand how they’re defining value and then working with them in collaboration to define a suitable program that meets their needs and expectations. So what I mean by that is, obviously, every customer has a desired way that they want to engage with their partners, and so leaning into that. Right? We’re gonna have recommended ways, but, ultimately, they’re gonna dictate to us what they can engage us on and how they would wanna do that to see that value through. So as I’m working with my customers, the first thing I would do is, 1, make sure that we’ve got a clear understanding of how they’re defining their goals and the metrics around that because at the end of the day, that is how we’re ultimately being measured against. The second thing would be designing a mutual plan with them to understand how we’re gonna get there. That is gonna be through the product and through the partnership, so maybe some consultative way that we’re approaching their training enablement, their change management, their organization. The third thing was, after I obviously get that all locked down, is to make sure that we’ve got a way to track all this over time, and then my proactive approach to engaging my customers would be to make sure that we’re maniacally focused on getting them there. Now this might mean, you know, a set cadence of engagement earlier on in the partnership to make sure that we’re establishing what this will look like, and so maybe that’s a biweekly approach, maybe weekly, monthly, whatever.

Kristi Faltorusso:
As we move further down the partnership, that might need to be adjusted as they start to really take hold of the the product in their organization and start to get to that value. But, ultimately, would be engaged on those metrics and making sure that I’m doing everything I can and within my power and based on the engagement we’ve established together to help them realize that value at the end. Ultimately, my goal would be able to articulate that we’ve achieved those goals to the broader organization so that they’re seeing that value, and we’ll continue the partnership.

Emily Lockhart:
You’re hired. I tried to I tried to do that

Kristi Faltorusso:
in like 30 seconds or less. That was so painful.

Emily Lockhart:
Thanks, Josh.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Okay. Broad questions, Emily.

Emily Lockhart:
Well, you gave very specific answers. That was great.

Kristi Faltorusso:
I feel like that’s what people want. Well, I mean, that’s what I would wanna hear. I’d wanna hear the specificity. If I was asking a broad question, I don’t want a broad answer.

Josh Schachter:
Well, what do you what do you ask, Kristy? Christy?

Emily Lockhart:
Right?

Josh Schachter:
How do you how do you gauge somebody’s productivity? Okay.

Kristi Faltorusso:
So, like Emily, I do all of the, behavioral style questions. Right? So tell me a time when, give me an example of, and so everything that we have is broken down into different things. So, like, the interview process we have is, like, focused on account management, being one of them. Right? So I might say, like, tell me a time when you were faced with a customer who was who disengaged from the partnership early in onboarding and never got to a point where they it was, like, basically failure to launch. Right? Tell me, how did you navigate that? What did you do? How did you get them back on track? What was the result? And so I’ll have them tell me a story that is specifically aligned to that. Now if somebody doesn’t have that that exact experience, which is it happens if you’re hiring somebody who’s a little less experienced, I might say, how would you approach that? And so what I’m looking for is, like, are they going through the proper processes there that I would assume a customer success manager would go and execute against. Right? Or it’s like, tell me, what do you do when you find that, you know and I give all the basic situational ones. Right? Like, tell me a time when you lost an executive sponsor and there was a gap in the partnership for an extended period of time.

Kristi Faltorusso:
How did you keep the organization engaged to maintain the partnership and value realization? Things like that. So I’m always looking for just ways that they’ve approached things throughout their experiences. And then again, if they don’t have those experiences, I wanna hear how they would. Now, obviously, if you’re interviewing somebody for a senior role, you’re looking for specific things. And if it’s a more junior role, you’re you’re probably there’s expectations are slightly different.

Josh Schachter:
And and, Christy, in your interviews, when you’re interviewing others to work for you, do you, allow them to talk, or or or do you do most of the talking?

Kristi Faltorusso:
No. No, Josh. I don’t. I ask. I do all the talking, and I tell them that they can send me a Loom video later in the week, with their responses Yeah. To anything I said. And I don’t talk. I just ask questions.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Be nice to me.

Josh Schachter:
Especially after the post you wrote this morning. How can I not be I know it was so sweet?

Kristi Faltorusso:
I know. This is where that part where I said you bother me comes in.

Emily Lockhart:
Yep. Uh-huh.

Josh Schachter:
Well, this is good. This is good, guys. We should do it again. We should invite John next time. I know he was he was jealous. Emily, thank you so much.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Emily, we still got you?

Emily Lockhart:
Yes. I’m here. I’m here.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Poor Manah. I know. I feel like we we we didn’t do Emily justice, with this interaction today. I apologize. I feel like our our technical difficulties got the best of us. No.

Emily Lockhart:
No. I’m sorry.

Josh Schachter:
It’s I

Emily Lockhart:
hope it wasn’t my my No.

Kristi Faltorusso:
We’ll have no. No. No. They’ll they’ll our producers, editors, they’re great at pulling together everything anyway, so it’ll

Josh Schachter:
be wonderful. See what we usually sound like before the, the show is edited. Right? They they do wonders. Yes. To say the least.

Kristi Faltorusso:
They usually just have to, like, edit all of Josh’s comments.

Josh Schachter:
They help me stay and canceled. Emily, thank you so much for being on the show. It was great. It was great to hear your history, how you got into CS, what’s going on with Percona, you know, your priorities this year, going after value, value proposition discovery, and making sure that that, you know, you’re aligned with your customers on that. And, yeah, wish you the best of luck throughout the rest of the year. Have a wonderful summer. Thank you so much for being with us.

Emily Lockhart:
Yes. Thanks so much for having me, you guys.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Thanks, Emily.