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Kristi Faltorusso:
Unchurned is presented by UpdateAI.

Brian Hansen:
Yes. Yeah. There is there is an upfront. And then as it goes along, you get additional payouts quarter by quarter by quarter.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Oh, that’s kinda cool.

Brian Hansen:
Yep. And But based on usage? Usage. Usage base. Yes. Yeah. So are they

Kristi Faltorusso:
sell the right customers who

Brian Hansen:
have been onboarded successfully, and,

Kristi Faltorusso:
you know, there is a

Kristi Faltorusso:
little bit of, like, leaving some

Kristi Faltorusso:
of that money, though, in somebody else’s control, which as a salesperson, I don’t know that I would love that so much. But there is a level of accountability that I think could be tied to it. I also like that it’s not a frozen point in time, right, where it’s like, okay. 6 months from now, you get that last payment, and then you’re done. Right?

Brian Hansen:
That’s right. Yeah. It’s it’s it’s ongoing.

Kristi Faltorusso:
So they’ll always get paid. So if they’re gonna come work for you because I will sell my own deals, and then I will CS my own deals, and then I’ll just keep making money is what you’re telling me.

Brian Hansen:
Keep making money. Longtime listener, first thing

Kristi Faltorusso:
I wanna do is I wanna do everything. Unlike a lot of our guests, is that he actually has listened to the show before he’s joined, so he knows what he’s getting into for better or worse.

Josh Schachter:
Brian is one of our greatest listeners. Yeah. Go ahead, Brian.

Brian Hansen:
I I mean, I’d like for you guys just to make fun of each other for a little while. That’s I know that’s that’s how how it usually goes. And I’m

Kristi Faltorusso:
It’s usually more fun when John is here because Yeah. 2 against 1 is always better odds. It always makes for that or else it feels hostile. Yeah. If

Brian Hansen:
you just go

Kristi Faltorusso:
back and forth.

Josh Schachter:
Yeah. That’s fair. But, Christy, I do your your hair is looking lovely today.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Oh, thank you.

Josh Schachter:
I don’t know how many hours you spent doing it this morning, but

Kristi Faltorusso:
it’s A little a little less than usual because yesterday, I had to go to a birthday party in Flushing, Queens to do karaoke. Mhmm. Oh. Which if anyone knows me, like, this is, like, literally my worst nightmare, especially now that I’ve not I I don’t drink alcohol anymore for the past 2 years. So I’m like Yeah. I don’t know so were people that do karaoke. At least I’ve never come across any. But this group is not only, like they are, like, committed.

Kristi Faltorusso:
There’s, like, full performances that were going on, and I just sat there. It was, like, it was, like, a show. So

Josh Schachter:
And did you get,

Kristi Faltorusso:
like, a dim sum? Bit of

Brian Hansen:
a hack. I got a bit of a hack for karaoke, which I picked up last time, which is if you’re not into the singing part, go for hip hop songs, then you can do the the rhyming, and it is way easier and, like, the crowd loves it as well.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Oh. So my hack is always figure out who the audience is, what music they like, and then pick a song that they will all just organically sing along to, because then it becomes a sing along and not karaoke.

Brian Hansen:
That makes sense.

Kristi Faltorusso:
So, like, I always watch, like, the first couple song choices by everybody in the room and kinda get a sense of, like, alright. What’s the genre? What’s the vibe? What are we going for? What’s the decade? That’s important. I I realized that yesterday that I was the oldest person in the room, and our music selections couldn’t have been less aligned.

Brian Hansen:
What what did you go with then? What was the selection?

Kristi Faltorusso:
Oh, Brian, like I said, sobriety has kept me very clear from holding a microphone. I was happy to be a backup singer, a clapper, a supporter, but I was not I was not on the mic yesterday, but I was very impressed by my friends.

Josh Schachter:
Alright. Well, Brian, if you listen to the show often, then you know that I jump in and and steer us back on course when we get too much bantering. So, I wanna introduce Brian Hanson. Brian is the director of customer success at Aurora. And, I’d rather actually you tell folks what Aurora does. I know you’ve got this amazing mission to to empower solar for all effectively.

Brian Hansen:
That’s right.

Josh Schachter:
But tell everybody out there about Aurora.

Brian Hansen:
Yep. It’s it’s Aurora Solar and, the company mission is a future of a solar future for for all. And, it is it’s really cool, man. I’ve I’ve gotten into climate tech just over the last year or so. Couple years, it’s it’s been in. And it was a very, intentional move for me, coming from other industries. And I really wanted to be in a place that had a mission like this, and I could go to work every day and really work on solving big problems. And, certainly, you know, energy is is a huge one.

Brian Hansen:
We’ve got a lot of different opportunities, I think, out in the that that are that are being worked on in particular. Like, nuclear fusion is probably the biggest one with the biggest opportunity, but it always seems to be a little bit far off. So we’re focusing on solar. We sell, software to the solar in industry, so to solar installers. And, we work in both residential and commercial and industrial. And you can use our software from start to finish of a solar install project. So you put together the design. You put together a proposal.

Brian Hansen:
You put together the pricing and what the paybacks are gonna be for those who are buying the solar. And we really take the soft cost down of selling solar, which makes solar, more affordable for people and more attractive. So, it’s been a it’s been a great introduction, like I said, to climate tech, and which which faces headwinds and tailwinds all altogether. So, it’s it’s a great company to be at. Awesome. Awesome. Alright.

Josh Schachter:
So I wanna outline this this this program here today because there’s a few things that we wanna talk about. I wanna talk about with you, this transition that you guys recently made from your north star metric of ARR, GR, NRR to product usage. So that’s one topic that we wanna cover. But before we do that, we also wanna cover a little bit of digital strategy because that’s something that you guys have been, kind of jumping into right now as as as a focus. And then AI, you know, you you have a very kind of intentional practice around how you’re using AI for for warning signals and and detecting kind of the health of customers and all those sorts of things. And then lastly, if we’ve got a little time, you know, talking about leadership. In fact, I might actually start there a little bit because you guys are, you’re about 11 years old or maybe 12 years old, started in 2 2013, 450 people. So you’ve grown, quite impressively.

Josh Schachter:
It’s Silicon Valley company. You’ve got a CS team of about 30 folks. Right? Mostly just traditional customer success. And so I I knew a girl. Well, let’s be fair. I dated a girl

Brian Hansen:
that worked for a climate startup

Josh Schachter:
a few years ago, and she was telling me how, she’s very, like, type a, very, very accomplished, but, like, she was telling me how she was working, like, 80 hours a week, and she wasn’t the only one, like, the entire startup who’s working that those types of hours. It’s like, how of course, honestly, if I’m being honest, I was like, well, how do I get my people to work that many hours? It wasn’t like, oh, gosh. That’s too much. No. It was like, great. What’s the secret? Yeah. But she said that, like, it’s because it was so mission driven that everybody was just their morale was so high and the the the work ethic and the drive because they really wanted to help climate and help the world. And is there anything behind kind of the mission, of of a solar future for all, which is, you know, I mean, climate change is one of my biggest personal kind of values and causes.

Josh Schachter:
Is there anything that you see that kind of, permeates through the culture of the company that Yeah. Because that mission is really at the core of what you guys do?

Brian Hansen:
I do. I do. I fired a fair amount of people here and, certainly, all of my colleagues that I work with. I find So when people are asking about, like, what is the culture like at Aurora Solar, and I generally go straight to people are committed, interested, and interesting as well. They’re very focused on making sure that their time working somewhere is dedicated to something that they care about. And not everybody is is, like, totally jazzed on rooftop solar in particular, but it is a it is a part of a larger ecosystem of how can we be focused on renewable energy. And so I do think that it does permeate throughout the organization. We have a, a strong sense of a shared vision on how we are coming to work every day and and where we where we dedicate our time.

Josh Schachter:
The the industry has been softening a little bit, right, in Mhmm. Recently and just kind of ebbs and flows of a market. Yeah. And we talked about this in our prep a little bit of, like, how you maintain the high morale.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Yeah.

Josh Schachter:
Is it that mission, or are there other things that you as a leader can do to drive people even when the career path and your growth path is not completely delineated?

Brian Hansen:
Yeah. Yeah. I yes. I mean, it’s it’s affectionately slash not affectionately referred to as the solar coaster, in the industry of the ups and downs, and and as I mentioned, the headwinds and tailwinds that come along with it. So, yes, it it’s been it’s been a tough, tough couple of years, 18 months or so. You think about I I live here in California. We’ve got a regulations change that happened that reduced the amount of money that homeowners could secure by paying, getting paid back from sending excess energy to the grid. And that’s one thing that’s been tough.

Brian Hansen:
The other has been interest rates have been really tough. So, yeah, solar’s been having a tough a tough go the last little while. And so, yes, business has been tough. Retention, you know, we’ll get we’ll get into the CS side of things. You know, retention has been paramount and really focusing on what drives customers has been paramount. But when you’re talking thinking about leadership and people, I mean, it’s kinda the same everywhere. It’s like, do I have a career path? Am I learning things? Am I growing? Am I working with with people that I really, admire and and and and can learn from? And so leaning heavily into that. So as a as any company is perhaps not seeing the growth numbers that it would really hope to see and career paths and direction for for everybody, we really do have to lean into what are you learning? Where are your gaps? What do you really want to, how how do you wanna think about your next 2, 3, 5 years? And what does that look like? And how do we help you get there? What are the projects that you can work on? How will you wanna interact cross functionally? Are you interested more on the marketing side, more on the product side? Let’s get you out of the CS out of the CS world from time to time to be focused elsewhere.

Brian Hansen:
And I think that that really is what drives a good leader is to really understand their people and what they care about. It’s very, very similar to understanding your people and what they care about and and putting them in a position to to have access to those projects, to spotlight them when they’re doing those things, and to drive them as well to take the initiative to learn on their own. I think that’s a really important piece that for those who want to continue to advance, you gotta put in the put in the work. I don’t know about 80 hours a week like we were talking about, but you gotta put in the effort, on your own to, to to continually learn. And one of those one of the ways that I do it is listen to podcasts, so this is one of those that I that I

Kristi Faltorusso:
do. Brian, how do you distribute those opportunities? Right? Is it, like, do you wait for folks who are, like, hey, I wanna be proactive about my career and my pathway and, like, what that looks like, and so they’re seeking these opportunities? Or is the company intentional with the understanding that there are limited opportunities today for career progression from title and compensation? But are you guys being proactive in saying, hey. Listen. We can’t offer you this, but let’s put together what your next opportunity would look like here or other places, and what are the things that you can work on and participate in to get there? So is it more they come to you, or are you guys being very prescriptive and proactive about that?

Brian Hansen:
I would say probably more of the latter. Like, we’ve got really good leaders here at Christie. So I think people do recognize that, and they ask that of their people in 1 on ones and check ins and, like, where where are you at in your growth trajectory? And and, certainly, as I mentioned earlier and you just said, like, people do raise their hands as well. And so for those, it is a it is a, closed mouth don’t get fed type of situation. So raise your hand. Take a stand. What do I want to learn? Where do I wanna go? What am I interested in? And to your point, like, I think being honest about whether it’s here or somewhere else is totally fair and totally fine. So I’m just trying to grow to be the best that I can be.

Brian Hansen:
Feedback is really important to that. Can you provide me with feedback on where my gaps exist and have an open conversation about where within the organization, either opportunities lie to shift roles if if possible. But, otherwise, just how can I be how can I be learning that? So, yes, raise your hand, but we’ve got a lot of really good leaders here who care about their people, and so they are bringing that to them as well.

Josh Schachter:
Shifting topics, we all know that the only metrics that matter in SaaS are ARR, GRR, NRR. Right?

Brian Hansen:
Yes.

Josh Schachter:
And yet, you guys shifted company wide your north star from those metrics to product usage. Yes. In order to help unify sales and post sales.

Brian Hansen:
Talk us through, tell us, like, give us the story.

Josh Schachter:
What’s what’s the deal with that?

Kristi Faltorusso:
Yeah.

Brian Hansen:
I think, yes. And it’s really to unify everybody. So having one number that everybody can get behind, and understand a little bit more deeply as well. Sometimes GRN and NRR gets a maybe a little bit confusing to those who aren’t, you know, living and breathing in every day. We’re still looking at those to be clear. Those are really important figures. But usage value is really what we’re focused on. And so you take a look at we’ve got our product mix.

Brian Hansen:
You allocate a certain dollar amount per product. You look at the usage, and you calculate that out as how are we driving usage value. And it is really aligned between sales, CS post sales, and with the customer as well. If they’re really if they’re recognizing value on their side using the product, they’re they’re feeling pretty good. And so the way that we brought that to to to market internally, I think, was, as I mentioned, solar’s been tough. Retention has been tough. And so how do we look at where are we driving value? And part of that was to make sure that we are focusing on ICP, that we are focusing on selling right size contracts, that we are focusing on the handoffs between sales and post sales, that we are doing things efficiently in order to make sure that we’re not we’re not bringing customers in to potentially be set up for failure. So all of this is around how do we drive that product adoption, and all of those steps ahead of that will align it align it well towards towards that one particular goal.

Brian Hansen:
And so I think this is not necessarily unique to to Aurora at all, but, you know, you think about how sales teams are compensated many times and their commission is structured around ARR. So it’s like, let’s go big and then, oops, it’s difficult to to either ramp that quickly or maintain that usage if perhaps there was a misfit. And I’m not saying that happened a lot here, but my point is to avoid that, let’s get aligned with how sales is thinking about. I want this customer in our, in on our books for the long term and driving continual usage. Not a blip, not a, you know, not a plateau. And this, I think, really helps. It brings everybody together and focus on one one mission of usage value and and using the product using products, multiple products.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Brian, so how do you think about all the challenges that you’re all facing? Right? You talked about all the laws and and just the the the market as a whole right now for for solar, not not necessarily helping you all thrive the way you’d like to. How do you take that into consideration when you see it maybe reflected in usage and adoption metrics?

Brian Hansen:
That’s a good point. I mean, it’s there has to be a reality to it. There has to be an understanding of the market, and there has to be a a a strong forecast of all that as well. And so being conservative in how we’re looking at growth and being realistic about those regulation changes that are happening, interest rates changes of administration as well, things along those lines. And there has to be a sober look and a realistic look at what, what would be a right sized contract and what will growth look like. And so I think that those are absolutely factors that have to be taken into account, perhaps more so in this particular industry and perhaps perhaps because we are so laser focused on one niche, like, one one particular type of customer, and and and be able to say that we can’t drive product usage that just doesn’t exist. There there has to be there has to be reality to it. Okay.

Kristi Faltorusso:
And then my second part to this is how have you seen the business, both the people and the business, change as a result of this focus? Like, what behavioral shifts are you seeing from employees? And then also, like, I mean, is the business or is this indicative of the business thriving when you see those like, is it true? Is it causation? Is it correlation? Is it not none of them? We just are distracting ourselves?

Brian Hansen:
No. No. I I mean, I can I can I can pull probably the best stories are where sales sales reps, AEs, and CSMs are meeting on-site with customers, going on tours, in in their regions, where you’ve got salespeople really connected to customers’ longevity and long term lifetime value, live long long term growth, and collaborating with CSMs on how best to connect with their stakeholders and how best to connect with their users? And we can get into the user part a little bit when we talk about the digital side. But I think, Christy, the the the best examples are that. Like, how do pods as we refer to them? Like, how do these pods of professionals think about their customers as opposed to AE selling and moving on to the to the next net new, which is necessary as well. We need to drive net new also. But it is we have seen a a change in the way that these pods interact together and think long term for their customers.

Josh Schachter:
How did the incentives change for the sales and post sales teams when the shift took place?

Brian Hansen:
Yeah. So so it’s it’s more focused on that number of usage value. So what are our targets for usage value and and

Josh Schachter:
what Remind us again. I know you said it you said it earlier, but remind remind us again the the equation for usage value.

Brian Hansen:
Each we have various skews in our product mix. Do you look at each of those skews and you assign a dollar amount for each usage each use, basically. What does that what does that equate to? And then you multiply that times number of uses, and there is a dollar amount mixed in with regards to, like, how much because we we sell on credits. So you get a bucket of credits, and you can apply them to the various products. And so how does that dollar amount per credit per product shake out from a mathematical perspective? And we’ve got targets that we’re trying to hit at the company level, at the at the book level, at the customer level.

Josh Schachter:
I see. So this is also a function that you can you can measure this maybe a little differently than other companies. Right? Maybe if you’re if you’re Salesforce and you’re charging proceed or whatnot, you you can measure this because you have that credit system where it’s a little bit more consumption based that you can then correlate the feature usage to that.

Brian Hansen:
Yeah. That that makes sense to me. Yes. That that that is perhaps more, different than other customers that it is, more conducive for us. Yeah. Yeah. No. But, I mean but

Josh Schachter:
there’s plenty of companies out there, and I think, honestly, like, we all are trying to go to a consumption based model because that’s the fairest exchange of value and and monetization. Right? So if you use it, then you pay for it. So so I like it. Okay. So so so that’s the that’s the the product usage value. And then, yeah, those incentives, how how is that working now?

Brian Hansen:
For for who?

Josh Schachter:
For anybody. How have the incentives changed?

Brian Hansen:
You mean the meaning our internal teams?

Josh Schachter:
Your internal teams. Yeah. Yeah. For your for your sales and post sales. Yeah.

Brian Hansen:
Yep. Yeah. So so sales commission is more based on that, like, long term value. Did they use over a period of time as opposed to getting paid straight up front for ARR? So that is a that is a change for the account executives.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Do they get some portion up front? Like, is it as I’m sure it’s not a 100% on the back end.

Brian Hansen:
Yes. Yeah. There is there is an up front. And then as it goes along, you get additional payouts quarter by quarter by quarter.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Oh, that’s kinda cool.

Brian Hansen:
Yep. And But based on usage. Usage. Usage base. Yes. Yeah. So

Kristi Faltorusso:
are they sell the right customers who have been onboard successfully, and, you know, there is a little bit of, like, leaving some of

Brian Hansen:
that money, though, and somebody successfully, and, you know, there

Kristi Faltorusso:
is a little bit of, like,

Kristi Faltorusso:
leaving some of that money, though, in

Kristi Faltorusso:
somebody else’s control, which as a salesperson, I don’t know that I would love that so much, but there is a level of accountability that I think could be tied to it. I also like that it’s not a frozen point in time, right, where it’s like, okay. 6 months from now, you get that last payment, and then you’re done. Right?

Brian Hansen:
That’s right. Yeah. It’s it’s it’s ongoing.

Kristi Faltorusso:
So they’ll always get paid. So the customer, if usage is at a certain level, they’ll always make money on it?

Brian Hansen:
That’s a good question, because, yeah, I don’t know that a 100%, but let’s just say yes. I think that’s

Kristi Faltorusso:
just a come work for you because I will sell my own deals, and then I will CS my own deals, and then I’ll just keep making money is what you’re telling me.

Brian Hansen:
Keep making money. I mean, it but that’s, like, that’s the idea. Right? It’s, like, the customers, Abby, they’re using, they’re adopting. Everybody should be winning in that in that scenario. So

Kristi Faltorusso:
It should be.

Brian Hansen:
Apologize for not knowing. All the all the, the the commission structure answers, but, like, that’s the intent is is as the customer continues to grow, they’re using, they’re seeing value, therefore, renewals are easier, therefore, expansion is easier. It’s just and and and everybody is winning along the way. On the CS side, the way we’re compensated is a bonus based on hitting usage value targets. So very much similarly, it’s it’s are we driving that adoption? Are we understanding why they’re using the product? Are we focused on their outcomes? Just like, you know, now we’re getting to standard CS stuff. It’s like, do you know the outcomes? Do you know how they’re measuring success? Are we meeting expectations? How are you driving that? Are you talking to the right stakeholders? Are you multi threaded? How are we looking at users as opposed to the only the decision makers? What are we doing to drive that usage value? And what triggers are we seeing when it starts to slip up? And what do we do to respond to that? And how do we prioritize those customers as well? Because there’s a lot of customers that we’ve got and a lot of, you know, books books across all CS are pretty overloaded these days. And so, like, how do you prioritize which which customers have expansion potential where you wanna focus? So it really does it really does bring a focus to hitting that number. What is the best way that we can hit that number, exceed that number, and working together as a team to do so?

Josh Schachter:
Hey, everybody. It’s Josh. I’m taking a quick break from the podcast to tell you a bit about UpdateAI. I started UpdateAI to solve 2 major challenges for CS teams. The first is that we save CSMs 4 to 5 hours per week with our productivity through AI. Secondly, we give leaders a window into all the conversations across each account and the entire portfolio. So we help knowledge transfer, we help increase the coverage model of your CS teams, and we help you detect emerging patterns in what your customers are telling your CSMs across all the risks, product feedback, advocacy moments, and expansion opportunities. So come check us out at www.updateai.

Josh Schachter:
It’s completely free to sign up and trial.

Kristi Faltorusso:
How’d the board respond to this change, or was this a top down directive?

Brian Hansen:
That’s a really good question. I they they were very responsive, apparently, for what for what we hear, coming from our c suite, which is which is really, heartening, I think, to know that. Because to your point earlier, Josh, like, GRR, NRR is the thing that you usually look at. And and as I said, like, we are still keeping tabs on those. Those numbers still do matter. But the board was on board, and it’s it was it didn’t seem like it took that much arm arm wrestling to do so because and I think the the reason is because we had escalations and we had renewal issues. And we, you know, we had we had problems based on some of these kind of old structures that were incentivizing, I would say, the wrong things. And so getting them to say yes to this was, like, we’re going to focus on ICP.

Brian Hansen:
We’re going to focus on the steps of bringing a customer on that can use right away rather than getting into implementation and then ghost the implementations, and it takes 4 or 5 months, and it just they we’re not producing anything. So, yes, the board was the board was on board, with this change. And, it’s taken a little while, I think, for our our finance team and the board to really understand the connection between GRR and our end and usage value and what that means. And, but but I think it’s, certainly a positive one that that they’re focused on growth. They’re focused on continuing to have a customer base that wants to use the product and can use the product well and will continue to expand. So how do we get there? And and that was the that was the question, and they were they’re on board.

Josh Schachter:
Credit to them for having a growth mindset on that because it’s not their language. Right. And these guys all operate on pattern recognition. Right? So, yeah, that that’s a that’s a good board you have that was able to to shift into that. So yeah. So what what have been the the biggest impacts on on on users ultimately and and and your buyers, from the shift?

Kristi Faltorusso:
Borderline harassment, obviously.

Brian Hansen:
What what was that?

Kristi Faltorusso:
I said borderline harassment. Obviously, your team, I’m sure, is all over them at this point. Right? Because now there’s different motivation there.

Brian Hansen:
That that that’s right. I mean, ultimately, is I would say I would say the answer is attention. I don’t know about harassment.

Kristi Faltorusso:
You call it attention? Alright. Okay. Nice.

Brian Hansen:
Yeah. I think attention to and I think I think, perhaps, the the the right answer is the prioritization of of attention. Like, who is who appears to be that they are a good adopter, that they’ve got the right management in place at their at their workplace as a customer, and are they showing signs of growth? And so for for those customers, I think there is a much more, rounded out attention to how we can continue to help them grow. And with that comes some customers that are not as prioritized. That’s just only natural. But, that’s where I think our digital strategy starts to take place as well. It’s, like, how are we still engaging with those customers if they don’t have the laser focus of an account team on them? And, but that I think is probably the change that the customer is seeing is, like, a very intentional, focus on those that are that are driving growth for themselves and and and are poised for for additional, expansion.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Brian, can we talk a little bit about the data? Because I have to imagine if this is how you’re running the business, there’s a different level of, like, data quality that’s required. Right, because it’s not gonna be as straightforward as just the revenue numbers we just talked about. So how has that played a a pivotal role in the strategy here? It’s just making sure that you guys have access to accurate, current, correct data.

Brian Hansen:
Yes. Yeah. There’s there’s a lot of work on that for sure, because I mentioned we’ve got different product SKUs. So how do you break that out? Is it accelerating? Is it decelerating? What does it look like? What flags do we have? We’ve got certainly some some components about customer health and and and what that looks like. And, and, so so the data in order to understand both who is using now as well as who looks like they are good to continue to grow is really important. We break it down mostly the way that we would that I would describe it is, like, are they how are they pacing at what stage of their life cycle? So thinking about their implementation, making sure that you’re not, like, looking at their usage during implementation, saying there isn’t really anything here. What what’s going on? The data might say that, but you have to be in you have to understand that they’re gonna have a slow ramp through implementation. So breaking it down in that way and really digging into their usage by product at certain times and what that looks like is is really important.

Josh Schachter:
And how about the other functions? How about product and product marketing? Because they I mean, that’s always been their motivation is to get people to use the product and build better products, but it must be reen fresh reinvigorating and and refreshing to them to have this as top priority.

Brian Hansen:
Yeah. I I would I would absolutely say so. And seeing how our product road map shakes out towards what do customers really want and what they need, I think it’s very easy to kind of con just go really wide with product road maps. And so this has very much helped to focus, and I credit a lot of our product leadership on that as well. It’s understanding what is going to drive customers. We use we use product board for our feature requests, and so CSMs are logging feature feature requests all the time. There’s hundreds of those going in all the time, but it’s, like, what is actually going to drive usage value? What is our what is our customer actually need in order to execute what they’re trying to do, which again is to reduce the soft cost coming out of selling solar? And so features, features, features are good, and and helpful and valuable, but, like, what is actually going to drive somebody to use a product? And so voice of customer’s really been important with that. Voice of customer flows through CSMs, because they’re talking with customers all the time.

Brian Hansen:
And so it is a helpful way for products and product mark marketers to really focus on the outcomes. Like, what are you trying to achieve and how can that product deliver that, as opposed to a, you know, a button being a different color or something along those lines.

Josh Schachter:
You’re a few quarters into this. Anything you miss from the old paradigm?

Brian Hansen:
I would say maybe, like, you know, large larger deals for a lot of larger deals sake is always good. Like, give me that ARR, feed that ARR. But no. It’s it’s really about the long the long term long term focus. Anything I missed? That’s a good question. I don’t I don’t think so, Josh. It feels it feels very much like progress and moving forward. And, you know, even if there was some stuff from the past, it’s like, let’s just let’s just keep going.

Brian Hansen:
Let’s let’s try something that’s gonna really deliver value here.

Josh Schachter:
Well, it it it does put more accountability. I mean, on on everybody. Right? Universally, uniformly across the organization, it puts more accountability. And certainly on your team as well to make sure that they’re, just there’s there’s constant focus on people using the product and getting value out of the product. I I love it. I think one of the things we hear about in CS is, a struggle sometimes to correlate the the role and the function to very clear examples of value for the organization. You know, your your renewal only takes place once a year and so but this is this is something that work very concretely. You can continue to to monitor and directly associate the interventions and the product education and all the things that that CS teams do so well into the ultimate metric.

Brian Hansen:
That’s right. That’s right. And really lean into people’s expertise. So we mentioned, the CS structure. We’ve got, we’ve got a professional services team that do their thing for implementations and really try to help guide customers from a technical perspective. We’ve got a customer enablement and education team that really focuses on making sure that they have the materials that they need. Our help center is in good shape, that type of thing. And so so it’s the accountability and and then leaning into the skill sets that people have to drive that, which is which is pretty exciting.

Brian Hansen:
It’s like, I’m here. I do these things well. I’m in a position to impact my portion of this usage value, and we’re all pulling in the same direction. We don’t have different numbers that we’re all trying to hit. Yep.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Brian, how has this oh, sorry, Josh. Can I can I can I you’re so kind? Thank you. Yes. You Come on. Good to see you. In understanding resource allocation against this. Right? Because I know that if you’re thinking about it in the old school your old school, which is so many of us are current school of thought, right, around NRR, ARR rate, as you built out a model around serving those outcomes internally for the business, you may have had leverage ratios that look like, hey. Listen.

Kristi Faltorusso:
We can have 1 CSM to 40 accounts. How has this new shift changed that and then the resourcing and staffing against teams like support and CS and professional services? Because I have to imagine now it’s not gonna be the some same leverage ratio. You talked about this right like, this intentional engagement and this interaction with these customers. If you’re increasing that alone, if we don’t consider anything else, the leverage ratio that you probably had in place didn’t work.

Josh Schachter:
Mhmm. Mhmm.

Brian Hansen:
Yeah. We haven’t, like I I think the, the answer is that it’s always about prioritization. And so numbers of customers per CSM is what what are what are we doing with with them? And I think this is a good a good opportunity to be, like, are we trying to have those monthly cadence calls just because it’s a checkbox? Are we trying to go on-site or have EBRs just because they’re a checkbox? And on the other end, it’s, like, I don’t want to have these things. So what what are you doing with the amount of time that you have available, and are we focused on the right customer? So I think that that’s from the CS perspective. From a support perspective, we have been able to continue to hire because that is a an area where you do not want to drop the ball on anything. It’s like, give me the help that I need when I need it. So support has continued to grow. CS has been continued has been really focused on prioritization, and and the specialization that I was talking about before.

Brian Hansen:
So let’s not have people joining all of these customer calls just to present a strong unified front from Aurora Solar. Like, let’s get this let’s get the implementation folks out as quickly as possible. Let’s get the CEE folks in in and out for to understand the customer, what they need from an education perspective. But you don’t have to sell in every call. And so that to me, Christy, is how we really like to look at is, like, who is needed, for what reason, what is your specialty, and what value are you bringing to this conversation. And then then it also is about, like, what who is that conversation with at the customer? And do we need to get multi threaded as well? I mentioned that earlier. So I it’s just it’s really just really about being, I think, practical with time and thinking about who is most most going to be helpful in that in that moment. And, a a little plug for a company that we use, Josh, I know you’re interested in AI.

Brian Hansen:
We have, we have a partnership with a company called LumoPath. And what they do is they analyze the macro actions that a CSM is taking, such as are you spending time in Google Drive? Are you spending time in Gmail? Are you spending time in Slack? Are you spending time, in, Zendesk, in Jira? You’re looking at where you’re spending your time, and then you can actually track that back to the type of customer. So we’ve got details of customer characteristics in Salesforce to identify if it’s a priority customer, what their ARR is, how what their what their pacing is on their usage value. And as a manager, you can see where that time goes from CSMs, and is it being allocated in the right place, or at least start the conversation. Because you don’t want to completely ignore customers if they’re not a prioritized customer, but it is good to know what the story is. Why are they reaching out? Is that something that you should handle, or is that something that support support should handle? So, Lumo Pass has been really helpful with that, from an objective measurement perspective, Christy, as opposed to, like, a manager just checking in with their CSM and and going more subjective about, tell me about your book. Where are you spending your time? What’s what’s, what’s got you, what where are the time sinks? And and it’s it’s very helpful from an object objective perspective.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Okay. Now you did make reference to prioritize customers, but then you told me a few minutes ago that we’re prioritizing based on where there can be value add. So is there a cohort of the customers that are being just generally prioritized than everybody else is, like, let’s prioritize based on need? And then if so, how have you decided who are your top prioritized customers?

Brian Hansen:
There is I I think the easiest answer for that is also based on data. So we’re looking at, like, installation data metrics for certain regions. Like, how big are these customers? Are they growing in their solar installations? And that really does help from a prioritization perspective because you can look at sort of the delta between how big are they now, and do we have all of their business that we should have? How do we compare them to other similar customers doing similar, volume of installations? What have those customers bought versus this customer a? And should we’re missing the boat somewhere if it if there is a delta. And and as long as this, you know, higher level customer is experiencing value and they haven’t overbought. But, like, if if one customer’s up here and another’s down here, let’s bring this one up because there’s a best practice that perhaps they’re missing as well. So that I think is probably the easiest answer on how to prioritize customers. It’s like, how big are they? What is their potential for expansion? How do we get them there? And there is yeah. There’s there’s categories in Salesforce about those type of, those type of customers.

Brian Hansen:
And, so that is that’s how we look at some of the data. And then, otherwise, it is, I think, it is important to as well have a a subjective measurement from a CSM. Like, I understand where they’re going. I understand that they have gotten out of the woods and they are about to turn a corner. That is not always obvious in the data, and so you do have to rely on some subjective measurements coming from the CSM, interaction. And that does sometimes come from customers who haven’t been labeled as priority, and it’s kind of bubble back up through the CSM. And, glad to always adjust that category and adjust that, you know, adjust that that title, as long as it makes sense.

Josh Schachter:
Brian, I think we are at time. This was great. I love diving deep. We don’t sometimes we go we spread a little bit too thin. But this case, I really enjoyed the the deep dive.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Well, he had a unique thing that he’s working on here, and it’s a little different for us. So I think that was so, Brian, you brought the level of interest to the podcast, and then we were able to exploit you.

Josh Schachter:
I’m glad to be with our guest. We explained them. We explained it. Yeah. Yes. Yes.

Brian Hansen:
So we just explained it. I I’ll take all that for sure.

Josh Schachter:
Yeah. No. But it was great, honestly, because it was very unique. And I think a lot of people are gonna learn from this, and hopefully, it’ll inspire others. And is it okay if folks are are if we’ve if you’ve tickled their interests in this, transition and they wanna reach out to you on LinkedIn, is that cool for them to do?

Brian Hansen:
Absolutely. Absolutely. Yes. Yes. I’m not as I’m not as, LinkedIn famous as Christy is, but I’m I’m I’m working on it. I’m working on it. Yes. Trying to get there.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Arnie’s famous. Not famous. I don’t know.

Brian Hansen:
Yeah. Yes. Please do reach out. I love talking with people about interesting ideas and such. So, very honored to be on the podcast. I really appreciate the opportunity.

Josh Schachter:
Well, thank you. Thank you, and and keep up the great stuff, and here’s to a great 2025.

Brian Hansen:
Sounds great.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Thanks.

Josh Schachter:
Thanks, guys.