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Jon Johnson:

That was great.

Josh Schachter:

Jeff.

Jon Johnson:

Welcome to the podcast, everybody.

Jeff Kushmerek:

Thank you.

Jon Johnson:

Who are we talking to?

Josh Schachter:

Josh?

Jon Johnson:

Are we going to do intros?

Josh Schachter:

Yeah.

Speaker D:

Well, we know John, you’re bad with last names, so should you just go by Jeff the whole episode or should yes.

Jon Johnson:

I could screwed up. One last name, Josh. One last name.

Kristi Faltorusso:

We only had two guests.

Jon Johnson:

Look, 50 50.

Jeff Kushmerek:

Like, John, you remind me of something my dad used to tell me about, is the can we swear on this podcast?

Josh Schachter:

Yes.

Jeff Kushmerek:

It’s the goat fucker. You know what I mean?

Jon Johnson:

You fuck one goat?

Josh Schachter:

Yeah.

Jeff Kushmerek:

I am the best plumber in the world. I’ve been doing this for 35 years. Fuck one goat?

Josh Schachter:

Yeah.

Jon Johnson:

That’s, like, the best dad joke of all. You know that? I will say I come from a very religious upbringing, and I knew I was old enough to hear that joke, and it was, like, the joke that my grandpa had. It’s good.

Josh Schachter:

Thanks. All right.

Jon Johnson:

Anyways, Christy, you want to give us your elevator pitch?

Kristi Faltorusso:

Yeah, sure. But growing up in a Puerto Rican household, we didn’t have goat.

Speaker D:

Like, but you knew how to curse.

Kristi Faltorusso:

We had other stuff.

Jeff Kushmerek:

Oh, my gosh.

Kristi Faltorusso:

I made John have, like, a real belly lap. Look at this. Like a real, like, go get them. Look at me.

Jon Johnson:

Christy, what animals did you we didn’t have goat fuckers.

Kristi Faltorusso:

Three previous fiance’s. All similar animals.

Speaker D:

Wait, can we talk about your previous fiance’s? I don’t think we’ve had this conversation.

Kristi Faltorusso:

Well, I had three proposals before my husband.

Jeff Kushmerek:

That is the best name of a podcast I could ever think of. Three previous fiance’s.

Jon Johnson:

Christy Faltruzo and her three previous fiance.

Kristi Faltorusso:

Three proposals, two fiance’s, one husband.

Jon Johnson:

You did that in the right order. Three, two, one. Like you did movie. It was Jennifer Lopez when she met Matthew McConaughey.

Jeff Kushmerek:

Lean backwards on Kate Hudson on the COVID right?

Josh Schachter:

Yeah.

Jon Johnson:

Failure to launch.

Mickey Powell:

Christy, would you want to be played by Jennifer Lopez? I feel like she would do a good job.

Kristi Faltorusso:

I feel like her or like Eva Longoria when she was younger, but, like, younger, like when she was in Desperate Housewives. Like, not now, because I forget what she looks like because she’s irrelevant. But, like, Eva Longoria.

Jon Johnson:

2002, we don’t want to piss off our celebrity list.

Jeff Kushmerek:

Season Two desperate Housewives Season one.

Kristi Faltorusso:

Season two.

Josh Schachter:

Wait. Okay.

Mickey Powell:

I’m going to propose that we do our rounds of introductions, and as a part of that, we say, who would play us in the movie of our life?

Josh Schachter:

Yes.

Jon Johnson:

Start with you, Christy.

Kristi Faltorusso:

Christy Falterusso, chief customer officer at Client Success. I’m not going to give the rest of my spiel today, but I would be played by Eva Longoria. But 2002, Eva Longoria.

Josh Schachter:

Amazing. Josh. Josh.

Speaker D:

Actor, founder and CEO of Update AI.

Jon Johnson:

I’d be played by Larry David.

Josh Schachter:

Yes, you would.

Kristi Faltorusso:

100 older than Larry David. Yes. In 20 years?

Josh Schachter:

Yeah.

Jon Johnson:

20 years from now.

Speaker D:

Larry David would be my little brother.

Jeff Kushmerek:

Yeah.

Mickey Powell:

Hasn’t he been 70 years old for the last 20 years?

Jon Johnson:

Forever.

Kristi Faltorusso:

Forever. Forever.

Jon Johnson:

Like Ben Stiller. How old are you? I don’t know.

Speaker D:

I was watching the US open this past week and he was there and he was looking a little older.

Jeff Kushmerek:

He was like McConaughey handshake. That he was yeah.

Josh Schachter:

No.

Jon Johnson:

Did you see that, too? Did you see Leo? Were you watching Leonardo as.

Jeff Kushmerek:

JT as well?

Josh Schachter:

Yep.

Speaker D:

Yeah, he was looking bad. He had bags under his eyes.

Kristi Faltorusso:

These celebrities paul Rudd doesn’t age.

Speaker D:

He does not age.

Kristi Faltorusso:

Every man he’s always been 40.

Jon Johnson:

Would play you.

Mickey Powell:

Mickey Powell. They had to go to market at Update AI alongside Josh. And I would be played by.

Josh Schachter:

Smith. Yeah. Yeah. All right.

Jon Johnson:

I’m John Johnson. I am the principal customer success manager for Key and Global Accounts at User Law. It’s a mouthful. I go back and forth.

Josh Schachter:

That’s what she said.

Jeff Kushmerek:

Jesus.

Kristi Faltorusso:

Christy someone had to know. And Josh isn’t allowed to do it.

Jon Johnson:

He’s not allowed. So two things I would say, early 2000s, justin Timberlake.

Mickey Powell:

I’m bringing sexy back.

Jeff Kushmerek:

Sexy back.

Jon Johnson:

I just wanted that to land.

Kristi Faltorusso:

There’s so little coffee in my cup. I didn’t get it in time to spit it all out.

Speaker D:

How did you drink that whole thing? Christy another like that’s why you live in Long Island, because those are banned in Manhattan.

Kristi Faltorusso:

Yeah, they are 32oz. And I have my 40 ounce Stanley of water. Okay, go.

Jon Johnson:

Or will ferrell.

Josh Schachter:

I can see that.

Kristi Faltorusso:

That feels more on brand.

Josh Schachter:

Yeah.

Jon Johnson:

I want the sexy of Justin. I want ABS. I want Britney Spears. But the depth of will. Ferrell’s.

Kristi Faltorusso:

Nobody wants Britney Spears, John. She’s so rat.

Jon Johnson:

Early 2000s, let’s be honest.

Kristi Faltorusso:

Okay, no, like 96. Brittany was like, I think I have.

Jon Johnson:

That poster.

Kristi Faltorusso:

That genre Brittany, but like Brittany. Now, if you go follow on our Instagram, it’s sad.

Jon Johnson:

Yeah, I blame JT. Jeff what about you? Remember Larry David’s taken.

Josh Schachter:

Yeah.

Jeff Kushmerek:

Jeff KashmirK. John.

Jon Johnson:

Jesus.

Jeff Kushmerek:

And I am the founder and CEO of Infinite Renewals. And let’s see.

Josh Schachter:

Okay.

Jeff Kushmerek:

The lookalike gear. I wonder what you know. Just record podcasts, I think. But I hear three things on the Lookalike thing, right?

Josh Schachter:

Adam Sandler. Yeah.

Jeff Kushmerek:

Then it gets contrasted with Richard Gere, which I’ve heard for a while because I’ve been gray for a that. And then somebody says this one thing that makes me want to punch a seal, and it’s Ross From.

Jon Johnson:

Oh, okay. You know what?

Kristi Faltorusso:

You’re better than that.

Jeff Kushmerek:

I am better than that.

Kristi Faltorusso:

You’re better than that.

Jon Johnson:

Jeff just need to just pivot. What are we doing here, guys?

Kristi Faltorusso:

Jeff I don’t know, but I like Richard. Richard Gear.

Jon Johnson:

No, absolutely.

Kristi Faltorusso:

I like Richard Gear for you.

Josh Schachter:

Yeah.

Jeff Kushmerek:

When you go gray at 20, you get that a lot.

Speaker D:

When you’re bald, you get everything.

Jon Johnson:

I was going to say Josh is like, oh, at least you win gray.

Speaker D:

I’m compared to people think I look like Bruce Willis.

Jon Johnson:

Well, we’re deep into one.

Jeff Kushmerek:

He can still be a good looking guy.

Jon Johnson:

Yeah, true. Nobody’s ever compared me to Bruce Willis.

Speaker D:

I think, guys, when we look back at this episode, this is the one.

Jon Johnson:

This is the one where we’re like, you know what?

Mickey Powell:

You lost it.

Jeff Kushmerek:

Because in the old days of online forums, there would be, like, a really good conversation. I would come in and the thread would die.

Speaker D:

You’re the cooler. This is our William H. Macy right here.

Jeff Kushmerek:

Jeff is the cooler of our I certainly have a bunch of subjects to go over.

Speaker D:

Oh, good, because we don’t so lead us.

Kristi Faltorusso:

No, we do, because I’m over here googling pictures of Eva Longoria, and I got to say she’s hot.

Jeff Kushmerek:

Gets Christy just all spun up into oblivion. I could go over one of those, but maybe I’ll soft shoot with a different one.

Speaker D:

I mean, we get those every, like.

Jeff Kushmerek:

Whether we want them or not.

Jon Johnson:

I actually have, believe it or not, specific. I did a little bit of prep for this.

Kristi Faltorusso:

Why?

Speaker D:

Okay, wait, but Jeff was just going.

Jon Johnson:

To go he doesn’t matter.

Jeff Kushmerek:

I’ll bring mine in as more of, like, a thing just to break it up as the subject matter expert.

Josh Schachter:

Yes.

Jeff Kushmerek:

Okay.

Mickey Powell:

The two people that are still listening. Here we go.

Jon Johnson:

Mom, dad. Okay. We can soft shoe. I know you said you didn’t want to talk about customer. We can, but one of the things I think that I’m seeing a lot of and you can give a little bit of your elevator pitch on what you do because obviously you make a living and this is your job. I’m seeing a lot of folks that move out of direct CS management or direct CS strategy with customers and move into this space of helping others, like coaching. A lot of outsourcing these resources.

Josh Schachter:

Right.

Jon Johnson:

There’s a lot of people that are doing it poorly. I think there’s a lot of people that are doing it well. I would love to hear from your perspective since you’ve gotten out of this. You started in professional services. You moved into some experiential roles, but what is something that as you’ve moved into not working directly with your own customers, but running your business and coaching people on how they work with their customers, what do you miss? What do you miss about kind of being in the trenches and moving kind of into a supporting role for the industry? I know there’s a lot of people that listen to our podcast that we talk to that kind of think about wanting to start their own thing. Maybe there’s pros and cons to that. I think there’s a lot of people that share a lot of opinions that they heard from other opinions that aren’t actually based in fact. Like, I listened to this on a podcast, so I’m going to do it and tell people, walk me through a little bit of that and then maybe some of those lessons that you really love about what you do and then maybe the things that you yeah, yeah.

Jeff Kushmerek:

It’s funny the things that I was missing. I occasionally take an interim role where I come in as the executive know, whether it’s in professional services or customer success, we’ll take one of those roles and that’s where I get the direct client interaction. Like, for example, I’ll be in New York tomorrow. On Wednesday. Anybody? And I’m actually helping a CEO go around and visit some customers and talk to some customers, get some feedback, and also work with some partners on making sure that the implementations go right. Because just on that note, what happens at this company happens at a lot, is that you’ve got a software company, they’re selling their stuff, and when they get purchased and the implementation comes in, they’re running the implementation. Right. But what happens when a partner sells it is that you’re one of 15 pieces, right? And they’ve cobbled a bunch of vendors together. And some companies don’t like that. They’re like, no, you do it our way and it just breaks everything. Right? So it’s going in and doing those a little bit less on the theory and more on the as it happens. I’ll tell you what I don’t miss, which I have also as part of this interim role is like two hour. I don’t mind it, but if Exec staffs aren’t set up in the correct way, this place is doing it really well, but sometimes it just turns into a game of corporate Survivor and people are just trying to look smart and everything else. So I don’t miss those as much. And a lot of people might miss some of the direct one on one time with employees and things like that and triaging and stuff like that. So doing those now, but I hadn’t been doing that for, I think I hadn’t done that for about like eight months and I was sort of missing that. It kind of made everything feel like it wasn’t as real. And you were saying, hey, you know, it’d be a good idea go do that, instead of like, we’re rolling out the new process. You’re going to do X, you’re going to do Y, boom, boom, boom. Like that.

Jon Johnson:

Got it.

Josh Schachter:

Yeah.

Jeff Kushmerek:

I have a lot to say on the people thinking they can be consultants as well, too, but we’ll have that.

Jon Johnson:

Private channel conversation with names.

Jeff Kushmerek:

Never do names. But I think there’s a lot of people who got five years of experience that think that the cat’s meow and that they can just go out there and tell people how to do it because maybe they were at a great company or something like that.

Speaker D:

Can we please just give names for.

Jon Johnson:

The rest of this episode? No, I love let everyone fill in.

Kristi Faltorusso:

The blanks themselves because everyone who’s listening to this is doing some self reflection as they’re hearing this and wondering if it’s them. Well, no, I want that level of discomfort out there in the community.

Speaker D:

If you are listening and you’re wondering if it’s you, it is.

Jon Johnson:

No, but also, that’s a valuable lesson, too, to kind of stick your toe into the pond and be like, oh, shit, I don’t know what I’m talking about. I think there’s value in that. I’m not saying that everybody’s an idiot, but everybody’s an idiot.

Jeff Kushmerek:

Everybody needs a good kick in the crotch every once in a while.

Josh Schachter:

They do.

Jon Johnson:

But I’ve got some friends that are kind of doing this fractional CFOs or fractional CMOS, and I really like that model more so than I’m going to run a consultancy company and then just bring on a bunch of customers. One of the things that I see and please add your context to this, but specifically when it comes to retention and relationships, it’s so hard to just kind of do a one and done. It’s not like I hit my quota, then I move on, right? We’re talking about process, right, Mickey? Thank you for that. We got a great next question coming up from Mickey Powell after this. But, yeah, like, that’s kind of the thought is when you get invested I’m so sorry, Chris.

Jeff Kushmerek:

I’m trying to look at everybody.

Jon Johnson:

Mickey wants to know, when the last time everybody got kicked in? The Christie says, what about so anyways, I’ve lost the plot, but do you.

Josh Schachter:

Know what I’m saying?

Jon Johnson:

Jeff, tell me how you parachute in and inform yourself on your customers dilemmas so that you’re not just giving a rote answer. So you’re not just saying, hey, here’s a playbook that I developed. It’s going to be ten grand, and you’re going to be great.

Jeff Kushmerek:

Yeah, don’t do that.

Jon Johnson:

I’m going to take a drink of whiskey now, ladies and gentlemen. Brought to you by blade and bow by alcohol.

Speaker D:

Actually, John, you can’t infringe on the other CS podcast, which is all about whiskey and conversations.

Josh Schachter:

Wait.

Jon Johnson:

There’s a whiskey and conversation podcast for CS.

Speaker D:

Whiskey and CS? Yeah.

Jon Johnson:

Why?

Jeff Kushmerek:

More CS podcasts or CS consultants? I really don’t well, it’s a one.

Speaker D:

To one ratio, of course, Jeff.

Jon Johnson:

Yeah, of course. Anyways, answer my question.

Jeff Kushmerek:

Damn it. I’ll tell you. So the best relationships, you’ve got a bunch of different situations here. Sometimes it’s a brand new company, and they’re being run by a founder that has no facility in anything post sales. Right? Because we do everything post sales. We’re not just customer success, but sometimes it could be our whole this whole team is broken. I’ve been doing this stuff since 98, right? So I’ve been involved with presales all the way through post sales since then.

Jon Johnson:

Ask Jeeves. Right?

Jeff Kushmerek:

Yeah, exactly.

Kristi Faltorusso:

And good Brittany.

Jon Johnson:

And good Brittany.

Mickey Powell:

Since the era of good Brittany.

Jeff Kushmerek:

A lot of pattern recognition there, right? And so you start recognize, like, okay, let’s look at everything from pre sales to the end and fill in where the blanks are, but then that’s where that customization comes down to and everything. So I think for a lot of these companies, whether they’re either in this mode of, like, they had somebody that’s never run success running success or post sales and kind of help them out in that regard, or you’ve got a really good executive that’s just too busy to take an initiative like, hey, let’s go digital, right? Which is what everybody’s doing this year and everything or whatever. We don’t know what we’re doing on implementation. We don’t know what we’re doing on professional services. We don’t know what we’re doing on support and going in instead of the $10,000 report. Yeah, we definitely will put something together. It is up to a company to say, can you come in and help us with those things? Right. We would prefer to just go in and help and not do the report, to be honest with you. And those sometimes are the best ones, but sometimes you need to get to some root cause analysis. But there’s a lot of people who will just give you the report and try and rinse and repeat and then just walk along and just give reports out there. The best engagements and the ones with the most turnaround are the ones where we’ve been on probably, like, three to four months, help them, maybe get somebody hired, roll their processes out and move from there. And you need a lot of background, I think, in order to do that correctly. It’s like, why you would hire somebody who’s experienced to come in and do it. You’re not going to bring in somebody with minimal experience and like, oh, let’s give them that first director job and things like that.

Jon Johnson:

So I can’t sell a report for ten grand?

Jeff Kushmerek:

You can sell a report for ten grand, absolutely. But you might not sell a bunch.

Jon Johnson:

Of them on our next podcast. How working from the comfort of your own home?

Mickey Powell:

Are we now selling multi level marketing schemes?

Josh Schachter:

Yeah.

Jon Johnson:

MLMs. I’m telling you, CS is the next MLM.

Mickey Powell:

Jeff I mean, it kind of feels.

Kristi Faltorusso:

Like a.

Mickey Powell:

You mickey this is something I’ve thought a lot about because my mentors come from McKinsey, josh comes from BCG, and I’m not a mentor.

Jeff Kushmerek:

You guys have.

Kristi Faltorusso:

I don’t like it when Mommy and Daddy fight.

Jeff Kushmerek:

Yeah, exactly.

Mickey Powell:

At one time, I actually had a thought of, like, oh, should I go do the CS consultant thing, like, five years ago? And I actually came to the realization that you said I was like, I’m actually not that good. I’m not that experienced compared to the people out there. So I want to stay in the workforce because I wasn’t sure how much extra value am I really going to add? What are the top three things that the outcomes, like, the value that these leaders are getting from you that they wouldn’t necessarily get by going and just hiring somebody. Because I’m talking to leaders that are out of work, but I’m still hearing consultants getting jobs. So what are the three things? Or two? It doesn’t have to be three. That the CEOs and the leaders are like, great, I’m so glad I worked with.

Jeff Kushmerek:

You know, Mickey. One thing that happens, and part of it is some of the stuff that I would tell you’d kind of be shocked because we all live in this kind of CS echo chamber where we’re all repeating the same shit over and over and over again. But it’s a shocker for some of these companies that you should maybe show a customer the value that they’re getting, right? To contact them, to let them know that they’re having a renewal come up and not just to have everything go on auto. So if you worked your way backwards, create the worst process, which would be no process, there’s a lot of companies that are doing that. And so a lot of it is at the end of the day, you want to increase retention, right? And that’s something that we try and do. Some of that takes a while because as I told one of my customers, they’re like, okay, so in three months you’re going to be able to give us 5% increase. I’m like, It’s not my fault you didn’t talk to your customers for like eleven months, right? We could do an emergency save and maybe save some of these things, but status code TFB is what I call that when somebody asks me, it’s too fucking bad, it’s not happening, right? So some of it is like, I think you need to be prepared to take a longer picture at this and say, let’s start day one now on all your customers and treating them properly and having some process and doing some lightweight things and rolling out maybe a CFP if that would be great, and managing your team. But it literally is. We all have the same, like, hey, do you know why customers don’t renew? And they’re like and they can’t answer it. It’s like, because you’re not providing value, right? Or you may be providing value, but you’re not telling the contract signer that you’re providing value. And this is brand new for a lot of people. It really is bringing them into some basics 101, then get up to 201 301. It’s not like, okay, let’s start you off with a digital thing and do X and do Y and do it’s. Like literally like, let’s get you into interacting with your customers first and not having it. It’s the stuff. Not just answering support tickets, not having your CSMB. We talk about it a lot because there’s the majority of people that they are doing.

Jon Johnson:

I think you actually pointed out something really interesting. We talk about the echo chamber a lot on here. We were a part of the echo chamber. We’re trying to break the echo chamber down, but really the only people that we’re listening to are the ones that are talking. And I think this is also indicative of our customers, right? So I would say we probably talked to 20% to 30% of our top customers. The rest of them, it’s kind of an unknown thing, right? It’s kind of this unknown process. And if you take the same kind of methodology around businesses, there’s really great companies out there doing great at customer success. And to your point with the consultant approach, there is a ton of customers out there for you to go out and just teach the basics of level set and saying you’re reading all these things instead of just listening to this one podcast and saying everything’s fixed. Let’s actually bring somebody in and say this is what they mean and this is what they set the processes for.

Josh Schachter:

Right?

Jon Johnson:

So I really love the way that you think about that.

Jeff Kushmerek:

Oh, I appreciate and by the way, John, could you like my post from this morning? I would really appreciate that.

Jon Johnson:

Let me get on that.

Jeff Kushmerek:

Mickey.

Jon Johnson:

You sound like Mickey in our group.

Jeff Kushmerek:

Chat back to John.

Jon Johnson:

Could you retweet this?

Jeff Kushmerek:

What’s that?

Jon Johnson:

That’s what Mickey sounds like in my.

Jeff Kushmerek:

Why they’re bringing consultants in instead of hiring people? They might have had a really bad person in there. They took a chance where they went through the whole interview process and sounded great and came in and know fell flat in their was it’s a different.

Jon Johnson:

Job getting the plane in the air than John? Oh, sorry. I just said it’s a different job getting the plane in the air than it is keeping it in the here.

Josh Schachter:

Yeah.

Jeff Kushmerek:

If I’m in my slick presales, which I rarely am, I’ll say this concept that I call stress free hiring, right? Because when you’re in a pinch, you’re like, I need to fire that person. They suck badly, right? And then you can put other adjectives after that. It’s like, but what are we going to do? Because I’d rather have that person’s 40% than nothing right now. But then they don’t want to start a job search and what if the next person sucks? So I say bring in a consultant, get some consistency in there, bring it back down, pump the brakes a little bit, get some normalization going on, put in some stuff that is kind of proven to work. You got the quotes, you can show some work product off. We’ve got lots of all the templates and everything to show off and everything. And that just is a little bit safer for some people because also you can put stuff in the contract that says if you don’t like what we’re seeing after a month or two, then we’re gone, right? Or you can just go and terminate the contract. Never happened. And that gives them this also feeling like I’m going to sign this person on and shit, they’re going to be on a pip three months in, and then I got to manage them out and be on this never ending thing. So I say we’ll come in, we’ll even help you hire, we’ll help interview. I’m not running a recruiting agency or anything like that, but it’s like you can then take the breath off because otherwise you hire a B player or suddenly all your C players look like B players and A player. The math on that. And then they just keep bringing in bad. I’ve gone in current couple of companies we’re working with now, and you start pulling back the layers and you’re like, oh, I see this terrible process, Doc. But I wouldn’t say that. Like, hey, do you know who wrote this? And they’re like, oh, that was the person before. No, it was three people. And it happens over and over and over again, right? Especially if you go through startups where know, just trying to bring in somebody and going from there and now they’re at a level where they can have some good people.

Josh Schachter:

One of them is yeah.

Jon Johnson:

Yes, Mickey, he said a lot of things.

Kristi Faltorusso:

He said a lot of words.

Jon Johnson:

There was a lot of no, we just tell Josh my expert analysis, not anybody else.

Mickey Powell:

Josh doesn’t even speak. No, I wanted to dig in more to I love it, the whole, like, hiring people, they’re B players or you’re having to manage them out. Because I’ve been fired before. I’ve been fired for various reasons, and we still carry that chip on my shoulder. And a part of that is there have been times where I was like, whoa, I was giving 100% effort. And yes, it wasn’t to your standards, but you didn’t give me enough time to reach your standards, or your standards were unclear. But I’m still willing to say I want to get better. So how do you balance put your leader hat back on for a minute, because I’m sure you’ve had to do this. How do you balance that where we’re demanding stuff from people they may not be reaching that. How do we get them there? And I’m sure, Christy, you have great input on this as well as being.

Jon Johnson:

A great leader.

Jeff Kushmerek:

At the consultant, you do get a little bit of a little unfair sort of boost. You have this little magical know, see these little glistening like, I get that like the Barbara Walters filter on me when I’m talking and everything. It just sounds a little better coming from the consultant. And I can just be, you know, did ask a lot. So you can reset expectations a little bit better, if that’s what you’re going right? Like, in terms of coming in, seeing that there’s maybe too much going on, I’ll give you data is better, right? Like, I came into this startup and they’re like, well, we’re at 2 million per CSM and that’s the industry standard we heard and everything. And I’m like, yeah, but you’re selling into SMB, and your largest contract is 999 a month. So to get up to 2 million, that’s a lot of that’s a lot of customers. So let’s do this. Let’s make sure we do our efficiency stuff right. Make sure you get your process in place, get the whole digital thing going and everything where it makes appropriate the whole thing, not just the email thing, and roll that out and then say, let’s rebalance. Let’s play the CS tetris and move accounts around and all that stuff. Now we’ve done that, and we’re still at volumes that don’t make sense. So now we’re going to maybe bring another person or two or reshuffle or create a new role here or there or something like that.

Josh Schachter:

Yeah.

Jon Johnson:

And that gets into capacity planning, which seems like a really basic thing, but if you’re just saying, well, the industry standard is 2 million, without looking at what that means, because, yeah, 2 million is a number that people tend to use. But like you said, if it’s $1,000 contract, jesus.

Kristi Faltorusso:

Well, the same person who called us lazy also said that 2 million was a magic number, so let’s stop propagating what this person keeps saying out there.

Jeff Kushmerek:

All right, that person. But I also got a lot of shit with somebody that we’re all friends with because I said I bump into lazy people all the time because I’m usually replacing them, and I can tell you that.

Jon Johnson:

That’S a flex. Jeff oh, my gosh. Be careful. I may replace.

Kristi Faltorusso:

I see more often than not because, okay, I sit in a unique seat as so I’m not I’m not in the company, but as their vendor and as a thought leader and customer success, I often get pulled into conversations with exec leadership, and I get put on the spot and asked a lot of questions about how and why they’re doing the things that they’re doing. Are they the right things? But I’m not getting paid for my opinion, right? So I have to toe a very delicate line. I can’t say your processes are crap and your leader doesn’t know what they’re doing, even if that is what I feel. I have to make recommendations, and I have to be very delicate. But I will say anytime that I see folks bringing in consultants and there is a senior leader in place, usually a short follow is a replacement. I very rarely see it as an additive value. It’s usually the executive leadership team has some doubts. They’re not seeing what they want. They’re bringing this consultant in to validate, and then you’re seeing some change after that.

Jeff Kushmerek:

I will say sometimes there’s a different scenario where it’s like there’s so many high level initiatives to go on. They need somebody to go execute and drive on things. And I’m doing one of those right now where it’s like, Shit. Just needs to get done. Boom, boom, boom, boom. There’s acquisitions going on that they need to work on upgrade paths and things like so, yes, I hear you. Not all the time. I’m also saying that for a specific reason right now, which I’ll talk about later. But anyways, is this a good time.

Jon Johnson:

Josh, to tell Mickey that you’re bringing Jeff on as a consultant?

Speaker D:

Let’s role play that conversation.

Jon Johnson:

Role play that. This is man, I love like, it truly has been one of those things, I guess, the idea of consultancy.

Josh Schachter:

So.

Jon Johnson:

How do you inform yourself on trends that are happening in the trenches when you are so removed from them? And I know you’re not so removed from them, but it is a different world in consultancy. So how do you filter through the bullshit that happens in the echo chamber? So that what you’re bringing is the nuance?

Josh Schachter:

Yeah.

Jeff Kushmerek:

So, first of all, I do try and do, like, an interim leader thing every year or have one of those types of projects going on. So I’m not walking around in some cloud of like, well, that’s how we did it back in Y, two K, right. And things like that. But I’m lucky because my family used to always tell me how dumb I am, so I’m always thinking I don’t know what I’m talking about. So I’m always going off and researching. My whole podcast now is just to talk about shit that I don’t know about. Right? Like, I didn’t know anything about Csql, so I fired up podcasts and talked to my friend about, you know, I try and avoid this confirmation bias and I go on GGR, I talk with all you guys. I listen to some podcasts, not too many of them, but every time I listen to a podcast and I don’t know, something or something comes up as interesting, I literally stop the podcast and take some notes or tell Siri, who’s going to start firing off now on five different devices to do that. Right? And then I’ll look it up or I’ll talk about stuff and then start pulling out ideas, and then I’ll start working it into our templates and our SOPs and things like that. If it winds up being, like, a path that I should look at and.

Mickey Powell:

Stuff, who hurts you does.

Jeff Kushmerek:

That specific.

Josh Schachter:

It does.

Jon Johnson:

No, I love that processes. Yeah, it’s the iterative processes, really, that I feel like there’s a lot of set it and forget it. You find a success that wins. I’ve worked with some really poor consultants in the past, so I do love hearing kind of how things get refined. I also want to know what your cup says. Could you please read that?

Jeff Kushmerek:

So I almost feel bad because of the whole I’m not trying to copy Nick here. Is that Taylor, my daughter, when they went to the US Open last week, she went to the Taylor Swift Museum. Yes. Where’s?

Kristi Faltorusso:

The Taylor Swift Museum.

Jeff Kushmerek:

I’ll find out for you. Okay? Please do.

Kristi Faltorusso:

Thank you.

Jeff Kushmerek:

I want to wear pink and tell you how I feel about politics. And she asked me to use this on this podcast today. She’s like, are you doing any podcasts? I said yes. And she’s like, can you please use this mug? And I’m like, I don’t want to do, like, this guy Nick and he’s got this big Taylor thing. And I’m really trying not to go down that know that’s.

Jon Johnson:

All right, I’m going to get a.

Kristi Faltorusso:

Brittany mug and we’re going to make Brittany cool again. We’re going to make her relevant, everybody.

Jeff Kushmerek:

Christy, were you on the Brittany Aguilera thing? Like, what side you on on that?

Jon Johnson:

Christina Aguilera woke something up in me that wait, back then.

Kristi Faltorusso:

Is it silly? Are you talking about, like, back in 99 coming after Disney’s Mickey Mouse Club out of that?

Jeff Kushmerek:

Yeah, I’m just in retrospect, when you look at the whole situation, where does it net out for you?

Kristi Faltorusso:

You ready?

Jeff Kushmerek:

Yeah.

Jon Johnson:

Oh, yeah.

Jeff Kushmerek:

I’m more of a fan of your sisters, to be honest.

Kristi Faltorusso:

But look, listen, I liked like she was my know, I liked Christina, but she was a little bit more edgy for me. I was not edgy at that age. Yeah, she was, like, a little rough for me. So I like Jessica. She felt a little bit more wholesome. She was a little dumb. I liked that about her. Buffaloes don’t have wings.

Jon Johnson:

Did you watch her show? Did you watch her reality show?

Kristi Faltorusso:

Yeah. Her and Nick.

Jon Johnson:

I love it. I love it.

Kristi Faltorusso:

Jessica Simpson and Nicolashe, they were married.

Jon Johnson:

That’s so fun. I love that. Didn’t land early 2000s pop music. Speaking of musicians jeff mr. Rockstar. Here I am thinking back.

Jeff Kushmerek:

Here we go.

Jon Johnson:

Little PRS in the background. Let’s talk a little bit about the little show you did in San Francisco during Gamesight.

Jeff Kushmerek:

We’ll do this for two minutes and then I feel like I can go overboard on that stuff. So I don’t want to make it be like I’m not big into the look at me as much as I try and be funny like that, if that makes sense.

Jon Johnson:

No, I know. But I will say it was really fun. So you, Miranda Jay and who played drums?

Jeff Kushmerek:

Brian Plaster from is that going to get edited right out of no.

Jon Johnson:

Brian Plaster? No. So for those of you that were at Pulse or just kind of watched online, a bunch of CS leaders put together a little show that Miranda sang at. And what I love is we spend so much time talking about CS, we spend so much time in our echo chamber that when we have the opportunity to step out of it and see things that we’re also passionate about in a new way. And I think that it is one of my favorite memories of you and I meeting and hanging out together and I got videos and pictures and do you remember the photo that was behind you guys?

Jeff Kushmerek:

Of course. Did I tell you my biggest regret is that and I said this at the award ceremony after, is that we didn’t rename the band on stage to Miranda and the yeah, yeah.

Jon Johnson:

There was a giant naked picture behind them. We’ll put it in the show notes if we’re allowed to, but I think it took halfway through the set before everybody in the crowd looked up and was like, oh, God.

Jeff Kushmerek:

Right.

Jon Johnson:

I don’t think I could post this on Instagram.

Jeff Kushmerek:

You wouldn’t have seen it, right? Yeah, it was definitely NC 17 going on.

Jon Johnson:

Definitely.

Kristi Faltorusso:

Thank you for the rating.

Jeff Kushmerek:

I appreciate that that all went down because I’m good friends with Jay, and we always said, hey, if we’re ever at a conference again together, we should just bring our guitars and play instead of hanging out and talking about CS. And so then I said, hey, I’m going to be out there. And then I said, hey, Jay, let’s just get together and play some tunes. And it was on a group chat that I think Christy was on, and then suddenly it turned into a gig. And then I said, I’m only going to do this if I can run it, and then if I can play at a dive bar and make sure that nobody talks about CS at all, it is literally about going and having it. I’m like, yeah, you can have side conversations, but okay, we played three songs. I really want to chat about NRR right now.

Josh Schachter:

Right.

Jeff Kushmerek:

So we weren’t going to do that whole thing.

Jon Johnson:

I love it. No, it’s really great.

Jeff Kushmerek:

I actually have my own there’s always more talented people that, first of all, ask to be on stage and stuff like that. And I’m like, oh, so we can go practice for three months, but you just want to jump on stage and okay, that’s cool. So that was a little nervy and stuff like that, but it was great. So I just figured you were going to be standing there with your arms and why did you play the chord that way? I would have dropped three shell voicing there or something like that.

Jon Johnson:

No, you’ll learn. Look, I think of myself in the same way that you think of as a musician. I am just so thrilled that other people love music and I send demos and I make music and I’ve got studio stuff and that’s all fine, but one of my favorite things is just seeing things that bring other people into their own spotlight. And it was so cool to sit in that audience. And Jay and I have our own little private thing talk every Sunday. He’s like, I’m playing at church. Are you playing at church? And we share screenshots of the soundboard and stuff like that.

Jeff Kushmerek:

For all you know, when they’re talking about playing churches, this isn’t, like, in the back.

Jon Johnson:

Jesus.

Jeff Kushmerek:

It is like a Dave Matthews concert.

Jon Johnson:

I mean, it’s like 10,000 people.

Kristi Faltorusso:

You don’t have churches like that by me.

Josh Schachter:

Yeah.

Jon Johnson:

In Charleston, South Carolina.

Kristi Faltorusso:

That’s all I know. I don’t live in the church.

Josh Schachter:

Mecca. I know. Oh, yeah.

Jon Johnson:

You’re in New Jersey. Big church.

Kristi Faltorusso:

I’m on Long Island. Long island kind of the same.

Jon Johnson:

We got Nathan taught dogs, and we.

Kristi Faltorusso:

Got some that’s Brooklyn. That is Brooklyn. That is a different borough. I’m on an island. I’m not even a borough.

Jon Johnson:

Whatever. Anyways, Christy, do you have a question? I texted you I told you to tell me to shut up.

Kristi Faltorusso:

I know. I texted you back, and I said, no, keep doing it.

Josh Schachter:

I love it, but I want to.

Jon Johnson:

Hear from you.

Kristi Faltorusso:

Have a I do have a question for Jeff. Jeff, Jeff, Jeff, Jeff. Okay. So you deploy all of these reports, these ideas, these recommendations, these processes. How often do you go back to these companies to go see what their success rate looks like?

Jeff Kushmerek:

Good point.

Kristi Faltorusso:

Because we know this is all Lagging indicators. Like, all the work that we do, you might not see the benefit of it for a year.

Jeff Kushmerek:

I’ve been better about that now. Usually I’m just in contact with people a lot and everything, but then I realized there’s more than just me on my team and everything. And so I realized, hey, I should reach back out. Also, it’s great for the website and things like that, but then there’s the how are those things going? I’m actually honestly curious and things like that, and I’m trying to find what that right time period is. Three months is tough. Six months, hopefully, you start seeing some traction and things like that. So the answer is I’m trying to do more and more of that.

Kristi Faltorusso:

Okay. And then what is the success rate of deployment?

Josh Schachter:

Right.

Kristi Faltorusso:

So again, you’re coming in with all these recommendations and all these ideas. Similarly, I’m working with CS teams who love the idea of our technology, who struggle to get it set up correctly, who struggle to deploy it and drive change management. So I’d love to hear from your standpoint. It’s not technology. It still work for them. Are they doing it?

Josh Schachter:

Yeah.

Jeff Kushmerek:

So this is the when you’re the interim leader, right. We talked about the fractional or the interim leader coming in to fix the spot. It’s a lot easier because you’re in control. And I tell people that right up front. All situations are different and everything, but if I’m given a couple of options to choose from, I’ll be like, Listen, I really don’t like that option, because if they’re not reporting in to our function, you’re like, hey, can we now roll out the renewal process? Right. Versus, like so you’re going to be KPI’d, we’re going to be going through the software, we’re going to be seeing X, Y. So it’s a different conversation, right?

Kristi Faltorusso:

Yeah.

Jeff Kushmerek:

And I will say projects are probably 60% to 70% more successful if we are an interim leader. It’s not exactly the model I shoot for all the time. But again, I will also then say if you’ve got that example I talked about earlier with a really good educated leader that just needs some bandwidth because they’re dealing with an acquisition or they’ve got 1000 things to work on, then they will execute and make those things happen as well too. But, yeah, if you just come in, like, here’s a report. I think you guys should roll out client success and maybe hire three more people over there. Like, guaranteed that maybe not be happening so fast or whatever. I feel I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that sometimes I’m being brought in by the investors and they do kind of make sure that these things happen a lot more.

Kristi Faltorusso:

Interesting.

Jon Johnson:

That’s interesting. That definitely changes the dynamic back of the teacher room.

Jeff Kushmerek:

I will say shape up. I’ve never been paid by the investor. They always introduce me.

Jon Johnson:

But they’re like, you really should.

Jeff Kushmerek:

We recommend you highly recommend.

Jon Johnson:

Good idea.

Jeff Kushmerek:

So in that case, you have a little bit of that. Like, hey, I just got brought in by these guys to fix this fucking problem. And you should probably do that, right? I always throw this mask on top of the humor and everything. But there is this element of being like, listen, there’s no politics in this for me, right? I’m not trying to hire five people and I’m not trying to get that gig and I’m not trying to get the C title and do this whole thing and set me up for the next gig or whatever. I’m like, I’m just coming in to get shit done, fix the broken stuff and X, Y and Z. I’m pretty clear about that. And that actually helps things out a lot more than what it could be. If you’re just like, you made a point that I think and all that.

Mickey Powell:

Stuff that I think is actually really important, very disarming. You’re coming in for results. No, the problem is a lot of leaders, they might be capable, but they also have to do all the other things. They got to play the politics. They have to fight for resources. They have to make a case that anything should be done. So it’s like, okay, maybe that’s why consultants work, is because we’re just like, no, they’re just coming in for results. We’re paying them for results. We’re not paying them to politic. We’re not paying them to love the team and to encourage and nurture the team. So are we then as the expectations of leaders too high too?

Jeff Kushmerek:

And I love to hear what other people have to say about this, but this goes back to the point where Christy was like, hey, if somebody’s brought in, there might be like and I’m like, no, sometimes they don’t have a director in place, but they have, like, a C level person. I really see this when they bring in a CCO with no implementation or proserve background, and they need to get that whole thing kind of brought up because there’s a whole methodology and project management kind of thought mentality that goes into that versus, like, hey, we’re CSP hug. Right? Sorry, I don’t hug, but it is we’re bringing in this person, and I’m usually like, I’m going to come in and get shit done and then train your director that’s going to come in and over and make sure that this stuff’s going to happen as well.

Josh Schachter:

Yeah.

Jeff Kushmerek:

Silence again?

Jon Johnson:

No, this is good. If I’m honest, I’ve looked up to the way that you’ve kind of shared information for a long time, and I’ve really enjoyed learning from you over the yeah, totally. Mickey’s a real dick about this, and.

Kristi Faltorusso:

I’ve written most of so, no, but.

Jon Johnson:

I just appreciate your perspective on this.

Jeff Kushmerek:

I want that to be just every post comment from Christy. Like, yeah, I wrote this five years ago.

Jon Johnson:

Yeah, come on.

Kristi Faltorusso:

I don’t have that good ideas.

Jon Johnson:

You have a lot of good ideas, Christy.

Kristi Faltorusso:

That’s why I steal them from Jeff Fair.

Jon Johnson:

Josh, how are you doing?

Josh Schachter:

Is that my cue?

Jon Johnson:

Is that my are you just going to just edit? End the podcast, everybody, I’m editing all of 20.

Speaker D:

This is just going to be what I said during the episode.

Jon Johnson:

It’ll be two minutes.

Speaker D:

Yeah, the whole 10 seconds of it. I feel like we’ve started to reshape my role in this podcast.

Jeff Kushmerek:

And you know what? I’m not upset about it.

Speaker D:

I’m the guy that gets us going and then abruptly tells us time is over.

Jeff Kushmerek:

Project manager.

Speaker D:

Project manager.

Josh Schachter:

Yeah.

Speaker D:

Well, anyways, thank you, everybody, for listening to this episode of The John and Jeff Show. We hope you.

Jon Johnson:

Sponsored by Kentucky Bourbon. It’s so good. This is like the last of it from the bottle, and I didn’t want to wait till tonight.

Jeff Kushmerek:

John, is this whiskey thing like the path where now you’re going to go do BJJ and listen to Joe Rogan and Jocko and stuff?

Jon Johnson:

No?

Jeff Kushmerek:

Okay.

Jon Johnson:

That’s Christie’s husband.

Kristi Faltorusso:

I love.

Jeff Kushmerek:

Boots and protein powder and everything.

Kristi Faltorusso:

Well, he sold tea. I did buy the Jocko tea. It was like a white cranberry tea. You know what? I thought it was pretty good.

Jon Johnson:

What type of supplement are we going to start selling? I’m curious.

Kristi Faltorusso:

Yeah.

Jeff Kushmerek:

What a brain?

Jon Johnson:

Nootropics brain.

Josh Schachter:

Power.

Kristi Faltorusso:

Fat burners. We need self.

Jon Johnson:

Can I just sell mushrooms? What about mushrooms? Can we just get high and big salads?

Kristi Faltorusso:

The diet industry makes billions of dollars. I want to sell weight loss pills.

Jon Johnson:

Anyways, ladies and gentlemen, we love.