GSD Podcast - Running a great Customer Advisory Board: Insights from Scott Roth with Alli Tiscornia
In this podcast, Scott Roth shared his experience transitioning from a large company to a small startup, emphasizing the importance of building credibility with customers and establishing strong relationships. During the conversation, he shared details about his company's first-ever virtual customer advisory board, which proved to be a huge success. Here are some key takeaways from the discussion:
- Scott Roth talks about his experience transitioning from a large company to a small startup, highlighting the importance of building credibility with customers and establishing strong relationships.
- Scott Roth successfully held his company's first-ever virtual customer advisory board, which lasted for two hours and had eight customers attend.
- The meeting included a discussion about the benefits of allowing customers to air their grievances and frustrations with using a product, as it can provide valuable feedback for improvement.
- The company's product roadmap was also discussed, with a focus on making it more accessible to customers and enabling them to vote for capabilities they would like to see added to the platform.
- The company held its first customer advisory board meeting, where they discussed themes and invited customers to co-develop new capabilities. They plan to hold future in-person meetings with a longer agenda and expect referrals from satisfied customers.
- The selection process for the board
- The company wants to learn from industry leaders how to become the de facto number one in their space and set the tone for how to do something.
- The company is exploring the possibility of creating a community for all customers but is hesitant due to concerns about proper administration.
Scott Roth's experience transitioning from a large company to a small startup highlights the importance of building credibility with customers and establishing strong relationships. By holding a virtual customer advisory board, his company was able to gain valuable insights and feedback from its customers, which can help shape the future of the platform. The company plans to hold future in-person meetings with a longer agenda and expects referrals from satisfied customers.
The selection process for the advisory board included consideration of company size, as larger user bases have different requirements and challenges. The company is exploring the possibility of creating a community for all customers but is hesitant due to concerns about proper administration. By keeping the advisory board exclusive and inviting the right customers, the team can use feedback to shape the future of the platform and learn from industry leaders how to become the de facto number one in their space.
Overall, the success of Scott Roth's virtual customer advisory board showcases the importance of building strong relationships with customers and leveraging their feedback to improve products and services. The company's focus on accessibility, inclusivity, and scalability will help ensure its continued success and growth in the future.
Listen to the podcast here.
Transcript:
Jeff
00:15
Hello? Hello? Hello? Well, it's just us right now. He's he's been big mister Big time. So
Alli
01:49
Dammit.
Jeff
01:50
so it it Maybe you can join in, like, ten minutes or you key can show up and you'll be here, whatever you wanna do.
Alli
01:54
Damn. No. I don't know.
Jeff
01:58
It's a podcast recording.
Alli
02:00
I know. I wanna I wanna zoom bomb him.
Jeff
02:03
So jump in, like, in into alpha?
Alli
02:05
In ten minutes,
Jeff
02:06
I'll Slack you when he join.
Alli
02:07
Okay.
Jeff
02:08
Okay.
Alli
02:09
Perfect. Bye.
Jeff
02:10
Bye.
Scott
02:49
Mister Kumar?
Jeff
02:50
Look who's here.
Scott
02:53
What's going on, brother?
Jeff
02:55
You can turn that video on so I can see a pretty face.
Scott
02:57
Oh, I'm so sorry. I thought it was I thought it was on. I I haven't set up that I come in my video on, but sometimes it certain Zooms it not. So
Jeff
03:05
It's okay. It's okay. You don't have to apologize. We're all pros here.
Scott
03:09
look at you big time in it with a swag with your logo.
Jeff
03:13
You know what? You know, not
Scott
03:14
That's big time.
Jeff
03:16
not only that. You, Scott Roth, the first person to be a double double guest on the show. So I will send you
Scott
03:25
Shut up. Front door.
Jeff
03:29
Your choice of an infinite renewal sticker to put on your laptop or a Miranda in the Jays, Oh, right?
Scott
03:40
I mean, how many how many different versions can you have of your stickers?
Jeff
03:43
I mean,
Scott
03:44
How to hold them up.
Jeff
03:46
I'm glad glad to see they were both fellow. I'm guessing sticker mule customers.
Scott
03:50
It was it was it was given to my marketing team. I don't know where I can. From.
Jeff
03:55
So we're just rolling. This is this is all we'll go back and make sure we take any bad stuff out. But, Scott, you are the first person, to be on this podcast twice, obviously based on being in the top numbers of the pug. I'm just guessing your mom is downloading this podcast every day. It's just consistently, I'm I'm like, numbers just always Scott Roth, first one, put a link in the episodes. Always hitting that number in the top too. And
Scott
04:36
Out of how many three?
Jeff
04:38
No. No. When yours is pre video, so now the numbers are all skewed because some people go watch the videos, some people watch the don't care about, you know, I'm not selling ads, so I don't care about view counts. But like, you know, but, you know, you will get these, and you're like, wow, what about that resonated? I'm just assuming you just had all of your employees at Medellia go download the episode and everything.
Scott
04:58
You know, you you post it out to your network and, you know, your friends go and watch and then they pick on you privately through the text messages to let you know how how you did.
Jeff
05:08
I mean, that's my life as having my college roommates. You know nothing about what I do just, like, consistently text me and stuff like that. So, you know, it's funny we're talking about former coworkers, and here's one right here.
Scott
05:21
Yeah. Oh, my goodness.
Alli
05:25
Zoom bomb.
Scott
05:27
Okay. This is whatever union. Says, holy cannoli, how did I get so lucky? Talk about setting your ratings off the charts. You're down close to this. You're you're gonna have to get new servers. They're just gonna melt.
Jeff
05:42
I response.
Alli
05:42
That's right. They're gonna melt.
Jeff
05:44
Spotify is contacting me as we speak here. Because Al who refuses to come on the podcast is actually now on the podcast, so this is amazing.
Scott
05:52
B, I'm a drop.
Alli
05:53
We have one scheduled for next Friday,
Jeff
05:57
Oh,
Alli
05:57
Jeff.
Jeff
05:58
shoot. That's gonna be a blast. I'm glad I did all the prep work on that one.
Alli
06:03
That number one he forgot. The other one that I was supposed to be on with him, he canceled. Yeah.
Jeff
06:09
That's correct. I wasn't I wasn't feeling it.
Alli
06:10
Yes. Yeah. And also forgot that I was supposed to be on the podcast.
Jeff
06:18
You know, we all have customers, we all have emergencies. That's That's the By the way, I got some of the comments I'm getting today on some stuff. Well, you know, the funny thing I posted Scott today on some beat you know, CSMs that are too nice, but the funny thing is those people that aren't too nice are too afraid to complain. So it's it's just amazing.
Alli
06:23
That's fine. See, exactly.
Jeff
06:39
Yeah. But nobody would ever save that about any of the three of us, I believe.
Alli
06:39
You we're stuck. Oh,
Jeff
06:44
No. No. No.
Scott
06:45
Yeah. Cross.
Alli
06:45
number one that we're nice. Number two. That we would not be able to comment on something.
Jeff
06:54
Yeah. You know, so Scott never originally here to talk about cabs, but I I I am more interested in, you know, we can talk about that too. You can split them up into two episodes. But I'm now super interested in this change that went you from being mister Big Shot, teams of hundreds, unlimited budget till, like, maybe being able to, you know, get some stickers made up and send your team to it meet up. Like, how's how's that how's that gone from going from a huge company down to a small company?
Alli
07:27
Yeah. Didn't you have, like, a didn't you have, like, an executive assistant and I mean, you had, like, worked on the private jet. I mean,
Scott
07:34
So
Jeff
07:36
Wow.
Alli
07:36
you were doing it all there for a while.
Jeff
07:39
Picture in front of the stock exchange.
Scott
07:39
I've never
Jeff
07:41
Right?
Alli
07:41
Right. And then he decided to slum it with us in the startup world.
Scott
07:41
Go back. Yes. So we all start somewhere in life. And this is this is startup number three. Right? YouTube are part of starter number one that I went to. That's how I had to meet YouTube casted characters.
Jeff
07:57
I I mean, I think you guys were on my back of the work that I did before that, but sure. Absolutely. Guys, good morning, OJ. Come on now. Keep going. Yep.
Scott
08:09
So, you know, and we we grinded hard in medallion. We built that company to what it was. And, you know, Allie came along for the ride for a few of those years. I hope the
Alli
08:18
Only for a few, though.
Scott
08:20
that was part of our springboard success when she won.
Jeff
08:22
Yes? I live a great cameo player. Right? She's just comes in. What? Oh. It's out. It's out. Right? And then Irish goodbye.
Alli
08:31
Yep. Yeah.
Jeff
08:34
Just gone.
Alli
08:36
Free specialty. I get you too. I get you to a certain number in revenue and then I'm out.
Jeff
08:42
You're like, Bongo, you never say goodbye. Just just go yep.
Alli
08:44
That's right. I just go away.
Scott
08:46
Oh, wait. You know, look at what gets you from zero to ten million? Does it get you from ten to twenty? No.
Alli
08:50
That's right. Absolutely.
Jeff
08:50
I say that every day when customers like, I need to get rid of this person. I'm like, you know, they got you here. Right?
Scott
08:55
Right. Right. Right. I will get you.
Alli
08:56
And I have a I have a revenue specialty. Like, I know a certain number of threshold that I'm really good at, and then I say hand it over,
Jeff
09:04
That's okay. Hey. So what I I'm always trying to for me, I'm like,
Alli
09:05
great to lead to the next leader.
Jeff
09:09
it used to be five hundred. I I think it was three hundred and then a number of them employees. I was, like, more than three hundred, and I'm out. But then I was, like, five hundred maybe. But I don't know if is it revenue with you guys or is it number of employees? Because of what that then signals throughout the signals. Right? Like, you you know, if you're at five hundred people, you're probably making x amount of revenue or something.
Alli
09:31
Yeah. I mean, it's not a perfect ratio, but for me, I tend to
Jeff
09:34
Oh, thanks for reminding me. I hope not perfect. But we appreciate that.
Alli
09:37
I hope you're a struggle with math. Okay. Yeah.
Jeff
09:42
She knows how to make Jeff shut up immediately is to ask math questions.
Alli
09:48
Yeah. I I tend to look at it more in terms of revenue -- Yeah. -- of a particular range that I think I'm pretty good at. So you get you get past fifty to fifty five million and I'm like, okay,
Jeff
09:58
Oh,
Alli
10:02
it's on to the next leader.
Jeff
10:04
Well, that fifty to a hundred. Right? It's like like the hard like, the hardest of the business. That's it's like asking somebody out on a highway. It rarely happens. Right? So Good estimate.
Alli
10:08
Yep. Exactly.
Scott
10:13
Well, I think getting the fifty million is is awfully incredibly hard too. You know, you have to get a lot of people to trust in your when you have no track record.
Jeff
10:18
Yeah.
Alli
10:19
It? Yeah.
Scott
10:25
That you that they should put their bets behind you. Right? An established company, short short timing market, like, why should they make the investment? Like, what was it saying? No. It gets fired for for by IBM. Right? Right? So, you know, do people wanna put their neck on the line for you? This new new company that's just trying it out? That's that's hard. Right? The first the first ten customers are the hardest,
Jeff
10:35
IBM. Yep.
Alli
10:36
Right.
Jeff
10:46
Yeah. Yeah.
Scott
10:47
I think.
Jeff
10:50
Yeah. I I mean, are you are you being pulled into those sales conversations still? Or you think you guys have crossed that point right now?
Scott
10:57
No. I mean I I mean, I sounds like it's my happy place. I love helping customers understand the art of the possible. And what it takes to be successful because I feel like that's where you establish the best relationship and you build all the credibility because then when it comes permission later on, they they say, well, why do you said it's gonna happen this way that it does? Right? And then you're with them through the whole life cycle of the purchase and the delivery. And that builds a lot of com requiring a lot of advocacy. And to me, that's really important because, you know, people buy from people. We said that before on the on the very first Kushner podcast, Amazon. It
Jeff
11:32
I don't have the transcript in front of me, but I I believe that's
Scott
11:35
said it was quoted. It was definitely a quote a quote a statement.
Alli
11:37
You're on your second episode. Your second appearance. I haven't even been on what?
Scott
11:39
Yeah. I'm I'm I'm with a regular I know. That's that's all.
Jeff
11:43
Oh, sorry.
Alli
11:43
You're on number two.
Jeff
11:45
So so so
Alli
11:45
Wow.
Scott
11:46
I'm I'm daytime, Ali. And, you know, you're
Jeff
11:48
so Scott got a free sticker from being the first person to be on his second podcast.
Alli
11:54
Wow.
Jeff
11:55
But you're gonna you might be the second I don't know. This is kind of like a half like a little cameo appearance, but, like,
Scott
11:56
Yeah. Is new, Bob? I don't know if that counts.
Alli
12:02
I believe he just told me this is a little cameo appearance. And now I have to leave. But like like that was the signal to be like, get out, Ellie.
Jeff
12:07
No. You don't you don't have to leave. I'm I would I would prefer to have you stay here the whole time.
Alli
12:13
I can go.
Scott
12:18
The nature.
Jeff
12:19
But we we did have some subjects that I believe you're you're probably love chatting about. They're not math related though. Right? The first one that came that we wanted to chat about, I actually don't have that much well, I got my own perspective. Like, we were gonna chat about customer customer advisory boards and who owns them and then how to make them successful.
Scott
12:39
That's right. Because last Tuesday,
Jeff
12:40
Right?
Scott
12:43
I had our first ever one at Bemar.
Alli
12:47
I heard about that, Scott.
Scott
12:47
We pulled we pulled it off.
Alli
12:49
Yes, congratulations.
Scott
12:50
So thank you. Thank you. What a journey. Right? Trying to figure out who do you invite? How do you do it? You know, we we chose to do our first one virtually to to start building community to figure out
Alli
13:05
Yep.
Scott
13:06
where we should do one in person. But we our decision was we're gonna do two a year,
Jeff
13:10
Yep.
Alli
13:10
Mhmm.
Scott
13:10
virtual one in person,
Alli
13:13
Mhmm.
Scott
13:13
And then we had our participants at the virtual event. We gave three options for an in person to vote and see where the group wanted to go, the majority. So we started to kinda see a theme show up and and what part of the world will go to from an in person perspective. And now we have to work on arranging that and logistics and all that.
Jeff
13:32
Yep.
Scott
13:33
We brought out we brought an external speaker in. We brought the committee prepared from the EEOC
Jeff
13:36
I'm a nice.
Scott
13:38
in. Because that's a topic that's very important to our customers, especially with labor laws. And
Jeff
13:44
Yep.
Scott
13:45
artificial intelligence is really hot topic in in in the world, but in our space, it's it's very important from beauty perspective because of the bottle.
Jeff
13:51
This to be one hundred percent clear, we are not talking about AI or chat EBT here. Just like to be about
Scott
13:57
No. I'm I'm just I'm just saying that
Alli
13:59
Oh,
Scott
13:59
based from a customer
Alli
13:59
I can't wait.
Scott
14:01
from a customer advisory board perspective, one of the things that I learned was you need to bring value to the customers that are getting value back to you. Right? So you're asking for them to help guide your company, but, you know, the what's in it for them And so we gave them access to an individual that they normally would never be able to meet or talk to. And and now they all have his email works. And so, like, to me, that was, like, a really big win. And and when we got our feedback
Jeff
14:22
No. I love that.
Scott
14:27
back from our session, his his section got the highest ranking from our and about customers. Like, they got the most value out of his time, which was great because, like, it was for that. So I can
Jeff
14:37
That's what Ali says when she brings me to speak exactly. That's exactly what what happens. Yeah.
Scott
14:43
can you hear me? Off the chart?
Alli
14:44
That's that's usually the commentary I I hear from you.
Jeff
14:50
How many people did you have, Scott, at the
Alli
14:52
Yeah. I'm curious how how large is your cab?
Scott
14:55
So we had a.
Alli
14:55
And how did you go about choosing which which customers? I think that's really important.
Jeff
14:59
We just reverse sort by AI. Right? I mean, that's that's what you do.
Scott
14:59
Yep. No. No. So we had eight customers attend eight individual accounts with nine participants. We had one customer that brought two people. We started off with a list of fourteen that we invited
Alli
15:15
Mhmm.
Scott
15:19
assuming, you know, kinda like when you plan, like, a a party. So I'm sorry, like, there's gonna be a decline rate because not everyone can always make it. So we need some people. And then we what I found out was very interesting. A few of our customers, they're not allowed to be on advisory board.
Jeff
15:34
No. No kidding.
Scott
15:34
I didn't even know that was, like, a thing,
Alli
15:35
Interesting.
Scott
15:37
but their legal team does not allow it. So they were, like, we wanna be part of this. As a person I wanna do it, but as, like, an employee at this company, I cannot do it, which I I didn't know those things. So that was a lesson learned. You know, for anyone who's listening, this is gonna try to stand up and advise you board. You always have to kinda over invite just because you need to, like, you wanted, like, a certain number. Right? I think keeping it under team was good, especially in the virtual world because everyone
Jeff
15:59
Yeah. Yeah.
Scott
16:04
was able to really talk and communicate and there wasn't, you know, like, so you're on the Zoom that you just basically Zoom video.
Jeff
16:12
Oh, so two questions. Very tactical, logistical questions. I'm curious, but that's what we're all about here. Right? So
Scott
16:18
Yeah.
Jeff
16:18
Was it you that told me you were gonna, like, arrange and send, like, lunches out to people and some, like, gift things and stuff like that?
Scott
16:24
So I I talked to you when I when I so I called you, Jeff, to say, hey. Like, when you did when you do customer I was like, what do you I wanted to get some brainstorming out with you and and just I I called a few people that kinda crowdsource some ideas.
Jeff
16:28
Yep.
Scott
16:35
We ended up not doing lunch because we have customers globally. So time zones, you know, it might have been breakfast someone, maybe not lunch, maybe did it for somebody. So we didn't do food. But we did create a customer advisory an inaugural customer advisory board welcome gift set. And so Unfortunately, our vendor had a little snafil and they get sent out prior to the cab, but it is on its way right now. But we did it at sending a box to them.
Jeff
17:04
That's okay. I think that's fine. I think that's fine.
Scott
17:06
We sent chocolates and cupcakes out and and mugs. So customers didn't get that before the actual meeting and and they enjoyed them on the on the call. And now they're official gift is is en route. So that'll be
Jeff
17:17
I just I just wanna apologize in advance if anybody thinks I have, like, a drier with pairs of sneakers. Next to me, my kids just got home and they're running all over the place. So apologies on that. Secondly, did you choose to use Zoom, or did you use one of these more specialty event things like a Zuddl? Or I I don't I can't keep tracking my Like, or did you or were you straight up Zoom?
Scott
17:38
But old school Zoom, good old fashioned Zoom. People know how to use it. It's comfortable
Alli
17:41
I love it.
Scott
17:44
at this stage, I think, as much as it can be.
Alli
17:47
I love that week number.
Jeff
17:47
Ali, what are we gonna say about that? Because I I have a counters shocking counterpoint to this. So
Alli
17:52
I was just gonna say something sarcastic about the fact that I love that we refer to Zoom as old school.
Jeff
17:59
Well, it's not Webex. Right?
Alli
18:00
Because it's not I mean, it hasn't been out that long, but you're paid. It is it is old school for those.
Scott
18:04
Wabash.
Jeff
18:07
Like, Rupaul, we really got me like this. That was Webex. Right? Like like yeah. So I'd still
Alli
18:12
No.
Jeff
18:13
still not have some people that have to use Webex. But
Alli
18:15
Oh oh, painful.
Jeff
18:17
yes. Yes. I I I'll tell you guys after because Actually, she is listening to this and she's like, you can't tell them. So anyways, that's just so I have been talking to some people that run these and they they bring in these other platforms just because you're on Zoom all day long. Staring I know the comfort of it. But like, oh, look, it's lime green, and there's a thing in the background. And I don't know.
Alli
18:36
Yeah.
Jeff
18:43
I I know us new new Englander types, non Ali, or, like, whatever. Just bring me to the meeting on them. Yeah.
Scott
18:47
She's found she's found New Jersey.
Jeff
18:50
Oh, she always comes off as San Francisco to me, but that's good to work.
Alli
18:55
Thank you for saying it properly, Jeff, as opposed to how you always add, but I appreciate it.
Jeff
19:00
Scott, Scott, how do you how do you if you're not gonna say full San Francisco in a sentence, a very casual, maybe around adult beverages, How do how do you say San Francisco to people?
Alli
19:07
I don't see it.
Scott
19:11
From San Fran?
Alli
19:14
Do you know that? You know that's the wrong answer? They're still so wrong.
Scott
19:15
I mean, what else would you say? No.
Jeff
19:19
Scott, I'm now also sending you out some stickers from my May seventeenth event at Pulse, and
Alli
19:27
So so apologies.
Jeff
19:28
that Ali will also be attending. So you can meet Ali there. Anybody listening?
Scott
19:33
What do I gotta do to get a vest? I want one of those vest. So that thing is sweet.
Jeff
19:37
I am happy to send you out a vest as a now two time podcaster and in the top percentage of all time listens.
Alli
19:49
So public service announcement to the five people that listen to Jeff's podcast.
Scott
19:49
Wow.
Jeff
19:55
Wow.
Alli
19:58
When whenever referring to the West Coast in San Francisco,
Jeff
20:01
Wow.
Alli
20:03
you either refer to San Francisco as the City or SF. And, yes, that is a thing. It is the city.
Jeff
20:11
Is that when you have your blue bottle coffee in your hand? You're walking around, talking about the, you know, oh, this is Cherry Root and Single Origin. And that that whole conversation?
Alli
20:14
Yes. Yes. That is true. Yes. And it and yes, you can refer to SF as the city. Even though the New Yorkers will hate you.
Jeff
20:29
See me in San Fran. I'll be there. Look at that.
Alli
20:32
Desk app. He'll be in as app.
Scott
20:33
So so bringing it back to important conversation. Because you two are just lost in a in a windless debate.
Alli
20:41
Yep. You're to be entertaining, Scott. You're being way too professional for for our days.
Scott
20:42
First of all, Remember on big time as you you call that weird. I wanna just wanna make sure we we stick with the mantra.
Alli
20:50
Oh.
Jeff
20:50
Got a point. Just go find.
Alli
20:52
Oh.
Scott
20:55
Just to be clear, when I did my customer advisory board, my virtual one, I only did it for two hours.
Alli
21:00
Yep.
Scott
21:00
So that was the other piece. It wasn't an all day thing.
Jeff
21:00
Okay.
Scott
21:04
And that's why we stuck with Zoom versus another platform just because it was it was gonna be quick.
Jeff
21:11
Okay.
Scott
21:12
We had a break about an hour and twenty into it to get people a little, you know, restroom break. But it was it was it was a very quick thing. And that was actually part of the feedback we got was that it was a key point.
Alli
21:25
Interesting. Interesting.
Jeff
21:26
Yeah.
Alli
21:27
Scott, you felt like two hours went quickly because you you had a guest speaker though. Right?
Jeff
21:32
Oh, yeah.
Scott
21:32
I guess, speaker, I was worried we weren't gonna be able to fill the two hours because we never don't. Right? And I didn't know how the how the customers will get along with each other, you know, we started off with customers doing self introductions,
Alli
21:36
Okay.
Scott
21:44
who they are a company they're with. And I asked I asked one question for everyone to answer. I said, what is the biggest problem you're trying to solve right now? And obviously, it it doesn't it wasn't the question was asked because it didn't matter if it was with our software or not. I'm trying to understand, like, in their role, what problem is sitting across your desk right now and where we are in this economy
Alli
21:59
Mhmm.
Scott
22:05
with the way the businesses are moving? Like, what were people seeing and doing? And it was interesting to hear, you know, what problems people were trying to solve because it was it wasn't the same answer for everybody.
Jeff
22:14
Interesting.
Scott
22:14
That that took it was good because I got conversation going. And that's why I wanted them to do because I wanted them to feel the community they are part of and start to relate each other people are exchanging numbers. They're like, I'm gonna call you after this to to pick your brain, or I wanna talk about this topic. So that was great because I want, you know, q is an important thing. We learned that every day. I mean, alley. You know, one of the things I think that the guy did exceptionally well is resigning a software vendor, they they had community. And the community was probably more profitable in the software at the end of the day.
Jeff
22:33
Yeah.
Alli
22:43
Mhmm. That's very true.
Jeff
22:45
Hey, Scott. Let me let me ask you a question. Would you have made the meeting longer if it was going to be in person?
Scott
22:52
So the answer is yes because the in person one, what our plan is gonna be is people will travel in the morning. We're gonna meet in the afternoon. We're gonna do a fun event in the evening. Then we're gonna meet the next day for half a day.
Jeff
23:07
Super hungover.
Scott
23:08
And then people will travel back in the afternoon. Like, that's gonna be our proposed plan. Because I think in person, it'll be more engaging and it'll be more focus. I think we can get, you know, four hours and then four hours a time. That's fine and nothing focused. I I just can imagine I'm a student member. More than two others on Zoom. I thought I would just lose you personally. So that's why we did we took it short.
Jeff
23:24
Yes. Yeah. What I'm always interested you know, you're trying to get them to talk about the different use cases of how they use your software so they can start thinking about it. I'm wondering, and I'm curious, and and you know, Ali, love to hear your perspective on this too. How do you stop that from or do you stop that from turning into an airing of the grievances.
Alli
23:54
I actually I don't have a problem with the airing of the grievances. I know sometimes product people do? I know sometimes CEOs.
Jeff
24:02
That's because they don't like talking to customers.
Alli
24:04
What? No. Come on. Let's not let's not bash our product our product people. We gotta show them a lot of love. I think it's actually
Jeff
24:10
Your product person.
Alli
24:12
I I think it's actually okay to allow your customer to talk about their grievances, talk about their frustrations with using product because I think sometimes we get so, you know, we are experts in our own product and we get so used to using it. We kind of become numb to how other people think and use it. I think it's really important feedback. And again, I know CEOs and proud of people struggle with it. I think it's still really important.
Jeff
24:40
Yep.
Alli
24:41
I think it's just a matter of you have to know how to steer that conversation so that your whole your whole CAD meeting doesn't become that, but I think you need to allow time for that to actually happen.
Jeff
24:49
Yep. You know what I found is an amazing benefit, and this has happened more than once more than one company, is that trying to phrase this in the right way. A customer came in the whole thing, and then when we had the feedback type of a session, this big airing of the grievance has started with this particular customer. And they weren't getting any sort of, like, I agree with you from the other people on the cap and it made that customer realize, like, oh, wait. I'm the crazy one. It's I'm the problem.
Alli
25:20
Absolutely. Mhmm. Mhmm.
Jeff
25:23
Yeah.
Scott
25:23
Yeah.
Alli
25:23
Yes. Or my use case is so specific that I'm never gonna get this addressed.
Jeff
25:30
Right.
Alli
25:30
Right? Because it doesn't apply to anybody else.
Jeff
25:33
Or it's more like the way that we do our business like, our internal processes are so fubar.
Alli
25:35
Right? Exactly.
Jeff
25:39
Like, I need to and then they would they've taken, like we need to really, like, take a look at what we're doing and how we're doing our jobs.
Alli
25:40
Yeah.
Jeff
25:45
Yeah.
Alli
25:45
And sometimes, like, you as the vendor don't even have to engage in that discussion. Right? Because the customers themselves actually are like, well, why do you do it that way? And then you know, they make suggestions on how to improve that business process.
Jeff
25:49
No. No. Yeah. Scott, hey, I didn't want I was gonna do my jump in and just cut everybody off, but, like, I just
Alli
26:03
Yeah. Yeah. Did you wanna contribute at all to the conversation in which you were invited to be the guest?
Scott
26:11
You literally picked the greatest Zoom bomber ever, Jeff, to be in part of this cameo appearance? I mean,
Jeff
26:17
You should've seen the lead up to this because we were just going back and forth on Slack where I was trying to get some serious answers and just I think there was like like it was just not lining up so I tried to do huddle and then she blew me off and I got the hold music and I sent that hold music to her. And then I was like, hey, I'm getting on with Scott. Like, what's your I mean, like,
Scott
26:37
Is that exactly available? So if I come
Alli
26:39
Immediate response example. I'm gonna have it respond.
Scott
26:43
Nate for Scott. Allie shows up.
Jeff
26:45
This is the I had to beg her to come on to the pot bag, like literally bed for her to come on to the podcast a few months ago, which I then didn't show up to. Yeah. It happens, you know, Fridays, you know, are tough tough days. Tough tough days. Yeah. But Scott, back back to you,
Scott
26:55
Lillar off later.
Alli
26:55
Probably forgot about. Mhmm.
Jeff
27:06
I really like this concept of, like, not even having to talk and letting the customers just drive it. Like, how If you had
Scott
27:07
K.
Jeff
27:13
is there a time to, like, hey, for the next hour or it's just it's happened spontaneously and you're like, what's rolling?
Scott
27:20
So there was an agenda that we went over at the beginning. The one piece that we had to be hard on time was for the commissioner of the EOC because he was coming in and he had, you know, other things he had to do. So we had to be on time for his start, and we had a you know, he actually stayed a couple minutes extra for us because he got engaged with some really great conversation. You know, we we power some of the largest brands in the world, and so they're very
Jeff
27:25
Yep.
Scott
27:42
respectful of his office in the position they have. They don't wanna show up on his desk so to speak. So for them, we will talk directly to him and ask questions was super insightful. And so and he spent the time with that, which was was, you know, extremely valuable. Yeah.
Jeff
27:54
Did you ask so I did so I will not get this question after, so I wanna ask now. The the guest host, I just love so much. I just wrote it down. Like, oh my god. Like, did you ask them who they wanted to be a guest host? Did you say, hey, we were thinking of how x would that work? Or they just kind of like the first they heard about having this guest so this particular person was when you announced the cab.
Scott
28:19
They were the cab members were informed that commissioner Sondler was gonna speak as part of the invitation that came out. They were not given the choice in this example on on what the topic was. We we knew that artificial intelligence was super hot in our economy right now and a lot of their legal teams of these very big companies that are they're very concerned about AI and the bias it could or could not create. And so we wanted to bring value to them. We figured that would be one that would really help them.
Jeff
28:27
Thanks. Okay. Got it. Awesome. Awesome.
Scott
28:48
Yeah. So that's how I played out. We we have to figure out for our in person who our who our guests will be, and we are trying to figure that one out, you know. For next challenge, which is good. It's a good problem to have.
Jeff
29:00
Yep. Yep. Yep.
Alli
29:01
Alright. Hey, Jeff. I'm gonna let you I'm gonna take a pause so you can edit this piece out and I'm gonna say goodbye because I do have to get to my next meeting, but it was great to see you, Skye Rock.
Scott
29:14
Always a pleasure. I love the art work you have now. You're so fancy.
Alli
29:18
Thank you.
Scott
29:19
But that's air that's Arizona. That's not SSAT for the city, whatever.
Jeff
29:24
Oh, man. I can look at that one then.
Alli
29:27
Bye, you guys. Thanks.
Jeff
29:28
Great to see. Can we just talk about forecasting with you very soon?
Alli
29:31
Mhmm. Alright. More math. Bye everybody.
Jeff
29:39
That was totally unscripted.
Scott
29:40
Yeah. That was wonderful.
Jeff
29:40
Yeah. Yeah. I'm totally gonna do it between two ferns, my interviewer. It's gonna be amazing. But So so back on the cab track, and we don't have this rude person enter you know, interrupting us anymore. We
Scott
29:57
Yeah.
Jeff
30:02
we we we you had chatted about we were getting onto the impromptu conference station, whether it was best to let people just kind of riff on their own or whether you had sort of a schedule, this is gonna be where everybody just kinda starts, you know, lobbying and back and forth.
Scott
30:17
Yeah. So like I said, we had the agenda that was sent out ahead of the meeting and then we reiterated it when we started the meeting, and I kind of play project manager during the call or or m c s o p. And it kinda worked us through the agenda,
Jeff
30:27
Yep.
Scott
30:31
moved us to the topics because one of the things we did as part of the registration was we asked our customers we we had a list of, like, six different topics. We said, you know, which are the most important to you or most relevant?
Jeff
30:43
Yep.
Scott
30:43
And based upon their votes, we had a a back half of the meeting dedicated to those topics. And that really became the kind of open conversation we opened it with a question around those topics and then people who started bringing up their question or point of view and, you know, one customer say, well, we did this or we did that or a legal team allowed this or allowed that, and then we would provide our perspective. Sometimes, you would drop in, you know, capability that we could, you know, support through the platform.
Jeff
31:10
Yep.
Scott
31:10
That was a really nice just kind of group conversation for the for the participants to talk about. We had a section about our roadmap where we were going, which was really important.
Jeff
31:15
Yep.
Scott
31:22
It it was interesting because we feel that we've made our roadmap very available, but it should taught me that it's not here as doubles, we think it is. Because these folks are pretty helpful.
Jeff
31:30
Let's get into that. Yeah. Because we did we talked about this in our when we were talking about this beforehand, not the prep call, but, like, prepping for your cap call. So so
Scott
31:40
Yep.
Jeff
31:41
let's talk about that that road map because I remember it was it was something that wasn't available for a while. Right? So
Scott
31:49
Yeah. It it's always been available. The question is how do customers get to it. So we had a
Jeff
31:53
that's it. Yeah.
Scott
31:55
we had a navigation update about a month ago. And in that navigation update, we now created hot links to different parts of our our knowledge. So customers can now get to our support center through, like, one sign on versus mobile. We're just the friction ones. Right? Making it easier. We also now in that in that bookmarking section have our product roadmap, where customers can go to. And one of the beautiful things that our product team did was
Jeff
32:07
Yep. Right. Yep.
Scott
32:20
enable the feature in the roadmap where clients can now vote for capability.
Jeff
32:24
Love it. It goes back to another thing before where that thing that somebody is constantly asking for gets put in there and they see, like, one vote and they're like, wait. Nobody wants the button that does the thing.
Scott
32:25
So Right. Right. Right. So now, like, you know, I have my CSMs, like, same to our customers. Like, if that's so important to you, please go go through this channel and and show us market. Like, I need like, we cannot we can scream from the top of the roof or to start clients, but you're showing a load here. Actually is so much more impactful than me screening it. And so now we're helping our customer understand how to, like, either either put an x with a product roadmap or vote up vote things that help the product managers think about what we should be working on next. And, you know, when you could have product roadmap that's both innovation from the company,
Scott
32:25
and customer directed, and you can marry two of those together. I think you bring a much better product to the market.
Jeff
33:11
Yep. I love it. When you went into your themes sorry. Let me rephrase that. When you started getting into your product roadmap, were you getting into specific features and, like or were you getting into general themes? Like, general themes is, like, we will upgrade our analytics versus we are going to have this field available first. Right?
Scott
33:36
Yeah. No. We we did it at a theme level. We had six themes that are on the roadmap.
Jeff
33:39
Okay. Yep.
Scott
33:42
We basically, that was what the slide was. Here are the six themes. And then we talked about, like, why the theme was important. You know, the the buttons and the colors and the fields, like, we didn't get into that. We talked about we had these things called labs programs.
Jeff
33:52
Right. Smart.
Scott
33:56
And we said, hey, look at it. This is interesting to you. Let's have your initial part of our lab where you actually help us co develop this. Be one of the early adopters of the capability we'll put it in your platform. First, you can beta test with knowing it won't be perfect, obviously. We'll have to work through the bugs to defects.
Jeff
33:56
Yep. Yep. Yep.
Scott
34:12
But then you'll you'll help us shape what becomes general available for every customer. And so and all of our customers are open to be part of our labs program. We don't receive it. It's just our customer advisory board. But But it wants to be part of the lab. Right? Some customers are more I want the mature products to test it and bake by somebody else. And other customers are the early adopters, and I wanna help figure out where to put the button, what color it for it to be in your exam.
Jeff
34:34
Yeah. Exactly.
Scott
34:35
So it's it's great. That really helps you shape a product that's usable
Jeff
34:36
Yeah.
Scott
34:39
for customers.
Jeff
34:39
Yeah. Yeah. You just gotta go outside the four walls of your company. Right? And find out what people actually want. And those meetings are are great.
Scott
34:45
Yeah.
Jeff
34:48
So what were pre planned for success metrics? And then, hey, if we do this, we expect fine. Also, yeah, it's just always a good thing to do. But beyond that, did you say these are some expectations that we're gonna have as having a cab, and not everybody does that. So I'm not gonna say but I'm curious if you put any, like, you know, tangible success metrics towards having a cab. Because not also
Scott
35:08
Yep.
Jeff
35:14
not every CS team owns the cab process too. Right. So
Scott
35:19
Yeah. So from a success metric perspective, we we had never this, like I said, was our very first one. So we didn't know what we didn't know. And that's actually how I opened up the meeting. He said, look at it. This is the first one we've ever done. So you know, we're gonna make mistakes. So please, you know, give pity to us so to speak.
Jeff
35:38
Yep.
Scott
35:38
We also, like, give feedback. You know? So at the end, we send out Obviously, we sent an MPS survey.
Jeff
35:44
Yep.
Scott
35:44
We wanted to know how we did. And so we figured we had a baseline. Our first one to see to understand, like, where we were and, like, the good bad, ugly, kind of metric. So we we did pretty well. I'm pretty happy with how the results played out. Like I said, feedback came in saying, like, things would have felt a little bit rushed, which was great. I mean, I feel that left our customers wanting more, which is always better thing than hey. I was bored out of my mind, and that wasn't a good use of my time.
Jeff
36:07
Yeah.
Scott
36:12
We did ask the advisory board, like, if you are signing up for this, that we do expect you to attend both the remote and the in person. So we did accept expectations with them on what's expected of them. We did also say that, you know, as an adviser to us, we do expect to come to you individually
Jeff
36:23
Yep.
Scott
36:29
besides in the big group to talk about things that are important to us and get your perspective and bring you together in some groups where appropriate. So we might do you know, we determined that, like, going to a certain industry and talking to the team by industry is important versus the whole group, we'll do that.
Jeff
36:45
Got it.
Scott
36:46
And and obviously, you like I said, getting involvement in the product advisory board, which is more of the feature function stuff. Was important thing. So
Jeff
36:57
Mhmm. What are you going to change for the next one?
Scott
37:01
well, it's gonna be in person, so that'll be a lot different.
Jeff
37:04
Yep.
Scott
37:05
It's gonna be longer. So we're gonna, you know, obviously, the agenda will be more robust. So we have to understand how do we fill you know, a days worth of content versus just two hours.
Jeff
37:16
Obviously, a Red Sox game.
Scott
37:19
Well, I will say, you know, spoiler alert for any of my customer providers that listen to this, and are are gonna be at the end person. Boston was not even one that was even open to voting. We didn't put Boston as an option.
Jeff
37:33
Oh, okay.
Scott
37:34
But we will not be in in the Massachusetts, the state of Massachusetts for our next
Jeff
37:38
So shame they don't get to ride on the odyssey around the Boston Harbor.
Scott
37:42
I know. I can't put them on a dot boat and take them for a float, but all good. All good.
Jeff
37:47
Love our marketing friends. Yeah.
Scott
37:52
Yeah. I I it's something that my team and I are trying to, like, think through, like, what what does the data data look like? Really. It's it's it's kind of early in our
Jeff
37:58
Yep.
Scott
38:01
planning process, so we haven't really thought through it all yet. We'll probably pull it off and in, like, the December time frame is let me think we're gonna do it about six months from from now.
Jeff
38:04
Yep. Yep. Speaking of six months from now, if you're doing your end of the year, like, just look back not official power points or anything like that. But, you know, you just go back and you look at the year. How will you look back at this event in in how it shapes? Sort of how you were interactive with these customers for the second half of the year? Like, what was good tangible benefits for having it?
Scott
38:35
I think as we so our roadmap for fiscal twenty four that we're in, which are fiscal years of retail calendars, so we haven't been December thirty first. So that's it's always confusing to people that the fiscal year is the last day of your year, and you can't
Jeff
38:42
Got it. Yep. I yeah. Once you're on, like, of the current calendar year, I totally my nose starts bleeding. So yeah.
Scott
38:52
according to Ali, your math skills, so I won't I won't let your mind too much. But, you know, we'll start fiscal
Jeff
38:59
What state's cool? Sorry.
Scott
39:01
hey. Right here. Stay still too. Right? You know, our our fiscal twenty five planning like, where do you use that advisory board to help us determine some of the big things that we go after for next? Because this year's roadmap has has been pretty pretty well defined with our teams. Right? And so, you know, when we pressure test the back half of the year to make sure there's something we want to do is is stoned online and But the board will help us determine the the first half of fiscal twenty five, which will really drive, I think, value for our customers because these are some of the biggest brands in the world. And if if they're looking for these kind of things, then I would you assume
Scott
39:01
I should never assume, but it's safe to say that other brands would benefit from their they're fortitude. So that's how I think we'll we'll be using that group of folks. And also, from a reference perspective, I would expect that some of our, you know, new customers that come onboard will be because of referrals
Jeff
39:57
Nice.
Scott
39:57
from our advisory board. Like, if if our advisory board is making referrals for us and making introductions to their colleagues and other companies who don't use our platform,
Jeff
39:59
Yep.
Scott
40:07
then that's just that that's a win off the charts for me. Because that that means that they voted with their their trust in you.
Jeff
40:13
Do you think you'll hold on to the ownership of the cab?
Scott
40:19
I don't plan on really pushing it. So yeah.
Jeff
40:21
Oh, nice. Okay. I was on I ticked part in the the Pavilion CCO school that I'm in this semester. And we were going over, like, all the roles I could possibly be in CS. In one of them, there was a whole advisory, which is typical, without advocacy, excuse me, which is typically in marketing. Right? Where you've got, like, the case studies and the white papers and these programs as well too. So that was particular top of mind for me. I'm like, oh, because when we chatted, I was like, yeah. Usually,
Scott
40:46
Yep.
Jeff
40:52
This is, like, co owned with product, but marketing kinda runs it too. So it's interesting to say, like, no. You wanna hold on to this and be the driver.
Scott
40:59
Well, yeah. So I own it. Now let's be very clear. Like, this has never been accomplished without a bunch of other teams. Right? So my marketing team, you know, they're the ones that put together
Jeff
41:06
Absolutely.
Scott
41:10
the registration website. They're the ones that put together the package and the gifts that we're giving out, they're they're the ones that helped us with the email content post pre imposed, you know, they're gonna help us with the facility for the next event, all these things. Right? So that team is mission critical. You know, I had a I had a product
Jeff
41:22
Yep.
Scott
41:29
present the the road map to our customer advising board. So his involvement was mission critical. Kind of, like, you know, obviously, my customer success team was their customers in being part of the meeting, like,
Jeff
41:41
Yep.
Scott
41:45
on our marketing team getting us access to the external speaker. Right? So getting us access to the commissioner
Jeff
41:52
Oh, yeah. That's right.
Scott
41:53
of the the, like, you know, I could I don't have that really
Jeff
41:55
I would have no idea what to do here. Do you set about LinkedIn DM? Is that how it works? Or
Scott
41:56
Right. So, like, how do yeah. Kinda kinda. Right? You just, you know, gov dot com or whatever and but he's leaving available. But, you know, like so it it took a village to pull this thing off and, you know, so you were not basically present to the customers who are there, but they were they supported and made it happen. So it's a you know, for but I at the end of the day, like,
Jeff
42:18
Got it.
Scott
42:21
we're in charge of the customer. Like, anything post sell is us, you know, we own the relationships.
Jeff
42:24
Yep.
Scott
42:26
We need to drive the advocacy. We need to be there for our customers. We're the ones that can ask them to come. We can we're the ones that can say, hey, like, tell us a good bet and ugly about ourselves. Right? We wanna hear you now. It's how we get better.
Jeff
42:36
Yeah. Yeah. So would you open the numbers up for more people? Or does that start getting into the the user conference? Right? Like, those, to me, that's start getting the big company stuff. Right? Like, the big user all of our companies come in, and there's a whole big thing,
Scott
42:55
Yeah.
Jeff
42:55
goggle events, all that fun
Scott
42:58
So I think I think our sweet spot is probably
Jeff
42:58
speaker.
Scott
43:01
twelve individual customers, you know, maybe it's it's fourteen or fifteen participants, but twelve different customers to get representation. I think anything bigger than that, it doesn't become advisory anymore, it gets out of control. And, also, I want I want our advisory board to have this exclusive community. Right? It's not it's not open to everybody.
Jeff
43:23
Yep. Yep.
Scott
43:25
Right? That is you know, and that's the decision that we've made. And we have to feel comfortable with it. So we talked about this a little bit at the beginning, but coming up with the customers to invite, that was that was a labor of love. Like, there was a lot of very
Jeff
43:39
Yeah. That that those can be some interesting meetings.
Scott
43:42
very healthy
Jeff
43:42
Planning meetings. Yeah. Yeah.
Scott
43:43
very healthy conversations to to determine you know, who do you invite and why so back to your point of, like, you'll break it by ARR. The answer it's it's a we look at it. That's a way to do it. Don't get me wrong.
Jeff
43:56
It is a way, but it's not the best way.
Scott
43:58
Most most segmentation is done by that. Right? That's like the starting point for most client segmentation.
Jeff
43:59
Yeah. Yeah.
Scott
44:04
But we looked at it from a couple aspects. We looked at it from how long has someone been a customer of ours. Right? Because, obviously, if you've been with us for a long period of time, you're getting value from the platform.
Jeff
44:17
Yep.
Scott
44:17
So you're you know, and you've and you've seen us grow up as it comes and and we're, you know, worth growing up, but we still have a lot to do. So your your perspective of how we evolve is very important to us because it helps us shape the future.
Jeff
44:24
Yes.
Scott
44:30
Obviously, some of the companies gets based upon, like, their brand name because they're leaders in their industry. So as a leader in your industry, you set the tone for how to do something. So we wanna learn from you, like, how do you become the de facto number one in space. Like, we we can learn from that. We wanna learn from that.
Jeff
44:41
Right. That's great.
Scott
44:48
Some some of the selection process was around the size of the organization. Right? Because the company that has, you know, fifty users on a platform versus five hundred, like, there's very different needs.
Jeff
45:02
Yep.
Scott
45:03
Being an enterprise based platform, we need to make sure that we scale up for the larger user bases because they have different requirements. And challenges, and we wanna be thinking about that, so getting their perspectives.
Jeff
45:14
Yep. Yep.
Scott
45:14
So it was it was we had a really good mix of industry company size, longevity of being married and made a made a very inclusive group different yet.
Jeff
45:23
Yes. That sounds great. This is this is awesome. Any any additional sort of gotchas or, you know, things you learned or surprises that came out of it?
Scott
45:35
So one of the things that I was concerned about meeting and it was finding out how is that we talked about this. Right? It's, like, having that person that that's frustrated with the product. And and
Jeff
45:44
Yeah. Agreements.
Scott
45:46
So I I worked on cutting that off at the past -- Right. -- at the beginning. And I said, look, we understand we're not perfect. We understand we have a lot to improve upon. We we've made some mistakes in the past. We've we've listened to your feedback. Here's what we've done to address that. This is why you're on the board is because your feedback's so important to us. And I think that diffused a few other people that could have been
Jeff
46:05
Yep.
Scott
46:09
the hot smoking gun on the file because we didn't get we didn't get routed down that a path of conversation. It was very you know, it's like, hey. You could do this better. I'm
Jeff
46:12
Yeah.
Scott
46:20
I'm putting it out there to call it out there, but you're doing this really well too. So it became very constructive versus deconstructive. And I had I had my head of product kind of made that acknowledgement to when you started. Because I wanted to hear hear multiple times that we know we have a lot to improve on. Like, we're not perfect. You know, not completely different. But the company gets a friend who says they're perfect. Like, and how kind of growth mindset is that? They they don't wanna change anything.
Jeff
46:35
Right. No. That's a hundred percent. Which with Venom was leading me to this other question in my mind, which is do you totally shake it up for customers next year? Or is this thing where it's like, hey, on a year over year basis, we're seeing how we improved? Like, is it this is it like the league of justice where there's only these people who are allowed in, or is it a rotating cast where it's like, oh, you were there last we're gonna bring in somebody that looks like you, but is not you.
Scott
47:11
Good question. So we've only done one. Let me I get through at least one year. I I think it's gonna depend upon the customer, honestly. I I wanna make sure they're still committed to it. Like, We're not asking for a massive time commitment for them, but we are asking for time commitment. And, you know, if you're a customer that is willing to commit the time and show up, and give us the the effort we're asking for, then I wanna be part of the board. But if you can say, hey, you know, I'm not gonna have capacity extra to do it, that that I'm probably gonna have asked to replace you because I need people that can be there. Right? It can be all in on. Like, it's it's a two way street. We're giving you stuff we expect stuff back as well. Totally fair.
Jeff
47:20
Yeah. Yeah. Are you giving them a place to communicate like a Slack channel or a community thing? Call Jay and need a community for our people.
Scott
48:01
Hello, Jay, Nathan. We love you, brother. We love you.
Jeff
48:03
Hey, Nathan. Part of the Miranda and the Jay's pants here.
Scott
48:06
I know. I know it's part of your rock band. I heard you guys are getting jammed out. You've been practicing and everything. Congratulations.
Jeff
48:11
All acoustic. It's all acoustic. It's all acoustic. But, yes. Scott, we're gonna live streamer for you, Scott. You're gonna we'll just send you the link out. So
Scott
48:17
I appreciate that. I appreciate that. We have not opened up a formal community for them yet, and that's just because I don't have a formal community. So I've been exploring opening up a community for all of being raised customers, saying it's important.
Jeff
48:32
Yep.
Scott
48:34
Right now, I'm I'm doing some searching around, like, what it takes to truly administer a community. I have a reservation that if I don't have the right administration,
Jeff
48:41
Yeah.
Scott
48:44
it could become
Jeff
48:46
You're one hundred percent correct. You're right. Yeah. Yeah.
Scott
48:46
a brief being a lot of people just like batching and and I don't want that. I want it to be
Jeff
48:50
They're not even bashing, but also just, like, engaging the community. Like, you know, like, I did something a year ago or somebody was, like, we need a place where just PS people can come in and talk on a Slack channel. And I fired up this thing, but then I didn't do anything to keep the conversation going. And then you know people are just like, you know, it's like the dead workspace. Like, nope. You don't you don't get a tile on my Slack. You're gone. Right? And so you need to be able to you get how to put it. Right? So
Scott
49:03
But what happened, you know? Yeah. So like in Medallia, we had we had an amazing community, and we had this amazing team member that their job was full time
Jeff
49:23
Yeah.
Scott
49:25
to foster that. And because she spent day and night thinking about the movie, it's it's off the hook a maiden. Right? Like, helps people find jobs,
Jeff
49:33
Yeah.
Scott
49:35
customers hope host regional user groups, people meet together just in market, they're all medallion customers. They have, like, just, you know, meetups and it's all to this community that she fosters. And so, you know, Vadai is at a great size where they can afford to do that. Like, I don't have the resources.
Jeff
49:48
Yeah. And this goes back to how we started the conversation, which is, like,
Scott
49:55
Okay. Good money. Hey.
Jeff
49:56
budgets. Yeah. I just didn't think.
Scott
49:57
It cost it cost money. It's amazing, you know. So I don't have that luxury at the moment to afford
Jeff
50:00
Yeah.
Scott
50:04
headcount to do that work. And I'm and I'm like, well, I'd rather not do it than do it poorly. So I'm just doing it right now. So But, you know, we gave everyone each other their client information so they can reach out to each other. So it's now, I guess, we made them available to one another to to share.
Jeff
50:10
I'm ready. K.
Scott
50:20
Yet it's up to them to kinda connect with each other unless we bring them back together.
Jeff
50:24
I love it. Great place to end on this. You know, we like to talk about little personal stuff on you know, so I was just gonna ask him, well, you're gonna do the Springer somewhere, but something tells me you're an allergy guy and you're about to get slammed with allergies. Is your car just covered with yellow in the morning?
Scott
50:40
I mean, that's the Massachusetts poll and dusting we get, but you know, being the avid golfer that I am.
Jeff
50:46
Oh, there you go. You're good. You're
Scott
50:46
I think it can't be only only rain keeps me off of course.
Jeff
50:49
good. You're good. Yeah.
Scott
50:51
Okay. Yeah. Yeah.
Jeff
50:53
So So when you're not on the soccer your kids soccer fields for four hours on the weekends, you are you are out there golfing.
Scott
50:54
But I'm on the golf course for more than four hours.
Jeff
51:04
That's awesome. So that's what you're looking forward to this spring.
Scott
51:08
The so well, spring. Yeah. So school's finishing up with the kids. Right? So sports are in in full range as you've been in dirt. Your in your years as a parent as well. So and then it's off the hook crazy, busy.
Jeff
51:12
Yep. Oh, I Yep.
Scott
51:23
Yeah. We're getting ready for summer camp. So we our kids go to summer camp. So we I mean, this is a is a main
Jeff
51:30
Alright. Do you do that thing where the kids are gone for the entire summer thing?
Scott
51:33
This will be the first summer they're going for a seven week overnight camp program. So we will be what is it, m d s yours for the first time, OI, if and I?
Jeff
51:41
What are you gonna do? I mean, it's crazy. You should go to the Grain cabinet or something. Right? So
Scott
51:44
We we we have a few we have a few trips booked. We'll be on Cape Cod for a few long weekends.
Jeff
51:48
Nice. I love this. This is amazing.
Scott
51:50
And have them, like, and I'm sure. So we'll visit them. It's wonderful.
Jeff
51:54
I do love that, which is like instead of going on that one week, doing a couple one weeks. Student travel takes it out of you, like, a couple long weekends. It goes a really long way. Yeah. That's that's amazing.
Scott
52:00
Yeah. You leave, like, on a Thursday night, you get to the place, you're there Friday, Saturday, you come back on Sunday. You get two two trips, you know, so you spread it out over the summer, so you're not gone. You get you to use a look for the video.
Jeff
52:14
You gotta hit yeah. You you you have to hit the bridge on a Friday night. You can't go you can't go Saturday. Oh my god. It's terrible.
Scott
52:20
Got it. So I've got Thursday night to beat the brake shop. That's what's even better.
Jeff
52:23
Oh, you're getting ready for me. I just heard that. So Scott, hold on for pause with amazing. Thanks so much. Thanks for letting Ali join in. Totally off the cuff and appreciate all, you know, every time you're on them, you're gonna be on again too. But Hold on pause. One quick second and and thanks again for for joining.
Scott
52:43
Thanks, Jeff.