GSD Podcast - Customer Success Careers with Maranda Dziekonski
Customer Success Legend Maranda Dziekonski joins Jeff on the latest podcast. In a very open and honest conversation, Maranda talks about:
- Her blue-collar work ethic and how she went from the factory to the office
- Customer Success and who owns the revenue, upsells, etc
- Leveraging new tech and approaches (Ops, AI)
- Roles in the new Customer Success organization
- Landing a role in CX as a college grad vs a career transition
- How to avoid burnout
Also lots of tangents on pantsuits, dog medications, and boutique cameras!
You can listen to this podcast here
Transcript:
Jeff 00:07
Hey there, it's Jeff, thanks so much for downloading and deciding to hit play on this podcast. I think a lot of you out there know Maranda, she's a legend in the in the Customer Success community. Put some links in the in the description. But besides your work, and swiftly she runs the customer success leadership slack group, which is huge. I think there's over 10,000 people in there, just asking questions and trying to find jobs and hire people and all sorts of things pertain to customer success. I met Miranda because we're both scheduled for a talk for recommend for the propel conference. And as you know, it's LinkedIn when you get tagged on a post or you look at somebody's profile. Next thing you know, you're your new best friends because you see each other's posts a lot. So we had a really good call and just sort of an introduction. And then we just said, Hey, let's jump on a podcast. So we cover a ton of different things. You know, we always try and have a theme. The theme in the theme is always something that the guest is passionate about. So Miranda's theme was the sort of customer says careers and burnouts. But you know, since she has a big podcast, and she's always interviewing people, I thought it'd be good to get her background is very interesting background from from starting off working in factories and getting into customer service. And then customer success. We talked about that. We talked about all the different new roles that have popped up in CES and how she's managing them. But then we kind of switched into the career path stuff like how to get a job right out of college, versus if maybe you've been a teacher for 10 years or something like that. And then chatted about a fording burnout. And we told a lot of stories along the way, and you know, some good tangents that we went off on as well, too. So I hope you enjoy it. And here you go. Here's the podcast and I'm here with Miranda. To con ski. Which I've been holding up the sheet with the last name so I can pronounce the schwa correctly put there. So for the
Maranda Dziekonski 03:12
job, you shouldn't have told me that I would have thought you were just this genius that knows how to pronounce very complicated Polish last names that I
Jeff 03:20
am have. I am Polish and me lots of Polish people so so it goes from there, but and there was some a stellar I think we both know her from the CS community. And she had a post about learning people's last names as a sign of respect instead of like, in you didn't have to grow up with that name, like through kindergarten on like I did, right? No,
Maranda Dziekonski 03:39
no, but my maiden name is just as complex. I have a Dutch maiden name and it's Vanden Brook. And it's spelled like with a capital letter in the middle of it and random e we're probably shouldn't be. I have spent
Jeff 03:54
my employees tell everybody what that translation means. Yes. So
Maranda Dziekonski 03:57
here's here's the thing. i You must have heard my podcast where I learned what it means. I am so disappointed. I was out of the water for many years. I'm like, that's why I love water. That's why I love being by
Jeff 04:11
no means so much to me. Now. I
Maranda Dziekonski 04:13
know. Very Yeah. Like, I really thought that, you know, gosh, yeah, my maiden name really means it's of the pants. Jeans, like pants of the pants. So apparently, maybe my ancestors were you know, folks that made pants. I don't know.
Jeff 04:34
This as your new thing. You could wear pant suits like Hillary pantsuits going forward, you know, and you
Maranda Dziekonski 04:38
can read Clinton's pantsuit actually inspired me. I have worn one of many pant suits in my day. I won't lie. I love the matching blazer with the matching pants and the various colors. It's classic, powerful, classic. You cannot go wrong with a great pantsuit. So
Jeff 04:56
alright, so um, so I always like to start out how I'm how I'm happy But we were both tagged on a post, which is I were both presenting at a conference and it was like three months in advance or something. And as late as LinkedIn goes, then I just could not open up LinkedIn without seeing Miranda's name. And I was like, I just have to reach out
Maranda Dziekonski 05:15
to that as well. And now, I'm
Jeff 05:18
best friends with this person, like, oh my god, I
Maranda Dziekonski 05:21
haven't even met you in person, but I feel we have a kinship.
Jeff 05:27
So we reached out, we had a great chat. And I have to say like, you had just been crushed like a half hour earlier by like a massive, like non renewal or something and you were, you didn't cancel. We got on we got through it had a couple of laughs and say, Hey, we should just jump on each other's podcasts for a little bit. So. So I'm gonna turn the tables a little bit. Do you have any dogs that are looking paused in the background that we have to worry? I actually
Maranda Dziekonski 05:49
it's funny. I actually still do. I dropped $500 This week at the vet My dog is now on six prescriptions. We have like the you know the little ladies with like the Monday through Sunday pillbox? That's my shitshow that's his life. He rolls deep in the prescription world. But yeah, he has like an ear infection and a skin infection like it's constant. So what are you gonna do
Jeff 06:17
I have the same I have the same of them. I just had two or three teeth removed. So now every morning we grind the food up, have water for a little bit, try and get a pill in there. Got some crazy doing this for my kids. By the way. I'd be like, just swallow the pill. Dammit. Peanut butter, who you're just take it. You know.
Maranda Dziekonski 06:37
What we do for our little fur babies is out of this world. I love my dogs. So much. I mean, I dress them. They have purple beds, they get a bark box every month, they're treated better than the
Jeff 06:53
boxes is legit. That is tight. Yes.
Maranda Dziekonski 06:57
Anyway,
Jeff 06:59
so I normally like to have people talk about a subject that is passionate to them. We're going to talk about career paths today. And then maybe some other stuff that we can squeeze it in. But since you're always interviewing people, when we both started blue collar, which is we know I was, as I said I was cleaning pipe fittings at five years old, which is probably breaks emotionalize. But you're also had some blue collar in you as well. So talk about that little journey from from being in the factory to being a powerful pantsuit driving person.
Maranda Dziekonski 07:34
Yeah, I did start out blue collar was what I knew. It's what I grew up with. I have so much respect for folks that put in a hard day's work of manual labor, because it does drive America without folks that do that. And I think we really learned that for the pandemic when we went into the stores. And there was no toilet paper, there's no you know, food, like where do we all think that stuff comes from it doesn't just magically appear, foods that manufacture that that drive the trucks to get it there that stocked the shelves? Like I think it I think, you know, folks here, at least in the United States, if not outside of the US probably have a newfound respect for manufacturing in the manual labor that it takes to keep the world moving. So I was part of that early on. So fresh out of high school. I did what most folks in my region did is I went and I got a job at one of the local factories. I grew up in rural Michigan, and we have factories peppered all over the place some that support the automotive industry, because you know, General Motors, Ford, Chrysler all have a very huge presence in Michigan. It's you know, we're well known for our automotive. But we also had other you know, industries that were there such as like end which is electronics. So like electronics, and I think I don't want you know, now that I think about I don't want any stands for i It's like the washing machines and your refrigerators. So Whirlpool Bosch, all of that stuff, a big presence there. I actually worked at Frigidaire. And I ran a screw gun. And I'm really proud of it. I'm really good at it. Sounds crazy. But when you're on a line, if you've never been on a manufacturing line, like the refrigerators move, they go down the line, yeah. Or without your part. And if it's without your part, you have to stop the line. And you're talking sometimes a few 1000 people that are on this line and the line can be like a mile long. So around this building, you're really messing with production. So you have to be quick, you have to be good, your quality has to be high. And doing this with a screw down is quite a feat. So yeah, that's where I started and
Jeff 09:54
I was smarter and on my toes a little better. I'd probably be able to make a great metaphor between customer success in the Supply Chain screwed on analogy there.
Maranda Dziekonski 10:02
I'm sure it's there somewhere. But yeah, it's also Friday, like, let's give ourselves another break. So, um, but yeah, I, I shared this story a couple of times, but I took a job. So I was working 6am to 2:30pm. And I've always been someone that I grew up fairly poor, it's, you know, I'm pretty open about that. And I've always worked, you know, since I was like, as early as I can remember, I was nine or 10 knocking on doors. Hey, do you have a place? Do you have any cleaning work or, and I started scooping ice cream at our local ice cream shop and washing dishes. And so I've always worked. But I was working 6am to 2:30pm at the factory. And then I took this part time customer service role at Amway, which was a huge presence in Michigan, answering phones, from six to 12, you know, 6pm to midnight. And that's when I got my first taste of what it was like to work in an office. And I started seeing, you know, people like dressed professionally, and moving from being a call center operator to like a supervisor, to a manager to a director, I was like, Ooh, this is really cool. Not only surprise, surprise, do I love talking and talking to people. But I also love helping people. And that was where I really got my first taste of, of working with customers. I had other factory jobs as well. I've worked in food manufacturing, which if you've ever worked in food manufacturing, you will know what I'm saying what when I say like, nothing like the smell of mayonnaise. And all night long.
Jeff 11:51
Is there anything that you can't eat anymore? Because of that experience? No, I
Maranda Dziekonski 11:54
have gotten over it. I'm Equal Opportunity food. But
Jeff 12:00
all right. Great. So let's let's get into this topic of career paths. And you know, this can go in a bunch of different ways. But in terms of sort of customer success in that whole umbrella things, what are you Where do you see the big trends these days? And, and what has been surprising you I've seen a massive change over the last two or three years and then just sort of want to get your perspective on some some things?
Maranda Dziekonski 12:25
Well, first trend is is I think folks are actually understanding what the difference between customer success and customer support is. I remember, you know, up until just a few years ago, I had to constantly explain it. And I actually remember I posted a really controversial post that said, Should we change the name of customer success?
Jeff 12:47
Maybe helped out a little.
Maranda Dziekonski 12:49
I'm like, because I'm so tired of explaining what we do. Yeah. So I think that's first and foremost. But that that's been a big, big change. I also am seeing now, more so than ever customer success, own revenue. I have mixed feelings about it with depends on the day, you asked me how I feel about it. And when I mean they own revenue, I'm seeing folks own upsells on renewals, and even the commercials, so even the commercial negotiations and the contracting, I'm starting to see that a lot more. And part of me is like okay, yes, that makes sense. You have the relationship. But then part of me It worries that we're blurring these lines, and you know that the customer will stop viewing the customer success manager as a partner was another salesperson. But I am seeing that quite a bit.
Jeff 13:47
And I saw I've seen it both ways, because I remember we we had to do this version a few years ago when I was there. And we you know, talk to customers we talked to CSM as well. So first of all 50% of the CSM. So I would love that that's great. And then also being associated with revenue associated some, you know, being able to stay around, right, because you know, when things get bad, non revenue people are, you know, it's not the first girl but like, it's always nicer to be associated with bringing in some revenue. But in terms of some of the customers that we talked to, they had said they didn't mind that partnership, because if they have a really good relationship with a CSM, and then they're like, Okay, hold on, we're gonna hit pause, you're gonna bring in this random person that you haven't talked to so we can do or the salesperson you haven't talked to in a year or so they felt that was a little bit more unnatural. So
Maranda Dziekonski 14:40
yeah, I think that's kind of a shared thought. And I think that's why we're starting to see the evolution. However, I still am a believer that you can do it and do it right. Yeah. We have made some changes here, where I'm at US swiftly over the last few months, we've really shifted a few things. So So, we had a renewals manager that actually sat in the customer success team. And it was a great success. Okay, but the company itself, we've evolved quite a bit over the last couple of years, we've added in this account management layer and the account managers were focused on, you know, all the upsells. And any, you know, helping the customers know, what's out there that they haven't invested in and what problems they could potentially help them solve, right? Where the customer success managers are heavily focused on making sure they're getting a return on their investment in their current investment.
Jeff 15:34
Whether it was just as at a higher tier or where the key accounts are they basically the key account managers for for all customers.
Maranda Dziekonski 15:41
Not all customers, but the most of most of the customers are my mind you. We're a small company that works in public transit. So our value of our dollar values are not something to kind of brushed off, right. So the overall contract values are pretty big. Yeah. So what we have found, what we found is, and this was a realization I had personally was, I was concerned about the overall customer experience. So here we have this customer success manager that picks up after implementations after the AE and the AE exits the X account executive exits, and the implementation manager partners with customer success gets them stood up, then customer success is working with them on their goals, getting them a return on their investment. And then we have the renewals manager who starts getting peppered in at like the six to nine month mark before renewal, to talk about what needs to be true, because this is government contracting, complex. Yeah. Then all of a sudden, we add in this account management layer, who's now they're talking to them about any future investments. So we have two people talking about commercials. And I'm like, This doesn't make sense, right? Well, why don't we absorb renewals into account management. So now in the customer, or the customers brain, it's like, a current investment, anything financial or future investment? It's just simplified. They have two people they deal with, and that's it. So it's, it's a, it's something new we're doing? We've been doing it now for a month or two.
Jeff 17:20
So okay, so pretty recent. Yeah, yeah. That's in there. And all of those roles are in the CS organization, you don't have to defer out to sales
Maranda Dziekonski 17:29
or account management is actually in sales. It's on the sales side. Yep. So there's definitely a lot of linking of arms, making sure our systems are talking with each other that our goals complement each other than we're all, you know, moving in the same direction. So far, it's, it's going really well, and that it's I don't have the data to prove this. But my gut is, is it's better for the customer as well, because there's one less player that is involved.
Jeff 17:58
And that's and that's the big, that's the thing right there. That's right. We I talked to this person for that, and this person for that, and this is just like, Oh my God. Yeah. Great. So okay, so that's the whole sort of account management and renewal, where, what are some other sort of trends that you're seeing in new roles? And like, I could say, there's ops, which has become this huge thing.
Maranda Dziekonski 18:18
Ops is definitely I, January, I have my first CS ops person, I always work at smaller startups. So I'm always my own ops person. Because I, I'm, I do systems engineering, I write SOPs, I know all of the things I look at data, I know how to write a SQL query, like all that fun stuff, I usually can do it. So this is my first time having an ops person, which I'm pretty excited about. Oh, yeah. So definitely seeing that as a trend. Another thing I'm seeing a lot of and it's actually something I'm I'm thinking about exploring is leveraging AI. I work in a very high touch business model. So for me, it's obvious how I could leverage AI if I had a big one too many motion. Don't. But I'm so curious about what kind of efficiencies I can drive by utilizing AI. And I see all of these AI companies popping up that are very customer success focused. And I'm actually going to be getting a demo on Monday from one just so I can get creative and think about how I could leverage that to improve the overall customer experience on our side.
Jeff 19:31
Wow. I'll be fascinated to hear I've seen some other areas, but it's been they've been more on the data, but not around the sort of interaction. So that's interesting that you're starting to see some of that.
Maranda Dziekonski 19:41
Yeah, I was at the time. I mentioned company names. I was okay. Yeah, I was up there to Tango executive conference, I think last week, and I can't remember I don't even know what day it is anymore. But I think it was last week and I Carlos Kosala gave, got up and did a presentation. And he gave a demo of cast app. And I thought it was brilliant, what they do. And I think this is the future. So it's literally AI driven. And it gives it you can do like a QBR, or a monthly business review with it that's completely API driven. That's like a bot that's, you know, delivered to their email, they click on a link, and it opens it up. And it's like your, here's your usage, here's your ROI. here's this, here's that guy that walks you through it. It's kind of fun watch. And I'm like, Ha, that's genius. This is genius. I'm wondering how the customers will receive it. But from an executive perspective, I'm like seeing like, efficiencies left and right.
Jeff 20:53
That's huge. I can see Massachusetts further, just as a note, if you don't mind me, I have a customer that I'm working with that is all high touch. They're doing everything. Everything's white glove treatment, everything. And now suddenly, they're getting a ton of traction in in the smaller companies and stuff like that. And so they're we're building out this sort of low touch model for them. There's that you know, where hollow touch does get how AI driven and things like that. You've got onboarding and things which you can go through LMS is and all that stuff that you know, but then it's this area, like, where does it? That's fantastic, because oh, they don't show up there. QBR they don't do this, they don't have that, when you don't have to be sitting there presenting it like it's this grand thing sometimes, especially if they're a lower tier, you still want that information, because you're trying to prove your value. Right, exactly. But you have to chase them down for a meeting just to walk them through some graphics,
Maranda Dziekonski 21:41
we're all busy, right? Well, how many customer success managers I personally have.
Jeff 21:46
I'm actually curious, let's talk about the origin. What Yeah.
Maranda Dziekonski 21:52
It's, it's kind of ridiculous. If you think about it, like I use Zendesk, I use Gainsight. I mean, there are so many other tools that I use, that I have customer success managers, you know, I am an admin on our JIRA account and on our slack and our I, I don't have zoom, you know, I mean, I do have zoom, but I don't, guys, just that. So I try to put that hat on and that lens on when I'm designing our customer experiences. Now, granted, you know, our customers are these are major investments. So if I'm spending $9.99 a month on a tool, no, I don't want to talk to you. Right. But if you're spending, you know, $10,000 a month, and I'm gonna have to justify to my CFO, Why, yes, I want to talk to you set me up for success set me up to have that conversation. You know why I should keep your tool? So yeah, that's great.
Jeff 22:55
Let me think, how have you seen any of you on any different roles in sort of the onboarding and implementation sort of the beginning of that customer journey? Or is it kind of stayed the same in your, from your purview?
Maranda Dziekonski 23:07
Yeah, we still have our implementation team. Haven't really shifted that up too much. And that was actually a new addition, about two years ago, our customer success managers used to handle everything from soup to nuts. And I it just became daunting. Yeah,
Jeff 23:24
it's, it's like a bomb goes off in their life, right? It's just
Maranda Dziekonski 23:27
our our onboarding, overall, can take, you know, three months plus, yeah. Are you imagine you're imagining managing a few of those at once, and then trying to manage your portfolio?
Jeff 23:41
Yeah, nobody's. And then they wonder why renewals are down. It's like, Yeah, I'm out doing five implementations at the same time. So
Maranda Dziekonski 23:46
exactly. So definitely, I peeled that off. I did things a little bit backwards here at swiftly. So typically, when I go into a startup, I usually stand up a customer support team before I stand up a customer success team. We didn't have we have a it's a big b2b motion. And the support needs were pretty minimal. So we stood up the customer success team first, which is incredibly controversial. Because, you know, I've had customer success managers answering some tickets along the way. But now we're standing out the support side of it. Yeah. And it's, it's because we're actually getting to a volume now to where I'm worried it's going to become a distraction and unpack the morale of the customer success managers, before it was just a little bit of an extension, like you may have to answer, you know, 100 tickets a month, right? You do the math, and it was like, okay, like, I can't justify having a full time employee. And all of the knowledge exchange was going to be so significant to be able to answer those questions. But now that's, you know, a different way of doing it. Not wrong, just different.
Jeff 25:00
I mean, you have to, you have to tailor best practices for what makes the most sense, right? I mean, to be honest, from all my customers are usually startups, that's how they start off that, you know, the CSMs are doing everything. And then it's like, Okay, let's start, you know, dividing and conquering. And what are the new roles and things like
Maranda Dziekonski 25:15
that? Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Jeff 25:18
So it's funny, I started talking about implementation and everything, because it's, we'll talk about it a lot. But the other thing is, I've always found that as sort of a good starting path for people wanting to get into CS, but I definitely wanted to see from, you know, from your perspective, you know, what's a good starting path for someone just graduating college? And they're like, oh, this thing looks interesting. Or the parents say, like, Oh, I've heard about the CSM thing, or your aunt does that?
Maranda Dziekonski 25:43
Yeah. Which is probably could happen now. Because we are we've been around for what plus years, like customer success has like 15, I think officially, maybe 15 years, maybe we'll start at 20. A good path. So there are a couple a couple of ways. First things first, always a good entry point is customer support into an organization, it's a low barrier. You know, people are usually usually customer support, you're willing to take in folks that are more junior and invest in them invest in them. I started out in customer service, customer support, right? So it's a great way to kind of dip your toe into a company and understand what's really going on with the customers because the customer support teams, they really know. Oh, yeah.
Jeff 26:32
And they know the product amazingly well. Yeah,
Maranda Dziekonski 26:36
yeah. That's a good way. Also, a lower touch, kind of a small SMB Customer Success associate is a good way as well. Yeah. So if it's lower stakes for the company, they're usually more willing to have entry level folks come in and manage those portfolios. It's a great way to learn. Another way is through your network. Don't have a network, you need to build a network now
Jeff 27:07
should be like that 500 level course that people have to take before they graduate.
Maranda Dziekonski 27:11
Right? I, I feel like sometimes I'm yelling into an echo chamber. But build your network before you need your network. Don't come in and just start asking for favors like, get out there, give to the community and the community will give back to you. I can't tell you how many times every week I get pinged by recruiters, by folks looking for CSM and the people that I usually will say, Hey, you should check out this person's profile, or the ones that I see they're actively participating in the community, be it because that makes them top of mind for me. Curious, that's a good way to get them and, you know, just be willing to put in the hard work. Yeah, it I, I'm not gonna go down my pet peeves or my frustrations. But if you're fresh out of college, I know that you're all excited. And I am too. I'm excited for you. But just know that all of us have had to really work hard to get where we are. Be prepared to do that.
Jeff 28:21
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I you seven a lot nicer than I usually do. So I'm like, Oh, my God. Yeah. No, would you change that if somebody was doing a career switch? Like, for example, I have just seen through game grow, and some of the Slack channels that were part of just like a lot of teachers, a lot of people that are, you know, sort of switching careers? Is it the same sort of path? Do you think?
Maranda Dziekonski 28:45
Maybe it depends on you know, what career they're coming from, and going to, or what industry? I've seen a ton of teachers as well. And, one, I'm excited because I think teachers make great customer success managers. But I'm also sad, because we need educators, good educators, they're highly under appreciated, highly under compensated. And I think that we have abused teachers for so long now that you've seen them leave the industry, like as a mass exodus, yeah. But for individuals, we'll just use teachers as an example that want to do maybe an industry shift. I often suggest look for a tech company that serves your industry.
Jeff 29:28
We're gonna do tech or something like that. Yeah. Because I hire
Maranda Dziekonski 29:31
folks from public transit all the time. Because you know why? Because they can talk the lingo
Jeff 29:37
subject matter expert. Yeah, absolutely.
Maranda Dziekonski 29:39
Right. That's a good way to go about it. But also, sometimes if you are doing a mid, you know, mid life career shift. It sucks. But you may have to start over because here's the here's the thing I'm not doing is I'm not bringing in somebody who's been a teacher for 1520 years and giving them a VP role of customer success. Yeah. Unfortunately, you know, and I would love to. But the thing is, I wouldn't be setting them up for success, I wouldn't be setting the company up for success. And I wouldn't be setting the customers up for success. Because they don't have that muscle memory.
Jeff 30:11
Yeah, no, that's good point. Yeah. Speaking of the hard work, let's talk about burnout for a little bit and just talked about on your team, we don't talk about like, on the industry or anything like that. What are some of the ways that you're trying to prevent burnout for the people on your team? Especially with all the craziness and everything that's going on these days?
Maranda Dziekonski 30:31
Yeah, um, I will say I, this is a constant struggle, and constant struggle for me personally, I don't know if I'm doing great things to help this. You know, I think I'll take actually my company out of it. And I'm just going to talk, I'm going to talk in generalities. This is what I'm seeing that's going on. Everybody is operating. In a manner of I feel like we're operating at a little bit of a deficit right now. And what do I mean by that? There has been across multiple industries, mass exodus of employees, shifting to new companies, or just really like refocusing where they want to go in their lives, like leaving in droves. From from organizations. It's no secret. I mean, it's all over the news. There are, there's a name for it like to be in history books, I believe. And that has caused every organization to be operating at a bit of a deficit in regards to like staffing, and constantly having to play catch up. Every time somebody leaves, you have to backfill and interviewing is hard.
Jeff 31:52
First one's fun. The next 15 It's part of the first person, right? Oh, you're great. Come on.
Maranda Dziekonski 31:59
Come on in. Yeah. But I, what I've seen, some places have to do is, well, one of the things that we do act swiftly. And I do want to take swiftly out of this, because I don't want to get into that that world right now. But you know, we give monthly days off individuals, like if we don't have a scheduled holiday, like maybe we won't get the extra day because there's Memorial Day, but we just had like a like a swiftly holiday last Friday. And that's just where everybody shuts down. Yeah, you can go out and do what you want to do to be able to reinvest in yourself or relax, like you could go lay on yourself all day or well go hike or go volunteer, wherever you want to go fantastic
Jeff 32:50
options. Exactly.
Maranda Dziekonski 32:54
That's one thing. I'm answering this question very poorly.
Jeff 32:57
You're so down on yourself. This is.
Maranda Dziekonski 33:01
I think that's an indicator, though, that it's something that I'm really stressed about all the time. I'm worried about the folks that I work with the folks in the community, because I'm hearing it left and right that people are tired people are burned out. And I don't know what the answer is. Sometimes I feel like oh, we just need to hire more people. But that's a bandaid to a bigger issue. Sometimes I'm like, well, we need to reduce the scope of what people own. So they're not having to context shift so much. Will that help? Probably a little bit. But what is the bigger thing that we need to do? I don't know. And I think that's where many of us are. And I think that's why we're always like, you know, scraping and trying to claw our way up that ladder trying to figure out like, Can we can we just see above the building to kind of see what others are doing?
Jeff 33:57
And then I get this, like, distinct fear that the answer is, if they were passionate about their work, then they wouldn't be feeling this burnt out. And then um, I really hope that's not the issue, and that they're doing work that they're passionate about. So let's find something and say, you know, this is actually I don't know if we're gonna have time to cover but this was something one of those things where, you know, not not an easy question to phrase you but you know, identifying this person who's a really good employee, but seeing that maybe they're in the wrong role and trying to find a path for them that will make them more energized in Yeah,
Maranda Dziekonski 34:33
I think that's an interesting thought and something I you know, I agree with you but I also my initial reaction is is yes, I'm you know, there are there are things that I am passionate about my day to day, but there are some things like I'm like damn, I just really don't want to do that. Like oh my god, I have to do the right yeah. But here's the thing that's that's kind of like life. Yeah. I, I love watching a movie, but I don't love running the vacuum. Right? I have to do it, because that's part of being in life. So I kind of I have a little bit of mixed feelings about that statement. But yes, we should all find something we're passionate about in love to do. But also be aware that there are going to be days, weeks, months, moments that are not fun.
Jeff 35:28
Right. And I think that that's a big part of it. And I don't know if it's generational as I think everybody goes through it. But that is something I've had to say to some of the orders that I've run, which is like, look, you're gonna wake up in a month from now, and hopefully you're gonna be like, Oh, remember last month? That was terrible. It's so much better now. And that it does happens like that. Sometimes it's because it's company growth. And you're like, No, look, we got three open wrecks. We just need to find the right people and build up a great community, you know, so,
Maranda Dziekonski 35:54
yeah, I always think about so I had this team member once, who was probably I don't know, at the time is probably 1520 years older than me. And he said something to me that just stuck with me throughout the years. And I often like cure myself saying it to myself. never as good as it seems. It's never as bad as it seems. It's usually somewhere in the middle. Yeah. That is hard. When you're in the moment and you're feeling all the feelings and you're dealing with all the shit harder. I'm going to call it what it is. Yeah, it it's hard. But I often try to tell myself like, hey, just chill. It's never as good as it seems. It's never as bad as it seems. So all these bad feelings I'm feeling right now. It's probably actually not that bad. It's probably somewhere in the middle.
Jeff 36:43
Yeah, yeah. There's, there's some perspectives. I think when we talked a number I came home at a terrible day one day and in my wife, who if, as I said, if she's got a bad day, somebody dies on the operating table. So she's like, what happened? And I'm like, I was explaining the problem to her. And she's like, oh, so what happened is that a 14 year old boy couldn't want to watch a Britney Spears video because the thing wasn't running like yeah, that's Yeah, right. That's That's what? That's good point. Yep. Perspective. Absolutely. No,
Maranda Dziekonski 37:14
yeah. Yeah. It's funny, you know, I said to my, my, my team multiple times, I'm like, we're not doing brain surgery. Like, we're not doing anything like saving here. It's gonna be okay. I know right now it feels like, ah, but like, let's put this in perspective of the larger world that we live in. Yeah.
Jeff 37:32
And I'm glad you're passionate about it. But But yeah. Okay, so that's some heavy stuff. I can even see the stress on your face. So I'm gonna move it into fun wrap up topics. Well actually get on that would like to know, sort of like your big 20? Is it? 2020? It is 22, your big 2022 initiative? Like, what's the thing you're tackling this year?
Maranda Dziekonski 37:54
personally or professionally? professionally? Yeah. Okay. Actually, low touch customer success. It's really big. We've always given everybody this white glove treatment. And as you know, that is not scalable. And we are heading into the next part of our, you know, journey, which is, you know, the, the up to the $50 million. Mark, right. Like, you can't give everybody a white glove. So we're trying to figure out, what does digital touch mean, for us? What is tech touch? What is, you know, what can we what kind of tools, can we leverage what processes are working, what, what's not working, what needs to be just ripped off and thrown out the window and never thought of, again, all of that kind of stuff. And it's a painful thing to do, especially when you have always done something a certain way, and you've seen that it's been successful. And now you're just kind of thumbing your nose at that success and saying, okay, success began, this doesn't scale. Yeah, of course. You know, net retention is, you know, 115% or whatever. We like club service to everyone. Now, let's do it. Without that. That's the one.
Jeff 39:01
I have you we can chat offline about that. Some tips I've learned along the way. One of the things I've discovered over the last few weeks about that subject was is what type of journey is the customer ready for? Are they ready for this big thing that like or is it something that they just signed up for? And they're like, Oh, it's my $9 a month thing that I just gotta go well, obviously that's not yours but but that's a cool thing we happy to help out on if you want to brainstorm on some of
Maranda Dziekonski 39:27
that. No, I'm actually I will take you up on that. Expect late night slack messages to your inbox. It is me here on the west coast at nine o'clock thinking like, Oh my God, how do I approach this? I can blind
Jeff 39:41
you with charts and data. You'll love it. So well, we'll chat on the wrap up, but like, my favorite question is what was your COVID hobby? Oh, gosh.
Maranda Dziekonski 39:51
So a couple of things. I don't know if you see this lovely painting back here on the wall. Oh, is
Jeff 39:57
that a painting? It looks so good. I thought it was a photo Graph. No, I
Maranda Dziekonski 40:00
did that. I did that. I painted that for a YouTube tutorial. I took up acrylic painting.
Jeff 40:12
Yeah. And
Maranda Dziekonski 40:13
also photography, which, you know I've talked about on
Jeff 40:16
your podcast. Yeah, absolutely. Deep but seems like when you get into something, it's like, I have no idea.
Maranda Dziekonski 40:23
I do I even started an Instagram. Miranda sees s e s like, you know
Jeff 40:28
into it on the podcast. Yeah,
Maranda Dziekonski 40:30
I see it with my eyeballs. Yeah, um, but yeah, I started an Instagram for all my photography and hiking adventures. So I, I joke around but I this is real. I sold I had a Bitcoin. Okay. I had a Bitcoin. I bought it raised around. I think it was like 2500 or $3,000. Okay, got it pretty low. Yeah. It was like the emotional roller coaster of having cryptocurrency is too much for me. I'm not a gambler. And I kept watching this Bitcoin, go up to 10 and then go down and then go up to 11 and then go down. So in 2020, I sold it at like 10 or 11. And I was pretty happy. I'm like, I need seven grand to buy a camera, a Leica. Because I've been eyeballing this like a cue and they're not cheap, but mirrorless it's light, I can take it with me. The damn Bitcoin went up to like, 50 60,000 effing dollars. So now I'm out hiking, and I look at this camera. And I'm like, Damn, you like a camera. You cost me because I specifically sold the Bitcoin to buy that camera. emotional roller coaster didn't help. But I was like, Okay, I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna cash out. I'm gonna go get that camera. And sure enough, I look at this camera now. And I'm like, this is a literally a $50,000 camera. But that's how I see it. So
Jeff 42:06
it's funny, because I was gonna take that in a different direction and be like, Oh, but then I had no recovery from that. But that's my only slightly familiar story on that. Is that going to age myself here. But when Google first went public, I bought a couple shares, and it got up to 600. And I was like, oh, there's no way ever, ever. It's Hi, Mark. I went out and got this amazing steak dinner like the classic guy in the 20s with the steak, bourbon and thing and everything. But I was, you know, yeah. Do I still regret that? Absolutely. But, but it was an amazing dinner with good friends.
Maranda Dziekonski 42:43
Oh my gosh, yeah. Yeah, no, that sucks. I totally same thing. That's my thought. It's like, Oh, what if would have could have should have. But you don't know. You know what I mean? That's that's the
Jeff 42:55
you there's also that it? Well, I don't think I can comfort you on any of this. But like, there's a point in time you just like it's done. You got rid of it. It's yeah, I have the same with the guitars, by the way. And then I found the lesson I was gonna say is that I had a lot of good guitars. But then I was like, Oh, this one and then that one. And then I there's a minimalist guitar YouTube channel that was on in there, like, basically taught convinced me to like sell a bunch of them to get one amazing one. And I thought it was all BS. And I take I take it out every weekend and I play and everybody's like, that sounds amazing. And I'm like, Damn right. It does. So and this isn't about me, it's about you. But like, trying to find some comfort in there. I'm sure everybody that sees your cameras like Wow, she's legit and everything.
Maranda Dziekonski 43:42
Well, it's funny because I was I was coming back from a hike and I'm walking along this road where these cars driving in I have the camera around my neck and most people don't know. But someone screamed out the window nice like a different kind of cat call. Are you at all like
Jeff 44:08
you oh my god, that's so funny. Oh my god. Well, I don't think we could end on a better note than that. Any any. You're involved with so much people to follow you and what is the community that you'd like to push people to to interact on these types of topics?
Maranda Dziekonski 44:23
Yeah. Follow me on LinkedIn. That's where I share all my content. And also the customer success Leadership Network. There's so many great communities out there. I know I love
Jeff 44:34
that one. I'm in it every day. So yeah,
Maranda Dziekonski 44:36
I run the slack group there and I started it and it's now we had about 7000 people in there and every day there's a lot of great questions and people like helping each other out. It's amazing and
Jeff 44:48
I will say I love it so much because there's not this feeling of like there's there's nothing being sold in there. Right it is straight up. There's
Maranda Dziekonski 44:54
a reason for that because if you if you try to sell something in there, guess who messages you? me then I actually am the one that monitors all of this. I will message you and if you do it again, I will remove you. So I give everybody a little bit of a chance, but I delete their message I private message them and I'm like, stop it with this BS and you can be here but don't be selling here. Yeah, absolutely.
Jeff 45:17
I even hate sending like I wrote a blog post that covers everything you're looking at. You can do that. You can do that. You don't need to buy anything. The answers are right here.
Maranda Dziekonski 45:29
Awesome. Yeah, thank you.
Jeff 45:30
So I'm gonna stop for the recording and then we can just follow up because I know you get to probably run to 15 other meetings after this. So one second Norton. So thanks so much, Miranda. Let me hit stop here and the recording