Customer Success through Radical Transparency with Michael Buccellato of LawGeex

Michael Buccellato (https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-buccellato-15419737/) is at LawGeex, where he runs manages the highest ARR clients.  

Michael starts talking about how he transitioned from Business development roles into post-sales success. Discussion ranges from:

• Customer lifecycle Onboarding to renewal, and the differences from large company to startups.

• Wearing multiple hats and knowing when to specialize vs generalize. Molding implementation for lawyers and non-typical users.

• Getting involved earlier, in presales, with customers to ensure successful implementations.

• Identifying different user types and understanding their challenges

• Decreasing Time to value to set up success for renewals

• Radical Transparency in the sales process to make sure there are no surprises.

• Initiatives Michael is working on to change internal behavior changes.

Lots more from someone deep in the trenches working with customers every day. 

Listen to the podcast here

Transcript:

Jeff  01:14

Hey there, it's Jeff, super excited for the next episode here of getting services done podcast, I, as we say, met a friend on the internet. Michael Buccellato were part of the game, grow routine community, where I go in. And if I see some questions about implementation or onboarding, and things like that, try and answer them and toll free community. So if you haven't signed up for that, it definitely would do that. And we just hit it off. And Michael reached out to me and asked a couple questions. And I think as this podcast, we just said, Hey, this was just record this. The it's really cool. Somebody who's up and coming in the industry, and they're trying out some stuff that might not have been done or some new ways of doing things. And Michael's got a really great perspective on doing this. He does have some big company experience, starting off at Oracle. And now he's at logs, which is startup seriousIy. And they're doing fantastic this year. So really just excited to get this one out there. And feedback. Thanks a lot. Okay, here we are. Alright, thanks for joining. All right. So actually, this is another pocket in I think they're going to come out and after the one that I'm talking about, where we haven't worked together, right. So this has always been the dream because I just think people get so sick of hearing my same stories over and over again. And I do think that there's more of a professional tone when it's somebody that I haven't like been in the trenches with for a while we can get kind of get into some more deeper topics instead of being like, remember that time and things like that. So Michael, Buccellato, we were just joking about this beforehand, because we each have last names that we from kindergarten on jump in. And so I know it's it's Kaczmarek but don't worry about it, I guess.

Michael Buccellato  03:14

It's it's a nice Irish name. I always like to joke. So

Jeff  03:18

that's my dad's. That was his go to right there. Nice. That's awesome. So Michael, you were coming into this from, from the from the success, which actually was touching on a bunch on my first batches of podcasts, a lot of it because success now correctly, and I believe owns the onboarding and implementation phases. So we met through the gain grow retain community, which covers a lots of stuff, lots of stuff that I should never weigh in on. But when implementation stuff comes up, I'm gonna go I know a couple of things about that. And so you reached out and we had a chat and we say you should we should do a podcast is enough here to get a good 30. And as they say, in the business, right, so, so, so welcome. And I want to talk a little bit about what you're doing right now for your current company. Yeah,

Michael Buccellato  04:12

no, I appreciate that. And it's it's very obvious that folks are really trying to rely on their network and, you know, connect with people. And in this current climate where we're all stuck at home, it's I think it's important that we, we develop connections with people and you've been so kind to offer some insights. And I'm very appreciative of that. And you're happy to be here today to talk about onboarding, implementation and just how to be successful when thinking about bringing new customers on board. So yeah, for myself. I've been in in the software space for upwards of eight years and from business development roles to as of recent last five years or so working in In post sale, customer success, so having started out at at Oracle Marketing Cloud and then to two startups, I'm currently at a legal tech company where I manage a book of business for our highest AR clients or enterprise clients. And onboarding is, you know, it's the most important phase of the lifecycle as it's repeatedly drilled into to our heads. And it occupies a lot of space on your LinkedIn thread, I'm sure. So happy to be here to talk about it.

Jeff  05:33

Yeah, it's, it's, it's, so I almost did the it's funny, you know, I've noticed like, it's just the worst one. Thanks for the nice comments. And thanks for listening to me, because, as I said, my kids don't listen to me, at least somebody does, right. So but, and they're the best, I should say that in case they're listening to this in 1015 years, but I think it's because now onboarding is owned, in tied to renewals in the SaaS world, is where it's kind of gotten this increase spotlight, and whether you call it onboarding and implementation, and I think a case can be made for either of those. And you know, there's delineations, but I think in the SaaS world, it's just super important, as you said, it's, you know, starting this off on the right foot. And, and as you know, from my one of my strong beliefs is in the pre sales world of starting off the relationship there. Well, so two questions before we get into the current more on the transition, because I just went over this with somebody else. How did you feel going from one of the biggest software companies out there to the startup and looking focuses on onboarding and implementation? What was your biggest sort of like, wow, that's a lot different than I'm used to, from Oracle, and I've worked for Oracle too, and I company that was acquired by them. So absolutely, we'd love to hear that.

Michael Buccellato  07:02

Yeah, it's, it's pretty consistent with just the transition from working on a big company to a small company. And when we think about onboarding, in the vein of a large corporation, resources are abundant, right. And what that means is, people have very specific roles, to handle very specific things. So if we're thinking about that, in the vein of a huge company, like Oracle, you know, you have someone who's project managing an onboarding, you have somebody who's the the business focused person on the onboarding, which technically is the customer success person who's coming in after the product is technically implemented, right. So most of the technical implementation is already done, you know, the success person is overseeing the project. So that point, a lot of different people, which makes it even more important as a customer success manager to really be on the same page from with all the internal resources, half the battle at working on a huge company like that is, is managing internal resources, right, and ensuring that that's properly communicated to the customer, and that they're aligned with expectations when it comes to timelines, and overall, just outcomes of what they're looking to get out of the relationship. So, you know, pivoting to a smaller organization, you're you're you're wearing those hats, right? You're, you're having to do all that which it's a blessing and a curse, right? You get to learn concepts. You get to learn a lot. But you know, things things can fall through the cracks pretty easily. I think for me, it's it's been having had the experience on both sides of it. You know, it's been amazing to develop new new parts of my my skill set and see things from a different perspective, which is ultimately helped me think about how we engage with customers on an onboarding from a from a smaller stage company. So I think that's that's where a lot of the the value lies is growing your your skill set and seeing things differently, and being able to have influence on how you build out processes in a smaller organization.

Jeff  09:12

No, 100% agree. You know, when you're at that large company, you just set it up exactly how I would have answered as well to sort of like, here's my project manager, and here's my support person, and here's my x and here's my Y, whereas in startups like you might be all of that right? And you start off kind of everybody's doing everything and then as you get larger, you start specializing and you start having the sport people being different and the success people being different in the onboarding and implementation. Where are you now in that range of of companies sizes and roles in a specific or general in terms of your your group right now?

Michael Buccellato  09:53

Yeah, we are we just raised a Series C back in what feels like yesterday but was May

Jeff  10:00

It's hard time to do it. So congratulations on that. Yeah,

Michael Buccellato  10:03

it was definitely a big accomplishment. So, in terms of maturity of our organization, I think it's a very specialized, unique product and use case. So, implementation onboarding is even more important than then typically, at another SaaS company. Really setting those expectations early on and and scoping out implementation is is so important to setting up the customer for success, who are our key persona is our key audience. aren't your typical technology buyers, you know, their in house attorney, so having to really shape and mold their perception of what is software company, how they engage with them during this process is, it's huge. It's a big education piece. So we're constantly testing new things, you know, we're quarterly kind of taking a look back at, hey, how can we provide a better experience for customers? How can we better communicate with what our engagement model looks like moving forward after implementation? How can we get involved earlier to make sure we hit the ground running with with onboarding and implementation? So there's a lot of things that we're constantly rethinking, and really kind of going in, which is a fun, it's exciting. Having had the opportunity to work on that stuff is something that I was looking for a new opportunity. So it's it's fun. Yeah, that's

Jeff  11:33

so when I think law firms actually spent my first five my career years with law firms. I was doing like database work stuff for so I saw in my mind, I still think it's like very paper based, you know, people banging away on Windows 95 machine has not matured at all, or I think between legal and insurance. They're just in this like archaic walking around with big folders and, you know, binders, things like that.

Michael Buccellato  12:03

Well, I think you know, where it varies is you have your your typical law firms, we work more so with in house attorney, and so your in house teams, and the Pepsi's HP is of the world, which I think they're definitely a step up in terms of maturity and how they're leveraging technology, but not that far from from the outside world.

Jeff  12:28

And are those the users that you're dealing with? Are you dealing with like a train the trainer type of situation where it's their IT person, and they're gonna go drain drain, hopefully, train the attorneys and go from there?

Michael Buccellato  12:40

Yeah, it varies. You know, we're working with anyone from legal ops to, you know, senior counsels, and then, you know, paralegals, so it varies. We work with procurement folks handling some of their, you know, biocide contracts. So, that's another important piece is identifying these folks, you know, understanding what they care about. And the challenges, right, you know, we have some paralegals who aren't really fond of technology, and they might think that we're there to replace them. So that's, that's a big challenge early on to address that with the executive buyers and champions and call out that elephant in the room. And to help them understand that, you know, this might be competing against what they think is ultimately going to take their their position. So it's, there's

Jeff  13:28

every industry has that right? Where you people, like are they going to replace this is like, No, you're actually able to focus on that thing that you're really good at, instead of like, getting caught up in this like, aspect of process that you might be doing right now. Yeah,

Michael Buccellato  13:41

yeah. And that's why it's key. You got it. You got to hammer it early, early. And often.

Jeff  13:45

Actually, that probably strikes to what we're trying to frame this whole conversation around, which is the the time to value right man, I know, it's something you're passionate about it and you're just really focused on, especially since I think you ultimately wind up owning renewals, correct, right? Which is know for the people who don't realize that coming more from the project management and professional services and implementation side. Can you shine some light on why as somebody who owns that renewal side why this is just super important, and you're probably the thing you're working on the most right now?

Michael Buccellato  14:20

Yeah, I mean, it's the first impressions are everything and that that ultimately will impact you know, the the end outcome of a relationship. So from from a renewal perspective, our team will not handle the commercial discussion around renewal, but in any essence, you know, everything we do leading up to the renewal is is the renewal right? We're owning the renewal per se. So it's, it's super important that we're establishing define success criteria early on, you know, what, what does success look like for this partnership be able to quantify that and measure it along the path? and understand how we're trending towards those, those items. I think also identifying early on, you know, expansion opportunities. So planting those seeds and doing the due diligence before you even meet with a customer to be able to intimately understand their business, how do they make money? You know, what opportunities lie once, you know, once we're able to check off those boxes and what success looks like, you know, where can we land and expand. So there's so much work that's done in the very beginning of the relationship that, you know, we can decrease the time to value ensure expectations are set properly, and set us up for success down the line to not only renew them at fault.

Jeff  15:44

The alarms going off, I have no idea what's happening. It's like my home alarm system, like somebody's breaking into it, but it's. So that's great. How is how early Are you able to get in, you know, I preach about getting in early in the pre sales process. Are you brought in before the contract is sent out? Or is your implementation, so straightforward enough that you don't need to stick with the customers beforehand. And as more of an intro post sale,

Michael Buccellato  16:14

it's definitely something that, you know, we're looking to implement is getting involved in in the pre sales and right now I'm actually leading a project to help build out that process. So thanks to you for kind of shedding some insights there. The idea is that we were having to do a lot of discovery on those first calls and confirm a lot of the business details. And we're losing time and the customers saying to themselves,

Jeff  16:44

these guys talk to each other, we want sales. That's right. That's always what I hear.

Michael Buccellato  16:48

We're passing this dysfunction off on the customer, right. And this is not ideal for first impression. So we're, you know, we're talking about it now, in terms of what's the right time to get get us involved. What types of questions are we asking? And these are, these are really, you know, great conversations to be having internally, it really helps you take a step back and understand how we can better set up customers for success as well as how can we get our salespeople to think about these things, right? Because if we're handing off customers that are ready to onboard, rather than, you know, earlier on in the stage where you know, they don't have all the appropriate information that just leads to uncovering all these issues later on. And we all know what that means. It means churn and misaligned expectations, and you know, all that all that bad stuff.

Jeff  17:37

And what I consistently say probably too much is, is that a inexperienced SaaS sales leader will understand everything that you just said and said, Absolutely, we would love you guys earlier on in the process of unfortunately, from my experiences that the it's usually an inexperienced SaaS leader that saying you guys are going to slow this down. You're not too good in pre sales. And in I'm sure you've heard that stuff before my answer back and I'll ask some more questions after that is, is go right back to the salespeople and say, How often is your phone blowing up like still two, three months after the contracts been sold? Because they're just all pissed off? Because they're, you're finding out roadblocks now, instead of bringing it up in the sales? And now it's twice as much of a problem? Is that a common thing? Are you guys have gotten past that are?

Michael Buccellato  18:37

Yeah, I mean, for me, it's it's all about radical transparency. You know, if you if you have to hide things from a prospect, then they probably shouldn't be a customer. So it's, it's, it's really all about addressing the elephant in the room and demonstrating partnership and partnership means leveraging your resources internally, to help show the customer, here's how we're going to be successful. Because at the end of the day, you know, you need to emphasize with a prospect that, hey, we're the experts at onboarding our product, right? We're gonna guide you through this process. And here's the person to lead you're here. And that's the customer success implementation team.

Jeff  19:16

And you have the benefit of really focusing in on one industry right now, right? So you can say, hey, this is what we did for X, Y, and Z. There are legal teams, that a lot of people, you know, they've got a very general solution, and they're implemented to whoever needs it because it's able to meet a lot of different verticals and things like that. So I would think that your team, like they're experts, right, like they can in and again, back to the what I tell the sales team is that you bring in these non commissioned people or yourself and I'm sure you're involved with a ton of these things like Megalodon commission, he's just here to make sure you guys set up correctly. Suddenly, you're the you're their best friend. Or if you're working towards that, so Is this something where you're trying to get executive alignment? You know, to be able to make sure that you know, starting 2021 This is how we I think this is some of the things we talked about that I don't want to put words in your mouth. So,

Michael Buccellato  20:12

ya know, this is something that's hot on my plate right now. And I think the executive buy in is certainly there's now about coordinating the internal resources to to formalize that. So it's going to involve some behavior change, right? Because what we identified is that some of these scoping questions actually should be discovery questions asked by the salesperson. So when he could drive a behavior change there, it'd be asking those questions earlier and almost use the scoping call per se, as a confirmation, right? Yeah, here's what we heard. And we want to make sure that we understand this properly, this way we can get you guys up and running. And you know, that time that was communicated,

Jeff  20:55

actually just finalized this process, like literally an hour before we started talking. And, you know, everybody's got different businesses, the company that I finalize this for is has some really complicated human capital management things where the deal was like, labor laws, but not everybody, right? It's so so we work this process out where the sales team will go through and do like their deal qualification stuff. And, you know, they're dealing with the buyer, but the buyer is not always the user, right? So we're the tech people behind it. And so what we came up with is this is that, so the sales team will be able to like great, everything from the deal qualification means your SaaS fee is going to be this right. And let's just say, no round numbers, because of this is not what we're talking about, like, let's just say 50k. Because that's mid market, SaaS sounds like a good number. And everyone's like, sounds great. And they're like, however, we've got a standard implementation fee. But you know, we want to just confirm some things that we heard. So we're gonna get the implementation team on on a call and ask some questions. But I stuck this additional point in like, go in create a type form or a Google form, and put in some questions that would be very easy to answer for certain people. But that your buyer might not ever know the answers to or know that this stuff's even going on in the background. It's kind of like, hey, like, how many years of employee data do you need? Or do you work with labor unions and things like that, things that could make an implementation go from like, two to four months. And, and from there, it's, you're right, it's doing these discovery, because if you do this, the second week, after they've signed the contract, and you're like, we just found out that there's like, 10 years of data that we gotta pull in, and that's going to add an extra four weeks, I'm not even gonna cost you anything. But they're trying to get off their old system and get on and all of that stuff. So that's, you know, everybody should tailor it to what their current situation should be. But I think it goes back to what you're saying about understanding your customers business, finding out what the complexities are this, as I say, what makes this customer complex is sometimes their unique value proposition to their customers, but you're gonna have to deal with it now as you implement it into your system. So like, I just think, you know, the net net, or the TLDR. This is that you're gonna get in and ask these questions, your salespeople probably would not know to ask these questions, because they're doing deal qual stuff, and they're answering the 10 Hey, aren't we do 15 things, we're going to ask you these 15 questions. But in order to implement it, you need some of these other things. So I apologize, because I probably talked way longer than I should. But, you know, that's, that's how I've come to kind of resolve this issue. And if anybody's listening, like, you know, hit me up on that, because it's, it should be very easy to explain to your exec team when you're trying to get the alignment on these things.

Michael Buccellato  23:58

Yeah, and your, you know, whoever is actually doing the implementation from a technical perspective is going to come there and give you a big Virtual hug, you know, because because they're the ones that are dealing with the brunt of the of the bullshit after, you know, the proper discovery isn't done the workload, the onus is on them. And when they're not set up for success, it just is going to directly impact the customer sentiment and internally is going to be a mess. Yeah.

Jeff  24:24

So this is why I'm gonna go we talked about how important this is for a company and I just don't want to, I don't want to dismiss this. Because there's one scenario think about this. Oh, we're gonna bring in 10 years data where it's Tuesday, or we're gonna bring this edition, it's always data in but right, it's always one of those things. But suddenly, if you're a small team, imagine you close this big deal. And they're gonna go alive now, maybe three, maybe six months later, right? So they're not going to renew which is on you or they're not going to there. going to ask for a break, or some companies start their SaaS fees right from the get go. But then they can't start using the product for six months. So you have that situation one, then you've got to pull your dev team in sometimes, for them to write some custom work to be able to do some stuff. So now, your backlog in the stuff that you've promised out to the market isn't going to happen as fast as well to or the worst part about it. People get stressed and they quit. And they do other things. So it's, it's a huge issue, especially when people are doing the logo chasing and trying to make their numbers and things like that. So yeah, that's my big spiel, I get off the soapbox now. But if if, if there's people listening to this podcast, and they're like, why don't they understand how important it is, I'm validating exactly it is, it will set these issues will send shockwaves from all throughout every organ, every part of your organization, product management, development, finance, CEO, board level stuff, your marketing team won't be able to get, you know, happy use cases to put in, it's just all of that.

Michael Buccellato  26:05

Yeah, you know, we were all, we all see the beach ball differently, you know, we're all on different sides of the beach ball. So, you know, I would I would encourage people to just go internally and, you know, share that they understand the other side of the beach ball. And think and challenge people to think differently to try to understand things from a different perspective. And I think ultimately, we should be having fierce conversations with each other. Yeah, that's that's a challenge is internally especially as you know, being afraid to to have a radically transparent conversation, because what could come out of it, right?

Jeff  26:45

We talked a lot about this. But the funny thing is, is that you might add three to four days to the sales cycle. So a sales team, like Get your shit together, like listen, I have sold a lot of stuff too, but like, bring us in a little earlier or you know, just realize add in an extra three to four days in. You've probably already seen this before, it could get the deal closed faster, because you're like, hey, wait, this is your old vendor turns off on one one. And it's eight one right now. And it takes four months. Like we need to get in on this right?

Michael Buccellato  27:18

Yeah, I I was the goal line back for Oracle. And then I used to push push deals right over the finish line. So they used to bring me in and give me the fullback dive and I would jump over the line of scrimmage and push that deal. Right into the endzone.

Jeff  27:36

Yeah, you've just chock full of one liners for me to you know, title, the podcast, by the way, just trying to try to figure out some of these things. But I can't wait to put that in that little visual tool that comes up on LinkedIn. So let's let's change a little bit because I think we're really we've talked about the time to value here for a little while talking with sales teams, the exact alignment. Let's talk about your resources, and how they're currently made up like do you have that one role? Or are you starting to sort of branch out and to be able to start specializing

Michael Buccellato  28:11

in regards to

Jeff  28:13

onboarding as well. So how every organization usually starts off is that one person that does it all, from onboarding, implementation, renewal, CSM, customer support, they do everything. Where are you in that spectrum to from that role, which is early stage startup? And then on the other end is Oracle?

Michael Buccellato  28:33

Yeah, nah, I think we're still we're still very early on, I think that doesn't mean that we shouldn't have shouldn't be having those conversations. Because, yeah, if things go as planned, we're gonna scale very quickly, and we're gonna get to a place where we're going to need someone who's dedicated to doing that. So I think right now, we're really doing the AV testing to formalize the process. And this has to do with just the immaturity of the market and on the buyer. So it's, you know, there's so much green and unknown in this space that because we essentially pioneered this category of technology. So there's a lot of learning that's still happening. And I think, as we start to build that foundation, and not, you know not not to say that, you know, we're not going to ever go back and change things, but there's just too much up in the air right now. We're, we're, we're still trying to figure out what the best way to approach this is what, you know, what type of questions who's involved from both ends? So I think, yeah, there's, there's a lot to be done.

Jeff  29:37

Yeah. No, that's smart. And it sounds like you have a bunch of resources or you're gonna have a team that they're going to be able to say in the future, like, hey, you know what, I don't really like that part of it. But I really like this part. And you'd be like, Oh, because it's kind of like when you write a job description, and you're working with the human resources person and you put just put everything in there. And then you start interviewing people and Be like, you know what, I was thinking to create a specialist role, and they're just gonna do all the like the data loading. Like, they're really good for that stuff, but they just don't want to talk to customers too much, they'll do it. But they don't want to be the lead, like, and you start just kind of from osmosis. And I think it's smart, not just to kind of latch on to the industry stuff. And you're basically saying, like, look, we got a little bit of a different business, we might have to approach it a little differently here. Yeah, I

Michael Buccellato  30:25

think that's, you know, that's generally applicable towards a lot, a lot of different SaaS offerings, right? It's really dependent on your product, how involved it is, from a customer's perspective, what adoption looks like post implementation, these are all things that you need to consider when you think about roles and responsibilities, you know, if someone can capture all those and not be overwhelmed with with roles and responsibilities, and you know, excellent, yeah, that that kills two birds in one stone. But you know, other other offerings, you know, they lend themselves to having someone who's a subject matter expert on the account, you know, maybe a strategic of some sort, that could be kind of productize in a skew, right? We're onboarding cos x, you're gonna get a strategic with a strategic advisor with it, you're gonna get a CSM. So I think it's really dependent on on, on who you serve, what your product offering is.

Jeff  31:19

Yeah, I forgot about all of that, where you may have your low end, where it's just like, they put their credit card in and go versus like, No, we're gonna have the strategic we're gonna map out like, what two years of success looks like? And which is, by the way, not? In my I don't do that. But I've seen people doing it, it seems to work great. So. So that's awesome. You had mentioned one thing here that I wanted to get into a little bit, which is, you talked about product? How big of a? or how good is your relationship with product? Or are you a pipeline, I would have to think, like, if anybody was giving feedback into the product right now, your team would be high on that list along with sales because they're like, We're gonna win this deal, because we don't have x and it's like, Okay, let's go build x then. Right. So,

Michael Buccellato  32:06

yeah, this is probably gonna sound like, like, like I'm bullshitting. But this is this is why I love the role.

Jeff  32:15

Well, you're a tough New Yorker. So I know, you're not bullshit.

Michael Buccellato  32:21

Yeah, that's, that's why I love the customer success role, and you really sit at the center of things, and you're working with every different team that the company has. So from, from that perspective, a product, you know, CES, the product is obviously super important relationship to have, you know, for me, I try and get product involved in all of our executive business reviews. I'm working with them to identify customers for beta features, to shed insights in terms of, you know, what I see what I'm seeing in the marketplace, what types of questions I'm getting from customers, and how I think that the product can enable customer success and sales to sell more and renew more and drive more adoption. So it's, it's an important relationship to have, you know, I think the the feedback loop there is, is critical to the success of a company is first off product, tapping customer success, to better understand if things would resonate with customers. And then, on the other side of it, customer success being in constant contact terms of hey, this is what our customers are asking for. Here's how we can further drive adoption and renew more customers.

Jeff  33:47

That's awesome. That's, that's great that you've got a team that can do that, you know, some teams don't want that. Right? They're like, No, no, no, we want to build these features based on what we see the market and not you know, what our customers on their roadmap. And I'm like, why? Like, why get that sometimes I'm like, you can get an update on the whole thing. But you know, go get an A great idea. validate that, you know, it's a two way street. So no, that's not

Michael Buccellato  34:14

the best. The best organizations are the ones that are listening. They're listening to what their customers are saying, and they're prioritizing and building things that those customers want. Yeah,

Jeff  34:23

absolutely. That was great. So I had a couple other they're not strung together in a nice little segue, but I just sort of had these some of these random ones when I'm always curious with a with the organization or company of your size and what you're doing. The one critical question I usually ask CS leaders is who owns the renewal and then people like well to train I'm like, Okay, who gets the commission on that I know who really owns the customer relationship?

Michael Buccellato  34:55

Yeah, I've, I've been under a different structure. is a different company. So at Oracle, you know, our it was our job, we were tied to a renewal number individually.

Jeff  35:06

Oh, well, individual. Okay. Yes.

Michael Buccellato  35:08

So that was interesting. And then I think, you know, as customer sex success has has evolved, there's a lot of chatter around should you know, should we be tied to revenue?

Jeff  35:21

Oh, the relationship would get impaired in that conversation. Yeah. So

Michael Buccellato  35:24

my last or my copy that I'm at now and my previous company, we were we had we had a revenue target for retention, but it was more so as the organization or whether individual numbers so are, our variables were somewhat based upon our renewal rate. Which, you know, I'm in favor for, as I talked about before, everything you do from the time you kick off with a customer, to the day that they inked the renewal paper, you know, you're, you're in a renewal conversation, right? So whether it's, you're the one talking about the commercials or not. At the end of the day, you're, you're you handle renewals, right. I think it all comes down to the commercial aspect. Are you having the commercial conversations? And right now, I'm not, I would, I would feel comfortable in a situation, if I want if I had to. Yeah, that being said, I see the other side of the coin in terms of, you know, not being not not kind of, you know, being a being in a situation where you're, you're almost a hidden hypocrite, right? You're, you're you're trying to advocate on behalf of the customer. But also, hey, you know, my renewal, you want to upgrade to x more amount? So, yeah, yeah, it's, it's a, it's, it's an interesting conversation.

Jeff  36:51

I don't think there's a right or a wrong way, to be honest with you, I think it's all about where you are as an organization, and how your current staff is, and I don't know, like, certainly, I mean, don't get me wrong, the you have to make the correct decision where you are as a company. But in the theory aspect, I can see how it can go either way. And I've seen it be successful, I saw the people. When I was at Virgin, there was a real concern that we were, if that was a, we were selling human resources, people, it was a very feel good product. And we were really worried that these people who are really good at engaging in that conversation with people on a day in and day out basis about their strategy, we did not see them as being able to push renewal contracts at all. And pleasantly surprised in the like, some of the people that wound up being really good with that were not the ones that you would expect at all and a little bit of vice versa, and wound up breaking up into all these different specialization roles and things like that, you know, creating different teams based on the structures and things like that. So

Michael Buccellato  37:58

there's, there's a formula for both both approaches, the you know, where it goes wrong is when it's a, there's a lot of gray area, right, where roles and responsibilities are not communicated. Specifically to the customer. I think that's, that's where you get into trouble is the customer doesn't know who's who, what, who owns what, right. Yeah. And that's where you get into trouble as it's as person handling the commercials or they focus on my adoption, you know, what? Yeah, I think that that needs to be clearly defined at the very beginning,

Jeff  38:30

in the sales, right? In the sales, right? We say, pre sales, you're talking to salesperson, then you're in implementation. But you know, and this is where I've liked it as you're in implementation, but you've already met the CFO, the CSM, and the CSM is involved. They're kind of the coach in you know, at that point in time, you know, that you're going to hand it off to a running play. And that's, that's the onboarding team. And then, you know, those types of metaphors, but basically, you show them in pre sales, that number line of the the engagement and they know and if there's somebody else being brought in for commercials, you're like, oh, this point right here, that's when you're gonna meet the renewals person. And it's really whatever

Michael Buccellato  39:13

work and being and just just calling it what it is, I think that's the most important thing people say that salespeople are so concerned with, like, Oh, we're, you know, we're gonna be focused on your growth or the you know, just just say what it is you're there. You're a salesperson

Jeff  39:26

that was wondering, do you want to check your business? Okay, this

Michael Buccellato  39:30

is how you feed your children. This is why you sold the deal. Like it's okay to tell people that yeah,

Jeff  39:35

it's a gig. Right? Awesome. Awesome. Well, that's probably a good 40 minutes or so of like the good stuff. So what I've been trying to do and I think I missed out on my last one, so I'm making sure I do it on this one. For those of you listening to yours in the future, we are still under the COVID pandemic, although they just started getting vaccines out but what has your pandemic hobby then you know, breadmaking macro may what are we talking here?

Michael Buccellato  40:04

I'm probably going to sound like a nerd. I play I play a ton of Call of Duty. But on a more positive note, I've I've read two books to finish finished third, and I've put a lot of emphasis and focus on communication and driving empathy, specifically, by reading never split the difference. So it's been something that well, I should read a lot of editor.

Jeff  40:34

Yeah, I am reading one right now, actually. But I have Yeah, I noticed like, while I'm reading lots of content, but nothing that's like, Hey, can you keep your attention for 20 minutes on a medium article or something? So I appreciate that. And Call of Duty right? If you've got the headset on and you're talking trash, like that's interactive, as far as I'm concerned, right.

Michael Buccellato  40:55

It's it's sadly been some of the most social you know, things I've done all year. So

Jeff  41:02

yeah. Oh, we're getting we're getting there. So listen, it's been a huge pleasure. I'll put all your stuff on the post and everything. And looking forward, we should really definitely do another one like six months or so now and see how things have gone but um, just hold on one second. I'm going to stop the recording then we'll just do a quick chat after that. So cool.