GSD Podcast - Mastering Your Career: Candid Insights on Leadership & Planning with Marija Skobe-Pilley
In this podcast, Jeff sat down with Marija Skobe-Pilley, the director of customer success at ClickUp and the host of the Women in Customer Success podcast.
The conversation touched on a wide range of topics, including career planning, leadership, and the importance of initiative in getting promoted. In addition, they discussed Marija's motivation for starting the Women in Customer Success podcast.
Keynotes from Career Planning Discussion:
- Creating your own career path based on your strengths and interests is possible when a company doesn't have a clear career path for customer success.
- Climbing up the career ladder doesn't always mean taking on people management responsibilities.
- Being great at something doesn't automatically make you a great manager or leader.
- To get promoted, you need to take initiative, identify gaps in the company, and work on solutions to improve them.
- Constantly learning and being proactive is crucial to succeed in your career.
Keynotes from Women in Customer Success Podcast Discussion:
- The Women in Customer Success podcast provides a platform for inspiring women and providing them with tools to succeed in the field.
- Marija started the podcast after seeing a graph that showed the state of customer success when it comes to gender diversity.
- Women found it difficult to move up the ladder from individual contributor to leadership, and the podcast aims to support them through networking, mentoring, and building skills.
- The podcast is the first women-only podcast for customer success professionals, and Marija's aim is to inspire other women and provide them with the tools they need to succeed.
If you're interested in learning more about career planning, leadership, and women in customer success, check out Jeff's podcast conversation with Marija Skobe-Pilley. And for those looking for more resources and inspiration in the field, don't forget to listen to the Women in Customer Success podcast.
Listen here.
Transcript:
Jeff 03:05
So let's go ahead. Yeah, so sorry, I cut you off. But so let's talk about a quick CS background, right, because this isn't the autobiographical, you know, starting in 1999. Podcast, there are ones that are like that, but this is, this is Two Minutes on why we should talk to you and then we're gonna get into a topic that's hot on your things that you want to talk about.
Marija Skobe-Pilley 03:35
So I was born in. But Joke aside, I was trained as a classical musician, and whole my life or first 20 something years was was music and performing and concerts. And, and then I went to do my masters and and that was in Cambridge. And in the whole research about arts and music in education, I discovered how businesses and kind of leadership development can benefit from those forms of art. And that's something that I started researching a bit more. And then I realized, oh, I have no business experience, how can I? How can I be influential in the field or know more about it, and little by little, I just started becoming much more interested in business and I made a pivot to not be or not stay in education anymore and in music, but to enter the world of business. And I started in a payroll company as a project administrator based on my previous skills that was a good fit. And not even a year after I saw a job post for customer success manager and when I read that, I just knew that was going to be my career. And two years after I became CSM in the company. Firstly, I became an employee mentation consultant and worked my way up to CSM never looked back on my professional home. And yeah, now I am a director of customer success has clickup
Jeff 05:10
That's awesome. That's great. I I'd be remiss if I didn't ask you what instrument you play. We talked about this is for the guests because we talked about this beforehand, so So absolutely.
Marija Skobe-Pilley 05:19
Yeah, actually Oregon was my main instrument like the big church or concert hall, Oregon, and of course piano.
Jeff 05:26
Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah. My one of my daughters still plays piano. Giugiaro, like, get on like a like a Hammond organ or anything like that. It's just cool jams and bands at all? Or do you still go out and do any of the musical stuff?
Marija Skobe-Pilley 05:40
I do. I do music over the weekend. Also also the band and like, you know, worship and having organ or lots of piano and singers. Not mostly Hamlin. Oregon's not nice, it just still gives me joy. Like it's one of those things. Once you know it, you know it and you're just enjoying it. Oh,
Jeff 05:59
that's awesome. What are you going to post this year? Okay, it's
Marija Skobe-Pilley 06:05
not to San Francisco. I may likely go to Amsterdam.
Jeff 06:09
Awesome. That's awesome. Well, you should get banned for that or do something amusing? I don't know if you know, I'll probably cut this out of the podcast. But there's a bunch of us playing a concert at Paul's. It's seen that. Yeah. So. All right, MJ, yeah. In Bryan plaster from intelligrated as well. So it should be a blast. So yeah, it'll be great. So
Marija Skobe-Pilley 06:29
it's like you've lost in the party? Yeah, well,
Jeff 06:33
yeah. Well, that's the thing. I made sure it was free drinks. So nobody wants to hear all the mistakes. Right. So
Marija Skobe-Pilley 06:40
it's strategy.
Jeff 06:42
That's correct. So we wanted to that was thank you so much for the background. By the way, though, that was awesome. So we wanted to chat about a few things. One of them is this becoming going from individual contributor to being a manager, and then you got super passionate about, you know, the march to CCO, and in things like that, so. So let's chat about that. So, you know, you started off as an individual contributor, and you worked your way to manager. So you've got a sort of a very recent experience on this as well, too. So what are your thoughts about people who set that target to be the ultimate CCO?
Marija Skobe-Pilley 07:26
would say, well, in good luck, he goes for, you
Jeff 07:30
know, many years of pain, that's great. Like, yeah,
Marija Skobe-Pilley 07:33
I mean, it's a very individual experience, right? If anybody asked me ever, or what is your five year career plan, I was, I would have never been able to give a proper answer even now. I entered like my first role in customer success as a CSM was four years ago. And even then, like I wouldn't have given any plan what is next, you're happy to roll out with the, with the role and learn as much as you can. But I know there are some people who really have to think in terms of I have a plan. And this is this is where I'm going to. So if you are no matter where you are in your career, and you want to be a CCO in five to 10 years, I think I have an approach how you could go about like any plan that you have, and it's very simple, and you can just do it even in the spreadsheet. Firstly, if, if this is your goal, you need to start like at the top and if you want to be CCO go out there and find like, you know, 10 different job posts about four CCR, write down those skills. So start to firstly understand what are the skills and behaviors and aptitude that you need? In order to perform that job? Well, then when you are realizing what does it look like? Then you need to start working on how do you break that gap or the skills. And then firstly, you have to be realistic. If you're an individual contributor now, and you want to be CCO in five years time. Maybe, very likely, it's impossible. Secondly, you really need to know where you are in which organization, if you are in a big organization, you have to know the dynamics as well, in big organizations, your promotion path, and progression might be slower than in a startup. So if you want to speed up your career, firstly, go into startup where you will wear loads of multiple hats where you will be exposed to so many different types of roles and yes, it may be very likely that you can progress faster because you are in in a different environment. So you're
Jeff 09:41
awesome. Are you age a lot faster too and you're in those?
Marija Skobe-Pilley 09:45
I'm sure you do. So yeah. Going back to the beginning. Well, first strategy would be understand the skills needed and then well work kind of work backwards. If that is my ultimate Goal, okay, there are a few other roles in between that I should be working towards. And then you figure out again, so what is the next role? Right? Yeah, I'm here at the moment. Let's say I'm a director. So what is the next role that I can become in order to achieve that ultimate goal? Is that next role? You know, just going higher, whether it be a VP or head somewhere? Or is it going a little bit further, if you're in customer success, do you need to have a bit more experience or exposure in other customer facing role that you perhaps didn't have previously, right, maybe services, maybe support, renewals, etc. So try to just figure out what is lacking from skills, from experience from exposure, and then work towards that. So five years plan is a good thing. But firstly, we very much open for the opportunities because in five years time, firstly, the economy in the world can change so much. So if you're not open to other interesting opportunities, you may just miss out a lot. So I'm not saying having a five year career plan is bad, but maybe you can sense it's definitely not my way of doing things. I'm very spontaneous and saying yes to opportunities. I was the
Jeff 11:15
same way. I when somebody asked me my five year I was like, I've got no idea. And like, literally, my answer is I want to get into this job that I'm hiring for that I'm applying for, in do that with complete focus not on what my next steps gonna be. But let me ask you a question. Because you use the term that in the states, if you bring up I just picturing Rachel provider's good friend of mine, I don't know if you know her, but like, if you say head of CES around her, she will see. But I know in Europe, it's a little different. Right? So Europe, it's so there's an us and tell me if this exists. Over in Europe, head of CES has this like cop out way of giving somebody the leader title, but without giving them the VP role, which is like saying, Oh, you're the head of CES, instead of saying, Oh, you're we think this position is valuable enough that we're going to call you a vice president. It's usually for me, I see more in the director role, and then you progress to VP? How does it work over where you are?
Marija Skobe-Pilley 12:18
That's a good question. Because if you think of 10 different companies, you will see 10 Different everywhere. Yeah, exactly. But even in the US, I can I do see even in my company, some heads are the VP level, but their title is still had. I don't know who has the preference? Anemia. Yeah, it's interesting, because often, you may have seen that there are departments who have head of CES, and that person can be the only person to start with. And then the person who is building the department. So in a way, it is same as team lead or manager or even director somewhere. There are just different nomenklatur. But essentially, just depends how big is the team? And whether you are like the first one building the team or they're already few people, and then you come to just manage the team? Yeah, there's no rule yet. But very often, startups will be head of CES, and that covers it all. You just go on and do all the work possible. Well, there's
Jeff 13:18
also the the there's a connotation that you'll be a player coach, which is also a tough role. I looked at it, I saw that face. Exactly. Right. Maria's thoughts on player coach. It's a tough role. I think it's a I think it's a temporary role that a lot of companies have to have just chatting with a startup yesterday. They need somebody to come in, evaluate what's needed before they start, you know, hiring and things like that. And sometimes you don't know, nobody's been in that role. You kind of have to do it. Roll up your sleeves a little bit. But hopefully not longer than six months. You don't want to be a player coach for like three years. That's, that's terrible. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, that's
Marija Skobe-Pilley 14:02
terrible. And, I mean, there's no much benefits for for anyone there, right, because you are so divided between two very different roles.
Jeff 14:12
Yeah, I mean, how you're never able to give people the management sort of stuff that they need on a weekend basis. If you're chasing fires down, you're implementing customers, all that stuff. It's just, it's not one. So I'm, we're chatting beforehand. Something really set you off a little bit. And I'm sure you hear this a lot, which is like, Oh, my company has no career path.
Marija Skobe-Pilley 14:38
Uh huh. Yeah, that is really interesting, because I hear that a lot. Oh, we don't have a career path. Like what is our career path in the company? So I just have a different opinion. Your company doesn't have a career path for customer success. Well, that's awesome. That means firstly, you Don, have already prescribed path for you, which you should follow because there is then typically no loads of other opportunities. That means you can create your own path by yourself. Now, how does that work in practice? I think that whenever you are in a role and you're becoming confident and comfortable with a role that's in a way sign that you you're maybe ready for something else for some different challenges, either in terms of, you know, different role or different types of responsibilities. So what I always think about it, you know, Simon Sinek, start with that, why? Why are you in this role? What, what are your strengths that you are really, really developing even more in this role? What is it that you're really good at that you really like? So start from yourself about your current role, like, what do you like what you don't like? Again, if you want to, you know, have a title, that may require responsibilities that you really, really don't like to like, what why to take that as part, there are so many other options. Anyway, you're understanding your why. And then you're thinking, based on your strengths and interests, what could be other similar roles or even, you know, roles that will promote you to be more manager, more leader, whatever that looks for you. But what I have realized what is really important is to know just climbing up, and if you're an individual contributor, just thinking that leadership role means people management, and you need to go in that direction is not correct. Because now especially there are more and more roles that are in a way leadership roles. And it could be even higher leadership without loads of people responsibilities. Now, there are so many examples, like people who are very, like analytical or like to create processes very often CS Ops is a good role for them. It is a strategic role. And when you start it out, very likely you don't have people management responsibilities unless you start building the team. But if that is your strengths, let's just go for it. It doesn't mean you have to become manager, and director and VP, just to perform some of those activities.
Jeff 17:25
Yeah, I think a lot of people also don't realize, I think, the amount of I don't know frustration, or whatever, it just everything dealing with people management, you're basically taking on, like almost like a parenting role. Right. And you, you know, I remember going through the, the wise questions with somebody who wanted to move into management, and I was like, Do you really want to manage people? Like, do you want to? Are you okay, with people coming into your office and just like, venting all the time. And also, you know, you're, you're, you're finding out stuff about people that you might not have wanted, but also like, you know, I remember the first time somebody on my team came into my office, and she was like, I just want you to know, I'm not sneaking around interviewing, I'm actually pregnant, but I'm not three months yet. And I'm like, Oh, my God. So that's like, that you're carrying a lot of that. Right? So it's, and then just, you know, going through performance reviews, and when you've got to, I feel when you've got a bad employee, like, especially in the lead up to having to let that person go. That's a really tough, that's a that's hard. That's, that's tough, that it's hard to sleep when you've got that going on. And especially like, the, you know, you're gonna let this person go on a Friday, and everything's leading up, I usually can't sleep at all, I, those are my least favorite parts of the job. And some people aren't into that, right.
Marija Skobe-Pilley 18:57
You really nailed this, I had a situation. And there are many sleepless nights. Yeah, not only one. But But you said something interesting, like there are so many components of people management that you know, are not so awesome. That may look like from the outset. And it's really also important to understand. Just because you're an amazing individual contributor, no matter what you do, that doesn't mean that naturally you should progress in people leadership roles, because they are entirely different roles with different skill set different responsibilities, like everything is different.
Jeff 19:38
I am super, so sorry. I could jump I like I I'm passionate about that. You might because you're such an amazing individual contributor might be a terrible manager, right? Like, we saw this with developers for so long, where they're like you're the best developer, you manage people, and then suddenly, they can't understand why these people are having issues like it's super easy. Look, you just go do this. And a basketball example that I think I talked about on this podcast was when Michael Jordan became a coach, he was the worst because he's like, dunking on guys. Like, why can't you just do this? And why? You know, and it's, it's, it's super easy, it comes easy to me, they don't realize that. So, you know, not everything comes easy to everybody. So,
Marija Skobe-Pilley 20:21
yeah, but also, it's interesting to think it's really entirely different mindset and set of skills. Like you mentioned basketball, I can think of, you know, amazing, amazing musicians, amazing. pianists who are amazing on the stage, does it mean that they can actually coach somebody to become great musicians? Like entirely different worlds? Very likely, not just because they're
Jeff 20:45
usually terrible? Yeah, you know, I play guitar. And I've had some amazing guitar teachers that are like, that. Sometimes the ones that aren't the best players are the best teachers. Yeah,
Marija Skobe-Pilley 20:55
yeah. I mean, they can be much closer to those people who still need to develop a lot. So yeah, I mean, I think that's interesting to mention, because very often, obviously, if we promote based on the merit and based on performance, right, and if going from individual contributor to manager is the only path, it can very likely be a problem, because what makes you amazing performer will not very likely not make you amazing manager, that's entirely entirely different world. I want you to give the example, even just recently, what happened in my team, we promoted a team member, from CSM role into CS enablement role. And that's something that absolutely didn't exist, like the whole idea about the role and make and the person transitioning. So the timeline was two months, like the role never existed, but we realized the skills that that person has, would be so amazing. And instead of, you know, her being awesome CSM for her book of business, which is a great deal in itself, she could just help and support the whole global team in something else. So again, the roll never existed. We started just having conversations. And then you know, you're building the case, you're creating some documentation and numbers, you're talking to heads of the parkrun CRO and basically everything happened within two months. And it is an exam, like awesome example how you never know what can happen a few months down the lane. And okay, I'm talking from like, startups, keylock perspective, I know, it's not a case in some big organizations. But just because the role doesn't exist today doesn't mean that you cannot create it in the coming months, based on your own interests and skills. Like when you recognize there is a gap, or there are a few gaps, and you're finding solutions already. Just go for it very likely. You're not it may not even be a new role immediately. But you may start with projects and initiatives that turn into a separate rolling few months.
Jeff 23:07
Right? Exactly. And if you get too locked into, like, I gotta be a director, you know, you might think, Oh, I don't want to do that thing. It's not a director. But I know because I did very something very similar a long time ago. And it's and then a year later, people like we really I got promoted as your director for doing all of those things. Perhaps also, because I brought some Cuban cigars back to the States, but we're not going to talk about that. But it's funny because it's true. But exactly. If you get so locked into something and that like that's not on this career path that I've defined for myself, you're not going to come up with these things that why might wind up being the conduit to you actually getting that promotion?
Marija Skobe-Pilley 23:49
Absolutely. And you mentioned something like doing the work. Sorry. I think that something that, you know, people may think of promotion as, oh, once I get promoted, I am going to do this, this and that. It's not such a black and white line. Typically, when you want a promotion, and when you're working for it, that working for it also means that you're getting involved in initiatives and projects and things that you see needs to be improved needs to be done differently. Very often those projects are the ones that lead you to just get the title for the role that you're already assuming. Maybe you heard like some people say, at least you should be doing. You should be doing the roll six months already before you get from. Yeah, I don't think it's actually roll but it happens very often, right? No one will just promote you because you've been good. Like, there has to be that actual need and you're doing the work already. And I think that's fair. And people just I think everybody should just start understanding when you see the gap when you come with solutions. And that is going to be very valuable for the team, you will be valuable for it, even if it doesn't mean promotion immediately, but it can very likely mean in the coming months. But once we're having those conversations you at least have the whole track record of activities and projects you've been involved with, that will contribute to it.
Jeff 25:19
And you're showing that you're taking the initiative to go identify, you know, somebody that says, I've identified a gap, we need to do X, I'm going to do X, Y, and Z in order to get over that gap. I mean, that's something that when it's promotion time, you're thinking about making new managerial roles are whatever, those are what factor into my mind, if somebody saw something, they took the initiative, and they went after they're doing it versus like, you know, I want to promotion like, you know, it's, you know, this is my, my God given right, or something like that.
Marija Skobe-Pilley 25:50
That's the whole point. I, you know, I, I see people asking what could be next for me, and then you're thinking about their performance? Look, if you're not the top performer, no one ever will think about promoting you, just because there's never going to be so many promotions in a company's lifecycle, to have space for everybody, just because you've been here for, you know, XYZ, eight months, it doesn't happen. You have to do the work. And then you can earn it otherwise, it doesn't just happen.
Jeff 26:19
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, we talked about some, like, almost like 10 minutes, I think, no, because I wanted to get in I don't necessarily think there's a right or wrong on this. I definitely just wanted to get your perspective. There's, there's a couple of schools of thought, you know, when you get to that CCO level of whether you need to be an expert in all of those areas in you mentioned support, which is always, you know, let's take apart, let's not talk about the support should be endeavor support should be over here. But I don't necessarily feel that you need to have all of those. You're like, oh, you know, Marina shouldn't get the promotion because she's never worked in support, and you need to manage support. I'm sort of like, well, I know how to manage people, I know how to provide air cover, we have a good director of support, I'll hire a good director in there. And I'll get up to speed on those things. How do you feel about those different functional areas? Because if we think about CCO what we've got, you know, we've got implementation, hopefully, hopefully, these are all customer, you know, post sales, things that are under the CCO, we've got the CS group, obviously, most sometimes support, you've got training, we've got enablement, we've got some advocacy things going on. It's hard. I mean, unless you've been around for like, 20 plus years, it's hard to pick up all of those skills and everything like that. So anyways, I just wanted to see what you thought about that.
Marija Skobe-Pilley 27:43
Is there a saying that says, like, the great leaders hire people that are more capable from them. And I strongly believe in that, like, no matter which role you're at, but especially if there is C suite, you have to make sure that you can properly hire the best talent who can do the work. That's it, because all of those people are the ones that are actually going to do the work that you are accountable for. So yeah, as you said, it's very likely you're not going to have your hands you know, dirty in all of those departments. It's very unlikely. As long as you have some decent understanding of how they all function, how they are all connected together, what are the KPIs, you should be checking all of them? I think that's, that's good enough to get you started. And okay, I'm not giving advice for CCO. It's not that I'm having experience in that area. But I think focusing on the right people and hiring the right leaders, is going to be so much bigger factor in your success rather than, you know, getting your your hands dirty in in the details in the support department or implementation department.
Jeff 28:52
I've can't remember if I've read half of rods book on if you've read it. I can't remember if he covers this, I will ask him. But I'm sure I'm sure I'm showing off that I haven't finished the book yet.
Marija Skobe-Pilley 29:06
I haven't finished it either yet.
Jeff 29:07
Good. I feel like it's one of those books that you don't sit down and read on one setting, right? It's sort of like, you just pick it up and you read a good chapter or two or whatever you're like, Oh, that's great. You know, and everything. So yeah, no, it's good. Right, if you're listening, one of the book,
Marija Skobe-Pilley 29:26
so read it.
Jeff 29:30
So let's I think we covered off on that pretty well. I wanted to get people to know about your podcast. So let's talk about what did you say 78 episodes, which I feel like 78 might have been out this year. I'm just kidding. Of course, like I just love how you're cranking them out. And so talk about your focus because it is the woman ces podcast, right so you're primarily are mostly or always interviewing women, which is fantastic. I'm all for it. But talking to talk to talk to everybody who if they're listening here, maybe they've not been lucky enough to have found your podcast yet?
Marija Skobe-Pilley 30:09
No, well, thanks for that. Yes, it is like the first women only podcast for Customer Success professionals. In every episode, I bring, you know, some of the remarkable women in customer success to share their experiences, their stories, their challenges, really, for the sake of inspiring other women and providing them with tools to succeed. It's pretty simple. But why I started it and why is it it's all about women, really. A few years ago, I was on a Gainsight pulse. And there was a presentation in which one slide was, you know, the moment that the whole audience stood silent. And that was the graph that showed how the state of customer success when it comes to gender diversity. So that graph showed how if 60% of women entered CSM role, versus 40% Men moving up the ladder, on managerial level, it was 5050, which is kind of good for tech, it was, you know, better than the average in tech, but then everything above managerial level was, like 30%. Payment versus what 70%. It's terrible. That was really bad data. And there are so many questions after that. And I was also thinking, you know, why is it so much? Like why can't women go from an individual contributor, all the way up into leadership? And from so many different reasons why that could happen. I also thought, you know, maybe they don't even have proper role models, proper female role models that they can follow and learn from. And the idea just came, you know, why would I create a podcast and just, you know, showcasing different women so others can learn from them. And they can have a platform to just express their stories, experiences and everything else that can help other women. So yeah, that's been going on for a few years now. And kind of naturally, the whole community around it happened. And now most recently is the whole, like, women in customer success, power up community. Networking, again, be the whole aim of supporting women in, in the field through networking, through mentoring through just building skills. So yeah, it's it's a thriving world for sure.
Jeff 32:29
Yeah, no, that's amazing. And I will say something. So I've got three daughters. So I absolutely love it. Just as I don't know, if you've got this, you know, there's a level of wokeness in certain areas where I'm not allowed to say, because I have three daughters, you should just say I just think that's fantastic. But like, I do have three daughters, and I love them. I love the initiative and things like that. So. So I think that's great. So those numbers just blow me away. And every I will say, every time I see a role open up, I'm always reaching out to somebody that's female, like I just saw yesterday, I heard from somebody, there's a VP, global VP of CES at a certain place, I'll tell you after you stop recording, and I immediately knew of a few people that are looking for jobs and in incentive over to a female because it's like, exactly, we need more female leaders out there. In my company, I'm the only male I've got three other females, because I, you know, there's this interesting thing happened where it was just me, and a couple of people that I knew had kids, and they were my, you know, that I just knew I was top performers. And they reached out to me and said, You know, I want to be able to come back to work, but not have to be full time. And, and I knew I'd get more out of them and 20 hours and get out of most people in 40. And also it's like, I need to finish this presentation, because I gotta go pick up at 220 to get my head like, I will take that every day of the week.
Marija Skobe-Pilley 34:05
But that's so true. Like, we are just aware of limited capacity that we have. You know, when I when I started hiring, it was only me I was the first one anemia. And when I needed to create, like, build a team. Suddenly I got three guys. And then it was just them and me. And then at the moment we are 5050 Really when it comes to gender. But yeah, it's it's interesting, but you said you said a great thing, like when you hear about a job post, you are almost immediately thinking about who can be the best. And if that happens to be women, why not? But there is good lessons for for leaders like how do you like how much are you even influencing the pipeline of great candidates to make sure that you have enough gender balance within your pipeline only? I think all the leaders in customer success could be more aware of it. And I know we're talking about the gender diversity now but is all about. It's about the backgrounds as well, like, do you want to have everybody in your team coming from similar type of background in companies, or you want some diversity in, in thoughts and in previous backgrounds and in, in age as well. I mean, that's very, very important, like diversity in maturity on
Jeff 35:22
that note, think about that. I used to love having such a diverse team, just because I have a smaller team now. But when I had like, you know, over 30, or whatever, let's think about like your project managers, or your CSMs. I like to meet these customers in pre sales. And I'd be like, Oh, these people need somebody that's, like, super friendly, that's this person on my team. But these people need somebody that's almost like a PMP level project manager, because push it through, you know, all business to him, bro. Mike, I have one of those in my team as well, too. Like, oh, these people. You know, I'm just sorry, I'm thinking on one client, which I can not announce here. Like, they're looking for somebody like cool and hip. Like, we've got a young, cool and hip person on my team as well, too. Versus like, oh, let's have all 35 year old white guys, right? Like, it's like nobody, that's a terrible, you're, you're not able to relate to your customers as well. It's not a good luck. It's it's, yeah, so I also don't like over indexing. And the other way as well to like, it should definitely be a good blend of people regardless, like you shouldn't be like, Okay, we're gonna be 100% female.
Marija Skobe-Pilley 36:29
That's what I'm good either. Like, you really need multiple types of diversity. I'm based in EMEA here. And I also want diversity in different languages that are spoken, just different nationalities, because we have customers all around Europe, and you want to connect them with somebody that they could feel more related to. Why not?
Jeff 36:48
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. This is great. I just noticed the time and we weren't going long. And you know, I always promise you, it's gonna be like for your dog walk 25 minutes.
Marija Skobe-Pilley 36:58
That now we need to work longer.
Jeff 37:02
Exactly. Get those steps in summers come in, right. So. So um, this is a lot that you're doing. I usually ask like, hey, what's the funding that you're doing? This summer? That's coming up. That's not ces related. Do any trips?
Marija Skobe-Pilley 37:16
Oh, yeah. I'm doing trips like now every year we are. We're taking the kids and we are going to road trip all the way to Croatia. Oh my god. So when you think about it could be done in two days or three. But we are take. We are there the whole summer. We work from there. Part of the time
Jeff 37:34
my neighbors do the same thing. They go over to Croatia for the for the for the summer.
Marija Skobe-Pilley 37:38
Yeah, Croatia is awesome. So no. Like you've just managed to see so much across Europe and kids are having a blast. Last year we stopped firstly in Paris to see Eiffel Tower. They were just so in all and then. Yeah, just when you think about the half of the Europe, what amazing things you can see in the Alps is just awesome. So that that's under menu for the summer.
Jeff 38:01
I'm so jealous. We tried to plan a trip to go to Italy because I'm half Italian, in my daughter's and everything and it just didn't work out. We initially had that trip planned for the for 2020, which obviously didn't happen, everything like that. So I will get over there again sometime soon. But that sounds amazing. Well, listen, you've been an amazing guest. And I'm really glad we delve into some of these topics because I can guarantee they have not been talked about on the podcast before. So we'll grab all your links and put them in so people can start hearing your podcast as well. And thanks for taking some time. Just hold on one second here and we'll we'll sign off but thanks so much for joining.
Marija Skobe-Pilley 38:41
Thank you Jeff.