Jeff is joined by Rachel Provan, a Top 50 Women Leaders In Customer Success 2022 and Top 100 CS Strategist 2022! Rachel and Jeff discuss:

- Time Management boundaries in CS and how to get people to respect them and stop the pattern of interruption
- Rachel's career advice about "Heads of CS" positions
- The problem with the "player coach" role
- The Eisenhower matrix, the urgent important and how to use it to get your life back
- Strategies for getting that raise and promotion.

There is a lot more as well. Listen in and also check out Rachel at https://provansuccess.com/

 Transcript:

Jeff  00:00

All right, so this week, I am joined by my new friend, it's always nice to make new friends. Rachel Provan, right. J pronouns are correct, because I just did you did okay, because I have the very fancy schwa and the French version and stuff like that, but I'm jealous. And you're coming to us straight out of Brooklyn.

Rachel Provan  01:32

Yes, I am. Yep. Carroll Gardens. Brooklyn.

Jeff  01:35

Awesome. So Rachel, I met at the although I certainly followed you on LinkedIn. We met we I don't want to be the creepy guy just connecting to random people that right? Like, that's not Yeah, so followed. And then we met at the Gainsight pulse super spreader event. Yep. And I just really hit it off. And I think we had a lot of subjects that we really liked talking about. And we're gonna get into those. But first, if you if people don't know who you are the three minute you know, it doesn't have to be the resume read, but just this, how are you learned on these subjects that we're going to discuss today?

Rachel Provan  02:16

Oh, my gosh, yeah, I won't do the full resume. But I've been in one way or another, working in customer success for 16 years. Yeah. So even before they really called it that it's still what I was doing.

Jeff  02:27

I account management like whatever, like, yeah, we call the pro serve or whatever.

Rachel Provan  02:32

Right. All of it. All of it. mushed together. Yeah. And I've been in, you know, financial print. I've been in a I have been in, you know, productivity of, you know, large, small companies all over the place. So I've been a leader for 14 of those years. And yes, yes, leadership is my jam. And I talk about it. Yeah, as you can see on LinkedIn.

Jeff  02:58

I will put put your LinkedIn profile next. So because you come up with some really insightful stuff. Stuff where I'm like, I wish I had the time. I wish I could write. Okay, not the time, but I wish I had the patience to Yes, my thoughts out like, oh, it takes

Rachel Provan  03:10

time believe that that's not cranked out in five minutes. But I

Jeff  03:14

love writing so you're not there at 745 Like, oh, shit, I gotta crank something out? Yeah,

Rachel Provan  03:18

not so much that when I do have to do that I have a few templates that I'm like, Alright, here are five things I don't like about this. You know,

Jeff  03:25

being my mind. I imagine me sitting at a typewriters on my hearth with a cup of coffee. And then I'm just typing away. But that's

Rachel Provan  03:35

props, then, of course, you could come up with gold.

Jeff  03:40

All right. So hot button topics for us to discuss. Are you looking at your tensing as I bring it up, which is see us boundaries in time management. So we got some topics that we're gonna get into. But in general, I know that some of you talk about a lot. So what's let's get into it. Why does this bug you so much? And why do you feel like you need to stand on top of tables and yellow people about this?

Rachel Provan  04:06

Great question. It's, it's something I do think about a lot. And I think that whenever I mentioned it to anyone, they immediately go, yes. You talked about anywhere. So I was like, well, then I clearly need to open my big mouth. Because my my favorite things to talk about are the ones that like we all know this and no one is saying it Can I

Jeff  04:28

Can we just stop the BS and just actually get to the real secretary?

Rachel Provan  04:31

Yeah. And especially it's actually one of the things that made me I recently moved from, you know, being ces executive to having my own coaching business for UCS leaders, because they all drown. Yeah, you know, the the average term for a new ces leader or for most ces leaders is 18 months. And it mostly it's because of burnout. Because you know, their company doesn't see the value. what they're doing, they typically player coaches, at least half I do everything in my power to get them to stop being player coaches, I was like, I will call your boss, this is not in anyone's best interest.

Jeff  05:12

This is set you off. But this is the player coach that is the head of CSI just coordinate.

Rachel Provan  05:17

I've been there, I've been there. And it's one of those things that you may have to take that role in order to move into a management position. No, it's temporary, it's going to be horrible. But you're going to learn a lot. You know, that's just the nature of the beast right now. Hopefully, we'll be learning more over time how to career path, that's something that I'm very passionate about as well. You know, adding in layers management for your team so that they have a way to grow. And so that we're not throwing people into CS leadership from being a CSM and saying, okay, you'll know how to do this, because you've been a CSM, when the two jobs could not be more different.

Jeff  05:58

Right? That's why I like the word. You see this in development teams a lot where they take the best coder who sometimes is usually a sociopath, and then turn them into like, the man is the best. Man. I've seen the best managers as like not that great developers and yeah, necessarily should be the case in CSM, but there is some job stuffing he needs to know how to do but yeah,

Rachel Provan  06:20

yeah, I mean, I'm a decent CSM. I'm a really good manager, because I like, you know, coaching people and developing them. And that and being strategic. But it's if you don't like working with people, and if you have to own your own results all the time, it has to be all you. You are not going to be a very happy camper and management.

Jeff  06:41

Absolutely, absolutely. So so let's get into this. Break this use case down a little bit. Yeah, you just get not you, obviously. But like, maybe some of your coaching just got hired or promoted. in there. Now the player coach head of CES, yes. What's going on? What does their day look like on a day to day? What is their? I'm sure it's like a tetris game and you can't even squeeze in that.

Rachel Provan  07:04

Well, I can I can tell you what their day looks like. It's pretty. I know. Yeah. You know what their day looks like you see that calendar, block it all off with meetings, one after another?

Jeff  07:13

To 6pm If you're looking after European team, yep.

Rachel Provan  07:17

And, and, of course, after all of that, the problem with this is they say yes to everything. Yeah. Because they, you know, CSP when we want to help. We are people pleasers. And we're new at this. And you know, and when you're a an individual contributor, it's kind of your job to say yes, right, as a manager, not so much. And especially as a department head, it's like, you have to say no to some things. So they say yes to everything, because they want everyone to think they're doing a fantastic job. So all of a sudden, they're back to back. Everyone wants a touch point meeting, which is code for, I don't know what we're going to talk about, but I'm going to be on your schedule in case I want to talk to you about something, right? Just all of these so that they're they're agreeing to all these projects, all these meetings, but they have zero time to actually work on them during the day. So when does the work get done? It gets done at night, and on the weekend. And this is how we ended up with burnout. Yeah, and no one is telling them to do that work then. But they're like I have to I have to get it done. You know, they all feel very responsible and feel like they're slacking if they don't do it. And again, I'm like, you have to be in charge. You have to put up the barriers. As you become a leader, you have to know what works for you. Is this working for you? Then you need to say so you need to say I need time to do my work. And you need to block that off your calendar. Absolutely. An open calendar is an open invitation. I blocked off a

Jeff  08:44

huge chunks of time. Huge. Yeah, yeah. Nobody gets this block right here. Friday, two to six. Nobody can get that. Exactly.

Rachel Provan  08:51

Exactly. Because when are you going to get the work done? Right. You know, and I'm not talking about checking your email and your slack and all that that's going to interrupt you as well. You it is absolutely possible to get your work done in a workday by focusing on the right things. And those boundaries are what you need to be able to set the right things. It's not super complicated. It's you take a look at something and you say, is this actually going to move the needle forward? What is absolutely what is my goal? You know, is my goal increased? NRR is my goal, you know, just retaining whatever we can because, you know, we have huge term right now, is my goal to you know, improve onboarding, what is my goal? This quarter, you know, you can have like one to two strategic initiatives and that's it. Yep. Everything else has to go in a parking lot if you're going to make any progress.

Jeff  09:45

And and when you talked about some of those things, I just if you remind me, please. I just remembered that the one thing I would consistently have to say to people is that it's an I think we talked about this in person, but the quadrants over urgency, right? Like your mom. Yeah. Which is working on my stuff. And that is my most important things which which I thought about that when you talked about, these are my strategic goals for the quarter. Now somebody else's strategic goals, unfortunately, aren't your strategic goal. That's right. And so I used to, unfortunately, didn't make a lot of friends. But saying, like, I'm so sorry, but your most important and urgent problem is my least important one right? Now, there's a nicer way to say that. But essentially, yeah, I learned later in life, maybe don't draw that quadrant and say you're here in the bottom. Like I'm doing. Judging personnel like you or your bottom left. Yeah, I'm working on this stuff here. Right. Yeah. Don't do that. There's

Rachel Provan  10:46

one of the things I talk about is, you know, we don't like boundary setting, because it's not, you know, in line with who we are, we feel like we're being unhelpful, we feel like we're being collaborative. Yeah. But you actually need to look at it from another perspective. It's pretty unkind to say yes to something if you don't really have the bandwidth. Or if you're gonna resent the person for it, you're alive. You're essentially. Yeah. And you're manipulating them to try and make them feel a certain way about you. You know, and I like that you do you really want someone else doing that saying, Yes, something you asked them to do? Totally reasonable. They could have said no. But if they say yes, and then they're mad at you about it, or they don't finish it. That's not a great outcome for anybody. No, no, or you give them

Jeff  11:35

crappy work product, because you're 60 hours a week or more, you're not

Rachel Provan  11:39

going to do it well, or you're not going to finish or you're going to hate them. None of these is what was intended. Yes. So it's, as you said, like it's in how you deliver the saying, No, it's in understanding that their priority is something big. It's, you know, saying, Oh, my God, that sounds so amazing. Oh, you must be so excited. That's going to do so much. I so wish I could help you, I

Jeff  12:04

wish the best of luck for you. Yeah, it's

Rachel Provan  12:07

like I'm up to here, you know, you know, who might be able to help you. If you know someone who will not kill you, and actually might, you know, they might be able to point you in the right direction.

Jeff  12:16

So we talked about blocking the calendar off is a good way. And then we've just talked about deferring. I'm going to ask you, you've said this word three times in the last five minutes. So I'm not

Rachel Provan  12:28

slack. I hate slack. Sorry, I do.

Jeff  12:32

I was slack. When your customers you're ahead of CES in your in your made the awful mistake of allowing your customers to have open CS channels

Rachel Provan  12:42

never make that mistake. I had this debate with someone very passionately over a dinner. Well, the answer

Jeff  12:49

is easy. Like, if you like working weekends and nights like exactly, absolutely.

Rachel Provan  12:52

The problem with Slack is that there's an expectation that you're going to answer instantly, right? They're like these people, you know, these Gen Z they're not you know, they don't use email. It's like, well, they will if you don't have a Slack channel for them. You know, but they want it. I would like to,

Jeff  13:12

I want to sit here and watch movies all day, right?

Rachel Provan  13:15

Like, we people in hell want ice water, I'm sorry. Just you know, we don't always get what we want. And sometimes it's for our own good, you know, and in that case, there's literally no way to be productive because you're completely task switching all the time. If you want a support team instead of a customer success team, you know, because they are reactive, and they do have to be on the ball. And they do have to be fast. If you want someone to be strategic. You have it. I routinely turn off slack. And my email, took a lot of discipline. I did it for an hour at a time and on my phone too. And I got all twitchy. But I did it for an hour at a time until I got to a place where I was like I check email two to three times a day at these times. I checked slack at this time this Tim Ferriss stuff. Yeah, I was not Yeah, because I had to because it was sucking up all my time. And if I really did, you know, the other thing about setting those work boundaries, and sometimes that's Hey, I don't work after, you know, you're not gonna be able to reach me after six o'clock. You're just not. Yeah, it was so hard to set those for me. Especially, you know, as a woman feeling like I had to work twice as hard to be like, No, I'm serious. I'm serious, you know? Yeah. And then once I had kids, it was like, No, I just don't have the option. Like I'm fully not available. And it was shocking to just be it's not a big deal to just say, Oh, I'm sorry, not available then. Question it there. They're not like, Well, why? Yeah. I mean, yeah, it just it doesn't happen. You You just have to show people like this is the this is the operating manual to working with me. Here's how to get me to do my best work with you. Yeah,

Jeff  15:00

absolutely. So be sort of slacking. And you know that sort of time management having an open calendar and things like that are huge issues. What are some of the other like biggest time sucks to make for making a CSM D are in the CSM leader be productive.

Rachel Provan  15:19

CSM leader is again, you know, they say yes to too many meetings, there needs to be what I like to tell people to do, because they're afraid to say no, again, make a list, I have a productivity system that I work with, that I share with people, it takes into account that Eisenhower matrix the urgent important sorts things to where they need to be. You actually schedule in the things that are important but not urgent, they go on your calendar, you attend them like a meeting.

Jeff  15:48

And, and just a note on that I will I will screen share my calendar and be like I'm adding you I'm going through this work right there with shows like okay, it's not now it's then it's going to happen. Yeah, also, you can contact me when I get this because I will definitely go rogue and yeah, sure, you know, turn Wi Fi off or anything else. Yeah,

Rachel Provan  16:08

exactly. It's like this, I have a date with myself, I have a meeting to do that. And it's not like, oh, that's open time. And I'm gonna go check my email. It's it's not it is assigned for that job. Yeah. So you pick one to two initiatives a quarter, you break them down, you know, I like to think of it as an outline, like you would do in in school, when you're writing a paper, like, you know, what are the five, you know, big umbrella things that we need to get this done, you know, this initiative, it's like, well, you know, let's say it's the customer lifecycle. Well, you know, we're gonna work on onboarding, we're gonna work on adoption, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, list those out, then just look at onboarding, pick five things there, and assign those little tasks to yourself throughout the week. So it's not like work on on customer journey project, it's do this, this and this task, to get the information for the onboarding, that's much more manageable, like I can manage tasks, a big looming overwhelming project that must, you know, increase, or decrease our churn by blah, blah, blah, it gets overwhelming. So knowing when you're going to work on that, you know, it makes a difference. And having those it's really about having those one to two initiatives, and confirming that with your boss, whoever it is going to them and saying, Look, you know, if you add everything that you have to do, and everything on your plate to any sort of list, I use Trello, but any sort of list to be like, here's what I'm being tasked with, you are aware of how many hours are in the day? And how many hands and how many brains I have? We have an issue, you know, so but if you go to them and say like, here's what I'm thinking, this is what I understand to be the priorities. Would you agree with that? And so long as you're all on the same page, then it's like, okay. Unfortunately, that's

Jeff  17:55

that's, that's the way to do it. I used to tell people on my team, like, you know, if you've got five things that come to me and say, what are the three things I should be? Well, I ask your boss to reprioritize them, so you don't get in trouble for you asked me to do these. I'm gonna go do on that was right.

Rachel Provan  18:11

Yeah, yeah, it's just about setting those expectations properly. And that can be scary when it's someone above you. But one of the things about leadership is that you're not taking so much direction, as you are working as a team and saying, I know how to get this done. Here's how we get this done. Is that a problem? For anyone? Like, are we on the same page,

Jeff  18:32

we won't do it, I'm sure you do this for your clients. And let's take this to the next level, I'm going to tie this back in with something previously. Take that what you just said, and combine it with the hired as head of success. Come in and say, you know, in six months, I want to have a conversation or it could be a year but whatever, you know, upon an anniversary day, we're going to discuss, you know, my promotion to this next level. And I would like to hear from you what are those objectives that I need to do? Because guarantee they don't know what the hell? The answer is?

Rachel Provan  19:06

Right? It's true. And that is what I do with my with my I have actually a CSM to Director track. Oh, yeah. And it's that's a quickie that's like a two meeting thing. And that's about say, you know, doing a skills gap assessment. And saying, you know, here's where I believe I am, here are the things that I believe I would need to learn and, you know, having that, here's how I plan to learn them. If there are any opportunities that you see, for me to get experience with that. I'd love it if you you know, take it off the plate and throw it to me, but so long as you can present them with a plan. Like, here's where I need to be. Here's how I plan to get there. Does that align with you? You know, what, what sort of timeline can we work on? Because I can do this work. It's what I want to do with my career, you know, and if you've had any sort of conversation in the hiring process at any point about moving up, then and it should be I've had plenty of people I know, say, Yeah, we had that in the hiring conversation and now like, they won't have it with me. Right. Right. And that's brutal. And we have to, you know, look at certain factors. That's again, why I like talking all my little my little secrets here. But I like having an accomplishment tracker. Yeah. Because then the whole time, you're just marking things down as you're making a difference tying in numbers. And then you know, when it comes time for your performance review, or whatever, you go here,

Jeff  20:31

exactly. There's all that track at all. It's like, yeah, you know, keep that ever. And I tell people keep that Evernote going when you get an email from somebody saying amazing jobs in your folder that's called like promotion or something like that. I have a kudos file. Yeah. Oh, nice. Here's the difference between the two, it was right there. But I actually speaking, I've given secrets away. I talked about this one. So in Diane Gordon, who was my mentor, and it was on the podcast a long time ago, she, I had this issue when I was not working with her anymore, where I was trying to get a promotion and the same situation that you said, like it was gonna promise to you, and then suddenly, it's not happening anymore. And then she told me, after doing sort of like getting an assessment of what that leader, how they operate, and everything that operate like to person like to think they had a lot of power, right? Yeah. So basically said, You need to walk in to your next one on one, which is you know, weeklies and say, in regards to the promotion, love the speech, this came from her enough for me, I just repeat, you either won't do it, or you can't do it. And this is gonna be the number one thing that we talked about on a weekend based on the number one thing on the top of the list and everything right there. You just can see just like all the different things, you're dealing with that statement and stuff like Oh, yeah. And it was literally like, first of all, that leader was taken aback, like, why didn't they react to go there? And I'm like, I've been asking for two months, right? In a nice sort of way. So I'm now raising the level, I will say, definitely got the promotion that I was looking for, and everything, which then wound up being this, like career change, and it was so worth it. relationship. So she definitely respected me a lot, a lot more. But there was the really, definitely altered after that conversation. So yeah,

Rachel Provan  22:27

that reminds me a lot of one of my favorite books that never split the difference, like oh, yeah, no, everyone's read it. But I love it anyway. Oh, it's

Jeff  22:35

great. I still get his emails. I actually met him because he was before he got really big. He spoke at a conference and it was literally just sitting by the sterno food tables. And just like that's a great book. Yeah, the audio book is ones where I just dial up every few weeks and just listen to when I'm walking the dog right in. I read that all once. Yeah,

Rachel Provan  23:00

I need to absorb that over and over. Because it's like, it's what I know to be true. Anyway, so much of that is about empathy, which shocked me. I was like, Oh, but I do this anyway. Oh, no wonder that works. But you know, I actually do care. So that that helps. Oh, about empathy,

Jeff  23:15

right? I mean, yeah, that's a great thing, because I actually hadn't remembered that. And whenever I had staff members that were upset that they were getting yelled at. I'm like, Well, let's think why they're yelling at you. Why do you think they're scared? Yeah.

Rachel Provan  23:29

And look, every single one of us gets defensive. When we get yelled at. It's like, any of us can be like, Oh, well, they're scared from the outside. And on the inside, you're like, yes, but you don't understand. I'm going to get fired. I'm gonna lose my apartment and have to live under a bridge with my family. Because that's where our brains go,

Jeff  23:44

right? Yeah, yeah, steam coming out of our ears Exactly. Where

Rachel Provan  23:47

it's like, whoa, they just told you like, can you keep your desk a little neater? But that's where I go, you know, my brains off the tracks.

Jeff  23:56

So listen, I have a super specific and we actually talked about this before, you know, we're doing a little prep stuff. And I can't find a great way to segue. So I'm just going to try and

Rachel Provan  24:04

generally Yeah, so suddenly, you

Jeff  24:07

free up the CSS time, right. And the the example I talked about with, which is very classic, and startups, which is, you know, the original CSM is used to doing everything that goes post sale, including a lot of support, and then they get sucked in to do a lot of support work. And then finally, they get freed up in my experiences, they, they, they still do a lot of support work. So I was trying to figure out a way that you would coach, a team or a leader to be telling their team that you need to be doing more valuable work than just jumping at you're trained. Obviously, you're doing a great job here. But we don't need you to do that react to every hot button thing every right.

Rachel Provan  24:47

Well, the way that I manage most people and something that I think really helps with that and giving any sort of feedback is understanding where they want to go with their career, what their next step is. and saying, Look, you know, I can't guarantee that that'll be tomorrow. But I want to know where you're going. Because I want to help you get there, I want to help you develop, you know, it's on you to, you know, push it forward. But I will give you I will play to your strengths, I will give you opportunities to learn if it's along that path. So and people tend to buy in very well with that they had take on additional projects and get stuff off your plate, it's awesome. So if they're doing things like this, you bring it back to the what's in it for me, you bring it back to, I know that your next step is to become a manager, right? So this is something I think it's important for you to know if you're gonna be doing that, because there will be all these things that are right in front of you. And you have to learn how to focus even though you could do them in that moment. Because here's what's going to happen. Here's the mindset, you have to have to be that leader, you have to focus on what is going to move the needle here is it going to be the boring, you know, strategy work, where I look at some of the data and see if I can figure any of it out, or just, you know, make myself feel good, because I fix something quickly. And you got to be willing to do the stuff you're not comfortable with. That's why the player coach role is so dangerous. Beyond being completely unrealistic. But

Jeff  26:12

people are always asking people why you still have 30 customers to maintain,

Rachel Provan  26:15

like you're doing two impossible jobs at once. Great, that's gonna go great. No quality issues there. But people are always gonna gravitate towards what they know they're good at, you know, so they're gonna go to the customers because they're like, I know, I don't mess that up. Yeah, this huge potential to mess up. So I'll just do this one thing with the customer, but they really need me, that's the big day, they really need me, it's important that I Sorry, I have to fix my camera here. But like that I have this relationship with them. It's like, Honey, I hate to break it to you CSMs leave all the time, they will survive. You know, you we can talk about how we'll transition it. But they are not going to leave they've not stayed because they like you. They may like you. But that ain't it.

Jeff  26:59

I know that my statement on that. So like, Bill Gates left Microsoft, Microsoft is doing fine. Like they're gonna handle it. Yeah, like, but it that that probably the longer conversation goes into that whole revenue relationship. Oh, my goodness, we can talk about that, you see that? We're like, oh, I don't want to be responsible for upsells and renewals or anything like that, because we've got this relationship. And I'm like, it's this relationship, save your company money. Like they're quite aware, they're paying your company money.

Rachel Provan  27:27

There's something I wish we had a phrase for this year. Because when I, you know, when I was an actor, and you know, sometimes you'd have to make business decisions about a film that you're on. And we would say, look, it's show business, not show friends. And I wish there was a way to say that in business, because it's like, it's, it's just business. Like, it's not that there aren't some parts to it that are personal. But we have to remember which that this is involved in. This is the main focus here. Yeah. And in terms of the revenue thing, I can hit on that real quick. Because I hated it. I hated having to handle that. Yeah. It made me so conscious. I was like, This is not what it's about. We shouldn't about getting their outcomes. And then I had no seat at the table. You know, I love relationships and stuff like that. And it's like, but okay, so go be a therapist, which I would love. Yeah, it's not what we're doing here. And the thing is, you're not necessarily helping someone by keeping them comfortable. You know, it, sales, and I didn't understand what good sales was. Right? And yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And like, I'd read up on like, objection handling and closing. And I was like, I hate every bit of this. And so I read SPIN Selling, and that really changed my perspective on everything. Because it was like, okay, so what is the actual problem? What are you not seeing here that are going to be unintended consequences, I'm helping you out here, you know, like, and not saying it that but just okay. So, but might, might not that affect this over here? Like, if you're not, you know, doing this, I forget, we'll have to come up with some sort of a company to

Jeff  29:06

do it about but yeah, it's always tough, because we're always afraid to start talking about our customers.

Rachel Provan  29:10

Exactly. It's just like, you're aware, probably, hopefully, of what's going to happen if they don't take on certain features. It's like, I'm telling you this not to add one more thing to your plate. I'm telling you this, because I've noticed that our customers who succeed, they use this because here's what it does for them. And if they don't use it, things start to pile up slowly. And when they pile up, all of a sudden, here's what happens to you and your job. It doesn't look so good. And like let's just clear that out of the way. So don't try and sell them everything, sell them what's relevant, you know, and that's when that's when it aligns with CES. Yeah,

Jeff  29:50

if you make the case, especially if you know, their business is doing you know, like, Hey, we got this great thing product says it's XY and Z and it's like I've noticed based on you know, like, yeah, that problem you told me about could be solved with X y&z That's

Rachel Provan  30:02

like, oh, it's interesting. You mentioned that we actually do have something, I'd love to ask you a few questions about it just to see if it's the right fit. Because it's still you do have to still be on their side doing the right thing for them to get them to their

Jeff  30:15

goals. The best salespeople are great, because they truly believe that. Yeah, you buy that product, it will help them out.

Rachel Provan  30:24

Yes, exactly. Exactly. And I mean, even in like, consults for my current clients, I had to come to that realization, like, I felt weird asking for money, even though I knew it would help. It was like, wait a minute, like the amount. I'm going to help this person, you know, and I got coaching, I wouldn't be doing this, like the amount I was helped I'd pay double. Because it sped me up three years at least. Yeah. So but it's about realizing no, no, like, people buy things because they get an outcome, because it's useful. And they're happy about that. They tell other people when that goes well. Yeah, so it's it is talking to your CSM and explaining how to sell in a way that doesn't feel icky.

Jeff  31:07

Right, right. Absolutely. Oh, that's great. Let's wrap this up with two things here. Any will hacks or productivity tools or anything? Because I feel like you're up on this more than all of them. normally ask this question, but I know that when you were talking about some of the things we're talking about, you've got Yeah,

Rachel Provan  31:25

I would, I would say, you know, my best hack is to is to add two separate hours to your day. No, this is not your lunch break, please eat lunch, too. And don't, don't try and work during it, like your keyboard is going to get gross. So, but two separate hours a day, they can't be together that or if they're separate. People can't schedule over them. And you have scheduled in things to do during them that are part of those two strategic initiatives. You've scheduled tasks from the initiatives. And if you're trying to figure out what what a task is, and it seems like too much to break it down. Just say alright, what is the one single next step here that I can do? Stole teeny bit from getting things done? But I don't have that. So that's great. It's great. But it's a little too rigid for me. And like, I don't want to spend systems in general.

Jeff  32:17

I'm not a big Yeah. You got to be an adult in sort of, yeah. Yeah.

Rachel Provan  32:23

To say like, alright, just to move the ball forward here. You know, what am I trying to achieve? What will get me closer to that? What can I do in an hour, okay, I can email this person and ask them for this information, I can write this into a list, pass it on to this person who's going to take it next. It's those little things that make it that much more manageable. So that really has been such a game changer for me, breaking it down into little pieces and making that space for myself. And seeing that the world didn't end when I closed my laptop at five, six o'clock. And you know, it spun merrily without me. I wasn't here to fix the entire company, nor could I unfortunately, right, you know,

Jeff  33:03

let's not think we're greater than we are, I think. But yeah,

Rachel Provan  33:06

there's there's some ego to the fact that we think only we can handle this, right? No, doesn't have to be you and it's okay. If it's not, you're not a jerk. You're not slacking by seeing your family having dinner, sleeping, you know, like sleeping? Absolutely. You're not you, you are not going to get promoted or paid more, all of a sudden, because someone's like, Hey, I noticed you're cranking out a lot of work. I think it's time for a promotion. They're gonna say this is how much work that person handles. Here you go take some more. Yeah, they're not trying to be

Jeff  33:40

bad managers. Is that right? I'm usually like, you need to delay. I did not want to see emails at three o'clock in the morning. All I do is think is that like a you can't get the job done during the day? Yes. Or you're taking on too much stuff. And you're afraid to push back? Well, that's

Rachel Provan  33:52

good manager. Yeah. But you have to manage yourself at that level. That's the problem. So it's, that's where we burn out so fast. Because we don't have someone to say, Hey, you are talking a very good game and you're not doing it yourself.

Jeff  34:06

Yeah. Sorry. About that. I know. I'm actually not bad. Let's do this. I'm changing my question I used to have which was the what was your COVID activity, but now I will say this the the leaves are falling in. In the Northeast stuff here. The skies are getting dark. what's your what's your big What's your not working your big activity for the winter that you're planning up?

Rachel Provan  34:35

Like, rearing children? No,

Jeff  34:37

I know. That's all I knew you were gonna say that. I said,

Rachel Provan  34:40

yeah. It's okay. What I what I like to do is knit I've been knitting since I was eight. I make these big, complicated. Cable sweaters like the Irish fisherman's sweaters, things like that, that no one ever really wants to wear because they're so big and bulky, but I enjoy knitting them.

Jeff  34:56

I would not have guessed that one. So let's see. So I'm glad like I don't have one yet. I have oh, big one. So it's not going to be enough.

Rachel Provan  35:05

Yeah, fair enough. Fair enough.

Jeff  35:08

Awesome. So let's do this. Tell everybody where they can follow you and read your stuff and talking about coaching and stuff like that.

Rachel Provan  35:16

Absolutely. So I'm on LinkedIn. Rachel program. I'll be linking in the show notes. Yeah, perfect. Yeah, I write almost every day on there trying to give you actionable advice. I also have a newsletter that can bring you actionable advice, once a week, five minutes or less read and it will always have a few tips that you can put into action right away to make a difference. And most of its around ces leader. That's that's what I focus on. But if you would like to see us leadership coaching that you know, helps you set the right strategy for your organization. Learn how to set the setup, what are the right strategic goals for you to focus on this quarter, learn how to do that for yourself, and have someone hold you by the hand through all of this that we were talking about? That's what I do. Like, I'm not afraid to tell people because you need help actually putting it into place in your life. No, absolutely. Especially I also help CS leaders get new jobs, or people move from CSM to director. All of that can be found at pro van success, PR o va N. You'll see it on my LinkedIn homepage to proband success.com. I welcome the chance to talk to anyone I always take a call with anyone nothing's like straight book up. You know, typical typical ces leader. We love talking to people.

Jeff  36:34

Awesome. Well, it's been a pleasure, I'm sure. I'm sure we'll get back together in six months to a year and we have another great subject. Sorry about that. We'll chat about next time. Absolutely. It was a pleasure. Just hold on one quick second while he stopped the recording.