Daphne Costa Lopes’ Post

If you want to grow as a CSM, but you don't: ❌ Know what success means for the customer ❌ Know how you win against the competition ❌ Challenge the customer's assumptions ❌ Understand the value of your product ❌ Have strong opinions about "how to" ❌ Address the elephant in the room ❌ Tweak tactics to improve results ❌ Report on measurable outcomes ❌ Unlock new levels of success ❌ Multi-thread across the org ❌ Tell compelling stories Then, you can't really grow. To make more money and get promoted in the current climate, you need to be *excellent* at your job. Your growth journey starts with mastering your craft. Want to get started? Here's how: 🎧 Listen to the bonus episode of the CS MasterClass where Diana de Jesus and I unpack the skills, the mindset and the strategies for mastering a revenue generating CSM role. [link in comments] #csm #customersuccess #customerexperience #revops #saas

The easiest and cheapest performance hack is to surround yourself with top performers. The research shows that when you hang out with: - low-performers: your performance drops by 30% - high-performers: your performance increases by 15% It's worked like magic for me. That's why every quarter I make a list: - 5 people to learn from professionally - 3 people that will push my fitness to a new level - 1 person whose dreams are 10x bigger than mine These 9 people become my tribe of mentors. And guess what? Not all of them are people I have 1:1 relationships with. We are incredibly lucky to have access to the thoughts and minds through social media and podcasts. To be able to buy time with incredible people through consulting or courses. To tap into networks we would never have had the chance to before. Every year, I unlock a new performance gear I didn't know I had. - I hit growing targets 5 years in a row - I hiked the highest peak in Africa - I got my sommelier certification - I spoke at 20+ Conferences - I grew my audience to 35K - I became a Director - I 5x my earnings 🤯 Performance is contagious. Choose your circle wisely. - 📥 If you're interested in growing your career, consider joining 10k+ high-performing CS Professionals who read my weekly newsletter on how to build and scale a CS Team [sign up in the comments section]. #csm #customersuccess #customerexperience #revops #growthmindset

Today, (most) HubSpot employees get to unplug for a full week. It's our week of rest! One of my favourite perks, because: 📧 Clean email inbox upon return 😩 No catch-up on internal content 🤯 There's no FOMO on important decisions It truly is a RESTFUL week. 😌 But it wouldn't be possible without the amazing team that volunteers to keep the show running for customers and infrastructure. So a huge shout-out goes to the people who make it possible for thousands of colleagues to unplug every year. Oh, and this year I am unplugging from everything: 🚺 no LinkedIn posts everyday 💌 no newsletter next Friday 🎧 no podcast next week I will be playing outdoors, in the sun, with a surfboard. 🏄🏻♀️ See you on the other side! #csm #hubspot #customersuccess #holidays #employeeexperience

If you want to grow your career, you must take the high road. What do I mean by that? - don't lower your standards to meet someone else's - avoid being petty about issues or mistakes - getter *better* as people get worse It takes huge emotional regulation to do that. Sometimes the instinct is to want to give someone else the same treatment so they can feel the pain. Or to right wrongs one by one. But this is never the solution. I've learned that stepping away before responding is key. - don't answer the email or message straight away - don't jump on a call when you can't show up as your best self Step back from it, and go for a walk. Write the draft if you feel like you must get it out of your chest. Then ask yourself: "Would I be proud if this was published on the cover of a magazine tomorrow?" It's not always easy. And I can tell you that I've made this very mistake hundreds of times. Even now, I still fall into this trap the odd time. But the key is to build awareness and to emotionally regulate. Trust me, you'll come out looking better than the other person every time. And people around you will notice that you are even-keeled in difficult situations, and that will build trust and pay dividends. #careergrowth #professionaldevelopment #csm #customerexperience #growthmindset

Customer Success is good for business. When we deliver and communicate measurable results to our customers, they: 🤑 continue to do business with us 🤑 buy more solutions from us 🤑 recommend us to their network Everything we want to build a sustainable business. But here's the catch. These things don't just *happen* because you delivered value. You need a process to capture value back from your customers. And that's what the final episode of the Customer Success Masterclass is all about! This week I am joined by none other than Kellie Capote, the CCO at Gainsight to talk about creating the second engine of growth for your business. We dive into: - What Value the CS Team Creates for the Business - How to Finish the Swing in Customer Success by Generating Revenue It's an incredible conversation and I am so excited for you all to hear it! Link to tune in wherever you listen in the comments below! 🎧 #customersuccess #csm #revops #customerexperience #growthhacking

Leaders, please don’t turn CS into a Ponzi Scheme. ❌ Stop promising unrealistic returns to prospects ❌ Stop upselling and cross-selling to mask churn ❌ Stop incentivising sign-ins with discounts and punishing loyalty ❌ Stop over-investing in marketing, and under-investing in education Overhyping and underdelivering turns CS into a pit fire. It will underwhelm your customers. It will frustrate your team. It will eventually hurt your bottom line. If you want sustainable growth, build a Customer Success program that creates value for your customers first. 💜 Here's what the opposite looks like: ✅ Strong value prop that your product can deliver ✅ Deliver results and mitigate preventable churn ✅ Incentivise customers who stay and grow with you ✅ Make users look brilliant through top-quality education and insights. Want to create this system? Then the CS MasterClass is for you. A 5-episode series on how to build a truly customer-first CS Team. Link to listen in the comments. 🎧 #csm #customersuccess #customerexperience #revops #saas

Worry less about your title and more about: - the scope you have - the problems you solve - the learning opportunities - the people you get to work with You can be a manager in one place and a VP in another. Who cares? Title hunting is a status game. Ultimately the experience you have is what will get you to the jobs and the pay you dream of, not a title. A title might feel good for a brief moment. But the excitement will fade away as soon as you realise it’s not the job you actually do. You’ll know it. Everyone around you will know it too. And if you think you’ll get more respect because of a title… trust me, you won’t. There are individual contributors who get more respect than the CEO because of how they show up. Focus on building skills. ❤️ P.s.: This is not to say people shouldn’t ask for the titles they deserve, for titles that make it easier to identify with their counterparts or to align a title with industry standards so their title is recognised by others. Just don’t make title the main driver of your growth journey. #csm #jobfairy #cx #careerdevelopment #growthmindset

The Customer isn't always right. Sometimes the customer: ❌ Hasn't done something before ❌ Is doing "what they've always done" ❌ Doesn't know the industry's best practices ❌ Can't see data to confirm or disprove their hypothesis So the job of a CSM is to guide and challenge the customer to make better decisions. To be opinionated about the right path forward. And to anchor these recommendations on proven methods to create the outcome the customer expects from the product. How do you do that? ✅ understand what your customer's goals are ✅ focus on mastering a few use cases that your product unlocks ✅ leverage data to have insights-powered conversations Customers value when you do that. Because it creates value for them. If all you do is blindly take the requests and help execute them no matter the likelihood of them creating positive results, then you're not acting as a trusted advisor. You're acting as a note-taker. And we're at a point where AI is way better than humans at taking notes and summarising what needs to be done. 📥 If you're interested in improving your Customer Success skills, consider joining 9k+ CS Professionals who read my weekly newsletter on how to build and scale a CS Team [sign up in the comments section]. #csm #customersuccess #customerexperience #revops #saas

Your job in CS doesn't end when the customer achieves their goal. Decision-makers need to *understand* the value they are getting to continue doing business with you. That's where a ton of CSMs drop the ball. 🤹🏻 They do all the hard work to create value but don't finish the swing by communicating it to the right people. What about EBRs? EBRs tend to be done only for the largest customers. So a huge part of the customer base doesn't get that level of communication from their CSM. But EBRs/QBRs are not the only way to communicate value. You can do this in a more scalable way! Want to learn more? In Episode 3 of the Customer Success Masterclass, we tackle the crucial topic of Communicating The Value Your Product Delivers to Customers. Here’s what we’ll cover: - What Customers Care About - Who You Should Be Communicating Value To - At What Points in the Journey You Should Be Communicating Value - How You Can Scale Value Communication This episode's expert interview is with the one and only Jay Nathan, the Chief Customer Officer of Churnkey. Jay shares his expert insights on addressing some of the burning questions surrounding value communication, ensuring your message resonates with your customers. Tune in to gain actionable tips and strategies that will: ⬆️ elevate your customer success efforts 🗣️ help you communicate the meaningful results you're driving 🙌🏻 set you as a trusted advisor 💰 win you more business Link to listen in the comments section! #csm #customerexperience #revops #valueengineering #retentionstrategies