Exploring a few powerful ChatGPT use cases to help Customer Success professionals be more productive, e.g. Advanced Data Analysis, Plugins/Extensions.
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Responding to America’s most popular song with data and resources in hopes to 1) add some objectivity to this ongoing cultural dialogue, and 2) offer potential solutions.
Dutch billionaire Frank Slootman is one of the most successful CEOs in history. One of my favorite podcasts, The Knowledge Project, recently interviewed Frank. He believes in “extreme meritocracy” and likens companies to professional sports teams. Frank could be described as ruthless, direct, and decisive with a “natural malcontent posture.” But there’s one thing he loves above all: winning.
Successful venture capital firm Craft Ventures was founded in 2017. Interestingly, 65% of the (massively) successful exits on their website occurred before the firm even existed. Let’s talk about how to most effectively—and of course ethically—craft a VC track record.
Insights and inspiration from Affirm’s 2020 Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) report, along with our hearty support of the high bar they set for other companies.
For example, Affirm achieved a 12.5% YoY increase in female representation in Engineering & Product— a massive accomplishment!
Fictitious quote: "The longer you wait to do something you should do now, the greater the odds that you will never actually do it.” —Grand Master of Intent
Discipline is the harnessing of emotion and converting it into repeatable action. This article explores why startups tend to breathlessly excited about various initiatives that often peter out.
Top highlights from a superb interview with Naval Ravikant on The Knowledge Project podcast. Learn new mental models for better decision making, and how to assess the quality of our decisions.
Bonus: a cult classic book on decision-making from the 1970s.
The average American spends 11 hours per day staring at screens. As smartphones, streaming and social media inundate our dopamine-addicted brains with content, our collective consciousness is being commoditized. This is generally bad, but a reality we must confront. This article explores the data behind Instagram usage, Netflex et al, along with a few ways we can regain our focus and, eventually, our consciousness. Thumbs crossed.
Inspiration and learnings from an epic zip-lining adventure across redwood trees in Guerneville, CA! Coastal redwood trees are the tallest trees in the world (350-400 feet), but they don’t have the traditional deep tap root to anchor them.
How do redwoods grow to be the tallest trees in the world without deep roots? Amazingly, redwoods connect their roots with each other underground to form a vast web-like network.
"All the answers are out there, but people still watch five hours of TV a day and complain about opportunity." —Jason CalacanisThe true cost of Netflix
When Netflix IPO'd in May of 2002, the company was valued at a mere $300 million. Over the last 15 years Netflix has been on a rampage capturing 100 million subscribers and $81 billion in market cap (as of 2017; updated: market cap is $136 billion as of Nov-2022).
Yet Netflix has apprehended something far more valuable: our precious time.
Of course, there's a time and a place for entertainment: who doesn't enjoy getting into a good show every now and again?
However, this entertainment comes at a dear cost far exceeding the $11.99/mo membership fee. If you believe time is our most precious commodity, then we must acknowledge the massive opportunity cost that we sacrifice every night in front of the screen.
Let's start with some facts
The average subscriber spends 20 hours per week on Netflix
. . . That's 80 hours per month
70% of Netflix users binge-watch shows
Netflix streamed 10 billion hours last month
The Netflix catalog is approximately 115,000 hours of content (21 years; waking hours)
Sources: DMR, CinemaBlend, Variety
20 hours per week is a lot
Let's start by acknowledging the obvious: 20 hours per week is a LOT of time. In most states, 20 hours per week is considered part-time employment. With 55 million subscribers in the US, you can say that 17% of Americans have a part-time job watching Netflix (US population = 323 million). This absurd reality provokes a crucial question: is this really the best use of our time?
The importance of personal development
The short answer is no. Watching Netflix for 20 hours per week is likely not the best use of our time. Life is short. Really short. And for life to improve, we must heed the guidance of legends like Jim Rohn when he writes:
"Learn to work harder on yourself, than you do on the job."
Side note: if you haven't read The Art of Exceptional Living by Jim Rohn, it comes highly recommended from most of the executives we work with.
Only by building the habit of daily personal development can we truly improve our personal and professional wellbeing. Netflix is kryptonite to this endeavor.
"Want to watch a show?"
The question sounds innocent enough. Enticing, even. But next time you ask—or get asked—this question, make sure you keep this perspective in mind:
The typical human is awake for 15 hours per day, or 105 hours per week
As stated, Netflix is commanding 20 hours per week (on average)
20 hours / 105 hours = 19% of our waking hours are devoted to Netflix (and/or other streaming services)
Breakdown: How we spend our time in a given week
What else could we be doing?
Below is a chart of Netflix binge sessions and their personal development equivalent.
| On Netflix you could watch: | Or you could: | Time required |
|---|---|---|
| 1 episode - Archer | Run 2-3 miles | 22 minutes |
| 1 episode - House of Cards | Write a blog post | 50 minutes |
| 2 episodes - The Blacklist | Bike 20 miles | 1.4 hours |
| 3 episode - Orange is the New Black | Read 82pp. of a book | 2.75 hours |
| 4 episodes - Stranger Things | Learn 5 new subjects on Khan Academy | 3.2 hours |
| Season 1 - House of Cards | Complete Stanford's CS101 online | 10.8 hours |
| Season 1 & 2 - Orange is the New Black | Learn how to program in C | 23.8 hours |
| All 5 seasons - House of Cards | Train for a marathon | 54.2 hours |
| All 7 seasons - The West Wing | Become conversational in Italian | 112.9 hours |
| All seasons - HoC, OitNB, The West Wing | Read 34 of the 51 Harvard Classics | 227.1 hours |
| 21 weeks of Netflix (at 20 hours/week) | Build the first version of Facebook | 420 hours |
You are always choosing
So the next time you're tempted to binge of Netflix, keep the above list in mind. Realize that you are always choosing: a choice to watch Netflix for 3 hours is also choice to NOT learn 5 new subjects on Khan Academy. A choice to weekendbinge on 2 seasons of your favorite show, is a choice to NOT learn how to program at a basic level.
Every decision has tradeoffs, and the more we keep this in mind, the better off we'll be on our quest for transformative personal development.
Next episode playing in. . .
You can also disable autoplay: https://help.netflix.com/en/node/2102. This one decision could help reduce your Netflix consumption by up to 50%.
I'm curious: what would you do with the extra time?
Why the CRC ratio is critical to an exit
We've investigated important SaaS metrics before (see: Want to blow up your SaaS business? Ignore C4), but today we will expand upon Customer Retention Cost, specifically by exploring the virtues of the CRC ratio.
But first, let's recap how CRC is defined
CRC = Customer Retention Cost ($). It typically includes the following components:
What is the CRC ratio?
The CRC ratio typically takes the CRC and divides it by total subscription revenue over the same time period. For example:
Customer Retention Cost (annual) = $10M
Total Subscription Revenue (annual) = $85M
CRC Ratio = 11.76%
Pretty straightforward.
So why is the metric critical to a successful exit?
Two main reasons:
CRC too high: the exorbitant spend could derail your path to cash flow positive resulting in: lower valuations, down rounds, or possibly a fundraising crisis.
CRC too low: you may be underinvesting in Customer Success which will inevitably manifest itself it gut-wrenching churn and team burnout.
How to benchmark your CRC ratio to public companies
Since GAAP has yet to catch up to the economic realities of the recurring software subscription revenue, this gets a bit tricky for one main reason: GAAP includes CRC in the reported Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC). Therefore, public benchmarks for CAC are inflated by about 20-25%.
To isolate CRC, we recommend taking 20% of the CAC. Therefore, if CAC = $5M, your extrapolated CRC would be $1M. Let's take a look at a few data points for Salesforce, Workday, ServiceNow, NetSuite and Marketo:
[click to enlarge]
For these five companies we can see that the CAC ratio ranges from 0.08 (Workday) to 0.13 (Marketo). But these are mature, publicly traded companies. . .
What should you benchmark your company on?
Based on analysis of 24 private companies with strong churn fundamentals, here are a few guidelines for CAC ratio based on how long you've been in business:
Year 1: 25%
Year 2: 25%
Year 3: 22%
Year 4: 20%
Year 5: 18%
Year 6: 15%
Year 7: 14%
Year 8: 13%
Year 9: 12%
Year 10: 11%
You can also use this as a budgeting tool to ballpark total Customer Success spend for a given year. But remember: the money spent on retention isn't about "revenue protection". Your customers don't care about that. They care about adoption and value realization which is ultimately what drives the mechanics of churn and renewal rates.
The best leadership teams figure this out early on: investing early in Customer Success is worth its weight in gold. Yes, growth is critical and everyone likes to high-five and ring the gong when a big deal is closed. But the Customer Success program will chart the path towards realizing Customer Lifetime Value which is what the SaaS game is all about.
DMT is considered to be one of the most powerful psychedelic compounds in the world.
"DMT" refers to dimethyltryptamine, or N,N-Dimethyltryptamine. It is also known by the street names:
fantasia
dimitri
businessman's trip (referring to the short duration when inhaled)
In recent years DMT—specifically ayahuasca—has gained popularity in certain executive tech circles as a means to unleash creativity by exploring higher realms of human consciousness and spirituality. DMT has also been referred to as "the spirit molecule" due to the transcendent nature of the experience.
In 2011, Dr. James Fadiman, Ph.D. published The Psychedelic Explorer's Guide which advocated for the use of micro-dosing LSD, Ibogaine and other psychedelics which has also created some recent excitement, e.g. The Tim Ferriss Show's interview with Dr. Fadiman, and Business Insider.
How do people consume DMT?
When smoked or injected, a DMT trip is known for its intensity and speed at the onset, described by one doctor as "a psychedelic bungee jump - a raw leap into a rapidly changing environment."
When taken orally as ayahuasca tea, the experience is MUCH more gradual and long-lasting: it takes 30min to set in, and the trip lasts 3-4 hours.
How do people describe the trip?
"Like clockwork, there's a burning sensation on the back of the neck. Then, a hum. It would get louder. And louder. Until it broke apart everything that I thought I was or knew. It got louder and louder until you had to surrender to the sound. Then you were there… pure consciousness."
"I felt a warm, golden feeling in my chest, then tremendous pressure behind my sinuses.
“I thought I died.”
"The linearity of time is absolutely useless in these states. You are at the God head."
“More and more layers of my humanity start peeling off. Eventually you get to the last layer. It's hard to describe but the last layer is what defines you as a human being… and you go keeckkkk, and you're no longer a human being. You leave your body behind."
"I completely lost my sense of self but rather I was a witness suspended within a hyper-colored dome the size of a small planet."
“You feel the coldness going through your veins. It's like ice going through your veins.”
“A thousand years of experience in 15 minutes. To say the least it was profound.”
"DMT should not be viewed as a recreational experience. It is profound. It is life-changing. And it can shake your consciousness in indelible ways."
What do the hallucinations look like?
There have been many attempts to capture the psychedelic visual experience. Here is a small sampling of them (click to enlarge):
Historical fun fact
After DMT had been ostracized for nearly a generation during the LSD crackdown, the University of New Mexico green lit a study in 1989 for Dr Rick Stassman to conduct a DMT human trial. It started with an ad in the local paper which we've managed to track down (see screenshot below). DMT is currently a Schedule I narcotic, so the idea of administering DMT to grad students is entertaining to say the least.
Important: Set & Setting
In all of the research we reviewed, the participants consistently referred to the "set & setting" as a critical precursor to the DMT experience. Your "set & setting" means a few things:
Your internal self
The things that you have learned
The capacities that you have achieved
The conditions of your own psyche and psychology
The environment you are in, such that:
“It's the medicine plus the set & setting that creates an effect of trust and comfort and of resourcefulness.”
"This is what makes it possible to make some big leaps and receive some big gifts. And if that's not there you just get terrified."
In other words, your mental state and physical environment are correlated with the DMT experience itself. If you'd like to learn more about DMT and the exploration of human consciousness, below are a few resources for your consideration.
Resources & References
Smart people who contributed to DMT: The Spirit Molecule, an excellent documentary on Netflix and YouTube.
Dennis McKenna, PhD - Ethnopharmacologist
Dave Nichols, PhD - Medical Chemist
Graham Hancock - Writer
Christian Meuli, MD - DMT Volunteer, Family Physician
Charles Grob, MD - Psychiatrist
Leanne Standish, ND, phD - Naturopathic physician
Ralph Metzner, PhD - Psychologist
Rick Strassman, MD - Psychiatrist (spoke of his theory that the pineal body in the brian was part of naturally recurring mystics states)
Joel Baskt, Rabbi
Steven Barker, PhD - Pharmacologist
Terence McKenna, Writer - Psychonaut
Ralph Abraham, PhD - Mathematician
Patricio Dominguez, DMT Volunteer, Shaman
Robert Weisz, PhD - DMT Volunteer, Psychologist
Quotes from said smart people
“Theoretically any living organism/matter could synthesize into DMT.”
“I can't think of a more powerful tool to explore the question of what is human consciousness?”
“The DMT flash makes it clear that disembodied consciousness is a possibility.”
“The whole tension of history, and the tension of life, seems to be about the shedding of the body.”
“Why is it that in the entire western world that the substances that have found to be so interesting by hundreds of cultures for thousands of years are prohibited.”
“Our society values alert, problem-solving consciousness, and it devalues all other states of consciousness. Any kind of consciousness that is not related to the production or consumption of material goods is stigmatized in our society today…of course we accept drunkenness.”
Mind-bending quote
“I do believe that there are higher levels—transcendent levels—of reality, and I'm actually now really starting to believe that the brain is not the source of consciousness, but it's more like a radio tuner for something way bigger.”
DMT search trends in the US
People in Colorado, Montana and Vermont seem to be very interested in DMT according to their search volume. They've ranked the highest in the country over the last 10+ years.
"Life is the fire that burns and the sun that gives light. Life is the wind and the rain and the thunder in the sky. Life is matter and is earth, what is and what is not, and what beyond is in Eternity." —Seneca
Who was Seneca?
Seneca was a Roman Stoic philosopher born in 4 BC. He was widely known as a brilliant statesman and advisor to emperor Nero. Considered one of the most influential philosophers of the Roman era, Seneca's ideas and legacy have been captured by the likes of Epictetus, Dante, Chaucer, Petrarch, Montaigne, and John Calvin among others. He probably looked something like this:
Photo credit: The New Yorker magazine
Quick primer of Stoicism
To understand Seneca—and what he might be like as a CEO—we first need a quick primer on his school of philosophy: Stoicism (source: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy which I've found to contain much clearer descriptions without Wikipedia's tint of public opinion.)
Stoicism started in 301 BC when Zeno started teaching at Stoa Poikile, or "Painted Porch" which was basically a colonnade above the Agora in Athens. It probably looked something like this:
Stoicism primarily focuses on personal ethics guided by system of logic and its views on the natural world. It teaches:
philosophy should be a way of life: a daily practice or exercise instead of "academic"
they prize four cardinal virtues: wisdom, courage, justice, and temperance
we can overcome destructive emotions with self-control and fortitude
the path to happiness for humans is found in accepting what we have been given in life
the universe is governed for the best by a rational providence grounded in logic
contentment is achieved through a simple, unperturbed life in accordance with nature
human suffering should be accepted and has a beneficial effect on the soul
study and learning are important
Okay, back to Seneca
If Seneca was a modern-day CEO, he would first have to learn English. Latin just wouldn't cut it. This would be an important first step so Seneca could begin teaching us awesome things, and leading his hypothetical company as CEO.
4 things CEO Seneca would be really good at
Storytelling: Seneca had a knack for sharing short, insightful stories with staying power. What a great skill for a CEO! Seneca often drew from his eclectic experiences to impart bite-sized nuggets of wisdom most evident in his 124 letters that he wrote to his buddy, Lucilius. If you're new to Seneca, I highly recommend reading these letters as the best way to understand his philosophy. You could also go the podcast route, compliments of Tim Ferriss.
Emotion Management: Ever the Stoic, Seneca practiced emotional self-awareness and control. Seneca taught what Marcus Aurelius later called the Discipline of Will, or the humble acceptance of what is outside our control. In short, Seneca had a highly-developed sense of emotion management and wrote about the damage of uncontrolled anger and its pathological connections.
Education: Seneca believed that if you aren't constantly learning, your capacity of a thinker will atrophy. Therefore, he committed himself to disciplined self-improvement and education. As a CEO, one might expect Seneca to build a world-class "Learning & Development" function within his company to operationalize this competitive advantage.
Gratitude: Some writers regard Seneca as the first great Western thinker on the complex nature and role of gratitude in human relationships, e.g. The Psychology of Gratitude, Emmons and McCulloch. As a CEO, Seneca would find a way to bring gratitude into the day-to-day work of his employees: What are you thankful for? As a company, what do we thankful for? Seneca understood that gratitude is the antidote for arrogance and entitlement—two destructive corporate ailments. Seneca was also ahead of his time: in the recent "Grateful Heart" study—published in the American Psychological Association—Paul Mills actually proved that gratitude materially improves heart health.
What to do with this information
Based on this partial list of Seneca's talents, one could reasonably expect Seneca to thrive as a modern-day CEO (once he learned Latin, of course). If you wish take action and incorporate some of Seneca's teachings into your role as a leader, below are three suggestion:
Download The Tao of Seneca podcast on Audible and begin listening to Seneca's letters—if you prefer to read them, they are also publicly available for free via WikiSource.
Next time you are in a position to offer direction or guidance, consider employing Seneca's unique style of storytelling, often starting with an eclectic or trivial experience or observation.
As a leader, think about how an off-beat value like Gratitude manifests in your company culture—is it even present? How could you inspire your employees to embrace a perspective of gratitude? Example: One DBT reader recently concluded his weekly C-level meeting by going around the conference table and having each exec share what they were professionally grateful for.
Seneca died in 65 AD (suicide, long story) shortly after the Great Fire of Rome. Thankfully his life's work didn't burn in the carnage.
Where love rules, there is no will to power; and where power predominates, there love is lacking. The one is the shadow of the other. —Carl Jung
He had affairs. He was into alchemy. He was even buddies with Sigmund Freud. We're talking about Carl Jung, aka the most interesting person to ever come out of Switzerland.
Jung's impact on the world is hard to overstate: he founded analytical psychology, created the collective unconscious, the archetype, and personality types extraversion vs. introversion (remember that Myers-Briggs test you took in high school?)
Even art wasn't off limits: Jung's teachings inspired the iconography and mythical figures found in some of Jackson Pollock's best art in the late 1940s. He was also an early proponent of art therapy for psychological healing. #renaissanceman
But what does any of this have to do with leadership?
A lot. Particularly when it comes to understanding other people. Why? People are the pulsing lifeblood of leadership. If you don't understand people, your chances of becoming an effective leader are slim to none.
Of the countless derivative works attributed to Jung, one of the most impressive—and practical—is the Insights Discovery. Had Jung lived to be 118 years of age, he would have witnessed the founding of The Insights Group in 1993. They are the creators of Insights Discovery which draws heavily from Jung's framework and abstracts complexity through the creative use of COLOR.
Wait, what is Insights Discovery?
Insights Discovery is a professional personality assessment that takes about 30 minutes to complete and costs $150. Honestly, its the best $150 you'll ever spend.
Why is it valuable?
Because you will learn about yourself, your "preference", your strengths, your blind spots, and how OTHER COLORS might perceive you—and how you can communicate better with them. In addition to learning, the program also suggests actionable next steps.
Enough context building. Let's get to the actual colors and what they mean:
This is the Insights Discovery Wheel. There are four colors [you: thanks Sherlock]:
Fiery Red: Let's do it now!
Sunshine Yellow: Let's do it together
Earth Green: Let's do it in a caring way
Cool Blue: Let's do right
Other important characteristics to note:
Right half of wheel: Extroversion (Red & Yellow)
Left half of wheel: Introversion (Blue & Green)
Top half of wheel: Thinking (Blue & Red)
Bottom half of wheel: Feeling (Green & Yellow)
Okay, so you take the assessment and you get a dominant color. Mine, for example, is red. But humans aren't 1-dimensional beings and, as Jung would attest, we have layers of conscious vs. unconscious complexity. So all of us have actually have all four colors, but in very different mixes. We have a natural "preference" for some color(s), and make an effort to "dial up" some color(s) within the dichotomy of our unconscious and conscious, respectively.
Here are what the colors are like on a bad day vs. a good day:
As mentioned, I am a RED dominant type. If I don't make a point to be self-aware and manage my own tendencies, I may come off as aggressive, controlling, driving, overbearing and/or intolerant. These are terrible things for a leader to be viewed as.
On a good day, my "Fiery Red" nature is competitive, demanding, determined, strong-willed, and purposeful—traits of a great leader which I aspire to be.
Putting this into action
Step 1: take the assessment (ideally with your whole department or team)
Step 2: learn
Specifically, learning what NOT to do was super helpful for me. As my father used to say, sometimes the best decisions are the ones you DON'T make. Insights gives you a blueprint on what to avoid per color. For example:
YELLOW - Do not:
Bore then with details
Tie them down with routine
Ask them to work in solitude
BLUE - Do not:
Be overemotional or exaggerate
Be careless or casual with important issues
Keep changing things without good reasons
GREEN - Do not:
Take advantage of their good nature
Push them to make quick decisions
Tell, instruct, or command
RED - Do not:
Hesitate or be indecisive
Focus on feelings
Try to take over
It gets better. Here are some "Do's" for each color:
YELLOW - Do:
Be friendly and sociable
Be engaging and stimulating
Be open and flexible
BLUE - Do:
Be well prepared and thorough
Put things in writing
Let them consider all the details
GREEN - Do:
Be patient and supportive
Ask for their input before making a decision
Ask their opinion and give them time to answer
RED - Do:
Be direct and to the point
Focus on the results and stimulating
Be confident and assertive
Conclusion
"Colorful leadership" can help you become a more effective leader by 1) having a deeper appreciation for the true nature of other people, 2) having a deeper understanding of yourself, and 3) putting that perspective into action.
"To truly adopt new software, customers have to change their habits. Users must convert their aspiration into new routines." —Tomasz Tunguz
As a partner at Redpoint Ventures, Tomasz is no stranger to the challenges software companies face. As an experienced venture capital investor, Tomasz and Redpoint have studied a variety of factors to determine What is the most correlated business metric with Series A valuations?
The answer: negative churn.
For the uninitiated, negative churn means that your existing customers are paying you more (expansion) than they're paying you less (churn), over a given time period. Confusingly, there are many names for this metric, all referring to the same thing: account expansion, negative net churn, net retention, net expansion.
But the takeaway here is: whatever you call it, net retention is the #1 arbiter of Series A valuations.
In order for expansion to outpace churn, your customers have to adopt your software. And that's where habits come in. As Tomasz shares:
"I learned this selling billing and invoicing software to law firms. It was one thing to convince the managing director of a law firm to pay for the software over a 90 day sales cycle. But it was an entirely different matter to educate, convince and convert individual attorneys to use the software. That took far longer." Source: TomaszTunguz.com
But how?
That's the billion-dollar question that every software company is trying to figure out.
As we've cataloged in past DBT blog posts, achieving successful adoption usually starts with empowering a team to build new habits. Two key words here: 1) team, 2) habits.
It's no coincidence that Atlassian's ticker is TEAM. As I write the stock is trading at $22.82 with a market cap of $4.78 billion. Revenue and cash flow look like this:
Source: Google Finance, 5/24/16
Source: Google Finance, 5/24/16
Atlassian—a software company designed for teams—is growing substantially and kicking off plenty of cash because they've figured out something important: how to change customer habits.
But how does a company change customer habits? Based on five years of research, I've found the 3 best ways to change your customer habits are:
Keep the executive sponsor engaged post-sale
Make your product's value so undeniable they can't ignore it
Triggers
Before we unpack these strategies, let's revisit the formula for how habits are created in the first place:
Source:The Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg, 2014
The formula, therefore. . . HABIT = cue + routine + reward
It's a virtuous cycle of a prompted action, the action itself, and then a Pavlovian shot of dopamine to keep the cycle going. Boom. Habit created. New routine established. But back to the how. . .
1. Keep the executive sponsor and developers engaged post-sale
You'd be surprise how frequently the executive who made a software purchase vanishes after the product is bought. Based our DBT research, this occurs in 40% of the time. It's not his or her fault—they're busy. Very busy. Therefore, the challenge is on the account team to keep them engaged post-sale. This strategy is both effective and within your control.
This is doubly true for Product-Led Growth (PLG) companies where the developer is a critical stakeholder and primary user. To keep them engaged you must provide: 1) regular feature & bug updates, 2) clear technical documentation, and 3) accessible feedback loop to help PROD/ENG accelerate product development.
Backstory: The dirty little secret of SaaS companies is that software is incredibly easy to start/buy, but much harder to fully adopt (and therefore harder to reap the benefit of why said software was bought in the first place). Without the executive sponsor's influence, the actual users of the software are faced with a choice: 1) do what they usually do, 2) change.
As you might have guessed, they often chose option one :|
If you focus on a tight Sales >> Customer Success handoff where the executive sponsor and developer stay involved, you will have greatly increased you chances to successfully deploy and change behavior. To do so, we recommend creating a workflow where the executive's goals are clearly documented in Salesforce so the Customer Success team can carry the torch:
2. Make the product's value so undeniable they can't ignore it
This really should be #1 but for the sake of practicality is is #2 because your product's value is (primarily) determined by your product and engineering team. If your product isn't valuable (accordingly to your customers), than this article doesn't really matter because your customers will eventually churn out.
But let's assume your product does create value. Then what?
A few things:
Think about the "Reward"—what makes your customers want to keep coming back and using the product? How does the product reward them for the routine the user has completed?*
Automate it: make that seminal value moment a thing. Celebrate it. Send them an email. A notification. Highlight the demonstrable show of value.
Schedule a Business Review. Pull the usage and results data from your software and showcase the value to the business user AND the Executive Sponsor.
*This is the "Reward" moment for MyFitnessPal (acquired by Under Armour for $475MM in Feb-2015).
3. Triggers
This is the step required to start the new routine. What brings your users back to the product? WHY do they come back? What prompts them to ditch their Gmail inbox and log into your software and DO STUFF?
It's kind of like running. Personally, if I don't set our my running shoes the night before, I likely won't run. It needs to be easy. I need a trigger to brave the foggy cold air at 6am and MAKE IT HAPPEN. The trigger is often simple, but nevertheless very effective is catalyzing action.
In closing:
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” —Aristotle
Hopefully you can influence your customers habits to help drive adoption and ultimately achieve negative net churn and thereby earn a lucrative valuation so that YOU = HAPPY.
"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars. . ."
Jack Kerouac attended Columbia on a football scholarship. This was an ironically "All-American" start for a young man who later became a central figure in the notorious Beat Generation which defied formal academics, renounced materialism, and loathed society-anointed "values".
His life doesn't fit the profile of someone we'd typically look to for leadership advice: Jack Kerouac never became a billionaire. He didn't start a tech company or become a Fortune 500 CEO. The only "unicorns" Jack knew of were from his psychedelic encounters while driving across the country with Neal Cassady (if you haven't read On the Road, highly recommend).
But despite his lack of business credentials, Jack was a true visionary who's eccentric lifestyle yields three powerful traits for those aspiring to grow in their leadership career:
Authentic: embrace your "true original" inner spirit
Simple: value the elegance of simplicity over complexity
Spontaneous: harness the creativity—and fun—of life's serendipity
In short, be an ASS*.
*I couldn't write a blog post about Kerouac and leadership in good conscience without somehow incorporating his special brand of counter-cultural irreverence. So there you have it: be an ASS. I hope Kerouac would approve.
Let's expound on these traits a bit.
AUTHENTIC. What does it mean to be authentic? Why is that important to good leadership? In short, authenticity is the absence of inner bullshit. It is comfort in candor. It is the ability to embrace your "true original" inner spirit while knowing—sometimes in a self-deprecating way—both your strengths and weaknesses. Authenticity isn't just important to good leadership, it is critical. Your peers can sense posturing, conflict and optics a mile away. Being authentic is the antidote to all perceived bullshit. The best article I've ever read on this topic is Tim Urban's Why you should stop caring what other people think. Tim elucidates the idea of your Authentic Voice in a uniquely powerful way to help us all become more true to our inner authenticity.
This is step 1.
SIMPLE. Today's business world has an insatiable appetite for complexity. At times, it can make your head spin. To address this challenge, our team recently spent a full-day offsite ruminating on the idea of "exceptional simplicity" to figure our how we can do the simple parts of our job (Customer Success) exceptionally well. One CSM offered up the idea of In-N-Out burger as a tangible example of "exceptional simplicity" in practice: simple menu, consistent, tasty. Does your leadership style or business workflow resemble the menu of In-N-Out or McDonald's?
If your leadership style or business focus resembles the myriad of options on the right, it might be a good time to get back to beat basics. A the saying goes, if you have more than three priorities, you don't have priorities.
SPONTANEOUS. The Beat Generation was know to prize spontaneity, particularly as a catalyst for creativity. For today's leaders, spontaneity can be an incredibly effective trait to harness the creativity—and fun—of life's serendipity.
Why in spontaneity important? Because business is inherently NON-spontaneous. The nature of business is often planful, deliberate, and predictable. Adding a dash of spontaneity to your leadership approach can help you break through the rote monotony of the work day to unleash your team's creativity and passion.
“Whee. Sal, we gotta go and never stop going till we get there.” “Where we going, man?” “I don’t know but we gotta go.” - Dean Moriarty speaking to Sal Paradise, i.e. Neal Cassady to Jack Kerouac; from On the Road (1951)
This isn't to suggest being spontaneous in, say, a sales forecasting meaning. . .
VP Sales: What is your expected new bookings growth in Q3 2016?
You: I don't know, could be anything! We're being spontaneous is our approach this quarter. We'll see what happens and update everyone when the impulse strikes.
{awkward silence}
{VP Sales' face gets redder, twitchy}
VP Sales: You're fired.
To be sure, process and predictability exist for very good reasons in business. By embracing spontaneity, however, you can amplify your special brand of leadership and set yourself apart.
How you can be spontaneous as a leader:
Instead of taking your next meeting in a conference room, ask the other person if they'd be open to going for a walk
Surprise your team with an unplanned team lunch outside the office
Share positive feedback on the fly
Instead of your typical team meeting, take your team to a nearby park and draw stuff on construction paper
Hire Speechless to deliver their (amazing) improv session with your team
Okay, let's recap:
Leadership learnings from Jack Kerouac. In short, be an ASS!
Authentic: embrace your "true original" inner spirit
Simple: value the elegance of simplicity over complexity
Spontaneous: harness the creativity—and fun—of life's serendipity
Let's make Jack Kerouac proud. Let's go Further.
"Despite the critical importance of inspiration and persuasion, most executives struggle to communicate, let alone inspire. Too often, they get lost in the accoutrements of companyspeak: PowerPoint slides, dry memos, and hyperbolic missives from the corporate communications department. Even the most carefully researched efforts are routinely greeted with cynicism, lassitude, or outright dismissal." —Harvard Business Review; conversation with Robert Mckee
Let's start by defining a few esoteric words that Harvard decided to use:
accoutrements: an identifying and often superficial characteristic or device (origin: French)
hyperbolic missives: exaggerated written bullshit (definition not Harvard approved)
lassitude: lacking physical or mental energy; tired
With that said, it's high time we introduce the man of the hour: Robert McKee. But before you meet this living legend, he has two questions for you:
If you can answer Mr. McKee, you're half way to becoming an inspirational leader.
But you never even introduced who Robert McKee is!
Fair point. For starters, Robert McKee is a storyteller. A really, really good one. But what's more, he has an incredible gift for teaching his wisdom to other people.
As a Broadway veteran from Detroit turned screenwriter and educator, McKee adeptly launched his "Story Seminar" while teaching creative writing at USC. Over 50,000 students have absorbed his lectures, and many of them have gone on to illustrious careers: 63 Academy Award winners, 164 Emmy Award winners, 30 WGA (Writers Guild of America) Award winners and 26 DGA (Directors Guild of America) Award winners.
As word got out, the world's most successful companies engaged McKee for help with crafting their story, brand identity, and communications. Nike, HP, Microsoft, Time Warner—all doled out dollars to get a piece of this man's mind. He's consulted Disney, Paramount and Pixar. Pixar?! Yes. When Ed Catmull and Pete Docter want an outside opinion, they pick up the phone and call Robert McKee.
Much of McKee's wisdom is consolidated in his book Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting (which, notably, spent 20 weeks on the NYT Best-Seller list).
My favorite quote from that book: "Stories fulfill a profound human need to grasp the patterns of living—not merely as in intellectual exercise, but within a very personal, emotional experience."
But why do most leaders fail to inspire?
Three main reasons:
They favor rhetorical persuasion over emotional power
They haven't mastered the art of good storytelling
They can't really answer McKee's questions above
Whatever your industry, storytelling is a skill you HAVE to hone. To learn more, we recommend digesting the below article.