If you're a CSM, then you already know this isn't advice, I see right through this nonsense. This video is just an excuse to promote books and courses that are retrofitted to relate to CSM skills. Sorry, but sales skills are not that important, it's empathy and interpersonal skills that you need to focus on. But those 2 skills don't segue as nicely into promoting the book "To sell is human". I laughed at the recommendation to learn coding. You don't need to code to be tech-savvy. PLEASE do not fall for these companies that are looking for "unicorns". It's great to advance your subject matter expertise, but the best skills are Quick-Thinking and Quick-Learning Skills, bc how fast you acquire domain knowledge ensures you'll hit the ground running at any job you hire into. CSM do not code, so please invest your time in more customer-centric skills instead. And no you don't need to be literally customer obsessed. Customer-Centricity isn't about obsession, it's about advocacy and courtesy. You should also build skills like Solution Architecture and Strategic Planning (including Change Management, Risk Management, and Project Management), bc they allow you to work holistically with your customers and stakeholders. Data Analysis is important, but you don't need to learn SQL, Python, or R. For peace sake, we're in the Digital Age, where no-code tech stacks and CRM with AI are capable of doing the heavy data-interpretations for us. This jack-of-all-trades bullcrap needs to stop. If you're a T-shaped performer, great but I wouldn't tell anyone bc the companies looking for unicorns will exploit you to handle more than you can chew, not pay you your true value, and have you burned out before you reach your prime. If you're not a unicorn, even better. You can focus on taking care of your customers, instead of wasting time working on code or decrypting data reports. The best employers hire CSM that are specialized in Customer Success - not sales, not code, not data science, not course certificates, etc. The most valuable CSMs have skills that cannot be taught, everything else that can be trained is less of a priority. They don't care about what books you read or what classes you signed up for, all they care about are the results you'll bring. They want to know how much ARR you can yield and how much churn you can mitigate. These require relationship-building and intuitive thinking skills. So start there.
Hi YourMajesty! I appreciate your feedback here! I can see that you really are a great CSM and we are in agreement on a lot of what you are saying. You are 100% right about empathy and interpersonal skills, and those form the crux of the book To Sell is Human, if you haven't read it, I really recommend it. It aligns very well with what you are saying here. As a recruitment agency, we do not partner with any of the courses or authors we recommended, other than Code Chrysalis. We do not receive any income from those recommendations and are not affiliated in anyway. We recommend those specifically because we have seen these tools help people get jobs. This list is based on the requests from the clients we work with, We have worked on many Customer Success roles and this list was compiled using those experiences. This list is focused in the Tech industry, as that is the only industry we service. Which means that a baseline of coding skills and data definitely make candidates stand out. I am truly grateful that you took the time to critique this video so throughly, and again I think we are in agreement on almost everything that you mentioned. I apologize for failing to deliver the knowledge that you were hoping for in this video and I will strive to do better in the future. Thank you again for your time YourMajesty! -Bryan form Wahl+Case
My salary went up because of all those skills you've just claimed are irrelevant for the CSM role. By having tangible hard skills to put out fires for a client guarantees renewals because they will literally see you as THE expert aside from someone that simply tickets out issues and risk cancellations depending on the contract structure (is it monthly or annually?). 'The results you'll bring' equates to having a technical breadth that you are familiar with the software you provide in both the contextual and tangible sense, where the best CSMs can do both; fix issues before ticketing and the soft skills to cross-sell and lock-in renewals as they're doing it (hint, that's what would set you and I apart). I literally built a Mobil application for a client where I then became their on-site CSM to maintain the product (onboard, train, troubleshoot). I had an agreement on compensation based on a minimum salary with a revenue-share model based on increased profit margins. There's a huge difference between those that simply can talk a good game and those that have zero ability to troubleshoot issues for clients as they occur; long ticket times are what kills renewal rates. You can label this being a "customer success engineer," but your career will thank you later if you actually have any technical skills that will grow trust with your book of client's. Even script kitties would be more qualified than the current CSM you're describing.
@@ALCRAN2010 CSM books: "The Customer Success Professional's Handbook" by Vaidyanathan and Rabago, and "CUSTOMER SUCCESS" by Mehta, Steinman, and Murphy. Solid foundation for CSM. Home lab project: Raspberry Pi 4 as connector with a DDNS enabled Wi-Fi 6ax TP-Link for gigabit speed, Nginx Proxy Manager Docker for proxy mgmt and node access controls. Plex as multimedia server, WinSCP for file transfer, and twingate for remote access (watch networkchuck). Those hard skills put me ahead of the majority of CSM competition.
haha You never know until you try! In all seriousness, I wrote that with smaller companies in mind, if you feel your CEO if completely out of reach, I would start with a manager of your manager. Someone who you would have a slanted power dynamic with. The reason for this is to help you overcome the fear and get comfortable talking to people you feel beholden to. Hope this helps! -bryan
Could you suggest some online certificates that could help CSM's upskill their career trajectory. Love your videos and explaination btw
If you're a CSM, then you already know this isn't advice, I see right through this nonsense. This video is just an excuse to promote books and courses that are retrofitted to relate to CSM skills. Sorry, but sales skills are not that important, it's empathy and interpersonal skills that you need to focus on. But those 2 skills don't segue as nicely into promoting the book "To sell is human".
I laughed at the recommendation to learn coding. You don't need to code to be tech-savvy. PLEASE do not fall for these companies that are looking for "unicorns". It's great to advance your subject matter expertise, but the best skills are Quick-Thinking and Quick-Learning Skills, bc how fast you acquire domain knowledge ensures you'll hit the ground running at any job you hire into. CSM do not code, so please invest your time in more customer-centric skills instead.
And no you don't need to be literally customer obsessed. Customer-Centricity isn't about obsession, it's about advocacy and courtesy. You should also build skills like Solution Architecture and Strategic Planning (including Change Management, Risk Management, and Project Management), bc they allow you to work holistically with your customers and stakeholders.
Data Analysis is important, but you don't need to learn SQL, Python, or R. For peace sake, we're in the Digital Age, where no-code tech stacks and CRM with AI are capable of doing the heavy data-interpretations for us. This jack-of-all-trades bullcrap needs to stop. If you're a T-shaped performer, great but I wouldn't tell anyone bc the companies looking for unicorns will exploit you to handle more than you can chew, not pay you your true value, and have you burned out before you reach your prime. If you're not a unicorn, even better. You can focus on taking care of your customers, instead of wasting time working on code or decrypting data reports.
The best employers hire CSM that are specialized in Customer Success - not sales, not code, not data science, not course certificates, etc. The most valuable CSMs have skills that cannot be taught, everything else that can be trained is less of a priority. They don't care about what books you read or what classes you signed up for, all they care about are the results you'll bring. They want to know how much ARR you can yield and how much churn you can mitigate. These require relationship-building and intuitive thinking skills. So start there.
Hi YourMajesty!
I appreciate your feedback here!
I can see that you really are a great CSM and we are in agreement on a lot of what you are saying.
You are 100% right about empathy and interpersonal skills, and those form the crux of the book To Sell is Human, if you haven't read it, I really recommend it. It aligns very well with what you are saying here.
As a recruitment agency, we do not partner with any of the courses or authors we recommended, other than Code Chrysalis. We do not receive any income from those recommendations and are not affiliated in anyway. We recommend those specifically because we have seen these tools help people get jobs.
This list is based on the requests from the clients we work with, We have worked on many Customer Success roles and this list was compiled using those experiences.
This list is focused in the Tech industry, as that is the only industry we service. Which means that a baseline of coding skills and data definitely make candidates stand out.
I am truly grateful that you took the time to critique this video so throughly, and again I think we are in agreement on almost everything that you mentioned.
I apologize for failing to deliver the knowledge that you were hoping for in this video and I will strive to do better in the future.
Thank you again for your time YourMajesty!
-Bryan form Wahl+Case
Is there anyway we can connect. I am looking to make a change to csm
My salary went up because of all those skills you've just claimed are irrelevant for the CSM role. By having tangible hard skills to put out fires for a client guarantees renewals because they will literally see you as THE expert aside from someone that simply tickets out issues and risk cancellations depending on the contract structure (is it monthly or annually?).
'The results you'll bring' equates to having a technical breadth that you are familiar with the software you provide in both the contextual and tangible sense, where the best CSMs can do both; fix issues before ticketing and the soft skills to cross-sell and lock-in renewals as they're doing it (hint, that's what would set you and I apart).
I literally built a Mobil application for a client where I then became their on-site CSM to maintain the product (onboard, train, troubleshoot). I had an agreement on compensation based on a minimum salary with a revenue-share model based on increased profit margins.
There's a huge difference between those that simply can talk a good game and those that have zero ability to troubleshoot issues for clients as they occur; long ticket times are what kills renewal rates. You can label this being a "customer success engineer," but your career will thank you later if you actually have any technical skills that will grow trust with your book of client's. Even script kitties would be more qualified than the current CSM you're describing.
@@goonie79 sup goonie, do you have any recommendations on channels to watch or books to read that you would approve of as a CSM?
@@ALCRAN2010 CSM books: "The Customer Success Professional's Handbook" by Vaidyanathan and Rabago, and "CUSTOMER SUCCESS" by Mehta, Steinman, and Murphy. Solid foundation for CSM.
Home lab project: Raspberry Pi 4 as connector with a DDNS enabled Wi-Fi 6ax TP-Link for gigabit speed, Nginx Proxy Manager Docker for proxy mgmt and node access controls. Plex as multimedia server, WinSCP for file transfer, and twingate for remote access (watch networkchuck). Those hard skills put me ahead of the majority of CSM competition.
Ask your CEO out to lunch?????? You do know thats not gonna happen right ????
haha You never know until you try!
In all seriousness, I wrote that with smaller companies in mind, if you feel your CEO if completely out of reach, I would start with a manager of your manager.
Someone who you would have a slanted power dynamic with. The reason for this is to help you overcome the fear and get comfortable talking to people you feel beholden to.
Hope this helps!
-bryan