Dive into the latest episode of the B2B Go to Market Leaders podcast, where Rachel Stanley, Vice President of Customer Experience at Banzai, shared her career journey and deep insights into customer experience and success within the SaaS industry.
From starting as an onboarding specialist to rising to a VP role, Rachel’s story highlights her initiative-driven approach and dedication to understanding customer needs. She emphasized the critical role of the first 90 days in customer engagement, the importance of aligning customer marketing with experience, and the need to balance empathy with revenue responsibilities. Rachel’s insights provide a comprehensive guide for anyone looking to excel in customer success by integrating empathy with strategic business goals.
Rachel discussed the significance of a well-defined Go-to-Market (GTM) strategy, the ownership of expansion revenue by customer success managers, and the evolving nature of customer success roles. She also highlighted the importance of structured onboarding, aligning marketing efforts with revenue outcomes, and fostering accountability within teams. At the core of her approach is a commitment to helping customers achieve their goals, underscoring that true customer success is about balancing business objectives with genuine care for customer needs.
Listen to the podcast here:
The First 90 Days: Guaranteeing Revenue Growth Through Customer Success with Rachel Stanley
Signature Question: How do you view and define go to market?
I view it, I mean, this is just how a company engages with customers to promote and sell a product or service.
Very cool.
Simple. One line. And that’s it. As simple as that.
Yeah. I mean obviously so much goes into it.
But.
It’s like the the plan to get you like, how are you going to engage with customers and prospects? obviously, my focus is customers. So how to upsell and cross-sell? Yeah.
Yeah. So sounds like most of your responsibility is more like post-sales. More on the customer success side of the house.
Exactly? Yeah. So everything posts, sale support, onboarding, customer success, customer marketing. Yeah. so we chose customer. We decided customer marketing should fall under me because we have the same objectives. So it’s worked out really well for us instead of having it under marketing.
Yeah. Very cool. And I think if I’m not mistaken, you are the first or definitely the early or like the initial set of people who are.
Coming in from a customer success or a customer experience perspective on this podcast.
Oh cool. Okay.
Because mostly we have had like founders, like Y Combinator founders.
Okay.
Or we had like chief product officers, chief marketing officers, revenue officers. Not a whole lot. I mean, so I want to grow that size. So you’re the first or the initial set.
Right? Okay. Interesting. Yeah. yeah. I’d love to dive in. I have some perspective. I did take on, like a VP of revenue role for a period of time when the company needed it.
Yeah. And then switch back to just customer experience because it’s definitely my sweet spot.
So very cool. So that’s a good segway into why don’t you walk us through your career journey and what led you to what you’re doing today.
Yeah. So back in my first customer-facing role in SAS was in 2012, started as an onboarding specialist, then was promoted to an implementation consultant, and then ended up leading the Consultant team and then switched over to Customer Success. And because it was still kind of new, you know, back then, like the actual customer success, like at least the company I was at was it felt kind of slower to get there than some others. But, I was really curious to expand into customer success. So that’s when I came to Bonzai. so I came to Banzai and Customer Success was the only customer-facing role at Bonzai at the time. And it was a startup and, very highly touched customer success. and I ended up adding a lot of processes and, you know, onboarding and things that I’d done in the past.
And so the CEO promoted me to director of customer adoption, and where I really focused on the first 90 days and then took Then I, inherited our support. Like, creating a support team. Like a true reactive support team. Yeah. Then, I got promoted to VP and added onboarding or customer marketing after that. And customer success.
Very cool.
So now it’s support onboarding success and customer marketing.
Very cool. So you pretty much are obviously with your team, you’re in charge and accountable for all experiences of the customer post-sale. Yes, exactly. Very cool. Yeah. So going back to your early days, you started off as an onboarding specialist, and then somehow clearly you did a pretty good job and you got promoted into like a consultant and then the team lead for training and implementation. I mean, it’s onboarding and then training and implementation. So talk to us about that journey. Like first of all, how what made you Attracted or what got you into onboarding in the first place, and then training and implementation?
Yeah. It’s fun to think back. So I was, I was at you know SaaS company and I was actually the office manager and executive assistant. And I had been doing that for a while. And, the role of onboarding specialists opened up. And I just thought, you know, I’ve been treating like employees as customers, like I’ve always loved like hospitality and, you know, like have always, you know, like your job my job is in high school and college or like coffee shops and, you know, sandwich shops and things like that. Yeah. and so I was like, this feels like a good time to, like, kind of take a pivot. And so I applied and, and got the role. And then when I, I started, it was like a really I kind of realized that All right. Did realize that really what I was doing could be automated. Pretty like manual is like provisioning accounts and you know, a lot of manual stuff that there was some like getting on with customers but not as much.
And I wanted to do more. And so I coordinated with our front-end engineers and the team and actually did automate the onboarding process I was doing. And so then that opened the door for me to be promoted to the implementation consultant role.
Got it. And then you also took on training in meditation.
Yeah, exactly. So training was we looked at it then as like it was a little more like point and click, you know like this is how you do something. And the consultants were more like, we did a lot of like one and two days on sites, you know, really digging in, understanding the business. How? Yeah.
Got it.
So I do have a question about the training and onboarding, not training, but more on the onboarding side of things and the softer products that are coming out in the market today. Products like Story Lane, I don’t know if you’ve heard of Story Lane and similar, which is very interactive. I mean, now people I’m not users there can actually go and you can create an automated interactive onboarding experience.
Cool. Okay. Yeah, I am very much for that. I mean, I think people, you know, not to replace human experience, but some people. But I think you have to provide all of the options for people because everybody learns differently. And so what we’ve done at Bonzai is we have an in-app product tour through. We use the intercom for that. Yeah. and then we also have you heard of Nevada?
Nevada?
Yeah. So we use that as an onboarding tool as well where it’s like you can actually click. It’s kind of like a product tour. But it’s used also like on websites as a demo-type tool that you can see. So we use both of those. But then we also have onboarding specialists that it’s an option for people to use. Got it. And training webinars and stuff.
Yeah I know we got a little sidetracked with the automation tool, but coming back to your journey, so you then took over or joined, Bonzai as enterprise customer success manager?
So what was that like, or what made you pick that role?
Yeah, it was pure interest in customer success. I showed interest at my previous company, and they wanted me to move to the headquarters to do it, but I didn’t want to move to South Carolina. and so I was like, okay, I’m going to find I was like, really interested to kind of find a startup that I could make an impact at and just like, feel that community. And, ended at bonsai and it was a so I went from leading a team to being an individual contributor, which. Yeah, was now, I’m glad I did it because I had so many growth opportunities thankfully, since then, but it was kind of a risk. And I found myself kind of like itching to lead the team, you know, lead the team when I started. But instead I just, you know, pitched in and helped with like more operational and process improvements and, you know, things like creating slide decks that the SMBs weren’t doing at the time.
And that got the CEO’s attention.
Yeah. I mean, clearly, it’s I mean, just based on your initial couple of goals, something that’s coming out as a pattern for me is for you to take initiative. I mean, you are very self-driven. You take initiative. You actually do things beyond the scope of your current role.
Yeah, it’s very evident.
Yeah. Thank you.
Yeah.
Yeah. I think that’s an, you know, obviously important. And now I look for that when I interview people.
Yeah. Very cool.
And then after that, you became the director of customer adoption. So it’s like customer success and product adoption.
No, it was it was kind of more in the onboarding sphere. But, the first 90 days. So I had customer adoption managers. It was kind of a mix between onboarding and CSS. Like how we ended up doing it was like the adoption manager owned the customer for the first 90 days, and then they graduated to the CSM.
So like I used to say, I wanted to hand over the customer, like wrapped in a nice present, you know, like they’re totally ready to go. All you have to do is like, maintain the relationship and they’ll renew, you know. So.
Right.
And so one question that keeps coming up, I see in the GTM world and discussions all over is when are what are the criteria that you would suggest to invest in the first 90 days of onboarding? Like is it the ACV or is it the product complexity? Is it, the type of accounts? So what are the criteria that you recommend?
Yeah, I would say definitely ACV is like our product. Now we have multiple products. So I manage the first 90 days differently for, you know, and the different tiers of each product. But hi HCV and the complexity of the product like at that time, the product that only product we had a high ACV. And it, it took kind of a lot of coaching through it.
Yeah. It wasn’t as self-serve as some products are. Yeah.
Yeah. And we’re talking about like five-figure six-figure on an annual basis.
Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, like I think, you know, some were well into the six figures but all were at least. Yeah. Like, the low end was 30,000. Yeah.
Got it. Understood.
And then after that, senior director, customer adoption and support, and then VP of customer experience, and then VP of revenue and customer experience and customer marketing as well, falling under your charter.
Yeah.
Yeah Yeah. so so curious. I mean, what is the discussion like or a thought process or how did you pitch? I mean, typically I’ve seen customer marketing mostly under marketing or maybe within product marketing. but what is the thought process like?
Why it should be I know.
Right. So the CEO, VP of marketing, and I got on a meeting to discuss it because we hadn’t had a customer marketer, at all before. And ultimately the decision was based on like the objectives, like, what are the objectives of the customer marketer marketing going to be? And we decided at least to start for the first customer marketer, it needed to be revenue attribution, tied.
And for our use case, it was tied to expansion and re-activation. And that’s, you know, that’s basically that’s one of my objectives like my ultimate objective is an RR, but like how you get to a higher end RR is more than retention. It’s expansion and reactivation and, you know, cross-sell. So yeah.
And another line of discussion on this topic that I see, play out in different GTM scenarios is who owns the expansion number.
That sales or customer success?
I just had this conversation. I, we had a field event in Toronto this week that I went to, and the people that I was sitting next to, a director of Customer Success and across was her head of revenue. and they do it where the revenue like he has account managers that own expansion and revenue and renewals and her customer success managers just are focused on like success and and helping where for us CSM Cosmos handle all. I mean, they’re measured on revenue.
So renew.
Renewals and expansion.
Yeah, exactly.
And again, it kind of goes back to your other question of like even investing in the first 90 days, like talking to them in their product, it does make sense because it was like a very it sounded like a very hands-on, like a low number of customers, like the customer success manager really needed to be there to, like, help them be successful and then but what I, I think made sense that I like that they did is the cosmos were measured on SQL. So they had objectives to at least like refer their customers to the account managers, you know, for renewals, but also expansions for us and our use case. I still think I like having TSM. both. It doesn’t really solve the problem. I know what I’ve heard is that it creates kind of a tension, but we have I don’t feel like we’ve run into that.
Got it understood. I think it also boils down to the capabilities of the customer success leader. and because clearly it’s not like you owned or were part of a revenue number or target early on, especially during onboarding and training.
Right. But something I mean, something happened. What was that like? And how did you start positioning yourself in that revenue ownership direction?
Right.
You know, it’s funny as like, even at Barnes, I, I switched who I reported to, like I was under the go-to-market leader at the time when I was, owning adoption and support. And then they switched me to operations because they were like, oh, like she’s not owning a revenue number. Yeah. And. But I was a CSM and I was very I’m very competitive and I liked hitting goals. So I think that’s, you know, like conducive to having revenue numbers. And so but then I’m also like super empathetic and you know, so it was like yeah. Where like onboarding and stuff, I could tune in to how people needed to learn. And. Yeah. so I think that’s what got me to where I am today. But I think the transition was just realizing, like how energized I got by, like, hitting numbers and like the adrenaline rush of it all.
Yep. Yeah.
Yeah I mean the thing is always a double-edged sword. I mean the best thing is it’s you can measure it very clearly. I mean if especially if you’re a very focused, persistent and goal-oriented person, a leader, you know, what you need to match towards. Yeah. But at the same time, if you’re not hitting the numbers, your role is at stake.
Yeah, I know, which is it? Yeah. Like I feel the pressure, you know, like we all do. Anyone that has a revenue number. for sure. But it’s still, like, kind of gets me up in the morning, I don’t know.
I like it. Not for sure.
I mean, it’s easy, right? I mean, that’s how I look at what I do as well. because I run my own consulting practice, which means. Yes. In addition to delivering the services, I also need to hit forecast and then predict and actually go towards those numbers all the way through.
Right. And that’s what gets me going. Of course, the the toggling and context-switching take a toll for sure. but again, that’s, you know, at the end of the day, if you’re doing well or not, it’s black and white.
Yeah, I agree. Yeah. Actually the the director of Customer success, I talked to Her opinion was that it’s hard to find people that are good at like success, like helping the customers be successful and rather than you, which might, you know, it might be true, but I do think we’re out there.
Yeah. Yeah.
Exactly. I mean, because typically customer success, especially if your mindset and thinking is around and strength is around empathy. You connect with that customer, the account, the people in the different teams, and so on. And you’re always on serve them and help them be successful. But at the same time, you need to play almost like doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. It’s like a switch. You know what? At the same time, I have my numbers ahead.
Yeah. I need to close you at any cost. That is all the running in your head.
I know it’s for sure. It’s a balancing act. And that’s the. It’s like a win-win. When you can figure out that this is actually what the customer needs, right? You know, like upgrading is actually what they need or like cross-selling, you know, so that’s what we’re trying to focus on.
Yeah.
And then the last question on this topic, which is at what like for which role did you actually take on the revenue and numbers responsibility? Was it in customer adoption or customer success?
the customer VP of customer experience was really I took on everything.
Yeah. Yeah.
That was, back in 2021, 22.
Roughly. Yeah. Very cool.
Yeah, I know we can go on and on just on this topic. Let’s switch gears over here. let’s, Yeah, you’ve had interesting, right? You’ve been fairly stable compared to folks in Silicon Valley who are always job hopping.
But at the same time, you got, you’re consistently in the post-sale.
Well.
For sure. I mean, customer onboarding, training support, customer success, and then customer marketing. but now on a lighter note, what does your family think? how do they describe what you do for a living?
I love that question. My daughter is 11 now, but when she was younger and cuter, a babysitter told me that it was like a new babysitter. And she said I asked my daughter’s name Haven. I asked Haven what you do, and she said, you help people. And I was like, oh, that’s so cute. She’s like, how do you help people? Like, are you a nurse or something? Like no, no like I explained it to her, but I love that because like really that is what I do like. Like I help my team, you know, to then help our customers, which then helps them help their customers. You know, like it’s like the cyclical thing.
And I love, like connecting to the heart of that. Yeah. but I think now she would probably I don’t know what she would say, ramble on about something, but I like I like thinking of that when it that my family knows I help people and like, I lead people.
Yeah, it’s completely true.
Right at the essence, at the core customer experience and customer success is all about helping. And you obviously need to help your employees. But at the end of the day, are you helping your customers? Right?
Yeah. That’s right. Exactly. Very cool.
And even on the lighter side, and on a personal note, what your family and your daughter think of is cute and sweet, for sure. Yeah. coming back to Bonzai, like, how do you describe your customers and the personas and how are you helping in the overall goal market?
Yeah, so our different products have different, you know, ISPs, but really it’s the B2B tech. Our, webinar platform also is a healthcare and financial service is a big part. But mid-market and enterprise customers as well are our biggest focus and like percentage. But for the webinar platform, we also have like you know, solopreneurs and SMB very cool.
And then who are the buyers and the users of the webinar platform?
Primarily marketers. So we definitely, you know, advertise ourselves as a martech company. However, really, customer success and sales are also personas that we sell to.
So really the whole go-to-market function.
Vertical and some sorry, something that I’ve seen, especially when I’m working overall if I’m part of the marketing team and I’m trying to build the overall customer journey and understand the go to market clearly, I see a lot of value in partnering with Post-sales. So customer success, customer support. So from that viewpoint, I mean, how do you and your team, how do you contribute and play a role in building and improving the overall customer journey and the go-to-market for Banzai?
Yeah. so the customer journey, like obviously we’ve mapped out the post-sale customer journey. But one area of overlap that’s been interesting is the for our webinar platform, the trial experience, we have a 14-day free trial. Yeah. there’s onboarding for trial users, but the trial isn’t, you know, under my umbrella. And so we’ve worked together closely on the onboarding experience for trial versus becoming a paid customer. I think one thing for our other products and we have I’m especially involved right now, we’re really looking into a lot of acquisitions right now, and I’m brought in a lot for like, is this cost sellable? like, I’m like, one of the like it has, you know, it’s like I’m interviewing different acquisitions to make sure that we can cross-sell it.
Right? And then just like, bringing the voice of the customer, like, what are the things not only that customers want, but like, that are the most valuable. Like, why did they buy it? Because we get to learn why they bought right after they, you know, buy especially in like a self-serve motion that they didn’t go through in a that can, can, you know, tell that which helps us know, you know, helps the pre-sales know what to promote the most and, and all of that.
Yeah. And then something else that has seen really, I mean, play a big role, especially in messaging and, go-to-market campaigns is understanding the value prop. Yeah, I think that’s what you’re referring to. Why did someone invest in your platform versus the alternatives, right?
Yes, exactly. That’s a better way to do it.
Very cool. So, switching gears, you had a vast experience in post-sales. Clearly you’ve seen success and failure. And so if you can share a good market success story and a failure story, I’ll let you pick which one you want to go with first.
Okay. I’ll do success. so we actually want to know award recently for the story that I submitted it through CMS Wire Impact award for customer journey Innovation. so and this is for the webinar platform I’ve been referencing, but we have a monthly plan and an annual plan. the annual plan saves you 30%, which is actually, you know, normally it’s like 20 to 30%. Yep. but our, so our percentage of revenue and our percentage of customers were still so high monthly customers, which is just, you know, makes you nervous because they can turn at any point. And, you know, my ultimate thing with PNR is like, okay, how can we increase PNR? So we really focused on ways to encourage throughout the customer journey, like when was the right time to re-promote, you know, an annual. So when someone first buys they see the two different prices and my assumption psychologically is like, well, I’m going to buy monthly to make sure I like it. And then two months in they’re happy or three months and they’re happy, but they forget that they can save 30%.
Yeah. And what I liked about this initiative is that it was like a win-win situation because it saved the customer money, but also like gave us more stability in more annual contracts and forecasting. and so 2023 so last year, we focused on it the whole year. through customer marketing initiatives. And we increased our MRR ratio by 8%. Nice. We, you know, I’m happy with like obviously we want to keep increasing it more and more. But it went from only 36% of our MRR from annual to 44%. the last I checked, we were at like 51% already for this year. Yeah. So, we’re we’re continuing to tweak messaging and find the right times. But I think for us at least, it’s like the 2 to 3-month range is when people are ready.
So very interesting case study and success story for sure. A lot of questions running in my mind, which is how did you arrive at the 2 to 3-month mark?
So one that was like, assumption.
Honestly, like in my mind it was like, okay, like if I’m testing out a or like past experience, right? Like if I’m testing out a product after 2 or 3 months, I know if I want to keep using it or not. Yeah. And so that’s just what we started with. And then and we were just seeing like such a, a good response. Like initially we just sent out a blast email to everybody that was like, hey, did you know you can save 30%? We got like a lot of people are obviously like, oh, no, I didn’t know that. Because really, 30% is like getting four months free, you know?
Exactly.
and then we had to figure out the customer journey, and, we tried two months and then three months, and we landed on three months. And even that is helpful. Like, now we have onboarding, you know, focusing on the first 90 days. And it’s kind of a goal to get them to an annual contract by the end of the 90 days.
Got it. Understood. And then you also mentioned the different segments and the personas, right? You mentioned about marketing. I mean, Post-sales support customer success. Are you seeing any demarcation? And you also mentioned about the different industries. So seeing any demarcation and segmentation behavior playing out like, yes, renewal and expand, but then maybe it’s some person or geography or industry.
Yeah. I mean, for us, mid-market and above is like by far, our best. Yeah. In our AR which makes sense. You know, like we, we use clear bit to enrich our data and the unknown, you know, like the customers that clear bit can’t even recognize what their revenue is, but their churn rate is three times 3 to 4 times higher than the rest. Like even just even including us and be.
Yeah.
And so it’s mid-market and post like three months. Around the three-month mark. Yeah very cool. And so is it even across the different personas and functions.
That’s great I feel like I don’t have and I definitely don’t have good reporting for like this user is a marketer and this user, you know, to get to be able to. But just like talking to customers. Yeah. normally customers’ success in sales is like additional use cases that are added on. The marketer is like the owner.
Got it. And so and normally once they add on the different use cases it’s stickier. Yeah. So they’re not churning.
I mean this is great. I mean the success story and the case study and the data that you are coming up with is like gold for marketing and sales.
Yeah.
Exactly.
Yeah! Very cool.
Go ahead.
I was going to say, I think one of my failure stories, though, is like, I’m not happy with how well we’ve expanded our use cases to customer success in sales. Yeah. because I don’t know, it’s like we did this whole push because one of the reasons we did a push was because our pricing for the webinar platform is host-based, like, and really and a lot of people share logins, you know, like it’s tricky.
And so it was like, well I doubt like different teams are going to share logins. Right. So there might be like a marketing at login and a customer success and a sales ad. And so we know we built together with you know, marketing. And so like on our website we have different uses.
Pages now. And, you know, we definitely saw some success, but I’m just not happy with how well the success like our multi-host customer percentage is just too low. and so I’m still kind of noodling on how to better expand into the use cases. And, I think part of it is just continuing to promote the value of webinars for each of those. And I think webinars are a lot of work. Yeah. And so like how can we help make them easier?
Sure. Yeah.
Yeah. I mean, one of the things that come to my mind is essentially around how webinars as a channel are being effective for lead gen and even expansion for other customers.
And I’m sure you and your marketing and go-to-market team are always thinking about showing success stories.
Yes exactly. And like how to measure the ROI of them.
Exactly. Yeah. Switching gears, but on a related topic again, which is how close is your interaction with the product marketing function?
So we don’t have an actual product marketer, which is. So I actually have a page. So my customer marketer is like also our product marketer basically. and then our product manager fills in some gaps like research type. So my customer marketer does all, you know, the feature releases and stuff like that. And so I’m, I’m really hopeful we’ll get a product marketer this year. But we, they do meet like our product managers and demand and like our director of demand gen and customer marketer meet I think bi-weekly. I’m not I won’t join that meeting. But they’re they work very closely together Yeah.
I mean, typically what I’ve seen play out in very established and mature go-to-market organizations, is product marketing has maybe six or even seven, eight functions starting with positioning and messaging.
Yeah, that’s one of the key topics. And then after that, there is also the user and customer research program that has to be in place on an ongoing basis. And then you have the product content. You have sales enablement, especially if it’s sales lead, go to market, and then you have a new market, new product launch, product expansion, which will fall under your bucket, and then product content overall.
Yeah, that sounds very dreamy. Like we’re we’re still a little scrappy where we all like, you know, like help like okay, the CSM are doing the user research like during their calls and you know, things like that.
Yeah, yeah. Fair enough. I’ll make a note to myself and happy to provide guidance on these topics. Product marketing and growth is my area of expertise, and that’s where I help my clients.
Awesome. Yeah. Very cool.
Yeah. And then, what are the typical wanted to go to market skills that people look out for and think of you like, really? Oh, this must be Rachel’s strength.
Let me go get her advice or input.
I have, like, just such a deep understanding of our customer base and our business objectives. And so I mean, even this week in the exact meeting, we were talking about how to like, expand use cases for one of our products. And the CEO was just like, Rachel, you, you know, you understand the as I should write like you understand our customers the most. You’ve worked with them the most. Like I make sure to do customer visits. I, you know, do calls, I stay, really. I keep a close pulse. And so, but then also just having a really deep understanding of, like, our business objectives and goals and priorities and things like that. So the teams below me know, you know, they understand our customers, but they might not know what the priority should be. so, you know, it’s like I provide a bigger picture of, you know, the whole thing.
So I, I also just love throwing out ideas like, I’ve actually really loved adding customer marketing. Like when I hired our customer marketer, I was like, listen, I’ve never led customer marketing. I’ve never done customer marketing like the other job function. Well, I’ve never done support. But, you know, like I was like, I really need you to own this, but I’ve just like, loved it. Like, I like we get on and brainstorm and, and so I it’s been kind of fun like from that go to market perspective because it’s you know I think marketing feels a little closer to go to market than what I had done in the past.
Yeah. I mean something that I’m seeing is I mean, somehow you got, the knack of picking up new functions and doing well and not just as an individual contributor, but even thinking about the strategic part and the KPIs on the business drivers.
So what is your secret sauce? Okay. Replicate that. Thank you.
That’s so sweet. What is my secret sauce? I think I love clarity. Like. Well, one as you mentioned earlier is, like, you just have to, like, take initiative and, you know, be self-driven and like, I think the like competitive nature. Not like I’m trying to beat other people, but just like, like to hit goals. but I also love, like, working through, like the muck of like, okay, but what’s like the essential thing? What are we actually trying to do? Like, what’s what’s going to get us there the quickest? Right. I think really thinking through like, this year, I’ve had this whole focus on essentialism because I read a book called essentialism and, I think that really like, describes what I like, geek out over. It’s like it’s kind of like a mix of minimalism and like, I love minimalism in our house, you know, things like that. So yeah, if that answers your question, but.
Definitely, I mean, the the way I think about it in similar scenarios is, for me, same as you, Rachel.
I love to build and bring structure in an ambiguous and chaotic environment. And the way I arrive at it is again, to look at what are the business objectives, what the business objectives are, and then what do I need to do to build clarity around it? Do I have the right leading indicators? Because KPIs are typically trailing indicators because I need to know if I’m doing the right things and making progress towards those business objectives, and then constantly learning, keeping my eyes and ears open. And this is podcast, is one of the things and resources that I lean on and mentors and other folks.
Putting all these things together in place.
Yeah, yeah I love like I would definitely tag on the learning part to like I and Bonzai is like one of our company values is learning. And so there’s a high emphasis on learning and and hiring people that want to learn, or continue to learn. And so I think that’s you have to like, I mean in some ways I feel like I’m self-taught, you know, like, just like going out.
And thankfully, we live in a time that it’s, like, very easy to, to learn, you know, podcasts and just googling things and, you know.
Absolutely. And then if you were to look back in your career, like, who were the people who really shaped like mentors, sponsors or people who just guided you and acted as a mirror?
I would say my the first manager at my last company that, gave me my first leadership position, like I he was my manager for six and a half years. So I really learned a lot from him. And like, I’m thankful that he gave me the, you know, my first opportunity. And then the same with the CEO of bonsai. Like, he’s promoted me a lot of times here, and I just feel like his faith in me is, Has what like has propelled me to keep learning and growing like that. He believes I can do it. And and then the the third person is actually kind of newer and she would be shocked probably to hear this, but we’re, Gartner clients.
There is an analyst there. That is I am like a super fan of she’s an older CSE leader that I like. I don’t know, like we’re just on the same wavelength. It’s like, the way she explains things and, like, I just feel like I want to be her when I grow up. So she’s really helped, especially adding all of these job functions the last two years, like my inquiries with her and the articles she’s written. And like, I’ve gone to Gartner conferences and I go to all of her sessions like she’s really helped me a lot.
Very cool.
Again, it goes back to just reaching out and seeking people who are sharing the beliefs and pursuits and then learning from them, right? I mean, you can go and seek out and ask them to be a mentor. Officially or unofficially?
Exactly. And like with her, I have, like, an eye at. I ended up just asking for a monthly inquiry. Yeah. which, thankfully, because we’re clients, they they do.
But if we ever were in a client, I’d probably reach out and be like, hey.
Right.
And then the final question for you, Rachel, is if you were to turn back the clock and go back in time, what advice would you give to your younger self?
Oh, my younger self. My initial thought was like going back to like, first becoming VP. And it took me a little bit to realize nah, should be like our North Star. And now it makes so much sense and now it provides so much structure where originally I was like changing our objectives every quarter. It was just kind of like it felt fishy-fIshy. And now like, I love just like, well, obviously NRA should be our North Star. And then everyone under me, all of their objectives and I, you know, activities.
Did somehow impact the, the things that impact in our.
Yeah.
And so I wish I would have done that from day one. It’s definitely advice I would give to anyone in UX.
They also like that it’s okay to say no. Like I think we, kind of glossed over it, but my VP of revenue stint I’m glad I don’t regret it because I learned a lot, but I wasn’t interested in owning sales. And
I just wanted to say yes because I was asked. Yeah. And, I think it was just I wasn’t happy, you know, I just didn’t enjoy my job as much. So I learned a lot, though. So I’m not saying I regret it, but I think now I’m like, oh, like, I can actually, like, assess my own capacity and passion and like, what I’m good at and how I’m going to best impact the company. which now I just know, is it so?
So how did you find I mean, I know I said that was the last question, but then just the fact that you mentioned owning and running revenue and sales, but then somehow you didn’t like but then at the same time you own revenue for post sales.
I know the nuances. And why is it so different?
Well, okay, that’s a great question. So for me it was I mean it was like, okay, what’s the like mql to sales? Well to like, like all of these different rates and like, you know, Hiring a witch. Which I love hiring people. So that wasn’t as much, but it was like, okay, what do we exactly need to do to hit this number? And it was just like the mirror, like just being like, spread thin. Like I just had so many direct reports and like, I didn’t have the, the leadership layer underneath me that I needed, like, I had a lot of individual contributors, reporting up to me. And so it was like, oh, now I need to learn sales like and rev ops. Yeah. and, and I just, you know, like, part of it was just like, I want to do what I already know, like and keep improving that.
But I just, I felt like I never had a good hand. Like, I didn’t end my days feeling like I was, like, successful.
Got it. Yeah. Based on what you shared, I mean, clearly, this is me giving perspectives and Unsolicited advice based on like 45 minutes of conversation, but just based on what you shared. Rachel, it’s more like, as you said, a lack of leadership or leads who are experts in sales. But imagine if you had like a BDR or SDR team lead and a team lead, and then you get everything else day-to-day to them. Maybe you’re taking this on as well.
Agree, like if I had a director of sales or whatever that could own all the nitty gritty, like I was just pulled into so many weeds.
Yeah.
And needed to own executive strategy. So it was just it was. Yeah. But yeah I agree. Like if I had a good leadership structure underneath me, I would feel differently.