When a guy has repeatedly built companies worth up to $200m then it’s worth
listening to his advice, even when he says ‘No-one gives a shit about your
product’.

I like reading Mitchell
Harper’s
stuff. He’s a typical driven entrepreneur but also a very good writer and
presenter. Here is what he says about products:

“When was the last time you woke up and said “today I’m going to buy some
software/consulting/services/apps/etc?”. Seriously, when was it?

No One Gives A Sh*t About Your Product.

They want to buy a specific RESULT your product gives them.

Spanx sells undergarments, but is in the RESULTS business of helping women
appear slimmer immediately, without having to lose weight.

BeachBody sells workout programs, but is in the RESULTS business of helping
you get in shape without having to leave your house” Mitchell
Harper

5 more of our favourite customer success quotes

Simple logic

The health of a SaaS business is directly tied to its ability to retain its
customers and prevent churn. To do this, they have to ensure that their
customers are happy. That means making sure they get the promised business
benefits they signed up for. David
Skok.

Priorities

The keyword in this next quote is ‘focus’. I’m certain he means that you need
to still do the rest but focus on desired outcomes.

“You can focus on adoption, retention, expansion, or advocacy; or you can
focus on the customers’ Desired Outcome and get all of those things” Lincoln
Murphy

Process becomes a substitute for thinking

Here is one by Elon Musk that relates to hiring and I think it relates to
customer success because it’s a job that takes empathy and initiative.

“I don’t believe in process. In fact, when I interview a potential employee
and he or she says that ‘it’s all about the process,’ I see that as a bad
sign. The problem is that at a lot of big companies, process becomes a
substitute for thinking. You’re encouraged to behave like a little gear in a
complex machine. Frankly, it allows you to keep people who aren’t that smart,
who aren’t that creative” Elon musk.

Customer happiness and success are different but does Elon Musk care about the
customer’s happiness? Damn right he does.

@elonmusk had a terrible
experience with very pushy sales guy from tesla stanford shop while shopping
for model x.

Customer success is not a project

A tweet by Nick Mehta (CEO of Gainsighthq) of a
slide deck presentation.

“Customer success is a business strategy, not a function, project or
initiative” Jose
Vergara

Can’t agree more but at the same time, we currently apply customer success
thinking in bit parts rather than as a central agreed on strategy hence this
is a timely reminder for us.

First understand the problem, then the issue.

I’ve forgotten who said this but it’s from a sales guy on a youtube video,
hence the inability to google for the rough words.

First understand the problem, then understand the issue. The problem is that
they’re frustrated spending hours dealing with old data in salesforce because
30% of people change jobs every year. The issue is that it costs them $40,000
a month in lost sales because their key contact has now left.

We’ve been trying to do this with our leads but with difficulty. The problem
Upscope solves is, by allowing their
support agents to instantly see the customer’s screen, live chat agents can
enjoy guiding their most difficult time consuming clients from sign up through
to purchase. They know they have the problem but they don’t know the total
cost of the problem. Imagine that.

See a conversation we had with a top sales guy that shows exactly how to be
great at sales while still being focused on customer success:

/blog/a-conversation-that-nails-how-sales-and-customer-success-overlap/