Episode Transcript
The way to find out whether one is a good communicator or not is, to ask open ended questions to this person. So there's a typical one, which is the first one. Tell me a little bit more about yourself. That can be prepared. But what if I asked you in an interview, say, okay, you have one minute. Tell me a story. You pick whatever story. Tell me a story that has a beginning and an end. You have one minute. Hey everybody. It's Antonia back with another episode of QuestionAble Strategy. And the voice you just heard was Marco Carrubba, who is, in my opinion, the king guru of customer success. He's worked as a director at several major companies. I think you've heard of them: Microsoft, VMware, Vodafone. And so I could not think of anybody better to talk about how questions play into day to day work in customer success, and also to explain what customer success is for all of us who might not know. I met Marco many years ago, when he was helping me out with my company, and I can confidently say that he is one of the kindest, funniest, most interesting people. So I knew going into this that we would have an informative and energetic conversation and lo and behold, we did. So get ready to learn more about how customer success directors ask questions with Marco Carrubba. Marco, welcome to Questionable Strategy. It's really nice to have you today. Thank you for having me. I want to start this conversation off by asking you, Who inspired you to be curious? I got my inspiration for curiosity from different people, public figures. Think about scientists, for example, I'm thinking about Einstein. He challenged the way people were thinking, went beyond the box and used his, curiosity and imagination to think and Understand something from a different point of view. Or think about artists that maybe are the start of a movement. I'm thinking of Salvador Dali. Fast forward to now I get my inspiration about curiosity from having the pleasure to do experimentation, to play in a creative way, to discover things. And that fuels my curiosity. Curiosity is all about learning about somebody and learning new things, right? So it's about going beyond the ordinary. Can you give me an example of an exercise that you've done recently that has really sparked your curiosity? So I am connected to the world of startups. I do mentorship to young entrepreneurs. So there's been a number of occasions where, you would think being a mentor means you are there to answer questions, but really is a stimulus for me to discover new ways and and think about I mean, being challenged in a mentorship relationship is what I like, because it opens my mind in a way. For anyone who doesn't know, that's how we met. You were actually one of the mentors who was involved in Techstars when I was a founder in the Techstars London 2021 cohort. And so we've known each other for quite a long time. And I guess. Not to pry, because I'm not trying to make this about me, but there are about two weeks or three weeks at the beginning of Techstars, when founders meet tons and tons of mentors. And back in my day, it was called Mentor Madness. And each of these meetings actually only lasted about 15 minutes. And then you were cut off and it was your job to follow up with the mentors that you connected with the most. So from my perspective as a founder, that was really hectic and it was hard to keep my head wrapped around all of the mentors that I was meeting, but I can imagine that it was really difficult for you as well on the flip side to get a sense of the founders. So what kinds of questions did you like to ask to really get a sense of the startup's potential that quickly? Yeah, absolutely. That's a perfect example. it's like a speed dating, And yes, as a founder you may have, seen yourself repeating the same pitch and maybe judging or selecting the mentor that could help you. But from my point of view, it was very different experience because obviously in those 15 minutes and we had I don't know, 10 startups, I think it was. You would need to focus on that particular market, industry, people, and they were so eager to pitch and present and position themselves. You rarely had the time, to to say anything as a mentor. And in fact I love to break the rules. At the beginning, I will stop them. I dunno if you remember, stop them immediately and say, Hey, I know you, you want to pitch something to me, but let me use 30 seconds to say who I am. And, that will, start the conversation differently for them. So in terms of me looking at, how to fall in love with, the entrepreneurs or the startup, it was from 1 side observing who was speaking. If I had 3 people in front of me, would they, respect each other and each take turns into the conversation? Or what about their ability to explain what they were trying to do in 30 seconds? So it was not much about asking questions. It was a lot more about observing and coming with a clean piece of paper and saying, okay, you have 14 minutes because one I used for my intro. Let me understand what you want to do. I think that's great because it may not outwardly seem like it's about questions, but you just listed off a couple of questions that you just had in your head that you're thinking about. And for all the founders out there, I mean, I know that's really mind blowing for me to hear because when I was pitching as a founder, it was all about how much information can I stuff into this conversation, and how can I convince you that my company is great? When now I know you were probably just looking to see how I interacted with my founder and how energized I got about what I was talking about. You hopefully were listening to a little bit of what I was saying, but in those 15 minutes, if you don't have that much time to take in so much content being dumped on you, what you can focus on instead is getting to know the person for who they are or getting a sense of a person in the team dynamic. Correct. And I think, everybody can deliver a pitch, right? I mean, obviously there's good pitches, bad pitches, good delivery, bad Hey, I worked really hard for a long time on my pitches. no, I know. know. No. And I think it also is a dynamic preparation. It's a little bit like the interviewing process, right? Everybody's Oh, you're going to get that. question, initial question, tell me more about yourself, right? And, everyone has their own pitch prepared, but then it evolves, over time. So if you do 10 interviews, 20 interviews, you may see that your initial pitch is different, right? So over the years, if I can move just a second on to the interviewing process, which is something that for my job, I do regularly. Obviously depends on the job, but if I think about what I do, which is customer success part of the job is being in front of a customer and being able to address a question, a challenge or a conflict with the customer. And obviously when you say the customer, it's about human to human, right? So on the other side, you may have whatever kind and type of person. It could be a polite person. It could be a very rude person. It can be a nervous person, all sorts of situations, right? So in my interviews, and this is a trick if anybody will, ever, be on the other side in the context of an interview, I like to see how people react to unexpected situations. And I try to find, in the interview, those clues that help me doing something maybe weird sometimes. So let me give you an example. And I know there's one person who maybe is listening and will recognize this situation, but. Shout out to them. We were in an interview and I see a dog barking in the background. So the person was answering a question and I say, "Oh, hold on a second. Is that your dog?" And she says "no, it's not my dog." Okay. And she continues with the answer to the question. I'm like "no. Whose dog is that?" And she says, the neighbor's dog," okay. And she continues with the answer. I'm like no. "Do you know the name of the dog?" And I can tell it's like, why is this guy? And what I'm trying to probe here is the real situation of being in front of a customer who is just acting in a weird way. How do you manage that? Right? I'm in an interview. I'm under pressure. I need to do things properly, but at the same time, same happens with a customer, right? You are in front of a customer, you need to behave and the customer is acting strangely. How do you manage this situation? So we go on with these kind of questions weird questions during the interview. And obviously, that person gets derailed. And then what I test is the ability of that person to bring the conversation back into okay "Sorry, but you were asking me a question, so let me answer that question and then we can sort out the dog" or maybe another reaction is I'm, sorry, does the dog bother you?" I mean I can do something if you just let me, you know stand up and go and speak to my neighbor," Whatever. Yeah. So that's the perfect ending of the situation. And it's not about what you say, it's about how you manage these with me. I think that's great. And that reminds me of the way that you were thinking about potential startups that you'd work with in Techstars in Mentor Madness, right? It's about getting to know somebody for who they are versus what they're necessarily telling you, which comes as a shock to all of us who are either trying to pitch our companies or try and pitch ourselves for a job. Sometimes it's not all about what it is that you've prepared and what you're saying. Of course, it's important to put a lot of effort into that, but there are internal questions that your interviewer is asking themselves, pieces of information that don't come from verbal answers. Yeah. And that's why when you said, what kind of questions did you ask because obviously it was only 15 minutes, right? So for me, it was a challenge to understand are these people, do they know what they're talking about? Are they, good team players? Because that's probably the most important thing if you are a startupper. Yeah, definitely. The idea is a given. Yeah. You need good people around you to develop that idea. And most importantly, you need to change course continuously. It's a little bit like managing your career. You say, I want to be an astronaut, but then only a few become astronauts, right? All the others go other places. It's not because they can't be astronauts. It's because in the meantime, they discover that maybe they like to be. I don't know A baker. Yes, exactly. And so that, that is what you want to find when I do mentoring, because then going along with these people, it means that it's a good way of finding something new, fueling my creativity and pleasing my curiosity. You mentioned earlier that your career has been in customer success. For those of us who may not know, what role does a customer success team play in a company? So in a company, and obviously it depends what industry, it depends also what economic model you choose for the for your sales. Because up to a few years ago, you would have companies that would sell a product or a service, full stop. These days you have that idea of non ownership. So the idea that companies or customers, more than companies, customers don't buy a product or a service, they actually rent it. And it goes from renting a car to renting a software. So there's a wonderful thing called SaaS in the technical industry. Which stands for software as a service. Just if people don't know what SaaS is. It's not a sassy person. no, No, not at all. And that means that what you are buying is not the product. You are buying the rights to use a product. So you're renting effectively. And so in all these companies, What we call the sales cycle has changed from the past. So there is a former sales phase, which is think about the marketing people and the sales people. And this is really about positioning a product and ensuring that the customer understands how the product can help them. And then going through prices, discounts, terms and conditions, and an agreement for the customer to buy. But then in a SaaS world, you actually will make most of the money, not by selling a product, but by ensuring that the customer keeps using the product because as they are renting, they pay money. And so there's all these phases called post sales. Where you need people, processes, tools, and these days, automation AI to ensure that a customer doesn't have buyer's remorse. They understand the value, and they continue to be customers, hence paying the rental fee. So a customer success team sits in the post sales motion, and they do two things. They ensure that the customer understands the value of what they buy. They do that, for as long as possible, because that means that they pay money. And the second thing that the customer success team does is it ensures a flow of revenues into the company, so that the company can sustain that product. They can develop new features. They can improve it. It also helps the customers connect with the product team so that actually the company is developing a product that is really useful to customers. So in a way they look after the customers and they simplify the complexity of maybe a large corporation on behalf of the customer. When you first start working with a customer, what kinds of questions do you ask them to get a sense of what they need? So the process starts in the sales phase, right? So you would hope that your marketing people, your sales people are there to identify a need from a customer. And then when they sell something it's because they made that connection and they say, "Hey, look, customer, your ambition is to do this. My product can help you." And so when a customer success team or a customer success manager gets the ownership of the relationship there's an initial phase where they basically identify what are the success criteria of a customer? So suppose a customer wants to use a product to improve productivity of their people. So they may select a messaging product. And so a customer success manager would interact, with the business people to understand, what is the purpose of having these new messaging products? How do you measure success? And then there is a start of a relationship between the customer success manager and people at the customer. And in a way you want the customer success manager to become part of the team. In doing so obviously understands what the priorities are, understands what, what progress is, and then brings the voice of that customer within the company. Wow. Okay. So that's really interesting to hear about almost being integrated into the company that you're working with that just means that you get tossed into lots of different situations when you need to learn new technologies and you need to get really familiar with different industries that you may not have otherwise known that much about. How do you go about learning about those industries in the beginning? This is a wonderful question. The reason I say that is that I tend to hire and I'm not alone, of course, but I tend to select people to join a customer success team, partially because of their skills, but mainly because of their attitude. I want to have people that are able to, show empathy, that genuinely want to help that are positive, that want to learn about new things. And I don't really care if they don't know about an industry or a specific product, because I think I can teach this to them. In an ideal world, you want to get people who are happy to learn and then you want to give them opportunities for learning. And this is what we call a growth mindset. Growth mindset is this idea that people are not born with all the skills. On the contrary, they are people that want to learn new skills and they do that in different ways. They do that by making mistakes. They do that by saying, sorry, I don't know that. Let me find it out. They do that by reaching out to people that know. And if you have a company and you can instill this culture of growth mindset, it really is very powerful because you end up being able to address a lot of situations. And if there is anything you don't know, there is no retaliation. People are not ashamed of saying that, they need to find out, and that's very powerful. I mean, we're not talking about superhumans here. We're talking about people that may not know something, but they are eager to learn. As you've built out your teams at multiple different companies, what are the greatest indicators of a growth mindset? I think there's two things. One is the system. You need to have a company that understands that growth mindset is a very powerful asset. So let me give you an example. There's a lot of companies talking about and empowering people to do courses, et cetera, et cetera. But then at the same time, are these companies giving time to people to learn? Because that's key, right? It's very easy for a company to say, here's 10 mandatory courses you have to do. But then, up to you on when you find the time to do those, and by the way, I'm gonna give you 150% the customers that you should have and there's a lot of admin tasks to be done and you are required to come to the team meetings and blah, blah, blah. And so that's not the growth mindset. As a system, you want to say, okay, I want you to elevate your exposure to very influential commercial or business people at the customer. So I want to empower you by giving you the learnings and skills to have meaningful conversations with these people. In order to do so, I'm going to protect your time and I'm going to say that this day is learning day for the whole company. So we all stop our internal meetings. You can put your out of office. And, ensure that you're only available for customers in an emergency. But this day we all study together or we do a book club about this business book that I gave you to read rather than, being alone and finding your own time in in the evening or in during the weekend. So that's one, one thing, the system. The other thing is obviously selecting the right people. And usually you do that either interviewing. So when you're hiring people, you try to find the people that love to learn. Or at the same time you change, you try to change the mindset of the people that are in your company to say that learning is important. And there are techniques and tactics that you can apply for both of them. What have you seen as being the strongest signal from an individual applying to be on one of your teams that they do have this growth mindset? Is there one example that comes to mind? Well, I can tell you and I'm giving away a lot of tricks here for interviews, but I think it's useful. That's what we're here for! I know, I know. And that's okay. That's part of the preparation in any case. So one of the questions that I ask, for example, is what is the last time that you enjoyed learning? And if the answer is immediate and it's Oh, Gen AI, I'll just love it." Then whatever it is, I don't care, but it means you have spent time. learning something new. If the person is hesitant, then it is an indicator that something may not be good there. Because if you are with a growth mindset, you really want to learn new things. It's a little bit like before I said, which is a parallel topic, empathy or being a an altruist, which I think is a trait for customer success managers, because when you are in front of a customer, you want to listen in, generally want to help, and some of the times, it's about challenges and problems that the customer has. So sometimes there's no real or immediate solution. You want to be empathetic and understand the customer. So how do you. Probe all these things. When is the last time that you volunteered? What was it? Did you enjoy it? Why did you do it? That's how you probe if a person is altruist. What about ways to probe and see if somebody's a good communicator? That is is a tricky one because some companies give a challenge or a presentation that people have to give during an interview. But that can be prepared. It's a tricky one, right? Because if you're being interviewed, most probably you're nervous because you have to prove yourself or position yourself and you know in half an hour or whatever right small amount of time. But also from the other side it's about taking the right decision, right? You don't want to pick somebody who cannot be put up for success. So The way to find out whether one is a good communicator or not is to ask open ended questions to this person. So there's a typical one, which is the first one. Tell me a little bit more about yourself. That can be prepared. But what if I asked you in an interview, say, okay, you have one minute. Tell me a story. You pick whatever story. Tell me a story that has a beginning and an end. You have one minute. That's so good. That is one of those questions that you can't really, I mean, it's so unusual that you can't prepare. At Is so good. I love that so much. Wow. Where have you picked up these unique interview questions? Are they things that you've experimented with? Are they questions that you've been asked? I think it's a mix, to be honest. Some of the questions I got asked. I really enjoy having interviews with a panel, two or more interviewers, because that's something that gives you a different point of view. Some of them I prepared, right? Because I wanted to go beyond the ordinary hiring of people. Customer success is a very peculiar job. There's no sacred book that says how to do it. It's a little bit of an art. And it's interesting because you can get a lot of professionals coming from different fields, different studies. And then if you span this thinking of diversity, it's a mix of the usual gender, ethnicity, languages, but then you can go beyond, right? You can, what about, different walk of life, right? What about people that have had different experiences? Let me give you an example. We were having a number of interviews and a gentleman was selected to speak to us. And he was a flight attendant. And so nothing to do with our industry. But he had some characteristics, right? He was customer facing, potentially addressing challenging situations in terms of relationships, customers complaining or not behaving, being under stress. I mean, there were a number of characteristics that were very welcome for the job this person would have done with us, but that person was coming from a completely different background. I'm so glad that you brought diversity because you're a major champion of diversity, equity, and inclusion within the customer success community in particular. Aside from leveling the playing field when it comes to job opportunities for people from different backgrounds, what have you seen as being the greatest benefits to the customers that you work with of having a diverse customer success team? I think we tend to think about customers as an entity, but in reality, it's people again. And so these people are themselves very different and diverse. And so in an ideal situation, you want to have much as dimensions of diversity that you can in your team, because two reasons. One reason is it is proven with a number of studies, people that come from diverse backgrounds, when you mix them up, they come up with solutions which fit the purpose, but at the same time, are maybe not written on any book. Yeah. And so you want to have that diversity in your team. But then the second thing is that if you have a team with different representations in different dimensions, you may have the opportunity to couple a specific person in your team with a specific person at your customer. So think about, for example, neurodiversity. I have this experience where I had a person with a disability in my team. And we had a customer with the same disability. So what we did is we put those two people together. And guess what? They spoke the same language. And so that was perfect, right? So you want to have a lot of diversity because your team behaves better, learns faster, comes up with creative solutions, but also you can really help customers in a more between quotes, intimate way because they share the same challenges. I think that's a really beautiful way to put it because a lot of people might think of diversity as Almost weakening a team because you're bringing in people with a really niche experience or a niche set of skills, but really what you're saying is that the combination of all of those people really strengthens it because you're covering a lot of ground. Sure, each person has their specific story, and that might be really unique or really out there. But it's not necessarily the case that a single person with one type of background can only be the person to help out a specific customer because they have that same background. Like in that one case of the two folks who shared the same disability, that was really helpful. But I think that people might also fall into the trap of thinking, Oh, this person is only good for customers of this type, and that's not the case. Not at all. I mean, when you talk about diversity, it's not just the classical, gender, language, industry diversity. It goes beyond. There's a lot of dimensions of diversity, some of which you're not aware of entirely. And also when there are interactions with, a company customer, it is very often many to many, right? So there's a lot of combination, a lot of things. So that example about the disability, it was maybe, that worked out because it was a strong evidence of that difference. But let me give you another example, right? So if you think about cultures, for example, I mean, cultures, behave very differently in many areas, right? Think about how you give feedback to people. How does authority play depending on the culture? And and these things are very innate, right? So I'm from Italy, to me or to my people or to my ethnicity, feedback cannot be extremely direct. It comes as an offense, right? So when you provide feedback to people like me, you have to be careful and you know, be kind and take the time to provide feedback. It's not right or wrong. It's just a different sensibility. And so if I am within the team and I have other people coming from other cultures, where instead feedback is direct, then it is very healthy for me to learn from those other people in a safe environment. Because with my customer, I may find people that are coming from my culture or a different culture. So I need to tune my way of providing feedback, and where can I learn it from? From my safe environment, which is my team. So the concept and idea of diversity is very precious because if I have a way for my team to interact, know each other, be open be in a psychological safe state where they can ask questions to each other, then they can learn from each other, and then they can apply that learning with their customers or with their relationships. So it's very powerful, the idea of having a diverse team because it's all about being curious, going back to our original question, and it's all about learning and respecting people. In a similar vein, you mentioned that you're Italian and proudly so. You now live and have worked in London for many years. Are there any key differences between the ways in which Italian and English people specifically express their curiosity? Oh, yes, I think we tend and obviously I'm generalizing, right? I mean, there's a world in between cultures. It's true. That's my fault. I'm asking you to generalize. No, No, exactly. I mean, Italians may be frowning, uh, hearing this, but, probably as Italians, we tend to be more open in terms of conversation. And I mean, we. I'm thinking about is a brainstorming process, which is part of the curiosity, right? Curiosity is about discovering new things. And so you may end up being in an environment where you want to exchange opinions with others, right? And questioning and talking. So Italians tend to use the words a lot. They may be more open with people that they don't really know. Because they may ask more, not embarrassing questions, but more, questions that maybe a British person may ask later in the process.;. Of the relationship. More personal questions. Yeah, more personal questions. Italians tend to use their body to gesticulate. In fact, people are listening to this, but you are watching me here now and I'm using my hands. And so that may be intimidating in a way or putting British people off. So yes, there are some differences. And I guess the other difference is language. As you said, I've been living in London for quite some time now. But language is still not my language, right? Sometimes I feel different because I don't have the proper words, or sometimes I feel different because I don't have the same cultural heritage. Think about movies, not movies, maybe not, but TV shows of the seventies, eighties, I don't have that background. So when I'm in a conversation with British people, I may miss some connections and some words because of that.. Shifting gears a little bit because this podcast is oriented towards young professionals, I hear all the time that it's important to sell yourself on social media and on LinkedIn specifically. Your LinkedIn is probably the most thorough LinkedIn profile I have ever seen in my life. And it seems like you've done everything you can to address anyone's questions about your qualifications before they even speak to you. What are the key questions to address when you're building your LinkedIn or resume to present yourself more effectively? First of all, thank you very much for the good words. I actually enjoy interacting on LinkedIn. So it's it's not there just because it represents your brand. But I really use LinkedIn in a very proactive and positive way. I've met so many people from LinkedIn. I learned so many things and it's also a way to express my opinion and voice on certain themes and certain areas and by the way just to go back I always go on the LinkedIn profile of the people I have to interview because I want to see you know if they have an opinion or what they say. Because LinkedIn doesn't lie. What I mean is, So let me go back maybe to the time when we met a few years ago. I, I've always been kind of a corporate guy. If you see on my experience, always been with big companies, large corporations, but also always had this keen interest in the startup ecosystem. So I would go to startup events and people would ask me, tell me about yourself. Why are you here? Yeah, while you're here, and obviously you can tune that and and present yourself in a certain way, but then people go on LinkedIn and it's like a business card, right? People go there and they learn about you, and they learn about your opinions. And, obviously you can ensure that your looks after a certain number of topics. So for me, for example, it's customer success, leadership, diversity, inclusion, and all those opportunities for having fun when you are in team, in a business, traveling and all these things. But the idea here is just be genuine, right? Don't make it up because it doesn't lie. Just use it as a way of networking. If I am completely new to the scene, if I've just graduated from university, and I don't have a LinkedIn, what are two questions that I should keep in mind that I want anybody looking at my LinkedIn profile to walk away knowing the answers to? I think when you start your career, it's important to show that you want to contribute, but at the same time you want to learn about things. And so I know it may be challenging to get an internship or a proper job at the beginning, but I'm sure that you have done a lot of things, right? So you may have done volunteering, you may have done a specific project. You may have studied something. So there's always a way to show these things up and I'm not saying just list them up. What I mean is, if you're doing volunteering, just share your experience of volunteering when you do things, because at the beginning of a career journey, people want to see that you're eager to learn and to have experiences. So certainly don't leave it there with no information. It's a very powerful tool. The other way to do this is to interact with people that you think you could benefit from. So if you have an interest in gen AI, there's nothing wrong in connecting with a number of experts or people that are active in that area. And then maybe, asking a question, making a comment about what they post. So showing that you are interested and active. I think that's important. Not every employee would go and look at your LinkedIn profile, but somebody like me would certainly do it. I especially love that suggestion of using a question to break the ice with somebody that you don't know, who you might want to be your mentor, or you might want to learn something from. Because that really demonstrates that you've read what they've written, or you've tried their product. You aren't just trying to blow smoke up their ass and give them empty compliments. You actually have something that you want to start a conversation about, or you want to learn more about. I think that's a great way of approaching somebody. If somebody did that to me, I would certainly be really excited to talk to them. Absolutely. And, And, you never know, right? Because I have a lot of experiences where people, whom I have interacted with on LinkedIn eventually reached out with a DM and then asked, can we share coffee or can I get some of your time?" And I'm always happy to do that. And again, remember what I said at the beginning, for me, mentoring is about helping, giving back, but also being challenged and learning new things. So it's it's nice. I really like this kind of interactions. So you never know, right? You may end up actually being mentored by your hero in a specific area. That happens way more than you'd think. So if you're listening to this podcast, just know that's not a random one in a million Cinderella story. That actually happens all the time and that's happened for me and all it takes is really just reaching out and taking initiative. Another question that I have is sometimes it can be difficult to know what exactly you're good at in a professional capacity. Are there questions or internal reflections that have been helpful to you when thinking about yourself and your professional experience? Simply ask others. So again culture is a big divider here. So in Anglo Saxon cultures, in the UK, in the US, it's okay to go to the others and say, am I doing this good?" Or even your boss may come to you and say, you fucked this up." But in other cultures could be different. But really, it's about getting feedback from the others. So there's many ways that these can be done in many of the companies. You have this concept of 360, where you basically select a number of people and these people are sent questions about things that you are doing good or bad, and then you get all these statistics. It's all anonymous. But you get a lot of value out of it. And then you can do a little bit of analysis and understand what you're good at, where you need to focus to improve, or maybe where you need to completely change your mindset or way of behavior because you're not good at something. I want to jump back to talking about customer success You've worked at a lot of companies that are highly technical. So if you don't have a deep technical background, how do you go about answering customers' technical questions when you may not be an expert yourself? I think, obviously, the answer is it depends, right? It depends on the size of the company. It depends on how the company is set up. It depends on how many products you have. I think you can learn. It's all about, energy, time, and dedication to something, right? Everybody can learn anything. That's my belief. The point here is, suppose you are in a cybersecurity company and you need to be technical. That's a deeply technical environment. It will probably take you a lot of time and a lot of effort. Again, you can do it, but you need to probably deep dive into a number of topics before you master it. Instead, on the other side, if you have a company with generic products and a portfolio of 300 products, then the company itself would not expect that you are deep technical. And so that company will probably prepare you to a base level just to have a conversation, maybe not just even to solve any problem, but just to understand what the issue could be and then call upon the experts to solve that problem. So I think it's a very complex answer. And it also depends on you. Are you a technical person? Are you a more strategic person? If you are a technical person, then you probably want to find industries and companies where they expect that somebody like a customer success manager is also a technical person because it's there to understand what the customer needs, but also to solve specific problems. But I see most of the companies have a very complex structure. Customer success manager, usually, unless it's a startup with one product, then that person is probably going to be a more of a strategic person, but have connections with the experts and they call upon the experts. So it depends combination of company and your willingness to deep dive into technical. Are there instances where the customer thinks that they know what they need, but they really don't? And how do you uncover that in order to help them? Oh gosh, that's that's a a dangerous question. Um, We like to ask those here. Yeah, absolutely So there are customers who know what they're doing. They are maybe at the forefront of Using a technology or a product. And it's a pleasure to work with them. Some other customers are on the other side of the spectrum. They don't have the, maybe the people, but I mean, really the budget, right? They're like, we would like to use this technology, but we only have three people and they do everything. So they cannot be experts. So it's about trying to give those people education or maybe with the experts from the company, etc. But then there's other people in the middle, as you said, that they think they know what they're doing, but in fact, they do not. And so that's a very tricky exercise because basically the idea is that because you have a number of experiences as a customer success manager, you may have had interactions with other customers maybe competitors of your customer. And you know that in that particular industry, the way to go in a certain topic is a certain way, but your customer wants to go another way. So you need to understand, is that another way actually going to be effective and it's just, they found a new way to solve the problem? Or are they going to crash eventually? And I think you have to go back to that mindset of okay, I need to be part of the customer team. So if I feel that they are going the wrong way, I need to respectfully ensure that they understand it. And so I can bring examples from other customers. I can bring my experts in to explain. So there are ways, but yes, there are those customers that think they know what they're doing and they are not. But that's the value of having a customer success manager. Right. It's okay, listen, other customers have tried that way. It just doesn't work. Don't waste your time. So you brought up working with other customers in the same industry and using that experience to help active customers. Is there a non compete clause or some kind of moral code that you adhere to as a customer success manager? Because you're, you're entering a company as a member of their team and you're being deeply embedded in that. You may have companies that want to sign NDAs and that's perfectly fine. When you do these cross company conversations, you're not really sharing any secrets per se. What you're doing is you are in a way, leveraging the industry experience to ensure that, you can help your customers the right way without compromising the business or the confidentiality of the other customers. You may be surprised on how customer communities are actually very vibrant and very, close and very collaborative. If you put competitors in a room, and you have them talk about your technology, your product, or the way the industry is going, they end up sharing. There may be glitches and that's the competitive advantage, but everybody finds a lot of value into shaping an industry together, rather than going solo. So you're not spoiling any secrets, but there's a lot of value in ensuring that companies shape an industry. And you can still have disruptors, you can still have creative approaches. But there's a lot of collaboration as well. That's a really beautiful sentiment. That's so nice to know that's what's happening on the inside of these massively innovative industries. So Marco, this has been lovely. I have one last question for you though. And this is a question that I ask everybody. What is one question that you like to work into a conversation, whether it's at work or in a social setting that really helps you get to know someone? The question I love to ask every time is: where are you from? I think, and what I mean is obviously not just where you were born, but what is your ethnicity, right? What language do you dream? What food do you eat? Where do you feel at home? Because that tells a lot of things. it's like my way to quickly decode a lens that can bring me closer to the person. Because having traveled and having met a lot of people, I really like the idea of learning about different ways on how people do different things. And it has become kind of a challenging question over the years for me, because you hear a lot about people that maybe don't really feel comfortable or maybe feel upset because their color of the skin is different or because they have an accent or for whatever reason, they feel a little bit annoyed by the question. And so, I can't ask that question as the first question, and depending on the environment, obviously it comes out eventually. But now my style is that I come out first, right? So I say, I'm Italian, where do you come from?" And that usually is a much more softer approach to the question. I have two things to say on that. The first is, I think that's an especially important question to both of us, as people who are living in a country that we did not grow up in. So I tend to get that question a lot because I have a different accent than most of the people that I meet here. And for anyone who doesn't know, I live in London, and so does Marco. So I think that we both tend to get that question a lot, and then when we're in situations when we're interacting with people who also don't seem like native Londoners, we get especially excited because we can bond with that person over not being from this place. So it's always a really nice conversation. And, and I, I love, I love having that conversation, too. Yeah My second point is, as somebody who's half Chinese, I'm very ethnically ambiguous. And so growing up, I used to get that question a lot. And this was walking around New York City, which is where I grew up and is where I'm from. I'm American. But people would ask me, No, where are you really from?" And that's when the tone and adding the extra word "really" implies that you're not actually from where you claim to be from, and that can be alienating. And so personally, I've encountered situations where that question has been uncomfortable, but I still continue to ask the question myself, just with a friendly, curious, excited tone. And I find that usually cuts through any presumed awkwardness or othering that could make people feel uncomfortable. Totally agree. I've really enjoyed this conversation. Every time we chat, I just learn so much, and I really appreciate you coming on Questionable Strategy. And I think all of my listeners do as well. Thank you very much, Antonia. Thanks everyone for listening so far. And it's been a pleasure having this conversation with you all. I'm just going to reiterate what I said at the beginning of this episode, which is Marco is just one of the most fun kind people I've met throughout my experience as a founder. He is such a wonderful mentor. He's very open, has a ton of experience and just a great listener all around. So I'm so grateful that he would come on this podcast and have this conversation with me. I know that customer success is an increasingly popular path, especially within tech, but also a lot of people don't know what it is. So, I appreciated him coming on and explaining what he does, And how he thinks day to day. Now I really loved the question that he left us with at the end. Where are you from?" We also got into a little conversation about it afterwards, about how it can be a kind of touchy question to ask. I spoke from experience about how I've been asked, "where are you from?" in a kind of racist way, so I know how that question can make people feel when it's not asked from a place of kindness and positive curiosity. That also means though that I ask that question all the time and I'm really, dare I say, well equipped to ask it in a way that I'm sure isn't going to offend people. I actually went into asking this question in the wild with a great deal of confidence because I know that there are a couple of things that are important to keep in mind when asking somebody where they're from, which is you need to ask it with positive intent. You also need to make it not that big a deal. You can be excited to hear somebody's answer, but you don't want to be too excited that it makes them feel like a circus animal. And also you want to avoid asking this question after that person has done something that may be considered out of the cultural norm of the place where you currently are. Let's just say if somebody does something or commits a social faux pas of some sort, you don't want your follow up question to be, "where are you from?" That just makes them feel like they've done something really wrong, and it'll make them feel really self conscious. So bearing all of that in mind, it's otherwise really safe to ask people where they're from if you're doing it with kindness. So over the weekend, I made a, what some might call, a pilgrimage to a pub in London called The Black Dog. And the significance of The Black Dog is that Taylor Swift has a whole song talking about this pub on her new album, The Tortured Poets Department. I walked into this pub sat down, got myself a drink, and was talking with the bartender. A couple minutes after I showed up, this woman also walked into The Black Dog alone and she ordered some food and she ordered a drink and she sat down and I could tell that her accent sounded a lot like mine. And so I turned over to her after she had ordered her food right next to me and I just said, Hey, where are you from?" And it was perfect. This situation was cosmically aligned because she said, "oh, I'm from Chicago." That was perfect because I, as a New Yorker who has spent some time in Chicago, have a lot to say on this matter. We can connect on an American level, but also, I have stories. I know things about landmarks in Chicago, I've had great meals in Chicago, so. I had a ton that I could talk to her about. Not only was she from Chicago, but she was born and raised in Washington, D. C., which is a city that I worked in for a summer. So that was just phase two of this cosmic alignment. That naturally prompted the follow on question of "why did you go to Chicago?" And she said, well, I've started working in customer success for a tech company. Phase three of Cosmic Alignment, because this whole episode, which I had recorded, was with Marco Carrubba, who is a director of Customer Success, so I know something about Customer Success that I could talk to her about. But then it gets crazier because phase four of cosmic alignment is, she tells me, I'm working in Customer Success, but you know what, it's fun, but it's not my passion. I actually went to Chicago because I do improv comedy." And now, ladies and gentlemen, most of you are just getting to know me, but those who know a little bit more about me at this point know that I also do improv comedy. So you have no idea how thrilled I was to hear that this woman does improv in Chicago of all places, which is like, the Mecca of improv comedy. Anyway, I don't think you need to hear any more details about this conversation. You already know, with all of these details falling perfectly into place, we had so much to talk about. And it all started because of the where are you from?" question, which is a perfect way to engage in a conversation with a complete stranger. Maybe I was lucky that I just found somebody that I had an unreasonable amount of things in common with. But I think the bottom line is, if you're interested in approaching somebody, if you've got some sort of hint that they may be from where you're from, the where are you from?" question is just the perfect way to get your foot in the door and start this conversation. I think she and I ended up talking for about two and a half hours. Two complete strangers. And that, folks, is how a beautiful friendship starts. And what a lovely note to end this episode of Questionable Strategy on. This has been an episode of QuestionAble Strategy. I'm your host, Antonia Hellman, and if you like what you just heard, go back. We've got some great episodes already up with practical tips that you can apply to asking questions in your everyday life. And in fact, here's a question that you can go and ask your friends: Have you listened to QuestionAble Strategy?" And if their answer is no, just send them the link. And while you're at it, follow, like, subscribe, leave a review. It all helps. Let me know what you're interested in hearing about and who you're interested in hearing from. Where there's a will, there's a way, and we can get them on the podcast. Till then I'm Antonia Hellman, and I will see you next time.
