Customer Success Executive and Churnbreaker | 3x SaaS Startup Exits | Customer Retention Expert | Outcome-Driven, Collaborative Innovator
Most Customer Success "experts" on LinkedIn are far less experienced than they think, and following their advice will actively hurt your career by preventing you from developing the skills that a Customer Success leader ACTUALLY needs. I'm gonna show you how to spot them by telling you about muay thai. When I started doing muay thai, I wanted to learn all the cool action-movie stuff: the flying knee, the spinning elbow, things like that. But in real life you have to spend your first couple years working on more mundane things, like your footwork, your jab, your body kick. I played around with the flashy stuff here and there, but it was 3 or 4 years before I *really* got into all those fancy moves. Once I did, I was all about it. Couldn't stop talking about how effective they were. I thought I was pretty badass. But you know what happened every time I fought more experienced people? They'd kick my ass without *any* of that stuff. Because the vast majority of the time, those flying knees and spinning elbows are just distractions. By now I've been doing muay thai for more than a decade, and you know what I focus on these days? The same fundamentals I focused on at the beginning. The flashy moves are just too niche to be as impactful, but the fundamentals will be there for you every time. That fancy AI software, or this year's hot new KPI, or whatever book everyone's reading this month and will have forgotten by Q4... those things won't save you. Most of the time they'll just distract you. We're in the business of retaining and expanding our clients, and you know what *really* does that? Demonstrating value. Making them successful. Showing them their ROI. And yeah, I know you can find some company where the fancy AI software was exactly what they needed, just like you can find fights that were won with a flying knee. But you know what wins 99% of fights? Your footwork, your jab, your body kick. They don't make for a sexy highlight reel or a best-selling business book, but they WORK. Every. Single. Time. (But of course, you can't make yourself an influencer by repeating that point every day for years on end, can you?) So if you're trying to develop yourself, and someone keeps telling you about the spinning elbows and flying knees of the Customer Success world, they're probably a lot less experienced than they think. And if you go chasing after all that action-movie stuff, you're gonna realize in a few years that YOU'RE way less experienced than you think.
