The Stakeholder Flywheel

How often do you hear the word stakeholder? A lot? Not surprising, it’s been used in all sorts of ways and over the years has acquired many meanings. Fifty five according to Friedman and Miles in their book Stakeholders : Theory and Practice. The most commonly...

What Can You Put Into A Work Room 101?

The idea of ‘room 101’ is well known. It was invented in George Orwell’s book, 1984. It was apparently named after a conference room at the BBC in the UK where George Orwell had to sit through tedious meetings. In recent years it has been a TV show...

Prepare To Be Successful

Want to dramatically improve the results you’re getting as a CSM? Before your next customer success conversation do the following. Get a big sheet of paper, split it into 5 columns. In column 1 list the Top 10 ways to improve delivery of value to the customer....

How Far Are You Throwing The Ball?

Some of the latest research into learning is fascinating and upending a lot of what we think we know.   In an experiment to determine whether massed or interleaved practice is better for skills development researchers set up the following.   One group of kids was...

Getting Fit For Customer Success

There is a school of thought that most gains in the gym come from the time your muscles spend under tension. According to this theory lots of reps won’t move the needle much: to improve you need to safely work your muscles under tension as much as possible. At...

Addressing Complexity In Customer Success

Here’s a short list of things that make customer success complex, interesting and hard to get exactly right. Each customer is different and usually wants different results. Each customer usually has multiple stakeholders, each with their own priorities. Getting...