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Our CCO, Ashvin Vaidyanathan, recently listened to a podcast with SaaStr founder Jason Lemkin about “16 Rookie Errors Founders Make Pitching to VCs”. Ashvin distilled his learnings from the session and applied them to CS professionals. 

Here are a few highlights:

  • Make that email to a customer count. Give props to their teammates whom you work with regularly. Share some value metrics (“YTD we’ve saved you $X in costs”). If you don’t have value metrics, share some adoption metrics (“your company is among the top 20 percentile of users among all our customers”). Ask for a minimal amount of time (“15-20 mins works best”) and offer something back to them for their time.
  • Send your deck as a PDF and not a link. This also means your deck should present itself if you’re not there to present it. For example, each slide’s title should summarize the takeaways from the slide, and the story should flow smoothly to the reader.
  • For an EBR, knowing you may lose an exec’s attention after the first 15 mins or so, write an Executive Summary that captures the key insights and critical decisions required.

For more details and tips from Ashvin for CSMs, check out this blog post!

 

Great new article @ashvin_vaidyanathan! So many of these statements are true for QBRs and other key CSM touchpoints with customers. I particularly like the points on not getting “cagey” with answers. And to not go in too strong or too weak.

It’s important for CSMs to know their world and ensure they can answer comfortably when ever customers answer super pointed questions or give strong feedback. You don’t have to turn into Conor McGregor and drop the gloves. As the article states, “Being direct (and honest) builds trust. With VCs sor customers] you want to build trust quickly, if you can.  Especially over Zooms.”

Bring your game day face and be ready to win the customer over or discuss a success plan that truly drives their success. Don’t be too weak or two strong on the success you can drive with them. Don’t promise stuff you can never deliver and don’t under promise the value you can bring. Make sure the goals you set in the success plan are outcomes that will drive significant value. 

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