I had the great fortune of working at ExactTarget in its heyday from 2005 until the day the business was sold and integrated into Salesforce in 2013. My first gig was as an SMB Account Manager. The account management function was just starting to grow and the segmentation strategy was just starting to unfold. At one point I had several hundred accounts in my name and couldn’t keep my days and nights straight. I was learning at a feverish pace and had a seat on what turned out to be one of the biggest rocket ships SaaS has ever seen.
I also had the opportunity of working with what would turn out to be one of the best mentors of my career, Shelly Griffin. Together we built ExactTarget’s SMB existing business team over several years and earned a reputation for having one of the highest performing teams and best team cultures in the organization. I often reflect on those years within the SMB team and the relationships and experiences that I was so lucky to have an opportunity to build. I also like to think about the many lessons that I learned during that time.
Of all the lessons, there is one that I come back to frequently…the importance of being curious. Shelly used to always talk about the importance of being curious. We used to talk about it often as we were interviewing new candidates for roles on the team, working renewal cycles and upsell conversations, or positioning new solutions to customers.
Why is being curious so important in customer success? For me, it comes down to two simple reasons.
1. Being curious directly aligns to continuous learning. There is always more to learn and understand when navigating and managing relationships. It is dangerous to assume that you have all of the answers, and by being curious you are able to get to the root cause of a situation and leverage that information to your advantage. Being curious also challenges you to think differently. As you attain more information and context, you are presented an opportunity to gain new perspective. Perspective is critical as you are working with people from different backgrounds who have different experience and needs.
2. Being curious prepares you for leading. Leadership opportunities are presented on a daily basis no matter your role or title. Those that are asking questions, working hard to understand the needs of the key stakeholders, and are putting in the effort to prepare are best positioned to make valuable contributions. This is extremely helpful when managing customers. Customers expect to be led down a path of value attainment. Those in customer-facing roles who are directly impacting the outcome that the customer will receive must be doing whatever they can to ensure the customer is successful. This starts with being curious about the key problems a customer is trying to solve and working hard to understand their ultimate goals. The better the information is collected from customers, the better positioned you become to present appropriate and valuable recommendations and solutions.
I appreciate the power of curiosity more than ever before. In customer management, in particular, it is a critical skill that I believe can be the difference between a good customer success manager or leader and a bad one.
Be curious!
