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🎙️ New Episode Alert: Mastering CS - Candid Leader Insights 🎙️ In our latest episode, Irina C., Head of Marketing at Custify, sits down with Renata Kashiwaya Pinheiro, VP of Customer Success at Zaptic, to dive into her inspiring journey from biology to tech leadership! 🎧 What You’ll Learn: - How to transition into Customer Success from other industries and roles - Positioning Customer Success as a key function in early-stage startups - Balancing sales, product, and CS for sustainable growth - Leveraging technology to scale CS teams effectively - Managing customer requests and setting expectations with transparency Don’t miss this episode filled with career-changing insights and actionable strategies for every CS professional!

🎙️ New Episode Alert: Mastering CS - Candid Leader Insights 🎙️ In our latest episode, we're thrilled to have Alexandre Kinapenne, Head of Customer Success at Nodalview, join our very own Irina Cismas, Head of Marketing at Custify, for an in-depth conversation on Customer Success! Tune in to hear Alexandre share his incredible journey in CS, the challenges he overcame, and the strategies that have helped him and his team thrive. Key Takeaways: 🚀The importance of having a growth mindset in leadership. 🔧 Structuring a high-impact CS team that balances reactive and proactive efforts. 📊 Leveraging data and automation to monitor customer health and drive success. 🤝 Overcoming challenges with a customer-centric approach that delivers value. This episode is packed with actionable insights for CSMs and leaders alike—don't miss it! 💡

📚 Book Review: "Who Does What By How Much?: A Practical Guide to Customer-Centric OKRs" by Jeff Gothelf & Joshua Seiden Finished this gem last week ...was fired up by it. It makes so much of my job easier to push people to this practical handbook.  If you're struggling with making OKRs work in your organization (and from talking to so many people, I know the chances are that you are) , this is the guide you've been waiting for. 🚀 Why this book stands out: 1. It's the missing manual for building OKRs that actually work in the real world. Free of theoretical fluff. 2. Gothelf and Seiden dive into the nitty-gritty of making OKRs meaningful and actionable to create a customer focus. They don't just tell you what to do, but HOW to do it. You don't just end up with some OKRs, you focus your organization around a measurable customer focus. LFG. 3. The book provides specific formulas to follow. No more guesswork. 4. It steers us away from those dreaded "check-the-box" OKRs that are just an HR exercise for 'performance reviews',   and refocuses on what OKRs are meant to do: drive alignment to get meaningful results for customers. Having helped implement OKRs across more than 1000 organizations at this point, I found some of the insights particularly valuable: - No personal OKRs. Zero. 🙅♂️ They overcomplicate things and are hard to track effectively. - Create an operating rhythm for checking in and course-correcting to achieve your OKRs. It's not set-and-forget. If you know me or ResultMaps, you know this aligns with my M.O. - The formula of [who] + [does what] + [by how much], combined with a customer focus.. simply outstanding. 👏 The authors' approach aligns perfectly with what I've seen work in practice. It's refreshing to see a book that gets into the trenches with you.  Tons of highlights for me. I'm looking forward to diving deeper with Jeff and Josh on the podcast next week. Stay tuned for that (and like this post to be updated when it drops)... Have you read "Who Does What By How Much?" yet? What's been your experience with OKRs? Drop some knowledge or observations in the comments! 👇 #OKRs #Leadership #BusinessStrategy #BookReview #saturdayreads #strategyexecution ResultMaps

Interviewing the authors of this gem today on the podcast. If you haven't checked it out, its the missing-and-badly-needed specifics of how to use OKRs to create ability that gets real results. Hit me with your questions about putting OKRs into practice and we'll see if we can work them in. #strategyexecution #objectivesandkeyresults #okrs

Fantastic interview with Amber Brown: https://lnkd.in/gURdg56M Check out what she says about the difference between "kindness versus niceness"! A leader with high emotional intelligence will always recognize that the culture that they are cultivating is ultimately what determines productivity. Plants can't grow in toxic soil! Just a friendly reminder that you DESERVE to be in an environment that highlights your greatest gifts and enables you to THRIVE! It's too easy to be attracted to a salary and/or benefits, and we all need to pay our bills, but do your research on the culture of a company and the values of leadership before accepting a position. I know I would rather work in a "people-focused" culture, than a "customer-focused" one. It's simple. Leaders teach their employees how to treat their customers by example in how they treat their people. I'm so happy that we have a people-focused leadership team at Apple and I will continue to seek that out in all my future career endeavors! Check out this podcast interview! Something that this top leader says here about the role of leadership really resonates with me: "You model the culture you want everyone around you to emulate. If you want a great place to work, it starts with you, even in large organizations. When you deliver a culture that people want to be a part of, that exponentially sends waves throughout the broader organization."  "My team is all over the globe, with different styles of communication. I need to understand what motivates people, how people work, and how they prefer to communicate. Finding ways to bring that together and being clear on how to connect with people is really important. We all have our special gifts." I pray we all get to work for someone who knows how to orchestrate yours and your teammates' "special gifts"! Check it out: I hope you all can get something out of this too!

🚀 Communicating Your Roadmap Effectively: Tailor Your Message 🚀 #Day14 🏢 Presenting to Executives It's the day – I'm in a high-stakes meeting with my company’s top executives. I have a killer product roadmap that I'm excited to present to our executives. I start my presentation, and on the very first topic, I dive into the nitty-gritty details, while feeling pumped and confident. - 😬 Suddenly, I notice the blank stares, faces down, some others distracted. They’re lost. The excitement I felt quickly turned into panic. I realize I'm losing them. My heart races a bit as I scramble to adjust my approach. - 🛩 So, I had to pivot. I had to switch to high-level strategic points. The "how many users" - and compared to our competitors. The "how much revenue" - and compared to our current income. The "why users would jump to our platform" after we solved their pain points. For sure I skipped a bunch of slides. But their eyes finally for once lit up and some heads nodded in agreement. - 😌 So, relief washes over me. I’m back on track, and the executives are engaged and asking insightful questions. The energy shift is palpable, and I can breathe a little easier knowing I've got their attention. I'm now speaking their language. -- 📓 The Lesson Tailoring your message is crucial. You have to talk about what interests your audience. How is what you are showing going to make their lives better? For executives, focus on strategic, high-level overviews that highlight market positioning, revenue growth, and competitive advantages. The topics they are making money from. --- How would you tailor your roadmap communications to your executives? Share your experiences and tips in the comments below! Cheers, #ProductManagement #Roadmapping #Communication #Strategy #Leadership

I was talking to one of my mentees yesterday and realized: oh, sh*t, it's review season. When you're a consultant - it always feels like review season, but I distinctly remember the pressure to "remember it all" when filling out those self-assessment docs. 📣 Product marketers: You do a lot. You're juggling cross-team projects, strategic initiatives, product launches, GTM plans—sometimes all at once. It's nonstop. But let me guess—when it's time to talk about your impact, you remember some of the highlights but lose the details and "lower tier" wins. Here's the fix: Track everything. (Seriously - don't be me like 6 years ago with nothing to show but a smile and a sarcastic "that's show biz, baby.") Set up your document or GPT of choice to track: * Projects: What you worked on (e.g., PLG product launch). * Context: Timeframe, stakeholders, goals, revenue impact. * Results: Revenue, adoption, NPS, enablement wins. * Resources: Screenshots, templates, plans—your swipe file. * Feedback: Slacks, reviews, recordings. * Notes: Obstacles, strategy, outcomes. * Skills: Tags for what you flexed—CI, research, launches, leadership. Why? Because your work drives impact. Recognizing your contributions is how YOU push product marketing to be seen as a "legit game changer" in your organization. When I started doing this, I realized: Dang, Alex, you've accomplished more than you think. Start documenting to start celebrating. #ProductMarketing

The very act of writing a goal down, makes you more likely to achieve it. Even more so if you report your progress to someone each week. - John Doerr We are in the process of writing Q2 OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) for Churnkey. I love this process for exactly the reason John Doerr (book: “Measure What Matters”) outlines above. It doesn’t matter what framework you use: - OKR - 4DX - Traction - V2MOM - The Advantage - Google doc with a list of goals But I especially like OKRs because… 1/ they aren’t overly structured Yes the company has top level OKRs, but individual and team OKRs don’t have to align 1:1 with a company OKR. 2/ they don’t dictate “how” Good OKRs set a high level outcome. And Key Results are how we measure it. O: Put a man on the mood in this decade. KR: Launch by July ‘69 KR: Astronauts will come home safely KR: Remains < 102% of budget plan They tell you “what.” The how is the creative work to get there. 3/ they stretch you OKRs aren’t meant for sandbagging. In fact, if you hit 70-80% of your KRs you should count it as a win. For this reason, OKRs are for ambitious goals vs performance management. The latter is a different process. 4/ they are interdisciplinary The best goals focus on an outcome independent of the group from which they originated. It’s rare for a single department to accomplish a meaningful customer or business result on their own, independent of other teams (not saying it never happens… but you get my point). I could go on all night.. What do you love / not love about OKR? Any other frameworks? — 📩 GrowthCurve [dot] io exists to help SaaS leaders break through to the next level. Free to join. Weekly insights on SaaS, leadership, and growth. #saas #customersuccess #sales #marketing #product Jay Nathan

In our most recent Leader Spotlight, Liz Li of Velocity Global talks about evangelizing the value of product management and discusses how product function and strategy differ in a traditional tech org vs. tech plus services company. #ProductManagementLeadership #ProductLeadership

Why do early adopter customers get so much scrutiny from your organization? The likely reason isn't your product management skills - it is organizational dynamics! While you have immersed yourself in your product and made the early customers successful, your organization has changed. This is your opportunity to improve - even with tough early adopter customers. Organizational changes add challenges because leaders are skeptical of the value of the early adopter customers. Take these steps to show the strategic value and potential of your product: 1. Communicate transparently ---> Don't hide the product concerns from early adopter customers 2. Develop an improvement plan ---> Show how your product aligns with business objectives 3. Celebrate the improvements ---> The early adopter customers help in the long term This week's newsletter has tips to survive your early adopter customers with persistence and determination. Link to the article: https://lnkd.in/gtMFezVx #productmanagement #productledership #productdevelopment