100 - From Luxury Retail to Customer Success - Aurore de Saint-Exupéry

Join us as we celebrate the 100th episode of the Women in Customer Success Podcast with a special guest - Aurore de Saint-Exupéry, a passionate Customer Success Manager at  ClickUp who took the road less travelled. Aurore transitioned from the high-end retail world into the tech industry, manifesting her belief that caring, loyalty, and teamwork are the secret ingredients for success in any industry.

Aurore's journey to ClickUp, her dream company, was filled with intense preparation, professional advice, and a few nerve-wracking interviews. The moment she discovered the job opening, she embarked on a challenging ride, connected with the right industry expert, continuously learning about the role and its challenges and presented a highly successful case study that got her a job. Learn about the steps she took to land the interview, prepare for this transition and nail the interview process. 

The world of luxury retail and customer success might seem worlds apart, but Aurore talks about the principles for serving customers that are universal across roles and industries. She shares her strategies for succeeding as a new CSM, emphasizing the importance of product knowledge, undertaking extra projects and approaching her role as a customer coach, making sure they feel guided and supported. 

We also touch on the joy of travelling, immersing oneself in new cultures, and living abroad. Join us for this episode and hear the inspiring journey Aurore took to embrace her dream career in Customer Success. 

Did you know?

• Aurore was born in Paris and has lived across France, the UK, Hong Kong, and Japan
• She started her career in luxury retail (Chanel & Louis Vuitton) 
• Avid traveller
• Transitioned from non-tech into SaaS Customer Success 
• Aurore was promoted to a Sr CSM within a year 
• Direct descendent of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, the author of the book 'The Little Prince' - one of the best-selling books in history!

In this episode, you'll learn about: 

• Aurore's career entry in luxury retail and its lessons on customer experience
• Process of applying for Customer Success role without previous tech experience 
• Interview preparation for non-tech and non-saas experience
• Hiring Manager's perspective on hiring for a non-traditional background
• Learning curve as a first-time Customer Success Manager
• Standing out as a 'newbie', setting high standards and getting promotion-ready

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About Women in Customer Success Podcast:

Women in Customer Success Podcast is the first women-only podcast for Customer Success professionals, where remarkable ladies of Customer Success connect, inspire and champion each other.

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Host Marija Skobe-Pilley

- Website - https://www.marijaskobepilley.com/

- LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/mspilley/

- Coaching with Marija: http://marijaskobepilley.com/programs

- Get a FREE '9 Habits of Successful CSMs' guide https://www.marijaskobepilley.com/9-habits-freebie

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:08

Welcome to Women in Customer Success podcast. Today's episode is brought to you by Vitaly, the all-in-one customer success platform.

Speaker 2: 0:17

Take a qualified demo with the Vitaly team and get a free pair of AirPods. Vitaly maximizes the productivity, visibility and collaboration of your customer success team, helping to increase NRR and streamline operations. With Vitaly, your team can focus on the tasks and work that matter, while powerful automation takes care of the routine stuff. See why Vitaly is trusted by leading B2B customer success teams. Visit vitallyio slash women today to schedule your demo and get your AirPods.

Speaker 2: 0:52

Welcome to the Jubilee 100 episode of the Women in Customer Success podcast. I am literally so excited to reach this milestone and to celebrate, I will be publishing a few bonus episodes as well, as I'll be telling you more about some surprises as well. So stay tuned and check out the Women in Customer Success LinkedIn page, mostly for more updates, so being a Jubilee episode. Apart from that, there is also something very special about this episode and I'm going to introduce you to a very special guest today. She is probably one of the most capable and most humble CSMs I've ever worked with. She is gorgeous, smart, very sweet, very kind and she just has a remarkable story to tell. She is Aurora de Sainte Exupéry. Welcome to the show.

Speaker 3: 1:45

Thank you. Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be here. Thank you, Maria.

Speaker 2: 1:49

I know Aurora as I hired her to my team while I was at ClickUp, and today we are going to talk about the process of transitioning into customer success from outside of tech, because that's exactly the journey that Aurora had and she's done all the right steps to enter the industry, and I hope that today's episode will really help you understand what to do to enter customer success role and then also what to do to grow into the role and position yourself from promotion. So, aurora, are you ready for a quick, rapid fire question? Yeah, absolutely, let's go. Let's go. Okay, aurora, are you an introvert or an extrovert? An introvert, what does 16-year-old you be surprised to find you in this current role?

Speaker 3: 2:41

Going for something completely different. I never thought I would end up here, so I guess it's a new adventure for me.

Speaker 2: 2:48

Okay, if you had to completely change your career tomorrow, what would you do next?

Speaker 3: 2:55

I would probably start a little bakery.

Speaker 2: 3:02

Do you bake in your free time?

Speaker 3: 3:03

Yes, I love baking. My specialty is probably the chocolate fondant. Oh, chocolate fondant.

Speaker 2: 3:10

Okay, you can share the recipe later on. Cool Aurora, if you could be remembered for one thing, what would that be?

Speaker 3: 3:17

I think I am a very caring person, loyal and I love being around people.

Speaker 2: 3:27

Last amongst the rapid fire questions. Aurora, you are actually related to the famous Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, the author of the famous children's book Little Prince that I guess every single child on this planet has read at some point in their life. Tell me more about it. How are you related and what's the beautiful French way of pronouncing that name?

Speaker 3: 3:52

The Little Prince. So it's actually not just a children's book. I would say more for adults as well, if no one has read it. It's a great book to read. I am related. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, the writer, was a great, great uncle. He was a cousin of my great-grandfather. That's kind of the link to me. But yeah, it's a beautiful book, so it's definitely recommended.

Speaker 2: 4:12

Absolutely, and you're right. Really, it is a book for everybody and my dear audience. If you're not familiar with the book, I'm sure you have heard about this quote, which is exactly from the book it is only with the heart that one can see. Rightly, what is essential is invisible to the eye. Beautiful, okay. Now, when we sort that part out, I think there is an obvious connection already that you are French, but I think it's very interesting if you tell us a bit about where did you grow up and what was your life until the point when you have decided that you are actually interested in customer success career, because I know your life included many different countries across the world, many different languages, different things that you did, and that all is just incredibly interesting. So tell us that story about you.

Speaker 3: 5:04

Yeah, absolutely so. Yeah, I'm 100% French. I'm both my parents and grandparents everyone's French. I was born in Paris, but I moved to London when I was three years old. So from three to around seven I was in English primary school. Then I moved back to France when I was eight until 14. I was switched to a French school and then moved back again to London and from the age of 14 to 18, I was in the French Lease in South Kensington in London, which is kind of the biggest French school I guess you have in the UK.

Speaker 3: 5:40

After my French baccalaureate I decided to go to an English university and study in English. So I went to the University of Exeter where I studied marketing, business management, and after the graduation I worked for about a year in London. My first job was in luxury retail, which was the biggest trunk of my career, to be honest. I started working as an intern for Chanel in the travel retail departments, which was a great experience, but as an intern, I guess not really hands-on, and I think what I wanted afterwards was more of a face-to-face customer experience, but still in the luxury industry. So after that I moved to Louis Vuitton across the street on Bond Street and I was a salesperson and that was a very good experience for me, meeting all sorts of customers, demanding customers, and the colleagues I was working with were amazing. So it was a fabulous experience. I forgot to mention because you didn't mention about where I lived as well, in different countries. But before that, at university, is when we moved to also Japan with my parents for three years. So it was three years for me on and off between Japan and the UK.

Speaker 3: 6:54

And moving forward to my experience in Louis Vuitton, I ended up my experience because I had an envy to move to Hong Kong afterwards. For no reason. I had no job there, I had no visa, I had no flats, knew no one at all, but for some reason I had this urge to go. So I managed to find an entry and got my visa approved for three months and I decided to see if I was going to like it. After two weeks I absolutely fell in love with it and decided to look for a real job.

Speaker 3: 7:31

And I continued my path in luxury retail and I found this job with Woutel Paris, which is a fragrance brand which is part of a big Korean group called More Pacific, and there I had multiple roles. I kind of started as an account manager. I was managing all the accounts that we had across Asia, so it was Japan, korea, hong Kong, singapore, india, malaysia. It was quite a hectic job because I was traveling every month nearly to all the different point of sales and all my different clients to see how everything was going, how we could improve sales and make the brand essentially better. So I transitioned afterwards into more of a training role and project manager role based in Hong Kong still because we decided to open the flagship boutique there. That was another big part of my job there. All in all I stayed in that job for about three years and a half and after we had all in Hong Kong all the protests which were quite impacting the retail industry, and at that time I was kind of thinking I wanted to also transition myself into maybe going back to studying. And shortly after that, anyway, covid happened. So I actually left my job and I focused on my studies.

Speaker 3: 8:52

I've always been very interested in human behavior and psychology, so I did a diploma in psychotherapy for a year and on the side I still needed to obviously make a living in Hong Kong. So I decided I'm French, people in Hong Kong love French people for some reason. So why don't I start a French tutoring company? Basically Because I know a lot of kids want to learn French, so there was a huge potential. So I marketed myself on different social groups in Hong Kong and the French community as well, and anyway, I ended up having about 20 clients at some point, which worked really well, from children to actually adults as well. And yeah, I did that for about just under two years. By the time I finished my two diplomas. So I did one in psychotherapy and once I finished I did one in CBD and cognitive behavioral therapy, which was very interesting.

Speaker 2: 9:47

And then obviously, yeah, go on. What kind of time when you decided to go back to the UK and look for something else.

Speaker 3: 9:52

Exactly so basically I had to move back to the UK at some point for visa situations with Brexit. I didn't have a British passport, so I had kind of a time limit in my time in Hong Kong and with COVID in Hong Kong being quite strict, it was about time. Basically I needed to get back to the UK. So I go back to the UK. I finished my last dissertation at that same time for my CBT course and then I think, ok, well, now I need to find a job and you didn't want to go back to retail. I didn't want to go back to retail.

Speaker 2: 10:25

Because, as we are continuing this story more towards customer success, I want to use this opportunity to ask you because you were in Chanel, you were in Louis Vuitton and the luxury fashion brands that most of us love do you have any particular, very interesting anecdote with some of the customers in those stores? Because, as you said, you have seen everything there. What is something that is really stuck in your memory, either very positive or very negative, but I just wonder what are the things you were coming across?

Speaker 3: 10:58

All sorts of customers T&S. It went from the mom and her daughter, who have probably saved up for six months to get the first bag for the daughter ever, which are very humble and down to earth people, I would say. And then you get on the extreme some princesses from in Chanel, whatever that come, and obviously buy way more than you would expect. The treatment is always the same, which I think is amazing. Whether you have a hundred pounds or a million pounds, let's say, and to spend, you are treated exactly the same, which is, I think, really nice to see, because being fair, I think, is one of my core values as well. So that's very important to me and I really appreciated that. I think in the luxury retail there are some obviously interesting stories with customers that, as we know, same in customer success, very demanding and need to take care of them very, very well.

Speaker 2: 11:54

What's the most interesting demand that you heard from customers? Like something that maybe we wouldn't expect in a luxury fashion.

Speaker 3: 12:03

No, I think from what I came across it was kind of the anecdote would be that they wanted to tailor made a bag made with crocodile or whatever. But this is kind of the things that you do see quite often, ish in the luxury retail. So, no, I think it was a great experience, nice meeting different kind of people, and I think that was probably the first time in my life where I thought I quite like being in sales. Actually, you know the rush to basically go from one kind to the other, so at the end of the day you're the top seller and I think I really like that. Now, being in customer success and working with salespeople, I'm pretty convinced customer success is more for me than salespeople, but yeah, Well, thank you for sharing that.

Speaker 2: 12:47

Now let's go back to that moment. After COVID, you came back to the UK. You wanted to look for something else. So, being for years in luxury retail in absolutely non tech environment at all, where were you, or how did you even come across the title customer success manager and wanted to go for it?

Speaker 3: 13:07

Yeah, no, it's a good question because I had never heard of it, obviously before. I think at that time I was looking for a job. I knew what I didn't want in my next company. I didn't know what I wanted exactly, but I know what was very crucial for me and tech was attractive to me because I had a few friends in London that were working in tech and I quite liked the idea of having a better work life balance. I guess that tech can offer compared to what I was doing in luxury retail before and I just really wanted to try something new.

Speaker 3: 13:41

So I don't know, somehow tech was appealing to me. I didn't know much anything from retail anyway, so it's not, like you know, I was not going to go into being a lawyer or start again from scratch, but tech was interesting. Obviously I had no idea what I wanted to do in tech yet, but tech was kind of my first main focus. And then I did look on LinkedIn at so, so many job descriptions and I came across a few times. Initially I was looking at account manager, because that was the title that I knew, and then I came across this customer success manager, which I had never heard of, and I read the descriptions.

Speaker 3: 14:18

I read one, two, 10, 20 job descriptions and I thought this is perfect, this is exactly what I want to do, and I remember that the key words that came the most in the job description was building strong relationships with your clients, and that for me was very important.

Speaker 3: 14:34

And I think I liked the fact that you had obviously an aspect of the job which was quite metric focus, but quite also another part of the job which was also very human being just a human being and interacting, creating relationships, really. So I really like this kind of balance of the two in the job description and once I read a few enough job descriptions, I thought, okay, that's it, that's what I want to do. But I still wanted to learn more from people who were actually working as a customer success manager. When people ask you, what do you look for in your new job? Right, when you meet someone and you're unemployed and you say customer success manager at some point, someone will say, oh, I know someone who's a customer success manager. So that's how I got to speak with these various people acquaintances or friends or friends and after speaking to a few people, I was quite convinced.

Speaker 2: 15:29

I want for this to be really clear to people. Firstly, you didn't know you wanted Customer Success Manager role, but you knew what you don't want, which is elimination process like so important for people. If you're not absolutely sure with the role, then you went to something that was very familiar to you Account Manager and then, as you discovered those various, as you said job descriptions, you knew oh, that is exactly role, the Customer Success Manager is the role that I should have. Then you started connecting with people who have that role just to find out more. You have already done that very good research into what does the role mean and understanding what are the skills needed and how do you start getting into the interview process right?

Speaker 3: 16:12

Yeah, correct, but I also did so much research on my own anyway, looking at videos online of what's the Customer Success Manager, what's the day-to-day look like, or reading more about the story of Customer Success Manager and how it came about, because it's not a role that has been forever in the industry, so it's quite new-ish, obviously. So I think that was quite interesting to understand why Customer Success came about really for tech companies, and especially growing tech companies, I would say. And then I think, when I said I knew what I didn't want, I think a big part of the next step in my research is not applying to everything and anything. Obviously that's very important. You were not just randomly applying no, no, no, no, no. I was not going to waste my time applying to companies that I didn't think had a really good fit with me, and I think that was a crucial part With the experience that I had before.

Speaker 3: 17:07

I really wanted my next company to have good values, that had a good culture as well, or seemed like it had a good culture as well, because you don't really know unless you're actually hired by the company, but you can sense from the website and maybe once you start speaking to your first interview or HR or you contact people within the industry. You kind of have a feeling of, okay, I feel like I would fit in or no. It doesn't seem like it's for me. I think it's just more like maybe a gut instinct. I don't know, but for me the culture of the company, the work-life balance and the values was so important.

Speaker 2: 17:44

It's excellent how you were aware of it. It's crucial to know your values and to target companies that you want to work with and, as you said, not wasting time, I want to touch base one moment. I got your CV in front of me and it was a referral, and I just want to point out how referrals are so extremely important, how referrals can be really the proper way of getting your foot out of the door in the company, especially if you have no experience at all. Because I have to admit, when I saw your CV for the first time I thought, hmm, no tech experience, we can't take her, because our mandate at the time was absolutely tech experience and CSM experience for a few years if possible. But again, maybe that was gut feeling, some instinct didn't give me peace and I remember after a few days time I have decided to go again through a few of the CVs that I was getting for the position from referrals because I thought let me really just honor those referrals, because when somebody refers to other people, you kind of always treat those applications a bit better, in a way that you want to look at them more carefully. Then I looked at your profile again and I just thought. You know what. She's gone through so many countries. She has experience of cultural diversity, different background, which was so important for me at the moment because our customers were coming from all sorts of backgrounds and I felt that something like that, that different experience, would be really good fit.

Speaker 2: 19:12

And I spoke with our talent managers saying you know, let's have a chat Now my perspective of your first interview with me. After we finished the first interview, I knew that I wanted to hire you, but of course, that was only one of many, many, many steps in the interview process. But I'm so glad that I had that initial conversation with you because what happened was, I think, one of the best interview processes that I witnessed in my career so far and the best learning curve for you. So you were so passionate about wanting to enter a customer success role and I almost saw myself a few years ago when I discovered that role and really wanted my foot at the door and I recognized, you know, that passion from somebody who really wants to succeed. But then I remember I gave you some feedback as well. I don't know if you remember feedback from our first conversation. What was it?

Speaker 3: 20:05

You recommended looking at digital customer success via also dedicated customer success, and you gave me a few names of people I could look up to on LinkedIn.

Speaker 2: 20:18

So I remember that I realized you didn't have previous experience. You just have a big learning curve ahead of you, but I knew that you could do it. And, yeah, my advice was like get yourself armed with all of those resources just to learn as much as possible, because through the whole interview process you will be in a situation to speak with so many different people from all levels of companies and you will need to convince everybody else as well that you can do the job. And one thing that I just want to say from the whole interview process is that afterwards, seeing the notes from every other examiner, was that you were completely excelling on every step of the interview. Whoever gave you the feedback later on they realized that you were doing something about that feedback.

Speaker 2: 21:00

So you were very coachable in a way, and you were doing all the right steps to understand the industry, to learn what the job entails and to be able to talk about it. And we were hiring more for scale or digital role, so you definitely put yourself out there to learn everything about it and I just remember you really excelled in that panel. Like after your panel, your final interview, everybody were wowed and we knew that we wanted to hire you, so well done for taking all the right steps. Would you like to just repeat quickly for the listeners so what were all of those activities that you did throughout your interview for somebody who didn't have any exposure to the industry and to customer success, in order to perform so well at your last presentation?

Speaker 3: 21:44

Yeah, absolutely so I think, obviously before I had the first initial interview with you, what is crucial for me and I need to point it out is because I was speaking to so many people around me, I somehow ended up being in touch with what I would call my first ever mentor in customer success, a wonderful, wonderful person called Leila, and I didn't know her at all. It was an acquaintance of a member of my family, so you know, no close connection whatsoever and she's been absolutely amazing with me, answering all my questions that sometimes you know the terminology. I didn't really understand sometimes what it meant exactly. She was so kind, gentle and, you know, never made me feel like you should know this kind of thing. So it made me feel very confident about I can do this and I think also I have this mindset that once I really want something, I'm going to do it a thousand percent and I'm going to achieve it. If I really want this, I will have it. And one day she sent me the job description for ClickUp and she said look, I don't know this company but I basically work now. For what kind of company? Yes, exactly, and Maria is the hiring manager and just left. So we kind of cross path. I don't really know her, but I can message her and see if she's willing to have an interview with you. So you don't even know her as well, but that's how I got to learn about the job opening with ClickUp.

Speaker 3: 23:16

Then I had, obviously, the call with you, which was kind of an informal call, more of get to know each other, and I had a really good feeling as well, to be honest, at the end. And not only you but also Leila, my first mentor, was really helpful in the sense of reach out to this people who are quite renowned in the customer success world on LinkedIn and obviously it's not something that is super easy to do when you think you're going to intrude someone's life that are quite not famous but quite renowned in the customer success world. So I did send so many messages on LinkedIn saying, hey, I want to get in the industry, I'm really interested to learn about your experience and any tips you have for me. I did have a few replies, to be honest, and I think that was really helpful. So I did with some of them, have even calls, so that helped. I think what also helped is the first interviews I did, and I think it always turns out quite well.

Speaker 3: 24:15

But the first interviews you did. You learned from your first interviews and my first interviews. Then at the end the interview, we would say I don't think you're right fit for us. You know, we're really looking for someone who does have experience in tech because we want them to build the handbook of customer success for us or things like that. But I recommend that maybe in your next interviews you do this, this and that, for example.

Speaker 3: 24:39

So slowly, after your first 10 interviews you kind of feel more confident to tackle the next one every time, a little bit like I would say, 2% more every time. And when I got to the point where obviously I had the interview with you, I had a few before and I think because you put me so much at ease, it was easier for me to be myself and not be overly stressed, which was really nice. After your recommendation of look more into digital customer success because that was the role initially that I was applying was digital customer success and you know, maybe contact this person and this person I did that. Then I had the second round of interview with ClickUp, which was with another customer success manager based in the US, I think, and he was so lovely. And again, I had such a wonderful experience with the three first interviews I had with ClickUp only because every time I ended up the call I felt very happy and I felt, wow, people are so nice and I think that really reflected for me on the culture part of the company that I literally said to myself a few times it feels like this company is only hiring really nice people. So obviously when you get to like the second, third round, you kind of think, alright, this is going somewhere, I'm feeling positive about it. So you're really pushing yourself and obviously the last round is the hardest with ClickUp.

Speaker 3: 26:00

After you speak to everyone. You speak about your experience and all of that and you obviously speak about what you know about customer success, because you have to show them that you know. Obviously Then there's the case study, and the case study I remember was I was lucky, I think I was given a whole week to prepare it. I think I needed this whole week because I really worked on it the whole day. I did so many research. I had to download ClickUp as well, which is not an easy platform to use once you've never used it for the first time and I had to see how it was working, get to know the product, which is obviously important. If you're going to work as a customer success for a company like ClickUp, you need to know the product.

Speaker 3: 26:45

And then I think the case study was something like if you have a book of business of, like, let's say, 200 customers, how would you segment them, how would you prioritize them and what would be your engagement with them? It was something like that, I think, and I remember knowing that it was important to have the onboarding phase, the adoption phase and the retention phase. And then I kind of segmented in these three categories in terms of the top ARR customers and the different use cases that use and how I would approach them. Would I have more of a one-on-one with the biggest one or would I have just digital touch with all of them? So I remember that's how I divided it.

Speaker 3: 27:32

And then I put everything on the slides. I did a whole section on the metrics as well, which was all these terminology were very new to me Weekly active users, wau. I remember thinking what does it mean? Wow? So yeah, you get to learn everything. And then I rehearsed so many times before I presented to you to feel at ease. I had my notes, my bullet points and the flow of what was going to happen during my presentation, and then I did the presentation and then I could breathe, and then it was fine.

Speaker 2: 28:10

I mean you just pointed out something amazing Like you did rehearse for it. You did all the research that you could and I do admit, like job searches are not easy and, yes, you always get to have some presentation and you have to prepare and it requires time. Maybe for somebody with experience wouldn't take that long. But you really wanted to excel it and you did. You excel and you had a fabulous interview and when we hired you, actually there was one more call before that with HR. I just remember I received the message from HR after the call with you and the message was written when I grow up, I want to be like Aurora, because absolutely everybody loved you in the interview process and, okay, you landed a job. Like congratulations.

Speaker 2: 28:53

That was your first CSM role ever and then you started working on it and now, from interview preparation gathering information about customer success to real life, now the journey actually started, the journey of big, big, big learning curve. Because you were working on, you started your new role. You were straight away being given access to CSN certifications, so you were learning more about customer success. You were doing the onboarding. You were learning a lot about the product because we wanted everybody to be really great product expert in customer success to really help customers immediately.

Speaker 2: 29:29

And now what I can say from a manager perspective is you were working so hard and so smart on everything because you didn't have previous experience. You were just so much like a sponge. You wanted to know it all, you wanted to have all that information and you were really hitting the bar higher and higher as soon as you started working with customers. Like the first feedback we were receiving from sales and from all the other peers was absolutely amazing, always for you, because whatever you did, you were doing to the highest standard and then automatically you were raising bar for the whole team and I always thought, like Aurora is so humble and because she didn't do it previously, she is much more aware of how much she has to learn. That's why you were just always so open to learning and to hearing from others. Tell me more a bit about that first few months in an absolutely new role where you need to know product really well. How was that?

Speaker 3: 30:28

We had a great team. The team leader, kevin, and yourself really took me under the wing and I think, yeah, of course, my mindset was, you know, I don't want to feel like an imposter now. Now that I'm in, I need to really belong here. So I am going to work really hard to get the approval that we did a good job in hiring you and we regret our decision, which is a worry for the first five months. You kind of think. You know I need to prove myself.

Speaker 3: 30:58

I really enjoyed it because everyone whether it's customer success, the sales team, you know, professional services, team, everything everyone was so welcoming and nice and kind and that obviously the atmosphere was. I wanted to learn and I felt good, and the product itself was not easy to learn, for sure, and I still think it took me six months to really feel at ease, to be honest. But in terms of the role of customer success, I learned the product by getting to know my customers and knowing how they work, because every time they had a question on how would I best use ClickUp to do X, y and Z, then I didn't know the answer, which was fine. I needed to accept that at first. It's fine if you don't know the answer to the customer, you come back to them and then you look and you come back to them and that's how I got to learn a lot. I shadowed, obviously, most of our team in terms of how they were doing their calls and you get a bit of everything and everyone and then you make it your own and that's really how I really learned.

Speaker 3: 32:04

The best is actually getting on calls with customers as much as I can, even though at first it's scary because you feel like after 20 calls if you say I'm sorry, I don't really know, but I'll come back to you. It's a bit demoralizing, but then it gets to a point where you know the answers and it's so rewarding when you can help a client and they say oh, thank you so much, you unblocked me there and I feel like more ease there. Gosh, that is honestly the best feeling ever. That makes your day. So I think that's how I learned. But, yeah, the product ClickUp is amazing and there's loads to learn, so you never get bored, which I think is amazing as well. So, yeah, I mean working with the product and working closely with the team and not being afraid to ask questions and actually having a wonderful team leader that, even if I asked him 20 of the same questions, he always made me feel like I was asking it for the first time, which was absolutely amazing.

Speaker 2: 33:04

So shout out to Kevin if you're listening. Okay, this has been really great. You already gave out so much wonderful advice into what to do when you're very new in the role and you emphasize so much the product knowledge. One thing that I would say is that you were really brave when it comes to you know, you dealing with customers because you were learning that product, but you were not shying away from even exposing yourself to everything new, so you were so happy always to tell customers you're going to train them or you're going to show them, and you would go, you would learn it all by yourself and then you would teach customers how to do something, even when sometimes that wasn't maybe even you know in your job description. But you were doing it and you were learning products in that way as well.

Speaker 2: 33:47

Yes, I think it was amazing because you never shied away from the things that you didn't know. You were just taking it as a learning opportunity. And just over a year after, you were promoted into a senior CSM, which I think it's such a wonderful story from coming from no tech experience at all to starting your CSM role to becoming even certified product expert and then getting your promotion. What are some of the main things that you would share with the audience, Like now, when you look back at your career, what would be, you know, main few recipes for success as a new CSM, because you already got promoted Like you proved yourself times and times again.

Speaker 3: 34:30

Yeah, so first I forgot to point out that the job that I applied for was digital CSM, but I actually straight away went into a dedicated CSM, so I'd never really had the digital touch. I only had a book of business of maybe 20 customers and now I have maybe 40. So, but it never goes above that. So I always had a one-on-one approach with customers, which I forgot to mention. Obviously, I didn't go for the digital one, but I think something was also to say.

Speaker 2: 34:57

We were hiring for all sorts of things and we were making so many adjustments, so that's also part of being in a startup. Sometimes, when you are hired for the role, it may well change within the few months, simply when strategies changes. And you took it well.

Speaker 3: 35:10

Yeah, no, I love it. But I think what's very important and I think what makes me want to do well is well, shout out to you. I mean, I did have a great manager and you were absolutely very, very encouraging and really pushed me to really want to do my best every time. The fact that you were so giving me feedback on a weekly basis or maybe, yeah, I think, on a weekly basis, I had feedback from you. We had a one-on-one and it was very, very positive every time. So it made me want to do even better and better and better.

Speaker 3: 35:44

So I think then I really wanted to learn more, do more things, be more proactive and then adding on top of my work, like side projects for the business. That would be nice to do and to show that I can do more and I'm ready to take on more. And I think if you show the company, obviously, that you want it, you really want it and you want to do more and you want to help others as well, whether it's CSM or other teams that you're cross collaborating with, I think that shows a lot and it's rewarding and I think you know if you really want it. If you don't want it, then maybe it's a good question to ask yourself do I really want to be here? Because then maybe that's not, but if you feel like you want to be here, you'll know it, because you want to push yourself and go above and beyond. That's a say.

Speaker 2: 36:30

Oh, Ror, you mentioned a few things and I know we could talk about it for days that you earned promotion on so many different ways. But you were very proactive to see what was missing and you were taking constantly extra projects and extra initiatives once you were kind of comfortable in your role. So you also started customer newsletter from CSM. You started also French version of it. You've been doing things to help out that. Not everybody raised their hands to do it and you didn't shy away from it.

Speaker 2: 37:00

So you were very much accomplishing so much on top of your role and I know that from the leadership perspective, that puts you right at the top among all the other qualities as a promotion material. And then I already left and you were promoted not even by me but by senior management. But it was such a great testament of everything that you have done and your impact that you had on other teams. It was such a no brainer for everybody. So I think you are just showing us such a beautiful way of how, when you want to do something, as you said, you are really going for it and you're giving 100% of yourself and you want to learn, you want to excel and I think it was really rewarding in your case. So congrats again. Thank you, oh, Ror, this is so wonderful. Thank you so much for coming to the show and for sharing your experience, and as we wrap up at the end, I just have one question for you. What would be one thing that people are generally surprised to find out about you?

Speaker 3: 38:04

Maybe that I lived nearly half, if not one third, of my life in Asia, really, and I would love to go back. That's something that you wouldn't expect, really, I guess.

Speaker 2: 38:13

That's a wonderful one, and I always feel when I talk to you, I just want to go to Asia, and I'm actually planning to do it, hopefully next year. So we'll have another conversation for all the best places. Yes, for sure. Thank you, ror, this was wonderful. Thank you so much for sharing this conversation with me today.

Speaker 3: 38:30

Thank you so much, maria, thank you for having me. I'm very excited.

Speaker 1: 38:35

Thank you for listening. Next week new episode, Subscribe to the podcast and connect with me on LinkedIn so you're up to date with all the new episodes and the content I'm curating for you. Have a great day and talk to you soon.