117 - The Secret to Building Successful Customer Success Programs - Erin Stavi

What does it take to build a successful customer success program, lead with confidence, stay in good mental and physical health, and achieve success? That's what you'll learn from my guest in this episode, Erin Stavi.

Erin is the founder of Lakeshore Success Strategies. She is a customer success executive who helps startups build successful customer success programs from inception to scale. Companies she's worked with have raised over $200M in capital, been acquired, and gone from $0 to $11M in just over a year.

We talk about: 

• Leadership
• Erin’s successes and achievements
• Her recipe for success
• How to build customer success programs and strategies
• Physical and mental well-being

Make sure to watch this episode because Erin's advice and proven strategies are sure to inspire and motivate you to take on your own challenges with renewed energy and perspective.

Follow Erin!

This episode was brought to you by Vitally.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

What is the secret to building successful customer success programs and why so many programs fail? There is that one thing that makes a huge difference, one thing that many leaders don't do and their programs fail. Join me today as I talk to Erin Stave, customer success executive and the founder of Lakeshore Success Strategies, as she reveals her strategies for building successful programs from nothing and scaling to over 100 million of ARR in revenue. Let's meet Erin Stavi. Hi everyone. This is Maria Scobe-Pillay and you're listening to Women in Customer Success podcast, the first women-only podcast where remarkable ladies of customer success share their stories and practical tools to help you succeed and make an impact. If you want to learn more about customer success, get career advice and be inspired, you're in the right place, so let's tune in. It is such a pleasure to welcome Erin Stave, customer Success Executive and the founder of Lakeshore Success Strategies. Erin, I'm just so excited about this conversation. Welcome to the show.

Speaker 2: 1:17

Thank you I'm excited to be here and congratulations on your four-year mark of running this. I'm really proud of you. That's such an achievement.

Speaker 1: 1:25

Oh well, thank you for that. It seems like a long time and it is, but having this awesome conversation with ladies like you, it just went in an eye blink and it's just so awesome to every time have an amazing conversation and learn so much. So I'm so excited about this conversation. Let's give our listeners a bit of the idea. Where are you based in the world?

Speaker 2: 1:48

Sure, I'm currently in Chicago, illinois. What's?

Speaker 1: 1:52

currently on your Spotify playlist.

Speaker 2: 1:56

Oh man. So I'm trying to up-level my listening on Spotify because I listened. I actually worked at a music organization when I was in college that would bring acts to campus, so I listened to a lot of music. A lot of it is rap. Actually, I listened to it in the gym. It gets me amped up. The beats are really good, but I'm trying to bring in a little more jazz, a little more classical. I also whenever I cook I don't know if you're familiar with big band music, but it's like from America, from the 30s and 40s.

Speaker 1: 2:29

It's just all that kind of big band with like nice trumpets and all the nice jazz band orchestras. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I listen to that when I cook. Beautiful. Now, when you don't cook, what's your Netflix guilty pleasure?

Speaker 2: 2:44

I don't watch a lot of TV, but Great British Bake Off is my all-time favorite. My biggest life dream is to be on Great British Bake Off, so hopefully one of the producers is listening. I've been curating my Instagram for like seven years now so that when they're assessing me they will see that I'm serious about this. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 3:03

Okay, so what's your most favorite baking recipe that you use? What's like your specialty that people would know about you?

Speaker 2: 3:12

The thing I make the most often is going to be challah bread. I make it on Fridays or for holidays, so that's the egg braided bread, but then I uh kind of a cream puff structure for my birthday a few years back. I'll show you a picture later. It's it's. It looks good. I'm not going to lie.

Speaker 1: 3:32

I love that. You're proud of that. You should be. You should be. But tell me, were you always like that, Like? Would a 16 year old be surprised to find you in your current like job and your current life doing baking, going to gym, enjoying big band music?

Speaker 2: 3:47

There's a lot of commonality between 16-year-old me and not 16-year-old me. I did cook. I've been cooking since I was a kid. I almost went to culinary school, so that wouldn't be a surprise that I did that. It's always been in the back of my mind. I was working at an ice cream place and I was serving customers, so that isn't necessarily surprising. I do think me running my own business is a surprise for me and a lot of people around me. I think that also the fact that I've stuck with the same discipline for my entire career likely would have surprised 16-year-old Erin.

Speaker 1: 4:25

But if you could be remembered for one thing in your life, what would that?

Speaker 2: 4:29

be. If I could be remembered for one thing, I want it to be kindness. How I treat people, how I care for people, how I show up for people I don't like. There's cool business outcomes, there's amazing things we learned, there are great places to travel, but for me, at the end of the day, it's have people seen that I have genuine care for them and has that translated or helped them in their life? That, for me, would certainly be how I want to be remembered.

Speaker 1: 4:56

I'm trying to think of the people who ever worked with you. If they are listening, I'm somehow really convinced that they would cherish that about you and that they would say, well, yeah, that's exactly how I felt in Erin's team.

Speaker 2: 5:11

We do stay in touch. I'm still in touch with everyone from the last 10 years that I've worked with. So, yeah, I'm a clinger.

Speaker 1: 5:21

So yeah, I'm a clinger that speaks volume about your leadership and I wonder was there any particular moment in your pretty substantial career in SaaS that impacted how you are as a leader, the way you started looking into your leadership style and understanding what is the type of leader that you?

Speaker 2: 5:44

want to be. I'm going to give you two answers, because there were two pivotal moments. One was when I first started being a leader and I was a player coach. I was handling the largest accounts at the startup I was working at. We were transitioning from a service to a product company and I started thinking about all of the great. Well, the one great leader I had seen and a lot of the poor managers, unfortunately, I had worked under and really my leadership style came from a place of I'm always going to be a human and that's going to surpass whatever work we're doing together. That's going to be my number one and number two is number two would have been I just don't want to make people feel the way that I've felt with our managers. So that's my start off of my leadership. Then, if we move forward by about six years, covid and the beginning of it fundamentally shifted not how I treated people but how I treated myself and how I became a more resilient leader. So how were you treating?

Speaker 1: 6:52

yourself before that realization, oh buckle up.

Speaker 2: 6:59

I lived in New York City. I had been there for a few years and I did a world tour. I've lived where I live now. I lived in Tel Aviv, I lived in New York and the culture in New York. The first question people ask each other is so what do you do for work? And unfortunately, I allowed myself, because I do have a lot of drive. I allowed myself to put about 97% of my life force into my job, into my people, and I didn't have a lot left for me for who is now my ex-husband God bless him. And so COVID hit and I stopped running.

Speaker 2: 7:39

January 2020, I was gone four out of four weeks and I wasn't home for two of those weekends because we had so many client meetings on the West Coast that it was cheaper and made more sense to stay on the West Coast. I wasn't physically taking care of myself, I didn't have any real mental health structure put in and I, just when the world came to a stop, I realized that I was feeling really empty and I need to do some work. So I kind of wrote my life down to the studs and I started building all of these healthy pieces outside of work and that actually helped me surpass and get through really difficult business headwinds and be a resilient leader and show people what it meant to pick yourself up and keep going. And so COVID really did fundamentally change who I am and, I think, change how resilient I was as a leader.

Speaker 1: 8:32

I think this is very deep and very personal and thinking about putting almost everything, every atom of your strength and energy and mind and soul and body, at the end of the day, into the work can take its toll to your body and mind and soul and everything that you have in life. So, when you were picking yourself up, what were those immediate like building blocks that you put in place for your mental well-being and physical well-being, for your overall health, mental well-being well, and physical well-being for your overall health.

Speaker 2: 9:05

Yeah, it definitely goes together. And I was not an active kid. So I first of all shifted my mindset from investing in others to investing in myself. I still invested in others, but I realized if I didn't have anything to give, what was I actually giving other people? So I started working with a trainer because I had been really intimidated by going into gyms and I had really negative experiences in gym as a kid, so I wanted to have the privacy and work with that.

Speaker 2: 9:32

So I actually lost about 70 pounds in like 18 months, maybe 24 months, gained muscle and the cool thing is that I was doing strength training instead of just cardio. And when I was building muscle and felt my body getting stronger, I started to feel my mind getting stronger. So that was one. Two is I did start speaking with a therapist and I wound up being the executive sponsor of the mental health and wellness employee resource group at my former work. So that was a really beautiful moment of vulnerability there. And then, finally, I've always communicated hardship with my loved ones all of that, but I think it was being really mindful with myself, of reflecting on like, what do I deserve and what do I want to give myself, and that's not a way of thinking that I had really explored prior to that.

Speaker 1: 10:21

I'm so happy for you for those moments that happened. It seems that you know those were very transformative moments, very vulnerable moments and I really appreciate you sharing because I've seen so many times how you know life goes by so quickly and it's so easy to get stuck in a rut race and by the end of it you're just thinking like what was the point right?

Speaker 2: 10:49

But literally, what would you have at the end of the day? Yes, yeah, I'm with you. I think that's exactly right, and I did have. I've always had the clarity that when I'm on my deathbed, I'm not going to be thinking about capital that was raised or businesses that were acquired, or whatever my percentages of renewal rates. I'm going to be thinking about the people that wrap me, and so I want to. I'm grateful for that time because I came, I became more present and choiceful in how I'm spending my time and how I'm able to actually do that with the people I care about.

Speaker 1: 11:15

This is so interesting how you mentioned like when you were on the deathbed. It's one of those things that when we are young as we are now, people don't think about it. When we are young as we are now, people don't think about it and it's almost so far out in the future. But as soon as you really start asking yourself that question because it can happen anytime for anyone it's really about what's your legacy, and it goes so well with what you said previously you want to be remembered for being kind to people around you. You said previously like you want to be remembered for being kind to people around you, and it seems that it really boils down for you to how the people around you feel when they are working with you and when they are in your presence 100%, 100%.

Speaker 2: 11:56

I think that's exactly right.

Speaker 1: 11:58

You have achieved some amazing, amazing successes in your career and I can't wait to dig deeper into everything that you've done. I don't even know where to start from, actually I know. Give us a little bit of, just a brief. How did you end up in customer success? You know the million dollar questions everybody wants to hear about.

Speaker 2: 12:18

Yeah. So I graduated college right after the economic decline of 2008. And I went to school in the States and it was very expensive and I had to pay for school. So I had to get a job and there was a scary statistic that a year after I graduated, only 33% of my graduating class had a job. I was lucky in that I had one and it was an account manager at Nielsen.

Speaker 2: 12:48

Nielsen not only is known for TV ratings in the States, but they have a lot of data from grocery stores, all kinds of different retailers that they sell to, let's say, cereal brands leading cereal brands in the world. So I got into customer success because at the time it wasn't really known or in existence. I was an account manager, and I was an account manager at a place that we were onboarding to a client. The Nielsen had stolen the contract from their largest competitor, and so I got into it because I just was good at data and statistics and I liked to tell stories. So I helped equip one of the world's largest cereal brands with information of what's going on in the market and what should you do.

Speaker 2: 13:32

And then, from there, I did that a second time in the beer and craft beer space, so I'm allergic to beer, but I knew everything about craft beer. It was taking off. I love the connection Like I almost joked with you of what do you want to be remembered by and to say that I'm hilarious but a lot of people don't think I'm funny. But I read this article and I was like IPAs are creating a brew haha, spelled B-R-E-W, like brew, like beer in the retail space and it actually performed well. But I learned there how marketers thought and I learned there how you could have a data point but the importance of storytelling with data. So after that I moved to completely different, outside of Fortune 500 corporate and I went into this space. That a small startup series, a startup in Tel Aviv that was servicing those same clients but totally different internal workings. So I can get into that. But I all started because I needed a job and that was the job that I could get.

Speaker 1: 14:40

In all honesty, Fair enough, why not in all?

Speaker 2: 14:48

honesty. Fair enough. Why not? It led you somewhere, obviously. Yeah, I'm really grateful for that. I think storytelling with data and looking at numbers and helping people make decisions can be really difficult and, as CSMs are thinking about, what do I do with an EBR template and what are the metrics I should put in right? I think there are. I know there are approaches that I learned, and I also have hawk eyes when it comes to PowerPoints because I just sweat over the slides that I used to build. Trust me so that all helped. And then going into the startup world was a game changer. I mean seeing my voice reflected and to immediately make changes and then to be respected and valued for what I had and being able to ultimately build a team and a program. I mean, that was just. How can you look back for that?

Speaker 1: 15:41

You can, but that's obviously something that led you to, you know, from successes to even greater successes in customer success. And one thing that I have noticed about you while researching is that you have such a strong track record of building very successful programs from nothing and scaling them, you know, to over 150 million in revenue, and I would really firstly congratulate for that. But I would like to know your secret. So, when you are faced with that big mountain of you have to reach this target and you have absolutely nothing, how do you build those programs in terms of strategy and in terms of leadership as well, like, where do you even start and what's the recipe for success? Well, that's my business. Now, that's your business. Okay, that's it. Well, let's talk about it.

Speaker 2: 16:35

That's the recipe selling to and what is the value that gets them to convert across the line of saying yes, I want to work with this company. I always like to listen to sales calls. I used to join my salespeople when I was at that Series A company, the first startup I worked at. That wasn't my choice, but I'm really glad I did because I learned a lot and then I saw the relationship building. That way.

Speaker 2: 17:10

When and if there was a handoff from a decision maker to a point of contact, I knew why they bought the product. So I didn't have to ask this person who came in later, who wasn't in the sales process hey, why'd you buy the product? I'd say got it. This product was bought for X. Outcome. Help me understand your role in that, or what else is important, right? So first of all, defining success is actually understanding what got them to buy in the first place, and my belief is that customer success is delivering a promise and it's post-sale marketing. So what did we promise? How can we deliver it and how can we speak in a language and understand and make sure that the client agrees that we delivered on that promise?

Speaker 1: 17:53

Oh gosh, I love that. I haven't heard it before. So it's a customer success, it's a post-sales marketing that's so perfect. And that's your whole storytelling idea, because very often we all see how customers like, obviously they're getting value, but they just forget about it because of one little technical issue that they are just putting all their efforts into. So it's all about just constantly doing the PR and marketing Like check this out, this is what you're getting, this is what you're doing, this is what we need together. Tell me more about it. I just love the whole concept. How do you create programs based on that mindset?

Speaker 2: 18:31

So the programs come from two things it's what's the value, but also what you can say. I save you time, but that's going to feel very different from someone that is in calls, you know, for 12 hours a day and has five minutes, and it's going to feel different from someone who's managing a program and that's their entire job. So the whole point is what's that value? And then what's your icp, what, what's the persona and what is actually meaningful to them. So connect those two and the program comes from what is going to be the touchpoint that gives them value, what's going to not annoy them in terms of cadence Because I'm sure you hear this all the time, but QBRs don't have to be a Q, it's just very old thinking.

Speaker 2: 19:17

And so for me, a program is what's going to be marketing, what's going to be relevant for the audience at the right time, in a way that's going to either make them behave differently or continue behavior we know is positive, right, such as engaging with the platform, etc. That's how I think about the program. It's basically developing an entire marketing system, but within this post-sales world.

Speaker 1: 19:42

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Speaker 2: 21:02

Yeah, one is ruthless time prioritization. So, as a leader, you have to think about what are the things we have to get done right now? And if you're building a program, it's probably figuring out how are we going to talk about value or review, usage et cetera, like what could be leading and lagging indicators, starting to outline that world. And then for me, it's enabling the team every step of the way and making sure there's cross learnings. So, for example, if you're building out a program and maybe your ICP is marketers, but those marketers could be within cosmetics, they could be within large apparel retailers, they could be within small e-commerce shops all of these different things, what are the commonalities within the process? And then, what are we going to specialize? How do we make sure that what we're specializing, for example, for cosmetics, is shared and knowledge?

Speaker 2: 21:54

So for me, as a leader, I'm prioritizing my time to figure out what's going to get my team the most clarity, what's the most replicable thing, that's going to be the broadest reach across all of our customer base, and then going down the list from there. The next thing is continuous education and keeping every single member of that team close, because the moment you start to silo, the moment you start to say everyone's too busy to meet, that's when you're going to go off the rails. And brands are built on consistency. Trust is built on consistency. So my job or anyone's job as a CS leader, in my opinion is creating consistency. It's really easy for me to say, but replicate oh, my God, I want to be able to replicate a girl.

Speaker 1: 22:40

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's fine. Yeah, so that, oh, love that. Okay, ruthless prioritization. What else? Have been extremely successful for you in leading teams to execute on the programs.

Speaker 2: 22:55

What's been successful for me, which will go back to how I had to change my mindset, and especially as I am by now in my new role, where I see all these different programs at different stages of maturity. It is three steps to actually enabling a team, and I'm going to go into each one. One is explaining what you need to either build or change, depending on your maturity, and why, for example, we are going to be moving our quarterly business reviews to one pagers that we send out for the bottom part of our business. The reason for that is we need to focus on the enterprise side of the business. It's not only larger revenue, but they have more time, more effort and they consume data differently. Two, showing people what good looks like. So what is the exact example? Has someone already done this and you figured out that you need to replicate it across the team? Do you break down why it's successful? So, not just here's a template, right, but why is the template effective? Oh, the headline actually explains the top level value or what we need to do about it. The second thing is going to appeal to your decision maker because it shows that we actually did deliver on what they bought in the first place. The third thing shows the path ahead. That's going to increase stickiness, right. That's going to give us the best probability of renewal Great.

Speaker 2: 24:14

That second piece is not something I see very often. I hear leaders saying oh well, I made a template for my team, you don't stop there. And then the third piece, which is where a lot of people don't do it, is immediate applied learning, and I've done this with teams of like 70 people under me. I'll give you one example hey guys, we realized that everyone was telling our company pitch the wrong way. That's not how you build a brand. Here is the pitch, memorize it. And here are the concepts and reasons why we chose that messaging right. Third, now, every single person in this company and yes, we did it with hundreds of people are going to do the pitch in front of either their manager or their head of the department and they're going to get feedback.

Speaker 2: 24:57

That type of enablement I find is relatively rare and I would love if you're like girl, everyone does that level of rigor. It's not something I've seen, and so for me, the answer is three steps. It's the what and the why. What does good look like, and again why. And finally, running them through it. The reason I say that once you give people enough of those, they start to autonomously understand what's valuable and what's important and they make the right decisions without you having to be in the room.

Speaker 1: 25:28

And that's when you know you have a really high performing team and that knowledge is not just theoretical knowledge, it's really sticking in their brains and it's engraved in their process and in their thinking and that will be visible in the calls with customers.

Speaker 2: 25:44

It's that and it's also like when you say the why of what the strategy is, when you explain enough times of why you're changing things or what that goal is Like.

Speaker 2: 25:52

I had someone, for example, she had a single client churn and she ran a statistical analysis to figure out what are the different factors we could measure to get predictability in our business for churn Do I think she would have done that if she hadn't understood time and time again Like hey guys, we got blindsided by this logo. Hey guys, this feels weird, this is a theme we're seeing, but like sheesh, we weren't ahead of that one. They started to take initiative and for me that's like, if there's one thing I want to do, obviously be a good human but also empower people to be like oh, I can make a difference on this business and, frankly, that's why the programs work. That I've done it's not about me necessarily. It's about the people, the understanding and having enough discipline to slow down just a little bit, explain a little bit more and then empower them with the decision-making to do the right thing. What's the program?

Speaker 2: 26:42

that you're most proud of Wunderkind, for sure. That was my final W2 job and it was like four and a half years of my life and I came in. I had never done marketing technology before, so they do triggered emails and text messages and they took a chance on me because they only hired from MoreTech. They only hired from really prestigious Ivy League schools. I went to a public college. I came in, I had four direct reports to start and we got 100% renewal rate for our first year, which was unheard of at that company, yeah, and then that was on the smallest side of the market, so highest churn. Then I moved into the enterprise side, then I took over the strategic side, then I had enterprise and strategic and we scaled the company and we did doubled logos during 2020, funny enough.

Speaker 2: 27:33

So think back to that story. I'm doing all this personal work. The company is doubling logos. We had to figure out how to scale, how to process, how to hire. I've done hundreds of interviews, all this stuff.

Speaker 2: 27:43

All to say, I'm proud of that because we built an organization that had five levels of female leadership in it, so women coming into tech in college could see that we built an organization that was accurate to the US and its diversity data, relatively unique in tech we had incredible results. Consistently, we were known for good service and we empowered people who were 22, 23, 24 to step into a room with C-suites at some of the top retailers and actually go toe-to-toe in conversation. And so, for me, the reason why I'm proud of that program is, firstly, when I came in, the company wasn't doing awesome in terms of renewals, and it did take a significant amount of time to prioritize and break down what we needed to change. Firstly, we needed to change actually to listen to the customer instead of tell them how they were performing. I don't care how we think they're performing, how are they performing.

Speaker 2: 28:37

That's where we started, and we got all the way to the place of helping them understand the market better, giving the really great strategic recommendations and create incredibly well-rounded individuals who now lead departments have gone to other jobs and, by the way, I used to tell them this is going to be the hardest CSM job you will ever have, because it was harder than the ones I had had, and now when they go other places, they're like, oh my God, erin, that was so hard. I was like, yes, it was, but you're going to be so phenomenally in your career and you're going to outpace me and that's the goal. So by far it's that. And you know good people going through life changes together, navigating COVID together, real genuine heart, real genuine teamwork. I also had a phenomenal boss, molly, and she really taught me a lot as well of how to be a good leader.

Speaker 1: 29:23

But then things changed and you decided to run your own business, and I can see why. I can see why, like there is, you have the whole box of all of those different templates and toolkits and what to do in every single situation. So tell me what you do now. Tell me, tell me all about Lakeshore Success Strategist and, for the listeners, tell them please about the name. Why?

Speaker 2: 29:50

Oh, great question. So Lakeshore Success Strategist is I'm from Chicago and we're on Lake Michigan, so actually just outside my house I can see the water and for me, water has always been calming. It's something you have to navigate through. I was a swimmer and so when I was thinking about building my life, building my brand, success had to be a part of it. Right, because that's what we do, that's what we care about, and success looks very different.

Speaker 2: 30:15

Lakeshore for me is like you're looking out, you might have some choppy waves, but you know that you're going to be able to get through them, and so I just wanted to bring those two together Lakeshore success strategies, and that's what I do Ultimately. Now, what I do is I partner with either founders, c-suite or in-house customer success operators to help them build, scale and fix their customer success programs. You might think it's a wide range, and I agree. I have clients who are over their first million in ARR and I have clients who are over 350 million in ARR, and the beauty there is I help prioritize, I help build structure and I help truly enable and empower teams on things like commercialization, risk management, how do they build a program? I'm coaching two first-time people managers right now on how do you actually help get consistency across your team and how are you going to deliver high impact feedback? So I get to run the full gamut so fun for me and help people scale really quickly as we do it.

Speaker 1: 31:21

I love it and I love similarities, what I've been up to in the last year. So when we had even previous conversation, I think we could have the whole episode about, like, what do you like about this? What do you like about being a consultant and coming in and, you know, putting all of your knowledge into the team, and like really seeing immediate changes, seeing immediate changes. There's so much we can talk about it, but I wonder what was a single thing that made you feel really confident and determined that having your own business was the right way for you? Like, what was that decision point? And I'm asking just because of the listeners. I think there are so many of our listeners who have it all already and who might be thinking, you know what, if I just leave this nine to five and I do something by myself, and they just don't know you know how to take that step. Like, what did it make for you? What is what happened?

Speaker 2: 32:21

I was not confident and I never thought I would run my own business. Truly, I'm a very loyal person. I've probably stayed at jobs. I've certainly stayed at jobs too long because, again, I get wrapped up with the people and it's like I can deal with whatever business environment, whatever for the people. I started teaching customer success through Sales Impact Academy like halfway through 2022. And I told my manager I wasn't hiding it. But what was so fun was that all of these skills that I took for granted or the things that I didn't really think about anymore because my team was where it was at were such a need in the market and I started realizing like wow, not only is there a huge demand and we can monetize this, but it's really fun to go back to some of these basics and I love doing this. Applied learning. Like you put me in a mock situation. I will soar, I love them, and so there was that piece of it. I was laid off Meaning.

Speaker 1: 33:20

you did a great job and that was it.

Speaker 2: 33:24

Yeah, I mean I was laid off and I was shocked and devastated and upset, but I was like, well, shoot, what am I going to do? I can either be salty or I can pick up the pieces and move on and, honestly, without Sales Impact Academy, I don't think I would have been brave enough. I will also say my boyfriend was telling me for like a year beforehand. He was like you really need to run your own thing. And I was like no, I don't want to, I don't want to run my own business.

Speaker 2: 33:52

So, all to say, I was not confident and I was at a low moment and then I just started activating my network. I closed my first contract within a month. I replaced my income within three months and the best part that for me was really validating were two things actually A significant amount of people I used to work with reached out to me and so that kind of quieted some voices in my head like 20% of my former company, and my former company was 1,000 people. So it was volume. And then I love consulting and acting in this capacity because I don't know why, but I'm listened to a lot more and what that means funny how that is the case, right.

Speaker 2: 34:40

And what that means is. I reminded myself that I actually do know what I'm doing and I do know how to run good business and I love partnering with people and having them listen and seeing it applied and helping them apply it and watching the business results. One of my customers went from zero to 11 million in like 16 months of operating their company. So that feels pretty freaking good, pretty awesome. Yeah, another one of mine had really bad renewal rates like really bad. I'm not going to even mention the number, but it was really bad and I tripled their renewal rate. So I wasn't confident and because of my boyfriend, because of true logical pieces I could understand in the market, I decided to take the chance and like, worst case, I would fail and find another job. Honestly, but what I can tell you now, sitting in this seat, being about 16 months later, girl, I would be hard pressed to go back.

Speaker 1: 35:36

You're a girl on fire. I can say I can see that. And thanks for saying that you didn't have a confidence. I think that's very important because it can be so devastating and so easy to put ourselves down, you know, if we are laid off or if we are just finding ourselves in the situation where, first thing, you try to rationalize like am I not good enough for this anymore? Right, without considering anything else that's happening in the market. So I love how you shared it didn't have confidence, but you decided to take those steps and to give yourself a chance, rather than you know sitting and crying and you know giving up so many things. I'm really happy that you take that chance, because confidence that obviously came with you doing it and with you validating everything that you knew. And now, when you look back, it's just an awesome story when you know what you have accomplished and why this type of life is amazing for you.

Speaker 2: 36:40

I'm really happy. I think that my tone didn't show that, but I'm really happy because the intellectual stimulation of jumping from business to business, vertical to vertical level, of low to high touch point is so fun, and the different business problems I get to jump from it's just. It's really fun for the brain. And then I'm lucky enough that a lot of the folks that work for me now subcontract for me and some of them have made career shifts of their own and I'm really proud of them. So I think that if you're for anyone who might be in a moment of uncertainty in their career of transition, whether it was forced or choiceful have confidence that it's all going to make sense. And it might not make sense right now and it might be really hard right now, but in my experience all of the hardest things have resulted in the most growth and you're going to feel really fulfilled at some point. So just keep your chin up, keep moving, get yourself up off the bathroom floor.

Speaker 1: 37:36

I gave myself one week and keep moving, be kind to yourself, and that was one week that you were allowed to do whatever, but then, after that, the life goes on. I love so much your story and this whole conversation. I can see we can speak forever about either being a consultant, or practices or recipes for success, and also your recipes for baking. This was so fantastic, erin, for the listeners. Where can they find you online?

Speaker 2: 38:16

And what's the best way to find out more about your offering and your business? Oh, thank you. You can find me on LinkedIn. I don't have a website because I believe in word of mouth and social, so I haven't built a website yet. Probably will at some point. You can find me at Erin Stobbe on LinkedIn and contact me, erin, at lakeshoresuccesscom, for any type of coaching, advisory, et cetera. Engagement, but that's what that looks like and thank you for having me. This has been really fun and it went very quickly.

Speaker 1: 38:44

Thank you for being here, erin. It was such a fantastic conversation. 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.