Women in Customer Success Podcast

121 - The Impact of Engaging in Customer Success Communities - Cinthia Silva

• Marija Skobe-Pilley • Episode 121

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Are you part of customer success communities?

Are you curious about the power of communities in career growth?

In this episode of the Women in Customer Success podcast, I talk to Cinthia Silva, a FinTech business strategist and a top 25 customer success influencer. We go into the importance of being actively engaged in customer success communities, the benefits of having your own community, finding your tribe, and growing your career within communities. 

She speaks from her own experiences in various communities, including CX Exchange, CS Middle East, Latinos in Success, RevGenius, Women in Revenue, and Women in Customer Success.

What you’ll find out in this episode:

  • How to use communities effectively, whether as a participant or a community leader. 
  • The importance of playing the long game in personal and professional relationships
  • How communities can provide support, learning, and growth opportunities
  • How to build a personal brand through community engagement 
  • Practical tips for balancing involvement in multiple communities
  • Advice for starting or joining a community and avoiding common pitfalls


This interview gives you the opportunity to learn how to play the long game in your career and build meaningful connections within communities from remarkable women in customer success. So, make sure you find the time to take a listen.

Follow Cinthia!

This episode was brought to you by Vitally.

If you enjoyed the episode, don't forget to subscribe to the Women in Customer Success podcast for more inspiring stories and practical tools to help you succeed in the field of customer success.

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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


NEW - Women in Customer Success Courses:

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Speaker 1:

This episode is brought to you by Vitally. Vitally is bringing in a new era of customer success productivity. With their all-in-one customer success platform, vitally gives you unmatched visibility into your company's health and success, and now you can measure operational strategies on customer outcomes at scale with goals, directly in Vitally. Exciting news for all the listeners Vitally are also giving away a free pair of AirPods for all Women in Customer Success podcast listeners when you take a qualified demo with them. If you're in the market looking for a CS platform, make sure you visit vitallyio slash women vitallyio slash women to book your demo and get your airpods. And now let's get into the episode. Are you already part of customer success communities?

Speaker 1:

In today's episode, I'm talking to Cynthia Silva, a fintech business strategist and top 25 customer success influencer. We talk all things communities. What are the benefits of being actively engaged within the community? What are the benefits and value of having a community on your own, how to find your tribe and how to grow your career within communities? Join us and enjoy the conversation with Cynthia Silva. Hi everyone, this is Maria Scobepillai 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. Welcome to Women in Customer Success podcast. Today, I am super, super excited to welcome Cynthia Silva to the show. Cynthia is a FinTech business strategist, women in tech advocate and one of the top 25 customer success influencers in the past year. Cynthia, welcome to the show.

Speaker 2:

Oh, thank you so much for inviting me. I'm a huge fan of this podcast, so being on this is just such an honor for me, and I cannot wait for our conversation.

Speaker 1:

Yes, so just very much in short, before we get to the main thing today. What is it that we want to talk about today?

Speaker 2:

What are you so passionate about? Yeah, you know, I mean I think I like to geek out on all things customer success but I do think one of the things that have been super influential for me and my journey here have been communities. So, and I know you're a huge advocate, right, and you know, and obviously you have your own community, so I would love to dig into that and anything else, wherever the conversation takes us.

Speaker 1:

Ok, I'm super excited about that. Let's start with something lighter. I would like the listeners to get to know you a bit better. So where are you based? New York City. What is your next travel destination or something on your bucket list?

Speaker 2:

Oh, I was just talking about this. So next bucket list item Berlin.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, very nice. Oh, it's currently Euro 2024 over there. Okay, how many languages do you speak? Two, english and Spanish. Oh, it's currently Euro 2024 over there. Okay, how many languages?

Speaker 2:

do you?

Speaker 1:

speak Two, English and Spanish. Oh la la Amazing. Okay, and what is one book that you would recommend to my listeners? It can be from any field, about anything, but a book that really left a special mark in your life.

Speaker 2:

Yes, I love books. I'm addicted to audio books. I listen to them all the time. So I have a thousand I could recommend, but the one that really this year has really impacted me, it's called Lynchpin by Seth Godin. It is a brilliant book. Have you read?

Speaker 1:

it. I haven't, but I love Seth Godin. Thanks for recommendation.

Speaker 2:

It's a fantastic book and it talks about sort of that mindset of how you can contribute, how to kind of like dig in, to like what you want to do and to be intentional Hugely, hugely. I've listened to it like three times because I just love it so much. The insight you take something away every time. So yeah, sorry, long response, seth Godin, lynch, brain, that you take something away every time.

Speaker 1:

So yeah, sorry long response. Seth Godin Lynch Brain no, but it's a wonderful recommendation and I can feel the energy and passion coming about a book, so I'm definitely going to check it out. And Cynthia, last one from those kind of short questions If you could be remembered for one thing in this life, what would that be?

Speaker 2:

Oh, if I could be remembered for one thing, um, okay, I would say that, uh, I'm the person. I played the long game, I played a long game and everything, uh, in my personal relationships, professional relationships, um, the way I I view things, and that just goes back to like really really being intentional, and I think when you want to make an impact in any way, it is about the long game, it's not the short wins, it's the long wins.

Speaker 1:

The long game. So if you would to describe our listeners just very briefly, what do you mean by long game, or how do you go about it? Or, if they are not sure, what does it mean to you?

Speaker 2:

Sure, so, like in my personal relationships with friendships and family, we know it's difficult and it's cyclical, like I've lived different places, maybe you have to, maybe your listeners have to, so you meet different friends in different places and so it's really hard to kind of maintain those friendships. So I've got friends everywhere and for me the long game with friendships is that you stick to it. Like you check in, either you remember the birthday, you remember to send that text, you plan an intentional trip, either to wherever if you're not living in the same city anymore to that city or a city together, but that sort of connection so that people know that you're still there. Because what I think happens is we all get so, so busy, we forget and we're like, oh, I hope Joni's doing okay. We're like, oh, I hope Joni's doing okay, I haven't talked to her in a while. Well, if you maybe just texted, this has happened to me where I've texted a friend and said, hey, how are things going? Just thinking about you, and they had just great news or hard news, and they're like I'm so happy you texted me right now because I'd love to get on the call Right.

Speaker 2:

That's the long game, because you know really being there and with customers, the same thing, right, like not trying to do like short-term fixes, like sometimes you're just like you're trying to get, you know, customers off of your inbox, out of your inbox, like, oh, let me just resolve this solution or let me make this promise, even though maybe I may or may not be able to do it Now.

Speaker 2:

Tell the truth, you know, deliver for them, work with them, grow with them, grow with them, and I think that leads to being more strategic, which is one of the things that you know, something that comes up with customer success all the time how, what does that mean? To be a strategic CSM? Right, that's what it is. That's one of those things is is to really dig in curiosity, stick with the customer, really grow with them, and they will, they will treasure that friendship. It will be and it will be more of like a friendship, a business relationship that's strong, and they will tell you the truth, they'll try to give you, you know, like, keep you sticky, and if there's changes that maybe negatively impact the account, you'll get the heads up, which is which is, you know, valuable in itself.

Speaker 1:

That's wonderful. Well, thanks for sharing that. I can definitely relate in so many ways in friendships, for example, as you said. In so many ways. In friendships, for example, as you said, even if they are cyclical, as an adult, we have to just accept the responsibility that we have towards our friends and friendships as a whole. Right, we are not in high school anymore that everybody are together always, and then there are opportunities to hang out. Now, when everybody has so busy lives, you need to be intentional to connect with other people and just take it in your own hands, right, not constantly expecting others to invite you to places or to text you back, because you can just waste your life without those connections that are super meaningful.

Speaker 1:

Gosh, I can't wait for digging into more details in all of those topics, for digging into more details in all of those topics. I already feel this is going to be a very action-packed and energized episode. Let me go back more into the customer success side now, because I feel that you have done so many different things in your career and then you found yourself in customer success. Please just walk us quickly through your career. And how did you find yourself in a CS role? I know my listeners always like to hear that question and like to get perspectives of those different parts into customer success.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, no, no, no, it's true, it's like the careers like this. When I graduated I thought, oh, I'm just going to go this way. It's all different things. You know, for me, early on, I sat on a trading desk at two banks, one in Seattle, one here in New York, so that was as far from tech as you could get with finance. Yeah, exactly, exactly. And then, you know, but I really enjoyed developing those internal and external relationships with our customers and, of course, our internal partners, and it taught me a lot how to navigate in big companies and how to get things done.

Speaker 2:

Collaboration is key in those instances. And so for me, like I wanted to kind of move away from that because I found, honestly, I found sitting on a training desk completely stressful. And I moved to the UK for a few years and I kind of pivoted my relationship management expertise to doing events there. And I moved back to New York and I was covering events in LATAM, which is a lot of fun because my family's from Peru, and so I grew up speaking Spanish, but that was legit. I had to like cold call in Spanish, crazy, awesome. It was so much fun. Yeah, exactly, and I got to travel down and really understand kind of the synergies in LATAM like I never had before. So that was amazing. But the central theme throughout all of this was customers engaging with, you know, building new things, collaborating with them and, you know, even with these events, collaborating with hotels and all these different places to make things happen.

Speaker 2:

But what I thought of as my long-term career would be in tech, because that really was where everything was moving. I'm like this is thinking intentionally, that's where I want to go. In both instances I was like on the sales side and when I first moved to tech, I worked at Chief FinTechs on the sales side and what I noticed was it is the way the subscription model is based. It's very kind of assembly line right. They're STR, ae and then maybe implementation and CSM, and so the customers kind of passed through that journey.

Speaker 2:

I had done like my own prospecting, so like I understood how hard it was to get the attention of a customer. I really wanted to make sure they were successful so that once they signed I could grow them. So for me I already had that kind of long-term view and that CSM view and so when I was thinking about it, when I was working on the sales side in tech. I thought really where you get the runway is on the post-sale and customer success is where you've got the customer. They're already hopefully the right fit and so you can grow them and because I had that sales background, I'm not afraid of having those hard conversations when things go wrong and also talking about commercials and so, yeah, wound up, you know, getting an opportunity to work with Nasdaq Fintech just to launch a CSM team and it's just exciting, exciting two and a half years that I spent with like a really inspired leader. So I was very, very lucky and really happy I could leverage my previous experience to really shine in CS.

Speaker 1:

And indeed you shine in CS absolutely. Yes, and indeed you shine in CS Absolutely. And especially since I've known you in the last couple of years and the way you engage with the wider community, it has been fantastic, and that's something I would like us to go deeper in, because I know how incredibly passionate you are about the communities. So would you like to give us almost a background or the start? So would you like to give us almost a background or the start? When was the first time you got engaged within customer success communities? How did you even discover them? Like, what was that path and what kept you going? Because you know people, many people love communities, but not everybody are as passionate about them as you are, so it must have been something that's really drawn you all into communities. I am really curious. What was that?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah. Well, it's funny, and this goes back to the pandemic. I was, you know, I lived through the whole thing in New York City. It was so crazy. They kept calling this ground zero. It was horrible. So it was really stressful right that. And then, you know, business just kind of shut down.

Speaker 2:

So I was still in sales roles then and so I realized like where, how are people dealing with this? And I realized everybody's going on these micro communities online and so really I started digging in there and then I said, well, not just sales, I want to understand the marketing and the customer success perspective. So I started joining some broader communities. But what I found then and what I have found now, especially in customer success because I think this is one of the most supportive communities whether you are in formal community or not, people like to help each other and it's a space where you can be vulnerable and people will empathize.

Speaker 2:

And well, especially in CS, right, that's what we do, you know, a tactical empathy, though I would recommend. So it was just a place where I felt like I could learn, I could share and grow and I would recommend attending. And I also recommend not just if you're in CS join other communities sales communities, marketing communities, those other things Because if you engage and interact, you're going to understand what makes them tick and it's going to be much easier in your role to collaborate internally. Because I think that every company I've been at for silos and the way that you break them down is by understanding how your partners win and then you can hopefully create projects where you can win jointly.

Speaker 1:

That's really wonderful. You already told us what is great about the communities and you said how being engaged within a community can really help you build skills for working in your own organization and with your own team, just based on different dynamics and different people to work with. Why do you think it's really important to be part of communities, like what would be some of the main benefits that you have realized so far and benefits that you would like to encourage people to experience while joining some of the communities?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you know, I think for me, like the biggest benefit of joining communities is, again, you're there with like-minded people who are on similar journeys. But even if there aren't, if there's people that there are sort of like later or ahead of you or have more experience, you can draw from that right. You can, like you know, engage with them. It gives you an opportunity to learn from them so that you can establish your best practices and or, if you're struggling in your role, you can get ideas on how to get a handle on things. Now also, there's always going to be somebody who's behind you, who's in an earlier stage. It also gives you the opportunity to help them. Hey, listen, I've been in that boat. Here's some of the things that I did. Give it a try or what's going on, or at least that kind of camaraderie that's built.

Speaker 2:

I think it's huge and it's very, very underestimated and I think that gives again that safe space to learn and engage. But I think if you're transactional you're going to get less out of it. So if you kind of come in with one question out, I'm not saying it's right or wrong, I'm just saying you're going to get very, very superficial benefit out of it. But if you really dig in and try to, like you know, try to work because I've actually got done projects with people within these different communities it helped me a lot, you know. I mean kind of see through visions of certain things, so I've leveraged it in those ways.

Speaker 2:

But there's also different events you can go to A lot of communities have and that's how you can kind of participate, engage, grow your network. And we all know where I know you know this your network is, your is your network network. So, yes, hundred percent of that, you know it, and so that's a great way for you to intentionally grow that community. Um, and and like I said, I don't just I don't subscribe to just one. I I have several that I engage with. There's certain ones that I'm much more active in, but I still want to have a handle or have like a toe in different communities so that like hey, oh, that person is super interesting, like I want to start following their content or maybe I want to have a chat with them and learn from them.

Speaker 1:

That's perfect. Speaking practically day to day, everybody are very busy. So how, like what works for you? How do you manage to be involved within the communities and like, how much would that be? Probably depends in different situations, but, like, what have been your recipe for finding that balance in properly engaging within communities so you can really get the benefits from it and you can be, you know, a mentor and a pretty great go-to person for somebody else. And balancing that with so many other things that everybody have on their plate, like, how does it work for you?

Speaker 2:

yeah, yeah, no, that's such a great point. Where, too, because I think so many people are like well, I thought I need to be there every single day and it needs to be, you know, like, engaging every single day, like that's like, and no one can that. I don't even think it's healthy, because you know you have work, commitments. Work and family always come first. Actually, family comes first. That's number one. Okay, let's get that clear. So you need to. You know like, you know you need to fill your cup with the things. You know that work, you know you need some. That's a priority. You need to make sure that you're staying on top of that.

Speaker 2:

But I think the boundaries on work right, because I think with this remote hybrid environment sometimes that gets crazy. You know that's a way to kind of like to cusp it, to say, okay, I'm going to stick to nine to five and then once or twice a week, week, I'm going to go to a community event. So there's certain communities that have weekly meetings. You don't have to go every week, but maybe you want to go once a month, a couple times a month. Put it on your calendar. I call it scheduling time with yourself and I usually do that. It's like that time blocking right. Any tasks that I don't like to do at work I time block for because I'm like I'm going to avoid them, but if it's on my calendar, it's an appointment with myself and then I'm going to be happy when it's done. That's what I would suggest for customer success.

Speaker 2:

And now, especially with these communities, a lot more in-person events are happening. I would absolutely recommend attending those Absolutely whenever you can, because that's really like that person-to-person engagement I think is so valuable. It's next level because, like you're just together, together. It's so nice to be together and to meet God. You're a real person. You're not just that Q1, zero. You know what I mean. I think protect your calendar, always Be intentional. You don't have to be in the doggone communities every single day. You don't have to even be every single week. I think consistency can be once a month, but I think it should be intentional and I think it's going to help you. It's a way for you to upskill yourselves. And, by the way, what I've noticed too is I know a lot of smart people that are busy. Too Many, many people are not involved in communities. That alone is an advantage for you. You have this network of peers that you can draw information and ideas from. So why not leverage?

Speaker 1:

So many benefits from really being engaged within the community, as you mentioned. Leverage the collective intelligence that you're getting from those groups, leveraging somebody's resources and best practices and the conversations and the help that can get. Or being involved in projects. As you said, you've been already in project with some people from those communities. That very likely might have not happened if you haven't been there. What about getting exposure? I do see and I believe there is such a huge correlation between being involved actively within communities and developing a personal brand in the same way. How did that play out for you? Like I have some of my opinions, how I have seen you kind of shine and grow very often through the communities, but I would like to hear from you how did those communities help you really exponentially expand your personal brand?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I'm really glad you brought that up, Maria, because I really feel like our career coach told me this once you are a business of one and, as such, when you go into the business world, like you should, you know, like and a lot of you were not good advocates for ourselves, and I'll say I'm one of those you, surprisingly, you think that like, oh, this is a person who's got it all together. No, and I think one of the ways you can take control, it's good to know, and I think one of the ways you can take control it's good to know. No, it's true, I'm a human. I'm not perfect, but I do think that establishing your personal brand, and again with your network, is so valuable because that's something that you cannot, no one can take away from you when you determine what that is. And so for me, I felt like I think visibility, like I don't do social media except for LinkedIn because I just there's so many distractions. I'm just like that's the professional network, whatever. That's where I went. And so for me, it kind of married itself to communities, because that's where I would find out about different communities or different events, and then I'd see thought leaders. I'm like God I love. You know, that's how I found you. I was like, oh, she's interesting, Definitely going to follow her, Want to see her content. You know what I mean. I wanted to know what was happening and so I think it's scary. But I think the way that you really kind of take it to the next level is to start writing about whatever your journey is, and I would recommend everyone do that, because we all have a point of view. I would recommend it, but you don't have to do it. That's what worked for me. That's a way to do it. There's different ways you can do your branding, but that's what I chose to do was to say here's some of the things that I'm doing, here's some of my frustrations, here's what I've learned.

Speaker 2:

For me, I was kind of tying my sales background and how closely, how I felt like it made me successful and customer success the things that crossed over. And so I had a lot of people come to me, ping me on the side and say I'm trying to do a pivot, Can we have a virtual coffee? And I'm like, of course we can. I'm going to always try to make time for people, because people made time for me. And so, anyway, I think that the communities.

Speaker 2:

Because I was engaged, because I was attending, because I was learning, because I was meeting so many people, I got really inspired and I finally finally stopped being a chicken and I would write content and I would just post it. That was it and that's just me. I'm not judging anyone else, but I think that if you'd be surprised and even now when I post anything, I have five people in mind. I'm like these are the five people I'm thinking of when I'm sending this out, and if anyone else gets value of it, that's a plus. And I think if you keep that mindset and not look for the likes and whatever, then you're going to. I think it's going to fill you up and you're going to find your people You're going to like if you are consistent and you stay consistent to your voice. And I think that I learned so much from that too.

Speaker 1:

You're going to find your people, or those people who need to hear from you are definitely going to find you in the time when they really need you.

Speaker 1:

It brings me to an interesting point you mentioned. You started posting on LinkedIn and in that way you're building your brand, but people hear about you as soon as somebody I mean, that's really just my opinion and, based on what I've seen, as soon as somebody, I mean that's really just my opinion and based on what I've seen as soon as you start posting on LinkedIn, in a way, you're creating a community around yourself, around your messaging, around your brand, and, without wanting to create community, people are drawn to you and that's simply what happens. So, speaking about our communities, do you think you should be creating or should people intentionally be creating their own communities or joining existing ones, or both? Or how does it work? Or you know, in a way, you do have a community without it being a community. Then should you be joining others? Let's just try to explore it. Maybe it has no sense, but I just wonder what are your thoughts on it?

Speaker 2:

Well, first of all, I love that you pointed out that when you start posting and you draw people, people are drawn to your content. That is sort of community. I love that because, honestly, I've never thought of it that way, but you're right, because they're responding something in your messaging, so that is sort of a community in itself. I never thought to me. I have to think about that. I love that, um, but I think it's, it's your question, it's a good question and I think it's really tricky because you have a community. You know how hard it is. Like. I think that that it's that, um, it's. I think if you feel like you want to create a community, you should, you should do, I think, what you know, like if you really, if you're feeling that burning, do it, forget about and there's no rules, go, do what you do. But I think, um, it's great to. I would. If I was gonna do that, I would, I'd be calling you, I'd be calling all the people that I know that have communities and say, hey, can we have a chat? I'm thinking of doing this thing. Tell me how, tell me how it went for your journey, because you don't also want to bite off more than you can shoot, because I do think that it becomes bigger and bigger and bigger and it can be like you don't want it to overtake your life and you know all these sort of things. Unless you want it to overtake your life, it could be a good thing, right, and I so like right. It really just depends. So I think that that if you have that burning desire and you think that you have like a unique message or perspective that you want to kind of draw people to, I think do it For me. I love the idea, but I think I just I must. I've never been tested, but I'm sure I've got ADHD, because I'm just like I want to be a part of everything. Oh gosh, I do the same thing, yeah, so I just want to be a part of everything. Oh gosh, I do the same thing, yeah, so I just want to do it all.

Speaker 2:

So, for me, what I do is I just go deep into certain communities and, again, because of some of the friendships that I have just great friendships I've gotten I've now helped other people with their communities. They're like will you come be on the board? Will you come be on my search committee? I'm like why do you want me come be on the board, will you come be on my circle? And I'm like, why do you want me? I'm like I'll go.

Speaker 2:

I don't know what you want from me, but what it is a lot of times is like help them get visibility, you know like. You know, moderate one of their panels, like attend one of the things. You know like I can do all those things and I'm happy to do those things. So, from for like from my perspective, who knows, I say this and then tomorrow I'll be like oh, I want to start a community, and then I'll call you, of course, but for me, not now. I want to dip my toe in all of them and if I can help in certain ways, that's what I want to do, and I think that's maybe a way others could think of it too. I don't know.

Speaker 1:

Talking about how you can be engaged in multiple communities for different things. What do you think what's the lifespan of a community? I know it's like it's a vague question, but I'm thinking how you know, let's say you're in customer success for 10 years and they are X, y, z, a big number of different customer success communities and basically all. Maybe every year or every two years you are more drawn to a particular community, but in a way you're still part of so many different ones simply because you're in the industry and they all have something good to offer. But is there kind of a lifespan of a community Like, how long can you be part of one community? Does that burning desire get smaller? Do you kind of pivot communities as you pivot your careers?

Speaker 1:

I've been just interested in the whole concept of a life spot because various reasons, but I feel every community is there for a reason. So when you almost like, can you graduate from the community, can you already almost do everything the community is supposed to do? What? What do you do then? I mean, those are just some some of my thoughts, because I feel that I outgrown some communities. There are some that are on my kind of radar that I would really like to be part of thinking. You know that is something that is going to help me in my next steps. But yeah, how long can you be part of some communities?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, your questions are so good. I love it. I love that idea of the lifespan of a community, because I think you hit it on the head. I think that there's different points in our life, like put it this way where I told you like I first started joining communities during the pandemic. Before that you would never have caught me on an online anything. I'm like I go see my friends, I go see my clients I'm not getting on a flip and zoom and having that like conversation but look at we like I've met so many more amazing people this way. So things change. So that's a great point.

Speaker 2:

Like there could be some communities that serve you based on a certain point of life and or, um, you know, your priorities change. Like maybe you decide, hey, I'm going to go off the grid and I'm going to go on, you know, like to wherever, like some desert island, and go do something else. You know what I mean that's going to be. And then you know that doesn't mean that that, um, you did. You like don't care about it, it's just that your priorities change and it's okay. And I do like that idea or the visual of graduating, like, hey, this was a great community, it served me really well. I was in. But now I need to graduate and go do this other thing, and that could be your own community or that could be a different community. That now resonates with what you want to do and I think there's absolutely no shame in that. I think that's just like because you're still going to.

Speaker 2:

If you've made like genuine relationships in these communities, they're still going to be your life. They're going to know hey, you know she's gone off to do this thing. That's amazing, and they might come with. You know, you ever know like you can. This is how what the thing about community everyone's invited. You're not excluded. So I think it's okay for communities to evolve because we as human beings are involved and also, too, maybe sometimes the community is going to evolve in a way that you're like no, that's not really what I'm interested in. I'm going to just kind of like opt out or step back a little bit and let that. They need to go that way, that's okay too.

Speaker 1:

Well, exactly what you said. In a way, a community or communities are a tool where you can, or tool or a medium probably medium is a better word where you can explore those different ideas and have different connections and conversations, and so many of those communities can just serve you that purpose in a different time of your career or even life. And you said, if you go on Desert Island, oh my gosh, I'm sure you're going to find a community for people who want to be on desert islands. You know, there's just so many things out there that you you can always be part of so many different things and enjoy the benefits and just build new connections. It's all about building those connections that communities really facilitate.

Speaker 1:

Cynthia, where are you involved at the moment, Like, where is the list of all of those communities? Or would you like to give us a bit of the idea of your maybe main communities where you're very active and you are maybe serving as board, et cetera, and maybe some other communities that you are more often not even observer but, like you, may not be extremely actively involved, but you support them and you, you believe in them yeah, yeah, of course.

Speaker 2:

So, um, yeah, because, like I said, I'm part of you know several communities. I guess the main ones would be um cx exchange, you know, with jan young um I, you know I I started, uh, attending. She started his office hours and there was like a dozen of us like two and a half years ago, and I would go every week because I was new in my role. I'm like, oh, I can access to Jan, I can ask all my questions, and I did, and that sort of grew. And then I just started taking like kind of you know, like moderating roles, all the different things, and because because I'm really I really enjoy that community and the people that kind of engaged there as well, that community and the people that kind of engaged there as well. But then also too, from that community, I met Muhammad Al-Kaq who opened his own community, cs Middle East, and he'd asked me to help, you know, be part of his board and certain community. And I was like, oh my God, of course, and he's a rock star, he's insanely like he. You want to talk about someone who's all in, he's so organized. Every time we're meeting I'm just it, just like he has all these little coffee chats all across the middle east. He has these plans for this webinar series. I'm going to be helping him being um a moderator for this in the next coming months super exciting.

Speaker 2:

And then, most recently, latinos in success. Latinos in success, uh, which is uh priscilla's uh group super new, uh, and that's like basically, we're starting with like just trying to get the Slack community going and then some monthly meetups and things like that. But I'm also part of RevGenius. I'm also part of Women in Revenue, obviously, women in Customer Success, women in Customer Success, pay and Grow Routine yeah, those, I'd say, would be the main ones that I'm involved in, so like at the deeper level, and then you know more as like a participant, and I find them all valuable because, again, and I do like to check in on them because there's different events that are happening or different questions that come up and I'm like I want to engage. So it's I find it very useful to have like kind of a little portfolio of communities to kind of draw from and hopefully they can draw from as well.

Speaker 1:

Thank you so much because this is like a wonderful list Very, very comprehensive involvement. And, as we're wrapping up, I'm sure some of the listeners are thinking you know, maybe it's time that I start my own community. So, from all of your experiences in being super involved in various communities, if you would start a community from scratch, what would you try to avoid or what would you say not to do?

Speaker 2:

Oh yeah, and I guarantee you'll agree with this, I would say don't try to do everything at once. Don't open a Slack channel and then be like oh, let's do a Slack channel, let's do a podcast channel, let's do a podcast, let's do, you know, interviews, mock interviews, let's do like events, let's. If you're trying to do it all at once, I think you're going to go out of your mind. I think you know it's be more about like who's the audience? Let's get people engaged. Let's meet for virtual or in-person events so that we can kind of learn from each other. Let's find out what sort of things you know make sense in terms of like how we want the direction, and then take it one at a time.

Speaker 2:

Because I think if you try to do everything at once, it's and unless you're super organized, you could just dedicate all every single day. You know, doing that. I think it's going to there's going to be stop gaps. It's going to stop, go, stop, go, stop, go, as opposed to like a natural, organic growth, right, like, oh, we're at this stage, now A lot of people are seeing it and people that want to dig in and help. Let's now do this thing. You know what I mean and then on, and on, and on.

Speaker 1:

I definitely agree with that. I've seen it as one of my lessons as well, almost thinking that you need to create a whole portfolio of different things that community does. But then what may happen? You may just confuse or overwhelm people, because no one is part of a community as a full-time as well, can't do all of it and can't attend so many things that you have in mind. So take it easy and take it with people, gather it and just bring them on the journey. That's great. Cynthia, I could speak to you for hours and hours about our communities, but as we are wrapping up, I'm just thinking what would be your advice to people who don't believe in communities yet, simply because they never did that first step of joining one and being like, actively involved, not just sign up for one of the channels and never look at them again. What's your advice?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you know what I say to each his or her own. If you're not bought in yet, I think it's fine, but what I would recommend is, if you don't I would say if you don't want to necessarily like join and like, get involved in any of the typical events find out who the leaders of the communities are, Because every single leader of the communities that I've engaged with or learned or learned from or whatnot, are very interesting. Have a perspective. Follow them on LinkedIn or follow their content or whatever it is, because that's a way you can passively learn, and I just have the feeling because I'm being sneaky now I have the feeling, if you do that, you're going to be inspired by one of them at least to maybe join their community. Dig in a little deeper and I promise you you're going to get a massive benefit of it.

Speaker 2:

But I think even just following this is what I tell people all the time, especially pivoters I'm like start following leaders and read their content, because you're going to learn so much, especially about trends that are happening in customer success, and especially, like, if you're on a job search too, like these are things you could speak to that are going to resonate with interviewers or even in your current job. Hey, this is what I'm seeing, this is the direction. How are we looking at this? So it's just, it's a sneaky way for you to find your passion, to learn from others, to be able to help yourself and upskill yourself, and then maybe be inspired to the point to maybe want to meet other people in a more formal setting, like a community.

Speaker 1:

That's wonderful, Cynthia. Thank you so much for coming to the show. I really appreciate all of your wisdom and really personal experiences related to being part of communities. Thank you.

Speaker 2:

No, thank you so much. It's been such a great conversation. I could talk to you forever too, but it's good let's put a boundary out there until next time. But it's such a great conversation. I love this topic. I love your questions so thoughtful and interesting. And, yeah, thank you so much.

Speaker 1:

Thank you, Cynthia. 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.