Women in Customer Success Podcast

133 - How Appearance Shapes Professional Interactions - Alexandra Sagaydak

• Marija Skobe-Pilley • Episode 133

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What role does appearance play in shaping perceptions at work, especially in customer-facing roles? That's what you're going to learn from this episode from my guest, Alexandra Sagaydak, Chief Customer Officer at PeopleForce. 

We talk about the importance of appearance in the workplace, especially in customer-facing roles, and how it can influence perceptions and interactions. Alexandra also shares her experiences of moving from Ukraine to Romania, her extroverted personality, and her passion for makeup and art. 

We also talk about the unique challenges and rewards of working in a startup environment. Alexandra provides valuable insights about the world of startups, including the opportunities for career growth, the importance of adaptability, and the potential for burnout.

In this episode:

  • Alexandra's background and move to Romania
  • Extroversion and social experiences
  • Alexandra's passion for makeup and art
  • The impact of appearance in the workplace
  • Alexandra's career journey in customer success
  • Working in startups
  • Advantages and challenges of startup life


Whether you're considering a career in customer success, curious about the startup culture, or simply interested in makeup tips, don't miss this episode full of useful information and inspiration.

Follow Alexandra!

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Host Marija Skobe-Pilley


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Speaker 1:

Welcome back to the Women in Customer Success podcast. I appreciate you tuning in and choosing to spend some time with me today. I'm really excited about this conversation. I will introduce you to a wonderful, gorgeous lady, alexandra Sagaidak. She's a Chief Customer Officer at PeopleForce and we speak a lot about makeup, appearance and very interesting topic what does it mean to work in a startup? Is it for you, what can you expect, what are the advantages, what are the disadvantages? So we are trying to unpack a startup experience for you, so let's get into it.

Speaker 1:

Hi everyone, this is Maria Scobepile 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's a pleasure to welcome this amazing lady. She is Chief Customer Officer at PeopleForce. She's Aleksandra Sagaidak. Aleksandra, I am really looking forward to this conversation today. Welcome to the show, hey Maria. I'm very happy that you have this conversation today. Welcome to the show, hey Maria. I'm very happy that you have me here today and actually I was very surprised where you sent me the invitation to the podcast, so I hope that your audience find our conversation useful. So, yeah, happy to be here. Thanks for inviting me. I have no doubt that our guests will find this conversation really useful and I'm really excited that actually you found my invitation surprising and you are an accomplished CS leader, so this will be interesting.

Speaker 1:

Now, alexandra, let's get the audience get to know you a bit better. Let's help them. Can you share, please, where are you based at the moment? Can you share, please, where are you based at the moment? So, at the moment, I'm based in bucarest, in romania. So originally I'm from ukraine and I moved to romania two years ago because of the war that happened, and actually I love bucarest a lot and it feels like home for me. I love romanians. They're very kind people. So, yeah, either. If there is someone from Romania, from your audience, yeah, I am saying hi to them and thanks for having me here in Romania, very lovely country. Oh, that's wonderful. So a big wave to all the Romanians who are very welcoming, to all our friends. I do have lots of Romanian friends as well, alexandra. All our friends. I do have lots of Romanian friends as well, alexandra, how would you describe yourself?

Speaker 1:

Are you an extrovert or introvert? I would say that I'm definitely extrovert because of my experience, of my title and of the field where I work with a lot of people. And, yeah, I like to talk a lot and I like to handle, hang with people. So definitely the extrovert. Of course sometimes I need to my time to recharge, but not a lot. So, yeah, definitely extrovert. That's wonderful when you say also you need your time to recharge, which is fine, but as an extrovert, you would also get energy from being among people, so that's like almost a battery recharging for you. That's really cool.

Speaker 1:

Yes, yes, have you always been like that, like when you think about your maybe teenage years and afterwards, is it like just a natural thing or is it something more related to the work that you are doing? I think that since teenage years I started to realize that I like to hang out with different people. I was a professional sports player so I was on different competencies. I used to meet a lot of different other professional sports players to hang out with them, different communities. I loved a lot of rock music so I definitely went to the concerts, met a lot of new people there hang out with them became friends eventually. So, yeah, I think that since teenage years, I started to realize that I like to meet new people to hang out. I easily become friends with anyone and then, of course, I think my career helped me to become even more extroverted. Perfect, okay, you are giving me some great nudges.

Speaker 1:

Okay, which sport were you playing? I was playing volleyball. Yeah, because of my height. I like middle to higher, tall, like 173 centimeters, which is perfect for the volleyball. Yeah, and I've been in the women team, like, was it the national level? I mean regional or semi-professional? Yeah, it was professional, so we had like different teams across different cities and then we could compete. It was like a club level. So every city has different clubs and our city as well had different clubs and I was part of one of the clubs and we were competencies and then actually like from our how the sport is in Ukraine, you then can participate as a part of national team, but I quit it because of the university. So that's about my career. That's wonderful.

Speaker 1:

So, in your sports day, how many hours per week did you practice? I think that I had trainings, uh, five days a week. Oh my gosh, that's awesome. I loved it, yeah, and then every summer we had like a special trainings where we lived in a separate like environment and we would training for competitorships and we had trainings twice a day for almost two weeks straight. So you are amazing. This is, this is wonderful. I never knew that about you. I would like to hear more from you and you know all of those because there's so parallels. I know I was in music, like that so much like sometimes it was many, many, many hours of practice a day, but I always admire people who have done sports in such a high and competitive level. There is so many amazing skills that you gathered throughout that whole experience and, as you said, like what being in a camp for two weeks, trainings twice a day oh gosh, that's awesome, awesome, awesome, awesome. Thank you. 173 centimeters tall yes, perfect for volleyball, but also for modeling.

Speaker 1:

And I need to ask you a question. You are so gorgeous and your makeup is like, oh my gosh, next level for everybody watching on YouTube, and I happen to know that you're really interested in makeup. Just tell me more about it, how interested you are, like, are you doing makeup tutorials? Do you just love experimenting with different brands? Like, do you just like doing the gosh? What's the name? Art, you know, being a visagist, yeah, and makeup, yeah, makeup artist sorry, that was the word. And tell me more. I'm really like I see your makeup being amazing. Thank you very much. Yeah, tell me more. Don't feel shy. Tell me more about it. Don't feel shy, tell me more about it. And also, for all the ladies listening, I am interested to hear from you Any of your makeup, like suggestions or recommendations, especially when it comes to, you know, women in customer success, being in business environment still wanting to look gorgeous, but kind of, you know, natural or however look they want to. Sorry, I'm just throwing all my questions into you. It's not that we're having a makeup tutorial today, but who knows, by the end of the podcast, maybe that would become our main topic of today and I wouldn't mind at all.

Speaker 1:

But, yeah, start from the beginning. How did you get into all of that? Yeah, I think that it became with my passion to art. I was painting and I like to experiment with different art forms and I even painted like bottles. So, yeah, it was like handmade stuff. And then I think that's as every girl like you, have your teenage face and usually your mom allows you to borrow her makeup. You start experimenting and I understood that I like it a lot because I I visualize myself as a like a blank paper where I can just put something interesting and to change my appearance, you know, and every time I can be the new person or allow myself to show the world what's my mood today through the makeup. So, yeah, and then my friend gave me a certificate to like for the makeup professional course, as in a makeup artist, and I passed it, so I gained more professional skills. So you're a makeup artist as well, like a certified makeup artist. Certified, yes, uh-huh, look at that. Congrats. Yeah, thank you.

Speaker 1:

And yeah, it's just my hobby and sometimes I do some YouTube videos, some posts on Instagram and yeah, I think that right now, I'm just a friend that usually my girls come to and ask for some recommendations or like what should I buy, what should I do, what will suit me? And I like this, I like that people trust me. That's what I like the most. I think that's also coming from customer success, like the trust, and, as you said, you, you can kind of depict different moods. So what is your makeup currently telling us about your mood.

Speaker 1:

I decided to make it like calm and to have some shiny eyes so I can look cute on the podcast and I think it's just a little bit natural, but also, I think, enhance my features. So, yeah, just make me a little bit better than I am, as we all would like to be perceived by people. Oh, absolutely so. Is your eyeshadow? Is it golden-ish or like blush pink-ish? I'm just trying to see it's like rose gold. It's the you know that's fancy names that we have currently rose gold. So, yeah, cool.

Speaker 1:

So now, completely unsolicited question, now that we are on a consultation but when you see my face and my color, my hair, everything, what would be, let's say, some main colors that you would say would fit me in a way to portray myself like naturally, but also with some authority, perhaps I think that something bronze, bronze colors would suit you well, and maybe some brown eyeliner will enhance your features and your eye color. And, yeah, I think like something like this so you can play with some bronze eyeshadows. Just put it on your eyelid and that's it. We don't need actually a lot, and but I told you at the beginning that you have perfect hairstyle right now. So I think, as it is. It makes you very beautiful even without some professional makeup, because it suits you a lot, so much. It's a morning for me and I didn't put much, almost anything. No, this was really interesting.

Speaker 1:

Tell me more about like, as a person who is really interested in I can see, in in arts, in fashion, in in in beauty, in aesthetics, in makeup how much do you think somebody's appearance, including makeup, really tells a lot about their work and their job? I think a lot, maybe, nowadays. Of course no, because we, after COVID, we, became much more relaxed with their remote work. But the thing is that I have been in facing roles most of my life and previously when we had meetings in person. Of course, you need to put yourself together and I think that it just makes sense, and especially where you're a woman, I think that with appearance, it will make your life a little bit easier, I would say, and sometimes, especially, you will have hard conversations with customers, with your boss or with whoever. When you just look good and that you spend some time on yourself, it will help you to get some decision in your favor. But this is what I experienced.

Speaker 1:

Maybe other women had something different, something different, but I even sometimes realize that, for example, when I was without makeup or with makeup, in Eastern European culture you would experience some questions like hey, are you sick today? Yeah, and I think yeah, for our culture it makes sense. I think, yeah, I would agree. Well, I'm partly Eastern European and when I go there now on holidays in summer, very often I do feel very much underdressed or whatever, because I would not put especially in summer, like I would not put anything on my face, maybe mascara or some you know little bronzers. I wouldn't put much because it's all about the sun for me. Yes, but I definitely feel the vibe and I know lots of friends like you're not gonna go out of your house to put the garbage out if you don't have makeup on your face, like you are just always have to be put together. That's how it is. But I also think it affected my mindset, obviously, and the way how I see the world, because I completely can resonate with what you were saying.

Speaker 1:

I also feel when I see a woman who is nicely put together and that includes makeup, you know, not too much to look artificial, I think that's then different extreme. I probably have different feelings and opinions about that. When a woman is looking beautiful, looking that she takes care of herself and of her appearance, she is immediately very high in my eyes. I have immediately more respect to her than maybe to somebody who and I'm not saying who doesn't wear makeup. That's not even the thing. It's okay not to wear makeup, but if you look like you just got out of the bed and now you're in the meeting, I would feel like, oh, do you have respect towards all of us who are here in the room? Maybe this is completely wrong. I don't know. I'm sure it's coming from our cultures as well, but it makes so much more difference when somebody looks so well put together. I think that, yeah, your words make sense and I would, for example, for internal meetings. Of course, I would not put such much pressure on people, but the thing is that 90% of the time, people who work with customers also have external meetings, and I think that even when you just brush your hair and put some white t-shirt which it's fine you don't just go with a blazer or something extra. I just put this for podcast. Obviously, that already makes sense and you will make other person comfortable, you will show your respect and that's it. That's also just part of the culture when you're in customer phase and grow. You work with customers, so you definitely need to show yourself for them.

Speaker 1:

Alexandra, let's go a bit into your career. How did you start your career and so far ended up in customer success? What was the journey? So I think that my journey has been similar to most of the people at that time. So I started as an account management intern in the B2C2B product and I grew there. I was an enterprise account manager and also I became the deputy of our department head. And then I realized that I was young. At that time I was only 26. I realized that I would like to explore something else and I received a lot of advice from my colleagues and friends that, hey, maybe you will switch to product, product manager, project manager, business analyst, whatever. But then I went on several interviews and I realized that I like to talk to people. I like to talk to customers, I easily identify their pains and I know how to explain the value of the product. So I decided to stick with it and I found the customer success position at the startup and that's how everything began for me, and since then I stick to the customer success in different roles, variations and companies, but most of them are still the startups. So that was an interesting path from account management into more value-driven conversations and then customer success in startups.

Speaker 1:

I am really, really interested and I realize that's not a topic that I spoke about a lot with my guests how is it being in the startup in general and then especially having the executive role in a startup? I know that's something that you've been talking about recently and I read some of your posts on the topic, but I think it's really worth going deeper into. What does it even mean to work in the startup? How does it look like? What are the things that we maybe didn't expect? What are the surprising things? So let's go one by one.

Speaker 1:

In your experience, what are some of the main maybe lessons learned or main thoughts about working in a startup? Lessons learned or main thoughts about working in a startup? So I think it depends on your character, but for me, what I enjoyed and learned the most is that in the startup, you can actually learn about the business and how it's starting and, at the same time, because you're one of the first hires, you can understand how it all begins and you can easily be connected with different departments and understand what they're doing. You can even help them because you will have so many responsibilities that will be out of your job description and at the same time it will help you to understand how usually organizations are growing. So when you will be scaling, it would be much easier for you to understand how to scale and what you will need for your business. Of course, not always, but you will realize a whole structure and how this small structure can be scaled to the bigger structure.

Speaker 1:

Before, for example, with the bigger organizations, when you're joining them, you usually join only one unit of the big organization and it keeps you at the same time in some bubble. And if the organization is very big, sometimes you even don't know. Like half of your colleagues, you don't know what they're doing, what are the projects and the vision that the company provides you is very like, I would say, limited. So you know their main missions and what are the goals of the business for the next year, five or 10. But at the same time you are not involved in the decisions that are making across the different business units and it's limiting your vision a little bit. So sometimes you don't understand. For example, that's what I usually uh hear from my mentees when I uh mentor them, uh, that they can't understand what they don't understand the difference between the issues that some particular organization might have experience or challenges, and the difference that sometimes it's not the issue, it's just the face of the company, and usually all the companies experience this face.

Speaker 1:

So I think that startup gives you just a bigger picture about the structure of organization and how it scales and grows. So, because there are less people in general and you just have much more visibility and you're exposed to so many different well, basically to all the different departments and the operations, and it's very likely that you may sometimes pick up some of those tasks from other people simply because of lack of resources. Right, so you can learn a lot. You have much greater exposure. What else? I think that, because you're sometimes one of the first hires, it gives you the ability for a quick career growth.

Speaker 1:

It also depends, of course, on your abilities and your desire. Not all people would like to grow in some management role. Sometimes it's okay to just be in an individual contributor role. But if you have this desire, startups is one of the best things. It will give you, of course, again, this vision and understanding how different units cooperating and departments with each other, how it grows, and you will be able to help to make it grow and, of course, then pick up this and became the team lead or department head or whatever how the organization is structured. And I think that for the ambitious people, it's a really great thing to join a startup from early stages and then grow to a sound management role. This is also one of the benefits, because I also sometimes hear from people oh, like, how I will grow if my organization don't even offer something, because I have three team leads above me.

Speaker 1:

I usually say that, okay, if you're focused only on the career growth, then maybe it's time for you to think changing your company and look for some startup that will boost your career growth much faster. Oh, absolutely. I remember once I had a conversation with a CSM which was a mentoring, who said, oh well, in five years' time, I want to be a CCO, which was very interesting. He was at the moment in a pretty, pretty large organization. I said, yeah, that's cool, I'm sure you can do it. You just need to look for another company. Like, let's be real, it's much more likely you can do it in a smaller startup? No, but it's true. There is no like sky's only a limit. When you are in a startup and when you are good and doing a good job, because there are so many things to do, you have opportunities for growth in your career, definitely.

Speaker 1:

What about people who are very creative and they love building things? Why would startup be potentially good for them? Oh well, because, of course, you can create everything on your own, from scratch, and also gives you the ability to test something, Because, for example, even when I have built my own department, my team probably sometimes laugh at me because in one day, I can come to them after one night of thoughts and say, hey guys, I understood that actually what we've built doesn't fit us anymore and we need to build everything from scratch. So if you have this natural desire for building all the things and to uh, be creative and jungle with different strategies and to try something, startup is also a great thing. But, of course, note that you will have limited resources. So if you would like to incorporate some very fancy, pricey customer success platform, there will be limitations, but in terms of the processes different theories, like different email strategies everything is possible. So, yeah, you can try your different ideas and, for example, I think that startups is a is a great thing for someone who wanted some management career and, for example, they were not agree with their previous boss and they don't know. We should do definitely everything not the same way. So startup is a great way to try yourself and maybe find out that you were right or wrong or wrong. That's interesting.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, one of my favorite things about working in a startup was building the culture, especially in the places where I was among the first ones. So you are well, you are the culture. You are starting the culture as you are hiring more people. Firstly, you're hiring people that can become your cultural ad right, people that you like, people that you want to work with. You have loads of say in it, and you're really building the team based on your own liking and based on the culture that you, you can envisage for the team like that's. That's priceless to me. Yes, yes, you're right. I think that that's definitely one of the things that I didn't realize until you said it. Right now, uh, because we uh, especially the first time, um, like hires and the game managers. Uh, eventually, your hires that you uh join your team will be a little resemblance of yourself in some kind of way. So if you have some qualities, you can also improve them and even strengthen them more with your team. So, yeah, definitely, building a culture is a great thing. Thanks for mentioning this.

Speaker 1:

So we spoke about the advantages of working for a startup in terms of exposure, learning, career growth, building a culture. What about, what would you say? Is it a good environment for people who are entrepreneurial, who just want to do things and test things and fail and fail fast, and people who typically maybe want to be their own bosses? You know people who say I would never, ever work for somebody else. What would you say? Would startup be a good environment for those type of people? Only, if you want to become a CEO, then you should start your own startup.

Speaker 1:

Of course, there is a thing that in a startup there is, like this movement, that everyone is an entrepreneur of their own field, job and department, but at the same time, you still need to be a team player and to keep a balance and, of course, understand that behind every startup, there is still a mission that unites everyone. So, at the same time, you need to be aware of this and understand there are still limits of your power and your creativeness and your decisions, because you still need to be a part of even the smallest team and division that drives the startup forward. But maybe if you want to be an entrepreneur, of course, then you need to look for the CEO role. That will give you the ultimate power. You will be able to express your skills and to tell everyone what to do.

Speaker 1:

And tell me, what would you say for what isn't great about startups or what should people avoid? Like people who want to have particular type of job, like why they would not be fit for a startup. What are those? Like disadvantages? I understood that.

Speaker 1:

Um, I'm not sure that it's a common thing, but I definitely sometimes feel that in the startup, you can face a burnout much frequently and much faster if you work in a big organization and because, first of all, startup is adaptability, flexibility and still chaos. In some time, when you're a small, start of the chaos is bigger because you're fighting for the growth, for the numbers, for first customers, and when you become bigger and scaling, the chaos becomes a little less, but still it's there because the priority is changing and sometimes usually, for example, you were thinking that you will be this stage, but you've outgrown yourself and then you need to rearrange the whole processes, you need to hire fasts and so on. So, again, the chaos of different stages. So I would say that people who are not great in this environment and would like to perceive something more stable, startup might be not the best fit for them, because they will be burned out much faster and they will feel this pressure because everything really truly can change in one week, and especially now what's happening after covid with the sas, it's even much faster thing because, uh, there is much more competitors right now and you even need to be faster than even mr lemkin wrote this post that previously startups had five years for building and so on, and now you have 18 months. It's very fast and we are still the human beings and, of course, our consciousness and brain, perceive this not very good because it's a lot of pressure. So, yeah, this is the first thing. Yeah, because it's a lot of pressure. Uh, so, yeah, and this is the first thing. Yeah, because it's chaos. The second thing is the salary and the benefits. Uh, there is this.

Speaker 1:

Sometimes I saw the tiktok videos where people uh like, show the like, the company environment and the startup environment and usually the startup environment. The show is like gen z are just playing some video games or napping, but that's not true. You actually work a lot in the startup. You overtime a lot because you have different tasks and priorities and you need to do everything fast. And it's not about the time management. It's just about, uh, the workload and the, the numbers that you would like to show, uh, the things that you would like to do, because there is some either the conference that you received the like notification or invitation wait, yeah, and the marketing need to do all the branding and so on, or something like the strategy has changed and you need to arrange the pricing, the structure or anything else has changed and you need to act fast. Yeah, I've noticed that you know in my experience of working in a bigger company and in startups like, what takes at least two weeks in a bigger company even to get internal resolutions or confirmations or any process. It takes at least two weeks. In startups, it happens in two days and you don't have time to afford loads of not loads of thinking, but delaying. You just have to be incredibly fast and exactly as you said, I feel that people that I know that work in startups are the most hardworking people that never play video games.

Speaker 1:

This is just a constant delivery of things, it's constant tasks and it's just loads in a short period of time very intense, but also it's very much for people who completely thrive in those type of environments. They wouldn't change it for anything. Yes, yes. So yeah, salary and benefits, because it's the benefits. You won't have them because the company can't afford this fancy medical insurance or whatever. But you're gaining so much more and some people like it, some people not, because I understand that people would like some stability in their life, especially now, especially when you have a family. You can't afford the chaos in your life. So, yeah, that's a disadvantage for many of the people.

Speaker 1:

As we are wrapping up, I really want to hear from you what's the best thing about being a CCO in a startup. I think that you can influence decisions and that you can really be this customer voice in organization that every influencer webinar podcast talks a lot. That's the best thing. That's something that you read in the books when you only started your career. Now becomes your reality and you understand the value of this, the advantage, but also the responsibility behind this, and I think that's the greatest thing that I experienced Wonderful.

Speaker 1:

Thank you so much for sharing your story, your career, why you love startups, and for showcasing how gorgeous you are and giving us advice on makeup. I really appreciate that. I appreciate you and I can't wait to see you in person on some of the upcoming events. Thank you, yeah, thank you for having me. I hope our audience enjoyed the conversation and if they would need some advice on the startups, I'm free on LinkedIn to share the experience and some knowledge. Perfect, so you heard her. Find Alexandra Sagajdak on LinkedIn. You can connect with her. And, yes, please let us know what you thought of this episode, thank you, 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.