An Outcome Mentality: The Right Way to Approach Customer Success

Dan Barrett is the Senior Vice President of Customer Success at
MongoDB. With a background in sales, Dan has held various
leadership roles in the technology industry. He started his
career at IBM before moving on to Q Associates, Symantec, and
ServiceNow. Dan joined MongoDB as a Regional Director for the UK
and Ireland and has since been promoted to Vice President of
Northern Europe and then to his current role as Senior Vice
President of Customer Success.


In this episode, Dan discusses his transition from sales to
customer success and the importance of aligning sales and
customer success teams. Dan shares insights on reducing churn,
proactive customer success strategies, and the changing
expectations of customers in a consumption-driven world. He
emphasizes the need for measuring and demonstrating the impact of
customer success and the role of customer success in driving
business outcomes. Dan also highlights the significance of
cultivating advocates and engaging economic buyers throughout the
customer journey.

Tune in to this conversation with John McMahon and John Kaplan on
the Revenue Builders podcast.


HERE ARE SOME KEY SECTIONS TO CHECK OUT


[00:02:40] Dan's initial thoughts on transitioning from sales to
customer success
[00:06:41] Organization structure: customer success, product-led
sales, account management, and renewal
[00:09:19] Challenges of silos and lack of alignment between
teams
[00:12:18] Building skills, trust, and impact in customer
success
[00:15:14] Reviewing and addressing risks on a weekly basis
[00:17:48] Promoting internal talent and maintaining company
culture
[00:19:59] Challenges in selecting and developing customer
success leaders
[00:22:10] Understanding the complex root causes of churn
[00:26:00] Moving to a consumption-based model is the ultimate
test of value
[00:29:47] Customer success is often the first to be cut due to
lack of impact measurement
[00:32:00] A good customer success team should be able to pay for
itself
[00:36:24] The importance of a positive customer experience and
the potential impact on future projects
[00:39:00] Economic buyer engagement and the changing dynamics of
the sales process
[00:47:09] The importance of aligning the customer journey with
the software development lifecycle
[00:51:53] Being data-driven and analytical


ADDITIONAL RESOURCES


Learn more about aligning customer-facing teams to improve
execution: 
https://forc.mx/48o1jyP


Learn more about Dan Barrett and about their company.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/newbusinesssales/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/mongodbinc/

HIGHLIGHT QUOTES


[00:54:26] "If I can't self-identify on how that makes me feel, I
call it the indignity of the close. If I'm not understanding what
that means, that the sale really begins with probably an
objection or a no or somewhere, and I'm not comfortable with
that, then I'm probably not gonna do so well in that sales
career."
[00:55:41] "I wanna understand someone's character more so than
anything. So I think those, As part of our structured interview
framework, we're trying to focus more in the early stages of that
process of identifying what are the aspects of someone's
character and capability that we're looking for."
[01:01:41] "I think if the sales reps need to remember where they
came from and help invest in that SDR 'cause it's gonna lead to
success for them if they make those investments."