Speaker 1: 0:31

Can you imagine if you went on a first date with someone. You walk her to her door and you say goodnight, and I can't, I would love to see you again. Do you think that's in the cards? And then, before you get back to your car, you shoot her a text and you're like hey, what do you think? Let's do it again. I'm outside, do you want?

Speaker 2: 0:50

to go.

Speaker 1: 0:51

Yeah, like, let's just run it back, let's do it again. I'm outside, do you want to go?

Speaker 2: 0:53

Yeah, like, let's just run it back Once again. Welcome to the Digital Customer Experience podcast with me, alex Turkovich. So glad you could join us here today and every week as we explore how digital can help enhance the customer and employee experience. My goal is to share what my guests and I have learned over the years so that you can get the insights that you need to evolve your own digital programs. If you'd like more info, need to get in touch or sign up for the weekly companion newsletter that has additional articles and resources in it. Go to digital customer successcom. For now, let's get started.

Speaker 2: 1:26

Hello and welcome back to the digital CX podcast. My name is Alex Turkovich. This is episode 87 of the show where we talk about all things digital in CX, and today I am pleased to be joined by my good friend and editor of this show and all around media mogul when it comes to CX Podcasts, of course, it's Dylan Young of Lifetime Value Media and the Daily Stand-Up, and the segment is Awesome Newsletter, and it's actually his second time back on the podcast. We talk about all manner of things, yes, relating to digital, but also life and the job market, and you know, one of the benefits of having a show like this is you get to talk to a lot of people and get a lot of insights, and that is no Dylan's no exception there, and so I wanted to glean a little bit of the insights that he has learned from his guests over the past years. So please enjoy this episode of the digital CX podcast, featuring none other than Dylan Young. Hi Dylan, hey Alex, welcome back to the show.

Speaker 1: 2:35

That's right, I was here, hey, so you know what's interesting. The last time we talked, you reamed me for my very bright drinking apparatus. Do you remember that?

Speaker 2: 2:50

I mean I, I, yeah, I called it out several, several times because I kept forgetting that I called it out and I kept getting like shocked by it, because it is so you know what I did.

Speaker 1: 3:01

I'm gonna lie to you. I didn't do this for you, but what I have today is a dcx branded drinking vessel, stainless steel. This is different than the other one, but it is just as bright and obnoxious it is bright and obnoxious, yeah absolutely slightly wrong color orange but impressive nonetheless, the best I could do on literally less than no notice I I just happen to be using this today. This is not for you oh man that's funny.

Speaker 2: 3:38

Um well, you are among a very few who are in the two-timers club, and I'm excited about that for multiple reasons. Okay, because not only I think most people who listen to this show will know who you are, right, but in case you don't like Dylan Young, would you call yourself lead host of the Daily Stand-Up?

Speaker 1: 4:01

Oh, I would never.

Speaker 2: 4:02

Head honcho, I'm the boss, you're the boss.

Speaker 1: 4:05

No, no, no, let's not vacillate. I'm the big cheese. No, I'm co-host of the Daily Stand-Up with my two very good friends of which you are very familiar Rob Zambito and JP Frost.

Speaker 2: 4:18

That's right. On top of that, you also produce a killer weekly newsletter called the Segment, which is super, super, super cool and very creative and, you know, not your typical CS. You know CS publication, but it gets into all kinds of different things. You are also your head of a media empire called Lifetime Value Media, which does have some association with this show, in that you are probably the MVP of this show, for sure.

Speaker 1: 4:50

I love to hear that. I love to hear that because you know why. The amount of people who, when you get to the end of the show and you say, oh, what's in your content diet? The amount of people I guess there's an opportunity that they could just be being lazy but almost to a man and woman they say, well, a cornerstone in their content diet is your podcast. So I like to think that I've. I've got a piece of ownership.

Speaker 2: 5:20

Yeah, not actual ownership, I don't mean that, alex, but you get what I'm saying I do, I do, I, you know, I think people mention the show at the end because you know it was in the contract.

Speaker 2: 5:32

So I didn't get that contract, so at the end let's see how I do yeah, right, exactly, um, but no, look, I mean, the amount of content that you put out with your co-hosts and solo and all that kind of stuff is amazing. I mean, it's for those of you don't listen to it go, you know, subscribe to the daily stand-up, because it's a daily show, which is an insane amount, and you have a lot of guests, and that's part of what we're going to talk about today, for sure. But it's cool because it's short, 15-minute episodes. It's not me drooling on for like an hour.

Speaker 1: 6:08

Yeah, and imagine how I feel having to edit that. No, I'm kidding, I'm kidding, I'm kidding. Yeah, I think what we wanted to do was, if you look at it from the most positive sense, we love the CS community me and the other hosts that's who we is and we wanted a way to bring additional value that we weren't sure we could do by wading into the 60-minute pool. I've done that before and I think a lot of people do it really well, but I thought that there was a void for that sort of like micro content that people can dive into every single day, and so that's really kind of like. The genesis of the idea was I want to hear more about it, but I can't listen to 60 minutes every day necessarily, right?

Speaker 2: 7:01

Yeah, I mean 15 minutes is a lovely amount of time because you know you can walk and get the mail in 15 minutes, or you can. You know, take your dog for a walk, or you can you know it's it's good because not everybody has like 50 minute commutes like I do.

Speaker 1: 7:18

Yeah, and in a. So I used to love, love, love listening to podcasts and then I had to curtail it quite a bit when I started working remotely and then it just like didn't really fit into my, my world anymore, cause I can't listen to a podcast and work at the same time. No, and so that was another thing was like I think of a lot of this is like maybe super selfish of me, but I make a lot of these creative decisions or try to identify gaps in in the market based on how I feel and what I think. I don't. I don't think that's the right approach, but I am probably the avatar of lifetime value, media overall, sure.

Speaker 2: 7:59

I would agree with that. I would agree with that, except for the sloth that you have.

Speaker 1: 8:05

I'm slow like him. His name is Slow Mo, for the record, and I am slow just like him.

Speaker 2: 8:11

I'm lazy, I'm very lazy for the record, and I am slow, just like him. I'm lazy, I'm very lazy, and I I disagree. So not to put you on the spot here, but how many episodes, how many guests have you had on the daily stand-up? Do you keep track of that?

Speaker 1: 8:21

surely you do at the time of this recording, we have crossed over 160 episodes. Guests maybe guests? We've done more than that yeah maybe like 180, 190 total episodes.

Speaker 1: 8:38

The large, large majority of those are one-time guests. Yeah, we've had a couple of two-timers that are fantastic. You have actually been on three times, though at the time of this recording, two of those episodes have not aired yet. All right, which is why I had to laugh at I'm. I am in rarefied air for two timers on dcx and you're already at three on the daily stand up. I mean, I don't want to compare notes, but I'm obviously a much kinder and more benevolent host than you to to give you as much air time as I have so yeah something like I mean maybe like 200 episodes and let's say like 150, 160 guests.

Speaker 2: 11:19

So I mean, obviously this is the Digital CX show, so we've, you know, trying to focus on digital stuff, but we get, you know, we go as you know, we go all over the place. Sometimes, of course, out of those guests that you've had, how many? Because the format of the show is, somebody basically brings a topic to the show, right and and you famously ask what's on your mind? And famously, and I'm curious to get a sense from you, because I I'll admittedly have not listened to all 160 some odd episodes.

Speaker 1: 11:53

I gotta go go.

Speaker 2: 11:54

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 11:55

I know.

Speaker 2: 12:00

How much digital related or technology related things have people brought to the show and have you walked away after all those episodes with kind of a sense for, or a finger on the pulse, so to speak, of what's happening digitally?

Speaker 1: 12:12

So you're gonna love this because you and I have talked quite a bit. I'm a I'm a big fan of ambiguity, yeah, and I think the problem I'm gonna have with this answer is like okay, so let's start at the beginning. The question was how many people have talked about digital? I'd bet it's less than 20. However, I think more people are mentioning it as just another tool in the toolbox for customer success, which I think is appropriate. I agree. I remember the very first time you and I ever talked, you told me about this podcast you were creating and I don't want to sound like a wise old man here.

Speaker 1: 13:01

No, I said I love it. I think that's a great idea and that's as niche as you have to be with this stuff. It can't be like well, I want to talk about baseball. It's got to be about the Tampa Bay Rays, it's got to be about the New York Yankees. Pitching you can't, yeah, just being an outfielder. No, the point is, you just can't be that broad anymore when you're creating content and you can go so deep on a topic. Now I remember that first time we talked it was a different time and it was very much when people thought about it as a segment.

Speaker 2: 13:38

Yes, oh, absolutely.

Speaker 1: 13:40

I don't think that's the case anymore, and so so many of our conversations we might just offhandedly mention digital as this method of communicating with customers or this method of accomplishing a very specific task more efficiently in a way that I don't think happened two years ago.

Speaker 2: 14:00

Yeah, I concur, and it's interesting you say that because it is kind of a thing it's regarded as a tool in the tool belt, but to many it's still this kind of black box situation where a lot of people even have said to me is like, you know, we have digital. I'm like what does that mean? Like yeah, they use email this isn't binary, it's not a boolean, like it's not on or off, like yeah yeah yeah, you know so.

Speaker 2: 14:29

So I think a lot of people love to like mention digital cs. Is this one thing? But it it's. You know it's a multitude of things. It can be anything really within your organization and the variables are vast, and so you know it makes sense why people just mention it like that. But still, I think a lot of people are struggling with the, the identity of digital and how how that impacts their own gig and their own organization, their own team.

Speaker 1: 14:57

You zoom out for a second and you think about oh, we have digital. Yeah, and I wonder what they actually meant, because, to your point, it's not binary. But did they mean they have a digital segment or did they mean they have automated customer interactions? Yeah, because both of those are accurate. But it's not the end of the story and it's funny how we can say that and we can laugh and that guy's an idiot, you know, like we can say that, but when you're in the middle of it it's so hard to like think about, like the NBA Back in the 90s people would say like, oh, yeah, we shoot three-pointers. And from somebody from the 60s would be like what the hell is a three-pointer?

Speaker 1: 15:43

we didn't have that, yeah, yeah. But steph curry would hear somebody from the 90s say, oh yeah, we shoot three-pointers. And he'd be like, yeah, you shoot three a game, I shoot 40. Yeah, right, right. And so it's so easy, with the benefit of of hindsight, to see how stupid we are. I wonder what it'll be in another, even just two years.

Speaker 2: 16:07

Oh, totally yeah, I was talking with somebody the other day who basically got hired on to, you know, run digital within an organization and it was very clear that the leadership didn't really know what that meant because they were, you know, I think she got put in charge of like the scale team and they were just doing scaled stuff and yeah, that's tangentially related to digital, but it's not digital Like it's, you know.

Speaker 2: 16:36

So she hired some program managers and actually put in place some stuff, which is cool. But yeah, this whole have digital thing is like. I mean technically, if you have an email flow, you have digital.

Speaker 1: 16:47

Well, yeah, if you're using a laptop, you have digital, because the alternative would be oh, I got to use my landline to call people all day and see how they're using my product. Like, I think we ought to be more specific in the vocabulary about what we mean, and part of that is you're talking to people who aren't speaking the same language. I wonder if that person was a little bit older, the term digital to them was like unique and interesting and to you, like, obviously you live and breathe it all day and so, like, you know all of the, the slight permutations of it that that person might not be privy to. So I think there's also a degree of grace you have to give people with this sort of stuff.

Speaker 2: 17:32

I totally agree. I totally agree and it you know it's, it's nice when you know, with with the platforms, that you and I both have to be able to kind of help people see some of that stuff and and and learn about some of the nuance that may exist. And you know, like I've I tell most of the guests that come on the show is like my goal for each episode is is for you know people to walk away with like one, two, three, four things written in their notebook that they want to go like try and do and wait. We're taking notes. I mean, this episode is obviously the exception to that, but that's my goal.

Speaker 1: 18:12

I'd like for people to be entertained and take nothing from this. Let's see if we can handle that.

Speaker 2: 18:19

Thanks for tuning into another great episode of the Digital CX. Do you nerd out on stuff that you see, like in the wild, like digital motions that you see, and you're like, oh, that's cool, I wonder how they did that? I mean because I know for a fact that you are. I think you're an air table geek like you. You really go, go go hard on like your two zapier and automating that stuff, do you do? You kind of see things and get emails and you're like, oh, how do they know that?

Speaker 1: 18:48

so no, not emails, I am emails, don't do it for me. Anybody who knows me knows I'm a bit of a pessimist and a cynic and so like the thing that actually you know, the thing that's happening now is I'm a habitual phone shopper, so like, if I have free time, I just go on like some of the online stores of like clothing brands I like or things like that, and I I just kind of like, no, what do they got in the store? I don't buy nearly as much as I used to because I'm building a business and we don't make that much money yet, but I'm constantly looking at stuff and there are some companies whose tracking is just like a little too intense.

Speaker 2: 19:33

Oh, sure, and and they don't.

Speaker 1: 19:35

There is no room to breathe from the moment I close out of that browser tab on my phone and I get a text from them saying oh hey, it looks like you were interested in the blah, blah, blah. Why don't you come back and buy it for five dollars off? And it's it's like literally within minutes. Yeah, can you imagine if you went on a first date with someone and, like you walk her to her door and you say good night, and I can't, I would love to see you again. Do you think that's in the cards? And then, before you get back to your car, you shoot her a text and you're like hey, what do you think? Let's do it again. I'm outside, outside, do?

Speaker 2: 20:22

you want to go? Yeah, like, let's just run it back. Could you imagine, yeah, it's nuts, it's nuts and the. You know, I don't think we've gotten any better at this stuff as a society than we did like 10 years ago when dominoes first launched their like pizza tracker situation. You don't think we've evolved past the pizza tracker. I think we've evolved past it, but in a very, not great state. Like. All I want to know is, roughly, when the pizza is going to get here. I don't really need to know when it's going in the oven. I don't really need to know when it's going in the oven. I don't really need to know when it's been put in the box and sliced up. It's fun, I like that. That's kind of neat. To your point, we've gotten so like.

Speaker 2: 21:06

And obviously this is very, very B2C right. We've gotten very granular with, like shipping notifications and tracking and GPS and blah blah blah, Like it's a, that's a, that's a whole thing. That wasn't even fathomable 10 or 15 years ago. We have all this technology.

Speaker 1: 21:24

It can be super easy to just over index on it like real quick to just over index on it like real quick, even just slap it together without consideration for the actual customer experience. Yeah right, because that's the thing. Like if they message me the next day, I'd be like, oh yeah, like I feel like that's an appropriate amount of time, but I wonder if they've done the research, and probably to know that, like well, if they don't buy within X amount of time, then they're never coming back. I think probably what that misses, though, is like well, does that research include all of the folks who receive these text reminders? I will also say I'm basically a Luddite in this world now, like you and I are of similar ages, like we didn't grow up with the internet no, and so but we are consumed by it, and have been probably since, like we were teens or preteens.

Speaker 2: 22:20

I was telling somebody the other day. I remember very clearly sending my first email, and it was my buddy, adam Hale, who also had a computer.

Speaker 1: 22:35

Well it'd be real weird if he didn't yeah.

Speaker 2: 22:39

I just remember sending it to him it was like a test or whatever and then I immediately called him to ask him if he got it.

Speaker 1: 22:46

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And now they're the bane of your existence. Could you imagine if somebody called you today in your work, if they sent you an email and then immediately called you and said hey, did you get?

Speaker 2: 23:00

there was, in fact, that happened to me last week there was a dude who was just like you know, figured out the syntax of my work email, sent me a couple notes and every time, followed up with a phone call, Found my number on freaking LinkedIn, which I've since removed, but like that's like some serious stalking.

Speaker 2: 23:29

Well, no, it's you know LinkedIn navigator, sales navigator, doing what it's good at. But you know it's funny because then you apply that kind of stuff that happens in sales. If you were to apply that same kind of tenacity to post sale, I mean you'd be pissing off your customers.

Speaker 1: 23:50

Yeah, but we do. We do Think of all of the automations that people build without any consideration built in to whether manual interactions are occurring with the customer.

Speaker 2: 24:06

Yeah, well, I mean, one of the things that I've talked about on the show before is, like I think it's really really important, if you're in any kind of CS or CX capacity, to insert yourself into your customer journey on a regular basis.

Speaker 1: 24:20

You're big on secret shopping.

Speaker 2: 24:22

I'm big on secret shopping because we don't do it and I don't understand why we don't do it. Like, wouldn't you want to know what emails you get when, when you are a customer? Cause I guarantee you, if you've never done it, you don't know. Like you, you know all the stuff that you've put in your CSP to send out or whatever, but you probably don't know what they're getting from your product. You probably don't know what they're getting from the product team. You probably don't know what they're getting from marketing. You probably you know, like you don't know.

Speaker 1: 24:51

And isn't it ironic that we are the empathetic like limb of the organization and we are totally clueless on what that customer journey and experience feels like?

Speaker 2: 25:04

Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. Hey. I want to have a brief chat with you about the show. Did you know that roughly 60% of listeners aren't actually subscribed to the show, on whatever platform they're listening to it on? As you know, algorithms love, likes, follows, subscribes, comments, all of that kind of stuff. So if you get value out of the content, you listen regularly and you want to help others to discover the content as well, please go ahead and follow the show. Leave a comment. Leave a comment, leave a review. Anything that you want to do there really helps us to grow organically as a show. And while you're at it, go sign up for the companion newsletter that goes out every week at digitalcustomersuccesscom.

Speaker 1: 25:46

Now back to the show.

Speaker 2: 25:47

Yeah, totally, and you know. Granted, in some cases it's hard to like. You know if you're I don't know if you're a payroll platform. You can't onboard to a payroll platform if you're not paying anybody, but you know there's ways to kind of figure out what's happening. What else happened in your life, Dylan Young?

Speaker 1: 26:07

You mean just like generally.

Speaker 2: 26:08

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 26:09

Well, so this is something very exciting that happened earlier this week. Lifetime Value has officially secured sponsors for every one of its properties. That's amazing.

Speaker 2: 26:21

Congratulations.

Speaker 1: 26:23

Every newsletter. Thank you, yeah.

Speaker 2: 26:27

That's really cool. I mean it's a milestone in building a business like that, you know. And I mean listeners of this show will know that for a little while now, sponsors have been on board, and sponsors are a huge reason why we're working together too.

Speaker 1: 26:42

That's not true. I worked for you for free, alex, I know you did. Don't lie to the people.

Speaker 2: 26:48

I know you did, but you no longer do. Kind of Fair, fair.

Speaker 1: 26:51

Don't lie to the people. I know you did, but you no longer do. What Kinda Fair, fair, yeah, no, yeah. So I think you know. I wrote about this the other day when we built Lifetime Value, and I think anybody who does this sort of work like. Your goal is to fill a void and you want to do so in a unique way. I mean, I can't imagine undertaking a creative endeavor and thinking I just want to do it exactly like these other people. Yeah, right, and so the only way to then validate that theory or that thinking is typically money. It's like why do you build a product and people buy it? You're excited when they buy it because it's like oh, they actually want it, they love me, they really love me. Who said that?

Speaker 2: 27:35

I forget Cindy Lauper, maybe, maybe you need to Google that, Susan Lucci. Oh yeah, that's right.

Speaker 1: 27:53

The numbers are not big, but the milestone and the vote of confidence from sponsors that these are audience members that they want to get in front of is is big, and I don't mind talking about it, because I think it is also a testament to the audience and that the content is worth listening to and worth consuming.

Speaker 2: 28:03

Yeah, I agree, I'm speaking for the audience now, but, like I mean, we're just, as a society, kind of used to. You know, we're used to advertising. You know it is in our daily lives, it is everywhere, you know. One of the beautiful parts about this community, though, is that it is very focused, and, as a result, the sponsors are also very focused, and I don't know about you I'm sure that you know there was some criteria in terms of bringing on board a sponsor, but I I, I wanted to make sure that whoever came on board for the show was something that I actually believed in and didn't mind talking about, and you know is is something that that fits the mission right, I'm making a face as you say this because I just want the money.

Speaker 1: 28:53

But no, I think I will say I don't care so much about that. And I want to defend myself because I say that to get a bit of a rise, but then to say like I'm more interested if they think they can provide value to the customer base. Because there's two things that are going to happen. The advertising that they do on the show is going to go like gangbusters. They're going to get enough leads or demos or whatever that they want to get to find signal and to say, oh, this is a good channel for us to continue to advertise on. Or the opposite is going to happen. They're going to say, oh, this is a good channel for us to continue to advertise on. Or the opposite is going to happen. They're going to say, oh, this doesn't resonate and they're going to move on.

Speaker 1: 29:36

I don't necessarily think I need to protect the audience from sponsors, particularly early on. I think maybe a part of my thinking is coming from the fact that we're just kind of like throwing stuff against the wall and seeing what works. Maybe it won't be any good. I've gotten unsolicited feedback from people about the podcast, the. It's probably important and it's not probably. It is important to understand how people are feeling when they listen to the content or they consume the content. So if somebody came to me and they're like you know, this advertisement stinks, but I don't, I don't know how they could do that, though, because all we do is read an ad and then we move on. It's not like you know, we're not advertising anything. That's crazy, uh, inflammatory yeah energy drinks?

Speaker 1: 30:39

I wouldn't even care. People love energy drinks. I personally don't drink them, but what's wrong with that? So you can bang out your calls.

Speaker 2: 30:48

That's right, yeah, get through them. Get through them. Get those renewals, book those renewals.

Speaker 1: 30:53

Yeah, manually writing 45 emails a day? Yeah, that's right. You need something for that.

Speaker 2: 31:00

That's awesome to hear about the growth of your business and the growth of your empire, as I referred to it earlier. Yeah, earlier, yeah, the start of the empire I mean partially was because you experienced as many, many people have, especially in cs. You experienced a bit of job loss last year, beginning of last year, right, something like that it's been at the time of this recording almost 15 months yeah, insane, yeah insane, and so and I wouldn't call it a bit of job loss a bit of that.

Speaker 2: 31:35

One is pretty binary a complete and total job loss don't sugarcoat it, it's so long enough ago I guess um, a couple things out of that.

Speaker 2: 31:47

First off, we've all benefited from your, from your, your misfortune. So thank you for that, because you have built this, this really cool thing you know, and the daily standup and all that kind of stuff as a as a result of that. Obviously, on the flip side, you know, you you've been looking, you've been kind of out there and you've also experienced a lot of the things that a lot of um job seekers have been struggling with and whatnot. You've experienced that stuff firsthand and wanted to just get your sense on. You know kind of what's your sense on things and how are you, you know, how are you kind of maintaining and coping through all of that?

Speaker 1: 32:25

I quit for a while. I had to, I think. I lost my job in October of 2023, the Monday, after having worked 12 hour days over the weekend attending and helping to break down the biggest and most important conference that that company goes to each year. So was my, that was my thank you. Um, hey, monday at 11 am, I got a quick sync tossed on the calendar and show up in the hr ladies there too and you're immediately like oh, I know, I know what's happening. Like I, I think I logged on and just laughed.

Speaker 2: 33:05

I was like oh, I mean the quick sync has become quick sink. Oh, that has become the telltale sign of what's about to happen.

Speaker 1: 33:17

Never accept that, meaning Everybody don't. If you don't attend, they can't let you go. That's right, it's a rule. Anyway, once that I think before the day was was up I had like polished off the resume and had fired a couple of off, and before the week was up I had started to have interviews and it didn't stop. For months, like I, I had dozens of interviews and reached the final stage at least half a dozen times, only to be told we gave it to somebody who has a little bit more of this experience or that experience.

Speaker 1: 33:57

I at one point, like man, anybody who's going through this understands how much it beats you down yeah and I went to my I like walked up to my wife like feet, shuffling head down, just like a broken man. I was like I don't know what and I have a toddler, by the way, who who needs diapers and food, and and emotional, like stability in the house yeah and I'm like I just don't know what to do.

Speaker 1: 34:26

And she's like why don't you just stop looking for a while and that was probably march, if you're following along about uh, 45 days later is when we rejiggered the previous podcast, which was just called lifetime value, and started publishing the daily standup. So, being afforded that freedom from my absolutely wonderful angel of a wife, I got up the next day and like started planning to build that thing. It's a thing I'd always wanted to do, but it takes a while to build a business, particularly one like this, where it is truly like a blue ocean, like nobody else is doing it, it hasn't been verified or validated in any way, and so we're throwing a lot of stuff against the wall. We've gotten to a good place, as we just discussed, in terms of sponsorships and a good vision, and so then, probably like late summer, early fall, I was like cool, cool.

Speaker 1: 35:31

I think this is a good place. I've got a lot of good processes. I've got some really good contractors who help me get some work done. I want to continue to see this through, but I also probably got to go back to work, start paying some bills. My wife is an absolute angel of a woman. But even angels have a limit to their patience. I also don't want my son to think his dad doesn't work. So, yeah, I've been looking for a while, but I think what also changed, and this is what's so crazy. I have a ton of thoughts about this. I have found next to no luck from cold applications.

Speaker 2: 36:10

Right.

Speaker 1: 36:11

Just looking at listings and saying like, oh, that sounds like me. I feel like I could do that and just tossing my application in the ring.

Speaker 2: 36:19

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 36:20

When I went back to it, it was almost exclusively networking with people and saying, hey, I'm in the market. Do you got anything that walks and talks like what I have done in the past? Do you have anybody who maybe they don't even know they need someone, but they've got questions and can you introduce me? Love to just talk with them. And then there was a lot of like talking to people without any ask whatsoever.

Speaker 2: 36:47

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 36:48

Learning from other people. I've talked to dozens of people who have made career transitions in the same time and said, like, how did you do it? What did you how? And so a lot of the things I just described are exactly what they said. Like well, I don't cold apply to anything.

Speaker 2: 37:06

The spray and pray does not work.

Speaker 1: 37:08

It does not. It's awesome for your vanity metrics of like. I used to keep a spreadsheet of all of the applications I submitted. The only metric that actually matters, which is number of hires achieved. That's right. It's usually very low in comparison.

Speaker 2: 37:23

I put in 10,000 applications.

Speaker 1: 37:26

It also, once I flipped that mindset and I started to like really have more in-depth conversations with people who were hiring for CS leaders, or had done so, or who had just become, who had just been hired as CS leaders, I realized how stupid it would be to just hire a leader of an existing team that you've never met before, right? Can you imagine, yep, like I only get to know you through a total of maybe five hours of conversations broken up over six, seven, eight weeks.

Speaker 2: 38:10

Which is crazy, because that used to be the norm.

Speaker 1: 38:12

Very much the norm that used to be the norm.

Speaker 1: 38:15

Yeah, well, what I think is also insane is how ridiculous of a process it still is. Like that's the only way we get hired now, yeah, is we've got to have had conversations with people for years and get to know them, right, well, what about anybody who didn't know that secret? That's right, that's just getting started. That doesn't have a job. What do they do in the meantime? It's, it is a I terrible way as a terrible thing for the employment market to be subjected to. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 39:01

I mean it used to be. It used to be that people would give you advice when you were like on the job hunt or whatever you know to, to network and and do all that kind of stuff. But it was like kind of ancillary. You know it was ancillary. They're all these companies have these application processes and that's kind of stuff. But it was like kind of ancillary. You know it was ancillary. There, all these companies have these application processes and that's kind of how you entered the funnel and did all that kind of stuff and sure, if you knew somebody you'd ask for a referral.

Speaker 2: 39:24

Now the networking is the way, because I mean, there's so many qualified applicants. I think there's a couple of things right. There's so many qualified applicants in the think there's a couple of things right. There's so many qualified applicants in the market. We are now, more than ever even though there's a lot of return to office kind of stuff happening more than ever we're hiring a remote workforce, which means the talent pool has just exploded. And so in an applicant tracking system, within an hour of a gig being posted, you're all of a sudden against the thousand other applicants, and so a hiring manager or even a recruiter is not going to go weed through all those applications. They're going to favor people that are in a certain person's network and I was like oh, I know them from so-and-so, or I talked with them at this conference, you know, and it's like all of those things that used to be side notes of, yeah, you know, go, go network and be part of some groups or whatever.

Speaker 1: 40:21

And now it's like like talk to people network, go to conferences and hang out from five years ago bristles at that idea, because my attitude was but I'm good at the work. Like just give me a chance and I'll show you I'm good at the work, yeah. And now, having been through this experience and also just talking to as many people as I do through the work I do, I would laugh in that dude's face and be like you're a moron man, like it's fine if you're really good at it, but probably so is everybody else. That's how they made it to a leadership position in the first place. And even then, like what is good, particularly in leadership? What does good work mean? That's different for every organization and it's up to the team how they perceive if you're a good leader or not. And so it is all about the network.

Speaker 1: 41:20

And as you were talking, I thought of the horny phrase of your. Your network is your net worth. Oh, and it's lame, right, but it is also that easy of, like the connections you create and the conversations you have and the relationships that you build and how that is everything really in life. I mean you strip business away from it. There's a lot of metrics to talk about when it comes to business, but at the end of the day. I think this is a thing that my co-host, rob, says all the time. It's people working with people. Yeah right, yeah yeah. And you got to get comfortable with the fact that you got to be. You either have to be absolutely like Elon Musk level brilliant.

Speaker 2: 42:12

And someone would argue with that.

Speaker 1: 42:13

Famously yeah, true, true. Well, he's brilliant at stealing stuff, then I mean, even if he didn't think he invented this stuff or started these companies, and he's really good at stealing them anyway. But he's also notoriously difficult to work with and just like a miserable sob, like you've either got to be that or you got to learn to play nice in the sandbox and talk to people and be a connector.

Speaker 1: 42:37

And none of that stuff comes natural to me. I hate it. Well, I did hate it. I really actually enjoy it now. But that has been the key through the search now.

Speaker 2: 42:47

Yeah, I love that. I think that's sage advice and it's an amazing place to kind of put a ribbon in this episode.

Speaker 1: 42:57

Oh no, we're not done. We're going another 40 minutes.

Speaker 2: 43:02

Two-hour marathon. Do you have any shout-outs or kudos that you'd like to give?

Speaker 1: 43:11

I want to give a shout out to a couple of people, specifically JP Frost, first and foremost, for being one of the very first guests I ever had on the first version of the podcast and who has become a dear, dear friend of mine. Rob Zambito, I can basically say the exact same thing.

Speaker 1: 43:32

Met him at a conference that me from five years ago would have laughed at and been like you're such a loser.

Speaker 1: 43:39

You went to a CS conference and you made a friend like networking, again met Rob at a conference and again is one of my dear and closest friends, both of whom now work with me but I will say, I believe are smarter or have better temperaments than me and decided to invest a good portion of their time and a bit of their reputation working with me.

Speaker 1: 44:05

I will say the same for one other person and that is Steen Smet, who he was doing his world tour last year and was in New York City for like 36 hours and I live two hours from New York City and I said I'm coming to meet you and I put on the full court press for him to come and work with Lifetime Value Media. Bring his podcast, his creativity, his energy to Lifetime Value Media. And he is the first person who ever said yes. We've had several more say yes, some big projects that are going to launch later this year but he was the first one who said I believe in you and I'm not going to be on your podcast, I just believe in you and want to support you and see what you can do with the content I create. So those are probably the three people I want to shout out for believing in me, a person who had a crazy harebrained vision and is trying to continue to see that through.

Speaker 2: 45:11

I love it. Three amazing folks there, that's for sure.

Speaker 1: 45:17

You're like a Ford runner-'re, like a four distant number five, yeah, yeah. Oh, there's somebody in between, I don't know it's funny there.

Speaker 2: 45:23

I heard a comedian the other day say um, say something. Like you know, I was once told that I was. You're in the top four of comedians in this room. It is just like. Okay, so number four yeah, yep, top.

Speaker 1: 45:36

Non-divisible by five number is always very dubious, right, that's right, you're the top 17th best. Yeah, it's like come on, man, you're not, you're not you're not fooling anybody where can people find you?

Speaker 2: 45:52

where can people listen to you? Where can people engage with your content, All of that good stuff. This is your. This is your moment to plug A long list.

Speaker 1: 46:01

Okay, easiest place to find everything we do is lifetimevaluemediacom. That's lifetime value media. It's all one word. There's no dashes, no hyphens. Whatever Lifetimevaluemediacom, you can find me on LinkedIn. I guess I don't have to spell it. It'll be in the show notes H-T-P-P-S, w-w-w. No, I should be pretty easy to find. You can also search for Lifetime Value Media on LinkedIn and it all should come together. If all of our just massive content generation is working correctly, it should all sort of like backlink together. But those are the two best places. Send me a message. I love talking to people and and let's, let's do a little networking thing, especially if you have a job.

Speaker 2: 46:43

No, I'm kidding, yeah that's right if you're gainfully employed, yeah, and have an extra one laying around, that's right all right buddy, hey, I appreciate you coming on the show and I appreciate you as a person and a friend, and you're a hell of an editor too.

Speaker 1: 47:01

Same, same. Let's see how I can do with this. Love you, alex. Love you Bye.

Speaker 2: 47:08

Thank you for joining me for this episode of the Digital CX Podcast. If you like what we're doing, consider leaving us a review on your podcast platform of choice. If you're watching on YouTube, leave a comment down below. It really helps us to grow and provide value to a broader audience. You can view the Digital Customer Success Definition Wordmap and get more information about the show and some of the other things that we're doing at digitalcustomersuccesscom. This episode was edited by Lifetime Value Media, a media production company founded by our good mutual friend, Dylan Young. Lifetime Value aims to serve the content, video, audio production needs of the CS and post-sale community. They're offering services at a steep discount for a limited time. So navigate to lifetimevaluemediacom, go have a chat with Dylan and make sure you mention the Digital CX podcast sent you. I'm Alex Trukovich. Thanks so much for listening. We'll talk to you next week.