Customer Success & Failures Explained

It's about the high times and the low times

Failure is not the opposite of success, it's part of success. Arianna Huffington

The best lessons I’ve learned from life are not my successes but my failures. While it’s important to document what’s gone well there is no question that those successes were built upon a number of missteps and twists in the road along the way.

I’ve been fortunate to have opportunities to learn and to keep improving my performance and the performance of others - specifically when it comes to the area of customer success. As a leader, success is defined in three ways: success for the company, success for your team, and of course success for the customer. I’ve been part of rapidly growing teams that have seen outstanding company growth and I’ve been part of companies that have stagnated and had executive teams completely turn over. I’ve been part of companies that have gone public and were purchased and I’ve been part of companies that have had several layoffs including myself.

This rollercoaster world isn’t for the faint of heart but it’s one where I don’t have any regrets. In every company I’ve been a part of I’ve made a positive impact and hopefully one that lasts long after I’ve left. I’ve helped people grow in their roles and in their careers and I’ve grown myself. As a leader, I looked for ways to make our team, company and customers successful. Sometimes it’s worked and sometimes it didn’t.

What’s important and probably the first lesson from this Substack series is that you need to start to reflect and track your progress. It’s easy to revel in the highs and wallow in the lows but more importantly, you need to have a sense of where you’ve been, what you’ve accomplished, where you have failed and what you’ve learned over time. My goal is to share some of those reflections here especially as they relate to customer success and leadership.

PS: if you want to start tracking your own progress, start a daily or weekly journal (I do a weekly one) and start to reflect on your proudest moments as well as things you could have done better. Review your entries on a quarterly basis and pick out the themes as well as the progress you are making.