116: Guest Chad Horenfeldt - How to Be a Strategic CSM in the AI Era.

[Music] Welcome to Breakthrough Sassgrowth with the Jason's. The podcast where we cut through the noise and shares strategies that actually drive customer-led growth. Each week we bring you straight talking conversations on adoption, retention, expansion and everything in between. Let's get started. [Music] Good morning, good afternoon, good evening everyone. Welcome to another episode of Breakthrough Sassgrowth. Podcast with the Jason's, myself Jason Noble in a very cold London and my partner in crime Mr Whitehead say hello Jason. Hello Jason. This is our first episode of the new year and clearly AI and the like was a big topic for us for last year with a lot of really cool conversations with some incredible guests and I'm thrilled to say that we're starting off the year along the same vein. We are joined today by the one-only Chad Horanfeld. We're super excited to have Chad with us. Chad I'm sure most of our listeners will know him. He's a CS leader, thought leader, executive with over 15 years experience building and leading high performing CS teams across customer success, technical account management support, professional services of the whole post-CELS piece. He's also really well known for focusing on outcomes for building the right teams using technology to help drive efficiency while keeping the customer at the centre. He's been the VP of customer success for two or so years at CNRAI which is going to be a really cool thing to talk about here. He's also been part of a number of major exits with previous organisation. He's as I'm sure everyone knows a regular contributor to the world of CS and advisor and mentor and of course he's now an author with his recent book launch the Strategic Customer Success Manager. So I'm really excited to talk about this. Chad welcome to the show sir. Thank you that was like the best intro ever heard. So I really do do that. I say it's a big intro for a big person. We're super excited Chad and what we're going to talk about today is it's really about AI as I said and AI didn't break customer success but it made being strategic non-optual and I think there's a real nice play into Chad's book the work you've done Chad and that recent asked me anything you did here but let's kick us off Chad what kind of prompt to you to publish the book now I mean it's never lighthearted task but what kind of made you think right now is the time for this? Yes a good question first of all it took me a long time to write and publish it. It took me about three plus years and yeah so I think the first part of it was I learned from reading books and I highly recommend to people as a daily habit to just read like read even it's like 15 minutes and what I find is that there's a lot of stuff that's out there but you know books it's usually a good book to stills all this information of this person's life and experiences and research and puts into this one like nice really good format and so what I recognized was that there's a lot of great books out there on customer success there wasn't really one and say I was geared to helping the the CSM with very practical advice and if you know me I tend to focus more on the practical side and just share my experience whether that's a good experience or not and so that's really where it emanated from and you know this idea of strategic customer success it really hit me at one point where I was like well you know there's this title out there and what do I aspire to in terms of like people in terms of CSMs and in terms of just you know myself interacting with customers and it's this idea of being strategic was the key part of it and I'd say that a lot of times in our careers and mine particularly as well where your manager said to you hey I need you to be more strategic but then of course they never really tell you actually how to do that and so I use this as a learning exercise for myself to really break that down and yes it's a guide for to help people be up to to start and customer success to be customer success managers to advance so you could be in CSM for 10 years and still get out of it but it's also kind of the hidden part of it is that really anyone could read it and they could use the knowledge in the book to help them advance in their career because that's I think central to me and what I like to to help people is to take my knowledge and help people advance in their career so you know a lot of different kind of elements to this book. I love the kind of reasoning to do it is to help other people you know there's a lot we can do and I think it's one thing we've always said is one of the I think privileges being in in the field of customer success is we're responsible for other people's success and it does exactly that is how do we better people out there how do we help CSMs and others kind of elevate their careers and look at how they can expand what they're doing but really really great intro I'd love to kind of dive into me what what what was the big challenge that you were trying to solve then for CSMs that training and playbooks for them that they may have looked at wasn't doing for them what what was kind of the big challenge that you were trying to fix with the book yeah like you know the first thing is that you know this idea of being strategic is is completely you know misinterpreted you know use in many different ways and you know and I think that you know as CSMs like people are doing a lot of great work but really what it comes down to and I think we all know this is that it's impact and you have to have like you're you have to be focused on the right activities and this was something that I learned like really early on because like you said I've been in this been doing this for a long time I've made plenty of mistakes and you know I talk about this in the book where there's a story where I go to Austin and that was my patch of customers like in Austin, Texas it's a great place and I get like a standing ovation at this user group and I was like yay like you know doing really well it's doing really well but then like you know I start seeing customer churn like we had more competition this is back when I was at eloqua and I'm working on a mason space and you know eloqua is now like this sucked into Oracle and then we had Marquetto and Habsport coming along and I was like wait a minute like why am I losing clients here I'm working my ass off my clients love me you know we're good friends I'm helping them out and and so is again this idea of you know you can't be a helper that's not going to do it and so there's there's three parts to it and and also it's not just that it's like a lot of if you want to advance in your career you know many people think well I work hard my manager will just you know recognize that and I'll get promoted and it's it's not that either and so there's three parts like that I describe you know as you know how to be strategic which I think it's really important so the first one is is that it's it's not just about the adoption part of it it's it's understanding the outcomes that your customers are trying to achieve defining those quantifying them and making sure that they achieve them so you know if you you know I saw something on LinkedIn recently it's like you know I'm really responsive to my customer I find they really like that it's like great you could be as responsive as you want they're still going to churn like if they don't have to find any their outcomes right so so that's one the second one is that and maybe I like actually yeah it's not just about your product it's about their their company and what their business is up to and and what what it is if they want to achieve and so a lot of times we start off with calls and we go right into either support issues like trying to address their issues or we get into like product releases oh we've relawned all these great releases and you know what what's missing there is that you're not necessarily undertaking to account what's going on in their company and what's important to that individual and what they need to achieve and so if you don't do the right to have a discovery and you really get to know them then whatever you say to them and whatever you're you know you're focused on your product your releases and things like that you're not going to you're going to miss something here because you're just going to be throwing stuff at the wall and it may not necessarily hit and so you really need to take the time to understand their company and then the last part of it is that we've always known customer success as being this customer centric and customer centricity and you know being really passionate about the customer but if you want to advance in your career you have to be thinking more beyond customer centricity you have to be thinking about your company and being a company centric and so a good example of that is as a CSM you know your customer wants his feature and so you're like my you know customer needs his feature so build it what's wrong with you and and you you sort of look at engineering as this like unlimited like you know resource that can do anything and what's hilarious as only engineers are probably thinking like well customer success is this big organization and they should just talk to the customer and figure it out and so you have this disconnect and really the way you should be thinking about is like well does this really make sense for my company to build and or address this issue when you know as a company we need to be focusing on this area over here and these features and these products we want to build and that's going to rate generate more revenue and generate more value for a customer so it's really taking that mindset and getting away from this blame game you know and assuming the best of others and their intentions you know there are people that are deceitful right they they might sell that they they over sell but those three areas and thinking that way it can really up level yourself and you know then then there's obviously AI enhances that part but that's really the basics of the book yeah now I love that especially the part about you can have a great relationship with their customer they can be your friend and they still are going to turn it and I think a lot of people forget that you know your customers are loyal to their self themselves and their company you know their company is going to promote them and drive their career and pay them and do those things they're going to fight for their own self-interest and if promoting you as against their own self-interest in their career track, you can be the best friends in the world but they're going to go a different direction. Which is kind of natural for all of us. So it's just understanding those boundaries and figuring out how you can be an ally for them in their company and in their career. That's a big thing. I guess that gets even more challenging, doesn't it? When you've got certainly different partners that we're all working with. I as a customer, how do I manage all of that? Well, yeah, what makes sense for me is the customer versus you as partner A, B, C, D. It gets more challenging to manage and people are so time poor today. Yeah, absolutely. So Chad, sort of to that end too, I'm really curious to see, with AI coming in, how does that impact someone's strategic focus and have the stripped away the busy works of people are being more strategic in their focus and practice or is it making other changes? What are you seeing there? Yeah, I think there's a combination of things. I think some people are still scared of it and they're trying to understand it and how best to use it. I think that some people are leveraging it. Incredible is that I've talked to people. And what I look at is that it should enable you to get to where you need to go and maybe where you could never have gotten to if you use it properly. And I'll give you a really good example. And so, and I've started to, I know I talk about AI in the book, but I talk at a very high level, because I just figured if I talked about anything in depth, then it would just go out of date in three seconds. And that wasn't the point of the book. It was related to be something that people for years to come. And so, here's a great example. So I was meeting with the customer at my level as a VP and usually I'm coming in when there's a problem. But I was able to just take some calls, calls transcripts, sorry, calls transcripts and upload them as well as like previous correspondence. And explain the situation. So here's what's going on with this particular customer. They're not necessarily seeing the value that they want. And I, here's what we know about the customer. And here's what we know in terms of about their business and what industry they're in. Help me think through, you know, the questions that I should be asking in the approach that I should take. And it's a perfect way of leveraging AI. And what's interesting is that you'll be surprised at the informational provide you on the company and on that individual. Even without your call transcripts that you're doing because the technology is advancing so fast. But what I was surprised at is that when I started to pour in some of our own information that not only did it give me questions, but it actually told me what the mindset of the individual is probably right now. And it did some mention something around that they're thinking about their own role and kind of where they sit. And it really mentioned that they're just not feeling confident in what they're doing and with your product right now. Because it is an area AI-centric product. And that what you should be doing is trying to help them feel more confident. And here are some ways that you can go about that. So imagine that where it's like not just like giving you information, but it's guiding you on how you should run the conversation. It's just incredible. And this is not like with any add-on, this is like literally using cloud to do this. And so that's how I see a CSM. And you could prepare that in literally three minutes. So that's really like just one example of the advantages that AI can be bringing CSM today. I mean that's a phenomenal example as well. And like you said, it's really simple thing to do. Do you in your experience, have you seen our teams using AI like that? Is it kind of a really early stage? Are you seeing a lot of maturity that people are starting to do that? And then does you seeing for CSMs that are using it? Are people starting to be challenged about what they're places? Where do I add value? If I can get all this from AI, what's my role? You know, is there a risk of some CSM seeing it as automation replacing what they're doing rather than amplifying it? Yeah. So first of all, like definitely CS teams are using this. And if you're not like using AI in a capacity more than like call recording, like your last podcast you were mentioning, you were comparing like AI to cell phones and that revolution. And I would actually disagree because the cell phones are a physical device and it actually took a while for those to adopt. If you think about it, you think about when they first came out Microsoft and Blackbird like that with whatever. And it took years for iPhones to be more than just a novelty. And with AI, it's much different. It's a software and these models are adapting so fast. It's incredible. And I remember I was arguing with my CEO where he's like, Chad, like you actually need to know the differences between like Opus 4.5 and you know, you know, ChatGbT 5.1. I was like, what are you talking about? Like I don't need to know this. Like I'm the VP of CS. Like I need to be focusing on like strategy and like where we're going with the biggest challenges are. And he's like, and then what I realized like being an AI first company, like no, like I need to understand the model changes because we're making model changes and those are having dramatic impacts on how our product responds to customers. But even as a CS leader, you know, knowing how these technologies are advancing, that will allow you and open up more and more capabilities. So, you know, when it comes to CS, you know, there's a whole bunch of things that are happening. So first of all, you know, your health analysis should be a thousand times better because you should be looking at taking all the different data points and running it through AI and having it present you with, you know, more insights than you would have because typically you without required data analysts and you'd be kind of sifting through all this data. You know, you have health scores that don't make any sense. But now with, I'd say with AI, it can just break down all sorts of disparate data and highlight things. So, I'll give you some examples like how I use it today. And this isn't anything that's like groundbreaking or requiring massive technology investment. But as an example, with any types of churn, you know, in the typical case with churn, you try to distill it down to like one major reason. It's like, this is the root cause and this is why it happened. And that's great, especially for leadership or for the board. But really in reality, as we all know, this is that churn happens for multiple reasons. It's not, you know, sometimes there's a car crash that happens, but a lot of times it's like a slow moving, you know, whatever is blob essentially that picks up speed as like trust, you know, degrades. And so when you have a particular project that you can create in cloud or you can create a project in chat, GBT or a GBT is that you can feed an information and then have it spit out a consistent way of looking at that particular customer, and building out a timeline, and building out an assessment. And it will give you multiple reasons for churn. And then you can start layering in additional churn that's happened. And you can take into account like segmentation and other things like that. And then you can start to build out like, well, how has that changed over time? You can layer in your at risk customers to make sure that the same things are continuing to happen from pre-churn. And so what this does is it gives you a more holistic picture and gives you, I'd say, more evidence and a way to speak to this. You could even turn it into a presentation, like using gamma or something like that, and bring it right to your leadership team. And so you can do these things much more rapidly and have, I'd say, a higher degree of confidence in the data that you're bringing so that you can make faster decisions. So that's just one example. Another example is if you have a consumption-based product where you're charging, let's say, beyond licenses like for us, it's like automated conversations or something like that. You have data that's typically sitting over here in some sort of billing thing where it's like, well, customers are coming up to their limit and they're going to go over soon. And now what you can do is you can take that data, you can put them to AI and it can give you a sense of like, who are the fast movers? Who's going to be going over soon? And maybe we should reach out to them. But the other thing you can do is you can look at the ones that are underperforming. So maybe sales seldom a little too much. And maybe there's some problems and they haven't been able to roll out faster fast enough. And then you can then dedicate your CS resources to go focus on them. So it's looking at the data, breaking it down, and then determining where you should focus your resources. And this is using ChatGBT and Cloud and potentially, Gemini, it's not using any kind of fancy agent, other types of agent tooling, which those will help because connected right into the systems, it's less kind of manual data transfer. But there's this new thing like MCP, where a newer thing MCP, where it can connect into systems like ChatGBT and Cloud, can connect into linear, it can connect into HubSpot, into Salesforce, making that analysis so much faster. So there's lots of things here. I think it's incredibly exciting just the pace of growth and how quickly it is. We've never seen anything like it. We're all having been in tech all our working life. We've all seen kind of how fast technology changes, but this is like nothing else. And it's so ubiquitous, everyone's using it and we're at those early stages. If we flip the conversation, now how do you, when we talk about kind of strategic CSMs, what for you is a simple one-liner, this is what a strategic CSM is, that a customer would understand and agree with. Because I think that going back to what you heard said early, quite often if you said you need to be more strategic, it's fluffy and it's still a risk that customers see it as fluffy. So I'd love to hear your kind of one line of definition and then also how that relates to what customers expect. Yeah, I ground it in Rumble it, who is this guru on strategy. And ultimately there's three parts to it. So one is trying to understand what's the challenge, what's the big problem. Number two is well, what's the approach to solve that? What is it you're trying to achieve? And then the last thing is putting the right actions in place to make sure that you achieve that. And so if we think about it from a customer success perspective, our customers are usually having some sort of challenge in their business is why they bought you and why they want to continue to use you. This idea around what is it they're trying to achieve? Well, that's typically their outcome. What outcome, how are they going to measure that they've been successful? And then the action is typically a success plan or something to that effect where they have to take some sort of action to achieve that. And so that's essentially like what being strategic is. And it's really breaking down like, you know, a lot of the times when we find an issue, it's like, oh, it's like, oh, you can't use that particular feature. Oh, okay, well, I'll send you training or I'll just take you through that. And you're just you're hitting, you know, what that surface level and you think of an iceberg, it's like kind of what you see above the water. But deep down below, there's like problems like maybe there's problems in their business, maybe they're not doing well as a business. Maybe this person's scared. They don't want to use your like they're scared of your product. It's going to maybe, you know, take resources away from their job. So the big part of this and it's an area, a huge section of the book, it's about doing better discovery. I mean, how you handle yourself in conversations, how you prepare for particular meetings. And then there's a whole whole area that talks about business outcomes, defining business outcomes, because you know, a lot of us, we, you know, they talk, you see it's all linked in, use business outcomes. And then nobody explain actually what the hell that is and how to do it. And so I break it down in terms of, you know, what are business outcomes and how you should be thinking about this. And then the last part on the actions, there's two parts to it. One is that you should, your team should have playbooks that you're working through in terms of actually how to achieve, you know, what you're trying to get to, how do you solve these problems, you're usually repeatable problems like playbooks. But then also making sure that your customer takes actions. And so kind of getting back to the differentiation between like, you know, the reason for CSMs and and and AI and all these different things. It's like, you can bring all sorts of great data, but ultimately, like, you have to convince your customer that there's a problem. You have to agree it on a line on what the hell they're trying to achieve. And then you actually have to like achieve the outcome, like get the work done and whether that's getting them to do the work, or it potentially have services or you have a partner that does the work for them, but somebody has to pay for that. So that's, it's bringing all of these things down. And I like to think of it as supercharging the CSM. And, you know, the other name of the book would be, you know, here's like, how 20 years of Chad screwing up and not, you know, and and it's not sure that title would sell. Maybe a vaping nut, but, you know, it does go through very, there's very practical frameworks that I use in the book. So, you know, an example, you know, to learn about the customer, there's a three-seater work I call it. And so it's learning about their company, learning about, you know, about their company. You know, what are they? Have VC backed? How big are they? How many employees, you know, what industry do they play in? Like, these just, they think like, you know, what products do they sell? How do they make money? So a lot of times, like, a CSM was like, oh, I'm meeting with so and so. And they just kind of look at it as like just another like thing they have to work with. And they look at it from their perspective. And they're not really thinking about, you know, that customer. The second thing is, is the end customer. Who do they sell to? Because that's what your customer cares about. They don't care about you. You're the vendor. They care about who their end customers are. Because that's how they're going to make money. So who are these people? Are they, you know, patients or the guests? And the key thing here is that if you better understand their end customer and you start using the terminology that your customers use. So I'm in the B2C Ecommerce area. And so some of our customers, they'll refer to their customers as she, she buys this, she wears that. And so if you talk like that, that is showing that you understand their business more and that builds trust, which is really important. And then the third C is challenges. And it's not challenges with your product. It's challenges in their business. You know, maybe they're launching a new product. So they're focused on that. Maybe they just had a big layoff. You know, maybe they're financially they're not doing as well. So knowing those things, I haven't talked about our product at all. It's all about them. And so that's a mindset that you want to have going into a conversation that will supercharge that conversation. Because we know, just as you were saying, like, people don't have time today. They're working with a lot of different vendors. They don't want to meet with you typically. So if you do get something on their calendar, you need to make a post of it. And you need to come with really understanding who they are. So that when you make a suggestion, it comes from a place of like understanding their business. That's awesome. I love that. You know, and I, I've definitely seen with the CSM that I've worked with over the years that, especially the newer ones, they struggled to know what questions to ask. And then they also struggled to know what to do with that information once they have it. So like, okay, you can give me the questions, but how do I apply that? And it sounds like your book covers a lot of, here's why this matters and here's what you do with that. So I think that's a great. Yeah. So there's another framework that I've adopted from psychotherapists. And it's called the course framework. And it really is a very empathetic approach. And the idea of it is that customers are not going to listen to you if you tell them what to do. So, you know, we were talking a little before we jumped on about children. It's the same thing. Like, I can tell my children to clean up. They're not going to do that like, unless they, but from their perspective, and you're sort of getting into the why and really listening to them. And so there's this Ours framework. And it's, it stands for open questions, affirmations, reflections, and summaries. And it's, it's really about trying to understand your customer. So there's activist components. There's like, you know, the affirmations part is really congru- like almost like patting your customer on the back and saying, you know, well done and good job. And then, you know, the summary is all about kind of piecing together what was discussed. And doing it in a way almost like a lawyer would do, you know, as they're summarizing and doing their final, you know, comments to the judge. And say, okay, we put this, this, and this, and we understand that this is your challenge. And we've said that, you know, these are ways that you could, you know, overcome that. You know, how does that sound to you? And so it's really getting them to buy in and showing that you're listening to them, but also kind of nudging them forward to take action. So you're right. Like it's very practical, very like you, you know, applied things that you can test out. And, you know, I also incorporate these ideas of asking strategic questions and asking better questions and follow-ups and how to ask questions. Because that part of discovery, it's almost like sales, you know, a lot of times sales has just mastered these things. And yes, it's all about that helper mentality, but really we have to be much better at the discovery side. And almost like, you know, jarring a summer out of normalcy where they'll get on a call at the CSM and they're just kind of expecting the rudimentary side where, you know, if you ask them a strategic question, and I talk, you know, in that part, I talk a lot about, you know, what Bob London's talked about, where, you know, you ask these destructive type questions. So for example, you know, what's one thing you need to get off your whiteboard the next 60 days? That's a different type of question. It's a more interesting question and it gets your customer to open up more. And layering all these different things together really changes the approach that CSM takes. And, you know, I'd say arms them and makes them so much more effective in these types of meetings. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, one of the things I've also found when we do a lot of work on user adoption change and those sort of things is that effective questions in the right order that get people people to on those long after you leave the room. And they'd be like a little worm or whole, you know, digging this way in there. And I find that if you can really come up with the right questions that are going to both listen in a-ha moment and then change behavior, that's, you know, people will forget every PowerPoint or game of presentation or anything else you've ever put in front of them. But they'll remember that question because they're going to nal on it and they're going to share it with others. And hey, what do you think about this? What do you think about that? And that's such a key piece to being effective these days? I think so. It's a really powerful framework as well, isn't it, to go in and have those that they are- it could be a simple, single question. But a really, for them, as you said, Jason, it's one that they've not thought about one that could take elsewhere. I thought provoking one, but it- to what you were saying, Chad, it really focuses on them. What is that one thing they need to address? What are the big outcomes they're looking for? And we're listening, not just being empathetic, but really listening, understanding. And I think the key thing is always, we're not listening to speak, we're listening to them come back and say, right, this is what I've heard, this is what we're going to do, this is what we're going to- or how we're going to help you get there. Yeah. You know, Chad, just listening to you as well, taking those questions from psychotherapy. I've yet to find a therapist who says I've got to get this PowerPoint done for my next client. [Laughter] It's just such an interesting technique. That's fantastic. You know, I have a quick question for you. One of the things we've obviously with the rebrand of the podcast, we're looking to expand an audience a bit more and appeal to others in the C-suite. I'm curious, what advice would you give to a CEO or what should they be asking to identify if their CS leader or team is being strategic or how to identify that, "Hey, we have some problems here." Especially in the light of everything that's changing with AI and the start of 2026 and how the world is shifting so quickly these days. What does a CEO need to know about making their team more strategic? Yeah, it's a good question. I would say that the first thing is if I was a CEO, I'd ask the CSM and ask them, you know, just how prepared do they feel going into conversations with customers? I think the enablement piece is important, but you can also just ask your CS leader, what's your customer journey? How do you approach things? Just try to understand what their general approach is. As an example, going back to the business review, and I actually have a whole chapter on that, I rebrand it and I call it a strategic checkpoint. And the reason for that is I look at QBRs, they should almost be board meetings in some ways. I'm not talking about the whole craziness of a board meeting, but if you think about a board meeting, the emphasis, yes, there are slides, but the emphasis typically is on the discussion, and what are the areas that we should prioritize and focus on? That's really the just if a board is really active in a good board and working really well together, they should have two or three discussion areas and really focus on that. And you typically send out the slides 40 hours in advance, so it gives people a pre-read. And that's really how your strategic checkpoint, you should be saying that information at a head of time, people can consume it. And then when you do meet, it's a really targeted conversation. It's not going through a bunch of slides and you're having people like glossed over their eyes, glossed over. It's really about two or three things that we should be focusing on. And then what is the areas we should prioritize? A lot of these QBRs, you're like, your goal is to get through the slides. And then you get through the slides, like, yes, that's where the slides. And then the meeting ends and like literally you have no like follow ups, there's no point. And like, we got through the slides. Yeah, it's just that big tip. Yes, slide done. Meeting for rules coming. Yeah. And then the table works coming. So please sign. So I would look as a C level, like I kind of, you know, break down, you know, what's the enable that you're doing for your CSMs? You know, what are these, you know, these things look like? You know, if you're, you think about FACIO, they're they're the decision makers. And we haven't talked about this, but, you know, the other part of the book is really identifying the decision makers, assessing the strength that you have. Like, you know, is a strong connection to them moderate week. And then how are you communicating to those, those people and ensuring that you understand their outcomes? And then you're achieving their outcomes. And so that's the thing. Like, I would want to look at the journey and think like, okay, I'm, I'm a decision maker. Would I buy this? And do I understand the value that I'm getting from our products? And would that entice me to continue to work with you as well as maybe look for additional things to purchase from you? And so that's the way I look at it. And if you're, if you have holes, if you're not necessarily sure, then you need to like dig deeper. And usually the clear signs, unfortunately, is like lagging indicators like, you know, your gross retention's down, or your, you know, your net pretensions down. But you can get ahead of that because if your team is working with this strategic mindset, then they're already thinking about it's like, okay, if I'm focused on outcomes rather than just adoption, then that means I really understand my customer what they're trying to achieve. And if I'm tracking that, then I can tell that maybe there's a disconnect here and that, you know, my turn level, you know, might increase until we get this under control. So other things I would look for is a very strong at risk, like process and at risk list. And why the customer is at risk, I want to see a breakdown segment. So I don't want to see some, like, you know, it's high degree of sophistication there. And I think lastly, like depending on like where the stage of the business is, but even the smallest businesses, how are you thinking about infusing AI into your processes to create additional efficiencies? So the things that I'm seeing, you know, going in, you know, in this year and beyond are it's not just about hiring that shouldn't be, like you should be, it's like, well, I might team as like, you know, 50 people. It's like, well, good for you. You're probably going to see a lot of layoffs in the next few years or, you know, even faster. It's really about your processes, your effectiveness, what you're measuring, and, you know, how about how you're going about that and how you're looking to leverage AI, because that's really, I'd say, where things are going. It's this a naveler. It's going to make teams better and it's going to cut out a lot of some of the, you know, just mundane and boring and things that teams were doing, whether it was marketing or without CS. I think the key thing there as well, it is. You're so right. What the value that AI is going to bring is it's going to enable us to be better humans, I think, and do what we can do. Those mundane admin tasks, what we're going to get is a platform tours that are going to do them for us with the same level, if not better, of accuracy, efficiency that we were doing before and free up our time to help focus on being more strategic. So I think that the timing for your book is perfect with where we are now. Chad, this has been such a great conversation. What we always like to do for our guests is give them a, what we call a breakthrough challenge question. So the one, the one for you, if there was one thing for a CSM to take away that they could put into action today to be more strategic. So we're saying your book, one thing, what's the one thing that CSM could do today? Yeah, the one thing that a CSM could do today, I'd say that they should be asking more challenging questions to their customer. So a great example of this would be this disruptive question that Bob London likes to ask. And it's like, you know, if we're sitting around the room of your board in a board meeting right now, what's the number one priority that's being discussed? And if let's say your customer is not at that level, like they're not, or they're just a huge company, they don't know what they're talking about the board meeting, but talk about their leadership team, your leadership team, your departments sitting around the table right now. What's the number one priority they're talking about? And so what's amazing about that is it's an abnormal question that CSM would typically ask. They usually focus on, you know, what are the challenges you're having with our product? And so the idea of that is up leveling, you ask the question, you shut up, you let them answer, and then it just has a much, it's a deeper conversation. So, you know, learn, you know, how to ask better questions, that should be your starting point. And if I was to say, like a second part of that is ask your manager, what's their biggest challenge? Where do they need help? And so it's really about, you know, trying to understand their world, and not just necessarily focus on your yours, but if you want to have a greater impact, making sure you're focusing on the right activities, ask them, you know, what are the challenges that they're having? I love it. I think that that is such a key thing, and such a key thing, and to kind of focus it down to that one question, both external for our customers and internal, because it is those two very different strands that we want to be able to help with. Chad, awesome conversation. Before we go kind of a self-club for you, where can people contact you, where can they reach out to, where can they find out about your book, and other things that you've got coming up? Yeah, no, thank you. So, you know, connect with me on LinkedIn. You know, if you want to learn more about the book, it's Chadhornfeld.com or strategic customer success.com. One thing that I'm working on right now is a course to take some of the things from the book and put AI around it. I kind of leverage AI to use some of the frameworks that are discussed in the book. So that's coming up on Jan 21st, but there'll be available afterwards as well, so you can just, you know, check out on LinkedIn, and you should see something about that there. Fantastic. Thank you so much for joining, Chad. Thank you. Thanks, Chad. Great conversation. Really exciting. Thanks for listening to BreakthroughsSatSphere with the Jason's. If you found today's episode useful, make sure you subscribe. Check out our website at BreakthroughsatSphereows.com and follow us on all the usual social media channels for more insights and updates. And don't forget to share this show with your colleagues who are driving broken sats. See you next time.