Women in Customer Success Podcast
Women in Customer Success Podcast is the first women-only podcast for Customer Success professionals, where remarkable ladies of Customer Success connect, inspire and champion each other. In each episode, podcast creator and host Marija Skobe-Pilley is bringing a conversation with a role model from across the industries to share her inspirational story and practical tools to help you succeed and make an impact. You’re going to hear from the ladies who are on their own journeys and want to share their learnings and strategies with us. You’re going to be inspired.
Women in Customer Success Podcast
118 - How to Progress in Your Career: The Strategies That Always Work - Eloise Salisbury
Are you ready to transform your career and achieve the promotion you've been dreaming of? In this episode of the Women in Customer Success podcast, we talk about the tried and tested ways to take the next steps in your customer success career. My guest Eloise answers the key question: How to progress in your career? and reveals strategies that always work to move you forward.
Eloise Salisbury is the Chief Customer Officer at AutogenAI - the UK’s leading generative AI company. She is also the Founder of WISe (Women In SaaS), a UK-based women’s network aimed at inspiring women to excel in their careers through networking opportunities, events, and quarterly mentorship programs.
What you'll learn from this episode:
- How to advocate for yourself
- Ways to negotiate a new role
- The key to getting promoted
- How to take your career to the next level
Listen and apply these tried and tested methods to ensure/negotiate your career advancement in SaaS.
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This episode was brought to you by Vitally.
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About Women in Customer Success Podcast:
Women in Customer Success Podcast is the first women-only podcast for Customer Success professionals, where remarkable ladies of Customer Success connect, inspire and champion each other.
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Women in Customer Success
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How do you progress in your career? What are the strategies that always work? Join me in this episode as I welcome Eloise Salisbury, chief Customer Officer at Autogenai, and we're talking about five tried and tested ways to take the next steps in your customer success career. 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 is such a pleasure to welcome Eloise Salisbury, chief Customer Officer at Autogen AI, to the Women in Customer Success podcast. Eloise, welcome to the show. Thanks for joining me today.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much, Maria. It's awesome to be here with you. I really appreciate you giving me the opportunity to join such an awesome community and take part in it today.
Speaker 1:I'm really excited about this conversation because I can see that you had a phenomenal career trajectory in customer success and I would think that you know it all. You have proven ways of progressing in your career, in doing your best job, in knowing how to advocate for yourself. Otherwise you wouldn't be in a position where you are, and for me, it's really inspiring to learn from you today. So I'm really really excited for this conversation and, before we dig into those deep ends of how to in your careers, I'd like the audience to get to know you a bit better. So I have just a few questions for you. Tell me, where are you based?
Speaker 2:So I'm based just north of London, very close to Stansford Airport, and as we established.
Speaker 1:It's a beautiful area also very close to the I would say the most beautiful university city ever, which is Cambridge.
Speaker 2:Couldn't agree more. Yeah, we, it's nice to be close to London, but we wanted to have some greenery and a garden. So I think we've got the best of both worlds, being right in the middle of Cambridge and London.
Speaker 1:What has been your latest travel destination?
Speaker 2:Oh, I love traveling. I don't know if this is going to make me friends or enemies on the podcast, but I went two weekends ago to Paris just for a quick trip. But the real reason we went was to see the Taylor Swift Ears tour, so I couldn't get tickets in London, ended up going to Paris to see her instead. She was phenomenal. But yeah, that was my latest quick city break.
Speaker 1:Well, that's an absolutely incredible reason to go to Paris. Just to pop into Paris, Wonderful. What is next on your bucket?
Speaker 2:list. So top of my bucket list and it has been for years is to go somewhere and see the Northern Lights. I am really hoping that I get the opportunity to see them. In the UK We've had some strange weather patterns and the Northern Lights have just been viewable from so many new places. But it's always been top of my bucket list. So somewhere snowy in, ideally an igloo with a glass dome where I can see the northern lights, that would be my absolute top of my bucket list.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, what an atmosphere I can just imagine. It's wonderful. I miss the ones. A few weeks ago that happened around London in our area. I saw so many photos from my neighbors from the development and I missed it. I'm really hoping we are going to get it because apparently there was something in the news it might be coming. So fingers crossed for that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm not the same.
Speaker 1:Yeah, sounds good. Okay, eloise, you had an incredible career trajectory. Would you like to take us through, like, what did you do after your university? How did you even end up in customer success? And sorry, I already have lots of questions because I want to know your journey into customer success and then this amazing career progression within customer success. So, yeah, you can start and then we'll just have a conversation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, perfect. I mean, look, I've spoken to a lot of people about this in customer success and I think that my story will be probably similar to a lot of people in that I didn't set out to be in customer success. In fact, I didn't even know what customer success was when I finished university. Many years now, I actually studied to become a lawyer and then decided that I didn't want to necessarily sit behind a desk all day and just go through cases as a solicitor, and so I ended up doing a master's in international conflict resolution just because I loved learning and I have a passion for being kind of in that space.
Speaker 2:So my first job out of university, I worked for a recruitment company, did a lot of cold calling, a lot of scrolling through CVs, running membership, and then my dad got really sick and so my partner and I moved back to Australia and I fell into a job because I needed a job as an account manager in a tech company. It was a loyalty marketing technology company and just absolutely loved it. In Australia, account managers are essentially like entry level. Csms is probably the best way, although I'm sure everyone in Australia is screaming at me saying no, that's not the right way to describe our jobs, but I know there's some discrepancy between regions, with account manager being in sales or post sales. So I was very much on the post-sales side but loved it, worked in more of an agency style environment and, yeah, kind of found my feet, worked my way up in that company and then about four years into being back in Australia, my partner and I decided that we wanted to move to Silicon Valley. That was where all of the kind of tech was. It was the hub. I'd never been to the States before, I'd never been to California, let alone San Francisco or Silicon Valley. So we just decided one night over the dinner table that we would apply for jobs.
Speaker 2:My partner now husband got an internal transfer. I did a bunch of interviews over Zoom, ended up landing a job in Silicon Valley in Mountain View and we just moved and that was really the start of my kind of foray into tech. And I still remember to this day getting off the plane in San Francisco and driving down the motorway into the city and just seeing billboard after billboard from tech company. I think Twilio at the time had a billboard that just said ask your developer. And I knew just innately that I was in the right place.
Speaker 2:And, yeah, we spent five years in San Francisco and that's where I moved from kind of post-sales account management into customer success, worked my way up through a couple of organizations, and the last company I was at in San Francisco was a company called Iterable. I was then very fortunate in that I had the opportunity to move back to the UK, which is where I'm from, initially to open Iterable's first international office. So I did that back in 2019, grew out the EMEA team, helped open the office in APAC and then, after five years at Iterable, I decided that I was ready to go back to a Series B company, start building customer success from the ground up again, and I joined Autogen. So, a very long winded way of saying it's been a bit of a exciting career for me. I didn't, like I say, set out to be in customer success but, like, I think, a lot of people in this profession, I found myself here and I love it.
Speaker 1:This is just so amazing on several ways. I mean, just decided like that, let's move across the world, from Australia to San Francisco. Awesome, I just love how well it did sound like easy. Oh yeah, we just decided on on the dinner table and and we just went for it. I mean, it is, how freaking awesome is that? And you just went for it. You started interviewing, you went into something completely unknown, but you knew as soon as you reached there that you were on the right place. I, I just love that. Oh, thanks, thanks for sharing. And now, lastly, last few months, you've been with Autogen AI as a chief customer officer. So now you're building everything from the ground up. I have seen that you're hiring as well. So what is the team size at the moment? What's your plan with the team?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's been so fun and exciting. So I joined AutoGen at the start of March, so I've been there for almost three months. I remember when I was interviewing at AutoGen, sean, our founder and CEO, told me that a month at AutoGen was like a year at any other company, and I genuinely think he was telling the truth. So I feel as though I've been there for almost three years at this point. I'm definitely an OG, but it's been awesome.
Speaker 2:When I joined Autogen, there were two sort of primary post-sale functions. We had a user training and adoption team that reported into our head of operations, and then we had a account management team that reported into our head of operations, and then we had a account management team that reported into sales, but there was no sort of umbrella of customer success. There was very little coordination or overlap between those two teams. So when I joined, one of the first things I did was brought both of those functions together under the umbrella of customer success, and since then we've gone through quite a big change, aligning our customer success model to a more traditional SaaS model. So we now, instead of having a user adoption and training team, we have a professional services organization. We have education, onboarding and bid specialists within that part of the business.
Speaker 2:And then we've actually moved from account management to customer success management. We still retain everything commercial, post-initial sale but there is a much bigger focus now on long-term partnership, stakeholder mapping, value realization, success planning and then leading through to value-based selling. And we've also for the first time segmented our customer base. So we've gone from managing a 24K customer the same as a 240K customer to having a SME, mid-market and enterprise segment to our CSM team, and then next on the horizon is to launch a technical support team as well for kind of inbound first line response from our customers. So it's sort of crazy to think that we've done all of that in two and a half months, but there's so much more to come and it's a really, really exciting time in kind of maturing that part of the business.
Speaker 1:That's exactly what I wanted to mention, kind of maturing that part of the business. That's exactly what I wanted to mention. All of that in less than three months. That is crazy and it's awesome. I can see exactly why I've been hearing about you from different sources in multiple occasions as being the person who is just also an amazing in customer success. And I can, I can absolutely see why.
Speaker 2:Thank you, that's honestly, it's really nice yeah.
Speaker 1:I'm really inspired by your career and the way you. It seems that you're showing up in amazing ways, because when I had conversations with people such as CROs, your name would be coming up, so your reputation precedes you, obviously. You're doing so many great things, so I wonder what have been some of the biggest lessons in your career? How did you, like, what brought you where you are today?
Speaker 2:It's such a good question and, honestly, if we had five hours, I probably, you know, would still be talking. Very truthfully, I started out in my career as like a very shy, timid, self-conscious woman and I didn't put my hand up for a lot of stuff because I thought that I had to know exactly how to do something or to be perfect at it before I even gave it a chance. And it's interesting I talk to a lot of women, not just in customer success but generally in their professional life, and I think that likely rings true for a lot of people. And so one of the biggest lessons I learned quite early on from a phenomenal previous manager of mine called Kim Georgalis, who is just wonderful, and I attribute a lot of my career success and who I am as a leader to her. But you know, she used to say, like, just give it a shot.
Speaker 2:What's the worst that can happen? You maybe make a mistake, but a mistake is just something you learn from. And I think when I reshaped it in that way my career I really sort of stopped hesitating around opportunities that I'd say yes to or things that I would put my hand up for, and it just turned things completely on their head to me, if anything, I probably say yes to too much these days and that gets me into trouble from a work-life balance. But I've gone from being, as I said, kind of a shy, timid professional to start with to I'd like to describe myself as fearless. I still do have fears, but it's just a reframing which is like try something, what have you got to lose? Worst that can happen is when you get fired, but you'll find a new job right. There's so many exciting things and opportunities out there.
Speaker 1:Just give it a chance. I love that mindset Just give it a go, just try it, yeah, and very often, worst thing that can happen is not you losing your job, especially when your managers are aware that you are trying out something new. But even if that happens yes, there is the whole world out there. I really love that approach. Just give it a shot, try it out, and you don't have to know everything before you start doing it Right, especially when you're doing something for the first time. Of course, you are not an expert and you're just doing it for the first time, and every beginner is well, it's a beginning, right, you have something to build upon.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that's so true, because when we're working, oftentimes we compare ourselves to either our peers or people who are in the job that we want to be in, and of course, we see them doing everything right because they've probably done it before, but what we forget is that they were in exactly our shoes at one point in time. Nobody is born into this world knowing how to do exactly everything. We all learn because we do it for the first time. So I think it's just reminding ourselves that not to set too high a bar and yeah, it's okay to ask for help and to say this is my first time doing it. How did I do? What can I learn?
Speaker 1:And then to sort of piggyback off of that. You know, back at my Cambridge days, when we used to do the thesis and dissertations, I really didn't know how to do it, like in a way of structuring the writing, and I knew I can work very hard, but I didn't always know really what to do about it and how that working hard has to look like. What am I supposed to do? And my supervisor was always telling me there is a quote don't compare your chapter one with somebody else's chapter 20. And that's something that stuck with me.
Speaker 1:Like you were just at the beginning, you're at your chapter one, right? Everybody around you seem like they know exactly what they are doing. Well, they had their chapter one, right, everybody around you seem like they know exactly what they are doing. Well, they had their chapter one, maybe recently, maybe many years ago. So it's not something to compare, but I think it's our nature, especially for women. We somehow tend to compare ourselves with everything out there, either real or imaginative. Do you have any advice for people? How? Try not to compare all of those differences, because there's no point in it really.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think the biggest thing for me is that I've always had an internal voice saying you know, don't go for that because you might look stupid. Don't ask that question because it you know, it might indicate that you don't know the answer to something that you should. Um, and I think a I will say very transparently I've been in a lot of senior meetings or rooms where I'm the only female and I'm also the quietest. I'm naturally an introvert, although I think that surprises a lot of people when they get to know me. But I tend to sit back and I have this voice in my mind that's sort of telling me, like I said, don't do this or don't ask that question.
Speaker 2:And I see a lot of other people, especially men, in meetings just having no qualms about making a statement or asking a question and I sort of think to myself well, hang on a minute, I should be doing the same thing as them. I need to speak up more in this meeting, I need to have a presence, and actually I don't know how helpful this is for people. But what I found is that I have to keep reminding myself that I can be authentic in who I am and my leadership style. But that is almost like an internal monologue or mantra that you just have to practice and get better at and feel comfortable with. And I also think that I'm very data-driven and I'm okay with sitting back and listening, because then when I do input into a conversation, the way I've analyzed it in my mind, even though I might not have had as much input, I think the quality of my input is just as good as maybe kind of the mass quality of input from other people. So write down your achievements.
Speaker 2:I had somebody once tell me that they build a success board where they just capture feedback from customers or peers and they have it all in a Word document and sometimes when they feel like they're not doing as well as other people or they're comparing themselves too much, they go and read through that success board and just remind themselves, look at the data again and kind of feed that in a mantra and monologue that says, no, you've got this, you're doing the right thing, people see you, they value your input. So I think there's not one fix for all of this. It's something that you have to learn and get good at. But yeah, having that mantra, that internal monologue, having a success board, finding a mentor who you can bounce ideas off of. Those are all really important things to do, just to continue to build that confidence.
Speaker 1:Eloise, you recently took a different well, different role in your career right, I wouldn't say different career trajectory and I know that you have loads of different tactics and strategies in taking the next step in your customer success career. Would you like to take us through your framework of your tried and tested ways for moving up in customer success career? Would you like to take us through your framework of your tried and tested ways for moving up in customer success careers?
Speaker 2:Definitely. We were just talking about this a little bit earlier and I was saying that I'd sort of flippantly given you five tried and tested ways to take your career to the next step. But no, I genuinely do think that there are certain things that people, especially women, can be doing in their career to take that next step or to get that confidence to take the next step which we've been talking about. And when I look back on my career, these are all things that I've done that have really helped me to make that next move. I will preface it by saying the one thing I'm not going to mention is take a risk, like my husband and I did moving to San Francisco. So all of this is outside of take those opportunities. Don't be afraid to put your hand up or try something. But as it relates to the five tried and tested ways to take the next step, I think the very first thing is to figure out and understand and believe in the value that you bring to your team or to your organization.
Speaker 2:A lot of people that I speak to, early on in their careers, feel a little bit lost or they're not sure how to have the right conversations with people in more senior positions to them and I always ask them the same question, which is what value do you bring to your role, to your team and to your organization? That can sometimes be quite hard to articulate, but I think if you could sit down and figure out what makes me special, why should somebody invest in me, why am I deserving to go to that next level? Being able to understand that yourself means that you can then communicate that really well to others when you have to put yourself in that position to go go for the next step. So figure out your value, sit down, write it down, practice it in the Just. Believe in what you bring to the organization and how that's different.
Speaker 2:The second thing I would say is find.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for the first one. Do you think there is a difference between writing it down and, as you said, articulating in writing almost it's visible in front of you or like thinking about it? Is there a difference?
Speaker 2:I think it comes down to how you best learn. So I am very much a like visual learner, but then I have to do something in order for it to sink in. So for me the writing it down is the doing something, and then I could almost visualize in my mind when I go into those meetings what I've written down. So it works for me because it combines the two ways that I learn best. But I also think that, regardless of your learning style, writing things down is a bit like a commitment, so you can think a lot of things. But to actively take that next step and put pen to paper or type it out in a document on your computer, it's going that next step to committing something, to saying like this is a thought that I want to put out into the world. So I'd say, yes, I think there is a difference. Hopefully that resonates with people. But yeah, I'm visual and I like to write things down, so for me it makes a big difference.
Speaker 1:This episode is brought to you by Vitaly. Vitaly is bringing in a new era of customer success productivity. With their all-in-one customer success platform, vitaly gives you unmatched visibility into your company's health and success, and now you can measure operational strategies on customer outcomes at scale with goals, directly in Vitaly. Exciting news for all the listeners Vitaly are also giving away a free pair of AirPods for all Women in Customer Success podcast listeners when you take a qualified demo with them. If you're in the market looking for a CS platform, make sure you visit vitallyio slash women vitallyio slash women to book your demo and get your AirPods. And now let's get into the episode. And now let's get into the episode. Thanks for sharing that. Yes, I wanted to emphasize how, when you put it down on a paper, it's it almost it's becoming alive, like there are some physical words on the paper and that can help you even more understand. Well, that's really who I am. That is really what I'm bringing to the table, thank you. What is number two?
Speaker 2:So the second thing would be to find yourself a mentor. I'll talk in a little bit about sponsorship and how sort of a mentor is different to a sponsor, but one of the things that I have found in my career is there's been a lot of loneliness, I think, as a woman in tech, but also moving through the ranks of seniority within a company, and mentors to me are so important there. It doesn't have to just be a female mentor either. You could have anyone in your network that's a mentor, and actually I have men and women who have been fantastic mentors for me. But a mentor is somebody that you can go to and bounce ideas off of, ask for advice, soundboard with it. Could be somebody in your organization, it could be somebody outside in your kind of non-professional network, but just somebody that you can go to and ask for advice and run ideas by. What I personally think you don't want to do is to go into a performance-based conversation for the first time, having never tried it out with anyone else. Having never tried it out with anyone else, I'm such a preparer and a planner and so I like to be able to anticipate objections that could come my way, and if you only soundboard with yourself. You're going to get your perspective and your objections. Doing it with somebody else whether that's a mentor, ideally is such a fantastic way to do a test run, particularly for a performance conversation. So, yeah, second thing would be find yourself a mentor.
Speaker 2:A lot of people ask me how do I find a mentor? I don't know if that was going to be a question of yours at all, but there's plenty of ways to find a mentor. Go up to somebody in your company and say hey, I would really love it if you could be a mentor for me, if I could bounce some ideas off of you. I love the way you do this or that and I'd like to learn from you. You'd be surprised how many people will be flattered and say, yes, absolutely, I'd love to find some time. I've heard of other people who have gone to a conference or gone to an event and there's been a really inspiring speaker on the stage and they've just reached out afterwards via LinkedIn or sent an email and asked if that person is open to being a mentor. The number of people that have responded and said, yes, great initiative, I'm happy to find some time Again. You'd be surprised how many people will take you up on that and don't be dejected if they get back to you and say, thanks, but I'm really busy.
Speaker 2:The next question should be completely understand is there anyone else in your network that you would recommend that I connect with? Because those inspiring people are not standalone inspiring people. They'll know many others who I'm sure will have some time to mentor you. The other thing that you can do when you're looking for a mentor is to go to a group that has a mentorship program in place. So not to blow my own trumpet by any means, maria, forgive me for this, but I run a community called WISE, which stands for Women in SaaS, and we're actually launching a mentorship program this year to help women find mentors, because I know it can be difficult, despite what I've just said about LinkedIn stalking or going up to someone in your company. So there are programs out there that you can find. Just do a quick Google or reach out to me on LinkedIn.
Speaker 1:I'm happy to share more about the mentorship program we offer through WISE that is an absolutely wonderful call out and we'll make sure that we can include the link in the show notes. In Women in Customer Success, we have also launched mentoring this year, which is now available all year round on a dedicated platform, so I can also share the link. It is womenincsco slash mentoring and we have seen so many successes because women very often, as you said, they don't know where to start from, and then if it is especially women only mentoring, it's really becomes so much easier at least to reach out to somebody. So, yeah, we already have two resources for all of you listening, which is absolutely wonderful. No excuses now. No, okay, let's move on to number three.
Speaker 2:Okay. So third thing in taking the next step, I would summarize as ask the hard questions. So what I mean by this is that very often again not to generalize, but I think very often women expect that if they work really, really hard, other people will notice it and will promote them. Nobody is going to advocate for your promotion except for yourself. So don't just work your ass off and then hope that you get noticed. Make sure that you are in lockstep with whoever is going to give you that promotion, that they know the work you're doing and that you know how far along the path you are to reach that next milestone.
Speaker 2:I know it can be an uncomfortable conversation, but book some time with your manager if you don't have the development one-to-one in the calendar and just ask them to sit down with you and have an open and obvious conversation about how you're progressing.
Speaker 2:Try and identify what the steps are or the skills that you need or the things that you have to prove that you've done to get to the next level. Make sure that your manager is clearly articulating those for you and you're aligned on what that looks like, and then ask for their feedback as to where you are on that trajectory. Are you at the second milestone? Are you at the fifth milestone of 10? And once you know where you are on that journey, make sure you also then are understanding what more you need to do to get to that ultimate milestone. And then be somewhat forceful and make sure that you continue to have this conversation with your manager, ask for a check-in a couple of weeks later or a month later, but you have to be in charge of having those conversations and steering your path through the organization, because you're going to be your best advocate. Don't just sit back and hope to be noticed that is such a wonderful and important advice.
Speaker 1:When I was a CSM back in the days, once I left my company because, well, because I was promoted once, but then I didn't tell them what did I want to do next. And later on only I realized well, if I am not advocating for myself, how on earth is anyone else even knowing what do I want or how will I get there? And I wasn't vocal about it. So that's my mistake. Please don't repeat it. Just because it was really a great company to work Well this is right.
Speaker 2:We make these mistakes so that we can help others to not make the same mistakes. So it was worth it. It was a worthwhile mistake. I'm so glad now.
Speaker 1:Let's move on. What is next after advocating for yourself and your promotions?
Speaker 2:So my fourth tip would be to find a sponsor, and now a sponsor is very different to a mentor. The way that I think about it is that very often, when making decisions around comp increases or promotions, you're not going to be in the room or at the table where those decisions are being made. Typically, there is a steering committee or a leadership team that gets together in a room, goes through a list of people that have been put forward for a promotion and says yes or no. What you want to make sure is that you have somebody in that room who has a seat at that table that's going to be saying yes, maria is super deserving of this promotion. Couldn't speak more highly about the work she's doing, and here are a couple of proof points to be able to say without a doubt that we should check that box to promote her or give her that pay rise. Make sure you identify who the people are that are going to be in the room and that they are going to be a sponsor for you.
Speaker 2:In that conversation. There are various different ways that you go about making them a sponsor. Yeah, what I would suggest is, if you can ideally identify those people, make it your mission to get in front of them, show them the value that we spoke about in the first tip and even have a very frank conversation with them, which is hey, these are my career goals. This is where I see myself in the next six to 12 months and this is why that's what I'm aiming for. I would love it if you would be a sponsor for me and see what they say.
Speaker 2:Most people will love the initiative and, as long as you've got the proof points and the confidence to be able to back up a conversation like that, when your name comes up at the table, they'll remember that conversation and say, oh yes, maria is awesome. These are some of the things that she does. I'm really supportive of that promotion. So identify who they are, put yourself out there, take the value that you wrote down in the beginning of this conversation and make sure they're aware of it. If you can't identify the people that are going to be at the table, ask your manager for help. Weave this into the third recommendation we had around asking the hard questions and advocating for yourself, and make sure you ask them if it's not you that's going to be sponsoring me, who would and how can you help me get in front of them so that they know the value that I can bring when this conversation comes up.
Speaker 1:I've seen in multiple occasions how, especially CSMs when they are in situations such as escalations or risk situations with customers, there are typically so many executives around the table and that potentially negative situation because something is wrong with the customer, we have a problem we have to fix it serves as an amazing opportunity for CSMs to showcase how they are taking care of that customer. What was done, what is next, what are their recommendations, what are their asks for the executives? And I have seen so many times how those executives remember the CSMs who basically gave them so much context, and they realize that they are really great materials and sometimes promotions happen because those people remember them. Now, how much even better is, when you do it a strategy to speak to those people in the context of becoming your sponsor, yep.
Speaker 2:Gosh, I couldn't agree with you more. I've personally been in so many of those meetings myself or sat in on executive calls where somebody a CSM has come up in conversation because of how well they handle an escalation or the level of detail that they gave to a senior sponsor in the business who was attending a meeting. A senior sponsor in the business who was attending a meeting like identify those moments in which you want to shine and prep the hell out of them and make sure that you do your best job because, as Maria said, like they will remember you, and then couple that with a sponsorship strategy like we spoke about and, you know, say yes to that next promotion Wonderful.
Speaker 1:And as we are closing the five steps, what is that last, very important step to move your career?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So the last one, I think, is probably the one that I struggled with the most and it's taken me the longest time to learn, and it would be to learn how to negotiate for yourself. When I was early on in my career and I was offered a promotion or a pay rise or I went for a new job, I would just feel lucky that something had been offered to me and I would never question what had been offered. I would just think, amazing, it's a promotion or amazing, it's a pay rise. And no questions asked, I would take it, obviously, but that would be what I got.
Speaker 2:What I have learned since progressing through to senior management is that there's always flexibility in what's offered. That could be flexibility in the compensation, it could be flexibility in the title or the scope of the role and unless you ask, no one's going to give you or let you into that flexible area. So learn how to negotiate for yourself. And the easiest way to think about this is, let's say, you're going for a new job and you are offered the title that you want and the pay that you want. Always go back and say, really excited by the offer, I would love to join the company. However, there are a couple of areas that I would like to negotiate on, and here are those areas Specify the areas and say why you're negotiating on them. A lot of that will tie back to the value that you bring, which we spoke about as my first tip. But it's okay to ask for things like a slightly higher salary or if you're not happy with the title that they've given you.
Speaker 2:Is the room to talk about maybe a senior title? And is there a sign-on bonus? That's on office, for example? The number of women that don't know to ask for a sign-on bonus just boggles my mind. But no one's going to give you a sign-on bonus unless you ask for it.
Speaker 2:So ask, provide the justification for why. Don't just be greedy but actually say this is why I'm asking you for this, and then expect them to come back and say no and already have a plan for how you might go about kind of navigating that. So let's say you asked for a higher title and they came back and said no, we can't offer you a senior title. The next question that you might want to ask is completely understand, is there a way that you can say yes to performance conversations with me or a targeted plan over the next 12 months that I know what I need to do to get into that senior position.
Speaker 2:So there's always a way to come back from this. Don't think about it as rejection or that they're going to suddenly take that offer off of the table. They want you. This is your opportunity to negotiate. So I could speak at length about negotiation. Drop me a message on LinkedIn if you need any tips. But please, please, please, learn how to negotiate for yourself and never just take the first offer, because there's always wiggle room. That is the best advice anyone can receive.
Speaker 1:Don't just take that first offer, because there's always wiggle room. That is the best advice anyone can receive. Don't just take that first offer and as a hiring manager, I've seen you did for sure as well how women very often just say okay, thank you, and they don't come back with anything else. And so many men just do come back with anything else and they get it because they ask. And, as you said, unless you ask, you are never going to get anything just because you have never asked why wouldn't you?
Speaker 2:Yep, yeah, I mean hiring managers, managers in promotion and comp cycles. They're looking to take the easiest route, which is to offer you something, and you say thank you so much for providing that for me. But you are so right, maria, that in most of the comp or performance or hiring manager conversations I have, it's always the men who ask for more and they always get it. They might not get what they've asked for, but they'll get better than what we've put on the table as our starting offer. Women never ask me, and so that is why it's my last, final, hardest but probably most important tried and tested way to take your career to the next step is negotiate, negotiate, negotiate.
Speaker 1:Eloise as you said, we could literally talk for five hours about it. This has been incredible. Thank you so much for sharing so amazing strategies. As we wrap up, please would you like to tell us more about Women in SaaS? How and why did you start it and where can we find out more about it?
Speaker 2:Definitely, and thank you for the opportunity as well to talk about it. I think it probably summarizes quite a few of the points that we've touched on in in this conversation. But I mentioned I have had a little bit of a lonely career in making it to the to the top. Um well, actually I'm not at the top yet, so I'm on my way to the to the top, but it's been a bit of a lonely journey, to be honest, and, being fortunate enough to be in Sydney in Australia, and then San Francisco over in the US, the way that I kind of circumvented that loneliness was I found really phenomenal communities of like-minded people, whether that be women or entrepreneurs, just generally people in SaaS, and I used to go to a lot of events and meetups, especially in San Francisco. And then, moving back to London, I was looking for something similar and there weren't a lot of communities in London specifically that fit really what I was looking for, and so I thought why not start one myself?
Speaker 2:And it's a lot to juggle sometimes, but WISE stands for Women in SaaS and we are a London-based network with dreams of being global at some stage for women who are in the SaaS industry and are looking to excel in their careers. We run programs throughout the year, like our mentorship programs. We are just about to launch a Slack community and we also do events both online and offline and in person in London every couple of months we have one coming up around. Actually, the topic of this conversation today, maria, which was how to go for that next pay rise, promotion or negotiate a new role in a new company. So if you'd like to find out more or join us for that event, feel free to search for Wise Women in SaaS on LinkedIn, and we are just about to launch a website as well, so that URL will be womeninsaasorg. So, yes, come and find us, and if you can't find us, just pop me a message on LinkedIn and I'll send you a direct invite.
Speaker 1:This is wonderful. I'm going to include the link in the show notes. Uh, that's exactly what what women need, and thank you so much for doing it. Honestly it's.
Speaker 2:I love it. It's um, it's been so rewarding. I've met so many incredible women through the community and, yeah, can't wait to meet more Eloise thank you.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for a wonderful episode full of brilliant insights and thank you for everything that you're doing for women in SAS. This is incredible and I'm super happy for everybody listening. Who can reach out to you then? Who can connect?
Speaker 2:who can just learn from this conversation. Yeah, thank you so much for inviting me and for hosting this awesome podcast. It's just such a fantastic way to get different voices out there and, yeah, I can't wait to listen to all of your future guests. I've listened to a number of past guests and it's always so inspiring, so glad that I could be just a little bit part of it.
Speaker 1:Thank you for that. 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.