Episode 072 - Special Guest Nicole Saunders - Roadmaps, Headcount, Employee Training and more

welcome to another peers over beers this is Chris Detzel and I have a special guest with me Nicole Saunders Nicole tell us a little bit about yourself.

Nicole Saunders: Nice to be here, Chris so Nicole Sanders i'm the director of communities at zendesk i've been at zendesk for about five years now and i've been.

Nicole Saunders: Working in the Community management industry.

Nicole Saunders: I think, as long as the title has been around I actually remember the day that I was sitting on Twitter and I think it was more the first Community manager appreciation days and I saw the tiger out of it, oh Community management.

Nicole Saunders: that's what I do and I put it on my resume and my linkedin.

Nicole Saunders: been doing it ever since so yeah it was good to find my find my people.

Chris Detzel: You know it's funny I was telling you are talking to you right before the show and.

Chris Detzel: we've never really had a conversation before, so I was really excited that you when I reached out that you said yeah you know i'll do it let's let's have a conversation, and here you are so thank you so much for coming.

Nicole Saunders: yeah for sure I mean you know i've seen you around on linkedin I know that we participate in a couple of the same community manager groups and our own communities for Community managers.

Nicole Saunders: And I I always love talking about Community stuff with anybody that will listen and especially people that know the industry.

Chris Detzel: yeah me too, and as you know, i've had this podcast for a little while, so why don't we dig right in so tell me a little bit about your team what and I could tell you a little bit about my team, or maybe for now and then.

Chris Detzel: And then, what what we wanted to kind of talk about was planning budgeting and all that kind of stuff and what do you plan for for.

Chris Detzel: You know the start of the year it's January now maybe you guys have already done it our fiscal years February, so it starts fyi 23 and so we're.

Chris Detzel: In the midst of closing our planning now and looking at one headcount or you know strategy, what are we going to be doing next year, and all that kind of stuff budget stuff like that so.

Chris Detzel: Why don't you kick it off with a little bit about kind of what your team is what your Community kind of goal is and then let's talk about budgeting and planning stuff cycle.

Nicole Saunders: yeah absolutely is the last time pack there.

Nicole Saunders: is an interesting journey with God isn't this like I said i've been there about five years when I first started zendesk it was me and one other person in a role was largely kind of being functioning as a support REP in the Community Center user questions.

Nicole Saunders: Over time we've built that out, so I now have a team of six that report to me.

Nicole Saunders: um so it's been a lot of growth, a lot of expansion, we also moved our team, we used to be under the support organization and now we are a little more centralized in the integrated marketing team.

Nicole Saunders: So really sort of been working on shifting and expanding the scope of our Community and what it does, and you know that contributed to that team growth.

Nicole Saunders: As far as planning goes, we are we're right in the thick of it right now my team is actually doing the roadmap presentations next week i'm really excited to hear what they've got plan and what they're working on.

Chris Detzel: You know that's that could be a little scary for.

Chris Detzel: You know beginner Community managers is putting a roadmap together and then have to present to Nicole, and whoever else is there, you know, like.

Chris Detzel: say you already know this stuff so that you know but that's good, I think.

Chris Detzel: Please meet that right.

Nicole Saunders: it's it's really good practice, you know, at the end of the day, i'm the one that ends up taking the roadmap up to executives and getting all of the approvals and buy in.

Nicole Saunders: But I wouldn't know how to do it if my previous manager hadn't made me do one on a regular basis for her, and so this is the first time i've got my whole team doing all of it.

Nicole Saunders: But I think it's going to be a really good exercise for everybody.

Nicole Saunders: You know, I think that there's some key skill sets, you have to have in our industry, you have to be able to put together a good deck and articulate what you're going to work on and why those are the important things to be doing.

Nicole Saunders: So that's really what we're kind of going, step by step through right now give everybody some practice.

Chris Detzel: I love that I really do I think whenever I was at a company called excel so that's where I met.

Chris Detzel: Michael and he taught me all things strategy.

Chris Detzel: Community, but is, you know look, you have to have a strategy, and you know there's going to be the high level of what are you trying to accomplish right and then.

Chris Detzel: underneath, that is, how are you going to go execute on that strategy, and so what is your roadmap, and so we look at not.

Chris Detzel: Our company like 3060 9120 years, but I think you know if you can look out.

Chris Detzel: You know quarterly is what I used to kind of do and really like say I’m an accomplished this this quarter this quarter that or is that can I you guys do it, or so, what are you thinking from a roadmap standpoint does that look like.

Nicole Saunders: yeah, I think we, we like to break things down and quarters, I also like to look at things sort of been half years.

Nicole Saunders: Because there's so many things that are going to take you know four or five months to get through, so you can break down milestones by quarter, but especially with Community oftentimes it's a longer term play you know it's.

Nicole Saunders: we're going to do something and see the result two weeks later, but it's where you're going to build something over the course of several quarters, or even several years, sometimes.

Chris Detzel: yeah, it's like you know, one of the things so real to say we started our Community back in April 28 of last year, so you know it's very new and.

Chris Detzel: invalid, people are so excited about it, and everything else and we're doing some really good things, but.

Chris Detzel: You know you've got to pull it in a little bit because you know things don't just happen overnight and so.

Chris Detzel: i'll give you an example, like when you look at some of the analytics on you know, Google right and so.

Chris Detzel: You know, page views or users or whatever it's just going up and down right like it's not when you look at seo growth, I mean look.

Chris Detzel: Best stuff takes a year, two years, three years to really kind of you know, go skyrocket and so when you get to explain well why is it down every single month or up and down up and down think.

Chris Detzel: Just the way it is you know, like to building a bunch of content and it's brand new it's from scratch, but you have to be able to to explain some of those things to the executives and if you don't you know, then they'll be like me they just need to understand right.

Nicole Saunders: Absolutely, and you know I think it's so important, you know, taking you an example, Google analytics I like to look at stats a year every year and see how they compare and one of the things that we've learned there's very much seasonal traffic.

Chris Detzel: in the Community.

Nicole Saunders: You know, we know which months we see it, see the most engagement, we know which months that regularly dips.

Nicole Saunders: But if you don't look at it in that longer time scale and be like oh gosh our page views crashed and August, what happens what kinds of the crash every August, because people's kids go back to school and they get distracted.

Nicole Saunders: You know, and so you have to really always have that perspective of both the short term and the long term, but I think that that's something that I am.

Nicole Saunders: forever trying to communicate out to folks I think a lot of people have this impression with communities that it's like social media and you're going to do something and it's going to go viral and blow up overnight and that.

Nicole Saunders: is not how things work they definitely build over time and, like you said you're building content you're building seo you're building a relationship and a reputation with your Members and that takes time to really gain the full benefit of.

Chris Detzel: You know that we're going to talk about budgeting but i'm really liking.

Chris Detzel: Where this conversation is going to be honest.

Chris Detzel: And so I agree, I think that you know when you look at it's a good point about the social media thing because.

Chris Detzel: You know it's not going to blow up, it takes time and, and you know when I tell people is Community is not a project it's a program that just continues to go on.

Chris Detzel: it's almost like a living breathing thing right because people come in and I love the relationship thing that you mentioned, because.

Chris Detzel: As I get more and more into the community and, as I kind of look at.

Chris Detzel: Those those users and I enter engage with them not just digitally we have a webinar program that you know I run as well, and so, people are always now coming and asking me questions that.

Chris Detzel: You know it's like Of course I don't know the answer so i'm still having to push that out, but there personally coming to you they're going on contact us hey Chris.

Chris Detzel: You know it's Community manager at rel to but they're still they know exactly how to get in touch with me right, you know and so.

Chris Detzel: It is, it is a it's a fun thing to do, but it becomes a lot of work, so you put this team of six, you know what what kind of things did you do to kind of really say hey look I need another head and then another and then another right.

Nicole Saunders: yeah.

Chris Detzel: love to kind of hear more about that I know.

Nicole Saunders: it's kind of interesting it's a chicken and egg thing right because a lot of the time you're sitting there, especially if you're a team of one or a team of two and you're saying I can't do anything, unless I have more people to help me yeah.

Nicole Saunders: But the real key to getting headcount is demonstrating that you can do something, and you have an impact, and then being able to say, and I can double that impact if I get more people.

Nicole Saunders: And so you know I think the step, one that a lot of people don't always realize is demonstrating what you can do and demonstrating a little bit of value.

Nicole Saunders: So sometimes that means being really strategic and what you pursue right and setting yourself and saying i'm going to pursue this specific projects, I can demonstrate some impact.

Nicole Saunders: And that's going to give me the ability to go in and say I did this, and we can do it twice as big or four times as big or more often, or whatever it is, if you get that additional headcount you got to show a little bit of value first.

Nicole Saunders: I think the other key really is being able to articulate what additional headcount will do for the business right.

Nicole Saunders: Will it make your life and your team's life easier absolutely well you'd be able to move faster definitely.

Nicole Saunders: But you're gonna have to quantify that for the business nobody's going to invest in it, if they don't know what they're going to get back out of it.

Nicole Saunders: And each account is a big investment for the company when you think about the time and the money and the training and all of the things that go into it.

Nicole Saunders: So you know with with with our first hire it was hey we're answering all of the questions around this one product.

Nicole Saunders: We could answer all of the questions about all of the products if we have more people, because at the time we actually when I started, we actually separate communities for each product.

Nicole Saunders: which was.

Nicole Saunders: An interesting way to distribute things, and so I was like I want to merge these all together get everybody in one room but we're going to need another person to help with those questions we're going to add four times as many questions into this one space.

Nicole Saunders: So that first head count that was easy to justify because it was taking what we were doing and adding to it now, as I continue to build out my team at started adding new roles.

Nicole Saunders: And some of that came with I mentioned that we moved from the support organization over to the marketing organization which is a whole adventure that we've might have to save for another episode.

Chris Detzel: hey I would love to because I just moved to the market organization from the.

Chris Detzel: Customer success organization so yeah oh.

Nicole Saunders: Interesting yeah and it's I know that there's a big debate in our industry about where a Community team should live my one sound bite on, that is to say that community is connected to every part of the business.

Nicole Saunders: You know, listen to the conversation, you have Jenny a couple weeks back.

Nicole Saunders: And she was going about like okay well marketing wants it for this and success wants it for this product wants it for this.

Nicole Saunders: And it's true and so to me, to a certain extent it doesn't necessarily matter so much where the Community sits so long as it's well resourced and well supported because you're going to be working super cross functionally, no matter where in the organization, you are.

Nicole Saunders: But you wanted to talk about budget, you want to sit someplace where you you're going to have a budget and you're going to be able to get some headcount and that's not usually sitting in a cost Center it's usually sitting in one of the revenue generating parts of the business.

Chris Detzel: Marketing I agree.

Nicole Saunders: yeah but yeah as we, as we move to the marketing team that was an opportunity for me to really say okay.

Nicole Saunders: we're moving where our team is we're changing the scope of the Community we're going to be more than just a support Community we're really going to start building out brand ambassadors and we're really.

Nicole Saunders: going to start focusing on customer success, so we need some new functions and so actually doubled the size of my team last year, I said all right, I need three entirely new people, so I hired.

Nicole Saunders: Someone to do our user program so focusing on user groups and customer advocacy and our user recognitions in the Community.

Nicole Saunders: I decided I needed somebody that was full time going to work on driving traffic to the Community marketing person.

Nicole Saunders: To really give some time and energy that and then.

Nicole Saunders: Possibly the best decision I ever made was hiring an operations person.

Nicole Saunders: So somebody who could just really like make sure the train is staying on the tracks and doing all of that.

Nicole Saunders: And I really lucked out, I found somebody that can do operations and analytics so I got an OPS person and analyst in one and my gosh I recommend it to every community manager out there, find somebody that can do that stuff for you.

Chris Detzel: I gosh you know all the things that you're saying resonate big in big ways and always kind of think what's, the first thing we're looking at hiring a Community manager here shortly just because my role has expanded I now own communities, but also.

Chris Detzel: The Executive Council so.

Chris Detzel: it's hard to do.

Chris Detzel: Both right, you know alone, and so, hopefully we'll get that headcount but, but I was thinking.

Chris Detzel: Operations person would be awesome an analytics person be awesome but I need somebody to run the Community I need I need a content person I need you know what I mean so it's like okay.

Chris Detzel: you're going to get all those things, and so you just got to figure out, you know within your community, what is it that you're what you need first and then you kind of build upon that and it sounds like you've done extremely good job and doing that so congratulations.

Nicole Saunders: Well, thank you, I appreciate that I i'm very happy with the team, we have i'm very happy with the way we have grown, I would say, if I was to go back and do it again.

Nicole Saunders: I probably would have hired a content specialist earlier.

Nicole Saunders: I ended up covering that sort of content role for a long time until we we got some additional space and still do some of it, to this day.

Nicole Saunders: And that content person is so key because that's the person that's going to take you know events that you do and figure out how to bring that back into the Community and break those down and digestible pieces and.

Nicole Saunders: Make sure that you're getting things all distributed and.

Nicole Saunders: it's such a key thing so, but you know it's so interesting every community team is a little bit different every community roles, a little bit different and.

Nicole Saunders: At the end of the day, I found the best is just to.

Nicole Saunders: play to people's strengths and interests and really figure out.

Nicole Saunders: I agree, they can contribute the most and design it that way.

Chris Detzel: For like that there's probably not an exact right way to kind of go about it, I mean but.

Chris Detzel: It sounds like how I start communities could be way different than us how you started community, but yet you're thriving and we're starting to thrive, you know what I mean, and so it just.

Chris Detzel: In we could go in depth, you know later to kind of think about you know what is it that you did to really kind of get that Community thriving you know, to get that buy in and that kind of stuff I love how.

Chris Detzel: you've got a lot of people under you and you've been very focused in on you know those different roles.

Chris Detzel: You know, because business starts coming to me, you know, in a lot of different ways that they could talked about this last week but.

Chris Detzel: you've got product coming they want ideation they want feedback, they want to get these people in on Community you know, maybe these private communities to help with product adoption that's.

Chris Detzel: Not just a new one, but it's like Chris what can we do on you know getting this person to adopt this new product Chris what can we do to get you know and like you said, like, how do you get.

Chris Detzel: The advocacy program going people are you know wanting that Chris I need interviews on you know.

Chris Detzel: Some some input from the Executive Council on you know let's say the branding project that we're doing all this and i'm like.

Chris Detzel: Okay, Chris that's not the only one, you know with a with these relationships I don't think you know what I mean, and so you know it becomes a lot, you know so so.

Nicole Saunders: It really does it some to me just to be such a dynamic engine throughout the business right and like I said it's you touch all these parts we've we've been talking a lot about sort of.

Nicole Saunders: weaving the fabric of the customer, experience has been our mantra but really.

Nicole Saunders: The Community can become that connective tissue between all of those other teams and departments, and I think the hardest thing is how do you, you know, going back to sort of our initial thoughts on like.

Nicole Saunders: Planning and being strategic, how do you focus, because it is true that every team in the company wants something and sees possibility with the Community, and I mean it's.

Nicole Saunders: it's everything from like you know the traditional ones of product and marketing success.

Nicole Saunders: we've even got things like our Corporate Social Responsibility team wants to know how we can bring our environmental causes to the front and how can we talk to customers about what they're doing to be more green and it is so cool.

Nicole Saunders: Like yeah amazing thing when you've got people from all over the business clamoring.

Nicole Saunders: And coming to you with this, but it's also that thing of like i'm sitting here being like wow i've grown my team to six and we totally do not have enough bandwidth to do all of this.

Nicole Saunders: Like so there is never matter much yeah like you can.

Nicole Saunders: you're always going to want more people and so that's where it becomes so important to understand like what's the biggest focus, where are the places, you can make the most impact and really kind of dig into those pieces.

Chris Detzel: Allow you brought this back around to the original This is great, I need somebody like that, because i'm really good at.

Nicole Saunders: The conversation focused.

Chris Detzel: yeah so the planning pieces is true, you know, like.

Chris Detzel: My boss asked me, the other day because alright, so we have our we call it company kickoff so since to SCO whatever it is it's still salesy but you know.

Chris Detzel: And and i've got to present on version two of Community because you know version one is done for the first year, for the most part.

Chris Detzel: So what does the version to look like, and so you know i've been in the planning stages of thinking about.

Chris Detzel: What does Community look like right, you know, and so what are some of the things that we're going to do next year.

Chris Detzel: or let's say this year really to move the Community forward, you know and so that's always fun, but it's hard to think about it's like well, am I going to get a headcount and i'm gonna need a head count that changes everything you know what I mean so.

Chris Detzel: So it's still thinking about that you know you don't want to present to the company and say this is all the things that's going to happen because thinking i'm going to have this day, you know, so you gotta you gotta be strategic and now you kind of, say, until you kind of know you know.

Nicole Saunders: Well, and sometimes i've gone in and presented as options kind of given them a menu right and said, like all right if we've got the team, we have today.

Nicole Saunders: here's what we're gonna do now, I would like to add this program and here's the value that I think you can bring to the company, but we can only do that if.

Nicole Saunders: We get this headcount this budget, this technical resource, whatever it is that we need.

Nicole Saunders: And then you sort of give people that opportunity to make that choice and say well Okay, what do we want to get out of Community and how are we going to do this.

Nicole Saunders: And then usually what they're going to do is say how close to that can you get with your existing resources right there's always going to be a negotiation there, so you know always always mark up a little bit what you're asking for, knowing that it's going to get negotiated.

Chris Detzel: down.

Chris Detzel: Oh absolutely yeah.

Nicole Saunders: yeah it's it's key and you know I think there's so much talk in in communities like, how do you tie what you're doing in your Community to the business goals.

Chris Detzel: mm hmm.

Nicole Saunders: that's an interesting thing because there's always a balance to be struck between supporting the business goals and doing what's best for users and ideally those things on the line, but sometimes.

Nicole Saunders: It can get you a little off track right and you got to make sure that you're balancing those two sets of needs.

Nicole Saunders: And you know, sometimes you see things that would be really great for the users, it would really encourage the Community thriving and maybe it doesn't align to a specific business goal.

Nicole Saunders: yeah um so i'm always trying to find you know what's the way what's the 6040, how can we have most of what renewing contributing to those goals but also have that little bit of room and reserved for the things that are just about nurturing the people.

Nicole Saunders: yeah about what they want, you know.

Chris Detzel: Apps absolutely I think you know, at the end of the day, you know for here for a reason right is for business and we have to.

Chris Detzel: some degree tied, you know what we're trying to do to those business goals So what are the outcomes we're trying to achieve.

Chris Detzel: But they need to be at that level, and I think you're absolutely right if they're not and you're just doing a bunch of shit you know that you know it's here there, whatever.

Chris Detzel: You know it's good but it's not going to accomplish at the end of day what you're looking for and your executives will stop buying in and be like I don't know how you doing you know what I mean.

Nicole Saunders: So you can keep yourself wildly busy, and have no impact on the business is amazing.

Nicole Saunders: And so it is important to be those things that like you're saying you know if you're going to ask for budget if you're going to ask for headcount you're gonna have to be able to articulate what the business is going to get back out of it.

Chris Detzel: yeah.

Nicole Saunders: and is able to demonstrate that you know that that angels return on investment.

Chris Detzel: You know it's true and i'm look that part's not easy, you know and it's and it's I think that.

Chris Detzel: I don't know about you, but, for me, I I sometimes struggle with that, but I, you have to push through it, you have to kind of understand what I mean none of us are perfect at doing everything, so you got to find those.

Chris Detzel: Scott, a resource of some sort not necessarily a headcount but somebody that maybe can help you understand you know how to.

Chris Detzel: Do something better, so if I if i'm terrible at presentations well I better get somewhat good at it one two is i've got to be able to.

Chris Detzel: tell a story of some sort you know, and you don't have to do that read some books, you know.

Chris Detzel: Talk to Nicole, or whatever you know I mean i'm sure you have to you have to engage and interact and a lot of different ways and.

Chris Detzel: And that's to me is the key is storytelling presenting in front of a bunch of people to really tell that story, you know and you've got to be able to do it on slides sometimes i'll just do it.

Chris Detzel: You know i'll share my screen and say hey look.

Chris Detzel: here's here's some great questions here hey let me search on Google and show you kind of you know what I mean like so it's at least pulling out some of those stories, I think that you know are gonna connect to your audience or to the business people, the leaders, whoever right.

Nicole Saunders: You know I love that you're bringing this up right now, because of course we're coming up on Community manager appreciation day on Monday.

Nicole Saunders: And I know there's a big thing in the industry, this year, encouraging everyone to take it as a professional development day and so we've done that, at zendesk i've given the whole.

Nicole Saunders: team, the full day to like go read books on Community management come listen to the podcast attend, one of the webinars or events that kind of thing, but it is true that, like there are certain skills, we have to build and let's be honest, most people hate public speaking.

Nicole Saunders: Not me i'm one of those random weirdos that loves being behind a microphone on a stage.

Nicole Saunders: At least after the first five minutes i'm always nervous and then I warm up and you can't drag me off.

i'm.

Chris Detzel: nervous, it would be.

Chris Detzel: You know, be kind of weird.

Chris Detzel: You know we're all we all get nervous.

Nicole Saunders: I mean even adults as that she gets nervous like she's.

Nicole Saunders: course biggest stars in the world right um but, so it is.

Chris Detzel: Important to build the, by the way my wife loves her.

Chris Detzel: I mean, I like I like it, too, but.

Nicole Saunders: Who doesn't, how can you know.

Chris Detzel: yeah she's really good.

Nicole Saunders: she's amazing.

Nicole Saunders: she's one of those people like she's got it one of those talents you just like, how is that, how is there actually a person in the world that is that talent.

Nicole Saunders: um but I digress.

Nicole Saunders: No, I think the building those skills is so important, though, especially those ones that, like any job you ever have.

Nicole Saunders: you're going to need to be able to articulate what you're doing and why and tell a compelling story around it and.

Nicole Saunders: You know, there are so many things out there about you can read books and again listen to podcasts go to webinars and things like that I strongly encourage people like go take a class on storytelling.

Nicole Saunders: Go with through a webinar that talks about slide design when you see great slides that people have asked if you can steal the format.

Nicole Saunders: Yes, copy that and use it in your own decks you know it's a little fake it till you make it with slide design that's fine everybody does it um.

Nicole Saunders: But yeah like it taking some time to do some professional development, maybe it's even outside of the scope of your program you know every class you take doesn't have to be on Community management.

Nicole Saunders: During the one on storytelling go do one on presenting their do one on public speaking take an improv.

Nicole Saunders: Class you get more comfortable being on stage and things like that you know.

Chris Detzel: You know I love that and something that I used to do, and maybe we should just a whole episode of that but.

Nicole Saunders: I got six episodes here we can.

Nicole Saunders: Like break this up in.

Chris Detzel: each topic i'm gonna have a hard time like top of typing out the notes like well we kind of have this and this but.

Chris Detzel: We just want it is are getting to know you episode.

Nicole Saunders: Right we're just telling all the things we can drill deeper and future ones.

Chris Detzel: yeah let's do it um, but I do want to say this is that.

Chris Detzel: The hardest thing for me at the very beginning, probably six or seven years ago was getting in front of a bunch of people and speaking so more specifically.

Chris Detzel: around you know people that are experts in higher levels than me and everything else, and so you know ticket over that what I started to do was.

Chris Detzel: Our to sign up for conferences or being a speaker on certain things because it pushed me to be able to at least.

Chris Detzel: Get in front of people and say some shit you know what I mean like about in my case Community right like.

Chris Detzel: You know, and I was like you know if I just sign up and just tell people, I want to speak and do all these things you know just consistently do it.

Chris Detzel: Then eventually i'm going to get good at this, you know, and then, so I started doing that, but the one thing that put me over the top, was whenever I went to improve on my last gig.

Chris Detzel: And you know, I was the only person in Community and when I started this community from scratch, and I know what I was doing for the most part, but I there's a lot I didn't know, but people looked at me as the expert, I had no choice but to.

Chris Detzel: Get in front of people get in front of executives and all of those things so sometimes you know you might have to you just have to push yourself to do it just say Okay, yes, I want to do all the things that Nicole said but.

Chris Detzel: At some point i've got to get out and you know I don't know who the vendors that you're using but you vendors, for example, love to get case studies vendors love, they all have.

Chris Detzel: You know nice little forums, or you know things like that that you can go to, and they want somebody to speak about your their particular topic right, you know and so that's my.

Chris Detzel: recommendation is get yourself out there do it, you know.

Nicole Saunders: I completely agree, even if it's just like presenting to your own team.

Nicole Saunders: yeah like your roommate or your significant other be like can I practice for 20 minutes presenting what I do to you because you don't know anything about it you're not.

Nicole Saunders: Working my industry, I need to explain this to you and see if you understand it, because that'll that means.

Nicole Saunders: that the leaders that i'm presenting to you will understand it, and the real key to it.

Nicole Saunders: it's all about confidence and the reality is most of us forget how much we know and don't realize how much of an expert, we are.

Nicole Saunders: I one time, I was going to help somebody set up their Twitter account and i'd like written down a little agenda like okay we're gonna get their handle and i'm gonna explain hashtags and i'm gonna explain at mentions.

Nicole Saunders: And we end up spend the whole hour just picking out their username.

Nicole Saunders: And it was one of those things that made me realize like Oh, I was thinking, the basics.

Nicole Saunders: Are this list of things that are going to take hours to get this person to you because they don't even understand the basic concept of like.

Nicole Saunders: Well, why do I need a username and like How should I pick one and what does it need to represent and you know this is like for their business account.

Nicole Saunders: So we have to talk about all these things like.

Nicole Saunders: You know what is the brand and what kind of message you're trying to get across what is the purpose of this account and when people need to know when they come across your page.

Nicole Saunders: And it was one of those moments for me and i'm a real was like oh my gosh I know all of this stuff about Twitter, I actually am an expert, even though i'm sitting here thinking, these are just basic things and so.

Nicole Saunders: You know I would encourage everyone to think about the fact that you were hired in your role.

Nicole Saunders: Because you already had a certain level of expertise and every day that you're in that role you're building on that.

Nicole Saunders: expertise and so when somebody asks you to go present about that area, you are the expert and you should always represent yourself as that and go in with that confidence of knowing that.

Nicole Saunders: You know more about your space than anybody else in the room, even if you're talking to the CEO you probably know more about your specific program than that person and your job is to educate them.

Chris Detzel: that's right the CEO will come to you and say, Chris, what do you, what do you think about.

Chris Detzel: What our customers saying about or what it, what do they think about this, because he doesn't know he wants to know.

Chris Detzel: I mean.

Chris Detzel: And you know he assumes that I know, and so, hopefully, I do you know, and I think, but the other side of that I think is, if you don't know some certain thing you know don't make it up don't don't be scared to say you know i'm not sure it's okay.

Chris Detzel: But you know the answer will come at some point, you know go find out they'll figure it out, you know that kind of stuff it's just get yourself out there and so kind of go back to what I love what you're doing is you're pushing your team to.

Chris Detzel: build roadmaps, which is a really at first is a really hard thing to do, you know to me it's just a bunch of ideas and throwing it out there and then taking those ideas and.

Chris Detzel: Say okay well, what do we really want to focus on and what can we actually accomplish and say what can we do this in q1 two, three, etc, you know but.

Chris Detzel: I love it because that's a huge exercise that will help them get far you know in their career and especially it's really cool to watch when they build that roadmap them to execute on most of the things that they do on that road that's gonna be the first thing.

Nicole Saunders: Right well and it makes your work life so much easier when you.

Nicole Saunders: Like written down right.

Nicole Saunders: You don't have those interesting like okay what am I going to do to change the world the day like oh it's, the next item on my little list here.

Chris Detzel: yeah yeah.

Nicole Saunders: But no refunds can be intimidating and I think one of the keys to to start putting those dates on the calendar right and so i'm like okay well.

Nicole Saunders: I want to, I want to launch my first user group in June.

Nicole Saunders: Okay well what happens to happen between now and June in order to do that, and then, what else is going on, is there a big.

Nicole Saunders: Product release or big event at the company that's going to get in the way or that you're going to work around or that maybe you want to use as a springboard for that Program.

Nicole Saunders: And once you start mapping it out that's actually I think my favorite thing about road mapping is when you can look at the list be like Oh, we committed to six things in March.

Nicole Saunders: it's not realistic.

Chris Detzel: How can we move that out.

Nicole Saunders: How do we re prioritize because you know it's the thing that's really going to help you avoid getting over committed and overstretched and really being able to.

Nicole Saunders: get clear on what you're going to execute.

Nicole Saunders: And what resources, you need to get there, and when people can expect these things to show up and.

Nicole Saunders: It just clarify so much it makes your work life so much easier and it makes those conversations about budget about headcount about resources like easier when you've got that clarity of you know why you need them, and when.

Chris Detzel: I agree, you know, Nicole it's been really good, and I really appreciate you coming on today because.

Chris Detzel: i've learned a lot it's funny because you and I are in similar somewhat similar industries right, you know it's a different.

Chris Detzel: I guess product but it's still a product that we sell to people, and so we have a lot of similarities and I think.

Chris Detzel: It could be some huge opportunities for us to collaborate on you know, on the show, if you want about specific areas, you know.

Chris Detzel: it'd be you know how do you go about content strategy or how do you go about you know user groups or how do you go, you know, whatever those are, how do you talk to business about certain things if you're interested, so this is really good.

Nicole Saunders: yeah no, this has been great I, like you said I feel like there's a depth of.

Nicole Saunders: depth and breadth of topics that we can cover here, so I look forward to to do more of them a little bit a little bit more and and you know, focusing our conversations on a couple of specific things.

Chris Detzel: let's do it well.

Chris Detzel: it's just this kind of concludes the peers over beers my name is Chris docile and Nicole Saunders Thank you so much for coming today.

Nicole Saunders: yeah thanks again for having me we'll talk soon.

Chris Detzel: All right.