Episode 074 - Nicole Saunders, Director of Communities, from Zendesk talks Roles and Responsibilities within Community

Chris Detzel: yeah i'm going to start recording just because you know I don't want to forget that's, the most important thing is recording.

The call.

Nicole Saunders: I really have a good stuff for court.

Chris Detzel: Where we set some good stuff already so.

Chris Detzel: Hello everyone and welcome to another peers over beers i'm Chris decile and she's a special guest she's special but she's been on piers over beers not too long ago Cole Saunders how are you.

Nicole Saunders: i'm good it's Friday i'm excited about another weekend here.

Chris Detzel: yeah me too, and you know, I was I don't think I told you this, but here in Dallas we are experienced and I know you're used to the cold weather but we've got sleet and snow and ice everywhere, and so we we can't go anywhere, you know.

Nicole Saunders: yeah that's different for you all.

Nicole Saunders: They don't have the things in place to remove the snow there.

Chris Detzel: Now I mean you know that it's crazy cuz The night before last, it just started sleeping get colder and colder and colder and slated for all throughout the night, so that creates this kind of.

Chris Detzel: ice covered area and then, then it started snowing and so snows on top of the ice and you know it's been I don't know, I think it was 20 degrees today and then tomorrow it's even cooler.

Chris Detzel: Then it gets warmer I think tomorrow night so.

Chris Detzel: we'll be out of it yeah we're gonna see it warm up here next week, too, so.

Chris Detzel: Wait last time, something that I would like to expand on and I thought it was very interesting and I did have.

Chris Detzel: A little video thing clip of you saying, or maybe it was a sound clip soundbite but of how we get heads and I wanted to kind of.

Chris Detzel: dive into that a little bit where you know you just hired three additional people last year, and so you had a lot of experience and getting the heads and then you know kind of the roles responsibilities of those folks and then.

Chris Detzel: You know what was the other piece there's another piece to it, but I think I think that's kind of good you know what do you think.

Nicole Saunders: yeah no, I think that sounds like a great topic.

Chris Detzel: Great well let's dive in so you know one is the job market, I think, is super hot you know you mentioned this during our pre show is that you know you feel like.

Chris Detzel: Companies are getting better at one coming up with better job descriptions, because in the past, you know they need to five years experience, and I just want to pay him $30,000 here, you know and so.

Chris Detzel: But you know i'd love to hear more about I guess kind of the roles that you guys have filled and then kind of go in and kind of the special specialties of those roles within Community and then you know we can go from there is that fair.

Nicole Saunders: yeah that sounds great um so yeah like you were saying I think you know I remember, five, seven years ago, a lot of the conversation in the Community management industry was like about these roles that were sort of.

Nicole Saunders: Like all encompassing running forums running social media running events and, of course, Community managers are always people that wear a lot of hats because communities have a lot of different needs and a lot of different subgroups within them.

Nicole Saunders: And as we've seen the industry start to grow, you know you look at a lot of these industry reports and you're seeing.

Nicole Saunders: Companies are having bigger teams they're getting more headcount there's more levels of leadership and there's been this great thing has been having your last couple years we're seeing more specialization of roles.

Nicole Saunders: yeah where instead of just a Community manager that does everything you're getting things kinda like some of the roles i've got on my team where maybe you've got one person who just focuses on cutie content somebody that just focuses on operations or analytics.

Chris Detzel: somebody who I love that.

Nicole Saunders: On events, I will tell you what operations and analytics like hire yourself a Community operations manager and bonus points if they're really good with data, because it is so helpful to have somebody that can do.

Nicole Saunders: All of that managing the day to day pieces helping the processes run smoothly, once you can off board that to a specific person who's really skilled in it and excited about it.

Nicole Saunders: The Community manager frees you up to you a lot more of that strategic work that relationship building that kind of thing, so I think we've seen that going really well i'm starting to see that same sort of all the things couple push into some of the more senior roles that are getting.

Nicole Saunders: listed on there and I, on the one hand, obviously, when you're in senior leadership you're going to pick up more right your REACH is going to be further you're going to be more cross collaborative.

Nicole Saunders: But i'm starting to see jobs were like Community head is merging or is taking on a lot of responsibilities that start to encompass like voice of customer.

Nicole Saunders: Customer marketing, you and I were talking about advisory boards and taking out the executive roles we're also seeing things were like you're doing Community management and customer education development, maybe putting together materials.

Chris Detzel: i've seen that two.

Nicole Saunders: Summers I think it's really cool in the one hand, right it's starting to create.

Nicole Saunders: Some lateral movement for Community managers some opportunity to.

Nicole Saunders: Community and have the opportunity to shift into some other places, but on the other hand, i'm a little concerned about seeing this trend of like.

Nicole Saunders: Ahead of Community and customer marketing slash customer education role right where you look at you're like wow that's not just like a couple full time job that's a lot.

Nicole Saunders: yeah, and so my hope is that these companies are listing these roles, with the idea that this person is leading multiple teams that are doing all of these things.

Chris Detzel: And it's it's an interesting direction that i'm seeing things going.

Chris Detzel: yeah It is interesting, because I can look at.

Chris Detzel: When I was first starting to talk to rail to the company i'm at today.

Chris Detzel: I was talking to.

Chris Detzel: Her she was CMO at the time and she's like hey Chris you know I can give you the Executive Board, the Community and the you know the the gartner review thing you know and i'm like that sounds like a lot.

Chris Detzel: Like i'm not sure I mean I said what would I get a couple of heads, fat and she's like no it just be you really don't know that you can really do so I I.

Nicole Saunders: Accessible with all of those things yeah.

Nicole Saunders: It was like you were saying just because it pays more just because of our senior doesn't mean that you have more hours in your day and a lot of these things to go well have to you have to spend some time on them.

Chris Detzel: I think I so.

Chris Detzel: The things that i've been really good at, and things i've done in the past, and even to this day.

Chris Detzel: is building communities from scratch, and so I do believe that organizations, want to see some you know growth and some success within let's say just a community itself before they start going off and hiring.

Chris Detzel: different roles you've basically not even in your chicken them you've been zendesk for what five years yeah.

Nicole Saunders: Well, I was saying last time you have to sort of show some value before you.

Nicole Saunders: Go ask for the headcount you can't just say it's a non starter until there's more people.

Chris Detzel: To so that that part makes sense to me, you know it is hard to me to.

Chris Detzel: You know, like you, you said hey the things that you have to do is you know hey I can do this, but I can double this you know if I get that headcount even.

Nicole Saunders: frightened to add this program or.

Nicole Saunders: Ms peas.

Chris Detzel: yeah yeah so you know that that does make sense but it's still hard you know, like trying to get and you have to do it early in the process, you know.

Chris Detzel: And I think that you know that's so like even i've been told hey Chris you know you're going to get a head count, you know, in August and i'm thinking it seems like a long time from now.

Chris Detzel: You know, like you know why not now, you know I can't you know, but they have to prioritize and you have to kind of push push that you know if i'm going to get that.

Chris Detzel: So one one thing that doesn't interest me is kind of this, you know jack of all trades of community leaders.

Chris Detzel: You know, like you said you have an operations analytics person, and you have an occasional person, you have an events person or an events person and then.

Chris Detzel: Would you say what else.

Nicole Saunders: I have to like Community managers, the people in the Community day to day.

Nicole Saunders: Running stuff and then, I have one person to run user programs, so he oversees like user groups are super user recognitions all of that kind of stuff so all of the things that are bringing the members of the community together outside of the forum.

Chris Detzel: or.

Nicole Saunders: Some of its honestly in the forum to, but the sort of user specific pieces.

Chris Detzel: So what if you were to kind of look back and think you know, did you hire the right people obviously you're hiring the right people but.

Chris Detzel: You know the the role specific if you were to say hey if I want to do it over again, what role, would you hire for the first time I mean for your needs.

Chris Detzel: yeah well.

Nicole Saunders: I think you have to start with, like knowing who's going to be that person that's on the ground day to day.

Nicole Saunders: Right your Community manager and if you're a leader, where you're going to hire somebody to do that, so that you can move into a more of a strategic position that's got to be one of your first ones and they're probably also still going to be a jack of all trades.

Chris Detzel: Right.

Nicole Saunders: Well, and I mean honestly, you know if you think about the people that are attracted to Community management jobs, it tends to be people that, like the dynamic kind of position where you do get to have your hands in a lot of places.

Nicole Saunders: So I think you know that's a key one I cannot tell you how helpful that operations manager has been that's just taken a huge load off of us, you know whether it's managing a tech stack or helping with project management or working with the day to day processes of.

Chris Detzel: sounds wonderful actually.

Nicole Saunders: it's it's really awesome, especially if you can find somebody that can do like has a little bit of interest in the data side of it as.

Nicole Saunders: Well, so.

Nicole Saunders: The one of my team actually does both operations and analytics and so she's like 5050.

Nicole Saunders: You know, half put together dashboards and helping us with.

Nicole Saunders: Analysis and half doing like project and process management and it's great and she just really like.

Nicole Saunders: She kind of the connective tissue of the team she knows what everybody does and it's sort of dealing with all of those inputs and that kind of thing the one rule that I wish I had hired earlier that we've all sort of been sharing and I fill in a lot is a content manager.

Nicole Saunders: hmm somebody to really think about like what is the right content, you know the Community managers do a lot of that but also dealing with a lot of the day to day like.

Nicole Saunders: moderation and making sure questions are getting answered, making sure feedbacks getting responded to you and all of that kind of thing.

Nicole Saunders: So that's that's the one rule that I kind of wish i'd prioritize sooner because content like if you don't have good content and community.

Nicole Saunders: What Why are people showing up.

Chris Detzel: Like a Dave summit so much into you know one particular area like we could probably spend a whole episode on content or a whole episode on reporting and operations and things like that.

Chris Detzel: there's a think about i'm having to do all of that, so when I think of you know.

Chris Detzel: All the things that I want to do with the Community like connecting different business systems doing enterprise search.

Chris Detzel: Things that we don't have today, you know, but we are looking at the business is starting to move, something I can help push I think I think i'd have but.

Chris Detzel: is like this kind of great customer experience that you know.

Chris Detzel: customers can come to whether it's documentation or getting support or you know the Community, they can find the information that they are looking for, wherever they are right through.

Chris Detzel: In a sense of enterprise search this one thing that we're looking at so then there comes to the reporting piece of.

Chris Detzel: What does enterprise search do well on his customers experience you know the customer experience it gives customers a better experience and then to.

Chris Detzel: It gives you some data around potential case deflection and other things like that right, you know and so.

Chris Detzel: And then that's one data and then there's a lot of other data within the Community, that people want to see and there's a high level dashboard and then you go even deeper into the other stuff that.

Chris Detzel: That you want they're probably not going to show those actors and things like that there's so much there that you know somebody can do that I just i'm sitting there at the end of the month and i'm like I spent an entire day just trying to push data, you know what I mean and i'm like.

Oh, my.

Nicole Saunders: God, especially like you think about you know so much of the promise of community is.

Nicole Saunders: All the insights that you can get.

Nicole Saunders: Like what's important to your customers, what are they have questions about how are they doing things.

Nicole Saunders: mentors and.

Nicole Saunders: Mike if you don't have somebody who's spending most of their time going through what's happening in the Community and analyzing it and looking at, you know how these different pieces interact.

Nicole Saunders: it's really hard to fulfill that and at the same time most teams don't have a dedicated Community analyst or someone that can devote that time and so it's us as leaders are putting on our data hat.

Nicole Saunders: And i've i've always considered myself a data driven Community manager, I used to hang out with the data scientists all the time and.

Nicole Saunders: have them tell me how they got to conclusions and how they're interpreting data so that I can learn from that which by the way, I highly recommend it if you have a data scientist at your company and you haven't tapped him like go.

Nicole Saunders: To them.

Nicole Saunders: One day, because you can learn so so much i'm.

Chris Detzel: One of those smartly.

Chris Detzel: folks Nicole like you know I think the other piece of being a jack of all trades, is knowing that you can't do everything.

Chris Detzel: Right, and you know, like there's so for the data stuff there's.

Chris Detzel: One person that I go to that can help either connect something you know to maybe it's Google data studio or you know you can help me kind of.

Chris Detzel: You know there's another lady that can help me kind of do some really nice beautiful grass, so if you're doing stuff in Google sheets, you know she can help me kind of clean that up and push that in you know i'm learning as along the way you know but.

Chris Detzel: So if you figure out those people to go to it on that operational piece, if you are only one person team, you know that's the key you can't do everything yourself, and so you have to try to.

Chris Detzel: You know maneuver around organization like you said hey if you can find a data scientist, or if you can find some of those people and it's the same thing with content right like.

Chris Detzel: You know I can make it as easy as possible to write a blog by sending it to a third party, you know, to get it written and then have them can look at it and clean it up.

Chris Detzel: You know, but at the end of the day, it's still that other person within the organization.

Chris Detzel: doing a blog or doing a webinar or doing something that you've got to push and make it exciting for them, if you don't make it exciting to them at the other day in the organization.

Chris Detzel: And they're probably not going to do it, you know, and you got to make it as easy as possible, you know that's that's how I do it for now, but.

Nicole Saunders: Well, and I think that's a great point like tapping those other resources in your company.

Nicole Saunders: Because the reality is like you don't need to build separate teams within our team right if there's already a team that does something, how can you lean on them.

Nicole Saunders: And that does a couple things you know one Community team should always be super integrated and supercross collaborative with the business, and so you want to be building those relationships and leading into that.

Nicole Saunders: But even at zendesk you know i've got a pretty decent sized Community team.

Nicole Saunders: yeah um, but I still like to say, you know there's there's seven full time professionals and there's 150 people across the company.

Nicole Saunders: That actually helps support the Community whether it's the support agents that come in, or the product managers that talk or the data teams that help us out or.

Nicole Saunders: The developer support folks that come and answer those questions there's a lot more people that are required to really make that go and you know, one of the things that you were kind of talking about in the pre show was like, why is it important to have a team.

Nicole Saunders: Or to augment your team with all of these networks.

Nicole Saunders: And it's because you know we all got to take vacations it's just one thing we've all learned in the last year, you never know when someone's going to get really sick or have.

Nicole Saunders: Some life thing come up.

Nicole Saunders: And it can be really hard if you're a team of one or very slim team, you need that deeper bench you need people that can.

Nicole Saunders: You know, keep it going because, like just because your Community managers that doesn't mean your Community gets to just like turn off your users are still they're asking for stuff their.

Nicole Saunders: selectivity turned on and how do you cover that and and you know how does a company cover that when they have a very small team managing those pieces.

Chris Detzel: And thanks for bringing this back around because about that, but you know, as you mentioned, you hired three new people you know at the.

Chris Detzel: middle of last year and then you had a big event in August, which those people are extremely new and you decided to finally go on vacation and you know you're stressed out because you know yet new people you were doing this new event and everything else, and so it's gonna be hard.

Nicole Saunders: yeah I mean it was that was the other crazy thing is like you're sitting in the car and get three holding people like how am I going to fill their time and, like two weeks you're like we need more headcount.

Nicole Saunders: it's amazing how a Community work if there's always so much more you can do it's like a.

Chris Detzel: it's ridiculous.

Nicole Saunders: bottomless pit pit sounds dark, because what I really mean is like you know there's infinite possibility it's a good thing.

Nicole Saunders: um but yeah it was an interesting challenge, and you know that was true I hadn't gotten to take time off in a year.

Nicole Saunders: And I really need a vacation I got my new people on boarded and our event was coming up in a couple months and I was, like all right i'm gonna go I want a backpacking trip like off the grid, nobody can hold me for two weeks.

Nicole Saunders: And it was great and everyone supported me and doing it, and every thought was really important, but I also still saw how that through things off, and I was like even with my bigger team, even with.

Nicole Saunders: You know, having all of these pieces in place it's always going to be impactful, and so it gave me a lot of time to think about.

Nicole Saunders: You know how can you how can I better train my team, how can I better set things up, so that it is easier to step away because it is so important for all of us right.

Nicole Saunders: Work life balance is huge it's hard it's especially hard for Community managers, we know that.

Nicole Saunders: We take an extra mental and emotional toll because we're so often dealing with people that are having a problem or asking.

Nicole Saunders: Questions i'm going to coming to the Community, because they need something from us, and so it can be managed is so important that you, you build out those partnerships internally you build that team, and you have the ability to take a step away on occasion.

Chris Detzel: And, and I would assume you know, since your team grew so fast just in one day basically or a month.

Nicole Saunders: You know, they all started on the same day it literally my team doubled in like one week once we got them hired and that.

Chris Detzel: That had to be a huge learning curve and to me that would be like crap I got a lot to learn myself, you know, maybe even being a leader, you know to these folks.

Chris Detzel: You know, and then you know how much before and you could give all your time or.

Chris Detzel: More of your time, probably to these two other people or three that you add now you have two or three others that you have to give your time to.

Chris Detzel: That kind of stuff so you know that's I guess that's why they have different layers of management, because you can't do that to everybody it's simple.

Nicole Saunders: You know one thing I learned that I thought it would be really great to start those people as a.

Nicole Saunders: cohort and I think it was from a perspective of like all of them being new all of them being new and fully remote and never have.

Chris Detzel: met anyone.

Nicole Saunders: It was really good for them to bond looking back, it would probably have been better to hire one get them on boarded hire the next one.

Nicole Saunders: and have it be more rolling site and have three people are all brand new at the exact same time and that there's a little bit more easing into it, but you know you see the things in hindsight and the reality is you take headcount when you get it.

Nicole Saunders: yeah times.

Nicole Saunders: The same week or the same quarter and you just go with that to say like if you were to say, well, let me do this for only thing you might actually lose money.

Chris Detzel: So you gotta.

Nicole Saunders: And I never know.

Chris Detzel: You got to think about that, I think, but I think you're right um you know you mentioned that you have a couple of events coming up are those going to be face to face or virtual or how does How does that work.

Nicole Saunders: Well we're still planning on doing virtual at this point in time we actually did a big survey and sort of asked.

Nicole Saunders: Our user base like do you want to come hang out in person, do you want us to be virtual and and.

Nicole Saunders: sort of what we've been hearing from people is they, like the idea like they miss being in person and everybody in the world has been fatigue like nobody wants to do any more virtual events, but also people are not really ready to travel and gather in person quite yet it seems like.

Chris Detzel: yeah.

Nicole Saunders: And you know for our Community, I think our Community event we kicked it off in a virtual space and that one will probably always be virtual because we're a global community, you know.

Nicole Saunders: yeah I would love to like have local meetups where people can meet the other users in their immediate area when it is safe to breathe the same air as other people again.

Nicole Saunders: But we're really looking at primarily a virtual model now don't quote me on that that could change.

Nicole Saunders: You know it's been a bad situation for years here but.

Nicole Saunders: that's the plan right now is to keep our stuff mostly virtual.

Chris Detzel: So we.

Chris Detzel: were kind of toying around with some kind of event, by the end of the year, probably going to be more virtual than the not, but we are on our advisory board.

Chris Detzel: We are going to do an onsite meeting here in March, so, and you know, out of the 18 or 19 people that are on it, I think we have about 10 people that will be there on site.

Chris Detzel: So that's that's interesting to me so maybe at that executive level, it might be a little bit different you know.

Nicole Saunders: And I think it is different when talking about smaller groups versus yeah.

Chris Detzel: hey do you want to get hundreds of people around the world like thousands of people yeah.

Nicole Saunders: heck no not right now.

Chris Detzel: yeah and that's a good point so you know with cove it's still running crazy, you know, I think.

Chris Detzel: Maybe we'll get there at six or eight six months from now, we can start thinking about having those you know onsite events and things like that so out of curiosity, do you guys use a specific technology to run those events, because i'm interested in that.

Nicole Saunders: we've been experimenting with a couple of different ones we use bevy for our regular events are smaller ones.

Nicole Saunders: Okay, we use a platform called welcome for our big Community day event this year and, like that other tools that we've used in the past and may use in the future, or on 24 we recently on boarded hoppin so i'm really excited to start experimenting with that one.

Chris Detzel: play the top and before.

Nicole Saunders: yeah yeah I went to a cms event and hop in a while back and I thought it was really cool so you know it's interesting because each of them offer.

Nicole Saunders: A little bit different analytics a little bit different experience you know different things with the chat and stuff like that to me what's important is just that it's easy to use that's reliable and I.

Nicole Saunders: Will I will take.

Nicole Saunders: Well, any tool right if any tool and i'm trying to evaluate which one to use gotta be it's gotta be reliable.

Nicole Saunders: And then the bells and whistles kind of go from there, but yeah we haven't I haven't tried hop in yet with running an event in it so.

Nicole Saunders: That goes.

Chris Detzel: yeah cuz buffy really isn't it's an event thing but it's more for like.

Chris Detzel: User group type stuff people can have having their own events, and that is that right or.

Nicole Saunders: purpose built for and we we kind of took it in a different direction and said we're going to use it.

Nicole Saunders: At least initially, we decided to use it for other virtual events and we thought it was pretty effectively for that to their and their building out a broader like event platform for more like conference type events.

Nicole Saunders: But we, as we move into doing user groups are starting to think about Okay, how are we going to use bevy and what other things are we going to use them how's that all going to fit together.

Chris Detzel: just have a lot of tools to use.

yeah.

Nicole Saunders: We have a really close relationship with our global events team, and so we get access to the tech stack that that that's.

Chris Detzel: Not, it is not it.

Nicole Saunders: is pretty cool we don't have to do all of those just ourselves and.

Nicole Saunders: that's a great example of kind of what we're talking about as far as like augmenting your team with what are other groups and their.

Nicole Saunders: organization doing and how can you partner with them like even as far as our events go we've been doing a big evaluation lately of what events we're running and what events other teams are running.

Nicole Saunders: And sort of saying like.

Nicole Saunders: Are there places we can combine forces, do we really need like three different teams running different kinds of webinars.

Nicole Saunders: In some cases, yes right if this one's geared towards new business and this one's geared towards current customers.

Nicole Saunders: That makes sense, but in some cases it's a really subtle thing of what the differences and so we're starting to look at how can we do more in a combined forces and maybe support other people's events and promote them, but not have to run up a whole separate set just ourselves or.

Nicole Saunders: Have the ones we're going to run.

Nicole Saunders: Which ones make strategically the most sense to be like this is specific to the Community team versus a success team or customer education team, or something.

Chris Detzel: It is funny because, as you kind of.

Chris Detzel: As you kind of talk and you guys are pretty big company, but also.

Chris Detzel: have lots of users, you know you've kind of scaled your community in a big way, I mean even as a smaller company for us with smaller community.

Chris Detzel: We have some the same problems right like you know we're now hiring a customer marketing person, we have a field marketing person.

Chris Detzel: i'm in marketing now just moved and so you know we're doing, I mean some of that stuff you know that they're doing, for you know field, marketing and maybe customer or field marketing specific is for.

Chris Detzel: New business and that kind of stuff and trying to find you know those leads, but you know some some of the technologies, they use could be the same technology I use or you know when we get that customer marketing person, and you know they're going to.

Chris Detzel: there's definitely a huge opportunity for Community and that person to work together, you know just to expand and have the relationships that they expand the pipeline, you know for existing you know.

Chris Detzel: revenue and all that kind of stuff so.

Nicole Saunders: And it's interesting because it's always this balancing act right of how do I contribute to what other teams in the organization doing, how do I connect with them and sort of build up my team sort of support through all these other groups, but also, then what are the boundaries.

Nicole Saunders: Because it's really easy to slip into like absorbing.

Nicole Saunders: All of these other things, and like customer marketing is a great example where we've been having a lot of conversations specifically about like a customer advocacy Program.

Nicole Saunders: Right and that's.

Nicole Saunders: Typically, very clearly customer marketing, but for us, we feel like it had a lot of overlap with our Community and the way they're acting.

Nicole Saunders: And so there's been this big debate of like, how do we co manage this program so that you know where maybe ownership sits in one place, but it feels like a very, very collaborative kind of thing and I.

Nicole Saunders: it's it's interesting because I feel like it is so much more clear when you're like oh this thing belongs to this team and they on the strategy and that's that.

Nicole Saunders: But in Community oftentimes we're really trying to be stakeholders in and contributors to a lot of different functions throughout the company so we've really been having a lot of talks on our team about.

Nicole Saunders: What is in our scope what isn't what makes sense for us to support what doesn't what do we need to do separately from other teams, where can we just promote other teams things.

yeah.

Nicole Saunders: And it's really important clarity to get and that's tricky.

Nicole Saunders: It gets to be a lot and I think you know this.

Chris Detzel: relates to the headcount.

Chris Detzel: yeah I think this relates to.

Chris Detzel: Exactly what you're saying, because now you're going through.

Chris Detzel: kind of this this thinking of okay Well, this is the responsibilities of my team, but they sort of bleed into this thing over here like customer advocacy is.

Chris Detzel: You know, a big piece, I believe, wholeheartedly that the Community stuff can easily funnel into an advocacy pro Program.

Chris Detzel: You know, and then you know what a super user mean you know that all that stuff and languages, you know it's a little different, and you know, is there a difference between super user and advocacy pro yeah there is.

Exactly.

Chris Detzel: But but that's hard to kind of communicate, so you know.

Chris Detzel: Having all those people, you know doesn't mean it's easier actually probably is a little bit harder to kind of, but I think I think that.

Chris Detzel: it's a good thing, because now you're blending organization more so.

Chris Detzel: doing what Community should be doing anyways.

Chris Detzel: And that's what Community does both externally, but internal you know and so you're bringing a bunch of people together to do some cool shit to go, you know what I mean like that's what I think.

Chris Detzel: At the end of the day, I mean I like it that's your sort of struggling with that, I think we all do, but I like it that you don't do that because, eventually, hopefully, you can kind of make the teams tighter and better and working together, you know so.

Nicole Saunders: But I think it's good on both sides were getting a lot of clarity about like.

Nicole Saunders: Okay, this is your charter, this is our Charter, and this is where they intersect, and this is really don't.

Nicole Saunders: And oftentimes I think we're scared to say where we don't intersect where we don't support things.

Nicole Saunders: that's actually.

Nicole Saunders: Like.

Nicole Saunders: You know i'm thinking back to the last year of what i've been doing zendesk and how.

Nicole Saunders: We moved our team from support over to marketing and then we really grew our team and I spent a lot of last year kind of shopping us around internally and saying here's how we can help you and here's how we can help you and.

Nicole Saunders: Yes, the value we can bring and we got everybody on board, so much so that we're getting way too many requests.

Nicole Saunders: And like you can't.

Nicole Saunders: support everything, and so it was really funny it was like we you know pendulum swing one way we went out and said hey guys, we want to help everybody, we can contribute to every demon company or we got their attention, and I really okay not not like everybody everybody we.

Chris Detzel: were just.

Nicole Saunders: And so, but it's good because it is spiking clarifying conversations with a lot of different teams.

Nicole Saunders: and helping everyone understand that you know communities that just it's a little bit different animal than a lot of other business organizations, where like you can very clearly delineate you know.

Nicole Saunders: This is what the sales healthy, this is what the engineers do and.

Nicole Saunders: This is their Charter and then Community it's like we cannot touch all of these things, and so we're having to re evaluate like what is that scope, and it is so true that get more headcount and that creates more bandwidth and you can do more things but that also ups, the complexity.

Nicole Saunders: And so that kind of comes back to that idea of how, when you expand.

Nicole Saunders: You do need to have some specialization for people and it puts those of us in the leadership roles in the Community, you know you're still wearing all.

Chris Detzel: The hats you just get to.

Nicole Saunders: delegate a lot of the pieces of those things to individuals right.

Chris Detzel: When I think you mentioned this last time is you know it's so important to you know teach up your leaders your Community managers to.

Chris Detzel: One like you said build roadmaps so that you know they want communicated to you and you're like okay that's good and then you know you can roll that up to kind of the executives, you know, at the end of the day is really.

Chris Detzel: Big one of many of your goals, but is a big part of your goal is to continue to get that by and it sounds like you've done really well.

Chris Detzel: But you know, I think that you know one teaching them how to do that kind of still kind of go back and think of that is a huge awesome exercise that you're doing with those folks.

Chris Detzel: And you know what does that what does that do and and were you excited to see it or will you be excited to see those roadmaps.

Nicole Saunders: yeah so I did their presentations last week, and it was.

Nicole Saunders: Great because we all got to practice like presenting in front of each other and answering questions.

Nicole Saunders: And one person like right at the end we're like two minutes after the hour and you're like Oh, by the way, here's the format that I use my okay ours that's really cool and we every was like.

Nicole Saunders: It was like a record scratch, I was like wait a minute.

Nicole Saunders: What I want, that I want to use that, and so we agree we're all going to go back and take that format in that process.

Nicole Saunders: And sort of get some more specificity around so those okrs and those metrics and things and I.

Nicole Saunders: were actually going to roll that out more broadly to some of the other teams and marketing as well, and so it was really cool to see that kind of bubble up from one person and expand out but yeah helping people level up is key to you know we were talking about.

Nicole Saunders: How, how does your take a vacation, how do you take a break, and it means that you have to level of your people up so that they can actually fill in for you.

Nicole Saunders: And we can probably do a whole episode just about that, but one of the things i've been doing that space is trying to give people a lot more opportunity to get their hands on things.

Nicole Saunders: So one of my things is I try to never go to a meeting alone, I always bring somebody from my team with me so that one i'm not the only person that knows about the conversation.

Nicole Saunders: yeah so that if i'm out somebody else can jump in and carry it, but more importantly it's giving them exposure to those meetings and those conversations it's really hard to learn how to level up.

Nicole Saunders: Without kind of being along for the ride and seeing seeing how it all works.

Nicole Saunders: And so that's one of my rules is I try to never have meetings alone or if I do I try to always report back to my team hey guys I just had this conversation here's what's going on.

Nicole Saunders: You know here are the possible things that you'll want to pick up from it that kind of thing so that's just one piece, but yeah it's it's important otherwise people.

Nicole Saunders: can't step in and you always want to be building your team and growing because that's going to continue to increase your team's capability as well.

Chris Detzel: I love that so i'll give a story here real quick about you know leveling up when I was at REC sell Michael Sandoval was my boss, you know, back then, and then.

Chris Detzel: One of the things I was always scared of in and.

Chris Detzel: Look i'm not scared to get in front of people and never was, but you know big crowds and big crowds that know more than I do about their products and things like that you know it's a little overwhelming.

Chris Detzel: or it could be, at the time, and so I was just wasn't confident in speaking to this, you know crowd of 100 people you know so anyway, I.

Chris Detzel: went to Canada and he goes hey Chris you know you've got the speaking part you know you need to really make sure you do it and.

Chris Detzel: He knew, you know, I was really nervous and everything else, I have a very outgoing personality, but, for whatever reason, oh my God, you know.

Chris Detzel: he's you know your content, you know this stuff you know we've done it together and so he wrote me a note right before he goes.

Chris Detzel: hey Chris you're going to do really well, and you know you're going to kill it and and so he was just breathe and he wrote me this nice little note, I think I posted on linkedin a long time ago.

Chris Detzel: And you know I went up there and I killed it I did awesome you know because one I knew the content, he she helped me kind of get through it, you know, and then to, as you know.

Chris Detzel: A good leader does that kind of stuff is get you in front of sit in situations that you know pushes you a little bit.

Chris Detzel: You know it's Okay, for you to push and make somebody feel uncomfortable a little lad just presenting, but you know, let him do over something for day you know and then say hey look, I see that you're.

Chris Detzel: You know, take a breath let's go over this this get on the whiteboard let's get on you know, whatever.

Chris Detzel: and go through this and work together with that kind of stuff because sometimes they have to think for themselves, I mean that's what Michael did, for me, as a leader, and I think it sounds like you're doing some of that, for you know folks under you so I love it because.

Nicole Saunders: I love that story Thank you so much for sharing that because I think that, like you said there's two parts to it, you know one is pushing people and teaching them, giving them the opportunity, but then the other part, is helping them build the confidence.

Nicole Saunders: yeah that they really can do it, and most of us are have more expertise than we give ourselves credit for.

Nicole Saunders: it's so important to have leadership that encourages you and support you and makes you feel confident also makes you feel like that got your back.

Nicole Saunders: And so I definitely try to you know you got to balance that sort of like pushing people out of the nest but then like letting them know that if they start to flow you'll you'll still be there to catch them.

Nicole Saunders: And yeah and honestly, you know also get to the conference like but you won't get you'll be fine.

Nicole Saunders: i'll get out there.

Nicole Saunders: flap your wings and it'll be good.

Chris Detzel: You know you you're going to know your.

Chris Detzel: Your folks more than anybody else in the organization and you're going to know their strengths and weaknesses.

Chris Detzel: And if you can kind of push on that as a leader, you know you'll be better for it, but then there'll be better for it so, for me it was he knew I knew I stuff it's not like I didn't do my homework, or I didn't do any of these you know it's not like i'm a lazy out, you know.

Chris Detzel: It wasn't that he just he knew that I was scared a little bit, but you know he's like dude this is your shit you know you go off and kind of present in front of these people.

Chris Detzel: And and there's other times, where he did some of that right, you know, again, let me stop for 24 hours and see me struggle I don't know what the hell you're talking about you know, like.

Chris Detzel: And then he's okay let's get on the whiteboard you know, so you just got to know what that is you know and you've got to be as a leader, sometimes you probably get impatient and everything else we're all impatient.

Chris Detzel: And you know, but I think that's key at the end of the day is just to you know push them a little bit know when they're there in or out of their comfort zone and then go from there, you know that's that's, the only way people going to learn, you know.

Nicole Saunders: Absolutely, and I definitely recognize like that was when I first became a manager, one of the hardest things when giving people time to learn stuff right and being like well I could just go do it.

In a day yeah.

Nicole Saunders: But being like but me just going and doing it that i'm still gonna have to keep doing it every time and if I need other people to learn how to do these things, and contribute to it.

Nicole Saunders: it's really important to give them the time to do it and to be patient and let them.

Nicole Saunders: Let them kind of go through the struggle of it because that's how they're going to figure it out and it's not that you're not there to support them it's not that you're not there to help them.

Nicole Saunders: But sometimes you have to just give people that space and it's not like everything has to be done urgently.

Nicole Saunders: I had a manager was put told me yeah let yellow people put their eggs in it, and I was like.

Nicole Saunders: What the heck Does that mean he's like you know, like she like having a potluck you like making chili like you got it everybody they put their ingredients in.

Nicole Saunders: You can't just like only put your ingredients and it will be good and thinking of that like jack of all trades, you know to to mentors are so good oftentimes it being that one person that like holds all of this stuff together.

Nicole Saunders: yeah sometimes it can feel threatening to let other people come contribute and come be part of it.

Nicole Saunders: But the honest truth is that nobody is successful alone, no, no success in business or in large communities or things like that happen because one person.

Nicole Saunders: does everything.

Nicole Saunders: Amazingly it always happens as part of a team effort and so it's so funny because I constantly REG it resonates with me like yeah get gotta give other people a chance to come.

Nicole Saunders: participate and come do it and, and you know even my team members and when people are learning things they might do it differently than I would and.

Chris Detzel: yeah it.

Nicole Saunders: might be a different process it takes a different amount of time, but they also might do a little bit better or I might learn something from it, we can combine both of our ways of doing something and doing it better.

Nicole Saunders: So you know leadership is a two way street, I learned from them as much as they learn from me.

Chris Detzel: yeah I love that I love the story there, I think you know, the one thing that resonates with me as I remember, Michael would say.

Chris Detzel: hey Look, we need to get more users and you know, we need to come up with strategies do that and and I was like okay sure all the things we can do and I name, all these tactics.

Chris Detzel: is like all right, you know he knew that Chris he didn't say this, yet you know, but he knew that I had to come up with what does that strategy look like and then.

Chris Detzel: let's build the roadmap to do it not, not to say you have to go do all these things just in one quarter, you know what I mean, and so, but he was, like all right well.

Chris Detzel: Go try that you know see what let me know and then so i'd go try some things and he goes.

Chris Detzel: What sometimes some things would work that's good, but you know, and then I would go okay I gotta go do this I gotta do this because okay hold on.

Chris Detzel: You know, and then he would kind of be paid very patient with me and then say hey Look, we need to kind of.

Chris Detzel: Do you know have some focus in q1 have some focus in q2 can't do those things let's move that over here, and so you know him kind of walking me through that and help me help me to understand kind of.

Chris Detzel: What you can go to all these things you're probably not gonna be six successful at them all, you know and so let's let's kind of think through each one as we kind of go through, so I think that's that is so important as a leader to do some of that so.

Nicole Saunders: yeah yeah it's guiding it's teaching and it's sitting back and letting people kind of bring their own piece to it.

Chris Detzel: absolutely want to call it it's been great it's been 3040 minutes we've been talking about.

Nicole Saunders: already got started.

Chris Detzel: But really Thank you so much for coming on again we'll have you again in the next week or two I can't remember but.

Chris Detzel: Thank you for another peers over beers my name is Chris denzel and Nicole Thank you so much for coming.

Nicole Saunders: Thank you, Chris haven't had a great time talking to you today.

me too.