Episode 098 - Nicole Saunders - Events and Collaborating with Cross-Functional Teams

Chris Detzel: yeah welcome to another piece over beers i'm Chris Detzel and we have long time guest

Nicole Saunders: Nicole Saunders.

Chris Detzel: Nicole Saunders, how are you today.

Nicole Saunders: i'm good it is like full on summer in Wisconsin we skipped spring and we went from like 65 degrees 90 degrees.

Chris Detzel: yeah well, I mean that's that's the way here that's the way it isn't Texas, this year too.

Chris Detzel: Yes, I think it was 99 degrees yesterday or.

Chris Detzel: same today who knows.

Chris Detzel: yeah my decreases hot for Wisconsin right.

Nicole Saunders: It isn't may we usually hit this and, like.

Nicole Saunders: yeah July early August.

Chris Detzel: same.

Nicole Saunders: I don't know I like summer so i'm i'm here for it.

Chris Detzel: You know I used to not like summer, but I mean it's really hot at 100 degrees, but you know cold i'm not a big fan of the cold I realized that the last few years i'm like I don't even want go outside you know.

Nicole Saunders: yeah.

Chris Detzel: it's kind of crazy yeah.

Chris Detzel: So during our pre show we talked a little bit about you guys had an event, they came up, and you know, a user conference and talking a little bit about that and then.

Chris Detzel: You brought up this cross collaboration type thing that you guys are starting to do more, of and that's super excited about love to kind of one.

Chris Detzel: touch upon the user event and how that went and you know what were some of the goals and things like that of this user event and love to start a book there if you want, and then we'll go into the Cross collaboration stuff.

Nicole Saunders: yeah that sounds great um so yeah i'm on Wednesday may 11 we had.

Nicole Saunders: Then desk relate, which is our big you know it's our annual user conference where thousands of people would fly in from all over the world and we talk about all this cool stuff and the last time we had one scheduled in person is supposed to be in Miami at the beginning of March 2020.

Chris Detzel: And okay yeah.

Nicole Saunders: We were one of those conferences that like you know, everybody was seeing stuff shut down and it got canceled you know, the day before also.

Nicole Saunders: fly down there and see each other you're done all the planning and everything.

Nicole Saunders: Post kind of a disappointment and we didn't end up doing one last year, and so this year we brought it back mostly virtual.

Nicole Saunders: There was a little bit of hybrid activity as far as like there's a few on the ground things in San Francisco and London.

Nicole Saunders: But it's still mostly virtual presentation.

Nicole Saunders: What was cool about it this year is the Community was a much bigger part of it never happened before.

Nicole Saunders: Okay i'm in the past, we would have like a little boost in the Expo Hall, or the.

Nicole Saunders: Side mention and we actually got like a little segment in the main presentation this time we got to watch or somewhere like.

Nicole Saunders: Top members of the community talking about the impact of the Communities had on them.

Nicole Saunders: And we're getting ready to launch user groups, for the first time at zendesk this summer, and so we were able to plug that and really, really share, about that, with our customers.

Nicole Saunders: And it was just really exciting to see the Community kind of finally make it onto the main stage and be in the spotlight for a few minutes.

Chris Detzel: I got a few questions so one congratulations that's.

Chris Detzel: A huge success and.

Chris Detzel: A couple questions and just one for now, but what what made you how did community, all of a sudden, maybe it's not all of a sudden you're doing a lot of work for last couple of years.

Chris Detzel: So, but what was kind of the main kind of breakthrough for Community to be on that Center stage what did.

Nicole Saunders: and pressing so to your point, it does feel like all of a sudden after.

Nicole Saunders: Five years of groundwork right.

Chris Detzel: Oh leave you haven't had an event for two years.

Chris Detzel: So there's been to you know but there's gotta be some value that you built in some kind of thinking and in your your team has grown a ton in the last.

Chris Detzel: couple of years at least.

Chris Detzel: And so.

Chris Detzel: would love to kind of if there's two or three things that you think that you know kind of really drove you Community to the top of that, you know list of you know you guys are now maybe not see the table, but at least being thought of and being part of an entire event right.

Nicole Saunders: yeah yeah um you know I think we recently started out saying okay we're talking about events and talk about collaboration.

Nicole Saunders: yeah there she's super related.

Nicole Saunders: The reason that we were got to be part of this is because we have been working so collaboratively and so cross functionally with the teams that plan this event.

Nicole Saunders: And now you know we moved out of our support organization and into the integrated marketing team.

Nicole Saunders: About a year and a half ago at zendesk which again was a result of a lot of cross functional work that I wouldn't doing in the marketing organization.

Nicole Saunders: But we actually know sit on the same team as the global events team, the folks that run webinars and the folks that would run this conference and we're sort of like the digital experiences subset within integrated marketing.

Nicole Saunders: And so to that end, there is sort of a natural fit in that my manager.

Nicole Saunders: is also the person that manages the team that runs this event.

Nicole Saunders: And so there's a very Navajo connection there.

Nicole Saunders: But you know I don't want to like make that sound like oh just yeah, of course, because I report to this person.

Nicole Saunders: It was also because we really clearly articulated.

Nicole Saunders: This is why community is important, this is why communities relevant for this audience and here are the things that we want to do and what was amazing.

Nicole Saunders: So my team we offered we jumped in and said hey do you guys need help moderating the chat right you're going to thousands and thousands of people in.

Nicole Saunders: Virtual event, of course, they need help.

Nicole Saunders: So yes, funding right and like they had some people lined up, they were so grateful to have us and.

Nicole Saunders: we're kind of experts and how to talk to customers.

Chris Detzel: Online conversations yeah.

Nicole Saunders: Exactly, and so we showed up with resource list and faqs we.

Nicole Saunders: were ready to go and it gave us a great opportunity to point to the Community.

Nicole Saunders: Where other people that are in chat might not have always thought of it right um and say oh hey you know, in addition to the answer that they just provided here's the Community conversation where that's also being the stuff.

Chris Detzel: Like.

Nicole Saunders: That we can we can point out over it, and kind of tie that all together.

Nicole Saunders: But it was about stepping up and volunteering.

Nicole Saunders: To help and volunteer record it and was so cool beans in the chat there all these customers.

Nicole Saunders: They should do like kind of put a stop to this after little while because it was getting spammy but everybody was like I would love to connect with other zendesk users are posting to linkedin profiles.

Nicole Saunders: Which got a little bit too much, but I was like this is amazing look at all of these people that are sitting here saying, I want to connect with other users, how do I do it.

Nicole Saunders: yeah and we were writing they're being able say hey guys, you know what let's not spammy to their linkedin.

Nicole Saunders: The Community and follow each other they're.

Nicole Saunders: All going there, and whatever space, you can all find each other.

Nicole Saunders: So that was that was really cool it was really exciting to see that and.

Nicole Saunders: It was funny because it wasn't one of those connections that like in the past when they've done webinars and things.

Nicole Saunders: I don't know that there's ever been that moment of like hey if y'all want to connect here's the place to do that, and because we had stepped up and volunteered and were there, we were able to help point customers to resource.

Chris Detzel: Do you see a lift and registrations or whatever users.

Chris Detzel: yeah maybe that day.

Nicole Saunders: yeah.

Nicole Saunders: It wasn't quite as big a bump as, I might have hoped for.

Nicole Saunders: The thing that always keep in mind with these things people show up to them for a lot of different reasons.

Nicole Saunders: yeah and there's so much information that gets thrown at them right they're getting all the information the chat links to the Community link to user groups links to product announcement links to stay will thing.

Nicole Saunders: But yeah and the cool thing like I think we're going to continue seeing I think we're gonna see a residual thing because one it was recorded, I think a lot of people will end up watching it after the fact, and so.

Nicole Saunders: Instead of it being like a one day thing and it's over we may see residual effects from us for a while and then the other thing that we did that i'm super excited i'm super proud of.

Nicole Saunders: Was we went through I forget what all of the features and product releases and things that were getting announced at the conference where.

Nicole Saunders: And then we went ahead and scheduled deep dive events like a maze in the Community over the next couple weeks, because of course at a big conference like this, each of the thing that gets there like three minutes on stage.

Chris Detzel: Saying.

Nicole Saunders: Look, for more information soon.

Nicole Saunders: And then we were able to jump in the chat be like.

Nicole Saunders: and join us in the Community next week for an AMA with this product manager and.

Nicole Saunders: that's I think just been like a really great connection, but again, it wouldn't have come out we weren't being cross functional with the men's team with the product team of all of the people that are paying this content together.

Chris Detzel: yeah it's.

Chris Detzel: Obviously I think community is a great place you know for to go on those deep dives into the into those new features that come out that's i've been doing that.

Chris Detzel: You know, ever since I was that in provo because thing is, you know they'll spend an hour on the product release and it's really cool stuff and it's just like.

Chris Detzel: You say two minute things around each release or each you know enhancement or whatever it is, new feature.

Chris Detzel: You know and and it's like dude This seems really good can we go on a deep dive now like yeah what I do is and i'm sure you guys do some nurses.

Chris Detzel: On those he called me and, as I kind of put them as emails but I tell the product manager to say you know hey, we need to go a little bit deeper say about 10 minutes 20 minutes worth of stuff about this.

Chris Detzel: And then you know people are just gonna ask a bunch of questions.

Chris Detzel: You know this is what's going to happen.

Chris Detzel: This way, I don't have to do a lot of you know pre questions and everything else, because it just then becomes supernatural you know what I mean because sometimes they don't know what to ask until they hear more about the feature.

Nicole Saunders: Exactly, and so we do the same kind of thing like a little sort of like.

Nicole Saunders: giving them a little taste, to give a.

Nicole Saunders: little bit more information also not everybody coming into that like.

Nicole Saunders: They may have missed the previous announcement right, so you got to do that sort of recap for them.

Nicole Saunders: But they've been really popular and we found that there's not a lot of other places that customers can get that like.

Nicole Saunders: How to.

Nicole Saunders: implement it right there's a ton of marketing information out there and then a ton of some sales about why you should get this.

Chris Detzel: patient goes.

Chris Detzel: here's some code and how to do all this stuff.

Nicole Saunders: But like when it's like hey let's talk through this and I need to see a DEMO and like how do I set it up and.

Nicole Saunders: When the right time to do that, and all of those pieces, we found that there's such a rich conversation that we're able to have.

Chris Detzel: I think it's also access to the pins so what Community brings like for real to is.

Chris Detzel: Never before have you had a chance to talk to your peers, never before have you ever had access live with the product managers, with the PS team with you know our cto at scale right, you know, like now.

Chris Detzel: People who come to these things to these webinars and have access direct access to these people, you know if you want, you know and so those things are highly valuable and people love that stuff you know so.

Chris Detzel: Love love that you're doing that.

Chris Detzel: Then you mentioned user groups and we'll get to the cross functional thing here in a minute, but.

Chris Detzel: you're starting that.

Chris Detzel: This summer, what what does what does that mean, and how do you not know what it means, but you know people kind of look at user groups in different ways, I think, and.

Chris Detzel: What do you do you know, like is it a bunch of user groups in different areas are using some kind of tool, you know tell me a little bit more about that, like your five minute thing around user groups.

Nicole Saunders: yeah.

Chris Detzel: So interested in this to that's why.

Nicole Saunders: So we are really trying to create those opportunities for for customers to connect with each other, and for them to take leadership roles and so we are using bevy.

Chris Detzel: yeah.

Nicole Saunders: You know it's such a great purpose built tool for exactly this kind of thing.

Nicole Saunders: To facilitate it and, at the moment what we're doing is we've got a form out there, where customers can fill out and say Okay, this is where I am, and this is the language I speak, and this is my level of experience and here's what I want to talk to you.

Nicole Saunders: And now that we're in this hybrid world or we can take advantage of virtual activities as well we're not limiting user groups to location.

Nicole Saunders: Right like historically you think back on the user group, she was like oh here's the Denver user group.

Nicole Saunders: Chicago user group and they meet up at a bar or restaurant and everybody does demos and networks right.

Nicole Saunders: um so we're going to allow that are going to facilitate that but we're also letting people say hey I want to talk to other knowledge managers or i'm going to talk to other zendesk users in the public sector or in higher ED or.

Nicole Saunders: I want to talk to the developers and so we're going to let people sort of self organized right kind of taken the.

Nicole Saunders: The model cute from reddit where it let people say here's who I want to get together with and here's what I want to talk about and they create their subreddit and there you go.

Nicole Saunders: So we're letting users tell us who they want to connect with and then as soon as we get to 50 people that are interested in.

Nicole Saunders: A topic or a sector or a location we're going to reach out to all of them and say hey your user groups launching we're looking for a leader.

Nicole Saunders: Will recruiting on board and train that leader and helping out with their first couple of meetups and then they're good to go will provide them the the technology platform will provide them the marketing materials.

Nicole Saunders: on a quarterly basis we're going to have a little Town Hall for all of our group leaders and.

Nicole Saunders: Share you know here's some stuff that's coming up a zendesk and here's some content and some themes, you can follow if you want, if it's appropriate for your group, if your group wants to talk about other stuff that's fine too.

Nicole Saunders: But we want to make it really easy for for these groups to be successful and there's just been a ton of excitement about it, you know, every week we're hearing from people that are really.

Chris Detzel: Healthy they're interested to see how it goes yeah.

Chris Detzel: Because i'm i'm very interested to know more about this, maybe go deeper.

Chris Detzel: Some point because this kind of goes along the lines of you know, Community led growth and the things that i'm talking about like I mean this within your Community that's using.

Chris Detzel: Probably zendesk and things like that, but you know, I also want to kind of think about you know.

Chris Detzel: For us like real to being kind of the when I think of Community i've got this technical community that are talking about you know real to product and trying to solve problems on, you know how to do this thing.

Chris Detzel: skirt you know it's a very important piece there's also this huge community that we're not even talking to and getting to know that is outside of reality Oh, but then focusing on those data problems and those data things that at some point, could you know.

Chris Detzel: could be a real to master data management type of conversation right, and so you know how do you get those thought leaders those influencers.

Chris Detzel: Those industry experts within the data space to kind of really be part of that particular community and given them opportunities to.

Chris Detzel: To speak to each other to speak on you know.

Chris Detzel: You know, put them on the podcast throw them, you know, on a live session like this right like it's like you and me, are doing this thing right about Community leader stuff.

Chris Detzel: Right, I want to do this with data people you know, like, I want to have a podcast video I even wanted to live, you know, like let the other Community people come in and let.

Chris Detzel: Let them ask questions, but this could be on, then you can reproduce the the content in both audio video quick hit the create you know really good blogs and stuff like that, but you know to me it's you know there's a bigger Community out there than just your your.

Chris Detzel: Just real to kind of or even zendesk type of product community, because I think you reach more users that way, and you, and then now Community now becomes a growth lever for your business right and then marketing.

Nicole Saunders: So yeah yeah no I mean that's something that we talked about today is how do we move those conversations from just being these very like.

Nicole Saunders: Technical product specific things which we never want to move completely away from by any means right, we always want to give people that opportunity to do that, but how do we also talk about some of the bigger business problems that are more broadly applicable.

Chris Detzel: What are the outcomes that you're getting from solving these data, these problems, you know, like.

Chris Detzel: you've been doing this for a while.

Chris Detzel: You know that's great what are some of the problems that you've solved or the outcomes who else in the business, so it can't just be.

Chris Detzel: Who are you working in the business oh you're working with marketing or you're working with some other the data governance team that's not in it to solve these problems and doing this that or the other, you know and.

Chris Detzel: You know that kind of stuff is where I want to get to get to, and so I think for me i've been kind of talking to my leaders and.

Chris Detzel: I think the right way is to spend 30% of my time on this technical Community you know one person, so you know I can't do it all but, but then spend 70% of my time of trying to really.

Chris Detzel: Have these kind of conversations at the higher level, because you know I think that's where the bigger bang for the organization.

Chris Detzel: For the buck, you know, like i'm in marketing as well, so you know, like I said, like like you said technical community is super important, and this definitely be focusing a lot but.

Chris Detzel: You know, I think, being in the marketing team and really trying to integrate with them directly, for me, is probably going to be more of around you know that thought leadership stuff like that so.

Chris Detzel: let's talk about collaboration, or you know I guess cross functional teams and dealing, you know doing more of that, I mean we I think Community people do a really good job with that already right.

Nicole Saunders: 100% I mean you think about all the aspects of a business that committee can plug into you right maybe doing product feedback you're talking to product or.

Nicole Saunders: You getting feedback, not just on the product, but on the experience with the company and so you're talking to your voice of customer team, you know, most of us didn't marketing departments and so we're touched into all of those areas.

Nicole Saunders: A lot of communities are focused on technical support you dealing with that if you've got a developer Community there's all of these parts of the business that we sort of naturally need to work with and what i've really found.

Nicole Saunders: Particularly as i've gotten more senior in the company is that I kind of have like a perch where I can kind of see across the business in a way that a lot of other teams and leaders don't necessarily have the opportunity to they're pretty focused on their specific area.

Nicole Saunders: And so I really am able to see where there's redundancies happening or where there's connections that can be made, and so my team, and I really made it our mission this year.

Nicole Saunders: To be as collaborative as possible, and you know find those opportunities, where it's like hey did you know that there's 16 planning webinars based on product launches.

Nicole Saunders: let's bring all of those together and make sure we're co planning and co hosting and co marketing those rather than every team having their own webinar we're all fighting for.

Nicole Saunders: The opportunity to send an email to our customers to get them to register for our event.

Nicole Saunders: yep.

Nicole Saunders: I like actually for the first time next week we're going to bring all of the teams together we're going to co plan our events with second half of the year and i'm so excited.

Nicole Saunders: To do this, I think it's going to help everybody's programs, be a little bit more successful and it would be way easier for customers they don't care which team is running a webinar and they don't need to.

Nicole Saunders: have different registration methods and different websites and all of these things, for you know here's six different ways to talk about one product and.

Nicole Saunders: So I just I think it's so key and for us what we've really seen as we've gotten more and more collaborative and more important cross functional.

Nicole Saunders: Is that we aren't fighting for by in anymore, and people are starting to think of us and you know the conference is a great example of one of those outcomes were.

Nicole Saunders: Because we've been really making this effort to get out there and work with everybody and support their programs we don't have to fight as hard for attention and for you know to be part of the conversation anymore.

Chris Detzel: that's that's awesome I think I mean we can have that problem too is you know you've got some folks in the marketing team working you know doing some webinars that are you know it's focused on real to stuff or you know, like some industry specific or vertical specific kind of stuff.

Chris Detzel: The Community is doing this webinar over here products we're doing kind of their own stuff and you know.

Chris Detzel: it's like, how do you bring met all of it, but how do you bring some of that together, because some of there are some differences between the two, but.

Chris Detzel: You know, like you said during our pre show you know we're having webinars that are the same stuff you know and it's like we're inviting the same customers, the same stuff you know, like.

Chris Detzel: So.

Nicole Saunders: i'll never forget there's like a year ago, where we had this one product manager, can I can be a guest speaker for thing.

Nicole Saunders: And as we were doing the prep so he's like oh yeah This is just like how this other team is doing it i'm doing there's on Thursday and we were like wait what.

Nicole Saunders: Why are you doing to webinars on the same topic in the same week at the same company.

Chris Detzel: yeah I mean look one could be for prospects right maybe Community isn't.

Chris Detzel: On a prospects, maybe there's a.

Chris Detzel: Selling type of opportunity, you know, like some of our one of our marketing person folks her focus is choosing bright talk and bright talk is a.

Chris Detzel: platform that you know you do webinars and then people I guess log into bright talk and there's the whole.

Chris Detzel: Community of our whole tons of people that they can you know reach out to to to get on to that, and so, when I think of the Community webinars I don't really think of bright talk being in that right, you know it's it's a different thing.

Chris Detzel: But I agree with you, I mean that's that has happened here too, you know, and I think you know I love that you're trying to do was it you that did that or somebody on your team that going to Part A lot together how did that it's a little story behind that are not really.

Nicole Saunders: um I would say, you know the head and Community i've been sort of driving.

Nicole Saunders: yeah, this is a strategic focus on it actually like it took a little while to get.

Nicole Saunders: everybody on board and really even help everybody think about how to do this, and I think part of it is because.

Nicole Saunders: Community you're running so many directions right you and i've talked in the past about how like you know eight meetings on eight completely different topics in the course of a day sure.

Nicole Saunders: yeah now you're dealing with data and now you're dealing with content are you dealing with developers now you have a strategy right and.

Nicole Saunders: um something that i've noticed is that.

Nicole Saunders: Sometimes that's overwhelming for people and when things get overwhelming we tend to put on our blinders and be like is this in my wheelhouse is this my area of focus, if not I don't want to know about it right.

Nicole Saunders: we're getting information from all these teams, all these departments from the industry and then we're like our community itself and that's just a kind of communications have information.

Nicole Saunders: yeah but i've really encouraged my team to try to like take those blinders off.

Nicole Saunders: And poke your head up and look around and see what else is going on and look for those opportunities.

Nicole Saunders: When you're in meetings with other teams, or when you're in an all hands and you're hearing about things to say hey I think the Community can support that and here's how and then first as leaders, we have to balance not getting over committed.

Nicole Saunders: which I think is.

Nicole Saunders: Maybe the hardest.

Nicole Saunders: For.

Nicole Saunders: For so many of us.

Nicole Saunders: But i'm just really sought out those opportunities of you know hey where can we help you know and, like the chat for the conference last week is a prime example, nobody asked us to do that.

Nicole Saunders: Nobody else a lot of us is great experts for it, but I was like hey you know what this is a skill set my team has and i'm sure you guys need help so let's.

Nicole Saunders: let's go help with that and it was a really good entry point for them saying hey yeah what, what do you think about also maybe bringing community into the main stage for a few minutes.

Nicole Saunders: that's and so you got to kind of create that goodwill and that awareness of what you're doing but it's a tough skill set to build to really get good at identifying the opportunities to be cross functional and then.

Nicole Saunders: prioritize Okay, where can we really help and we're like well, we could do a thing over here but that's not going to be super impactful for anybody, you know.

Chris Detzel: yeah I think.

Chris Detzel: it's interesting I love, how you kind of encourage your team to really.

Chris Detzel: be proactive and seek out opportunities and the only thing I would add to that is, you know as a leader, you have to kind of look at what are the priorities for Community for the year i'm not saying you know.

Chris Detzel: You look first you look at the priorities of the Community and see what you want to go after and as a leader, I would think you just have to say, these are the things you should seek out the most.

Nicole Saunders: All right.

Chris Detzel: With that said, as you know, like you know even tell my team, this is all right, we know that.

Chris Detzel: Community and ideation go well together today community and ideation and products aren't really there yet, but you know if you get an.

Chris Detzel: On a call with you know, one of the product leaders or you're talking to them.

Chris Detzel: You definitely mentioned something like that, because you know there's probably room in our roadmap to kind of start thinking about how to integrate ideation and and things like that, but.

Chris Detzel: You know let's not over commit but let's have that discussion, you know or whatever those things are you give them examples you, you say look that's.

Chris Detzel: Probably not the scope in the next three months, but certainly something we should think about look at or if it's that important maybe we can bring it in or something like that, I think that.

Chris Detzel: You know, to not overwhelm yourself always go back to your roadmap look at where you are what you're doing and what you're trying to accomplish and then, once you do that, you know and then obviously you communicate your.

Chris Detzel: Community people need to know this right, and those are the ones you go after first and then secondly because you're always having to have these conversations, because you know Community touches everything you know, like.

Chris Detzel: Right almost everything I even say HR you know why because i'm developing people outside of our inside of the company to be the leaders to be.

Chris Detzel: Powerful like i'm counseling not really counseling per se but i'm talking to those folks on a daily basis, like this guy from PS.

Chris Detzel: guys really awesome you know I encouraged him when we first started to do these webinars and go deep into these webinars and people start asking questions and then all sudden he told me, the other day goes Chris because of the Community.

Chris Detzel: You know I now and i'm now really excited about what I do people are now coming to me.

Chris Detzel: Internally and externally, about you know about matching and merging and things like that, because I never had that before, because we can make them heroes, I want to make them heroes and why because they're getting shit done for me, you know what I mean like.

Chris Detzel: Well, not.

Nicole Saunders: Just race there, though, Chris like I think we think a lot about our customers right now Oh, how can we help them build their expertise, how can we help them build their professional brands, we can do that for internal folks to just like you said.

Chris Detzel: all the time.

Nicole Saunders: We have a platform where we can shine a spotlight on people and I know that for us, we do a lot of these events with our product managers and bringing them in and staff and for a lot of them, this is their first time public speaking or this is their first time.

Nicole Saunders: We have these things in the building this whole skill set and the expertise.

Nicole Saunders: And you know, not everybody is super comfortable with it, but it's an important skill set to build and to learn how to do, and some of them are like oh my gosh I love this.

Nicole Saunders: yeah I want to do more of these things i've discovered a new part of my job I didn't know existed, so I I love that you know, and it really is true that Community can really have positive impacts, both internally and externally, in that way.

Chris Detzel: I agree, and I told this guy also I said hey you know you're very technically sound and you're really good at this people love it and you're pretty good speaker.

Chris Detzel: And I said now what you have to go do is learn the business side of this if you can learn the business side of why these people are trying to solve these problems, and you can speak upon that.

Chris Detzel: As like dude you could be like a cto or whatever, if I mean guys young he's super smart and he has had and he started thinking about that as a hey I got i've got a recording of the.

Chris Detzel: county Executive Council and how they think and everything else wants you to listen to it just think about that for a while, you know, and then you know, because the nice thing about being a community leaders like you get to talk to so many people you you.

Chris Detzel: Understand like what it.

Chris Detzel: takes to be more successful and they're all nutsy you can do their job because you know i'm not technically sound I don't really care about that, but again to me it's about.

Chris Detzel: Obviously, want to get your customers on a higher level, you want them to use your product and stuff like that, but I see it, more in addition to you know, a.

Chris Detzel: grooming, the next leaders, not of community, but of the the nuts, not to say grooming, but giving people the opportunity.

Chris Detzel: To engage in the Community to engage with customers in a in a way to scale, so instead of one on one interactions you're getting like.

Chris Detzel: Questions and things like that from 60 people right or potentially 60 or 80 customers and partners and things you've never.

Chris Detzel: done before, and so it's just it's fun to do that, and then I promote them, you know hashtag on our hashtag Community slack channel.

Chris Detzel: You know, say something about this person, they did this amazing job because of blah blah blah blah, and they did this, you know, and then I even know the boss hey.

Chris Detzel: This guy was really awesome he did this thing oh my gosh you know i'll go to my CEO sometimes the hey man, you should probably at least just say thank you for you know what I mean like just it just you do that, then they'll do it again for you, you know what I mean that's really.

Chris Detzel: Why, I do it, you know so.

Chris Detzel: Anything else on the cross collaboration thing I mean this is really good.

Nicole Saunders: yeah I think a key thing to highlight like you said, is knowing what your priorities are and it's so important, we know what our priorities are what we can identify the place and really.

Nicole Saunders: Like you said, this is a good opportunity for me to collaborate, this is something that supports my roadmap and like that is a really cool thing that we should put on the backlog for the future.

Nicole Saunders: And I like I know, for us, one of our big goals this year was to be more strategic about our events.

Nicole Saunders: And to try to increase attendance and so starting to bring together all of these other teams and work with them.

Nicole Saunders: On hey let's co host events where we can let's co plan events where we can.

Nicole Saunders: And we're actually finding ourselves now in a role where we're advising from other teams are like yeah we're seeing really low attendance at this and that were like Oh, why have you tried xyz These are the things that we've seen have worked really well in the Community.

Nicole Saunders: And so, you know that was a great match between something was going on in the company where we're seeing all these redundant things and everybody's struggling with attendance and our own goals on our roadmap and things that we were prioritizing this year.

Nicole Saunders: we're also trying to legends to try to we are relaunching a customer advocacy program to really help highlight those brand ambassadors.

Nicole Saunders: And we are co hosting it with the customer marketing team, which is sort of in a different part of our marketing organization.

Nicole Saunders: And it a lot of conversations at first, they were like well who's going to own this and who's going to lead it how's it going to work and we were really intentional about saying we really want this to be a 5050 co ownership.

Nicole Saunders: Joint thing we want it to serve your needs we want it to serve our needs we're going to split the budgets.

Nicole Saunders: were even looking at splitting at team Member.

Nicole Saunders: To.

Nicole Saunders: serve them to work on this product on both sides and we're hopeful that it can become a model for how teams can work cross functionally across the business.

Nicole Saunders: Because, as you scale, it is so easy for teams to become increasingly siloed and focus on their own thing and.

Nicole Saunders: Less wear.

Nicole Saunders: and get really almost like territorial or defensive about things and we're like you know for the Community succeed we can't be territorial we gotta.

Nicole Saunders: share these things across and so we're will have to keep you posted as we go through that lunch and talk about how that that model ends up working out but i'm really excited about being able to demonstrate how this can work.

Chris Detzel: i'll interested in that too, because i'm not going to do that, right now, but, but I think it's worth the discussion because you know i've always been kind of under there under the impression, there is should be at least an owner of that something like that.

Chris Detzel: Not saying you can't have a cross functional person to help kind of run or guide or those kinds of things, because a lot of times.

Chris Detzel: You know if there's not an ownership between that thing and they're splitting their time you know there, I mean it's a hard thing to do so i'll be very interested to hear about how it goes I said it can't be done, but you know because.

Nicole Saunders: i'll either have successes or you know things we learned.

yeah.

Nicole Saunders: I will work or probably both.

Chris Detzel: And the one thing I want to say about your event thing and how you can I create this cross collaboration thing what I think is is it's always better to have the power of a team or two with you rather and and and kind of pushing out different things like, for example.

Chris Detzel: Exactly what you said, you have the power of many to help you get these things done then you'll have a lot more success, you know today.

Chris Detzel: You know I think I talked a little bit about that industry lead, you know Community led growth basically and.

Chris Detzel: You know, and instead of me kind of going out like I built the online community from scratch from ground up you know, and you know I just had to get people engaged and evolve.

Chris Detzel: yeah I had the organization, but it was pretty much me just kind of doing a lot of that, but if I go at that if I go with this at that approach it's not going to work if I don't have.

Chris Detzel: You know, p mmm you know the product marketing team, if I don't have the the communication team which they're doing very much of a.

Chris Detzel: You know thought leadership type stuff with our cto and founder if I don't have you know the digital team all on board, you know, to help know, like the marketing machine on board, in a sense.

Chris Detzel: I have way more of a chance to fail, you know, and that can be an option, and for me that's a little scary because i'm very good at just going to get shit done, you know, one of my challenges is.

Chris Detzel: Is is it isn't.

Chris Detzel: collaborating cross functionally it's more of collaborating with those leaders that you know the VP of our CMO our you know his his team and.

Chris Detzel: Then the communication chief communication officer and what they're doing, and if they say yeah let's go do it.

Chris Detzel: And, but we need these high level things of what we're trying to accomplish what we're trying to do things i'm not really.

Chris Detzel: You know yeah we're just trying to accomplish these things you know if you have some really good strategic vision, a good strategic you know.

Chris Detzel: outline for them, then, if they're on board they're going to help you socialize it on social they're going to help you market it through email they're going to.

Chris Detzel: push things on the main website to get that out there going to just help you do a lot of different things at that level and and so Those are the things i'm learning today, and I think it's highly important to call, and I think that's really awesome that you guys are doing that.

Nicole Saunders: I mean, and it is important, like racing to the challenges of working cross functionally too right.

Nicole Saunders: yeah I think when you're doing things as a team of one or when you're doing just within your own team, you can move much faster.

Chris Detzel: You can just do you think what you want to do them and you're not.

Nicole Saunders: burdened by other people's timelines other teams priorities.

Nicole Saunders: The corporate process right.

Nicole Saunders: It feels like everything we do these days you had to like put out a proposal and it's got to get prioritize and you know all these things, and so it goes much slower and I know that that.

Nicole Saunders: was some resistance from some of the folks that I work with initially when we started doing special things like oh man, this was so much easier when I could just do it, and now I have to like wait on other teams and they've got other priorities.

Nicole Saunders: And so you know I think it's important to follow up at like.

Nicole Saunders: collaboration is so important, and you do get those additional resources and that additional visibility and its overall going to be a better outcome for your customers.

Nicole Saunders: But it's also true that, like it takes some effort to identify those opportunities to prioritize the right things, and then to actually keep the project moving forward.

Nicole Saunders: I think a key to, that is, you know we talked about knowing your priorities and showing up to recognize things but also always bring up the point of view.

Nicole Saunders: um.

Nicole Saunders: I think the biggest mistake that I see people make is they're like okay i'm gonna be collaborative and they show up to the meeting, like all right So what should we do.

Nicole Saunders: it's like no, you should show up and say hey guys here's how I think we should collaborate here's how I think we can work together i've spent some time looking into your program here's how we can contribute.

Nicole Saunders: So that is like.

Nicole Saunders: Such a key it's such an important aspect of it, and so you know i'm.

Nicole Saunders: i'm looking i'm doing a lot of research is reading right now and i'm looking forward to starting to put out some more material about like.

Nicole Saunders: How to work cross functionally we'll talk about the importance of it, but we don't always talk about those challenges are like what that really means and what's the legwork you need to do to make it happen effectively.

Chris Detzel: you're today you're just speaking my language is so crazy and it's because i've had a lot of these conversations as of recent.

Chris Detzel: yeah like one of the conversations was you know I I also own the real to Executive Council right and so.

Chris Detzel: there's always recruiting that goes on, because people fall off there's agendas, you have to build there's all kinds of different things you have to do and everything else.

Chris Detzel: So, and the other pieces yeah I have to work with my executives here at rel to to.

Chris Detzel: contribute content to you know, like we have our cto and founder, you can imagine how busy that dude it's like, but I have to get on his calendar say hey.

Chris Detzel: What do you think the agenda should be you know or how do you think we should have to talk to our chief customer officer hey we're looking at recruiting these people, you know what do you think about whatever.

Chris Detzel: You know, and the same with the CMO, and so they give these high level views right and i'm like.

Chris Detzel: Alright, so i'm going to take a different approach, and so my approach now is you said it perfectly is, you have to have a point of view.

Chris Detzel: And it actually could be completely wrong like it doesn't matter like you just say hey, this is what I think like from a recruiting standpoint here's a list of accounts is how much they spend this is, you know the opportunity.

Chris Detzel: And here's the names and everything else here's the list should I go up to those and if, and I would say something like if you say yes, if you say no, or if you don't say anything i'm going to assume this the list if you do say.

Chris Detzel: Something great you know, change the list will do whatever you say you know it doesn't matter.

Chris Detzel: And so that's what you have to do is you come up with kind of the process, but then you think it should be, even if it's completely wrong just come up with the point of view and let them react and then change it from there, you know, like.

Nicole Saunders: Because exactly, but you have to show up for something for people.

Nicole Saunders: Are lazy right.

Chris Detzel: Because they don't know, nobody knows, they don't know you know, like so it's like just make some shit up you know and.

Nicole Saunders: that's to show me what you think is actually going to work, but if you know yeah come up with an idea shop with.

Nicole Saunders: something for people were fair enough.

Chris Detzel: Show what's gonna work like if you know you know be smart about it, you know, but at this point you're still making some shit up you know, at the same.

Chris Detzel: Time right like you know that's just the way.

Nicole Saunders: You make an informed guess, I think.

Nicole Saunders: Based on.

Nicole Saunders: me talking to people sometimes.

Chris Detzel: Well, I made I made that whole list up and i've just created a process and no, no one was against it and i'll say done and that's how i'm going to go recruit you know.

Nicole Saunders: I mean.

Chris Detzel: You know, and then I sent out to sales people and CSM to say hey who are the people here at scout that you know I should go after kind of stuff but you know I think it's just so so right the point of view thing, and you know that was just right on my mind, because.

Chris Detzel: i've been funny i've been telling that same story that you just said to others is like well you know somebody come to me well, Chris I can't believe you're buying it will.

Chris Detzel: Just come up with the point of view, like you said, and you know present it and see what they say you know and let them react it all it is giving people something and then they can think about you know better approach you know.

Nicole Saunders: Well, and you just starting point for the conversation, and if you show up to the point of view you show up with a recommendation.

Nicole Saunders: you're now leading that conversation you're driving that and to me like I always want to be driving the activity and driving the conversation I don't want to be in the backseat of somebody else's car.

Nicole Saunders: So you know it's it's really smart, to give some good thought to the things that you want to accomplish and how you can get you to happen and then show up to your people say all right.

Nicole Saunders: here's what I think should happen here's how I think we can do work on it together and you're just going to get.

Nicole Saunders: So much further, and you know when we think about leadership to you that's that's really what leadership is about is showing up with a vision and then getting everybody on board and.

Nicole Saunders: Adjusting a little bit to accommodate you know, whatever other perspectives or questions come up and then making it happen and really driving it forward.

Chris Detzel: yeah, this is a great conversation oh.

Nicole Saunders: yeah I always love these conversations, this goes by so fast.

Chris Detzel: They do it's like it's already done so.

Chris Detzel: Well, thanks everyone for coming to another peers over beers i'm Chris Detzel and..
Nicole Saunders: i'm Nicole Saunders.

Chris Detzel: Thanks Nicole.

Nicole Saunders: Thanks everybody.