A few weeks ago, in the wee early hours of the morning (I think 7 am-ish here in California), I met with Rick Adams, CEO and Founder of Practicalcsm.com to talk about how to move your career forward in Customer Success. While the intent was, of course, to focus on Customer Success, as that is where our passions lie, this conversation evolved into something more, career development.

Career development is usually top of mind for most. Whether it’s about your personal growth or the impact that you are able to make within your organization, most if not all professionals think about what’s next for them. While these podcasts are merely scraping the surface, and there is way more to be said about the topic, there are a lot of great tidbits to be had from listening.

In Part A of the podcast, we have heavily focused on building some baseline knowledge, the career paths you can take within CS whether it’s via leadership or function owner, and how to approach your skillset development. We also talk about:

  • The different functions/roles that emerging in CS
  • People management vs process/function management
  • Career matrix
  • Skills development

While it is a podcast, and I was unable to share any visuals, here are a couple of snapshots from the career matrix so you have a small visual. I will be publishing this all in more depth at a later time.

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In Part B we really dug in deeper on overall career development and discussed how to advocate for yourself and your career. Here we discussed:

  • Who is responsible for your career growth
  • How to advocate
  • Resources that you could/should tap into

This is an important dialogue for us all to have. I welcome thoughts or approaches that you have either used or employed with your team that drove success.

Here’s to a successful 2020 for us all.