SaaS businesses need customer success and sales teams to use more product data to manage the business.
Learn how to use your existing product analytics to improve your forecast and grow your revenue.
How data-driven is your forecast?
I teach you how to use your existing product analytics solutions to drive revenue and empower data driven decisions in your SaaS business.
Are you running your existing business forecast the same way you do your new business?
Evolve your retention forecast.
Evolve your retention forecast with product data.
Evolve your retention forecast with product data from Customer Success.
About Me
I spent the last decade working in customer success working in scaling $100+ ARR companies. Then, in April 2023, I was laid off from my management job at a high-growth SaaS to build my own portfolio of one-person businesses.
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3 Different Ways I Can Help You
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The CSM Upskill Course
CS Product Usage Services
Startup/Scaleup Services
Self-paced course that teaches you to grow your career, improve analytics find profitable ideas, improve customer engagements, get promoted, and grow your career.
Do your CSMs have little to no experience with data and product analytics in their role? I'll help you assess today and develop the program for the future growth of Customer Success team.
Self-paced course that teaches you to grow your career, improve analytics find profitable ideas, improve customer engagements, get promoted, and grow your career.
Are you achieving your
career goals, earnings &
personal growth in
Customer Success?
The Product-Led CSM is where better, data driven work happens. We give you the 💡 ideas, 🛠️ tools, and even AI ✨.
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Trying To Decide If The Product Led CSM Is For You?
Who, specifically, is this course for?
The Product Led CSM is designed for customer success managers, teams and leaders who seek a dependable data-driven approach to handle churn and drive growth. Those who use data to earn more money. Gain insights into the influence of product analytics, especially if you're unfamiliar with the latest growth tools. If you find it challenging to effectively prioritize your time and manage valuable customers, this course is tailored to your needs.
Who should NOT buy this course?
If you already have a framework for delivering data informed customer outcomes each day, this course is probably not for you.This course is focused on building your skills in Customer Success using the data the product team needs to make your product thrive. It's a behind-the-scenes look at my personal habits for prioritization, data storytelling, trend analysis, fighting churn and growing accounts. This course is not some "hack" or "trick" course. It's focused on building systems to help customer success professionals with predictability and efficiency.
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What's Inside?
01
Getting started
Learn Why User Behaviour Drives Revenue
Learn The Basics of Product Management For CS
Know your Product Resources
Know your Product Team Members
Know your Product's Customer Experience
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02
learn by doing
Implement Product Analytics & Experience PLG
Learn how to quickly implement Amplitude Analytics using Carrd website builder!
Build charts & dashboards to understand user behaviour.
Track events & learn data hygiene best practices.
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automation & AI
Connect Your Customer Outcomes To Business Outcomes with Product Data
What are North Star events and how do they drive revenue?
Learn how to spot product pitfalls in data trend analysis that can lead to churn.
Checklist to evaluate your daily/weekly work to understand time sucks and customer challenge points
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04
next steps
Leverage Product Data & Analytics For Your Career Growth / Data Story Telling
Re-program how you think about communicating your efforts to accelerate your career.
Learn to create a personal narrative using data.
Tips from the Manager POV on presenting your work
Focus on habit building that you can reuse instead of one off brain dumps.
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Take The Product-Led CSM Assessment
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The Full Curriculum
Part 1: Introduction
● Welcome
● My JourneyPart 2: How to interview for your next job product as a CSM
● Learn how to develop a POV on the challenges customers face in your next role.
● Understand the questions that help you up level your evaluation criteriaPart 3: Leverage data in your performance review to drive your career
● Re-program how you think about communicating your efforts to accelerate your career…
● Learn to create a narrative using data...
● Focus on habit building that you can reuse instead of one off brain dumps...Part 4: Learn how to uncover product pitfalls
● Learn how to create a product teardown
● Checklist to evaluate your daily/weekly work to understand time sucks and customer challenge pointsPart 5: Learn Product Analytics Basics
● Learn top tools (Amplitude)...quickly!
● Build charts & dashboards
● Answer key questions about your customers to drive upsells and fight churn
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Frequently Asked Questions
Who, specifically, is this course for?
The Product Led CSM is for customer success managers and leaders of customer success who want a more reliable system for using data informed decisions to manage churn and growth. You will learn the impact of product analytics if you haven't had exposure to the latest tools driving product growth. If you have important customers to manage but struggle to use your time for the highest impact on your portfolio, this course is for you.
Who should NOT buy this course?
If you already have a framework for delivering data informed customer outcomes each day, this course is probably not for you.This course is focused on building your skills in Customer Success using the data the product team needs to make your product thrive. It's a behind-the-scenes look at my personal habits for prioritization, data storytelling, trend analysis, fighting churn and growing accounts. This course is not some "hack" or "trick" course. It's focused on building systems to help customer success professionals with predictability and efficiency.
Why the heck should I listen to you? Who are you?
My name is Arran McKay. I'm a former startup senior manager who has been promoted multiple times and helped others grow their careers and earn more. All using this system.You absolutely do not have to listen to me, but helping others seen tangible career results has been one of the greatest things I've ever done for my career.
How long will it take to see results?
It depends on how active you are in career development. If you follow the lessons and modules, expect to see some good traction in 60-90 days, and you can likely change your life in 6-12 months.If you do absolutely nothing, you won't see any results.
Do I get lifetime access?
Absolutely. You can access it for as long as you'd like with no extra payment.
Is it worth $150?
I spent 100+ hours working on this & providing the best resources, so you don't have to. You'll get instant access to the product-led csm system to help you grow your career.I've designed this course to be actionable. It's not some book you read once & shelve. It's a video-based course with a system that you can use every day, and revisit frequently.
How long is the course and what format is it in?
The Product Led CSM is roughly 55 minutes long and is a video course with some additional bonus modules that are text-based.
Can you provide a custom invoice?
We provide receipts with the following information only: Date purchased, transaction #, amount paid, payment method, product purchased, and my business address. We don't produce custom invoices for foreign tax purposes.
My organization doesn’t have a product analytics tool to understand user behaviour, can I still take your course?
Yes - this course will help guide you to think about your role and the role of CS in your organization in the new way and help you advocate for. You will learn how to use Amplitude Analytics and gain valuable experience and POV on the benefits of this tool for your organization.
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Unlock The Product-Led CSM Today
Everything you need for a CSM job search.
ChatGPT Web Application
Templates so you never stare at a blank page again. Templates so you are prepared for every opportunity. Understand the product's potential. Structure so you never lose a detail. Prepare yourself Product is a revenue center. Compare jobs and opportunities. Bring clarity to your decision making process.
25+ Comparisons.
Never lose a detail for the role and understand the product to improve accuracy in decision making.
How to interview for your next job product as a CSM.
Summary Comparison
Understand Role Expectations
Gap Analysis + Growth
Tool Review + Learning
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Business Profile
Never lose a detail for the role and understand the business.
Summary Comparison
Investor History & Track Record
Public Market Success
Funding Raised
Recent Layoffs
Why Ask Product Specific Questions?
A great product can create a great experience and professional fulfilment.A poor product definitely creates a poor experience for a CS professional.is great your life tends to be easier and that means you can work on solving different and more interesting problems and generally means your company is probably experiencing high growth of some sort.The focus of this section as a product-led CSM is to inquire about the customer experience. I have included a list of 10 questions that really helps you develop an understanding of the customer experience. The customer experience is the #1 way you will understand how your day-to-day job will be outside of any internal leadership challenges of the business. Basically, if the product is great your life tends to be easier and that means you can work on solving different and more interesting problems and generally means your company is probably experiencing high growth of some sort. If the customer’s are finding it challenging to use the product then you twill experience this challenge in your role. You can’t separate the a poor performing product for customers and a poor life for a CSM. The CSM responds to the challenges of the business on the front lines with the customer. This is the most crucial evaluation of the whole process - even if you have the best manager in the world they will not stick around if the product sucks and the organization is challenged with the inability to solve customer pain.
Templates for every digital format.
Whether you're updating formulas in Google Sheets & Excel, Notion pages, Confluence articles, or beautiful Evernote or Google Docs/Apple Notes, PLCSM has templates for everything—guaranteed to "hook" readers and keep them engaged.
Everything you need to ace your Performance Review and make more money in
Customer Success.
A program for you to take ownership on every phase in the performance review cycle so you never stare at a blank page again. Your are prepared and informed on the results you drive with customers. One-click publishing to millions of readers. Analytics to track performance.
Notion Templates
- Use AI powered summaries from your user inputted data.- Capture quarter and annual highlights.- Logo, Gross and Net Retention calculators
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Google Sheets Templates
Use AI powered summaries from your user inputted data.Capture quarter and annual highlights.
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Program Overview
Timeline
90 days
60 days
30 days
Actions
Assess your current state.
Book your career meeting with your Manager.
Keep helping your customers be successful!
Build personal reporting system
Draft 1 of your self reflection
Feedback on self reflection
Baseline current state
Build highlight summary for your Manager
Submit your self-reflection
Book your career meeting with your Manager.
How to interview for your next job product as a CSM
A program for you to take ownership on every phase in the performance review cycle so you never stare at a blank page again. Your are prepared and informed on the results you drive with customers. One-click publishing to millions of readers. Analytics to track performance.
Join today!
Can't decide today and would like to hear from me about the latest updates?
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Learn how to run your CS team with Product Analytics
Product usage data isn't just for the product team. CSMs need to own customer data analysis to measure impact, drive revenue and improve retention.
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Learn new skills. Earn more. Develop your Customer Success career.
The Product Led CSM helps your customers win and your product thrive with guides to empower product analytics driven customer success professionals.
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Uncover your product's pitfalls.Tear it down.
📈 Customer feedback . Gather data from Support, PS to understand customer pain.
📅 CS reporting. Schedule your posts to be published at a later time
⚡Daily activities. Capture where you are spending time and the impact on your customers.
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Analytics to help you grow.
Customer Success need to be data-driven. The Product-Led CSM helps you find the type of content your audience enjoys.
Analytics to help you grow.
What You'll Learn Inside of the Course
01
Getting started
How to interview for your next job product as a CSM
Learn how to develop a POV on the challenges customers face in your next role.
Understand the questions that help you up level your evaluation criteria
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Free Guides for Customer Success Professionals
I field many emails that ask me for advice on a wide range of topics from growing to churn. Much like you, I'm still figuring it all out, but here are some guides that cover what I've learned over time.
How To Prepare For Your Next Interview As A Product-Led CSM
I field many emails that ask me for advice on a wide range of topics from growing to churn. Much like you, I'm still figuring it all out, but here are some guides that cover what I've learned over time.
CSM Guide to Portfolio Management using Analytics
I field many emails that ask me for advice on a wide range of topics from growing to churn. Much like you, I'm still figuring it all out, but here are some guides that cover what I've learned over time.
Free Guide
How To Prepare For Your Next Interview As A Product-Led CSM
Intro And The New Era
Why It's Important To Ask Product Specific Questions
Top 10 Product-Led Questions For Your Next Interview
Watch Out For Vanity Metrics
Making A Data Informed Decision
Intro And The New Era
We are coming at this from the SaaS business perspective - software as a service. It’s the Spotify model - pay for what you use and its subscription based. This guide is focused on your ability to evaluate the product and ultimately how your role will feel day-to-day if you are able to get the job. Not ever business you interview for is going to have 90%+ gross retention or 120%+ net dollar retention and that’s OK. You may be early in your career or simply not totally be aware of the impact of these metrics on the overall business. You need to start somewhere and so that’s why I’ve built this free guide for you to nail that next interview!Times have changed for interviews - less in-person and a whole lot more Zoom. Use your technology to make your life easier, especially if you find yourself with many interviews. You will want to ensure you are making a data-informed decision about your next role! This also means that you’ll want to try to build rapport and get transparency from the organization so that you can make a solid decision about your future and how you are a great fit for the organization’s needs. Get ready to ask real questions about the product and business - be comfortable and practice with a friend or simply copy&paste the below questions and read the screen and fill in the blank when you hear the answer.
Watch Out For Vanity Metrics
Sometimes the answers to your questions, specifically data points, will sound impactful even though they are not, especially if you are new to product analytics. MAUs are great but not in isolation. Does the product have a leaky bucket? Vanity Metrics are not real for your customer, this is the organization either a) not aware of the falsehoods of these metrics and b) inexperienced with product analytics user behaviour metrics for their product success.
Making A Data Informed Decision
Do you know the answers to all these questions for your current product? Is the grass greener? You will want to run a comparative analysis of these questions or go out and get the answers to the questions so you can properly compare the customer and product experience.
Top 10 Product-Led Questions To Ask At Your Next Interview
1. What is your retention rate?
Holy grail of the CSM role. How well are you serving your customers and do the customers return / repeat buy your product. Best in class retention rates are approximately 90%+.If you want to go deeper on the topic to include expansion you can ask about NDR or Next Dollar Retention. NDR is a crucial and foundational metric for a growing SaaS business with 120%+ marking best in class rates. Ultimately this means that the business is growing and retaining customers at a high rate. These are rare so count yourself lucky if you work for an organization today achieving 120%+ NDR.Listening for... how are things going this quarter, year, last few years with specific retention rates (eg. 78%, 85%, 92%). You want to understand the trend (up/down).Follow up question: How has the product hurt or helped this metric in the past 12 months? This question flows nicely into the next question.
2. What product features from last year did you release that customer’s absolutely love?
This is a game changer for a manager and a CSM. For a CSM you will want to know what you can show off to your customers that really solves their pain so that you can show value and continuea to develop a relationship with your customer.
3. What product feature would you deprecate if you were made CPO for the day?
Listening for...
a) how attached/invested the person you are interviewing with is to the product / customer experience and
b) the structure of decisioning at the organization. The latter is about how they first respond to the exercise in holding the power over the product and how this is a keen reflection of how the organization makes decisions about the product roadmap (eg. HIPPO or customer obsessed).
4. What is your customer's #1 complaint about your product?
What type of problems are you going to be dealing with and how much of a frustration are these problems with customers?Follow up question: Does the solution require engineering to solve? or how many customer problems require engineering to solve? Engineering is awesome though, they have a core job and it tends not to be fixing the product. You will want to understand the turnaround time for engineering to get involved. The more engineering has to be involved the worse the customer experience because delays are built in to the process. There will always be a product push, an end of quarter need to hit a milestone and that means that you may have to hold on to a steaming bag of problem for weeks or months without a customer solution.
5. What is your support SLA?
SLA or service level agreement is the #1 metric for Support organizations in SaaS businesses. Best in class.
6. What is your product's North Star metric?
A north star metric helps to drive your company's growth by highlighting a number that best demonstrates how your product is delivering value to customers.Listening for... Revenue is a lagging indicator of success and not a fit for customer value and how an organization can rally around a single metric - plus it is is terribly demotivating to only work for a revenue goal.How is the organization rallying around delivering customer outcomes? There is a maturity curve to having a North Star metric and frankly, there's a lot of organizations operating without this metric. As a product-led CSM it's important you are aware of this topic...
More...
- what is the support experience like?
- SLA %?
- what do customers say?
- What is your growth rate?
- What’s on the product roadmap?
- What determines the work that product and engineering teams work on?
- a lack of product growth means little excitement or career opportunity growth for csms. how can your business expect to thrive if its not changing to reflect the needs of your customers
60 days
60 days