Customer Success Playbook Podcast Season 2 Episode 33 - Katie Clark - Buy in from Internal Stake Holders

In this episode, hosts Roman Trebon and Kevin Metzger interview Katie Clark, Implementation Manager at PocketHealth, about the critical process of securing internal stakeholder buy-in for major initiatives. Katie shares her expertise on understanding different stakeholder types, generating momentum, crafting compelling messages, overcoming resistance, and celebrating success.

Detailed Analysis

Key Themes:

1. Importance of Stakeholder Buy-In: Katie emphasizes that stakeholders are the ultimate decision-makers who control resources and project approval. Without their support, projects can stagnate, leading to delays and potential career limitations.
2. Understanding Your Audience: Katie categorizes stakeholders into three groups: founders (emotional/personal stakes), investors (financial focus), and community (voice of the customer). Tailoring communication to each group's motivations is crucial for success.
3. Identifying Stakeholders: Leveraging information from the sales process, analyzing job titles, and engaging in direct conversations are effective methods for understanding stakeholder roles and motivations.
4. Communication Strategies: 
   • Over-communication and transparency are vital.
   • Weekly project updates and milestone celebrations keep stakeholders engaged.
   • Adapting communication styles to suit different stakeholders (e.g., data-driven vs. narrative-focused).
   • The importance of face-to-face communication, even in remote settings.
5. Overcoming Resistance: 
   • Directly asking stakeholders about their concerns.
   • Rallying support from initial project champions.
   • Creating a sense of urgency to drive action.
6. Continuous Buy-In: Buy-in is not a one-time event but an ongoing process throughout the project lifecycle.
7. Transparency in Setbacks: Being open about challenges builds trust and demonstrates adaptability.
8. Role of AI in Communication: AI can be a supportive tool for improving communication skills but should not replace genuine, personal communication.

Business Insights:

1. Stakeholder Mapping: Develop a comprehensive stakeholder map at the project outset to identify key decision-makers and their motivations.
2. Communication Planning: Create a tailored communication plan for each stakeholder group, considering their preferred style and information needs.
3. Milestone-Driven Approach: Structure projects around clear milestones to facilitate regular celebrations of success and maintain momentum.
4. Proactive Problem-Solving: Address potential issues early to prevent minor setbacks from becoming major roadblocks.
5. Cross-Functional Collaboration: Leverage support from various departments to reinforce the importance of initiatives.
6. Adaptive Leadership: Be prepared to adjust strategies based on stakeholder feedback and changing project dynamics.
7. Skill Development: Invest in improving communication skills, including written communication for remote work environments.
8. Technology

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You can also find the CS Playbook Podcast:
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You can find Kevin at:
Metzgerbusiness.com - Kevin's person web site
Kevin Metzger on Linked In.

You can find Roman at:
Roman Trebon on Linked In.

Transcript

Roman Trebon: 0:20

Hi everyone, welcome back to the Customer Success Playbook Podcast. I'm Roman Trebon and with me always is my co host Kevin Metzger. Please give our show a rating, subscribe, and like so we can continue to grow our audience. Kevin, football started last week and your Clemson Tigers took it on the chin. How are you feeling this week?

Kevin Metzger: 0:40

Well, we'll see. it'll be a long season, but looking forward to it anyway.

Roman Trebon: 0:47

Yeah. Well hopefully you're looking forward to this conversation we're have coming up well way more than that Clemson football season, because I'm way more excited about this than your Clemson offense. Kev, we got a great guest on the show today. We have the pleasure of speaking with Katie Clark. Implementation manager at PocketHelp. Katie's a skill leader in project delivery and has a deep understanding of the complexities involved in securing stakeholder buy in. With her experience, in managing large scale implementation projects, Katie has honed the art of crafting compelling narratives and driving organizational momentum. to ensure successful project outcomes. In today's episode of the Customer Success Playbook, we'll explore the critical steps to securing internal stakeholder buy in for major initiatives. This is so important. I'm looking forward to this. Katie's going to walk us through the process of understanding your audience, generating momentum within your team, crafting compelling messages, overcoming resistance, as well as celebrating success. We'll dive into actionable strategies that you can use to ensure your project has the support it needs to succeed. Katie, first off, welcome to the show.

Katie Clark: 1:57

Thanks so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Roman Trebon: 1:59

Yeah. So let's start with why is it so important to secure stakeholder buy in when you're, launching a critical project? That's, so important and vital for an organization.

Katie Clark: 2:14

I think, this is true, whether it's an internal project or in customer implementations, your key stakeholders are the decision makers at the end of the day. They're the ones who say yes or no, have final approval. They're the ones who can give you the resources that you need, whether it's like you need budget for new tools, you need bodies to, to make things happen. So if you're not able to get. buy in and support from these key stakeholders you're never going to see any momentum in your project and to get very hypothetical and emotional about it, your career will stagnate. It's hard to progress unless you're able to take big swings and show you can be a driving force to change and success at any growing organization.

Kevin Metzger: 2:51

So can you take us through the process of knowing your audience and explain why it's essential for securing buy in from the different types of stakeholders?

Katie Clark: 3:00

Yeah, absolutely. So I think you guys probably know this better than most people hosting a podcast, but people don't respond to things in the same way. everybody, Is driven by different kinds of motivation. if you're speaking to a diverse group of people, you need to understand not just what they want to hear, but what motivates them to truly care and want to invest in something. So generally I found in my experience, I've created three sort of buckets of stakeholders. founders, investors, and community. founders tend to have much more emotional or personal stakes in whatever organization you're working with. Investors are really driving that financial aspect of it. these community stakeholders are more like the people who are the voice of your customer. whether you're driving something really big internally, or, working with a client facing project you're going to have one of these three stakeholders or multiple of them that you need to kind of get. So understanding how to speak to somebody's emotional motivations, financial motivations, and, you know, voicing of the customer, that's the best way to make sure you are, being heard and really able to get, the support that you need.

Roman Trebon: 4:06

So, Katie, how do you, tactically go about this as you're kicking off a project with a client or maybe it's internal, I'm sure they don't come with name badges that say founder investor community, right? how do you go about kind of identifying? who they are who they may be and what's really important for them?

Katie Clark: 4:22

Yeah, the name tags would be really helpful. I'm gonna start pushing for that at every new project that we kick off. if we're talking externally a lot of these initial touch points come from the sales process. a part of these handoffs that we do internally is understanding Who are the people they've been speaking to before the project closes? What things got them really interested in the sales cycle? What things did they, you know, were they trepidatious about before signing and closing? That helps me and my team to understand, who it is that we're speaking to, what problems we need to navigate, and how we can make sure that they're seeing success within this project. I mean, you made a joke about name tags earlier, but honestly, job title does actually tell us a lot sometimes, especially internally, when you're navigating, a big project at your own growing organization you know, who the leaders are, who these people are at these different teams at these different levels you know, what sorts of projects they've been running internally or jobs they've worked before to get to where they are. And then honestly, a lot of it comes down to just having a conversation with somebody. If you can spend a few minutes chatting with them and, asking them some questions about what they really like about the job they're in or what things they're looking for in somebody they think is successful in the company that can tell you a lot about how to give your message successfully to somebody else.

Kevin Metzger: 5:36

So, Katie, when you said you were working with customers, where Are you are you onboarding professional services or in the CSM role? I have a follow up for that.

Katie Clark: 5:48

So my team right now is more in the professional services side of things. I run the implementation specialists who do a lot of the project coordination and management, the training navigating the, the complex structures that other people's organizations and supporting our deployments team who drive the technical integration of our product.

Kevin Metzger: 6:06

And so you were talking a little bit before about during the sales process, you're kind of defining what the project is going to look like and who the various whether they're the investors or what what what role they apply. As the transitions into your group, what do you already, what do you find, often about who's invested and who's the customer versus What you usually have to learn post sales process as you start to do your initial onboard.

Katie Clark: 6:34

So I think universally, or at least at any onboarding or implementation job that I've been in, we know who the signer of the contract is. We know who that initial stakeholder that gave the approval for the projects to move forward is. What we get to find out as we navigate the project itself is who's going to be doing all of the work. Who is responsible for rallying these internal project leaders to get them on board with, dedicating all these resources to helping us get this project up and running. So this can be internal project or communication managers team leaders for technical or engineering teams. we know who the overall person who says yes to everything is, and then they become very hands off often. it's navigating and understanding who we need to rally on their side internally to get this project off the ground.

Kevin Metzger: 7:19

And I'm assuming you'll start off with some kind of kickoff, right? Where do you start in that process?

Katie Clark: 7:26

So we start with a scope confirmation and a part of this is identifying the key stakeholders that we will be working with at this organization. we have a list of roles and responsibilities based on what's been confirmed in the project scope. So who's going to be responsible for like this aspect of the technical integration? Who has access to this specific part of your internal systems? hopefully somebody has the password to this because if not we're going to have a hard time I found that having that checklist of these are the things that we need, who internally at your side is capable of facilitating these.

Roman Trebon: 8:01

Yeah, and Katie, we're talking about why it's so important to get stakeholder buy in, what happens if you don't get buy in from all the stakeholders when you're kicking off these projects, either client facing or maybe it's an initiative internally.

Katie Clark: 8:14

So the biggest problem that you'll face both with client facing and internal projects is delays. The second that we have somebody who doesn't see the value in what you're proposing and what you're trying to do, they'll just delay it. Resources will be pulled to other projects, maybe funding will dry up for what it is that you're trying to do. And then you're just kind of sitting there and waiting. for customer projects, this is really bad because a lot of times that customer has already paid you. For your services or for this product. that's just a lot of wasted money that, my team is responsible for, internally, it can stagnate the growth of what you're trying to do, whether it's implementing a new process or tool for your teams not getting that buy in is, guaranteed stagnation, which is never a good thing.

Roman Trebon: 8:53

Yeah, and Katie, real quick, Kevin, follow up real quick. so what do you, let's say you start a project and you identify a stakeholder that's not bought in. Maybe it's, you know, I have other projects or this isn't at the top of my radar and it could lead to delays or increased costs or whatever it may be that that's going to throw the project off. So what, if, if, if someone, one of someone in our audiences is in the midst of that, right, or faces that, what recommendations would you have to address that stakeholder to help get them on board once they have priorities elsewhere.

Katie Clark: 9:25

So the first thing I always recommend is going to sound so simple. But it's just to ask them why, ask them what is it about this that isn't speaking to you? What other priorities do you have going on that are trumping this? What concerns do you have about this project? I think people sometimes forget to ask why very simply and explicitly, and it solves a lot of problems. Something else that we found to be helpful is rallying the people who initially gave you your support. this could mean for client facing projects, looping your sales team back in who sold them initially on this, getting that person who signed off to help you get support from these stakeholders who are now saying no, or creating blockers. Internally, that can mean gathering the people from other departments that you got behind this initiative to help reiterate why this is so important or why this needs to happen now. And then the third tactic that I always recommend is creating a sense of urgency. If people don't understand the need to move something forward, they'll often defer to just letting it, stagnate. So there's a lot of ways that you can create a sense of urgency. don't outright lie to people. Don't start setting physical fires to get things moving quickly. That's not what I'm recommending officially. But there are tactics that you can use to help people. understand that we do need to get things moving. And here's what will happen if we don't, or here's where we could have been initially. And here's the value you could have been seeing if we had just managed to move this ahead.

Kevin Metzger: 10:43

I'm assuming that, especially with client projects, you're trying to establish initial deadlines of when everything's got to be done. So, as you start moving down a process, what are the things that you're doing to keep people involved? And, as you have successes, how are you celebrating them to keep driving your success forward and getting continued buy in.

Katie Clark: 11:08

So I think you mentioned celebrating success there. I think it's very important. When any big initiative or project starts, one of the first things that we define are the milestones or the road map to success. A part of that is identifying what the success metrics are because it's going to differ from project to project, depending on what you're working on. I'm also a huge fan of over communication. I want there to be full transparency to my stakeholders to what's going on. seeing that timeline of small victories from start to end helps paint this bigger picture of a larger success. Another thing you can do is weekly project updates. You know, this is what's been done so far. This is what we're working on next. Here's where we need support. Just to keep those lines of communication open. Internally, a really great way to celebrate milestones is shouting out the people who participated in helping you achieve these different milestones and helping everybody feel like they are part of driving success in this initiative. as much as it's important to celebrate successes, it's also important to be transparent about things that aren't working or unforeseen circumstances that come up Something is inevitably going to go wrong. That's just the way that life goes. It's very chaotic, which is super fun for all of us but it shows that you can adapt and overcome resistance, which, helps to build trust with your stakeholders that they can rely on you to not only get through the easy, you know, celebrating successes, but to show that you can continue through adversity.

Roman Trebon: 12:28

Okay, you touched on this, but I was leading into going to ask you about communication. You already brought it up, I'm not shocked that this plays an important role as you continue to gain trust and buy in from stakeholders, What channels do you use for communication? Is it emails? You talked about the weekly calls. Do you use other channels? Curious how you keep everyone informed and up to speed on what's happening with the project.

Katie Clark: 12:52

Yeah so it's actually been really cool to see how communication styles have changed since COVID happened and everything moved to a remote first workplace. so much of communication is reliant on reading facial cues and making eye contact and then picking up on subtext that's become very difficult when you're looking at somebody through a screen. Or like we all do, staring at yourself and wondering if that's really what you look like when you say

Kevin Metzger: 13:12

certain things.

Katie Clark: 13:14

And so I think that there's had to be this global leveling up of written communication skills to make sure that people are actually conveying what they want to convey in the way that they want to convey it. that can be. A lot easier when you're celebrating good things. But when you're sharing bad news it can be really difficult to communicate and convey that in a way that creates a sense of urgency, but also doesn't, make people want to throw their laptops out a window and shut the project down completely. weekly. Status updates and emails are very important. I encourage my team to get on calls with our project leaders at least once a week to go through in that verbal way as well so that everybody can feel, connected on what's going on. If you have any kind of client facing project tool that can send automatic updates, that can be super useful and save you a lot of time. however you can communicate things, whether you're sending a slide deck together with like stats that are on it. I've honestly worked on a couple of projects where the project leaders, favorite thing was to get a gift that summarized the emotional feelings behind the project week after week. And that became challenging after a while. different communication styles work for different people. I think that's a part of identifying your stakeholders as well. to some people. Data speaks really loudly, and they don't care about, fluff and sentences. They want to see numbers. Some people, see numbers get a headache, and want a beginning, middle, end, lovely story put together. it really depends on who your audience is, and what it is you're trying to communicate to them.

Roman Trebon: 14:36

I can already tell that at some point this week, I will spend way too much time looking at GIFs on like, how do I celebrate each milestone in a meme or a GIF. I just, I can already see it happening. And you mentioned seeing people on camera nowadays, which seems to be so big. for our team, being on camera is so important, but you have clients that still sometimes lose. it's tough when you can't see someone you can't read their expressions. It becomes quite challenging.

Kevin Metzger: 15:04

I was thinking about the types of communication I've had conversations with my teams about making sure when you're communicating. If you are consistent in how you communicate and you communicate in a regular cadence, then you're never sharing news that's unknown. if you never share news that's unknown, then you're never running into a major problem, you're addressing issues before they become big issues. So if you've got the weekly status updates as soon as something starts going off to the side, make sure you're. proactive about sharing it. One of the things when Roman and I started this I shared with him was bad news never gets better with age. Still holds

Roman Trebon: 15:55

I've not found that to be any different since you first mentioned it to me.

Kevin Metzger: 15:59

Yeah. And I learned that at a company I worked at several years ago, once I heard that It just makes so much sense. as you start sharing bad news early, it turns out it's not so bad. A lot of the times it's it's only when you hold on to it and try and, you know, try and fix things thinking that maybe you've got something a way of resolving an issue that it becomes a problem. It's much better because it drives by, and I think that's, that's a lot of what I'm hearing you say is you're looking for processes and ways to drive buy in throughout the process. buy in isn't a one time thing. is that correct?

Katie Clark: 16:36

When I first started, thinking about this process of getting buy in, I talked to a lot of internal VPs C suites and other leaders to figure out, okay, how, like, When someone's trying to get you to do something. What works, what doesn't work. And the number one piece of feedback I got back was you know, when they lose trust in somebody somebody can come in big with a lot of promises. And then as soon as something starts to derail, they lose all faith in that person and all faith in that project. I love that bad news doesn't get better with age. I'm probably going to steal that and just start telling that to my team. So thank you for that.

Roman Trebon: 17:07

Yeah, no royalties. that's Katie coming on the show. You get that royalty free. You can use that all the time I'm curious to talk about communication and crafting messages. As you work with your team, does AI play a role in this? where does AI play a role with your teams? And is there a line there? I'm curious where you fall on this.

Katie Clark: 17:27

I have a lot of personal feelings about AI. full transparency, I have a theater background. I went to school for performing. I was a performer for a very long time. I have a lot of friends who are writers authors and playwrights. the artist part of my brain that still has a foot in that world hates AI because of how it's being used in that industry. But think that AI does have a place in helping people to improve their communication skills, as long as it's used as a support mechanism and not as a replacement. having to interview people for spots on my team, it is very, very obvious when somebody puts forth the most beautifully written cover letter that you've ever seen. And it's eloquent and paints a beautiful picture, and then they struggle to form a sentence together when they're speaking to you. I understand why people would fall to that. But I think that you're doing yourself a disservice by putting all of your tools in the AI basket. So I think it can be used. Absolutely. If you're trying to write an email, delivering bad news, let's say, and you're not sure how to write it. AI things can help you to, Better understand how to form that sentence or how to structure this paragraph in a way that seems less aggressive or alarmist. But yeah, I personally, don't think that anything should be ripped and replaced with AI, but it can be a good support tool for helping you to level up your own communication skills.

Roman Trebon: 18:49

No, I agree. You lose the genuine voice when you just completely outsource it to AI, but it can be a great tool. All right, Kev, are we ready to go to the hard hitting questions or you have more for Katie here on buy in?

Kevin Metzger: 19:02

No, I think we're good on buy in. I will say I am working with my kids and actually some other folks on how you develop your own voice with AI. All right. So because I think it's a great tool for helping you learn how to better express yourself if you're using it that way, as opposed to using it as a as, as a supplement. In other words, if you outsource to it. It's a supplement. You're not really getting anything, but if you're really trying to think through how to build a voice and communicate topics, you can actually use AI to really develop it out further. So I do think there's both sides to that I knew that would get a response

Roman Trebon: 19:41

cam from you. I knew the AI conversation get a response. I knew it. I knew it. All right. All right, Katie. Are you ready for the rapid fire section?

Katie Clark: 19:49

All right, hit me. I'm ready. Let's go.

Roman Trebon: 19:52

Early bird or night owl?

Katie Clark: 19:54

The morning time is terrible, and I am not alive until about 11 a. m. most days.

Roman Trebon: 19:58

I'm glad we scheduled this recording in the afternoon

Kevin Metzger: 20:01

What's a favorite book you've read recently?

Katie Clark: 20:04

Oh my gosh one of the best books that I've read recently was Goldfinch. I reread that one not too long ago. And then I have to plug A Court of Thorns and Roses. I know that it's all the rage right now, but I love it. There's a huge fan club at work. Can't recommend it enough. Awesome.

Roman Trebon: 20:21

You are in Hamilton, Ontario, right? So if Kevin and I are going to visit, what's the one place we have to see and where are we eating?

Katie Clark: 20:31

Okay, the one place you have to see I think is Gage Park. It's the biggest park in Hamilton. It's absolutely beautiful Lots of really cool trees or the arboretum if you like trees like I do super cool for breakfast you're going to motel. It is the best breakfast I've ever had in my whole life And for dinner, you're going to go to the electric diner because they have the most fun milkshakes and everything's 80s themed. It's super cool.

Kevin Metzger: 20:55

Do you have a favorite sports team up in Ontario?

Katie Clark: 20:58

I know of sports. I've seen them a couple times. Honestly, I'm super into Formula One right now, and I have in the last couple of years. That's like the only sport that I watch consistently. Otherwise, I think I knew who a baseball player was about 10 years ago, and that's it.

Roman Trebon: 21:16

I just started watching F1 this year because my son got into it. It's really amazing. I couldn't believe how big it is. It's huge. If you could travel anywhere, that you've never been.

Katie Clark: 21:27

I'm going to Peru. went years ago, can't stop talking about mountains cool culture

Roman Trebon: 21:37

That's awesome. Is that Manchu Pichu, right? I'm probably butchering that.

Kevin Metzger: 21:41

friends that went there this summer and some of the pictures were absolutely unbelievable. The Rainbow Mountains it's just unreal.

Katie Clark: 21:49

Yeah, it seems amazing. And compared to other places that I've been, it's a very different environment from other places that I've seen. So I'd like to be exposed to that part of the globe a little bit. Awesome.

Roman Trebon: 21:59

Katie, where can our audience find more about you? Where can they Check you out. Is it LinkedIn?

Katie Clark: 22:03

Yeah, you can find me on LinkedIn. I think that's one of the only social media things I have up to date right now. Everything else is just full of pictures of my cats, which no one wants to see or cares about. But yeah, you can find me on LinkedIn for sure.

Roman Trebon: 22:14

Find Katie on LinkedIn if you want to find her cat's direct message or maybe she can, you can get you some access to that as well. Katie, thanks so much for being on the show. It was a great conversation. Really appreciate you coming on and sharing with our audience how you get internal buy in or stakeholder buy ins. It is an important topic that we haven't talked about in the show before, Kev, so I'm glad we had a chance to do it. So our audience, as always, thanks for listening. Don't forget, subscribe, like, share it. Tell your friends and family about it and let us know which guests and topics you'd like to have have us have on our show upcoming. As always, thanks for listening and keep on playing.