Back to the Basics of Customer Experience with Sultana Mangal

Curt Anderson  00:00

Hey, good morning. Good afternoon. Hello happy Monday Damon How are you my friend?

Damon Pistulka  00:05

I’m doing great Curt and ready to go.

Curt Anderson  00:08

Let’s rock and roll. How was your weekend?

Damon Pistulka  00:10

It was great. Weather got outside. Just tons of fun.

Curt Anderson  00:15

Tis the season tis the season man. This is Damon. Are you sit down for this one?

Damon Pistulka  00:22

I am.

Curt Anderson  00:23

It looks like you are okay. I have been thrilled and excited for this one for a long, long, long time actually like it goes back years dude, I guess he doesn’t even realize that I talked to her her fearless leader Joe solvent about Sultana like a couple years ago, we finally convinced her to join us Sultana Mangal Good morning and your world. Happy Monday. How are you?

Sultana Mangal  00:43

I’m doing well. It’s so good to be here. How are you on?

Curt Anderson  00:47

Well, we are just beyond thrilled. There is a ton to unpack here today. And we’re just so excited. And it’s truly an honor to have you here. Damon I have the honor and privilege I we got poor Sultana she got stuck with me at the industrial marketing Summit. We had a wonderful little chat. And so you know what, like when those things you meet somebody for the first time, and then you’re like, Hey, by the way, I have this little live show, would you be a guest and so she really didn’t have a choice. Right. So I’ll tell you how that work. No,

Sultana Mangal  01:13

no, I I’m so glad that we met at the conference. Officially we like talked on LinkedIn and stuff. I think the first thing I said she was like, Are you sure you want me to be on your show? I’m more like behind the scenes and you can meet me over time.

Curt Anderson  01:28

I work I worked on poor thing you know. So that’s how that’s how we roll. So we have a ton to discuss here. You’re the client success extraordinaire, at gorilla somebody six our dear friends we’ve had you know, Joe has been on multiple times. We just love what you guys are doing with Gorilla 76. But before we dive into all your superpowers today, I’m gonna go back in time for a little bit. I would love to curious minds would love to know Sultana Who was your hero? As a little girl growing up when you were a little girl growing up? Who was your hero?

Sultana Mangal  02:04

Yeah, I don’t know if this is probably the answer a lot of people gave it’s probably like one of your like parents. So my mom is like, truly, I like both of my parents. It’s hard to choose. But I’m choosing my mom. I think. Don’t tell my dad that but my parents are immigrants from Afghanistan. And like everything that they’ve done to just move here and set up their own business and like guide me through life is the most inspiring thing ever. Like I owe everything to my parents. But my mom was like my best friend. She’s definitely she definitely my hero. Well,

Curt Anderson  02:37

gosh, just warmed our heart on this Monday. In what’s mom’s name, please? Her name? Cyta CIDA. All right, well, hey, big shout out lots of love the site. So tell her that we’re giving her maybe her ears are ringing right now is we’re singing her praises. And just wonderful story. So they Kate, what year did they come to United States?

Sultana Mangal  02:56

Um, so my dad came in 1980. And then my mom came in at four

Curt Anderson  03:00

lice. Awesome. That is awesome. And I tell you, they’ve raised such a wonderful leader, we’re going to dive into a bunch of things that that you have going on? Very impressive what you’ve accomplished in your young career. Let’s go here. So you go off to college. And now as I understand you became an intern with our friends at grill 76. Do I have that correct?

Sultana Mangal  03:22

Yeah, so I actually my internship at gorilla actually happened after college, I, I feel like I went to school and I graduated. And I still didn’t know entirely what I wanted to do. I worked at Lululemon actually, like on the field floor, like in a store. And that was like my first experience with an organization that actually had a really smart strategy around how they work with their customers, like I’ve worked in retail before. But that was the first place where I had worked, where they had buyer personas, they had like a strategy around how you interact with your clients from the language that you use with customers, or clients, or whatever we call them then. And so I learned a lot of customer success and experience from them. That was like my first introduction. And then I ended up getting an intern at gorilla. I was like a strategy intern, which wasn’t even really necessarily related to the role that I’m in right now. But eventually, an account coordinator position opened up at gorilla. I worked in that role for a couple of years, then into an account executive, and then into the role that I’m in right now. So it’s been a fun journey. Well,

Curt Anderson  04:32

that’s phenomenal. And we’re gonna take we’re gonna take a little detour. I’m dying to hear about Lululemon. So I’m a, you know, for if you’re a branding guru, which I absolutely I don’t, I’m not. But Lululemon has really an extraordinary track record. I read. I read the biography recently of the action was Autobiography of the founder of Lululemon. How He built that company from scratch is truly completely fascinating. Daymond we always use that line, how do you teach the competition? How do you teach a competition? So what I read was when he started the company, he didn’t hire salespeople, he hired educators, he caught up all those folks, were educators and every person that he was hiring professionals, people with law degrees, people with finance degrees, and like putting them on the floor, to not sell, but to educate. Can you just share a little bit? Does that resonate? Or how was your experience there? Yeah,

Sultana Mangal  05:32

that was my exact title, too. I was an educator. And so I remember like, that’s like a really hard thing to do to like, have consistent client and customer experience. And for it to trickle down from leadership to the role that I was in, it’s pretty incredible. I think that just speaks to them as a company. But I remember like the intense training that we received, it was like weeks of training before we’ve been on the floor, you get familiar with our buyer personas. And this was like, you know, over eight years ago, I don’t know if they do the same thing. I remember, the buyer personas were Duke and ocean, those were their names and, and they made X amount. And they were wherever in their careers. And we knew all of those details. And I knew like when I was talking to a customer like I couldn’t describe, and it wasn’t supposed to describe a pair of leggings. That’s cute, because ocean wouldn’t describe her leggings as cute, like, there were specific words that we would use. And so details like that. And even with how the store is organized, like when you walk into a Lululemon, again, this is eight years ago, when I worked there, you have the director of first impression, a dopey, and it’s the very first person that you’re greeted by at the door, and that person is going to make an impact on you as a customer, because it’s like the very first touch point. And then from there, working to the back of the store, every single person is placed in a very specific part of the store to make sure that they’re engaging with that customer as their work as they’re walking throughout. And other things like if a customer touches a piece of fabric for five seconds, or longer, if they touch three different items, you are supposed to walk up to them and be like, hey, like, how do you like to work out? You know, what are you looking for, and start to engage them? So I’m kind of just talking about the details there. But I hope that kind of gives a picture of how much like strategies even involved in you know, selling leggings?

Curt Anderson  07:25

Oh, I hate to say it, I could geek out like for an hour. David, like, what’s your what’s your thoughts?

Damon Pistulka  07:32

Well, yeah, I mean, you talked about the strategic positioning and people from the front to the back of the store, you talk about the attention of detail, like someone is touching the fabric, this time to go talk to you all, I mean, all these things, the little things add up to be mountainous differences between people that just do a little sales training and throw people out there, rather than the intentionally understanding the customer. Really understanding what their actions in the store mean, and how you can enhance their experience. And not not in does love what you’re saying it’s not because we’re going to try to sell harder is because we’re going to educate them and enhance their experience. And then if they like it, they’ll buy. And yes, so cool. Yeah.

Sultana Mangal  08:19

And I think it’s also a lot of Lululemon strategies, also tied to the types of people that they were hiring, right, the culture that they have the people that come into the store, like it was, it’s hard, it can be very difficult to get a job there, you go through like three to four rounds of interviews, you spend time with their team, and they’re very particular about the types of people that they bring on to. Yeah,

Curt Anderson  08:44

man. All right. Thank you for sharing that and saying we might have to geek out further and that but But feel free to incorporate that because what I feel this laid a great foundation for you on how you brought your talents, your skill, your passion, to grill a 76, which is the world of as we’ve been talking offline, you know, b2b, industrial and manufacturing, right? So you know, you could have taken your talents to multiple, you know, if you wanted to pursue marketing, or customer success, as you are, you know, you could have gotten into health care retail, you could have pursued a career, you know, Lululemon or whatever, what attracted you to girls 76 and being into the manufacturing space?

Sultana Mangal  09:25

Sure, I get that question all the time that people are sometimes surprised when I tell them that I’m like in the manufacturing space, but it really makes sense. Because early on, when I was looking for different roles, I was looking for things that just aligned with my morals and values. That was very important to me. And I didn’t want to work at a marketing agency that you know, promoted alcohol or certain things. And so I kind of just went down a list of agencies in St. Louis to see what other options are out there. And then I came across the gorilla and I didn’t I wasn’t really familiar with many Factoring I was like 2423 24 years old, you know, discovering it. And the more I learned about it, the more I just love the industry. Like I love the people who are in this industry, I love the story, the family businesses that are there, it just has resonated with me so much over the years. And there are things in the world that I just didn’t notice before until being in manufacturing like things I just never thought of that new idea even existed. And so I feel like I’m constantly learning and like the growth and learning, it’s never ending with manufacturing. Yeah,

Curt Anderson  10:35

that’s fantastic. Just like even looking over your shoulder or just everything, you know, in the room, like everything was manufactured, right? So you don’t realize and now, probably, you know, all the wonderful companies that you guys work with Gorilla 76, you know, you can drive by or, you know, like, Hey, I’ve worked with this client that made that product, or I know how this is made now, or who knew how that was? Like getting underneath the hood and discovering a lot of different things is that been kind of a fun process for you over the years, it’s

Sultana Mangal  11:01

been really fun. Like one of my favorite things to do is to be able to go out on site and actually be on a manual manufacturing floor. You know, I work from home, I’m, I’m working behind the computer. And so being able to just like get on the shop floor is really cool. meeting all the people who are working there, and just kind of seeing how it all comes together. Right?

Curt Anderson  11:20

Well, I love it. And I think we’re gonna dive into talking about client customer success and that whole process. And again, like with your with your experience at Lululemon that vast training at every touchpoint it’s really not about the product. It’s not about Lululemon itself, it’s really about customer behavior, right? And just understanding your customer and just you know, in I have a teenage daughter and so I you know, like half of my Lululemon is everywhere in my house. I totally get it. And I just really admire when you look at a company started completely from scratch, and turn into a publicly traded multi gazillion dollar company. And it was really based on just their fierce, relentless drive of satisfying that client success. Would you do agree with that comment? Yeah,

Sultana Mangal  12:09

I do agree. And I think that there’s so much that b2b companies can learn from b2c, I think there’s a lot that can be adopted there, like in our personal lives, like we’re consuming, we’re purchasing products and everything. And so we’re interacting with these clients. And I always say that expectations for people in the b2b space are going to be what they’re experiencing with those b2c companies, at least like, for me personally, it’s like if I have a really great experience with whatever shipping was really fast, or they throw it like a handwritten note or whatever, like those are things I now expect in any type of interaction where I’m making a purchase. And so it’s like, how do you carry those things over into the b2b space? What does that look like for you? It’s going to be different, obviously. But there are definitely like learnings that can be carried over.

Curt Anderson  12:54

Yeah. And so let’s dive in there. And so Hey, happy Monday to everybody out there. Give us a big hello. Please connect with Sultana on LinkedIn, you’re absent. She’s just a powerhouse, just a dynamo. We’ve got ally here today, David, let’s music they’re going to pull up there it is. We’ve got Dana in here today. Dana says hi. Hi, it’s Dana from dz events in Boston. So Happy Monday. Good morning to everybody. Good afternoon, wherever you’re at, drop us a note, give us a comment. If you have any questions, we have a customer client success guru in the house here today. So we’d welcome you to pop in. So 10. And let’s dive in a little bit further. So we’re, you know, like, you know, for small manufacturers, it’s like, hey, we have a handful of customers, or, you know, we just don’t have the bandwidth or the you know, it’s really just, you know, treating that customer with just over the top, walk us through some of the processes, some of the tips, advice that you’d like to have, that you’d like to offer as far as for small manufacturers with clients success.

Sultana Mangal  13:50

Yeah, and I think we wanted to get into this too. Like, I think doing the customer journey mapping is really important, because that helps you identify what all of those touch points are, and helps you understand what your overall goal is with your clients. I know in like manufacturing companies, you’re not necessarily going to have customer success representative, it might be a mix rule, right? You might have someone who was speaking to customers, and they’re also doing something else too. Right. Their sole focus may not be that customer success touchpoint or that customer experience type of role. But if we want to get into maybe the customer journey mapping, I’m happy to kind of talk

Curt Anderson  14:28

yeah, and as you go there, you know, the big again, I love that we’re tying into Lululemon with manufacturing, because Damon, this is a line that you you know, we hear b2b, we hear b2c But you love that line. H two H right. Yeah. So for anybody that’s new to anybody, what’s age, age are you doing to human human to human right. So, you know, just dive into that human human. And so Tina, you also mentioned that buyer persona, like you had Duke in ocean, right. And so a lot of times a lot of small, you know, as entrepreneurs you know, It’s that little bit of that I call that entrepreneurial curse. We try to be a little bit of everything to everybody. I love what you guys did what you did at Lululemon like you had you really niche it down until a couple buyer personas. So let’s if you know, wherever whatever direction you want to go here, dive in into how important that buyer persona is. And let’s go through that buyers journey if we could.

Sultana Mangal  15:19

Yeah, I think that’s going to be one of the most important places like when I’m talking about customer journey mapping, like it’s basically a visual representation of your customers experience from beginning to end or if it’s ongoing. And you know, traditional journey mapping is going to have you go through stages like have like awareness and consideration, decisions, retention, and loyalty, all of that. But your starting place should be looking at like, what are you trying to achieve with your customers, and starting with your buyer personas, or your ideal customer profile, that should be the Northstar that guides you to what those interactions look like, how people feel, and each of those stages, and what should be happening within your team internally at each of those stages. And so when I’m talking about like ideal customer profiles, for example, it’s like look at your firmographic characteristics, like what’s their industry? Where are they located? What’s their annual revenue? Think about the budget that they have, you know, what’s the mindset of all the key decision makers? What is their product or service offering? What’s their tech stack look like? Like really understand what those are and start to develop those. You could create these journey maps based on every buyer persona, if they vary a lot. I always say it just depends on your organization. And don’t overcomplicate it, right? Like you could. This isn’t to say, to have like dozens and dozens of journey map like a gorilla I have with just one that works for us that helps guide those touch points. But just start with your buyer personas, your ideal customer profile, and that will help guide everything that follows.

Curt Anderson  16:54

How how do you help? What do you say to a client? What manufacturer? You know, whoever it might be, if they if you don’t know? Do you ever get any pushback and resistance? Like, ah, it’s hard for us to narrow down because we sell to so many, you know, in like you said if Lululemon can, you know, narrowed down to two, you know, I think this as small entrepreneurs, small manufacturers, we certainly could do you have any advice of like, how can we help a client, like understand how important like trying to try not to speak to everybody? Does that make sense? Does that? Was there a question in there somewhere?

Sultana Mangal  17:25

Yeah, I think it my answer is almost like a very to the question of it may vary for them to re like, I think if you can narrow down to one to two specific people that you’re trying to target. I think that’s great when you’re creating these profiles for your journey map, but I understand and I hear that I feel like all the time, but it’s like, oh, well, like, you know, what about this, like, third or fourth person? And that’s okay. But I think like, we always you’ve mentioned this to you like, the more that you can niche down, like the easier to get there. But yeah, I think like just trying to narrow in on those key decision makers, like the handful that you have first.

Curt Anderson  18:02

Yeah, if you don’t mind, I’d like to let’s hit that for a minute. So again, you know, say there’s a manufacturer out there listening to this are like, okay, that I agree, I’ll play along with you, you know, so, you know, purchasing typically somebody in purchasing what what does that person look like in purchasing? Are you targeting a government agency, because that’s a significantly different than, say, a 30 person, manufacturer, because like, if it’s a 30 person, you know, shop, you know, the owner might be or probably is involved, or the person that’s doing purchasing is probably also doing hrs are also doing marketing, and five other tasks, versus maybe somebody in government, you know, maybe that’s all they’re doing, then the same regard, you know, maybe you’re targeting engineering, Ernie or engineering AUSA. So, you know, you had Duke and ocean. Do you have any examples? Or can we dive in a little deeper on like, you know, say the clients you’ve worked with, like, how do you help, like, identify that engineer? Or how do we identify somebody in purchasing? Could we go there from it? Yeah.

Sultana Mangal  18:56

And I think it looks a little bit like different for gorilla too, because I think like when I’m doing this journey mapping, it’s more for like, for your clients. Yeah. Yeah, are more for just like Gorilla when I’m creating like this process for everything. But if I were to speak to our manufacturing clients about like, what it’s like to build this out, I would just tell them, like focus on these first. And then if there are additional personas that come up, like we can revisit those later, but like focus on the key decision makers right now, and just start from there. Yep.

Curt Anderson  19:25

Perfect. That’s phenomenal. Advice. Yeah. So let’s, let’s dive into the the buyer mapping process, the buyers journey. Let’s take walk us through that those steps.

Sultana Mangal  19:34

Yeah, so I talked about the ideal customer profile, kind of being like the Northstar of where you started. So I don’t have this pulled up, but I can kind of speak to what I have it for gorilla like on the left hand side, I have that ideal customer profile because I want us to always be looking at that when we’re talking about her journey map. And then once we get into the actual journey map I have that divided out by the different like state edges that a client might go through. So if they’re in the sales process, for example, I want to know, how is the client feeling at that stage? Like, have they heard about gorilla? Are they a little bit nervous? Or they unsure? Are they excited? I want to understand what those touch points are to like, do we have specific calls that are scheduled? What’s the goal for that prospect at that time? And kind of going through that for every stage? So once that follows, maybe there’s another stage of, you know, discovery in alignment, where we’re understanding our clients, businesses even further, like, what are those touch points, how is the client feeling, and that’s kind of just repeated through every stage of the claim goes through, it’s important to understand all of that, because they’re going to feel different in every stage, right? Like early on, they’re gonna have, they’re gonna be excited to get started, they’re gonna like, kind of know how our process works, but not entirely, once we get into a flow working with our clients, they have a better understanding of what our process is like. And like, they continue to get integrated, and all of that, and it’s so important that we’re supporting all of those changes, because these aren’t small purchases that our clients are making. These are, these are pretty big investments that they’re making throughout. And so we just want to make sure that we’re paying attention to all of those stages.

Curt Anderson  21:14

Well, I love that in our relationship with Joe, you know, been on the show a number of times, and again, like, you know, meaning meeting you in person at the industrial marketing Summit. It’s, you know, it’s really, my understanding or my perception of grill is somebody says you’re creating a partnership, right? And so if you’re dealing with different sized companies, do you have like, does that? Does that journey map change with different customers? Or, like, walk us through that? Like, are there? Like, how do you pivot? Or how do you not manipulate? It’s definitely not the word, how do you massage it to kind of fit the that customers? That makes sense? Yeah,

Sultana Mangal  21:47

I would say like, if you, I think if you’re like aiming for like a 80% match on your ideal customer profile, you’re gonna be in a pretty good place, right? Like, you’re gonna have customers who may not fit that perfectly. And that’s okay, I actually think it’s gonna be pretty rare where someone fits every single bit of that criteria. And so being flexible is really important. And I think that flexibility just comes in terms of like, how we’re delivering our services. You know, we’re crafting messages for our clients, we’re, you know, launching content programs, or we’re talking, we’re helping them write content or creating video, or like launching live theories for them, we’re helping them with their websites, we’re doing all these different things. And I think the adjustments that help in that customer journey or client journey, then comes in terms of how we’re delivering it, right? It’s like we’re listening to the client, maybe their specific goals that they have internally, or timelines that they’re driven by understanding that kind of adjusting that. So we’re making sure that all of that is moving along. Excellent.

Curt Anderson  22:49

Okay. So let’s go here. So you’re working closely with your internal team. Correct? And so and then working? And then how much? Are you customer facing the entire time? Or like the net early stage? Or because we’re gonna dive into getting like that client success? Feedback, right, I’m gonna we’re gonna dive into that a little bit. What’s kind of like, describe your role working with your team, and then how you’re working with the client? Sure.

Sultana Mangal  23:11

Yeah. My role I used to be much more client facing I manage fewer clients now. But my team that I manage is the main point of contact for our clients right now. And so we’re all customer facing my role right now is like to guide my entire department to help them with the client experience and to make sure that our clients are seeing results, too. That’s the most important thing. And I’m sorry, I blanked on the second part of your question.

Curt Anderson  23:39

Well, you know what? So I’m going to take I’m calling an audible right in the middle of that question. You know, I had the honor privilege of meeting a vast number of your team. How about we take a moment, let’s give a shout out to you know, we’ve mentioned Joe, founder, co founder, John, how about a shout out any other shoutouts that we want to give to your teammates, just the amazing, incredible team at gorilla 76. We encourage everybody out there, google or Go to grill as somebody six, they have a wealth of information for manufacturers. But how about a little shout out to some of your teammates? Yeah,

Sultana Mangal  24:09

I’ll shut up my department. My clients expect team, any DM and Alyssa they are just wonderful. I truly don’t even know what our department would be without them. They’re just they’re rock stars.

Curt Anderson  24:21

Yeah. And if I caught a wonderful case study that your team put on at the industrial marketing Summit, and it was it was a big LinkedIn, LinkedIn ads, and they did a step by step Damon, it was so impressive of how you guys come in, walk through the process. It was it’s very impressive. In fact, we need to have those guys on the show. I’d love to do that case study on the show. We don’t I don’t I don’t have much experience with LinkedIn ads. It was just fascinating to see how you come in and tackle it. So when an industrial client comes to you, they have different needs, different expectations, that type of thing on your client success side, like walk us through like like the Case Study I was at Annie, I think was Annie that did the case study at the industrial marketing summit from

Sultana Mangal  25:04

Grace and Aaron. Yeah.

Curt Anderson  25:07

Right. Yeah. It was great. What, like walk us through like a case study like that, like, how does that how does that work? And how do we get that to that client success level? Yeah.

Sultana Mangal  25:16

So I think like client successes role in that it’s going to be like listening throughout. Like, I think that’s a really important part of like listening to what’s important to the client, like what, from the very beginning, like we all have to be aligned in terms of the goals that we have for our client. The client success team right now has specific touchpoints with the client, where they should be asking those questions on an ongoing basis. We talked about like feedback, a lot to write, like getting feedback from the team. But for that case, study that win share, believe it’s like a paid social one, like there are a lot of different team members who are involved in client successes role for that is going to, in that specific example, their role was like moving all of that long, right, some of like, client facing project manager for the client success person who was working on that. And so like, the touch points are there to keep all of like the projects and everything moving along to but again, it’s just like listening to what their goals are understanding them a little bit better, and making sure that our clients are seeing results.

Curt Anderson  26:17

Yeah. And it’s and what I loved and admired how they broke it down, went into timelines, expectations, communication with the customer, what this looks like when this is going to happen. And then when the party started, when they got everything set up, you know, these were the results. And Damon, you would have loved it. It was absolutely fascinating watching the the concept. And so let’s go here, Sultana when customer either, you know, you exceed expectations, meet expectations, or maybe, you know, not quite hitting expectations. How do you how do you kind of handle each one of those three scenarios? Yeah,

Sultana Mangal  26:50

I always tell my team that a happy like, just because also someone might not be providing as much feedback or a little bit quieter doesn’t mean that they’re happy with results, or they could love working with Gorilla. But at the end of the day, like our role is to make sure that our clients are seeing ROI. And so each of those conversations are going to look a little bit different. But it’s really important, again, to just be listening for that and understanding like what’s important to each client. I always kind of go back to that, because that’s like the that’s like the core part of that role.

Curt Anderson  27:21

Yeah. And hey, we’ve got a comment here from Dale, I want to pull up here. So yeah, real 76 bi weekly industrial marketing, live Zoom is awesome. Usually 50 to 80 Industrial marketers bringing excellent insights. Sultana, do you want to just chime in on piggyback on Dale’s comment there? Do you want to share a little bit on your resume? Your bi weekly zooms? Sure. Yeah,

Sultana Mangal  27:40

I do. It’s good to see you. He’s always active on IML. Um, yeah, industrial marketing live, I love the format, it was kind of talking about industrial marketing summit earlier on here, I’m just kind of talking about how it just feels like old friends kind of coming together. But industrial marketing live, I really like because I think you think as an, as a marketer at a manufacturing company, you probably sometimes feel like you’re alone, or you’re leading the charge. And it’s just you and you have this community of people who also feel that exact same way or very similar conditions as you and so I think, I think I imagine that people leave that call feeling a little bit relieved that there are other people who are going through the same experiences as them, and just being able to brainstorm and have good dialogue to.

Curt Anderson  28:28

Yeah, I love that. And I want to slide into I admire what you’ve done your act of community builder, and you’re big on leadership. So a couple of things I want to point out that you’ve done, you’re the founder of the Customer Success leader, can you share a little bit about this program that you’ve that you’ve founded? Sure,

Sultana Mangal  28:47

I just officially got it started earlier this year. But it’s basically a community for people who work in client success roles, account manager roles, you know, Client Support Specialists, specialists. And it’s a way for people to come together and learn from one another. So right now, I have a small group of people who meet monthly over zoom, it’s a different format than IML. It’s a little bit more like interview over just, you know, having discussions and learning from one another. And then I also have a monthly in person meetup actually at St. Louis, for people who are at the director level, to just be able to engage and I was I wanted to be in person because I kind of missed some of the in person, nature of connecting with people. And so that’s available. We have a Slack group too. Once I get better at doing, you know, in person speaking and stuff I do plan on doing like a podcast eventually. So hopefully this experience today helps with that. Well,

Curt Anderson  29:44

absolutely. Well, I you are doing phenomenal. Now. You’re also on your LinkedIn profile. You’re also alumni of the African American community. So just share a little bit of what’s going on there.

Sultana Mangal  29:56

Yeah, my community is such an important part of who Who I am, it’s important for me to be able to give back. So over the years, I’ve been involved in a couple of different organizations, African American community organization, is North America’s largest community for African who were born in the US attended a conference several years back. And I just felt like it made a really big impact on my life. And I think from that point on, I was just kind of reminded of how important it is for me to stay connected to my community and my parents roots. And, and so a lot of that has kind of inspired my involvement over the years.

Curt Anderson  30:34

I absolutely love it. And I think, you know, tying this in with what you guys are doing that Gorilla 76, and then what you’ve done personally, with the leadership program that you’ve founded, and just, you know, build it, like, how important is it for community?

Sultana Mangal  30:47

It’s the most important thing, like I always talk about this. And I think the reason I say that is because I kind of grew up in a like dual culture, right? Like, I grew up in American culture, but also at home, I had my African culture, American culture is very, like independent, and I love it, and it’s driven and like, you succeed, and my Afghan culture is like, we succeed together. And so I think, just to humans, it’s really important to have a community. And I think, especially during the pandemic, I feel like we all learned how important that was. And so that’s part of why the customer success leader is so important for me in building that community. Yeah, well,

Curt Anderson  31:25

I love it. And now you guys, I’ve talked to Joe Reese, I think last month or in the past couple of months, you just launched a brand new community, for manufacturers or for marketers, can you the collective, can we share, just share what’s going on there? Yeah,

Sultana Mangal  31:38

so the industrial marketing collective launched pretty recently. It’s essentially like a learning collective for people who work who are marketers in manufacturing. And so there’s like a free version where, you know, you get access to IML, and slack and you get access to this community. And then the paid version has On Demand training, and weekly, these weekly meetings where you can ask questions live. And so it’s just again, another way for people to just come together? Well,

Curt Anderson  32:11

I think it’s phenomenal how, you know, the entire team had 70s, Gorilla 76, between the industrial marketing Summit, what you’re doing online for virtual communities, and like you said, you know, so many marketers, you feel alone, you’re in a silo, you know, just kind of doing your own thing. You’re bringing an opportunity for folks to collaborate. You know, iron sharpens iron, rising tide lifts all ships, and I just cannot express my respect, admiration for what you guys are doing to just really spearhead this community. Damon, your thoughts, your takeaways, what do you Yeah, I

Damon Pistulka  32:42

soak in a lot in here, because, you know, you think about what you’re doing there at Gorilla 76. And then what you’re doing on your own to is, with your, with the communities that you’re building, but just the community aspect, the sharing of knowledge, the sharing of, of just, you know, challenges that marketers are seeing in the industrial space is, is helping everyone so much. I mean, it can because we are a lot of people are kind of by their themselves in a lot of respects. And there is so much. So there are so many resources available, and it’s cool to see you guys spreading it around and, and shedding the light on for people.

Curt Anderson  33:26

Yeah, I think it’s fantastic. So So Tim, what I want to do so anybody out there, please connect with salt. Yeah, LinkedIn, go to grill 76. So Tina, what I’d love to do is I want to come back to the client success process. Now, do you have any, we talked before about like, you know, having a system and having a process to get that feedback? I can? I’ll be the first admit I’m probably you know, I’m not the best, like, how do you get that feedback from a client? Like, how did we do? Can you just share a little bit for like, how you do it grill, some research? And maybe what are some systems or some processes as small entrepreneurs that we could apply or for our friends in manufacturing? Sure,

Sultana Mangal  34:01

yeah, I always say any type of feedback that you’re getting, you should be getting it on almost any touchpoint that you have with the client. So if it’s our consulting calls with our clients, or our client success, touch points, we should be getting that feedback on an ongoing basis. I never want us to wait for you know, a survey to go out like we should have a good pulse of that as a client success person. And so like that should always be the first thing that you default to. And then to supplement that I always encourage people to have some sort of way to solicit feedback on an ongoing basis. So we use ask nicely at gorilla just for us for our clients. And I send out a quarterly NPS survey. It’s a net promoter survey where we’re essentially asking our clients like hey, would you recommend gorilla to a friend and that’s like the ultimate indicator of whether or not like we’re doing a good job of, of our what we’re doing and so that surveys sent out and then with that journey map that I noted too, I have specific surveys that go out at all those key touch points in stages, as the customer or client is progressing through our program, I want to make sure that we’re asking the right questions, we’re checking in understanding how we’re doing. And then we’re actually acting on that feedback, you can collect all the feedback that you want. But if you’re just listening, and you’re not acting on it, then like, what’s the point, right. And so once you do that, taking that feedback and understanding how you can implement it, what I don’t want us to do is to become reactive, where you see one line and you panic, and you’re like, oh, my gosh, we need to change this entire process. That’s not what it’s for. Right? It’s to recognize patterns. Some things do require us to just like, act on it, and we should, but it’ll kind of depend on the feedback that’s provided. But doing that on an ongoing basis is really important so that you have your in person feedback that you’re getting, and then you can supplement that with a survey that can go out to and for small businesses for manufacturing companies, you know, ask nicely isn’t going to make sense for everyone, right, I’ve, before getting asked nicely, I looked into probably like 10, plus different tools just to see what would make sense. I honestly have seen some manufacturing companies or companies just have a very simple email that goes out. That will just be like a smiley face. It’s like the smiley face scale, right? Like that, that’s fine, that can that can work, your the version of your survey is going to look different, but there are plenty of tools out there. And if you don’t have the budget for the tools, then like, think about how you’re reaching out, maybe you’re sending a personalized email, just to ask them, you’re giving them a phone call, there are ways to be able to incorporate feedback, right?

Curt Anderson  36:38

I love this, I want to hit a couple of things real quick, is so have how much have you learned, like through the process of like, you know, trial and error like, hey, this didn’t work. So well. We’re like, how’s the communication? You know, again, for somebody that’s just starting out out there, you’re further down the path? How’s it been, like your learning process of like really trying to master this art of client success?

Sultana Mangal  37:00

Overall, or just specifically with the feedback, just kind of

Curt Anderson  37:04

like overall like, like, you know, from the time you started to like, where you are today, what’s been, you know, like, maybe for somebody who this is like really sinking in saying, Man, I need to start doing this. What are like, what’s been your learning process through the journey?

Sultana Mangal  37:16

Yeah, honestly, it’s like observing, like John and Joe are really, my bosses are really good at what they do. And I’ve observed them over the years. And I just started reading the things that they were reading, listening to the things that they were listening to, that give me a deeper understanding of the types of clients that we’re servicing. And I would encourage other people to do that, to learn as much about your clients first, what’s important to them, so that you can then deliver good customer success, right, or good customer experience, understanding that is really important. And then again, just like reading the basics of customer experience, like sometimes I think people like we sometimes forget, like, pick up the phone and just see how a customer is doing right. In written note, those things aren’t really meaningful. And I think we’ve kind of lost a bit of that just over the years. Again, maybe the pandemic has kind of had us like not do that as often. But going back to the basics, I think is really important. And then just always learning like listen to every podcast, read every single book that you can customer experience, you’re going to make mistakes along the way, right, but you’re going to learn over time. When I first got started in this role, I didn’t know entirely what I was doing. But I I knew that I wanted to learn everything that I possibly could. And so I kind of used that as a starting place.

Curt Anderson  38:35

That’s a great, phenomenal device. Hey, we’ve got Skyler here today. Scouter says, Wow, such great stuff. We’ve got a Saiga here. It’s really good show inspiring me. Thank you for the comments. Again, connected well, Tana on LinkedIn. So 10 will start winding down those touch points. Okay. Like you’ve, you know, again, from my experience my conversations with you, Joe, I just feel like Man, these guys have really mastered those touch points for someone just starting out, like how do you just how did you? How do you get into those touch points? So let’s say you know, I’m a manufacturer, I’m getting that product out there. Do you have any advice or tips? Like you said, like, you know, sometimes it’s just a matter of picking up a phone and just, Hey, how was it? Did it arrive on time? Did you know? Are you okay? Like, is that any any basics that you could cover as far as like those touch points to hit?

Sultana Mangal  39:20

That’s that. I mean, that is a great example, right? It’s like when when it’s delivered, you call them and you say, Hey, how was that process? How did like how was your experience like working with us? Once you work with us again, pick up the picking up the phone can lead to so many different conversations. So start with those. Write them a thank you letter. Say thank you for being a great customer, not just during holidays, right? Like I think people tend to send those out around Christmas and send it send it randomly send it in the middle of June, whatever. Start with those basics and then start listening and then start getting proactive about reaching out to like maybe you saw something and it reminded you of a customer and you’re like hey, I Just thought of you like your kids and doing kickball. There’s a kickball league that’s famous. I don’t know, I’m just kind of making up an example. But just listening. I think it’s really important. It

Damon Pistulka  40:12

is I think those those interactions, like you said those non scheduled impromptu interactions, you said, Hey, I saw this and it may work really cool for what you’re doing. Or I saw this and it reminded me of you guys or something like that. You know, just those little things make a huge difference.

Curt Anderson  40:31

Yeah, it a couple more comments here for you. Sultana, we’ve got Hey, I found this incredibly the show incredibly motivational well done. So Sultana, thank you for that. Dell says, hey, just pick up the phone. That’s indeed. And so we love that. So Tell, tell your enthusiasm is just so contagious. So was we wind down? Do you just you just love your job? Or what I mean, just like, I just feel like this. passion and enthusiasm is just coming through the screen. What a great title Customer Success director. How do you you know, do you just love you know, helping? It’s just so admirable, you’re helping people on a daily basis? Like, what’s your What are your thoughts there? Thank

Sultana Mangal  41:09

you. Yeah, I think that’s the core of it, too. Sometimes people ask me, if I ever get like, tired of this role. And I’m like, I’m constantly learning. And that’s really important to me. But at the end of the day, it goes back to helping people. And that’s so important to me, just in terms of, I feel like my purpose in life and what I want to be doing. And so continuing to get that fulfilled in this role is incredible. And again, like being able to work with the manufacturing community means a lot to me, a lot of times the family businesses that just resonates with me and my own family, and just being able to help people grow in that way. It’s really cool.

Curt Anderson  41:44

Well, absolutely love it. So we’ve got the industrial marketing collective so that they can go to the real 76 get involved in their community. You just announced last week, the industrial marketing summit, I believe is coming up in February 2025 in Austin once again, so congratulations, we’re super excited to support you can be great. there as well. You threw out a lot of wonderful tips advice you talked about asked nicely going through that customer mapping, how important that buyer persona is, any parting thoughts, words of wisdom that you want to share on just how to master that client success? As we close out?

Sultana Mangal  42:21

I think the reminder I would give is just don’t forget the basics. I think that’s the most important thing, as you said earlier, human to human. Just don’t forget the basics.

Curt Anderson  42:29

Yeah. Don’t forget the Daymond dropped on Mike on that one. That was phenomenal. So all right. We’re gonna wrap up. And so Ted, I know you’re in St. Louis, I have one last question for you, Damon. I’m gonna I got it. I gotta ask you gotta go. I got it. So are you a Cardinals fan? By any chance? If you live in St. Louis, you must. Are you a Cardinals fan? or so?

Sultana Mangal  42:51

I have to say, Yes, I am. But I never watched sports. And I. Yes, I love like, I love the partner that was born.

Curt Anderson  42:59

So though you’re not a sports fan, let’s just say hypothetically, if either your you know, Cardinals game, or maybe No, are you going to be speaking at the industrial marketing summit next year? Are we going to get you on stage or what?

Sultana Mangal  43:09

I’m not yet? Not yet. Maybe?

Curt Anderson  43:16

If If so, I Sultana. If so when you give the keynote speech at either, you know, the Afghan American community or maybe your new leadership program or whatnot. Like, if you were if you were given a keynote speech, let’s say hypothetically, or let’s just say for the Cardinals, you know, they called you upset and said Saltanat. Could you come down here? We need somebody to get a base hit for us. If you’re on your way, walking up to the home plate to hit the hit the winning run for the St. Louis Cardinals. What would be your walk up song?

Sultana Mangal  43:47

Oh, gosh. You’re good. 100 I do know it’s icky thump by the white straight.

Curt Anderson  43:58

That’s a good day. Thank you. Well done. Well done. Well done. You played that tiny little thing that we do at the end? Yeah. So now So Tina, when I when I see you in Austin in February, and hopefully I’m going to talk to sending in your boss Joe. I’m going to send him a note say hey, Sultana said something about she wants to do like a speech or like yeah, and we’ve got her walk up song already. Daymond so we’re ready. So So Tana, I want to give a big shout out to you. I thank you, I applaud you. I admire the work that you’re doing. You’re just such an amazing human being just you just you’re just so refreshing to talk to your your commitment to your family, your community, our our manufacturing community, and just you know, spearheading future leaders. As a proud girl dad, I just, you know, I just love talking to people like you. You’re helping me be a better father and I can just share what you’re doing with my daughter. And so I salute you. And thank you for what you’re doing. So Damon, how about a round of applause for

Damon Pistulka  44:57

Dan here? Awesome. Awesome, awesome, awesome.

Curt Anderson  45:01

Everybody connect with Sultana on LinkedIn. Go to Gorilla 76. And we will be back here we have another great guest we have Holly is going to be with us on Friday, Damon so our dear friend Holly will be back here. Sultana hang out with us for one second, and we wish everybody an amazing, incredible week and Damon Wouldn’t we like to say when we close out? Just be someone’s inspiration just like our dear friends or Anna is and you’re just gonna make the world a better place. That’s all so we will see you guys. Friday.

Damon Pistulka  45:33

Have a great rest of your week.