Feb. 2, 2023

011 Dan Steinman (Gainsight) on Building Affinity as Chief Evangelist

011 Dan Steinman (Gainsight) on Building Affinity as Chief Evangelist
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Today’s guest is Dan Steinman, Chief Evangelist at Gainsight. Dan joins Ethan Beute and shares the idea that creating awareness of something that’s making a difference is the most important aspect of the role.

Dan also discusses the three aspects of being a great evangelist, two ways to source insights to generate thought leadership, and why he and his CEO stopped trying to track and measure the ROI of his role.  Be sure to listen in on Dan giving his advice on how you can become a better listener to your clients about what does and doesn't work for them!

Takeaways:

  • Dan thinks that the most important job for a Chief Evangelist is to raise awareness and understanding of the category of customer success. Growing the category helps grow your company.
  • As Chief Evangelist, you must provide thought leadership about your category, your product, and your business. This content helps attract, educate, engage, and activate people within your broader community and within your customer base.
  • Evangelizing and creating thought leadership have three sources of insight. One is the fundamentals of customer success, two are the things that evangelists are trying, some working and not working, and three are all of the thoughts you hear from your community.
  • Dan shares that their book, Customer Success, was likely the best evangelistic work they did at Gainsight. But to make a book useful and successful in service of your mission, you must adhere to the basic dos and don’ts that he offers here.
  • It is always so important to listen to your clients about what works for them and what doesn't work for them. Listening to what works and what doesn't work, it becomes pressure on your product to make it better for those kinds of big-scale ideas that your clients may have in mind.
  • Attributing revenue. Tracking activities. Measuring outcomes. Dan and his CEO spent a lot of time on this, but eventually gave up because it wasn’t worth the effort. They both knew the work was valuable.

Quote of the Show:

“Evangelism is the idea of creating awareness of something that's making a difference.” (02:41)

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