While 1984’s This Is Spinal Tap was the genesis of the “mockumentary” genre, it hit so close to home that many viewers (even to this day) believe that Spinal Tap is a real band. The movie shows multiple event mishaps, including cancelled shows, improperly sized props, equipment malfunctions, and even a misbilling as a puppet show.
Working as and with musicians (especially those in the rock/metal/punk genres) has a way of leading to outrageous stories for all involved. Jarad Haggard has a few of those stories, having both been in bands and been the guy promoting concerts and handling band bookings for local venues. Today, he’s a Customer Success Manager for Thoropass. He joins the show to talk about the intersection of Customer Success and Events Management among other things.
We discuss:
- Jarad’s Early CS Lessons in a Retail Environment
- How Events Management and Customer Success Overlap
- Dealing with Challenging Customers
- How Creativity Can Enhance Customer Relationships
- Local Community Engagement
Connect with Jarad on LinkedIn
Music courtesy of Big Red Horse
Transcript
Rob Dwyer (00:01.774)
Hey, welcome. Season four, Next in Queue. Jarad Haggard. Haggard guesting Yeah, season four, Jarad. You are here. And I am excited to have you for the first time as a guest on a show. So thank you. How does it feel to be in the hot seat?
Jarad Haggard (00:26.871)
I don't know. I feel similarly. And I'm also hoping that my anecdote that I had kind of teased to you when we were doing our pre -show discussion is going to be applicable here. So I've never been on a recorded format that wasn't an album or a musical production. So my face and name have always been in the hosting position as it were.
And when I was getting ready for this show, I thought about a recent interview that I saw with Billy Gunn. To those who are not familiar with Billy Gunn, he is a professional wrestler, also referred to now as part of the acclaimed on All Elite Wrestling. So back in, I guess it would have been like 98 or 99, he was a guest star on Sabrina, the Teenage Witch. And on this interview that he did recently where he was recounting,
his experiences on this show is he was so taken aback by like how many times they wanted to reshoot things. Because he's like, I'm just on TV. If there's a botch, there's a botch. And, you know, he was continuing to insist to the director that, hey, I only need one take. I can do it in one.
Just let me powerbomb Melissa Joan Hart. That was her, she was Sabrina the Teenage Witch? Did I get that wrong? Okay, great. God, thank you. Okay, cool. So I didn't write that down. I probably should have because I wasn't confident in that. But yes, that's kind of how I feel here is that I've always been more comfortable with doing it live. I've never actually like sat down and been a professional.
Rob Dwyer (01:54.158)
Yes. No, you got that right.
Jarad Haggard (02:15.041)
like actor or been on like a podcast that's recorded everything I've done has always been like live.
Rob Dwyer (02:22.264)
We have already brought up Pro Wrestling and Melissa Joan Hart. In my mind, this has been a successful show and we could probably just stop right now and put this one out and it would be great. Put it in the can, yeah.
Jarad Haggard (02:33.679)
Put it in the can. Put it in the can.
Rob Dwyer (02:43.128)
This is going to be a really interesting conversation that you and I are going to have because you have an incredibly interesting background. I have had all kinds of people on this show, all kinds of different backgrounds. You, my friend, are maybe not the most interesting man in the world, but you're in competition, I think, for that title. So...
Jarad Haggard (03:10.191)
Okay, cool.
Rob Dwyer (03:12.782)
Today, as a money making scheme known as a job, you are a customer success manager at Thoropass, correct? Okay, for those that don't know, give us the Cliffs notes, what the heck does Thoropass do?
Jarad Haggard (03:20.249)
Okay.
Jarad Haggard (03:26.031)
That's correct. That's correct, sir.
Jarad Haggard (03:34.991)
yeah, I can do it in one sentence. Relax, we've fixed audits. So Thoropass, we're known for helping our customers achieve compliance by way of frameworks that might be familiar to some of your listeners like SOC 2, ISO 27001, GDPR, or HIPAA and high trust if you're in the healthcare space. We provide a platform as well as audit services to effectively be that end to end one stop shop.
for compliance needs to help our customers fulfill obligations to their customers, attract new business, and overall just improve their information security posture.
Rob Dwyer (04:14.54)
Yeah, OK, not super exciting, but super important. Glad that. No.
Jarad Haggard (04:18.551)
not sexy. We talk about that all the time. We're like, this isn't sexy, but it's certainly worth doing.
Rob Dwyer (04:23.971)
Yeah, absolutely. But you've done some really interesting things in your past and you and I got to know each other via LinkedIn. I don't even remember who introduced us or how we got connected. But you're connected to a ton of people and you're super fun to talk to. But part of the reason is you just you have done some some wild things for someone who's doing what you do today.
Jarad Haggard (04:52.879)
I have, yeah. Just if you want me to touch on a few of those things for those who have never seen my face. I was actually just talking to a new team member about this because our first jobs as it were, this, okay, so this team member also used to work at GameStop circa 2003, 2004. We were both in high school. We were about the same age. So was about 15, 16 years old at the time.
And the way I got that job was I was working at Party City in the same plaza, but I don't cite that on my resume because I'm embarrassed to say I was really bad at that job because I had to blow up the balloons. And when I would botch that and they would pop, I would get so scared. My heart would race. And I'm just like, I don't like doing this. So I was on my lunch break one day and I walked into the GameStop that was in the same plaza next door. And my manager, Brad Kitchen,
who was not my manager yet, but he said, he said, Hey man, I had the like goofy little purple vest on with my box cutter in the little pocket. And he was like, Hey man, do you like that job? And I looked at him square in the face and I said, do you think I like this job? And he goes, well, why do you work there? I said, cause I'm 15 years old and they offered me money. and he goes, he goes, hold on a second. And he goes down into the, into the drawer.
And this is PS1 still carried as GameStop stock era. He pulls out the three following titles. He pulls out Legend of the Dragoon, Persona 2 Eternal Punishment, and was the last one, Vagrant Story. And he puts them on the counter and he says, do you know what these things are? And I said, yes, I own copies of each one. I haven't finished every single one of them, but I have finished for Persona 2 Eternal Punishment. And he said, do you?
want to work here instead of Party City?" And I said, yes. And on my first shift with him, which was a training shift and only two hours long, he showed me how to shrink wrap my hands together in the shrink wrap machine. And that was the lesson that I took from that day, because that's all I can remember about 15 years later.
Rob Dwyer (07:05.198)
Shrink wrapping your hands. This is something that most of us don't get to do and it sounds amazing when you're 15 years old. That sounds like the best job.
Jarad Haggard (07:10.457)
this. Like this.
Jarad Haggard (07:18.321)
yeah, we had a challenge where you had to try and get as far through a four hour shift as you could with your hand shrink wrapped together. And the loser is the person that needed to unleash their hands in order to do one of their job functions, perhaps doing go -backs or processing trade -ins. We tried to process trade -ins with our hands shrink wrapped together, but that was usually the point where people lost.
Rob Dwyer (07:46.072)
sounds like you were in Super Troopers, but the GameStop version.
Jarad Haggard (07:52.889)
Growing up in South Florida is like living inside of Super Troopers sometimes.
Rob Dwyer (07:59.246)
So let's let's explore GameStop a little bit because I this is before GameStop was a meme stock or All the people too young to remember what GameStop was like but aside from learning to shrink wrap your hands together, which It's just it's just awesome
Jarad Haggard (07:59.484)
but
Jarad Haggard (08:26.777)
That's silly.
Rob Dwyer (08:27.766)
What kinds of things were you picking up along the way and what made that a really enjoyable job?
Jarad Haggard (08:37.263)
Yeah, why don't I go ahead and apply the hindsight perspective because I think a lot about that job and that time in my life because there's a couple of main events as it were that make me think about how, know, where I'm at today, excuse me, with the career and information security that are relevant. Madden 2005 release was the time that I worked at two different stores. I was kind of a floater.
Between the sawgrass mall and my main store, which was in Davie, Florida. And we had some issues where copies of Madden that had not yet street dated were missing. And it was up to us because we were on the shift is to play. Okay, which one of y 'all did it? You know, who took the cookie from the cookie jar? Like, you can't break street date because the first
retailer that breaks street date on video game releases. don't know if this is still a thing, but back in 2005, if you had broken street date, any retailer could then also break street date, but the retailer that was verified to have done it first had to pay a heavy fine. So this was something that had to be kept under wraps. And I'm sure it was much more pervasive than just happening at my store. But it taught me to be
conscious of security matters in general, like always looking for pieces of evidence to an event, to an intrusion these days that we're looking for with intrusion detection systems and taking, you know, exercises to penetration test systems to ensure that that data is in fact locked up tight. So that was probably one thing. And then the second more obvious factor about being a salesperson.
Is that it was my job to take any scenario, whether it's a mom that wants a Christmas gift for their kid or whether it's a, you know, person that's like, bored with NBA street. What do I play next? You know, I have to be able to educate that person and give them, an experience that, you know, was at the very least memorable to where they would come back and want to talk to me and maybe become one of my regulars because
Jarad Haggard (11:00.943)
before I was floating and I was just at the home store, I would have regulars, people at the Home Depot that worked in the same plaza. I'd see them at least once every couple of weeks. They'd come with their paycheck. They want to pick up the new PS2 releases. And I would be that guy that they spoke to. And I was their trusted game advisor fitting to my title. And I took that as seriously as a 16 -year -old kid in South Florida could, I think.
Rob Dwyer (11:27.99)
Yeah, I think one of the things that you touch on for me is that these lessons, we think about them in the more adult corporate environment. But those teenage jobs that we have in retail, whether that's in food service or in a retail shop like Party City or GameStop or
Whether you're working at Walmart, it could be anything. There are absolutely applicable lessons and skills that you're developing in ways that don't seem, probably at the time, like all that important or things that are gonna help you later in life. You're just thinking about, yeah, you're just telling some mom that this game probably isn't the best game for Lily.
Jarad Haggard (12:14.969)
trying to not get fired at the time just trying to keep being there.
Rob Dwyer (12:24.706)
little Billy based off of the games he already likes. And you're like, that's not the one, but I do have the one. It's over here. Let me show you this game. is right. Identifying who your customer is and really trying to tailor a choice to them. And the whole security thing, like people don't even, I think today understand like how big of a deal that is.
Games today are mostly...
retail aspect has slowly disappeared from that. But street dates still exists for on demand items. And there absolutely is a, this level of confidence that is entrusted into sometimes very young people who are working these frontline jobs. It's wild.
Jarad Haggard (13:22.873)
Yeah. I wasn't sure if we wanted to touch on my, you know, my fast forward about how I got to information security by way of, you know, slinging PS2 disks at a suburban Fort Lauderdale strip mall. But from there, I went to attend the University of Central Florida and I was blessed enough to be able to work for my alma mater at the UCF Student Union.
I started in the event services team, running cable, running microphones, putting in tables, putting in chairs. We had shifts all the way from 7 a to midnight, setting up for the next day, setting up events for Greek life, sports organizations, guest speakers that would be coming to the university. At the time, the UCF arena, I don't know what they call it now, and shame on me, it just used to be the UCF basketball arena, and it was much smaller in scope.
to where the concerts, the big concerts would be at the basketball arena. But like we would be able to run smaller shows, beauty pageants, things of like that nature. And I studied language arts education with the University of Central Florida College of Education. And at the time though, what you may have been teasing and alluding to about my interesting past would be what I was doing entrepreneurially while I was doing both of those things.
in which I was the co -founder and referred to as Kingpin for Orlandoom promotions. And what we were, was we at the time were booking shows in the central Florida area because we were in, I was in a couple of different bands. I was in a band called Bad Actor, was in a band called Fire in the Cave. And then I concluded the last band I was in, I wouldn't like to say that I've concluded because, hey, I'm for hire. If your metal band needs a singer, you can come and talk to me. I'm game.
But at the time I had temporarily concluded my singing career in a band called Bog Prophet. But at the time when we were in the first band, Bad Actor, with some of my trusted friends that were in the Nike dormitory at UCF, we were getting sick of having to open for new metal bands and we were getting sick of having to...
Jarad Haggard (15:43.821)
you know, cooperate with people that weren't really in our style. It was real radio rock type stuff. Whereas like we were making music that was inspired by Chuck Schuldiner of Death fame and like what was going on in Tampa at the time. And the big stuff that was happening out of Savannah that ended up getting picked up for promotions by like Adult Swim and Scion Cars at the end of the, at the end of the 2000s and in the beginning of the 2010s.
so we had a pretty successful run. We got a chance to work with bands from all around the planet. We got a chance to work with Alcest. We got a chance to work with, let's see, I can't say that name. Sorry. I'm like mentally parsing the bands that I'm proud of that I can say out loud that I worked with and the ones that I can't.
Brutal Truth was one of them to anybody that's an Anthrax fan. Dan Lilker has a Grindcore band called Brutal Truth. We had a great chance to work with them. And then we also just to name another name that folks may recognize, Bill Kelliher and Kevin Sharp of Brutal Truth have a band called Primate that is based out of Atlanta. And we had a chance to work with them. I was actually the chauffeur for Bill Kelliher because it was
a show that took place on the I think it was the release of the hunter by Mastodon and bill was at atlanta I forget the name of the record store in little five points someone's gonna put in the comments and correct me but bill was doing a signing for that record release earlier that day he hopped on a plane down to orlando and my stupid ass was waiting for him there in a honda civic being like hey man i got a Mastodon tattoo you ready to go get to the show
We're gonna get some takeout on the way over. What do you want? Do you like Vietnamese? Do you like Chinese? What do you wanna get? And he was very nice, by the way, for somebody that had no business interacting with him other than the fact that I was the guy that was gonna be paying him at the end of the night. But he was very sweet. We talked about Battlefield, bad company. He's a big fan of the Battlefield franchise. So we ended up chatting about video games. He's got typical dad energy for a guy being in a band as extreme as Mastodon.
Rob Dwyer (17:58.542)
I love that you said chauffeur and then later in the most metal way possible Honda Civic like
Jarad Haggard (18:11.567)
This was before Uber kids. Whenever you had to make a show in 2010 or 2011, it was some grizzled looking 20 something that would show up in their beat up Honda Civic and be like, get in the car old man.
Rob Dwyer (18:28.27)
I love it. So let's talk about
Events management right and you talked a little bit about events management at UCF Golden Knights Rock Chalk Jayhawk just we just gotta get that out there and then and Then your work in the music scene in which there was some aspect of events management, but I want to talk about how events management and customer success like
Jarad Haggard (18:36.793)
Sure, of course.
Rob Dwyer (19:03.852)
What's the Venn diagram look like between events management and customer success? Because I imagine there's a lot of overlap.
Jarad Haggard (19:14.041)
Yeah, so the Venn diagram would look like this. On the left side where you have customer success and there's no overlap, the larger, so there's no subscriptions for the most part, unless you're working for one of the major streaming providers or you're one of the people that writes or works with Decibel Magazine, you're not really working in the subscriptions area, but you are having overlap.
with relationship management because you're going to have to be working with people who are booking for bands at the regional, national, and international level. These are the people that would email me, the guy that's in Orlando that has a couple of venues that are collaborating with me, who will give me the opportunity to book a show and then put down the money on what's called a rider for those who don't know, which is effectively like a guarantee. Let's say one band comes around and they go, we want to play for a thousand bucks.
And I say, okay, I'll give you 900. And they'll be like, okay, fine. And I'll agree and sign a document that says, okay, well, I'm good for 900 bucks. So I gotta make sure that this show has enough people at the door or through pre -sale tickets, which we really didn't do a lot of. We just didn't, we didn't, I know that's like sacrilege to a lot of different styles. It's like the whole pay to play is the way to go, but we just didn't, we didn't do that.
We just knew who was going to pull approximations and then we would just be telling people bring your friends carpool like just just get everybody in here. It's only five to ten to fifteen dollars depending on who it was and we were able to sell out some hundred and fifty to five hundred cap venues a couple of times. So that would be where the real intersection is is just with the treating people well.
really listening to what it is that these bands need, you know, maybe they need a place to stay. Maybe if you as the promoter can't be that person, even though we were a great deal of the time, we would host a lot of bands to come over to our house and then just crash the night. cook food, we cook eggs in the morning, send them on their way to go to Miami or Atlanta or wherever they were heading next. So the hospitality and the caring and listening to the needs.
Jarad Haggard (21:29.623)
of who you're working with definitely intersects in that Venn diagram example that we're walking on here. I would say where it also becomes relevant, but it's like hanging out closer to the right side of concert promotion is bodily harm. So when you're working in customer success, selling software services, audits, learning management system licenses to people, I never once feared for my physical safety.
Rob Dwyer (21:45.929)
You
Jarad Haggard (21:57.593)
But there were times when you were working in an environment where it's late at night, there are people that have been imbibing, there are people that think that they can count when they are imbibing, and they can't, by the way, and you have to like make that phone call to, you know, that person you booked the show with and say, hey, X individual thinks that they're owed this much, but it's actually this much, and they said that they're gonna fight me if I don't produce that amount of cash directly in front of them.
help me please talk some sense into this person that's larger than me and drunker than me. So I would say that that's hanging out on like the right hand side of this Venn diagram. And then right smack dab in the middle is also the underrated art of performance. And the reason I think that performance is such an intersection between customer success and music
event management, speaking, being a good host, is that in customer success, you need to be able to disseminate information to your customer so that they understand how to get the most value out of out of what platform, product, service, audit, whatever it may be that they have paid for and trusted you, the customer success manager, to deliver upon for them. Now, performance is only one element of being a great educator. So
Those two things are stapled together and I think are completely necessary for a customer success manager to be effective in today's SaaS world is you have to be a teacher. You have to be professorial. You have to be in a way about speaking with confidence. And you have to know that when your customer has an idea that they're really passionate about, but you know, for example, to the Thoropass end,
that it's gonna put them out of compliance with whatever control. You need to have that courage and compassion for that customer to tell them, look, I hear you. I think that that's great, but it don't work that way. And I'm gonna help you modify it to where that you're able to make sure that it does work the way that you need it to as a business. So you don't have a headache or we don't have to have a disagreement later down the line. I respect you too much to...
Rob Dwyer (24:05.635)
Ha.
Jarad Haggard (24:19.523)
you know, get not get in front of you know what could be a problem for you it's my job to make sure that my customers are successful.
Rob Dwyer (24:26.816)
Yeah, absolutely. I love that. Did you mention by the way that if I need a place to stay in Southern Florida that I can just come crash at your place? pretty sure that's what you said, so I just want to make it clear that all thorough past customers.
Jarad Haggard (24:42.639)
I'm looking at the couch. I'm looking at the couch on my patio. That's about 700 years old. That is probably the only available sleeping space in my current residence. At the time, we had been staying in a home that was, who was it? It was my guitar player, my guitar player, Mike. He had a family friend that was a real estate
Rob Dwyer (24:55.03)
Mmm. Mmm.
Jarad Haggard (25:11.665)
investor in central Florida and he had a house that he would normally stay at for when he would go to, you know, conduct business. It was, I believe it was commercial real estate, but he, was starting to roll out of that business as he was getting a little bit older. He wanted to properly retire. So he let us shack up in it and pay rent and we threw shows out of it. The cops were, were, were, acquainted with us.
Orlando P.D. probably knew a couple of us there from some of the halloween parties that we did but yeah know that was that was the situation that ended up being rather advantageous for us as we were able to you know kind of have a base of operations that bands could rely on and that was a large key i think is to what made us so successful for over five years booking shows
Rob Dwyer (25:59.06)
OK, so what I heard was that unless I want to share a couch with the palmetto bugs outside, that I should probably just get a hotel or an Airbnb. That's what I heard. So that's.
Jarad Haggard (26:10.357)
give you about five or six great quality recommendations in the city of Orlando that would be better to stay than on my couch that's on my porch.
Rob Dwyer (26:17.358)
That's that's good to know I appreciate that because you have my success in mind I know that's that's why Can you talk? more about dealing with problematic or challenging personalities, right so you mentioned a little bit about how Sometimes right there might be a disagreement about money for instance, but
Jarad Haggard (26:25.048)
I do.
I do.
Rob Dwyer (26:47.34)
Let's talk more in general about how do you go about and what lessons did you learn about dealing with those challenging people who may still be your customer, but I need to be able to deal with you in a way that is mutually beneficial.
Jarad Haggard (27:07.775)
of course. So my goal is to be the most likable person on earth. outside of that delusion that I hold in my heart of hearts that I wear on my chest like that purple vest from Party City is that listening skills are completely quintessential when dealing with anybody, but especially with someone who has I won't even characterize them as difficult because that's not how I think I characterize it more as
their needs and their understanding of their needs are at odds with the way that your relationship needs to function in order for it to be successful. So what my job is, is to commit to a reconciliation of those understandings. People that are at odds with a position that you need to either enforce for compliance sake, or let's say,
It's part of an MSA. I'm thinking back to some previous roles that I've had with this example where it's like the customer is committed to a certain element of their MSA and they just say, well, no, Jarad, I'm not going to do that. I think that it's dumb and I'm not going to do it despite the fact that I've signed it. And it's part of the agreement that we have with each other. People who have opinions like that, if you give them space to speak and you actually listen to what they're saying,
they're going to tell you everything that you need to know about what they want. So giving people space to listen and express their perspective can give you opportunities with which to commit to a reconciliation about how do we meet in the middle? We're already here. We're already like engaged as it were. You you've already paid upfront in most cases with, folks that I've worked with, you know, upfront payments are a thing.
that are pretty typical in the SaaS space, at least historically. You know, we're already involved and invested here, and I'm not going to give up just because we're at odds with an opinion. I'm going to see where we have opportunities to meet in the middle, and I'm going to be exploring options with which to get creative, because as I'm sure that your listeners can intuit from the color of my shirt and some of my previous stories and anecdotes is,
Jarad Haggard (29:27.927)
I don't shy away from getting creative, especially if it's to improve the quality of life or improve the quality of experience they have with our working relationship.
Rob Dwyer (29:37.58)
No, you are not shy. I don't think in any any way, or form of that word. Which is great because it allows us to have a conversation like this. I have a maybe off topic question for you. What on earth is Nebelheim?
Jarad Haggard (29:59.567)
Sure. Sure.
Rob Dwyer (30:06.574)
And why should I care?
Jarad Haggard (30:08.803)
okay. So now we're doing like, God, I'm gonna I'm gonna fumble this one because there's a there was a show and there. So I can't remember the name of the show. But the format is, is they'll pull up their tweet. Hot Ones. It's the guy from hot ones that does this. He pulls up a tweet and he goes, What the hell does this mean LeBron James or whoever it is that he's that he's talking to.
This is my moment to participate in this format. here we go. Nibelheim is the name of the village in which Cloud, the titular, not titular, but main character in Final Fantasy VII, hails from, that is his hometown. Through the course of the events in Final Fantasy VII, I'm not going to talk about the remake yet because I haven't played the second part. But in the original classic for PlayStation 1, Final Fantasy VII, there is a manor that is located in Cloud's hometown.
that coincidentally, of course, has knowledge, ancient arcane knowledge and study from a scientist that has nefarious, ambiguous plans that I'm not going to go into on this show. But ultimately, Nibelheim falls to the main villain Sephiroth, he burns it to the ground. And what Rob is inferring to guests and listeners
is a fantastic t -shirt that I found from the Yeti .com, they do daily t -shirts that you only have 24 hours to buy them. It says, and I wish I should have worn it for this, but I didn't think about that. It says Nibelheim and has a silhouette of the town, but it is modeled directly after the Patagonia logo. We all know why it's funny to make a Patagonia vest joke, right? So I thought it as a...
a perfect intersectional opportunity for myself and for my wardrobe to wear that in front of customers. Where I was mainly inspired by this, I get to actually cite somebody's name as my very good friend, Ben, who works at At Home Group, former customer of mine. I was able to artfully weave a Final Fantasy VII joke
Jarad Haggard (32:24.139)
into a business review that I had with Ben and his boss and some of his colleagues to where Ben understood what I just did, but nobody else in the room was any the wiser as to why I made this joke. And I'd like to think of it as a proud moment in my career that I was able to
stealthily navigate communicating directly to the person that I worked with every day as my point of content to make them smile and maybe feel a bit uncomfortable while their boss was just like it sounds like Jarad knows what he's talking about yeah no please continue on talking about digital receipts and ROI Jarad yes please carry on don't talk don't don't elaborate on what you what joke you just made about a weird shaped house
Rob Dwyer (33:11.694)
I love it. Here's the thing that I love I love that
We all have our little pop culture interests or niches that are this community where we share kind of insider information, right? We can geek out about things that maybe a large portion of the population just doesn't care about, right? They're not interested in it and they don't.
Jarad Haggard (33:46.734)
blissfully unaware and that's perfectly okay.
Rob Dwyer (33:48.45)
You know, absolutely. But when you find those people that you share something with, right, whether it's a particular game, gaming in general, any type of consumable media could be sports. could be certain types of hobbies that you have, right? Maybe you're a rock climber and you find somebody else that loves rock climbing, right? There are just little things that
You can share with that person that make them feel part of the in -group and being able to do that in customer success to me just extends to that person. I, I hear you, I see you, and I care about you. And this is that connection that we've made. And I think it's brilliant.
Jarad Haggard (34:47.983)
Absolutely. you know, I, I'm the type of person where I don't come from like an MBA type pedigree, right? Like I fell into customer success by way of working technical support while I was booking shows and being a musician at a startup that was based here in Orlando, a defunct startup that's now, was called Performance Matters. It was a learning management system.
We also had plugins that worked with like Lexmark printer devices for scanning Scantron sheets and then delivering qualitative metrics like stored from the results of student assessments, right? But I was just the guy turning wrenches. I was the guy fielding Zendesk tickets. Like I wasn't exactly, you know, to the degree of which I, you know, manage business relationships today or even...
you know, educating customers today. I have so much more freedom to do so in customer success shoes than I did in support shoes. But I never forgot that same spirit. Like if somebody's got a problem and you're the person that can fix it, you owe them that humane respect as part of your professional conduct to solve it. And if you can't solve it, you better go find out who can. You know, there are, you know, there are certain things that of course will be
you temporarily unsolvable, but you need to do that due diligence because one of the key things that's always motivated me professionally, no matter what that I've done, has been that it's important for you to have a measurable attempt at improving the person who you're working with, improving their quality of life. Because that's what I would hope and respect from interaction with anybody.
in or out of a business context is that, you know, we're all living, breathing individuals and we shouldn't ever forget that improving someone's quality of life, making their day a little bit better, educating them with something that they previously didn't know, understand, or even seek to care about. Maybe you shed light onto why, you know, they should care about it based on the life that they live. You know, these are the things that are important. These are the things that
Jarad Haggard (37:05.411)
people are going to not only remember about you, but even if they don't remember, putting your positive impact on someone else's life is much more important than like renewing a contract or getting somebody through an audit. The work that we do, we're not saving babies, we're not putting people in ambulances. Most of us, I'm sure there's plenty of people in the healthcare space that work with folks that I work with and that have worked with me previously, different set of contexts there.
But for the most part, if we're talking about a financial technology space, or we're talking about your software simplifies something that you do with AWS or GCP and it makes your life easier, I think that those types of relationships is important to never vacuum out that element of like, hey man, I'm here, I'm Jarad, let's be friendly, let's do some stuff together so that we can support our families and our personal ambitions.
Rob Dwyer (38:03.542)
Yeah, I love it. love it. Jarad, if you could wiggle your nose. wait, that's a different witch. yeah, yeah, that's good. I like it. And have us discuss a topic that we haven't talked about as if by magic. What topic would that be?
Jarad Haggard (38:11.055)
this.
Jarad Haggard (38:14.671)
Am I doing it right? Okay.
Jarad Haggard (38:28.623)
I've got two. Can I cram two?
Rob Dwyer (38:31.106)
Yeah, let's let's see. Well, I don't know. Can you let I am issuing issuing the challenge right now? Can you get these two topics in?
Jarad Haggard (38:38.553)
to
Is a multiple of four. This is season four. Here we go The first thing that I would like to talk about from a personal motivation set is I would like to encourage your listeners to Embrace your local educational system. I say this Because there is nothing more important
to the development of your community, to the development of the children in your family or simply in your neighborhood, than having a functional environment for which they can go and learn every single day with people who are their peers that live around them. That was one of the most criminal things about busing in the 50s and the 60s is that you were co -mingling students.
with places and people that are directly outside of their community and ignoring the attempts with which to interact with people in their communities. We've shown through studies that this is an important factor for childhood development, that they feel safe and secure and that they are able to co -mingle and grow within their community with the people that are around them, where I know we're in a globalized world today, so that becomes a little bit more muddy.
you know where people are working remote and we are you know working with people as adults and all sorts of different context and all sorts of different types of business relationships but i think it's really important for people to be good neighbors and be good to the people around them and it starts at the schoolhouse for little kids and for students so if there's like to talk about wrestling again for a minute if there's a wrestling production that's going on at your local high school and you like wrestling well
Jarad Haggard (40:36.079)
go because it might be supporting your local key club or something or maybe there's a bake sale for student governments, know, where you could put five on it, throw down five, 10 bucks, and maybe, you know, some students would be further inspired to continue to do what makes them happy and satisfied. So that's one thing that's wholesome. The one thing that I'm also going to want to talk about is obligatory. And I would just like to let people know that Thoropass is
conducting their conducting hosting their inaugural event coming up at the end of this month. It's called Thoropass Connect. There is an article where if you Google Thoropass Connect, you'll see the top six reasons to attend the inaugural Thoropass Connect on September 25th in THE New York City. people don't say that THE New York City. What am I talking about? However,
Rob Dwyer (41:33.068)
they don't say that.
Jarad Haggard (41:34.711)
No one says that. Nobody says that. What am I talking about? So I just wanted to put that out there because I'm jealous. I'm not going to be able to attend, but most of my team is. And my manager and the leaders of the customer success organization will also be there. If you have an audit and you need it fixed, if you go to Thorough Pass Connect, you can talk one -on -one in the meet space
shake hands with the people that can help you get that done. So please check out ThorpassConnect .com for more information. And that is gonna be my sponsored ad read. That was why I asked for two things. I wanted to talk about something that's important to myself and important to the community of those surrounding you. And then I also wanted to promote an event because we talked about event management. So it's relevant and important. And that's the hill I'm gonna die on.
Rob Dwyer (42:30.508)
I love it. love it. Here's the problem. You are probably going to get a letter from THE Ohio State University for misapplication of THE in reference to New York City and
Jarad Haggard (42:45.913)
Can't you also pronounce it, THE, U., University of Miami? Can't you do it that way too? They don't own THE and it's enunciation thereof. I would give that to Chaucer before I would give it to Ohio State. Let's be honest here.
Rob Dwyer (43:03.704)
Look, I am not saying they are in the right. I am just saying if I were Jarad, I would expect a sternly worded letter.
Jarad Haggard (43:14.871)
You
Rob Dwyer (43:18.734)
from THE Ohio State University explaining why you can't say THE New York City. And if they don't do it, then I'll just say we both know that was weird when you said that. That was weird.
Jarad Haggard (43:31.737)
He'll do it on their behalf.
Jarad Haggard (43:38.155)
It was really bad and unrehearsed. I'm sure everybody's going to be able to tell that I improv that one and that I wasn't reading from a carefully worded statement from the Thoropass marketing team. And they're going to hear this clip and they're going to be like, Jarad, we need to talk. But if if THE Ohio State University were to give me a sternly worded letter, what I would respond with is you still have much to answer for for a one LeBron James exiting.
the Miami Heat organization as far as I'm concerned by ownership of being residents within the state of Ohio. Ohio, you have much to answer for.
Rob Dwyer (44:19.726)
I I don't I don't know that that was what I expected. I expected you to Respond and ask them if they need help with their SOC2 certification or something along those lines But yeah that you can help with
Jarad Haggard (44:34.521)
that I can help with. Ohio State University, got got SOC2 needs come talk to me. Well, I'll take back everything that I said, I promise.
Rob Dwyer (44:42.978)
What is it THE SOC2 certification is that? No, it's not. OK. Look, Jarad, thank you so much for joining next in queue and talking about the crazy stuff that you have done in the past and how it relates to the things you're doing today. And I think for me what I want to impress upon particularly.
Jarad Haggard (44:47.459)
No. No. No, it's not.
Rob Dwyer (45:12.608)
anyone who's younger and listening to this is that all kinds of experiences are learning opportunities. They're opportunities to develop skills that may be useful later in life. They won't all be. Let's be clear on that. Sometimes you'll have experiences and you'll just go, well, that was a complete waste of time, but that's okay. You're still young. You have time left.
But take it all in, experience the world, whether that's playing in a band or exploring your hobbies or booking shows or going out to your local library and like exploring books, like just explore. That's what I want people to take away from this. Go explore.
Jarad Haggard (46:04.217)
Feed the homeless, do the bake sale, jump off of your roof, just live without limits, just live as hard as possible, especially when you're young, because as long as you're not doing things like I did that could lead to bodily harm or injury, it's still probably going to be a learning experience if not time well spent.
Rob Dwyer (46:24.216)
Don't jump off the roof. Don't take that advice. That's bad of us. All right.
Jarad Haggard (46:25.817)
Don't jump off the roof. That's the bad one. Ignore that one. Sorry. We're doing it live, Rob. I'm Billy Gunn.
Rob Dwyer (46:33.454)
Thanks for checking out another episode of Next In Queue everybody. You know the drill. Head down to the show notes. You'll see links to Jarad's social. Go connect with him. He also has a cool music blog, so if you're interested.
Rob Dwyer (46:54.672)
Ask him for band recommendations. You might be surprised and find something new and cool that you really like. Jarad, thanks for being on Next in Queue, brother.
Jarad Haggard (47:05.551)
And thank you, Rob. I would encourage anybody watching or listening, please come have a chat sometime. I may have been spirited during this conversation, but I am much calmer and articulate when we're having a one -on -one conversation that doesn't have my face floating on top.