124: Freelancing in Support with Mo McKibbin

Charlotte Ward: 0:13

Hello and welcome to episode 124 of the Customer Support Leaders Podcast. I'm Charlotte Ward. This week we're talking about freelancing in customer support, so stay tuned for five leaders talking about that very topic. I'd like to welcome back to the podcast today, Mo McKibben. Mo, it's lovely to have you back to talk about freelancing in support. Thank you for joining me.

Mo McKibbin: 0:43

You're welcome. I'm always happy to be here. Um I uh I have to say that I have uh dabbled in freelancing, and I can't say that I'm exactly the same degree of expert as I am on uh other things that I've talked on this podcast about.

Charlotte Ward: 1:02

Uh yeah, that's fine. I think we can all say that about something that we've talked about on this podcast. And I I wouldn't like to disparage any of my guests or indeed lay like claim to any personal failings, but there's plenty many of us don't know about, don't know much about, so we're all good. I always say all stories are valid. When I do these weeks like where we do the five ver like the five takes on one topic, everyone's take is different, and that's part of the joy and part of the interest, and all stories are valid, I think, every week.

Mo McKibbin: 1:36

So and yes, I think that a lot of um support individuals have a dream of you know coaching or consulting or freelancing and support, especially those of us who have been doing this for a really, really long time or have worked for companies that are considered leaders in the space. Um so uh I'm happy to share the uh the dark side of that, which is just some of the struggles and some of the things that are way more challenging about putting things together um than you'd think. Uh so I call this maybe the dream, the death, uh, and the evolution of what what I am planning on doing next.

Charlotte Ward: 2:20

Wow, that's quite a story. I think you could pitch that as a movie. Who would play you in? Who would play you in the movie of Mo?

Mo McKibbin: 2:28

Um, I've heard when I had short, when I had short brown hair, I'd I'd hear Winona Ryder tossed around sometimes. I think it's my cheekbone. I think it's this section right here. Um round the eyes and cheekbones.

Charlotte Ward: 2:42

I can see that.

Mo McKibbin: 2:42

Yeah, I can see that. And then sometimes, I don't know, I hear a lot of I hear a lot of people that I don't really want to look like either. So yeah.

Charlotte Ward: 2:52

Let's not go there. Winona Rider is not bad. Yeah, and and I I'm sure Winona will jump on the script when it goes through her letterbox, right? When it comes in the mail. Um, so ever so slightly more seriously. Let's talk about then this, because the dark side of freelancing is one that not many people talk about, you know. Um, and I've had uh I've had my own dark side of freelancing as well.

Mo McKibbin: 3:27

Um, I think it is especially challenging freelancing um and support specifically. Uh I would say the the three challenges I mostly had was um packaging, um, just in terms of what in support do people want to buy and how can you package that. Um for uh just to elaborate on that specifically for you know support-driven growth. Um you know, I ended up a lot of uh everything would start with kind of like a free consulting call. Um and I ended up giving a lot of like really great free advice to a lot of people, which is generally how my my MO anyway. But uh it just always for me came back to support-driven growth is something that really requires kind of a huge organizational shift. Um, so it was also really challenging with me in terms of who my audience is, is obviously other support professionals who want to create this shift um in their organization. But in order to get buy-in, it it really has to happen at the uh at the sea level. So uh it's like my um my product was something that I like my product was something that would help people get buy-in in the sea level and make these organizational changes, but in order to do that, like that's also who I would be have like would have to be my audience. And I never I haven't, I mean, at least I haven't now quite uh quite landed being able to target. I mean, honestly, if I if I were going to revisit freelancing, which I have, you know, since uh kind of shifted directions, which I can also talk about later. Um, but uh if I were to go back, I would target instead of support professionals wanting to um make these changes on their organizations is C level directly uh to create that organizational change. So it's just my the audience that I am established as an expert in and market to and talk to, and like all of the things that when you're freelancing, you have to establish yourself as an expert, you have to write a lot of content, you have to um you have to get in front of people that that see you as someone that they want to listen to. That whole audience for me is others in the support community. Um, but where I think in order to be successful, what I would have needed, what I need to do would be get uh into the people who can start that organizational change from the top down.

Charlotte Ward: 6:21

Yeah, the people with the checkbooks ultimately, and and the people who probably also uh uh the the least informed about the arena that you're the expert in as well, right? So it's a double challenge. And and even if your internal champions of potential clients are people who know uh know you, love you, value your expertise, like have had a great deal of interactions with you one way or another in the support community or through content or at conferences, actually, you st if you're relying on them to sell you internally.

Mo McKibbin: 6:57

Exactly, exactly. So it's very much like having to sell to someone how to sell you.

Charlotte Ward: 7:05

Yeah, yeah, very meta. And and also let's face it, support professionals aren't salespeople by and large, anyway. So as much as we love support, relying on someone to sell you to someone else who's not a salesperson.

Mo McKibbin: 7:20

And I think that's how I yeah, ended up giving a lot of free advice anyway, is just because uh even though I connect uh obviously so much of what I uh like would like to coach on and write on and talk about and have brought to the organizations that have bought into me because I work there, because they hired me. So much of so much of that value is you know tying support to revenue and business impact and um being able to tie that direct line from support to revenue. However, um when it came to my own products and my own self, it's like my my nature in support is just to help. So it was just like uh when it when it's like my bottom line or my like in terms of tying it back to that, it was like I couldn't get that uh I couldn't make that connection. Um, like the way I could do with um other people's other people's products.

Charlotte Ward: 8:18

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That makes sense. It's the can I just pick your brains for a minute, syndrome, isn't it? Sure. Yeah, yeah. How many times? How many times have you heard that?

Mo McKibbin: 8:27

Oh my gosh, every that's like my entire life. It's like I'm like, oh, this is so awesome. I'm like talking to a potential client and I hope they get come out. They come out, I think, with really great takeaways. Um, and then still like, you know, have, but it's like, yes, exactly, like email conversations and interactions and like things that you know, like Slack conversations. And of course, I just like like my nature is to just give and give and give and give. And it's hard to package that and be like, now, now I need you to give me money for this. Um, so I think I do, I think I have evolved though. Um, my next plan of action, which has not come yet to fruition. Um, but there are, I think, are a couple of other um things that I would like to do uh that are in the realm of freelancing or side hustles, uh, side hustles related to support, is because all freelancing really ended up amounting to was like a couple of actually just like almost like one-off video uh, because I also have a video background, like um video almost like content-related um freelance contracts. Um, so instead, I think I'm gonna take the support-driven growth knowledge and content that I you know create. And while I still am going to have like free content in terms of a blog and offering that information, also turn that into some sort of video course or and a book, hopefully. So therefore, all of the things I think it's a lot easier to like get a CEO to buy a $30 book.

Charlotte Ward: 10:10

Let's call it a $60 book. I mean, it's it's it's worth at least it's worth at least that much. On $199, I think.

Mo McKibbin: 10:21

Yeah, exactly. Than it would be to get like, you know, coaching through organizational train change. Um, so I'm I'm focusing my efforts on the content creation element of that. And then, you know, obviously for me specifically, I this way of thinking of support, I've noticed, is it's such a it's so funny because on on one hand, people are like, holy cow, this totally makes a lot of sense. It ties in so much with like customer experience and voice of the customer and like um customer centricity and like customer driven growth, like aside from sort support-driven growth. So, like there's like one half of people completely get it, and the other half is like support shouldn't be involved in revenue. Like, what is this? This is ridiculous.

Charlotte Ward: 11:10

Well, and you know, I think what's really interesting is that those two halves can coexist in the same person, actually. Sure, yeah. Have you found this? Like you have these conversations, and when you're having the conversation about whether it's support-driven growth as a like a brand or a bigger concept, or whether it's just like daring to suggest that support might have an influence over revenue, like even like a really subtle level, you can have the conversation and people buy into it while you're talking about it, but then as soon as they're off talking to the CFO or someone, it's totally a sliding scale.

Mo McKibbin: 11:47

And the other thing too is it's just the the um it's it's I think there's like a lot of fear related to it. Uh like there's like there's awe and fear simultaneously happening at once. Because on on the one hand, when uh anyone who knows anything about any business will tell you as much as lip service you can play to the value of customer support, the only thing people actually care about in terms of business impact is revenue. Like, how much revenue does this drive? Like, I mean, that is that's for feet new features, that's for you know processes and operations, does it save money? Is this person gonna make business impact by driving these things forward? Like, it's just like we can talk about all these things like culture and you know, like happiness, but at the end of the day, a business is a business. And so when I talk to support professionals, there's like this we want to be recognized as impactful on the business, we want a seat at the table, we want to be looped into larger strategic business decisions, we want a voice in the product, we want a voice in how the product is presented to customers so that we're not getting this backlash of a misrepresentation. Like, so we want a voice in like marketing, marketing messaging and things like that. All of these things are things that support teams desperately crave, but are uh but without having a tie back to revenue, it's so hard to prove the business impact. It's like on the one hand, they want all of these things, and on the other hand, but if if they get tied to revenue, they feel like they have to be a salesperson. And we're going on a tangent outside of freelancing, but um, yes, I think that there's uh one of the things that I have is a mixture of fear and awe, and the awe coming from you know, have being directly connected to business impact and having that sea to the table, um, which comes from a line from revenue. And then the other side of that is are we gonna be expected to sell? There's uh, and this is where it gets kind of confusing to package because it's like again, it's like more of a larger organizational change of bringing support central to business operation and like completely changing how they report on support as opposed to you know just tag and upsell on support or pack it or sell a consulting package or something. Like so it's just there's there's different ways to tie support to revenue and business impact. And it's a big, it's a big thing. And and that was my biggest challenge in in freelancing is it's just how do you put a little bow and a price tag on that?

Charlotte Ward: 14:37

Yeah, and it's it's the packaging, and and you know, that all the things you just mentioned there about you know, like bundling, you know, like uh improved SLAs or like support as a consulting kind of stream or whatever, like these really specific activities. Leadership, C-suite likes them because they're simple, they can understand them. They know that if we do this thing, if we pull this lever, ch-ching, customer pays. It's that simple, right? Um, but yeah, I just wanted to kind of round out really super fast on the this thing that you've touched on several times, which is the packaging, like and actually how difficult it is for all everything you just said around like how you just put the bow on it and call it a thing that you can sell. With a price tag, yeah. With a price tag, cha-ching, and your customer pays, right? That's it for today. Go to customersupportleaders.com forward slash one two four for the show notes, and I'll see you next time.