Hi Astrid! Tell us about your role at CVInsights

My name is Astrid. I am a customer success manager at CV Insights. 

As a CSM, I help our customers find value in the services and the product that we provide. So making sure that they have full use of the products, leading training sessions, sending out the contract during contract renewals. Overall I am an advocate for the customer and being the main point of contact for the customer at CV Insights. 

The teams that I collaborate with are account executives, product team, legal, rev ops and then sometimes even the solution engineers.

Tell us how you ended up in tech.

I initially received my bachelor's degree in international trade and marketing from the fashion Institute of technology. 

After graduation I worked in many different companies in different industries mostly within project management and digital marketing functions. 

I started my professional career at a consumer testing company called SGS. Then I spent the next few years doing project management and digital marketing within different industries: consulting company, skin care, and healthcare. I definitely spent time just exploring different things and just trying to figure my career path.

I came across an ad for SV Academy that said they help you break into tech with no experience as a business development representative. I was interested in tech, but it was a full time program for three months, so I couldn’t join. 

In the meantime, I completed a 6 month UX design certificate program. During the pandemic, I was rethinking my career. But unfortunately I wasn’t able to land anything with the UX certification. 

So I remembered SVAcademy and thought: “let me just give them another shot. Maybe things have changed.”And things did change - SVA became a 4 week boot camp and I applied for it and got right into it.

And so I think my interest in tech really evolved by that point. The autonomy, the financial stability, the fact that there is always something to learn in a booming field. 

So I gave SV Academy a shot and I landed my first role as the business development representative. 

What was your first role in tech as a business development representative like? 

If I could go back and do things differently, I would have tried to break into tech sooner. 

Right away I liked the culture and the autonomy. There's not much hand holding or micromanaging. Of course there's support, but, at least in my experience, you have the ability to do your work and manage your own day. I really liked that in sales, you are the CEO of your territory. 

What was your next step after SDR? 

I knew immediately there was an AE role and that just seemed like the most common next step.

But once I got into the field I realized there were so many different paths. 

And so when it was time for me to start thinking about my next step, I just started having conversations with a lot of different functions: AE, onboarding, etc. As soon as I heard what customer success managers do, I was like, yup, that’s the role for me, that’s where I want to go next. 

When I was talking to CSMs, I liked the idea of being able to build long-term relationships and I wanted to build that consulting muscle and be on the other side of the business (post-sales). But I loved that I could maintain that sales part through renewal negotiations. I wanted to continue to maintain that experience and build upon experience within the sales cycle. 

How did you manage that promotion? 

I really honed in on that and made it known within the organization that this is what I want to do next - all the way up to the VP of business development. And I really just had my mind and heart set on customer success and only customer success.

I was also having lots of conversations with everyone in the CSM org: CSMs, CSM managers, the director of the CSM. 

There was no confusion as to what Astrid wanted to do next. But then also, I was continuing to perform, I continued to maintain my stride as an SDR and keep up that momentum. I was one of the founding members of the SDR advisory board and I interviewed prospective SDRs. I raised my hand to participate in projects and continued to be a team player. 

What happened next was that I became 1st in line to do small customer success projects that came up. And when a full time customer success role opened up, I was 1st in line again, because I had already had those conversations with everyone in the customer success organization.