“The poets down here don't write nothin' at all, they just stand back and let it all be”
🎤 “Jungleland” by Bruce Springsteen
Let me tell you the story of how we somehow got into the book 📕 business…
On 4/2/2015 (I just checked), we received an email from John Wiley & Sons book publishing:
“Nick, I’m writing to ask if you or another thought leader at Gainsight might have an interest in writing a book for a broad audience of businesspeople, explaining the business strategy and implementation challenges around #CustomerSuccess.”
We were a tiny startup at the time. As such, I was 100% sure the email was a prank. I was waiting for the next message to say “please wire money to this unnamed offshore bank account.” 💀
Luckily, we decided to get on the phone with Wiley. Anthony Kennada, our irrepressible and legendary first CMO, was always game for punching above our weight.
After the call, we thought about it and decided to take the plunge. Luckily, our first CCO Dan Steinman was both a CS expert as well as a compelling writer. Dan took a “vacation” from his day job as CCO and spent several months on “Customer Success” - AKA “The Blue Book.” I contributed a bit, but the bulk of the credit goes to Dan.
And as luck (and Dan’s hard work) would have it, the book became a hit. For us, the results were incredible and definitely helped make Gainsight and the #CustomerSuccess space what it is. Some examples:
📈 The book sold more than 100K copies, which is a lot for a “niche” business book.
📚 Thousands of companies featured the book in their internal book clubs.
💰 For our business, countless clients told me that they first read the book and then decided to buy our software.
🧑🏻🏫 Most inspiring for us, tens of thousands of new CSMs used the book to learn the field.
This led to us getting addicted to writing (see below image!). Some learnings:
😓 It does take a lot of work, but it’s doable. I’d budget a few months of work, though Allison Pickens and I wrote “Customer Success Economy” on long, WiFi-less flights ✈️ to India!
🎙️ Customer stories are critical, so we interviewed hundreds of companies across all of the books.
💪🏾 Elevate the topic to be about more than your software or business to a bigger idea. For example, our community book is about best practices in community-building - online and offline.
🗣️ Bring your own voice. For our second book, we tried using a ghost writer (who was good) but we didn’t like the idea of our name attached to an outsider’s words. This is why I write my own LinkedIn posts as well (usually also on WiFi-less flights!).
🔥 If you have a compelling new category or idea, it’s definitely worth it.
Now I need to start writing my REAL passion project: “What Taylor Swift, Bruce Springsteen and Quantum Physics taught me about SaaS…”
Til then, what topic (business or personal) would you write a book about, if you had the time?
CC Kellie Capote Ruben Rabago Ashvin Vaidyanathan Allison Pickens Robin van Lieshout
Have fun, everything else will follow!
3yIrit Eizips indeed, its awesome Unit4!