Customer Success Playbook - Final Episode with Kevin and Roman

This finale feels less like an ending and more like a graduation ceremony for everyone who has ever cared about Customer Success.

In this closing chapter of the customer success playbook podcast, Kevin Metzger and Roman Trebon look back on a journey that started as a “ludicrous” idea over food and drinks and turned into a global community with nearly 13,000 downloads across countries like Australia, Israel, France, and beyond. They revisit how the show began as a simple networking experiment during a job transition and evolved into a platform for learning, connection, and real human stories behind Customer Success careers.

Kevin and Roman share their favorite guests and moments—from foundational lessons on P&L and value with Dave Jackson, to onboarding excellence with Donna Weber, to conversations about imposter syndrome with Rachel Provan, and the future of AI and agents with Sam Cummings. They talk candidly about fear, courage, and the reality that neither of them knew the first thing about podcasting when they started.

This episode is a reflective, warm, and occasionally cheeky goodbye to the show in its current form—and a clear pivot point toward what’s coming next for both hosts, their careers, and the evolving world of Customer Success and AI.

Detailed Analysis

From a business and leadership standpoint, this episode is a masterclass in experimentation, courage, and community-building.

1. Turning a career transition into a strategic platform
Kevin initially launched the podcast as a networking tool while navigating a job transition. That decision paid off in multiple ways: expanded visibility, deeper relationships, and a strong professional brand. For leaders and CS professionals, this is a powerful example of turning uncertainty into leverage—using content as a strategic asset rather than just a marketing tactic.

Key takeaways for operators and executives:

• Don’t wait for the “perfect moment” to build a platform—build while you’re in motion.
• Treat visibility, networking, and knowledge-sharing as part of your job, not an optional extra.
• Use long-form conversations to deepen trust with your ecosystem (customers, peers, partners, talent).

2. The Customer Success community as a force multiplier
Roman highlights how generous and open the Customer Success community has been—guests freely sharing their time, their expertise, and even their networks by recommending future guests. This is more than feel-good community talk; it’s a blueprint for modern go-to-market.

Business relevance:

• High-performing CS communities create compounding value: better ideas, stronger talent pipelines, and faster pattern recognition around what works.
• Geographic boundaries matter less when you’re connecting through content; an Atlanta-based duo built a truly global audience.
• Investing in community creates resilience—especially in volatile job markets.

3. Learning as a competitive advantage (and a personal operating system)
A recurring theme in the conversation is learning: Kevin’s love for learning, Roman’s reflections on trying new formats, and the way every guest

Please Like, Comment, Share and Subscribe.

You can also find the CS Playbook Podcast:
YouTube - @CustomerSuccessPlaybookPodcast
Twitter - @CS_Playbook

You can find Kevin at:
Metzgerbusiness.com - Kevin's person web site
Kevin Metzger on Linked In.

You can find Roman at:
Roman Trebon on Linked In.

Transcript

music: 0:02

They got the game Custom success, their claim to fame on the podcast. They like the spark. Elevating your skills, creating a mark. Let's dive deeper into the playbook. The secrets they share no need to look from to retention. They've got all successes that go gonna stand tall with each episode. They share the views. Strategies and tactics that you can use some challenges to try and stick, helping you navigate when you hit a wall. So tune in now and join Kevin to the Journey in Success. With insights and wisdom, you'll be the best.

1:09

Welcome to this.

music: 1:10

Special episode of the Customer Success Playbook podcast. Today we're closing this chapter of the show and reflecting on what this journey has meant to us and to the community. Roman, you know, it's been, it's been a while, uh, that we've been doing this. We started in, uh, June of 23. We launched in June of 23, but we, uh, got together in March

Kevin Metzger: 1:34

do you remember the, uh, do you remember the first conversation when the podcast showed up?

Roman Trebon: 1:39

Well, yeah. I, I remember the first time you mentioned it to me. We were, we went to get a, uh, a bite to eat and a drink go, uh. At a local place. And you, and you raised the idea to me, Kev, about doing a podcast. I think you had seen something I posted on LinkedIn, Hey, you're interested in customer success? I was like, yeah. And you threw out the idea. And I thought it was, I thought it was, uh, I thought it was pretty ludicrous. Kev, I'll be honest. I was like, why would, what a podcast like, Hey, you gotta be kidding me. What, what, what, uh, who would listen to it? Who would come on the show? I had a lot of, uh, doubt, man. But it's a super fun ride. I've, I've loved the, uh, the entire, the entire, uh, process of working with you, so, okay. As you said all that, this is our final episode in its current form, right? So we're gonna use this episode. We're gonna do a, a look back on how we started, what we learned along the way. We'll, we'll, we'll do some of our favorite moments, and, uh, as we wind it down, we'll talk a little bit about what's next for, for both us and, and the show. Right. So, uh, I'm excited to dig into it. Kev, let's, let me, let me start out with this. What, when you, when you ready for the idea of doing the podcast, what were you hoping this podcast would become? When we, uh, when we, when we launched it?

Kevin Metzger: 2:57

Yeah, you know, I knew I was gonna be entering into a job transition phase and I think my, my first kind of hope was alright, you know, done a lot in customer success, but I wanna kind of get my name out there so that I could use it as a networking tool. And I really, I, I think that was my initial kind of thought process was, hey, this could just be a great tool for networking. To be honest, I mean, it, it, it was like we've met so many amazing people over, over the last couple years doing this. Yeah. Getting to interview people and getting to have conversations. Yeah. And so I, I think that was my first, my first thought, my first, uh, first reasoning on doing it. How about you? What, what you think you want? Yeah.

Roman Trebon: 3:45

I don't know if I had any expectations ke i, I i, that we would last more than two episodes, that we get anyone to listen to us. I, I think I had pretty, um, loudest standards when we, when we went into it, but you know, like you said, it was, we got, you know, I think when we really sat down and got serious about it, we had outlined like goals for us and, and I think they were collective goals. Uh, you know, and they were. Keep honest. You're like, learn. Yeah. Keep learning. Right? There's so much to learn in customer success. It's a broad definition, so try to learn and soak in as much as we can from, from experts in the space, grow our network, which you mentioned like I, it's been amazing how many awesome people we've met. And you know, I, I don't know if it's, I don't know if this is specific to customer success community, but I find the people amazing, right? Like everyone in it is just. Uh, so giving with their time, their knowledge, always willing to help out when needed. I, I just find it a very welcoming, I, I, I found it and still find it a very welcoming community. And so, you know, our, our networks have grown and we've got to meet so many great authors, CEOs, you know, people have been coming in the CS space. We've, we've really run the gamut, uh, which has been great. And then, you know, really, I think the third and, and probably least important, which just like, like kind of grow our personal brand. I don't know if that's helped the non cap. I think the first two instructor were so successful in my mind that, you know, I, I personally feel rewarded, which is, you know, I think the ultimate measure of success with this thing.

Kevin Metzger: 5:15

Yeah, I, I, I gotta agree with that. The, I I, I spent a couple minutes to go look at a few statistics before, uh, before we sat down today. I've had almost 13,000 downloads of the podcast over, over the last two and a half years, which, yeah, I, I guess in the scale of internet things, maybe it's not a lot, but you know, we, we talk to 13,000 people, uh, yeah, who've heard our conversations and participated and really thought about. Customer success and, and maybe it's not 13,000 individuals, but people wanted to hear us. 13,000 dimes. That's, that's kind of, I don't even know how, like that's an amazing feeling. 13,000 people. I, I couldn't reach 13,000 people without doing this.

Roman Trebon: 6:09

Absolutely, absolutely. And not just, you know, the number Australia, Israel, France. You, it's like it's all over the world. C it's, it's a, like people all over the world have downloaded an episode and taken a listen. Like it, it's amazing when you look at the country stats too, it's like, you know, you and I live down the street in Atlanta, but our, our, our community has gotten so much bigger through the podcast. Right. Which is, it's just, uh, amazing.

Kevin Metzger: 6:37

Yeah. Yeah. So let's, did wanna take a couple minutes to kinda reflect, you know, what are a couple guests that you. Really found memorable.

Roman Trebon: 6:49

Yeah. We've had so many amazing guests, Kevin, I'll be honest, I, I, in prep, I went through our episodes and it's so many, I'm like, oh, that was a great episode. That was a great per I love that conversation. Like there were so many of'em. I, it's really, you know, I, I did get a sense of, um, you know, just an appreciation for the podcast, Kev. Once I, I kind of went back and looked at, at, at, at what we did, uh, in terms of the guest, I, I couple to stick out, right? I really loved our interview with Donna Weber. I, I just thought, well, you know, she wrote the book, onboarding Matters to me. It's still sort of like the babble of onboarding. Like, I have the book, I pull it out from time to time. I, I still reference it, right? I just, uh, she has great content that I still follow, so. Just to get, just again, that was someone I didn't think we'd get. Kevin, like, why is she gonna join the show? She, she was amazing. She was awesome. So I, I not only learned a lot, I've been able to apply that, you know, at my organization and, and it's been, uh, that, that's been a real one that sticks out. The, the other one is, uh, Rachel Provin. You know, we, we had an episode about imposter syndrome co. And I just really want, you know, like if you, if you're like, what does imposter syndrome have to do with customer success? I, I think it actually has to do a lot. It's just for any professional, right? It's something that I've, I've have dealt with, and especially for those in the job market today, right? I, I think sometimes we can self limit ourselves and I think having Rachel talk through that, Rachel works with people day in to day out to find opportunities, opportunities in the customer success space. I really liked that episode as well. I thought that was a little bit different than our traditional episodes, but I, uh, I enjoyed it. How about you, Kev? What, what? Any any shows or guests that jumped out for you when you, when you reflected back?

Kevin Metzger: 8:35

Yeah. You know, I was thinking about it and, um, yeah. First, I, I mean, actually first couple actually come from our co first couple episodes. I mean, just having Dave Jackson as our first guest. He, you know, CEO very successful Right. Just willing to come talk to us. Um, also out of, out of England, right? Outta Europe. Yep. So that was, that was cool. And then really the, it's funny, I mean the, the lessons about from him about revenue, about. Understanding what the value of your service is in, in, in context of a company, right? How do you make sure that you are providing a service that's providing benefit to the company? If you're not doing that, then are you really being successful? Yeah, I,

Speaker 2: 9:29

it,

Kevin Metzger: 9:29

it, it was a great first lesson for me, right? To, to just have,

Roman Trebon: 9:34

and, and I would say if you're now just listening to our show and you've not listened to all the other episodes. Dave Jackson set the tone unintentionally ke for like the entire podcast. He started with p and l and it's so important and if you understand your p and l and, and and, and the value you bring to the organization, everything else comes out. You know, it was, we didn't plan that. I wish we planned it that way, but it just worked out that way. Right. So if you haven't, go back and listen to Dave. An amazing episode. I completely agree, man. We lucked out with that one and, and really I think you could just put a pin in that and say, you know, start there and then, and then go through that other episodes, watch you listen.

Kevin Metzger: 10:14

Yeah. So I, I mean I think that was fantastic. The other David, David Allen, early on, David's become, David Allen's become a real mentor to me. Um, so I'm just very appreciative of that. And then. You know, I'm, you know, I love AI and, and, uh, Sam Cummings who was just such a, yeah, I went to the gain site in 2024. I met Sam there and he's just such an insightful dude in really understands ai. I think he was one of the first person people we talked to about agents and actually agents working together. And so that, I think that helped expand my understanding of AI and how agents can work and how agents can work together, and some of that, which, you know, it's funny if you, people are still trying to understand those concepts. So that was what, July ish of 24, I think that we had that episode. So

Roman Trebon: 11:17

yeah. You know, Kev, one of the things we, uh, we had talked about in the kind of the prep is just kind of the, I don't wanna say behind the scenes, but the stuff that happened after the show, right? Like, you know, we, we if little inside baseball gear, but we would get on with our guests and we would have a little pre-talk and, you know, and then we'd record and then we got to talk to him afterwards. Anything, uh, stick out to you from our kind of. You know, behind the scenes views when we stopped, when the record button was stopped with any of our guests.

Kevin Metzger: 11:49

Well, you know, uh, you mentioned Donna. Um, uh, Sue is another one. Both of them were very helpful in kind of recommending other guests to come on the show to help propel us forward and people we should meet and talk to. Uh, and I think that happened, you know, those two in particular stuck out because they really gave a couple of really good recommendations and, and connections. But I, that happened over and over again. So I think that was one of the things people, you, you mentioned people being given, people weren't, were giving up their time. They were giving up their information, they were giving other their contacts. And you're right. I don't know if it's particular to the space, I don't know, but it would, it, it made. What we were trying to do so much easier. It made it just flow. It made us just okay, yeah, we'll just have that next conversation. And it, it was really, I, I think that How about yourself? Any, anybody that you saw,

Roman Trebon: 12:49

you know, I love the kind of post wrap up conversations, right? Because we would talk about whatever the topic was and then, you know, we kind of took a deep breath after, and then we would just talk about whatever, like I, a couple things to stick out. I remember you mentioned Dave Ellen, but. We get off the show, Dave's showing us, he makes these huge Lego builds. And I'm like, what? This is insane. That's awesome. This is amazing. I'm like, you gotta send me pictures, right? Uh, Matt Lama, you know, playing guitar, he's like in a band and stuff, right? Like he, you know, he wrote a book and he'd play in this band and, you know, we would, we would ask the question, I think, I can't remember when we started it, but we would ask our guests like, Hey, if we came to visit you, you know, what should we see? Or where should we go? Right. And then people would share like, oh, you know, if you ever come over here, you gotta go to this place. Or, you know, I'm about to head on this, you know, I'm about to go vacation here. And you just learned about'em personally, right. Beyond just whatever the topic was and Yeah. And that's the part I really liked. Right. You got to know him. And, and I, I hope if you are a former guest listening, I hope you had a good time with us. Right? Like really, we, our, our goal is if you came on the show, was to try to make it as easy as possible and to try to have a fun time. I walked away. I always enjoyed it, man. Like, I always felt like, oh man, that was, even though I had some nerves going into each episode, when you get through it, I'm like, man, what a great guest. You know, really enjoyed getting to know him and, and, and I really valued that.

Kevin Metzger: 14:09

Yeah. Yeah. And I really, I, you're just, you're speaking to something that I think, you know, is always important, personal connection, but as we keep moving forward into, into this new age of ai. Personal connections are the things that allow you to know what's real. Yeah. I keep, I keep getting asked by my daughter, how are we gonna know what's real? We know what's real about people we interface with by the people we talk to. Um, so I, I find that such a, it's such a nice thing and being able to have those conversations and the personal conversations, and then being able to reach out to people. You know are real. Right? Yeah. It, wherever they are and having those contacts everywhere is, is it's, it's a, it's amazing. It's such a good, good thing to be able to do, to be able to know people, to be able to talk to people, to be able to learn from people, to be able to share with people. It's, I, yeah. In the end, yeah, go ahead.

Roman Trebon: 15:16

No, I, I, no, it's not to tell you off here, but like when I was, when, you know, I was thinking back on the show, I, I was, I was constantly reminded of one quote, which I really enjoyed. I think it relates to my experience doing the show. It it's life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage. Right? And, and that I, I would say, you know, when I went, like I said, when you asked me to do this, I, I had all these reasons why I shouldn't do it. Right? All this fear of, you know, rejection or, you know. We took the plunge, right? We did it. We didn't know, we didn't know anything about podcasting. I didn't know how to, I barely know how to hit the record button. Right. Like I was, you know, and, and we did show notes and we did prep, and we talked to people who did it. And like, we just learned through the process and, and we reached out to people and, and we've, like we've talked about so far, we made so many great connections, right? Our, my world, I, I don't wanna speak for you, Ken, but I know your world too. It's, it's expanded so much. It's because we had the courage to take the plunge. Right. We, it, it expanded because we asked people to come on the show. Right. It expanded because we weren't afraid to, to give this a shot. Right. And so I was just constantly reminded of that as I was looking back.

Kevin Metzger: 16:25

Yeah. I I think that's such a, it's such an important thing. You know, I've, I've pulled things over time where I just don't, I'm just like, just gonna do it. If you kinda have a high level idea of what you wanna do, what your goals are, and then you just start working towards'em, right? It's so easy to get stuck. It's so easy to get stuck in. Well, I don't know what's next. I don't know what to do. Um, and I remember, I remember from, uh, it's a Tony Robbins training that I took at one point in time. Um. Trying to, trying to accomplish big goals and what, what you gotta do. And he was talking about how you talk to yourself about that kinda stuff. And one of the things he's like, well what? What's the next step? All you have to do is figure out what the next step is. And he is like, well, and you might say to yourself, well, I don't know what the next step is. I said, well, tell yourself, if I didn't know what the next step was, what would

Roman Trebon: 17:26

it be? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Kevin Metzger: 17:27

Yeah. It's funny because it's, and then I'll be honest, you know, so I was like, all right, let's just let's, I, I'm a big, I'm like, I wanna know where I'm going. If I know where I'm going, I, I want to plan to get there. But I'm okay with the fact that you got to things spell you. You're wrong so much of the time. Right? Yeah. Um, so, okay. It's okay. What? It took me a long time in life to learn it's okay to be wrong about something. Just fix it and make it right and keep moving the, the objective is the goal and go towards it. And this was one of those things, right? We started, like you said, with relatively no knowledge. I had a little bit, I had played with some stuff I, like I said, I like picking up random projects and doing things. I did the sta the project in 2009 where I had recorded a couple of podcasts as part of it. And so I had some idea and when you're like, well, how are we gonna do the tech? Don't worry about it. I'll so, because I had played with some of the stuff before, but, but yeah, it's What do you do? Do you know where you want to go? Okay. What's the first step? You don't have to know every single step in between. I have a couple ideas where you want to go. What are some of the steps? And then test it. If it fails, try something else. And I, I think interestingly, as a personal lesson from this. That's it works. Getting the goals, understanding where you want to go, and then figuring out the steps along the way. You're not a hundred percent sure start, start guessing, and by the way, having, having you as a partner in this and kind of thinking through it together, right? I mean, yeah, yeah. Team go.

Roman Trebon: 19:16

No, Kev, I would just, I, I, I completely agree, right? I, I would say our, my experience in the podcast, I, I, is, it, it, it, that, that directly relates to my day-to-day job, right? Know what the goals are. Just take the first step, try so something iterate. You're gonna fail. It's okay. Like I think back on the podcast, Kev, we started with just you and I talking right? Then we had guests on. And then we did recap shows after the guest. Right. We tried that for a while. We, then we had, we've had AI do shows, you know, like ai Kevin and AI Roman did a show. We've done many episodes. We've done special EPIs, like we've tried a bunch and we've tried stuff with the format of the show. We've tried stuff with how we've reached out. We tried stuff with how you and I work. We always knew what we were trying to achieve. Right? The same goals we outlined earlier, and we just iterated, right? We just took the next action and, and some things we loved and it worked and we kept it like the, like the, the, the, the show questions for the guests, like the personal questions. We put it in there, it stuck. We tried other stuff like the recaps. It didn't stick. It was okay, you know, but we tried it and you're not gonna know until you try it. And, and I can take that and relate it right back to the job. Right? You know what we're trying to do, right? Like in customer success. Grow revenue, right. Retain customers, right. I know the goals. How do we get there? Well, let's try stuff, you know? You know, let's, and again, working as a team, getting up, being open to ideas and you know, so that has been a big takeaway for me is I actually got to use something in my personal life that I can now incorporate into my work life as well.

Kevin Metzger: 20:52

Yeah. Fantastic. Fantastic. So let's talk about, let's talk about, you know. We decided we've gotta end, end the show. There's obviously reasons for that, let's say. I mean, and, and, and they're good actually. All of them are good reasons, right? We've got, we've both gotten busy with various things. Um, yeah. And so Roman, I mean, what, what is it, what's taking your time these days? Yeah, for sure. These days for sure. And, and wherever you've grown to.

Roman Trebon: 21:20

Yeah. So I, I, I, so I'm really excited, Kevin, and, and, and again. As much fun as the show, as you and I know, it wasn't like we just ruled the, you know, we just ruled this out each week and, and you could just record and, and do the fun part of the interview. It, it was a lot, there was a lot of work and a lot work time and Yep. It, it adds up. And so, you know, right now I'm at a company called Teams Plus we, a, a communication as a, a communication platform as a service, right? So voice messaging, e you know, any communication channels. We have a carrier grade network, have. Uh, we, we are layering on kind of, you know, you choose your own platform, but then we layer analytics, AI on top of it, deeper insights, and we're really pivoting our company from like a reseller, like an old school reseller, to this really kind of open AI analytics led communication platform. And it's been an exciting change, but you know, with that change becomes more responsibility, more, more work. Fun stuff, Kev. Again, I'll, the beauty of it is I can take what we've learned from this show and apply it to, to my, to my day-to-day job. Right. And a lot of that stuff, Kev, like onboarding with Donna, specific to onboarding. But you know, the, the lessons we learned across all of our guests apply in so many different areas. Not just work, but like day-to-day life as well. Right. And I think I'm excited to take those lessons we've learned and, and apply, keep applying them. As, as Teams Plus grows. It's an exciting time, Kevin, you know, again, when you're, when you're a company that's growing and, and something's every day there's something new, I enjoy that. And, and yeah, we, we, we are, uh, we're really excited for where we're headed and, and I'm, I'm excited for, you know, where my growth will lead within, within that journey as well. I'd love to know, Kevin, you, you have a lot going on, right? Uh, I, I, I don't wanna, I don't wanna, um. You know, maybe sway your, where you start with this answer, but you're wearing the Kennesaw Al Jersey. I didn't see any Kennesaw Al Jersey gear two years ago when we started this. What, okay, let's start there.

Kevin Metzger: 23:30

Yeah, sure. Well, first off, I've got two kids at Kennesaw, uh, that's expect

Roman Trebon: 23:37

Sure, sure. I'm leading the question. I'm leading the question.

Kevin Metzger: 23:41

Yeah, we, and, and, yeah, we've got the, we're recording this before championship weekend. We got conference USA championship weekend coming up. But yeah, I, I, last summer I started having conversations with Kenne. Saw about doing some work with them and actually being a teacher there or a professor there. So, uh, gone through the process. I am going to. Starting in the spring, actually, it's a long process to get into owning a class. So the fall, I'll own a class in the spring semester. I'm gonna be a teacher assistant for a graduate level class, a FinTech graduate level task class, which is super exciting. We're gonna talk about structure of finance and what Syntech is today, the hardware or software related to. FinTech and then go into Bitcoin or, well, not Bitcoin, but the blockchain. Yeah. And, and all that. And honestly, I'm super excited about it because it's not an area that I have a ton of experience in, but the professor who's leading this, the doc doctor who's leading the class is, is just an expert in the area. And I'm gonna get the opportunity to not only participate and help with grades. Reading papers and participating in the discussion for it. It's such a, it's like an opportunity for me to learn about new subjects and if the one thing that is a constant in my life, things that learn, lead to doing something like this, lead to everything is I love to learn. Learning is like just, and, and so you're gonna get paid to actually go take graduate level class and, and, and learn. As well as help out and really help, help help students, uh, in this particular case. And then, you know, when I do get into having the class of my own in the fall, uh, I, I'm, I'm just super excited about it. So it's a part-time thing, but it, it's, it's something that I'm, I'm very excited about.

Roman Trebon: 25:52

Well, I, I am looking forward to my Kennesaw AL'S toss cap that you'll be bringing over here soon. So I'm excited for that. But for those who don't know though, I, I, I will say this and I don't just say this kept,'cause you're gonna be teaching there. Kennesaw State's in Atlanta. You may, if you're listening to this and you're not in the Atlanta area, you may not know it as well what they are doing at Kennesaw State. I am, I, I am a huge fan of sales operations courses, customer success FinTech. They are, they are, in my opinion, is like the new generation of university where they are meeting the need of the market. They're just not traditional. Like, here's your accounting class, da da da. They bring in expertise in that space and teach the kids that are gonna really, you know, really help enable them when they go into the workforce. I've been really blown away by, that's why I'm excited to have you participate over there as well and, and look forward to hear more. But that's how you have ke You got the, don't, don't just stop here because I, you got a lot more than that.

Kevin Metzger: 26:54

Well, I mean, so like I said, I was, or earlier on, I mentioned when we started this, I was looking to do networking because I knew I'd be in job transition and I, I spent a lot of last year in job transition, but I also spent a lot of time learning. Um, and so I, I do, so I, I, I've got a kind of full-time role where I'm doing consulting in the supply chain space. As well as I've also started your AI assistant guy, which is basically an AI training program. So I've got a couple of training. By the time this comes out, we'll, we'll actually have the first standardized training kind of offering up. It'll be cohorts of 20 people that you know, can come and really learn. It's what I, so one of the things that I've been doing over the last couple, since September of 23, actually. Was training in local job, uh, networking on how to use AI as part of your job search. And one of the things I've learned is there's a lot of people that are trying to learn how to use ai and so this is really a fundamentals course where people who really maybe haven't used it very much yet, or who have, but don't really understand how to benefit from it or work and how to use it. It's gonna be a fundamental skill going forward. And so this is really taking you from, you know, if you don't know anything, it's gonna be a great course to start with and we'll take you to kind of really using it at a master's level, understanding how to use it in your job. So that's, that's, uh, the offering through there. And yeah, in addition, while this version of the Customer Success Playbook is going to. Done. I I, and this is still slightly up in the air as far as where we're going ex exactly yet, but I do want to keep doing interviews with people. I want to focus on experts in the AI space going forward, but we'll still keep a focus on customer success. And really the consulting I do is in supply chain, so we're gonna look at that too and bring, you know, supply chain and customer success and AI together. Kind of in that next iteration. It may stay under the same brand. It may come under the u AI assistant guide. That's, that's still not finalized. But I'm excited about it and I really have some, like we've talked about targeting big, big names and big people. Mm-hmm. Uh, and growing, and I, I, I, I have some aspirational folks that I really would like to interview because. You know, this space in, in AI is super interesting and there are a lot of big thinkers on it. Um, I don't know, I I, I'm hesitant to name anybody.

Roman Trebon: 29:49

Speak it into existence. Kev, speak it into existence. Gimme at least one here.

Kevin Metzger: 29:54

Yeah, I

Roman Trebon: 29:54

I'm gonna give you two.

Kevin Metzger: 29:56

Alright. Uh, one is, and both of them I've had interactions with in the past in one way or another. So, Igor PNI is currently. He was a guy who, one of the reasons I did that five on AI in, uh, in June of 23. And actually the, the biggest reason I stopped is'cause we had already started on doing this and this was the commitment first. But one of the other reasons I stopped was Igor and a couple other guys, Matt Berman, map Wolf, the three of them were just on top. This AI thing and producing at a level that I was like, these guys are awesome. I'm just gonna follow them and learn from them for the next couple years. But I really, I hope to talk to those three. I, I, Igor specifically, I, I've been taking a class from, and I'm hoping that I'll, I'll be able to get the opportunity to in interview him. And then the other guy who I met back when I did the Advocate project briefly, and I saw him speak once and then I went to book signing. He did and chatted with him there. I've chatted with him online over the years a couple times is Gary Vaynerchuk and I, I think I mentioned to you that I, I'd be interested in talking to him. This guy is just obsessively customer focused, obsessively business focused, obsessive, but. He's been talking on AI a bit recently. He's reflected some ideas that I've spoken about that, of where AI is going in the future. And that's, that's one of the things, like, there's just so many areas AI touches. There's philosophy, there's economics, there's, there's so many things that you can really look at. So I wanna spend some time talking about all of those things. And I think, uh, you know, I, I, I hope to bring some of that stuff to, to anybody who's interested in hearing about it. If you've been in my network, if you've been in this, you, you'll have the opportunity to, to listen and learn from hopefully some of these experts, if I get the opportunity to, to interview'em. And like you said, let's speak it into existence. Hopefully it comes. I'm saying it out loud.

Roman Trebon: 32:09

No, I love it, man. I love it. So, uh, just like that Clemson, uh, prediction you made three years ago, I hope, I hope this prediction goes better than that one, Kev, if I, if I remember correct. Oh God, uh, yeah.

Kevin Metzger: 32:19

That one was, that one was bad. And, and, and, yeah.

Roman Trebon: 32:24

No, this will be better. No, I'm looking forward to it. I mean, obviously our, uh, if you're listening to the show, you follow us, follow Kevin on LinkedIn, whatever the show, uh, however it gets, uh, uh, branded. If it's gonna be under this umbrella or a Dipper one, Kev will have all the latest information. Kev, I look forward to that. Alright, Kev, it's sign off time. I got the box of Kleenexes ready. You ready to wrap this thing up? One last final time?

Kevin Metzger: 32:47

Man, I just wanna say to you like, thank you for, thank you for doing this. We've known each other for a long time. Yeah. The kids went to preschool together. I think that's probably how we met and I, this has been great. Like I, I mean, Roman, thank you. You know, I know over time, I think how the work shifted between us went up and down and I just like you've been. You've been awesome as a partner, and I really, I really appreciate it and I'm thankful that I had this time with you. So this has been great. Thank you.

Roman Trebon: 33:24

Yeah, no, Kev, I, I, I, I completely agree. You know, it's when we were talking about our, our goals for the podcast earlier. One of the ones that wasn't on there is the deepen our friendship. Right? Which is absolutely happened, right? Uh, you know, I, you, you and I get coffee and, and we'll continue to get coffees and hang out and, and take walks around the neighborhood and, and just catch up and, and, and talk what's going on in our lives, work or not work, right? It's, that's the beauty of it. No, Kevin, it's been amazing, man. I, again, I went in with super low expectations, but whatever they would've been this completely. You know, it was nothing I could have imagined. I just, I got so much out of doing this. Like you said, doing it with you has been amazing. Just the, the collaboration, the partnership, um, it just trying something new with someone else and, you know, us trying to figure it out on, on our own has been, has been, uh, it's been great. So, Kev, for, for our audience, you know, if you're, if you're listening to the show and you're wrapping up. What, what any takeaways? What should they take outta this? Anything? Lessons that you would impart before we uh, we sign off?

Kevin Metzger: 34:32

Yeah. I mean, one of the things that I've done recently and is I've gone back and done some of these playbooks from our interviews. I, I just think I, I talk about it. Obviously. It's, it's part of what I believe in with going to teach and all the teaching that I've been doing. All that, but I think, you know, keep learning and don't forget to try new things. I think those are the two biggest things that I would say. It's, it's worth doing. Like learning is awesome. The more you learn, the more you can figure out, the more you can figure out, the more, the more you mistakes you can make and the faster you fail. And Le Oke, I remember this from like. A high school class, Lee Iaccoca saying, faster you fail. And, and then I don't have the quote exactly right. And I, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it wasn't the iaccoca, but I, I, I, I, I remember being attributed to Lee Iaccoca saying it fell faster, basically. Yeah. The more you fail, the faster you'll succeed. And I guess that's what I'd say to take away from, from the conversations. But then go, go look at these playbooks because. If you haven't seen'em there, five minute, five minute overviews of these guest interviews, and they've been, they've been amazing. Just a five minute recap. So

Roman Trebon: 35:48

Bobby, check out the five minute recaps. Go. The great thing I, I, I think about our show, if you're just finding it now, could just go find an episode, right? You don't, they don't tie together, right? You don't need to listen to episodes one through eight to understand nine. Find a topic that you like. We've had so many amazing guests on that have so much, uh, knowledge and expertise in the space. Give it a listen. I, I hope you can get one nugget out of, out of listening to the show. And Kev, I think you said it best. Uh, you know, it's just continue to be open-minded and, and willing to learn, right? Um, so I, I wanna, Kev, uh, on behalf of both of us, thank our listeners, I wanna thank our guests, especially everyone that came on the show. And the customer success community, both in Atlanta.'cause we, we have a really special connection to the Atlanta customer success community. They, they really supported us from the beginning, you know, and, and the broader customer success community as well. Right? It's the, the amazing people we've met in Atlanta in this space has just, it's been twofold, you know, uh, in the broader customer success. I want to thank everyone for giving us your time. If you've given us a listen, we really appreciate it. Your attention and your trust. So this is the final episode, Kevin, of the Customer Success Playbook Podcast in its current form that you've teased, maybe something now more down the line, which I'm looking forward to. Uh, we are grateful for you, our listeners, and we look forward to seeing you and whatever comes next for us, Kevin. Until next, Ted, until the future. What we what? Keep on playing. Keep on playing. I love it. Keep on.