In this episode of the Teacher Career Coach podcast, host Elizabeth Suto and guest Kristina Cruz discuss transitioning from being a middle school teacher to a contract role and then a full-time job as a Senior Customer Success Manager at a major EdTech company.
Kristina, a former middle school teacher, details her move to a senior customer success manager role at an EdTech company. They highlight the importance of transferable skills like relationship building and organization. Kristina emphasizes taking risks and leveraging contract roles as stepping stones.
This episode offers practical advice and inspiration for teachers considering career changes.
Listen to the episode in the podcast player below, or find it on Apple Podcast or Spotify.
Mentioned in the episode:
- Use code “TCC” to get 50% off of everything at Aspireship
- Our career path quiz at www.teachercareercoach.com/quiz
- Explore the course that has helped thousands of teachers successfully transition out of the classroom and into new careers: The Teacher Career Coach Course (If you are a Teacher Career Coach Course member, you can also sign up for our one-on-one Career Clarity calls.)
Elizabeth: Welcome, Kristina.
Kristina: Thanks for having me.
Elizabeth: We’re so excited to get to know you, and we love to start these off by asking, how did you get into education in the first place, and what was your experience like?
Kristina: when I was an undergrad in college, one of my first real jobs was coaching volleyball. So I coached girls high school, like freshmen volleyball. And I just loved how in like such a short amount of time, three to four months, I saw how much they grew and developed. And it was really interesting to me to see how different it was.
Or how different people learn from each other so I could be teaching, you know, one girl one way but then I would have to explain it differently to another person and I, I really like that. I thought it was like, very interesting to see how differently people learned even from myself. So.
That’s kind of where I got really interested. Then from there I started taking education classes at my university and volunteered in classrooms. and I just loved it. I loved interacting with the students. I thought every teacher I’d met was super smart. and so, yeah, that’s kind of like where it got started.
I went to grad school and finished became a teacher and I was working in a school I’ll say for about five years, but I didn’t have a traditional classroom teacher Job, you know like the ones that people normally think of. I was maybe in the I like a traditional teacher in the classroom setting for Two and a half years, and then the remainder of the time I kind of had this hybrid position where I was still a teacher, but I supported the principal at my school at the time, teaching a college preparatory course.
it wasn’t like I was one teacher and I taught 30 students I was, you know, one teacher that supported a whole senior class of about 120 and I supported the senior teachers, and I supported our principal That was kind of my last placement in the school in a school district.
Elizabeth: And how did you go from classroom teacher to that, the role where you were supporting those students?
Kristina: Yeah, I wish it was a I wish it was like a nicer story, but the circumstances were really difficult at the time. I was teaching a 6th grade math and science course, and I was really struggling so much. So, in fact, that what it initially was, is I was actually pulled from the classroom because after, like, many opportunities of coaching and things like that, It was just not a good fit, I guess. So I’m actually really grateful for the administration at my school at the time, um, for giving me a lot of support, giving me many chances. And kind of at the end, they were you know, midway, they were just like, you know, this isn’t working. How about we pull you out? You do this hybrid position. we’re in need of somebody, to support the senior class and the principal, because they were trying out like this college preparatory course. It was kind of like he was the professor and I was his T. A. So that’s kind of the role it was. It was if it was like a college course, and it was supposed to be very temporary it was actually just supposed to be four months to finish up the school year.
What ended up happening was, my principal and I got along super well. and then they kept me on for two more years in that role. So, Yeah, I got pulled from the classroom, but then it ended up being a better fit
Elizabeth: Thank you for sharing that and that’s great to hear as well that they, were able to meet your needs and help put you somewhere to support you. And tell us a little bit about near the end of this time, what was the point where you decided that you wanted to change industries or leave, you know, the traditional classroom?
What, what happened there?
Kristina: I kind of um, I think at that point I either would go back to be like a traditional classroom teacher and have my own classroom or I would do something else. I think in like the two and a half years that I had this hybrid role, I was already seeing that I had other interests and other skill sets, than what I had initially thought of when I became a classroom teacher or when I wanted to be a classroom teacher.
And so, I don’t know. It was just at the time I was, kind of already thinking like, you know, maybe being going back to the classroom doesn’t sound as appealing to me. I think what really like push it over the edge was like a few things like I noticed that like my relationship with taking care of myself wasn’t really as great as I wanted it to be.
I was only living like two hours away from my family. but like, I would never see my family on the weekends. I never like really made time to spend with them. and so I was also straining the relationship with my family unfortunately. I really didn’t have anyone other than my family.
you know, it was kind of both that, made me decide to leave the classroom.
Elizabeth: That makes sense and it sounds like you recognize those needs, and you had kind of like two roads, you know, back into the classroom or out of it.
Elizabeth: Now you are a senior customer success manager at a major ed tech company. And we, we can’t wait to get into that and what that role involves, but we’d love to hear a bit about, where you started. initially you started in customer support?
Is that right?
Kristina: that’s right.
Elizabeth: Like, how did you break into the ed tech industry seven years ago?
Kristina: Yaseen years ago was actually, it was kind of like a lucky time, in the ed tech industry. I felt like it was just coming up. Um, it was still kind of small. a lot of teachers were transitioning into ed tech and, my company had a, it was actually a contract role.
So it was a contract role located in San Francisco. So, I had to move like pretty far to go there for a contract role, and they at first they were only offering like a three month contract role. but they said that, you know, there could be potential for a full time hire.
I kind of like just hedged my bets and I moved to, I moved to San Francisco to take on that role. Um, they were specifically looking for people who were either in education or in other support roles for that contract position. So, It was just kind of like this perfect little situation that I got lucky enough to be a part of.
Elizabeth: And it’s great to hear too, because I think that’s kind of a great way to start as well if you can, because if you can get that contract role, Then you have that experience that you can add to your resume. So how did that contract role help you transition into a full time role at the company?
Kristina: Yeah. I do think like getting a contract role, even if it’s not ideal, everyone wants, of course, a full time role with benefits. But I, I also saw that as kind of like a stepping stone that no matter what, at least I got three months worth of experience trying something new. And that would be enough time for me to figure out if I wanted to continue or not continue as well.
So, I think I got hired with like, doing cohorts, for that summer. And so I think I was one of 14 and they said, okay, well, we have room for about half of you to move full time. I don’t know, I mean, I think all classroom teachers kind of have like this grit about them.
So I kind of just put my head down and tried my best. And I wouldn’t say like necessarily worked harder, but I thought for a support role, you have to be both thorough and like, like a good researcher, like, you know, it’s, it’s best to try to be independent and try to find, the best way to find the right answers. And then of course, working with the customers, giving every customer like a good experience. So those were kind of the three things I tried focusing on. And yeah, I got the full time role, by the end of the summer.
Elizabeth: Since it was kind of an internal promotion there, did you go through an interview process or was it kind of like they would they picked half of you based on certain things or how did that work?
Kristina: internally, they had picked us on certain criteria. We so we didn’t have to reinterview. It was pretty much performance based. So it would be like accuracy of like helping customers. you know, they would take a look at if customers gave feedback about you they took into consideration how we worked with the full time employees if we were level one, there were level two support agents and the level two support agents worked with us really closely.
And so it was based on their recommendation as well.
Elizabeth: Oh, that’s great to hear because you know, you think of teachers in the classroom and they have observations for their performance reviews. like customers review you, they’re looking at your data, you know, your coworkers working with you. So that’s helpful to hear. you’re now a senior customer success manager and tell us a little bit about, how these initial roles helped prepare you, to make that leap.
Kristina: I guess as a customer success manager, I’m not, doing support in the same way that I was when I was on the support team. I’m now I’m supporting strategic clients for my company. but I do think there’s a lot of transferable skills, even from the classroom.
So I think, de escalating situations. I think of, you know, being very organized, thinking big picture, thinking strategically, relationship building. You know, kind of seeing how, the trajectory of the account and how they could potentially grow as a customer, like, within the organization, as a whole, is really helpful.
and just like, you know interfacing with people day to day.
Elizabeth: I know at different companies, customer success managers have different roles depending on what the needs are. in your role, is it quota based? Do you have a base salary? And then on top of that, can you talk a little bit about the structure of that and then how it’s different from sales?
Kristina: So for us we Um our quota base. So we have a base salary. Our bonus is based on certain metrics determined by our company and that is typically Like usage of our company. So it’s like growth of the growth of the customer.
So we do a lot of contract renewals and negotiations as well. So if we can get a contract to grow, a certain percentage of that of their, you know, their growth every year. plays a part into, you know, our quota. also like usage, the more they use the product, the more they grow, the more revenue they make for our company, the more that comes back to us for our quota as well.
So everything is about growth in customer success for sales. It is I think it’s like a net revenue, like goal. you know, I dunno, just arbitrarily, let’s say you’re supposed to, get a million dollars for the company. And so you’re supposed to close contracts, like whatever, however much the contracts are that, you know, clients will pay your company.
Um, that all goes to your like million dollar goal. I think that is like a pretty typical distinction. between those two organizations.
Elizabeth: And then in your role, you have the title as manager. Do you manage people or is it, is it mostly managing
Kristina: No, that’s a great question. I do not manage people. Um, I manage accounts.
Elizabeth: Can you talk a bit about, the different, types of accounts, are they different school districts? Do you have a certain amount that you’re supposed to hold on your plate every quarter
Kristina: no, my company has, uh, like kind of two sectors because just the way our company is, we have like business clients and we have school districts. I work on the business side. And so, the way that is broken up in our company is we have like large strategic business.
my title is like enterprise success, which means like, like big strategic account, you know, business clients of our company. and that, and that ranges based on basically how much they pay our company and the company size. prior to this, I worked with like small to medium business. uh, and that would range, uh, throwing out numbers there. It would be like their contract size for our company would be like 30, 000 to 100, 000. And then now I manage, like, we call them bigger customers because they’re bigger companies and it’s like 150 plus size contracts.
Elizabeth: I think that’s important that you shared the difference between enterprise accounts and small to medium business accounts. I know when teachers are looking, they see that a lot too. Like it’ll say enterprise CSM, there’s just, there’s different, titles for, for these. can you walk us through a day in the life of what you do?
do
Kristina: All of my accounts are different. if I could think of it like, a classroom, it’s it’s kind of like you do stations. And so like with every station, there’s like a different activity for, different students and their different needs. So we, it is seasonal, but I do lots of different activities with my accounts based on where they are in their growth, where they are in the company, even the time of year.
my activities range from check in calls to contract negotiations and renewals. I will do webinars. I’ll do trainings. I’ll work collaboratively internally. I’ll answer emails. So things like that just to, you know, support my clients. So every day I would maybe think of it like in thirds.
So there’s one part of my day where I have like quiet alone time for myself where I work on projects. I work on slide decks. If I’m working on a training, I’ll answer emails. I’ll keep up with my to do’s. you know, I’ll review accounts and see like what activities or support they might need for the month or for the quarter.
Um, and then next I will work collaboratively within my company. So we’ll have a lot of internal meetings Because we work on the business side, we work really closely with the district, those who support the district side. So I’ll work closely with them. I’ll work closely with like developer support or even the customer support team, to support, our mutual customers.
third will be supporting my actual like time for my clients. So it’ll be like, I’m on zoom, check in calls or negotiation calls or trainings, things like that.
Elizabeth: I’m curious to know, you know, you mentioned these very specific skills like negotiation calls. So is that something you learned, just by being in the job and from the experience or did your company provide some sort of professional development or training
for
no, It’s a combination of both. My role and my company did not always have customer success managers during the contract negotiation so kind of the first year I was actually one of the first people to pilot that like try out doing renewals on my team And so the way I learned was I would kind of shadow our finance team to see how they would do negotiations.
I would say the skillset is not really different for teachers at the moment. It’s, it’s just, you’re talking about money and just it’s about getting comfortable talking about money. to me, like a negotiation is presenting data, offering a proposal, and then hearing, you know, your customer, your client’s concerns and, their feedback, and then kind of, you know, working together to find, a compromise or something that is beneficial to you both.
But my company did also like provide a training for that, but I did I did learn just you know shadowing and you know It wasn’t it wasn’t like a leap. It wasn’t like a crazy leap of a skill to learn. And that’s a good parallel, I think, too, you know, with, with teachers and parents, they’re, you know, working on this mutual relationship, something that benefits everyone. So that kind of brings me into my next question. We, we have quite a few teachers who are interested in the customer success world. Is there anything, as they’re in the classroom now teaching, anything that they could, you think, work on or hone, um, in terms of maybe projects to help, them stand out when, when they start this, job search process?
Kristina: I I typically think that What might be like transferable quickly is doing a kind of like SMB customer success role just because those activities are one to many versus one-on-one. So, in my role now I do a lot of one-on-one activities with my clients. But when I was doing SMB, um, customer success, it was a one, it was a very one to many, which is like very analogous to teachers in the classroom as well.
maybe it’s about like data gathering and seeing how like beneficial like an activity is. So, for example, I used to do a lot of, office hours and webinar and like group office hours with my SMB clients. and to prove that it was like a worthwhile activity to do, like I would need to like, get data on it and like how would you get data you just kind of have a metric and then measure that metric to you know you you have the you have the metric and then you try to see like how successful it is um, when you do a lesson plan, but maybe with like more numbers, like just to practice, like a percentage, like this will be successful if like sixty percent t of my students can tell me the definition of this word by the end of the lesson.
Elizabeth: That’s super helpful. And I think just how you mentioned it. Your job is data driven, results driven, um, And that’s what someone could do in the classroom as well, just showing that impact using the
data.
Elizabeth: you know, as teachers look when we, even sometimes I’ll look, At these job websites, and there’s so many different titles for customer success manager, you know, enterprise, associate customer success manager. So is there a spot or a title that you would recommend people look to start in to try to, you know, you had that stepping stone.
Is there maybe like an entry level CSM position that you know of that people can be on the lookout for?
Kristina: Yeah, so anything with associate they don’t really put like junior, right? But so it’s just it’s not senior. look for SMB small medium business. Maybe in the job description look for how many accounts you’ll manage you know, the larger the number, that’s, that’s a good signal that it’s like the small and medium businesses of the company.
there’s also a lot of ed tech companies that have customer success managers that work with school districts. I think they’ll call it scale So those are some key words.
Elizabeth: And you are such a good example of I think, what growth looks like at a company starting in the support role, now being a senior CSM. What does it look like? Are there other growth opportunities at your company if you wanted to move up or learn something different?
Kristina: I think my company in particular is very conscious about that. And I think they do a really good job of, you know, checking in with us. And I mean, my manager does a great job of checking in with me to make sure like, you know, if there’s any like career growth opportunities that I’m looking for that, they can find a place for us.
I think it just really depends what you want. Where I am in my career, I’m not looking to manage a team personally. I’m looking more for like depth in my current role, there is lots of opportunity for that in my company, and I think in many companies, especially like, if you want to go really deep in a role, and I think a career like a CSM, you can go very deep.
I think it’s a very like long term career for a lot of people. So, yeah. For where I’m at my company provides that.
Elizabeth: You know now that you’ve transitioned you’re you’re outside of the classroom. You’re in this role. How has your work life balance changed from when you were a teacher? You mentioned a bit about you know, you didn’t see your family much.
What what is it like now?
Kristina: It’s night and day. Basically, I’m very fortunate that I’m able to work at home and I think that helps a lot. I’m not commuting. What is so nice about my role is that, yes, I do have to do’s and things that I have to do, but my schedule is pretty flexible. I set my schedule. Um, I, I schedule things with clients, based on my kind of timeline.
yeah, I just think, I mean, even, even before I was you know. working from home when I worked in the office, um, it’s very much like a culture of when it’s like four o’clock or four 30, like laptops off, you know, go home and start the next day. yeah, I’m just, I’m very pleased with my work life balance.
It’s exactly what I wanted, honestly, when I was first leaving the classroom.
Elizabeth: And throughout this journey, we kind of like to wrap up with this last question, but what have you learned about yourself during this process? You know, transitioning from a career that you went to college for, went to graduate school for into this, you know, this different career.
Kristina: Yeah, I think, I think what I’ll say is that I am worth taking a risk on and I, you know, trust myself to figure it out because yeah, even from like a career, like a scary career change, like I had a full time job that was pretty great to like a contract job that was really uncertain. It, when I took that chance on myself, it was really, it was really beneficial.
And I, every step of the way, I figured it out even when I struggled.
Elizabeth: I’m so happy that you got to spend today with us, and I can’t wait for the community to listen. And thank you so much, Kristina, for your time.
Kristina: thank you so much, Elizabeth.
