143 - The Power of Layers: Building Bridges, Understanding Finance, AI & All That Jazz

Text us your questions and thoughts!We’re excited to welcome Kelley Turner, whose journey from financial controller to SVP, Global Customer Success at Vitally, defies the traditional career ladder. As she reveals, "My career looked like a squiggle until it all made sense," suggesting that non-linear paths often lead to the richest skill combinations in customer success.Drawing from her finance background, Kelley shares how understanding the business mechanics—tracing a dollar from lead acquisition through revenue recognition—equips CSMs with the authority needed to advocate effectively for customers. This financial fluency transforms both customer conversations and internal business cases.In this episode, we discuss:• Understanding business financials and how money flows through an organization ( & how it empowers CSMs to speak with more authority to customers)• Building "bridges" by helping customers navigate overwhelming amounts of information by providing guided pathways to success• AI adoption and why it requires both "pull" (making it fun and approachable) and "push" (leadership expectations and modeling)• Why diverse backgrounds in CS teams create complementary skill sets that better serve customersReady to transform your approach to customer success? This episode is *the* place to start! So tune in and enjoy!💚 This episode is brought to you by Deployflow: https://deployflow.co/___________👉 Follow Kelley: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kelleyturner/👉 Learn more about Deployflow & P-Suite by Deployflow and get a quick squad estimate at: https://deployflow.co/p-suite/👉 Learn more about Vitally, a Customer Success Platform that helps B2B Customer Success teams better understand their customers, manage their processes, and inform business strategies: http://vitally.io__________________________________________________About Women in Customer Success Podcast:Women in Customer Success Podcast is the first women-only podcast for Customer Success professionals, where remarkable ladies of Customer Success connect, inspire and champion each other. Follow:Women in Customer Success Website - https://www.womenincs.co/podcast LinkedIn - linkedin.com/company/womenincsHost Marija Skobe-PilleyLinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/mspilley/Check out our Courses:The Revenue CSM  - https://womenincs.co/the-revenue-csm