Elizabeth Hirst

I attribute my success to my coaching background and formal education in education, which shaped my focus on individualized team development, strong processes, and measurable results. I’m also deeply grateful for the support and inspiration from my mentors and my children, who continue to motivate me to grow and lead with purpose.

The best career advice I've received is to act the way, and in the way, that is for the role that you're wanting to get to. I know a lot of women have completely undeserved imposter syndrome. I think you need to completely change your mentality on that and say you do deserve to be there, and whatever you don't know, you can learn. Dress the part of the role that you want to be one day, act in a way and get the education that you want for that role. Don't ever underestimate yourself. If you can visualize yourself in that role and you can make a plan to get there, there's nothing that can stop you.

My advice to young women entering this industry is to never underestimate yourself—visualize the role you want, believe you belong there, create a clear plan to reach it, and commit to learning the skills and knowledge you don’t yet have.

In the startup world, you play so many different roles and have so many different hats, and sometimes that can feel challenging because you don't always know everything that you need to know in that moment, but it also challenges you to learn more. I've found that I've been at companies who want to keep the doors open by keeping their pockets full of money and not growing as quickly as I think they should be, so I've always wanted to manage bigger teams than I usually end up managing because it's startup world. As for opportunities, luckily customer success can be used in every single company - every company needs a path for a customer to follow after they've purchased that allows them to use that product successfully, whether it be a technology or a physical product. I've had lots of opportunities to work with the companies I have, and I've also done a lot of consulting on the side to help companies create those patterns and automations. It's been really fun to work with different industries and see how you can apply this formula to different areas and how you tweak it for that individual customer group.

I truly believe that hard work also means hard fun, and I find that balance is so important. I work my hardest, and my team works the hardest when you find a balance between working your absolute butt off and then also playing really hard. If my team gets everything done by Friday morning, well then take the day off. If everything is done and we're ready to go, head on out and get some extra playtime in. I really value that work-life balance, or not even work-life balance, but that fun work-hard balance. The other thing I really value is family and making sure that your family outside of work is a priority - you're never gonna get that time back with them if you don't prioritize them. But then also making your work people feel like family. I give my team anniversary gifts on their anniversaries with their husbands and let them have the day off that day, because that's what I would do to my family member if I had the choice. Little things like that of just making everyone feel like family. I pride myself that I've never once had somebody leave my team because of not enjoying their job.